The El Mozote Massacre

by Binford, Leigh

• ISBN13: 9780816516629
• ISBN10: 0816516626
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr

Summary

The 1981 slaughter of more than a thousand civilians around El Mozote, El Salvador, by the country's U.S.-trained army was the largest massacre of the Salvadoran civil war. The story was covered--and soon forgotten--by the international news media. It was revived in 1993 only when the U.S. government was accused of covering up the incident. Such reportage, argues anthropologist Leigh Binford, sustains the perception that the lives of Third World people are only newsworthy when some great tragedy strikes. He critiques the practices of journalists and human rights organizations for their dehumanizing studies of "subjects" and "victims." Binford suggests that such accounts objectify the people involved through statistical analyses and bureaucratic body counts while the news media sensationalize the motives and personalities of the perpetrators. In relating the story of this tragic event, Binford restores a sense of history and social identity to the fallen people of this Salvadoran village. Drawing on interviews he conducted with El Mozote-area residents, he offers a rich ethnographic and personal account of their lives prior to the tragedy. He provides an overview of the history and culture of the area and tells how such a massacre could have happened, why it was covered up, and why it could happen again.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Reducing Cultural Distance in Human Rights Reporting	p. 3
The Massacre	p. 13
The Eye of the Oligarchy	p. 27
The U.S. Cover-Up	p. 49
The Nascent Community of El Mozote	p. 68
The Politics of Repression and Survival in Northern Morazan	p. 90
Investigation and Judgment	p. 116
A Reformed Military?	p. 140
History and Memory	p. 171
An Alternative Anthropology: Exercising the Preferential Option for the Poor	p. 192
Epilogue: A Memorial	p. 207
Chronology	p. 212
Notes	p. 216
References	p. 240
Index	p. 255
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