Apologizing

On Thursday, we went to the little town of El Mozote.  This was the third time I visited this little community up in the mountains of the north eastern part of El Salvador.  In 1981, about 1,000 men, women, and children were massacred in El Mozote by the Salvadoran army.  See my post from last summer about El Mozote for some more details about the community and the massacre there.  

 

Every time I have been to El Mozote it has amazed me just how far away and remote El Mozote is.  It took us about four and a half hours to get there.  I can only imagine how difficult it was for the Salvadoran army to get there 30 years ago when the roads weren´t as good as they are now- they really had to go out of their way to commit that massacre.  It just boggles my mind that people can do such horrific things to other people.

 

While we were at El Mozote we also went to visit the Revolutionary Museum which is another little town pretty close to El Mozote.  The museum tells the history of what led up to the Salvadoran civil war, explains how the guerrilla forces fought during the war, and helps visitors get a better idea of what life was like for the fighters as well as the general population during the war.  At the museum there is a 500 pound bomb that didn´t explode when it was dropped.  There is a sign by the bomb that says it was made in the US.  Our tour guide at the museum, a very nice old man, was telling us about the bomb and pointed out that it was made in the US.  As he was telling us about the bomb, I felt like I really needed to apologize to him for that bomb that my country made and allowed to be dropped.  Thank God that this particular bomb didn´t explode, but there were probably thousands of other bombs like that one that did explode and killed, destroyed, injured, and devastated.  As a citizen of the US, I felt guilty standing there looking at that bomb and thinking about all the other bombs that were dropped during the civil war.  I felt responsible even though I wasn´t even alive when the bomb was dropped.  I wanted to apologize for the fact that my county didn´t do anything to stop the Salvadoran army from massacring thousands of innocent people.  I wanted to apologize because my country made money off the sale of bombs like that one and so many other weapons.  I wanted to apologize for the military training given to Salvadoran army battalions that went on to commit countless human rights violations.  I wanted to apologize to this old man for all that he suffered through- for his personal loss and suffering but also I wanted to apologize for what my country allowed to happen to all the people of El Salvador.

 

But I didn´t apologize to the museum guide.  I was pretty sure that that would have been an awkward conversation and I´m not sure that it would have accomplished anything.  I had no power to change what was already done years ago.  But I keep thinking that maybe I should have apologized for that bomb and everything else.

 

It makes me question a lot of things- Am I even capable of apologizing for something that my country did when I wasn´t even alive?  Isn´t it about time that the US made some sort of an official apology for all the thousands of innocent Salvadorans that were killed during the war with the support of the US? 

 

I have been thinking about my inability to apologize for what happened at El Mozote and all over El Salvador during the civil war.  If I can´t really apologize for my country´s role in this, what else am I unable to apologize for?  And what 20 or 30 years from now will I wish I could apologize for and won´t be to?  For our war in Iraq?  Our war in Afghanistan?  Will I want to apologize to the people of Mexico and Central America for our harmful free trade agreements?  Will I want to apologize to the people of the world for our immigration policy?

 

I can´t can´t change what happened in El Salvador with the support of my country during the 1980s.  But today I do have the ability to influence what my country does.  I by myself cannot stop our country from doing things that harm the most vulnerable around the world, but with my voice along with others who believe we should be acting in ways we don´t have to apologize for, perhaps we can create a world where there is less suffering and more justice.

 

I still feel guilty for that bomb though.  I guess the only thing I can really do is to try to turn that guilt into something productive to prevent things from happening that have to be apologized for.