The Massacre at El Mozote, by Mark Danner, which in its first iteration appeared as a series of articles for The New Yorker, is an in-depth investigation into the events of December 1981 in the small town of El Mozote in northern El Salvador, during the country’s long civil war. Danner proceeds to not only bring these events to light, but also to place them in the global context of the Cold War of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The events discussed in the book continue to have ramifications for Central America and the world to this day. 

The book begins with an account of the forensic anthropology team sent to investigate the claims of a massacre in a small town in the Morazán region of El Salvador, roughly a decade after the fact, in 1992. As the forensic team arrives in El Mozote, they begin uncovering skeletons in what remains of the town’s church, which had burned to the ground. Most of the bones they uncover are those of children. After discovering the bodies, the forensic anthropologists stop by the home of Rufina Amaya Márquez, a survivor of the massacre and its “most eloquent witness” (7), to share their findings. This then prompts Danner to give an overview of the response to the accounts of the massacre: they went largely ignored, overshadowed by the larger Cold War goal of stopping the spread of Communism.

Chapter 2 then sets the stage for what happened in El Mozote in December of 1981, giving background information on the region as a whole and showing it as largely in the control of the guerrillas. However, Danner makes sure to differentiate and detail the idiosyncrasies of El Mozote within this general context. As a mostly Protestant town in a region dominated by Catholicism, the residents of El Mozote tended to resist the guerrillas’ ideology, maintaining an unspoken understanding of the town as neutral ground. The chapter also introduces one of the town’s leading citizens, Marcos Díaz, who, through his contacts with members of the Army, convinced the residents and surrounding villagers that the safest course of action during Operation Rescue was to stay there, since his contact had said the town would be spared.

Chapter 3 sets the stage for Operation Rescue, going into more depth about the general state of affairs of the civil war and in Morazán in particular. This chapter introduces Lieutenant Colonel Monterrosa and his obsession with Radio Venceremos, the guerrillas’ propaganda engine, as well as Santiago, the director of Radio Venceremos. Danner gives some background information on Monterrosa, describing him as standout of competence in a military whose structure lent itself to a sort of nepotism and the least adept people getting the most important positions, as well as the brutality of its tactics. The chapter then shifts its focus to Santiago and Radio Venceremos as the thorn in Monterrosa’s side, and how they tried to warn people of the dangers of the coming Army operation. Next, the book moves to the specifics of Operation Rescue: its preparations, its precursors, and its end goals. Danner gives more information about the Salvadoran army, describing the general milieu as paltry, with Monterrosa as a standout. 

Chapter 5, titled “La Matanza” (which means “the great killing”), gives a virtually minute-to-minute account of the massacre as it unfolded. Weaving together the accounts of various witnesses who survived the massacre, Danner compiles an impressive timeline of events. The chapter begins with Monterrosa’s soldiers collecting guides from the nearby village of Perquín, and then arriving in El Mozote and terrorizing its residents. Eventually, the men were taken out and shot, within hearing and sight of their families. Many of the women and girls were taken to an overlooking hill and raped and murdered. Rufina Amaya fell and in the darkness escaped notice as all the women and children she had been locked up with were shot in front of her, the structures set ablaze. The slaughter ended up being almost total. Despite several close calls, she managed to escape detection. 

Chapters 6 and 7 detail the immediate aftermath of the massacre, beginning with the reporters who first began to investigate and witness some of the carnage first-hand, and then moving into the complexities of the political situation, which basically boiled down to the US viewing the Salvadoran Army’s excesses as a necessary evil to stem the tide of Communism, and continuing to support them financially, so that the events of Morazán were ultimately swept under the rug. 

The main portion of the book concludes with two short chapters that deal with the less immediate aftermath of the massacre. In Chapter 8, Danner again focuses on Monterrosa, this time narrating the shift in his strategy after El Mozote. In many ways, the mission was a success: it drained the noncombatants from the zone, leaving only guerrillas (with some exceptions). Not only that, but it demonstrated the lengths to which the army was willing to go to in order to win the war, disillusioning the opposition. However, Monterrosa also realized that these tactics came at the price of increased scrutiny. As he began to try to capture hearts and minds, the guerrillas put in action a plan to kill him, which succeeded.

Eventually, after the army had reverted to its bumbling and violent ways, murdering Jesuit priests in an attempt at framing the guerrillas, and as the guerrillas launched an offensive that was large scale and relatively effective, the war finally came to an end, with a Truth Commission formed to investigate atrocities. Although the Commission found that Rufina Amay’s account was accurate, blanket amnesty was given to anyone who could have been involved. The narrative ends with a description of the museum that now houses the twisted remains of Monterrosa’s helicopter.