EL Pasado es Prólogo

Among the innumerable wounds upon the collective soul of the Salvadoran people, there is a deep and painful one left there by La Guardia Nacional (Salvadoran National Guard). Created in the early 20th century by wealthy landowners as a “public” security force, but really there to protect their interest, La Guardia spent the remainder of the century terrorizing the Salvadoran people.

My father told me stories about how at first, La Guardia only carried corbos (machetes), which made them vulnerable to attack. Numerous times, they would enter a town and only their pieces would return. When they upgraded to single-shot Mauser rifles, things shifted drastically in their favor. But once they started receiving all the used weaponry from the United States, especially semi-automatic rifles, La Guardia became untouchable…and uncontrollable.

Even before to the Civil War, La Guardia had already made a name for itself through beatings, rapes, tortures, disappearances, and mass murder–particularly, in the rural areas.

And so, it is with particular darkness, irony, and perhaps intention, that in today 2018, Donald Trump should order The National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border as a symbolic deterrent against the “hordes” of Central Americans heading north. The past is prologue.