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Packages to Guatemala Till 2011
El Salvador: A Former
Guerrilla Becomes a Tour Guide
El Salvador: A
Former Guerrilla Becomes a Tour Guide
By Sara Miller Llana
La Mora, El Salvadror – Dormant volcanoes
and desolate Pacific beaches are the
standard choices for tourists to El
Salvador. But now, former Marxist guerrillas
are trying to carve their own niche in the
industry – offering tours that retrace their
steps in the brutal 12-year civil war that
took 75,000 lives.
Candelario Landaverde, who runs tours along
the Guazapa volcano, where he fought for
nearly a decade, says the idea is to
preserve the national memory. “It is not
because we cannot forgive,” he says, “but so
that we never forget.”
This part of the country, an hour’s drive
from the capital, San Salvador, is better
known as a day-trip destination for fresh
air in the countryside. But these hills,
particularly this volcano, were a stronghold
for the Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Front (FMLN), former rebels fighting a
US-funded military who transformed into a
political party after they put down their
arms. So Mr. Landaverde, with a group of
other families in their tiny town of La
Mora, offers tours on horseback or foot that
pass trenches, a destroyed church, and a
school that was once a rebel encampment.
Peace accords were signed here in 1992, but
this tiny Central American nation remains
highly polarized. Landaverde, like most in
this part of the country, clearly supports
the FMLN, which just won presidential
elections for the first time. The FMLN flag
hangs across his simple brick home. He lost
two sisters in the war. He says they were
killed simply because they were related to
him.
Throughout the area, hundreds of others also
lost their lives. He calls the FMLN victory
a new era. But the tourism project, he says,
is driven by a need to conserve memories,
not promote politics.
“We want people to know what happened on
this mountain, especially the children,” he
says. He has 11 of them. On a recent day he
sends his second eldest, Milton, who was
born in 1986, exactly in the middle of the
war, to show visitors the old sites.
Tourists, who pay $14 for a three-hour tour
on horseback, are shown dugouts where
families hid for days at a time, and a bomb
crater that is about 50 feet in diameter: It
was formed in 1983 with 750 pounds of
explosive.
The tours started four years ago but are
just beginning to take off. Last year, 525
tourists signed up, largely from North
America. The proceeds help the families, who
mostly work in agriculture, and a portion
goes to community projects, such as
improvements for the local school. Other
former fighters in the region are also
setting up museums and “living history
tours.”
“Across the country, we are all working to
keep memories alive,” Landaverde says. |
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