How Did US Involvement In The Massacre At El Mozote

After reading and analyzing Mark Danner’s account of The Massacre at El Mozote, it can be quite apparent that the United States had full involvement in the events leading up to the massacre, but they are not fully to blame. In the U.S. effort to stomp out communism, the origin of their efforts had to begin in one place, Latin America. The Reagan Administration had full knowledge that they were about to fund and train an army whose job it was to prevent the spread of communism and “communistic” ideals in El Salvador, yet they were confident enough in their funding and training that they did not have to send in their own military to sweep out communism.

Unfortunately, to the United States’ knowledge, they were unaware of who exactly they were
In January of 1992, a deal was signed by President Alfredo Cristiani and the FMLN to end the war. The agreements also stated that the “Army be purged of ‘known human rights violators” and the Atlacatl and other battalions would be disbanded (158). Ronald Reagan sent his administrations “certification” that El Salvador was doing nothing wrong, and that it was all in the name of human rights (124). To certify something, Reagan had to make sure that he could make a case strong enough that Congress would approve of funding, not just that El Salvador was killing people for no reason. Mind you, this certification came two days after two officers from the U.S. Embassy, Todd Greentree and Major John McKay, took to El Mozote to collect evidence for what happened. In Greentree’s report, he states that his impression was that “abuses against the civilian population took place in El Mozote,” but that his statement was not to be used as evidence (115). Basically, he knew exactly what was going on, but was hiding the facts due to his political connections. Both of the reports made by Greentree and McKay took the attention of the State Department, and they believed that there was enough evidence from their testimonies that “they might find useful in impeaching the press accounts of El Mozote – deeply misleading arguments that would form the basis of the government’s effort to discredit the reports of the massacre” (117). The lies continue to brew from the El Salvador government, as Ambassador Hinton begins to question General Garcia about specifics of Major Caceres, in which General Garcia replied, “[Major Caceres] is a straightforward, honorable soldier who would never would have killed women and children as described in the story… the