Peace in El Salvador - The Canadian Connection

The Circumstances of Life

Circumstances of life landed me in a situation where I could provide leadership that resulted in the end of the civil war in El Salvador. This was not something I thought of. It was something that happened to me in large part because I am Canadian.  That permitted trust among those who had been killing each other for so long.

Early in my career working in the church my wife Tamara and I adopted a child in El Salvador through a Christian organization. We had Hector Blanco Iglesias in our financial care for several years and got little notes from him and an occasional picture of his smiling face.  I always wanted to do more for the little fellow.

When I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey I had made a very good and lasting friend named Joseph 'Joe' Castleberry, Princeton University chaplain and youth minister. Joe is an exceptional person and we became fast friends. We were drawn together and stayed in touch.  This was a time when liberation theology was popular in churches and lecture halls.

After a year I returned to Canada while he finished his degree and then went to Columbia University NYC to complete a doctorate in education. He then went quickly to El Salvador to follow his dream of ministry in Latin America and opened a church in a small premises downtown in the capitol San Salvador. 

His Spanish language abilities are extraordinary and he's interesting so the church rapidly grew. Joe had even come to Canada to be in our wedding party and grew to love our country and people.  He's gifted in many languages.

He moved to San Salvador with his wife Kathy and they had had two little girls in the process. El Salvador had been embroiled in a bloody civil war for fourteen years and the nation was divided along political lines. The American backed government was waging war against the Communist rebels in the hill country. 

America's biggest bombing mission between WW2 and “shock and awe” in Baghdad was in El Salvador during that war. There were still mortar rounds falling on the city while I was there and everyone was on high alert.

The military had rolled onto the campus of the National University of San Salvador and had blown it to pieces, shooting students and staff in their classrooms and leaving the place pockmarked by shelling as a monument to tyranny and injustice. I saw the remnants of all this with my own eyes. 

Workaday world

During this period I had worked at a church in Hinton, Alberta and then moved to another in Napanee, Ontario.I was there sitting in my kitchen relaxing on a Sunday afternoon when the phone rang. 

It was Joe telling me that he had a problem, with a capital P. What's up? He said, “I opened a small church in San Salvador across the street from the National University. After a while some members of the Communist Party started attending and many of them have been converted and have relinquished violence.” That's great I said, so what's the problem...Problem?

“Well,” he continued, “recently some members of the government party have begun attending our church too, including the brother of the military dictator. Now every Sunday morning I find myself at the front of the church fixing to preach and all I see is these two violent factions sitting on either side of the sanctuary glaring at one another. 

The place is tense and I need a way to release that pressure. It's unnerving and I don't know what to do about it. Any suggestions?” I had studied administration which involves problem solving so he thought I might have learned about this kind of situation in school.  I had not.

The idea that moved things

Why yes! I have suggestion. It looks like you have an opportunity. With both parties there you could bring them together to talk and help them negotiate a peace treaty that would put an end to this bloody war. “You really think so?” Yes I do. They trust you don't they?

Joe bought the idea and began moving his friends swiftly towards a new life of peace and reconciliation. So he cautiously set about bringing up this plan with those involved. They also saw the opportunity to do what was right – to nurture peace. Salvador means Saviour.

This process went on for a couple of months during which time we talked it through on the phone while he acted it out on the ground.  I proposed that they build their future peace upon the Canadian model. 

Then Joe called again to tell me they had achieved an agreement and that a date had been set for the signing of a cease fire. I was thrilled when he invited me to come to El Salvador to be a part of this historic event.

An unusual study leave - success with less

I had some study leave available from my job as a minister and decided I would do a study of Latin America. :) The study leave came with a grant and I added $800 to the budget. 

So stopping the civil war in El Salvador cost me less than $2000. It's noteworthy that those who were sponsoring this war of representation had spent more than a billion dollars over fourteen years. That small price is what I call good economics.

San Miguel - "Welcome to hell!" said our guide.

While there we also traveled across the country through the rebel held mountains in order to visit Hector Blanco Iglesias in San Miguel. This city was the place where the Colombian drug cartel laundered their money in those days and it was a very dangerous place, filled with criminal gangs and gangsters. The notorious American street gang MS13 started there shortly after the war ended.

Little Hector attended a Christian school where the startled principal told me they were constantly being attacked by thugs. She was surprised to see me as I was the first sponsor who had ever come to see a child. I brought Hector a soccer ball from Canada and took him out to buy soccer shoes and dinner in a restaurant. The little boy with the hair lip was ecstatic and empowered.

We traveled to San Miguel with one of Joe's church members, who was from that city and was also the economic adviser for the Communist Party of El Salvador. We had to make the return trip in one day as there were banditos and rebels everywhere with little civil law or civility in many places. 

The infrastructure - bridges, power lines, roads and so on was blown to pieces - literally. The people lived in poverty, longing for justice and peace. There was tension in the air as the last week of war passed.

Rebels in the Mountains

We stopped at a mountain village on the return trip. We had been invited for dinner at the home of a Christian dentist. They asked me to speak to locals who were the poorest people of El Salvador in the region of La Palma. There were few lights in the dark meeting tent but thousands appeared out of the shadows to meet 'the Canadian'.

This was the rebel mountain stronghold where they famous La Palma art was produced to finance their side of the war. The government dictatorship was generously financed by the US government. Those people had nothing! Their revolution was financed by indigenous art.

They had no food, no work, no public security and no one to protect them from the troubles of life. They had no doctor, no teacher, no hope and no help. We prayed for all of their needs and for their nation. 

Tottering on the Brink of Peace

As it tottered on the brink of peace I comforted them with the news that Canadian peace had come to El Salvador. The trip back to San Salvador along bandit infested roads that night was uneventful.

I stayed in El Salvador one week which seemed to be months long because we did and achieved so much. During that time we visited the bombed out university as well as the Catholic University where some priests, their housekeeper and her daughter had been murdered. We later visited a coffee finca [farm], some volcanoes, some Inca ruins and had dinner in a posh restaurant overlooking the capitol.

We had lunch with the dictator at a Pizza Hut [or his brother – I was never sure which] early in the week. We had dinner with the man who would become the first democratically elected president of El Salvador . He came to Joe's home where I barbecued chicken for the meal. He arrived with a heavily armed group of bodyguards and left with a heart full of hope for his people.

Most important of all, as I flew out of that city on Saturday, those two men met to sign the ceasefire agreement which was later ratified in a place called Chapultepec, Mexico. This proved to be a very important model for other peace agreements.

With soaring hearts

So as I winged my way overhead they met at a table below to sign the papers. I went back to Canada via Belize and Miami feeling a sense of joy and gratitude to be included in this important historic action. Also other countries in Latin America soon followed this lead and ended their wars. This ushered in democracy, liberty and hope for countless millions.

That was a fun, fulfilling, useful and instructive week of high adventure. It was a week when being a Canadian brought abundant hope to poor people in a distant land who have since helped many others do the same. Canada is the vehicle that helped to deliver peace to El Salvador.

This experience reinforced for me that all things are possible to those who believe. I believe in Canada. I know we can do much more still. I have seen the evidence.

Dr. Castleberry later impacted Ecuador in a similar way. Now he is president of university in Washington State, a sought after speaker, a published writer and scholar and leader in America society. He has three daughters and is married to Kathleen.

Salvador - live link - This movie by Oliver Stone helps us see the challenges faced by El Salvador at that time.