team El Salvador arrived in Tegucigalpa on Saturday and spent a sleepless night in his hotel. The team could not sleep because he was the target of psychological warfare waged by the Honduran fans. A crowd surrounded the hotel. The crowd threw stones at the windows and making noise banging cans and empty barrels with sticks. Firecrackers launched one after another. Lined up and honked car parked outside the hotel. The fans whistled, screamed and sang songs hostile. This lasted all night. The idea was that a team sleepy, nervous and exhausted would be bound to lose. In Latin America these are common practices.
Honduras defeated the following day by a zero to the sleepy team from El Salvador.
Amelia Bolaños eighteen years of age was sitting watching television in El Salvador when the Honduran striker Roberto Cardona scored the winning goal the final minute. She got up and ran to the desk where he was his father's gun and shot in the heart. 'She could not bear to see his country lose, "wrote a newspaper in El Salvador the following day. The whole capital took part in the televised funeral of Amelia Bolaños. A military honor guard marched with a banner in front of the funeral. The president of the republic and his ministers walked behind the flag-draped coffin. Behind the government came the Salvadoran eleventh team was booed, mocked and spit at the airport in Tegucigalpa, and had returned to El Salvador on a special flight that morning.
But the second leg of the series would take place in San Salvador a week later, on stage with the beautiful name of Blanca Flor. This time the Honduran team spent a sleepless night. The crowd broke every window in the hotel and threw rotten eggs, dead rats and stinking rags. The players were taken to the stadium in the first armored mechanized division, which protected them from the vengeance and death at the hands of the crowd that lined the route, "taking photos of the national heroine Amelia Bolaños.
The army surrounded the stadium. On the court we bet a cordon of soldiers from a National Guard regiment, armed with sub machine guns. In implementing the Honduras national anthem the crowd roared and whistled. Then, instead of the Honduran flag, which had been burned in front of the spectators, mad with joy the hosts put a dirty cloth, tattered over the flagpole. Under such conditions the players from Tegucigalpa, did not have, understandably, their minds in the juego.Tenían their minds to come out alive. `We were terribly lucky to lose," said visiting coach Mario relief Griffin.
El Salvador won three nil.
armored vehicles They led the Honduran team straight from the stadium to the airport. A worse fate awaited the visiting fans. Kicked and beaten, fled to the border. Two of them died. Most came to the hospital. Honduran hundred and fifty cars were burned. The border between the two countries was closed a few hours later.
Luis read about all this in the newspaper and said there would be a war. He had been a reporter for a long time and knew his craft.
In Latin America, he said, the border between soccer and politics is vague. There is a long list of governments that have fallen or been overthrown after the defeat of the national team. The losing team players are treated as traitors in the press. When Brazil won the World Cup in Mexico, a colleague of mine in Brazil was sad, 'the military regime, "he said,' you can be sure at least another five years of peace." En route to the title, Brazil beat England. In an article under the title 'Jesus Defends Brazil', the Rio de Janeiro daily Jornal two Sportes explained the victory: "whenever the ball came to our goal and a goal seemed inevitable, Jesus took his foot from the clouds and cleared the ball. "Drawings accompanying the article, illustrating the supernatural intervention.
Anyone can lose their lives in the stadium. In the match in which Mexico lost to Peru, 2-1, a Mexican angry shouted "Viva Mexico!" and was killed, massacred by the crowd. But emotions exalted sometimes found other outlets. After Mexico beat Belgium 1-0, Augusto Mariage, guard of a maximum security prison in Chilpancingo (state of Guerrero, Mexico), was delirious with joy and ran around firing a pistol into the air and shouting, 'Viva Mexico! " opened all the cells, releasing 142 dangerous criminals. A court acquitted him, and according to the verdict, 'acted in patriotic exaltation. "
"Do you think it's worth going to Honduras?" Asked Luis, who then edited the serious and influential weekly magazine Time. "I think worthwhile, "he replied," something will happen. "
The next morning I was in Tegucigalpa.
the evening a plane flew over and dropped a bomb Tegucigalpa. Everyone heard it. The nearby mountains repeated the echo of the violent outbreak so Some said later that a whole series of bombs had fallen. Panic swept the city. People fled their houses, the merchants closed their shops. The cars were abandoned in the middle of the street. A woman ran along the pavement, screaming, `My child! My child! " Then there was silence and all was still. It was as if the city had died. The lights went out and Tegucigalpa was plunged into darkness.
I ran to the hotel, I went to my room, I put paper into the typewriter and tried to write a dispatch Warsaw. Trying to move quickly because I knew at that time was the only foreign correspondent there and could be the first to tell the world about the outbreak of war in Central America. But it was dark in the room and could not see anything. I found way down to the reception, which gave me a candle. I went back up, lit the candle and turned on my transistor radio. The announcer read a statement from the Honduran government official about the beginning of hostilities in El Salvador. Then came the news that the army of El Salvador, Honduras attacked all along the border.
I started writing:
TEGUCIGALPA (HONDURAS) PAP 14 JULY TROPICAL RCA VIA RADIO TODAY TO 6 PM BEGAN THE WAR BETWEEN EL SALVADOR AND HONDURAS AIR FORCE EL SALVADOR FOUR CITIES HONDURAN STOP BOMBING AT THE SAME TIME THE BORDER CROSSED Salvadoran Army trying to penetrate HONDUREÑA COUNTRY STOP AGGRESSION IN RESPONSE TO THE AIR FORCE OF HONDURAS HAS MAJOR BOMB AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND INDUSTRIAL LAND FORCES defensive action.
At this point someone in the street started yelling "Turn out the light!" repeatedly, more and more loudly with greater agitation. I blew out the candle. Continue writing blindly, by touch, lighting a match to play the keys.
RADIO REPORTS SAY THERE FIGHTING ALONG THE BORDER AND THAT THE ARMY IS Inflicts Heavy losses HONDURAN ARMY OF EL SALVADOR TO STOP THE GOVERNMENT HAS CALLED ALL THE PEOPLE TO THE DEFENSE NATION IS IN DANGER AND HAS CALLED TO THE UN TO CONDEMN THE ATTACK.
From early morning people had been digging trenches and erecting barricades in preparation for an attack. The store supplies women and protect their windows with tape. People were running across the streets without direction, there was an atmosphere of panic. Student Brigades huge painted slogans on the walls and walls. A bubble had burst sobreTegucigalpa graffiti covering the walls with numerous slogans.
Only a fool CARES
ANYONE ATTACKS HONDURAS
Ó:
TAKE YOUR ARMS AND LET THOSE BOYS gutting SALVADORANS
RETALIATE OF THREE NOS ZERO
RAMOS PORFIRIO SHOULD BE ASHAMED
FOR LIVING WITH A WOMAN OF EL SALVADOR
ANYONE SEE THAT RAYMOND GRANADOS CALL THE POLICE
IS A SPY IN EL SALVADOR
Latin Americans have an obsession with spies, conspiracies and plots. In war, everyone is a fifth column. I was not in a particularly convenient: the official propaganda on both sides blamed the Communists for every misfortune, and I was the only correspondent in the region of a socialist country. Even so, I wanted to see the war to end.
I went to email and called on the telex operator to join me for a beer. I was afraid, because although he had a Honduran father, his mother was a citizen of El Salvador. It was a mixed national and was among the suspects. I did not know would happen next. All morning the Salvadoran police had been gathering in makeshift camps, often in stadiums. In Latin America, stadiums play a dual role: in peacetime they are sports venues, in war become concentration camps.
His name was Jose Malaga, and had a drink in a restaurant near the post. We had our twinned uncertain state. José often phoned her mother, who was locked in his house and said "Mom, everything is fine. They have not come for me. I'm still working."
Afternoon other correspondents arrived from Mexico, forty of them, my colleagues. Flew to Guatemala and rented a bus for the airport in Tegucigalpa was closed. Wanted go to the front. We went to the presidential palace, a bright blue building, ugly turn of the century, in the center of the city to fix the permission. Had nests of machine guns and sandbags around the palace, and antiaircraft guns in the courtyard. In the aisles inside, the soldiers slept or walked around in fatigues.
People have been making war for thousands of years, but every time it's like the first war waged as if everyone has started from scratch.
A captain came and said it was the press spokesman of the army. Asked to describe the situation and said they were winning on all fronts and the enemy suffered heavy losses.
"OK" said the correspondent of the AP, go to the front.
Americans are already there, said the captain. Always go first because of their influence - and that commanding obedience and can fix things.
The captain said we could go the next day, and each must bring two photographs.
went to a place where two pieces of artillery were located under trees. The guns were firing and had ammunition on the floor. Before we could see the road in the direction of El Salvador. On both sides of the road was muddy and beyond began a dense forest.
The sweaty, bearded commander in command told us we could not go further. Beyond this point both armies were in action, and it was difficult to distinguish. The forest was too dense to see. Two opposing units were distinguished at the last minute when confronted. Also since the two armies have similar uniforms, have the same equipment and speak the same language was difficult to distinguish from one another. The commander advised us to return to Tegucigalpa, because progress could mean die without knowing who did it (as if it mattered that, I thought.) But the cameramen said they had to go to the front line to shoot the soldiers in action, shooting and dying. NBC Straub Gregor said he had to have a close up of sweat dripping from the face of a soldier. Rodolfo Carillo of CBS said he had to have discouraged a commander who sat under a bush and cried because he lost his whole unit. A French operator wanted to shoot a scene with a Salvadoran unit that attacked a unit of Honduras from a flank, or vice versa. Someone wanted to capture the image of a soldier carrying his dead comrade. Radio reporters supported the camera. One wanted to record the screams of a wounded calling for help, by becoming weaker and weaker, until he lost his breath. Charles Meadows of Radio Canada wanted the voice of a soldier who cursed the war in the midst of a hellish attack. Radio Naotake Mochida Japan wanted the cry of an officer shouted to his commander in the noise of artillery - using your Japanese countryside.
Many decided to go ahead. Competition is a powerful incentive. Since American television would also have to go to radio services. Since the Americans came, Reuters had to go. Excited by the patriotic ambition, as it was the only Pole in the scene, decided to join the group desperately trying to make progress. Those who reported having diseased hearts, or be uninterested in details and who wrote general comments, we leave behind under a tree ...
The Soccer War lasted a hundred hours. His victims: 6,000 dead, over 12,000 wounded. Fifty thousand people lost their homes and crops. Many villages were destroyed.
The two countries ceased military action because it involved the states of Latin America, but until it days there are exchanges of fire along the border of Honduras - El Salvador, and people die, and destroyed villages.
These are the real reasons for war: El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America has the highest population density largest in the western hemisphere (over 160 people per square kilometer). Things are tight, and so much more because most land is owned by fourteen large landowning clans. The people even said that El Salvador is owned by fourteen families. Landowners have exactly ten thousand times more land than a hundred thousand peasants. Two thirds of the rural population owns no land. For many years part of the landless poor have been migrating to Honduras, where there are large areas of uncultivated land. Honduras (112,492 square kilometers) is almost six times larger than El Salvador, but has almost half the population (2,500,000). This was an illegal immigration but was kept silenced, tolerated by the Honduran government for years.
Farmers in El Salvador settled in Honduras, established villages, and grew accustomed to a better life than they had left behind. Came to be about 300.000.
In 1960, the unrest began among the peasants of Honduras, which required land, and the government of Honduras passed a decree Agrarian Reform. But since it was an oligarchical government, dependent on the United States, the decree did not touch the land of the oligarchy or large banana plantations belonging to the United Fruit Company. The government decided to redistribute the land occupied by squatters Salvadorans, meaning that 300,000 Salvadorans have to return to their own country, where they had nothing, and where, in any case would be rejected by the government of El Salvador, fearing a peasant revolution.
Relations between the two countries were strained. The press on both sides began a campaign of hate calling each other Nazis, dwarfs, drunkards, sadists, bullies and thieves. There were pogroms. The shops were burned.
circumstances had occurred in the match between Honduras and El Salvador.
The war ended in a stalemate. The border remained the same. It is a border set to view the forest, in mountainous terrain that both sides claim. Some of the emigrants returned to El Salvador and some of them are still living in Honduras. And both governments are satisfied: for several days Honduras and El Salvador occupied the headlines of the world and were the subject of interest and concern. The only chance that the small countries of the third world evoke a lively international interest when he shed his blood. It is a sad truth, but it is.
The deciding game was held on neutral ground in Mexico (El Salvador won ,3-2). Fans of Honduras were placed on one side of the stadium, Salvadorans across the 5,000 Mexican police armed with clubs.
