Colonel Juan Orlando Zepeda: Military Strategy (English translation) · Whatever Happened to Radicalism? Voices from the George Vickers Papers

Please note: This page includes discussions of political violence.

In this excerpt from a longer interview recorded on January 16, 1989, Colonel Juan Orlando Zepeda discusses the nature of the conflict between the Salvadoran military, of which he is a high-ranking representative, and the guerilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.

The recording and transcript below are drawn from a longer interview segment running 6.5 minutes, two sections of which have been omitted for brevity. Lines between blocks of text demarcate these editorial cuts.

Juan Orlando Zepeda interviewed by George Vickers and colleagues on January 16, 1989

Spanish transcript available on next page.

Zepeda: And the political struggle must take place in Washington, must take place in the United States, in Europe, and… because they know that wars are won or lost in Washington, or in Moscow. That’s the reality. If Washington says “I don’t support El Salvador,” then they could win. Likewise if Russia says “Let’s forget about El Salvador,” they may lose. That’s the reality. Do you realize that Afghanistan, Angola as well, had to sign an accord for those troops to leave? And practically for me, Russia is losing the campaign. It’s going to lose it. And that is an achievement of North American foreign policy. It’s not… it must be acknowledged. But it also must go unspoken because then they get angry and moreover dig in deeper here on our account… if they lose there they want to win here. And so… Political struggle. It’s quite a strategy.

Zepeda: It's political struggle. Now, the other major front is propaganda, because there’s quite a strategy. To first confuse the public and international public opinion, to confuse it. They are experts at disinformation. And they have quite a program, a whole international system of support.

Magazine page with a subscriber form on the lower half and photograph on the upper half. In the photo, several casually dressed journalists work at a large table with typewriters, headphones, and a radio; they appear to be working in a small vernacular structure with bamboo walls permeable to air and light. An assault rifle is visible, as are two posters with revolutionary messages in Spanish.

Zepeda: In Washington for example, a protest is held at the Pentagon against the repression of… and that gets manipulated, that’s the reality. Yes, there’s a press agency managed by the FMLN in Mexico, Salpress, Notisal. There are two, one run by the FPL and the other by FAL.* Then they combined and set up a single press agency. Operating in Costa Rica was something called Agencia In… AIP, Agencia [Independiente]** de Prensa, which was financed by the FMLN. United States too, there the journal Venceremos comes out in English, I don’t know if you’ve read it, the journal Venceremos. There’s a journal edited in France called Venceremos. And here the main radio station is Radio Venceremos, which, have you heard it? Nobody’s heard it? But it’s listened to, it’s read. And it’s listened to on commercial radio or on television. But it’s a symbol to propagandize, confuse, demoralize the population, to demoralize our forces. And to magnify the movement, so to speak, to justify the movement of its leaders. But there’s quite a propagandistic strategy that is very interesting and very appealing. I have here the latest document on armed propaganda, of which Giáp*** often spoke. We have to make our [indistinct word] or objectives prevail by means of propaganda. Do you follow? And to subdue the population by winning the argument. If not, if we don’t convince them voluntarily, it’s necessary to subdue them with the force [indistinct words] of armed propaganda, however that can be achieved. Car bombs, all that propagandization in a certain form is armed propaganda. Do you believe that the movement has really grown and has a great force capable of defeating us? That is untrue, but the impression that they are strong is created through armed propaganda because they attack the General Staff, because they attack… the National Guard or the Air Force, you understand? But that’s the role of armed propaganda, and there’s quite a strategy, much of it very well developed.

*The Popular Liberation Forces (FPL) and Armed Liberation Forces (FAL) were organizations united under the FMLN umbrella.
**Correction of a misstatement by Zepeda.
***Võ Nguyên Giáp, military leader and strategist credited with North Vietnam's victory.