Former Delta operator silent about role in El Mozote massacre

The Atlacatl Immediate Reaction Battalion’s massacre of more than 900 elderly men, women of all ages, and children/infants in December 1981 at El Mozote, El Salvador, is the most heinous mass murder in modern Latin American history. Under the umbrella of Operation Rescate (Rescue)—ordered by the minister of defense, Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia—the Salvadoran Armed Forces would conduct a classic counterinsurgency operation known as Yunque y Martillo, or Hammer and Anvil. Battalion Atlacatl, commanded by Lt. Col. Domingo Monterrosa, would be at the tip of the spear as the army sought to blunt the ongoing and successful FMLN guerrilla offensive in Morazán.

Monterrosa had his own agenda as well. Just a year earlier, his newly graduated “elite” battalion had attempted to engage and dislodge the guerrillas from the same villages in Morazán. Although offered assistance in planning the upcoming operation by then-Captain David Morris, whose SF team had trained the battalion, Monterrosa declined his help. Morris and his team returned to Panama. Monterrosa’s self-planned sweep into Morazán resulted in a catastrophic and humiliating defeat of the Atlacatl, which was afterward referred to as the “Immediate Retreat Battalion” by both guerrillas and the civilians in Morazán. 

Worse, Monterrosa had been defeated by a former friend and colleague turned rebel commander. Member of the General Staff of the Salvadoran Army, director of the Military School of National Guards, commander of the Parachute Battalion, organizer of the 1979 coup, friend of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, and comrade-in-arms of Roberto d’Aubuisson and Domingo Monterrosa, Captain Francisco Mena Sandoval had switched sides. As “Commander Manolo,” he organized the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) Military School and created its special forces. It was Mena Sandoval who led to the defeat of the Atlacatl.