Cástulo describes the kind of organized labor the guerrilla carried out during guindas in order to support the civilian population.
- Chapter:
- Chapter 5: Guerrilla Experiences
- Interviewee:
- Cástulo
Transcription
I was living up on the mountains, but I wasn’t in the guinda itself with everyone else. No. At the time, I was in charge of acquiring supplies. They had me working by myself and moving all around. Trying to work up the nerve to do the jobs. There are some areas where the army wiped out almost everyone, people who were suffering. Most of the women with children didn't make it. That’s why after a while the delegations came and set up the refugee camp in Mesa Grande. So they could take women and children there, because there were so many massacres. I was in the massacre only for a few days because I got out of what I was doing so I could help the comrades who were rescuing the people who were hiding in the mountains suffering from hunger, who didn’t have anything to eat except what they found where they were hiding. Because that’s what happens in a war, if there are any survivors left. Look, we found some people twenty-two days after the Guinda de Mayo, who had been surviving on small pieces of papaya, or pineapple plants that the people had left behind, unripe pineapples. The children were just bare bones, naked. You see, that is that hardest part about a war. That’s why when I remember all that, this feeling comes over me, and I say,
"Damn, what a time we are living in."
I wonder if we’ll ever get out of this war. We’re always fighting, with the other problem we face today: crime.