The Massacre at El Mozote, Mark Danner, Vintage Books, 1994
Inherit the Stars, James P. Hogan, Del Rey Books, 1977
The gentle Giants of Ganymede, James P. Hogan, Del Rey Books, 1978
This book looks at a forgotten bit of the Cold War in 1980s Central America. In December, 1981, a US-trained battalion of the army of El Salvador entered the town of El Mozote, and surrounding hamlets, and systematically murdered everyone; over 700 people were killed.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Salvadoran army was in bad shape. There were numerous examples of guerrillas joining the army to get some military training, then intentionally deserting to join the rebels. The army was poorly-trained and poorly-led, except the US-trained Atlacatl battalion. In late 1981, an army operation was planned in Morazan province (where El Mozote was located) to squeeze the rebels out of the area, once and for all.
El Mozote, a town of evangelicals, barely tolerated the rebels. The townspeople were willing to sell corn or chickens to the rebels, but, when it came to joining the rebels, the people of El Mozote were not interested. When the rebels got word that the army was coming, they urged the people to head into the jungle until the army left. One of El Mozote's leading citizens said that he was assured, by the army, that the people were safe. The army was interested only in the rebels.
That day, several helicopters full of Atlacatl soldiers landed at El Mozote. The soldiers went from house to house, dragging everyone into the town square, and forcing them to lay flat on the ground. After a couple of hours of interrogation, accompanied by kicks and rifle butts, regarding rebel membership among the townspeople, the men were taken to the local church, and women and children were taken to one of the houses. The men were taken out of the church, a few at a time, into the nearby jungle, where they were all shot or decapitated. After all the men were dead, the soldiers came for the women and children. The younger women were taken into the jungle and gang-raped, by the soldiers, before being murdered. The small children were thrown into the air, and impaled on bayonets. When it was over, everyone was dead.
When word got out about what had happened, helped by front page stories in the Washington Post and New York Times, the reaction of the Salvadoran army and Reagan Administration was to dismiss the reports as nothing more than enemy propaganda. Congress was in the middle of debating further aid for the Salvadoran government, so the timing of the articles was hardly convenient for the Reagan Administration. A pair of officials from the US Embassy in San Salvador tried to go there to investigate, and got within a mile or two of El Mozote, before being turned back by the army (supposedly, guerrillas were in the area). They couldn't confirm reports of several hundred dead (the people from the area were hardly willing to talk), but it was pretty obvious to them that something huge had happened at El Mozote. The Reagan Administration used inconsistencies in the death toll, and the fact that it was first reported by Radio Venceremos, the rebel's radio station, as "proof" that it was not as bad as reported. The army said that there was a major gun battle with the rebels in El Mozote (untrue), so some townspeople got killed, but nowhere the reported number of several hundred. Was this massacre big enough to get the US Congress to reduce, or eliminate, funding for the Salvadoran military to continue their war against the people? No one in Washington wanted to "lose" El Salvador the same way that China was "lost" after World War II.
This is a first rate piece of investigative journalism. It contains nearly 100 pages of US Government documents about what happened to El Mozote. This may seem like an "old" book, but to bring a forgotten bit of the Cold War back into the collective memory, it is very much recommended.
Inherit the Stars, James P. Hogan, Del Rey Books, 1977 In the near future, mankind has started to spread throughout the solar system; among other things, establishing several moon bases. One day, a very old, almost skeletal, corpse is found on the moon dressed in a red spacesuit. Calls to the other bases reveal that no one is reported missing. Things get really interesting when tests on the corpse, nicknamed "Charlie", reveal that it is at least 50,000 years old. Interest shifts from the moon to Texas, headquarters of the United Nations Space Arm. The world's finest scientists are brought in, and they get a pretty clear idea about Charlie pretty quickly. He was human, or close enough to not make a difference. The next step is to speculate that he came from Earth, that there was a space-faring civilization here during the time of the earliest humans. If that is true, why is there no evidence that such a race ever existed? While each separate department at UNSA, like linguistics or biology, is busy on their own piece of the puzzle, they aren't talking to each other. A tidbit from one department may be just what some other department needs. Victor Hunt, co-inventor of the Magniscope (the next generation in machines to look inside the human body) is brought in to be that link between departments. He is also ggod at thinking sideways, getting each department out of their own rigid dogma. Further research shows that the planet Minerva, between Mars and Jupiter, was dying; an ice age was coming. The need to leave turned into a major interplanetary war, with weapons that could vaporize cities in an instant. Things get very interesting with the discovery of a very large alien spaceship, not from Charlie's race, under the ice on Ganymede. This novel gets pretty heavy on the science, but at least it's easily understandable. Here is a very good and thought-provoking story about the origins of mankind.
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The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, James P. Hogan, Del Rey Books, 1978 Continuing the story began in "Inherit the Stars," this is about the discovery of a corpse on the moon, dressed in a red spacesut, that happens to be 50,000 years old. Further research on the corpse, and the items found with it, and further discoveries elsewhere on the Moon, lead to the conclusion that there was a planet, Minerva, between Mars and Jupiter. The planet was dying; a rising level of carbon dioxide would soon render it uninhabitable. Various methods to fix the problem were considered; meantime, two factions on the planet fought a major interplanetary war, which destroyed the planet. Part of it became the asteroid belt, the other part became the planet Pluto. The human discovery of an alien ship under the ice on Ganymede, and at least 25 million years old, leads to human ideas about the solar system and man's origins getting a major overhaul. One day, the makers of the ship, called Ganymeans (for Ganymede), show up on Ganymede. The humans had unknowingly activated a distress beacon. It is easy to imagine their reaction at being told by the humans that their planet was gone. They had gone to a nearby star to see if it could be artificially made brighter, to combat their carbon dioxide problem. It didn't work; the star went supernova. The propulsion system on their ship was working, but the braking system had failed. They spent 20 years of ship time traveling faster than light, before they could slow down. meantime, the universe was 25 million years older. They were homeless, as well as physically and emotionally exhausted. They were welcomed on Ganymede, where they gave human science a huge boost, and were able to repair their ship. They were welcomed to Earth, to stay, if they wished. There was the usual bureaucratic nonsense about what country would host them; the Ganymeans decided to land in Switzerland. The aliens were totally welcomed, practically as long-lost brothers. As time went on, they traveled all over the world, seeing everything, and speaking with many Earth scientists. After six months, Garuth, the leader of the Ganymeans, announces that they are leaving. The archives mention that a group of Ganymeans traveled to a place called Giants' Star. Admittedly, it is a very remote possibility, but if there is a chance that there are more of their kind at Giants' Star, it must be investigated. That is the official reason for their sudden departure, but it isn't the actual reason. This book is also heavy on the science, but it is still a very interesting story, not just about the origins of mankind. It's very much worth the time.
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