Status Updates From Salvador

"The only enemy is totalitarianism, in any guise: communistic, socialistic, capitalistic or militaristic. Man is unique because he has free will and the capacity to choose. When this is he is no longer a man but an animal."
—Mario Rosenthal, editor of the El Salvador News Gazette, in his June 14-20 1982 column, "A Great Day."

"Don't say I said this, but there are no issues here," I was told by a high-placed Salvadoran. "There are only ambitions." He meant of course not that there were no ideas in conflict but that the conflicting ideas were held exclusively by people he knew, that, whatever the outcome of any fighting or negotiation or coup or countercoup, the Casa Presidencial would ultimately be occupied [...] by the already entitled...

Clear, vivid tone. Can feel the monotony of body piles and warfare.