Allen Bruce Hazelwood tap-dances on the record with VICE World News regarding his adviser role in El Salvador

By Greg Walker (ret), United States Army Special Forces

Update - 5/30/2021

New information regarding former DELTA commando Allen Bruce Hazelwood, alleged by Professor Terry Karl in her declaration testimony in El Salvador as having been physically present on December 12, 1981, at the village of El Mozote when Colonel Domingo Monterossa gave the verbal order to exterminate its inhabitants during Operation Rescate ("Rescue"), reveals the self-described "God's gift to El Salvador" military adviser's fall from grace in 1985.

In a May 29, 2021 email his replacement, a seasoned Special Forces intelligence professional, described being sent to El Salvador in October 1985 as an "emergency measure" by the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Stankovich. Hazelwood, originally stationed in Panama with the 3/7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) prior to his initial assignment in El Salvador in 1979, had "pissed off the entire top levels of the FAES [Salvadoran Air Force]" according to his replacement, who possesses extensive experience in Central America.

By 1985, Hazelwood's behavior had become so toxic he was designated as persona-non-grata at all Salvadoran military installations in the country. "Whenever myself or another advisor would drive to the gate of any [Salvadoran] military base, the guards would come out to the car and ask if I or anyone in the car was Hazelwood. When we answered in the negative, they would open the gates and give us permission to proceed," offers the "Quiet Professional" whose job it was to mend relationships and restore trust between the MilGrp and the Salvadoran High Command.

As the U.S. Army had just approved Hazelwood being granted a PCS move to El Salvador he had to be kept in country for another couple of years. Given the Salvadoran Military's unhappiness with him the former commando was pulled back to the embassy and placed in charge of "los Halcones" [the Falcons] - the Embassy's quick reaction force that doubled as a personal security detail for dignitaries and visitors. Hazelwood was likewise permitted to train the Guardia Nacional's counter-terrorist company and he was allowed, under strict supervision at this point, to continue conducting security assessments around the country.

The straw that broke the camel's back was significant. "I was briefed by LTC Stankovich and told I would be leaving "tomorrow morning" [October 2, 1985]", recalls the now retired Green Beret being sent to replace Hazelwood.

"As I recall, he [Hazelwood] had insulted the Salvadoran Chief of Staff during a meeting at the Estado Mayor in San Salvador." Reported to have been in an intoxicated state at the time of the meeting Hazelwood had called the ranking Salvadoran officer a liar in front of his entire staff.

Whatever "blue chips" the often abrasive and increasingly self-important MilGrp staff member may have accrued within both the U.S. embassy and with selected senior Salvadoran officers was forfeited by his outburst.

He would retire from the United States Army in 1987, careful to conceal how he'd compromised himself after seven years of service in El Salvador to include integrating himself personally with Colonel Domingo Monterossa, the shot-caller for the El Mozote massacre in December 1981, and with Colonel Mario Reyes Mena, who in 1982 ordered the assassination of four Dutch journalists using a platoon of newly trained Salvadoran soldiers from the Atonal Immediate Reaction Battalion.

Hazelwood, interviewed in 1992 by the UN Truth Commission regarding his knowledge of both El Mozote and the Dutch murders, tap danced around both topics. His interviewer described him as evasive when pressed for details of his knowledge and involvement regarding El Mozote and then the killing of the Dutch.

In early May 2021, Hazelwood lashed out at El Faro investigative journalist Nelson Rauda for an article the reporter had written that described, in part, Professor Terry Karl's identification of Hazelwood as having accompanied Domingo Monterossa to El Mozote by helicopter on December 12, 1981. In his 1992 UN war crimes investigation interview Hazelwood stated he was indeed at the Atlacatl quartel on that date but that he declined to join the Atlacatl commander on the flight as he was training new recruits for the battalion. With journalists increasingly following the El Mozote case it was natural they would reach out to the man said to have put "boots on the ground" with Monterossa. Hazelwood's response to El Faro was caustic.

"Several other journalists have shown interest in presenting a more unbiased and balanced perspective about an American not being at El Mozote during the supposedly incident. As I told you previously I was not there -- El Mozote -- and have no first person knowledge about the potential incident. You need to cease making that claim.

"It is amazing, however, that you/your news entity would still be so irresponsible to keep blindly publishing Karl’s and others’ obvious false claims, with no validation or vetting, unless you are part of a collusion agenda. Which your reporting seems to indicate. 

"You intentionally refuse to accept that there was no American there. You do know, however, after June 1982 I authorized to be with all commanders in locations throughout the country.

"Nelson, in closing I will have to say that by your recent professional writings you seem to be a very intellectually dishonest person who is aligned with a self-serving misrepresenting phony and others.

"Previously you asked for an interview -- from your reporting there is zero confidence you are capable of accurate reporting" - De: Allen Hazlewood <HAZLEWOOD.com>

Date: mié, 19 de may. de 2021 a la(s) 17:02

Subject: Challenging the False El Mozote Story

In a July 2019 report authored by Mr. Hazelwood he implies he consults on behalf of the current Salvadoran government. Hazelwood sets the stage for his animosity toward both the United Nations and a free press offering "Before describing the new government’s various security programs, it seems appropriate to briefly mentioned perhaps the most divisive elements preventing national reconciliation – the United Nations and individual(s) outside self-serving often phony meddling. 

"Several local officials stated that with the security improvements, listening to all of the armed chair critics from a far -- involved in trying to maintain national division – they are an embarrassment and it is time they shut up. I added, that their continued meddling is like gay rights and black reparations discussions -- tiring. what Salvadorans did to others during the civil conflict is El Salvador’s issue to resolve – not fabricated gossip column like commentators."

In his report's closing comment Hazelwood makes it clear who it is he is providing his expertise to. "Lastly, as was put yesterday when having discussions with a senior official in-charge of security and intelligence operations [Mr. Peter Dumas], about the on-going protection programs, he [Dumas] ended by saying “if you ever need anything just ask” -- my reply was “thanks -- but I do not need a thing -- only need for you to run the country right.”  He correctly relied “we are trying hard.”

Whether Allen Bruce Hazelwood was or was not at El Mozote the day Monterossa ordered 900-plus elderly men, women, children, and infants to be butchered by the Atlacatl as part of Operation Rescate may be answered by the U.S. Southern Command as it responds to a recent FOIA request on just this subject. Similar FOIA requests regarding archived documents pertaining to the massacre at El Mozote have likewise been filed with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the U.S. Special Operations Command Historian's office. One senior Special Forces officer with extensive experience in El Salvador during its 10-year civil war, and who knows Bruce Hazelwood, offers "Many unknowns but BH hasn’t been consistent with his answers."

Indeed, as more and more information about the events leading up to the El Mozote massacre becomes available, it may be that Allen Bruce Hazelwood was only a speed bump in the false narrative created by the doctored report submitted to the U.S. State Department by former State Department employee Kenneth Blakeley, on behalf of the U.S. embassy in San Salvador. According to both Colonel (ret) John McKay and now veteran political officer Dr. Todd Greentree, both who conducted a near suicidal reconnaissance of the cantons leading to El Mozote at the direction of Blakeley, their reports were skewed when the final product was sent forward.

"As for my personal experience, I concur entirely with John McKay’s recollection," Greentree recently wrote me. "In addition, the book by Mark Danner, as well as Ray Bonner’s book and reporting more generally, are entirely accurate. This includes discussion of the editing of my report [Italics mine].

"Although John and I did not reach El Mozote, the displaced people and others with direct knowledge we interviewed left us with no doubt that a massacre had occurred and that the ESAF had committed it. The ICRC delegate in charge of the IDP camp at San Francisco Gotera retained confidentially, but the factual report he shared with numbers of individuals, origins, arrival dates, and conditions reinforced the credibility of the interviews. Susan Meiselas’ photographs added documentary proof that reinforced the reporting by Ray and Alma Guillermoprieto. Finally, the invitation I received from the FMLN to visit El Mozote came via highly trusted contacts. I would have gone without requesting permission, except that the regional security officer had recently complained to the ambassador and I was formally warned that if I crossed the lines again on my own I would be disciplined and possibly removed from post.

"My best suggestion is, go back to Danner's book. He hashes through the issues surrounding El Mozote accurately, while his theme that it was a leitmotif of the Cold War explains what was at stake and why U.S. officials behaved as they did."

Regarding Bruce Hazelwood, Dr. Greentree's assessment is insightful. "As for Hazelwood, when a patriot wraps himself in his own flag, he sacrifices discretion, the better part of valor. Damage to reputation inevitably and universally extends to credibility."

In short, the United States Government - at its highest levels - knew (and knows today) full well what had occurred at El Mozote, who was responsible, and likely knew within 24-hours of the atrocity. Its lie then and continuing to this day was meant to ensure the U.S. Congress would recertify the human rights "progress" of the Salvadoran government and its military, a congressional action that would keep millions of dollars flowing into the conduct of the war.

And what of the ongoing effort to see the trial of 15 still living Salvadoran officers alleged to have ordered and / or participated in the slaughter?

Again, from Dr. Greentree - "El Mozote was without question a war crime and a crime against humanity. However, I believe that prosecuting officers who benefitted from an amnesty declared in good faith as part of an internationally recognized peace agreement that definitively ended a bloody, messy war is a disservice to higher justice. Unfortunately, the court trial, framed as a crusade for human rights and “truth” (that difficult word again), risks further political erosion in El Salvador and can at best deliver symbolic justice, even if these old men are sent to jail.

"That said, I strongly believe that jus post bellum should be legitimized as a fourth component of Just War and codified in international humanitarian law. Although it is too late for an alternative course of action, it is possible to envision a viable if difficult political-juridical-diplomatic path that could square this circle and head off damaging political intervention. Two steps: First, the Government of El Salvador, with financial assistance from the United States, should offer generous compensation to each of the victims of El Mozote and their family members. Second, the victims should publicly acknowledge this restitution, and in exchange, the former commanders, along with the government, should express deep regret for the tragedy and for their suffering."

In El Salvador, the quest for Justice inches toward a trial date despite ongoing efforts on the part of the Bukele government to derail the proceedings. Current forensic metrics reveal the majority of the children shot, bayoneted, raped, and often burned afterwards were under the age of 3 years old.

Killing Domingo Monterossa - The recollection -

In 1993, I interviewed Mr. Gilberto Osorio in San Francisco, California, at the Mission Cultural Center in the Mission District of the city. Osorio, who is a Salvadoran-American, a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Air Force during the war (unloading the caskets of American service members killed in Vietnam), and who returned to El Salvador to fight first as an urban guerrilla in San Salvador and later, upon promotion to Chief of Operations with the PRTC in the countryside, fought for nearly 12 years and escaped capture or death on numerous occasions.

In one of several published interviews in the U.S. special operations journal "Behind the Lines" Osorio discussed his role in the killing of Colonel Domingo Monterossa. Trained in Cuba and Nicaragua as an explosives expert, Gilberto was tasked to build the remote control bomb that would be planted in a damaged Radio Venceremos transmitter, a transmitter that would be staged as bait for Monterossa's troops to find and capture during a major operation in Morazan.

Monterossa's obsession with destroying Radio Venceremos was well known beginning with Operation Rescate in December of 1981. After much planning and troop positioning the guerrillas drew Monterossa's forces in, and led troops to where the damaged and now bomb-laden transmitter had been positioned for them to find. A furious firefight was undertaken to ensure the Army believed the guerrillas were fighting to defend Radio Venceremos, and once the guerrillas pulled away the transmitter was "found".

Monterossa, elated at the news, flew with his most senior officers to Joateca, bringing with him news media and members of the U.S. embassy. After spending time in the town celebrating the success of his military operation, Monterossa boarded his helicopter and along with selected staff members he ordered the transmitter to be placed near where he was sitting.

As Gilberto Osorio recalls he and a small team of guerrillas had emplaced themselves on a nearby hill overlooking the town. After a long wait they watched as one, then a second helicopter took off. With a direct line of sight for his firing device to operate on he pressed the detonator...with no result. As it turned out the first helicopter to leave was not their target.

When the second helicopter departed Osorio again pressed the detonator. Concern among the guerrillas that the bomb had malfunctioned, or the detonator was damaged, or that they were too far away for its signal to detonate the device was clawing at the concealed band of fighters. However, upon the second attempt, the bomb exploded within the cramped confines of the airborne helo, igniting its aviation fuel with the result a massive explosion that brought the aircraft tumbling in flames to the ground below.

According to Osorio the reasons to kill Monterossa were many and varied. Retaliation for the El Mozote massacre in 1981 was at the forefront of these. Close behind was Monterossa's assumption of command of the 3rd Brigade in Morazan and his slow but steady change of strategy regarding how civilians should be treated. This in opposition to his long held belief that to drain the swamp of guerrilla influence and presence it was necessary to kill everyone and anyone deemed a guerrilla, in support of the guerrillas, or a potential guerrilla.

Even if that potential guerrilla was just a child or infant as seen at El Mozote.

Along with Monterossa an impressive collection of like-minded Salvadoran officers, some of whom who served with Monterossa at El Mozote, were likewise killed. A portion of the helicopter they were killed in is today a display at the FMLN war museum in Perquin, El Salvador.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museo-de-la-revolucion-salvadorena

Osorio would return to the United States and resume his life as a noted artist, founding the Mission Cultural Center where we met in 1993. At that time I returned an FMLN battle flag to him during our 3-hour conference, attended by over 35 former FMLN guerrillas, another FMLN commander (female), and the news media. Osorio was made an honorary member of the Veterans of Special Operations - El Salvador, the organization founded to fight what became a ten-year grassroots political campaign in the United States to see the true role of the U.S. military in El Salvador acknowledged by the U.S. Congress.

That took place in 1997, with full combat awards and decorations approved in June 1998. Osorio, when asked by CBS 60 Minutes narrator Ed Bradley in the first of two special segments leading up to the congressional correction of the record regarding the war being a formal U.S. military campaign, confirmed it was the American Special Forces combat advisers whose actions and presence on the field of combat turned the tide in the Salvadoran Army's favor.

*************

"Late in the afternoon, Jon Lee Anderson sat down to interview the Colonel. "He disappeared for a while, and then he came back very excited," Anderson said. "He sat down next to me on the stoop of this old peasant house, and he confided to me that he thought he'd found the transmitter. It was in this graveyard, in a cemetery at the edge of this little hamlet. This was somewhat far from where things were happening, it's true, but the town had definitely been theirs -- I mean, there were graffiti everywhere."

"Anderson seized that moment to ask Monterrosa about the rumors that still clung to him about what had happened at El Mozote. "It was late, and we were sitting there, just the two of us, and I said, 'Colonel, qué pasó en El Mozote?' And there was this long pause, and he looked away, and finally he said, 'No es como dicen' -- 'It's not like they say.' "

"Monterrosa would say no more, but Anderson took his answer as a tacit confirmation that Monterrosa had been involved in the massacre. Shortly before, James LeMoyne had asked Monterrosa the same question, and, according to LeMoyne, the Colonel, in the aftermath of a long and exhausting day of combat, had answered more bluntly. "He shrugged and said, 'Yeah, we did it. We carried out a limpieza there. We killed everyone,' " LeMoyne told me. "He said, 'In those days, I thought that was what we had to do to win the war. And I was wrong.' "

"Late that evening, Anderson and his photographer left, somewhat regretfully, for the capital. They needed to file their stories, but they intended to rejoin Monterrosa in his chopper the following day. The next day, three senior officers and a three-man Army television crew arrived in Joateca. Along with a local priest and sacristan, they planned to accompany the victorious Colonel as he carried his prize back to the capital. It was to be a triumphal entrance. The capture of the transmitter was an enormous propaganda victory, and Monterrosa wanted to film it, record it, publicize it -- to milk it for all it was worth.

"The men climbed aboard the helicopter and took their seats, and as the rotors roared overhead soldiers began loading the equipment aboard. Sitting in the place of honor beside Monterrosa, as it happened, was Todd Greentree, of the United States Embassy. "We were sitting together," Greentree said. "He was buckling in, and people were stowing aboard all these duffelbags that belonged to different soldiers -- you know, 'Take this back to my wife in San Salvador.' The transmitter must have been in one of those. Then a soldier came over to Monterrosa to tell him he had a radio call, and he got off to take it."

"Greentree was in a great hurry to get back to the capital -- he has long since forgotten why. "I saw that another helicopter was getting ready to take off, and I was in such a hurry to get back that I got off and climbed aboard."

"On a hill northwest of the town, the guerrillas of the E.R.P. watched excitedly as the Huey slowly rose above the tree line. They waited until it had reached its apogee, pointed a remote-control device in a direct line of sight, and pressed the button. Nothing happened. "We didn't know what had gone wrong," Villalobos said. "We thought we had a malfunction. Then we heard his press conference" -- Monterrosa was apparently being interviewed by radio, announcing his destruction of Radio Venceremos -- "and we realized that it was the wrong helicopter."

"They sat tensely on the hill deep into the afternoon, until at last, after what must have seemed an interminable wait, a second helicopter climbed above the treetops and lofted into space. The big aircraft rose high over Joateca, turned, and began to head west, toward the Sapo River -- toward the tiny hamlet of El Mozote. Poised high in the blue sky, it caught the sun. Far below, a man from Perquín gazed upward, squinted, and then saw the machine of war -- he had seen such machines so many times over Morazán -- suddenly blossom into a great orange-and-black fireball; and then he was deafened by the explosion.

"The man, who had been forced to guide Monterrosa's men on their limpieza three years before, said, "I remember thinking, If only he had gone a few minutes more, his blood would have been mixed with the soil of El Mozote."

Mark Danner - https://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Danner/1993/truthelmoz12.html

Update - 5/20/2021

How might Allen Bruce Hazelwood, the former American adviser to Colonel Domingo Monterossa, substantiate his recent claims that he was not physically present at El Mozote the day Montrerossa gave the verbal order to exterminate all of its inhabitants and others who had fled the surrounding cantons for the supposed safety of the village?

It comes as no surprise the retired American military trainer / adviser named by Professor Terry Karl as having been at El Mozote at the onset of the December 11/12, 1981 massacre of over 900 men, women, elderly, children and infants, and who in July 2019 wrote an internal report praising Colonel Domingo Monterossa's continued influence in the Salvadoran military and the Bukele government, would be issuing counter-accusations.

In his July 2019 assessment as shared with me for reasons never explained by the former DELTA commando and who is apparently advising the Bukele government, wrote the following.

"El Salvador"

"Since retiring from the military in 1987 I have lived in El Salvador for six months a year. As was the case when working here from 1979 thru 1986 my interests mainly are in national security and community protection programs. However, over the last 15 years I have witnessed El Salvador sink to new lows each year. Fortunately, this negative situation is improving daily...Before describing the new government’s various security programs, it seems appropriate to briefly mentioned perhaps the most divisive elements preventing national reconciliation – the United Nations and individual(s) outside self-serving often phony meddling. 

"Several local officials stated that with the security improvements, listening to all of the armed chair critics from a far -- involved in trying to maintain national division – they are an embarrassment and it is time they shut up. I added, that their continued meddling is like gay rights and black reparations discussions -- tiring. what Salvadorans did to others during the civil conflict is El Salvador’s issue to resolve – not fabricated gossip column like commentators."

And the "meat" of Mr. Hazelwood's report?

"Introduction"

"The security situation in El Salvador is undergoing rapid changes resulting in favorable daily improvements safety within the country. Fortunately for El Salvador, there is a willingness to incorporate military and police into a single criminal fighting force. This has resulted in positive changes in the manner in which major security areas are being addressed and/or approached. 

"The biggest positive change is that no longer will the military be kept in their barracks because of a fear of the military as an institution, and coupled with appeasement to a very disruptive and divisive UN presence.

"Eliminating the fear of the military and acknowledgement of the need to incorporate them into the fight has finally been recognized as critical to success. To date the military presence has become a welcomed reality and by all accepted criteria the joint Armed Forces and National Police cooperation is beginning to deliver noticeable results. For example, not only are the joint police and military forces rooting out crime in the towns, but for the first time since the civil war, are going deep into the country to locate insurgent like safe havens and gang basecamps being use as logistical, command, training and rest areas.

 "New Security Activities:

"First, is the Territory Recovery Program in which the police and military collectively saturate an area (community, town or village (canton) to rid the towns from gangs, drug traffickers, extortionist and other criminal elements. Further striking in the approach is that it was made clear by the new President that the police and military deployments into towns are permanent, not just a one-time cleaning operation and leave. The joint Armed Forces and National Police cooperation is beginning to deliver noticeable results. For example, not only are the joint forces rooting out crime in the towns but for the first time are also going deep into the country to locate insurgent like basecamps being use logistical, command, training and rest areas.

"Second, is the government’s immediate police and armed forces response to a violent crime by gang members. In the latest incident within an hour of being notified the Minister of Defense and Director of the National Police were on the rural crime scene with a full contingent of police and army special operations force. Within 24 hours the four well-armed gang members were hunted down by the military, captured, turned over the police, and will “face the full weight of the law.” 

"Third, is the almost complete lock down of the country’s prisons -- all communications cut and visitations suspended. The military has taken control of the external security and monitors staff and visitor ingress.  The initiation of the practice to continuously rotate prisoners within the prison system is affecting the gang leader’s ability to maintain command and control of his network. Recently a police officer was killed by the gangs. The Government’s immediate response was to announced that they would increase the prison restrictions – a very appropriate Tit for Tat. 

"Fourth, is the willingness of the government to fund the police and military so needed supplies, equipment and monies are available. Reinforcing the logistics sense of urgency, was the announcement by the Government that if the Salvadoran Congress does not approve the monies for security programs they will be seen as supporting crime and/or as actually part of the criminal elements. 

"Fifth, is the willingness of the new government to take responsibility for its illegal immigration problems. This acknowledgment was reconfirmed when the new President of El Salvador took accountability on behalf of the nation as it relates to the two recent – much publicized -- illegal Salvadoran immigrants drowning deaths. He stated to a major news network that it is not another country’s fault -- but blame is clearly on the shoulders of all Salvadorans.  

"Sadly, the politicians in the U.S. will let the new Salvadoran President take full blame and are not honorable/mature enough to accept and understand their guilt by admitting its failure to help El Salvador keep people within their borders by closing asylums loopholes, birth rights to children born to illegal immigrants, invoking a merit base immigration process, stop talking about ridiculous benefits, etc.

"Sixth, is the government initiative to obtain a true national civil war reconciliation agreement. This appears to be moving in a careful well-thought-out plan to reduce the tensions and a final amnesty should be forth coming. If so, the armed forces and their national heroes, like Monterrosa, and all other living members will have the mostly UN imposed weight from over their head.

"Conclusion:

"El Salvador’s new government has a favorability of 80% and seems to be growing. It might well be time for the international community to consider security program support by donating to a five-year security and protection program. This nominal gift would greatly assist El Salvador while serving as a model for other Central American countries facing similar problems.

"Lastly, as was put yesterday when having discussions with a senior official in-charge of security and intelligence operations, about the on-going protection programs, he ended by saying “if you ever need anything just ask” -- my reply was “thanks -- but I do not need a thing -- only need for you to run the country right.”  He correctly relied “we are trying hard.”

Mr. Hazelwood, apparently now in El Salvador and doing damage control on behalf of himself and the Bukele government, might share with us if he is a registered lobbyist for a foreign government as he is an American citizen, and one with long held economic interests and investments in El Salvador.

Further, Hazelwood should be encouraged by the U.S. Government, specifically the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, to back up his claim of not having been present with Domingo Monterrosa at El Mozote and of having no knowledge, as he stated in a recent interview with VICE World News, of anything having to do with the massacre.

This despite the verbal order to kill all the inhabitants of not only El Mozote but the other nearby cantons as described in the 1992 UN Truth Commission Report - a report Hazelwood agreed to be interviewed for and which was sworn testimony as it was part of the UN war crimes investigation - along with his 2020 interview with the Dutch Prosecutor's Office as arranged for by the ICE war crimes unit here in the United States.

A sworn statement from Hazelwood to the FBI or the Department of Justice as to his location, activities, and role on the days in question and agreed to be made available to the Public immediately would be one way to support his continuing and to date unsupported claim of "I know nothing."

As would a parallel polygraph administered by one or the other federal law enforcement agencies. The results made available to the Public, as well.

Mr. Hazelwood might also demand the U.S. State Department, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Southern Command release, per the U.S. congressional directive to do so last year, ALL documents, images, aerial footage, and reports sent to these agencies and services beginning on December 10, 1981 and concluding on June 30, 1982. Their doing so might indeed uphold Hazelwood's claims and clear his name.

To date neither STATE or DOD has released their archives as mandated to do - and that begs the question "Why not?"

The continuing efforts of the Bukele government and the Salvadoran military to derail the trial of those 15 defendants in El Salvador alleged to have planned and carried out the El Mozote massacre give every appearance of being "helped along" by the one American who says he wasn't there...but has yet to offer any tangible and independent evidence otherwise. This to include now claiming there were ten other U.S. military advisers at the Atlacatl quartel with him on the days in question...but not providing their names, where the trainers came from (Fort Gulick, Panama? Fort Bragg, North Carolina?), what their alleged training mission was and how Bruce Hazelwood fit into the picture, and what his evidence is in support of his "distribution of responsibility" alibi by offering this "ghost team" was responsible for training the Atlacatl in the months prior to Operation Recate with its goal of capturing Radio Venceremos and "cleansing" the Department of Morazan of FMLN guerrillas.

Note: The only authorized mobile training team to have been sent to El Salvador to train the first generation of the Atlacatl battalion occurred was a composite team from 3/7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) then stationed at Fort Gulick, Panama. That team, led by then Captain David Morris, conducted training of the Atlacatl, company by company, until its mission ended and it redeployed to Panama in August 1981. Human rights classes were, per Captain Morris, taught to the troops and command structure per the U.S. GOV mandate to do so and overseen by the US MILGRP at the embassy in San Salvador.

Allen Bruce Hazelwood was not part of that composite team but rather had been assigned to the MILGRP in 1979 as a staff member. Per Hazelwood's own words he was stationed with the Atlacatl battalion in October 1981, over a month after Captain Morris' team departed. And, again in his own words to the UN Truth Commission in 1992, he was at the battalion with Colonel Monterossa the day the officer flew to El Mozote and gave the kill order to his subordinate officers. Hazelwood denies having accompanied Monterossa on that flight and his stories about that day have changed since Professor Terry's Karl's testimony of now over a month ago.

Is Hazelwood admitting there was a much larger U.S. military training mission provided, perhaps only with the knowledge of the U.S. embassy and its MILGRP commander, Colonel Moody Hayes, to the Atlacatl in preparation for Operation Rescate? If so, is this why the State Department and Department of Defense have yet to release documents that would reveal just this?

So the questions remain. Where was Bruce Hazelwood on December 11 / 12, 1981? Who was he truly with? What did he know / learn of the massacre taking place during those two days? Did he, per the mandate given all U.S. personnel in El Salvador, specifically the MILGRP staff and Special Forces combat advisers, report whatever suspicions or hard firsthand knowledge he had of the massacre to the U.S. embassy / MILGRP? If so, where is his report? If not, why not?

In the meantime, in his own words as penned in early July 2019 for his report, "Regardless of negative attempts by the UN and others, nothing can be done long term to steal the contributions made by brave Salvadoran military officials such as Jorge Cruz, Calito, Monterrosa, etc. These historic heroes, and other less well known, will always remain in the heart of the majority of the population...At last, the Salvadoran military can feel proud of their contributions against insurgent forces during the civil war. So, to all Salvadoran military warriors, congratulations on a job well done.

"After all, these Salvadoran heroes only just did what their civilian and military leadership, Ronald Reagan and George Bush asked of them – STOP COMMUNISIM!!"

Given all those murdered, raped, tortured, and burned at El Mozote were considered to be communists in the making if not already card carrying members of the Communist Party, over 500 of the butchered now proven by forensics to have been under the age of 12, Mr. Hazelwood's accolades of the "Salvadoran heroes" who he offers were just following orders has a nasty historical echo to it.  

"All those left behind" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQlyUrdyVGw

Update - 5/17/2021

Roughly two years ago I spoke at length with Colonel John McKay. McKay, who was the defense attache for the U.S. embassy in El Salvador during both the El Mozote massacre in December 1981 and then the assassination of the four Dutch journalists just months later in 1982, provided sound recollections of his and embassy junior political officer Todd Greentree's effort to confirm or deny, with "boots on the ground", whether or not the massacre had taken place.

No better regional subject matter expert could have been asked to do so to include knowing and speaking with Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, the commander of the Atlacatl Immediate Reaction Battalion and the man who physically gave the orders to kill everyone at El Mozote and six nearby cantons during Operation Rescate.

https://coljohnmckay.com/biography/

Monterossa on taking prisoners –

"He [Monterossa] did not change his mind about taking prisoners before he was himself killed in 1984. Window trappings were put up by the Salvadoran military regarding human rights matters and to please the United States. Monterrosa's and other influential Salvadoran officers were trained in counter-insurgency in Taiwan and that training was initially instrumental in their 'no prisoners' approach – but historically there is cultural mindset in El Salvador of 'give no quarter'. 'The only good commie is dead commie' thought process. Marine/SEAL unit Vietnam had same mindset – in minority. For Monterossa and others anyone and everyone was dispensable if there was any sense they were communists.

"I had dinner in San Salvador with Monterossa after the massacre and he still felt this way. He was pleasant throughout the meal when we talked of the importance of taking prisoners on many levels.

"He was receptive of of my argument but not won over."

The politicians -

"Ken Blakeley went out to the 3rd Brigade at San Francisco Gotera. I was not aware he was going to do so. It was important for him to be close by. Colonel Flores Lima [Chief of Staff of the Army] was there, as well. This was out of character for him [Flores Lima]. He was most often content to remain in his office in San Salvador.

No safe conduct pass -

"We were provided with a security squad from the 6th BDE. – I was afraid of them killing us as much as I was concerned about the guerrillas who had returned to Morazan / El Mozote after the Atlacatl ended its operation. I was doubly on guard. Todd Greentree was not armed. We agreed to get ahold of people who stand out in the community – we spoke with priests, social workers, one old man who apparently escaped – many were just “mum” – but their body language and few comments clearly showed – something bad had happened. The people were afraid to talk with Todd or me with the infantry squad hovering around as they were.

"We got within a klick and a half of El Mozote. I was using a U.S. map to navigate by. I'd never been up there. All along the way we came across burned homes and buildings. People's personal things were strewn all over. People we met said Atlacatl was killing women/children.

"The AMB [Hinton] finally came around there was a massacre. The original report did not go out from the embassy proper but was penciled by Ken Blakeley with three critical sentences in my report deleted by, I presume, Blakeley. We did not get into El Mozote as the infantry squad refused to go any further with us…so we did not get to the church where so many were reported to have been killed. We saw graves along the way but no bodies as the guerrillas and the villagers had been burying the dead since retaking El Mozote. We saw shell casings from M60 machine guns, M16 rifles, and grenades."

Note: McKay was a junior diplomat at embassy. Ambassador Hinton did not know him well and Ken Blakeley didn’t care for him for reasons of his own. Colonel Moody Hayes, the MilGrp commander at the time, had been posted to El Salvador to finish up his career. His attitude was, according to those who knew him then was “I’m outta here – don’t bother me”. Hayes, a chronic alcoholic, was known to keep a bottle in lower right hand drawer of his desk at the embassy.

Monterosa would later tell McKay that El Mozote was "a nice little clean-up operation". McKay had seen intense combat in Vietnam and was twice wounded and badly. He and Skip Crane, a SEAL officer assigned to the embassy, were both combat tested. The MilGrp commander had no no combat experience. Skip Crane, a close friend of mine for many years now, and McKay were roommate in San Salvador until their house hit by guerrillas– they then split up. Crane had extensive experience in Nicaragua during the mid to late 1970s.

AMB Hinton realized the only stability in the Defense Attache Office was then Major McKay as the nominal lead in the office, Dennis Duggan, was PNG’d out of the country.

Moral compass disappears –

"It was clear once the killings began that the unit's members fell prey to the bloodlust such actions give birth to. I knew of only one Salvadoran officer there at El Mozote who voiced ethical problems with the massacre afterward. He was killed in 1984 along with Monterossa."

"We went to San Francisco Gotera by helo and stopped in San Miguel – 'menos mal' – Blakeley wanted the reports written quickly. I don't believe AMB Hinton was even in El Salvador at that time.

"There was a sense of Monterrosa being aloof and unapproachable but that didn't deter me. I did not have to clear who I met with with the ambassador. In the end the embassy fumbled through a cover up of the massacre – deeper issues were at play – our [U.S.] hubris that “these little children need to be taught”, meaning the Latin American governments and militaries. We came down with very heavy hand – we had no strategic plan in place at that time – if the Salvadorans screwed up the un-offical attitude was it's “just boys being boys” – no one would be held accountable."

"The unspoken policy at the time regarding El Salvador was 'We are going to win this one'...it was the post Vietnam War thought process."

U.S. Eyes in the skies over El Salvador -

"We had surveillance aircraft, U.S. Air Force, flying out of Panama and Honduras even that early on. There is certainly overhead surveillance footage that was taken both during Operation Rescate and afterward, specifically of El Mozote after the massacre was reported. What did show? Where is it now?"

In 2020, the United States Congress directed the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department to release all classified archived documents and materials to Judge Guzman in El Salvador. To date, DoD and State have refused to comply.

Update - 5/14/2021

From: Allen Hazlewood <HAZLEWOOD91@com> Sent: Thursday, July 4, 2019 6:30 PMTo: Gregory Walker Subject: Re: NewsRep article El Mozote Massacre / US Adviser Present

 "Why not shut-up -- Never was I in El Mozote during the incident -- another fabrication. However, even though I trained Atalacal in October 1981, from June 1982 to October 1984, as Team Leader of the Strategic Sites Security Team and Program Manger of the new National Civil Defense Program, I met, coordinated and conducted field visits with Monterrosa and the battalion in accordance with my various assignments and with U.S. Embassy approval. From June 1982 until November 1986 I also met with all other Security Force and major department commanders, and others, in their bases and in the field."

In 2019, Allen Bruce Hazelwood, the retired American DELTA commando who served in El Salvador for seven years as a staff member of the U.S. MilGrp at the U.S. embassy in San Salvador, wrote a report.

"Today while speaking with the primary person in-charge of the new President’s pre-election’s messaging, image marketing and public affairs, who was also was one of the architects of the New Ideas campaign (Director of Intelligence), asked what was my assessment of the new government to date?" - El Salvador, Bruce Hazelwood, July 4, 2019

Hazelwood was referring to Peter Dumas, El Salvador's chief spymaster for the Bukele government, a government now under international fire for its heavy-handed anti-democratic actions over the past year.

https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-lobbying-nayib-bukele-latin-america-central-america-d123c85c67adbb03946118362b3d2528

Dumas is responsible for the successful public relations campaign that presented Bukele as a reformer important to the continued security of El Salvador and its position with, at the time, the Trump administration.

"The international news agency AP published on Friday a contract signed by the director of the State Intelligence Agency (OIE), Peter Dumas, and the company Sonoran Policy Group, to guarantee Bukele's influence in Washington and improve the image that has come dragging in his first year of government."

https://www.elsalvador.com/eldiariodehoy/dumas-negocio-contrato-oie-bukele/744964/2020/

Now the question is this. Who is Allen Bruce Hazelwood, identified by Professor Terry Karl in her sworn declaration testimony in El Salvador now a month ago as having been present with Colonel Domingo Montrerrosa at El Mozote, and what role is he now playing in U.S. / Salvadoran politics?

"The security situation in El Salvador is undergoing rapid changes resulting in favorable daily improvements safety within the country. Fortunately for El Salvador, there is a willingness to incorporate military and police into a single criminal fighting force. This has resulted in positive changes in the manner in which major security areas are being addressed and/or approached. 

"The biggest positive change is that no longer will the military be kept in their barracks because of a fear of the military as an institution, and coupled with appeasement to a very disruptive and divisive UN presence." - El Salvador, Bruce Hazelwood, July 4, 2019

Hazelwood's report, which he did not identify as to whom it was prepared for in 2019, also addresses Bukele's stand on migration from El Salvador to the United States.

"Fourth, is the willingness of the government to fund the police and military so needed supplies, equipment and monies are available. Reinforcing the logistics sense of urgency, was the announcement by the Government that if the Salvadoran Congress does not approve the monies for security programs they will be seen as supporting crime and/or as actually part of the criminal elements. 

"Fifth, is the willingness of the new government to take responsibility for its illegal immigration problems. This acknowledgment was reconfirmed when the new President of El Salvador took accountability on behalf of the nation as it relates to the two recent – much publicized -- illegal Salvadoran immigrants drowning deaths. He stated to a major news network that it is not another country’s fault -- but blame is clearly on the shoulders of all Salvadorans.  

"Sadly, the politicians in the U.S. will let the new Salvadoran President take full blame and are not honorable/mature enough to accept and understand their guilt by admitting its failure to help El Salvador keep people within their borders by closing asylums loopholes, birth rights to children born to illegal immigrants, invoking a merit base immigration process, stop talking about ridiculous benefits, etc

"Sixth, is the government initiative to obtain a true national civil war reconciliation agreement. This appears to be moving in a careful well-thought-out plan to reduce the tensions and a final amnesty should be forth coming. If so, the armed forces and their national heroes, like Monterrosa, and all other living members will have the mostly UN imposed weight from over their head."

In short, who is Bruce Hazelwood working for in El Salvador?

In his conclusion Hazelwood infers a substantial role and influence with Salvadoran leaders such as Peter Dumas. "El Salvador’s new government has a favorability of 80% and seems to be growing. It might well be time for the international community to consider security program support by donating to a five-year security and protection program. This nominal gift would greatly assist El Salvador while serving as a model for other Central American countries facing similar problems.

"Lastly, as was put yesterday when having discussions with a senior official in-charge of security and intelligence operations, about the on-going protection programs, he ended by saying “if you ever need anything just ask” -- my reply was “thanks -- but I do not need a thing -- only need for you to run the country right.”  He correctly relied “we are trying hard.”

Clearly, with the recent overthrow, or "self-coup" of the Salvadoran justice system by President Bukele and the emerging influence and behind-the-scenes support of former and active Salvadoran military leaders, many of whom - like Hazelwood did in his report - venerate the memory and actions of the man who physically gave the orders for over 1000 Salvadoran men, women, children, and infants to be slaughtered in December 1981, who Bruce Hazelwood truly represents and why is a critical question for the Biden Administration to respond to immediately.

******

The American military adviser - Allen Bruce Hazelwood

"The authors see Hazelwood as an important figure in the counterinsurgency effort because, in their words, "...he gives an inkling of the impact even a low-profile training effort can have if the United States gets the right man in job and leaves him there." - The Special Forces Organization For Foreign Internal Defense In 2010, , Christopher C K. Haas, B.A., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 

Bruce - As I've shared with you previously the only account of an American being there [El Mozote] was from Andy (Messing) and that, according to Andy, was you. He told me you tried to convince MONT [LTC Domingo Monterrosa] against what occurred but he elected to go his own way.

 And you did the right thing and left, hitch-hiking back to San Sal and reporting the event to the AMB. Which if Andy is accurate led to the other two [Todd Greentree and Major John McKay, USMC] being directed to return and confirm/deny.

 I have always admired, and that is a very conservative word, you for doing that. To me, that kind of moral courage is what being an American Soldier and quality human being is all about. I am very altruistic as you know - and your actions as Andy described them to me really resonated.” – Email from author to Bruce Hazelwood, January 20, 2018, reference his described reporting of the El Mozote Massacre. By 2021, it was clear Hazelwood's moral compass had long ago gone astray.

"Other Thoughts" - Allen Bruce Hazelwood in his own words

"Before describing the new government’s various security programs, it seems appropriate to briefly mentioned perhaps the most divisive elements preventing national reconciliation – the United Nations and individual(s) outside self-serving often phony meddling. 

"Several local officials stated that with the security improvements, listening to all of the armed chair critics from a far -- involved in trying to maintain national division – they are an embarrassment and it is time they shut up. I added, that their continued meddling is like gay rights and black reparations discussions -- tiring. what Salvadorans did to others during the civil conflict is El Salvador’s issue to resolve – not fabricated gossip column like commentators.

"Regardless of negative attempts by the UN and others, nothing can be done long term to steal the contributions made by brave Salvadoran military officials such as Jorge Cruz, Calito, Monterrosa, etc. These historic heroes, and other less well known, will always remain in the heart of the majority of the population."  - Bruce Hazelwood, Internal report, July 4, 2019

An American Influencer enlists in the New Ideas Party

"The accusations sparked a heated response from Hazelwood, who has generally refused to talk with the media. 

“I had no first-person knowledge before, during or immediately after” the massacre, he wrote in an email to VICE World News. “However, if anything was said years later, it was most likely misunderstood, not true, not first hand, possibly inaccurate and/or would have been influenced from what was read and heard over the years.” He added that “there is no recollection on my part of ever speaking with anyone about the incident, official or unofficial, and there was no sworn interview with anyone that was alluded to during Karl’s testimony.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88nnda/1000-people-were-executed-by-el-salvador-troops-in-1981-and-this-american-may-have-known

Note: Mr. Hazelwood was interviewed by the UN Truth Commission in 1992 regarding El Mozote in 1981 and the murders of the four Dutch journalists in 1982. Those interviewed are sworn to tell the truth as their testimonies are evidence and may be used in a court of law. For example -

"The explosive evidence came from Tutsi soldiers who broke with the regime and risked their lives to expose what they knew. Their sworn testimony to a UN court contradicted the dominant story about the country’s brutal descent into violence, which depicted Kagame and his RPF as the country’s saviours."

https://mg.co.za/africa/2020-11-29-exclusive-top-secret-testimonies-implicate-rwandas-president-in-war-crimes/

"El Salvador" - Allen Bruce Hazelwood in his own words

"Since retiring from the military in 1987 I have lived in El Salvador for six months a year. As was the case when working here from 1979 thru 1986 my interests mainly are in national security and community protection programs. However, over the last 15 years I have witnessed El Salvador sink to new lows each year. Fortunately, this negative situation is improving daily.

"Today while speaking with the primary person in-charge of the new President’s pre-election’s messaging, image marketing and public affairs, who was also was one of the architects of the New Ideas campaign (Director of Intelligence), asked what was my assessment of the new government to date? What drove his question was we had met over a heavy night of drinking and my impression of the candidate was very negative. When asked my response was – as you know, where I was one of his harshest critics’ pre-election, I am now 99.9% in agreement with his security and protection programs." - Bruce Hazelwood, Internal report, July 4, 2019

Rescue or retribution?

“Hazelwood has always been a reliable source.  I took his place when sent to ES in 85. Bruce told the truth, was quite undiplomatic and as a result became "PNG" at all FAES installations…Thanks for doing a good job in covering this blemish on our reputation.” – Leamon Ratterree (ret), USA Special Forces, email to author, 5-30-2019

The Atlacatl Immediate Reaction battalion’s massacre of over 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 Rescue Morazán ordered by Minister of Defense, Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia, the combined forces of the Salvadoran Armed Forces would conduct a classic counter insurgency operation termed Yunque y Martillo, or Hammer and Anvil. Battalion Atlacatl, commanded by LTC 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.

Domingo 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 that operation by the 10=man Special Forces team that had trained the unit, Monterrosa declined their help. The result was 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.

Payback was at hand.

“A very thin line to walk”

“In a way I feel sorry for Hazelwood and I do not even like him. You as an advisor have very little control over the Commander you are working with. All you can do is suggest for him not to do something. If you insist, he will either have you killed right there, or have you removed from his command. Very thin line you have to walk.” – Harry Claflin, American adviser to the Salvadoran Airborne Battalion and Special Operations Group (GOE) for 9 years during the war

The butchering of the people at El Mozote and elsewhere during Operation Rescue was part and parcel to the “scorched earth” strategy the Salvadoran High Command believed would stall, and then destroy the insurrection. Such a policy had worked in 1932 when the government at the time oversaw the massacre of over 30,000 mostly rural Salvadoran in response to the presence of a communist political movement that was gaining support from the people. Titled “La Mantanza” it became the basis for the new and improved “Limpieza”, or “clean-up” operations endorsed by Monterrosa and others.

As Bruce Hazelwood was assigned to the U.S. MilGrp, he was not officially a Special Forces Mobile Training Team adviser, but rather a permanent party member of the embassy. He would spend seven years in this role, a role that saw him given tremendous latitude in what and how he integrated himself into the High Command of the Salvadoran Army. One now retired senior Special Forces officer with extensive experience in El Salvador told me “The Army screwed up by leaving him [Hazelwood] in place for so long…the CIA and DOS want[ed] all the free help they could get”. Others have offered the former Marine and DELTA commando simply went native in El Salvador, becoming indispensable to both the Estado Mayor and the succeeding U.S. MilGrp commanders he worked for.

That Hazelwood continues to praise the man who conveyed the order to "cleanse" El Mozote of its population during Operation Rescue, contrary to his interview with VICE World News, is illustrated in an excerpt from a report he wrote, presumed to be for U.S. diplomatic interests at the embassy in San Salvador, in July 2019. "I was not in agreement with the decision to remove Monterrosa’s name off the Third Brigade Base years after he was declared as a national hero by the government. 

"It was added that even today the military and 70% of the population still view him as a national treasure. The answer was – we know you were professionally close to Domingo, but in order to get past the current contentious relationships -- concerning the civil war -- Monterrosa was scarified in order to serve as a major beginning to reconciliation. Removing the name and providing economic support for the affected communities serves to quiet the situation to create space for an eventual national amnesty. My last comment was, I be damned, even in his death Monterrosa continues to do great things for the country."

There is a great deal of truth in how a staff sergeant, albeit a gifted, talented, and experienced staff sergeant, became a critical component in the now acknowledged U.S. military campaign in El Salvador. As the Army continued to promote him until his retirement Allen Bruce Hazelwood exploited his training and experience as a "dark operator" in the predatory world of counter-insurgency. In July 2019, Hazelwood sent me an email along with a several-page report he'd written. He'd only recently agreed to - and had been - interviewed by the Dutch Prosecutor in Holland regarding his knowledge and role in the 1982 murders of four Dutch journalists in El Salvador. Much like his 1992 interview with the UN Truth Commission - an interview he denies ever giving - Hazelwood commented on El Mozote. "Never was I in El Mozote during the incident," he wrote. "However, even though I trained Atlacatl in October 1981...from June 1982 to October 1984, [I was] Team Leader of the Strategic Sites Security Team and Program Manger of the new National Civil Defense Program. I met, coordinated and conducted field visits with Monterrosa and the battalion [Atlacatl] in accordance with my various assignments and with U.S. Embassy approval."

Note: Hazelwood's admission to have been providing military training to the Atlacatl "in October 1981" confirms Professor Terry Karl's testimony now two weeks ago in El Salvador that the battalion responsible for the El Mozote massacre was indeed U.S. funded, equipped, and trained by an American military adviser (Hazelwood), in preparation for Operation Rescante, 90 days before the massacre was to take place.

In his 1992 voluntary and sworn interview with UN Truth Commission investigators Hazelwood described his role in El Salvador from 1979-1986. He claimed being a military trainer to both the Atlacatl and Atonal Immediate Reaction battalion when they were first stood up, creating a Salvadoran counter-terrorist unit, an enemy infrastructure identification system, Special Response teams for the Treasury Police, and the successful civil defense program. “I initiated every military program in El Salvador,” he told the investigator, “And was a key planner in the national military strategy.”

Of his 2021 interview with the Dutch war crimes team he offered this. "First, as far as your Dutch contact -- where the two female investigators were professional, pleasant and good looking we were still able to established some questioning and answering trust and rapport. Even though I could not add anything to help their case , they were a pleasure to talk to."

"Regardless -- I do not dance to the tune of any foreign government while in the U.S. They cannot make contact with me unless it is through the DOD [U.S. Department of Defense] or DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice)."

Note: In September 2016, Hazelwood sent an email in which he clarified questions I had regarding both El Mozote and the killing of the Dutch journalists, the latter a planned ambush ordered by then 4th Brigade commander, Colonel Mario Reyes Mena. In a May 2021 conversation with retired USMC officer, John McKay, McKay described his arriving at the 4th Brigade by FAS helicopter at 0500 Hours the morning after the ambush of the Dutch. He asked to speak with Colonel Reyes Mena and was rebuked. He then asked to speak with Bruce Hazelwood, who had apparently been present at the quartel the day before - the day of the ambush. Hazelwood likewise refused to meet with him. "I saw the bodies [of the Dutch journalists] McKay told me. A short time later Master Sergeant Angel Chamizo, part of the 25-man mobile training team then training the Atonal Immediate Reaction Battalion at the 4th Brigade, phoned in his report of the Dutch being killed. Hazelwood, in his own words, advised Colonel Reyes Mena on how "to clean up" what the UN in 1992 determined to have been a war crime.

Mobile Training Team members from the 3/7th Special Forces Group responsible for the initial training of the Atlacatl and Atonal offer Hazelwood was not a trainer/adviser with them in any official capacity. His presence was always that of a MilGrp staffer although it was known he did, at times, present training outside of the established MTT programs of instruction approved by the State Department, Pentagon, and agreed to by the Salvadoran Army. Hazelwood confirms this in his UN interview when he stated that on the first day of the massacre he was “in the Atlacatl cuartel at El Playon training Atlacatl replacements during Operation Rescante”.

Hazelwood goes further by describing “the objective of the operation was to deny the guerrillas the ability to survive north of the Rio Torola…Monterrosa even poisoned the water as part of this strategy.” Hazelwood would know. He accompanied Monterrosa on operations, armed and wearing civilian clothes, on the Rio Torola and at one time sent me a photo of him doing so.

The former Marine and DELTA commando likewise described his presence as a combat adviser while assigned to the U.S. MilGrp in El Salvador in 1982. "Greg -On another note -- Ray [Bonner] did see me and photographed (CBS I believe) me in an engagement in Tres Calles just west of the Puente de Oro Railroad Bridge in Usulután in June 1982 -- I was carrying an M-60 machinegun. My team was immediately pulled out of the field taken to the Embassy and attended a meeting [with]AMB Hinton, Col. John Waglestein, Ray Bonner and myself. I was able to easily explain what Ray saw and what the news reported -- we were relocated to the Cinco November Dam in Cabanas and did a face hidden interview with NBC I believe. When Bonner got kicked out of the country (PNGed) AMB Hinton had me over to his residence for a celebration drink. I will say -- to my knowledge -Ray's reporting -- at that time -- was always very accurate." - Allen Hazlewood <HAZLEWOOD91@com, Sat 1/20/2018 6:40 PM

It was Ray Bonner, a former Marine officer turned investigative reporter after Vietnam, who broke the original story of the reported massacre at El Mozote.

In 1992, Hazelwood – who self-describes himself as a close confidant of Domingo Monterrosa up until the colonel’s death in 1984 – offered the following as to Monterrosa being at the cuartel on the day the massacre began, along with Hazelwood. “…he [Monterrosa] went out to the field when “things” were still going on,” recalled Hazelwood. “Casceras Cabrera, “el heuvon” [the "dick"] initiated the killings.” When the UN investigator asked if Monterrosa knew what was going on Hazelwood replied. “I won’t say that Monterrosa didn’t order it.” He added he didn’t believe many guerrillas had been killed during the operation as “they fled the area”.

Did Hazelwood accompany Monterrosa to El Mozote that day? Per the UN investigator’s report “When I pressed him on other points, he changed the subject or said he didn’t know.” In 2018, when I complimented him on having attempted to intervene with Monterrosa, on the ground at El Mozote, then undertaking an extremely dangerous journey back to the embassy in San Salvador to report what he’d seen, Bruce neither corrected my understanding or denied having done what I’d described learning from Major (ret) Andy Messing years before.

Do I believe Bruce Hazelwood joined Domingo Monterrosa on the helo flight to El Mozote that day? Yes, I do. Bruce Hazelwood was not one to stay behind and teach a basic rifle course to Atlacatl trainees when the largest and most aggressive military operation of the war at that time was underway. Do I believe Bruce, once on the ground at El Mozote and made aware of what was to take place - the "cleansing" of the village by mass murder - attempt to dissuade Colonel Monterrosa? Yes, I do. Do I believe after his flight back to the Atlacatl quartel and return to the U.S. embassy in San Salvador the Vietnam veteran and now "Green Beret" soldier made a full and accurate report of what was even then taking place at El Mozote? Yes. Absolutely.

But until Allen Bruce Hazelwood is placed under oath, whether by a U.S. Government interviewer (FBI?) or the U.S. State Department / Department of Defense obeys the 2020 Congressional directive to release all El Mozote related documents hidden away in their archives to Judge Guzman in El Salvador...the Truth will remain obscured.

A “dirty little war”

“In the course of “Operation Rescue” extrajudicial killings of civilians took place on December 11, with the killing of more than twenty people in La Joya canton. Again, on December 20, over thirty people in the village of La Rancheria, and later the same day the same Atlacatl Battalion slaughtered all the inhabitants of Los Toriles. Finally, on December 13, they ravaged the villages of Jocote Amarillo and Cerro Pando canton. In sum, more than five hundred identified victims perished at El Mozote and the other villages.” - Commitment Beyond Morality: American Complicity in the Massacre at El Mozote, El Salvador, 1981, Dustin Hill, Eastern Kentucky University, January 2011

 On January 8, AMB Deane Hinton, informed the State Department about a letter he received. The letter from Eugene Stockwell, a representative of the National Council of Churches offered between December 10th and the 13th a Salvadoran military operation in the Morazán had resulted in massive civilian casualties possibly the result of mass murder on the military’s part.

 University of Arkansas physician Victor Snyder sent a letter dated January 11,1982, to Senator David Pryor. Doctor Snyder had been working in a refugee camp in Honduras where he heard stories of the massacre from families fleeing the violence in the Morazán province. The senator, in turn, forwarded the letter to then Assistance Secretary of State Thomas Enders and asked for an inquiry to begin. Further -

 “A subsequent cable dated February 17, 1982 and signed by U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John Negroponte lends greater credence to reports that there had been a massacre, but the cable appears not to have changed the U.S. position on El Mozote even if it was not willfully suppressed. The February 17 cable reported on a visit to the Salvadoran refugee camp at Colomoncagua earlier that month. The cable noted that refugees reported a military sweep in Morazán December 7 to 17 which they claim resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties and physical destruction, leading to their exodus. Names of villages cited coincide with New York Times article of January 28 same subject.”

 The cable concluded with the following comment:

 “Most significant element in refugees’ reports was their decision to flee at this time when in the past they had remained during sweeps. This lends credibility to reportedly greater magnitude and intensity of the GOES [Government of El Salvador] military operations in Northern Morazán. This document was not made public until 1988.” - March 4, 1992 Volume No. IV, Issue No. 2, EL SALVADOR THE MASSACRE AT EL MOZOTE: THE NEED TO REMEMBER

When asked to comment on the massacre in 2016, Hazelwood's response, in part, was this.

Allen Hazlewood <[email protected],Thu 9/1/2016 7:46 AM

Greg - Close hold -- We have to be very careful making assumptions without having been there.  Unless there is some type of liberal agenda -- regardless of what it looked like -- we should go with the GOES [Government of El Salvador] storyline -- do we not understand that people's life could be negatively impacted by off-the-cuff statements which could be integrated into a narrative that could result in some type of criminal charges. Being stationed with Atlacatl at the time..." 

 The January 27th stories confirming the massacre, published in the New York Times and Washington Post, written by Raymond Bonner and Alma Guillermoprieto respectfully, with grim photographs of the by now month-old hundreds of rotting corpses taken by Magnum Photos’ Susan Meiselas confirmed the reports beginning on the day of the massacre in December, and gutted the lies and intrigue being spun by Enders and Elliott Abrams in Washington, DC.

 https://pro.magnumphotos.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO4TGACU4T

Again, from Bruce Hazelwood.

Allen Hazelwood <[email protected], Mon 1/22/2018 8:32 AM

Greg - Do not know if it is a long running myth -- this the first I've heard of it. The time lines for each of the BIRIs and where and whom they were trained by is pretty well know. So are the Cazador [Hunter] battalions and the BIATs. Each unit took on the personality of their first commander -- hence Atlacatl and supposedly numerous human rights violations. FYI -- by the time Monterrosa's death he had made a 180 degree change. For three years I stayed very close to him until the end in 1984."

At the U.S. embassy Ambassador Hinton was furious. And he had reason to be. Days after the massacre Todd Greentree was approached by intermediaries for the FMLN. Until then he’d heard nothing about a massacre, much less one at El Mozote. The FMLN offered Greentree a safe conduct pass into Morazán and the cantons affected. It was an earth-shattering offer. “I knew the guerrillas would never have fabricated it, if they were offering safe conduct,” Greentree told author Mark Danner. “I was convinced that something had gone on, and that it was bad.”

Greentree met with the ambassador and described the offer. He was told he could not go, not under guerrilla escort. Kenneth Blakley, who was Greentree's superior and roommate at the embassy, told Danner “Todd was a very courageous young officer, but it was just too much of a risk to send somebody out there.”

The FMLN then made Bonner, Guillermoprieto, and Susan Meiselas the same offer weeks later. Safe conduct with guerrilla escort. They accepted after consulting with their employers. When the journalists broke the story Hinton and his entourage knew they’d screwed the pooch. They indeed had been “scooped” due to their own fear of having the truth reaffirmed by Greentree.

Hinton's solution, as articulated by Ken Blakley, was to later send both Greentree and senior embassy Marine officer Major John McKay to Morazán – with a Salvadoran infantry squad as protection. By then Hinton and the MilGrp knew full well El Mozote had been reinforced by the returning guerrillas. By that point the risk assessment factor for such a mission was off the charts.

 On January 28th, President Reagan certified the Salvadoran government was “progressing” on human rights. The guerrillas had retaken El Mozote on December 29, 1981, killing government troops left there. The village remained in their hands as they buried the dead and announced through Radio Venceremos the slaughter that had occurred.

 In late January, over a month after the first reports were received and the FMLN’s safe conduct offer rejected by Hinton, junior embassy political officer Todd Greentree and Major John McKay, a Vietnam veteran (USMC) and military attaché with an extensive and deep background in guerrilla warfare, were helicoptered out to the area. As Bruce Hazelwood writes “As you know I was working with Atlacatl during the time in question. 100% McKay and Greentree never got even close to El Mozote or other affected cantons. The soldiers proving [sp] the escort would not go with them. They returned to San Francisco Gotera and joined up with DCM [Deputy Chief of Mission] Blakley. McKay did say in a report something like -- as a Marine he felt like a chicken or coward for not continuing. They did report to AMB Hinton that they felt something happen[ed] but could not confirm FMLN's claims or Ray's information.”

John McKay's recollections differ from his harsh critic, Bruce Hazelwood. "Greentree and I, along with the Salvadoran infantry squad, made our way toward El Mozote," he told me. "Todd and I split up so we could interview the people we met along the way. It was clear something terrible had occurred. I interviewed two priests at one small village. They described what had taken place [the mass killings] by the Atlacatl. They'd been interviewing fleeing villagers and survivors, some of which I also interviewed. I know what trauma looks like. These people had experienced extreme trauma."

Roughly a mile short of El Mozote the Salvadoran infantry squad refused to go any further with the two Americans. "They were afraid. They knew what had happened," remembers McKay. According to Bruce Hazelwood's version of the authorized fact-finding mission -

Allen Hazlewood <[email protected], Sat 1/20/2018 6:40 PM

Greg - As you know I was working with Atlacatl during the time in question. 100% McKay and Greentree never got even close to El Mozote or other affected cantons. The soldiers proving the escort would no go with them. They returned to San Fransico Gotera and joined up with DCM [Kenneth] Blakley. McKay did say in a report something like -- as a Marine he felt like a chicken or coward for not continuing. They did report to AMB Hinton that they felt something happen but could not confirm [the] FMLN's claims or Ray [Bonner's] information."

However, according to John McKay during an interview with me in early May 2021, his report did indeed state it was clear, to him, the reports of a horrific and brutal massacre involving hundreds of civilian men, women, children, and infants had taken place. When he and Todd Greentree returned to the embassy they both wrote detailed accounts of what they'd seen and heard. These were then reviewed by Kenneth Blakely prior to the ambassador's review. "After the combined report went forward to the State Department," McKay told me, "I later learned that three key sentences I'd written in mine had been 'scrubbed', or deleted, most likely by Blakely. Those three sentences stated my belief the massacre had taken place."

McKay sent a cable regarding the massacre at El Mozote up his chain of command to the Marine Corps. The contents of these were not edited nor censored.

 “Mission completed”

 “In the midst of the operation, the colonels in charge held an early morning meeting. Col. Jaime Ernesto Flores Grijalba, who led the Third Brigade in San Miguel; the colonel in charge of the Fourth Military Detachment in San Francisco Gotera; and Lt. Col. Domingo Monterrosa Barrios, the Atlacatl Battalion commander, met with the Atlacatl’s executive officer, Maj. Jesus de Nvatividad Caceres Cabrera, and with the captains who commanded its five companies. They killed and butchered a steer to eat, and Monterrosa expressed his satisfaction regarding the results of the operation: ‘Mission completed,’ he told the commanders. Some soldiers carried a green cloth with white letters that said, ‘If the guerrilla returns to Morazán, the Atlacatl will return to Morazán’” – Tutela Legal 1991:62

 Author Mark Danner describes being told by knowledgeable Salvadoran officers and one senior politician that “two American advisers were actually observing the operation from the base camp at Osicala”. Further, “American advisers had been known to violate the prohibition against accompanying their charges into the field”. Thomas Enders, when asked by Danner about this, replied that such misjudgment “would have ruined those guys’ careers – they would have been cashiered, so no one’s going to volunteer, ‘Hey, I was up there…’”.

 Still, it is Enders himself who answers the million-dollar question. If an American adviser was on-scene, and did report the Atlacatl was in the process of butchering an entire population, what impact might such moral, ethical, and professional action have had on continued military aid to El Salvador? 

 “It would have been devastating,” Enders said. “American advisers with a unit that committed an atrocity? Devastating. Can you imagine anything more corrosive of the entire military effort…[it would have been] unfundable.” – The Massacre at El Mozote, Mark Danner, 1993

 I interviewed Mr. Hazelwood for my 1994 book “At the Hurricane’s Eye – U.S. Special Operations from Vietnam to Desert Storm”. When asked his opinion of the 1992 UN brokered Peace Accord this was his response. “It [the war] ended in the best possible fashion for both sides. Had the government won a military victory, the death squads would have run rampant…Had the Communists won, the Right would have feared for their lives and U.S. foreign policy would have suffered a black eye.”

 In May 1996, the 10-year grassroots political campaign conducted by the Veterans of Special Operations – El Salvador, of which I was a founder, was successful in seeing the U.S. Congress acknowledge and authorize the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for our war in El Salvador. Combat awards and decorations to include 2 posthumous POW medals, and one posthumous Silver Star (SFC Gregory Fronius, KIA 1987) soon followed. Over 100 Combat Infantryman Badges and 12 Combat Medic Badges were awarded after careful vetting by the Army, almost all of these awarded to Special Forces advisers for their service in El Salvador. When asked by Washington Post reporter Bradley Graham why such a prolonged effort was undertaken this was my response –

"The U.S. government was going to allow a clever blurring of the history of the civil war to go unchallenged," said Greg Walker, a former Army Special Forces staff sergeant who has led a veterans' campaign to gain official recognition of the U.S. military role in El Salvador.

"We wanted to correct the history," Walker explained. "We wanted to recognize the sacrifices of those who served but were made to feel they were fighting a dirty, secret war that no one wants to talk about. And we wanted to honor our dead and bring closure to their families." - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/05/06/public-honors-for-secret-combat/f764f45e-1b75-4e8c-8c32-94844434d5e0/?utm_term=.709e4ee2f4f6

Our fallen comrades, our wounded, our injured did not fight this war to thirty-eight years later forget the victims and their families of El Mozote. Or, in any way, shape, or form to protect by our silence the mass murderers and their enablers of Operation Rescante.

"Greg - Thanks and so important to keep up the momentum and a coordinated national level PR campaign. The truth must be told...all of it. - Major General (ret) Kenneth R. Bowra, Special Forces, May 10, 2021

Author bio

Greg Walker served multiple tours in El Salvador as a combat adviser in the early 1980s.

He was the Honor Graduate of Special Forces Qualification Course 3-80.

In 1997, he was the Honor Graduate of Oregon Police Officer Class 209.

In 2016, Walker was contacted by the ICE War Crimes Unit on behalf of the Dutch Prosecutor's Office in Holland. He would, as an honorably retired "Green Beret" and Oregon law enforcement officer, agree to assist not only the Dutch in their quest for Justice, but soon afterward Professor Terry Karl, the expert witness in the ongoing El Mozote massacre investigation and upcoming trial of those responsible for it.