Roque Dalton García (San Salvador, El Salvador, 14 May 1935 – Quezaltepeque, El Salvador, 10 May 1975) was a leftist Salvadoran poet and journalist. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets. He wrote emotionally strong, sometimes sarcastic, and image-loaded works dealing with life, death, love, and politics.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Writing and political career 3 Trivia 4 References 5 Bibliography 5.1 Poetry 5.2 Essays 5.3 Fiction 6 External links

[edit] Early life and education

Dalton was the son of Winnall Dalton and María García Medrano. Winnall Dalton emigrated to Mexico, fought in the Mexican Revolution and came to El Salvador in the early 1920s. Winnall Dalton married Aida Ulloa, from the well-known and wealthy Salvadorian family, descendant of General Francisco Morazan (one of the most important leaders in the history of Central America) . He gained control of his wife's large farm and dedicated his life to agriculture. He survived a homicide attempt. The nurse who took care of Winnall Dalton in the Salvadoran hospital, María García Medrano, later gave birth to Roque Dalton. Her hard work and good luck allowed her to provide their children a high-quality education.

Roque graduated from Externado San José, an exclusive Jesuit school for boys in San Salvador. Afterwards he was sent by his father to Santiago in Chile to study law in the Universidad Nacional de Chile. There, he established close relationships to Leftist students and attended lectures with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Around this time, he developed a great interest in Socialism.

When he returned to El Salvador, he was accepted by the Law School of the Universidad de El Salvador (UES) and in 1955 he and the Guatemalan poet Otto René Castillo founded Círculo Literario Universitario, which published some of Central America's most recognized literary figures.

[edit] Writing and political career

In 1961 he travelled to Havana, where he was welcomed by Casa de las Américas, a gathering place for many exiled leftist Latin American writers. Dalton returned clandestinely to El Salvador in 1965 but was soon caught and taken prisoner again. He awaited execution in Cojutepeque, but he was miraculously saved. There was an earthquake and the wall from his prison cell fell down. Dalton took advantage of this and escaped, he slipped into a passing religious procession and managed to meet his fellow revolutionaries who helped him escape to Cuba again. He was then sent to Prague as a correspondent for The International Review: Problems for Peace and Socialism. While he was in Prague, he wrote his internationally acclaimed Taberna y Otros Lugares. He also produced a landmark biography of Miguel Mármol, a prominent Salvadoran communist who participated in the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising and was living in exile in Prague.

In 1970 Roque Dalton had become a recognized figure in the Salvadoran left. He tried hard to become a revolutionary soldier, for which reason he participated in military training camps in Cuba several times. He once wrote "Politics are taken up at the risk of life, or else you don't talk about it".

Roque Dalton (1937-75) was the major literary figure and an important political architect of the revolutionary movement in El Salvador. Dalton represents a new type of Latin American writer: no longer the genial 'fellow traveler' of the revolution, like Pablo Neruda, but rather the rank and file revolutionary activist for whom the intricate cabbala of clandestine struggle-pass- words, safe houses, escape routes, forged documents, sectarian squabbles- was as familiar as Parisian surrealism. A dangerous and difficult profession, in which the event that seals a writer's reputation is often precocious martyrdom. ^[1]:[74]

When he felt ready as a soldier, he sought admission in the Salvadoran Marxist-Leninist, political-military organization FPL -Fuerzas Populares de Liberación "Farabundo Marti-" (Popular Liberation Forces "Farabundo Marti" in English). However, the organization's leader, Commander "Marcial" (whose real name was Salvador Cayetano Carpio), rejected his application, arguing that Roque's role in the revolution was as a poet, and not as a foot-soldier. Because of this, he applied to join the ERP - Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo- (People's Revolutionary Army in English). Though Dalton himself was not allowed to become part of the FPL, both his sons joined the FPL in the late 70s. Roque Dalton's military career also included cooperation with Guatemalan revolutionaries in creating EGP - Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor in English).

Once an active member in ERP, Dalton stressed the importance of establishing bonds with the organizations from civil society. Some of the other members of ERP disagreed with him. They accused him of trying to divide the organization. This group, whose most internationally known leader was Joaquin Villalobos ("Atilio"), allegedly condemned him to death on 10 May 1975, only four days before Roque was to turn 40. Therefore, Dalton's literary production stopped when a group of commandos, whose members were Joaquin Villalobos and Jorge Melendez (nom de guerre 'Jonas') ended his life. This commando was sent by Edgar Alejandro Rivas Mira. Roque was shot to death in a house in Santa Anita neighbourhood in San Salvador city. There were possibly others involved in his execution, but these are the ones still alive today: Villalobos settled in Great Britain; Melendez is an MP for San Salvador City for FMLN and Rivas Mira hides behind plastic surgeries, which were paid with money obtained from the kidnapping and murder of the multi-millionaire Roberto Poma. The most commonly accepted version of facts suggests that Dalton was "mistakenly accused" of operating as an agent for the CIA, reason for which he was executed.

In 1975, he was back in El Salvador working in the underground. This was a difficult time for the revolutionary movement, and Dalton's own organization, the ERP, was torn by a bitterfactional fight. Dalton criticized the organization's military adventurism and argued the need to build a mass base. Under circumstances that still remain obscure, he was accused of complicity with the CIA and assassinated by members of a rival faction of the ERP.^[2]

The reason was that many things he was privy to were subsequently known by the government, and by implication the CIA. It is commonly suggested that someone Roque knew, and confided in, was an "oreja" (ear, or CIA spy/informant) and this is how confidential information was being discovered. Both the FPL and ERP were founding organizations of a united guerrilla front known as FMLN.

Other known cases of revolutionaries being executed by FMLN forces include Commander Roberto Castellanos, who has been regarded as a proven case of treason and was gunned down by FMLN commandos while he worked alongside government forces, against his former guerrilla peers. The other important case is the one of commander Mayo Sibrian who was found guilty of a series of abuses during a summary trial, performed by the FPL leadership. The summary conviction of Sibrian accounted for ordering the deaths of eight-hundred FPL combatants in a war front under Sibrian's authority. Sibrian was also said to be mentally disturbed (somewhat resembling commander Castellanos' case) after being liberated from the government of El Salvador's torture chambers by the FMLN. Unlike Roque Dalton's case, the FMLN kept the previous heroic history of the executed commanders in a low profile. These incidents, just like Commander Salvador Cayetano Carpio's case, are not listed in the United Nations' Commission on the Truth for El Salvador reports. This Truth commission was under the mandate of ONUSAL. Carpio's case was clear of any wrong-doing after his suicide-death in Nicaragua. Carpio's not-guilty verdict was passed by a Nicaraguan government's court of justice. Carpio had been accused by the FMLN leadership of being behind the extrajudicial execution of Commander Melida Anaya Montes. FMLN hardliners regarded Anaya Montes as playing along CIA counter-insurgency plans, thus promoting the working class revolution's self-defeating strategies. The perpetrators of Anaya's death accepted boldly their responsibility during their trial by Nicaraguan prosecutors. They were all members of Anaya's own security personnel and never linked Carpio to their actions. However, this version is contested by Salvador Sanchez Ceren, former FPL leader, current vice-president and education minister for the Republic of El Salvador.^{[citation needed]}Salvador Sanchez Ceren (better known as Commander Leonel Gonzales)was one of the founders of the FPL and the FMLN. The FPL originated April 1st. 1970 and had at its core in the Central Command "Comando Central": Commander Marcial^[3](baker and communist organizer), Commander Eva(university student, fallen in combat during the early years of the FPL existence), Commander Ana Maria (PhD in education and General Secretary of the National Teachers' Association ANDES June 21, ANDES 21 de Junio), Commander Leonel Gonzales (teacher), Commander Dimas Rodriguez (farmers' unions organizer), Commander Salvador Guerra (a very secretive figure still alive and well...), the universtity student Felipe Pena (fallen in combat and brother of sisters Commander Isabel or "Chabela" and Commander Rebeca Palacios which was the nom-de-guerre for present-day national parliament member Lorena Pena) and Commander Dimas Alas (fallen in combat along with Commander Eva. Eva is better known by her real name Clara Elizabeth Ramirez. The Metropolitan Front or Central Front for the FPL during the Guerra Popular Prolongada GPP (Popular Prolonged War) bore her name: Frente Metropolitano "Clara Elizabeth Ramirez" or FCER. After the dramatic events in Managua 1983 which brought about the deaths of the 1st and 2nd in command of the FPL -Marcial and Ana Maria- the FPL and the FMLN were on the brink of splitting in half but...only a minority faction, the FCER (Spanish acronym meaning Clara Elizabeth Ramirez Front) did break away from them. The FCER fought valiantly agaist the corrupt Salvadorean government and criticized harshly the FPL and FMLN political positions. The FCER controlled by large the capital city San Salvador and the hills of the San Salvador Volcano. The FCER claimed responsibility for the killings of several bosses of the notorious Death Squads including their most senior founding figure: General Medrano (who is credited as the trainer of Major Roberto D'Abuisson who is internationally pointed out as the intellectual murderer of Mons. Oscar Arnulfo Romero), the FCER also claimed responsibility for the killing of the infamous death squad torture leader "El Nino de Oro" or "Gold Boy." The FCER also attacked the central headquarters of the National Police in broad daylight. Other actions undertaken by the FCER was the killing of the chief officer of the COPREFA Comite de Prensa de la Fuerza Armada (Salvadorean Army Press Committee): Captain Aviles as well as the killing of the leader of the U.S. military advisers for the government of El Salvador. During this stage of the war, the FMLN sided with the salvadorean government and together wiped out completely the FCER by 1985. The rest of the history of the civil war in El Salvador was runned only by the FMLN and the corrupt Salvadorean government with the only complex stage being the turning of one of the founding organizations of the FMLN, the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos PRTC or Central American Revolutionary Workers' Party into a -Salvadorean only- organization and subsequently transforming it into a non-armed,legal political party. Before these events, the PRTC claimed responsibility for the killings of a group of U.S. military advisers, their death-squad body guards and police escorts in the controversial Zona Rosa attacks. Until recently, some FMLN members were denied U.S. visas due to these happenings.

[edit] Trivia

• Roque Dalton is currently featured on Salvadoran postage stamps.
• According to a legend, Roque Dalton underwent plastic surgery during this time. He did this in order to be able to return clandestinely to El Salvador. According to the Salvadoran writer Claribel Alegría, he had to disguise his long nose and flapping ears. He grew a moustache, started using eye glasses and went around with a different hairdo.
• Roque Dalton was already politically active in El Salvador when the Cuban revolution started in 1959. This year he was arrested and was allegedly sentenced to be executed by a firing squad. The day before his execution, Col. José María Lemus was overthrown from presidency, and because of this, Dalton's life was spared. Once he was freed from jail, he travelled to Mexico in exile and wrote much of the material that appeared in his books El Turno del Ofendido and La Ventana en el Rostro
• Roque Dalton is credited with the following quote: "Poetry, like bread, is for everyone."
• Roque Dalton's "Poema de Amor" (Love Poem)^[4] is the most popular poem among the Salvadoran community abroad. Many of his poems have been put into songs. Dalton's "Poema de Amor" was musicalized by the group Yolocamba Ita.
• The two sons of Roque Dalton: Roquito (i.e. Roque Dalton Jr.) and Juan Jose (also known as "El Vaquerito") joined the FPL and were founding members of the FMLN in 1980. Juan Jose (whose FPL nom-de-guerre was Joaquin) had the honor to have the main speech on the FMLN's founding parade in Cuba. The other orator during the parade was suppose to be Commander Fidel Castro but due to security reasons the speech was delegated to Division General Arnaldo Ochoa.
• Roque Dalton and his two sons were the theme for a song by Latin America's best known revolutionary singer, the famous Cuban leader of the Nueva Trova: Silvio Rodriguez. The song is titled "Unicornio" (Unicorn).

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Poetry

• Mía junto a los pájaros, San Salvador, 1957
• La ventana en el rostro, México, 1961
• El mar, La Habana, 1962
• El turno del ofendido, La Habana, 1962
• Los testimonios, La Habana, 1964
• Poemas. Antología, San Salvador, 1968
• Taberna y otros lugares, Premio Casa de las Américas, La Habana, 1969
• Los pequeños infiernos, Barcelona, 1970
• In Translation to English: "Small Hours of the Night", translated by Jonathan Cohen, James Graham,

Ralph Nelson, Paul Pines, Hardie St. Martin and David Unger. Edited by Hardie St. Martin, Curbstone Press, 1997.

[edit] Essays

• "César Vallejo", La Habana, 1963
• "El intellectual y la sociedad", 1969
• "¿Revolución en la revolución? y la crítica de la derecha", La Habana, 1970
• "Miguel Mármol y los sucesos de 1932 en El Salvador", 1972
• "Las historias prohibidas del Pulgarcito", México, 1974
• "El Salvador (monografia)" UCA Editores.

[edit] Fiction

Pobrecito poeta que era yo, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1994, 2005

[edit] External links

• Roque Dalton
• Roque Dalton
• Latin America's Clandestine Poet: Roque Dalton
• Nina Serrano on the assassination of a poet
• Poet Jack Hiirschman letter to the Nation Magazine concerning Roque