Blood of Paradise

361 Pages·2007·1.85 MB·English

by  David Corbett

Blood of Paradise
A Novel
David Corbett
CONTENTS
Glossary of Terms
PART I: WHATEVER BECAME OF THE LAUGH MASTERS?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
PART II: CANDYMAN
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
PART III: SINCE I MET THE DEVIL
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
PART IV: THE ONE LOST SHEEP
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
PART V: FACELESS
American Business Consultant Murdered in El Salvador
41
42
43
PART VI: CLARA
44
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
From Troy to Baghdad
this book is dedicated to the memory of
José Gilberto Soto,
an American citizen
and union organizer
murdered in El Salvador
on November 5, 2004.
The crime remains unsolved.
The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, with which it has often been
compared, but El Salvador.
—Peter Maass, “The Way of the Commandos,”
The New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2005

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
ARENA Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, the major right-wing political
party in El Salvador areneros supporters of ARENA
CAFTA Central American Free Trade Agreement
catorce familias the “fourteen families,” an extended group of related
Salvadoran families of particular wealth, power, and social prominence
caudillo a large property holder, military leader, or other “strongman”
Chávez, Hugo Leftist president of Venezuela; the current bête noir of
American foreign policy in Latin America efemelenistas supporters of the
FMLN
FMLN Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, the major left-
wing political party in El Salvador, formerly the unified guerrilla opposition
Fuerza Aérea the Salvadoran air force
LEGAT legal attaché, the head of an overseas FBI office
Los Patrióticos a war-era death squad consisting of middle-and upper-class
professionals operating out of the First Brigade’s civil defense training
program Los Soldados de San Miguel a (fictional) death squad operating
in eastern El Salvador maquila a factory that assembles imported
components for export mara a Central American gang
Mara Dieciocho the smaller of the two main Salvadoran gangs, an outgrowth
of the Eighteenth Street gang (Calle 18) in Los Angeles Mara Salvatrucha
the larger of the two main Salvadoran gangs, originally formed by
Salvadoran refugees in Los Angeles as protection against Mexican gangs,
specifically the Eighteenth Street Gang—members are called salvatruchos
marero a Salvadoran gang member
Mercado Nacional de Artesanías artisans’ market, where native crafts can be
purchased ODIC the Overseas Development Insurance Corporation—a
(fictional) export credit agency funding and insuring American investment
in international development projects placa a hand signal denoting gang
affiliation
PNC Policía Nacional Civil, the national police force formed after the UN
Peace Accords to supplant military involvement in routine police work
remesas remittances—i.e., money sent back to El Salvador from migrants
abroad SOUTHCOM Southern Command, the U.S. military’s regional
command structure for Latin America
PART I
WHATEVER
BECAME OF THE
LAUGH MASTERS?
It’s only those who do nothing that make no
mistakes, I suppose.
—Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands