Roque Dalton

On January 7, 2012, the Fiscalía Nacional, prosecuting agency for the FMLN lead Salvadoran government, decree that the statute of limitations for the murder of Roque Dalton had expired. Juan José Dalton said of the act “Villalobos gave an interview where he states who made the decision to kill [my father]: Vladimir Rogel, [Jorge] Meléndez [y Villalobos]. That would be enough in any decent nation of this planet for a prosecutor to proceed.” El Salvador, not one of those places, instead printed a stamp with his effigy and declared his death a national tragedy.

On May 4, 2010, the magazine Contrapunto published an interview with Jorge Meléndez, at the time the director of Civil Protection, and known during the civil war as Commander Jonas. During the interview he said with respect to the murder, “I was there and know that which transpired there.” Although the comments by Tomás André, the correspondent for Contrapunto who conducted the interview are not known, the historical importance of the interview can be certainly discerned by the depth and extraordinary nature of the encounter that Melendez was well aware of the nature of the process that resulted in the assassination of Dalton and his friend Pancho. To those who knew the author, the answer by Roque Dalton to the statements by this man could be easily imagined. What is clear is that Roque Dalton would have not been displeased if anyone had then said that even now, the murderers are afraid of him, and that the accusations of CIA collaboration were then and now a simple after the fact excuse of a group of terrorists fully aware of the hideous nature of their acts. ("Yo, Roque Dalton", 2012).

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

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 Joaquín 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 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 the 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, the reason for which he was executed.

After leaving Cuba, Dalton became involved in El Salvador's civil war, joining the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) in 1973. In the ERP, he found himself in a serious internal dispute with leader Alejandro Rivas Mira, who was becoming an influential leader of the armed group. As a consequence, the leadership of the ERP decided to execute him.

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".

Dalton's writing includes almost 15 poetry collections, a novel, a personal testimony, and a play, as well as short stories, critiques, and essays on both literature and politics. Some of his poetry has been translated to English, French, Czech, Russian and Italian. According to Luis Melgar Brizuela, he had the greatest influence from 1967 until the end of the Salvadoran Civil War in 1992. This was especially the case in leftist literary and intellectual groups, among them the literary groups Piedra y Siglo, La Masacuata and Xibalbá, as well as in the content of the magazines Abra and Taller de Letras, published by José Simeón Cañas Central American University, the Literary Supplement 3000 in the Diario Co Latino, Amate, and La Universidad.

In 1961, he was exiled from El Salvador, spending 1961 in Mexico, then moving to Cuba – where most of his poetry was published and where he completed his development as an author, but also in Mexico and Czechoslovakia. In Cuba, he became involved in the culture and received military training after the Bay of Pigs Invasion. After returning to El Salvador in 1965, he was arrested and interrogated by an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1969, he returned to Cuba and then Prague to work as correspondent for The International Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism. In the same year, he won the Poetry Prize Casa de las Américas for his book Taberna y otros lugares.

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. 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.

Even though he never received an academic degree, he took part in higher education at the University of Chile and the University of El Salvador, where he studied law. He also visited the National Autonomous University of Mexico. While in Chile, he began to study Marxism and on returning to El Salvador, he became a significant player in local politics. He began working with poetry after helping found the University Literary Circle. He joined the Communist Party of El Salvador. He was imprisoned in 1959 and 1960 for inciting revolt during the presidency of José María Lemus.

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.

Roque Antonio Dalton García (San Salvador, El Salvador, 14 May 1935 – Quezaltepeque, El Salvador, 10 May 1975), born Roque Antonio García, better known as Roque Dalton, was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, communist activist, and intellectual. 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.

Dalton was the son of Winnall Dalton and María García Medrano. Winnall Dalton emigrated to Mexico, and came to El Salvador in the early 1920s. Winnall Dalton married Aida Ulloa, and gaining control of his wife's large farm dedicated his life to agriculture. He survived an assassination 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.