Nov. 16, 1989 Six Jesuit Priests Assassinated
thirty five years ago today under the Bush I administration, assassins trained by the then called School of the America's at Fort Benning Georgia, trained assasins to go back to their nations and assassinate folks who had influence but were using that influence counter to US interests.
In Tacoma Wa this caused an uproar when our then DINO congress critter went into the Jesuit Church on he Jesuits world wide day of mourning, that it was tough luck, they shouldn't have been there. He was continually voting for funding of the SOA. That caused half the congregation to walk out. The progresive community of Tacoma had, had enough and wanted to run some one in the primary against him. I had just chaired a libral winning City of Tacoma initiative so they chose me. I was predicted to get 9% of the vote, but wound up with 43%. The end result was that two weeks after that primary he quit voting for such funding.
I ask us to remember two things today:
One) that we honor and remember the committment of the Jesuits who gave their lives for those who had no voice of advocacy.
Two) that we keep on engaging in the cause for peace and justice and even if we don't win right away as MLK Jr said: "the arc of the moral universe tends to bend towards justice" We have to keep on dong the bending.
So to conclude I wish to recognize the Jesuits with the acclimation used in Central America: PRESENTE!!!!!
= new reply since forum marked as read
School of the America's at Fort Benning Georgia was murdered with her bf by the son of either and fbi or cia agent.
Murder of Jesuit Priests and Civilians in El Salvador
On the morning of November 16, 1989, an elite battalion of the Salvadoran Army entered the grounds of the Jesuit University of Central America, with orders to kill Father Ignacio Ellacuría—an outspoken critic of the Salvadoran military dictatorship—and leave no witnesses. When it was all over, the soldiers had killed six Jesuit priests, a housekeeper and her daughter in cold blood. The Jesuits Massacre is one of most notorious crimes of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, which left over 75,000 people dead.
On November 13, 2008, CJA and the Spanish Association for Human Rights filed criminal charges in Spain against the former President of El Salvador and 19 former members of the military for the massacre. The Spanish court issued indictments against all accused. All but one of the defendants live in El Salvador — Colonel Inocente Montano, the former Vice Minister of Public Security who had been living outside of Boston, working as a candy-maker. As a result of the indictment in Spain and CJA’s advocacy, the Department of Homeland Security filed immigration fraud charges against Montano and he was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
More:
https://cja.org/what-we-do/litigation/the-jesuits-massacre-case/
(Colonel Inocente Montano tried to find his new life near Boston as a candy maker!)
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Nov. 16, 1989: Jesuit Scholars/Priests and Staff Massacred in El Salvador
On Nov. 16, 1989, six Jesuit scholars/priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter were murdered by the U.S. backed, trained, and equipped military in El Salvador. The priests were internationally recognized scholars who wrote and spoke extensively about the need for peace and the root causes of the war in El Salvador. They were among the 75,000 people killed during this period.
Paintings of Salvadoran Jesuit Martyrs. Artwork by Mary Pimmel. Click image to learn about the painting and artist.
The massacre was carried out by the elite Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran Army. The Army came to their residence at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University, ordered them to lay face down on the ground, and shot them. They also shot the housekeeper and her daughter to eliminate potential witnesses.
Those murdered were:
Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.
Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J.
Segundo Montes, S.J.
Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J.
Joaquín López y López, S.J.
Amando López, S.J.
Elba Ramos
Celina Ramos
Scholar Noam Chomsky wrote a statement about why we may know of the names and words of Eastern European dissidents, but not the Salvadoran,
[Eastern European dissidents] were given massive support and attention by the entire Western world, quite unprecedented support, vastly greater than the support given to people within Western domains who were suffering far worse oppression and were defending freedom and justice with far greater courage.
The disparity is so extraordinary that the very word ‘dissident’ in Western languages refers to East Europeans; no one, except those few who have extricated themselves from the Western propaganda system, even uses the word ‘dissident’ for people like the Central American Jesuit intellectuals who were assassinated in November 1989 by elite forces armed and trained by the United States.
And while every word of East European dissidents is widely publicized, hailed, and treasured, try to find even a reference to the very important and courageous writings of Fr. Ellacuría and his associates, or other Central American dissidents who had to flee from slaughter or were simply tortured and killed by U.S.-run forces.
More:
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/scholars-priests-killed/
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Jesuit priests (clockwise from top left) Joaquín López y López, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Ignacio Ellacuría, Amando López, Juan Ramón Moreno and Segundo Montes.
Stephen Kroeger
More:
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/16/774176106/i-miss-them-always-a-witness-recounts-el-salvador-s-1989-jesuit-massacre
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30 Years Ago Today in El Salvador, US-Trained Soldiers Murdered 6 Priests in Cold Blood
By
Hilary Goodfriend
Today marks thirty years since the massacre of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter by US-trained forces. But US brutality in Latin America isn’t a thing of the past: top military officials involved in the coup against Bolivian president Evo Morales were trained by the United States, too.
A procession honoring the victims of the 1989 massacre at Central American University (UCA) in El Salvador, on November 16, 2013. (Johan Bergström-Allen / Flickr)
On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter were murdered in their residence on the campus of the Jesuit Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador. Thirty years later, the massacre remains emblematic of the indiscriminate savagery exercised by the servants of the Salvadoran ruling class, the impunity they enjoy, and the devastating legacies of US intervention in the region.
The Jesuit murders drew international outcry, but the victims were only eight of some seventy-five thousand killed and ten thousand more disappeared during the twelve-year civil war (1980–1992). Formally, the conflict pitted the US-backed military dictatorship against the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) leftist guerillas. But the Salvadoran state tortured and slaughtered civilians with abandon. At the war’s close, a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission report attributed only 5 percent of the bloodshed to the insurgents. The regime and its paramilitaries bore responsibility for the vast majority of the conflict’s deaths, disappearances, and displacements.
The Salvadoran security forces didn’t carry out these horrors alone. They were armed, trained, funded, and advised by the United States. The attack at the UCA was carried out by members of the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite counterinsurgency force trained at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia. Several members of the military high command who gave the orders and participated in the cover-up were also graduates of that illustrious institution. The best way we can honor the victims of the Jesuit massacre and US-backed atrocities worldwide today is to stop them from recurring by severing the global tentacles of US empire.
. . .
Following in the footsteps of Nicaragua’s Sandinistas, the guerillas would have soon overwhelmed the antidemocratic regime were it not for US intervention. Reagan and his neocons, determined to prevent another revolutionary victory in the region, propped up the embattled dictatorship to the tune of up to $1 million per day. All the weight of the US empire could not defeat the rebels, who fought the regime to a draw in 1992.
. . .
The Murders
The events took place during the FMLN’s November 1989 “final offensive,” which brought the war from remote mountain regions to the doorsteps of the wealthiest neighborhoods in San Salvador. But it was in the working-class communities surrounding the capital where the guerillas formed their bastions, and where the Salvadoran Air Force conducted a massive bombing campaign to drive them out. The dramatic show of force failed to overthrow the regime, but it confirmed the FMLN’s formidable military capabilities and resolve, setting the stage for the UN-brokered negotiations that would eventually end the conflict.
In the first days of the insurrection, the army took over radio transmissions nationwide, broadcasting state propaganda. In an unusual move, the military opened the phone lines to callers. Denunciations and death threats poured in against union leaders, NGO representatives, and clergy, with messages like, “Ellacuría is a guerrillero. They should cut his head off!” The vice president himself accused the priest of “poisoning the minds” of Salvadoran youth.
When the offensive began, the Atlacatl Battalion was in the midst of a training by US Special Forces at their western headquarters. One commando unit was dispatched to the military command center in San Salvador, located within blocks of the UCA. They arrived on November 13, and were immediately ordered to search the Jesuit residence on the university campus. The soldiers turned up nothing. They would return two days later with a far more sinister task.
On the evening of November 15, as the FMLN’s assault continued full force, the entirety of El Salvador’s military leadership gathered at the command center, accompanied by US advisers. President Alfredo Cristiani was also on hand, signing off on the areal bombings. The UN Truth Commission would subsequently conclude that General René Emilio Ponce, chief of staff of the Salvadoran Armed Forces, gave the order to assassinate Ellacuría that night — and to leave no witnesses.
More:
https://jacobin.com/2019/11/el-salvador-murders-jesuits-uca-school-of-the-americas
(Almost all stories don't mention the housekeeper/cook who was also murdered, along with her 16 year old daughter, worked there with her husband, who was also the caretaker and gardener for the Jesuit scholars/priests. He wasn't there at the time of the assassinations or he would have been killed, also.)
