The Six Jesuit Scholars and the American War on Self-Determination
The Six Jesuit Scholars and the American War on Self-Determination
by Matt Peppe / November 12th, 2014
Twenty-five years ago this week, six Jesuit scholars at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in El Salvador opened the doors of their residence to members of a government death squad, who had been armed and trained by the United States. The soldiers marched the priests to the back garden. They were ordered to lie face down. They were shot and killed like dogs along with their housekeeper and her teenage daughter.
Father Ignacio Ellacuría Bescoetxea, one of the six Jesuits executed that night, had been a vocal advocate for a negotiated political settlement to the war that had devastated the small Central American country over the course of the decade. On November 16, 1989, Ellacuría would become one of the more than 75,000 killed in the brutal violence carried out by the military dictatorship.
The ruling junta was the beneficiary of billions in military aid from the United States government, which they received for their efforts to suppress a populist rebellion by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).
Nine years earlier, Archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Romero had been gunned down at the altar by a death squad member while he was in the middle of celebrating Mass. Before his assassination, Romero had sent a letter to President Jimmy Carter pleading with him to stop sending military aid to the Salvadoran military junta. Romero made his case to Carter “because you are a Christian and because you have shown that you want to defend human rights.”
At its peak during the 12-year civil war in El Salvador, U.S. aid to the military government averaged $1.5 million per day. Romero argued that by arming and training the military of El Salvador “the contribution of your government instead of promoting greater justice and peace in El Salvador will without a doubt sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their most fundamental human rights.”
Romero’s letter went unanswered. Two weeks later, Romero was dead at the hand of the same forces he had warned Carter of.
More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/11/the-six-jesuit-scholars-and-the-american-war-on-self-determination/
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