Ombud Urges Redress For Victims 25 Years After End Of Salvadoran Civil War

[Judi Lynn]

Ombud Urges Redress For Victims 25 Years After End Of Salvadoran Civil War


SAN SALVADOR, Dec 22 (BERNAMA-NNN-EFE) -- Nearly 25 years after the end of its 1980-1992 civil war, El Salvador still has a debt pending with victims of that conflict while also experiencing a spiral of violence that leaves thousands dead every year and many children and adolescents vulnerable to recruitment by gangs, national ombud Raquel Caballero said.

Caballero said the Salvadoran government had taken small but insufficient steps to make amends to families affected by the war, which claimed the lives of around 75,000 people, and called for a law to be passed to provide reparations.

Two months before Caballero took office for a three-year term, El Salvador's Supreme Court struck down a 1993 law that had provided a blanket amnesty for crimes committed during the armed conflict.

That ruling has cleared the way for investigations into war crimes such as murders and enforced disappearances and opened the possibility of redress for victims.

More:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/wn/newsworld.php?id=1313852

For anyone who never saw images of that US-supported war against the poor, here are graphic images:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1217&bih=561&q=El+Salvador+civil+war&oq=El+Salvador+civil+war&gs_l=img.3..0l10.1546.6292.0.6554.21.10.0.11.11.0.177.1379.0j9.9.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..1.20.1558.Nxd8dNAFUBs#imgdii=I4dQyebGZEbwzM%3A%3BI4dQyebGZEbwzM%3A%3BKYQONL46q4QzDM%3A&imgrc=I4dQyebGZEbwzM%3A

I was so surprised to see it contained a photo of Archbishop Óscar Romero as a very young priest, many years before a US-trained military sniper assassinated him as he was giving mass:

[center]







Photo that appeared in El País on
7 November 2009 with the information
that the state of El Salvador recognized
its responsibility in the crime.

Massacre in El Salvador during Oscar Romero's funeral

Same people, the El Salvador military opened up
on the mourners who came to attend the funeral. [/center]
From the last sermon given by this courageous, decent human being, who cared for the poor of El Salvador:

I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.

The church preaches your liberation just as we have studied it in just as we have studied it in the holy Bible today. It is a liberation that has, above all else, respect for the dignity of the person, hope for humanity's common good, and the transcendence that looks before all to God and only from God derives its hope and its strength.

From:http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Human%20Rights%20Documents/Archbishop_Romero.html

To all the trolls who hate the poor, the suffering, those born without your advantages, those who come to progressive boards to spew your racist, fascist baloney and keep lib'rals and democratic people from communicating with each other, remember one man like this is worth more than all of you on earth now, and forever. You know it, and we all know it.