Obama to visit human rights activist's tomb

[Judi Lynn]

March 18, 2011
Obama to visit human rights activist's tomb

(AP) SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — President Barack Obama will visit the tomb of slain Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero during his visit to El Salvador next week, a gesture that some say is U.S. recognition of the slain human rights activist's cause.

Romero spoke out against repression by the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army during the Central American country's 12-year civil war in which at least 75,000 people died. He was gunned down March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass in a hospital chapel. The government and leftist guerrillas reached a peace treaty in 1992.

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Robert White, who was the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador in the early 1980s, said that the visit by Obama to Romero's tomb "is like a U.S. stamp of approval on the positive influence Romero's life and death have had on Latin America and the world."

The visit "is a declaration that the United States is no longer identified with oligarchic governments," added White, who is now director of the Washington-based Center for International Policy, a foreign policy think tank.

More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/18/ap/latinamerica/main20044877.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

1. El Salvador's long-ago civil war still colors U.S. relations

Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011
El Salvador's long-ago civil war still colors U.S. relations
By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

SAN SALVADOR — Fighting a wave of drug-related crime that's sweeping Central America will be among President Barack Obama's top agenda items next week when he arrives in this tiny Central American nation, but neither he nor any U.S. officials will meet with El Salvador's chief public security official.

That's because U.S. diplomats say Public Security Minister Manuel Melgar has "blood on his hands," stemming from the 1985 killing of four U.S. Marines as they dined in this city's upscale restaurant district during the height of this country's civil war.

At the time, Melgar was a guerrilla chief in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the leftist rebel army that put down its weapons in 1992 and is now part of the coalition government. The U.S. backed the Salvadoran government, which was accused of using death squads to intimidate its opponents.

These days, Melgar wears suits, not khaki rebel attire. He tosses orders to civil servants like his guerrilla underlings once tossed hand grenades. But the fallout from that muggy June evening in 1985 still haunts U.S-Salvadoran relations.

More:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/16/110553/el-salvadors-long-ago-civil-war.html