X post: What would Oscar Romero say to Barack Obama?

[EFerrari]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x732101

[Bacchus39]

1. love the response to your post

lol

[EFerrari]

2. Yes, people don't know their own history, let alone recognize

their government's victims.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks for linking the thread. I didn't see it, not usually taking time to look at G.D. too much.

There are probably many people who are in a rush for time who just peek in at L.B.N., I'll betcha, and miss a whole lot of good information.

Yep, it's a natural wonder that President Obama ever went to that resting place of Bishop Romero. I hope it wasn't a cynical ploy, but meant as an authentic gesture of respect.

Thanks again for the link to the other thread.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Former President Valenti, ARENA, went full bull goose looney over the respects paid to Romero.

Obama to visit human rights activist's tomb
By MARCOS ALEMAN

~snip~
I imagine that (Obama) is doing something natural ... a courtesy visit to someone who is supposed to represent some measure of national spirit, (but) half of Salvadorans do not believe Romero is worthy of sanctification," Mario Valenti, a former president and member of the right-wing party Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, was quoted by El Mundo newspaper as saying in its Friday edition.

Obama "should also go to the grave of Major Roberto d'Aubuisson," Valenti said, referring to the notorious death squad leader.

Before his death in 1992, D'Aubuisson denied ordering Romero's killing, but the following year a U.N. truth commission on El Salvador concluded that he had.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/18/v-lite/1590403/obama-to-visit-human-rights-activists.html

[EFerrari]

6. Oh, ugh.

He really should stick to vodka and canasta and not embarrass his class in public like that.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Right after Pres. Obama left El Salvador, these documents were made public.

These formerly classified documents have become public property through the efforts of the National Security Archive:

"Learn from History", 31st Anniversary of the Assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 339
Posted - March 23, 2011
By: Kate Doyle and Emily Willard

~snip~
The documents are being posted as President Barak Obama leaves El Salvador, his final stop on a five-day trip to Latin America. Obama spent part of his time in the country with a visit to Monsignor Romero’s tomb last night. Although the United States funneled billions of dollars to the tiny country in support of the brutal army and security forces during a counterinsurgency war that left 75,000 civilians dead, the president made no reference to the U.S. role, seeking in his speeches instead to focus on immigration and security concerns. The day before his visit to Romero’s gravesite, Obama had told an audience in Chile that it was important that the United States and Latin America “learn from history, that we understand history, but that we not be trapped by history, because many challenges lie ahead.”

Just weeks before his murder, Archbishop Romero published an open letter to President Jimmy Carter in the Salvadoran press, asking the United States not to intervene in El Salvador’s fate by arming brutal security forces against a popular opposition movement. Romero warned that U.S. support would only “sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights.” Despite his plea, President Carter moved to approve $5 million in military aid less than one year after the archbishop’s murder, as Carter was leaving office in January 1981.

Included in the posting are documents reporting on a secret, behind-the-scene effort by the United States to enlist the Vatican in pressuring Romero over his perceived support for the Salvadoran left; an account of the archbishop’s powerful March 23, 1980, homily, given the day before his assassination; a description of the murder by the U.S. defense attaché in El Salvador; and an extraordinary embassy cable describing a meeting organized by rightist leader Roberto D’Aubuisson in which participants draw lots to determine who would be the triggerman to kill Romero.

Although the declassified documents do not reveal the extent of the plot to kill Romero or the names of those who murdered him, details in them support the findings of the 1993 report by the U.N.-mandated Truth Commission for El Salvador. Released shortly after the signing of the peace accords that ended the war in El Salvador, the report identified D’Aubuisson, Captains Alvaro Rafael Saravia and Eduardo Avila, and Fernando (“El Negro”) Sagrera as among those responsible for the assassination. On March 25 of last year, Carlos Dada of El Salvador’s on-line news site El Faro published an extraordinary interview with Alvaro Saravia, one of the masterminds of Romero’s killing. In the interview, Saravia revealed chilling details of the plot to murder Romero; see a transcript of the interview, “How We Killed the Archbishop......"

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB339/index.htm

[EFerrari]

7. I think Saravia is the one who was here in California.

My friend Rolando told me the mission's driver was here -- in Fresno? -- and I believe that was the name. Found this:

Salvadoran citizen and a former Captain in the Salvadoran Air Force, Alvaro Saravia was a resident of the city of Modesto in the Central Valley of California at the time CJA filed suit against him. In 1979, Saravia left the Salvadoran military, and from that time worked closely with reputed death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson. D’Aubuisson, in conjunction with elements of the Salvadoran armed forces and far right Salvadoran civilians in El Salvador, Guatemala and the United States founded the far right political movement Frente Amplio Nacional (“FAN”) and the far right political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (“ARENA”). D’Aubuisson organized death squads – paramilitary organizations composed of civilians and military figures – that systematically carried out politically-motivated assassinations and other human rights abuses in El Salvador. D’Aubuisson died of cancer in 1992, without ever having been brought to justice for his crimes.

Saravia lived in the United States since at least 1987, when he was jailed for 14 months on immigration and extradition charges. Salvadoran prosecutors sought his extradition for his role in the Romero assassination but the Salvadoran Supreme Court later withdrew the extradition request in a decision denounced as dubious and politically motivated by the U.N. Truth Commission, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and many human rights organizations.

Saravia was released from a U.S. federal prison on bond in 1988 following the Salvadoran Court’s decision and took up residence in California and Florida. It is believed that Saravia went into hiding, after the filing of CJA’s case against him in 2003. Although he remains on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s most wanted list, there is reason to believe that Saravia now resides in Latin America.

On March 24, 2006 the Miami Herald published an interview with Saravia in which he acknowledged his role in the murder of Archbishop Romero and indicated that he was at work on a book detailing the roles of his co-conspirators. <1> In the interview, Saravia stated that he knows the identity of the shooter, but said he would only divulge it in exchange for guarantees of his safety. According to the Herald, the interview was conducted in an unnamed Latin American country, per Saravia’s request.

http://www.cja.org/article.php?id=479

With all these animals here and all the refugees from the war here, it's surprising there haven't been more acts of reprisal, seriously.

[Judi Lynn]

8. What a shame he and his cronies weren't caught still in the area of the Plaza before they could flee

It would be such a needed cleansing to see them ALL brought to justice, all of them. Too bad D'auBuisson died before he could be tried for his crimes again humanity.

Hope Saravia has been living every day in total fear he couldn't rest, couldn't sleep, always looking over his shoulder. If he is back in Latin America, I hope someone will recognize him soon and have him rounded up.

That link you provided said the ARENA people are making sure no one ever gets prosecuted for the murder of at least 75,000 human beings.

That makes it absolutely necessary they get a new generation of progressive politicians, then, and they finally move past that immunity problem, and start prosecuting them like Chile finally did, and Argentina. I think Brazil still hasn't gotten to the stage they've gone after too many, if any, yet. These monsters got their claws very deeply into the government before they started murdering people. It seems to take forever to pry their nasty fingers away.

I have to save this link for future reference. I never saw the video of the panic which ocurred when the right-wing filth started shooting down the men, women, and children who came to mourn the murder of Bishop Romero at his funeral. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that video would be very pleasurable to a few local right-wingers, who might view it as a "party" video, and end up snarfing on their computers.

As written in the Christian book, "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth." That definitely means NOT the bastards who would do things like this. Their day will come, if there's any point to life at all.

Thank you.

[Judi Lynn]

9. You know, Saravia could end up in South Florida. It seems to be a death squad people magnet.

It attracts all those whose lives might be hanging by a thread if their fellow men/women got a glimpse of them in the present, after their regimes lost momentum.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Salvadoran killed by U.S.-trained assassins (U.S. LTTE)

Salvadoran killed by U.S.-trained assassins
5:42 PM, Mar. 25, 2011

During his recent trip to Latin America, President Barack Obama paid homage to the assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, an El Salvadoran hero famous for standing with the poor during the war-torn 1980s. Romero was assassinated while giving mass 31 years ago.

In El Salvador, the president acknowledged Romero's heroism and bravery.

However, what he failed to mention is that the archbishop's assassination was planned and carried out by individuals trained by the United States at the School of the Americas (SOA).

The SOA is still in operation, training Latin American soldiers who become human rights abusers at an astonishing rate.

More:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110327/OPINION04/103270315/Salvadoran-killed-by-U-S-trained-assassins

[Judi Lynn]

11. U.S. played a role in archbishop's 1980 slaying - LTTE

U.S. played a role in archbishop's 1980 slaying
Published 04:10 p.m., Monday, March 28, 2011

During his recent stop in El Salvador, President Barack Obama paid homage to Archbishop Oscar Romero's acts of solidarity with the poor.

The archbishop was shot dead March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. In his tribute to Romero, Obama failed to mention the circumstances surrounding his death: a U.S.-funded civil war and the squadron of men who carried out Romero's assassination, including those trained in the United States.

They were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas, now the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, based at Fort Benning, Ga., and funded with U.S. tax dollars. The school continues to train Latin American soldiers, mainly from Colombia, which has surpassed El Salvador as the most notorious human rights violator in the region.

It's irresponsible and dishonest to pay tribute to a man without acknowledging our own role in his death, and the role we continue to play in similar acts of violence in Latin America.

http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/U-S-played-a-role-in-archbishop-s-1980-slaying-1311371.php