Echos of Impunity: From Monseñor Romero to Radio Victoria

This spring, the Romero Coalition has offered a Monday evening class on Monsignor Oscar Romero, and the case of his murder. Topics have included Monseñor Romero: The Historical Context; the Assassination of Monseñor Romero; The Salvadoran Amnesty Law; and The Monseñor Romero Case in the Interamerican Human Rights Commission, among others. On Monday, May 16th, the class focused on Monseñor Romero and Impunity. Mirna Perla, a Salvadoran Supreme Court Magistrate and long time human rights activist gave a moving talk about Monseñor Romero and continuing waves of impunity in El Salvador and beyond. The following is an excerpt from her talk:

Monseñor Romero was a simple man with the vocation of a prophet and a martyr. I had the good fortune to know him from a very young age. He was our parish priest. My mom was a very religious woman, always praying, and followed his every word.

In the context of a country filled with political fervor, Monseñor Romero never opted for one political party or another.He was a servant of God, and he came to realize that a servant of God puts himself at the service of the people. The rich declared him a traitor. They attacked him, defamed him, and even killed him. This crime remains unpunished in the Salvadoran courts of justice, and before the Interamerican Human Rights Commission, whose recommendations the government has yet to fulfill.

If we analyze what is happening in this country, we see that the threats Monseñor Romero received are not a thing of the past, but continue in the present. Just ask our friends from Radio Victoria. They are receiving threats that say, “Ya le vamos a matar,” “We are going to kill you now” and these threats are not a joke or in vain. They are very serious threats.  They have already killed various environmental activists. Marcelo Rivera was persecuted, threatened, and suffered attempts against his life leading up to his killing. And all this with the National Civilian Police present in the region. Marcelo Rivera was kidnapped, disappeared, and his body tortured. He was a tall, strong man, a member of the organized pueblo. His body was found at the bottom of a well twenty days after he was kidnapped. Clearly they wanted him to disappear.

One of the courts specializing in organized crime took Marcelo Rivera’s case. However, like the case of Monseñor Romero’s assassination, it was never truly investigated. Groups of people that could have been linked to the case, people who were probably out drinking, celebrating that night, were never questioned. Just like Monseñor Romero, Marcelo Rivera was a man committed to the people, a servant of the people, and just like Monseñor Romero, Marcelo Rivera was persecuted.

Monseñor Romero was not only killed by forces internal to El Salvador, but by the empire. Monseñor Romero wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, denouncing the aid sent by the empire, saying that this aid will be used to assassinate many people. With this letter he told the empire, “You are the violator of human rights.” The empire backed the systematic violation of human rights here in El Salvador, in which they killed even our Pastor. But the Salvadoran people have brought Monseñor Romero back to life.

Everyone listened to Monseñor Romero’s Masses. They tried many times to bomb the Archdiocese’s radio station, to silence his voice, but each time the people helped expand the reach of his voice, the voice of the people. The people were Monseñor Romero’s teacher. Above all he was a man of faith who listened to the people and illuminated the injustice they faced with the light of the gospel and of the Latin American preferential option for the poor, an option he showed with his life. He worked to rescue the dignity of the lives of the people.

I have traveled to many countries, working to denounce human rights violations all over Central America and I have found Monseñor Romero alive in the work of young people all over the world. And yet we still have not found peace in El Salvador. There have been many changes, the position the present government has taken is very exciting. I am sorry to say though that apology is not enough. We need justice, we need truth, we need reconciliation.

Here in El Salvador we have an amnesty law that many experts consider an impunity law. This law contradicts international laws and conventions El Salvador has signed. Through this law, victims are denied access to justice. We currently have a Constitutional Court of Justice committed to responsibly filling their role as the maximum authority on the constitutionality of Salvadoran laws. In our Legislative Assembly getting a simple majority to overturn the amnesty law would be incredibly complex. Meanwhile, the assassins live peacefully here in El Salvador and internationally. Many of them own a lot of money. We don’t know, however if their consciences let them be at peace.

During the war the police and other members of the death squads put on their civilian clothes and went out to kill the best sons and daughters of El Salvador, to decapitate them, remove their fingernails, and use all kinds of sophisticated torture techniques. They were not new techniques – the empire is not creative in that. Today the same kind of torture used systematically here in El Salvador continues at Guantanamo. There was a study done at the prison in Mariona, identifying the torture techniques used systematically in El Salvador, in which political prisoners drew pictures of the ways they were tortured. They identified forty torture techniques. They were the same depicted in the prisons in Iraq and the same used at Guantanamo. Torture techniques described in old CIA manuals.

Here in El Salvador the judicial branch has made some reasonable advances, but they have not been able to overcome impunity. We need to organize lawyers, communities, organizations to fight for human rights, to demand justice. This is a task we need to do here in our own country. Various international entities have issued declarations in the case of Monsignor Romero’s assassination, but the Salvadoran state has failed its duty to investigate. In El Salvador justice is unfinished, unresolved, justice is waiting. We need true justice to bring reconciliation. The highest reason for a government to exist is to protect the lives of human beings and to promote life with dignity.