By Ian McRae
Given March 24, 2007 at St. Andrew’s Christian Church
Some years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Dom Helder Camara, then Archbishop of the diocese of Recife and Olinda in eastern Brazil. A man of the people, Dom Helder Camara always rode public transportation in Recife. He reports the following experience.
On Friday March 23, 2007 former ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, was in El Salvador. He was ambassador there in 1980 and 1981. While in El Salvador White appeared on a panel at the Jesuit University titled “El Salvador, Fifteen Years Afterwards: Another Reading.” Robert White is President of the Center for International Policy.
Former ambassador White directed his comments to a recent attempt by government party (ARENA) members in the National Assembly to name Roberto D’Aubuisson “Meritorious Son of the Nation.” While the attempt to do this failed, the intention to accord D’Aubuisson this honor shocked not only millions of Salvadorans, but also White. To those present (and later in a press interview) Ambassador White enumerated documented proofs of D’Aubuisson’s involvement in the death squads which listed people to be assassinated, and in the particular death of Romero. He offered to provide the ARENA Party this documentation.
Robert White cited the CIA, State Department and the Truth Commission of El Salvador’s Report in his documentation. It wasn’t a surprise when the ARENA Party leaders in El Salvador dismissed the documented information. Truth for many politicians is simply what you declare it to be. However it was very surprising when after Mass on Sunday March 25th the Archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, said:
“The important thing is that these things (that White says) not be private declarations but rather that they be official. If they are legal proofs, they should be presented to the court.”
The Archbishop went on to say:
“The ex-ambassador White is a very problematic person. One has to take into account these characteristics of his personality before paying attention to what he says.*
*Source: El Diario de Hoy, Monday March 26, 2007, page 6.
What is the Archbishop trying to say? These documents aren’t private opinions. They are official documentation:
These documents were presented to the Truth Commission for El Salvador, a United Nations sponsored and Peace Accords mandated commission charged with identifying the worst human rights violations during the civil war and establishing responsibility wherein it was possible. The Commission declared at the end of its study that Roberto D’Aubuisson was the intellectual author of Archbishop Romero’s death.
These are original documents from the archives of the US Government, documentation that occurred at the time the events were happening.
These documents have not been used in any trial in El Salvador because El Salvador has seen to it that no trials take place. These documents have not been used either in the trial of ex- Captain Alvaro Saravia or Robert D’Aubuisson in El Salvador because these men were never placed on trial.
In 1987 Alvaro Saravia was captured in Miami, but the Supreme Court of El Salvador prevented his extradition back to his home country to be tried. D’Aubuisson died of throat cancer in February of 1992 shortly after the end of the war and prior to the Truth Commission’s Report.
The Inter-American Court on Human Rights has demanded that El Salvador open the case of the Assassination of Archbishop Romero so that justice can be achieved. El Salvador has not done so, using the Amnesty Law of 1993 as an excuse, though it’s not an excuse accepted by the Inter-American Court.
In the September 2004 US Federal Court in Modesto, California handed down a decision against ex-Captain Alvaro Saravia of El Salvador. Saravia, who has passed the years since Romero’s assassination in the USA, was declared responsible for helping organize the murder of Archbishop Romero with D’Aubuisson and D’Aubuisson was named as the mastermind of this assassination.
Conclusion
Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle had no objective basis to suggest Robert White’s comments were of a private, not a public or official nature. In doing so he weighed in with those forces in El Salvador that deny the truth when it is inconvenient. There is one group in El Salvador that denies the involvement of its founder in Romero’s death: the ARENA Party. Who and what is Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle supporting?
In labeling former Ambassador White as a problematic person who possesses personality characteristics that detract from his credibility is malicious.
Ambassador White is held in high regard in the US and within the human rights and legal communities. Not only is this an unfair judgment, but it involves the dismissal of public documentation deemed of the highest quality by the Truth Commission and US Federal Count in Modesto, California. Again, who and what is Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle supporting?
If you believe that these ill informed and slanderous comments by the Archbishop about former ambassador’s white’s credibility regarding the involvement of Roberto D’aubuisson in the death of Archbishop Romero are unjustifiable, please send your comments to the Vatican Secretary of State. Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle’s behavior is scandalous to thousands of Catholics in and outside of El Salvador.
For flier, go here. (This is a PDF file.)
Archbishop Oscar Romero Prayer Celebration
Saturday, March 24 7:00PM
Saint Andrew Christian Church, Disciples of Christ
13890 W. 127th
Olathe, KS
Reception following the service.
National Catholic Reporter’s John L. Allen, Jr. has both reported and analyzed the news that Jesuit Fr. Jon Sobrino has been censured by the Vatican. Sobrino has been one of the great voices for the poor and oppressed of El Salvador.
For the report, go here.
For the analysis, go here.
Pauline Dolan, a member of Visitation parish, is in El Salvador right now and sent this report:
By Gigi Gruenke
Rufina Amaya, the only survivor of the Massacre of El Mozote entered Eternal Life at 12:40 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6, 2007. At last she is with her God, her children and husband, victims of the massacre, and all of the almost 1,000 El Mozote massacre victims for whom she worked tirelessly these past 25 years.
The death of Rufina came as a surprise. Though not in good health, she was busy meeting with visitors, working in her parish and caring for her family up to the day of her death. She arrived at the hospital in San Miguel just 10 hours prior to her death, caused by a series of strokes and a final heart attack. Rufina’s oldest daughter, Fidelia, and her youngest, Maria, were with her. Fidelia escaped death because she wasn’t in El Mozote that terrible December 11, 1981. Maria was born some four years after the massacre.
