El Salvador frees three ex-military officials linked to 1989 murders

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters


El Salvador frees three ex-military officials linked to 1989 murders

Sat Aug 27, 2016 5:53am BST


El Salvador's Supreme Court on Friday released three former military personnel who had been detained over the 1989 murder of a group of Jesuit priests.

The three had been in prison since February after Spanish judge Eloy Velasco sent a request for the capture and extradition of 17 former military personnel who were allegedly involved in killing the priests, five of whom were Spanish.

In August, the court denied an extradition request from Spain for a former military colonel to face charges related to the murders.


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-el-salvador-spain-court-idUKKCN11203K?rpc=401

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(Short article, no more at link.)

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Six Jesuit Scholars and the American War on Self-Determination

The Six Jesuit Scholars and the American War on Self-Determination

by Matt Peppe / November 12th, 2014



Twenty-five years ago this week, six Jesuit scholars at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in El Salvador opened the doors of their residence to members of a government death squad, who had been armed and trained by the United States. The soldiers marched the priests to the back garden. They were ordered to lie face down. They were shot and killed like dogs along with their housekeeper and her teenage daughter.

Father Ignacio Ellacuría Bescoetxea, one of the six Jesuits executed that night, had been a vocal advocate for a negotiated political settlement to the war that had devastated the small Central American country over the course of the decade. On November 16, 1989, Ellacuría would become one of the more than 75,000 killed in the brutal violence carried out by the military dictatorship.

The ruling junta was the beneficiary of billions in military aid from the United States government, which they received for their efforts to suppress a populist rebellion by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

Nine years earlier, Archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Romero had been gunned down at the altar by a death squad member while he was in the middle of celebrating Mass. Before his assassination, Romero had sent a letter to President Jimmy Carter pleading with him to stop sending military aid to the Salvadoran military junta. Romero made his case to Carter “because you are a Christian and because you have shown that you want to defend human rights.”

More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/11/the-six-jesuit-scholars-and-the-american-war-on-self-determination/

[rusty quoin]

2. We always back the wrong people. We have a long history of it.

[Judi Lynn]

3. They are the ones who betray their countrymen/women, who sell them out to foreign interests. n/t