El Salvador trying suspects in notorious El Mozote massacre; Judge wants evidence from US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Washington Post


By KEVIN SIEFF | The Washington Post | Published: March 14, 2020

It was the worst massacre in the modern history of Latin America: As many as a thousand Salvadoran civilians, many of them younger than 6, killed by a right-wing military dictatorship backed by the United States.

Thirty-nine years later, the suspected killers are on trial, and the judge is seeking a crucial piece of evidence: U.S. government records related to the 1981 El Mozote massacre.

The prosecution has been lauded by both the U.S. government and the relatives of victims. Now the Trump administration will have to decide what to hand over. So far, it has offered nothing.

The Mozote trial, which began in 2016, is considered a milestone in El Salvador's reckoning with its dark history. The massacre remains the most infamous killing in the country's bloody 12-year civil war, its survivors silenced by a succession of governments, its victims left to decompose in a mass grave.

Read more: https://www.stripes.com/news/americas/el-salvador-trying-suspects-in-notorious-el-mozote-massacre-judge-wants-evidence-from-us-1.622439

[ck4829]

1. This would be the same massacre Rep Ilhan Omar pressed Elliott Abrams on

... and made him admit it wasn't a good thing.

Elliott Abrams, who currently serves as the Trump administration’s special envoy to Venezuela, reacted angrily when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) questioned him about his past support for murderous Latin American regimes.

In particular, Omar questioned Abrams about whether he was still proud of dismissing accurate reports about the infamous El Mozote massacre that was carried out by American-trained troops in El Salvador in the 1980s.

“More than 800 civilians, including children as young as two years old, were brutally murdered,” Omar told him. “During that massacre, some of those troops bragged about raping a 12-year-old girl before they killed her. You later said that the U.S. policy in El Salvador was a ‘fabulous achievement.’ Do you still think so?”

A visibly upset Abrams told Omar that it was a “fabulous achievement” that democracy came to El Salvador, but Omar wouldn’t let him dodge the question and he eventually had to admit that he didn’t think a mass killing conducted by American-trained forces was something to be proud of.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211817879
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/trump-official-freaks-rep-omar-asks-hed-back-genocide-venezuela-like-guatemala/

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thank god someone finally confronted him in a formal setting. He has been evil a very long time.

What a monster.

Thank you for sharing that link. I missed seeing it the first time around.

Very interesting to see how some people try to find ways to deflect attention from the truth even now, isn't it?

So sad they are among us.

It will be a glorious day when Elliott Abrams goes to stay with all the other war criminals.

[NBachers]

2. A Graduation Party for the School of the Americas crowd.

[stillcool]

4. ooh boy...there's a can of worms..

what a time to shine the light on that sordid history. What I remember most about that time was the the murder of the Archbishop of El Salvador. Maybe it was the only thing I was capable of understanding.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/deathsquads_ElSal.html