From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: El Salvador: GHOSTS OF RECONCILIATION
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 09:15:09 GMT

/** gen.newsletter: 158.10 **/
** Written 11:15 pm  Oct 26, 1992 by web:act in cdp:gen.newsletter **
GHOSTS OF RECONCILIATION

By Margaret Sumadh
The ACTivist
with files from Radio Venceremos

In 1981, Francisco, at 10 years old, witnessed the massacre of his 
family by the military in Santa Barbara, a village in central El 
Salvador. Warned that the military were approaching their house, 
his young cousin closed the door. She was shot dead through the door. 
Asking,  "Why?", their grandfather led them in prayer. Meanwhile their 
grandmother  hit the soldier with a broom and was instantly cut down. 
Soon the  grandparents and cousins were hacked to death in their own 
home with machetes.

"I saw all of this," relates Francisco. "It wasn't until later that I found 
myself cowering in a corner, with their blood on my clothes. I realised 
that I was alive and I began to wonder why ..."

Francisco fled to Costa Rica.

Eight years later, in Costa Rica, Francisco began to have nightmares, 
and in June 1992 he returned to Santa Barbara. On foot, he passed a fork 
in the road where 'death squads' had once left a dead man by the bus 
stop, tied up and wrapped in a sack. There remained only a 30 cm. 
rock to mark the place of his burial.

The village is almost totally destroyed, empty places where houses 
used to be, sometimes only cement foundations. Despite this desolation, 
some people had sown their corn seeds. They no longer live there, but 
they come to work their fields. Ironically, those people living closest to 
the village are mostly people displaced by the war.

Francisco found the remains of his grandparents home and entered 
the only room remaining -- that in which, on February 14, 1981, he and 
other children had witnessed his family being murdered. "Inside the 
room, I felt as if my heart was being crushed. With my eyes closed, I 
recalled everything from that afternoon.

"I walked to the place where Nora, my sister, told me that she had 
buried the five bodies, putting them in three separate holes in the 
ground. "I stayed about 15 minutes by my grandparents' unmarked 
grave, then I went back to the house. This time, I took some photos that 
might possibly be used in a judicial investigation of the massacre and a 
future exhumation of the victims of that anonymous grave."

Francisco's story is not over. His process of recuperation has just 
begun -- as the process of reconciliation in El Salvador has just begun.
Only one of hundreds of thousands, Francisco is presenting his case to 
the 'Truth Commission', via CDHES, a United Nations Human Rights 
Commission in El Salvador. The Truth Commission's mandate is to 
examine crimes and human rights violations since 1980. 

This story is emblematic of the human trauma that huge sections of 
the Salvadoran society are going through and will have to go through 
before reconciliation is possible. Salvadorans must go and face their 
ghosts -- as victims of government, para-military and military 
repression.

Similarly, Salvadoran society as a whole -- particularly the economic, 
government and military sectors that control most of the real power 
and are responsible for most human rights violations -- has to accept 
responsibility for its past, for crimes committed against hundreds of 
thousands of its own citizens, leaving over 70,000 dead and 7-8,000 
disappeared.

During the next months, international pressure must be kept up so 
that the Truth Commission, set up by the January 1992 Peace Accords, 
can fully carry out its mandated investigation. 

U.S. government agencies have much information on Salvadoran 
military officers. We must demand that the U.S. government to release 
information on Salvadoran officers.

The process of reconciliation and recuperation will take years. The 
Truth Commission can only deal with a small percentage of the suffering 
caused by 12 years of military and state violence. Over the next few 
years, pressure must continue to allow the thousands of survivors 
like Francisco to go and meet their ghosts and put some of their 
mourning to rest.
** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **

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