Spain indicts Salvadoran soldiers for Jesuit killings

[Pax_et_Bonum]

Spain indicts Salvadoran soldiers for Jesuit killings

The murders caused widespread shock and revulsion
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

El Salvador remembers Archbishop Romero
US role in Salvador’s brutal war
US charges academy raiders
A Spanish judge has charged 20 Salvadoran soldiers with the killing of six Jesuit priests and two women during El Salvador’s civil war.

The priests, five of whom were Spanish, their housekeeper and her daughter were shot dead by soldiers in 1989.

The case was filed using Spain’s universal jurisdiction law, which holds that some crimes are so grave that they can be tried anywhere.

Among those indicted are two former defence ministers.

Col Rene Emilio Ponce was the head of the Salvadoran Armed Forces’ joint chiefs of staff at the time of the killings. He was later promoted to general and became the country’s defence minister.

According to a report by a United Nations Truth Commission, Gen Ponce, who died earlier this month, ordered the killing of the priests.

Gen Rafael Humberto Larios was the minister of defence at the time of the shooting and was present at the meeting where Col Ponce ordered the killing, the commission says.
bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13596997

 

[po18guy]

I can tell you that it was not a fun place to vacation during the war. Sadly, one substantial allegation is that certain Church members (Jesuits and others) had embraced the condemned “liberation theology” that was endemic in Latin America. There were complaints of class warfare being preached from the ambo, and of the Church being too cozy with the foreign-supported rebels. The government was certainly corrupt and brutal, but the rebels were also bad, only on a smaller scale. However, since the peace was established, the nation has made amazing progress on nearly all fronts.

Strangely, I heard recent (past year or so) interviews with an American Jesuit who had been there, and he spoke as though bodies were still piling up in the streets amid sporadic wartime gunfire. Having been there both during the war and several times since, I truly wonder what on earth he was speaking of.

With Hugo Chavez’ being suspected of funneling petro cash to El Salvador in recent years (bolstering left-leaning unions and socialist candidates), the nation has begun another leftward lurch.