Bishop Romero and El Salvador:
I was talking to tia Olga about the many abuses that took place in Central America in the 70's and 80's and asked her if she remembers any of them. Mi tia Olga, who was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and later in her adult life migrated to the US, said that she remembers reading about them. I brought up the assassination of Bishop Romero and bang! she says she remember this vividly. I was surprise because soon after my aunt's comment about the assassination, my oldest sister interjected and said that she also remembers his assassination. My sister Gabby who is 31 added that Ruben Blades wrote a song about it. I laughed because we had seen Blades' video in class. Part of the reason why I discussed this topic with my tia was because one of her daughters is dating someone from El Salvador. I wondered how he and his family were affected by the civil war and the government's violations of human rights.
Bishop Romero’s life story is inspirational. Oscar Romero, a conservative priest who did not necessarily represent the growing number of liberation theology practicing priests in El Salvador, was appointed Bishop in 1977. He would become more vocal about his opposition to government sponsored genocide after one of his colleagues in the movement of liberation theology, father Rotelio Grande, was murdered. Romero would publicly denounce his assassination and later the government’s role in the killing of civilians. One of his speeches stands out as it is directly ties the government to the killings in El Salvador. It takes guts to recite a statement like this during one of his masses and I must say that I was deeply touched.
"I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression."
Enmanuel,
ReplyDeleteArchbishop Romero was an outstanding individual and I am proud to have him as part of my Salvadoran culture.
With that said I must explain that both my mother and father immigrated to the US in the 1970's, but being that each of them grew up different lives in El Salvador brought about differing views on the civil war.
My father was from a little village in one of the departments of El Salvador, called El Paraiso. You can ask omely how small it is. That area was the birth of the revolutionary forces known as FMLN (now a political party) which stands for in spanish Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional. My fathers uncles, and other relatives were one of the originators and deep into the movement.
My mother was raised by her Salvadorean army general grandpa, in the capital city, on beautiful property given to him by the government.
As you can see they were both raised by different surroundings and ideals.
My father believed Mosignor Romero was a savior to our people, and attempted to create peace.
My mother's side of the family believed that he was an incitor of the people, who used his voice to cause rebellion.
As we know now, he was assassinated by the government death squads, so he obviously was doing something right for the people, wrong for the government.
Also to shed more light on the civil war, both guerillas and the governemnt were responsible for the killings of civilians, and the recruitment of kids as young as 5... It has been proven by human rights investigations that the overwhelming majority was caused by the governemnt. A government in which was backed and fully supported by former US president Ronald Regan.
Tito- Thank you very much for taking your time to respond to this post. You are clearly more knowledgeable about this topic than I am. I think that your family's divergent views about Mosignor Romero, raise interesting question of representation and how we choose to remember events, things, and people. I think these interesting contradictions and inconsistencies are representative of the rest of Latin America. What is beautiful about Latin America, as was the case of your parents, is that members of opposing factions often marry each other. You are absolutely right, I didn't include this in my post: "both guerillas and the government were responsible for the killings of civilians and the recruitment of kids as young as 5." Dude, I hope that I didn't oblige you to respond. It was not my intention but I am very grateful that you responded.
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