Archbishop of San Salvador Arturo Rivera y Damas views the bodies of the six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter, murdered at the University of Central America in El Salvador on November 16, 1989.

On November 16, 1989, the news flashed out from El Salvador: eight good people murdered in the night, six Jesuits and two women who worked with them. It made radio bulletins and the next days front pages, and it indelibly marked the memories of other Jesuits and many who work with them and others who worked like them among the poor and the persecuted.

Dates do not make these memories, but they do mark checkpoints that let us see where we were and how we have changed--have we grown, have we learned anything at all? Ten years have passed in El Salvador, and to stop and look is to see that in fact from the bloody violence there something good has been born.

The first hours of November 16th, ten years ago, the full moon shed all its milky light on what was happening behind the Jesuits residence on the campus of the University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador.

The highest echelons of the military hierarchy had decided the day before that UCAs president Fr. Ignacio Ellacuría, SJ, was to be killed and that they would "leave no witnesses!" With Ellacuría, five other Jesuits and two women also died that night.

I knew them personally, all except Celina, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Julia Elba, the community cook. "Nacho" Martín-Baró and I both studied at the University of Chicago; I met Amando López for the first time in Nicaragua in 1978 and often thereafter; Segundo Montes was a valued colleague in the work for human rights and refugees; Juan Ramón Moreno, a theologian of great spirituality; the popular educator Joaquín López y López, affectionately known as "Lolo"; and Ellacuría whom I respected enormously as a moral and intellectual leader.

The legal investigation began immediately but dragged on for nearly two years. American Jesuits put sustained pressure on the U.S. government, which did everything to obfuscate the issue and to protect the Salvadoran army and government while at the same time certifying human rights and continuing to grant high levels of military assistance.

Eventually, three army officers and six enlisted men were tried on charges of murder and terrorism.

The trial
September 1991 saw the jury trial. For each of the nine defendants, the court recounted in unmitigated detailbased on the soldiers confessionsthe narrative of the cold cruel murders. It was like listening to the Passion proclaimed on nine Good Fridays in a row.

The jury found the commanding officer (not present at the scene) guilty on eight counts of murder and convicted his deputy (who never fired his weapon) of Celinas murder. Both received the maximum 30-year sentence for murder. Never before or since have serious human rights crimes in El Salvador been so vigorously punished. And yet both men were amnestied in 1993.

The jury acquitted the soldiers who originally confessed to the killings, presumably because they were ordered to kill and so should not be held accountable, although "only obeying" orders is no legitimate defense even in Salvadoran law. The entire confusing verdict was not likely the result of a judicial system functioning according to established institutional procedures but the product of a darker and more political "deal."

Film Explores 1989 UCA Murders Enemies of War, a new hour-long public television documentary, tells the story of the 1989 murders in El Salvador of the six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter, and also tells of the U.S. congressional investigation prompted by the brutal murders and the path that eventually led the people of El Salvador to peace. Significant funding for the film came from the U.S. Bishops Catholic Communication Campaign as well as human rights foundations. Producers Esther Cassidy and Rob Kuhns said the documentary is designed to pay tribute to the Jesuits who were murdered and to all the people who worked and are working to make democracy in El Salvador possible. Among those featured in the documentary are Reps. Joe Moakley, who headed the U.S. investigation, and Jim McGovern, a key aide to Moakley who was elected to Congress himself in 1996. Also interviewed are two former U.S. ambassadors to El Salvador; Jesuit Dean Brackley, who replaced one of the murdered Jesuits at the University of Central America; and Jesuits Jon Sobrino and Jon de Cortina, two other teachers at the university. The film also includes interviews with former assistant U.S. Secretary of State Eliot Abrams, Salvadoran opposition political candidate Ruben Zamora, and El Salvadors President Calderon Sol. Narrated by Martin Sheen, with voice-overs provided by Rosie Perez and Edward James Olmos, Enemies of War is scheduled for completion this fall and will be offered to public television stations by South Carolina Educational Television for broadcast probably in spring. Check broadcast dates and times in your area. Catholic News Service

Evidence
A wealth of circumstantial evidence emerged during the investigation, suggesting that the commanding officer had "received the green light" and could not possibly have acted on his own authority or initiative.

The 1993 report of the Truth Commission confirmed that the killing of Ellacuría had been proposed at a meeting on November 15th by a general known as a close CIA collaborator and endorsed by the chief-of-staff (who was later minister of defense), the vice-minister of defense, and the colonel who headed the infamous First Brigade.

But still unknown in all of this is the degree of U.S. foreknowledge, connivance, training, advice, and communications support. Unfortunately the Truth Commission did not touch upon the involvement of U.S. advisors before and during the operation and of the U.S. Embassy in the subsequent cover-up.

Ten years later
The 1992 peace accords were the martyrs dream come true, but neither the Salvadoran nor the American government showed the courage and resolve to implement them fully. The formerly potent armed forces have been weakened, elections continue to take place on schedule, but the hoped-for justice and social peace still elude El Salvador.

With fewer than six million inhabitants, El Salvador has the highest population density in Latin America. Nearly 40 percent of the people live in dire poverty. The economy, battered by globalization and weighed down by external debt, is fueled mainly by over $1 billion in remittances sent home by over a million Salvadorans who work in the United Statesmore than the total revenue from all exports. There is economic growth but also high unemployment, and the benefits of growth do not reach the majority of the population.

In consequence, the social tragedy continues, beginning with a high rate of infant mortality. Over a third of the people lack safe drinking water and adequate housing. Sixty percent of Salvadorans do not have access to health services. Substandard education leaves over 30 percent of the population illiterate.

A fatal legacy of the half-implemented accords is a mass of weapons, many in the hands of soldiers and guerrillas who have been demobilized but are without work. The country is plagued by corruption, runaway crime, indiscriminate violence, and a murder rate among the highest in Latin America. The police seem incapable of protecting citizens, and the justice system fails to hold accountable those responsible for crime.

Fr. Michael Czerny, SJ, is the social justice secretary at the Jesuits curia in Rome; he was formerly director of the Human Rights Institute (IDHUCA) and Vice-Rector for Social Outreach (1990-1991).

An anniversary
Ten years ago, when the Berlin Wall was coming down, news of the Jesuit murders shook the world "at a moment in history which is witnessing unprecedented changes in world social structures," in the words of the Jesuit general, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach.

Those at UCA who survived and those who came after the martyrs have made an enormous effort to adapt to a "new world." The UCAs mission is to help Salvadorans, preferentially the vast majority who are poor, to solve their problems and build themselves the kind of society they want and deserve.

But the legacy of untruth about the civil warthe murders, tortures, and disappearances that remain hidden in impunityis a major obstacle to national reconciliation and reconstruction. The Jesuits and UCA continue to seek the truth.

The order "Leave no witnesses!" was obeyed with a vengeance. But with the full folly of the Cross, like so many other Salvadorans who remain nameless, Ellacuría and his companions have risen. For martyr and witness are the same word, and these martyrs witnessing to the death and resurrection of Christ in our world point convincingly toward the kingdom of justice, reconciliation, and peace that we hope for, pray for, and work for.

For full accounts of the crime and its aftermath see: Death Foretold: The Jesuit Murders in El Salvador, by Martha Doggett (Georgetown University Press, 1993), and Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador, by Teresa Whitfield (Temple University Press, 1995).