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Church Praises Salvadoran President for his Tribute to Murdered Priests
November 23, 2009
by AQ OnlineEl Salvador’s Archbishop, José Luis Escobar Alas, commended President Mauricio Funes yesterday for his decision to award the country’s highest honor to six Jesuit priests assassinated by the army in 1989—an event that sparked international outrage and helped lead to the war’s end three years later. At a press conference held yesterday in San Salvador, Archbishop Escobar Alas said, “We, as a Church, sincerely see these gestures as a sign of reconciliation, of unity and peace.”
A week ago today—on the twentieth anniversary of their deaths—Funes presented the families of the priests with the National Order of José Matias Delgado. “For me, this act means [we] pull back a heavy veil of darkness and lies to let in the light of justice and truth,” Funes said. “We begin to cleanse our house of this recent history.”
In surprise comments, Minister of Defense David Munguia Payes said that the army would also cooperate in investigations into the deaths if ordered to by the government. Reversing long-standing army policy, the minister resolutely commented: “If the government asks me to open the archives, I will do it.”
The assassinations were carried out by the Salvadoran army on November 16, 1989, at the University of Central America in San Salvador. One of the priests, Ignacio Ellacuria, was a follower of liberation theology and advocated for justice on behalf of the poor. The 12-year civil war, which left nearly 75,000 dead, was brought to an end with a peace accord signed in 1992.
Tags: El Salvador's Civil War, FMLN, José Luis Escobar Alas, liberation theology, Mauricio Funes
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El Salvadoran President-Elect Mauricio Funes to Travel with VP Biden to Costa Rica (Or why this isn't El Salvador Retro 1980s)
March 25, 2009
by Christopher SabatiniOn both the left and the right a lot has been made of Mauricio Funes’ victory in the March 15 presidential elections in El Salvador. Those on the left say this is yet another vindication of the failure of the neo-liberal model—another in a string of left-leaning leaders that have come to power through the ballot box. On the right, observers see this as a sign that the 1980s sky is falling—the nemesis of the Reagan administration now occupies the presidential palace.
Truth is, quite frankly, it’s neither. This isn’t the outsider politics of recent memory. First, let’s take a close look at who the candidate is and the evidence of the FMLN’s evolution. First, Funes. The man, an outsider to his party, is hardly a firebrand revolutionary. The former TV journalist is not the camouflage-wearing, bush-trained guerrilla of the FMLN past. Nor for that matter does he fit the pattern of the other outsider candidates that some want to equate him with. He’s not a former military officer (either official or out of the bush) like President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela; he’s not a political newbie, academic like Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa; he’s not a full-time provocateur/protester like Bolivian President Evo Morales; and he’s not a career, unrepentant revolutionary (and accused child molester) like Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. (And full disclosure, I don’t believe necessarily that Correa or Morales are as radical as the others. While their career trajectory has been unorthodox, they represent the dysfunctionality of the party systems that preceded them, more than a hard ideological turn one way or the other.)
Funes on the other hand is a professional; a polished politician who preaches moderation. Immediately after the election he called for moderation and reconciliation. His slogan. “a safe change,” is positively Obama-esque.
Tags: Biden, Chavez, El Salvador, Elections, FMLN, Funes, Obama
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