ALLEGED RIGHTS VIOLATORS SOUGHT: U.S. DEVELOPS SPECIAL UNIT

«Federal officials familiar with the the new unit said [the human-
rights abuse suspects being targeted] include Fernández Larios and
Alvaro Rafael Saravia Marino, a former Miami-Dade County resident
implicated in the 1980 assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar
Romero.»

BY ALFONSO CHARDY
<achardy@...>
MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Fri, Aug. 08, 2003

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has created a special unit to
speed the arrest and deportation of hundreds of accused foreign human-
rights abusers living in the United States, including a Miami-Dade
County man implicated in the 1976 assassination of a former Chilean
foreign minister.

The human-rights violators unit was created without much fanfare in
early June as part of the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The unit's creation will intensify the hunt begun three years ago in
Florida for as many as 1,000 accused human-rights violators
nationwide.

About 100 to 150 are believed to be in Florida, including Armando
Fernández Larios, a former Chilean military officer who admitted
playing a role in the car-bomb murders in Washington, D.C. of former
Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant
Ronni Moffitt.

In the three years since the government launched its ''persecutor
program,'' nearly 50 suspects, about 46 in Florida, have been
arrested. Most have been deported or placed in deportation
proceedings.

Michael Doughtery, director of operations for the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to provide details
about the number of personnel to be assigned to the new unit.

''We want to make sure we put in the appropriate management and
investigative and legal resources into the program, and we expect to
increase our commitment in terms of the agents actually working on
these cases,'' Dougherty said in an interview Tuesday in Washington,
D.C.

The establishment of a separate unit to track down accused
persecutors was lauded by human-rights advocates who say foreign
suspects should not be able to find haven in the United States.

''I'm delighted to see that Homeland Security is taking the issue of
foreign perpetrators of human-rights abusers and atrocities that have
come into our country seriously,'' said Richard Krieger, a Boynton
Beach activist who has helped lead the effort to press the federal
government to pursue torture suspects.

But recently retired federal immigration supervisor Bill West, who
helped oversee the capture of torture suspects in Florida, questioned
the U.S. government's commitment to aggressively target accused human-
rights violators.

West told The Herald in a telephone interview this week that
following his retirement, only two federal officials were assigned
full-time to finding alleged torturers -- one in Washington and the
other in Miami. Aides to Dougherty declined to specifically
corroborate West's claim about the two agents. But they said that
even if there were only two agents, they serve as supervisors and can
forward tips and evidence to hundreds of federal immigration
officials across the country.

Dougherty would not identify the human-rights abuse suspects being
targeted, but federal officials familiar with the the new unit said
they include Fernández Larios and Alvaro Rafael Saravia Marino, a
former Miami-Dade County resident implicated in the 1980
assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. He is believed
to be in the San Francisco area.

Immigration investigators for the past three years have wanted to
detain and deport Fernández Larios but reportedly have been prevented
by prosecutors in the Justice Department. Trying to expel Fernández
Larios, prosecutors argue, would essentially violate assurances given
to him by federal officials that he would be protected from
deportation in exchange for cooperating in the Letelier case.

But federal immigration officials said those promises did not extend
beyond the Letelier murder investigation, and that they would seek to
deport Fernández Larios based on an Argentine court's request to have
him extradited in connection with a 1974 car-bombing that killed
Chilean General Carlos Pratts in Argentina.

A Justice Department spokesman said he was not familiar with the
Fernández Larios case but would find out the department's official
position and call back. He did not.

Fernández Larios' attorney, Steven Davis, said his client, who is
believed to live in Kendall, did not want to comment.

IGLESIA SALVADOREÑA SIGUE INTERESADA EN ESCLARECER ASESINATO DE
ARZOBISPO ROMERO
Agence France Presse -- Spanish
10 de agosto de 2003

La iglesia católica salvadoreña aseguró este domingo que mantiene el
interés en que se aclare el asesinato del arzobispo de San Salvador
Oscar Arnulfo Romero, cometido en 1980, luego de que el viernes un
comité de Naciones Unidas en Ginebra cuestionó una ley de amnistía
que lo impide.

La iglesia "siempre ha estado interesada en eso (el esclarecimiento
del asesinato de monsenor Romero). Yo personalmente he hecho las
gestiones pero hace falta un poco (establecer) que repercusiones
tiene en todo el país", aseguró el arzobispo de San Salvador,
Fernando Sáenz, en una rueda de prensa trás oficiar la misa dominical
en la céntrica catedral capitalina. Considerado "la voz de los sin
voz" por denunciar la injusticia social y la represión militar
imperante en aquellos años, monseñor Romero fue asesinado el 24 de
marzo de 1980 por un pistolero ultraderechista que le disparó al
corazón cuando oficiaba una misa en el hospital de cancerosos La
Divina Providencia.

Trás el asesinato de Romero estalló la guerra civil salvadoreña, la
cual concluyó 12 años despues con la firma de acuerdos de paz entre
el gobierno y la ex guerrilla el 16 de enero de 1992.

La guerra dejó un saldo de más de 75.000 muertos y pérdidas
millonarias a la economía.

En marzo de 1993, una Comisión de la Verdad, creada por la ONU para
investigar las atrocidades cometidas durante la guerra, culpó del
crímen al ex mayor del Ejército Roberto D'Aubuisson, fundador de la
gobernante Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA, derecha).
D'Aubuisson murió como consecuencia de un cancer en febrero de 1992.

A pesar del informe de la Comisión de la Verdad, las autoridades
judiciales no procesaron a los responsables de los crímenes de
guerra, debido a que el Congreso salvadoreño -atendiendo una petición
del ex presidente Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994)- aprobó una Ley de
Amnistía en marzo de 1993 para todos los imputados.

El Comité de Derechos Humanos de la ONU, que controla si los paises
respetan el Pacto de Derechos Civiles y Politicos, criticó
severamente el viernes último al gobierno de El Salvador por la
amnistía.

Según los expertos de este comité, la Ley de Amnistía vigente en El
Salvador "impide que se investigue y se sancione a los responsables
de violaciones de los derechos humanos" y que se repare a las
víctimas de la guerra.

El comité manifestó su preocupación por el caso del asesinato del
arzobispo Romero, que "fue archivado por haberse declarado la
prescripción del delito, a pesar de que se individualizó al presunto
responsable del crímen".

Este domingo, el arzobispo Sáenz recordó que al tomar posesión como
arzobispo en 1995, y tras revisar todo el proceso de monseñor Romero
con respecto a la canonización que se ventila en Roma, estimaron "muy
conveniente que hubiese muy claros y evidentes datos sobre quien fue
que lo asesinó (y) lo mejor sería que se tuviese juicio".

"Es justo que si se va a quitar la amnistía para unos casos, habra
que levantarla para los otros tambien. No sé que repercusiones puede
tener, es un problema muy grave e importante que merece ser
considerado con atención", subrayó el arzobispo salvadoreño.

cmm/lc/jb

Salvador-Iglesia

AFP

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial - Manuel Zamora Menjívar

Fecha: jueves, agosto 14, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Nació en San Antonio Los Ranchos, el 29 de octubre de 1945.
Lugar y Fecha del Martirio. San Antonio Los Ranchos, 14 de
agosto de 1979.

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial: Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez

Fecha: viernes, agosto 15, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Nacido - born August 15, 1917.

A Prayer by Archbishop Oscar A. Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen

Oración de Monseñor Oscar Romero

De vez en cuando, dar un paso atrás nos ayuda
a tomar una perspectiva mejor.
El Reino no solo está más allá de nuestros esfuerzos,
sino incluso más allá de nuestra visión.

Durante nuestra vida, sólo realizamos una minúscula parte
de esa magnifica empresa que es la obra de Dios.
Nada de lo que hacemos esta acabado,
lo que significa que el Reino esta siempre ante nosotros.

Ninguna declaración dice lo que podría decirse.
Ninguna oración puede expresar plenamente nuestra fe.
Ninguna confesión trae la perfección,
ninguna visita pastoral trae la integridad.
Ningún programa realiza la misión de la Iglesia.
En ningún esquema de metas y objetivos se incluye todo.

Esto es lo que intentamos hacer:
plantamos semillas que un día crecerán.
Regamos semillas ya plantadas,
sabiendo que son promesas de futuro.
Sentamos bases que necesitaran un mayor desarrollo.
Los efectos de la levadura que proporcionamos
van más allá de nuestras posibilidades.

No podemos hacerlo todo y,
al darnos cuenta de ello, sentimos una cierta liberación.
Ella nos capacita a hacer algo,
y a hacerlo muy bien.
Puede que sea incompleto, pero es un principio,
un paso en el camino,
una ocasión para que entre la gracia del Señor
y haga el resto.
Es posible que no veamos nunca los resultados finales.

Pero esa es la diferencia entre el jefe de obra y el albañil.
Somos albañiles, no jefes de obra,
ministros, no el Mesías.
Somos profetas de un futuro que no es nuestro.

Amén.

Note: forwarded message attached.


__________________________________
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COLOCARÁN MONUMENTO EN HONOR A MONSEÑOR ROMERO

San Salvador Viernes, 15 de Agosto de 2003
Redacción Co Latino

"Ha nacido un profeta -- el pueblo de Dios lo reconoce -- la historia
auténtica su palabra". Como un reconocimiento al mártir que ofrendó
su sangre por defender la verdad de un pueblo que erguía sus voces
clamando justicia, se colocará un monumento en honor a Monseñor Oscar
Arnulfo Romero.

El monumento estará en el antiguo predio universitario que lleva el
nombre de "Plaza Monseñor Romero" desde marzo de 2000, y que se
encuentra frente al costado poniente de la catedral.

Este reconocimiento se realiza en el marco del 84 aniversario del
nacimiento de Monseñor Romero, el cual se llevará a cabo el 15 de
agosto.

Previo a la develación del monumento, se oficiará una misa en la
cripta de catedral a la 5:30 de la tarde.

Otras actividades que se llevarán a cabo en torno a este evento
serán: cantos de mariachis, jornada infanto-juvenil de poesía,
expresiones artísticas juveniles y solemnes eucaristías, las cuales
se realizarán en la cripta de la catedral metropolitana, a partir de
las 9 de la mañana.

Los fondos para la creación de este monumento fueron proporcionados
por la Universidad de El Salvador en conjunto con la alcaldía de San
Salvador, del período anterior y por medio de la campaña "con amor,
un colón para Monseñor".

Con la ayuda de estas instituciones y la feligresía se hizo posible
colocar otro monumento en la plaza del Salvador del Mundo.

Estos monumentos representan un tributo de amor de su pueblo para el
mártir Monseñor Romero, y un legado para las futuras generaciones.

Además, busca enriquecer la memoria histórica social, cultural y
espiritual del país haciendo perdurar el ejemplo pastoral profético y
martirial del Arzobispo. Según la Fundación Monseñor Romero, al
colocar su figura en el centro histórico de la capital, representa el
desempeño de su admirable misión profética a favor de las grandes
mayorías pobres y marginadas.

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial: Miguel Angel del Transito Ortiz

Fecha: domingo, agosto 17, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Killed while guarding Carmelite nuns, in El Salvador - August
17, 1987.

Asesinado mientras guardiaba unas monjas carmelitas en El
Salvador, el 17 de agosto de 1987.

CELEBRAN NATALICIO DE MONSEÑOR ROMERO: "Exhorto encarecidamente a la
catolicidad migueleña a construir con serenidad y fervor la unidad
del reino de Dios"-. Oscar Romero. (Semanario Chaparrastique, 24 de
julio de 1967).

Sonia Bernal
EL DIARIO DE HOY/DIARIO DE ORIENTE
15 de agosto de 2003

San Miguel - Hoy se celebra el 86o. aniversario del nacimiento de
monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Para conmemorarlo, la iglesia católica
en San Miguel ha preparado una celebración enmarcada en el 25
aniversario del pontificado del Papa Juan Pablo II.

El reverendo Armando Cruz, director del Seminario Menor San Miguel
Arcángel, informó que la Diócesis de San Miguel, junto con el Comité
Católico Migueleño Pro Monseñor Romero, han preparado actividades
para conmemorar el nacimiento del Obispo

Romero nació en Ciudad Barrios el 15 de agosto de 1917. Fue ordenado
sacerdote en la capilla Inmaculado Corazón de María de la Iglesia
Votiva en Roma, Italia, el 4 de abril de 1942, por Mons. Francisco
Paschuchi. Elevado al episcopado el 25 de abril de 1970 y nombrado
arzobispo el 3 de febrero de 1977.

Para Cruz, monseñor Romero compartió con los pobres su fe en el Señor
de la Vida, la esperanza de ver realizada en El Salvador la realidad
cristiana de unos cielos nuevos y una tierra nueva. Con ellos y para
todos proclamó los grandes valores que Dios ha dado a la humanidad.

Los papas

En este aniversario, la comunidad católica migueleña destaca la
relación del prelado con los papas. Mons. Romero visitó al papa Pablo
VI el 21 de junio de 1978, dos meses antes de que falleciera.

En esa oportunidad recibió un mensaje del papa, que se cita en el
libro que recoge el diario de su vida: "Comprendo su difícil trabajo,
es uno que puede no ser comprendido, necesita mucha paciencia y
fortaleza, no todos piensan como usted, su labor es difícil en las
circunstancias que su país tiene. Proceda con ánimo, paciencia,
fuerza y esperanza".

Monseñor Romero, calificó esa experiencia como indescriptible, porque
Pablo VI le dio un fuerte abrazo y muchos ánimos para seguir adelante
con su trabajo pastoral

El 7 de mayo de 1979, visitó al papa Juan Pablo II. En esa ocasión
recibió una especie de llamada de atención: "Le recomiendo audacia y
valor, pero al mismo tiempo prudencia y equilibrio en su labor
pastoral". Asimismo, recibió un abrazo y la seguridad de que el Papa
todos los días rezaba por la gente de El Salvador

Ante esta declaración, Romero le dijo: "Santo Padre, trato de
mantener un equilibrio, por un lado, defiendo la justicia social, los
derechos humanos y el amor al pobre y por otra parte, siempre me
preocupo por el papel de la Iglesia y el que por no defender estos
derechos humanos, vayamos a caer en ideologías que destruyan los
sentimientos y valores humanos".

Repitió su visita al Santo Padre el 30 de enero de 1980, cuando se
dirigía a Bélgica a recibir el doctorado Honoris Causa que le
confirió la Universidad Católica de Lovainna, en Bélgica, el 2 de
febrero de 1980.

Dos meses después fue asesinado, mientras celebraba la eucaristía en
la Capilla del Hospital La Divina Providencia, el 24 de marzo de
1980, luego de tres años como arzobispo.
Para los católicos, es el símbolo real de muchos mártires, sobre todo
de los anónimos.

El horario de hoy
5: 00 a.m.
- Alborada, serenata y atolada, en el atrio de catedral.
6:00 a.m.
- Santa Misa, celebrada por Mons. Miguel Angel Morán Aquino, obispo
de la Diócesis de San Miguel.
- Durante la misa, 60 alumnos de la Escuela Sagrado Corazón de Jesús,
fundada por Romero, recibirán el sacramento de la Comunión.

THE CASE AGAINST THE GENERALS

By Joshua E.S. Phillips
THE WASHINGTON POST
Sunday, August 17, 2003; Page W06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59068-2003Aug14.html

When Juan Romagoza was being shocked, shot and hung by his hands, he
had every reason to be terrified of El Salvador's military leaders.
Twenty years later, in an American courtroom, the roles were
reversed.

Clenched, curled, the surgeon's fingers struggle to knot his tie. At
last, he grips the loop and hastily feeds the burgundy tip through
with his small, pudgy fingers.

"It's a kind of torture," says Juan Romagoza Arce, with a wry, quiet
laugh as he prepares for another hectic day at his Northwest
Washington health clinic. Buttons are even worse. "It's hard to feel
them here," the doctor says, tapping the tip of his index finger on
his thumb.

There is a reason why the fingers that once wove sutures now strain
to knot a tie. Why the doctor who once performed emergency surgery
now winces at the sight of blood. Why the executive director of La
Clinica del Pueblo, a health care oasis for Washington's Hispanic
community, doesn't treat patients.

More than two decades have passed since Romagoza fled El Salvador,
yet it still isn't easy for him to talk about the torture he endured
or the damage it did. For a long time, the words were too painful,
the memories too searing, the healing too precarious. Then he was
asked to tell his story publicly, in an American courtroom, as part
of what many people considered a quixotic legal effort to hold his
torturers accountable for what they'd done to him. And what they'd
done to El Salvador.

Romagoza rubs his left arm, which bears a faint brown bullet scar,
the only visible mark his tormentors left. "I love clinical work, I
love surgery, but it is impossible for me," he says, peering down his
glasses. He takes out a yellow legal pad and pencil.

"Let me show you," he says in his choppy English. "When they broke
this bone . . ." He sketches a bent arm and pencils in the nerves, a
twisted composition of matted lines. When the nerves are cut, he
explains, "there's less tension. The tissue is pulled" like a spring.
He touches his arm again.

"My surgery isn't as precise as it was in the past, but I think that
my limitation is more emotional, psychological. It is more related
to . . ." He pauses thoughtfully. "Impotence. Fear. Stress.

"They stripped me of my gift."

Romagoza wasn't surprised to learn "they" were here. By the time El
Salvador's civil war finally ended in 1992, many members of the
military elite -- the people who presided over the torture and murder
of thousands of guerrillas and suspected leftist sympathizers -- had
chosen the same haven he had: the United States. Two of the military
officers who ruled El Salvador during Romagoza's ordeal -- Gen. Jose
Guillermo Garcia and future general Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova --
had retired to Florida, joining their children who were already
living there. That made sense, Romagoza says, given their close ties
to U.S. officials throughout the 1980s.

"Where else are they supposed to live?" asks Romagoza, who turns 52
this week and is now a U.S. citizen. "In El Salvador? No. In another
Central America country? No. They had an open door to come here."

In fact, Florida, California and a handful of other states are home
to hundreds of accused war criminals and torturers from all over
Latin America, according to Amnesty International, a human rights
group. Other suspected human rights abusers have made their way to
the United States from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Sierra
Leone, Vietnam, Somalia, Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, sometimes
settling in the same communities as their victims. (Torture treatment
centers and refugee groups claim there are roughly 500,000 torture
survivors nationwide, with an estimated 40,000 in the Washington
area.) Vides Casanova and Garcia received U.S. visas in 1989 after
retiring from the military; Garcia was granted political asylum on
the grounds that he and his children had been threatened during the
war. Vides Casanova was allowed to enter the country despite a 1983
report to the State Department that he was likely "aware of, and for
a time acquiesced in, the coverup" of the murders of four American
churchwomen.

It was through the deaths of the churchwomen that Romagoza came to
confront his past.

Romagoza knew, of course, about the three nuns and the Catholic lay
worker who had distributed food and health supplies to local
campesinos, or peasants. On the evening of December 2, 1980, they
were stopped by the National Guard outside San Salvador, the
country's capital. They were raped and killed, their bodies dumped
into a shallow grave.

The women had been dead for 18 years when Romagoza got a phone call
from an old friend, Shawn Roberts, the lawyer who had helped him win
permanent residency in the United States. Roberts, who worked for the
Center for Justice and Accountability, in San Francisco, wanted
Romagoza to join a civil lawsuit being brought by the families of the
dead churchwomen against Garcia and Vides Casanova.

Romagoza initially agreed to be part of any legal effort to take on
the generals, then began having second thoughts. He lay awake in his
small Northwest Washington rowhouse, which he shares with a niece
studying at Howard University, and agonized over what to do.

He felt safe there, in that house with its Central American pottery
and its small garden of radishes, corn and peppers that reminded him
of the one at his family's home in El Salvador. On summer weekends,
he'd doze in a hammock in the back yard, savoring the sun and the
chance to sleep. But his sense of security in the United States did
not extend to his mother, his siblings and his in-laws in El
Salvador, where the military continued to wield tremendous power. His
family had already warned him not to get involved.

Yet he felt a sense of obligation -- to the churchwomen, who'd given
their lives for the Salvadoran people, and to all the others who had
suffered at the military's hands. If he didn't have the courage to
confront the generals, who would?

He stuck with the case, which was eventually split into two separate
lawsuits, one for the churchwomen, the other for Salvadoran torture
victims. Two other victims had signed on with Romagoza: Carlos
Mauricio, an agriculture professor who'd been beaten with a rubber-
covered metal bar, and Neris Gonzalez, a mother of two who was
abducted when she was pregnant (and lost her unborn child after being
tortured). None of the torture victims knew how much of a role they'd
play in the legal drama about to unfold. The churchwomen's case was
first, and their lawyers had compiled a mountain of evidence.

The families didn't accuse the generals of actually committing the
murders; instead, they charged that torture and murder were endemic
to their military leadership. They also cited the United Nations
Truth Commission report on El Salvador that concluded the generals
impeded the investigation of the murders.

The trial, held in West Palm Beach, Fla., in the fall of 2000, lasted
a month and ended with exoneration for the generals. The jury
acquitted both men of "command responsibility," and found them
individually not responsible for the churchwomen's murder. But any
celebration by the generals was quickly chilled by the prospect of a
second trial. And this time the generals would be face to face with
their accusers.

The letters were scary, the calls even more so. Remember that you
will return to El Salvador someday, the first letter warned Romagoza.
Remember you have family in El Salvador. Later, anonymous callers
delivered an even more chilling message: If you weren't happy with
your rape in El Salvador, we will rape you here. We will find you in
the street. We know where you live.

In El Salvador, Romagoza's mother was so afraid for her safety that
she stopped visiting church in the morning. By the time testimony got
underway in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach on June 24, 2002,
Romagoza had suffered through months of anxiety and sleeplessness.

"Plaintiffs may call your first witness."

Romagoza made his way to the stand, his throat tight and his face
strained. He pulled the microphone toward his mouth. Jose Guillermo
Garcia, 68, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, 64, once two of the
most powerful men in El Salvador, sat directly in front of him.
Garcia was defense minister from 1979 to 1983, when he was succeeded
by Vides Casanova, who'd been head of the National Guard.

One of Romagoza's lawyers, James Green, asked about his background,
his medical training, his faith.

Then, "Dr. Romagoza, were you politically involved as a student or
medical student?"

No.

"Were you ever a guerrilla?"

"Never."

"Directing your attention to December 12, 1980, what were you doing?"

He glanced at the generals, then explained he was part of a group
that organized health campaigns in northern El Salvador, where
peasants badly needed medical help. They went to provinces like
Chalatenango, in one of the zonas rojas, or "red zones" -- areas
where the fighting was the most intense, and where the military
exercised martial law.

December 12 was the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and local
people would be attending Mass. In the hope that people already
gathered would be more likely to take advantage of medical care, six
health workers -- doctors, nurses, medical students -- traveled to
the town of Santa Anita. It was only 10 days after the murder of the
churchwomen.

"Were you carrying a gun?"

"Never."

"Was anyone with you carrying a gun?"

No.

Romagoza's group, he testified, attended Mass, then got to work,
providing medical exams, inoculations, minor surgery. Soon a line
snaked alongside the church in the town square.

"What happened then?"

A truck carrying National Guardsmen arrived. Romagoza assured the
crowd the guardsmen would leave. "We were trying to calm them down,
saying, You know, they will be here, but they will leave. But it
wasn't that way . . ."

The guardsmen opened fire, emptying their machine guns into the
crowd.

People scattered, but the wounded were pinned down. Romagoza touched
his forehead and felt blood pouring from his head. He looked down and
saw his boot ripped open by shrapnel, now lodged in his foot.

A guardsman walked over to him and pressed the barrel of his gun
against Romagoza's temple. He heard a click! And again, click-click!

The safety was on.

The guardsman kicked Romagoza in the chest, then inspected his bag,
with knives, forceps and needles. The equipment and his boots --
hiking shoes of the sort worn by Salvadoran Eagle Scouts --
apparently made them suspect Romagoza was a guerrilla commander. They
took him, first by truck, and then by helicopter, to a garrison at El
Paraiso, Spanish for "paradise."

"All they said was they were going to take me in, and I was about to
go through some of the most difficult days of my life," Romagoza
said. "I asked them to kill me right then, since I knew what was
going to happen to me."

A child of middle-class parents, Romagoza grew up in Usulutan, a
farming community in southeastern El Salvador sandwiched between
mountains and a sloping volcano. His father was a sports coach and
physical education teacher. The family lived in a two-story Spanish
colonial house, with thick walls that withstood earthquakes while
others near it crumbled.

Romagoza's parents wanted him to become a priest, and sent him to
seminary when he was 12. But Romagoza had a different dream:
medicine, an interest fueled by seeing his grandfather die of a heart
attack at 58 and watching childhood friends die of malnutrition and
parasitic diseases.

Romagoza wanted to be a surgeon, but such ambitions seemed out of
reach. He was one of eight children, and medical school was costly.
But Romagoza had two uncles in the military, both colonels, who had
connections. One of them, Lt. Col. Manuel Rafael Arce Blandon, was
once the country's economics minister, and he helped his nephew get a
medical scholarship.

In 1970 at age 19, Romagoza enrolled at the University of El Salvador
in San Salvador, where he eventually hoped to specialize in cardiac
surgery. Instead he found himself caught up in El Salvador's
increasing unrest. A guerrilla movement was growing, inspired by the
success of Nicaragua's Sandinistas, and the state was intent on
crushing it. The government's hard-liners were supported by the
United States, still fighting the Cold War and determined to prevent
revolutionary, Cuban-style socialism from spreading across Central
America. The United States provided the Salvadoran government with
arms, military training and millions of dollars in aid.

By the late 1970s, El Salvador -- a country roughly the size of
Massachusetts, with just 5 million people -- was on the brink of
civil war. Though he hadn't yet finished medical school (and would
not until 1994), Romagoza had already begun to perform surgery in the
field.

"People didn't go to the hospital," he explains. "They died in the
streets, they died in the church, they died in the school . . . I did
a lot of surgery at that time."

The woman he would eventually marry, Laura Maria Melindas, was
treating people caught in the crossfire, too. She was a year behind
him in medical school and both were inspired by El Salvador's
archbishop, Oscar Romero, who became a hero to millions in Latin
America by openly challenging El Salvador's ruling class. Before he
was silenced by an assassin's bullet on March 24, 1980, Romero helped
establish groups that promoted land reform and workers' rights. He
also called on medical students to treat the country's rural poor,
who were being swept into a brutal, chaotic conflict. Romagoza and
Melindas heeded the call, though it was increasingly dangerous to do
so.

At the university's clinic, people began showing up with burns,
lesions and track marks from electric shock instruments. Some had
been raped with metal instruments, others beaten over and over again.
Romagoza says he treated about 30 torture victims in 1979 and 1980.
Their physical scars and bruises were always accompanied
by "psychosomatic problems" and "much emotional trouble."

"There was a standard among them all," Romagoza says, "which was a
terrible fear of everything."

At El Paraiso, Romagoza was stripped to his underwear, strapped to a
cement table and blindfolded.

"Suddenly these voices appeared, and they started questioning me, and
each question was accompanied by a blow," Romagoza testified. "When
they didn't receive the answers they wanted, that is when the blows
came, and the electrical shocks."

The next day he was moved to National Guard headquarters in San
Salvador. His guards joked about taking him to the best hotel in the
country. His room measured roughly four by four feet. No toilet, no
running water.

He slept only about 150 feet from Vides Casanova's office, as he
would later find out from schematic drawings of the National Guard
compound. His ankles were tied with thick ropes.

Once again, the interrogation began. The same questions were
repeated: Why was he with those people? Who were the other doctors
helping those people? More blows followed. Then more shocks.

In the wood-paneled Florida courtroom, the doctor recounted the
details without emotion as a hushed jury absorbed his words. But he
was not really there, he said later. He could not recognize his own
voice. The courtroom had receded, replaced by the torture chamber.

At night, he could hear the screams of other men and women being
tortured. Meager portions of tortillas and beans were the only
nourishment. Romagoza's wounds were left untreated.

"I feel I am once again thrown on the floor naked, waiting for the
next blow," he told the jurors, "waiting for the next electrical
shock . . . When is it going to come?"

"Do you remember Christmas Day 1980?"

It was the first Christmas that Romagoza had ever been away from his
family. He and his wife now had a baby daughter, also named Laura.
They didn't know where he was -- only that he had disappeared.

"That Christmas I had wanted to take my little girl to visit my
mother," he testified. Instead, "on Christmas when they were drunk,
and on New Year's when they were drunk, torture was harsher, and it
would vary."

Blows and shocks increased each day. "The electric shocks . . . were
almost like our daily bread." Alligator clips were clamped on every
part of his body -- his tongue, testicles, anus, breasts and the
edges of his wounds. Eventually he passed out from the pain. Then
they would wake him with water and continue torturing him until he
defecated.

One of the defendants, he told the jury, visited him in his cell.

"They would call him the big boss. They would say the colonel."

"And who was that?"

Vides Casanova, director of the National Guard.

The day of the visit, they cleaned Romagoza's wounds and blindfolded
him. He could tell that this interrogation would be different from
the others. A silence fell over the room -- there wasn't the usual
chatter among guards. Footsteps advanced, and a familiar voice began
to ask questions.

"Could you," Romagoza's lawyer asked, "see anything at all of the
person who was interrogating you?"

Yes.

"What could you see?"

"I could see his boots, his trousers and the buckle to his belt."

"Were the boots shined?"

"Very shined." His clothing was of a much higher quality than regular
guards wore. And his voice -- who could forget it? That voice was
everywhere on TV and radio. Everyone in El Salvador knew the voice of
Col. Vides Casanova.

The voice asked him about his connection to his uncles. The voice
joked that Romagoza was almost dead -- that he stank of death.

"After the colonel visited you, did your treatment change?"

Yes.

"Did it become better, or worse?"

"It was worse . . ."

"Were you ever hung from ropes or pulleys?"

They called it the plane. They took him to a room where they hung him
by his hands. Sometimes they would suspend him by his legs. He was
raped as he hung there. "They introduced a stick . . ." And it was
there, while he was hanging, that they shot him in the middle of his
left forearm.

"They told me that was the mark they made for having helped those
people. And they said that for the rest of my life I would bear the
mark of a leftist, and that I would never again do what I had been
doing there."

The bullet severed nerves, limiting motion and sensation in his thumb
and middle and index fingers. Bleeding, he was still suspended by
wires that dug into his hands. He tried to pull himself up to ease
the pain, but this tightened the wires, and buried them deeper inside
his fingers.

"They tightened so much they went halfway through my fingers," he
said, his voice cracking. "I've lost feeling in three fingers in my
right hand."

Romagoza's eyes swelled with tears. "They were quite right, I would
never ever practice surgery. I will never again be able to help
people in such a way."

After three weeks of torture, the guards took Romagoza to a room
filled with coffins. They placed him inside one barely big enough to
hold his body. He waited two days inside the coffin before a
guardsman came for him. This time there were no guns, no blows, no
threats. His two high-ranking military uncles had managed to
intercede.

"A guardsman pulled me out of the box and handed me over to the arms
of my uncle, who carried me to his car."

"As you were leaving did you see anyone else?"

"I saw my uncle, Colonel Mejia Arce, next to Colonel Vides Casanova."

"Do you see Colonel, now General, Vides Casanova in the courtroom
today?"

Romagoza pointed to the man seated directly in front of him.

"That man," he said. "The one in the middle."

Shoulders hunched, Vides Casanova stirred uncomfortably for a moment
in his dark suit.

"And are you positive that that is the same voice that you heard from
the colonel back in the torture chamber in late 1980, early 1981?"

"Almost 90 percent sure, yes."

Romagoza later came to wonder if his torture was protracted not
because of a pair of boots and a medical bag, but because the
military suspected that he and his prominent uncles were passing
weapons to the guerrillas. National Guardsmen, and Vides Casanova in
particular, pressed Romagoza repeatedly about this. Why else, they
may have thought, would a doctor with two high-ranking uncles, both
colonels, be caring for the poor in a militarized zone?

"When you were released, how did you feel?"

"As if I had been born again."

"Were you able to walk?"

No.

"How much did you weigh?"

After 24 days of detention, he weighed about 70 pounds, down from
120. He had lost a great deal of blood, and badly needed a doctor.
His neglected wounds were infected; some had worms in them. But
friends turned him away, "because they were afraid for what could
happen to them if they helped me." Even his family would not allow
him to stay with them.

He had to leave El Salvador. Not just for his own sake, but for his
family's.

"That part, leaving El Salvador, was the worst," says Romagoza, whose
wife remained behind, determined to continue working in the red
zones. He understood her decision. What she was doing, he says, "was
necessary at that time. They needed a doctor there, and she was a
good doctor." Romagoza was spirited into Guatemala on a truck loaded
with onions. From there, he made his way to Mexico City, which had
become a haven for thousands of Central American refugees. He lived
with Salvadorans from his home town of Usulutan in a modest two-story
house near the airport. They nicknamed it the "Usulutan Embassy,"
because there were sometimes as many as 15 people crowded into three
small rooms. Most of them had scars, though they didn't share what
they'd been through.

"We would talk about politics, not our trauma," Romagoza says. "We
wouldn't talk about it. We dealt with it with alcohol.

Psychologically, it was very hard. You wanted to cry, but couldn't."

Romagoza worked as an accountant at a restaurant; on weekends he
volunteered at a nearby clinic. He and his housemates tended a small
garden behind their house and bred rabbits, which they butchered and
sold to support themselves. At the market, Mexican neighbors who knew
they were displaced Salvadorans would offer free fruits and
vegetables.

"The Mexican people were beautiful and wonderful," Romagoza says. The
Mexican police were a different matter. Wearing civilian clothes,
they would approach Salvadoran refugees and ask for documents,
threatening deportation. A bribe would buy Salvadorans the right to
remain in Mexico, but such encounters always heightened their fears.

As economic conditions in Mexico worsened and police harassment
increased, hundreds of refugees began heading to the United States.
Romagoza joined them, deciding to cross the border with a group of
Guatemalans. He and 14 others hid in a farmhouse, then hiked through
the desert at dark, evading border guards. Ten hours after setting
out, they arrived in California at daybreak, on April 23, 1983.

Romagoza wound up in San Francisco, where he found work as a janitor.
He didn't speak much English, and it felt strange to be living in the
United States, which was supporting the very people who had tortured
him. Ordinary Americans, he realized, didn't understand their
government's role in El Salvador's civil war. "I was surprised by how
little people knew about what was happening outside their [borders],"
Romagoza says. "People didn't know too much about the war in Central
America -- all they knew were 'communists' . . . That was a shock.
Because I suffered the consequences" of U.S. policies.

Back then, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service was
denying political asylum to nearly all Salvadorans. Some were even
deported.

Though he was illegal himself, Romagoza became active in the
sanctuary movement, pushing to change U.S. policies toward Central
America and its refugees. He was attending a movement conference in
Washington in 1986 when he stumbled upon La Clinica del Pueblo.
Situated on the third floor of a red-brick building in Columbia
Heights, the clinic was open only Tuesday nights and was struggling
to stay afloat. But the Salvadoran community around it was vibrant
and growing. Salvadoran street vendors sold sliced mangoes and
tortillas outside the clinic, and the neighborhood was home to men
and women from Romagoza's home town.

Instead of returning to San Francisco, he volunteered at the clinic
for six months. In 1987, he joined full time. He couldn't treat
patients, but he took medical histories, translated for doctors,
cleaned and did whatever else was needed.

There was a huge demand for La Clinica's services. Though they were
thousands of miles from El Salvador, many immigrants still cringed at
the sight of a police car. Some wouldn't open the door to the mailman
because his uniform reminded them of the military. Some didn't go to
the hospital or send their children to school because the INS might
find them there and deport them. Their pervasive fear --
that "terrible fear of everything" -- produced persistent headaches,
gastric difficulties, depression and hypertension, Romagoza says.

He suffered from many of the same symptoms. But he was finally
working at a clinic again, doing exactly what he'd done in El
Salvador: serving his country's poor.

Romagoza didn't really know his wife and daughter anymore. More than
seven years had passed since he'd seen them. By 1987, they were
living in Los Filos, roughly 15 miles from Santa Anita, the town
where Romagoza had been abducted.

Laura Maria had never stopped delivering medical care to El
Salvador's peasants. It was a mission she and Romagoza both believed
in, but his long exile had distanced them. Now even phone calls were
difficult. "Eventually we communicated only through letters,"
Romagoza says, "and in some way we decided to separate."

Then one day in 1988, a friend from San Salvador called Romagoza at
the clinic. Did he know, the friend asked, that his daughter was now
living with her mother's family and that his wife was missing?

Romagoza's heart sank. He called his mother-in-law. "And she told
me . . ."

In Los Filos and the surrounding areas, the military had been
stepping up their counterinsurgency efforts. They called their
strategy "quitarle el agua al pez," draining the sea from the fish.
By destroying the guerrillas' support networks and killing their
sympathizers, they would make it more difficult for the rebels to
operate. Los Filos residents fled the area rather than risk being
caught up in the military sweeps. But Laura Maria returned to town to
get medical supplies that were hastily left behind. After the sweeps
were over, friends found her body. She'd been raped and then hacked
with machetes.

Romagoza's daughter, Laura, was 8 years old. She went to live with
her mother's family, first in San Salvador, then in Puebla, Mexico.
Romagoza occasionally calls Laura, now in her twenties and studying
child psychology, and travels to Mexico every year or so to see her.
But he always stays in a hotel during his visits, rather than with
his in-laws. To this day, he says, they blame him for Laura Maria's
death. If it weren't for him, they say, she would never have begun
working in the red zones.

He understands their anger, but doesn't feel responsible for Laura
Maria's death. "I knew she would say no if I asked her to leave El
Salvador," he says. "In some way, we thought: I will live here and
she will live there, and once the war is over, we would get together
and be a family again."

"General Garcia, you became minister of defense on or about October
15, 1979, correct?"

"Yes, yes, that is so."

Wrinkled, graying and grandfatherly, Garcia had taken the witness
stand in his defense. Romagoza watched from the plaintiffs' table
with mixed emotions. Part of him hated this man and Vides Casanova.
They were, he would say later, "the architects of the terror that all
of us were crushed by." But part of him also felt sorry for them,
especially Garcia, who reminded Romagoza of his father. Once the most
powerful men in the country, they'd been "abandoned by their
masters."

Romagoza was right. Hardly anyone had shown up to support Garcia or
Vides Casanova. No one from the Salvadoran government or military
testified on their behalf. Only one former U.S. official spoke in
their defense. Edwin Corr, the U.S. ambassador from 1985 to 1988,
singled out Vides Casanova as "the person most responsible for
helping to improve the human rights situation in El Salvador." But
another U.S. ambassador, Robert White, testified on behalf of the
torture victims, reading a series of damning State Department cables
to the jury.

"The major immediate threat to the existence of this government is
the right-wing violence," White wrote on March 9,
1980. "Unfortunately, the command structure of the Army and security
forces either tolerates or encourages this activity." In another
cable, on May 21, 1980, he described confronting the defense minister
about the torture and killing of unarmed civilians by security
forces. "Colonel Garcia admitted that the excesses were grave and
that he had a good idea who was responsible . . . Colonel Garcia made
no promise, implicit or explicit, to put an end to the official
violence."

During his testimony, Garcia defended the military's human rights
record and insisted that he had tried to protect Salvadorans from
torture and repression. "I did everything possible that was within my
reach," insisted Garcia, who was awarded the U.S. Legion of Merit in
1983 by President Reagan for his service in El Salvador. "At that
time, it was not easy." Killing and kidnapping were so rampant on
both sides of the conflict that he sent his children to live in the
United States in 1979. Two of his drivers barely survived
assassination attempts. A close friend was killed because of his
relationship with Garcia, the general told the jury.

Vides Casanova, tall and imposing, with jowls that give him an air of
sadness, took the stand after Garcia. This was the man Romagoza had
accused of direct participation in his interrogation.

Kurt Klaus, the lawyer defending both generals, asked Vides Casanova
about the diagram of El Salvador's National Guard headquarters, where
some of Romagoza's torture had allegedly taken place. "General Vides,
you saw the diagram that Dr. Romagoza testified to?"

Yes.

"Could those cells have existed at the National Guard headquarters
while you were head of the National Guard?"

"They did not exist."

"Is it possible that they existed in another building somewhere in
San Salvador?"

"It's possible. Not that I was aware of it."

"Could they have been at the national police headquarters?"

"I wouldn't be able to answer that."

"Could someone have been tortured on the 10 acres of the National
Guard headquarters without you knowing it in December of 1979?"

"I think it could have happened without one knowing about it, but I
was never aware of a single act of torture during my tenure at the
National Guard . . . I never spoke with anyone who was detained. And
I have never interrogated anybody in my entire life; that has never
been my function."

"Could that have happened for three and a half weeks beginning
December 12, 1980, at the National Guard headquarters? Could someone
have been detained and tortured without you knowing?"

"To me, it is very difficult that someone could have been tortured
under those conditions. Any torture, any scream could have been
heard . . . Firing a gunshot inside a building would have been
heard."

The National Guard was doing everything it could to restore order to
El Salvador, he said. The entire country was in turmoil. "We all
suffered," he told the jury, describing how his relatives were
kidnapped, his house was machine-gunned, his mother's house bombed.

Romagoza's lawyer James Green cross- examined Vides Casanova.

"General Vides, isn't it true there was not one single act of
insubordination to your orders during your entire 35-year career as
military officer?"

"Not that I know of."

"And General Vides, because you never ordered an investigation, you
never punished anyone who was responsible for torture?"

"I never discovered anyone carrying out torture."

"That is because you never ordered an investigation, correct?"

"Correct."

After Vides Casanova was finished testifying, the defense rested its
case. Then the judge honored an unusual request from the jurors. They
wanted to see the victims' scars. Romagoza bared his left arm where
he'd been shot. His co-plaintiff Neris Gonzalez uncovered her arms,
where a machete had sliced her and cigarettes had been burned into
her flesh.

Throughout the trial, Romagoza shuttled back and forth between West
Palm Beach and Washington, where he threw himself into his work at
the clinic. Anything to take his mind off the trial.

His testimony had forced him to relive his darkest moments, says his
therapist, Karen Hanscom, who works at Baltimore's Advocates for
Survivors of Torture and Trauma and accompanied Romagoza to Florida.

Not many people, she says, "can go through this sort of thing -- to
allow yourself to go through just as much pain as when you were
tortured," she explains. "He is the bravest man I know."

Many Salvadorans thought so, too. One day, two fellow countrymen
stopped by the clinic to offer their sympathy and talk about the
trial. Over time their numbers swelled. Every weekend, as many as 25
Salvadorans would gather at the clinic for an update on the case,
hanging on Romagoza's every word. Who testified? they'd ask. How did
the generals react? What will happen to them?

They knew how hard it had been for Romagoza to recount his story.
Many of them had been victims of torture, of trauma. Some were
widows. Others were kin of the disappeared. They nicknamed themselves
the "grupo de los tuertos," the group of broken ones. Together, they
wept, joked, reminisced, raged.

When closing arguments were finished in Florida, they held a party,
celebrating not only the end of the trial, but Romagoza's willingness
to confront the past. The doctor was helping them all heal.

The jury was on the verge of a verdict.

Romagoza's lawyers called and urged him to return to Florida. His
plane was still circling the West Palm Beach airport the morning of
July 23, 2002, when the jury filed back into the courtroom. The jury
foreman carried a folded piece of paper.

"Has the jury arrived at its verdicts?" asked the judge.

"It has, your honor," answered the foreman.

The generals were not in the courtroom. Their accusers Neris Gonzalez
and Carlos Mauricio, both of whom had recounted their torture in the
same agonizing detail as Romagoza, waited tensely for the foreman to
speak.

"In the case of Juan Romagoza Arce versus Jose Guillermo Garcia and
Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, we, the jury, return the following
verdict upon the claims of plaintiff Dr. Juan Romagoza Arce . . ."

Court spectators gasped. Gonzalez and Mauricio exclaimed and wept.
Afterward, the two Salvadorans and their lawyers raced from the
courthouse to meet Romagoza at the airport. They caught him exiting
the terminal and delivered the news: An American jury had awarded the
three of them $54.6 million, including $20 million to Romagoza for
the loss of his surgeon's skills.

Romagoza could not comprehend it. "I thought it was impossible," he
says. "I was shocked -- I was shaking."

The case had made legal history, marking the first time such high-
ranking military officers living in the United States had been held
accountable with the help of the Torture Victim Protection Act. Under
the law, signed by the first President Bush in 1992, it did not
matter if the generals did not personally execute an order, or did
not personally oversee atrocities. If they held military command over
the perpetrators, knew or should have known of the torture, could
stop it but did nothing, they were responsible.

The generals were already planning to appeal the decision, and
Romagoza and the other plaintiffs might never see a dime of award
money. But what the generals' attorney called "really just a torts
case" had become something much more significant: a surrogate war
crimes tribunal. For many Salvadorans, two decades of denial and
dissembling were over.

"I wanted to cry," Romagoza says, "cry out for all those who died in
the streets, died in the country, died anonymously. I think they'd be
happy that day."

Vides Casanova eagerly hauls out his three-inch-thick scrapbooks,
which chronicle his military career. They are filled with photographs
of three U.S. presidents: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W.
Bush, and carefully preserved invitations to presidential luncheons
and rides aboard Air Force Two and Marine One. Other photos show the
general standing shoulder to shoulder with U.S. military officers;
Colin Powell hovers in the background of a black-and-white snapshot
of a U.S. military classroom.

Vides Casanova flips through the scrapbooks in the living room of his
Palm Coast, Fla., home, where his life now revolves around his
children and grandchildren. Look at this, the general urges when he
comes across commendations from members of Congress and officers from
the Southern Military Command. One lauds him as a "shield of
democracy." In a letter accompanying one of two U.S. Legion of Merit
awards, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger congratulates Vides
Casanova for "broad institutional reform of the Salvadoran Armed
forces" and "high professional and ethical standards."

Months have passed since the end of the trial, and the general is
still struggling to make sense of the outcome. "We tried to prove
that we were innocent and that we had done everything proper
throughout our lives; to try to show that they were trying to accuse
us unjustly," he says. "Our image was distorted, and it's a reality
we now have to accept."

He claims his life has been unaffected by the verdict, which is still
being appealed. He says this even though Romagoza's lawyers are
trying to garnish $275,000 from his Merrill Lynch account and
determine whether he has any overseas accounts and assets. Vides
Casanova doesn't express any hostility toward those who sued him, not
even Romagoza.

"I felt sadness for being seated across from Salvadorans and not
being able to shake their hands," says Vides Casanova. But he adds
that they were probably exaggerating their experiences.

He speaks with an air of authority, explaining, in Spanish, the holes
in the plaintiffs' case. With flowing hand gestures, he argues that
since none of them came forward to report their torture to the
authorities at the time, their accusations are baseless. He boasts
about the Salvadoran military's discipline, professionalism and
organization.

Then he's asked about U.S. State Department cables describing massive
human rights violations during his command. He's asked about
documented massacres committed by National Guardsmen. He's asked
about paramilitary death squads and the notorious body dump at El
Playon, just 20 minutes from his office.

Vides Casanova's lips curl, and his hands grow still. He compares
himself to a doctor who wasn't capable of knowing everything
happening in his hospital. He explains that though parents can train
a child to be disciplined and obedient, "the son can do something
without the parents realizing it." He insists he only heard rumors of
torture during his tenure, though he never ordered any investigations
to find out whether they were true.

He says he served his country; his conscience is clear.

The sounds of blow dryers and ringing telephones drift through Jose
Guillermo Garcia's house in Plantation, Fla., where, the general
says, he gets by on a $700-a-month Salvadoran military pension. He
takes his grandchildren to school and stays active at his church. His
family and faith, he explains through a translator, were a great
source of strength during the trials.

Garcia came from a poor family and saw the Army as his escape route
from poverty, though the military wasn't his first career choice. "I
really wanted to be a doctor -- that was my dream. I really wanted to
heal people . . . That was my dearest interest."

He says this without irony or guilt. Romagoza, he is reminded, was
trying to heal people when he was detained. But Garcia doesn't buy
that story.

"All the doctors had left that area in Chalatenango because they were
worried that the terrorists were going to capture them," Garcia
says. "And so how can you explain that this man was helping the poor
there? He should have been in the main hospital.

"He deserved to be detained -- he was dressed in combat boots from
Eagle Scouts."

Even so, Garcia doesn't want anyone to think he countenanced torture;
he says he didn't. "Absolutely nothing justifies the use of torture.
It's really not useful for anything -- it just worsens the problem."

Later, he says "it is possible" torture occurred, "but I was never
privy to seeing it."

Is it possible you didn't investigate the torture, disappearances and
massacres under your command?

"Yes, it's possible."

Is it possible you didn't do anything to discipline the men
responsible for these acts under your leadership?

"Yes, it's possible."

"I really tried to be perfect before the law, but nobody is perfect,"
Garcia says. "The only one who never does anything wrong is the one
who never does anything, period."

The longer he talks, the more agitated he becomes. "El Salvador was
on fire," he insists. "There were some of us who went out to defend
our country and we had the approval and support of the majority of
the people in El Salvador . . . I never gave an order that wasn't
legal, I never sent anyone to get killed."

By the end of the interview, he seems worn out, used up. Garcia goes
to get his wife, who has apparently been listening from another room.
Her eyes are red as she says thank you and farewell to their guests,
a reporter and his translator. She does not meet their gaze.

The waiting room at La Clinica overflows with patients on a winter
morning, but no one seems to mind the lengthy queue to see a doctor.
In this community, La Clinica is a treasured sanctuary. Its patients
don't have to struggle to explain their aches and pains in English;
the staff of 50 speak Spanish.

Patients don't have to worry about their lack of medical insurance;
treatment is free. They don't have to answer questions about their
immigration status; the clinic doesn't know and doesn't care if they
are here illegally.

Romagoza presides over the institution he has helped build with
tremendous pride and a seemingly endless supply of energy. He works
here six and sometimes seven days a week, immersing himself in the
daily dramas and demands.

Today, the heat is out, and the phones aren't working. Every time it
rains, the roof leaks. The building on Irving Street NW has never had
an elevator -- patients in wheelchairs have to be carried up a flight
of steps -- and vivid murals of peasant life can't make up for the
ridiculously tight quarters. The place just isn't big enough to
handle 31,000 patient visits a year.

Romagoza and the clinic board have long wanted to expand, to move to
a larger, more modern space. Now, after seven years of fundraising,
they are about to realize their dream. The clinic is getting ready to
relocate to a three-story, $3.4 million facility with 10 examination
rooms, 11 mental health and HIV counseling rooms, a chapel and a
children's playroom.

As moving day approaches, the excitement grows. And so does the
sadness. For all its shortcomings, the old clinic is filled with
memories. Romagoza arranges for psychotherapists to visit with the
staff for three or four sessions.

"We had to prepare ourselves" for the emotional fallout of the move,
Romagoza says later. "Many people at the last minute didn't want to
move. They said, 'I want to be here. I love this building.' That was
the big fear for everybody: that we would lose our identity."

The last workday in the old building arrives, on April 4, 2003. The
staff members close the building with a ceremony of remembrance. They
read poems and testimonials. Share laughter and shed tears.

And then they start dancing -- a conga line snaking through the
hallways to the strains of mariachi music. When they are finished,
they fall in line behind the band and head up the street to the new
building on 15th Street. Each staffer carries a stick of incense or a
candle and one cherished item from the old clinic. Romagoza brings a
Bible given to him by a former patient. A large painting of
Archbishop Romero heads the procession.

The new La Clinica is pristine, untouched, with freshly painted walls
in Latin reds, oranges and yellows. From Romagoza's office, he'll be
able to see patients congregating in the waiting room, hear their
rapid-fire Spanish. The staff members gather for a moment of silence
in their new home. Romagoza stands quietly, thinking about all the
moves he has made and the goodbyes he has said.

"I remember when I came here, how I was a refugee," he says later. "I
came here with nothing -- only my clothes. I moved from El Salvador,
Guatemala, Mexico, [California] and then [to] Washington. Moving,
moving, moving. But each time has been a little different, a little
improved."

The torture didn't end his journey; it was, in retrospect, its
starting point.

After the trial, Romagoza found himself longing to return to El
Salvador. He'd been back before. In 1991, after an armistice between
the government and the guerrillas, he returned to Chalatenango and
sought out the place where his wife is buried. Her grave lies in a
forest near the Honduran border, marked by a simple cross. It is,
Romagoza says, a peaceful place. Someday, after his daughter finishes
school, he'll take her there.

He also ventured to Santa Anita, the town where he was abducted
during the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It looked exactly the
same as he remembered it. "Two women actually recognized me," he
says. "They were amazed and said, 'Were you that young doctor who
helped us during the war? We thought you were dead!' "

From then on, he returned to El Salvador twice a year, seeing
firsthand how the country was recovering from years of bloodshed.
Under their agreement with the government, the guerrillas were
integrated into El Sal- vador's civilian police forces. The National
Guard and the military were downsized, becoming less visible and
menacing. The U.N. Truth Commission report detailed many of the war's
worst atrocities, but a sweeping amnesty law guaranteed that no one
in El Salvador would be tried for them. No one would be punished for
the torture cells, the massacres, the body dumps. It was as if a
conflict that had claimed 75,000 lives and wounded thousands of
others had never happened.

"We don't talk about the war," Romagoza says. "In some way, that's
how we resolved things in El Salvador."

But the trial in Florida had pierced the silence, making headlines in
San Salvador just as it had in Washington. Now that the testimony was
over, the fear was back. Romagoza wanted to visit Usulutan, but
delayed the trip for months. If there had been death threats before
the testimony started, what would he face now? Many people in El
Salvador thought Romagoza was rich as a result of the verdict, though
he has yet to receive any money.

That perception could make him a target for kidnappers in one of
Latin America's most crime-plagued countries. His family didn't think
he'd be safe.

But he couldn't stay away. After the opening of the new clinic, he
boarded a plane to San Salvador to spend Easter with his family.
Relatives met him outside the airport. They were armed, just in case.

Romagoza kept a low profile throughout the visit. He missed some of
the Holy Week events in Usulatan because of the throngs they
attracted. Friends accompanied him on walks, and they made him turn
his lights off at dark.

Few people asked him about the trial, especially in public. "They say
it is dangerous to remember," Romagoza says. Sometimes it came up
over dinner with close friends. None of them could get over his
willingness to confront the past. But by doing so, he says, he has
loosened its hold on him.

When he was in his cell, he remembers, the first thing he would hear
in the morning was the Salvadoran national anthem. The guards would
listen to it at 6 a.m. as they finished their breakfasts and were
preparing to resume their beatings.

For years, Romagoza could not bear to hear that music. Then, when he
was back in El Salvador this past spring, he heard the anthem being
played on the radio early one morning as he made his way to the
market. He stopped to listen. The music no longer reminded him of
black-booted men coming to hurt him. Instead it made him think of the
country he'd always loved: its mountains, its dusty roads, its
churches, its people.

De la paz en la dicha suprema / siempre noble soñó El Salvador.

Of peace enjoyed in perfect happiness / El Salvador has always nobly
dreamed.

Joshua E.S. Phillips is a freelance journalist based in New York.
Juan Romagoza Arce will be fielding questions and comments about this
article at 1 p.m. Monday on www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

CELEBRAN NATALICIO DE MONSEÑOR OSCAR ARNULFO ROMERO

DIARIO CO-LATINO
San Salvador Sábado, 16 de Agosto de 2003

Mirna Jiménez
Redacción Co Latino

El altar había sido adornado con palmas, ramilletes de flores y
adornos de papel de colores, al centro, el rostro de Monseñor Oscar
Arnulfo Romero, pintado en una manta, recordó a los que lo amaban, su
franca expresión de aliento, sinceridad y esperanza con los pobres y
desprotegidos del país. La Iglesia Católica celebró ayer por la noche
con una misa, el nacimiento del sacerdote mártir. La ceremonia se
realizó en la cripta de Romero, ubicado en el sótano de la Iglesia de
Catedral Metropolitana.

De no haber sido asesinado, el líder religioso habría cumplido ayer
86 años. Nació un 15 de agosto de 1917, en el municipio de Ciudad
Barrios, departamento de San Miguel.

Elba García, una monja de las Carmelitas Misioneras de Santa Teresa,
dice que justamente su cumpleaños coincidía con el Día de la Virgen,
que a nivel mundial festeja la feligresía católica.

A la misa, oficiada por Ricardo Uriostes, presidente de la Fundación
Monseñor Romero y concelebrada por otros sacerdotes, asistieron
decenas de seguidores, algunos incluso se desplazaron a la tumba y la
besaron.

Adelayda Estrada, abrió el culto con la munición eucarística, habló
sobre la obra de Monseñor y lo comparó con un profeta. "Un 15 de
agosto nuestro padre nos regaló a un profeta de nuestro tiempo a
Monseñor, hombre de oración, hombre de fé, hombre del pueblo" dijo.

Añadió que Romero consintió el proyecto de Jesús de Nazaret, lo hizo
suyo y pudo concretizarlo, perfectamente, en el servicio, en anuncio
del reino de Dios y en la denuncia del pecado original.

Asimismo, recordó a todos, que nuestros países son mantenidos bajo la
opresión en el subdesarrollo, por estructuras económicas y sociales
de explotación, por lo que la misión evangelizadora es impostergable.

En la Eucaristía, se mencionó que hoy Monseñor esta más cerca de
Dios, para pedir por esta patria. "Esta con el señor y desde allá
tiene mas fuerza y más poder para interceder por nosotros.

"A mi me dicen frecuentemente, padre estoy comiendo tortillas con sal
todos los días, esta es la realidad, esta patria no ha sido tal de
resolver la pobreza en que viven cientos de personas", citó Urioste.

Después de acto de fé, se develó un monumento en nombre de Monseñor,
en el predio universitario que lleva su nombre desde marzo de este
año en el costado poniente de catedral, como un reconocimiento al
mártir que la iglesia pretende canonizar.

Todos en peregrinación y con faros en sus manos, se dispusieron a
cruzar la calle hacia el lugar, sin embargo tuvieron que esperar un
tiempo mientras se calmaba la lluvia.

Para Elías Romero, miembro de la Fundación Monseñor Romero , el
partir vive con ellos y aunque todavía no se haya aprobado su
canonización, es un santo que los acompaña en toda su lucha. Los
defiende de la represión, les ayuda a mitigar el hambre y a lidiar
con sus penas.

Romero dice que si Monseñor estuviera vivo, estaría denunciado los
Tratados de libre Comercio, el ALCA, el desempleo y todo lo demás que
agobia y mina la vida de los salvadoreños.

Piden se suspenda ley de Amnistía

El Comité Monseñor Romero, pidió se escuche a la Comisión
Internacional de Derechos Humanos, que ha recomendado suspender la
Ley de Amnistía que encubre a los asesinos de Monseñor Romero y de
otros crímenes considerados de lesa humanidad, que se registraron
durante la guerra civil.

Antonio Barrera, Secretario de Comunicaciones de la fundación, dijo
que se debe de insistir en suspender la Ley de Amnistía porque este
país tiene una deuda pendiente con el pueblo, y es el de aceptar
quien mató a Monseñor Romero.

"Todos sabemos quien es y no lo dice la izquierda, no lo dijo la
guerrilla, sino el informe de la Comisión de la Verdad, la Opinión
Internacional y sobre todo lo dice una investigación de los hechos
por lo que la ley de Amnistía tiene que eliminarse", sostuvo.

Esto serviría para cerrar una vieja herida que esta abierta y para
agilizar su proceso de canonización, pero básicamente, lo importante
es que haya verdad y perdón.
Por su parte, la Procuradora para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos,
Beatrice de Carrillo, quien acompañó la misa, dijo que hay que acatar
la resolución de Naciones Unidas, que está pidiendo al gobierno
salvadoreño, modificar o derogar esta ley.

La funcionaria afirmó que la Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ), no ha
dado contestación clara que permita superar la problemática que se
está dando, que es para llegar a la verdad. "Debemos exigir que el
gobierno abra todos los casos. La verdad siempre ayuda y no puede
haber democracia, sino se vive en la mentira", reiteró.

CONMEMORAN NATALICIO DE MONSEÑOR ROMERO

Salvador Meléndez
LA PRENSA GRÁFICA
17 de agosto de 2003

Serenatas como “Las Mañanitas”, cánticos religiosos, testimonio=
s y
algunas lágrimas fueron los acompañantes de los asistentes a la
celebración del 86.º aniversario del nacimiento de monseñor Óscar
Arnulfo Romero, originario de Ciudad Barrios (San Miguel) y asesinado
a principios de la década de los ochenta.

El viernes recién pasado la cripta donde se mantienen los restos del
religioso pasó de ser un lugar solitario a un lugar donde se vivía la
fiesta del natalicio del desaparecido líder de la Iglesia Católica.

La jornada pasó sin contratiempos hasta que por la tarde se
desarrolló el evento más importante: la misa solemne donde diferentes
grupos religiosos participaron y por último lo más esperado: la
develación del monumento a monseñor Romero en el costado poniente de
la Catedral.

Aunque la lluvia atrasó un poco esta parte del programa, los
feligreses, acompañados con pequeñas velas envueltas en cartoncillos
con el rostro de Romero salieron a la calle a presenciar el
descubrimiento de San Romero de América.

(Foto) FIELES. Los creyentes en monseñor Romero son fieles asistentes
a todas las celebraciones relacionadas con el desaparecido líder de
la Iglesia Católica a principio de la década de los ochenta.

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial - Maria Irma Menjívar Serrano

Fecha: miércoles, agosto 20, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Nació en Los Amates, el 14 de mayo de 1940. Lugar y Fecha del
Martirio. San José Las Flores, 20 de agosto de 1980.

-En Español Abajo-

       New York Forum With Visiting Delegation Of
          The Socialist Front of Puerto Rico

Saturday, August 30, 2003
12 Noon
St. Mary's Episcopal Church
521 West 126th Street, Manhattan
Between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue
IRT #1 and # 9 7th Avenue subway Trains To 125th Street

The Current Political/Social Reality In Puerto Rico
Presentations will include the situation facing the workers movement,
the struggle in the electrical energy sector, the constituent
assembly, perspectives on the Vieques struggle, the potential closing
of the Roosevelt Road military base, the student movement, repression
against the independence and socialist movements in Puerto Rico.

Jorge Farinacci, Spokesperson, Socialist Front
The Student/Youth Movement In Puerto Rico
Karen Vega, Spokesperson, Socialist Front

Work/Activity Reports Of The
Working Group Of The Socialsit Front In New York
Frank Velgara, Carlos Rovira, Benjamin Ramos, Ricardo Gabriel
and others.

Invitation Extended By:
The Socialist Front of Puerto Rico
The Working Group of the Socialist Front in New York

For More Information:
Frank Velgara (718)601-4751
fmvelgara@h...
Carlito Rovira "Carlito" (212)749-8024
carlitoboricua@y...

-----------------------------------------

Encuentro/Foro En Nueva York Con Delegación
Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico

Sábado 30 De Agosto
12 Medio Día
Iglésia Episcopal Santa Maria
521 Oeste Calle 126, Manhattan
Entre Avenidas Broadway y Amsterdam
Tren #1 or #9 Hasta Parada De "125th Street"

La Coyuntura Política/Social En Puerto Rico
Entre los temas a tratarse: la situacion del movimiento obrero y la
lucha en energia electrica, tambien en lo de la asamblea constituyente
y en le situacion de vieques, el posible cierre de la base Roosevelt
Roads, y la represión en contra de los movimientos independentistas y
socialistas en Puerto Rico.

Jorge Farinacci, Portavoz, Frente Socialista
El Movimiento Estudiantil
Karen Vega, Portavoz, Frente Socialista

Informes de Trabajo
Equipo Del Frente Socialista En Nueva York
Frank Velgara, Carlos Rovira, Benjamin Ramos, Ricardo Gabriel
Entre Otros.

Invitan:
Frente Socialist de Puerto Rico
Equipo de Trabajo, Frente Socialista en Nueva York

Para Más Información:
Frank Velgara (718)601-4751
fmvelgara@h...
Carlito Rovira "Carlito (212)749-8024
carlitoboricua@y...

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial: Jürg Weis

Fecha: viernes, agosto 22, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Evangelical (Protestant) theologian, coordinator of the Swiss
national secretariat of committees in solidarity with Central
America, martyr of solidarity with El Salvador, August 22, 1988.

Teólogo evangélico, coordinador de la secretaría
nacional suiza de los comités de Solidaridad con
Centroamérica, mártir de la solidaridad con El Salvador -
22 de agosto de 1988.

JESÚS DELGADO: "LA IGLESIA CATÓLICA SABE QUIÉN FUE EL ASESINO DE
MONSEÑOR ROMERO"

Christian Guevara Guadrón
EL FARO
San Salvador, 18-24 de agosto de 2003

El salvadoreño más cercano al proceso de canonización de Óscar
Arnulfo Romero, asegura que la Iglesia católica ya lo sabe todo sobre
su asesinato en 1980, aunque no lo revelará hasta dentro de unos 50
años. Mientras, la Iglesia salvadoreña ha pedido que se reabra el
caso de la muerte del arzobispo.

Monseñor Jesús Delgado asegura que la Iglesia Católica ya determinó
quién planificó la muerte de Monseñor Óscar Arnulfo Romero y quién
fue el francotirador que lo asesinó. "Tenemos una investigación que
determinó tanto al asesino intelectual como al que disparó", dijo el
párroco de la catedral metropolitana, donde está enterrado Romero. Y
que tiene a cargo la postulación de la beatificación de Monseñor
Romero en el Vaticano.

Delgado afirma que, por disposiciones canónicas, la Iglesia Católica
aún no puede revelar nombres. "Tienen que pasar dos generaciones para
que la información pueda ser consultada. Por el momento, se encuentra
en los archivos secretos del Vaticano y ya fue estudiada para la
causa de beatificación". Es decir, la información sólo podrá ser
consultada cuando transcurran unos 80 años.

María Julia Hernández, directora de Tutela Legal del Arzobispado,
avaló que se realizó una investigación por parte de la Iglesia
Católica, pero que se "encuentra estancada debido a la Ley de
Amnistía que existe en el país". Hernández recordó que el caso de
Monseñor Romero se encuentra en la Corte Interamericana de Derechos
Humanos.

Reapertura

Hace quince días, el Comité de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones
Unidas se pronunció en contra de la Ley de Amnistía en 1993. ""El
comité considera que dicha ley vulnera el derecho a un recurso
efectivo contemplado en el artículo 2 del 'Pacto internacional de
derechos civiles y políticos', puesto que impide que se investigue y
se sancione a todos los responsables de violaciones de derechos
humanos y que se proporcione reparación a las víctimas", expresa el
informe publicado en Ginebra.

Acompañando al informe de la ONU, el Arzobispo de San Salvador,
Monseñor Fernando Sáenz, también pidió la apertura de las
investigaciones. Según Delgado, la Iglesia Católica no está
interesada en demandar a alguien, sino simplemente en que se haga
justicia. "Nuestra investigación sólo tiene como objetivo la
beatificación de Monseñor Romero, no buscamos inculpar judicialmente
a alguien", declaró.

Las declaraciones de Delgado y el Informe de la ONU concuerdan con el
86° aniversario del natalicio de Monseñor Óscar Romero, quien fue
asesinado en el 24 de marzo de1980 mientras celebraba una misa. Según
la Comisión de la Verdad, el crimen fue planeado por el Mayor Roberto
d'Aubuisson, quien dirigía un grupo paramilitar de ultraderecha
denominado "Los Escuadrones de la Muerte".

Campaña de Apoyo a Vieques
  http://www.viequessupport.org
  E-mail: viequessc@...

      ____________________________________________________

             ¡NO AL RACISMO Y GUERRA IMPERIALISTA!
         FUERA LA MARINA DE VIEQUES Y TODO PUERTO RICO!
      ____________________________________________________

  ¿Luego de la victoria en Vieques, que papel tendrá Puerto Rico
  en las estrategias estadounidenses para la dominación global?

Seminario
Sábado, 20 de Septiembre
El Foro Brecht
122 Oeste Calle 27, Piso 10
Entre Avenidas 6ta y 7ma, Manhattan
Ciudad de Nueva York

Auspicia:
Campaña De Apoyo A Vieques y
El Foro Brecht

Ponencias:
Jorge Farinacci, Portavoz, Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico
Ismael Guadalupe, Comité ProRescate y Desarrollo de Vieques, y otros.

En un momento cuando los Estados Unidos acelera el despliegue sin
precedente de su fuerzas militares a nivel internacional, ¿porque
piensa cerrar una base militar en Puerto Rico? El 1ro de mayo, 2003,
después de años de protestas a nivel mundial, los Estados
Unidos, paró sus bombardeos en Vieques –– por el momento. Pero, los
Estados Unidos no ha entregado los terrenos al pueblo de Vieques, ni
ha tomado medidas para implementar la descontaminación de la Isla Nena
después de 63 años de prácticas en el área de bombardeos por parte
de la marina de guerra.

La realidad es que Vieques es solamente el punto más saliente de
las operaciones militares en Puerto Rico. El Pentágono controla 14%
del territorio nacional puertorriqueño. Hoy día existen 109 bases
militares y facilidades en Puerto Rico de las cuales las bases de
Buchanan y Roosevelt Roads son las más grandes. Puerto Rico es la
cede de 80% del Comando Sur que incluye las fuerzas invasoras
utilizadas en toda América Latina y de las tropas enviadas a África
por vía de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico es cede de las fuerzas militares
estadounidenses más elites de el ejercito (Green Berets), la marina
(Navy Seals), y de las fuerzas aéreas (Air Force Comandos), etc.

A resumidas cuentas, Puerto Rico es el eje central de la dominación
militar imperialista en América Latina y juega un papel principal
en las estrategias globales de los estados unidos.

Este seminario de un día tiene como proposito proveerle un foro
educativo y de discusión para activistas solidarios con la lucha de
liberación nacional y los activistas en la comunidad
puertorriqueña y el movimiento en contra la guerra.

Donación Sugerida: $6/$8/$10

>From: "Danilo La Chapel" Subject: Fwd: Dolor, esperanza y lucha en El
>Salvador  15-agosto-03   les comparto esta reflexión saludos Roberto
>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:33:15 -0400
>
>--------- Forwarded Message ---------
>DATE: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 21:21:34
>From: "Roberto Pineda" To: Damián Quispe
>
>Dolor, esperanza y lucha en El Salvador*
>
>En nuestro país existe mucho dolor, mucho sufrimiento, es un sufrimiento de
>muchos años, de generación tras generación, cuando caminamos por las
>calles, cuando vemos la televisión o escuchamos radio, nos encontramos con
>los rostros del sufrimiento, son los mismos rostros de siempre, los rostros
>tristes de los que sufren...
>
>Los rostros del sufrimiento
>
>Observamos con indignación como cada mes aparece una nueva epidemia, en la
>actualidad existen tres, de neumonía, de conjuntivitis y esta comenzando la
>de sarampión. Son ya más de trescientos niños y niñas que han muerto. Y
>mueren porque son pobres y porque el gobierno es irresponsable y corrupto;
>los hospitales no tienen dinero porque hay funcionarios corruptos que se lo
>han robado y gozan de total impunidad.
>
>Un amigo, el pastor Ricardo Cornejo les decía una vez a los empresarios de
>la ANEP, cuando la epidemia del dengue, que en nuestro país “hasta un
>zancudo nos mata.” Es tanto el grado de desnutrición, el grado de
>insalubridad, el grado de vulnerabilidad, que los niños sobreviven desde el
>dolor y el sufrimiento, de la misma manera que sus padres y sus madres.
>
>Existe mucho dolor, el dolor de ver todos los años en invierno como las
>casas se inundan, y se pierde todo, y hay que comenzar de nuevo, el dolor
>de tenerse  que ir para Estados Unidos de mojado, y dejar a la familia, y
>saber que quizás el hogar se va a destruir, pero que hay que comer, y hacer
>una vida lejos de los hijos, con el corazón partido en dos, con el sueño de
>regresar algún día...
>
>Existe mucho dolor, el dolor de las madres que les están capturando a sus
>hijos que son miembros de maras, y los cazan como animales salvajes, y
>luego la PNC los arroja a las celdas, a veces junta a miembros de pandillas
>enemigas, de la MS y la 18, para que se maten entre ellos. Y está también
>el dolor de las víctimas de estos jóvenes, condenados por el sistema a ser
>delincuentes, a llevar el tatuaje de la pobreza durante toda su vida.
>
>Existe mucho dolor, el dolor de las madres que  les están enviando a  sus
>hijos como carne de cañón, como soldados  a Irak, a defender los intereses
>de las corporaciones petroleras, y que vivirán angustiadas ante cada bomba,
>ante cada situación de violencia en ese país lejano  que es víctima de la
>ocupación militar del imperio.
>
>El dolor se transforma en resignación o en rebeldía
>
>La experiencia nos enseña que el dolor se puede transformar en resignación
>o en rebeldía, dependiendo de los niveles organizativos y de los estados de
>animo de la gente. En la actualidad, el dolor se ha  transformado en
>resignación, en sometimiento, en subordinación ante los poderosos, pero
>también en rebeldía, en compromiso, en  esperanza, en lucha, en dignidad,
>en conciencia.
>
>El sufrimiento se convierte en resignación. Y la resignación conduce al
>sometimiento, al miedo. Las clase dominantes se han especializado en
>inducir el miedo al cambio, a lo nuevo, a lo diferente. Y el miedo se
>convierte en adormecedor de conciencias. Y el miedo paraliza los corazones.
>Y el miedo determina en la actualidad la conducta de miles de salvadoreños.
>Esto explica porque siguen en el gobierno los representantes de un sistema
>caduco. Es porque los pobres tienen miedo y siguen votando por ellos.
>
>Como iglesias debemos de reconocer que hemos contribuido al miedo, desde el
>miedo al infierno hasta el miedo a los cambios, y hemos participado en el
>sistema de ideas que preconiza la salvación individual, cada quien debe
>buscar como salvarse, y hemos promovido el individualismo y hemos condenado
>la salvación colectiva, la liberación social, y predicamos un mensaje
>escapista y elitista, y en esta forma hemos rechazado al Jesús que fue
>crucificado y resucitó victorioso. O sea que nosotros como iglesias tenemos
>vela en este entierro. Y debemos de transformarnos para seguir a Jesús.
>
>Pero el dolor puede también convertirse en rebeldía. Depende de nosotros.
>El dolor puede transformarse en esperanza, en compromiso, en lucha. Las
>figuras de Monseñor Romero, de las monjas norteamericanas asesinadas, de
>los jesuitas masacrados, de los estudiantes del 30de julio,  nos dan
>testimonio de eso. Del dolor puede surgir la llama de la rebelión. Y como
>iglesia debemos de estar listos para acompañar a los que sueñan y luchan,
>porque Jesús soñó y luchó. Y donde está la lucha allí está la esperanza.
>
>Observamos en nuestra realidad también signos de este despertar. Y esto nos
>da mucha alegría. Este año miles de personas marcharon por las calles de
>San Salvador rechazando la privatización de la salud. En las elecciones de
>marzo,  la oposición derrotó al partido de gobierno. El mes pasado
>estuvimos en Honduras, participando del IV Encuentro Mesoamericano donde
>miles de personas ratificaron su voluntad de luchar contra las políticas
>comerciales de la OMC, del ALCA, del Plan Puebla Panamá y de los Tratados
>de Libre Comercio.
>
>En ese encuentro se nos señaló que como salvadoreños tenemos la
>responsabilidad de luchar por cerrar la base militar norteamericana de
>Comalapa, que se ha convertido en una amenaza para la soberanía de los
>pueblos mesoamericanos. Esta base militar es una cuchillo que tenemos
>enterrado en nuestra garganta y debemos de sacarlo.
>
>En este espíritu de lucha que es el Espíritu de Dios, estamos planificando
>una Caravana Ecuménica por la Justicia Económica, que asista a la V Reunión
>Ministerial de la OMC que se va a realizar en Cancún, México del 9 al 14 de
>septiembre próximo,  y exprese su oposición a la globaliberalización que se
>nos esta imponiendo, al discurso único y a la prepotencia militar
>imperialista.
>
>Como iglesias nos corresponde hacer todos los esfuerzos para que el dolor y
>el sufrimiento de nuestro pueblo por las políticas neo-liberales se
>traduzcan en denuncia, en lucha, en marchar por las calles para recuperar
>la esperanza y construir la justicia. Estamos seguros que Dios que es un
>Dios de justicia y de  esperanza, nos acompaña en estos esfuerzos. Amén.
>
>* Ponencia del Rev. Roberto Pineda en Foro sobre Globalización y Tratados
>de Libre Comercio, convocado por el Foro Ecuménico de El Salvador, el
>pasado viernes 15 de agosto de 2003, en el Centro Luterano Concordia.
>
>
>--------- End Forwarded Message ---------
>
>
>____________________________________________________________
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Testimonio: "La historia de Maria Guardado"
    Despues de haber dejado atras la guerra civil en su pais natal El
Salvador, Maria Guardado recibe asilo politico en Los Estados Unidos,
en 1983. Debido a sus convicciones politicas fue secuestrada, violada
y torturada por los escuadrones de la muerte en El Salvador. Maria
revela como se recupero de sus traumas y hoy en dia es una activista
y poeta que lucha por los derechos humanos. Maria solo regresa a El
Salvador para honrar al Arzobispo Oscar Romero pero su visita la
obliga a reconciliarse con su pasado una vez mas.
    Vea la pelicula, oiga sus poemas y comparta con Randy Vasquez, el
director de la pelicula su experiecia en la grabacion de esta
pelicula, ganadora como mejor documental en los festivales de films
en NY, Chicago, Vancouver y San Francisco. La pelicula fue presentada
oficialmente en el festival de La Havana.
Fecha: Domingo 7 de Septiembre a las 6:00 p.m.
Lugar: Primera Iglesia Unitaria de Los Angeles
        2936 W. 8th St. Los Angeles, CA 9005
Para informacion: (213) 387-3784 o elfrankieflores@...
Comida Salvadorena sera servida!

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

This Day in History

Fecha: lunes, agosto 25, 2003
Hora: todo el día

ROMERO -- the movie -- starring Raul Julia, directed by John
Duigan, and written by John Sacret Young, was released on this
day in 1989. It was the first Hollywood feature film ever to be
financed by the Roman Catholic Church.

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial: Felipe de Jesús Chacón Vásquez

Fecha: martes, agosto 26, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Peasant, chatechist, murdered by Salvadoran security forces,
August 26, 1977.

Campesino, catequista, asesinado por fuerzas de seguridad en El
Salvador - 26 de agosto de 1977.

TESTIMONY: The Maria Guardado Story:
Fleeing the civil war in El Salvador, Maria Guardado received asylum
in the United States in 1983. Because of her political activity, she
was kidnapped by the salvadorian death scuads, raped, tortured and
then left for dead in the street.
    The films follows her extraordinary journey back to El Salvador in
March 2000 to participate in the march honoring the nation's fallen
hero, Archbishop Oscar Romero. Now living in Los Angeles, Maria
reveals how she was recovered from her personal horrors and how she
continue her life as a political activist and poet.
    Join us for both, her live testimony and the Maria Guardado film
by Randy Vasquez, who will be present and will share in a
conversation with participants, his experience on the challenges he
faces filming this winner award documentary.
    Salvadorian food will be served.
Date: September 7, 2003 at 6:00 p.m.
Location: First Unitarian Church Of Los Angeles
           2936 W. 8th St. Los Angeles, CA 90005
For info Call: (213)387-3784 or email: elfrankieflores@...

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

40th ANNIV. OF DR. KING'S "I HAVE A DREAM" SPEECH

Fecha: jueves, agosto 28, 2003
Hora: todo el día

'I  HAVE  A  DREAM'
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 28, 1963

(español sigue debajo)

I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties
of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.  It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream... that one day this nation will rise up and live out
the true meaning of its creed, "We hold these truths to be self-
evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream... that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons
of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to
sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream... that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I Have A Dream... that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they sill not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character,

I Have A Dream Today.

I HAVE A DREAM... that one day down in Alabama with its vicious
racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of
interposition and nullification -- one day right there in Alabama,
little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!

I HAVE A DREAM... that one day every valley shall be exalted, every
hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made
plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South
with...

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair
a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of
our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together,
to sit together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom
together, knowing that we will  be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing
with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain-side
Let freedom ring.

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let
freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.  Let
freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring
from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring
from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the
curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring
from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let Freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let Freedom ring from every hill an molehill of Mississippi, from
every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when we allow freedom to
ring, when we let it ring from every village, from every hamlet, from
every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when
all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the
words of the old Negro spiritual:

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are FREE AT
LAST!"





================================

ESPAÑOL:





'YO TENGO UN SUEÑO'
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 28, 1963


Hoy les digo a ustedes, amigos míos, que a pesar de las dificultades
de hoy y mañana, yo aún tengo un sueño. Es un sueño profundamente
arraigado en el "sueño americano".

Sueño que un día esta nación se levantará y vivirá el verdadero
significado de su credo: "Afirmamos que estas verdades son evidentes:
que todos los hombres han sido creados iguales".

Sueño que un día, en las rojas colinas de Georgia, los hijos de los
antiguos esclavos y los hijos de los antiguos dueños de esclavos, se
puedan sentar juntos a la mesa de la hermandad.

Sueño que un día, incluso el estado de Misisipí, un estado que se
sofoca con el calor de la injusticia y de la opresión, se convertirá
en un oasis de libertad y justicia.

Sueño que mis cuatro hijos vivirán un día en un país en el cual no
serán juzgados por el color de su piel, sino por los rasgos de su
personalidad.

¡Hoy tengo un sueño!

Sueño que un día, el estado de Alabama cuyo gobernador escupe frases
de interposición entre las razas y anulación de los negros, se
convierta en un sitio donde los niños y niñas negras, puedan unir sus
manos con las de los niños y niñas blancas y caminar unidos, como
hermanos y hermanas.

¡Hoy tengo un sueño!

Sueño que algún día los valles serán cumbres, y las colinas y
montañas serán llanos, los sitios más escarpados serán nivelados y
los torcidos serán enderezados, y la gloria de Dios será revelada, y
se unirá todo el género humano.

Esta es nuestra esperanza. Esta es la fe con la cual regreso al Sur.
Con esta fe podremos esculpir de la montaña de la desesperanza una
piedra de esperanza. Con esta fe podremos trasformar el sonido
discordante de nuestra nación, en una hermosa sinfonía de
fraternidad. Con esta fe podremos trabajar juntos, rezar juntos,
luchar juntos, ir a la cárcel juntos, defender la libertad juntos,
sabiendo que algún día seremos libres.

Ese será el día cuando todos los hijos de Dios podrán cantar el himno
con un nuevo significado, "Mi país es tuyo. Dulce tierra de libertad,
a tí te canto. Tierra de libertad donde mis antesecores murieron,
tierra orgullo de los peregrinos, de cada costado de la montaña, que
repique la libertad". Y si Estados Unidos ha de ser grande, esto
tendrá que hacerse realidad.

Por eso, ¡que repique la libertad desde la cúspide de los montes
prodigiosos de Nueva Hampshire! ¡Que repique la libertad desde las
poderosas montañas de Nueva York! ¡Que repique la libertad desde las
alturas de las Alleghenies de Pensilvania! ¡Que repique la libertad
desde las Rocosas cubiertas de nieve en Colorado! ¡Que repique la
libertad desde las sinuosas pendientes de California! Pero no sólo
eso: ! ¡Que repique la libertad desde la Montaña de Piedra de
Georgia! ¡Que repique la libertad desde la Montaña Lookout de
Tennesse! ¡Que repique la libertad desde cada pequeña colina y
montaña de Misisipí! "De cada costado de la montaña, que repique la
libertad".

Cuando repique la libertad y la dejemos repicar en cada aldea y en
cada caserío, en cada estado y en cada ciudad, podremos acelerar la
llegada del día cuando todos los hijos de Dios, negros y blancos,
judíos y cristianos, protestantes y católicos, puedan unir sus manos
y cantar las palabras del viejo espiritual negro: "¡Libres al fin!
¡Libres al fin! Gracias a Dios omnipotente, ¡somos libres al fin!"

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

SAN SALVADOR - 18 aniversario del IDDH

Fecha: sábado, agosto 30, 2003
Hora: 2:00PM PDT (GMT-07:00)

18 aniversario del Instituto de Derechos Humanos de la UCA,
fundado por el padre Segundo Montes, con un convivio musical en
el que participarán los grupos nacionales Exceso de Equipaje,
Son ¾ y Pueblo nuevo y en el que se tendrá como invitado
especial al grupo argentino "Quinteto Tiempo".

La entrada es gratis y habrá ventas de comida, artesanías
y exposiciones de fotos.


Están invitados en el parqueo general de la UCA desde las 2
PM.

Gracias por recordarnos del Padre Segundo Montes!!!
El tambien vive en el pueblo
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: sanromero@...
   To: sanromero@...
   Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 4:03 PM
   Subject: [sanromero] Aviso - SAN SALVADOR - 18 aniversario del IDDH



        Mis grupos | sanromero Página principal


   Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

   SAN SALVADOR - 18 aniversario del IDDH

   Fecha: sábado, agosto 30, 2003
   Hora: 2:00PM PDT (GMT-07:00)

   18 aniversario del Instituto de Derechos Humanos de la UCA,
   fundado por el padre Segundo Montes, con un convivio musical en
   el que participarán los grupos nacionales Exceso de Equipaje,
   Son ¾ y Pueblo nuevo y en el que se tendrá como invitado
   especial al grupo argentino "Quinteto Tiempo".

   La entrada es gratis y habrá ventas de comida, artesanías
   y exposiciones de fotos.


   Están invitados en el parqueo general de la UCA desde las 2
   PM.





   Para cancelar su suscripción a este grupo, envíe un mensaje de correo-e a:
   sanromero-unsubscribe@...



   Su uso de Yahoo! Grupos está sujeto a las Yahoo! Condiciones de Uso.


[Se han eliminado los trozos de este mensaje que no contenían texto]

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

Memorial: Jesús Jiménez

Fecha: lunes, septiembre 1, 2003
Hora: todo el día

Peasant, Delegate of the Word, martyr of the Good News to El
Salvador's poor, murdered September 1, 1979.

Campesino, Delegado de la Palabra, mártir de la Buena Noticia
a los pobres en El Salvador, asesinado - 1 de septiembre de
1979.

Queremos avisarle de este evento que se aproxima.

LOS ANGELES - "La historia de Maria Guardado"

Fecha: domingo, septiembre 7, 2003
Hora: 6:00PM PDT (GMT-07:00)

Testimonio: "La historia de Maria Guardado"

Despues de haber dejado atras la guerra civil en su pais natal
El Salvador, Maria Guardado recibe asilo politico en Los Estados
Unidos, en 1983. Debido a sus convicciones politicas fue
secuestrada, violada y torturada por los escuadrones de la
muerte en El Salvador. Maria revela como se recupero de sus
traumas y hoy en dia es una activista y poeta que lucha por los
derechos humanos. Maria solo regresa a El Salvador para honrar
al Arzobispo Oscar Romero pero su visita la obliga a
reconciliarse con su pasado una vez mas.

Vea la pelicula, oiga sus poemas y comparta con Randy Vasquez,
el director de la pelicula su experiecia en la grabacion de esta
pelicula, ganadora como mejor documental en los festivales de
films en NY, Chicago, Vancouver y San Francisco. La pelicula fue
presentada oficialmente en el festival de La Havana.

Fecha: Domingo 7 de Septiembre a las 6:00 p.m.

Lugar: Primera Iglesia Unitaria de Los Angeles
2936 W. 8th St. Los Angeles, CA 9005

Para informacion: (213) 387-3784 o elfrankieflores@...

Comida Salvadorena sera servida!