MARTYRS, VICTIMS, WITNESSES

MARTYRS, VICTIMS, WITNESSES

Virtual Truth Commission

Martyrs

Alsina, Rev. Juan. Spanish priest, and hospital chaplain, age 29. Chile, Sept 17, 1973; after being beaten, tortured and shot 10 times as he "tried to escape." Source: Maurice Zeitlin,"End the silence: U.S. should bring Pinochet to justice",Baltimore Sun, November 9, 1998 (Maurice Zeitlin, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and a member of the advisory board of the Latin American Center, has lived in Chile and is the author of many articles and two books on that country, including "The Civil Wars in Chile" (Princeton University Press).

Clark, Maura; Roman Catholic nun; along with fellow nuns Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel and layworker Jean Donovan; in El Salvador, Dec 2, 1980. Murdered at a military checkpoint near San Salvador. Source: School of the Americas Watch

Donovan, Jean; Roman Catholic layworker; along with nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel; in El Salvador, Dec 2, 1980. Murdered at a military checkpoint near San Salvador. Source: School of the Americas Watch

Ford, Ita; Roman Catholic nun; along with fellow nuns Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel and layworker Jean Donovan; in El Salvador, Dec 2, 1980. Murdered at a military checkpoint near San Salvador. Source: School of the Americas Watch

Gerardi, Monsignor Juan; in Guatemala, April 1998. Assassinated at his home. His last address, given as he presented a report of the truth to Guatemala, just days before his assassination, is an eloquent reminder of why unpleasant truths must be faced and of the healing to which they are necessary.

Hammarskjold, Dag, United Nations Secretary General. in Congo, September 17, 1961. In an airplane crash. Was the death accidental or was it intentional? In 1998, the [South African] Truth Commission stumbled across documents linking South African agents to the airline death of UN chief Dag Hammarskjvld, also revealing that the project was hatched at the highest levels of the CIA and MI5. The alleged plot to assassinate United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjvld 37 years ago was the brainchild of at least two British security agencies - MI5 and the Special Operations Executive - and the CIA, top-secret documents show. A series of messages between a commodore and a captain, whose names have been expunged by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, point to a plot hatched on South African soil by a group which had access to vast amounts of money and the ability to muster mercenary forces to protect international investment in turbulent post-colonial Africa. The messages, all on letterheads of the South Africa Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR), cover the period from July 1960 to September 17 1961 - the day on which Hammarskjvld's aircraft crashed while approaching the airport at Ndola in the then Northern Rhodesia. In addition to outlining Operation Celeste - the plan to get rid of the "troublesome" Hammarskjvld - the documents implicate the SAIMR and international intelligence agencies in the death of Patrice Lumumba, the pro-communist first president of the Congo. Lumumba was deposed in September 1960 and allegedly shot while escaping from custody in the breakaway province of Katanga in 1961. On September 14 1961, a message couriered to the SAIMR's offices in De Villiers Street, Johannesburg, recorded: "DC6 aircraft bearing Transair livery is parked at Leo to be used for transport of subject. Our technician has orders to plant 6lb TNT in the wheelbay with contact detonator to activate as wheels are retracted on taking off." An earlier message records that "Union Miniere has offered to provide logistic or other support. We have told them to have 6lb of TNT at all possible locations with detonators, electrical contacts and wiring, batteries, etc." A report dated September 17 records: "Device failed on take-off, and the aircraft crashed a few hours later as it prepared to land." An official inquiry blamed pilot error. ....The documents have been dismissed as fakes by a former Swedish diplomat, and both MI5 and the CIA have denied any involvement in Hammarskjvld's death. However, they bear a striking resemblance to other documents emanating from the SAIMR seven years ago, when it was headed by self-styled commodore Keith Maxwell-Annandale and forged links with both South Africa's military intelligence and the National Intelligence Services. These documents show the SAIMR masterminded the abortive 1981 attempt to depose Seychelles president Albert Reni. It was also behind a successful 1990 coup in Somalia. Marlene Burger, "CIA and MI5 linked to Death of UN Sec. General",Electronic Mail & Guardian , Johannesburg, August 28, 1998, reprinted at South Movement, September 4, 1998

Horman, Charles. U. S. citizen. In the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile, Sept 17, 1973, after U. S. embassy refused his request for protection. Source: Maurice Zeitlin,"End the silence: U.S. should bring Pinochet to justice",Baltimore Sun, November 9, 1998 (Maurice Zeitlin, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and a member of the advisory board of the Latin American Center, has lived in Chile and is the author of many articles and two books on that country, including "The Civil Wars in Chile" (Princeton University Press).

Kazel, Dorothy; Roman Catholic nun; along with fellow nuns Ita Ford and Maura Clark and layworker Jean Donovan; in El Salvador, Dec 2, 1980. Murdered at a military checkpoint near San Salvador. Source: School of the Americas Watch

King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Baptist minister and civil rights leader; killed by sniper in Memphis, Tennessee, April 4, 1968. 1999 court case presents evidence of complicity by Memphis Police Department, FBI, 111th Military Intelligence Group, and 20th Special Forces.

Moffit, Ronnie; passenger in the car of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D. C. Both killed, 1976 by a car bomb planted by a hit squad from Chile. Letelier was a former minister in the government of Salvador Allende. Source: Maurice Zeitlin,"End the silence: U.S. should bring Pinochet to justice",Baltimore Sun, November 9, 1998 (Maurice Zeitlin, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and a member of the advisory board of the Latin American Center, has lived in Chile and is the author of many articles and two books on that country, including "The Civil Wars in Chile" (Princeton University Press).

Romero, Archbishop Oscar A.; in El Salvador, March 24, 1980. While celebrating the Eucharist, shot and killed at the altar by a death squad assassin. As Archbishop of San Salvador, Father Romero was a source of strength and hope for the poor and for the oppressed of his country, working with and for them, taking their struggles as his own. Romero wrote and spoke passionately and publicly of the need for Christians to work for justice, frequently faced with threat and danger from those who opposed his ideas. Introduction to Archbishop Romero
Or see Longer biography by Craig Johnson.

Six Jesuit Priests and two co-workers; in El Salvador, November 16, 1989. Assassinated at their residence at the Jesuit University in San Salvador. Chile, Sept 20, 1973, after being tortured and shot 17 times. Source: Maurice Zeitlin,"End the silence: U.S. should bring Pinochet to justice",Baltimore Sun, November 9, 1998 (Maurice Zeitlin, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and a member of the advisory board of the Latin American Center, has lived in Chile and is the author of many articles and two books on that country, including "The Civil Wars in Chile" (Princeton University Press).

Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J., gunned down in 1989 by SOA graduates, answered the question "What does God require?" this way: "Christians and all those who hate injustice are obligated to fight it with every ounce of their strength. They must work for a new world in which greed and selfishness will finally be overcome." Carol Richardson, " What Does God Require? Working to close the 'School of Assassins.', Sojourners, January, 1997. CAROL RICHARDSON, who has pastored United Methodist churches in Ohio and Maryland, directs the SOA Watch Washington, D.C. office. For information, contact SOA Watch, P.O. Box 3330, Columbus, GA 31903; (706) 682-5369.

Victims

November 29, 1864. Over 100 Cheyenne and Arapahoe women and children massacred by Colorado militia at the Sand Creek Massacre

1900. Brutal massacres of Filipinos by American occupation forces. Peter Dale Scott, "Two Indonesias, Two Americas"June 9, 1998, The Consortium for Independent Journalism.

1965. Indonesia. 5000 Indonesians whose names were provided by the U. S. Embassy to Indonesian Army death squads. A CIA study itself reports "In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders during the Second World War, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950s." U. S. Policy / Indonesia

March 16, 1968. Vietnam. American soldiers of the Americal Division massacre 504 Vietnamese civilians, predominantly women and children. The My Lai Commemoration Campaignis committed to achieving official recognition for the 30th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.

Early 1980s. Guatemala. Tens of thousands of civilian deaths, 440 rural villages destroyed, one million persons displaced out of a country of nine million. Piet van Lear, A War Called Peace

December, 1980. El Salvador. U. S. trained Salvadoran battalion massacred 800 men, women and children in El Mozote. Robert Parry, "Lost History: 'Project X' and School of Assassins. The Consortium

1989. Guatemala. Sister Dianna Ortiz, while working as a missionary, abducted and brutally tortured by Guatemalan security agents. My back was burned over 100 times with cigarettes. I was gang-raped repeatedly. I was beaten, and I was tortured psychologically, as well--I was lowered into a pit where injured women, children, and men writhed and moaned, and the dead decayed, under swarms of rats. Finally, I was forced to stab another human being. Throughout the ordeal, my Guatemalan torturers said that if I did not cooperate, they would have to communicate with Alejandro

1992-1993. At least 57 people were murdered in and around the city of Bararncabermeja. Eyewitnesses have linked these murders to killer networks run by the Colombian navy. The killer networks in turn were created as the result of a 1991 Colombian intelligence reorganization in which a U.S. Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team [beginning in 1990] worked with Colombian military officers. A HREF="http://www.hrw.org/hrw/summaries/s.colombia9611.html">Human Rights Watch Report: Colombia’s Killer Networks--The Military-Paramilitary Partnership

1995, April 6. Colombia. Wilson Jose Caceres. Before dawn, Caceres "set out from his home in Sabana de Torres, a municipality in Colombia’s Magdalena River valley. Caceres, a community leader, founding member of the Sabana de Torres Community Movement, and human rights activist, was a candidate for mayor on the ticket of the Popular Peasant Worker Movement, a local political group. Along with eleven others, Caceres had been included on a death list then reported to be circulated in the name of the Peasant Self-Defense Group of Colombia (Autodefensas Campesinas de Colombia, ACC), a paramilitary group. In Colombia, paramilitary has come to mean a clandestine organization of armed men, which can include active duty and retired military officers, who work in partnership with the security forces. Like Caceres, several of those reportedly named had been active in promoting human rights.... "Despite the threat, Caceres continued his campaign and human rights advocacy, and had volunteered to help contact local people who could give testimony to the Human Rights Watch mission that began our work on this report. Driving his white motorcycle and wearing a red cap, Caceres stopped that afternoon at his family’s farm, where he worked. It was the last time anyone is known to have seen him alive. His cap was later found on the Panamerican highway.... "Wilson Caceres remains missing." Human Rights Watch: Colombia’s Killer Networks--The Military-Paramilitary Partnership

Witnesses

Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch . Bourgeois volunteered to fight in Vietnam and earned a purple heart for his service. It was in Vietnam where he reached a turning point. "I left Vietnam wanting to give peacemaking a chance," he said. After his ordination, Bourgeois was assigned to Bolivia, where he was arrested and was later banished from the country for speaking out against injustices. "I was very angry ... but I learned something important -- that there was work to do here at home," he said. Source: University of Massachusetts University Reporter, Priest Opposes School of the Americas, November 1997

Gallardo, Licenciado Jose. Mexican Brigadier General. Youngest Brigadier in the history of the Mexican army and a reformist now being held in a military prison under a twenty-eight year sentence for a variety of falsified crimes. "He was exposing corruption and proposing an army ombudsman to mediate between soldiers and between soldiers and civilians. To many he is a hero representing the dream of a renewed Mexico, free of corruption." There have been two assassination attempts against him while he is in jail. Wilson M. Powell ; 5/7/98. Email Veterans for Peace

Harbury, Jennifer K., lawyer and widow of Mayan guerrilla leader Everardo Bamaca Velasquez.

Liteky, Charles, a former military chaplain in Vietnam and a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and his brother Patrick Liteky, who had received a Purple Heart for wartime combat injuries. November 16, 1990, joined Bourgeois in splashing vials of their own blood on pictures of SOA graduates in the SOA "Hall of Fame." They were jailed. Tom Johnson, Opposing the School of the Americas, February 1998

Sister Mary Alice Lovett, a 78-year-old Sister of Mercy has been working as a pastoral assistant in a large Catholic parish in Columbus for more than 11 years. "When I heard Father Roy speak, I knew right away I should support his work," she told me one morning as we sat in the parish hall. Though most in her community have not encouraged her in this effort, Lovett has persisted in calling for the closing of the school. "They are mowing people down out of greed. The greedy never get enough and the poor always suffer," she explained simply. "We should take courage from Romans 8, 'If God be for us, who can be against us?'" Lovett continues to write letters to the editor and to speak out publicly, and in quiet personal encounters always urges the involvement of others, including those who are hostile or at best wary of anyone who questions the military in a military town. Carol Richardson, " What Does God Require? Working to close the 'School of Assassins.', Sojourners, January, 1997. CAROL RICHARDSON, who has pastored United Methodist churches in Ohio and Maryland, directs the SOA Watch Washington, D.C. office. For information, contact SOA Watch, P.O. Box 3330, Columbus, GA 31903; (706) 682-5369.

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