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The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

Reenactment Celebrates 10th Anniversary Of El Salavadoran Jesuit Tragedy

On Nov. 16, 1989, a team of 26 commandos stormed the home of six Jesuit priests at the University of South America in San Salvador, El Salvador, on orders to kill Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J., and to leave no witnesses.

In the process the commandos killed the five other Jesuit priests living there as well as their housekeeper and her daughter. The housekeeper and her daughter, who was only 15, had come to the university in the belief that it would be safer than the rest of besieged San Salvador.

On Nov. 16, 1999, the 10-year anniversary of the murders, a group of students, graduate students and alumni dressed as commandos stormed Boland plaza in a re-enactment of the murder of the eight people in San Salvador.

“In 1989 a shock wave went through the campus when we learned that the Jesuits were killed,” said Dr. John Slosar, School of Social Services and an organizer of the re-enactment. “We are trying to bring the attention of the university students, the enormous atrocities that occurred.”

A student placed tombstones bearing their names and images at the head of each individual killed in the re-enactment, as another student read off their names, as well as their crimes. Their crimes included advocating human rights and calling for peace-or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, such as Elba Ramos, the housekeeper, and her daughter, Celina Ramos.

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University president Lawrence Biondi, S.J., closed with a prayer and noted that two of the Jesuits killed in El Salvador had been students at SLU.

The re-enactment was done to commemorate the deaths, as well as draw attention to the United States Army School Of the Americas, in Fort Benning, GA.

“We wanted to make a connection between the two,” said Harry O’Rourke, who works in the Social Justice Department of Campus Ministry.

Slosar noted that many students are not even aware that the SOA exists, let alone know about the atrocities that are committed by its graduates.

The School of the Americas, also known as the “school of the assassins” in Latin America, was responsible for the training of 19 of the commandos responsible for the murders. These 19 commandos as well as others were indicted by the United Nations Truth Commission for the murders.

One of the purposes of the re-enactment, aside from recognizing the deaths of eight innocent people and acknowledging those responsible, is to raise awareness of such activities to the SLU community.

“We want to say that `this is unacceptable, and it is being done in our name’,” said O’Rourke. “`This has to stop.'”

American tax dollars pay for the education of the South American military personnel that pass through the SOA. School Of the Americas Watch, a watchdog group working to close the school, states that according to Pentagon figures, the SOA costs taxpayers $10 to $20 million dollars annually.

O’Rourke said they also want, “to bring to the university community an attention to the moral responsibility to address this.”

After the re-enactment, a petition in the name of SLU was passed around. The petition will be sent to the members of the United States Congress, in order to help pressure the legislators to shut down the school.

A trip to the School of the Americas has been organized for the SLU community by Campus Ministry and the School of Social Service, and will be funded by Biondi. The group of students going to the School Of the Americas will participate in a vigil as well as another re-enactment of the killings, at the front gate of Fort Benning.

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