The Crimes and Dangers of Elliott Abrams

[Judi Lynn]

JULY 19, 2023

BY REV. GRAYLAN SCOTT HAGLER - ARIEL GOLD

It was a bright sunny March morning in 1980. Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was saying mass at a church hospital in San Salvador when a bullet from a sniper rifle ripped through his heart. He stumbled and fell to the ground, dead.

Romero started life and ministry as a conservative. But, after his friend Rev. Rutilio Grande was assassinated to discourage other faith leaders from supporting Salvadorian peasants, Romero underwent a political and theological conversion. Picking up where Grande left off, Romero embraced a “theology of liberation,” a perspective that espouses G-d’s preference for the poor and oppressed. His visibility as archbishop elevated his voice and the credibility of his critique of the conditions faced by peasants in El Salvador.

A month before his assassination, Romero wrote President Jimmy Carter requesting a halt to U.S. military assistance to the Salvadoran government.

Over 250,000 people attended Romero’s funeral demonstrating the love of the Salvadoran people and echoing his demands for justice. Tragically, however, they were swimming against a historical current of meddling and manipulation which included murder, often orchestrated or at the very least condoned from the U.S.

Intentionally ignoring two U.S. embassy cables naming the general who ordered his personal bodyguard to carry out the assassination of Romero, in 1982, Elliot Abrams, the newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, said, “anybody who thinks you’re going to find a cable that says that Roberto d’Aubuisson murdered the archbishop is a fool.” Thanks to Abrams and his ilk’s support, U.S. military assistance to the Salvadoran regime was dramatically increased that year. The following year, the U.S. gifted the Salvadoran military and government with U.S. advisors.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/19/the-crimes-and-dangers-of-elliott-abrams/

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Roberto d’Aubuisson



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Young priest Oscar Romero







The fallen Archbishop after being assassinated



People waiting outside the funeral of Archbishop Oscar Romero

Police shooting down the crowd outside the funeral of Oscar Romero

[Judi Lynn]

1. The final sermon of St. Oscar Romero resonates today

Thursday Oct. 25th, 2018Amy Goodman

A painting of St Oscar Romero at the Cathedral of San Salvador (Getty)


On Sunday, Pope Francis sainted Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. The pope was wearing Romero's bloodstained rope belt, the one Romero wore when he was assassinated on March 24, 1980. The day before he was killed, the archbishop gave a sermon that commanded El Salvador's soldiers to disobey the orders of their superiors:



"I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" He went on, "In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression."

Matt Eisenbrandt, human-rights lawyer and the author of "Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Oscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice," described that sermon on the "Democracy Now!" news hour: "You can hear on the audiotapes of the radio broadcast the way that that applause built as he led up to that line saying, 'Stop the repression.' That then echoed throughout the radios around the country into every corner of El Salvador."

A day later, at a hospital chapel, a gunman shot Romero once in the heart, killing him.
Archbishop Oscar Romero gave that sermon as the U.S.-backed military violence against civilians that ravaged Central America in the 1980s and early 1990s was growing in intensity and brutality. Death squads allied with the right-wing Salvadoran junta dumped bodies on city streets nightly. Romero's assassination shocked the world and helped galvanize a global solidarity movement.

In 1980, one year after the revolutionary Sandinistas overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator in nearby Nicaragua, the Pentagon and the CIA intensified clandestine support for violent right-wing governments, arming and training their militaries and paramilitaries. Sadly, with the support of President Ronald Reagan, a reign of terror and mass slaughter swept the region, from Guatemala to Honduras to El Salvador, with hundreds of thousands of civilians tortured and killed, and countless villages razed.

More:
https://duluthreader.com/articles/2018/10/26/111626-the-final-sermon-of-st-oscar-romero-resonates