- Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador -

March 24 marks the 27th anniversary of the brutal murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the tenacious defender of El Salvador‘s poor and marginalized majority who was gunned down by an operative of the U.S.-backed Salvadoran death squads while giving mass. Twenty seven years later Salvadoran organizers and activists who speak out against the right-wing administration‘s social and economic policies are being harassed, kidnapped, and assassinated.

The ILEA (International Law Enforcement Academy) in San Salvador is the US Department of Homeland Security's attempt to export the US "criminal justice" system to Latin America. Police recruits, judges, prosecutors, and government agents from throughout the Latin American region will be trained in organized crime, financial data reporting, tax reform, a new TAG program for deportees from the US, judicial oversight, prosecution, crime scene management, gang curriculum, "anti-terrorism" and "street survival training" (a.k.a. urban combat). The training is being conducted by true experts in organized crime and state-sponsored violence — the DEA, FBI, ICE, ICITAP, the IRS, and other US government agencies.

The State Department says the ILEA will "enhance the functioning of free markets and increase social, political, and economic stability in the Latin American region by combating crime." Salvadorans say it will be used to consolidate the tactics of repression and human rights abuse already being practiced by the police. Still, in the spirit of Monseñor Romero, the struggle for social justice continues in El Salvador.

We will celebrate the lives of Monsignor Romero and Rufina Amaya and discuss ways in which we can move forward in solidarity and protest with the Salvadoran social movement‘s resistance to CAFTA and the ILEA.

7 pm Friday, March 23rd @ Station 40 (3030 16th st at mission) in San Franciso. $5-15 suggested donation.

please come... and bring friends!


Two weeks ago, Rufina Amaya, the lone survivor of the 1981 massacre at El Mozote, died in San Miguel at the age of 64. When soldiers from the Salvadoran Army who were trained at the School of the Americas attacked the small village of El Mozote in eastern El Salvador, Amaya was the only person to escape alive. Later her testimony helped confirm the assassination of more than 1000 people in perhaps the most brutal twentieth century massacre in Latin America. She returned to El Salvador from a refugee camp in Honduras in 1990. Rufina Amaya presente! Oscar Romero presente!


"In the present we struggle but the future is ours" -- Popular Social Block of El Salvador