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Martyr for Social Justice and Human Rights

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Maryknoll Sisters: Death of 4 Churchwomen in El Salvador

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Thirty years ago El Salvador was gripped by civil war. Over 75,000 people were 'disappeared' or killed. Among the murders: Archbishop Oscar Romero and four American churchwomen. Two of the church women were Maryknoll Sisters, Sr. Ita Ford, M.M. and Sr. Maura Clarke, M.M. www.mklsisters.org www.maryknollsociety.org

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More than 30 years later, justice closes in on the Salvadorans behind the rape and murder of American nuns.

In December 1980, members of the National Guard of El Salvador abducted, sexually assaulted and executed four American churchwomen.

At the time, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the rest of Central America were on the front burner of American foreign policy much in the way that Iraq, Syria and the Middle East are today. The nun killing was one of those acts of horror that may galvanize the American public at the same times it exposes the disarray of American policy.

In that sense it is analogous to the beheadings of Americans and Britons and hundreds of Iraqis and Syrians by the so-called Islamic State and the bombing and gassing of much larger numbers by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad.

When, or if, order is restored to that part of the world, the question of justice will remain. And it is likely to be frustrated. But the case of the churchwomen in El Salvador suggests that dogged persistence can, still, exact some price from the monsters of this world.

Just as the ISIS killings have shocked the American public and Washington policymakers, so did the killing of the four American women-three Roman Catholic nuns and a lay missionary. "This particular act of barbarism and attempts by the Salvadoran military to cover it up did more to inflame the debate over El Salvador in the United States than any other single incident," the State Department noted in a retrospective report many years later.

The victims were 49-year-old Maura Clarke, and 40-year-old Ita Ford, Maryknoll sisters from New York; Dorothy Kazel, a 40-year-old Ursuline nun from Cleveland; and Jean Donovan, a 27-year old lay missionary who was engaged to be married, also from Cleveland.

The churchwomen were working in rural areas with peasants who lived in fear of being kidnapped and killed by soldiers and right-wing death squads. In the eyes of the Salvadoran military, working with the poor was synonymous with being a subversive, and "marked them for assassination," Robert White, the American ambassador at the time, said in a recent interview with Retro Report, the online news organization that examines stories from the past. (The killing of the churchwomen is the subject of a documentary that can be seen at www.retroreport.org)

On the night of Dec. 2, 1980, Clarke and Ford, were returning from a conference in Nicaragua, and were met at the San Salvador International Airport by Donovan and Kazel. Their van was stopped soon after leaving the airport by soldiers from the National Guard, a component of the Salvadoran military, which White describes as "a kind of landlords' militia in the countryside."

The operation was led by a sergeant, acting out of "a persuasive combination of political, financial and sexual interests," a political officer at the American embassy, Carl Gettinger, wrote in a top secret cable to Washington a few months after the killings. His conclusions were based on a conversation between the sergeant, Colindres Aleman, and a Salvadoran lieutenant who had recorded it secretly for the embassy. "Extraordinary secrecy surrounded the tape," Gettinger reported; it was kept in a safe in the embassy, "from where it was roused infrequently."

The American government suspected that the Salvadoran military, despite denials, was involved in the murders-Amb. White had come to this conclusion the very moment he saw the bodies being removed from the grave, but the diplomats did not share this with the American public. Many in Washington feared that El Salvador would fall to communism, and the families of the churchwomen began to believe this was corrupting the American response to the murders. At times, the incoming Reagan administration seemed to blame the victims.

"The nuns were not just nuns," said Jeanne Kirkpatrick, one of Reagan's top foreign policy advisors and his first ambassador to the United Nations, "They were political activists."

Secretary of State Alexander Haig, in an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that "perhaps the vehicle the nuns were riding in may have tried to run a roadblock or may have accidentally been perceived to have been doing so, and there may have been an exchange of fire." Haig also asked White to send a cable stating that the military was making progress in the investigation of the murders. White, a career diplomat who had served under every president since Eisenhower balked, and sent his own cable: "I will have no part of any cover-up." Soon thereafter, he was forced out of the foreign service.

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The families of the victims expressed outrage, feeling that their government had turned against them. Pressure from some U.S. Congressmen to curtail mounting Salvadoran military and economic aid to El Salvador until there was resolution in the case finally helped bring the five low-level national guardsmen who committed the crime to trial in 1984. But, despite protests from the families of the churchwomen, who believed the men had acted on orders, the looked like they would mark the end of U.S. government interest in the case.

Over the course of time, it became clear that the Reagan administration, and to some extent the preceding Carter and the later the George H. W. Bush administrations, had turned a blind eye to a broad array of human rights abuses committed by the Salvadoran military during the 1980s in order to keep billions of dollars in aid flowing to El Salvador's civilian-military junta, and it's rightist backers, as they fought the leftist uprising.

In 1980 alone, nearly 10,000 Salvadoran citizens, mostly peasants, students and workers, were killed. "Ten bullet-ridden bodies of people who have 'disappeared' are found daily on city streets or provincial highways, while the armed forces are increasingly attacking protest groups they describe as 'subversive,' "Alan Riding of The New York Times wrote in March 1980.

The much-beloved Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero pleaded with the Salvadoran military that same month: "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."

The next day, while the archbishop was saying a private mass for the mother of the owner of an independent newspaper whose offices had been bombed, a single shot rang out. The bullet entered the left side of his chest, hit his heart and settled in his lung. It was the work of a right-wing death squad.

Finally, after a decade of civil war, America's backing for the Salvadoran regime came to an end. In November 1989, as the Soviet Union was crumbling, members of the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Batallion murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 15-year old daughter. A bullet was fired into a portrait of Archbishop Romero.

Three years later, under pressure from the United States, a peace accord was reached between the junta and The U.N. Commission on Truth for El Salvador, formed to document war crimes committed in the country during the course of the civil war, called the Jesuit killing "the final outburst of the delirium that had infected the armed forces and the innermost recesses of certain government circles."

The commission made clear that this final act, much like the murder of the American churchwomen, was, in its framework, far from an unusual occurrence during El Salvador's civil war. It listed tens of thousands of instances of murder, abduction, torture and other crimes, predominately at the hands of government troops and security forces. The commission concluded that the National Guard soldiers had been "acting on orders of a superior," and said that Carlos Vides Casanova, the commander of the Guard at the time, knew that members of the Guard had committed the murders and that he had facilitated a cover up.

The commission further found that the Minister of Defense Jose Guillermo Garcia, "made no serious effort to conduct a thorough investigation."

The acknowledgment of these crimes, which came as part of an amnesty for them, was a cathartic moment for El Salvador. But it was far from the sort of justice sought by the families of victims, such as the American Churchwomen.

In the 1990s, human rights groups found the two Salvadoran generals, Jose Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Vides Casanova, who were implicated in the killings of the churchwomen and many other crimes living in Florida, and sought to have them deported. Some Bush Administration officials were sympathetic , but told them that under existing law it would be very difficult.

The law had been enacted after WWII and was aimed at Nazi war criminals. The center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco, and other human rights organizations went to work to expand the law. Piggy-backing on the fears of terrorists entering the country, they succeeded in adding language to an anti-terrorism bill that would allow for the deportation of an individual who had participated in acts of genocide, torture or extrajudicial killings. The report of the Judiciary Committee cites the case of the American churchwomen -- "raped and murdered by the Salvadoran National Guard" -- as a need for the law. The committee report notes that two officials covered up the military's involvement in the murders. "Both of these Salvadoran former officials currently reside in Florida," the report says, not naming them, but leaving no doubt who they were.

In 2004, the law was changed and, five years later, deportation proceedings were begun. In the Vides case, the judge found that he had "assisted or otherwise participated" in the killing of the churchwomen, as well as other acts of torture, thus clearing the way for his deportation. Similarly, the judge that heard the case against Gen. Garcia found that he had "assisted or otherwise participated in the extrajudicial killings of the four American churchwomen Ita Ford, Maura Clare, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan." The judge also found that he had assisted or otherwise participated in" the assassination of Archbishop Romero.

The law has acted as another window into the terrible crimes committed during El Salvador's civil war, and not just those linked to Garcia and Vides Casanova.

Civil cases brought by human rights groups have hit several former Salvadoran commanders who once found easy refuge in the United States. In 2005, a US jury ruled that former Salvadoran Vice-Minister of Defense, Colonel Nicolás Carranza had committed crimes against humanity and ordered that he pay $6 million in damages to victims. In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his appeal of the ruling. In 2004 a federal judge ordered a default judgment of $10 million against former-Captain Alvaro Saravia for his role in planning the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. The US Department of Homeland Security placed Saravia on it's wanted list when the former Modesto, CA., resident went into hiding.

Human rights groups have been pressing to have Carranza denaturalized and removed, while Saravia is believed to have already fled to somewhere in Central America.

The deportation faced by Generals Garcia and Vides Casanova may not seem like justice to some. But it is a measure of it, say human rights activists, who are also pursuing similar cases against accused war criminals from other countries.

If deported back to El Salvador, Garcia, Vides Cassanova and others may not find the government as welcoming as it was when they were in charge. El Salvador's Supreme Court has ordered prosecutors to reopen one investigation into one 1981 massacre. And the country's Supreme Court is currently reviewing a challenge to overturn the 1993 Amnesty Law.

Amb. White testified in the hearings to deport the generals. "I was delighted to collaborate," he said in the interview with Retro Report. If the men are ultimately deported, will that mean justice has been done? "I will feel some justice has been done," said White, now eighty-eight. "But mostly what I will feel is that the United States will have regained some honor and that we no longer serve as a refuge for people who violated their oath of office and inflicted death and destruction on innocent people."

In December 1980, members of the National Guard of El Salvador abducted, sexually assaulted and executed four American churchwomen.

At the time, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the rest of Central America were on the front burner of American foreign policy much in the way that Iraq, Syria and the Middle East are today. The nun killing was one of those acts of horror that may galvanize the American public at the same times it exposes the disarray of American policy.

In that sense it is analogous to the beheadings of Americans and Britons and hundreds of Iraqis and Syrians by the so-called Islamic State and the bombing and gassing of much larger numbers by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad.

When, or if, order is restored to that part of the world, the question of justice will remain. And it is likely to be frustrated. But the case of the churchwomen in El Salvador suggests that dogged persistence can, still, exact some price from the monsters of this world.

Just as the ISIS killings have shocked the American public and Washington policymakers, so did the killing of the four American women-three Roman Catholic nuns and a lay missionary. "This particular act of barbarism and attempts by the Salvadoran military to cover it up did more to inflame the debate over El Salvador in the United States than any other single incident," the State Department noted in a retrospective report many years later.

The victims were 49-year-old Maura Clarke, and 40-year-old Ita Ford, Maryknoll sisters from New York; Dorothy Kazel, a 40-year-old Ursuline nun from Cleveland; and Jean Donovan, a 27-year old lay missionary who was engaged to be married, also from Cleveland.

The churchwomen were working in rural areas with peasants who lived in fear of being kidnapped and killed by soldiers and right-wing death squads. In the eyes of the Salvadoran military, working with the poor was synonymous with being a subversive, and "marked them for assassination," Robert White, the American ambassador at the time, said in a recent interview with Retro Report, the online news organization that examines stories from the past. (The killing of the churchwomen is the subject of a documentary that can be seen at www.retroreport.org)

On the night of Dec. 2, 1980, Clarke and Ford, were returning from a conference in Nicaragua, and were met at the San Salvador International Airport by Donovan and Kazel. Their van was stopped soon after leaving the airport by soldiers from the National Guard, a component of the Salvadoran military, which White describes as "a kind of landlords' militia in the countryside."

The operation was led by a sergeant, acting out of "a persuasive combination of political, financial and sexual interests," a political officer at the American embassy, Carl Gettinger, wrote in a top secret cable to Washington a few months after the killings. His conclusions were based on a conversation between the sergeant, Colindres Aleman, and a Salvadoran lieutenant who had recorded it secretly for the embassy. "Extraordinary secrecy surrounded the tape," Gettinger reported; it was kept in a safe in the embassy, "from where it was roused infrequently."

The American government suspected that the Salvadoran military, despite denials, was involved in the murders-Amb. White had come to this conclusion the very moment he saw the bodies being removed from the grave, but the diplomats did not share this with the American public. Many in Washington feared that El Salvador would fall to communism, and the families of the churchwomen began to believe this was corrupting the American response to the murders. At times, the incoming Reagan administration seemed to blame the victims.

"The nuns were not just nuns," said Jeanne Kirkpatrick, one of Reagan's top foreign policy advisors and his first ambassador to the United Nations, "They were political activists."

Secretary of State Alexander Haig, in an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that "perhaps the vehicle the nuns were riding in may have tried to run a roadblock or may have accidentally been perceived to have been doing so, and there may have been an exchange of fire." Haig also asked White to send a cable stating that the military was making progress in the investigation of the murders. White, a career diplomat who had served under every president since Eisenhower balked, and sent his own cable: "I will have no part of any cover-up." Soon thereafter, he was forced out of the foreign service.

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The families of the victims expressed outrage, feeling that their government had turned against them. Pressure from some U.S. Congressmen to curtail mounting Salvadoran military and economic aid to El Salvador until there was resolution in the case finally helped bring the five low-level national guardsmen who committed the crime to trial in 1984. But, despite protests from the families of the churchwomen, who believed the men had acted on orders, the looked like they would mark the end of U.S. government interest in the case.

Over the course of time, it became clear that the Reagan administration, and to some extent the preceding Carter and the later the George H. W. Bush administrations, had turned a blind eye to a broad array of human rights abuses committed by the Salvadoran military during the 1980s in order to keep billions of dollars in aid flowing to El Salvador's civilian-military junta, and it's rightist backers, as they fought the leftist uprising.

In 1980 alone, nearly 10,000 Salvadoran citizens, mostly peasants, students and workers, were killed. "Ten bullet-ridden bodies of people who have 'disappeared' are found daily on city streets or provincial highways, while the armed forces are increasingly attacking protest groups they describe as 'subversive,' "Alan Riding of The New York Times wrote in March 1980.

The much-beloved Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero pleaded with the Salvadoran military that same month: "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."

The next day, while the archbishop was saying a private mass for the mother of the owner of an independent newspaper whose offices had been bombed, a single shot rang out. The bullet entered the left side of his chest, hit his heart and settled in his lung. It was the work of a right-wing death squad.

Finally, after a decade of civil war, America's backing for the Salvadoran regime came to an end. In November 1989, as the Soviet Union was crumbling, members of the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Batallion murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 15-year old daughter. A bullet was fired into a portrait of Archbishop Romero.

Three years later, under pressure from the United States, a peace accord was reached between the junta and The U.N. Commission on Truth for El Salvador, formed to document war crimes committed in the country during the course of the civil war, called the Jesuit killing "the final outburst of the delirium that had infected the armed forces and the innermost recesses of certain government circles."

The commission made clear that this final act, much like the murder of the American churchwomen, was, in its framework, far from an unusual occurrence during El Salvador's civil war. It listed tens of thousands of instances of murder, abduction, torture and other crimes, predominately at the hands of government troops and security forces. The commission concluded that the National Guard soldiers had been "acting on orders of a superior," and said that Carlos Vides Casanova, the commander of the Guard at the time, knew that members of the Guard had committed the murders and that he had facilitated a cover up.

The commission further found that the Minister of Defense Jose Guillermo Garcia, "made no serious effort to conduct a thorough investigation."

The acknowledgment of these crimes, which came as part of an amnesty for them, was a cathartic moment for El Salvador. But it was far from the sort of justice sought by the families of victims, such as the American Churchwomen.

In the 1990s, human rights groups found the two Salvadoran generals, Jose Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Vides Casanova, who were implicated in the killings of the churchwomen and many other crimes living in Florida, and sought to have them deported. Some Bush Administration officials were sympathetic , but told them that under existing law it would be very difficult.

The law had been enacted after WWII and was aimed at Nazi war criminals. The center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco, and other human rights organizations went to work to expand the law. Piggy-backing on the fears of terrorists entering the country, they succeeded in adding language to an anti-terrorism bill that would allow for the deportation of an individual who had participated in acts of genocide, torture or extrajudicial killings. The report of the Judiciary Committee cites the case of the American churchwomen -- "raped and murdered by the Salvadoran National Guard" -- as a need for the law. The committee report notes that two officials covered up the military's involvement in the murders. "Both of these Salvadoran former officials currently reside in Florida," the report says, not naming them, but leaving no doubt who they were.

In 2004, the law was changed and, five years later, deportation proceedings were begun. In the Vides case, the judge found that he had "assisted or otherwise participated" in the killing of the churchwomen, as well as other acts of torture, thus clearing the way for his deportation. Similarly, the judge that heard the case against Gen. Garcia found that he had "assisted or otherwise participated in the extrajudicial killings of the four American churchwomen Ita Ford, Maura Clare, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan." The judge also found that he had assisted or otherwise participated in" the assassination of Archbishop Romero.

The law has acted as another window into the terrible crimes committed during El Salvador's civil war, and not just those linked to Garcia and Vides Casanova.

Civil cases brought by human rights groups have hit several former Salvadoran commanders who once found easy refuge in the United States. In 2005, a US jury ruled that former Salvadoran Vice-Minister of Defense, Colonel Nicolás Carranza had committed crimes against humanity and ordered that he pay $6 million in damages to victims. In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his appeal of the ruling. In 2004 a federal judge ordered a default judgment of $10 million against former-Captain Alvaro Saravia for his role in planning the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. The US Department of Homeland Security placed Saravia on it's wanted list when the former Modesto, CA., resident went into hiding.

Human rights groups have been pressing to have Carranza denaturalized and removed, while Saravia is believed to have already fled to somewhere in Central America.

The deportation faced by Generals Garcia and Vides Casanova may not seem like justice to some. But it is a measure of it, say human rights activists, who are also pursuing similar cases against accused war criminals from other countries.

If deported back to El Salvador, Garcia, Vides Cassanova and others may not find the government as welcoming as it was when they were in charge. El Salvador's Supreme Court has ordered prosecutors to reopen one investigation into one 1981 massacre. And the country's Supreme Court is currently reviewing a challenge to overturn the 1993 Amnesty Law.

Amb. White testified in the hearings to deport the generals. "I was delighted to collaborate," he said in the interview with Retro Report. If the men are ultimately deported, will that mean justice has been done? "I will feel some justice has been done," said White, now eighty-eight. "But mostly what I will feel is that the United States will have regained some honor and that we no longer serve as a refuge for people who violated their oath of office and inflicted death and destruction on innocent people."

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Bringing El Salvador Nun Killers to Justice

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In December 1980, members of the National Guard of El Salvador abducted, sexually assaulted and executed four American churchwomen. At the time, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the rest of Central America were on the front burner of American foreign policy much in the way that Iraq, Syria and the Middle East are today.

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-Four Catholic missionaries came to El Salvador from the United States
-On December 2, 1980, the four women were raped and murdered by five national guard members
-These four women include; Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan.
-There was a coup in 1979 in El Salvador that gave the Revolutionary Government Junta to power
-Catholics protested against the treatment of poor citizens by the junta
-The five soldiers were told to stake out, but then took the four women to an isolated spot to be raped, beaten, and murdered

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On February 12th, 2005, Sister Dorothy Stang, a Catholic nun from Dayton, Ohio, was shot six times and left to die on a muddy road in the Brazilian Amazon. Who was this woman? Why was she killed? And what will be done about it? The answers may hold the fate of the rainforest itself.

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By Lester Kurtz
July 2010
Conflict Summary:
While a military junta ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, dissent was silenced. In broad daylight or in the middle of the night dissidents were swept from their homes, and across the nation those who spoke suddenly "disappeared," either to prison with torture or the grave. It became dangerous to socialize with those who spoke out against the military. Even the lawyers who dared to defend them were disappeared. It was clear, and later documented, that the disappearances were a deliberate strategy of the authorities, government officials, armed forces, and intelligence officers (Agosín 1993: 22-23). General Jorge Rafael Videla, who came to power in through a coup d'état that toppled Isabel Peron and remained as president from 1976-1981, took responsibility for what he called an "internal war" (BBC News 2010).

The silence was broken by a brave group of mothers, searching for their missing children, who at first were motivated by family rather than politics. They gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the presidential palace, the national cathedral, and various government ministries. At the first demonstration on 30 April 1977 only fourteen women participated but by the following year hundreds were participating. On Mother's Day, 5 October 1977, 237 mothers included their names and identity card numbers on a half-page advertisement in the national newspaper La Prensa calling for a "the Truth" regarding the disappearance of their children.

The Mothers of The Plaza de Mayo (who were also sometimes called "The Mothers of the Disappeared") empowered others to speak out about human rights abuses in the country and by the early 1980s, support for the regime began to erode. They were assisted by Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ), a grassroots movement with an Argentine affiliate that worked through churches across Latin America. It was founded by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, an Argentine sculptor, architect, and university professor turned human rights organizer. Pagnucco and McCarthy (1999: 248) said it played the role of "movement midwife" in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America, providing aid for groups in the form of "skill and knowledge to facilitate creations that are ultimately out of their hands." Esquivel worked with organizations such as the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and "Friends of the Ark," which were small predominantly Catholic groups committed to Gandhian nonviolence. SERPAJ was committed to a broad range of peace and justice issues. Esquivel also helped to start the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, which united trade unionists, politicians, and intellectuals. His strategy was to create separate organizations with different constituencies and to coordinate their activities with SERPAJ (Pagnucco and McCarthy 1995: 251). SERPAJ was supported financially by donations from European church-based organizations and an international support network. Other funding came from Esquivel himself, who shared his 1980 Nobel Peace Prize funds.1

In the wake of an economic crisis and a humiliating defeat by the British in the Falklands-Malvinas War, the junta's rule was widely discredited. Open resistance emerged among formerly-silent religious and labor leaders, as well as increasingly vocal opposition parties. Moreover, a power struggle emerged within the military itself with mutual finger pointing about the lost war, and then-President General Leopoldo Galtieri was replaced in June 1982 by another general, Reynaldo Benito Bignone. Veterans of the war joined students, housewives, the unemployed and the unions protesting in the streets and the junta announced it would hold elections (Fisher 1989: 117). Raul Alfonsin, of the Radical Part, was elected president and, despite continued struggles and some compromises with the military, managed to restore democracy to the country.
Political History:
Independent from Spain from 1816, Argentina became one of the most prosperous and sophisticated countries in Latin America. With rich natural resources and a literate population, it enjoyed a strong economy and comfortable lifestyle until a series of economic crises, inflation, and capital flight in the mid-twentieth century. However, in both prosperous and unprosperous times, democratic transfers of power were infrequent, as coups d'état in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1975 put various military regimes in power (Mendez 1991).

Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina's government was a military dictatorship and the country was besieged by a so-called "Dirty War" that involved armed conflict between insurgent groups and a government that deliberately used terror to suppress resistance-or even public questioning-of its rule, as documented by the government's own "National Commission on Disappeared Persons" (CONADEP) appointed by democratically elected President Alfonsin (ibid.).

A combination of economic disaster and then a humiliating defeat in the Malvinas-Falklands War with the British plunged the military junta into crisis, creating more space for resistance. In 1980 the country's financial institutions collapsed and high domestic interest rates and the overvaluation of the peso led to widespread problems and bankruptcies within domestic industries. Foreign firms such as General Motors closed their Argentine plants; unemployment and a drop in real wages led to labor unrest and eventually general strikes. Although the Argentine regime had enjoyed solid support from the United States and the World Bank because of its neoliberal economics and fight against socialism, the war with Britain, the collapsing economy, and Jimmy Carter's human rights policies caused relations to cool. Even many of Argentina's economic elites began to withdraw their support for the military regime as the financial system collapsed.
Strategic Actions:
The distinctive aspect of this conflict was the initiative by the Mothers of the Plaza, a traditional, non-political group of women who were moved to civil resistance by their traditional status as mothers. It is precisely this unexpected nature of the participants that gave them a strategic edge in their conflict with the military junta.

The major tactic that initiated the movement was to meet in the Plaza de Mayo, in the center of Buenos Aires, facing the presidential palace, to protest the "disappearance" of their children. They wore headscarves with the names and sometimes carried photographs of their children who had disappeared, leaving the military junta baffled about how to respond. They began as individuals searching for their children through legal means in government offices, then escalated their tactics by gathering in the Plaza. Government officials at first tried to marginalize and trivialize them by calling them "las locas," the madwomen, but they were baffled as to how to suppress this group for fear of a backlash among the population. As the movement grew and gathered international attention and widespread sympathy, the junta cracked down at the end of 1977, and fourteen of the mothers themselves were "disappeared." After a period of careful regrouping, they returned to the Plaza despite the obvious danger in doing so.

International attention to the movement was cultivated as a strategy, facilitated by Argentina's hosting of the World Cup in 1978, where the international press corps covered the Plaza demonstrations as a corollary to the sporting events, aided by the appearance of players from several European teams at the Plaza in a show of solidarity. Similarly, an international health conference in Buenos Aires was met by the Mothers and witnessed by the international media that broadcast their new slogan: "They took them away alive, we want them returned alive" (Ackerman and DuVall 2005: 276).

At the beginning of a new decade, following a difficult period because of severe repression, the Mothers reclaimed the Plaza on the first Thursday of 1980 and returned every subsequent Thursday. Movement momentum grew in the early 1980s with economic collapse, increased attention to the atrocities by the international community and the United Nations, and finally the junta's defeat in a 74-day war with the British after Argentine troops unsuccessfully attempted to take over the Falkland Islands held by the British off the East Coast of Argentina. In its first public critique of the regime, the Conference of Argentine Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church issued a document in May 1981 on the "Church and National Community" that questioned its economic policy and methods used in the regime's "war against subversion."

As the resistance escalated, so did the public repression of the movement. In the city of Mendoza, for example, as the Mothers demonstrated, police fired on the demonstrators with machine guns, with one fatality and a reported ten injuries. The incident backfired, according to Else de Becerra (Fisher 1989: 114) but the question remains as to why the police were only able to kill and injure so few firing a short distance into a crowd with machine guns unless they were somehow failing to carry out their orders. After the Malvinas-Falkland defeat, the emboldened resistance saw thousands joining the Mothers for a 24-hour "March of Resistance" on the plaza on 10 December 1982. The regime's legitimacy had collapsed.

Although the Mothers of the Plaza were the most visible aspect of the movement, especially in the beginning, other groups were mobilizing support for the resistance, notably SERPAJ, which provided financial support and strategic advice to the movement comprised primarily of women with no prior political activist experience.

Protest and Persuasion

Marches in the Plaza de Mayo across from the presidential palace;

Publication of a monthly newsletter by Esquivel, Paz y Justicia: Accion No-Violenta Latinoamericana;

Broadening the struggle to an international audience especially through SERPAJ and an international tour by representative Mothers of the Disappeared;

Petitions published as advertisements in the newspaper La Prensa addressed to the president, Supreme Court, military commanders, junta leaders, and the church; sponsors signed their names and listed the names of the desaparecidos ("the disappeared"), gaining notice of news media and other government officials;

Distribution of leaflets and posters put on public buses and trains and other public venues, including the Congress;

Recruitment of major figures for newspaper advertisements such as Nobel laureate author Jorge Luis Borges and head of the national football team board of selectors César Menotti (Fisher 1989: 111);

Clandestine meetings in homes and churches when public demonstrations were impossible or too risky;

Carrying carpenter's nails to identify with Mother Mary whose son was also tortured and executed by the state, as a way of resonating with Argentine popular religious culture to communicate their message;

Formation of a legal registered organization, the Asociacion Civil Madres de Plaza de Mayo and the creation of branches in the provinces around the country;

Formation of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo) that also cultivated support abroad for their campaign, often focusing on efforts to find and return children who had been kidnapped and given up for adoption to other families;

A labor demonstration for "Peace, Bread, and Work" in November 1981, although the labor unions failed to address human rights issues for the most part until the military regime was in its final phase and resistance grew;

Publication of a demand for information on the fate of workers disappeared from the Mercedes Benz factory by their fellow workers;

Catholic mass in memory of Oscar Smith, a disappeared electricians' union leader, to which the Mothers were invited;

International pressure on the junta from the United Nations, Amnesty International, and the Carter administration with its human rights agenda;

Issuance of a document in May 1981 by the Argentine Catholic bishops, "Church and National Community", pointing out the "danger of usury" and questioning methods used by the regime in the "war against subversion";

Noncooperation

Labor unrest, beginning with slowdowns and then strikes, culminating in a general strike in April 1979; in June 1981, 1.5 million workers participated in a general strike;

Part-time withdrawal from domestic and mothering duties as the Mothers of the Disappeared moved into the public sphere to protest;

Noncooperation with laws banning demonstrations and periodic closures of the Plaza de Mayo;

Refusal by mothers to sign a document acknowledging they knew the illegality of demonstrations in the Plaza;

Refusal to support the war effort in the Malvinas-Falklands War, claiming it was a diversion from domestic conflicts over the junta's repressive tactics;

Nonviolent Intervention

Gatherings on the Plaza de Mayo as acts of civil disobedience and "Lightning strikes" where they gathered on the edges of the square and ran to break through barricades before being turned back by the police (Fisher 1989: 90); according to Aida de Suarez, one of the demonstrators said, "On Thursdays at half past three this square belongs to us" (Fisher 1898: 108);

Painting thousands of silhouettes on buildings in the center of Buenos Aires with the names of desaparecidos.

Ensuing Events:
Establishing a democracy in Argentina was not easy, despite the victory of 1983. With a long history of military coups, leaders of the new democratic government had to look over the shoulder to the generals watching them from the sidelines of official power. The major dispute was over what to do about the crimes of the junta and the Mothers persisted in their struggle for justice. The Argentine Congress passed a law in December 1986 to limit the prosecution of military officers accused of kidnapping, murder, and torture during the military rule. During debate preceding its passage, the Mothers of the Plaza tossed leaflets from the gallery and shouted at the legislators before being expelled (Femenía 1987). Unfortunately, efforts to institutionalize their voice after the end of military rule were not very successful and internal divisions split the movement because of differences over whether or not to be aligned with political parties (see Safa 1990:362).

The first democratic president after the Dirty Wars, Raul Alfonsin, took steps within days of his inauguration to investigate and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses under the junta. The process was severely criticized by some human rights groups including the Mothers of the Plaza because of limitations on how severely the military could be punished for their participation, but even the critics participated in the process once it was underway. Nobel Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel refused his appointment to Alfonsin's CONADEP, however, because he like other human rights activists had preferred a congressional investigation that would have more authority. Junta President Videla, who had declared that "in order to guarantee the security of the state, all the necessary people will die", was prosecuted and jailed in 1984, although subsequently released as part of a broad presidential pardon for convicted regime leaders by President Carlos Saul Menem in order to facilitate the democratic administration's uneasy relationship with the military (Schumacher, 1984; Chavez 1985; Christian 1990). The Supreme Court later overturned the pardon and Videla stood trial in July 2010 for the murder of more than 30 political prisoners in 1976 (BBC News 2010).

Eager to address the economic crisis and under the influence of US policies, the government undertook a series of "structural adjustments" that had a serious negative impact on the middle classes, who revolted in December 2001 with an outpouring of demonstrations known as "cacerolazos"-the banging of pots and pans outside their homes. A severe economic depression, high debt levels and a bank run led to economic collapse in 2001, a default on the government's foreign debt, and the resignation of President Adolfo Rodriguez. In subsequent years the economy grew steadily until 2007 and the democratic political structure survived the storms.
Endnotes:
Personal communication from Philip McManus, 5 August 2010 (cf. McManus and Schlabach 1991).

* Paintings by Argentine Nobel Laureate Nobel Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel from his series "Stations of the Cross from Latin America 1492-1992." are available online at http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/1992-stations-cross-esquivel.htm. See especially the scene with Jesus being escorted by contemporary armed soldiers, in which one of the Mothers of the Plaza holds a sign asking "Where is my son?"
For Further Reading:
Ackerman, Peter, and Jack DuVall. "Argentina and Chile: Resisting Oppression." In A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, 268-302. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2000.

"Adolfo Pérez Esquivel - Biography." Nobelprize.org, 1981. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1980/esquivel-bio.html (accessed July 31, 2010).

Agosín, Marjorie, ed. Surviving Beyond Fear: Women, Children and Human Rights in Latin America. Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1993.

Agosín, Marjorie. "Remembering the Madwomen of the Plaza de Mayo." Human Rights Quarterly 10, no. 1 (1988): 128-129.

Agosín, Marjorie, and Cola Franzen. "A Visit to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo." Human Rights Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1987): 426-435.

Agosín, Marjorie. Circles of Madness: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Photographs by Alicia d'Amico and Alicia Sanguinetti; poems by Marjorie Agosín; translated by Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman. Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1992.

"Argentina's Videla: 'Troops Followed My Orders'." BBC News, July 6, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10521294 (accessed July 30, 2010).

Bellucci, Mabel. "Childless Motherhood: Interview with Nora Cortiñas, a Mother of the Plaza de Mayo, Argentina." Reproductive Health Matters 7, no. 13 (1999): 83-88

Bouvard, Marguerite Guzman. Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1994.

Bosco, Fernando J. "The Madres de Plaza de Mayo and Three Decades of Human Rights' Activism: Embeddedness, Emotions, and Social Movements." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96, no. 2 (2006): 342-365.

Bosco, Fernando J. "Human Rights Politics and Scaled Performances of Memory: Conflicts among the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina." Social and Cultural Geography 5, no. 3 (2004): 381-402.

Bosco, Fernando J. "Place, Space, Networks, and the Sustainability of Collective Action: The Madres de Plaza de Mayo." Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs 1, no. 4 (2001): 307-29.

Carlson, Marifran. "A Tragedy and a Miracle: Leonor Alonso and the Human Cost of State Terrorism in Argentina." In Surviving Beyond Fear: Women, Children and Human Rights in Latin America, ed. Marjorie Agosín, 71-85. Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1993.

Chavez, Lydia. "Argentines Vary in their Reaction." New York Times, December 11, 1985.

Chelala, César. "Women of Valor: An Interview with the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo." In Surviving Beyond Fear: Women, Children and Human Rights in Latin America, ed. Marjorie Agosín, 58-79. Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1993.

Christian, Shirley. "Argentina Frees Ex-junta Leaders." New York Times, December 30, 1990.

Esquival, Adolfo Pérez. Christ in a Poncho. New York: Orbis, 1983.

Femenía, Nora Amalia, and Colos Ariel Gil. "Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo: The Mourning Process from Junta to Democracy." Feminist Studies 13, no. 1 (1987): 9-18.

Fisher, Josephine. Mothers of the Disappeared. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1989.

Jelin, Elizabeth, ed. Women and Social Change in Latin America. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1990.

Las Madres, The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Directed by Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo, 1986. United States: Xochitl Films.

Lazar, Sara. Between M-Otherness and Identity: The Narratives of "Four Mothers" and "Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo". Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2006.

"Madres de Plaza de Mayo." Selection of poems of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: 'Busqueda', 1983.

McManus, Philip, and Gerald Schlabach, eds. Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America. Philadelphia, PA : New Society Publishers, 1991.

Mellibovsky, Matilde. Circle of Love over Death: Testimonies of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Translated by Maria and Matthew Proser. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1997.

Méndez, Juan E. Truth and Partial Justice: An Americas Watch Report. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991. http://www.hrw.org/en/node/78241 (accessed July 1, 2010).

Navarro, Marysa. "The Personal is Political: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo." In Power and Popular protest: Latin American Social Movements, ed. Susan Eckstein, 241-58. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989.

Paulson, Joshua. "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Argentina 1977-1983." In Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential, Gene Sharp, 217-221. Boston, MA: Extending Horizon Books, 2005.

Ranis, Peter. "Rebellion, Class, and Labor in Argentine Society." WorkingUSA 7, no. 4 (2004): 8-35.

Safa, Helen Icken. "Women's Social Movements in Latin America." Gender and Society 4, no. 3 (1990): 354-369.

Schirmer, Jennifer G. "'Those Who Die for Life Cannot be Called Dead': Women and Human Rights Protest in Latin America." In Surviving Beyond Fear: Women, Children and Human Rights in Latin America, ed. Marjorie Agosín, 31-57. Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1993.

Schumacher, Edward. "Highest Argentine Military Court Jails Ex-ruler in Disappearances." New York Times, August 3, 1984.

Schumacher, Edward. "Mothers of Missing Won't Give Up in Argentina." New York Times, December 31, 1983.

Steiner, Patricia Owen. Hebe's Story: The Inspiring Rise and Dismaying Evolution of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Corporation, 2003.

Taylor, Diana. Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War." Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

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The Mothers of the Disappeared: Challenging the Junta in Argentina (1977-1983) | ICNC

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Download PDF Version Continue to ICNC home page Access more Nonviolent Conflict Summaries By Lester Kurtz July 2010 Conflict Summary: While a military junta ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, dissent was silenced. In broad daylight or in the middle of the night dissidents were swept from their homes, and across the nation those ...

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Here is the Website for Las Madres. It has many pictures, and info on the activities that they have been working on, and the mission they strive to send to the public.

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Miércoles 10 de abril - 18.30hs - Gabriela Rivadeneira en MadresLa Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo recibe a la actual Asambleista Nacional del Ecuador, Gabriela Rivadeneira, en el Auditorio Juana AzurduyCharla junto a Hebe de Bonafini"El rol de las juventudes en el proceso de liberación latinoamericano: Nuevos desafíos en ...

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Dorothy Stang was born in Dayton, Ohio, US on July 7, 1931

Died on February 12, 2005 in Anapu, Brazil by a gun wound in the head

She decided early on that she would give her life to God as a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur.

She wanted to serve the poor as a missionary

After teaching in Chicago and Phoenix, she was to serve in Brazil. She and four other Sisters went to Brazil in 1966.

She then became a naturalized Brazilian citizen

She wore a shirt that said "A Morte da floresta é o fim da nossa vida" on it. It is Portuguese for "The death of the forest is the end of our life."

She worked as an advocate for the poor in Brazil, specifically in the Amazon, beginning in the early 1970s

She helped the impoverished make a living by farming small plots and extracting forest products without deforestation

She sought to protect the poor from criminal gangs working on behalf of ranchers who wanted plots of land

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-Rufina Amaya was the sole El Mozote Massacre Survivor
El Mozote Massacre:  El Mozote was known for their mutuality. Though surrounding areas were Roman Catholic, El Mozote was mainly Evangelical Protestant.  The city of El Mozote was attacked by the Brigade. They publicly executed men usually by beheading them. Women were were killed, many raped first.  Children were lined up and shot. Rufina Amaya witnessed her husband and children's death.

December 11, 1981

Roughly 900 civilians died

During Salvadoran Civil War

Rufina lived to tell hat she saw that night. The Reagan administration decided to play down the reports of what had happened during the El Mozote Massacre. Also, they defended the Atlacatl Brigade. The public did not believe Rufina's story so the Brigade continued to kill until 1989 when they were caught for the murder of six Jesuit priests, their cook, etc. The United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador led to the investigation in November 1992 that led to the bodies buried at the site, and confirmed that Amaya's testimony was accurate.

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Some Background:
- from the 1930's to the 1990's, Argentina underwent a time period of governmental uproar.
- many individuals in the military were free in a wave of amnesties, after a military rebellion in Argentina.
- Las Madres came together in police station and military barracks in frantic search for their relatives and children
- these women bonded over the fact that their young sons and daughters were taken away because of the state terrorism and military dictatorship going in Argentina during the 1970s and 80--many of them never being seen again.