Pastors Francisco and Jesus Carillo
This message is from Father Dean Brackley, a teacher at the UCA in San Salvador and great friend of the Lutheran Church...
Dear friends,
Last night (Sunday) I joined members of the Jayaque community to receive the bodies of Francisco Carillo and his wife, Jesus Calzada de Carillo, co-pastors of the Lutheran Church in Jayaque.
Francisco and Jesusita were both shot in the Colonia Dos de Mayo, near Los Sítios on Saturday (Nov. 4) at 5:20PM as Francisco locked up the Lutheran chapel there following a religious service. His wife was shot and killed as she waited nearby in their vehicle parked and ready to take them and a couple of passengers home. Francisco was not killed immediately but actually died along the road at Los Chorros on the way to the hospital. (To compound the tragedy, by law the vehicle had to stop and call legal authorities --who do not work nights on weekends. The two bodies, along with the couple's two adult children, Roxana and Wilber, had to spend the night on the roadside. The legal medical authorities did not arrive until the next morning.)
People present near the site of the killings saw the three men on bicycles who shot the couple. Although people heard the shots, they first thought they were firecrackers. According to one of the witnesses, the killers were from nearby communities, Tsu-chi and Llano Verde, which have been plagued by gang violence. Some believe that the killers were gang members, but nothing was robbed, and the motive remains unclear.
Last night at the wake and vigil, one resident of Dos de Mayo expressed frustration, claiming that to his knowledge the police (PNC) still had not arrived to the scene of the murders more than 48 hours after they occurred.
Furthermore, Paco (Francisco) told one of those present just before the service that just before, while on the way to the service, a vehicle had made menacing movements, as if to run Paco and Jesus off the road. A mutual friend of the couple told me that several weeks ago, during a house visit by a Lutheran friend from the U.S., Paco had confided to him that he had been threatened ("Estoy amenazado"). Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gómez confirmed that fact last night at the wake and vigil in Jayaque. Last Tuesday, at the meeting of Lutheran ministers, talk was circulating about threats received by Paco. Francisco told the bishop then, "Dicen que me quieren matar. Pero no tengo miedo. No he hecho nada malo. Y ando con el Señor."
Last night, after the bodies arrived in Jayaque at almost 10:00PM, Bishop Gómez expressed the profound pain, grief and indignation that everyone felt. He pointed out the work done by Paco and his wife in founding the ambulance service for the poor rural community of Jayaque. Paco had also helped form groups in defense of human rights. Bishop Gómez expressed exasperation that people would kill such people, ministers who went about doing only good. He said, "No tengo duda de que Francisco Carillo, en particular, fue asesinado por su trabajo en favor de la justicia y la paz, por su trabajo en favor de los derechos humanos."
Francisco and Jesus were also well-know members of the FMLN. Their death raises important questions about the motive, and the people, behind the killings, when one takes into account the present tense political climate in the country and the presence of significant FMLN support in what is an area traditionally dominated by the right, even the extreme right. Jayaque has also been plagued for decades by widespread electoral fraud, as I can attest on the basis of testimony by trusted people.
Paco and Jesus leave two grown childeren, Roxana and Wilber.
Roxana. While a student at the UCA (in law), Roxana was a member of the Martín Baró cooperative. We Jesuits and the cooperative have collaborated with the Luteran church in Jayaque in response in post-earthquake re-construction.
Paco y Jesus, ¡Presentes! Descansen en paz.
We continue to offer prayers for the Lutheran Church, the family of Jesus and Paco and the community of Jayaque. We must demand a thorough and effective investigation of these horrible murders.
Dean
Comments
And these killings have happened this year alone, and it's not over.. Now I understand what Tony Saca meant when he said that ARENA was going back to the roots of D'aubuisson's ideology.
Still don't believe death squads exist in El Salvador? I understand, you don't live here, you live in the US, and in the US that's unthinkable, but in El Salvador it's "normal"; we have been living under death squads threat since ARENA was formed...
I see the merits to what you say, and I admit that I don't want to believe that the dark times embodied by D'aubuisson are returning.
lamento mucho la muerte de las personas en Jayaque, pero relacionarlas con los escuadrones y la estupida mentalidad de escuadroneros es salirse del contexto de la verdad, es mentir y confundir. Especular y perderse en la verdad.
No se adelanten otra vez con afirmaciones que no son la realidad.
Si esto es verdad, entonces se tendria que asociar todos los asesinatos que estan ocurriendo.
Francisco Carillo y su esposa, Jesus Calzada de Carillo, co-pastores de la Iglesia Luterana de Jayaque: Dios les reciba en su reino. Descansen en paz. han cumplido su mision en la tierra.
Porque se niega ARENA a desarmar a la poblacion? porque ellos son los dueños de la venta de armas en el mercado negro y blanco; ellos son los dueños de las compañias de seguridad que tanta ganancia tienen en El Salvador con la violencia; ellos son los que mantienen a la poblacion con miedo para seguirles ofreciendo y engañando con promesas de "pais seguro", pero de FANTASIA.
La violencia se les salio del huacal a ARENA, por ineptitud o por negocio, ya la cagaron, si quisieran hacer algo al respecto, ya lo hubieran hecho en 17 años de desgracia bajo su regimen.
Seguir creyendo en ARENA es despreciarse a si mismo.
I see the merits to what you say, and I admit that I don't want to believe that the dark times embodied by D'aubuisson are returning."
Returning would imply that such things had been gone or something. But make no mistake, the death squads and the D'aubuisson ideology NEVER left. Look at ARENA for crying out loud. D'aubuisson is a GOD to them, and their members still can't accept that the "terrorist guerrillas, the child-eating Marxists" are the most powerful political force in the country, and CONTINUES TO THREAT THEIR STATUS QUO. They are irked that they can no longer use the military to massacre thousands per day against such subersives, so they just limit themselves to target killings, and the gang members... Come one, do people even read the news? About the bus extortions, about the bus driver killings? How about the bus people hiring gang members to kill people of the opposite routes, or worse even making deals with the gang members to extort their own "comrades" in exchange for a piece of the bounty. The gangs function easily as hitman.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAMR290151996?open&of=eng-slv
http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/819
http://www.cispes.org/english/Communiques_-_Action_Alerts/Oct17paid_ad.html
So let us see... When the assassination of the Romero priest ocurred, some said it was because he was a pedophile, because he was homosexual, at the end siding with the "story" of a gang member. I wonder what justification those who refuse to see the truth will say this time. Was the pastor a pedophile, too? Why did they kill the spouse?
Truth of the matter is, that in a country where the mafia controls the media, controls every law enforcement body, controls the courts, and is sanctioned by The Church, people can do any kind of political assassinations, run a difamation campaign and just make it seem as ANOTHER victim of the rampant crime...
What bothers me, is that the police took 48 hours to arrive, not only that but that the original vehicle actually afforded to wait that long to trasport the body to a hospital... Anyway, my condolences for the Lutheran Church. And I hope the Church finances an independant/serious investigation to land with the real purpose of the assassinations
puño
samuel anonimo= el mismo demente, que todavia le persigue D'abuisson
The fact is that your country's allied police state has won control over state power. The major economic players in the country have always been racist and rightwing.
While I hold the deathsquad esqualidos in the rightwing in more contempt. Gringo liberals that become apologists for a barbaric and oppressive status quo are not to damn far behind.
Remember how Jimmy Carter ignored Romero's pleas for the empire to stop arming the deathsquads. Carter is a punk, and continues to be far, far more sympathetic to the oligarchy over any popular movements.
What Samuel says here is correct: the deathsquad state has never stopped its oppression.
Gringo liberal I may be, but I am no apologist for the ARENA government nor do I hold left and right equally responsible for the current woes of society.
On the other hand, I think a fair minded person has to say that the situation today is bad, but not as bad as 1980, for example. There are FMLN mayors and deputies in the National Assembly -- something which could not have happened in 1980. Politicians on the left can advocate for a socialist state and protections for workers without such statements being an automatic death sentence.
I deplore the fact that the national government is still of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. I agree that the United States is more often than not a force for bad, not good, in the country.
But what is it you propose? It's easy for any of us to curse Saca and ARENA. It's not so easy to say what to do if the Left were ruling in El Salvador.
By the way Tim, you that have ample contacts in the USA, would you mind verifying if this story is true?
EE.UU. reactiva entrenamiento de militares latinoamericanos - Friday, November 10, 2006 hora 10:38
http://www.diariocolatino.com/internacionales/detalles.asp?NewsID=10309
I hope it is a flat out lie. If not... man, we are going back to the 80s and as it happened in the past, I am sure that the US people will be incapable or perhaps even unwilling to demand their own government to cease and decist, after all, since long ago that the "country for the people, by the people" ceased to exist.
But this man and his wife appear to have been loving, righteous people.
When the far rightwing deathsquads can take out people like this--it simply doesn't bode well.
My contempt for US liberals is how they tend to take the side of oligarchy and empire when the chips are down.
Romero, while not perfet, is a giant in my book. So too are the sisters that were killed by the death squads and then villified in the MSM in the US. Dispicable. Never again!
WWCD--What would Chomsky Do?
What he always points out is that the solutions are simple--organize, deepen solidarity, expose the lies and the corruption, distribute power from the bottom up. Always easier said than done. But I have hope that people of good will will not let the situation slip to the deathsquad state that existed before.