35th Anniversary of Jesuits massacre

November 16th is the 35th anniversary of the 1989 massacre by Salvadoran troops of six Jesuit priests and a female coworker and her daughter at the University of Central America.

35 years after the crime, a criminal prosecution is slowly moving forward in a Salvadoran courtroom. The case charges senior military leaders involved in the order to kill the Jesuits along with the former president Alfredo Cristiani, and Rodolfo Parker, a military lawyer who went on to be a prominent political figure. Both men fled the country in June 2021 when Nayib Bukele and his Nuevas Ideas party deposed the attorney general and magistrates of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Judicial Court and inserted Bukele allies in those roles. 

Although various arrest warrants have been issued, Cristiani and Parker have never appeared in the case and have not returned to the country. They are being tried in absentia along with the various members of the military high command.

Despite the notoriety of the massacre when it happened and the absence of justice over decades, today there is surprisingly little coverage by the local or international press of this trial to impose responsibility for the Jesuit massacre.  When there is coverage in the government allied press, the coverage almost entirely focuses on Cristiani and Parker as former leaders of the ARENA and Christian Democrat parties.  Their involvement fits Bukele's narration of history which calls the 12 year conflict and the subsequent peace accords a corrupt political bargain.

Meanwhile, the University of Central America continues to keep the legacy of the murdered priests and academics alive, with a commitment to human rights investigation, by speaking truth to and about those in power, and each year commemorating the anniversary with a vigil, concert and lecture series.