The movement to close the School of the
Americas (SOA) training center for Latin American soldiers has held an annual
vigil in front of the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia for 25 years. This year, the convergence will be moved here
to the Nogales Wall as an expression of resistance to the militarization of the
U.S.-Mexico border. The four-day event
will conclude on October 10 – the fourth anniversary of the murder of
16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodriguez by a Border Patrol agent that fired into
Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona on October 10, 2012.
Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA
Watch, visited Nogales in May 2013 and a vigil was held that evening at the
site where José Antonio was killed. He
presented José Antonio’s mother, Aracely, with a photo of him holding a cross
with her son’s name during the vigil at Fort Benning the previous November. The Home of Hope and Peace (HEPAC) was
honored to host another SOA Watch delegation that came to Nogales from April 28
to 30 in preparation for the vigil this October.
The journey of SOA Watch from its
beginning in front of Fort Benning to the border in Nogales parallels my own
life journey over those same 26 years.
My first trip to Latin America was to the Mesa Grande refugee camp in
Honduras in September 1989. The camp was
home to thousands of people who had fled from the U.S.-sponsored war and
repression in El Salvador.
A group of 500 people were preparing to
return to El Salvador the following month and we met with their “mesa
directiva” (elected leaders). Beto, Arturo,
Isabel, Neto, Eulalio and Miguel shared their stories with us and transformed
my life. “We are willing to risk our
lives, if need be, to bring our people back to El Salvador,” said Beto, the
president. “By claiming our right to
live as a civilian community in the countryside we believe we will be
contributing to the process of bringing peace to our homeland.”
They returned to Guancorita in El Salvador
on October 29 and found that most of the community had been destroyed by Air
Force bombing. A few weeks later, on
November 16, soldiers went into the Central America University in San Salvador
and murdered Father Ignacio Ellacuría (rector), five other Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter. Many
of those responsible for the massacre had been trained at the School of the
Americas.
Then on February 11, 1990, Guancorita was
attacked by the Air Force. Planes and
helicopters flew overhead for two hours and fired 15 rockets and 8 bombs around
the community. Four families that were
living beneath sheets of plastic ran to seek shelter in a house made out of
brick. One of the helicopters fired a
rocket that exploded inside the house – killing five people, including four
children, and wounding 16.
We visited the community the following
month and Patrocinio leads us to “la casa de la masacre” (the house of the
massacre). We enter the house and there
is a huge stain spread across the right wall.
The bricks are pockmarked with holes from the “esquirlas” (rocket
shrapnel). Five crosses with the names
of the victims mark the sites where they died: “Isabel Lopez” and “Anabel Beatriz
Lopez” (Patrocinio’s 10-year-old and 2-year-old daughters), “Jose Guardado” and
“Blanca Lilia Guardado” (father and 2-year-old daughter), and “Dolores Serrano”
(10-years-old).
Patrocinio tells us about the attack and then
takes out his bandana and carefully unrolls it on the ground. Inside is a piece of the rocket, with the
markings in English. The rockets, the
bombs, the helicopters and planes had been paid for with our tax dollars.
We meet Patrocinio’s spouse, Maria, that
afternoon in the neighboring community of Guarjila. Tears stream down her face as she tells us
about the death of her two daughters.
She is eight-months pregnant and shows us the shrapnel wounds on her
chest and upper legs. “It was a miracle
I didn’t lose my baby,” she says. Maria
gave birth to a girl who was named Isabel Beatriz in honor of her two sisters
that she never met.
In July 1990, Guancorita was renamed
Comunidad Ignacio Ellacuría in honor of the rector of the Central America
University and in recognition that both the Jesuit community and Guancorita had
suffered massacres. In November of that
year, Father Roy and a few other people held a vigil at the gates of Ft.
Benning to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre at the university. The vigil would grow over the years with the
participation of thousands of people every November.
Twenty two years after that first vigil, a
Border Patrol agent fires his pistol between the bars of the Nogales Wall at
José Antonio who is walking down below on International Street in Nogales,
Sonora. Lonnie Swartz empties the
13-round clip, puts in another clip, and then fires all the bullets in that one. He shoots José Antonio once in the head and
seven times in the back.
I visited the site of the killing, on the
sidewalk in front of Dr. Contreras’ clinic, ten days later. The wall on the corner had seven bullet
holes, up high, with red circles around each one that had been drawn by police
investigators. A few feet away, the side
wall had three bullet holes down low, alongside the sidewalk where José Antonio
died.
On November 2, Day of the Dead, HEPAC
helped organize the first procession and vigil to protest the murder of José
Antonio. Other vigils followed to
commemorate the six month, one year, year and a half, two year, and three year
anniversaries.
We will gather together this October in
solidarity with the family of José Antonio and all victims of U.S.-sponsored
violence; including Isabel and Anabel Beatriz Lopez, Jose and Blanca Lilia
Guardado, and Dolores Serrano. We would
be honored to have you join us.
