El Salvador Ex-President Approved of Massacre of Jesuit Priests in 1989, Say Prosecutors

By Rick Martin First Posted: Jun 08, 2023 01:36 AM EDT

The 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador were considered one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in the country. Prosecutors now allege that ex-President Alfredo Cristiani approved of it.

According to the Associated Press, prosecutors who went after the former El Salvadoran president last year over the infamous murder case finally presented formal charges against Cristiani during an arraignment hearing last Monday.

The prosecutors alleged that the former president was at the meeting where the El Salvador military plotted to kill the six Jesuits.

In a statement, the prosecutors said, "The investigations reveal that former President Alfredo Cristiani was present at the meeting where the crime was coordinated and authorized."

The former president was also part of the phone call to reassure one of the priests before he was killed by El Salvadoran soldiers.

Cristiani had reportedly been talking to one of the murdered priests, Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, around the time they were killed. They had several phone calls with each other, with the then-president reportedly telling the Jesuit that "he should not worry about the raid being carried out at the UCA, and asked him to remain calm and stay where he was."

However, the promise was not kept, as soldiers raided the Central American University where the Jesuits lived, taking them away before killing them.

Jesuit Priests Killed Alongside Cook and Her Daughter

The six Jesuit priests were murdered on November 16, 1989, at the height of the El Salvador Civil War, which had been raging since 1980 and ended1992.

According to NPR, the soldiers also killed a woman named Julia Elba Ramos, who was serving as the cook for the priests, as well as her 16-year-old daughter, Celina Maricet Ramos.

A witness to the killing stated that she saw the soldiers burst in, took the six victims upstairs, and started shooting. The six Jesuit priests were identified as Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, Ignacio Martín-Baro, Ignacio Ellacuria, Amando Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Segundo Montes. Their deaths marked a dark part of El Salvador's history.

Ex-president Cristiani has denied all the allegations against him, maintaining he did not know about the incident that took place during his administration that shocked the world. He, together with seven of the country's top-ranking military officers at the time, are now facing charges of homicide, conspiracy, and terrorism.

Jesuit Priests Were Speaking Out Against the El Salvador Government

During the civil war, Cristiani's government was attacked by leftist rebels known as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN. At that time, the US backed the Cristiani regime because of fear that communism might have a better foothold in the Americas should it take El Salvador.

Because of the civil war, the administration became more authoritarian, and the priests spoke out against the government's injustices as they championed the poor. The Loyola University in Chicago even called them "The Salvadoran Martyrs."

Loyola built a memorial for them within campus grounds in 2010.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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