Anniversary of the US Churchwomen murders

December 2nd was the thirty-sixth anniversary of the brutal murder of four US Churchwomen in El Salvador. The murders shocked the people of the US. However for the incoming Reagan administration, their murders came at an inconvenient time when the US was looking to augment its military assistance to the Salvadoran government which was under threat from the recently established FMLN. The Reagan administration did not seem to be upset that our Salvadoran allies had murder the Churchwomen, US land reform officials, or thousands of civilians.

Christopher Dickey shares some new details about the murders of the Churchwomen and the cover-up by the Salvadoran government in The Nun Murders and the Presidential Transition Team.

A new president had just been elected in the United States — a hard line president, who, it was said, had no patience with the vacillating, moralizing policies of his predecessor. Around the world thugs who would spit when they heard the phrase “human rights” suddenly took heart. With such a man in the White House, they thought, they had a license to kill. 

This was November 1980, when the confused transition from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan opened the door to a bloodbath in the little Central American country of El Salvador; when, suddenly, anyone the military suspected of aiding the subversivos was liable to be tortured to death, and even Americans—even American nuns—were fair game.

Those who wanted to unleash terror against the Latin American left cheered Reagan's election.

On election night, November 4, 1980, the embassy gave a party at the Hotel El Presidente in San Salvador, and the mood among the American diplomats was somber. But among members of the Salvadoran military officers and oligarchs who attended, there was outright jubilation. Some of the officers outside fired their guns in the air. A couple of American envoys, as they walked to their cars, had to run a gauntlet of high-heeled, bejeweled señoras shouting, “We’ve won!” and “Get out of here.” “Communistas!” the women called them. “Death to White!” and “Viva Reagan!” they shouted.

To the extent there had been any limitation on the slaughter, those inhibitions were about to drop away.

Robert Pastor (I think) told of a similar reaction from Argentine jailers. The words of president-elects have meaning. Unfortunately, that means we should pray for the people of the Philippines today (and probably the US while we are at it).