30th Anniversary of the Murders of Four US Churchwomen

On December 2, 1980, three nuns (Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel) and one lay worker (Jean Donovan) were abducted, raped, and murdered upon their return from Comalapa International Airport in El Salvador by members of the National Guard.

Tonight the Department of Political Science and the Department of Latin American and Women's Studies at the University of Scranton are hosting a showing of the film, Justice and the Generals.

This documentary covers the initial investigation, the trial of the Guardsmen, and later attempts to bring to justice the military leaders (Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, director of the National Guard, and Jose Guillermo Garcia, head of the ministry of defense) who ordered the murders.”

If you haven't seen the film yet, I would highly recommend it.  While you're at it, you should read Jean Donovan and the Call to Discipleship and watch Roses in December.

The story of the churchwomen has always been an important one to me.  My aunt is an Ursuline nun as was Dorothy Kazel.  Maura Clarke and Ita Ford are from NYC as am I.  And Maura Clarke and I grew up in the same neighborhood and attended the same grammar school (although decades apart).

In 1993, the Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador found that

On 2 December 1980, members of the National Guard of El Salvador arrested four churchwomen after they left the international airport. Churchwomen Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan were taken to an isolated spot and subsequently executed by being shot at close range.

In 1984, Deputy Sergeant Luis Antonio Colindres Alemán and National Guard members Daniel Canales Ramirez, Carlos Joaquin Contreras Palacios, Francisco Orlando Contreras Recinos and José Roberto Moreno Canjura were sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder.

1. There is sufficient evidence that:

(a) The arrest of the churchwomen at the airport was planned prior to their arrival.

(b) In arresting and executing the four churchwomen, Deputy Sergeant Luis Antonio Colindres Alemán was acting on orders of a superior.

2. There is substantial evidence that:

(a) Then Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, Director-General of the National Guard, Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Edgardo Casanova Vejar, Commander of the Zacatecoluca military detachment, Colonel Roberto Monterrosa, Major Lizandro Zepeda Velasco and Sergeant Dagoberto Martínez, among other officers, knew that members of the National Guard had committed the murders and, through their actions, facilitated the cover-up of the facts which obstructed the corresponding judicial investigation.

(b) The Minister of Defence at the time, General José Guillermo Garcia, made no serious effort to conduct a thorough investigation of responsibility for the murders of the churchwomen.

(c) Local commissioner José Dolores Meléndez also knew of the murders and covered up for the members of the security forces who committed them.

3. The State of El Salvador failed in its obligation under international human rights law to investigate the case, to bring to trial those responsible for ordering and carrying out the executions and, lastly, to compensate the victims relatives.

These are pictures of the graves of Srs. Ita Ford and Maura Clarke in Chalatenango, El Salvador.

The names of the four women also appear on the Monumento a la Memoria y la Verdad in Parque Cuscatlan, San Salvador with 30,000 other civilians killed in the war.