Spain once again appears to be the court of last resort for justice against perpetrators of crimes against humanity and those who seek to cover them up:
Rights groups asked a Spanish court on Thursday to indict a former president of El Salvador and 14 ex-officials over the massacre of six Jesuit priests and two others during the Central American country's 1980-92 civil war.
The two groups — the Spanish Association for Human Rights and California's Center for Justice and Accountability — filed the lawsuit accusing former Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani Burkard of covering up the 1989 killing of the Jesuits, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter.
The lawsuit also seeks charges against the country's former defense minister, Rafael Humberto Lario, saying he was present at the meeting at which the massacre was ordered, the groups said.
This was an exceptionally vile crime. The rector of the University of Central America and five of his colleagues, some of whom, like him, were born in Spain as well as their housekeeper and her teenage daughter were murdered after having been tortured. Some of the soldiers involved in the massacre were trained at the infamous School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia.
Cristiani for his part was a longtime member of the ARENA party, the rightwing party founded by the truly odious, friend of Jesse Helms, Roberto D'Aubuisson, who he succeeded as party head. D'Aubuisson was behind the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and numerous other atrocities.
And what were these priest killed for? For having the temerity to say enough to the violence and suffering that had permeated their society at the time:
Ignacio Martin-Baro, another slain Jesuit, spoke at the time about the chilling effect of the long-running Salvadoran civil war.
"We have become used to violence," Martin-Baro said. "We have become used to living in a very dangerous world. We have learned to live, accepting death, extraordinary abnormal death into our lives."
As the article notes, the net effect of this will probably be for Cristiani to be forced to stay in El Salvador for fear of arrest should he travel abroad. It will also mark him as a pariah. It's imperfect justice, but it's better than no justice.
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