Witness to inhumanity
A short conversation with a heroine, Rufina Amaya
Rufina Amaya survived the massacre of 809 people in El Mozote, El Salvador, on December 11, 1981. She died in March 2007 at the age of sixty-four. She was survived by her few remaining family members and a host of men and women who admired and supported her. She did not consider herself a hero, but a simple woman of faith who does justice. And a woman, a person of love.
Bearing witness! Present! It was very boring: the killings of almost an entire town, including four of her children and her husband, by US-trained government thugs, ordered by paranoid leaders who did not want to threaten their power. The soldiers snatched Amaya’s two babies from her arms.
The Ronald Reagan administration trained and equipped the Salvadoran army, whom it called “freedom fighters,” and supported a government that Bishop Oscar Romero, at the cost of his own life, on March 24, 1980, bravely denounced as perpetrators. of serious violations of human rights and the murders of innocent people.
In an energetic response to this savage massacre of human beings, human flowers, Amaya spoke to small groups about her Catholic faith and practice and the need for everyone, both citizens and their governments, to respect and promote human rights.
May he rest in an eternal and luminous peace.
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November 20, 1999 Interview: Fort Benning, Georgia
Rufina exuded an aura of genuine witness to an atrocity, while remaining peaceful and utterly humane and humble. I just loved Rufina when I first saw her: light, even in the dark. She had a special beauty, small bones, a round and open face, created from unbearable suffering faced by an indomitable spirit. She fixed her hair, pulled it back, and tied it into a bun, which was left straight. She was a bit plump; children were extremely attracted to her. He told us that he just wanted to tell his story with a calm and righteous anger, asking for real change. He exuded courage, simplicity. and nobility; his voice was strong when he addressed thousands of people in protests against the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).
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God saved me because I needed someone to tell the story of what it happened.-Rufina Amaya, New York Times, 1996.
MZC: Thank you very much, Rufina. I feel like I would like to be with you. That feeling of sharing this little moment with you and wanting to support you. You are wonderful, an inspiration full of light; I pray for you every day.
When the 1981 El Mozote massacre occurred, with its 809 victims, it was denied for the first time by both the Salvadoran and American governments, despite what many community and ecclesiastical leaders were telling the world. You, being the only survivor, had the courage to tell what happened in your village of twenty houses in front of the community square. You have been telling this story for eighteen years.
In 1990, you were the first to testify in a criminal complaint against the Atlacatl Battalion (trained by US advisers) by Pedro Chica Romero from La Joya, a village near El Mozote. Pedro witnessed in his small hamlet another murder of some of his relatives and neighbors by the Atlacatl Battalion. It was not until the 1992 El Salvador Peace Treaty that the United Nations appointed an Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team to excavate the area and finally begin the exhumation.
You have our admiration and affection, Rufina.
May I ask what motivates you to tell your heartbreaking story?
RA: I feel like I’m doing what God wants me to do, what I have all my desire to do. It is part of how I practice being Catholic, not a separate activity. My telling stories and talking to people comes from my heart and also from my pain, from my suffering for the loss of my husband, Domingo Claros, who was twenty-nine years old; my son, Cristino, nine, and my three daughters María Dolores, five, María Lillian, three; and María Isabel, eight months. I can’t even cry anymore. It’s true: my body produced so many tears that they are all gone. I speak to you; I speak for them, my family, my friends and my neighbors who can no longer speak. Although I am a simple person, I use my voice so that people do not forget what happened in El Mozote.
MZC: Would just two more questions be okay? What is your participation in the organized church? Do you consider yourself an “activist”?
RA: I am a lay pastor of the Catholic Church in El Salvador; my faith is very important because it gives me love, as do my family and friends. My religion gives me the courage not to be afraid to speak out loud and my religion allows me to refresh myself spiritually. I like to lead “think tanks” where we talk about God’s relationship with our own lives. I have had so many visitors from all over the world; I really feel like I am destined to speak, and I am happy and serious to speak. I practice quiet prayer and I also have a time of reflection, but I would call myself an activist. I will never be silent about what is right and what is wrong, what is unjust abuse, unjust murder against good and innocent people. I publicly ask those responsible for the murders to publicly ask for our forgiveness. Yes, I am an activist and also a Catholic. I’m honest. I am not satisfied. However, I am also a person of faith, not just an activist.