Armed men burn records of El Salvador war missing

[bananas]

Source: Associated Press

El Salvador's national fire department says armed men have stolen computers and burned archives of an agency investigating complaints that nearly 1,000 children went missing from the country's 1980-1992 civil war.

Sgt. Armando Pineda says the men entered the offices of the Probusqueda Association for Missing Children and set fire to archives.

Director Ester Alvarenga says the incident early Thursday morning is "sabotage" and "an attack on our work."

She says she has not been allowed to enter and doesn't know what's missing.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/feedarticle/11066533

[bananas]

1. Longer AP article

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/armed-men-burn-records-el-salvador-war-missing-20888987

Armed Men Burn Records of El Salvador War Missing
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador November 14, 2013 (AP)
By MARCOS ALEMAN Associated Press

<snip>

"This is clear sabotage on our work," said director Ester Alvarenga, adding that she had not yet been allowed to enter the offices after the fire. "We don't know what documents they destroyed or took, but this is an attack against our work."

Official human rights prosecutor David Morales suggested the attack could be related to an appeal before the country's Supreme Court that would eliminate the amnesty of people who committed grave war crimes, and he asked the attorney general to make a priority of investigating the attack.

"They have the responsibility to look at the possibility that this was a politically motivated attack intending to intimidate Probusqueda because of their work in defending human rights," Morales said.

Probusqueda said early this year that it has documented at least a dozen cases of children stolen by members the Salvadoran military during the civil war. Some were sold or given away for adoption, or raised by the men who took them. Efforts to investigate those cases have been hindered by the military's refusal to turn over DNA records

<snip>

[MyNameGoesHere]

2. I wonder if these armed men

spoke with a slightly "northern" Spanish accent?

[bananas]

3. Related: Former 'missing child' in El Salvador's civil war tells his journey in film

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2013/1019/Former-missing-child-in-El-Salvador-s-civil-war-tells-his-journey-in-film

Former 'missing child' in El Salvador's civil war tells his journey in film

At 16, Nelson de Witt discovered he was taken and put up for adoption after his revolutionary mother was killed in a raid. There are an estimated 800 children like him from El Salvador's civil war.

By Bryan Kay, Correspondent / October 19, 2013

Nelson de Witt had just returned from summer camp when he heard the life-changing news.

It wasn’t the fact that Mr. de Witt’s biological family was located in El Salvador – he had long known he was adopted from the Central American nation.

But for the first time the details of his life before adoption were revealed – and the story was more dramatic than he ever imagined. Then 16-year-old de Witt learned he wasn’t just adopted at age two by a family in Boston; He was the son of El Salvadoran revolutionaries.

Born Roberto Coto, his mother died in a government raid on a guerrilla safe house in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa and de Witt became one of the estimated 800 disappeared children of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992 with a peace accord between the government and leftist guerrillas.

<snip>

[bananas]

4. Related: Experts: More Must Be Done to Trace Missing People

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/experts-trace-missing-people-20751661

Experts: More Must Be Done to Trace Missing People

THE HAGUE, Netherlands November 1, 2013 (AP)
By MIKE CORDER Associated Press

Experts say the ranks of missing people are swelling around the world, including Muslim men murdered and dumped into mass graves in Bosnia, victims of Asia's 2004 tsunami, people killed in Mexico's drug wars, and asylum seekers who drown as they flee conflicts in rickety boats.

Academics and others meeting in The Hague to discuss the plight of missing people called on Friday for more to be done to tackle the problem, saying that would contribute to more stable societies around the world.

Professor Jeremy Sarkin, a member of the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, told a three-day conference that peace will be threatened in nations emerging from armed conflict "if issues relating to the missing continue to exist."

The conference was organized by the Sarajevo-based International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), which was formed in 1996 to help trace and identify thousands of people who went missing during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. It has grown into a repository for expertise on using DNA to identify missing people.

The organization is currently working in the Balkans, Iraq, Libya, Cyprus, Chile and El Salvador as well as helping Interpol identify victims of the recent Westgate Mall terror attack in Kenya.

<snip>

[ck4829]

5. They can't hide the truth forever.

[PeoViejo]

6. Chile,Argentina, Colombia

The list goes on.....

[a la izquierda]

8. They can.

Ignorance is their friend.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Looks as if the right-wing is beefing itself up again to reseize power.

What a ghastly history they created in El Salvador with US support in their war against the helpless citizens, the poor, the indigenous.

When Archbisop Romero was assassinated during mass by a military sniper trained at the US School of the Americas, it was followed by the military surrounding the plaza and opening fire upon the mourners who came to pay their respects at the Archbishop's funeral. Snipers from the National Army fired down from the tops of buildings at the bewildered mourners.

After that massacre, there were many shoes left in the plaza which fell from the feet of people trying to run out of the way of bullets.

[center]

[/center]
It doesn't seem hard to imagine who's behind this new ugliness.

Thank you, bananas.

[bemildred]

9. They do hate the light. nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. Where is the crew that's so concerned with human rights and democracy in Venezuela?

Or does their concern stop at the Venezuelan border?

Could it be they're only interested in demonizing leftist regimes?

They never talk about the hundreds of thousands killed by US-supported rightists. I wonder why that is.

[Judi Lynn]

11. They support atrocities against suspected leftist citizens

in the Americas. Always. No exceptions.

They always support Colombia's government, just as they did Pinochet, and still do, and the barbaric massacres, tortures, horrific violence and terrorism against the poor, the helpless, the tragically vulnerable in Central and South America.

Doesn't take long to know everything about these guys. Not democrats.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Burning the Evidence: Gunmen Torch Records Documenting War Crimes, Missing Children in El Salvador

Burning the Evidence: Gunmen Torch Records Documenting War Crimes, Missing Children in El Salvador
Friday, November 15, 2013

(Video at link.)

On Thursday, armed men sabotaged an El Salvadoran nonprofit dedicated to finding children who went missing three decades ago during a time when the United States was backing Salvador’s military government. The intruders broke into the Pro-Búsqueda Association for Missing Children, destroyed four of its offices, and set fire to its archives. They also stole computers, possibly containing sensitive information about children stolen by members of the military between 1980 and 1992. El Salvador’s human rights ombudsman, David Morales, told the Associated Press the attack could be related to an appeal before the country’s Supreme Court that would eliminate amnesty for people who carried out war crimes. We go to San Salvador, El Salvador, to speak with Monserrat Martínez, who works in the investigation unit of the Pro-Búsqueda Association for Missing Children. We are also joined by Alexis Stoumbelis, the executive director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Armed men have sabotaged a Salvadoran nonprofit agency dedicated to finding children who went missing during three decades ago during a time when the United States was backing Salvador’s military government. On Thursday, the intruders broke into the Pro-Búsqueda Association for Missing Children, destroyed four of its offices, and set fire to its archives. They also stole computers, possibly containing sensitive information such as cases of children stolen by members the military between 1980 and 1992. Efforts to investigate those cases have been obstructed by the military’s refusal to share DNA records.

Shortly after the attack, El Salvador’s human rights ombudsman, David Morales, visited the organization and commented on what had happened.

DAVID MORALES: [translated] On a group that struggles for the community and tries to help victims of armed conflict, we haven’t seen this type of attack for a long time. Traditionally, the political purpose is to intimidate, pursue and destroy information that shows what happened in the past.

AMY GOODMAN: Morales told the Associated Press the attack could be related to an appeal before the country’s Supreme Court that would eliminate amnesty for people who carried out war crimes, and he requested the attorney general to prioritize investigating the attack.

More:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/15/burning_the_evidence_gunmen_torch_records