Six Jesuits, an employee, and her teenage daughter: the massacre in El Salvador that has not achieved justice in 37 years

The crime occurred in November 1989 during the FMLN urban offensive on the city of San Salvador. (EFE/Rodrigo Sura/Archive) 37 years after the massacre at the Central American University José Simeón Cañas (UCA), El Salvador remembers the murder of six Jesuit priests, a worker at the institution, and her teenage daughter, committed by a military unit in the early morning of November 16, 1989, during the urban offensive of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The victims were the UCA rector, Ignacio Ellacuría; the vice-rector, Ignacio Martín-Baró; the sociologist Segundo Montes; the priests Amando López, Juan Ramón Moreno, and Joaquín López y López. Julia Elba Ramos, the domestic worker at the residence, and her daughter, Celina Mariceth Ramos, 16 years old, were also murdered. The Central American University holds activities this month for the XXXVII anniversary of the martyrs, including an exhibition at the Monseñor Romero Center that proposes reviewing the country's social conditions through the memory of the victims. The crime occurred at one of the most tense moments of the Salvadoran civil war. On November 11, 1989, the FMLN launched the "Hasta el tope" offensive, which moved the fighting to San Salvador and other cities. The capital came under fire, with clashes between the Army and the guerrillas, bombings, and circulation restrictions. The Central American University commemorates every year the anniversary of the murder of the Jesuit priests and two collaborators in 1989, during the Salvadoran armed conflict. (REUTERS/Jose Cabezas REFILE-QUALITY REPEAT) In that context, the leadership of the Armed Forces considered Ellacuría and the UCA as political allies of the insurgency. The Jesuit rector had defended a negotiated exit from the war and maintained dialogue with various political sectors. Furthermore, the university documented human rights violations and published research on the Salvadoran social reality. The United Nations Truth Commission concluded that, during a meeting of the high military command on November 15, an order was given to Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides, director of the Military School, to assassinate Ellacuría and prevent witnesses from remaining. According to that reconstruction, the order came from then Colonel René Emilio Ponce, head of the Joint General Staff. Benavides transmitted the instruction to officers and soldiers of the Atlácatl Battalion, an immediate reaction unit of the Salvadoran Army, trained in part under US military assistance programs. The command entered the UCA campus during the early morning. The military arrived at the Jesuit residence, forced them out, and ordered five of them to lie face down in the garden. Ellacuría, Martín-Baró, Montes, Amando López, and Juan Ramón Moreno were executed there. Joaquín López y López was murdered inside the house. Members of the Atlácatl Battalion executed the victims in the garden and in the rooms of the university residence. (Infobae Centroamérica/Courtesy) The soldiers also found Julia Elba Ramos and Celina Mariceth, who were sleeping in a room of the residence because their house had been damaged during the offensive. Both were murdered. According to the case reconstruction, the executioners sought to eliminate anyone who could identify the authors of the operation. After the homicides, the command fired shots and used explosives to create the appearance of a confrontation with the guerrillas. The first official versions attempted to distance the Armed Forces, but international pressure and subsequent investigations led to establishing military responsibility. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) determined that the Salvadoran judicial process was conditioned by a policy of cover-up and described the trial as an action that did not allow for the establishment of complete responsibilities. The IACHR's in-depth report on the massacre of the Jesuits and two women noted that the investigation did not reach those who gave the orders from the high command. In 1991, a Salvadoran court convicted Benavides and Lieutenant Yusshy René Mendoza Vallecillos. The rest of the accused, including military personnel directly linked to the operation, were acquitted. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights determined that the initial judicial investigations suffered from a policy of state cover-up. (EFE/Roberto Escobar/Archive) Two years later, the General Amnesty Law allowed the release of the convicted and blocked new investigations for more than two decades. The Truth Commission, created after the Peace Accords, identified the chain of command and placed the massacre within a policy of persecution against civilians considered close to the FMLN. The annulment of the amnesty by the Constitutional Chamber in 2016 opened the possibility of reactivating cases for serious human rights violations. However, the intellectual perpetrators named in international reports have not received convictions in El Salvador. The case also had repercussions outside the country. The massacre weakened the international image of the Salvadoran Government and reinforced pressure to reach a negotiation. The Chapultepec Peace Accords, signed on January 16, 1992, included military reforms, the creation of a Truth Commission, and the demobilization of units such as the Atlácatl Battalion. The memory of Ellacuría, his companions, Julia Elba, and Celina remains in the rose garden and in the UCA Memorial Hall. Thirty-seven years later, their names remain associated with a question that the Salvadoran judicial system has yet to close: Who ordered the crime and why have they not been tried?