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The pursuit of justice in the 1989 assassinations at the University of Central America — a pivotal event in US-El Salvadoran relations — will be the subject of a March 22 lecture sponsored by the Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice.
“Amnesty and Accountability in the Case of the El Salvador Jesuit Assassinations: The Moral Meets the Pragmatic,” which takes place at 7:30 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons, will include a talk by José María Tojeira, SJ, who was at UCA in November, 1989, when Salvadoran government troops killed six of his Jesuit colleagues, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter. Now rector emeritus at UCA, Fr. Tojeira will discuss the massacre and its aftermath, as well as more recent developments — notably Spain’s decision last May to seek extradition for 20 ex-officers involved in the murders to stand trial for crimes against humanity and state terrorism.
Also speaking will be Pamela Merchant, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, which filed the case in Spanish National Court that led to the issuing of indictments for the ex-soldiers. She and Fr. Tojeira will offer perspectives from Jesuit and human rights communities on the case and its relevance to other current human rights-related efforts.
For more information on this event, which is co-sponsored with the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights, send e-mail to humanrights@bc.edu.