“El tal Romero me parece uno del los mas grandes farsantes de la historia de El Salvador. / In my opinion that Romero is one of the biggest phonies in the history of El Salvador”.

"El tal Romero me parece uno de los mas grandes farsantes de la historia de El Salvador / In mi opinion that Romero is one of the biggest phonies in the history of El Salvador".

  

The comment above was made by a Salvadoran just this past week, when we celebrated the 31^st anniversary of Monseñor Romero’s martyrdom. Two days before the anniversary President Obama visited El Salvador

President Obama decided to visit the tomb of Monseñor Romero, something that sparked a lot of controversary and criticism from social organizations as well as from people from the right. Some saw this as a missed opportunity; some said that a better tribute would have been the closing of the school that trained the assassins of Monseñor Romero, the SOA. Others went as far as to say that he was not welcomed at the crypt. (Like if it were Reagan that was doing the visit).

Visiting Monseñor Romero’s tomb, an unprecedented event and great gesture by the first US president ever to visit the tomb , cannot be seen as a missed opportunity. When we look at such sad comments like the one I began with. How can we expect to simply conclude that a better tribute would be the closing of the SOA, especially when Salvadorans themselves do not know the ramification the SOA has had in my country and the rest of Latin America. We must be committed in continuing to raise awareness and speak of the truths. 

I took 4 coworkers (all Salvadoran) of my wife this past Saturday to the Hopitalito and the crypt, these people had never been there, one of them even though Monseñor Romero had been shot at the Cathedral. One of the biggest obstacles we have in El Salvador is that the left has hijacked the image of Monseñor Romero as their own and the right has told lies about him. The left pretends he never denounced their acts and the right doesn’t know he did.

What President Obama did is put the topic of Monseñor Romero on the table in a not so biased way. I have heard people who I know have voted for ARENA before, say that they are now interested in visiting the crypt of Monseñor Romero, even the right wing media has been forced to talk more about Monseñor Romero, more than they would like I am sure.

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now the bombing of Libya have to be condemned as well as any other violation of human rights around the world. The lack of seriousness to address imigration isuues is also not acceptable, but viewing President Obama’s visit to the crypt as negative, in my opinion, is not really a responsible thing to say.  

Monseñor Romero did not only speak the truth he was the truth, we are now more than ever engaged in the fight to recover that truth that has been held hostage for many years by a group of individuals. I would like to reiterate the importance of the visit, yes Obama’s visit was not enough but it was a step in the right direction, and I for one praise it.  We must continue now more than ever speaking of the hope, love and truth that Monseñor Romero was. As the prayer by Simon Barrow, colloquially attributed to Monseñor Romero says, we are all workers not master builders. We are prophets of a future not our own

Francisco Mena Ugarte

CRISPAZ Country Coordinator