At the Foot of the Cross: Rufina Amaya, Presente!
By Scott Wright
Reprinted from Signs of the Time/EPICA
March 12, 2007
I am looking at a picture I took on Christmas morning, 1990, in El Mozote, a remote village in El Salvador. Rufina Amaya, the only survivor of the massacre that took place there in 1981, is standing beside her young daughter, Martita. Next to her is Father Rogelio Ponseele, a Belgian priest who accompanied the people of Morazan 12 years during the war, and who celebrated Mass in the village on two or three occasions before it was destroyed by the Salvadoran army.
In the picture, there are a few white flags in the background, left from a celebration for peace that took place a few weeks before. Behind Rufina, tall grass grows beside the remaining adobe blocks of the chapel, where the men were killed. In the distance the land begins to rise toward the Cerro de la Cruz, “the hill of the cross.” The air today is crisp, and dry. Martita is looking askance, Rufina and Rogelio directly at the camera. Their faces are worn, reflecting the long years of the war, and their eyes are clear, as though they see far beyond this moment, perhaps to that day, December 11, when Rufina’s children were no more.
It was with profound sadness that on March 6th of this year I received the news of Rufina’s death. She died in a San Salvador hospital after a long illness, accompanied by her daughter Marta, 25 years after the El Mozote massacre that killed four of her children, her husband, and the rest of the villagers. Rufina was the only survivor, and thanks to her, the world knows the truth of what happened on that awful December morning in 1981, when more than 800 Salvadoran men, women and children were massacred by the U.S.–trained and U.S.–armed Atlacatl Battalion.
Rufina had always been a strong and courageous witness, like Raquel crying out in Ramah, because her children are no more. “God saved me because he needed someone to tell the story of what happened,” she would say each time she testified. Many of us were there at the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia – the current location of the School of the Americas that trained the officers of the army battalion that killed her children – when Rufina testified. Yet one more time she recounted the horror of that day, and the miracle of her survival.
Today, 25 years after the massacre, the whole world knows the truth. But it was not always so. Despite reports filed on January 27 and 28, 1982, by The New York Times and The Washington Post that quoted Rufina as an eyewitness, the Reagan administration denied these accounts. On January 28, 1982, just one day after the reports in the U.S. press, President Reagan and Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders certified to Congress that “El Salvador is making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights.”
Those who knew Rufina, and look back now on her life, cannot help but realize what a precious gift we were given. Perhaps in our lifetimes we will never be graced with such an unassuming model of courage and passion for justice. Rufina was, like her people, humilde, and her humility reflected the strength and endurance of the land in which she lived. There was no doblez in her character, her goodness was transparent; and she was sencilla, she lived and spoke from her heart. She was, in another Salvadoran word of praise, muy noble – noble in spirit.
The first time I passed through El Mozote was in May 1988, I was traveling with the pastoral team in Morazan on the way to celebrate with the Christian communities of Estancia and Calavera, just south of the Torola River. On the way we passed through desolate places, like Arambala, a town totally destroyed. We continued on our journey until we came to the ruins of the village of El Mozote, where we stayed the night. The only sign of life was the bright green vegetation which flourished in the ruins of the houses.
As a light rain fell on the village, I stood in silence for a moment before the ruins of the chapel. Above me, the hill known as Cerro de la Cruz, “the hill of the cross,” looked over the abandoned village. On this hill dozens of young women and young girls were “crucified” as they were raped, first by the officers, then by the soldiers, then killed. Here in the chapel, some of the men were beheaded with machetes; others were taken out and shot.
The women and children were taken to a house across from the chapel, then to the house of Israel Marquez and killed. Only the ruins of the houses and the dark sky remain as silent witnesses.
On that terrible morning, Rufina huddled in the house with her four children – Cristino, 9; Maria Dolores, 5; Marta Lilian, 3; and Maria Isabel, 8 months, whom she was nursing. When they heard cries from the chapel across the road, they climbed up on a bench and looked out the window. There they saw 29-year-old Domingo Claros – Rufina’s husband and the children’s father – being led away by the soldiers, his hands tied and his eyes blindfolded. They watched in horror as Domingo and another man bolted to escape, and the soldiers leveled their M-16 rifles and shot them. The soldiers then walked over to the two men, unsheathed their machetes, grasped their hair, pulled back their heads, and beheaded them with strong blows to the backs of their necks.
“I got down from the bench and I hugged my children to me. My son was crying and saying over and over, ‘They killed my father.’ I was crying. I knew then that they were all being taken away to be killed. I just hugged my children and cried.”
The slaughter continued all morning. After the men had been killed, the young women were taken away, raped and killed. Through it all, one young girl never stopped singing evangelical hymns. Then the rest of the women were taken to another house, and killed. Rufina was among the last to be taken.
“It must have been five o’clock. There were maybe twenty of us. I was crying and struggling with the soldiers, because I was nursing my baby. It took two soldiers to pull the baby from me. So when I came outside into the street, I was the last in the group. I was crying and miserable, and begging God to help me.”
Rufina escaped, miraculously, and hid behind a tree nearby, listening to the screams of her dying children.
“They were crying, ‘Mama Rufina, help me! They’re killing me! They killed my sister! They’re killing me! Help me!’ I didn’t know what to do. They were killing my children. I knew that if I went back there to help my children I would be cut to pieces. But I couldn’t stand to hear it, I couldn’t bear it. I was afraid that I would cry out, that I would scream, that I would go crazy. I couldn’t stand it, and I prayed to God to help me. I promised God that if He helped me I would tell the world what happened here.”
Rufina dug a small hole in the ground with her hands, buried her face there so that the soldiers would not hear, and wept. The following morning, after the soldiers had departed, Rufina fled.
Nine years later, on October 26, 1990, Pedro Chicas, who survived the same massacre in the neighboring village of La Joya by hiding in a cave, filed a criminal complaint with the Salvadoran Court in San Francisco Gotera, accusing the Atlacatl Battalion of responsibility for the killings in El Mozote and surrounding villages. Among the witnesses to give testimony in the case was Rufina Amaya.
Two years later, on October 13, 1992, the same year the Peace Accords were signed in El Salvador, an Argentine forensic team began excavations in El Mozote and disinterred the remains of at least 143 persons from the sacristy of the chapel in El Mozote. Two months later, the Atlacatl Battalion was demobilized, eleven years to the day after the invasion that led to the slaughter.
On the night of December 10 – 11, 1994, following an all-night vigil on the anniversary of the massacre, the disinterred remains were placed in seven coffins, blessed, and reburied in a candle-light procession to the plaza of El Mozote. There, beneath a newly-built monument, where the silhouettes of women and children stand, a plaque reads: “They have not died. They are with us, with you, and with all humanity.” It is here that Rufina will finally be laid to rest, beside the remains of her children and the other massacre victims.
When I last saw Rufina, we had gone to Segundo Montes in Morazan, where lived, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero. It was March 2000. She took us once more to the site of the massacre in El Mozote. We walked through the tall grass and the ruins of the houses to a spot overgrown and thick with brush. There she pointed out the place where she hid from the soldiers. She didn’t have to say more.We already knew the story. Her words that day were a witness of survival, and of fidelity to the memory of those who perished there nearly 20 years before. Later, back in Segundo Montes, she invited us to her little champa, and graciously offered all that she had to these weary travelers.
As I look again at the picture of Rufina, Martita and Rogelio, standing in the ruins of the chapel in El Mozote that Christmas morning, 1990, I think about all that has happened in our world since then. Other massacres and genocides have occurred – in Guatemala, Bosnia and Rwanda – and continue to occur – in Colombia, the Congo and Darfur. The U.S. has gone to war three times: against Iraq in 1991, against Afghanistan in 2001, and again against Iraq in 2003, based on a dangerous doctrine of preemptive war.
People continue to be forcibly disappeared and tortured around the world. Most recently, the United States has tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA detention centers around the world. In doing so, our government has violated the UN Convention against Torture, to which it is a signatory, and the newly enacted UN Convention against Forced Disappearances, both crimes against humanity.
As in El Salvador during the war, these practices are often justified by our government as necessary measures to protect our “national security” and “way of life” against the “terrorists.” The official language is harsher now, people are more afraid these days to speak out, the press is often “embedded” with the government, and the churches are more silent. We have become a generation incapable of sustained moral outrage – and, sadly, a church that sounds more like lawyers than prophets. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it well during the Vietnam War: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” In a similar vein, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel added: “Some are guilty, but all are responsible.”
For that reason, it is all the more important that we hold each other accountable, for the sake of the victims, but also for the sake of our children. What kind of world will we leave them when we pass on? When we look back, will we know that we did all in our power to challenge the lies, and to stop the violence, the wars, the torture that is done in our names? Or will they ask, “Why didn’t you do more?” The word “impunity” takes on ever greater meaning for us today, as we realize how weak the rule of law has become in the wake of the wars and torture committed by our nation since 9/11. As Chief Justice Jackson said so eloquently at Nuremberg Trials, that judgment may come back to haunt us. Wars of aggression are crimes against peace.
As I look one last time at the picture of Rufina standing in the ruins of the chapel in El Mozote, I am reminded of the women at the foot of the cross, and the other disciples who fled. Where are we in that picture? Where is our church, confronted by the violence of the war in Iraq and the torture in Guantanamo? Are we with Rufina and the women at the foot of the cross, denouncing by our presence and by our actions the violence and oppression which that cross represents, or are we with Peter and the other disciples who fled? It is Rufina who teaches us that the church has always, always been a church of the martyrs, and only at the foot of the cross can we truly proclaim the hope of resurrection and the fullness of life for all – today.
Rufina was humilde, sencilla, noble, and precisely because she was these things, she was passionate for justice, courageous in action, and strong in faith. May we be more like her. May we encourage one another to be more like her. May we speak with her passion against torture and war, against all that oppresses and excludes people anywhere. May our lives be worthy of such a good and noble human being and friend whom we were given for so many years, thanks to the miracle of her survival, the struggle of her people for justice, and the grace of God for whom the last word is life. Rufina, we will miss you. We do miss you, but we know you are at peace. Pray for us, then, that we may not rest until every tear is wiped from the faces of the victims, and the scourge of violence, torture and war is finally no more.
RUFINA AMAYA, PRESENTE!
