December 19, 2003

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador/GENEVA - Salvadoran Lutheran Bishop Medardo E. Gomez Soto described a monument built in honor of the dead and disappeared during civil conflict in the country as "as a testimony of life that should not be forgotten."

It should "make us commit ourselves to build a better future, so that younger generations can live with this witness," Gomez, said of the "Monument to Memory and Truth," inaugurated on December 6 in San Salvador by the city's mayor, Carlos Rivas Zamora and representatives from several human rights organizations.

The Salvadoran Lutheran Synod (SLS), headed by Gomez, has been involved in advocating that justice be done, and those responsible for "the death squads" that carried out systematic murder, torture and disappearance of suspected opponents to the military government during the 1980s and early 1990s be held accountable. "It is a monument of hope," affirmed the bishop.

The 97-meter marble-plated concrete wall displays the names of over 25,000 Salvadorans murdered and disappeared during the civil war in the country. The SLS human rights department was among several local and international non-governmental organizations, international agencies, and individuals that financially contributed toward the monument's construction.

The hundreds of relatives and friends gathered at the monument in the city's Cuscatlan Park, expressed gratitude for the gesture to honor their loved ones. Many wept after finding their loved ones' names engraved on the wall. "Now we have a place to mourn at and bring flowers," said one of the many mothers who had traveled long distances to San Salvador. "I have somewhat mixed feelings of happiness and sadness. This monument has been built with our blood too," she added.

The four-hour emotional inauguration brought together national and international singers and groups, who also paid their tribute to the victims of massacres, executions, torture and disappearances.

Some plates remained blank, but organizers believe, not for long. It is expected that hundreds of Salvadorans will in the near future provide the names of their relatives to be added onto the list.

The construction of such a monument was recommended by a 1993 United Nations truth commission established under the 1992 peace agreements between the military government and the opposition National Liberation Front Farabundo Marti (FMLN), after more than a decade of civil war. From the early 1970s, leftist guerrilla groups fought El Salvador's military regime. The so-called "death squads," - tolerated by the military, and responsible for the systematic murder, torture and disappearance of suspected government opponents during the 1980s and early 1990s - did not spare members of the clergy either. In March 1980, Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was murdered while celebrating mass, and in 1989 six Jesuit priests were victims of an attack.

Roman Catholics make up 92 percent of El Salvador's 6.2 million people, with Protestants representing eight percent. The 12,000-member SLS joined the Lutheran World Federation in 1986.

Lutheran World Information