U.S. citizen massacre eyewitness Dr. Philippe Bourgois to give declaration against retired officer, legislator
University of Washington students and staff will travel to El Salvador March 26-28 for the sixth annual Restorative Justice Tribunal, organized by the Human Rights Institute of the Central American University (IDHUCA), where survivors from across the country will share testimony of wartime human rights violations. The UW team will be joined by University of Pennsylvania Professor Dr. Philippe Bourgois, who witnessed the massacre of fleeing civilians by the military of El Salvador while conducting field research in 1981.
Through Unfinished Sentences, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights works with Salvadoran partners to seek justice for crimes against humanity committed in wartime El Salvador. In November 2013, Unfinished Sentences accompanied the presentation of a criminal complaint against retired Col. Sigifredo Ochoa Pérez, a sitting member of the Salvadoran Legislature, for his involvement in massacres during the war.
Research by University of Washington students has contributed to the case against Col. Ochoa. Student researchers found contemporary accounts of the officer’s boasting to international journalists about the success of a 1981 counterinsurgency operation in which fleeing civilians were massacred. “It’s inspiring to know that our work as students can contribute to building a case that could, for the first time, hold accountable the people who ordered these atrocities,” said Clare Morrison, a UW undergraduate and student researcher for the Unfinished Sentences project who will travel to El Salvador later this month.
The Unfinished Sentences team also established contact with Dr. Bourgois, who in November 1981 was trapped in an invasion by Col. Ochoa’s troops while doing field research in rural communities in El Salvador. He survived twelve days of intermittent massacres, fleeing under fire alongside the local population. Dr. Bourgois, who now holds the position of Richard Perry University Professor of Anthropology and Community and Family Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, was easily convinced to return to El Salvador to give a sworn declaration in the open case against Col. Ochoa, saying:
“I am tremendously honored and personally moved by this opportunity to participate in the initiative to bring war criminals to justice at this crucial moment in El Salvador’s—all too violent—history. Over thirty years later, many of the worst perpetrators still hold political power. As a US citizen, I feel a particular responsibility to testify about these crimes against humanity that were inflicted by Salvadoran military officers who were often trained, armed, advised, and funded by the United States. This shameful moment in US and Latin American history can no longer remain a public secret.”
The Restorative Justice Tribunal this March takes place in Santa Marta, Cabañas department, precisely in the area where the massacre by Col. Ochoa’s troops occurred, and will provide an opportunity for survivors of those atrocities to tell their stories publicly for the first time; all of their accounts implicate Ochoa.
“Some of the cases our partners have presented to the Salvadoran courts are slowly moving through the system, for the first time in the country’s history. A ruling from the Constitutional court on the post-civil war amnesty law, which has blocked prosecutions, is expected literally any day now,” said Professor Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, Director of the UW Center for Human Rights.
Unfinished Sentences will document the proceedings of the Restorative Justice Tribunal and accompany Dr. Philippe Bourgois as he gives his sworn declaration in the case against Col. Ochoa. The activities will be shared via Twitter (@TruthElSalvador) and the Unfinished Sentences website.
For more information contact info@unfinishedsentences.org
