30 years since the murder of Oscar Romero

30 years to this day, El Salvador was shaken by an pivotal event in Central American history, and one that highlights the brutality with with imperialism functions. Oscar Romero, a catholic bishop and Liberation Theologist, was brutally shot to death in front of his congregation when performing mass. This event highlights a number of key points which all progressive peoples across the world should discover.

Who was Oscar Romero? Oscar Romero was born on August 15, 1917. He became a member of the Catholic church, and, recognising the poverty and destitution in which the mass of El Salvador's campesinos and poor lived, played a crucial role in the formation of the Liberation Theology movement. However, he was very much an unlikely figure - he rose through the ranks of the clergy as a relatively conservative priest, expected to serve the interests of the Salvadorian elite and also the interests of huge multinationals, who extorted the country out of its wealth, making fabulous profits whilst it's people starved and suffered. When the Salvadorian people started struggling against the government to get a better lot, they were brutally repressed by the army and paramilitaries; it is in this context that Romero's theology moved an about-turn, and began a 3 year protest against the government, army and wealthy landlords. In the context of the origins of a revolutionary struggle of the FMLN against the fascist elite, Romero proved a threat to the puppet government; something had to be done to deal with all dissent.

On 24th March, 1980, Romero was consecrating the Eucharist, when the assassin's bullet hit him in the heart. The assassins were members of a death squad organised by Robert D'Aubuisson, a paramilitary leader who planned a coup to depose the Revolutionary Government Junta; under his control, the army foisted itself into a brutal, US-backed war against the revolutionary FMLN, which resulted in untold numbers of horrific deaths. When in office, the imperialist government of Ronald Reagan aided the Salvadorian "counter-insurgency" project, training soldiers and military units which would be used to brutalise and slaughter; one particularly notable case of this was when the Atlacatl battalion raped and murdered the entire village of El Mozote in the northeast, killing 800 people in a single swoop. This is but one example of the US funding fascist paramilitaries and right wing groups; from their open support for the right wing government in Honduras and Guatemala, and their shadily concealed support for the contras who tried to destabilise the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The process continues to this day, with support for the fascist Colombian state, and support for coups in places as diverse as Venezuela and Honduras as but a handful of instances.

When last year the people of El Salvador managed to elect the FMLN, they laid an end to the ARENA government which had ruled the country since 1989 - the same party founded by D'Aubuisson, Romero's executioner. It is no coincidence that, after winning the election, President Funes said “I will govern like Monsignor Romero wanted the men of his time to govern, with courage, but with prophetic vision. Bishop Romero asked the rulers to listen to the cry of justice from the Salvadoran people." Romero, despite his limitations, proves two things; the immense ability of the people to struggle, but also the terror with which imperialism functions.