HI Everyone,
I received the attached this morning. Will send
further information as it comes to me from CISPES. I
continue to think this type of news from El Salvador
is newsworthy in Bangor -- for the many reasons we all
know. That is why I am ccing it to Mark and Todd.
Hope everyone is well. Best, Sara
Note: forwarded message attached.
__________________________________
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Student Protests Violently Repressed,
3 Detained
July 29, 2004
For the past two weeks, university and high school students have led
a strong movement against transportation fair hikes by the government of
Tony Saca. On Friday, July 24th three high school student leaders who have
been organizing protests against the increased bus fare disappeared in Santa
Ana. Later that night one reappeared. He had been captured by what he believed
were police dressed as civilians. His captors beat him, threatened him,
and left him tied to a tree.
The following day around 300 students turned out for Santa Ana’s "desfile
bufo," an annual political satire student "parade" that commemorate July
1975 student marches. This past Saturday the march was also to demonstrated
support for the student protests against increased bus fares, to denounce
the disappearance of the two student leaders, to reject ARENA’s neoliberal
politics, and to protest CAFTA. As the demonstrators passed in front of
the police station, police attempted to stop the peaceful march. When the
students resisted and the atmosphere became tense, police responded with
violence. Riot police attacked the students with tear gas and clubs, seriously
injuring 3 and wounding 25 others. Other protestors were injured by the
tear gas, and four others were arrested.
The violent repression of this year’s student march is reminiscent of
the very events the march commemorates. In the 1970’s, at the height of
violent military repression of popular organizing in El Salvador, the National
University represented an refuge for dissent, creativity, and popular organizing.
In that context of organizing and repression, university students in Santa
Ana organized a march on July 25th, 1975. When the military stopped the
students before the protest began, students responded by organizing an even
bigger march in San Salvador. On July 30, 1975 thousands of students marched
out of the National University, through the streets of San Salvador, and
into what one survivor describes as a well-planned, cold-blooded, military
ambush. The military surrounded the march with tanks and soldiers and massacred
the students. An estimated 50 students were killed, and many others were
captured or disappeared.
Each year, students pay homage to those protestors by marching on July
25th and 30th. The police repression of this Saturday’s protest in Santa
Ana was unusually severe. Two demonstrators legs were broken, one person
suffered broken ribs, and another was hospitalized for a blow to his head.
One police officer and one local press person were also reported injured.
When the police attacked the students, the march dispersed, and the protestors
took refuge in various buildings around the city. Protestors report having
to stay hidden, going out only in small numbers, since the police were circulating
the city picking up anyone who looked like a student or protestor.
The public prosecutor has charged the four arrested protestors with injuring
a police officer and damaging a vehicle, and the regional prosecutor has
threatened to prosecute the students with acts of terrorism. Tuesday evening,
when the students had still not been released, around 100 students protested
in front of the National University in San Salvador, blocking traffic and
demanding the immediate release of the protestors and a resolution to the
problem of the disappeared students. On Thursday the two missing students
reappeared. The students show signs of psychological trauma, since they
were intimidated and threatened while held captive. The major student march
to commemorate the student martyrs of 1975 will be in San Salvador on Friday,
July 30th. Considering the police reaction to this small march in Santa
Ana, many are tense as they prepare for Friday’s larger march. If the tactics
of the police and government continue, CISPES is prepared to send an action
alert and pressure the government to stop using torture, violence, and illegal
arrests to quell this latest student movement.
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