Against Death Policies: National & Foreign
A poster by the organization Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (IM4HI), a statewide organization in California with the goal of organizing clergy and other people of various faiths to make the criminal justice and immigration systems more humane and just. The organization has its origins in the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights from the 1990s, and its work is primarily localized in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles County, and Inland Valleys. IM4HI as a part of its goals organizes faith-based solidarity with immigrants through practical support and working against root causes of migration through international delegations, accompaniment to court cases, organizing protests, and so much more. A central motto for IM4HI is “All People are Sacred Across Bars and Borders.”
The poster depicts a mother holding a child with the same art style as the famous poster of La Virgen Maria. The words read, in Spanish, “Santuario. Manteniendo Familias Unidas” (translated: Sanctuary. Maintaining United Families.) The poster represents the connections between IM4HI’s faith beliefs (in this case catholic) and their goals in their struggle for immigration reform, namely the forced separation of immigrant families in detention.
The Interfaith Movement has conducted many campaigns, including one called the Pilgrimage for a Better Future in 2022 when Interfaith organized a group of forty people to protest, pray, and witness the seven immigration detention centers in California.
Key Terms
Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE): The Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency emerged in 2003, following the 9/11 attacks, which was a part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The formation of ICE absorbed the previous Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) agency, which was previously housed under the U.S. Department of Justice. This rehousing and reorganization of the INS into ICE under the DHS was to allow ICE to more aggressively and comprehensively enforce immigration laws. ICE has had many controversies surrounding the imprisonment of children, separation of families, illegal deportations, conditions in detention centers, and most recently abductions of people by unidentifiable masked assailants (assumedly ICE agents).
Delegation / Accompaniment Trips / Pilgrimage: An organized group of people (often connected through faith, IM4HI, or social justice) that practice and engage in solidarity work with communities struggling for human rights and dignity (i.e. communities struggling for land and water rights, incarcerated/ immigrant communities struggling for a reformed justice system). This can include organizing mass prayers, accompanying immigrants to court, witnessing human suffering and its causes, and supporting the development of community led structures.
Inter-Faith: A multi-faith community of all people motivated by values spiritual of wholeness, dignity, justice, equity, and peace. This includes people who aren’t officially part of a particular tradition or religious institution.
Integrity: The steadfast adherence to one’s moral code, values, or principles.
La Virgen Maria (Our Lady of Guadalupe): The Virgin Mary is a strong cultural symbol for Catholics, especially Latin American Catholics. She is the patron saint of Mexico. The Santuario poster uses a similar image to attempt to represent the Catholic morals that justify sanctuary, and oppose family separation, a practice that has been confirmed in the United States under President Donald Trump’s first presidency.
Solidarity movements: A solidarity movement is a collective effort by individuals or groups, often international or in populations of diaspora, to support the goals or aims of a social cause regarding another population. Often these goals relate to social justice, workers’ rights, political change, and human rights.
Sanctuary: Early use in reference to a church or other sacred place where a fugitive was immune from arrest, by the law of the medieval Church, giving rise to the term sanctuary. Sanctuary is justified by a higher moral authority, surpassing legality.
Questions
What values centrally link faith based activists? What are the strengths that multi-faith based activism can bring to political movements in the United States? Who is the target audience for IM4HI?
What are some examples of accompaniment from local to international? Referring back to the Jose Artiga interview and the additional resources associated with this object such as the From Root Causes to Sanctuary video, what makes accompaniment a powerful tool?
Describe what root causes are in relation to immigration using examples. Why might it be important for the general population of the United States to understand and look at the root causes for migration?
Referring back to The Sanctuary Movement video, why did the U.S. have a special interest in promoting the “economic migrant” narrative? Who is John Fife and what is his reasoning for engaging with Sanctuary?
How do faith based organizers/ organizations justify their actions in support of sanctuary for migrants, even if it may be against the law?
Additional Resources
Undoing Border Imperialism by Harsha Walia
Santuario Poster & Sanctuary Resources – IM4HI
Pilgrimage for a Better Future – IM4HI
Accompaniment and Solidarity in Honduras Article – IM4HI
Historical Information on Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights
From Root Causes to Sanctuary – IM4HI – The Sanctuary Movement (John Fife) – EKF Productions
This event held on Tuesday November 9th, 1993, was about closing the United States’ “School for dictators” also known as the School of the Americas (SOA), was held at the old location of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) in Santa Cruz, on Tuesday November 9th, of 1993. The event had guest speaker Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll Father, speak about the clear manifestation of U.S. foreign policy through the School of the Americas, which has since changed its name, to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). The colloquially named school for dictators is a U.S. military school, now located in Fort Benning, Georgia where it has trained over 80,000 Latin American soldiers and police, many of the graduates include some of the worst dictators, assassins, torturers, drug lords, counter-insurgent squads, and other human rights abusers. The flyer also cites that the assasination of Salvadoran liberation theologist Archbishop Oscar Romero, the raping and killing of four Marknoll church women, and the horrific El Mozote massacre of 1981 in El Salvador were all perpetrated by graduates of the School. Furthermore at least forty seven of the graduates were named in the United Nations Truth Commission report on El Salvador. Bourgeois, a Vietnam war veteran, upon returning from the war decided to support the Bolivian poor until he was accused of trying to overthrow the Bolivian dictator and was deported back to the United States. However, Bourgeois continued to advocate against U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, especially after the killings of four Maryknoll church women, two of whom he knew personally. Bourgeois went on to found the SOA Watch, a non profit organization aiming to close the school and change U.S. foreign policy through educating the public. For his work Roy Bourgeois has spent four years in prison on account of his non-violent protests. Notably, under the Obama administration students’ names at the School of the Americas were kept confidential.
Key Terms
Missioner: Someone sent on a mission, especially a religious or charitable mission to a foreign country or territory. Historically this was done to convert people through violent and forceful means, however within the context of the Maryknoll missioner’s and other faith based activism, it is often done to support healthcare, education, or other community programs. Literally it refers to someone who embarks on a particular mission.
Liberation Theology: A religious movement beginning in the late 20th century, predominantly within the Roman Catholic tradition, and centered in Latin America. It applies religious faith by supporting the poor and oppressed people of a nation by engaging in civil and political matters. It stresses the social change of unequal socio-economic structures, highlighting class dynamics and analysis. Liberation theology was born out of the 1968 Latin American Bishops Conference, in Colombia, where they affirmed the rights of the poor and advocated for political struggle against wealthy elites. Gaining prominence in the 1970s-1980s the movement was heavily influenced by Gustavo Gutierrez, Archbishop Oscar Romero, José Comblin, among others. The movement was stopped by Pope John Paul II, due to his anti-communist sentiment, and belief that the movement was too closely related to Marxism.
Command Responsibility (Superior Responsibility): Command or superior responsibility is a legal doctrine of determining hierarchical accountability for war crimes, by which commanding military officers are responsible for the actions committed by their subordinates. The legal doctrine of command responsibility was codified in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands.
Counter Insurgency: Counterinsurgency is organized military activity designed to combat an insurgency. Insurgencies often use irregular forces to fight against a conventional army, engaging in asymmetric war, causing conventional armies to develop new tactics, strategies, or maneuvers.
Foreign Policy: Foreign policy is a set of strategies and actions a nation-state uses to build, destroy, or shift relationships it has with other nations or international organizations. This can include many goals such as defense, economic interests, humanitarian efforts, and destabilizing other nations to take their power.
Questions
Former President of Panama Jorge Illueca described the School of the Americas (now WHINSEC), as “the biggest base for destabilization in Latin America” expelling its first physical location from Panama, in 1984. Why might Jorge describe the school as such? How does this contextualize the role of U.S. citizens in ending our nation’s complicity, support, or at home policies and actions which impact all of the Americas?
How did the Maryknoll missioners Muara Clarke, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan, and Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel exemplify moral and ethical solidarity in practice through their missioner work in El Salvador? What compelled them to continue their work even when they had fear or second thoughts about their safety?
What was the massacre at El Mozote? What was the U.S. foreign policy towards El Salvador in 1981? Why would the United States and the Reagan Administration want to provide political cover for the massacre of over 800 people by the Salvadoran military, calling the accounts of El Mozote gross exaggerations? What links can be made by the perpetrators of the massacre and the United States?
Roy Bourgeois has founded an organization with the mission of shutting the WHINSEC down and has spent years in prison for protesting against the military school. In what ways was Bourgeois able to use his privilege in the United States to push back against what he thought was unjust? What are some of the tactics and strategies that Roy or the SOAW organization employed to disrupt the military school? What similarities or differences can we draw between the historical example of the SOAW and the ways protesters and activists are pushing back against ICE deportations under Trump’s second term?
Additional Resources
Apuntes de The School of Americas – SOAW
Father Roy: Inside the School of the Assassins By Robert Richter
Roy Bourgeois On Peace, Justice, and Equality – Jon Strickland
Sister Dorothy Kazel – Ursulines of the Roman Union
Jean Donovan, lay missioner martyred in 1980 – Maryknoll Lay Missioners
Sister Maura Clarke – Maryknoll Sisters
Sister Ita Ford – Maryknoll Sisters
Saint Oscar Romero – Vatican News
Romero Film (1989) Directed by Jon Duigan
Photo Essay: Remembrance of a Massacre — El Mozote By Raymond Bonner
Lessons in Resistance From La Puya, Guatemala by Richard Ring
Commentary on the US Army School of the Americas by Dennis Dunleavy
The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner
School of the Americas: School of Assassins – By Robert Richter
This is a document found in the local archives of the Resource Center for Non-Violence (RCNV) in Santa Cruz, California. This document outlines some of “The Hidden Costs of U.S. Military Action in Central America” from 1980-1984, however it is important to note that only the figures from 1980-1982 are fully accurate, the latter two years record amounts appropriated by Congress as of November 1983, but potentially not finalized spending. This document goes into depth regarding the aid being funneled into Honduras, a strong ally of the U.S. military apparatus in the 80s (sometimes referred to as U.S.S. Honduras), before promoting a national pledge for non-intervention in Central America directed at U.S.-Citizens, senators, and other political representatives. Notably, Nicaragua is missing from this report due to the classified nature of information regarding active U.S.-military operations, however the authors do provide a conservative estimate of 73 million dollars in aid for the Contras between 1982-1984. The top two countries receiving military and other aid are El Salvador and Honduras with El Salvador receiving 82 million dollars in military aid, and 236.5 million in total, just in 1982. Another notable piece of information provided concerns the joint military maneuvers, titled Big Pine I and Big Pine II, between U.S.-combat troops and the Honduran Armed Forces. Not only are the financial costs of the exercises reported, but they include the construction of six landing strips, the lengthening of two Honduran airfields, the development of a military hospital, and the construction of two radar bases along the Nicaraguan-Honduran border, during the U.S.-backed Contra insurgency in Nicaragua. The document highlights that the “cost of U.S. involvement in Central America is larger than congress and the American people have been told.” At the end of the pledge they outline their demands for their representatives and senators: to oppose any additional military aid to Central America, to halt CIA supported attacks on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, and to oppose direct U.S. military intervention in El Salvador and Nicaragua (including bombing campaigns, shelling, and ground combat).
Key Terms
Foreign Policy: Foreign policy is a set of strategies and actions a nation-state uses to build, destroy, or shift relationships it has with other nations or international organizations. This can include many goals such as defense, economic interests, humanitarian efforts, and destabilizing other nations to take their power.
Contras: The Contras were a US funded and backed group of rebels in Nicaragua following the fall of the dictatorial Somoza government, which emerged from the Somoza national guard. They were formally active between 1981-1990, however they remained an underground and loosely active rebel group until 1998. The Contras are well known for the various human rights abuses they committed and the Iran-Contra Scandal where the CIA was involved with cocaine trafficking in an effort to fund their war against the Sandinistas.
Fiscal Year (FY): A 12 month period that an organization or institution uses to calendar and plan the use of their funds.
Joint-Military Maneuvers: A type of military exercise in which two or more militaries partner to engage in military exercises, cooperatively training their soldiers, generals, and other military personnel together. Oftentimes it is done with a specific aim which can include: developing stronger relationships between militaries, developing tactics, making shows of force, or as a physical threat to other nations through militarization.
U.S. Intervention: When the United States intervenes in the domestic affairs of another nation for their own interests, often through the tactics of coups, sanctions, military reinforcements, or state funding. This is often a tactic to further U.S.-imperialism.Sandinistas: The Sandinistas were an armed Nicaraguan Marxist-Lenninist Revolutionary group established in 1961, that was notable for overthrowing the Somoza dictator in Nicaragua during the 1979 revolution. The group was named after famous Nicaraguan Revolutionary Augosto Sandino who fought against US occupation of the nation between 1927-1933.
Questions
After reading this document, and/or the recommended resources, what questions do you have? What stood out to you about military support for Honduras, from the United States? What tactics were used to try and bring about change regarding non-intervention in Central America?
According to the document, what allowed the United States military to sidestep the limit of 55 U.S.-military advisors in El Salvador? How many advisors were in Honduras at the time of this being published?
What are some differences in messaging between the Hidden Costs of U.S. Military Action in Central America and the New York Times article? How does news and media help manufacture consent for U.S. foreign policy?
Who were the Contras and why did the United States support this rebel group? What concerns may come up when the U.S. government and military institutions don’t report the price of their operations, especially if they use tax-payer dollars?
Additional Resources
AT A HONDURAS BASE, MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS – New York Times [Read critically!]
U.S., Honduran Troops Begin Joint Maneuvers – By Marjorie Miller
Peace activists pledge resistance against U.S. military intervention in Central America, 1984-1990 – Non-Violent Direct Action Database Why is Honduras threatening to expel US troops? – By Areesha Lodhi
Below are three fliers for events that the Resource Center for Non-Violence (RCNV) and the Santa Cruz Guatemala Committee (SCGC), a community organizing committee local to Santa Cruz, helped to host and sponsor, regarding the Comunidades de Poblacion en Resistencia (Communities of Population in Resistance) also known as the CPR’s. The CPR’s were in resistance to the U.S.-backed Guatemalan military government as they committed genocide and other human rights abuses during the Guatemalan Civil War. The first event titled Indigenous Guatemala: Communities in Resistance was an educational event in November of 1989, in which the organizers screened a film titled Caminos del Silencio (Paths of Silence) about the civil resistance that was used by the CPR’s to defend their communities in the Ixcán jungle. They also invited Benjamin Davis, an editor who visited the CPR’s, to speak about his experience and the Guatemalan popular movement. The second event on November 22nd, 1993, was a presentation and discussion entitled U.S. Presence in Guatemala Past and Present, with Roy Holman. He worked with a collective non-profit offering historical and political education called the Juan Sisay Spanish school in Quetzaltenango. The school also sponsored community health, education, and environmental programs. The third event on November 14th 1994 was a part of a larger speaking tour, again sponsored by the RCNV and the SCGC, in which they invited community leader Vicente Ramirez Calmo to speak about the history of the CPR’s and to explain why they made the decision to repatriate themselves to their homelands (outside of Ixcan), even when their civil resistance tactics successfully fought the Guatemalan military’s control over their lives, for over ten years.
Key Terms
Civil Resistance: A form of political action that is reliant on ordinary people using non-violent tactics to resist a specific policy, regime, or force.
Organizing committee: A committee (group of people) whose job is to organize something, oftentimes this is in regards to political organizations, educational events, protests, and policy change through popular pressure.
Popular movement: Also known as a social movement, popular movements are loosely or carefully organized efforts to achieve a social or political goal. Popular movements often also have formal and semi-formal organizations, as well as individuals within them as different actors that engage in collective action. They can consist of multiple “fronts” including but not limited to: legal, mutual aid, protests, public education, etc.
Persecution: The act of treating someone cruelly or unfairly, often because of their race, religion, or political beliefs. It involves systematic mistreatment, harassment, or punishment of individuals or groups.
Ixcán: The Ixcán is a municipality (similar to counties) in Guatemala within the department (similar to state) of El Quiche, and lies close to the Guatemala-Mexico border. Many peasants fled to the region to hide in the tropical rainforest as the Guatemalan military perpetrated genocide through scorched earth tactics. Notably the insurgent faction named the Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP), in english the Guerilla Army of the Poor, had a strong presence in the region. Throughout the 70s and 80s Ixcán was severely impacted by the civil war.
Campesino/a: Within this context it refers to a Maya or Ladino (meztiso) peasant, however it can also be used to refer to farmers or farm workers.
Questions
After screening Los Caminos del Silencio (available on MiradaNativa with a free account) what stood out most to you most from the film? How did the CPR’s resist non-violently? What were their primary concerns while living in hiding in the rainforest?
What strengths arose from the ability of the old sanctuary movement to tie crises abroad to the conditions of migration locally and in the United States as a country? What does it serve to connect struggles together trans-nationally? What tactics did they use to achieve this?
Why did people flee to the Ixcán jungle? What are the conditions for peasants in the Ixcan? What is the importance of holding international education events here locally in Santa Cruz? How might these events have played a role in the social fabric of Santa Cruz county?
According to the youtube video entitled Ixcán, why were christians suspected of subversion? Why do some of the reasons people claim that the Guatemalan government was responsible for Father Bill Wood’s death? What are some of the reasons immigration rates rose during the 1980-90s?
What similarities and differences can you see between the CPR’s in Guatemala and the concept of enacting sanctuary practices? What do you think the core of Sanctuary practices include?
Additional Resources
Out of the shadows: the Communities of Population in Resistance in Guatemala – TheFreeLibrary 1993
The Land of Ixcán – By Plenty International Circa 1984
Sebastian’s Story – Video about the CPR’s By Patricia Goudvis
Central American Stories Project – By Patricia Goudvis
Los Caminos Del Silencio – Alba Films (in Spanish)
Ixcan – Filmed by Mike Sullivan (in English)
The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Power by Susanne Jonas (Jons is a former Professor at UC Santa Cruz)
This object is of a flyer for an event held at the Resource Center for Non-Violence (RCNV) on December 2nd, 1993. The event titled Elections in the Land of Death Squads was a community talk between photo-journalist Dennis Dunleavy and the local Santa Cruz community. According to the flyer, the content of this talk focuses on his experiences in Central America in 1993, and the upcoming elections in El Salvador following the end of the Civil War between the FMLN and the Salvadoran government. Notably with a focus on the subsequent impacts that the war has had on the country’s poor, young, and often orphaned populations. As noted on the flyer this event was organized in tandem with the publicization of Dunleavy’s photo exhibit entitled Through the Eyes of Children, a collection of pictures taken in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras during the Third World War (Cold War) conflicts in Central America, focusing on the refugees who endured the decades of violence. The title of the event reflects the reality of the situation in El Salvador, and Central America at large. Military and paramilitary death squads were clandestinely created, trained, and/or armed by the United States in collaboration with Central American governments in an effort to secure the elite’s political, economic, and military interests, resulting in grave human rights abuses. Many of whom were trained in extreme counter-insurgency tactics at the School of Assassins (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning, Georgia, in the United States. Dunleavy states on his website: “In the late 1980s, I visited the Mesa Grande Refugee camp for Salvadorans fleeing the civil war in their homeland. There, I witnessed a people determined to survive years of conflict. I was drawn to the strength and resolve of thousands.”
Key Terms
Foreign Policy: Foreign policy is a set of strategies and actions a nation-state uses to build, destroy, or shift relationships it has with other nations or international organizations. This can include many goals such as defense, economic interests, humanitarian efforts, and destabilizing other nations to take their power.
Death Squads: Permanent organized clandestine armed groups that carry out the killing of political dissidents, opponents, or civilians that are deemed “undesirable.” They can engage in extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, participate in massacres, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. They are also unique to “assassination groups” because they have larger numbers of non-prominent victims.
Farabundo Marti Frente de Liberación Nacional (FMLN): The FMLN was a revolutionary umbrella organization and now continues as a political party. The FMLN was founded out of a merger of five revolutionary leftist groups during the Salvadoran Civil War in October 1980. Comprised of the FPL (Farabundo Marti Popular Liberation Forces), ERP (Peoples Revolutionary Army), PRTC (Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers), RN (National Resistance), and the communist party of El Salvador (PCES) the FMLN united the many leftist guerilla factions to confront the military junta. The FMLN launched their failed “final” military offensive in 1981 resulting in operational control of large parts of Morazán and Chalatenango in the Northern part of the country. Eight years later in 1989 the last “final offensive” was launched by the FMLN, in which rebels entered the capital San Salvador, marking a turning point in which the Salvadoran military junta was forced to negotiate. In 1992 the Chapultepec peace accords were signed in Mexico, as the FMLN demobilized their armed combatants and transitioned into a political party. In the UN Truth Commission report on the war only 5% of the violence was attributed to the FMLN.
Atlácatl Battalion: The Atlácatl Battalion was one example of a death squad, it was a rapid response counter-insurgency military unit of the Salvadoran Army created in 1981. This death squad was implicated in some of the most infamous massacres and human rights abuses during the Salvadoran Civil War. The battalion was disbanded as a part of the peace process in 1992.
Clandestine: To be kept or done in secret, often to conceal from public notice. This is often a term used in relation to a group. For example the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador during the war was a clandestine armed group.
Counter Insurgency: Counterinsurgency is organized military activity designed to combat an insurgency. Insurgencies often use irregular forces to fight against a conventional army, engaging in asymmetric war, causing conventional armies to develop new tactics, strategies, or maneuvers.
Paramilitary groups: An organization or group of civilians in an informal military, especially to operate in place of, or assist regular army troops. Oftentimes paramilitary groups are used in conjunction with other military formations, but they can also be used to fight military forces, especially in the context of an insurgency.World War III – A concept developed by Subcomandante Marcos from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, in Mexico, where he contends that the war between capitalism and socialism was unequal in its intensity between those in the imperial centers and outside of them, across multiple places. Critical to this concept is the idea that we are currently in the Fourth World War, a fight between the social and the economic, using “financial hyperbombs” to reorganize the world economic system, in favor of information technological revolution.
Questions
Dennis Dunleavy states on his website: “Nothing in my mind haunts me more than images of the past. Innocence appears as a notion veiled in separation and marginalization. In the late 1980s, while the war in El Salvador ground on, I found myself in a market in San Salvador collecting trophies with my camera. Picture perfect suffering.” Review Dunleavy’s photographs, those from El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers, and the International Center of Photography. How can photographs both communicate political messages, while raising ethical dilemmas in the context of war or oppression? In what ways were photographs used to promote sanctuary?
Bringing light to the injustices of this world is necessary, what are the impacts of solely choosing to portray suffering and victimhood of refugees, children, and civilians from Central America? How can the proliferation of war-time photographs paint people as passive victims with no agency?
What were some of the barriers mentioned, by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) report, regarding the limitations to the election process in 1994? Think critically about the positionality and role of IFES, what observations can you make? Are they a reputable source? Why or why not?
After reading the article by Jacob Miller, what are some of the impacts death squads had on the people of El Salvador? How do these impacts relate to the migration crisis? How is the FMLN and the Salvadoran government portrayed by Miller, is it a fair portrayal?
Additional Resources
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) report on 1994 Salvadoran Elections
Death Squads: The Nightmare of El Salvador by Jacob Miller (read critically!)
Amnesty International: EL SALVADOR The spectre of death squads 1996
Death Squads of El Salvador (part 1) – By EKF Productions
- El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers by Carolyn Forché
- International Center for Photography: El Salvador by Susan Meiselas and Harry Mattison
- Voces Inocentes (Film) by Óscar Torres and Luis Mandoki
Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas (Book) by Roberto Lovato