Salvadoran Jesuits Murdered (1989)

Thu Nov 16, 1989

Image

On this day in 1989, during the Salvadoran Civil War, Salvadoran soldiers killed six Jesuits and two others on the campus of Central American University in San Salvador and attempted to frame the act on rebel groups. The Jesuits were advocates of a negotiated settlement between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and their murders prompted international outrage.

The Atlacatl Battalion (trained at the U.S. “School of the Americas”) was an elite unit of the Salvadoran Army responsible for the violence. The Jesuits were deemed “subversives” that needed to be eliminated, and officers attempted to disguise the operation as a rebel attack, using an AK-47 rifle that had been captured from the FMLN.

After storming their residence and killing the priests, soldiers also executed housekeeper Julia Elba Ramos and her 16-year-old daughter, Celina Mariceth Ramos. The murders increased international pressure for a cease-fire and became one of the key turning points that led toward a negotiated settlement to the war.