Editor: Having worked with young José Ivan for several years, and being part of this fight, I know the Figueroa family well.
This latest unfavourable decision for Mr. Figueroa is an obscenity. There is just no other word for it. Simply because the United States bankrolled, and trained the death squads, the federal government is apparently too afraid of offending the US to affirm what the UN investigation, and many others have already confirmed — that the FMLN was a resistance organization. No different from the French, Dutch or Italian Resistance against the Nazi’s in the Second World War.
I held in my arms a young boy, when the first wave of refugees arrived in Langley years ago, who sat sobbing one day. When I asked why, he told me it was his little brother’s third birthday.
When I asked why that would make him cry, he told me the soldiers had walked through his village and grabbed the boy out of his mother’s arms, thrown him in the air and used him for target practice.
In one church alone, the University of Berkley forensic team uncovered the bones of 12 adults and 147 children.
As there were only two sides in this civil war, and Mr. Figueroa has been proclaimed a terrorist for speaking out against the slaughter, our federal ministers and Mr. Harper have placed themselves squarely on the side of the death squads— by their stance they have proclaimed that the slaughter of 80,000 people was a legitimate and necessary thing to do.
At El Mozote many of the children and babies were hanged from the trees. Others were herded into a church to be shot like plastic ducks in a carnival gallery.
When our elected representatives are willing to abandon ethics and accountability to align themselves with monsters, because the opinion of the US is more important than justice and ethics, they have religated Canada to the status of a 51st state.
The attachment is heartbreaking and enlighting.
Mr. Figueroa risked his life to stand against the horror, our ministers have decided to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the monsters.
Margo Donovan
Langley
