El Salvador: Sr Anne Griffin short-listed for Dóchas Humanitarian Award

Photo by Fennell Photography, courtesy of Áras an Uachtaráin

Sr Anne Griffin - a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary based at Chigwell in Essex - is short-listed for this year's Dóchas Humanitarian Award in Ireland. For the past 40 years Sr Anne, who is a native of Glasgow, has been working in England, Zambia, and El Salvador. She has been instrumental in highlighting the case of the victims of the massacre at El Mozote during the Civil War of 1979 - 1992 in El Salvador, and one of the largest massacres to be carried out in Latin America in the latter half of the last century.

In December 1981, over a 1,000 people - mostly children, women and elderly men - were tortured and killed and many more displaced by state military forces. The homes and crops were also destroyed in a razed earth policy where everything was to be destroyed to prevent the continued habitation of the area.

For decades, the suffering of the survivors in El Mozote was met with indifference. Sr Anne and her sisters worked with the community for justice by forming the Promotion of Human Rights Association (Asociación Promotora de Derechos Humanos de El Mozote, APDHEM) as a mechanism to seek redress and just ce. For nearly 30 years this crime against humanity was unable to be heard by the Salvadoran judicial system because of an amnesty law that has been passed. Sr Anne understood that justice should take advantage of the legal system inside and outside of El Salvador to highlight the human rights and dignity that so many of them were denied.

The missionary holistic approach to development and humanitarian situations worked very well in the case of El Mozote. The people had confidence in missionaries due to their pastoral support given during the civil war. That war specifically targeted people in isolated areas such as the department of Morazan - one of the poorest areas of the country with low levels of education. The villagers had little or no support from any other group other than the Catholic Church and much foreign aid arrived through the Church.

The first investigations of the massacre were carried out by Tutela Legal of the Archbishop's office in San Salvador. This office was initiated by Archbishop Oscar Romero to provide a place where the poor and oppressed could go to report abuses of human rights. This won the confidence of the people, and was the legal structure used by Sr Anne and her colleagues to pursue justice through the legal system.

Sr Anne accompanied the people as they prepared for the case of El Mozote to be heard at the sitting of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Ecuador in April 2012. Following their long struggle for justice, and despite risks to their own safety, there was a landmark ruling by the court that El Salvador should investigate the massacre and that the perpetrators should be brought to justice. The fight for justice created a great sense of healing amongst the survivors, and reinforced friendship and solidarity within the local community.

Under the terms of the court ruling, the government has five years to implement a programme of reparation. Sr. Anne, along with the Human Rights Association, has been working to try and ensure that the government complies with the ruling. The reparation programme includes housing for the victims in their home village where everything was destroyed, education where due to the high levels of poverty many families are unable to educate their children, health where the psychological effects of the massacre have left the majority of the people with chronic physical and psychological illnesses, and a full register of those massacred, survivors, and displaced.

In 2015, there was a reversal of the amnesty for those who committed war crimes. Court cases involving the perpetrators are currently ongoing and the long struggle for justice by Sr. Anne and APDHEM is finally bearing fruit for the victims and their families. An extensive programme of psycho-social support and practical development interventions, with grant aid from Misean Cara (funded by Irish Aid) is being undertaken at community and village level.

During the state visit of the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, to El Salvador in 2013, he accompanied by the then Irish Minister of State for Overseas Aid, Joe Costello TD, met with Sr Anne and some of the families of the victims of the massacr

(Matt Moran is author of 'The Legacy of Irish Missionaries Lives On'- www.onstream.ie, and is a past-chairman of Misean Cara)