September 15, 1998

Dear Friends,

I want to tell you something I witnessed.  It might upset you.  It upsets me to 
write about it.  But I have to write about it and I have to tell you so you can be 
witnesses too.  Witnesses who learn about this story and remember it, so that 
it does not become like so many other assassinations in this country, that are 
locked far away in the collective memory and eventually forgotten.

I want you to learn about the burial of just one more innocent man.  This one 
left behind a wife, eight children, a father, a mother, brothers, and sisters.  
It happened in a village, one village among thousands.  It was just one 
among thousands of politically motivated assassinations.  Just one among 
thousands of devastated families.  The names really don't matter.  But the 
victim's family matters to me, because I was there with them.  I sat with them 
while the older brother prepared the body in the cemetery, while the 
investigators came and performed the autopsy, while the soldiers wandered 
back and forth in front of the entrance, while the crowds gathered around to 
catch a glimpse of the morbid spectacle, while day passed into night, while the 
family prayed over the body, while they placed him in the tomb and sealed it 
off with cement blocks and mortar.  I smelled the odor of a dead man's 
decaying body, and I listened to the screams and the sobs of the people who 
loved him.

That is why, for me,  this murder is not just one among thousands.  We 
arrived in the village by boat sometime in the afternoon.  After stopping 
briefly in the house of a relative, we proceeded to the cemetery.  I 
accompanied his mother, one of his brothers, his three sisters, some friends 
and neighbors.  On the way, the women stopped short and began crying, 
saying that they couldn't go any further.  Maybe it was because from a 
distance they could see a crowd of soldiers standing around the entrance.  
Maybe it was because in that moment the older brother appeared, and seeing 
him confirmed what their hearts had been denying--that there was no 
mistake, the youngest son was really dead.  The older brother had already 
collected the remains, which had been buried in a ditch alongside the 
highway.  He then had taken the body to the cemetery so that it could be 
examined and prepared for burial.

The man had been murdered a few days before.  He had been hunting and 
was on his way to the market.  He was stopped along the highway, less than a 
kilometer from, and in plain view of, the local military base.  It was there that 
he was murdered and buried.  The autopsy later revealed his face, arm and leg 
had been burned with acid.  He was shot 17 times.

The family members living with him at the time fled town, too terrified to 
collect the body out of fear that they would be the next victims.  Other 
members of the family decided to go and find the body.  They asked us to 
accompany them.

As we approached the cemetery, where the body was already laid out beneath 
a sheet of plastic, I saw one of the military guards open the gate and let out a 
large black dog.

We waited outside for what seemed like forever.  The mother and sisters 
cried.  I remember the mother crying to the son, "I'm with you.  I'll 
accompany you.  I won't forget you.  I'll be with you someday."

At one point the soldiers were called to line up.  They stood in line, shoulder 
to shoulder, cocked their rifles, uncocked their rifles, cocked again, and aimed 
into the air.  This drill continued for about ten minutes, not even 100 meters 
from where the family sat, grieving.

When the coffin arrived, a large crowd gathered around to watch them 
uncover the body.  I got to thinking how we soak up violence on TV, 
"murders" filmed with dummies and make-up and red paint.  Here I saw 
them soaking it up in real life, watching what used to be a real person, in the 
presence of what to be his family.  Either way, it's entertainment.

There were also neighbors and friends present who consoled the family and 
sat with them, brought them water and rubbed alcohol on their necks and 
foreheads to hide the awful smell.  They stayed with them through the burial.  

During the short funeral, the mother and sister insisted on seeing him for 
one last time.  They opened the window of the coffin.  His face was covered.  
His forehead, I really don't remember what it looked like anymore.  But I had 
never seen anything like it before.  All I remember is that the contents of the 
coffin, from what little I say, did not resemble a human being.

The women cried in protest.  "No, you said we could see him.  We want to 
see him."  So they opened the coffin and uncovered his face.  They screamed 
and covered their eyes, nearly collapsing with pain and horror.

The older brother closed the coffin again and lit candles and placed them over 
the coffin.  Some talked about what a good man he was all his life, and how 
his death was unjust.  Someone sang a song.  This song is entitled "No se 
puede sepultar la luz" (You can't bury the light).  I'll try to translate the lyrics 
in to English.

	You can't bury the light
	You can't bury life
	You can't bury a people
	the searches for liberty.
	Like stars they will always shine
	because even the dead continue living
	because the people are born every day
	Walking toward the truth

	They will sing in the streets 
	and their voices will resonate
	throughout all of history
	like an echo that will always be heard
	a defiance that will never end.

	They will not be able to muffle the voice
	because the shout of the men is powerful
	and they unite like a rainbow
	in an embrace from sea to sea
	and if they don't, even the streets will shout out
	the undefeatable cause of the poor
	the hope of a just land
	that wakes up with anxiety.

	It is not possible to arrest the sun
	It is not possible to arrest the wind
	It is not possible to imprison the river
	nor the torrents of the sea,
	because the wind blows here and there
	because the fire burns the mountains
	because the river drags along the brooks, towards the path beyond.

	They will sing in the streets
	and their voices will resonate 	
	throughout all of history
	like an echo that will always be heard
	a defiance that will never end.

We gathered around the coffin and prayed the Our Father.  I wondered if God 
was listening.  I think about it now and I wonder still.  I wonder if God hears 
the pleas of the victims in their final hour, or the cries of their families long 
after the burial.  This man, after all, was just one victim among so many.

I hear a lot of talk around here about neutrality.  That as an international 
accompanier, I should be neutral, "like Switzerland". That is what the 
authorities told me.  Neutrality, to me, implies not crying, not feeling angry, 
not criticizing.  But I am here with the victims of war, and they are suffering.  
In the face of all this, I find that neutrality is impossible.  Neutrality, for me, 
implies indifference towards innocent civilians who are caught in the 
middle of a dirty war.  I cannot hold the hand of a mother who lost her son 
and feel "neutral". 

I guess this is where this "testimony" ends.  I hope you'll read this and 
remember.  It's just one story. Among thousands.  Among all the statistics, all 
the names, all the dates, all the facts, sometimes it becomes easy to forget that 
each name represents a person, and each person leaves behind a family that is 
devastated by the loss and the utter disrespect for life.  The life of their child, 
their spouse, their brother or sister.  Today it is not the facts, but the suffering 
I want you to remember.  Because suffering is shared among thousands. 
Millions.

Thank you again for your attention.  And your memory.