The Last Word
Rother, Stan
THE LAST WORD StanRother LAST RITES The Reverend Stan Rother, pastor of the Catholic Chttrch in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, was murdered July 28. He was the fifth priest killed in Guatemala last...
...The other priest heard the ruckus outside and stepped out to see them trying to take him...
...Sunday morning we heard that all the passengers of the late bus from the city heard the kidnapped yelling for help as they met the four-door sedan led by a military jeep and followed by a military ambulance...
...Helping these people could very easily be considered as subversive by the local government...
...skin peeled off their faces etc...
...He had a key to the house, and as he was approaching Saturday night about 7:45...
...That makes eleven members of this community that have been kidnapped and all are presumed dead...
...They had his mouth covered, but I can still hear his muffled screams for help...
...Probably the most sought-after catechist had been staying here in the rectory off and on, and almost constantly of late...
...He called me from the living room where I was listening to music but also heard the noise, and by the time I realized what was happening, grabbed a jacket and got outside, they had taken him down the front steps of the church and were putting him in a waiting car...
...As I got back in the rectory I got a cramp in my back from the anger I felt that this friend was being taken off to be tortured for a day or two and then brutally murdered for wanting a better life and more justice for his pueblo...
...They did so and were shot in the back...
...he was intercepted by a group of four kidnappers...
...Some of these have had salaries in the radio, artisan co-ops, health promoter, etc...
...This is noon on the sixth and I just got word that the Army has vacated the camp they had outside town...
...there are possibly three buried in a common [grave] in Chimaltenango...
...He was the fifth priest killed in Guatemala last summer...
...In retaliation the Army picked up seventeen townspeople who were not involved in anything...
...The car sped off with him yelling for help but no one able to do so...
...He had been eating and sleeping here, and usually visiting his wife and two kids in late afternoon...
...and haven't been engaged in subsistence farming...
...They will need time to find other means of income, and for the widows with children, this will be extremely difficult...
...Father Rother wrote the following letter to friends in the United States a few months before he died...
...These people are going to need emergency help...
...We never know when the mail may be intercepted and read...
...All who died had spoken out for the rights of the poor and denounced the government's repression of the Guatemalan people...
...We can now identify those trucks from way off, a distinct whine of the engines...
...In the process they had broken the banister where the rectory porch joins the church, and I just stood there wanting to jump down to help, but knowing that 1 would be killed or be taken along also...
...He considered trying to help, but was scared by their height...
...He had told me before, "I have never stolen, have never hurt anyone, have never eaten someone else's food, why then do they want to hurt me and kill me...
...Their bodies were found in different parts of the country...
...He got to within fifteen feet of the door and was holding on to the banister and yelling for help...
...They were told to get back on their motorcycle and go back where they had come from...
...Santiago Atitlan Guatemala January 5, 1981 Things have been pretty quiet the past couple of weeks until just last Saturday night...
...Then I realized that I had just witnessed a kidnapping of someone that we had gotten to know and love and were unable to do anything about it...
...They, these bodies, were badly tortured, e.g...
...Soon after the kidnapping that night we went out and found his hat in front of the church and his right shoe at the bottom of the steps...
...Since they were so tall and had his head covered, we weren't sure it was him...
...Be careful about sending letters here mentioning relief etc...
...Three apparently tried to grab him at the far side of the church as he approached on the porch that fronts the Catholic Action offices, the church, and the rectory...
...But several identified the hat and shoe as his...
...Also two schoolteachers going home on their motorcycle stopped because Army was blocking the road...
...Close to midnight last night before I got to sleep I heard several Army trucks go through the town, but don't know what direction...
...This letter is being hand-carried to the States and I can say things that I ordinarily wouldn't...
...For these eleven that are gone, there are eight widows and thirty-two children among the group...
...Only one body has been positively identified and buried here...
...January 7, 1981 Guerrillas attacked Army convoy...
...They were picked up in Antigua and the following week I went to all the hospitals and morgues in the area and got a list of their characteristics and clothing...
...May he rest in peace...
...He was thirty years old, left a wife and two boys, ages three and one...
...Letters asking for help are on their way right now to London, two different places, and they will very likely send some money...
Vol. 46 • January 1982 • No. 1
