JOURNAL ENTRY
Patton, Kristin
JOURNALENTRY Kristin Patton Salvador Witness Perched on a pile of sandbags, I look from the open window to the dark street below. By angling a small hand-mirror through the iron lattice, I can...
...Low clouds reflect the city lights...
...Next to the bust hangs a Congressional letter of praise...
...After I left, the situation grew worse...
...In July, she was arrested by Treasury Police along with the three CoMadres' members she was escorting...
...On April 19, Gloria Galan-Garcia was seized and tortured by Treasury Police for being a member of CoMadres...
...I have come as an international observer to the CoMadres, an organization of the mothers, wives, and daughters of El Salvador's assassinated and disappeared...
...I turn my wrist to catch the night glow against the face of my watch: 2:34 a.m...
...During November and December, scores of human-rights and church workers were expelled from El Salvador, leaving the CoMadres and other threatened organizations without an international presence...
...Luis Alonso, blinded recently by a land mine, hums to a portable radio...
...Increased dangers sent many such groups underground, but the CoMadres have remained in the open, documenting further human-rights violations and caring for those in need...
...For three weeks, I will offer these women what protection I can: my presence...
...With $1.5 million in U.S...
...My presence with the CoMadres was followed by that of a San Francisco schoolteacher, Leslie Flemming...
...Having lived for three weeks with the mothers of those murdered for expressing their beliefs, I know Cristiani's words to be lies...
...In its place, a gaping hole now opened to the street...
...Recently, I read an article by Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani in the Washington Post, in which he said El Salvador has become a functioning democracy...
...By angling a small hand-mirror through the iron lattice, I can see to the street lamp on the corner...
...aid is being well spent and U.S...
...With the mirror, I watch a man saunter by, cigarette glowing as he inhales...
...I try to think of appropriate phrases to shout in Spanish...
...Such exposure of human-rights abuses puts them at odds with the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government...
...Children, pregnant women, the sick, and the injured were incarcerated, as were three international observers who were later denounced as "mercenaries" and expelled from the country...
...After fifty-two hours' interrogation, Brenda and Eugene were released and ordered to leave the country...
...Celia, a young leader of CoMadres, addresses a visiting Lutheran delegation from Canada while Maritza clacks away at an old typewriter, recording a peasant woman's account of her son's disappearance...
...Dona Tonia and Sofia, members of CoMadres since the group's 1977 inception, sit at a window stitching manias—small banners sold for money to help feed political prisoners...
...The office was destroyed and all belongings confiscated...
...She was among those injured when a bomb shook the CoMadres' office early on Halloween...
...I am to cry out, scare the assailant off, and wake the household...
...Accused of being a front group for rebel forces, the Mothers have become targets themselves...
...Twenty-six minutes remain in my initiation into bomb-watch duty, one of many new experiences I've had since I arrived in San Salvador five days ago...
...The sandbags and nightly watch shifts are a response to recent bombings at two neighboring union offices...
...Should someone run up to the door and toss a bomb, Kristin Patton lives in Portland, Oregon...
...I was prepared for a grim setting, but instead found myself warmly welcomed into a bustling office filled with lively activity that reached out to embrace me...
...Held and interrogated for eight hours, she feared more for the Salvadoran women, who were kept longer and tortured...
...That night, sixty-three people were arrested at the office of the Christian Committee of the Displaced, a human-rights agency that finds shelter for the homeless...
...The Kennedy Peace Prize was smashed and the Congressional letter of praise was stripped from the wall...
...The CoMadres document and publicize political disappearances...
...Except for an occasional passing taxi, all is still...
...The women of CoMadres have overcome the despair of deep personal loss to work for human rights for their country...
...Two cats stalk each other, then slide from view...
...When I arrived in San Salvador in April 1989, an international presence in the office of a human-rights organization was seen as a deterrent to government harassment...
...If, as a nation, we give credence to such statements, our foreign policy will continue to be fueled by falsehoods...
...My thoughts full of the CoMadres, I turn the glass and see my own reflection...
...On a typical day, peals of laughter and the scent of vegetable stew waft in from the sweltering courtyard where tortillas are slapped into shape and children play underfoot...
...policy is well conceived...
...Brenda Hubbard of Los Angeles was next to accompany the Mothers...
...Two weeks later, the office was raided by Treasury Police...
...It's time to listen to the Mothers of the Disappeared and support the human rights they risk their lives to defend...
...Like others in need, he has been given refuge by the Mothers...
...Above them, sunlight dapples the bronze bust that is the Robert F. Kennedy Peace Prize awarded the CoMadres in 1984 for their humanitarian efforts...
...According to Cristiani, "there has never been so much encouraging progress on all fronts to demonstrate that U.S...
...aid entering the country every day, government and military forces would think twice before putting a North American in jeopardy...
...The large front door that she, Leslie, and I had watched over was blown away...
...Nine people, including Brenda and a fellow observer, Eugene Ter-rill, were arrested, beaten, and taken to Treasury Police headquarters...
...During my stay, however, this began to change...
Vol. 54 • October 1990 • No. 10
