Thirty years ago, Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while saying Mass in the small chapel of the La Divina Providencia in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Romero was ordained priest in Rome on April 4, 1942 and in 1970 he was appointed auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Luis Chavez. Five years later he was appointed bishop of the Santiago de Maria.
After the brutal murder of the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grander on March 12, 1977, Mgr Romero became one of the great champions for the poor and oppressed. Fr Grander was killed for speaking out against injustice and oppression. At the local Mass after Fr Grander's death, the bishop defended Fr Grander's work and called on everyone to take a stand for justice.
On October 15, 1979 the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) deposed President Carlos Humberto Romero and in 1980 Jose' Napoleon Duarte, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, joined the JRG as a provisional head of government. However, the JRG were internally divided.
At that time Central America was aided by the United States in a Cold War campaign to stop the spreading of communism. El Salvador's wealthy elite controlled the armed forces and the notorious death squads who tortured, raped and murdered those who showed the slightest opposition to the system. People were killed by the thousands and corpses were dumped onto street corners or buried in shallow graves.
When Archbishop Romero spoke loudly against these atrocities and pleaded with the United States to stop the military aid as it was financing the death squads, he received repeated threats. Shortly before his assassination he said: "I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will rise again in the people of El Salvador."
On March 24, 1980, just as he concluded his sermon, Archbishop Romero was shot by a M-16 assault rifle in the heart by a man standing in the back of the church. Mgr Romero fell behind the altar and collapsed at the foot of a huge crucifix. He died within minutes. The previous day, in the old cathedral of the capital city, the archbishop denounced the military violence and called on soldiers to side with the people.
It was strongly believed that Archbishop Romero's assassin was a member of the death squad and Roberto D'Aubuisson was identified as the man who had ordered the killing. On May 7, 1980, Mr D'Aubuisson was arrested with a group of civilians and soldiers at a farm. The raiders found documents connecting him and the civilians as organisers and financiers of the death squad who killed Archbishop Romero and of plotting a coup. Their arrest provoked right-wing terrorist threats and institutional pressures forcing the government to release the suspects.
In 1984, President Duarte announced that a presidential commission had been formed to investigate five political killings attributed to the notorious death squads, particularly the assassination of Archbishop Romero. In 1982, when Mr Duarte was President of the civilian-military junta, he told reporters that he knew of no evidence linking Mr d'Aubuisso to the slaying. But when the Duarte-d'Aubuisson rivalry unfolded on the hustings, Mr Duarte began hinting that his opponent may have had a role in it.
In 1993, a UN investigation confirmed that Mr D'Aubuisson ordered Archbishop Romero's assassination but, Mr D'Aubuisson had died of cancer the previous years. Moreover, in the 1992 peace agreement which ended a 12-year civil war in El Salvador, an amnesty law was passed.
In 2000, after the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (CIDH) recommended a complete judicial investigation about Archbishop Romero's assassination, the government of El Salvador led by President Mauricio Funes had agreed to follow the recommendations.
In 2002 the human rights organisation, Centre for Justice and Accountability, filed a civil action against Alvaro Rafael Saravia, a former captain in the Salvadorian Air Force. Capt. Saravia was chief of security for Mgr D'Aubuisson and active member of the death squads. In 2004 Capt. Saravia was found liable by a United States District Court for conspiring and participating in the assassination of Archbishop Romero and he was ordered to pay $10 million for crimes against humanity.
In an interview which was published in the El Nuevo Herald, Saravia acknowledged his role in the assassination and asked for forgiveness.