El Salvador commemorates 50 years since university student massacre

teleSUR English

This Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the massacre of university students in El Salvador. The university community and social organizations marched to honor the victims and demand justice, as well as call on President Nayib Bukele's government to end the persecution. Our correspondent in San Salvador, Roberto Hugo Preza, has the report.  #ElSalvador #StudentMassacre #HumanRights #teleSUREnglish

Transcript

00:00On July 30, 1975, hundreds of university students and professors from the University of El Salvador

00:10marched down the street, where hundreds of university students and professors marched.

00:14They were repressed with rifle and tank fire by the extinct National Guard.

00:18Fifty years later they took to the streets to pay tribute to them.

00:20For us students it is a very noble feeling to go out to march and to commemorate those

00:26who were massacred and the martyrs of July 30, 1975 inches.

00:30For me, as the daughter of a survivor who had to throw herself from this place, from this

00:39overpass to save her life, for me it is an honor to be here again raising our voice, just

00:47as they did 50 years ago in defense of the University of El Salvador, in defense of the

00:54right to higher education, in defense of the right to health, in defense of the communities.

01:05The university community, as every year, once again demanded justice, since 50 years after

01:10the bloody repression the murderers remain unpunished.

01:13Half a century has passed without the Salvadoran state being able to find the truth, and find

01:22justice for a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister who just wants to know the

01:32truth.

01:37In front of the memorial to the victims the students burned a figure representing the

01:40tyranny of the United States.

01:43According to declassified documents, the military counted on the criminal complicity of United

01:46States advisers.

01:52And the unfortunate thing about all this is that when we learn about the Central Intelligence

01:56Agency declassified documents, we learn that everything that happened, happened at least

02:04with the permission of the United States government.

02:10That's unfortunate, because they saw science, education and human rights, education and also

02:19university autonomy, as the enemy to be defeated.

02:25Simultaneously, social organizations also marched to condemn the repression of the military

02:31governments and to denounce the current repression.

02:36We have already had almost for years of a regime of exception in which the exercise of fundamental

02:42rights has been restricted in a generalized manner, including the exercise of freedom of expression,

02:48the right to the inviolability of the home, among other fundamental rights that are being

02:53restricted.

02:54There have been thousands of arbitrary arrests.

03:01The activities of this half-century of the University Students Massacre were held under

03:05the slogan, Memory Unites Us and Justice Commits Us, and symbolizes a cry for justice and truth.

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