http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1891145.stmSunday, 24 March, 2002, 18:28 GMT
US role in Salvador's brutal war
There is a tremendous irony that President George W Bush has chosen to visit El Salvador on the anniversary of the murder of the country's Archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, 22 years ago.
A campaigner against the Salvadorean army's death squad war, Monsignor Romero was shot through the heart while saying Mass, shortly after appealing to the US not to send military aid to El Salvador.
<snip>At the same time an elite US-trained army unit murdered six Jesuit priests, the country's leading intellectuals, in cold blood.
The murders showed that after a decade of US instruction the army still had a lot to learn about human rights and democracy.
The priests were taken out of their house and repeatedly shot through the head with machine guns.
A US congressional investigation found strong evidence that the army's high command had ordered the murders, prompting a cut in military aid.
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When this happened the US press was telling us the "bad guys" were committing these atrocities. When in fact it was thugs we were supporting who was doing it.