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Salvadoran Torture Refugee to Speak at Community Forum
A Salvadoran woman who survived torture, rape and near death at the hands of the country’s oppressive regime in 1980 and went on to become a lifelong activist for social justice in the United States will appear at a Community Forum in Newbury Park on Friday, Aug. 17.
Maria Guardado will speak after the 7:30 p.m. screening of the documentary film “Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story” at the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Also joining the discussion will be Randy Vasquez, the film’s director, and Virginia Classick of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. The forum is co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union, Ventura County Chapter.
The movie follows Guardado as she returned to El Salvador in 2000 after 17 years of absence to mark the 20th anniversary of the slaying of Archbishop Oscar Romero. The cleric was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. He had just urged soldiers to disobey immoral orders from the government to kill their peasant brothers in its brutal suppression of opponents.
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On screen, Guardado recalls what happened in late afternoon on Jan. 12, 1980, when 10 to 12 armed men seized her at an ice cream store. She was taken away and tortured, raped and questioned about who was working with her in opposition to the junta, which was receiving military aid from the United States. Guardado recalls that a man with an Anglo-Saxon accent gave the orders on who would torture her next. She has long maintained that the CIA was involved in death squads in her country.
Guardado was tossed out of a car with her hands tied behind her back and left to die. She persuaded a fearful taxi driver to take her home.
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She came to the United States in 1983 as a refugee from El Salvador’s civil war.
In Los Angeles, she has been a regular supporter of progressive causes ranging from the Bus Riders Union to the Crack the CIA Coalition. The National Religious Campaign Against Torture was formed after the release of photos in 2004 showing U.S. abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The film contains graphic language and images of death, and is not appropriate for younger children. The screening and forum are free; donations will be accepted.