Rufina Amaya

Rufina Amaya (1943 - March 6, 2007) was a survivor of the El Mozote massacre on December 11 and December 12, 1981, in the Salvadoran department of Morazán during the Salvadoran Civil War. Her testimony of the attacks, reported shortly afterward by two American reporterscite news
title=Massacre of Hundreds Reported In Salvador Village
url=http://www.newslinx.org/articles/1-27-1982ElMozote.htm
publisher=New York Times
date=January 27, 1982
] but called into question by the U.S. journalism community as well as by the U.S. and Salvadoran governments,Mike Hoyt. [http://archives.cjr.org/year/93/1/mozote.asp "The Mozote Massacre: It was the reporters' word against the government's,"] "Columbia Journalism Review", January/February 1993.] was instrumental in the eventual investigation by a Truth Commission from the United Nations after the end of the war. The investigation led to the November 1992 exhumation of bodies buried at the site and the commission's conclusion that Amaya's testimony had accurately represented the events. [http://www.icomm.ca/carecen/page61.html The UN Truth Commission report on El Mozote] (excerpts)] cite news
title=Salvador Skeletons Confirm Reports of Massacre in 1981
author=Tim Golden
url=http://www.newslinx.org/articles/10-22-1992ElMozote.htm
publisher=New York Times
date=October 22, 1992
] Mark Danner. [http://www.markdanner.com/articles/show/the_truth_of_el_mozote "The Truth of El Mozote,"] "The New Yorker", 6 December 1993. Retrieved 2008-05-04.]

Hidden in a tree to which she had run while soldiers were distracted,cite book
last = Amaya
first = Rufina
authorlink =
coauthors =Mark Danner, Carlos Enríquez Consalvi
year = 1998
chapter =
title = Luciérnagas en El Mozote [Fireflies in El Mozote]
publisher = Ediciones de Museo de la Palabra y la Imágen
location = San Salvador, El Salvador
id = ] Amaya watched and listened as government soldiers raped women, then killed men, women, and children by machine-gunning them, then burning their bodies. [http://www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/el_salvador/tc_es_03151993_casesC.html "From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador", Part Four ("Cases and patterns of violence"), Chapter Three ("Massacres of peasants by the armed forces"),] El Salvador Truth Commission Report, from the United States Institute of Peace. Retrieved 2008-05-04.] Amaya lost not only her neighbors, but also her husband, Domingo Claros, whose decapitation she saw; her 9-year-old son, Cristino, who cried out to her, "Mama, they’re killing me. They’ve killed my sister. They’re going to kill me."; and her daughters María Dolores, María Lilian, and María Isabel, ages 5 years, 3 years, and 8 months old.Douglas Martin. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/world/americas/09amaya.html?_r=1&oref=slogin "Rufina Amaya, 64, dies; Salvador survivor,"] March 9, 2007. Retrieved 2008-05-04.] The only one of her children with Claros who was not killed in the massacre was their daughter Fidelia, who was not in the village at the time.

Following the massacre, Amaya became a refugee for a time in the neighboring country of Honduras, where in 1985 she married fellow refugee José Natividad, with whom she had four children,Christian Guevara. [http://www.elfaro.net/secciones/noticias/20041213/noticias4_20041213.asp "'Aún no puedo dormir por las noches'" ("'Even now I cannot sleep at night'"),] "El Faro", December 13, 2004 (in Spanish). Retrieved 2008-05-04.] divorcing within two years after the marriage. She returned to El Salvador in 1990 and became a lay pastor for the Roman Catholic Church. By March, 2000, Amaya was living near the Morazán village of Comunidad Segundo Montes,Scott Wright. [http://www.votb.org/newsanalysis/Rufina%20Amaya38.pdf "At the foot of the cross: Rufina Amaya -- Presente!"] , Voices on the Border, March 2007.] established by fellow repatriated exiles in memory of a Jesuit priest and scholar killed during the war in a mass assassination of priests by government forces at the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA).

Amaya died of a stroke in a San Salvador hospital at the age of 64, on March 6, 2007, following a long illness. She was survived by her daughter Fidelia; her daughter Marta, from her second marriage; and by an adopted son, Walter Amaya.

Notes

References

*cite book
last = Amaya
first = Rufina
authorlink =
coauthors =Mark Danner, Carlos Enríquez Consalvi
year = 1998
chapter =
title = Luciérnagas en El Mozote [Fireflies in El Mozote]
publisher = Ediciones de Museo de la Palabra y la Imágen
location = San Salvador, El Salvador
id =
*cite book
last = Danner
first = Mark
authorlink =
coauthors =
year = 2005
chapter =
title = The Massacre at El Mozote
publisher = Granta Books
location =
id = ISBN 1-86207-785-1

External links

* [http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/el_mozin.htm The El Mozote Massacre] (various articles)
* [http://poesia-sexo-marihuana.com/salvadorean_voices_RUFINA_AMAYA.html Testimony of Rufina Amaya: Sole survivor of the massacre (in Spanish)]
* Alma Guillermoprieto. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031301826.html "Shedding light on humanity's dark side: the outspoken survivor of slaughter"] (obituary of Amaya by one of the two original El Mozote reporters), "The Washington Post", March 14, 2007, Page C01. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
* Scott Simon. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8972597 "New York Times" reporter Raymond Bonner remembers Rufina Amaya,] National Public Radio, March 17, 2007.
* [http://www.wallsofhope.org/photos/?set=72157601467007741 Photo gallery of Rufina Amaya] , Walls of Hope School of Art and Open Studio, Perquín, El Salvador. Retrieved 2008-05-06.