Almost immediately following our wonderful visit with Maria Silvia Guillen to learn about her work as a human rights attorney in El Salvador, we received news of the death of her friend and another leading Salvadoran figure in human rights advocacy -- Maria Julia Hernandez. As director of Tutela Legal, a human rights group sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, Maria Julia Hernandez gathered evidence of massacres, interviewed survivors, and exposed abuses and atrocities committed by wartime death squads. She died this morning, Friday, March 30th, of a heart attack.
We received the following email this afternoon from Tara at SHARE:
Tara also forwarded Maria Silvia's personal reflections about Maria Julia Hernandez:
Aqui estoy compartiendo con ustedes mi profundo sentimento de tristeza y de esperanza, pues nuestra querida MARIA JUILA HERNANDEZ, esa mujer ejemplar, tan cercana a Monsenor Romero, tan en el comino que el nos senalo, tan cercana al dolor y la pobreza de nuestra poblacion, fallecio hace unas horas; como era de esperarse, hasta en el momenta de su muerte, fue tan cercana a lo que ella creia, a lo que amaba; muere en el mes de Monsenor Romero, de Rutilio, de Rufina, de tantos y tantos acontecimientos fundamentals para la vida de las y los salvadorenos que creemos en la justicia, en la paz, en la reconciliacion. Ahora lo que nos queda, es sequir su ejemplo, tenerla siempre entre nosotras/os
For more, read the L.A. Times obituary, which quotes Maria Silvia Guillen as saying: "[Maria Julia's] death is a huge loss for those of us who work in human rights and it leaves us with the continuing responsibility."
