Reagan gets a different send-off
By Brenda Sandburg
San Francisco
As Ronald Reagan's funeral was under way in
Washington, D.C., activists gathered in San Francisco June 11
to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans
killed by death squads that were funded and trained by the
Reagan administration.
"This man is a murderer, a criminal who doesn't deserve any
respect," said Zenaida Velásquez Rodriguez, whose
brother was abducted by Honduran security forces in 1981 and
never seen again. "I don't forgive Reagan and I hope he's going
to hell."
Protesters led a funeral procession down Mission Street, the
Latino district, in honor of the more than 200,000 people
killed in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guate mala and Honduras
during Reagan's reign from 1981 to 1990.
Several protesters carried a coffin while others held
crosses inscribed with the names of those murdered. Throughout
the march one protester read aloud the names of individuals who
had been killed. The demonstration was sponsored by Global
Exchange.
In the week after Reagan's death the news media offered
glowing reports about his life. But Reagan's true legacy was
brutal.
He slashed the safety net of domestic social programs. He
ignored the AIDS epidemic, which grew exponentially through his
silence along with refusal to provide federal funding to battle
the disease. He supported the apartheid government in South
Africa. And he propped up brutal military regimes in Latin
America.
In the early 1980s, Reagan provided military aid and
training for the Nicaraguan contras trying to overthrow the
Sandinista government. In what became known as the Iran-Contra
scandal, Reagan's administration secretly sold arms to Iran to
fund the terrorist right-wing contras.
Rodriguez said the families whose loved ones were
disappeared and killed live with eternal pain.
"It's like having a wound that is open and bleeding all the
time," she said.
Reprinted from the June 24, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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