Too Little too Late? Extradition and Human Rights Education

By Rick Mendenhall

In the 1980s, a bloody civil war between El Salvador’s military government and leftist rebels razed the tiny nation. Both sides committed massive human rights abuses. Soldiers massacred women and children in hamlets, and death squads targeted religious figures for assassination. The carnage is well known, but less well known is that Florida harbored two Salvadoran generals suspected of gross human rights violations. Recently, however, based on a trove of evidence that these generals ordered extrajudicial killings, an immigration court in Florida has ordered the generals’ extradition back to El Salvador (subject to an appeal). For the full immigration decisions click here and here.

These human rights abuses might end with extradition, but this might be little consolation to the Salvadoran families harmed a quarter century ago. This coming Friday (December 4^th) through Sunday (December 6^th), American University is hosting the Fifth International Human Rights Education conference. Please join them as speakers from over forty nations will be in attendance.