Examining El Salvador's Past and Potential | Sojourners

Examining El Salvador's Past and Potential

Tomorrow, Jamie Moffett, director of The Ordinary Radicals, will debut the first seven minutes of his documentary Return to El Salvador. This release will be posted immediately on the film's Web site following Moffett's interview with Derrick Ashong on Oprah Radio (XM channel 156, Sirius channel 195, and live video stream at 1PM EST).

The film, narrated by Martin Sheen, explores reconstruction after the civil war that tore the small Latin American country apart from 1980 to 1992. As cited in the film's press release:

The completion of this film comes at a crucial time: It has been thirty years since Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in El Salvador. It has been 20 years since School of the Americas Watch first organized. It has been one year since the election of El Salvadoran President, Mauricio Funes, the first democratic election in El Salvador. It has been less than a year since activists in El Salvador, such as community organizer Marcelo Rivera, started being kidnapped and assassinated. In the very near future, a trial will begin at the World Bank against El Salvador, brought by a Canadian mining company, Pacific Rim, which is accused of being directly and indirectly responsible in the harassment of the people and communities of El Salvador, as well as the disappearance of Marcelo Rivera.

Check out my interview with Jamie Moffett for Religion Dispatches for additional information about this documentary.

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