PYES ONLY

Thirty-seven years ago, I and a colleague (Laurie Becklund then of the LAT) did a full exposure of El Salvador's death squads while they were still active, while the Reagan administration was saying that the leaders of the squads were unknown and unknowable -- a total lie. While it's hard to fathom today, my series in the ABQ Journal was placed in the Congressional Record by Republican Senator Pete Dominici. One of the stories in the series exposed powerful right wing Republi...can Senator Jesse Helms for aiding and abetting the paramilitary organization that controlled many of the death squads. And I never thought to follow up with Dominici on that. ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL INVESTIGATES DEATH SQUADS Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wish to call to the attention of the Senate an outstanding example of investigative journalism by the Albuquerque Journal. Between December 18 and December 22, 1983, the Albuquerque Journal published five articles by Craig Pyes that described for the first time the rationale and actual operating procedures behind "death squad" killing in El Salvador. The result of 10 months of investigation and extensive interviews with individuals associated with Salvadoran political parties and security forces, the Albuquerque Journal articles offer an insight into a significant element behind the violence in El Salvador. The findings may not be correct in every single respect, and further investigation into the death squads may modify details of these accounts, but the Journal deserves our thanks for investing the resources needed to complete this bold undertaking. https://www.govinfo.gov//GPO-/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1984-pt1-5.pdf

h/t Margaret Stock

And don't forget, Trump purposely hardened the federal law about destruction of historical monuments. https://www.whitehouse.gov//executive-order-protecting-am/

This is what we do, but never this effective. https://www.nytimes.com//miriam-rodriguez-san-fernando.htm