Samuel Amaya
@SamuelAmaya98
Student groups from the University of El Salvador (UES) commemorated the 49th anniversary of the events that occurred on July 25 and 30, 1975, when the military massacred dozens of students under the mandate of President Arturo Armando Molina.
Under the administration of Armando Molina, the campus of the western faculty was intervened on July 25, 1975, to prevent the traditional farce parade that the students would develop on July 26 within the framework of the Santa Ana Patron Saint Festivities and that that year would have as its theme the campaign “The country of smiles” developed by the government that served as host of the Miss Universe 1975 beauty pageant, as a satirical and burlesque protest against “a repressive government.”
The university’s groups claimed that the intervention on campus consisted of the destruction of the material prepared for the parade, and the capture and beating of students who were making final adjustments inside the campus.
The outraged students decided to march without the planned equipment. They improvised banners and signs denouncing the abuse and the takeover of campus facilities by government authorities. However, during the march they were severely repressed by the militarized security forces of the time.
In light of the events that had occurred, students from the central campus organized a march for July 30, 1975, which left from the entrance of the Faculty of Sciences and Humanities towards Libertad Park, in the historic center of San Salvador.
In a tone of protest, peacefully denouncing the abuses that had occurred against students in the West, but upon reaching the overpass between 25 Avenida Norte and Alameda Juan Pablo II, they were awaited by a contingent of security forces and military personnel armed with rifles and tanks who, without saying a word, opened fire on the students leading the march, leaving a scene of massacre around the social security building.
In this context, the university movement urged state authorities to clarify responsibilities and punish those responsible and the masterminds behind the student massacre. Likewise, they urged that a similar act of barbarism, repression and violence, in which the critical and guiding voice of students is silenced, should never be repeated.
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