From SOA Watch

Rufina Amaya, human rights activist and survivor of the El Mozote Massacre passed on Tuesday March 6, 2007 due to heart failure. She was a mother, grandmother, friend and hero to many.

In 1981 an SOA-trained Salvadoran army battalion known as the Atlacatl Battalion swept through the region of Morazon in a campaign to root out guerillas and their sympathizers. In a shocking turn of events, nearly one thousand peasants were slaughtered in the village of El Mozote.

As the sole survivor, Rufina's brave testimony of the massacre shed light on the atrocities committed by the Salvadoran military and uncovered the Reagan administration's role in providing training and millions of dollars in military aid to a government with a complete disregard for human rights.

The Atlacatl Battalion continued to commit atrocities in El Salvador, including the murder of six Jesuit priests and two Salvadoran women at the University of Central America on November 16, 1989.

"God saved me because he needed someone to tell the story of what happened." Rufina Amaya continued to be an outspoken and compelling witness to what may have been the largest massacre in modern Latin American history until the day of her death.

Rufina's legacy will live on in the hearts of the people of Latin America and the world.