EL SALVADOR

EL SALVADOR
chologists committed to accompanying
local Latin American communities build
knowledge “from the ground up.” I could
not have imagined then or in subsequent
gatherings with him in Boston and
Berkeley that these schemes and dreams
would be cut short by the actions of the
U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion two short
years later.
Just a week after I (Portillo) turned 15,
San Salvador was occupied in the largest
offensive launched by the guerrilla forces
in November of 1989. I never met Martín-Baró,
but I remember TV coverage
that included his dead body and those
of his Jesuit brothers on the grass at the
University of Central America (UCA).
Four years later, I began my studies in
psychology at the UCA. I studied Martín-Baró’s
writings and learned about
his life through surviving colleagues and
commemoration acts on campus. I was
drawn to his ideas and particularly to his
proposal for a psychology of liberation,
which voiced the need to construct a psychology
that responds to the needs of the
oppressed.
We, the two authors, reconnected in
Boston where we are collaborating in the
Martín-Baró Fund (www.martinbarofund.org).
The fund was established in
1990 by a small group of psychologists,
activists and advocates who sought to
extend Martín-Baró’s liberatory psychology
by supporting programs in the
global south developed by and in communities
affected by institutional violence,
repression and social injustice.
The fund seeks to encourage innovative
grassroots projects that promote psychological
well-being, social consciousness
and active resistance by means of grants,
networking, and technical support. Coordinated
by an entirely volunteer group
and housed at Boston College’s Center
for Human Rights and International Justice,
the fund has supported a total of 183
projects directed by 97 non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in 32 countries.
A total of $1,090,878 has been distributed
among these organizations.
Although small and limited in
resources, the fund is one of the few
sources of support for organizations in
the global south whose understanding of
and engagement with the effects of statesponsored
violence and gross violations
of human rights is systemic and structural.
These organizations recognize how
important it is to accompany individuals
and groups in addressing their suffering
and its underlying conditions. The fund
prioritizes projects in countries affected
by U.S. political and military policies and
practices, thus striving to critically educate
the U.S. public about the use of its
taxes and resources abroad.
Given the United States’ deep complicity
in the armed conflict in El Salvador,
the fund has provided support
to 14 separate NGOs there; many have
received small grants for several years.
Community organizations and grassroots
movements such as those supported by
the fund have played a pivotal role in
the recent history of El Salvador and the
well-being of its people. Unfortunately
their reach is usually limited, their life
span is commonly short, and their experiences
are rarely systematized. As a result,
historical discontinuity is the norm and
lessons learned are all too frequently lost.
A mural depicts the Sumpul River massacre.
In the new millennium, however,
a fresh wave of community organizations
has emerged seeking to continue
the unfinished task of healing the deep
wounds and ongoing social suffering in
the Salvadoran society in the wake of the
war there. One of those organizations is
the Centro Bartolomé de las Casas (CBC,
http://www.centrolascasas.org), founded
in 2000 by a group of religious and community
activists committed to the postwar
reconciliation process. Just as Bartolomé
de las Casas had advocated for the
rights of indigenous people during the
early years of the Conquest, the center
began its work advocating for the survivors
of the war who suffered its ongoing
effects or what Martín-Baró had called
psychosocial trauma.
Unlike the common understanding
of psychological trauma—considered
individual and nonpolitical—Martín-
Baró sought to name and then respond
to the collective experience of war that
produced not only psychological wounds
in individuals, but also—and above all—
damages to the social fabric of entire
communities. He suggested that trauma
resides in relationships between the indi-
52 ReVista SPRING 2016