While the PBI team’s work was interrupted in 1989 due to harassment by the Armed Forces, it was able to re-deploy in 1990 with the strong backing of the international community, including members of Parliament and Congress from Switzerland, Canada, Spain, the United States, Italy, Sweden, France and Germany as well as religious communities, international organizations, and labor unions.
PBI has had a personal impact on me because of the contact with the wonderful Salvadorian, Colombian, Guatemalan and Honduran people, and because of many situations of strong emotions, where I was very scared.
Eva Scarfe
El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua/CostaRica, 1989-now
Following the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992, PBI’s work in El Salvador was no longer necessary and so the project was closed.
I think it is important to defend the people who defend, it has allowed me to know closely the work of the social movement in El Salvador. Then I got involved in an NGO, in a free radio station, in the social movement of my neighborhood, irala, in Bilbao, and now especially with refugees, in Ongi Etorri Errefuxiatuak
Catherine Verbruggen
El Salvador, 1991-1992
The accompaniment and safeguarding of human rights carried out by PBI is important, in my opinion it is an essential aspect for the construction of peace, equity and social and plural justice of peoples and disadvantaged people in conditions of vulnerability of their fundamental rights. In this sense, PBI is like a small-big bulwark that contributes, in an essential way, to the construction of a world where all worlds fit
Pilar Front Serrano,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
At the invitation of Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez, PBI began working in El Salvador. Most of the work consisted of providing international protective accompaniment to threatened popular organsations and regular visits to villages of returned refugees.