Salvadorans march to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests and two others in San Salvador on Nov. 14, 2015. (photo: teleSUR)
The End
of Impunity in El Salvador?
18 January 16
In El Salvador, the beginning of a new year brings with it the opportunity to heal old wounds.
In the first weeks
of January, nearly 20 retired military officers accused of human rights
violations during the country’s civil war have been called to answer for their
crimes. While the great bulk of the charges being leveled against the former
soldiers relate to a single massacre carried out in San Salvador, at least one of the former commanders is known to have
directed multiple atrocities during the 12-year conflict. In all, some 75,000
were killed during the war, while thousands more were disappeared in a rampage
of human rights atrocities largely perpetrated by the U.S.-backed, right-wing
government’s forces.
The importance of
these developments cannot be underscored enough.
In addition to the
closure that may be offered to victims of civil war-era human rights abuses and
their families, the apprehension and trial of accused war criminals in El
Salvador signals the end of impunity enjoyed by members of the old guard—some
of whom were responsible for brutal campaigns of violence, like the massacre of six priests and two others at a
university in San Salvador.
On Nov. 16, 1989, a
small band of soldiers stormed the campus grounds of the Central American
University (UCA). Members of El Salvador’s elite Atlacatl Brigade—a death squad armed and trained by the United
States—murdered a group of Jesuit priests, a campus housekeeper, and the
woman’s teenage daughter. Among the dead was Ignacio
Ellacuria, rector of the
university, prominent proponent of liberation theology, and a critic of the
conservative ruling regime governing El Salvador during the war. The other five
priests were Spanish nationals.
The military
initially tried pinning the blame on FMLN rebels. The Actlacatl Brigade used
weapons that had been captured from guerilla fighters and, after murdering
those inside the compound, staged a phony assault on the campus to make it
appear as if rebels had carried out the slaughter. In order to ensure that no one
would question who was responsible for the UCA massacre, the troops placed a cardboard
sign near
their victims which read: “The FMLN has executed the spies who informed on
them. Victory or death. FMLN.”
Despite the fact
that few believed the military’s deception, justice in this case—as it was for
countless other victims of human rights violations during the civil war—has
proved elusive. In 1991, a group of the officers involved were put on trial.
Two soldiers were found guilty, and sentenced to prison. Shortly after,
however, all of the accused were relieved of responsibility for the killings.
An amnesty law approved by the legislative assembly
following the 1992 peace accords offered the shelter of impunity to everyone
implicated in war crimes over the previous decade.
Until now.
On Jan. 5, a Spanish
court asked that arrest warrants be issued for the 17
retired military men connected to the slaughter at the university. The
following day the Salvadoran government signaled its willingness to cooperate.
Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman David Morales, speaking at a press
conference, told reporters that “there is an obligation to
prosecute these acts and, in the absence of domestic justice, there is an
obligation to collaborate with the legal process that the Spanish National
Court is leading in this case.”
Spanish authorities
have tried to have the officers arrested in the past, but to no avail. In 2011,
Spain pushed for their apprehension but was rebuffed by
the Salvadoran high court. The court found that the warrants issued by Interpol
for the 17 soldiers mandated that Salvadoran authorities locate the men in
question, not apprehend them, and that the officers were protected under the
old amnesty law governing civil war crimes. This changed last year in a welcome
reversal by the court, which has opened the door to their arrest and
extradition.
The impending
arrests aren’t the only sign that the limits of impunity for past crimes may
have reached in El Salvador. A week after the 17 military officers were identified
for arrest, a former minister of defense, Jose Guillermo Garcia Merino, was deported from the United States—where he had been
residing since the late 1980s—to El Salvador for war crimes committed on his
watch. Among other incidents, Garcia has been tied to the murder of four American nuns, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, as well as the Rio Sumpul and El Mozote massacres.
In expert testimony
included in the case of Garcia-Merino, Terry Lynn Karl, professor of political
science at Stanford University, argued that El Salvador’s armed forces “engaged
in a widespread pattern and practice of massacres, torture, and arbitrary
detention, extrajudicial killings, and other gross violations of human rights”
under Garcia’s command. “General Garcia presided over the worst period of
repression in modern Salvadoran history,” Karl wrote. “At least 75 percent of
reported violence in El Salvador occurred during General Garcia’s tenure as
Defense Minister.”
These developments
mirror a similar push for justice underway in the region more broadly. Most
prominently, a series of actions have been taken against military officers
in Guatemala accused of human rights violations in that country’s civil war.
While the trial of former strongman Efrain Rios Montt has
been subject to a lengthening series of delays, prosecutions of other alleged
war criminals appear to be advancing successfully. And on the same day that El Salvador
agreed to take action against those involved in the UCA massacre, Guatemala arrested 18 of its own retired soldiers for war
crimes.
Even as Guatemala
appears poised to make steady advances to ensure transitional justice, El
Salvador faces many obstacles in following suit. Foreign courts were
responsible for kickstarting these latest proceedings against Salvadoran war
criminals while, to date, domestic courts themselves have not taken up the
mantle of pursuing cases related to crimes committed during the war. Indeed,
while government officials have promised to extradite the seventeen officers to
Spain, none have yet been brought into custody. Nor is it clear what legal fate
awaits Garcia following his deportation from the United States.
And there are still
serious concerns about the selective nature of accountability in the country.
The constitutional court’s recent ruling on “terror,” for example, came back into
focus recently when Chief Inspector Joaquin Hernandez demanded that El
Diario de Hoy be
investigated for instigating “fear and terror” in its coverage of the gangs.
Repugnant as El Diario’s politics may be, claims that the paper
is abetting terror raise alarming questions about press freedom in El Salvador,
and could set an ugly precedent in the government’s war against the gangs, and
political opposition.
Nevertheless, the
fact that government officials appear ready to play their part in the
apprehension and prosecution of those charged with war crimes suggests an
important shift has taken place in El Salvador. The ruling establishment has
historically been wary of broaching issues of transitional justice leftover
from the war. To his credit, former president Mauricio Funes took courageous
steps by acknowledging the state’s role in wartime atrocities,
but nothing came of it. Over the past several weeks, however, official
reluctance to redress past wrongs seems to be dissipating.
Whatever the
cause—domestic or international pressure, successful internal maneuvering by
brave judges and lawyers within the country’s judicial system, or something
else—an opportunity to begin striking down the impunity haunting El Salvador
for decades has presented itself. Will the government shy away due to the very
real political risks involved in dredging up the past? Hopefully not. Will it
honestly reckon with the country’s recent history, and those responsible for
its bloodiest episodes, to ensure that justice for those victimized by a
ruthless war is no longer denied, even after all these years?
Better late than
never.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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