Extensive excerpts from Amnesty International's Oct. '88 report: "El Salvador: ``Death Squads'' -- A Government Strategy" Ordering information is at the end. ################################################################## PREFACE 1 1 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S LONG-STANDING HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS 3 IN EL SALVADOR 2 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S CURRENT HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS IN 4 EL SALVADOR 3 REVERSION TO THE "DEATH SQUAD" STRATEGY 7 3.1 Who Runs the "Death Squads"? 8 3.2 How the "Death Squads" Operate 9 3.3 The Legal Framework: A Smokescreen for Official 12 "Death Squad" Activities 4 THE EVIDENCE 15 4.1 Defectors' Testimony 15 4.2 Official statements 18 4.3 The Survivors 19 4.4 Eye-witness Testimony 21 4.5 Equipment and Tactics 24 4.6 The Victims 24 4.6.1 Teachers and academics 25 4.6.2 Trade unionists 26 4.6.3 Members of Cooperatives 30 4.6.4 Displaced people and returned refugees 31 4.6.5 The Judiciary, Human Rights Workers, Journalists 32 5 THE COURTS AND THE MILITARY: OBSTACLES TO EFFECTIVE 36 INVESTIGATION 5.1 Two Flawed Investigations: The murders of two US 37 Labour Advisers and of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero 6 WHY THE RETURN TO THE "DEATH SQUADS"? 41 CONCLUSIONS 44 RECOMMENDATIONS 46 APPENDIX 49 ################################################################## From the "Conclusions" section: =============================== (1) "Death squad"-style killings and "disappearances" by the government's uniformed and plainclothes armed forces are again increasing... Torture continues, too, often involving mutilation and often carried out in conjunction with extrajudicial execution. (2)Tens of thousands of people have been the victims of extrajudicial execution and "disappearance" by El Salvador's armed forces since 1980... None of the armed forces officers responsible have been brought to justice, most remain in positions of command. (4)The Government of El Salvador continues to evade accountability for "death squad"-style killings an d"disappearances" by its uniformed and plainclothes military and security services. These openly illegal actions by the armed forces are routinely attributed to "death squads", which the government maintains act independently and cannot be apprehended. Other deliberate killings of prisoners have been falsely reported by armed forces spokesmen to have been a consequence of armed clashed with opposition forces. (5)The testimony of armed forces personnel, the details of thousands of case studies and other information examined by Amnesty International lead to the conclusion that actions attributed by authorities to "death squads" are routinely carried out by regular units of the armed forces which include the military and the security services, and by special intelligence units that incorporate civilian gunmen under their supervision and control. Some individuals publicly identified as civilian "death squad" personnel have continued to work openly with armed forces units. They have had effective immunity from prosecution and have held credentials as armed forces auxiliaries, as plainclothes agents of the diverse intelligence divisions or members of the legal, paramilitary civil defense system... (7)Efforts by El Salvador's independent and church-run human rights organizations to investigate these killing have been hampered by the harassment, intimidation, imprisonment, torture, mutilation, extrajudicial execution and "disappearance" of their members... (9)The military court system in El Salvador has routinely failed to prosecute military personnel accused of involvement in torture, "disappearance" and extrajudicial execution. The exclusive jurisdiction of the military courts over members of the armed forces provides a shield behind which armed forces personnel commit grave crimes with impunity. (10)In exceptional cases in which military court jurisdiction has been waived - notably the murder in 1981 of two American labour advisers and their Salvadorian colleague - civilian courts have been intimidated and proceeding obstructed by lack of cooperation by the armed forces. ################################################################## "The use of the "death squad" strategy -murder through domestic covert action - serves as a short-term solution to both peaceful dissidence and armed opposition, while allowing government to avoid accountability for criminal acts" p.8 "Amnesty International has concluded that the Salvadoran `death squads' are used to shield the government from accountability for the torture, `disappearance' and extrajudicial executions committed in their name. The squads are made up of regular army and police agents, acting in uniform or plain clothes, under the orders of superior officers." p.9 "In July 1987, fear swept Salvadorian exiles in the US when several people active in the refugee community reported receiving death threats. One was Father Luis Olivares of Our Lady Queen of Angels parish in Los Angeles, a priest active in assisting Central American refugees, who received a note with the initials "E.M."- _Escuadron_ _de_ _la_ _Muerte_, "Death Squad -printed on it. A Salvadorian refugee in Los Angeles reported being raped and tortured on 6 July by men she believed to have been Salvadorian and another woman reported threats on her telephone answering machine. The FBI announced that it would initiate investigations." p.12 "...permitting the use of extrajudicial confessions as a basis for decreeing provisional detention, as permitted by Decree 618, virtually ensures that the security forces will attempt to get such a declaration in almost every case. Such declarations almost invariably include admissions.. to the all-purpose charge of "subversive association" Since corroborative evidence is rarely sought, the admissibility of such statements as "evidence" [and the conditions under which they may be obtained, particularly incommunicado detention, and the fact that the two persons required to witness the declaration may have been the interrogators], provide in Amnesty International's view the pre-conditions for the use of torture. Any resulting deaths in unacknowledged custody can then be blamed on `death squads'" p.12 "Detention techniques and routine procedures used by the Salvadorian police and military also help obscure `death squad' action. Hundreds of individual accounts given to Amnesty International by prisoners eventually freed directly by their plainclothes abductors, or after having been transferred to the custody of the uniformed security forces, tell of arrests carried out in a manner that in legal terms is indistinguishable from kidnapping. Victims have told of being seized without warrant by heavily armed men in plain clothes who refused to identify themselves or their agency. Sometimes captors claimed to represent an `independent death squad' but were subsequently shown to be member of the security services. "Detainees were not told where they were detained or where they were to be taken. One former detainee interviewed by Amnesty International in a displaces persons camp in March 1987 told how she had been arrested on 4 January 1985, when a bus in which she was traveling was stopped by men in four cars with tinted windows. According to her account, as she was dragged from the bus and forces into one of the cars, she repeatedly asked who they were but was told only, `You'll find out'. In the car she was blindfolded and her interrogation began. She was taken to an isolated spot which appeared to be a rubbish dump and was told she too was to be dumped there, then stripped and raped by her interrogators. Later she was taken to another unidentified place she believed to have been the headquarters of the National Police, and help incommunicado there for 11 days. She was then transferred to Ilopango women's prison near San Salvador. It was only when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) saw her there one month after her arrest that her detention became known. She still does not know which force was responsible for her initial detention. "A Salvadorian human rights worker arrested in May 1986 told Amnesty International of similar treatment. Seized in Mejicanos, San Salvador by armed men in plain clothes, he was taken blindfolded for interrogation. When he asked where he was and who was detaining him, he was simply told, `You will never know.' He later learned that he had been arrested by the Policia de Hacienda (Treasury Police) "Such practices are in violation of international standards..[and] contrast with regulations which the Salvadorian Defence Ministry [said] are in force...Arrests are to be carried out by uniformed personnel, except in exceptional circumstances.. even in [these cases] the Armed Forces procedures manual specifies that they are to identify themselves...Failure to do so, as seems to be the norm in El Salvador, enables `disappearances' and killings to be blamed on `death squads'" p.13 "Several people arrested since the amnesty have reported that both at the time of their detention by uniformed military personnel and later, while being interrogated at military barracks, they were told they were going to be taken to El Playo'n and killed as, the soldiers said, `there were no longer any political prisoners'. A woman detained in November 1987 has testified that she was threatened several times with being taken to El Playo'n, but after a fortuitous visit by the government Human Rights Commission to the barracks where she was being held soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion told her that she had `been lucky', and that if the Commission member hadn't come, she would have been taken the next day, Sunday, to El Playo'n. She was released, but shortly afterwards her brother, Jose Angel Alas Gomez was arrested and tortured by the soldiers of the same Atlacatl Battalion. He too was released, but seized again shortly afterwards in a car. The Treasury Police announced that Alas Gomez had died of a heart attack, but photographs of his body appear to show burns, severe lacerations to the testicles, severe bruising of the head and face and bleeding from the mouth and nose. The day after her brother's tortured body was found, a unit of the Atlacatl Battalion returned to put the woman's home under surveillance. She now fears for her life." p.42 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - VICTIMS "All sectors of Salvadorian society have been the target of ``death squad''-style killings, and sometimes it has been difficult to establish what drew victims to the attention of the ``death squads.'' In one macabre case in 1981 the victims were two clowns, a trapeze artist and seven other performers from a traveling circus. All were found floating face down in a swimming pool on the outskirts of El Salvador's second largest city, Santa Ana. The corpses were bullet riddled, with faces disfigured by gunshots inflicted at close range. A statement in the name of the ``Maximiliano Herna'ndez Martinez Brigade'' claimed responsibility for their deaths. The motive is unknown. "In a great many cases the choice of victim has been indicator of who lies behind the ``death squads''. Those targeted have been members of groups perceived to be in opposition to the government, or to represent a nucleus around whom such opposition could coalesce, including students, trade unionists, members of cooperatives, church workers and peasants." [Page 25] [The Brigada Maximiliano Herna'ndez Martinez, Maximiliano Herna'ndez Martinez Brigade, is named after the Salvadoran general who ordered the massacre of an estimated 30,000 peasants in 1932 in the wake of an uprising (from the AI report, page 8)] "in a number of cases in 1985 and 1986 trade unionists were arrested, coerced through physical and psychological torture into signing statement "admitting" involvement with "subversives" and released, only to be seized and murdered days later... In other cases, people taken into custody by plainclothes "death squads" were later turned over to uniformed security forces and transferred to official detention centers" p.27 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "The Salvadorian Government maintains that `death squad'-style killings are the work of extremist groups beyond its control. However, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the squads are made up of regular troops and police..." ; "Victims are people perceived to be opponents of the government. They include members of cooperatives, trade unionists, human rights workers and judges" ; "This report reviews the evidence...including Salvadorians who have witnessed `death squad' activities, the rare survivors of `death squad' attacks and former squad members themselves..." Back cover - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Convictions of five National Guards were eventually obtained in the case of the four US churchwomen murdered in 1980, but two judges involved in the early stages of the case quit after threats to their lives. The judge who eventually heard the case suspected that his brother's murder was an attempt to warn him off, and the lawyer defending one of the convicted guardsmen later said he was forced to take part in a cover-up to prevent senior officers being indicted. According to the lawyer's account, he was abducted by National Guardsmen in civilian clothes, tortured at National Guard headquarters and released only after pressure from the US Embassy and the ICRC. The lawyer left the country shortly afterwards and was treated in Los Angeles for broken ribs. Earlier, his brother had been arrested and brother-in-law abducted - all part, he says, of pressure to ensure his collaboration in the cover-up." p.32 (in section 4.6.5) "Amnesty's June 1987 delegation..was told by the few lawyers who handle political detention or `disappearance' cases that they receive constant death threats by letter and by telephone in the name of `death squads', accusing them of being communists. In May 1988 Judge Jorge Alberto Serrano Panamen~o was shot and killed at point-blank range in front of his home by gunmen in plain clothes. Two days earlier he had declared inadmissible the request for amnesty filed by a group of army officers and businessmen who face charges of involvement in a ring kidnapping wealthy Salvadorians for ransom" p.33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Additional background Former Ambassador Robert White's Op-ed [New York Times, Nov. 21, 1989] Death-squad deserter Joya Martinez [In These Times, Nov. 15-21 issue] See same issue re Cristiani's ARENA party's proposed "Anti-Terrorist" laws (which have now been passed) which former President Duarte's Christian Democratic party labeled "state terrorism" Treatment of only witness: New York Times, 12/18, by Elaine Sciolino ****************************************************************** Outline (from personal record kept): 4 THE EVIDENCE [p. 15] 4.1 Defectors' Testimony (mainly early 80's D.S.s, unfortunately) 4.2 Official statements 4.3 The Survivors (1987 incident) 4.4 Eye-witness Testimony (1980, 1987, 1987, 1988, 1988) 4.5 Equipment and Tactics 4.6 The Victims -circumstantial p. 25 -Blanca Rosa Mendez p. 26 -circum. p.27 ("have often followed public criticism") -Antonio de Jesus H. M. -p.27; 1987 -p.28 people identify captors -former prisoner:prisoners put in hidden tunnel p.28 Angel Lopez, by 5th Military Detachment (1987, p.30) -p.31 last 2 paragraphs. -p.32 esp.ly judges and lawyer -p.33 top circum. ;; pp34-35 The Courts, the Military; Two Flawed Investigations .. pp 36-40 ****************************************************************** [This 50 page report, with pictures (which are clearer in the Spanish edition), is only $5 from Amnesty International, Publications, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10001. Ask for "El Salvador: ``Death Squads'' -- A Government Strategy", first published in October, 1988; or call Amnesty at: (212)807-8400 (ask for "publications")] ******************************************************************