From @DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU:LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET Fri May 3 00:22:06 1991 Received: from dartcms1.dartmouth.edu by cabot.dartmouth.edu (5.61a+YP/4.1) id AA09631; Fri, 3 May 91 00:22:02 -0400 Message-Id: <9105030422.AA09631@cabot.dartmouth.edu> Received: from DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU by DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R1) with BSMTP id 9075; Fri, 03 May 91 00:23:17 EST Received: from UMCVMB.BITNET by DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 9069; Fri, 03 May 91 00:23:15 EST Received: by UMCVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 3624; Thu, 02 May 91 23:12:38 CDT Date: Thu, 2 May 91 23:12:31 CDT From: Revised List Processor (1.6e) Subject: File: "GRNBERET TORTURE" being sent to you To: harelb@cabot.dartmouth.edu Status: RO Here are excerpts from an article from the New York Times, 1/11/82, titled "US advisors saw 'torture class,' Salvadoran says" by Raymond Bonner. ----------- A 21 year old who asserts that he is a former Salvadoran soldier says that US military advisors were present at two "training sessions" early last year when two suspected guerrillas were tortured by Salvadoran army instructors. In a series of interviews, the young man, Carlos Antonio Gomez Montano, said the men that he described as americans attended the sessions as observers and did not take part in the torture. But he said they made no apparent effort to stop or protest the activity, in which a 17-year old youth and a 13 year old girl were tortured. He said they were subsequently killed, but not in the presence of the american advisors. Their bodies, he said, were dumped on the street in San Salvador. Mr. Gomez, who asserted that he fled from his paratroop unit at the Ilopango air force base outside San Salvador in May, said he had recognized the americans as part of a group of US military advisors who arrived in El Salvador a few days earlier. The sessions, which he said were known as "torture classes" took place last January, he added. Mr. Gomez, a short, wiry youth who lives in exile in Mexico, also charged that the Salvadoran Army routinely mutilated the bodies of suspected guerrilla sympathizers and dropped others in the sea from helicopters. A senior defense department official and a former commander of the US military group in El Salvador denied that american military personnel in El Salvador had witnessed any torture sessions. Mr. Gomez's account could not be independently corroborated. He was also unable to provide documentary evidence that he had belonged to the salvadoran armed forces - he said he had discarded all proof of identity when he deserted - but in seven hours of conversations he revealed a knowledge of military life in El Salvador that lent credibility to his story. Col. Rafael Bustillo, commander of the Salvadoran air force, said that Mr. Gomez's name did not appear in any military records and that "therefore this man has no basis for his accusations since he was not a soldier here at the time." But other military sources said that official files confirmed that Mr. Gomez was recruited Nov 1, 1980, and deserted in the early spring. Before the americans arrived in mid January [Gomez said], his paratroop batallion was told by Salvadoran officers that, in addition to the rifles and other weapons being provided by the US, members of the "famous green berets" were being sent as "new instructors." There was a military ceremony to welcome the advisors, Mr. Gomez said, adding that some wore green berets when they arrived. But he said they did not wear their berets when they watched the torture session. Mr. Gomez said that before one of the torture sessions the assembled troops were told by a salvadoran officer that watching "will make you feel more like a man." He said that the officer added that the soldiers should "not feel pity of anyone," but only "hate for those who are enemies of our country." At the first torture session [...] a masked salvadoran soldier jabbed the tip of his bayonet into the chest and rib cage of a 17 year old youth. [the soldier] applying his boot as leverage, broke the youth's arm at the elbow. After further tortures, he said, the youth was killed. During the second session, which Mr. Gomez said was held after sunday mass, a 13 year old girl was similarly tortured and killed. According to Mr. Gomez, many guerrillas or people suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers were dropped alive into the sea from helicopters. On other occasions, he said, bodies were discarded along roads after the faces had been slashed so they could not be identified. [...] soldiers were instructed by their officers and senior enlisted men to kill anyone, including old people, women and children [...] the soldiers were told that "the majority of the peasants are guerrillas." Mr. Gomez said that his father, mother, older brother and sister were killed in May by national guard soldiers because his brother was a member of a guerrilla unit. ... [one of those drafted with Gomez] was promoted to sergeant a few months [after being drafted] after he had killed his own parents and two siblings because they were guerilla sympathizers, Mr. Gomez recalled. During a military ceremony [...] an air force colonel pointed to the sergeant's act and his promotion as demonstrations of "bravery" and the "hope for progress in a military career." --------------- The following is taken from Covert Action Information Bulletin, #16, 3/82. Sorry for the graphic details, but if it's true, the least we can do is understand what it is we're paying for. --------------- ... During the vietnam war US troops and CIA "police advisors" regularly engaged in torture to try to obtain information. And, as the Dan Mitrione incident in Uruguay makes clear, US advisers have in the past shown their clients how effective torture can be both in obtaining information and in intimidating the population. ... In further taped interviews with other journalists, Bonner's source, 21 year old Carlos Antonio Gomez Montano, implicated some of the Green berets directly in the commission of torture. These interviews were first reported in the January 1982 issue of El Salvador Alert, the publication of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. CAIB has obtained the transcript of the critical interview, and what follows are the portions dealing with the participation of US troops: "In El Salvador I was cited to report to the barracks. At the same time, my brother was involved with the guerrilla struggle. Before I entered into the military, my brother was a guerrilla fighter. He told me many times, why didn't I incorporate into the guerrilla struggle, for the people? I said, "No, I didn't like those sorts of things." A few months later I got a citation from the army that I had to report in february to the barracks. I did not answer the summons in february, was summoned again and finally had to go in december of 1980. So I went and presented myself. After we were there they taught us how to handle the rifles, different types of formations, working the streets. They brought us out to the different towns to carry out searches. After a month, they taught us a course in anti-guerrilla warfare. Many of my friends went on this course to panama but I didn't go. After they returned, there was another course that I took which was for paratroopers. After that course, they taught us a lot of tactics- advancing, retreating, military tactics. After that they gave us uniforms and boots that came from the US camouflage uniforms. Then they gave us some classes about the war in vietnam- how we should act on the battlefield. What they told us was that we shouldn't have mercy on anyone, whether it was children or women or men, but you have to kill all of them. Many times we would go into the mountains. I saw many things in relation to the officials, the officers. They took the young men and women from the houses and brought them to the barracks and afterwards they tortured them and killed them. Later we had a welcome for the green berets. That day was the day of the soldier. They formed all of us up in columns. We had a homage for those who had fallen and for those still alive too. They got us up for this to greet these green berets who came from the US. The officers said they would be able to teach you a new tactic. We didn't have any idea what this new tactic was; we thought it was something else. The first time they brought us to a volcano and they brought us to the slopes of the volcano so that we were going to combat with the guerrilla fighters. The green berets didn't go into combat; they were just behind showing us how to do these things. They would criticize is as to what was good and what was bad. We passed five days on a volcano. There were 600 of us- in all 5,000. Of those, there were many who didn't return. There were lots of soldiers who were killed. Six days later we returned to the barracks and then they began to teach us how to torture. One evening they went and got nine young people that were accused of being guerrillas and brought them to where we were. This was more or less the last time that I had to see very well the type of torture they carried out against the guerrillas. The first one they brought- a young fellow who was around 15 or 16 years old and the first thing they did was to stick the bayonets under his fingernails and pulled them out. That day he was the first one that died under torture. This young fellow said all sorts of things against them to let him go. The officers said "we are going to teach you how to mutilate and how to teach a lesson to these guerrillas." The officers who were teaching us this were the american green berets. They didn't speak spanish so they spoke english and then another officer- salvadoran- translated it into spanish for us. Then they began to torture this young fellow. They took out their knives and stuck them under his fingernails. After they took his fingernails off, then they broke his elbows. Afterwards they gouged out his eyes. Then they took their bayonets and made all sorts of slices in his skin all around his chest, arms, and legs. They then took his hair off and the skin of his scalp. When they saw there was nothing left to do with him, they threw gasoline on him and burned him. The next day his dead body wasn't around but was found by people out in the streets- left in the street. The next day they started the same thing with a 13 year old girl. They did more or less the same, but they did other things to her too. First, she was utilized, raped by all the officers. They stripped her and threw her in a small room, they went in one by one. Afterwards they took her out tied and blindfolded. Then they began the same mutilating- pulling her fingernails out and cutting off her fingers, breaking her arms, gouging out her eyes and all they did to the other fellow. They cut her legs and stuck an iron rod into her womb. The last one they killed that day suffered more, because they stripped him naked at mid-day. Then they put him on this hot tin and made him lie there- like he was cooking. After about a half-hour, when they finally took him off, he was all covered with blisters- like wounds. They did different types of torture to him. Then they threw him out alive from a helicopter. He was alive and tied. They go an throw them out over the sea. Q: Can you give a better description of the green berets? Names, numbers, anything? A: I don't know the names, but there were eight. The officers knew. There was only one of the eight that could speak spanish. They were all white- there were some blacks, but I don't know where they were from. The eight US green berets that were there were all white. They dressed themselves the same as any soldier. One of them sort of gave orders but they didn't have any indication of their rank. Q: Did they rape the women too? A: No, they only taught. Q: Did they do the fingernail pulling? A: It was one of the green berets doing the teaching. The green beret did the torture on the first one and then the others did the tortures on the others. Q: Were any other americans involved? A: Some sergeants there spoke english but I never knew much about them. They arrived to teach classes on how to use the helicopters. Q: Are you sure the green berets were with the US army, or were they mercenaries? A: I think they belonged to the US army because our officers searched us very well and told us not to talk about the presence of the US army there. They prohibited us from speaking about it. ----------------