By Jose Gutierrez
March 15 was a historic date for El Salvador. The Truth Commission, made up of US jurist Thomas Buergenthal, Colombian ex-president Belisario Betancur and Venezuela's former foreign minister, Reinaldo Figueredo, released their report.
Titled "From Insanity to Hope — The Twelve-Year War in El Salvador", the report presents results of an investigation into human rights violations committed by all sides in the war.
The commission was established as part of the peace agreements between the Farabundo Martà National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the government of El Salvador. Its mandate included investigating the assassination of the Jesuit priests (1989), the massacres of El Mozote (1000 dead) and the Sumpul River (800 dead), the assassination of Monsignor Romero, the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) leaders, the US churchwomen and the Dutch journalists, and the bombing of the FENASTRAS union office and COMADRES (Mothers of the Disappeared).
The High Command of the Armed Forces was found responsible for ordering the executions of the Jesuit priests in November 1989, in the midst of an FMLN military offensive. Minister of defence General Rene Emilio Ponce, ex-commander of the Air Force General Juan Rafael Bustillo, General Orlando Zepeda, Colonel Inocente Montano, General Gilberto Rubio y Rubio, Colonel Francisco Elena Fuentes and Colonel Guillermo Benavides were named as directly responsible for the murder. Civilians have been implicated in the cover-up.
However, one of the shortcomings is that the report leaves the US advisers and even President Cristiani clear of any direct participation in the cover-up of crimes the commission investigated. For instance, in the Jesuit case, Cristiani and US ambassador William Walker are not mentioned when it was they who put obstacles in the way of the investigation and even denied army participation in the killings. However, the Truth Commission criticised the US government for obstructing the Jesuit investigation.
The late Major Roberto D'Abuisson was found responsible for ordering the killing of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, a crime carried out by Captain Eduardo Avila and ex-captain Alvaro Saravia. The Salvadoran people have known this for years, and the facts had often been presented to the US Congress by human rights groups.
There is no mention of the UGB (the White Warriors Union), one of the death squads D'Abuisson was involved in at the time. Rather than on the dead D'Abuisson, responsibility should lie with the UGB.
At the time of Romero's murder, the UGB was led by Colonel Ramon Gonzalez Suvillaga, who worked for a faction of the oligarchy called "Grupo Desarrollo", led by Roberto Hill, Tomas Regalado Duenas and Lemus O'Byrne. These families funded and maintained the UGB. They also paid D'Abuisson wages.
In the case of the Mozote massacre, the Truth Commission found guilty colonels Domingo Monterrosa and Natividad de Jesus Cabrera. But the commission found that only 200 people perished, when it has been public knowledge that more than 1000 people were killed. Colonel Monterrosa died in 1984. The current president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Dr Mauricio Gutierrez Castro, was implicated in hampering the investigation of the massacre.
General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova was found responsible for the cover-up in the case of the four US churchwomen killed by the National Guard in December 1980. The assassination of peasant leader Roberto Viera and the two US labour advisers, Mike Hammer and David Pearlman, in the Sheraton Hotel was carried out by Captain Eduardo Avila, Lieutenant Rodolfo Isidro Lopez Sibrian and Major Mario Denis Moran.
But the Truth Commission was not given enough time to investigate death squad activities. Instead, it recommended setting up a new commission to investigate further, limiting itself to name Hector Antonio Regalado and other powerful Salvadoran families based in Miami as responsible for "funding" and "managing" the death squads. There was no mention of the involvement of US military advisers.
The commission also investigated human rights violations alleged against the FMLN. It found that the General Command of the FMLN was responsible for ordering the execution of provincial mayors. It stated that the leadership of the Revolutionary People's Army (ERP) was responsible for actually carrying out the executions of 11 mayors. The FMLN was also found responsible for the Zona Rosa shoot-out, where 21 people died; the execution of Miguel Castellanos, an ex-commander of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), who betrayed the organisation; and the execution of several US advisers.
The mayors became FMLN military targets because they were part of the US counter-insurgency strategy and were often linked to the local civil defence and paramilitary structures, which were responsible for the execution of thousands of civilians suspected of being FMLN members or sympathisers.
US advisers also participated in direct combat against the FMLN. The US advisers killed in the Zona Rosa had just come back from bombing FMLN-controlled zones when they were ambushed by a special urban commando of the Central American Revolutionary Workers Party (PRTC).
Nevertheless, the criteria employed by the Truth Commission were objective and impartial. It used the current international human rights and humanitarian law as its guiding principle. The FMLN was found responsible for 5% of human rights violations, the Armed Forces for 90%. The FMLN Political Committee stated that it accepts all the recommendations in the Truth Commission's report.
The commission recommended that all the people responsible for human rights violations be prohibited from holding any public office for a minimum of 10 years. Joaquin Villalobos, general secretary of the ERP, heads the list of 15 FMLN members named in the report. "We didn't struggle 20 years in order to run for public office", he said. "We struggled to transform the country." Forty military officers are to be removed from their positions.
However, the Truth Commission does not recommend trials for people mentioned in the report. Instead, it states that the whole Salvadoran justice system is corrupt and recommends its immediate constitutional reform and the dismissal of all members of the Supreme Court. Trials can take place after all the reforms have been carried out.
A day after publication of the report, President Cristiani called for a general amnesty, which provoked anger in the population. Human rights groups have rejected the amnesty on the grounds that, in the words of the CODEHUCA (Commission for the Defence of Human rights in Central America), the crimes "led to the destruction of human culture", "human existence" and "human dignity".
On March 15, Cristiani presented a draft law to the Legislative Assembly, granting amnesty to all the people named by the Truth Commission as having committed human rights abuses. The law was debated and approved on March 18.
The amnesty was supported by all the right-wing parties. "Amnesties go hand in hand with cover-ups. When a cover-up fails for some reason, the military resorts to an amnesty, invoking noble, humanitarian sentiments of course, but without any sign of remorse, and everything remains the same. In other words, amnesty means wiping out the crime as well as the responsibility of the criminal, and is aimed at wiping out the memory of the deed", said the Central American Catholic University.
The Salvadoran people have reacted with anger and outrage at the proposed amnesty. The popular movement and human rights groups are leading protests against the government and calling upon the United Nations to reject the amnesty.
[Jose Gutierrez is part of the FMLN Press Office in Melbourne.]