From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: El Salvador: More Testimony to Truth Commission
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 20:11:26 GMT

/** reg.elsalvador: 116.0 **/
** Topic: Human Rights El Salvador **
** Written  9:27 pm  Sep 26, 1992 by peg:jgutierrez in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
HUMAN RIGHTS IN EL SALVADOR

By Jose Gutierrez

The Truth Commission, led by three distinguished
personalities, and the Ad-Hoc Commission, have a time-limit of
less than a year to investigate human rights abuses in El
Salvador during the past 12 years of war. 

Acknowledging that this is a monumental and complex task, both
commissions are working round-the-clock employing several
human rights workers to meet the deadline.

But, how realistic is this time-limit? Would it be possible to
untangle all the wave of murders committed by the Death Squads
and troops and officers of the Armed Forces of El Salvador? 12
years is a long time. More than 80,000 people have been
killed. Would it be possible to do justice to the thousands of
Salvadorean people who lost their relatives at the hands of
the death squads? 

The following testimony, one of several hundred, is an example of
the type of human rights atrocities that were committed by the
counter-insurgency units of the Salvadorean army. These files
are kept by Tutela Legal del Arzobispado and other human
rights organisations in El Salvador and other countries.

TESTIMONIES OF EVENTS THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN PREVIOUS DATES
RECEIVED IN THE MONTH OF MARCH (No.8), Report No.35, March
1985. p.x

SAN SALVADOR, IN THE OFFICE OF THE TUTELA LEGAL OF THE
ARZOBISPADO OF EL SALVADOR, at 09:35 hours of March 7, 1985,
APPEARS: Mrs..., who states being 19 years old, in a de-facto
marriage, of domestic duties, from the Canton Cerros de San
Pedro, jurisdiction of San Esteban Catarina, Department of San
Vicente, who does not identify herself with her I.D. for
having lost it in the events that she is about to narrate and
WHO UNDER SWEAR OF ALLEGIANCE PROMISED TO TELL THE TRUTH AND
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT SHE IS BEING INTERROGATED
STATE THE FOLLOWING: "That on January 4, 1985 the Armed Forces
launched an operative [invasion] and a heavy bombing like the
ones we have seen before this, because they sent two new
planes those C-47 and they caused great havoc in all the zone
around Campana hill and they also got in by land transported
by helicopters, and on this occasion they found a boy named
OSCAR AYALA, he was 16 years old, single, rural worker, from
the Canton las Ayalitas, jurisdiction of San Esteban Catarina,
whom they found when he was hiding the food away because he
had just realised that the [army] operative had just began and
then the soldiers grabbed him, interrogated him first and then
hung him up on a tree and were chopping him off alive bit by
bit with the knives they carry, alive they cut his pieces of
meat and then they shot him on the leg and they burnt him
alive until he died. Later on they [the soldiers] kept
advancing and the operative lasted seven days and they went on
burning houses and other houses they hit with sticks, other
houses's rooftops were destroyed, they burnt the food the dead
boy was hiding and they poured acid on it so as to make it
useless for eating, they destroyed a lot of food.  That on
January 31, 1985, there was another operative and they bombed
with A-37 aircraft, two helicopters and the Army attacked by
haciendita, Titiguapa, Santa Elena, El Chilillo, San Jose and
they were going to the villages of Ayalita, Los Mangos,
Amatitlan Arriba, La Barrera, and Cerros de San Pedro and as
that's where the civilian population was they wanted to trap
them all so as to carry out a big massacre and then they first
came to Ayalita and killed nine people, amongst whom I knew
JUANA ROSALES, who was my grand-mother, 43 years old, domestic
duties, and from Ayalita, San Esteban Catarina, they [the
soldiers] shot her and when they saw she didn't die they cut
her head off; also my auntie MELIDA RIVAS, 25 years old,
married, from Ayalita, they cut her shoulder and blew her
chest off and they finished her off by cutting her to pieces
with a machete; another auntie of mine named HAYDEE AMAYA, who
was 23 years old, from Canton Chilillo, San Esteban Catarina,
she was 9 months pregnant and the soldiers cut her neck with a
machete and opened up her stomach and pulled the child she was
having [the foetus] out, and she left five orphaned children
who hid underneath a bed and that's why they didn't kill them,
they also killed her husband SEBASTIAN RIVAS, 45 years old,
peasant, from Ayalita, they also killed him with machetes,
another cousing called JUAN MORENO, 23 yearss old, married,
rural worker, from Ayalita, they shot him twice in the head
and they also shot his wife four times but she didn't die and
the soldiers left her lying there thinking she was already
dead but she survived and is alive; and also Juan Moreno's
mother ANTONIA RIVAS, 50 years old, of domestic duties from
Ayalita, and they also killed ROSA CANDIDA MORENO, 13 years
old, she was Juan's sister and daughter of Antonia Rivas, this
girl was raped in between 75 soldiers and, after they'd done
it, they let her go walking and as she was walking all dizzy
then the soldiers shot her in the head and she died on the
spot. After they [the soldiers] left, we went to pick them up
[the victims] and we saw how they had all been killed and we
buried them on the spot, we dug a single grave and we put the
nine bodies in there as the operative lasted for two days.
They [the Army] have been launching operatives every fifteen
days and they always come to kill people because if they don't
kill people with bullets the planes kill with the bombs they
drop, and on January 15, 1985, a plane Fouga dropped two bombs
and they fell on a tatu and there was hiding in there MARTINA
N. who died, senora of 55 years old from Borrera, San Esteban
Catarina, and also there died ROBERTO VALLADARES, 20 years
old, rural worker, from Ayalita, this happened in Cerros de
San Pedro. As in the month of January, 1982, an uncle named
RICARDO FLORES, 35 years old, married, from Ayalita and they
[the soldiers] demanded that he named people [suspected of
being guerrillas] and that he should turn in the weapons and
they only kept saying things like this and then they hanged
him up [he died this way] and when we were looking for him we
found him hanged up with his tongue out, the same day they
killed CRISTOBAL PALACIOS, who was an uncle of mine, 25 years
old, married, from Ayalita, they killed him and shot him in
the head and blew up his whole face off and he was
unrecognisable and we recognised him because of the clothing
he wore on and he was killed in the hill of Tulinga in
Ayalita, San Esteban Catarina.  That they carry out operatives
every fifteen days and sometimes every eight days and they
bomb every five or ten days. THAT THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO STATE
FOR BEING ALL THE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH FOR I KNOW
FROM SEEING AND EARING IN FAITH OF WHICH I LEAVE MY FINGER
PRINTS FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO SIGN.

(Digital finger prints)



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