Salvadoran generals battle civil suit brought
by torture victims
By MARIANNE ARMSHAW
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Two former Salvadoran generals who led their countrys
military during a bloody civil war are back in federal court, charged in a
civil suit with crimes against humanity for allowing subordinates to kidnap,
rape and torture unarmed civilians.
Unlike a similar proceeding that found them not liable in October
2000, the generals face not the families of four murdered American
missionaries, but three live witnesses who say they endured horrific tortures
but survived to tell their stories.
The Salvadoran-born plaintiffs sued the retired generals under
U.S. and international laws allowing torture victims to seek redress in U.S.
courts from those who bear command responsibility for the criminal
acts of subordinates.
The plaintiffs, Dr. Juan Romagoza, Neris Gonzales and Carlos
Mauricio, are longtime residents of the United States. They seek unspecified
damages for torture they allege at the hands of Salvadoran military forces
during a 12-year civil war that ended in 1992, leaving 75,000 dead -- most of
them unarmed civilians, according to the United Nations and international human
rights organizations.
The jury must decide whether Gen. José Guillermo
García and Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova bear ultimate
responsibility for those actions.
García served as minister of defense from 1979 to 1983.
Vides-Casanova served under him as head of the National Guard, an internal
security force, then succeeded García as head of the military. Both men
retired to Florida in 1989.
In October 2000, a federal jury found them not responsible for the
1980 torture, rape and murder of four Roman Catholic missionaries, all
Americans: Maryknoll Srs. Ita Ford, and Maura Clark, Ursuline Sr. Dorothy Kazel
and lay volunteer Jean Donovan (NCR, Oct. 20-Nov. 17, 2000). That
decision was upheld on appeal.
The generals have repeatedly denied responsibility, claiming they
never had proof that troops were torturing and murdering civilians. They say
the chaos of the war prevented them from controlling rogue troops and deny
receiving or knowing of numerous reports that subordinates executed a
systematic reign of terror targeting unarmed civilians -- reports
delivered to them by U.S. government representatives and international human
rights organizations.
These guys were part of the reform movement, defense
attorney Kurt Klaus said.
Jurors stopped scribbling in their notebooks as Romagoza described
24 days of torture and interrogation at National Guard headquarters. Twice, he
told the jury, Vides Casanova saw him in his naked, emaciated and severely
beaten state. Once, the general visited his torture chamber, Romagoza said.
Asked by Green if he recognized the defendant, Romagoza pointed at
Vides Casanova, who sat flanked by García and his attorney.
That man, he said in Spanish. The one in the
middle.
The U.S. government apparently had few doubts the generals
condoned death squads and torture. Robert White, who served as U.S. ambassador
to El Salvador under President Jimmy Carter, repeatedly warned the generals
they risked losing U.S support if abuses didnt stop.
White testified for nearly four hours June 25, using declassified
government cables to recall El Salvadors turbulent war years. Billions in
U.S. military aid flowed into the country to help fight an armed leftist
insurgency. Instead, White testified, the generals presided over a gross
and consistent pattern of human rights violations.
Our whole policy was based on the belief that they had
command responsibility and could exercise it, White testified. It
was our analysis that there was a gross and consistent pattern of human rights
violations.
Asked if the generals knew of the abuses, White answered:
They knew. There was no way they could not have known.
The trial is expected to run through mid-July.
Marianne Armshaw is a writer and photographer living in South
Florida.
National Catholic Reporter, July 5,
2002
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