William Brownfield ( and many others) the former political officer (CIA) at
the US embassy should be on that list for war crimes, not just for El
Salvador but what he did in Venezuela also.

Cort

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/salvadoran-military-list-of-victims-a-smoking-gun/

Salvadoran Military List of Victims a Smoking Gun
By Edgardo Ayal <http://www.ipsnews.net/author/edgardo-ayala/>a
[image: Carlos Santos and Fabricio Santín alongside a papier-mâché
sculpture representing a torture victim of the security forces during El
Salvador’s civil war. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS]

Carlos Santos and Fabricio Santín alongside a papier-mâché sculpture
representing a torture victim of the security forces during El Salvador’s
civil war. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

SAN SALVADOR, Jun 20 2013 (IPS) - The Salvadoran army kept a detailed list
of names and photographs of leftists detained or sought during El
Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war. The report is the first official military
document proving the armed forces’ direct involvement in forced
disappearances and other abuses.

Activists told IPS that, besides serving as evidence of human rights
crimes, the document confirms the links between the army and the death
squads, since a number of the detainees on the list were later forcibly
disappeared by the far-right paramilitaries.

The title on the cover of the list of 1,975 people described as “terrorist
criminals” is “Yellow Book”. It was apparently written by the joint chiefs
of staff of the armed forces, whose initials EMCFA – for Estado Mayor
Conjunto de la Fuerza Armada – can be seen clearly printed on each of its
270 pages.

“The book proves that all of our denunciations were true – that the
security forces and army were behind the forced disappearances, operating
as death squads,” Guadalupe Mejía, the president of CODEFAM, an association
of families of victims of human rights violations, told IPS.
Related IPS Articles

   - Salvadoran Civil War Survivors Demand Restorative
Justice<http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/03/salvadoran-civil-war-survivors-demand-restorative-justice/>
   - Former Combatants in El Salvador Demand a Place in
Society<http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/02/former-combatants-in-el-salvador-demand-a-place-in-society/>
   - Torture Victims in El Salvador Speak
Out<http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/torture-victims-in-el-salvador-speak-out/>
   - RIGHTS-EL SALVADOR: Amnesty a ‘Monument to Impunity’ Say
Activists<http://www.ipsnews.net/2007/10/rights-el-salvador-amnesty-a-lsquomonument-to-impunityrsquo-say-activists/>
   - RIGHTS-EL SALVADOR: Exhuming
Memory<http://www.ipsnews.net/2008/05/rights-el-salvador-exhuming-memory/>

The Yellow Book was found three years ago, hidden in a cranny in a house in
San Salvador by someone who was moving house. IPS and the Mexican daily La
Jornada have a copy of the report.

Carlos Santos, president of the Salvadoran Association of Torture Survivors
(ASST), said the fact that some 250 victims of forced disappearance, whose
cases were documented by the United Nations truth commission, are on the
list confirms that at some point they were detained by the military or
police.

“This provides new evidence that it was members of the army who seized the
victims of forced disappearance. Everyone knew it was them, but the
evidence (from the military) was lacking,” Santos told IPS.

The report, marked “confidential”, is dated July 1987. But it has names of
people who were detained, killed or “disappeared” in the late 1970s and
even earlier, which indicates that the date refers to the last time it was
updated.

Death squads and the security forces are blamed for the majority of the
75,000 killings and 8,000 forced disappearances committed during the
12-year armed conflict, which ended when a peace agreement was signed by
the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the right-wing
government of Alfredo
Cristiani<http://www.ipsnews.net/2008/11/rights-el-salvador-ex-president-cristiani-faces-charges-in-spain/>
.

Many of the photos in the report were clearly taken in military or police
installations, with the dishevelled and sometimes bruised detainees
standing against a wall with an anguished look on their faces.

Other photos were apparently taken from the detainees’ identity documents,
obtained by military intelligence from municipal civil registries. Yet
others are surveillance photos taken by cameras with zoom.

Some of the people in the report were senior FMLN leaders, listed as “most
wanted”. Others were leftwing intellectuals, trade unionists, rural
community leaders and social activists, considered “subversives” during El
Salvador’s civil war.

“The book is evidence that these people were captured by the security
forces and then tortured,” Miguel Montenegro, director of the NGO Human
Rights Commission of El Salvador, told IPS. “Files on them were compiled,
and they were later ‘disappeared’ – in other words, killed.”

Santos said “after they were captured, their photos were taken to put in
the file before they were killed; that means the document is clear evidence
of the summary executions committed by the army, operating as death squads.”

One of the names in the Yellow Book is that of Abel Enrique Orellana, a
25-year-old medical student who is on CODEFAM’s list of victims of forced
disappearance. He was seized on Aug. 18, 1981 by the National Guard.

Many other names are found in both the army report and on the lists kept by
CODEFAM and other human rights groups, such as Ana Elizabeth Alvarado
García, who disappeared in June 1982; Julio César Ávalos Hernández, in
November 1982; and Felipe Oswaldo Ayala Portillo, in July 1983.

But some of the people on the list survived, like Cunegunda Peña, who is
now 77 years old. She spent six months in a dark cell after she was seized
Mar. 9, 1977 by members of the National Guard and the National Police –
both of which were
dissolved<http://www.ipsnews.net/2008/02/rights-el-salvador-police-nostalgic-for-the-past/>,
along with the Treasury Police, under the 1992 peace deal because of their
involvement in human rights abuses.

The agents, Peña told IPS, burst into her house that day in search of her
three sons, who belonged to the Popular Liberation Forces, one of the five
guerrilla groups making up the FMLN, which is now the governing political
party of President Mauricio Funes.

“Since you’re sons aren’t here, we’ll take you,” the police told Peña. She
was photographed after they took her to the National Police station, and
her photo appears in the Yellow Book. She was released after six months.

“I heard screaming when I was in prison, as if they were dismembering
people,” she said. One of her sons, Manuel Martínez Peña, has been missing
since June 1980, and is presumed dead.

The activists who spoke to IPS complained that the amnesty
<http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/07/rights-el-salvador-rumours-of-amnesty-repeal-cause-panic/>signed
in 1993, a year after the peace agreement was reached, protects human
rights violators from being brought to justice.

Only courts in other countries have tried former Salvadoran military chiefs
in connection with crimes against humanity.

Retired generals Eugenio Vides Casanova and José Guillermo García, who both
served as defence ministers in the 1980s, were found
guilty<http://www.ipsnews.net/2002/07/rights-el-salvador-generals-lose-florida-torture-case/>
in
2002 by a U.S. court for the torture of three civilians by units under
their command. The court ordered the two retired officers to pay 54.6
million dollars in damages to the civilians.

The current defence minister, General José Atilio Benítez, did not respond
to multiple calls by IPS to ask whether the report could have come from any
office under the Defence Ministry.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com 
    laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Reply via email to