THE GOVERNMENT, THE ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LAWYERS
http://luterano.blogspot.com/2007/11/government-archbishop-and-
lawyers.html

On April 13, 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(the"IACHR") issued its findings in an action brought against the
government of El Salvador for human rights violations. The government
was accused for its failure to bring to justice those who
orchestrated the execution of archbishop Oscar Romero in March 1980.
The lengthy decision is a damning look at a government which had no
intention of prosecuting anyone, and concludes:

In adopting the General Amnesty Law, the State has violated Article 2
of the American Convention. In addition, by applying it to [the
Romero] case, the State has violated the right to justice and its
duty to investigate, try, and make reparations, established in
Articles 1(1), 8(1), and 25 of the American Convention, to the
detriment of Monsignor Romero's next-of-kin, the members of the
religious community to which he belonged and Salvadoran society as a
whole.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the analysis and conclusions of this report, the IACHR
recommends to the Salvadoran State that it:

1. Undertake expeditiously a complete, impartial, and effective
judicial investigation to identify, try and punish all the direct
perpetrators and planners of the violations established in this
report, notwithstanding the amnesty that has been decreed.

2. Make reparations for all the consequences of the violations set
forth, including the payment of just compensation.

3. Adapt its internal legislation to the American Convention with a
view to nullifying the General Amnesty Law.

For the next seven years following this ruling, the government of El
Salvador did nothing to comply with the recommendations of the
commission. Tutela Legal, the Human Rights Office of the archdiocese
of San Salvador, then petitioned the IACHR to condemn the Salvadoran
government for its utter failure to comply with the prior ruling. The
hearing on that petition took place on October 10, 2007.

David Morales, a lawyer from Tutela Legal, took the lead in
presenting the case before the IACHR. In impassioned rhetoric he
recounted the role of Oscar Romero, his assassination, the links of
the assassins to Roberto D'Aubuisson, the founder of ARENA, and the
lack of any true judicial process before or after the 2000 IACHR
ruling.

When it was the government's turn to speak, there was a surprise. In
the weeks before the hearing, the government made a confidential
approach to the office of the current archbishop of San Salvador,
Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, to discuss resolution of the case. These
discussions were not disclosed to the Salvadoran public until the
October 10 hearing, when El Salvador's ambassador to the Organization
of American States declared that the fact that such discussions were
occurring was ample evidence of the government's good faith in
responding to the prior ruling in 2000. (The rest of the government's
presentation relied on arguments the IACHR had already rejected in
2000).

Disclosure of the discussions brought howls of protest from human
rights and civil society groups in El Salvador. On October 12, civil
society organizations sent an open letter to the archbishop, urging
him not to negotiate with the Salvadoran government over compliance
with the recommendations of the IACHR. In his subsequent weekly press
conferences, Sáenz Lacalle tried to defuse the situation stating that
the church was not negotiating over allowing the Salvadoran
government to avoid its obligations under the 2000 IACHR ruling, that
there had been no intention to hide the fact of the discussions from
the public, and that repeal of the 1993 Amnesty Law should be
considered.

David Morales, however, was fired from Tutela Legal by the office of
the archbishop. The church asserts that Morales was fired for
disloyalty and it is an internal matter which they will not discuss
with the press. Morales did not keep silent. He called a press
conference after his firing to declare that he was fired for not
keeping quiet about the failures of the Salvadoran government in the
Romero case in the October 10 hearing before the IACHR. From the
statement he released on October 24:

«Now I understand that the "loyalty" expected by the Archbishop of
San Salvador meant my silence before the Commission with regards to
the contempt [of the IACHR ruling] by the State. But such silence
would have been automatically converted into my largest act of
disloyalty to the truth, to the principals of the international law
of human rights, and to the humanitarian legacy of Monseñor Arturo
Rivera Damas and María Julia Hernández, and to the many other
distinguished works that they both constructed.

«My arbitrary firing constitutes a reprisal against Tutal Legal of
the archdiocese, whose historical, institutional position I sustained
in the hearing in Washington. I have been loyal and faithful as I
ought as to the persons and as to to the cause.»

For complete coverage in English and Spanish of these issues, there
is no better source than the San Romero group mailing list whose
archives can be read here.

There is also a story surrounding the other lead lawyer at the IACHR
hearing. In a very interesting post, lawyer-blogger Ixquic points out
that the lawyer for the government of El Salvador at the October 10
IACHR hearing, Carlos Méndez Flores, has an apparent connection to
Romero's killers. Ixquic shows that the business card of Méndez
Flores was found in the daily calendar of Alvaro Saravia, the one
person found liable in a US court for participating in Romero's
murder. An interesting question is why a mid-level officer in the
Salvadoran armed forces would have the card of a well-connected
lawyer in his date book. Méndez Flores went on to defend the armed
forces members accused of killing the 6 Jesuits in 1989. And in 2007
he is now found arguing to an international human rights tribunal
that the government of El Salvador has done justice in its handling
of the Romero case.