Salvador archbishop: don't reopen murder cases
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By MICHAEL HUMPHREY
Published: November 18, 2008

Human rights activists both in El Salvador and the United States are
expressing deep concerns about the archbishop of San Salvador's
opposition to reopening one of the most notorious murder cases during
the Central American country's 1980s civil war.

The Associated Press reported Nov. 17 that Archbishop Fernando Sáenz
Lacalle spoke out against a criminal complaint filed last week in the
Spanish High Court naming 14 members of the Salvadoran military and
the nation's president, accused of masterminding and covering up the
assassination of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-
year-old daughter at a San Salvador Jesuit university in November
1989. Lacalle was quoted, "El Salvador's affairs should be resolved
in El Salvador."

Five of the six priests killed in the massacre were Spanish citizens.

"The murders at the Central American University have never been
seriously investigated by the Salvadoran government," wrote Jesuit
Fr. Dean Brackley, professor of theology at Central American
University in an e-mail exchange with NCR. "Those who ordered the
murders have never been accused or tried for their crime. That is why
the relatives of the Jesuits in Spain and the two NGOs
[nongovernmental organizations] have pursued the case there. All
efforts to do so in El Salvador have been fruitless."

In 1991, two Salvadoran Army officers on the scene in the early
morning raid of the Jesuits' living quarters were found guilty of
murder, but were later released as part of a 1993 amnesty law that
helped officially end the civil war.

The criminal complaint, filed by human rights lawyers from Spain and
the United States, named former Salvadoran President Alfredo
Cristiani Burkard, accusing him of covering for the intellectual
architects of the crime, which was internationally condemned. Lacalle
said he was sure Cristiani was not involved.

"If Cristiani was not directly involved, nothing will come of those
charges," said Vicki Gass, senior associate for Rights and
Development at the Washington Office on Latin America. "But if the
murders don't get resolved at the highest levels of responsibilities,
there will be no justice in El Salvador."

There has been some discrepancy in media reports about how the
Salvadoran Jesuits feel about the recent action in Spain. The AP
reported that the order had decided not to participate in the
proceedings, but the statement by Jesuit Fr. José María Tojeira,
university rector, is more nuanced than that.

"We respect any other initiative that may come from the family
members of the Jesuits," Tojeira stated (translation by Irene Hodgson
of Xavier University in Cincinnati), "but will not participate in
those judicial activities that go beyond the framework of the
Salvadoran legal system or international obligations deriving from
pacts or treaties signed by El Salvador."

The statement went on to say: "Our constant request, once the trial
of the material authors was over [in 1991], was that there be a trial
of the intellectual authors in El Salvador. … If the trial of the
intellectual authors had occurred in El Salvador, it would have been
easier to continue the process of truth, justice and pardon that we
were asking for from the beginning. In a certain sense, the opening
of processes in other countries is in part the result of the
opposition to providing adequate internal justice for this case."

The statement goes on to emphasize that justice for this crime is
still a high priority for the Jesuits. They point to the Inter-
American Human Rights Commission's findings in the late 1990s, which
required El Salvador to carry out a serious investigation of the
massacre, align its 1993 amnesty law with international human rights
laws (human rights violations cannot be amnestied) and to somehow
compensate the victims of the crime.

Lacalle's tenure as archbishop has been fairly unpredictable on the
human rights front. He has been seen by some as a defender of ARENA
party, which ruled during the war, a time of widespread human rights
abuses by the military and paramilitary forces. His defense of
Cristiani will deepen that notion. He was criticized for accepting an
honorary brigadier general designation from the Salvadoran armed
forces after he became archbishop and for not strongly advocating for
a vigorous investigation of the massacre.

On the other hand, Lacalle was widely praised by activists last year
for leading efforts to oppose mining proposals by U.S. and Canadian
companies that many believe would cause environmental and health
disasters, especially for the poor. He was also strongly praised for
his mobilization of international aid after two deadly earthquakes in
2000 and 2001.

But his latest statement will reaffirm many critics' notion that
Lacalle is entrenched with the country's ruling class and thus is
undermining the work of his most famous predecessor, Archbishop Oscar
Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 after speaking strongly for the
rights of the country's poor and voiceless.

"The (Salvadoran Catholic) church was polarized then and it's still
polarized," said Jose Artiga, executive director of SHARE, a
Salvadoran advocacy organization based in San Francisco. "There's
only one way to stop that. True healing is through justice and
reconciliation, not by putting it under the rug and pretending it
didn't happen. It's easy to say don't reopen the wound, but this is
not only about justice toward the past but toward the future."

Artiga, like the Jesuits, said it's not punishment that is important.
Neither seeks jail time for the crimes.

"We're willing to forgive these guys," Ariga said, "but we need them
to accept that they did this crime and promise not to do it again."

(Michael Humphrey is a freelance writer living in Kansas City, Mo.)