The United Nations Truth Commission accurately titled its summary of criminal violence during El Salvador's 12-year war From Madness to Hope. The madness is documented in the 211-page report, wherein the commission outlines the results of exhaustive investigation into the more notorious war crimes committed there. The hope lies in the fact that there was such a commission and report--and that truth has been at long last revealed.
For the peace community within and outside El Salvador, the findings of the Truth Commission hold no surprises. Still, the prestige of the investigators, the extent of their search, and the dispassionate tone of the report make it a stunning verification of what we knew and loudly said was happening in El Salvador throughout the dreadful decade of the '80s.
That small country now has before it the excruciating task of dealing with the fratricidal events verified by the Truth Commission. That Roberto D'Aubuisson, the founder and one-time leader of El Salvador's governing party, ordered and paid for the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero; that the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran army "deliberately and systematically" killed more than 200 men, women, and children in the village of El Mozote; that members of the National Guard under orders from their superiors executed four North American churchwomen; that the state of El Salvador--through the actions of members of the armed forces and others--tolerated, promoted, and participated in death squads; that the commandant general of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) approved and adopted a policy of killing mayors who were considered to be working in opposition--these and so many more are the deep wounds that the Salvadoran populace at every level now has to bind up.
Standing squarely in the way of such a healing, restorative process is the self-serving amnesty law for war crimes committed by members of the Salvadoran government, military, right-wing death squads, and--to a lesser extent--the FMLN. President Alfredo Cristiani called for this amnesty before the ink was dry on the Truth Commission report, and a military-controlled congress in El Salvador rushed his suggestion into law. This affronts the U.N.-sponsored peace process and undermines efforts toward lasting reconciliation.
Although the commission blamed the military and death squads for most of the human rights abuses, the sanctions cause most damage to the former rebels because the best-known guerrilla leaders have been banned from running in next year's elections.
San Salvador's Catholic Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas said the task at hand is much like sacramental confession. What is required first is the admission of sin, then a sincere request for forgiveness and a genuine intention not to repeat the sin, and finally reparation for harm done. This is El Salvador's compelling obligation and opportunity if it is to move from a decade of madness to an era of hope.
NO LESS CLEAR is the challenge for the United States. Yet many here are already scurrying to cover our national sin in a revisionist rendering of history. Thomas Enders, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs from 1981 to 1983, said of our involvement in El Salvador: "There is one major conflict less to deal with in this war-ridden decade. That could not have happened had we not engaged." Engaged indeed. A careful reading of the Truth Commission report reveals the not-so-invisible hand of U.S. foreign policy on virtually every page.
The United States armed the military, trained its most infamous killers, continued to report favorably about the human rights conduct of successive governments there, and fueled the war long after it was clear that neither side could win. Worst of all U.S. officials may have participated in the perpetration of atrocities in El Salvador. And now they have the sheer gall to claim credit for democratic practices which that poor country has managed to initiate despite, not because of, U.S. imperialistic meddling.
What the United States needs, and will never allow, is a Truth Commission to investigate our country's complicity in the Salvadoran tragedy. From President Jimmy Carter's ignoring the plea of Archbishop Romero to discontinue funding for arms to the contention of Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig that the American churchwomen had run a roadblock and exchanged gunfire with Salvadorans; from the National Security Council consultant who found the death squads "an extremely effective tool...in combating terrorism and revolutionary challenges" to the disclaimer by George Bush's Assistant Secretary of State Bernard Aronson that the killing of the Salvadoran Jesuits was the work of the "violent Right"--it all adds up to one of the bleakest pages in American history.
If one person stands out as the principal apologist for this country's monstrous policy toward El Salvador, it is Elliott Abrams. Calling that policy a "fabulous achievement," Abrams seems unreconstructed and unrepentant for his days as--irony of ironies--head of human rights and humanitarian affairs at the State Department. His shop would be the best starting place for a Truth Commission directed at the United States.
The tragedy of 70,000 deaths in El Salvador--directly attributable in part to the U.S. role in fomenting the war--cries to heaven for confession and repentance. So too do current efforts to rewrite that history, making U.S. officials not the villains but, yes, the heroes of Salvador's tottering steps toward democracy. Above all we need in this country the kind of catharsis that the U.N. Truth Commission has brought to El Salvador if the United States is to end its longstanding role as the world's foremost exporter of reactionary military "solutions."
Joe Nangle OFM was outreach director of Sojourners when this article appeared.
'In League With Assassins'
The U.N. report provides evidence to counter years of deceit.
1982: There is no evidence to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians in the operations zone.
- Thomas Enders, Assistant Secretary of State, February 1, 1982; Testimony before the House Foreign Relations Committee
1993: It is fully proved that on the 11th of December 1980, units of the Atlacatl Battalion in a deliberate and systematic way killed a group of more than 200 men, women, and children in the village of El Mozote.
- Truth Commission report
1982: The government of El Salvador is making a concerted and significant effort to control gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.
- President Ronald Reagan, January 28, 1982; Certification of human rights compliance by the Salvadoran government
1993: The Salvadoran state failed to fulfill its obligation, stipulated in the international agreements on human rights, by which it was obliged to investigate this case [the 1980 murder of four American churchwomen], indict those who ordered and carried out the executions, and make compensation to the victims.
- Truth Commission report
1983: We don't know who the death squads are.
- Elliott Abrams, August 3, 1983; Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs
1993: There is complete evidence that ex-Major Roberto D'Aubuisson gave the order to assassinate the Archbishop [Romero] and gave precise instructions to his bodyguards acting as "death squads" to organize and supervise the carrying out of the execution. Ex-Major D'Aubuisson ordered the payment of 1,000 colones to Walter Antonio "Musa" Alvared, who together with the bearded assassin, received the payment in question.
- Truth Commission report
1985: I'm telling you that there were no significant--there were no massacres in El Salvador in 1984.
- Elliott Abrams, February 13, 1985; Nightline
1993: In a document from the month of September [1984], Socorro Juridico [the human rights office of the diocese of San Salvador] reports that in the first eight months of 1984 there were 1,965 civilian deaths charged to the army, the security forces, and the death squads.
- Truth Commission report
1988: The question for El Salvador is how to continue this remarkable democratic experiment.
- U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, November 1988
1993: The return of the practice of massive executions on the part of the Armed Forces has been observed....In addition, the death squads have increased threefold the number of victims over 1987, reaching an average of 8 victims per month.
- Truth Commission report
1989: I am sure that El Salvador's government was not involved [in the killing of the Jesuits].
- President George Bush, November 21, 1989
1993: There exists substantial proof that then-Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce on the night of November 15, 1989, in the presence of and with the consent of General Juan Rafael Bustillo, then-Colonel [now Deputy Defense Minister] Juan Orlando Zepeda, Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano, and Colonel Francisco Elena Fuentes, gave Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides the order to kill Father Ignacio Ellacuria and not leave behind witnesses. To this end he granted use of a unit of the Atlacatl Battalion which two days before had been sent to do a search of the priests' residence.
- Truth Commission report
1980: I ask you, if you truly want to defend human rights, prohibit the giving of aid to the Salvadoran government.
- Archbishop Oscar Romero, February 17, 1980; Letter to President Jimmy Carter
1989: Our failure to press for a negotiated solution puts us in league with assassins.
- Robert E. White, former ambassador to El Salvador, November 21, 1989
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