Two more ex-El Salvadorian military officers to face trial in '81 massacre

[Judi Lynn]

Forensic anthropologist Claudia Bernard, from Argentina, brushes dirt from human remains, in El Mozote, El Salvador, on Oct. 23, 1992. Two Salvadoran ex-military officers were notified on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019 that they will be prosecuted for their alleged participation in the El Mozote massacre, perpetrated by soldiers in 1981 and left an official record of 989 dead peasants over three days in December 1981.

MICHAEL STRAVATO/AP

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 23, 2019

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Two ex-military officers were notified Thursday that they will join more than a dozen others in being prosecuted for the 1981 El Mozote massacre, a particularly infamous moment from El Salvador's nation's civil war.

A judge in San Francisco Gotera, about 100 miles east of the capital, summoned former Cols. Roberto Antonio Garay and José Antonio Rodríguez to inform them they will be tried on the charges of torture, forced disappearance and forced displacement.

Lawyers for the two could not immediately be located for comment.

Nearly 1,000 rural dwellers were slain by soldiers in the El Mozote massacre over three December days.

Soldiers trained by the U.S. in counterinsurgency tactics entered the area looking for guerrillas but killed civilians. Many of the bodies were put inside a church that was then burned. In one mass grave, the remains of 136 children were found with an average age of 6.

More:
https://www.stripes.com/news/americas/two-more-ex-el-salvadorian-military-officers-to-face-trial-in-81-massacre-1.595547

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Time for a US Apology to El Salvador
Obama recently expressed regret for US support of Argentina’s “dirty war.” It’s time Washington did the same regarding our active backing of right-wing butchery in El Salvador.

By Raymond Bonner APRIL 15, 2016

Over the ages, the United States has routinely intervened in Latin America, overthrowing left-wing governments and propping up right-wing dictators. President Obama pressed a reset button of sorts last month when he traveled to Cuba and Argentina. Now it’s time for him to visit a Latin America country that is geographically smallest but where Washington’s footprint is large and the stain of intervention perhaps greatest—El Salvador.

In Argentina, on the 40th anniversary of a military coup that ushered in that country’s “dirty war,” President Obama said it was time for the United States to reflect on its policies during those “dark days.” In the name of fighting communism, the Argentine government hunted down, tortured, and killed suspected leftists—sometimes throwing their bodies out of helicopters into the sea. “We’ve been slow to speak out for human rights and that was the case here,” Obama said.

That failure to speak out looks benign in contrast to the active role Washington played in the “dirty war” in El Salvador in the 1980s, which pitted a right-wing government against Marxist guerrillas. The United States sent military advisers to help the Salvadoran military fight its dirty war, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid.

In Argentina, the security forces killed some 30,000 civilians. In El Salvador, more than 75,000 lost their lives during the civil war, which lasted from 1980 until the 1992 peace agreement. The guerrillas committed atrocities, but the United Nations Truth Commission, established as part of the accord, found that more than 85 percent of the killings, kidnappings, and torture had been the work of government forces, which included paramilitaries, death squads, and army units trained by the United States.

More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/time-for-a-us-apology-to-el-salvador/