DP
>2 Ex-Salvador Generals Cleared by U.S. Jury in Nuns' Deaths
>http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/04/world/04SALV.html
>
>November 4, 2000
>
>By DAVID GONZALEZ
>
>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 3 A federal jury today cleared two
>retired Salvadoran generals of responsibility in the abduction,
>rape and murder of four American churchwomen by members of El
>Salvador's National Guard in 1980. The jury said the two men could
>not have done anything more to prevent the crime.
>
> The unanimous verdict shocked friends and relatives of the women,
>who had sat through the trial and relived their anguish while
>listening to gruesome accounts of the violence and chaos that swept
>through El Salvador in its 12-year civil war, which claimed 75,000
>lives before it ended in 1992.
>
> After what jurors described as emotional deliberations in an
>almost churchlike atmosphere, they found that the generals had done
>what they could to curb abuses, given the tumult of the era and a
>lack of resources to conduct effective investigations or to
>discipline their troops.
>
> "A general can issue orders," a juror, Robert Morrow, said after
>the verdict. "Say you have 400,000 refugees and you issue an order
>to feed them. You go to the supply, and there is no food. Are you
>responsible for them starving because of this? I don't think they
>could have done anything that could have saved their lives. If they
>could have done something, either of them, they would have."
>
> In 1984, five enlisted members of the guard were convicted in El
>Salvador and sentenced to 30 years in jail for the murders. Later,
>four of the men said they had acted on superiors' orders.
>
> Neither retired general Jos Guillermo GarcÌa, 67, who was
>defense minister, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, 62, who was
>director of the National Guard was in the courtroom. Both retired
>to Florida and have permanent resident status here.
>
> The verdict, rendered after little more than a full day of
>deliberation, hinged on the legal doctrine of command
>responsibility and whether the men knew or should have known that
>troops under their command had been involved in previous abuses and
>failed to take steps to rein them in.
>
> "The instructions we received were explicit in that we had to
>determine if these two defendants had effective control over their
>troops," the foreman of the 10-member jury, Bruce Schnirel, said.
>"We're talking about control, enough to control what they did as it
>was presented to us as a chaotic time and conflict. There was no
>way we could determine these two guys could control all events
>happening with their troops."
>
> The women, two Maryknoll nuns, Maura Clarke and Ita C. Ford; an
>Ursuline nun, Dorothy Kazel; and a lay missionary, Jean Donovan,
>were abducted shortly after they had left El Salvador International
>Airport in Comalapa for San Salvador on Dec. 2, 1980. Their
>relatives filed a $100 million suit under the Torture Victim
>Protection Act of 1992. That law lets victims or their survivors
>seek punitive and compensatory damages from people who committed
>human rights abuses.
>
> "It's a great law," the generals' lawyer, Kurt Klaus Jr., said. "I
>hope it achieves what it is designed to do, which is to keep these
>political acts of extrajudicial killings from happening. It's meant
>to hold people responsible for those acts, not those who were not
>responsible."
>
> Ken Hurwitz, a consultant to the Lawyers Committee for Human
>Rights, which has represented the women's families, said the
>generals did have control over their troops. He noted that when
>Vice President George Bush went to El Salvador in 1983 to urge the
>military to take steps against the death squads that were operating
>under cover in the war, some changes were made.
>
> "It stopped," Mr. Hurwitz said of the killings. "They had control.
>There is nothing to say they could not have done so."
>
> A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Robert Kerrigan, said he would move
>for a new trial on the ground that the jury had been misled by the
>defense lawyer's insistence that the generals could not have
>predicted the slayings. Mr. Kerrigan said the doctrine of command
>responsibility required only proof that a pattern of abuse existed
>that created a climate that led to the murders.
>
> "This is the first time a U.S. jury has addressed foreign command
>responsibility," Mr. Kerrigan said. "That concept is not natural to
>our way of thinking."
>
> The victims' relatives were disappointed. They consoled one
>another outside the courtroom. They said the case had been a
>victory of sorts, because they were not only able to have the
>generals appear in court, but they also had evidence introduced
>that cast light on American foreign policy.
>
> "Ita's not going to come back," said Bill Ford, her brother. "But
>this case has been valuable in pointing out what happened in El
>Salvador, in pointing out the moral mistakes of U.S. policy during
>the 1980's, when we gave aid to a murder machine because it was
>anti-Communist."
>
> In the trial, the plaintiffs' lawyers introduced voluminous
>reports, declassified State Department memorandums and United
>States Embassy cables that indicated that American officials had
>told the generals several times that National Guard troops were
>involved in human rights abuses, but that the generals had seemed
>resistant to following up. An embassy cable noted that the National
>Guard had been implicated in the murders of six opposition figures
>days before the women's deaths and that the murders heralded a new
>era of extremism in the military.
>
> A report by the United Nations-led Truth Commission, which
>investigated the war, said the generals had obstructed inquiries
>into the murders. The report said a military investigator whom
>General GarcÌa had appointed to look into the women's case had
>transferred the implicated troops to a new unit and had them switch
>rifles with other soldiers.
>
> The generals admitted in the trial that they were aware of abuses
>in the military and that some soldiers were involved in the death
>squads. Mr. Vides Casanova said at one point that although he knew
>of torture cells that soldiers used, no charges were ever brought
>against them.
>
> They generals said that they thought the military was out of
>control when they took command after a coup in 1979, but that they
>tried to send the message that the killing of civilians was not
>permissible. They said that when they tried to follow up on reports
>of killings, their subordinates repeatedly told them the incidents
>were military confrontations with armed groups.
>
> The generals also said they were caught up in a life-or-death
>struggle against leftist insurgents. Although they lamented the
>women's deaths, they also said their efforts had helped end the war
>and usher in a more democratic system.
>
> "They were dedicated to enforcing human rights and bringing
>democracy to the country," Mr. Klaus said. "They were part of the
>solution, not part of the problem."
>
> The women's relatives and their lawyers said they hoped that the
>new evidence would help another suit filed against the former
>generals by several survivors of torture. That case is to be heard
>here in the spring.
>
> "The families will continue to tell the truth and seek justice for
>those who loved and died for the poor," Mary Anne Ford, Ita Ford's
>sister- in-law, said. "In one of Ita's letters to us, she talked
>about how she faced roadblocks and obstacles in El Salvador, but
>she kept on working. This is a roadblock. It is not
>insurmountable."
>
>
>
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