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WILLIAM WALKER AND THE JESUIT
MASSACRE COVER-UP
by John Flaherty and Jared Israel
Includes full text of 60 Minutes TV
exposé [Posted 22 March 2002]
=======================================
In coming days, officials from the
Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) are
scheduled to testify against Slobodan
Milosevic. The chief of the KVM was
one William Walker, the man who sold
the world the story of the Racak
so-called massacre, used to create a
climate to justify the bombing of
Yugoslavia in 1999.
We are preparing a piece which
examines Walker's role as Assistant
Under-Secretary of State for Central
American Affairs from 1985 to 1988,
including the Iran-Contra scandal,
Ambassador to El Salvador from 1988 to
1992 and UN administrator for Eastern
Slavonia from 1997 to 1998. While this
article is in preparation, we wished
to make available to you the transcript
of a Sixty Minutes program, posted
below. It aired in 1993. It exposed
William Walker's role in suppressing
the investigation into the infamous
death squad killings of Jesuits in El
Salvador and in deceiving, or trying
to deceive, the public about the
Salvadoran Army's role in this
terrible crime.
Walker's effectiveness in Yugoslavia
- especially his ability to "sell"
the Racak massacre - depended on his
credibility as an honest diplomat. A
public figure's credibility is - or should
be - based on the historical record.
Clearly, if the gangster Al Capone
tells us somebody is a crook, we're
going to take it with a grain of salt.
Given what he had done to Central
America it is therefore remarkable that
William Walker had any credibility at
all. It is especially remarkable that
two groups were silent when Walker
was made UN chief in Eastern Slavonia
and when he was lauded as an honest
broker - a humanitarian! - in Kosovo.
The two silent groups were: Leftists
and the Catholic Church.
When Bill Clinton tried to make
Walker Ambassador to Panama, in 1993,
the Catholic Church in Panama and local
political activists reacted loud and
fast. For example:
"The Jesuit Order of the Catholic
Church today rejected the designation
of William Walker as U.S. Ambassador to
Panama, based on his alleged complicity
in the November 1989 assassination of
five Jesuit priests in El Salvador....
"[Father] Valdes pointed out that
Walker was U.S. ambassador in El
Salvador when a U.S. trained battalion
murdered the five [should be six -ed.]
priests, as well as their housekeeper
and her daughter.
"'The Jesuit order at the time
denounced the complicity of the U.S.
Embassy (headed by Walker) in the case, for
concealing evidence, obstructing the
investigation, pressuring judges to
impede the trial process, and
terrorizing witnesses,' Valdes said."
- "PANAMA: JESUITS OPPOSE U.S.
AMBASSADOR DESIGNATE," Inter Press
Service June 28, 1993, Monday
And:
"Jesuit priest Fernando Guardia said,
also today, that Walker was 'a symbol
of the destruction of life' while he
was ambassador in El Salvador." -
"PANAMA: JESUITS, RIGHTS GROUPS
OPPOSE U.S. AMBASSADOR DESIGNATE,"
Inter Press Service, July 22, 1993
But when Clinton sent Walker to
Slovenia, nobody uttered a peep.
BACKGROUND ON THE JESUIT MURDERS
In case you're unfamiliar with what
happened in El Salvador, here's a very
brief rundown. El Salvador was torn
by what appeared to be civil war during
the 1980s. But it was an odd civil
war. The government side got billions
of dollars in US 'aid.' During the
decade, death squads run by the US-sponsored
Salvadoran Army killed literally
thousands of political opponents, trade
unionists, peasant leaders, outspoken
journalists, school teachers, ordinary
peasant farmers and townspeople who
happened to be in the wrong place or
from the wrong class and perhaps best
known to the world, Salvadoran and US
Catholic church activists and
officials, including the
assassination of
Archbishop Oscar Romero in March 1980.
It was while Walker was US Ambassador
that six Jesuit priests, their cook
and her daughter were brutally slain
by a Salvadoran Army death squad.
In the transcript below, a Salvadoran
officer comments that the murderers
would never have acted without
approval from top army officers. But
as we shall demonstrate in the article on
Walker that is in preparation, the
approval of top military officials
was not enough. The murdered men were
not communists. They were Catholic
"liberation theologists." And they
had power:
"Among those killed were the rector
of the Jesuit-run University of Central
America, Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, and
the vice rector, Rev. Ignacio
Martin-Baro. Both were leading
leftist intellectuals and prominent critics
of army human rights abuses and both
had been targets of death threats
broadcast in recent days on state
radio." --Boston Globe Nov. 17, 1989
Death threats broadcast on state radio!
The government military publicly
broadcast its intention of killing
these men days before the actual murders
took place.
It is inconceivable they would have
done so if they had the least fear
they would be slapped down by the US
command, which not only paid the Salvadoran
military's bills, but which also had
US 'advisers' throughout the military.
William Walker knew, and the those
who sent the killers knew he knew, and
most important of all, they knew he
would help them cover-up these crimes.
It's all in the transcript, below.
-- Jared Israel
THE JESUIT MURDERS
Transcript of 60 MINUTES * March 21, 1993
LESLEY STAHL: Following our story
last week about the massacre at El
Mozote, the United Nations this week
reported to its members what we had
reported, that despite United States
government denials at the time, 11
years ago soldiers of the Salvadoran
army--trained and armed by the United
States--wiped out the village of El
Mozote, killing entire families they
suspected of being guerrilla
sympathizers.
That United Nations report also
confirmed something Ed Bradley reported
three years ago; that officers high
up in the US-backed army, and not
left-wing guerrillas, had had a hand
in murdering six Jesuit priests they
suspected of being the brains behind
the guerrillas.
ED BRADLEY: Jesuit Priest Fermain
Scines was on the campus the night of
the murders and might well have been
killed with the others. He says it was
obvious from the beginning it was the
work of the Salvadoran army, not of
the guerrillas.
Father FERMAIN SCINES (Jesuit
Priest): There was soldiers here.
There was soldiers there. Was
soldiers...everybody saw them.
BRADLEY: And they didn't come in and
they were out in a few minutes?
Father SCINES: They came at about
12:00.
BRADLEY: And they were here for at
least two hours?
Father SCINES: And they were leaving
at 2:45 AM.
BRADLEY: Almost three hours?
Father SCINES: Almost three hours,
making tremendous noise. They were
smoking; they were talking; they were
walking. The ones who killed
them...after doing the job, they went
there...three meters from there and
he took a beer.
BRADLEY: Father Scines has spoken to
a number of witnesses.
Father SCINES: There is tremendous
evidence.
BRADLEY: But only one, the Jesuits'
housekeeper Lucia Serena, had the
courage to come forward with
eyewitness testimony linking the
army, not the
guerrillas, to the crime. From this
window, she could see five men in army
uniforms carrying rifles and wearing
military caps.
No doubt in your mind what you saw
that night?
Mrs. LUCIA SERENA (Cook): (Through
Interpreter) No doubt whatsoever, none.
BRADLEY: Lucia Serena did not
actually see the murders, but the
Jesuits fear
that the very fact that she could
place soldiers at the scene of the
crime puts her life in grave danger. So
they arranged to get Lucia and her
family out of the country.
William Walker is the US ambassador
to El Salvador.
Ambassador WILLIAM WALKER (US
Ambassador to El Salvador): Mrs. Serena was
taken to the United States to get her
out of what was an incredibly tense
and frightening situation here, where
she obviously feared for her safety;
to get her to a place of safety,
where she would be calm.
BRADLEY: But she says she was
anything but calm when questioned at
FBI headquarters in Miami, where for four
days, according to Lucia Serena, the
FBI asked her the same questions over
and over. She was also questioned by
Colonel Manuel Rivas, the Salvadoran
officer in charge of the murder
investigation.
Mrs. SERENA: He was very arrogant and
very harsh. Instead of concerning
himself with investigating the case,
he investigated us.
BRADLEY: She says they pressed her
about family members still living in
El Salvador.
Mrs. SERENA: How many brothers did I
have? What are their names? Where do
they live? It frightened me. Maybe
they'll kill my brothers.
BRADLEY: She says an FBI agent asked
her about one of the Jesuits who
hadn't been killed.
Mrs. SERENA: He opened the door, but
like this--BAM! Like, he slammed it.
He turned around and said, 'That
priest--is he a guerrilla or isn't
he?' I was very scared.
BRADLEY: So scared that after a few
days, she decided to tell her
interrogators she hadn't seen
anything at all.
These were not questions given to a
cooperative witness, these are questions
that are to go after a suspect.
Ambassador WALKER: Well, that's not
true. That is just not true. It might
be a perception that she received
because of her emotional state. Perfectly
understandable. They were trying to
determine from a person who said she
was at the scene and had heard and seen
things, how much she knew.
Father JOSEPH O'HARE (President,
Fordham University): I find it very
disturbing that not only the
Salvadoran military, but our own
embassy in San
Salvador seemed anxious to discredit
her testimony, which, as a matter of
fact, was confirmed by the Salvadoran
government itself as events developed.
BRADLEY: Father Joseph O'Hare,
president of Fordham University, and
Father Donald Monan, president of Boston
College, were recently in El Salvador
investigating the murder of their
brother Jesuits.
You say that Ambassador Walker
discredited her testimony. How did he
discredit her testimony?
Father DONALD MONAN (President,
Boston College): He announced in El
Salvador that her testimony was not credible.
Father O'HARE: That there were
inconsistencies in it.
BRADLEY: There were inconsistencies.
She changed her story.
Father O'HARE: Yeah, after several
days of intensive pressure in a--imagine.
Put yourself in the situation of a
simple woman in a foreign land, not
knowing the language, being
threatened with deportation back to
El Salvador, isolated from those who could be
supportive of her. I think that it's
quite understandable that she would change
her testimony under that kind of pressure.
Mrs. SERENA: I want to make one thing
very clear. I saw the men. I saw the men.
BRADLEY: Just how effective was the
American Embassy at getting to the
bottom of the Jesuit case? Six weeks
after the murders, an American major
said he was tipped off by a
Salvadoran army officer that a
high-ranking
colonel in the army of El Salvador
had admitted being involved in the
murder. The embassy turned right
around and not only gave the name of
the colonel to the Salvadoran high
command, it also told them who the
informant was.
Mr. SIGGEFRAIDO OCHELLO (Former
Colonel, Salvadoran Army): The American
officer put the informant in a very
difficult situation; so dangerous he
could have been killed.
BRADLEY: Former Colonel Siggefraido
Ochello was once a top commander in the
Salvadoran army. He's now a leader of
the ruling right wing Arena Party.
Mr. OCHELLO: If you burn somebody,
then other people who could provide
even more information clam up because
they'll be burned, too. A lot of them
say: I don't know anything. They just shut
up. What this American officer did
was to throw the informant into the
lion's den so they could tear him apart.
BRADLEY: No thought was given to
saying: Let's protect this guy's name
for the time being? Let's say here is the
information, we want to protect the
source of that.
Ambassador WALKER: Unlike the old
newspaper men who feel they'd rather
die than reveal the source, we're not in
that same game. We were talking with
the people who were trying to solve
the case, on whom a lot of pressure
was to solve the case.
Father MONAN: If we are ever going to
get to the people who authored the
crime, even though they didn't pull
the triggers, we're going to have to
have the informants come forward to
talk about what they know. And in this
case, the only two people we know who
came forward both came to the United
States and both suffered the
consequences of having provided their
information. That discouragement of
people to come forward with information,
I think, is fundamental to this case.
BRADLEY: The man the informant
fingered was Colonel Guillermo Benovides, the
head of the military academy, the
West Point of El Salvador. He was arrested
one week after they were given his
name by the Americans. Seven men
under his command were also arrested.
Ambassador WALKER: I would argue that
if, in fact, a colonel is proved to
be responsible for this and he is
punished to the full extent of the
law, that will be a signal to other colonels,
that will be a signal to other people
that this sort of behavior is not
going to be tolerated anymore in El
Salvador. And I think that's a step
forward.
Congressman GEORGE MILLER
(Representative, California): Not at
all. Not at all.
BRADLEY: California Congressman
George Miller is a member of a congressional
task force investigating the Jesuit
murders.
Congressman MILLER: This is an effort
to sort of keep throwing people off
the back of the truck to see whether
you can get the posse to quit
pursuing you.
Ambassador WALKER: I have seen no
indication that President Christiani,
the people that are investigating this,
the people who are pushing to solve the
mystery are hesitant to go to any
level of the government, to any level
of the armed forces. They have gone so
far to a colonel. As we talked about
earlier, this is historic.
Congressman MILLER: What does the
ambassador want us to do, give the system
a medal? This is a system that we've
poured $ 5 billion into that just
slaughtered and murdered people with
impunity. And now we're supposed to
shout: Hallelujah, they got a colonel?
BRADLEY: They may not even have that.
It seems that the evidence against
Colonel Benevides--testimony from
three lieutenants that he ordered the
Jesuit murders--can't be used in
court because it comes from
co-conspirators. President Christiani
admitted that it's doubtful Benevides
can be convicted. Nonetheless,
Ambassador Walker says he believes
the investigation has gone well.
Ambassador WALKER: Even in the United
States, sensational crimes are not
usually solved in a day or two. It
takes time. It takes hard police work. I
am saying all the indications that we
have are that the people responsible
for solving the crime have been
working very diligently, very
professionally and have, in fact, solved it.
BRADLEY: They've done ballistics
tests. They've done fingerprints.
They have confessions. They've identified the
killers. Doesn't that satisfy you?
Father O'HARE: The real issue is not
whether these enlisted men who did
the shooting are identified and
convicted, but whether those who
instructed them and made the decision to give the
orders--that is where the true guilt
lies, I think.
BRADLEY: The Jesuits believe the
decision to kill the priests goes much
higher than Benevides. So does former
Colonel Ochello.
Is it conceivable that Colonel
Benevides decided on his own to murder the
Jesuits?
Mr. OCHELLO: No, I don't think so.
Knowing him, he's a man who could
never take or even conceive of making a
move as big as assassinating the
Jesuits. Benevides acted under orders. He
didn't act alone.
BRADLEY: Some in the army have said
that Benevides misunderstood an order
and perhaps broke under the pressure.
Isn't that possible?
Mr. OCHELLO: Definitely not. I think
this was all planned beforehand.
BRADLEY: You are saying that you
don't believe that Colonel Benevides
acted alone, correct?
Mr. OCHELLO: That's correct.
BRADLEY: He had help from other
senior officers in the Salvadoran
military?
Mr. OCHELLO: That's correct.
BRADLEY: And they planned the murder
of the Jesuits?
Mr. OCHELLO: I believe, yes.
BRADLEY: Remember, few people know
more about the inner workings of the
Salvadoran army than former Colonel
Ochello, who was regarded as one of
the army's top field commanders. Why was
the military after the Jesuits? Many
army commanders believed for years
the Jesuits were the brains behind
the guerrillas. They denied that. The
murdered Jesuits said all they wanted
was social justice for the people of El
Salvador. One of those Jesuits, Father
Ignacio Martin Barro, spoke with CBS
News several months before he was killed.
Father IGNACIO MARTIN BARRO
(Assassinated Jesuit): Listen, the
problem of this country is not the problem of
communism or capitalism. The problems
of this country are problems of very
basic wealth distribution, of very
basic needs. But, when, in this country,
you ask for the satisfaction of those
needs, you become a subversive.
BRADLEY: Father Martin Barro and the
five other Jesuits were murdered
during the guerrilla offensive in San
Salvador last November. At the height
of the offensive, several hours before the
Jesuits were shot, the top commanders
met in military headquarters. Colonel
Ochello wasn't at that meeting, but he
believes he knows what happened next.
Mr. OCHELLO: A group of commanders
stayed behind. It seems that each was
responsible for a zone in San
Salvador. They gave an order to kill
leftists, just as Colonel Benevides did. I'll
say it again: Benevides obeyed. It
wasn't his decision.
BRADLEY: And yet, the Salvadoran
officer in charge of the investigation,
Colonel Rivas, is no longer actively
investigating the case. Publicly at
least, the American Embassy is not
complaining, even though top commanders
who could have ordered Benevides to
kill the Jesuits have never been
investigated. For instance, there's
Colonel Juan Orlandos Sapedas, the
number two man in the army of El
Salvador. Just five months before the
murder of the Jesuits, according to a
State Department document, Sapedas
complained that the Jesuits at the
Catholic university were planning
guerrilla strategy. According to that
same State Department document,
Sapedas probably was one of the
officers to whom Benevides reported.
We were not permitted to interview
Colonel Sapedas. Instead we spoke with
Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce, the army
chief of staff.
Sapedas has not been questioned. He
is on the record as saying they're
planning guerrilla strategy. Doesn't
it make sense to question him
formally, to submit him to a polygraph?
Colonel RENE EMILIO PONCE (Chief Of
Staff, Salvadoran Army): That's not for
the military to decide. That's in the
hands of the judicial system.
BRADLEY: I know you don't make the
decisions. Do you have an opinion?
Colonel PONCE: My personal opinion is
that here in this country, there have
been many opinions about the role of
the Jesuits. You've got to take into
account all of the people who've said
something against the Jesuits, not
just Colonel Sapedas.
BRADLEY: It stunned us to find out
that the American Embassy had given
Colonel Ponce an audiotape of our
interview with Ambassador Walker to help
him prepare for us. So Ponce knew the
questions we were likely to ask. Is
the US embassy in cahoots with the
army of El Salvador? Fathers Monan and
O'Hare believe it is. And that the
embassy could have forced the Salvadorans
to investigate officers like Sapedas
and hasn't done so.
Ambassador WALKER: From the first
moment we knew of the Jesuits' deaths,
which was about 7:00 or 8:00 AM on
the day they were killed, this embassy
has been very, very involved in the
investigation, in trying to make sure
that all T's were crossed, dots put
above I's to make sure the government
did everything it could because we
recognized very early on that this
was a very important case.
BRADLEY: Why are you skeptical? I
mean, the investigation has only been
going on for five months.
Father O'HARE: Yeah, but the
investigation of Archbishop Romero's
been going on for 10 years. And we haven't--at
the time that that crime was committed,
the world was shocked. When four
American women were killed in December
1980, American military aid was
stopped for a brief time until we
were assured that, once again, human
rights were going to be respected. So
with that history, how can one have
confidence today that the system, as
encouraged or not encouraged by the
United States government, is going to
deliver justice in this case.
BRADLEY: Why would the American
embassy--why would our government not
do everything possible to get to the
bottom of the murder of the Jesuits?
Congressman MILLER: Because they'd
have to turn in their own client. The
client is the Salvadoran government
and the Salvadoran military. And many
of these questions are better left
unanswered.
Father O'HARE: I'd go right to the
high command of the Salvadoran
military, and if that's the case, the US
investment of the past 10 or 12 years
has been revealed as futile.
BRADLEY: During those 10 or 12 years
about 70,000 people were killed in El
Salvador, most of them unarmed
civilians. According to human rights
organizations, most of that killing
was done by the armed forces of El
Salvador, yet so far, not one
military officer has been convicted
of a human rights crime.
Colonel BARRO: There is--How you
say?--there is an environment of the
possibility of being killed any
moment of the day and the possibility
of being involved in a violent clash
every moment. And you have to count
on that.
STAHL: Just last Monday, the United
Nation Truth Commission found that the
order to kill the Jesuits came from
Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce, the army
chief of staff, the man who came to
the interview armed with the audio tape
of our interview with the American
ambassador.
The Truth Commission also concluded
that the Salvadoran officers who were
investigating the crime--the ones
described by then US Ambassador
Walker as
diligent professionals--were actually
part of the coverup.
(C) Sixty Minutes 1993 * Posted for
Fair Use Only
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Further Reading:
1) On the Kosovo Verification Mission
see:
* 'The Cat is Out of the Bag,' at
http://www.tenc.net/news/ciaaided.htm
and 'NATO SPIES CONFESS,' reprinted
from the Swiss journal, La Liberté,
22 April 1999
2) On the Racak non-massacre, see
'Racak, the Impossible Massacre,' at
http://tenc.net/articles/Johnstone/Recak.html
'
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WILLIAM WALKER AND THE JESUIT
MASSACRE COVER-UP
by John Flaherty and Jared Israel
Includes full text of 60 Minutes TV
exposé [Posted 22 March 2002]
=======================================
In coming days, officials from the
Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) are
scheduled to testify against Slobodan
Milosevic. The chief of the KVM was
one William Walker, the man who sold
the world the story of the Racak
so-called massacre, used to create a
climate to justify the bombing of
Yugoslavia in 1999.
We are preparing a piece which
examines Walker's role as Assistant
Under-Secretary of State for Central
American Affairs from 1985 to 1988,
including the Iran-Contra scandal,
Ambassador to El Salvador from 1988 to
1992 and UN administrator for Eastern
Slavonia from 1997 to 1998. While this
article is in preparation, we wished
to make available to you the transcript
of a Sixty Minutes program, posted
below. It aired in 1993. It exposed
William Walker's role in suppressing
the investigation into the infamous
death squad killings of Jesuits in El
Salvador and in deceiving, or trying
to deceive, the public about the
Salvadoran Army's role in this
terrible crime.
Walker's effectiveness in Yugoslavia
- especially his ability to "sell"
the Racak massacre - depended on his
credibility as an honest diplomat. A
public figure's credibility is - or should
be - based on the historical record.
Clearly, if the gangster Al Capone
tells us somebody is a crook, we're
going to take it with a grain of salt.
Given what he had done to Central
America it is therefore remarkable that
William Walker had any credibility at
all. It is especially remarkable that
two groups were silent when Walker
was made UN chief in Eastern Slavonia
and when he was lauded as an honest
broker - a humanitarian! - in Kosovo.
The two silent groups were: Leftists
and the Catholic Church.
When Bill Clinton tried to make
Walker Ambassador to Panama, in 1993,
the Catholic Church in Panama and local
political activists reacted loud and
fast. For example:
"The Jesuit Order of the Catholic
Church today rejected the designation
of William Walker as U.S. Ambassador to
Panama, based on his alleged complicity
in the November 1989 assassination of
five Jesuit priests in El Salvador....
"[Father] Valdes pointed out that
Walker was U.S. ambassador in El
Salvador when a U.S. trained battalion
murdered the five [should be six -ed.]
priests, as well as their housekeeper
and her daughter.
"'The Jesuit order at the time
denounced the complicity of the U.S.
Embassy (headed by Walker) in the case, for
concealing evidence, obstructing the
investigation, pressuring judges to
impede the trial process, and
terrorizing witnesses,' Valdes said."
- "PANAMA: JESUITS OPPOSE U.S.
AMBASSADOR DESIGNATE," Inter Press
Service June 28, 1993, Monday
And:
"Jesuit priest Fernando Guardia said,
also today, that Walker was 'a symbol
of the destruction of life' while he
was ambassador in El Salvador." -
"PANAMA: JESUITS, RIGHTS GROUPS
OPPOSE U.S. AMBASSADOR DESIGNATE,"
Inter Press Service, July 22, 1993
But when Clinton sent Walker to
Slovenia, nobody uttered a peep.
BACKGROUND ON THE JESUIT MURDERS
In case you're unfamiliar with what
happened in El Salvador, here's a very
brief rundown. El Salvador was torn
by what appeared to be civil war during
the 1980s. But it was an odd civil
war. The government side got billions
of dollars in US 'aid.' During the
decade, death squads run by the US-sponsored
Salvadoran Army killed literally
thousands of political opponents, trade
unionists, peasant leaders, outspoken
journalists, school teachers, ordinary
peasant farmers and townspeople who
happened to be in the wrong place or
from the wrong class and perhaps best
known to the world, Salvadoran and US
Catholic church activists and
officials, including the
assassination of
Archbishop Oscar Romero in March 1980.
It was while Walker was US Ambassador
that six Jesuit priests, their cook
and her daughter were brutally slain
by a Salvadoran Army death squad.
In the transcript below, a Salvadoran
officer comments that the murderers
would never have acted without
approval from top army officers. But
as we shall demonstrate in the article on
Walker that is in preparation, the
approval of top military officials
was not enough. The murdered men were
not communists. They were Catholic
"liberation theologists." And they
had power:
"Among those killed were the rector
of the Jesuit-run University of Central
America, Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, and
the vice rector, Rev. Ignacio
Martin-Baro. Both were leading
leftist intellectuals and prominent critics
of army human rights abuses and both
had been targets of death threats
broadcast in recent days on state
radio." --Boston Globe Nov. 17, 1989
Death threats broadcast on state radio!
The government military publicly
broadcast its intention of killing
these men days before the actual murders
took place.
It is inconceivable they would have
done so if they had the least fear
they would be slapped down by the US
command, which not only paid the Salvadoran
military's bills, but which also had
US 'advisers' throughout the military.
William Walker knew, and the those
who sent the killers knew he knew, and
most important of all, they knew he
would help them cover-up these crimes.
It's all in the transcript, below.
-- Jared Israel
THE JESUIT MURDERS
Transcript of 60 MINUTES * March 21, 1993
LESLEY STAHL: Following our story
last week about the massacre at El
Mozote, the United Nations this week
reported to its members what we had
reported, that despite United States
government denials at the time, 11
years ago soldiers of the Salvadoran
army--trained and armed by the United
States--wiped out the village of El
Mozote, killing entire families they
suspected of being guerrilla
sympathizers.
That United Nations report also
confirmed something Ed Bradley reported
three years ago; that officers high
up in the US-backed army, and not
left-wing guerrillas, had had a hand
in murdering six Jesuit priests they
suspected of being the brains behind
the guerrillas.
ED BRADLEY: Jesuit Priest Fermain
Scines was on the campus the night of
the murders and might well have been
killed with the others. He says it was
obvious from the beginning it was the
work of the Salvadoran army, not of
the guerrillas.
Father FERMAIN SCINES (Jesuit
Priest): There was soldiers here.
There was soldiers there. Was
soldiers...everybody saw them.
BRADLEY: And they didn't come in and
they were out in a few minutes?
Father SCINES: They came at about
12:00.
BRADLEY: And they were here for at
least two hours?
Father SCINES: And they were leaving
at 2:45 AM.
BRADLEY: Almost three hours?
Father SCINES: Almost three hours,
making tremendous noise. They were
smoking; they were talking; they were
walking. The ones who killed
them...after doing the job, they went
there...three meters from there and
he took a beer.
BRADLEY: Father Scines has spoken to
a number of witnesses.
Father SCINES: There is tremendous
evidence.
BRADLEY: But only one, the Jesuits'
housekeeper Lucia Serena, had the
courage to come forward with
eyewitness testimony linking the
army, not the
guerrillas, to the crime. From this
window, she could see five men in army
uniforms carrying rifles and wearing
military caps.
No doubt in your mind what you saw
that night?
Mrs. LUCIA SERENA (Cook): (Through
Interpreter) No doubt whatsoever, none.
BRADLEY: Lucia Serena did not
actually see the murders, but the
Jesuits fear
that the very fact that she could
place soldiers at the scene of the
crime puts her life in grave danger. So
they arranged to get Lucia and her
family out of the country.
William Walker is the US ambassador
to El Salvador.
Ambassador WILLIAM WALKER (US
Ambassador to El Salvador): Mrs. Serena was
taken to the United States to get her
out of what was an incredibly tense
and frightening situation here, where
she obviously feared for her safety;
to get her to a place of safety,
where she would be calm.
BRADLEY: But she says she was
anything but calm when questioned at
FBI headquarters in Miami, where for four
days, according to Lucia Serena, the
FBI asked her the same questions over
and over. She was also questioned by
Colonel Manuel Rivas, the Salvadoran
officer in charge of the murder
investigation.
Mrs. SERENA: He was very arrogant and
very harsh. Instead of concerning
himself with investigating the case,
he investigated us.
BRADLEY: She says they pressed her
about family members still living in
El Salvador.
Mrs. SERENA: How many brothers did I
have? What are their names? Where do
they live? It frightened me. Maybe
they'll kill my brothers.
BRADLEY: She says an FBI agent asked
her about one of the Jesuits who
hadn't been killed.
Mrs. SERENA: He opened the door, but
like this--BAM! Like, he slammed it.
He turned around and said, 'That
priest--is he a guerrilla or isn't
he?' I was very scared.
BRADLEY: So scared that after a few
days, she decided to tell her
interrogators she hadn't seen
anything at all.
These were not questions given to a
cooperative witness, these are questions
that are to go after a suspect.
Ambassador WALKER: Well, that's not
true. That is just not true. It might
be a perception that she received
because of her emotional state. Perfectly
understandable. They were trying to
determine from a person who said she
was at the scene and had heard and seen
things, how much she knew.
Father JOSEPH O'HARE (President,
Fordham University): I find it very
disturbing that not only the
Salvadoran military, but our own
embassy in San
Salvador seemed anxious to discredit
her testimony, which, as a matter of
fact, was confirmed by the Salvadoran
government itself as events developed.
BRADLEY: Father Joseph O'Hare,
president of Fordham University, and
Father Donald Monan, president of Boston
College, were recently in El Salvador
investigating the murder of their
brother Jesuits.
You say that Ambassador Walker
discredited her testimony. How did he
discredit her testimony?
Father DONALD MONAN (President,
Boston College): He announced in El
Salvador that her testimony was not credible.
Father O'HARE: That there were
inconsistencies in it.
BRADLEY: There were inconsistencies.
She changed her story.
Father O'HARE: Yeah, after several
days of intensive pressure in a--imagine.
Put yourself in the situation of a
simple woman in a foreign land, not
knowing the language, being
threatened with deportation back to
El Salvador, isolated from those who could be
supportive of her. I think that it's
quite understandable that she would change
her testimony under that kind of pressure.
Mrs. SERENA: I want to make one thing
very clear. I saw the men. I saw the men.
BRADLEY: Just how effective was the
American Embassy at getting to the
bottom of the Jesuit case? Six weeks
after the murders, an American major
said he was tipped off by a
Salvadoran army officer that a
high-ranking
colonel in the army of El Salvador
had admitted being involved in the
murder. The embassy turned right
around and not only gave the name of
the colonel to the Salvadoran high
command, it also told them who the
informant was.
Mr. SIGGEFRAIDO OCHELLO (Former
Colonel, Salvadoran Army): The American
officer put the informant in a very
difficult situation; so dangerous he
could have been killed.
BRADLEY: Former Colonel Siggefraido
Ochello was once a top commander in the
Salvadoran army. He's now a leader of
the ruling right wing Arena Party.
Mr. OCHELLO: If you burn somebody,
then other people who could provide
even more information clam up because
they'll be burned, too. A lot of them
say: I don't know anything. They just shut
up. What this American officer did
was to throw the informant into the
lion's den so they could tear him apart.
BRADLEY: No thought was given to
saying: Let's protect this guy's name
for the time being? Let's say here is the
information, we want to protect the
source of that.
Ambassador WALKER: Unlike the old
newspaper men who feel they'd rather
die than reveal the source, we're not in
that same game. We were talking with
the people who were trying to solve
the case, on whom a lot of pressure
was to solve the case.
Father MONAN: If we are ever going to
get to the people who authored the
crime, even though they didn't pull
the triggers, we're going to have to
have the informants come forward to
talk about what they know. And in this
case, the only two people we know who
came forward both came to the United
States and both suffered the
consequences of having provided their
information. That discouragement of
people to come forward with information,
I think, is fundamental to this case.
BRADLEY: The man the informant
fingered was Colonel Guillermo Benovides, the
head of the military academy, the
West Point of El Salvador. He was arrested
one week after they were given his
name by the Americans. Seven men
under his command were also arrested.
Ambassador WALKER: I would argue that
if, in fact, a colonel is proved to
be responsible for this and he is
punished to the full extent of the
law, that will be a signal to other colonels,
that will be a signal to other people
that this sort of behavior is not
going to be tolerated anymore in El
Salvador. And I think that's a step
forward.
Congressman GEORGE MILLER
(Representative, California): Not at
all. Not at all.
BRADLEY: California Congressman
George Miller is a member of a congressional
task force investigating the Jesuit
murders.
Congressman MILLER: This is an effort
to sort of keep throwing people off
the back of the truck to see whether
you can get the posse to quit
pursuing you.
Ambassador WALKER: I have seen no
indication that President Christiani,
the people that are investigating this,
the people who are pushing to solve the
mystery are hesitant to go to any
level of the government, to any level
of the armed forces. They have gone so
far to a colonel. As we talked about
earlier, this is historic.
Congressman MILLER: What does the
ambassador want us to do, give the system
a medal? This is a system that we've
poured $ 5 billion into that just
slaughtered and murdered people with
impunity. And now we're supposed to
shout: Hallelujah, they got a colonel?
BRADLEY: They may not even have that.
It seems that the evidence against
Colonel Benevides--testimony from
three lieutenants that he ordered the
Jesuit murders--can't be used in
court because it comes from
co-conspirators. President Christiani
admitted that it's doubtful Benevides
can be convicted. Nonetheless,
Ambassador Walker says he believes
the investigation has gone well.
Ambassador WALKER: Even in the United
States, sensational crimes are not
usually solved in a day or two. It
takes time. It takes hard police work. I
am saying all the indications that we
have are that the people responsible
for solving the crime have been
working very diligently, very
professionally and have, in fact, solved it.
BRADLEY: They've done ballistics
tests. They've done fingerprints.
They have confessions. They've identified the
killers. Doesn't that satisfy you?
Father O'HARE: The real issue is not
whether these enlisted men who did
the shooting are identified and
convicted, but whether those who
instructed them and made the decision to give the
orders--that is where the true guilt
lies, I think.
BRADLEY: The Jesuits believe the
decision to kill the priests goes much
higher than Benevides. So does former
Colonel Ochello.
Is it conceivable that Colonel
Benevides decided on his own to murder the
Jesuits?
Mr. OCHELLO: No, I don't think so.
Knowing him, he's a man who could
never take or even conceive of making a
move as big as assassinating the
Jesuits. Benevides acted under orders. He
didn't act alone.
BRADLEY: Some in the army have said
that Benevides misunderstood an order
and perhaps broke under the pressure.
Isn't that possible?
Mr. OCHELLO: Definitely not. I think
this was all planned beforehand.
BRADLEY: You are saying that you
don't believe that Colonel Benevides
acted alone, correct?
Mr. OCHELLO: That's correct.
BRADLEY: He had help from other
senior officers in the Salvadoran
military?
Mr. OCHELLO: That's correct.
BRADLEY: And they planned the murder
of the Jesuits?
Mr. OCHELLO: I believe, yes.
BRADLEY: Remember, few people know
more about the inner workings of the
Salvadoran army than former Colonel
Ochello, who was regarded as one of
the army's top field commanders. Why was
the military after the Jesuits? Many
army commanders believed for years
the Jesuits were the brains behind
the guerrillas. They denied that. The
murdered Jesuits said all they wanted
was social justice for the people of El
Salvador. One of those Jesuits, Father
Ignacio Martin Barro, spoke with CBS
News several months before he was killed.
Father IGNACIO MARTIN BARRO
(Assassinated Jesuit): Listen, the
problem of this country is not the problem of
communism or capitalism. The problems
of this country are problems of very
basic wealth distribution, of very
basic needs. But, when, in this country,
you ask for the satisfaction of those
needs, you become a subversive.
BRADLEY: Father Martin Barro and the
five other Jesuits were murdered
during the guerrilla offensive in San
Salvador last November. At the height
of the offensive, several hours before the
Jesuits were shot, the top commanders
met in military headquarters. Colonel
Ochello wasn't at that meeting, but he
believes he knows what happened next.
Mr. OCHELLO: A group of commanders
stayed behind. It seems that each was
responsible for a zone in San
Salvador. They gave an order to kill
leftists, just as Colonel Benevides did. I'll
say it again: Benevides obeyed. It
wasn't his decision.
BRADLEY: And yet, the Salvadoran
officer in charge of the investigation,
Colonel Rivas, is no longer actively
investigating the case. Publicly at
least, the American Embassy is not
complaining, even though top commanders
who could have ordered Benevides to
kill the Jesuits have never been
investigated. For instance, there's
Colonel Juan Orlandos Sapedas, the
number two man in the army of El
Salvador. Just five months before the
murder of the Jesuits, according to a
State Department document, Sapedas
complained that the Jesuits at the
Catholic university were planning
guerrilla strategy. According to that
same State Department document,
Sapedas probably was one of the
officers to whom Benevides reported.
We were not permitted to interview
Colonel Sapedas. Instead we spoke with
Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce, the army
chief of staff.
Sapedas has not been questioned. He
is on the record as saying they're
planning guerrilla strategy. Doesn't
it make sense to question him
formally, to submit him to a polygraph?
Colonel RENE EMILIO PONCE (Chief Of
Staff, Salvadoran Army): That's not for
the military to decide. That's in the
hands of the judicial system.
BRADLEY: I know you don't make the
decisions. Do you have an opinion?
Colonel PONCE: My personal opinion is
that here in this country, there have
been many opinions about the role of
the Jesuits. You've got to take into
account all of the people who've said
something against the Jesuits, not
just Colonel Sapedas.
BRADLEY: It stunned us to find out
that the American Embassy had given
Colonel Ponce an audiotape of our
interview with Ambassador Walker to help
him prepare for us. So Ponce knew the
questions we were likely to ask. Is
the US embassy in cahoots with the
army of El Salvador? Fathers Monan and
O'Hare believe it is. And that the
embassy could have forced the Salvadorans
to investigate officers like Sapedas
and hasn't done so.
Ambassador WALKER: From the first
moment we knew of the Jesuits' deaths,
which was about 7:00 or 8:00 AM on
the day they were killed, this embassy
has been very, very involved in the
investigation, in trying to make sure
that all T's were crossed, dots put
above I's to make sure the government
did everything it could because we
recognized very early on that this
was a very important case.
BRADLEY: Why are you skeptical? I
mean, the investigation has only been
going on for five months.
Father O'HARE: Yeah, but the
investigation of Archbishop Romero's
been going on for 10 years. And we haven't--at
the time that that crime was committed,
the world was shocked. When four
American women were killed in December
1980, American military aid was
stopped for a brief time until we
were assured that, once again, human
rights were going to be respected. So
with that history, how can one have
confidence today that the system, as
encouraged or not encouraged by the
United States government, is going to
deliver justice in this case.
BRADLEY: Why would the American
embassy--why would our government not
do everything possible to get to the
bottom of the murder of the Jesuits?
Congressman MILLER: Because they'd
have to turn in their own client. The
client is the Salvadoran government
and the Salvadoran military. And many
of these questions are better left
unanswered.
Father O'HARE: I'd go right to the
high command of the Salvadoran
military, and if that's the case, the US
investment of the past 10 or 12 years
has been revealed as futile.
BRADLEY: During those 10 or 12 years
about 70,000 people were killed in El
Salvador, most of them unarmed
civilians. According to human rights
organizations, most of that killing
was done by the armed forces of El
Salvador, yet so far, not one
military officer has been convicted
of a human rights crime.
Colonel BARRO: There is--How you
say?--there is an environment of the
possibility of being killed any
moment of the day and the possibility
of being involved in a violent clash
every moment. And you have to count
on that.
STAHL: Just last Monday, the United
Nation Truth Commission found that the
order to kill the Jesuits came from
Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce, the army
chief of staff, the man who came to
the interview armed with the audio tape
of our interview with the American
ambassador.
The Truth Commission also concluded
that the Salvadoran officers who were
investigating the crime--the ones
described by then US Ambassador
Walker as
diligent professionals--were actually
part of the coverup.
(C) Sixty Minutes 1993 * Posted for
Fair Use Only
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Further Reading:
1) On the Kosovo Verification Mission
see:
* 'The Cat is Out of the Bag,' at
http://www.tenc.net/news/ciaaided.htm
and 'NATO SPIES CONFESS,' reprinted
from the Swiss journal, La Liberté,
22 April 1999
2) On the Racak non-massacre, see
'Racak, the Impossible Massacre,' at
http://tenc.net/articles/Johnstone/Recak.html
'
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