Human-Rights Abuses -- El Salvador Military Retains Brutal Ways Despite U.S. Effort
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - As key prosecutions involving killings and kidnappings by Salvadoran soldiers continue to unravel, U.S. diplomats here face fundamental questions about the feasibility of reforming a military repeatedly accused of brutality and kept afloat with U.S. dollars.
In the past month, three cases that U.S. officials have identified as important tests of El Salvador's commitment to human rights have fallen apart. Moreover, the investigation of Salvadoran army officers charged in the murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter last November appears to be paralyzed.
Coming as Congress considers cutting U.S. military aid to El Salvador, now running at $85 million a year, the disintegration of the cases has reaffirmed the universally held image here of the Salvadoran military as impervious to punishment for abuses.
Moreover, it has provided further evidence of the deep-rooted problems of the Salvadoran judicial system, which continues to be vulnerable to threats, corruption, intimidation and occasional violence despite more than $10 million in U.S. government spending designed to reform it.
No Salvadoran military officer has ever been tried or convicted for a human-rights violation despite overwhelming evidence of military involvement in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Col. Guillermo Benavides, the highest-ranking soldier facing charges in the killing of the Jesuits, is in confinement while the investigation continues.
The rulings also demonstrate the limits of U.S. influence in El Salvador in spite of the Central American nation's military and economic dependence on aid from Washington. This year, direct assistance and credits from the United States will amount to $465 million.
``These court actions were timed with full understanding of the effect they could have'' on U.S. aid levels, a diplomat said. ``They're acts of independence (showing) that they're not going to bow to the influence of the U.S. Embassy. It appears suicidal to me.''
The judicial decisions have come in three cases dating back to 1982. All three have parallels to the Jesuits case. One, the death in 1982 of a young American named Michael Kline, was resolved several weeks ago. Two soldiers who shot Kline in the body were acquitted. A third private, who shot him in the head, was convicted.
Another case involves a kidnapping ring run by military officers from 1982 to 1986 that collected up to $4 million in ransom from the families of wealthy businessmen. All but one of the eight defendants were cleared by a judge last month.
The third case involves the massacre by soldiers of 10 peasants, including three women, in September 1988. After Vice President Dan Quayle visited El Salvador in February 1989 and pressed for action in the case, the military admitted responsibility and charges were brought against several enlisted men and a major. In a ruling last month, all but the major were freed.
The playing out of the cases clearly has disillusioned U.S. diplomats here. While none has broken outright with official policy or publicly advocated a reduction in aid, the mood of frustration is in sharp contrast to last fall, when the Marxist-led Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) opened a major offensive.
U.S. Ambassador William Walker, an unusually voluble diplomat, practically became the self-appointed spokesman for the Salvadoran government and military during last November's fierce fighting.
Walker, who has acknowledged military abuses, called the rulings ``discouraging and depressing'' and said he thinks there is ``little justice in this country.''
However, asked in a recent interview if he thinks the Salvadoran military breeds in its men any ability to distinguish right from wrong, he paused, weighing the question for a long moment before answering: ``I really don't know. . . . I think there is a greater awareness now than there was 10 years ago.''
That response, albeit tepid, betrayed more confidence in the Salvadoran's military's commitment to rights and ability to reform itself than several other U.S. diplomats are willing to express.
One envoy, asked about the effect of a possible reduction in U.S. military aid, said: ``That might not help in the Jesuit case, but what's happening there anyway? It might not encourage them to get rid of the bad-egg officers, but how many are they getting rid of anyway? It might not get the armed forces to respect human rights, but how much respect do they have for human rights now?''
U.S. military assistance to El Salvador soared at the beginning of the 1980s, built upon the premise that, having failed to hold the line against a Soviet-influenced revolution in Nicaragua, the United States could ill afford a second such leftist triumph in a neighboring country.
But as Communist regimes crumble all over the world, including in Nicaragua, the rationale for heavy U.S. spending to block the onrush of communism has become more tenuous.
When U.S. aid to El Salvador climbed in the early 1980s, there was no serious attempt in Washington to deny that one of the chief beneficiaries of that aid, the armed forces, was involved in murder and torture, even at the highest levels.
But the argument was made that the new U.S. assistance went hand-in-hand with increased U.S. influence, and that by ``professionalizing'' the Salvadoran military with U.S. training, advisers and equipment, the United States could also make it respect human rights and democratic processes.
To an extent, it worked. After years of rightist military governments, the military permitted the election of a left-of-center civilian president in 1984, Jose Napoleon Duarte. And the military went along with the election last year that produced a triumph for conservative President Alfredo Cristiani.
Today, however, few would make the claim that the civilian government has established complete control over the Salvadoran military. The most generous U.S. assessment is that the 53,000-member Salvadoran military is making progress toward becoming a truly democratic force, but that it has a way to go - several years at the least. And it is not difficult to find Americans who have observed the Salvadoran military at close range who think its U.S.-fueled growth in size and sophistication has also produced greater arrogance and continued disrespect for the rule of law.
While the raw numbers of civilian murders attributed to soldiers has declined from the days of wholesale slaughter at the start of the decade, there are indications that the military has become sensitive not to human rights but to the public-relations problem of international criticism on human-rights abuses.
A report by a group of army captains commissioned last year by the high command identified 35 problems ranging from poor morale to shoddy counterintelligence to the lack of a ``psychosocial plan'' directed at the civilian population to counter the guerrillas. But in the entire six-page description of problems and recommended solutions there was no mention of the widespread public perception that Salvadoran soldiers are prone to killing and brutalizing civilians with impunity.
A congressional study released Monday in Washington said 14 of El Salvador's 15 highest-ranking officers have commanded troops responsible for civilian murders, disappearances, torture and cover-ups of abuses. The report, released by Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., and Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and George Miller, D-Calif., said 11 of those commanders had received some U.S. training.
The study was made by the staff of the bipartisan Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus.
Salvadoran officers commanding men accused of human-rights abuses included Gen. Rafael Humberto Larios Lopez, now minister of defense, and Col. Rene Emilio Ponce Torres, chief of staff and the officer widely regarded as the most powerful man in the Salvadoran military.
The report said that the fact of such officers continued rise through the ranks in spite of abuses committed by their commands, sends ``an unmistakable message to soldiers that misbehavior is tolerated.''
Berman said, ``When we got involved in El Salvador, we gambled that we could reform the Salvadoran military. This report makes it tragically clear that this gamble failed.''
Those who defend the Salvadoran military point to the changes that have taken place in the past decade. Death squads operated with or by the armed forces have become a sporadic rather than constant aspect of the war. The younger generation of officers, many of whom have had U.S. training, is said to be significantly more sensitive to human-rights issues. That generation is now moving into the army's top commands.
However, El Salvador's history since it achieved independence from Spain in the early 19th century has been marked by intermittent civil wars, coups and sharp division among classes, with the military closely allied with the land-owning class.
``A whole lot has changed since the early 1980s, and in the last four years especially,'' said one diplomat who follows the armed forces closely. ``You've got to remember, though, that it's an overall violent country. A lot of things have not changed in 100 years.''