4 Held in Deaths of Salvador Lawmakers

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

By JULIE WATSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; 4:08 PM

GUATEMALA CITY -- Four people tied to drug trafficking were arrested
Tuesday on suspicion of being among those who orchestrated the killings
of three Salvadoran politicians and their driver, Guatemala's interior
minister said.

Carlos Vielman said the four suspects ordered corrupt police officers to
kidnap the lawmakers in February and bring them to an isolated, rural area
outside of Guatemala City.

-snip-

Vielman said the four new suspects _ three men and one woman whom he
called drug traffickers _ helped police search the parliamentarians' car
for drugs and bought gasoline used to torch the vehicle and burn the four
bodies.

-snip-

The latest suspects were identified as Mario Javier Lemus Escobar, Obdulio
Waldemar de Leon Lemus, Carlos Orellana Donis and Linda Castillo Orellana.
They were captured in Jalpatagua, 62 miles southeast of Guatemala City
on the border with El Salvador.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032000912.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Is it Altheimer's, or is it intentionally misleading?

From the Washington Post article, concerning the original murder of four politicians:

One of the slain parliament members was Eduardo D'Aubuisson, son of El Salvador's late right-wing leader Roberto D'Aubuisson, which initially prompted speculation about political motives.
(snip)

They entirely forgot to mention that Eduardo D'Aubuisson's father, Roberto "The TORCH" D'Aubuisson, was the leader of the right-wing DEATH SQUADS in his country:

Cited as the most notorious of the death squad leaders by the report was Roberto d'Aubuisson, the principal founder of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) party, the party of the country's current president, Alfredo Cristiani. D'Aubuisson, the report confirmed, hired the sharpshooter who killed Archbishop Romero.
(snip)

The CIA referred to Roberto d'Aubuisson as "egocentric, reckless and perhaps mentally unstable"; he trafficked in drugs and smuggled arms; his paramilitary unit was responsible for thousands of murders; and in 1983 he and his advisers were invited by American Ambassador Deane Hinton to have lunch with the visiting US representative to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick. Six years later, shortly before the CIA reported that d'Aubuisson's inner circle had plotted to assassinate President Cristiani, Ambassador William G. Walker invited him to the embassy's Fourth of July party.
American military advisers trained a militia of some 50 wealthy Salvadoreans, ostensibly for them to be able to defend their own lavish homes against a rebel attack, but the group was actually linked to d'Aubuisson and their militia was a "cover for the recruitment, training and possible dispatch of paramilitary civilian death squads".
(snip)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/ElSalvador_KH.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

El Salvador, 1980-89. On TV D'Aubuisson, using military intelligence files, denounced teachers, labor leaders, union organizers and politicians. Within days their mutilated bodies found. Washington had identified most leaders of death squads as members Salvadoran security forces with ties to D'Aubuisson. Washington Post op-ed by Douglas Farah, 2/23/1992, p. C4
(snip)

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads.htm#El

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wonder if the prayer of the victim of d'Aubuisson's father, Archbishop Romero, would cover the right-wing life of Roberto "The Torch" d'Aubuisson, and his burned alive son, Eduardo "The Torch," d'Aubuisson.





On edit:

Just located Archbishop Romero's last sermon. These are the last two paragraphs. He was shot conducting mass:

I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.

The church preaches your liberation just as we have studied it in just as we have studied it in the holy Bible today. It is a liberation that has, above all else, respect for the dignity of the person, hope for humanity's common good, and the transcendence that looks before all to God and only from God derives its hope and its strength.
(snip/)

http://www.haverford.edu/relg/faculty/amcguire/romero.html

[Peace Patriot]

2. This AP story of the three "politicians" being killed seems very murky to me.

I don't think we can see this very well--like large pieces of the puzzle are missing. For one thing, if these were political murders, it's hard imagine any leftists taking this sort of revenge--leftists just don't tend to do this sort of thing (so, if it was political, who benefits? political in what sense?)--and it is even harder to imagine anyone avenging Bishop Romero's death (by killing the son of his assassin)--it is so out of tune with the spirit of the man. So who are these assassins, really? Are they mere drug runners, in some sort of drug trafficking gangster fight? Or--a possibility--were they eliminating witnesses to something? (Were the dead about to turn states evidence--that sort of thing?). One other possibility is revenge for SOMEONE's death, or torture or ruination--some personal revenge, but we don't know who. I feel very distrustful of the news story--and of course doubly on the alert because it is an AP story (real scumbags on the subject of Latin American leftists). Also, the Guatemalan government is very corrupt--why should we trust anything they say about this? Maybe the people they arrested are enirely innocent.

Thanks for Oscar Romero lovely prayer and plea! A cry rises in me reading his last words. And I do think a lot of people heard him.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Linked killings undercut trust in Guatemala

Linked killings undercut trust in Guatemala
Culture of corruption, impunity exposed
By Manuel Roig-Franzia

Updated: 1 hour, 46 minutes ago
GUATEMALA CITY - It began with four charred bodies on a dirt road.

The victims had been kidnapped, investigators concluded, and two of them burned alive. The men who were found that day in February on a ranch outside Guatemala City turned out to be three Salvadoran politicians and their chauffeur. Among them was Eduardo D'Aubuisson, son of Roberto D'Aubuisson, the late founder of El Salvador's ruling party and the alleged architect of death squads in the Salvadoran civil war.

Three days later, four Guatemalan policemen were accused of the killings and arrested. Three days after that, with international attention trained on this country, the officers' throats were slashed and they were shot in their cells. The prison murders have not been solved.

Three days later, four Guatemalan policemen were accused of the killings and arrested. Three days after that, with international attention trained on this country, the officers' throats were slashed and they were shot in their cells. The prison murders have not been solved.
(snip/...)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17728601/