A former El Salvador defense minister has been deported from the US for human rights abuses
Source: Associated Press
A former El Salvador defense minister has been deported from the US for human rights abuses
Associated Press
January 8, 2016 — 4:25pm
MIAMI — A former El Salvador defense minister has been deported from the U.S. for his role in human rights abuses several decades ago.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Nestor Yglesias said Friday former Gen. Jose Guillermo Garcia-Merino was flown on a charter plane from the U.S. to San Salvador, El Salvador. Garcia-Merino was arrested last month in Florida.
The removal of the 82-year-old Garcia-Merino came after an immigration appeals panel on Dec. 8 upheld a previous 2014 deportation order. An immigration judge then found Garcia-Merino assisted or participated in numerous acts of torture and extrajudicial killings in El Salvador while he was in command.
Garcia-Merino was El Salvador defense minister from 1979 to 1983 during a civil war that killed an estimated 70,000 civilians.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/former-el-salvador-minister-deported-from-us-for-abuses/364691091/
(Short article, no more at link.)
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General José García (middle), shown on a military helicopter in the 1980s, was El Salvador's minister of defense from 1979 to '83.
© Harry Mattison
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In Miami.[/center]
Remembering El Mozote: A Look Back at Films About El Salvador’s Civil War
Written by Andrew S. Vargas December 11, 2014
December 11th is a big day in the history of Latin America. In addition to witnessing the birth of transcendent figures like Carlos Gardel (b. 1890) and the King of Mambo Pérez Prado (b. 1916), it was also the day Ernesto “Che” Guevara gave his infamous speech in front of the U.N. General Assembly in 1964. But for over six million Salvadorans and their relatives throughout the world, Dec. 11 will forever be remembered as a day of unspeakable horror.
On this day in 1981, members of the Salvadoran Army’s specialized Atlacatl Battalion entered into the village of El Mozote on their way to a guerrilla stronghold in the nearby region of northern Morazán. Despite the fact that the village was notorious for its neutrality in the brewing conflict between leftist guerrillas and repressive government forces, the members of the battalion — trained, incidentally, by the United States military — raped and massacred the entire population, estimated to be between 200-700 men, women, and children.
Subsequent reports of the massacre published in the New York Times and other periodicals were promptly defamed and subjected to an anti-communist smear campaign by conservative interest groups, ultimately burying the story until an independent investigation in 1992 exhumed the remains of at least 200 villagers from the site.
While the episode was by far one of the most egregious violations of human rights carried out during the Salvadoran Civil War, it wasn’t until the Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed on December 31, 1991 that 12 years, 8 months and 1 week of brutality were finally brought to an end. In 2011, the Salvadoran government ultimately took responsibility for the massacre and issued a formal apology, but to date none of the figures directly responsible for the incident have been brought to justice.
More:
http://remezcla.com/film/remembering-el-mozote-look-back-films-el-salvadors-civil-war/
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