Salvadoran cites U.S. backing of violence in deportation appeal

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-elsalvador-deport-20140207,0,6948004.story

A lawyer for the former leader of El Salvador's National Guard says his client shouldn't be deported when no American officials have been held accountable for their role in El Salvador's bloody civil war.

Salvadoran cites U.S. backing of violence in deportation appeal
By Lalita Clozel
February 6, 2014, 10:38 p.m.

WASHINGTON — A former Salvadoran general accused of overseeing the torture and killing of thousands of civilians during a 12-year civil war appealed a U.S. deportation order Thursday on the grounds that his nation's anti-communist campaign was backed and funded by the American government.

An attorney for Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who was El Salvador's defense minister and leader of the National Guard in the 1980s, repeatedly cited the U.S. support for his country's right-wing government during its war against leftist guerrillas. The conflict left 75,000 Salvadorans dead and displaced 500,000.

"The United States government was an active participant on the side of the El Salvadoran government," said attorney Diego Handel on behalf of Vides Casanova, who did not attend Thursday's hearing at a Falls Church, Va., immigration office. Handel said it was unfair to deport Vides Casanova, believed to be in his late 70s, particularly when no U.S. officials have been held accountable for their role in the violence.

In 2012, a Florida immigration court ordered the deportation of Vides Casanova, making him the first high-ranking foreign official told to leave under a 2004 law that made it easier to expel human rights violators.