BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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El Salvador's
Supreme Court declared the 1993 post war amnesty law preventing the prosecution
of war crimes committed during El Salvador's civil war unconstitutional. The ruling opens the door for possible
prosecutions of crimes against humanity including that of Blessed Oscar Romero,
the best known of the over 75,000 civilians killed between 1980 and 1992.
[More at Tim’s El Salvador Blog.]
A press
statement issued along with the ruling makes approving reference to a 1993
United Nations Truth Commission Report analyzing numerous crimes, and states that the statute of
limitations has not run on many of those cases, “as well as others of equal or greater seriousness and importance, which
could be attributed to both parties (the Armed Forces and the guerillas), and which
are subject to investigation and prosecution by the competent authorities.” Accordingly, among the cases which now could
be pursued is the March 24, 1980 assassination of Romero, which the Truth
Commission called “an illustrative case.”
The Romero case is also “illustrative” of how the Amnesty Law formalized an official policy not to investigate.
The Romero case is also “illustrative” of how the Amnesty Law formalized an official policy not to investigate.
In the hours
and days following the assassination [more on the crime], Judge Atilio Ramirez Amaya, the Criminal
Judge of the Fourth Criminal Court in San Salvador, attempted to carry out a serious
investigation of the crime, but was actively thwarted by police and other
government officials. Judge Ramirez was
surprised that police officials did not call him the night of the crime, as
policy required, so he reported to the hospital where Romero’s body was being
examined. He was surprised not to find
any police presence when he arrived there.
He asked his secretary to call the police. They never came.
Following the
autopsy, the Judge had his secretary once again phone the police to come secure
evidence from the hospital, including bullet fragments found in Romero. They did not come.
Late in the
night, the Judge called the police to join him at the crime scene to search for
and collect evidence. They did not
respond. Judge Ramirez was forced to
carry the sensitive material to his home in order to preserve it. The police did not show up at the crime scene
until four days after the assassination, and they did not collect evidence
there, nor provide any to the investigating judge. Judge Ramirez’ conclusions were not
incorporated into the official report and the autopsy x-rays “disappeared” from
the official file.
On March 25, Judge
Ramirez started receiving anonymous death threats. On March 27, two men arrived at his house,
gained entry into the home and attempted to shoot Judge Ramirez with an
automatic weapon. They shot his
housekeeper. Judge Ramirez repelled the
attack with a shot gun. They left in a
getaway car, while unknown suspects walked on the roof of his house. Neighbors observed police cars parked nearby,
ignoring the scene.
The next day,
Judge Ramirez resigned his position and left El Salvador. The Truth Commission concluded that “there is
sufficient evidence that the failed assassination attempt against [Judge
Ramirez] was a deliberate attempt to deter investigation of the case.”
In May 1980, the
Salvadoran Army raided a farmhouse where Roberto D’Aubuisson and several of his
associates were meeting. They arrested D’Aubuisson,
and confiscated documents planning the Romero assassination. But the detained were soon released after the
military intervened with the military-civilian junta then ruling the country.
Various other furtive attempts to prosecute D’Aubuisson and his cronies were similarly thwarted during the 1980s. In 1987, the U.S. even captured one of the conspirators and was ready to extradite him for prosecution, but Salvadoran authorities dropped the charges and the U.S. was forced to release him. The enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1993, days after the Truth Commission named D’Aubuisson as the mastermind of the Romero assassination, frustrated all further efforts to hold him responsible.
Various other furtive attempts to prosecute D’Aubuisson and his cronies were similarly thwarted during the 1980s. In 1987, the U.S. even captured one of the conspirators and was ready to extradite him for prosecution, but Salvadoran authorities dropped the charges and the U.S. was forced to release him. The enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1993, days after the Truth Commission named D’Aubuisson as the mastermind of the Romero assassination, frustrated all further efforts to hold him responsible.
Back in 1980,
the Archdiocesan Legal Aid Office was searched by the National Police in July
of that year and files relating to the Office’s investigation of the
assassination were removed, never to be seen again. The lawyers on the staff who were working on
the case received death threats and were forced to flee the country.
Notably, one of
those lawyers was Florentin Melendez, who now serves on the Constitutional
Chamber of the Salvadoran Supreme Court and was one of the magistrates who signed
the unconstitutionality decree.
Perhaps now
that the landscape has changed so dramatically, there may finally be justice
for the victims, including Blessed Romero. In a pastoral letter published earlier this year, the current Archbishop of San Salvador called for exactly that.
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