[News] Judge finds Saravia liable for the assassination of Romero

[News at freedomarchives.org]

PRESS RELEASE



Judge finds Modesto man liable for 1980 Assassination

of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador,

Orders him to pay $10 million in damages



Contacts:        Center for Justice & Accountability

Matthew Eisenbrandt, co-counsel & Litigation Director: cell: (415) 225-0028

Almudena Bernabeu, International Attorney, cell: (415) 305-2097

Patty Blum, Senior Legal Advisor, cell: (646) 644-3887

Sandra Coliver, Executive Director: cell: (202) 422-4837



                         Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe LLP

**Nicholas van Aelstyn, Lead Trial Counsel: cell: (415) 519-1661

Russell Cohen, co-counsel, cell: (415) 203-8021

Wayne Kessler, Public Information Officer: (212) 847-8680



Fresno, September 3, 2004.  Today at 5.45 pm, Judge Wanger issued a historic
decision holding Modesto resident Alvaro Saravia responsible for his role in
the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador as he was saying
mass on March 24, 1980. Judge Wanger ordered Saravia to pay $10 million to
the plaintiff, a relative of the Archbishop, who has still not been
identified for security reasons.



Until today, no single individual has been held responsible for the
assassination, one of the most heinous and shocking murders of the last part
of the 20th century.



In announcing the monetary award, Judge Wanger stated that "the damages are
of a magnitude that is hardly describable."



Judge Wanger ruled that the evidence clearly established Saravia's
responsibility for organizing the murder. He also determined that the murder
constitutes a crime against a humanity, because it was part of a widespread
and systematic attack intended to terrorize a civilian population. As Judge
Wanger stated:



"Here the evidence shows that there was a consistent and unabating regime
that was in control of El Salvador, and that this regime essentially
functioned as a militarily-controlled government." The government
perpetrated "systematic violations of human rights for the purpose of
perpetuating the oligarchy and the military government."



He also concluded that what happened in El Salvador was the "antithesis of
due process" and that there could not be a better example of extrajudicial
killing than the killing of Archbishop Romero.




Judge Wanger's ruling is one of the few in the United States finding an
invidual liable for crimes against humanity. Such crimes were first defined
and condemned in 1945 in the Nuremberg Charter, established to try Nazi war
criminals. The novelty of crimes against humanity is that they can be
committed by a government against its own citizens. In contrast, genocide is
widespread persecution directed against a distinct people, defined by race,
ethnicity, or religion.



The case was brought by the Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), based
in San Francisco, together with the law firm of Heller Ehrman White &
McAuliffe.



Professor Patty Blum, CJA's Senior Legal Advisor, commented: "With this
victory, U.S. courts join with national and international courts throughout
the world in recognizing that egregious acts -- so atrocious that we label
them crimes against all humanity --  must not go unpunished. Judge Wanger
has provided Salvadorans, both in El Salvador and here in the U.S., with a
measure of justice denied to them in their own country, for the loss of
their most beloved leader, who was truly the voice of the voiceless during
one of El Salvador's darkest times.



"This decision ensures that the United States will no longer be a safe haven
for those responsible for this heinous crime," said Matthew Eisenbrandt,
CJA's Litigation Director. "This verdict provides sufficient grounds for the
immigration service to place Saravia in deportation proceedings."



Lead counsel Nicholas van Aelstyn, a partner with Heller Ehrman White &
McAuliffe, added: "Archbishop Romero's legacy is great and yet also
paradoxical.  He is revered around the world as one of the foremost figures
of non-violence whose powerful advocacy of human rights was rooted in a deep
respect for the dignity of all human beings.  Yet at the same time, his is
the paradigmatic case of impunity.  Despite all the evidence, no one has
been held accountable in the 24 years since he was killed."



Co-counsel Russell Cohen of Heller Ehrman stated:  "This case builds on the
efforts of people around the world to counter impunity with accountability
and ultimately to bring justice for and in El Salvador.  The case is part of
a world-wide movement that includes the Chilean Supreme Court's decision
that Pinochet must stand trial for his crimes.  What these cases are saying
is that justice is needed if reconciliation and the rule of law are to take
root."



Other comments:



Prof. Terry Karl of Stanford University, who testified at the trial as an
expert witness, stated:

"El Salvador's civil war was framed by the murder of priests. The murder of
Archbishop Romero was one of the major catalysts that pushed the country
into war and the murder of six Jesuit priests on November 16, 1989 was one
of the major catalysts that brought about the peace agreement. One of the
Jesuits who was killed, Fr  Ignacio Martin Baro, used to tell me that the
worst thing that could happen was not the murder of Archbishop Romero or his
burial, but that he would die over and over again if the truth were buried
with him. Today we have the satisfaction of knowing that more of the truth
was told and acknowledged by a court of the United States."




Juan Carlos Cristales, Executive Director of El Rescate in Los Angeles, one
of the leading organizations in the U.S. that defends the rights of Central
Americans, commented: "The assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero was one
of the most shocking atrocities in our recent history. As long as that crime
was allowed to go unpunished, any crime was conceivable. This case has said
"No!" to impunity. There are consequences for such acts - maybe not yet in
El Salvador, but in the U.S. and elsewhere. I believe that the success of
this case will give support to efforts in El Salvador to repeal the 1993
Amnesty law."




Dr. Francisco Acosta, a witness at the trial whose life was saved by
Archbishop Romero and who founded the Archbishop Romero University in El
Salvador, stated:  "For us, Oscar Romero was like Martin Luther King for the
United States, or Gandhi for India.  I knew that the opportunity to tell the
truth in a legal court of the most powerful country in the world will help
to provide a sense of closure for all of Salvadoran society. At last, steps
have been taken to reverse impunity for human rights violators. At the
personal level, I feel a strong sense of healing and closure. For almost 25
years, I have carried a bag of heavy rocks with me everywhere I go. Today, I
have left this bag of rocks with the U.S. system of justice."



For additional comments:

Francisco Acosta, trial witness and founder of the Oscar Romero University
in El Salvador,

Tel:  (301) 593 7381 or cell (301) 906-8378

Rev. William Wipfler, trial witness, Episcopal priest who said mass with
Romero the day before he was killed:

tel: (716) 677-2303

Fr. Stephen Privett, a Jesuit priest and President of the University of San
Francisco:

Tel: (415) 422-6762



Sample press coverage of the case in English:

NYTimes, Aug. 28:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Salvador-Slain-Bishop.html

The Independent UK, Aug. 24:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=554530
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-romero24aug24,1,7421685.story?coll=l
a-headlines-california

New Zealand Herald, Aug. 28:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3587552&thesection=news&t
hesubsection=world



Spanish:

El Nuevo Diario,
http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/especiales/especiales-20040830-19.html

La Opinion, Sept. 2,
http://www.laopinion.com/estado/?rkey=00040901172413401302

La Prensa Grafica, Aug. 27, http://www.laprensagrafica.com/mundo/mundo3.asp



  *****

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Editorials/ Op-Ed
August 31, 2004
Justice Comes for the Archbishop
By RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ TUM

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/opinion/31menchu.html

Guatemala City - Nearly 25 years after Archbishop Óscar Romero was
assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, a chance for justice
has finally appeared. A judge is expected to rule on Friday in a landmark
lawsuit brought against a man accused of being an accomplice in the murder.
The venue, however, is not a Salvadoran tribunal but a federal court in
Fresno, Calif., where a longtime United States resident, Álvaro Saravia,
faces civil charges for helping carry out orders to have Archbishop Romero
killed.

Mr. Saravia, a former Salvadoran air force captain and close associate of
Roberto d'Aubuisson, the founder of El Salvador's ruling right-wing party,
is accused of obtaining the assassin's gun, arranging for his transportation
to the chapel, and paying him afterwards. The suit, filed on behalf of a
relative of the archbishop by the Center for Justice and Accountability, a
human rights group, seeks damages for extrajudicial killing and crimes
against humanity. Evidence was presented last week, and although Mr. Saravia
has gone into hiding and is being tried in absentia, if the judge finds him
liable he will face monetary damages.

This case is being watched closely throughout Central America, where fragile
new democracies suffer the lingering effects of unpunished wartime crimes.
The failure to bring human rights violators to justice encourages more
violence, as the killing of Archbishop Romero and the 1998 assassination of
Bishop Juan Gerardi in Guatemala sadly illustrated. The lack of arrests in
the Romero murder was a signal that Salvadoran armed forces and paramilitary
groups enjoyed impunity for their crimes, quickening the country's descent
into a brutal 12-year civil war that left more than 75,000 civilians dead.

Countries emerging from civil conflict must reconcile the dual needs of
consolidating stability and pursuing justice, a difficulty easily exploited
by those intent on protecting their own interests. In El Salvador, a
sweeping amnesty law rendered the 1993 findings of a United Nations truth
commission legally irrelevant. That commission found Mr. d'Aubuisson (who
died in 1992) and Mr. Saravia responsible for Archbishop Romero's murder,
but neither man could be prosecuted in his homeland.

Thus the best chance for justice stems from the coincidence of Mr. Saravia's
residency - he has been in America since at least 1987. Through the Alien
Tort Claims Act of 1789, the United States allows foreign citizens to sue
people living within American borders. Fortunately, this summer in a case
involving the kidnapping of a Mexican doctor, the Supreme Court decided
against the Bush administration and affirmed the applicability of the act in
human rights cases.

The Saravia trial, while an inspiring exercise in American law, does raise
disturbing questions about United States policy. How did Mr. Saravia come to
live in California in the first place? Declassified State Department and
Central Intelligence Agency documents reveal that the government was aware
of Mr. Saravia's alleged involvement in the Romero assassination as early as
May 1980. The trial also represents an opportunity to examine, albeit
obliquely, the responsibility of the Salvadoran government and its closest
ally, the United States, in the events that led to the deaths of tens of
thousands of Salvadoran civilians.

It is a sort of redemption, then, that the first trial in this murder is
taking place in an American court. Let us hope that justice will be served
at last in the case of Óscar Romero, and that it will inspire the
governments of the United States, El Salvador and other nations to prosecute
the many human rights abusers who live openly among us.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.





Moira Feeney
Law Clerk / Media Coordinator
Center for Justice and Accountability
870 Market Street, Suite 688
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel: 415.544.0444 x302
Fax: 415.544.0456
www.cja.org

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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