No Justice for El Salvador

Early one autumn morning in 1989, a death squad stormed through the gates of Central American University in El Salvador. When its work was finished, six Jesuit priests and their two housekeepers lay dead.

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Finally one of the Salvadoran officers who allegedly organized this slaughter, Inocente Orlando Montano, is facing justice. He was found living in Everett [Massachusetts]. Now a US court is considering a request to extradite him to Spain, where he and 19 other Salvadorans have been indicted for five of the murders. His boss, a former Salvadoran defense minister, has also been a target of American justice.

  Boston Globe

Pay attention: a US court will now decide his fate.

Prosecuting soldiers who massacred civilians in El Salvador makes us feel good. It confirms our contempt for Central American thugs. At the same time, it fills us with pride for the relentless work of American officials who pursue those killers.

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Salvadoran soldiers killed tens of thousands of civilians during their scorched-earth campaign in the 1980s. The elite military unit that murdered the six Jesuits and carried out other notorious massacres was called the Atlacatl Battalion. It was created as a rapid-response counterinsurgency unit by American trainers at the US Army School of the Americas.

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All believed they were acting in accordance with United States policy, which was dedicated to killing Salvadoran guerrillas and all who sympathized with them.

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American-trained officers also directed the rape and murder of four American church women in El Salvador early in 1981. The heroic US ambassador who swore that the killers would never get away with their crime, Robert White, was fired days after Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency. Later Secretary of State Alexander Haig suggested that the women might have been killed in “an exchange of fire.”

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President Reagan steadfastly supported the Salvadoran military despite overwhelming evidence of its crimes. So did Haig and other senior officials in the Reagan administration. It is a parody of justice that their legacy remains honorable while triggermen who did their bidding are demonized.

And that US courts are pursuing "justice" in the matter.

Any American under the age of 50 not knowing the history of US involvement in Latin America and our part in El Salvador may feel proud to be part of the greatest, most moral nation on earth that never quits in the pursuit of justice for barbarous acts where defenseless citizens have been killed.* We are the great liberators and bringers of justice to an unjust world.

The rest of us ... well, what should we do?

*Except for Palestine, of course. And who knows? Maybe some decades in the future if Israel has fallen out of favor and there are a handful of powerless Palestinians remaining, some US court will find a particularly monstrous Israeli general to "bring to justice".

And actually, the US court involved hasn't yet, by this article, made its decision whether to hand over Montano to Spain.

But, Montano has already been through our justice system - in 2013, he was tried for immigration fraud.

A federal judge weighing punishment for a former El Salvador military leader on immigration charges heard testimony Thursday about allegations the defendant committed war crimes before coming to the United States.

Inocente Orlando Montano, El Salvador's former vice minister of public security, is hoping for a probation sentence after pleading guilty to lying on U.S. immigration forms.

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During testimony, Stanford University professor Terry Lynn Karl, a government witness with expertise in Latin American politics, defended her report that said Montano was part of a conspiracy with other high-ranking military officials to plot what turned into an incident known as the Jesuit Massacre.

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Montano is among 20 people that authorities in Spain indicted in 2011 in connection with the 1989 slayings during El Salvador's civil war. He has denied involvement, but prosecutors in the immigration case have alleged Montano emigrated in part to avoid possible prosecution for the massacre.

  The Big Story

Inocente Orlando Montano, 71, was sentenced to 21 months in prison followed by one year of supervised release and a special assessment of $600 by U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock. Montano previously agreed to be deported from the United States upon completion of his prison term. A judicial order of removal has been secured and he will be removed from the U.S. to El Salvador following his sentence.

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"Today's sentence sends a strong message that those alleged to have engaged in human rights abuses overseas should not expect to hide in the United States," said U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Carmen M. Ortiz. "We will continue to prosecute these cases fully to protect the integrity of our immigration system and to discourage those involved in wrongdoing in their home countries from seeking refuge here."

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ICE's Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC) investigates human rights violators who try to evade justice by seeking shelter in the United States, including those who have participated in war crimes and acts of genocide, torture, the use of child soldiers and extrajudicial killings.[...]Members of the public who have information about foreign nationals suspected of engaging in human rights abuses or war crimes are urged to call the toll-free HSI tip line .

  ICE

Yes. We will bring you to justice.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.