SALVADORAN REBELS, RESISTING ARMY DRIVE, ARE SAID TO KILL CIVILIANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790012-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: February 2, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790012-9
I 2 February 1987
Salvadoran Rebels, Resisting Army Drive,
Are Said to Kill Civilians
STAT By JAMES LeMOYNE
poets to The New York Times
SAN SALVADOR, Feb. 1 - Salvado-
ran leftist rebels, apparently in a deter-
mined effort to assert their power,
have shot several civilians in the last
two months, according to diplomatic,
military and human rights officials.
A three-day trip to the most fought-
over areas of the countryside and inter-
views with peasants and army officers
there indicated that the killings are
part of an increasingly bitter contest
between the army and rebels for con-
trol of the peasant population and the
highways.
For the first time in the seven-year-
old conflict refugees appear to be
trying to return to the countryside in
significant numbers. The army is
spending more time in areas once con-
trolled by the rebels, whose popularity
seems to be waning.
Both the rebels and the army now ap-
pear determined to exert control over
the people they encounter. Two army
officers conceded that the army was
creating a network of informers. The
rebels appear to have responded with a
heavy hand, firing on highway traffic
during declared bans on transport and
killing people suspected of being spies.
Six Peasants Are Shot
At times the rebels give warnings to
such suspects and hold brief trials be-
fore carrying out executions, according
to human rights officials.
In the worst recent case, a guerrilla
unit summarily shot six peasant cof-
fee-pickers near the abandoned hamlet
of Los Laureles in San Vicente Depart-
ment without any effort to hold- a trial
or give a warning, according to several
peasants who say they saw the rebels
detain the victims.
The rebel radio has denied that the
guerrillas carried out the shootings.
But peasants who say they witnessed
the rebels tying up the victims said in
interviews that they recognized the
killers as members of a rebel unit that
they have seen for several years in the
area.
The killings appear to be among the
most severe human rights violations
by the guerrillas in the war. The vic-
tims included three women, all of
whom had been raped, according to
Maria Ines Alvarado and her daughter
Maria, two survivors who say they pre-
pared the bodies for burial.
One of those shot, 19-year-old Rosa
Henriquez, was six months pregnant,
according to Mrs. and Miss Alvarado.
Those killed were parents to at least 11
young children, the survivors said.
Mrs. Alvarado's other daughter, Mar-
garita, was among those killed. Mrs.
Alvarado said she found the bodies
dumped in a gulch on San Vicente vol-
cano.
Husband Seized by Rebels
"Nobpdy imagined they would do
such things as we saw," said Maria Al-
varado,"whose common-law husband,
Arnold among those taken away.
His b r n found.
- _w.
told th uerf!fl 13'To ask me if he' had
ever been with the army," she said.
"He never had been with the army."
None of those killed spied for the
arm t con[ In the
past the ~io rried out
such shllb hout explanation;
nor are they known to have raped
women.
In December there were reliable re-
ports of 14 killings of unarmed civilians
by the rebels, according to diplomats
and human rights officials. Most of
those killed were accused of being
spies or were shot while traveling on
highways during a national ban on traf-
fic decreed by the rebels.
Human rights officials, diplomats
and military officers also cite a string
of rebel executions in December of
peasants accused of being spies in the
villages of Nuevo Eden de San Juan
and San Gerardo in San Miguel Depart-
ment, the operating zone of the rebel
Popular Revolutionary Army.
In addition, the rebels have kid-
napped at least one mayor, Salomon
Sanchez, from the village of Osicala in
Morazan Department. A church offi-
cial said the rebels also executed a
woman in the refugee settlement of
San Jose las Flores in Chalatenangol
Department last month, accusing her
of being an informer.
Such killings appear at times to be
prompted by the rebels' fear that the
army is asserting control and infiltrat-
ing informers into areas where the
rebels operate.
The rebels may have reason to hold
such fears. A Salvadoran Army intelli-
gence officia WT 1 o r works with the Arce
battalion in the heavil contested areas
.1
o eastern n sue and orazan De-
partments said the battalion which has
one o t e worst human rights records
in_the army, has dun a sychollogiical
operations campaign. The effort has
been backed by the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, according to two
sources aware of the operation.
Under the program, the battalion de-
tains peasants in areas where the guer-
rillas operate. According to the intelli-
gence official, some of the peasants are
suspected of being supporters of the
guerrillas; others are believed to be
neutral.
The peasants are shown videotapes
depicting the guerrillas as terrorists
and the army as a vastly superior force
that cannot be defeated, the official
said. The peasants are then taken back
to their villages, with the expectation
that they wil1 be more sympathetic to
the army.
The official said that in December
the Arce battalion detained 85 peasants
in northern San Miguel Department. Of
those, 13 were imprisoned as guerril-
las. The others were allowed to go
home, the official said. He refused to
say if any of the peasants were or had
been army spies.
The rebels' response was almost im-
mediate, the official said. They exe-
cuted three of the returnees as spies
and the army expects they may exe-
cute others, he contended, an account
that could not be independently con-
firmed.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790012-9