Part Four, Chapter Two (B): From Madness to Hope: El Salvador: Truth Commissions: Library and Links: U.S. Institute of Peace

On 15 April 1989, air force units attacked an FMLN mobile hospital.²⁷⁵Five of the 15 people in the hospital were killed: three Salvadorians - Juan Antonio (a patient), Clelia Concepción Díaz (a literacy instructor) and María Cristina Hernández (a nurse and radio operator) - and two foreigners: José Ignacio Isla Casares (an Argentine doctor) and Madeleine Marie Francine Lagadec (a French nurse).

A Salvadorian air force unit attacked the hospital. Members of that unit deliberately attacked the medical staff in violation of international humanitarian law and captured the French nurse Madeleine Lagadac alive and executed her. Since no autopsies were performed on the other persons killed, it was not possible to ascertain with the same degree of accuracy whether they too were executed.

According to witnesses, at about 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. on 15 April 1989, two low-flying A-37 aircraft bombed the area surrounding an FMLN mobile hospital located near the Catarina farm in El Tortugal canton, San Ildefonso district, Department of San Vicente. Three UH 1M helicopter gunships, a Hughes-500 helicopter and a "Push-Pull" light aeroplane took part in the attack. A few minutes later, six helicopters carrying paratroopers armed with M-16 rifles arrived on the scene. At 8.15 a.m., the helicopters dropped the troops near the hospital. The bombardment lasted 15 minutes.

Fifteen people were in the hospital when the attack started. Most of them started to escape; one of the patients returned the attackers' fire before fleeing. María Cristina Hernández, a nurse and radio operator, and Juan Antonio, one of the hospital's patients, were seriously injured in the attack.

Madeleine Lagadec, a French nurse who had been working with FMLN for three years, refused to run away and stayed behind to attend to María Cristina. José Ignacio Isla Casares, the Argentine doctor in charge of the hospital, and Clelia Concepción Díaz Salazar, the literacy instructor, also stayed behind.

Those who escaped witnessed what happened next. The soldiers closed in and the radio operator for the group of paratroopers informed his commanding officer that "mercenaries" had been captured and requested instructions. The soldiers then questioned the three captives and screams were heard, the loudest being those of Madeleine Lagadec. Next, some shots rang out. The soldiers left that afternoon.²⁷⁶

There is substantial evidence that the operation was carried out by a group belonging to the "Special Operations" unit of the Salvadorian air force (paratroopers backed by artillery and aircraft fire). They were part of "Operación Rayo", designed to destroy the logistical and command structure of the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC) in the area.

On 17 April, a COPREFA communiqué was published announcing that nine people had died in an army attack on a PRTC command post. It also reported that weapons and medical equipment had been seized.²⁷⁷

That same day, FMLN members found the bodies at the scene. According to two of them, only Madeleine Lagadec's torso was clothed, her trousers had been pulled down to the knees, she did not have any underwear on under them²⁷⁸and her left hand had been severed at the wrist. There were bullet holes in the skulls of the five bodies.²⁷⁹

An autopsy was performed only on the French nurse, in France on 2 May 1989.²⁸⁰

The autopsy found at least five gunshot wounds on Madeleine Lagadec. Two wounds - to the head and in the left shoulder blade region - were potentially lethal. The wounds were significant for the small calibre of the bullets used (between 5 and 6 mm) and their considerable destructive power, for which the only possible explanation is great velocity. No precise explanation was found for the amputation of the left hand. The French doctors said that the diversity of the trajectory of the projectiles made the theory of an execution highly unlikely. ²⁸¹

However, Dr. Robert Kirschner,²⁸² who analysed the autopsy reports written in France and the sketches and documentation in the possession of this Commission, concluded that Madeleine Lagadec had been executed.²⁸³

In the analysis he made for the Commission, Dr. Kirschner, one of the world's foremost analysts of summary executions, explained that "The wounds and their trajectories provide significant evidence of the manner in which Madeleine Lagadec was killed. There were six gunshot wounds of the body, including three to the chest, one in the medial aspect of each thigh, and one to the head. All of these wounds passed from front to rear, upward, and in a medial to lateral direction ... The pathologists who performed the autopsy were of the opinion that the diversity of the trajectory of the projectiles made it unlikely that this was an execution. I disagree with this conclusion. While the gunshot wounds to the chest might have occurred while the victim was standing, the wounds to the thighs almost certainly were inflicted while she was lying on the ground, and those of the chest are more consistent with having been inflicted while she was supine. Of special importance, the gunshot wound of the right temporal region of the head, which passed on a horizontal plane and exited from the left temporoparietal region of the scalp, was a characteristic coup de grace wound, and a trademark of the extrajudicial execution."²⁸⁴

Dr. Kirschner's conclusion that Madeleine Lagadec was executed is also supported in a separate analysis made by experts in electronic microscopy in France.²⁸⁵ They first ascertained that the victim had been shot when already half-naked: "(...) there are no traces of bullets on the brassiere, briefs and trousers, while there are gunshot wounds to the right breast, the pelvis and the lower limbs (...) It can be deduced that the victim was not wearing those three items of clothing when the shots were fired."²⁸⁶

As for the distance from which the shots were fired, the above Centre puts forward two theories that contradict the assertion that Madeleine Lagadec's wounds were inflicted from a distance.²⁸⁷

1. There is sufficient evidence that a unit of the Salvadorian air force attacked the field hospital, and substantial evidence that it deliberately attacked medical personnel in violation of international humanitarian law.

2. There is substantial evidence that members of the unit captured the French nurse Madelaine Lagadec alive and executed her.

3. The State of El Salvador failed in its responsibility to investigate the case, bring the culprits to trial and punish them. The Commission was unable to determine whether the other people were also executed, since no autopsies were performed on their bodies.

On 10 September 1990, Dr. Begoña García Arandigoyen was summarily executed in the Department of Santa Ana. The Spanish doctor, who was 24 years old, died in an alleged clash between a patrol of the 4th Company BIC PIPIL of the Second Infantry Brigade of the armed forces of El Salvador and a column of the Ejército Revolucioniario del Pueblo (ERP) of FMLN.

1. Begoña García Arandigoyen was executed extrajudicially by troops of the 4th Company BIC PIPIL of the Second Infantry Brigade, under immediate command of Lieutenant Roberto Salvador Hernández García and the overall command of Army Lieutenant Colonel José Antonio Almendáriz, commanding officer of the Second Brigade.

2. The above officers covered up the crime with the collaboration of the National Police Third Command, Santa Ana unit, and the experts and judicial authorities who took part in the examination of the corpse of Begoña García.

Dr. Begoña García Arandigoyen, a Spanish doctor, entered El Salvador in September 1989 to work as a doctor for FMLN. She was executed, following her arrest, on 10 September 1990 in the Department of Santa Ana by troops of the 4th Company BIC PIPIL of the Second Infantry Brigade.

According to the official version, a patrol which was conducting a search of the area to the south of the Santa Ana volcano, near the Montañita estate, clashed with FMLN troops at approximately 1 p.m. on 10 September on the La Graciela estate.

According to a statement by Army Lieutenant Colonel José Antonio Almendáriz Rivas, commanding officer and Chief of Staff of the Second Brigade, he was advised by radio when fire contact was made with the enemy and was later informed of the death of 10 guerrillas, including two women, one of whom was a foreigner.²⁸⁹

According to the official version, FMLN troops managed to retrieve the bodies of eight of the dead, and the troops of 4th Company BIC PIPIL found only the bodies of two women. One of them looked like a foreigner.

At nightfall, other soldiers transferred the bodies of the two women from the place where the events had allegedly occurred to the main building of the Malacara estate, in Potrero Grande Arriba canton, Santa Ana district.

On the morning of 11 September, Army Lieutenant Colonel José Antonio Almendáriz Rivas, COPREFA staff and members of the National Police Third Command, Santa Ana unit, under the command of Lieutenant Gilberto García Cisneros, arrived at the Malacara estate by helicopter. COPREFA staff photographed the bodies and, according to the official version, members of the Third Command performed paraffin tests to see whether the women had fired weapons. There was no judicial examination of the bodies.²⁹⁰At the request of the military personnel, local residents proceeded to bury the bodies.

On 14 September, the corpses were exhumed and the body of Dr. Begoña García was examined by the forensic doctor on duty, Dr. Neftalí Figueroa Juárez, in the presence of the judge of the First Criminal Court of the Santa Ana judicial district, Oscar Armando Avilés Magaña. Those present included a representative of the Embassy of Spain and Lieutenant Colonel Almendáriz Rivas.

The examination report states that "[they] examined the corpse of BEGOÑA GARCIA ARANDIGOYEN, which has a destructive wound on the outer right-hand surface of the right forearm, with a total and displaced fracture, a destructive wound on the lateral surface of the right buttock and wounds on the outer surface of the right elbow and the left thigh. The corpse is rapidly decomposing, death having occurred at least four days ago, there is no evidence of tattooing, burns or powder marks around any of the above mentioned wounds, from which it can be inferred that the wounds were inflicted from a distance. The corpse was exhumed and the direct cause of death was hypovolemic shock resulting from multiple wounds."²⁹¹

After the corpse of Begoña García had been transferred to Spain, the Pathology Department of Navarra Government Hospital performed a clinical autopsy. That autopsy, and the report by Dr. Carlos Martín Beristaín on the medical and forensic findings,²⁹² established the following:

1. The corpse had multiple wounds, especially to the head, neck and upper and lower extremities.

2. There was a large wound on the left forearm, corresponding to a total fracture, which implied the use of a blunt instrument or the impact of a bullet.

3. There were two round bullet entry holes, from 2.4 to 3 cm in diameter, above both elbow joints, although no exit holes could be detected, the wounds being very selective and occurring only on the extremities and symmetrically on the arms, without other wounds on the thorax which could have been caused by a line of fire.

4. The wounds on the arms and the left thigh could have been made by a sharp bayonet-type instrument, since they were too large in diameter to have been caused by a firearm without being accompanied by greater destruction, other exit holes or the presence of bullets in the flesh.

5. An entry hole 1.8 cm in diameter in the lower central occipital region, the trajectory being upwards and forwards.

6. A round hole 2.5 cm in diameter at the base of the neck, just above the sternal manubrium.

7. Death must have occurred instantaneously as a result of the firearm wounds to the cranium, because of the destruction of vital nerve centres and not because of the bleeding which the wounds may have caused.

Dr. Beristaín's report notes that a biochemical analysis detected the existence of a large quantity of powder around the edges of the neck wound (above the sternal manubrium), confirming that the wound had been caused by a shot fired from a distance of a few centimetres. The bullet wounds in the occipital region and the sternal manubrium had similar characteristics and had been made from a distance of a few centimetres.

The report further notes that when the corpse was officially examined in El Salvador, neither of the two head wounds which were made from a distance of a few centimetres (in the nape of the neck and in the region above the sternum) was recorded.

At the request of the Commission on the Truth, Dr. Robert H. Kirschner, a forensic pathologist, studied the examination made by Dr. José Neftalí Figueroa on 14 September 1990 and the clinical autopsy report from Navarra Hospital. In the opinion of Dr. Kirschner, the Navarra autopsy directly contradicts the El Salvador examination and supports the contention that Begoña García was captured and executed. Dr. Kirschner notes that the Navarra autopsy report describes wounds which are inconsistent with those occurring in combat and typical of those caused by execution, including the wound at the base of the cranium, fired from a gun almost in contact with the nape of the neck, and another in the upper chest, caused by a shot fired from a distance of a few centimetres.

1. There is full evidence that Begoña García Arandigoyen was executed extrajudicially, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, by units of the Second Infantry Brigade under the immediate command of Lieutenant Roberto Salvador Hernández García and the overall command of Army Lieutenant Colonel José Antonio Almendáriz Rivas, commanding officer of the Second Brigade.

2. There is full evidence that the above officers covered up the crime.

3. There is full evidence of the responsibility of the judicial authorities, as shown by the actions of the judge of the First Criminal Court of the Santa Ana judicial district, Oscar Armando Avilés Magaña, and of the forensic doctor on duty, Dr. Neftalí Figueroa Juárez, who took part in the examination of the corpse of Begoña García and who omitted from the record the two gunshot wounds made at a distance of a few centimetres, thus failing in their duty to carry out a full and impartial investigation of the causes of her death.

In the early morning of 31 October 1989, persons unknown placed a bomb at the entrance to the offices of the Comité de Madres y Familiares de Presos Políticos, Desaparecidos y Asesinados de El Salvador Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero (COMADRES) in San Salvador. Four people, including a child, were injured.

At midday, a bomb was placed in the offices of the Federación Nacional Sindical de Trabajadores Salvadoreños (FENASTRAS) in San Salvador. Nine people were killed and over 40 injured. As a result of the attack, FMLN decided to suspend peace negotiations with the Government.

1. The bomb attacks on the offices of COMADRES and FENASTRAS on 31 October 1989 were part of a systematic pattern of attacks on the lives, physical integrity and freedom of members of those organizations.

2. The Government of El Salvador failed in its duty to guarantee the human rights to which the members of these organizations are entitled as individuals and as members of their organizations.

3. The attack on FENASTRAS was carried out using a bomb which persons unknown placed outside its offices.

4. The competent authorities of El Salvador did not carry out a full and impartial investigation of the attacks on the offices of COMADRES and FENASTRAS.

5. There is no countervailing evidence that FMLN or FENASTRAS members carried out the attack.

COMADRES is a non-governmental organization established to provide support for mothers and relatives of victims of politically motivated disappearances or murders. It was founded in December 1977 at the suggestion of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

FENASTRAS is an independent confederation formed in 1974 to strengthen trade unions and promote the interests of Salvadorian workers. It has 25,000 individual members and 16 member trade unions. It is the largest industrial trade union confederation in El Salvador. Its main office is located two blocks away from the National Police in San Salvador.

In the early morning of 31 October 1989, two men in uniform allegedly placed a bomb at the entrance to the COMADRES offices in San Salvador. A large lorry was also reportedly heard leaving the scene moments later. Four people, including a child of four months, were injured. The National Police blamed the crime on the guerrillas.²⁹⁴

At approximately 12.30 p.m. the same day, a worker who was a member of FENASTRAS noticed someone propping a sack against the outside wall of the FENASTRAS cafeteria. He smelt gunpowder and ran inside to warn his companions. Another witness, a scrap dealer, noticed two young men entering FENASTRAS grounds through the door in the access wall. One of them was carrying a suitcase in a jute sack. Through the door in the wall, we saw one of them "crouch down as if he was setting light to something". As he came out, he shouted that they had planted a bomb and the two of them ran off northwards.

Outside, someone yelled "bomb!" and people began running. At that moment, the bomb exploded. The building was enveloped in smoke and powder and the offices were destroyed. More than 40 people were injured and the following were killed: Ricardo Humberto Cestoni, trade unionist; Carmen Catalina Hernández Ramos, FENASTRAS cook; José Daniel López Meléndez, trade unionist; Julia Tatiana Mendoza Aguirre, trade unionist and daughter of a leader of the Frente Democrático Revolucionario (FDR) assassinated in 1980; Vicente Salvador Melgar, trade unionist; María Magdalena Rosales, student and daughter of a trade union leader; Rosa Hilda Saravia de Elias, FENASTRAS cook and trade union member; Luis Edgardo Vásquez Márquez, trade unionist; and Febe Elizabeth Velásquez, International Secretary of FENASTRAS and a member of the Executive Committee of the Unidad Nacional de Trabajadores Salvadoreños (UNTS).

FENASTRAS members and the main trade unions blamed the armed forces. UNTS accused the Ministry of Defence of "summarily executing" the workers in retaliation for an FMLN attack on the Armed Forces Joint Staff the previous day.

These attacks on the offices of COMADRES and FENASTRAS occurred in a specific political and chronological context. It was common knowledge that the two organizations were critical of government policy, especially with regard to human rights violations, and that FENASTRAS was critical of governmental measures which, from its point of view, were detrimental to workers' interests. The armed forces considered FENASTRAS a "front" for FMLN.²⁹⁵

The security forces had several members of COMADRES and FENASTRAS, as well as their offices, under constant surveillance. The offices of the two organizations were raided repeatedly and their members were regularly threatened, harassed and detained by the authorities.²⁹⁶On 22 February and 5 September, explosive devices were thrown at FENASTRAS headquarters. Hundreds of incidents of violence, persecution and threats against the two organizations have been reported.

In this political and chronological context, it should be noted that during October 1989, there had been a number of attacks against the army and against opponents of the Government.²⁹⁷The day before the attacks on COMADRES and FENASTRAS, FMLN members had attacked the Armed Forces Joint Staff using explosive devices.²⁹⁸

Immediately after the attack on FENASTRAS, the Commission for the Investigation of Criminal Acts (CIHD), the judiciary and the National Police launched their respective investigations. The Second Justice of the Peace, Nelson Ulises Umaña Bojórquez, attempted to make a judicial inspection²⁹⁹on 31 October. He was forced to abandon his efforts owing to "the congestion and commotion caused by the crowd which [was] present at the scene".³⁰⁰CIHD experts arrived half an hour after the attack to make a visual inspection. Neither they nor staff from the Police Explosives Unit were able to gain access to the inside of the building.³⁰¹

There are many doubts as to the seriousness and impartiality with which the investigations proceeded. That same day, CIHD representatives expressed the view that "the cause of the explosion was the mishandling of explosive materials inside the building itself".³⁰²Members of the Police Explosives Unit concluded that the attack "... formed part of the conspiracy to discredit the Government of El Salvador by making the national and international community believe that the attack was a government response to the artillery attack launched by FMLN on 30 October 1989 against the Armed Forces Joint Staff ... which leads us to conclude that FMLN carried out the attack against itself in order to confuse public opinion, making it believe that it was an act of revenge for the earlier attack".

The CIHD dossier suggests that its investigation was based on the conclusions of the investigation carried out by the Technical Assistance Department of the "Sargento Carlos Sosa Santos" Explosives and Demolition Unit of the National Police, which ruled out the possibility that the explosive device had been planted at FENASTRAS offices "by an unknown person unconnected with that organization, since a meeting was being held inside the building and it is possible that access to it was being monitored by FENASTRAS staff".³⁰³One of the first steps taken by CIHD was to request the security forces "urgently" to provide any political or ordinary information on the people killed and injured in the explosion.³⁰⁴

In November 1989, at the request of President Cristiani, the United States Department of State sent FBI experts to inspect the site of the explosion at the FENASTRAS offices.³⁰⁵In its report, the FBI concluded that the disturbance of the scene of the crime, the passage of time and the conditions in which the crime had occurred reduced the possibility of identifying the type of explosive used.³⁰⁶It was able to determine only that a high-power explosive, weighing approximately 15 pounds, had been used, and that the explosion had occurred in the area between the access wall and the outside wall of the building itself.³⁰⁷

It has been heard that the Government allegedly pressured some detainees to blame FMLN for the attack or to issue false statements to the press.

1. There is sufficient evidence that the bomb attacks on the offices of COMADRES and FENASTRAS on 31 October 1989 were part of a systematic pattern of attacks on the lives, physical integrity and freedom of members of those organizations.

2. There is full evidence that the Government of El Salvador failed in its duty to guarantee the human rights to which the members of these organizations are entitled as individuals and as members of their organizations.

3. There is full evidence that the attack on the FENASTRAS offices was carried out using a bomb which persons unknown placed outside the building.

4. There is substantial evidence that the competent authorities of El Salvador did not carry out a full and impartial investigation of the attacks on the offices of COMADRES and FENESTRAS.

5. There is no countervailing evidence that FMLN or FENASTRAS members might have carried out the attack.

On 12 January 1990, Héctor Oquelí Colindres and Gilda Flores Arévalo were abducted in Guatemala City, Republic of Guatemala. Their bodies were found the same day in the village of San José El Coco in the Jalpatagua district of Guatemala, 5 kilometres from the border with El Salvador.

The facts of the killings are not in dispute. However, views differ as to who bears criminal and political responsibility.

Within the constraints imposed on it, the Commission made an exhaustive effort to determine who was responsible for the murders. It received some of the results of the investigations made by the Office of the President of the Republic of Guatemala, made inquiries with the authorities of that country, evaluated information supplied by the Government of El Salvador, studied the report prepared by Professors Tom Farer and Robert Goldman, and received some relevant testimony.

Having analysed the information available, it can say with certainty that members of the Guatemalan security forces, acting in conjunction with Salvadorians, took part in the crime.

It also notes that the incident was not properly investigated and that some essential procedures were omitted.

The Governments of Guatemala and El Salvador must make a thorough investigation of this double murder.

Héctor Oquelí, a leader of the Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (MNR) of El Salvador, ³⁰⁸enjoyed tremendous national and international prestige and had been active for many years in the Socialist International.³⁰⁹He was widely regarded as the likely successor to MNR leader Guillermo Ungo.³¹⁰

Gilda Flores Arévalo, a citizen and resident of Guatemala, was actively involved in the Partido Socialista Democrático (PSD).

The murder occurred shortly after the biggest military offensive of the Salvadorian conflict, launched by FMLN in November 1989.

The fact that Héctor Oquelí was an opposition politician in El Salvador and the outrage which this crime prompted make this case a serious act of violence falling within the Commission's mandate, regardless of the place where the incident occurred.

After the Government of President Vinicio Cerezo came to power in Guatemala, some opponents of the Salvadorian regime, including Oquelí, began to engage in low profile political activities on Guatemalan territory. ³¹¹

As a member of MNR, Oquelí had returned to El Salvador and was publicly active in politics. In November 1989, during an FMLN offensive, he took refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy. He then moved to Mexico, where he continued his political activities within the Socialist International.

On 11 January 1990, Oquelí was travelling from Mexico to Nicaragua to take part in a Socialist International meeting in Managua. He planned to make a one-day stopover in Guatemala and leave the next day for Managua.

The reason for this stopover was to hold a political meeting with Mr. René Flores, a member of the same political group as Oquelí. René Flores travelled from San Salvador specifically to meet with Oquelí. Oquelí also planned to visit Gilda Flores in Guatemala.

On 11 January, Oquelí arrived in Guatemala City. In the international arrivals area, he met up with René Flores, who was arriving on a flight from San Salvador.

Oquelí went through immigration control without a problem. Two immigration officials then came up to him and asked him to show his passport again, on some administrative pretext, and detained him for over half an hour. Because of this, Oquelí was unable to leave the baggage area or go through customs because he did not have his passport. Gilda Flores and René Flores were waiting for him outside and could not understand why he had been delayed.

Oquelí's passport was new and absolutely in order and there was no reason why it could not be checked simply by looking at it. However, when the immigration officials returned it to him, they wrote in by hand over the date on the entry stamp the instruction "read this".

Once outside, Oquelí met up with René Flores and Gilda Flores. They talked about the passport episode that had occurred in the baggage area and drove to the home of Gilda Flores.

As they were leaving the airport, they noticed that some people who looked like plain clothes policemen were watching them, but nothing happened as they drove into the city.

When they reached Gilda Flores' home, there were some people they did not know outside but since there was a foreign embassy there they did not see anything significant in this.

Once inside the house, Oquelí made a number of telephone calls. He and René Flores talked about the overall political situation in El Salvador and René Flores gave him some documents.
Gilda Flores and Oquelí then took René Flores to the airport. René Flores told the Commission on the Truth that he had been surprised that they went with him to the airport, as there was no need for this and it was not in line with the security measures that Oquelí always scrupulously observed.

Gilda Flores invited Héctor Oquelí to have dinner at her home. The maid left when dinner was over. Next morning, Flores and Oquelí set out early for the airport for Oquelí to take a plane to Managua. Gilda Flores was driving.

At approximately 5.45 a.m., on the Avenida Sexta in Zona Nueve, they were intercepted by a private vehicle from which a group of people got out.³¹²Oquelí, who was in the front passenger seat, tried to escape but was overpowered. He and Gilda were forced into the vehicle which had intercepted them.

Luis Ayala, the General Secretary of the Socialist International, and people at the International's meeting in Managua, began to wonder why Oquelí had not arrived.

That same day, Guatemalan police went to the scene of the abduction and found papers in the vehicle abandoned on the street establishing that the vehicle belonged to Gilda Flores. That morning, a complaint had been lodged with the police that two individuals had violently stolen a vehicle from a Guatemalan citizen in Guatemala City. In doing so, the assailants had identified themselves as members of the police.³¹³The vehicle turned out to be the same one in which the bodies of Oquelí and Flores were found later. There were bullet wounds in the bodies and they appeared to have been injected with an unidentified substance.³¹⁴

At 5 p.m. the same day, 12 January, the two bodies were found in a vehicle abandoned on the main road to the border with El Salvador. Héctor Oquelí's papers were in his clothing.

The Guatemalan authorities concluded on the spot that the body was indeed that of Héctor Oquelí Colindres. The body of Gilda Flores was identified by members of her family.

President Cerezo ordered an investigation of the case. The result of these investigations was the so-called "Third Report". The report made no findings and assigned no responsibilities, but simply set forth a number of theories, on which the Guatemalan Government had based its investigation, as to the possible motives for the crime. The investigation went nowhere, even though the report itself maintained that intelligence services obtained information that persons with ties to the activities of Salvadorian terrorist groups in recent years might be operating in Guatemala. Among the names obtained were those of Francisco Ricardo de Sola and Orlando de Sola. Although there is no definite evidence linking them to the crime, the investigation found that they were in Guatemala on the exact days on which the abduction and murder took place.³¹⁵The report added that "information was found pointing to Infantry Colonel Mario Denis Morán Echeverría of the Salvadorian army, El Salvador's Military Attaché in Guatemala, as someone whose background gave grounds to suspect that he might be providing a cover for clandestine terrorist groups coming from El Salvador.³¹⁶

Reacting to the report, the Salvadorian Government claimed that Salvadorian citizens had been implicated without grounds. President Cristiani ordered the Attorney General of the Republic to launch an investigation. However, this investigation did not yield any results either.

At the request of the Socialist International, Professors Tom Farer and Robert Goldman, human rights experts, evaluated the action taken by the Guatemalan Government. The Farer-Goldman report found that the deficiencies of the Government's reports were so obvious that one could conclude that the investigation had been meant to fail.³¹⁷

The Oquelí-Flores case is still awaiting a judicial resolution in both El Salvador and Guatemala.

The Commission interviewed a considerable number of people who had been close to Oquelí, both members of his family and political contacts, and made all kinds of inquiries in order to obtain more precise information on the official investigations made in Guatemala and El Salvador. It had access to information about many of the possible motives for the double murder. Unfortunately, the most important information needed to conduct an in depth investigation and answer some of the questions which were suggested to the Commission as a basis for its work could not be substantiated when the Commission requested that it be given access to all the information gathered by the Salvadorian Government on the Oquelí-Flores case. The reluctance in both Guatemala and El Salvador to give the Commission access to the information it requested during its investigation imposed serious constraints on it.

In this case, the facts are documented and the characteristics of the abduction and murder of Héctor Oquelí and Gilda Flores are not in question. However, neither those who planned the double homicide nor those who carried it out have been identified.

It was never made clear why the Guatemalan authorities had detained Oquelí at the airport and confiscated his passport for over half an hour. Nor was the liquid injected into the victims before their death identified. The records of persons entering and leaving the country were not checked - not even the records of the frontier post that was five kilometres away from the place where the bodies were found. No statement was taken from anyone whose testimony was decisive for shedding light on the facts and no one took the fingerprints left on the vehicles. Lastly, there was no investigation of the fact that the individuals who stole the car used for the crime identified themselves as police.

The dossier does not contain any new information other than letters and reports from police units and purely procedural judicial documents.

The Commission requested all existing information on this case from the highest level of the Government of the Republic of Guatemala.³¹⁸Despite the latter's pledge to cooperate in the Commission's work, no relevant information was received.³¹⁹

The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic of El Salvador provided the Commission with a copy of the dossier of the investigation made at the request of President Cristiani. In fact, the dossier is nothing more than a compilation of press clippings on the case.³²⁰Moreover, the Office of the Attorney General did not interview the Salvadorians named in the "Third Report", some of whom were public officials in El Salvador.

Among the theories as to possible motives for the crime is the fact that Héctor Oquelí was an international political figure. This is the theory underlying the Guatemalan Government's "Third Report", which speculates that the killers could have been from the most radical sectors of FMLN, the Guatemalan army, the Salvadorian authorities or the Salvadorian extreme right wing.

MNR provided the Commission with the original of a military identity card, belonging to a major René Grande Martínez, which had been handed over to it by President Vinicio Cerezo and which the Guatemalan authorities had apparently found at the scene of the murder.

The Ministry of Defence did little to respond to the request by the Commission on the Truth that it locate Major Grande Martínez. The Commission summoned him repeatedly but he never came to testify.

The Commission determined that the most important features of this murder were: (a) that the murderers knew beforehand that Oquelí would be in Guatemala; (b) that Oquelí was detained at the airport by authorities; (c) that his movements were constantly watched; (d) that persons claiming to be police stole the vehicle in which the bodies were later found; (e) that Oquelí was abducted in Guatemala City in broad daylight in the middle of the street; (f) and that the murderers were able to drive without incident from the capital city to the border with the two victims in a stolen car. All of this makes it absolutely clear that the Guatemalan authorities must have collaborated with or tolerated these crimes.

1. The Governments of Guatemala and El Salvador have not done enough to thoroughly investigate the reasons for the murder of Héctor Oquelí Colindres and Gilda Flores or to find out who was responsible. The Commission on the Truth urges the two Governments separately to order the necessary action to clear up the crime and jointly, with the cooperation of such international bodies as are able to help them clarify this tragic event, to provide the international community with information establishing what happened, without prejudice to the corresponding judicial action.

2. The Commission believes that there is a direct link between the following facts: the fact that Héctor Oquelí Colindres and Gilda Flores Arévalo were members of their countries' political opposition; the fact that Oquelí was inexplicably detained by Guatemalan authorities at the airport; the fact that the home of Gilda Flores was being watched; the subsequent abduction and murder of Oquelí and Flores; and alleged police involvement in the theft of the car in which the bodies were found.

3. The Commission has found sufficient evidence that members of the Salvadorian security forces, acting in conjunction with or tolerated by Guatemalan security forces, were responsible for the murders.

4. There is sufficient evidence that the Salvadorian authorities did not investigate this crime properly. There is also sufficient evidence that the investigations made by the Guatemalan authorities were deficient and that the omission of basic evidence, even if not intended as a cover-up, had that effect.

Posted by USIP Library on: January 26, 2001
Source: UN Security Council, Annex, From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador: Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, S/25500, 1993, 76-101.