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

Lawyer Mario Zamora Rivas, a leader of the Christian Democratic Party and Chief State Counsel of the Republic, was murdered at his home on 23 February 1980.

Considered one of his party's most important leaders, Zamora was also a major public figure outside the party; given the political violence in the country, this exposed him to reprisals.

Members of a security force were responsible for Zamora's murder, which forms part of a pattern of conduct adopted by such forces in their illegal activities. Although the Commission has no doubt about the details of the murder, the identity of the murderers cannot be established from the testimony, investigations, evidence and proceedings on the case.

The Government did not make a proper investigation which would have resulted in the identification and punishment of the guilty parties.

The Christian Democratic Party (PDC) joined other centrist and centre left parties in the first Government Junta which overthrew General Romero in October 1979.

The Christian Democrats did not withdraw from the Government, as other groups did, and in December 1979 they joined the second Revolutionary Government Junta.

This attitude drew the opposition of Zamora and other leaders within the party, who believed that the armed forces did not offer sufficient guarantees for their political project.

As a condition for remaining in the second Junta, the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) proposed a meeting with the Armed Forces Joint Staff at the highest level. It presented a document on the violations being committed against its members and stated the bases for the party's relationship with the armed forces. One of the proponents of this strategy was Mr. Zamora. The armed forces maintained that they could not respond to the document because it contained serious accusations, and they asked for time to consider it. ⁴²⁶

Other evidence submitted to the Commission suggests that Zamora had begun talks aimed at opening a dialogue with Cayetano Carpio, ⁴²⁷ leader of the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (FPL), a party to the left of PDC.

The PDC Convention, which was scheduled to take place the day after Zamora's assassination, was to have heard an explanation of the choices facing the Christian Democratic Party at that moment in time.

Zamora was the only party leader strong and persuasive enough to be able to alter the course of the policy of alliances pursued by the party, then headed by Mr. Duarte, ⁴²⁸ and the importance of this in Salvadorian public life was well understood.

A few days before the assassination, Major Roberto D'Aubuisson publicly accused Zamora and other PDC leaders of being communists and members of the guerrilla group FPL. ⁴²⁹ Because of this, Zamora, in his capacity as a public official, filed a complaint of defamation against D'Aubuisson with the Criminal Court, basing his right to do so on the duty of any public official to challenge an unfounded accusation before the courts. According to testimony, this was the first complaint lodged in El Salvador in an attempt to contain the far right through the use of criminal proceedings.

Two days before Zamora's assassination, two staff members of the Office of the Chief State Counsel were riddled with bullets while driving an official car. Some testimony claims that the shooting was a mistake and that Zamora was the intended target.

Mr. Zamora was at a party in his home with approximately seven other people. The party ended at midnight. Without warning, a group of six individuals entered the victim's house from the roof. Their faces were covered by ski masks and they carried small arms with silencers and some rifles. They immediately forced everyone there to lie down on the floor.

They demanded the keys to the front gate which Aronette, Zamora's wife, ⁴³⁰ said she did not have. The group's leader spoke with a foreign accent and asked specifically for Mario Zamora. Zamora identified himself; they made him get up and took him to another room, while turning up the volume of the music. After killing Zamora, they left the house in an orderly manner.

Zamora's brother, Rubén ⁴³¹ lived in the house next door and had gone home to bed moments before the armed men entered. He was woken by shouting and thought that people at the party had drunk too much. He decided to go over to his brother's house but at his wife's request he telephoned instead; the line was dead. ⁴³²

When the assailants left, the rest of the people in the house began to look for Mario Zamora and to telephone party leaders, police authorities and Government officials, including then Colonel Eugenio Vides Casanova, Director-General of the National Guard. At that point, the telephone was working normally. At first, they thought that Zamora had been abducted, but when they searched the house, they found his body riddled with bullets, in the bathroom.

It was approximately three to four hours after the murder was reported that the first security forces patrol arrived to conduct the preliminary investigation.

Although judicial proceedings were instituted on this case, no one was ever accused of the crime and the case was finally closed in 1981.

The operation was carried out with extreme precision and skill in order to eliminate the victim without letting the identity of the killers be known.

The Commission has received sufficient evidence that the operation was carried out by the intelligence section of a State security force without consulting the Intelligence Department of the High Command, the institution which usually decided on this type of operation. The evidence also shows that the same security force had devised a plan for eliminating the victim and that the Intelligence Department of the High Command knew all about it. The security force repeatedly requested approval for the plan and when it did not receive the go-ahead, decided to proceed without authorization.

The High Command's reaction to the incident was to request military intelligence to verify internally who had carried out the operation. According to the information received, the purpose of the investigation was to establish whether the murder had been committed by one of the security forces, a death squad or a gang of kidnappers.

The decision by the security force to go ahead without authorization would explain the alleged involvement of foreign personnel in the operation, as a strategy to conceal identities and obstruct a subsequent investigation by the High Command itself or by any other security force. Furthermore, there is sufficient evidence that some security forces used people from other countries, for instance, Argentina and Nicaragua, to do the "dirty work" of eliminating political opponents.

Although the killers did not know Zamora personally, they were aware of his position and prestige; it was clear that the plan was devised in such a way as to minimize the risks of the operation, so as to prevent any subsequent public reaction.

Based on the investigation it made and the testimony it received, the Commission believes it has sufficient evidence to conclude that Mr. Zamora was assassinated by members of a State security force in an operation decided on by that force and carried out as part of its illegal activities.

Likewise, the Commission has sufficient evidence to affirm that the Intelligence Department of the High Command established precisely which security force had committed the crime and that the military hierarchy at that time kept this information secret in order to conceal the identity of the perpetrators and made no report to the proper authorities, with the result that the necessary investigation was never made.

On 23 July 1980, 13 inhabitants of El Bartolillo hamlet in Tehuicho canton were executed by heavily armed civilians who identified themselves as guerrillas. Other people died in the surrounding area.

The justice of the peace arrived at the scene the next morning accompanied by troops of the Artillery Brigade. He left without carrying out the required procedures. For three days, soldiers prevented the burial of the bodies.

(a) On 23 July 1980, in Tehuicho canton, 13 civilians were executed by a death squad consisting of members of the "Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Osorio" Artillery Brigade and members of the civil defence unit for the San Juan Opico district.

(b) Troops from the Artillery Brigade went to the scene the next day and for three days prevented the burial of the victims.

(c) The justice of the peace did not carry out the procedures required by law. Nor did he institute criminal proceedings to investigate what had happened.

(d) Miguel Lemus, a former member of the local civil defence unit participated as a member of the death squad.

(e) Carlos Azcúnaga Sánchez, now a lieutenant colonel, planned the crime; his motive was personal revenge.

Shortly after midday on 23 July 1980, a group of approximately 100 civilians arrived at El Bartolillo hamlet in Tehuicho canton. Their faces were painted and they were dressed as peasants. They were very well-armed and dispersed throughout the canton. Witnesses identified Miguel Lemus, who was a civil defence member at the time.

They identified themselves as guerrillas and called a meeting on the football field, supposedly to distribute weapons. As the operation proceeded, they started to force people to assemble.

The villagers congregated on the sports field, where they were blindfolded. The strangers then identified themselves as a "death squad" and accused the villagers of having links with the guerrillas.

They proceeded to make a selection. Apparently they had a list. "Orejas" ⁴³⁴ identified people on the list and singled out 14 of them, 12 men and 2 women. The men were taken to a ravine, the two women were taken elsewhere. Shots were heard. Some houses were looted and burned.

The bodies of the women and the men were found in the course of the night. There was physical evidence that they had been tortured.

On returning to their homes, the survivors found the words "death squad" painted on a wall.

One year before the incident, a private dispute had arisen over the ownership of a property between Pedro Franco Molina, a villager from Tehuicho canton who supported the guerrillas, and Antonio Azcúnaga, a villager from Los Amates canton who was the father of then Captain Carlos Azcúnaga Sánchez. The dispute intensified when it was rumoured that Franco had offered a reward for Antonio Azcúnaga's death.

In October 1979, according to testimony, a group of guerrillas murdered Antonio Azcúnaga.

There was information that the group was from Santa Ana, but villagers from Tehuicho canton, including Pedro Franco, were also blamed. Carlos Azcúnaga made various threatening comments.

Uniformed soldiers from the "Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Osorio" Artillery Brigade, accompanying justice of the peace Rodolfo Sánchez ⁴³⁵ and the forensic doctor, went to the scene of the incident the following day. The soldiers prevented the villagers from burying the bodies. Neither the justice of the peace nor the forensic doctor carried out the required procedures before leaving the canton. No judicial investigation was undertaken.

Troops remained in the area for three days and prevented the burial of the bodies. The villagers buried the bodies in a mass grave as soon as the soldiers left.

Subsequently, then Captain Carlos Azcúnaga Sánchez, according to witnesses, made comments incriminating himself. When he appeared before the Commission, however, he denied that he had participated in the incident.

1. There is substantial evidence of the following:

(b) Troops from the Artillery Brigade went to the scene the next day and stayed there for three days and prevented the burial of the victims.

(c) The justice of the peace did not carry out the required procedures, or institute criminal proceedings to investigate what had happened.

2. There is sufficient evidence of the following:

(a) Miguel Lemus, a former member of the local civil defence unit, participated as a member of the death squad.

(b) Carlos Azcúnaga Sánchez, now a lieutenant colonel, planned the massacre; his motive was personal revenge.

On the night of 3 January 1981, in the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador, two National Guard agents killed José Rodolfo Viera Lizama, President of the Salvadorian Institute for Agrarian Reform (ISTA), and Michael P. Hammer and Mark David Pearlman, United States advisers from the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD).

The actual murderers, Santiago Gómez González and José Dimas Valle Acevedo, who were National Guard agents, were convicted and later released under the 1987 Amnesty Act. The other individuals involved in planning and ordering the murders, Lieutenant Rodolfo Isidro López Sibrián, second-in command of the Intelligence Section of the National Guard, Captain Eduardo Ernesto Alfonso Avila and businessman Hans Christ, were never convicted.

The Intelligence Section of the National Guard had planned to eliminate Viera months before his murder. National Guard agents carried out the murders in the manner characteristic of the death squads.

Lieutenant Colonel Mario Denis Morán Echeverría, then Chief of the Intelligence Section of the National Guard, covered up information about the murders, and Judge Héctor Enrique Jiménez Zaldívar allowed one of the suspects to disguise himself so as to conceal his identity.

When the General Secretary of the Union Comunal Salvadoreña (UCS), Rodolfo Viera, was murdered, he was also President of ISTA, a Government agency set up to carry out the agrarian reform programme. Michael P. Hammer and Mark David Pearlman, both of them officials of AIFLD, were in El Salvador to provide support and technical assistance for the agrarian reform process.

As President of ISTA and General Secretary of UCS, Viera was viewed as a dangerous adversary by those who were opposed to the agrarian reform. He received death threats on a number of occasions. In May 1980, the Ejército Secreto Anticomunista referred to Viera as a "Communist traitor" who should be eliminated by the "patriots" who were fighting for a Government that would respect "private property". There were two attempts to murder him in 1980. ⁴³⁷ There is sufficient evidence that they were planned by Section II of the National Guard.

It is not clear whether those who planned the murders set the specific place and time in advance. However, there is full evidence that they did take advantage of the unexpected opportunity in the Sheraton Hotel to murder people who were a previously selected target.

On the night of 3 January 1981, López Sibrián ordered Valle Acevedo, a National Guard agent, to accompany him to the home of businessman Hans Christ. ⁴³⁹ López Sibrián ⁴⁴⁰ was carrying a 9-mm pistol and an Ingram sub-machine-gun ⁴⁴¹ obtained from the National Guard depot. ⁴⁴² At approximately 10 p.m., Christ, López Sibrián and Avila arrived at the hotel and went to eat in the hotel restaurant.

Viera, Hammer and Pearlman arrived sometime after 10 p.m. They went into the restaurant where Christ, Avila and López Sibrián were sitting. Since the restaurant was full, they asked for somewhere more private. An employee recommended the Americas room, which is spacious. Christ recognized Viera and commented to Avila: "Look! There's that son of a bitch!" ⁴⁴³ Avila said that someone in the group commented that he had grown a beard and that it would be good if he were dead. ⁴⁴⁴ Avila also mentioned that when López Sibrián saw Viera he said that that was a good opportunity to kill him. ⁴⁴⁵ At least one of the three left the table and watched where Viera's group was going. ⁴⁴⁶

Moments later López Sibrián, Avila and Christ left the hotel, went to the parking lot and got into a car. There, they told Valle Acevedo to kill the President of ISTA and the other two, ⁴⁴⁷ but he refused to do the job alone. ⁴⁴⁸ López Sibrián got out of the car, went back to the parking lot and went over to National Guard agent Gómez González, who was watching Morán's vehicle. López Sibrián told him to go with him. ⁴⁴⁹ When Gómez González replied that he could do nothing without Major Morán's authorization, ⁴⁵⁰ López Sibrián went into the hotel, returned immediately and told Gómez that Morán had authorized him to accompany him. ⁴⁵¹

López Sibrián and Gómez González then walked towards Sibrián's vehicle, in which Valle Acevedo, Christ and Avila were sitting. ⁴⁵² López Sibrián ordered Valle Acevedo and Gómez González to accompany Christ to the hotel and kill the three men there. ⁴⁵³ He also gave Gómez González the 9-millimetre Ingram sub-machine-gun, while Avila gave Valle Acevedo another .45-millimetre sub-machine-gun and a khaki sweater to conceal the weapon. ⁴⁵⁴ Christ told them that he would identify the men. ⁴⁵⁵

The two National Guard agents entered the hotel behind Christ, who showed them where Viera, Hammer and Pearlman were sitting. ⁴⁵⁶ They waited only a few moments, then Valle Acevedo and Gómez González opened fire on Viera and his two companions. ⁴⁵⁷ There is sufficient evidence, based on the wounds received and the place where the bodies were, that, in addition to Viera, both Hammer and Pearlman were a target of the gunmen.

The two gunmen left the hotel immediately and escaped in López Sibrián's vehicle to a house near the auxiliary funeral service, followed by Avila in his vehicle. ⁴⁵⁸ There, they returned the weapons to their respective owners ⁴⁵⁹ and López Sibrián then ordered them to return to National Guard headquarters. ⁴⁶⁰ After the murders of Viera, Hammer and Pearlman, it became known in the National Guard that members of Section II, including Valle Acevedo and Gómez González, had committed the murders. ⁴⁶¹

On 14 February 1986, five years after the murder, the two agents were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On 19 December 1987, they were released under the Amnesty Act. The case against Avila was dismissed for the same reason. ⁴⁶²

The seven years of investigation of the murders of Viera, Hammer and Pearlman are well documented elsewhere and there is no need to review them here. However, two aspects of this incident warranted careful consideration by the Commission.

There is substantial evidence that Major Morán, then Chief of Intelligence of the National Guard, learnt, after the murders, that his second in-command, López Sibrián, had ordered two guards in the unit he commanded to carry them out. Morán also neglected to inform the appropriate authorities of those facts. ⁴⁶³

It is also clear that Morán's role in the murders was never properly investigated. One of the convicted guards said that Major Medrano, who headed the military investigation of the case, told him to blame López Sibrián, ⁴⁶⁴ apparently so as not to implicate his superior, Morán. ⁴⁶⁵ Furthermore, there is no indication that when the Commission for the Investigation of Criminal Acts reopened the case in 1985, it investigated Morán's role in the murders, even though it had received evidence that Morán participated in a meeting of the Intelligence Section of the National Guard on 3 January, when the murder may have been planned. The Commission for the Investigation of Criminal Acts was also given evidence that on 5 January, Morán received payment for completing a "job".

Although the testimony gathered by the Medrano commission shed new light on López Sibrián's role in the murders, there is full evidence that Judge Jiménez Zaldívar cooperated actively with López Sibrián by allowing him to disguise himself ⁴⁶⁶ so that it was impossible for a key witness to recognize him. The next day, Judge Jiménez Zaldívar ordered López Sibrián released for lack of evidence. ⁴⁶⁷

1. There is full evidence that on 3 January 1981, José Dimas Valle Acevedo and Santiago Gómez González killed José Rodolfo Viera, Michael Hammer and Mark David Pearlman in the Sheraton Hotel.

2. There is full evidence that Lieutenant López Sibrián was involved in planning the operation to murder Viera, Hammer and Pearlman and in ordering two members of the National Guard to carry it out. He also gave a weapon to Gómez González and helped the killers escape from the scene of the crime.

3. There is full evidence that Captain Eduardo Avila was involved in planning the murder operation and collaborated with López Sibrián in carrying it out.

4. There is sufficient evidence that Hans Christ ⁴⁶⁸ was involved in planning the murder operation and assisted in carrying it out.

5. As to the role of Lieutenant Colonel Mario Denis Morán, there is substantial evidence that he covered up the murders by neglecting to report the facts.

6. There is full evidence that Judge Héctor Enrique Jiménez Zaldívar cooperated with the main suspect, López Sibrián, hindering his identification which would have led to the institution of criminal proceedings.

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, 139-147.