In El Salvador, a new push for justice in priests’ slayings

The murder 19 years ago of six Jesuit priests by a U.S.-trained army unit was the turning point in El Salvador’s long civil war, an atrocity so grave that it helped force an end to the fighting. But the soldiers and officers convicted or implicated in the slayings are free under a controversial amnesty law that is receiving new attention thanks to election politics here and a potentially landmark court case in Spain. Relatives of the priests, who were killed along with their housekeeper and her young daughter, have joined with two human rights organizations and today plan to file suit in Madrid against the generals, colonels and soldiers blamed for the killings.The plaintiffs are invoking the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which Spanish courts have championed, that allows a case of egregious human rights violation to be heard in a country even if the acts did not take place there and the defendants do not reside there.Human rights activists in the Americas and Europe said they hoped the Jesuit complaint could be used to fight impunity and bring justice to the victims’ families by joining a procession of Spanish court cases that have forced Latin America to confront its violent past. These include suits against Guatemalan military officers accused in the massacre of indigenous citizens and figures in Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ against leftist dissidents. ‘This has an invaluable historic importance for El Salvador,’ said David Morales, program coordinator at a legal think tank in San Salvador that specializes in justice issues. ‘All Salvadoran society has been the victim here. . . . Just knowing the truth has a restorative effect.’