Deliberate killings o f civilians by security forces and death squads have now been reined in to a "palatable" 20 or so a month. Whilefewer are being killed, more are being put into the prison system. ings of civilians by security forces and death squads have now been reined in to a “palatable" 20 or so a month. While fewer are being killed, more are being put into the prison system. Mariona’s political prisoner section has grown from 660 in January, 1986 to 850 in May. Many of these inmates would have simply turned up dead a few years ago, but now the military knows it’s just as effective to salt them away in Mariona. Unless there’s a dead body involved, the foreign press doesn’t seem to care. These days, while still struggling with the armed opposition, the military has increasing interest in controlling or squelching civilian organizations opposed to government policies. Of the 850 political prisoners in Mariona, less than 50 were armed when they were captured, although all stand accused of being members of the guerrilla coalition, the FMLN. In fact, most prisoners had been active in unions, campesino groups working for land reform (which has ground to a complete halt), church, student and human rights advocacy groups. These affiliations don’t daunt the government, which systematically extracts forced confessions as proof of guerrilla control of these same organizations. Decree 50 n 1980 a state of siege was declared which has since been codified by President Duarte as Decree 50. It allows the Salvadoran security forces to hold anyone 15 days incommunicado, though on the eighth day a delegate from the International Committee of the Red Cross can visit. Anything said or signed during this time can and will be used against the detainee, no matter how it may have been extracted. Consider the case of current Mariona prisoner Brigido Sanchez, a 59-year-old catechist, who has lived in refugee camps for the past eight years since the war displaced him from his rural home. He now shares a cell with 11 other men. Last year Sanchez decided to join the International Peace March through Central America on its Salvadoran leg. He supported the March’s call for peace through dialogue, which ironically was Duarte’s main platform plank in his 1984 p res identia l campaign. On his way home, Sanchez was picked up by the National Guard and taken to their main garrison. He recently recounted: “ I spent 10 days with the National Guard, in a small cell alone. I had no water and the light was always on, 24 hours a day. I was blindfolded with my thumbs tied together and handcuffed for the first five days. Every time I tried to fall asleep they would come in and ask me things: my name, over and over; they’d insult me and tell me they were going to kill me. They shined a bright light in my eyes, and they would take my elbows and push my hands against my ears very hard. . . . They wanted me to make a statement about the “true objectives” of the Central American Peace March. They wanted me to take responsibility for burning the city hall in El Monte de Cuscatlan- my hometown—and also to take responsibility for deaths in 1980 of some people in my town, and to say that I belonged to a political-military organization. “ I finally agreed to accept all these charges, after all of this, because I knew this was the objective of all the beatings and interrogations. Saturday they made me sign a statement, but I couldn’t hold the pen because I was having problems with my nerves and couldn't stop shaking, so one of the guards held my hand and signed my name for me.” In the worst tradition of Latin American justice, Brigido Sanchez’ treatment at the hands of the National Guard was proper and acceptable according to Salvadoran law under Decree 50. Then there's the case of Humberto Centeno, the International Affairs Secretary of Salvador’s telecommunications union, ASSTEL. In response to a strike against the national telephone/telegraph company, Centeno and his two sons were kidnapped from their home on Novembers, 1985. Heavily armed men in civilian clothes forced bags over their heads, tied their thumbs behind their backs and threw them in the back of a pick up. They were taken to Treasury Police headquarters. Humberto Centeno was released, but his sons were handed over to Captain Cartagena, the chief interrogator. For the next six days, Jose (21) and Jaime (18) were forced to stand naked and were denied food and sleep. They were beaten, kicked in the ribs and groin and struck on the ears. They were immersed in tanks filled with excrement and urine. The notorious capucha—a rubber hood filled with lime—was held over their head to the point of asphyxiation, and e lec tric shocks were applied to their arms, legs and groins. Much of this was done while the other was forced to watch. They were told screams from adjoining cells came from other family members who’d also been captured. Finally, when told that their father was dying and would be denied medical attention unless they cooperated, the brothers agreed to sign prepared confessions. They were accused of being members of the FMLN and also of having taken part in the kidnapping of an Air Force colonel in October, 1985. They were then cleaned up, given coats and ties and forced to make a videotaped confession during which they also pleaded with the union to end its strike. The union saw this as an attempt at blackmail and refused to give in. After two more “press conferences," the Centeno b ro thers were trans fe rred to Mariona. The government is increasingly using the electronic media to carry out its offensive against opposition groups. This May, Luz Alfaro Pena of the Non-Governmental Human Rights Commission (C.D.H.) was used on television to taint the C.D.H., the Committee of Mothers of the Disappeared and the Catholic Church, among others. The classical, physically brutalizing torture the Centeno brothers experienced has been perfected by the Salvadoran military with the help of Argentine, Chilean and Taiwanese advisors. But both the Red Cross and Socorro Jur- id ico—an independent human rights monitoring group—acknowledge less evidence of physical torture and more accounts of psychological techniques. Deprivation of sleep, food and water, “ restrained beatings,” mock executions and being forced to stand naked, all interspersed over eight days and nights, can break a person’s spirit as effectively as more heavy-handed treatment. Done under the supervision of a military doctor, once Vie swelling of arms and legs has gone down there are no marks, scars or other traceable damage that could later prove embarassing. Many recent Mariona arrivals spoken with testified to just this sort of psychological torture. Several also mentioned being given coffee laced with some kind of drug, after which none remember what happened or what they said. Such treatment of POWs during the Korean War outraged the U.S. military. Back then we were calling it brainwashing. Today in El Salvador, a high level U.S. military advisor wasn’t losing much sleep over the same techniques being meted out to Salvadoran civilians. “ It’s a policy issue about whether or not four days of sleep deprivation represents torture." He lamented the fact that “they really have only 15 days to get everything we need out of the detainees before they go on to Mariona and are out of reach.” The very fact that these people are surviving their detention at all is pointed to as an improvement of the human rights situation. Th(s view is very popular within the U.S. Embassy, a concrete compound dug in behind a series of high walls and fences sheathed in a special chain-link skin to guard against rocket attacks. Inside this bunker, the foreign service officer assigned specifically to monitoring human rights concerns follows the Salvadoran press accounts of killings and mistreatment by the military, and then cooks up statistics which become proof that “things are returning to normal.” (The Salvadoran Fourth Estate is as independent as the nation's judiciary—the C.D.H. and the Committee of the Mothers of the Disappeared have to buy advertising space to obtain news coverage.) Only congressional pressure causes anyone to venture out to investigate specific cases, those concerning North Americans or the rare Salvadorans whose plight has caused a stir in the U.S. press. O ff the Air t —t I Salvador has slipped off the front A l p a g e s and out of the network news, no longer the ratings grab it briefly was. Part of the greatly reduced press coverage is certainly due to much tighter conSTOP SMOKING SAM MCMAINS IN 2 ONE-HOUR SESSIONS • UNION CERTIFIED HYPNOTHERAPISTS • STOP COUGHING, HAVE MORE ENERGY • WITHOUT GAINING WEIGHT CALL FOR INFO ON ADDITIONAL SERVICES PREMIERE SOURCE FOR HOT STYLES IN WEARABLE VINTAGE CLOTHING ANTIQUE JEWELRY* DESIGNER RESALE AVALON ? ™ NS THE W INNING EDGE a 228-8411 MasterCard YOGA Daily ongoing yoga classes Fine Arts Building #414 1017 SW Morrison Downtown Portland Diane Wilson 227-1726 26 Clinton St. Quarterly
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