Speaker 1: Warning this episode contains references to violence. Please use discretion
Speaker 1: when listening. How do you end a war? This was
Speaker 1: the question on everyone's mind in nineteen eighty nine. For
Speaker 1: almost a decade, El Salvador was steeped in a devastating war.
Speaker 1: Both sides, the military and the FMLN, were convinced that
Speaker 1: with one final push, their side could win. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: country that they fought for was in shambles. The economy
Speaker 1: was worse off than before, a quarter of the population
Speaker 1: had left, and tens of thousands lay dead. It was
Speaker 1: a battle to rule over the ashes. To Father Ignite Yakuria,
Speaker 1: the only answer was a negotiated ceasefire.
Speaker 2: Mitesi principal a key in Estaufo niedos is the siefke
Speaker 2: estaufo neiedos no eincontralo la solucion del Salvador.
Speaker 1: Father Yakuria was a Jesuit priest and philosopher who taught
Speaker 1: at the University of Central America in San Salvador. We
Speaker 1: call it Lauca. He'd known Oscar Romero and Rutilio Grande,
Speaker 1: and he'd watched the war unfold before his eyes. He'd
Speaker 1: spent that war documenting the truth contradicting the lies of
Speaker 1: the government and teaching the next generation of young people
Speaker 1: at the university, people like Hector Lindo Fontees.
Speaker 3: Being educated by the Jesuits kind of helped you open
Speaker 3: my mind to too many things that would not have
Speaker 3: been possible even to see or to hear about in
Speaker 3: other places.
Speaker 1: Professor Hector Lenwentez is now retired, but he spent his
Speaker 1: entire career teaching Latin American studies, most recently at Fordham University.
Speaker 1: He grew up in El Salvador and studied under his
Speaker 1: then professor, father at Yaquitia.
Speaker 4: He was not a big guy.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 3: Not particularly slender, but she was by no means an
Speaker 3: imposing person in the physical aspect. But intellectually he was
Speaker 3: really a giant. He was a very brilliant and incisive mind.
Speaker 1: Father at Yaquitia's brilliant and incisive mind made him a
Speaker 1: giant both on and off campus. He was the rector
Speaker 1: of the university, the leader among all the other Jesuits,
Speaker 1: and a published author who traveled the world giving lectures
Speaker 1: and conferences. And it was his brilliant mind that made
Speaker 1: him the perfect negotiator. Just like Archbishop Romero before him,
Speaker 1: a equitia was meeting with high ranking officials on both
Speaker 1: sides of the war, trying to create a dialogue between them.
Speaker 1: This included talks with then President Alfredo Christiani.
Speaker 6: After winning the election, but before going into office, I
Speaker 6: had a few talks with Father ya Kuria and asked
Speaker 6: him to go meet with the commandant to say how
Speaker 6: would they look at this.
Speaker 1: That's Christiani in an interview with Duke University. As you
Speaker 1: can hear, he spoke perfect English. Christiani was an old
Speaker 1: school oligarch, a businessman who studied at Georgetown and had
Speaker 1: family ties to the coffee industry, and President Christiani could
Speaker 1: see that the war wasn't just hurting the poor. The
Speaker 1: rich were losing out too. Production was down, the FMLN
Speaker 1: were blowing up bridges and specifically targeting the oligarchy and
Speaker 1: their ability to profit off the country. And at this
Speaker 1: point the FMLN was receiving financial and military support from
Speaker 1: communist allies in Cuba and Russia, further complicating an already
Speaker 1: complex international relationship. Christiani wanted a way out, and he
Speaker 1: basically had Father Yakuria on speed dial.
Speaker 3: He was kind of a go between, and he was
Speaker 3: really interested in promoting the idea of a negotiated solution.
Speaker 1: Father at Yaquaria and Christiani were working together trying to
Speaker 1: find a way to end this terrible war, which is
Speaker 1: why it was so shocking that on the night of
Speaker 1: November fifteenth, nineteen eighty nine, just hours after a phone
Speaker 1: call with the President, Father Yaquitia was murdered.
Speaker 3: There were there was shot in the brain.
Speaker 1: A Yequaria, along with five other Jesuit priests, Their housekeeper
Speaker 1: and her daughter were murdered. Their bodies were dragged out
Speaker 1: onto the campus slawn displayed for everyone to see. Nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine was the beginning of the end of the
Speaker 1: civil war, and if Oscar Romero's murder was the catalyst
Speaker 1: to start it, Father e Equitia and the Jesuit murders
Speaker 1: were the catalyst to end it. The Jesuit massacre would
Speaker 1: send shock waves through El Salvador and beyond, and the
Speaker 1: question of who gave the order and who knew would
Speaker 1: get at the heart of who really held the power
Speaker 1: in El Salvador. I'm Jasmine Romero and this is sacred scandal.
Speaker 1: Nation of Saints, Episode eight. The Jesuits. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after the break.
Speaker 7: She has when I'm trying to make your patience worthwhile.
Speaker 7: Because you spent so much time chasing.
Speaker 1: Me down, you are very well worth it.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to make it well worth it.
Speaker 1: That's Professor Terry Carl. I could read you her bona fides,
Speaker 1: but it would basically take up the entire podcast.
Speaker 7: I'm an emeritus professor from Stanford University. I was a
Speaker 7: professor at Harvard before then.
Speaker 1: Professor Carl was the expert witness for cases on elm
Speaker 1: sulte Oscar Romero's assassination, and the murder of the Jesuits,
Speaker 1: just to name a few. She is by far the
Speaker 1: foremost American expert on El Salvador. But she's not just
Speaker 1: an academic. She was also on the ground throughout the
Speaker 1: entire war, getting information that no one else was getting.
Speaker 7: I'm small, I was female, brown haired, kind of cute,
Speaker 7: I think, and I was not a journalist, so I
Speaker 7: could go around and ask questions and find things that
Speaker 7: journalists really had a harder time on because people were
Speaker 7: afraid that they would be.
Speaker 1: Quoted, including doing things like spending three weeks on the
Speaker 1: campaign trail with Roberto Dawison.
Speaker 7: It's quite an intimidating guy, you know, and especially if
Speaker 7: you knew that he had already killed people, which I did.
Speaker 1: She later used her insights on that Wison to give
Speaker 1: testimony at the trial for Oscar Romero's murder. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: Professor Carl is the real deal. I And in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen eighties, Professor Carl was working on an academic project.
Speaker 7: So I was at that point trying to map out
Speaker 7: violence and I had, I mean, all these undergraduates spending
Speaker 7: a little yellow and red and pink and different color
Speaker 7: pins in a map.
Speaker 1: She was constantly flying back and forth collecting information on
Speaker 1: the ground in Elsavador and bringing it back to the
Speaker 1: US to analyze. And one of the places that she
Speaker 1: was getting a lot of her information was from the
Speaker 1: Jesuits at Lauca, you know.
Speaker 7: Every time I would come to Al Salvador, which was
Speaker 7: quite a lot at that time, I just kept checking
Speaker 7: in with them. And then eventually, when I moved to Stanford,
Speaker 7: I formed a work group with Nacho's help in a
Speaker 7: acuitius help.
Speaker 1: Now, Father Yakuria is probably the most important person in
Speaker 1: this story, but before we get into him, I want
Speaker 1: to take a second to talk about the other Jesuit
Speaker 1: priest that he was working with. I kind of think
Speaker 1: of the Jesuits at Lauca like the Ninja turtles. Stay
Speaker 1: with me. Just like the Ninja turtles, each one of
Speaker 1: the Jesuit priests working at Lauca had a specialty, something
Speaker 1: that they were uniquely talented at. Take Father Ignacio Martin Berro,
Speaker 1: who Professor Carl affectionately calls Martin Barot, was an incredible psychologist.
Speaker 1: His focus was on understanding what the war was doing
Speaker 1: to the psyche of the Salvadoran people. He traveled all
Speaker 1: over the world giving lectures on his findings, talking about
Speaker 1: his theory on the militarization of the mind, that living
Speaker 1: under violence for so long was fundamentally changing Salvadorans, creating
Speaker 1: and perpetuating further cycles of violence, that violence was becoming
Speaker 1: the only way for Salvadoran society to respond to its problems.
Speaker 1: Here he is at a lecture.
Speaker 5: Lack is worth nothing in Salvador, or the lull of
Speaker 5: the strongest. I rather say the most violent is a
Speaker 5: social criteria and corruption that's a life style, thus precipitating
Speaker 5: a vicious circle which tends to perpetuate the war.
Speaker 1: And then there's father Segundo Montes, an incredible speaker who
Speaker 1: was studying the impacts of the refugee crisis that the
Speaker 1: war was creating.
Speaker 7: Segunda Montes could relate to anybody. Eddie Peasant. I mean,
Speaker 7: you just got him out there and he was just
Speaker 7: People loved him. They loved him, and they would mob him.
Speaker 1: Father Jaquez Lopez founded schools for poor children. Father Juandre
Speaker 1: mon Moreno took care of the libraries and was a
Speaker 1: meticulous cataloger of information. And Father Lopez Guintania was an
Speaker 1: expert gardener who took care of Lauca's mango trees. For
Speaker 1: the record, Professor Carl agreed with my Ninja Turtle's analogy.
Speaker 7: You're absolutely right. They were really admired in love for
Speaker 7: their particular ability.
Speaker 1: And as we know, the ninja turtles are led by
Speaker 1: an anthropomorphic rat sense named Master Splinter, and the master
Speaker 1: Splinter in this scenario is, of course, Father Ignacio Yakuria.
Speaker 7: Akudia was very patrician. He was a very He just
Speaker 7: reminded me of a Spanish patrician of the Middle Ages
Speaker 7: or something, just the way he carried himself, the way
Speaker 7: he looked, the way you know, he was an extraordinary mind.
Speaker 1: Very master splinter. So Father Yaquaria is leading the Jesuits
Speaker 1: at the university and doing his academic work.
Speaker 7: But on the side, what he's doing is he's doing
Speaker 7: shuffle diplomacy. That's what he's doing. He's the guy who's
Speaker 7: back and forth, back and forth talking to this book.
Speaker 7: He's the only one that the commandantes on the flon
Speaker 7: we'll talk to, but Soulo Christiani, and he's making progress
Speaker 7: because all kinds of people who said we're not going
Speaker 7: to negotiate start saying, well, you're you know, you're right.
Speaker 7: There's too much death, there's too much killing, there's too
Speaker 7: much this, there's too much of that.
Speaker 1: Which seems like a good thing, right, I mean, who
Speaker 1: wants more war? President Cristiani was definitely on board, and
Speaker 1: so was the US, who at this point had spent
Speaker 1: the last nine years shoveling money into a war that
Speaker 1: would not end well. Some people were extremely unhappy that
Speaker 1: a Equitia was trying to end the war.
Speaker 7: We call them spoilers in the negotiating business, if I
Speaker 7: can put it that way, because they're the ones who
Speaker 7: are going to do something to spoil any chance of peace.
Speaker 1: On the left, you've got the extremists in the FMLN,
Speaker 1: the ones that are convinced that normal civilians, if just
Speaker 1: given the chance, will revolt against the government. And on
Speaker 1: the right you've got Latandonna.
Speaker 7: The biggest graduating class nineteen sixty six, the so called
Speaker 7: Tandona graduating class in the military, has taken power now.
Speaker 7: They are the hardest of the hardline. They're not a
Speaker 7: big number, because remember officers are the elite. They're not
Speaker 7: a big number. They're making money hand over fist.
Speaker 1: Latandona is a group of colonels who all graduated the
Speaker 1: Salvadoran Military Academy together in the class of sixty six,
Speaker 1: and they're the highest ranking officers in the Salvadoran military,
Speaker 1: the Minister of Defense, the chief of Staff, the head
Speaker 1: of the air Force. They're the ones calling the shots
Speaker 1: and getting rich off of the military aid from the US.
Speaker 7: They're not just committing human rights abuses, but they're all
Speaker 7: in business and they're trafficking and there's you know, people
Speaker 7: are selling visas, they're selling i mean everything is up
Speaker 7: for sale.
Speaker 1: Selling arms, taking the salaries of dead soldiers. The Gordons
Speaker 1: of Latona had all kinds of schemes that they were
Speaker 1: running to profit off of the hunhundreds of millions that
Speaker 1: the US was sending over and they were in no
Speaker 1: rush to end the war and give all that up. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you've got father Yakaria.
Speaker 7: Getting back and forth and go back and forth and
Speaker 7: back and forth. Now, if you're to the Tondona, your
Speaker 7: biggest threat to say a Cordea.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Latandona who had a bone to pick.
Speaker 1: The Jesuits had also made enemies of the oligarchy, those
Speaker 1: famed fourteen families.
Speaker 7: The only word I kept hearing was tracion, trac trac,
Speaker 7: you know, traders, traders, traders. I'd say, would you explain
Speaker 7: to me what that means? It means, you know, we
Speaker 7: used to be able to send our kids here. We
Speaker 7: didn't have to send our kids to the United States.
Speaker 7: We believed in the Oka as a very good education,
Speaker 7: and now we can't do that anymore because they come
Speaker 7: back and they say, you know, I think you should
Speaker 7: pay the peasants more. The whole thing was your traders
Speaker 7: to us, and the anchor he was really at the
Speaker 7: Jesuits and was really at a equidia. Being the rector.
Speaker 1: In the days leading up to the massacre, Salvador and
Speaker 1: Colin radio shows were filled with people calling for the
Speaker 1: Jesuits to be thrown out, to be jailed, to be killed,
Speaker 1: saying that they were traders to the country, or that
Speaker 1: they were the real leaders of the FMLN. But Father
Speaker 1: Ediquitia still believes that there's a chance for peace. He
Speaker 1: believes in President Cristiani that with Gristiani's help, they'll find
Speaker 1: a way forward. In mid November of nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: a Equitia went to Spain to give a lecture, but
Speaker 1: while he was gone things escalated between the left and
Speaker 1: the right and El Salvador. So President Gristiani calls him
Speaker 1: and tells him, you need to come home. I need
Speaker 1: your help to calm things down.
Speaker 7: Everybody warned Equity not to come back. Everybody who knew
Speaker 7: don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't
Speaker 7: trust this. It wasn't really about trusting Christiani per se.
Speaker 7: Just don't even trust this, right, So he decides to
Speaker 7: come back. When he gets back, a number of people
Speaker 7: incluting me said you have to get out of the UK.
Speaker 7: They're going to kill you. By this point, I had
Speaker 7: gotten to be quite an expert in anticipating killings. And
Speaker 7: I'm seeing the being able to smell the crescendo. You know,
Speaker 7: did you call him? Not him? I didn't call Equity.
Speaker 7: I got somebody else, and I said, they're going to
Speaker 7: kill you. And I went to the President of Stanford
Speaker 7: and I said, you've got to help me. I know
Speaker 7: these intellectuals, said the rector, the vice rector, blah blah,
Speaker 7: and they're going to kill him. And I got to
Speaker 7: get him out of there.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Professor Carl heard that there had been
Speaker 1: a massacre at Lauca. Around two thirty am, the Atlakatal battalion,
Speaker 1: the same one that committed the massacre at Elmosote, broke
Speaker 1: into the jesuits sleeping quarters. I've been there. The rooms
Speaker 1: are spartan, just four walls of concrete. Some of them
Speaker 1: are shot in bed, others are dragged out onto the
Speaker 1: lawn and shot. There. A witness heard father Martin Barol
Speaker 1: shout estresu nam hustisia, this is an injustice. They also
Speaker 1: found El Barbarrios, the Jesuit's housekeeper, huddled in her room
Speaker 1: along with her fifteen year old daughter, Selena. They were
Speaker 1: also shot and killed. The soldiers then fired a couple
Speaker 1: of shots into the walls and put a flame through
Speaker 1: to the Jesuits rooms to create the impression of a shootout.
Speaker 1: The news broke like a bomb.
Speaker 8: Six Jesuit priests were brutally executed and sent Salvador last week.
Speaker 8: Their deaths have triggered a heated congressional debate on continuation
Speaker 8: of military aid to that country. Even President Bush has
Speaker 8: been dogged on the road by repeated protests and questions
Speaker 8: about the United States policy.
Speaker 9: Let me just say a word about El Salvador.
Speaker 2: Maybe it'll help.
Speaker 9: It was the FMLN, the Marxist Leninist FMLN, that shot
Speaker 9: its way into the middle of El Salvador, trying to
Speaker 9: disrupt Salvador's democracy, and President Christiani told me on the
Speaker 9: phone that they will do everything they can to bring
Speaker 9: to justice, whether they're from the right or the left,
Speaker 9: those who wantonly murdered those priests.
Speaker 7: Right away. The reaction was, this is not going to stand.
Speaker 7: This is not going to stand.
Speaker 1: After the break, a Boston brawler, a failed cover up,
Speaker 1: and finally an end to.
Speaker 10: The war, and it seems to me that it is
Speaker 10: incumbent on us to guarantee that if we're going to
Speaker 10: put a million dollars a day somewhere, that million dollars
Speaker 10: is going to live up to our standards, and if
Speaker 10: it can't live up to our standards, then we shouldn't
Speaker 10: be putting it there, no matter what the outcome. Well,
Speaker 10: I listened here, then you get back, then you get
Speaker 10: back into the questionable.
Speaker 1: That's a snippet of a Congressional hearing from the weeks
Speaker 1: after the Jesuit massacre, and the hearing then Senator John
Speaker 1: Kerry is questioning whether the US should continue sending military
Speaker 1: aid to Alsabador in light of the news. Bernard Aaronson,
Speaker 1: the Assistant secretary from the Department of st argues that
Speaker 1: pulling the military aid will just make the situation worse.
Speaker 1: Mind you, this is now ten years into the war.
Speaker 1: Ten years. In those ten years, never, not once, was
Speaker 1: the military aid that was sent to El Salvador met
Speaker 1: with any kind of restrictions or demands. It was literally
Speaker 1: free money that the US sent to the Salvadoran military.
Speaker 1: And it had been ten years of these kinds of debates.
Speaker 1: But if it were to be discovered that the murdered
Speaker 1: Jesuit priests were in fact killed by the salvadorn military. Well,
Speaker 1: that might finally change the story.
Speaker 7: All the times the United States shook its finger at
Speaker 7: El Salvador's military and said, now, if you do that
Speaker 7: one more time, we're going to cut off aid it
Speaker 7: didn't have any meaning. But this time it did. And
Speaker 7: that's what was so important, is that this time, this
Speaker 7: time it did.
Speaker 1: The Jesuits weren't just small town priests like Oscar Romero.
Speaker 1: They weren't nameless civilians in Elmosolte. These were the ninja turtles.
Speaker 1: They had given speeches at Berkeley, They'd met senators and
Speaker 1: heads of state. These guys were well connected and well
Speaker 1: respected scholars. It wouldn't be so easy to just write
Speaker 1: these guys off as communists. In the immediate aftermath of
Speaker 1: the Jesuit massacre, the Salvadoran government would claim that the
Speaker 1: FMLN was responsible for the attack, and President Gaiticiani announced
Speaker 1: that he would conduct a thorough investigation of the same
Speaker 1: old story, lie and deny. But with US attitudes rapidly
Speaker 1: shifting on El Salvador, this time would be different, partially
Speaker 1: because of a Congressman from Boston named Joe Moakley.
Speaker 7: Moakley let me tell you about Moakley. He was just Moakley,
Speaker 7: great Irish Catholic. Moakley was a street fighter, and he
Speaker 7: had been appointed by the Congress to have a fact
Speaker 7: finding commission on who killed the Jesuits.
Speaker 11: I have to admit I really wasn't sure exactly where
Speaker 11: Al Savado is. I don't know that is Central America
Speaker 11: or South America.
Speaker 1: A hard talking brawler from Boston, Congressman Moakley had long
Speaker 1: been critical of the US's involvement in El Salvador. So
Speaker 1: the Moaglely Commission goes down to El Salvador with a
Speaker 1: couple of investigators, determined to find out exactly what happened
Speaker 1: to these Jesuit priests, barging into meetings and talking to
Speaker 1: high and low ranking officials, asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 7: Is Smouthly was like a bulldog. He would stop you
Speaker 7: couldn't stop him.
Speaker 1: And Moakley can see that the Salvadorans aren't being totally
Speaker 1: honest about what happened. They're sending him on fake leads
Speaker 1: or outright lying. But he can put two and two together.
Speaker 1: He's looking at the evidence and saying, if the military
Speaker 1: had complete control of the university on the night of
Speaker 1: the murders. How could the FMLN be the ones that
Speaker 1: killed the priests? Moakley and his team start sniffing dangerously
Speaker 1: close to the truth, and if the truth gets out,
Speaker 1: well there goes all that American cash. But Latnona, that
Speaker 1: cohort of colonels that's running the military, they have a
Speaker 1: plan in place just for this kind of problem. In
Speaker 1: the days leading up to the Jesuit massacre, there was
Speaker 1: a series of closed door meetings, meetings where they decide
Speaker 1: exactly when and how the Jesuits will be killed, and
Speaker 1: they decide that just in case anything goes wrong, they're
Speaker 1: going to need a fall guy. They land on the
Speaker 1: director of the military academy.
Speaker 7: Now, the thing about Colonel Menavides, it's so important in
Speaker 7: this cover up story, is that Benavides would never have
Speaker 7: come up with this idea by himself.
Speaker 1: Neveres was part of Latandona, but he's sort of the
Speaker 1: black sheep of the group. He's the guy that everyone
Speaker 1: keeps around because well he's part of the group, but
Speaker 1: he's not out there making policy decisions or running operations.
Speaker 1: He's running the military school. It's a relatively low level
Speaker 1: position for a man of his rank. Two days before
Speaker 1: the Jesuit massacre, the Atla Coadel Battalion was transferred to
Speaker 1: Benavidez's command, and on the night of November fifteenth, he's
Speaker 1: given an order to take care of the Jesuit problem,
Speaker 1: and he does so. He didn't realize at the time
Speaker 1: that he was being set up to be the fall guy.
Speaker 7: Oh, I don't think so. I don't think it would
Speaker 7: have ever occurred to any member of the Tendona that
Speaker 7: they could be a fall guy.
Speaker 1: Once Mokeley came sniffing around, Benavivez was presented as the
Speaker 1: sole intellectual author of the killings. Now to be clear,
Speaker 1: benavives was given an order by a superior officer, a
Speaker 1: member of Latandona, but he never testified as to who
Speaker 1: gave him that order.
Speaker 7: So why doesn't he talk? Why doesn't he say I
Speaker 7: didn't do this. I'll tell you why. Because Colonel Montana
Speaker 7: threatened his family.
Speaker 1: Goronell Montano, the Minister of Security and member of Latandona's
Speaker 1: inner circle.
Speaker 7: It's a mafia organization ton down. It's like we know
Speaker 7: where you live, we know where your son goes to school.
Speaker 1: Benevidez, along with eight other low ranking military officers are
Speaker 1: arrested for the murder of the Jesuits. The Salvadoran government
Speaker 1: quickly pushes the case through and finds Benevidez and one
Speaker 1: other guy guilty. It's a farce quote a kangaroo court
Speaker 1: to make kangaroo's blush, in the words of a US
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals judge who reviewed the case, but let
Speaker 1: them don't have figures. Hey, we tossed them Benevivez. Now
Speaker 1: everything should go back to normal, but it's too late.
Speaker 1: Congressman Mowchlely has seen how these guys operate. He goes
Speaker 1: back to Washington and tells everyone how quote the American
Speaker 1: people and Congress have been played for fools.
Speaker 11: I still encounter members of the armed forces who fail
Speaker 11: to demonstrate any remorse, any regret over the assassination of
Speaker 11: the Jesuits. Mister Chairman. They don't even fake it very well.
Speaker 11: I cannot think of one single instance where one single
Speaker 11: member of the Salvadoran Armed Forces has openly and voluntarily
Speaker 11: provided any evidence of any significance that has helped move
Speaker 11: this case forward.
Speaker 1: Six months after the Jesuit massacre, Mowgli passed a bill
Speaker 1: to cut aid to El Salvador by fifty percent. The
Speaker 1: salvador In military, seeing their cash cow is drying up,
Speaker 1: finally comes to the table to negotiate an end to
Speaker 1: the war. But what about President Christiani. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: the president, after all, the commander in chief of the
Speaker 1: armed forces, and he'd been on the phone with Father
Speaker 1: Yakuria just hours before the murders. From the very beginning,
Speaker 1: Gristiani has claimed that he did not know about the
Speaker 1: plot to murder the Jesuits, that this was strictly a
Speaker 1: military operation. The Professor Carl has her doubts.
Speaker 7: I'm pretty sure Christiani must have known, but I don't
Speaker 7: know that for a fact, and only he can tell
Speaker 7: us that. And maybe they didn't confide in him because
Speaker 7: they didn't trust him because he was with you know,
Speaker 7: I don't know that there are other colonels who say
Speaker 7: he knew. There are people who said he knew, and
Speaker 7: they're all dead. They've all been murdered, every single one
Speaker 7: of them.
Speaker 1: In the years since the Jesuit murders, Pristiani has been
Speaker 1: accused multiple times of being a co conspirator, but it's
Speaker 1: never been proven in court. There's currently a warrant out
Speaker 1: for his arrest in El Salvador. His whereabouts are unknown.
Speaker 1: About two years after the Jesuit massacre, the FML and
Speaker 1: the Salvadoran government agreed to the nineteen ninety two to
Speaker 1: Pultepec Accords, the official end to the Salvadoran Civil War.
Speaker 1: President Gristiani is hailed as the man who ended the war.
Speaker 1: As part of the agreement, the f MLN turned into
Speaker 1: an official political party and even one seats in the
Speaker 1: Legislative Assembly. Parts of the Salvadoran military were disbanded and
Speaker 1: a new, more impartial judicial system was implemented. But to me,
Speaker 1: the most important thing that comes out of those negotiations
Speaker 1: is the UN Truth Commission. In an attempt to heal
Speaker 1: the country, the UN sent investigators in to uncover all
Speaker 1: of the human rights abuses and finally bring those responsible
Speaker 1: to justice. And if they had that might be where
Speaker 1: our story ends.
Speaker 7: But everything's falling apart because the Truth Commission is naming names.
Speaker 1: The UN Truth Commission starts to uncover everything the perpetrators
Speaker 1: of all of these crimes they named that we saw
Speaker 1: in the intellectual author of Oscar Romero's murder. They uncover
Speaker 1: the chain of command for the Jesuit massacre, directly naming
Speaker 1: officers in Latandona, and they find the bodies in Enmosulte.
Speaker 1: And it's not just the salvadorn military being named. The
Speaker 1: investigators also uncover abuses committed by the FMLN. All these
Speaker 1: retired military captains, who have now become politicians, realize that
Speaker 1: they're about to be sent to jail, So of course.
Speaker 7: The Irena dominated Congress passes a self amnesty.
Speaker 1: Total amnesty. The Salvadoran legislature passes a law that declares
Speaker 1: that no matter what you did during the war, no
Speaker 1: matter what side you were on, you won't be punished
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 7: There are fml AND commanders who went quite along with this,
Speaker 7: partly because they also are guilty of human rights violations.
Speaker 1: Some of these commanders, members of the FMLN who are
Speaker 1: now part of the Salvadoran government, also voted to pass
Speaker 1: this sweeping amnesty law that left everyone in Pune.
Speaker 7: Anybody who committed a human rights crime in one of
Speaker 7: the armed forces, or in the desk squads or something
Speaker 7: probably was pretty okay. Was okay.
Speaker 1: The Cold War is over, the US pulls its funding
Speaker 1: and all the killers go free, just like that it's
Speaker 1: as if none of it had ever happened at all.
Speaker 1: So what happens to the people of El Salvador? What
Speaker 1: becomes of a person when you can see your rapist
Speaker 1: at the grocery store, or when your mother's killer becomes
Speaker 1: a senator, when your pain and your suffering is unacknowledged
Speaker 1: and the guilty go free. Terry Carl read me a
Speaker 1: quote by a judge who oversaw the Nurenberg trials after
Speaker 1: World War Two. Trials were the Nazis were condemned.
Speaker 7: If you were to say that these men are not guilty,
Speaker 7: it would be as true to say there had been
Speaker 7: no war, there were no victims, and there had been
Speaker 7: no crime. In El Salvador, there was a war, there
Speaker 7: were victims, and there has been a crime.
Speaker 1: Seventy five thousand dead, a million more displaced, and no
Speaker 1: hope of justice. The Peace Accords did end the war,
Speaker 1: but they also left a giant wound exposed, a population
Speaker 1: left with the trauma of war, and, in the words
Speaker 1: of Father Martin Barol, a society with a militarized mind.
Speaker 7: What I would say is, if you do that down
Speaker 7: the road, you will have another iteration, not the same
Speaker 7: way not necessarily two armed forces, not with the ideology involved.
Speaker 7: But you will have another iteration down the road, whether
Speaker 7: it's twenty years or thirty years or forty years of
Speaker 7: the same kind of violence, except worse.
Speaker 4: El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in
Speaker 4: the world. Like thirteen and eighteenth Street, have been at
Speaker 4: war for decades. They work like the mafia, extorting money
Speaker 4: from local businesses, fighting for territory and killing with impunity.
Speaker 1: That's next time own Nation of Saints Sacred Scandal. Nation
Speaker 1: of Saints is a production of AJA Podcasts in partnership
Speaker 1: with Iheart's Michael Dura podcast network, and is hosted and
Speaker 1: written by me Jasmine Romero, produced by Jasmine Romero with
Speaker 1: help from Alvaro Sesbelees. Research and reporting by Jasmine Romero,
Speaker 1: edited by saydre Kevelo. Nation of Saints was recorded in
Speaker 1: New York City at the Relic Room, with engineering by
Speaker 1: Brett Tuban, mixing and sound designed by Pachiquinones. Original music
Speaker 1: by Golden Mines, Darko and Diame based on Patrick Hart's
Speaker 1: original composition, fact checking by Erendira Aquino Ayala. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Gorman gerterol isaac Lee Rose Reed and Nando Villa.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers at iHeart are Giselle Mansis and Arlene Santana.
Speaker 1: Sacred Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and Paula Badros.
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