Speaker 1: Warning. This episode contains references to violence and domestic abuse.
Speaker 1: Please use discretion when listening. I'm sitting in MARISAA Martinez's
Speaker 1: living room and my hands are starting to sweat. Marisa
Speaker 1: has been kind enough to invite me into her home
Speaker 1: and sit down with me for over two hours to
Speaker 1: talk about some of the worst moments in salvador In history.
Speaker 1: And now I have to ask her a question that
Speaker 1: I know she won't like, but it's the question that
Speaker 1: I really came here to ask.
Speaker 2: Mira Amirista sorel it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I tell her, but I have to ask
Speaker 1: about your brother, but she cuts me off. She knows
Speaker 1: the question is coming. She points me to the internet
Speaker 1: to all of the other interviews that she's done in
Speaker 1: the past about him. I can't help but wonder what
Speaker 1: it's like to be in her position, to be the
Speaker 1: sister of someone who's infamous. It's no coincidence that Marisa
Speaker 1: goes by her married name, the Martinez, and not her
Speaker 1: maiden name, Dauison.
Speaker 3: He's been called a killer, a gangster, a psychopath. Major
Speaker 3: Roberto d'abisson has come from the shadows to emerge as
Speaker 3: the country's new strong man, A man whose solutions to
Speaker 3: the problems of El Salvador is to liquidate the communists.
Speaker 1: Roberto Dabison is one of the most infamous men in
Speaker 1: salvador In history. He's the founder of one of the
Speaker 1: country's biggest political parties, he was the leader of one
Speaker 1: of the country's most notorious death squads, and he's also
Speaker 1: the person that the UN says was responsible for the
Speaker 1: murder of Archbishop Romero.
Speaker 4: These two cables are both from the American Embassy in
Speaker 4: El Salvador, and it discusses a meeting during which Roberto
Speaker 4: do Buisson plans the murder of Archbishop Romero.
Speaker 1: I'm Jasmine Romero, and this is sacred scandal. Nation of Saints,
Speaker 1: episode three, The Executioner. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: was terrified of El Kukui, that's the Salvadoran version of
Speaker 1: the boogeyman. I would stay up at night staring into
Speaker 1: the dark corners of my room, certain that at any
Speaker 1: moment Ilkukui would come out of the darkness and take
Speaker 1: me away to punish me for being mean to my
Speaker 1: sisters or for talking back to my mom. It's very
Speaker 1: common for Salvadoran moms to say that's the kind of
Speaker 1: person that Roberto Dawison is for El Salvador, a larger
Speaker 1: than life creature, a boogeyman who would come under cover
Speaker 1: of darkness and punish you for your sins. In the
Speaker 1: same way that Oscar Romero was a symbol for the Church,
Speaker 1: that Wi Son became a symbol for the military and
Speaker 1: the lengths to which it would go in the name
Speaker 1: of stopping communism. Dawison is commonly called Il Major ra
Speaker 1: Wison because he started his career as a military officer.
Speaker 1: He was only sixteen when he enrolled in military school,
Speaker 1: and by nineteen he was a member of the National Guard.
Speaker 1: Light skinned and charismatic, Lawuison rose through the ranks, and
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy two he was chosen to train at
Speaker 1: the United States School of the Americas.
Speaker 5: According to the Pentagon, the mission of the school is
Speaker 5: to train the armed forces of Latin America, promote military professionalism,
Speaker 5: foster cooperation among multinational military forces, and to expand the
Speaker 5: trainees knowledge of United States customs and traditions.
Speaker 1: That's Susan Sarandon narrating a documentary about the school. The
Speaker 1: School of the Americas was created by the United States
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six, with the specific purpose of training
Speaker 1: the future MI military officers of Latin America. After the
Speaker 1: Cuban Revolution. JFK ordered that the school focus on teaching
Speaker 1: anti communist counterinsurgency. They taught cadets that the enemy was
Speaker 1: within their own people and that any suspected Communist was
Speaker 1: a traitor to their country. When Congress later declassified training
Speaker 1: manuals from the school, they included tactics for torture, blackmail, extortion,
Speaker 1: and neutralization a euphemism for unsanctioned murder. Here's former US
Speaker 1: Congressman Joseph Moakley testifying about the school.
Speaker 6: Every time there was a heinous killing, Al sawaras somebody
Speaker 6: that was past graduate of the School of America.
Speaker 1: To call the School of the Americas the School for
Speaker 1: Dictators is not an exaggeration. Literally, eleven Latin American dictators
Speaker 1: were graduates of the school. Over sixty thousand military officers
Speaker 1: have graduated from the academy and gone on to run
Speaker 1: operations across Latin America, and despite years of protests calling
Speaker 1: for its closure, the school still exists. It's now called
Speaker 1: the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation WINSC for short,
Speaker 1: and it's used to train border patrol and ICE agents
Speaker 1: on how to run raids on American cities. Roberto Dawison's sister,
Speaker 1: Marisa says that it's his time at the School of
Speaker 1: the Americas that really formed her brother's mindset.
Speaker 2: Not the way I see for na Viti made la
Speaker 2: formasion the defense a lacinteress North americanos perroue for malo pres.
Speaker 1: Marisa says that her brother came back from school in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, right around the time when the students
Speaker 1: and unions were protesting and being shot at by President
Speaker 1: Romero's military, So maybe it's not surprising that Dauison was
Speaker 1: convinced that communists were taking over his country.
Speaker 2: Parentonce de Graciamente ban Communistato.
Speaker 1: And he was hell bent on stopping them. Highly educated
Speaker 1: and charismatic Dauison was given a special task by his
Speaker 1: superiors in the military extract information, by any means necessary,
Speaker 1: find out who the Communists are in every city, town,
Speaker 1: and village in the country. Noauisan would go on to
Speaker 1: train groups of soldiers to kidnap, torture, extort, and murder
Speaker 1: to get the information they needed. These groups became known
Speaker 1: as Los Esquadron the death squads, But even within the
Speaker 1: Salvadorn military that Weuison's fervor against communists was extreme, so
Speaker 1: extreme that he was seen as a liability by the
Speaker 1: other more centrist members of the government, and he was
Speaker 1: kicked out of the Salvadoran military in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: When he heard that his time was up, he stole
Speaker 1: a cash of military documents and fled to Guatemala. But
Speaker 1: the Salvadorn oligarchy wasn't ready to let go of thata Wison.
Speaker 1: In him, they saw the perfect mouthpiece, someone whose ideology
Speaker 1: aligned with theirs and who wasn't worried about operating within
Speaker 1: the limits of the law. With funding from some of
Speaker 1: El Salvador's wealthiest families, that we Sun would videotape himself
Speaker 1: from his exiled place in Guatemala, giving speeches denouncing the
Speaker 1: state of things in El Salvador, talking about how subversives
Speaker 1: would ruin the country and naming those who he believed
Speaker 1: were responsible for the communist.
Speaker 7: Revolution, estes forreste.
Speaker 8: Merio, pour quatro.
Speaker 6: And pais.
Speaker 1: Those tapes were then flown back to El Salvador and
Speaker 1: broadcast on national TV. Those he named often went missing
Speaker 1: or turned up dead shortly after he named them. It
Speaker 1: was in those broadcasts that though we saw named one
Speaker 1: of his biggest targets the church. This was in the
Speaker 1: years leading up to the assassination of Oscar Romero. The
Speaker 1: priests had become symbols of the enemy. Those TV broadcasts
Speaker 1: are where he popularized the phrase aga patria matankura be
Speaker 1: a patriot, kill a priest.
Speaker 7: Who's there.
Speaker 1: Recuerda is the Estevan district, wuendo papeless and agapatri matancura.
Speaker 8: See the wild is a list of the wissta twas
Speaker 8: agapatria matancura econ listing man the most total of criminalists.
Speaker 1: Second win Father says he remembers seeing flyers out in
Speaker 1: the street printed with the phrase agapatria matancura. Below it
Speaker 1: was a list of names of almost forty priests from
Speaker 1: all over the country, including his name.
Speaker 8: See est Sanchez.
Speaker 9: Grandeta, Rutilio Sanchez, Rutilio, Rerande.
Speaker 1: Octaviortis all priests who were killed. Those flyers were scattered
Speaker 1: all over cities by men in helicopters who would open
Speaker 1: the doors mid flight and rein them onto the streets.
Speaker 2: Rampapelea, Hello, helicopteros agapatria matrio madame curac e f.
Speaker 1: This slogan was brought to life on March twenty fourth
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty when Oscar Romero was assassinated. That we
Speaker 1: sn had personally named him in a TV appearance just
Speaker 1: that week. When the archbishop was gunned down, everyone suspected
Speaker 1: it was the work of thatuison and his death squads,
Speaker 1: but there was no proof, that is until the Sadavia Diary.
Speaker 1: That's after the Break. Six weeks after Romero's assassination, a
Speaker 1: group of men gather at a plantation in the Salvadoran mountains.
Speaker 1: They're discussing strategy, going over how many weapons they have
Speaker 1: stashed and when to execute their plan. There are documents
Speaker 1: scattered everywhere, including one titled how to carry out a
Speaker 1: political coup in El Salvador, which is exactly what these
Speaker 1: men are doing. Their leader, il Major himself thrower to
Speaker 1: the La Wisson, but the meeting is cut short when
Speaker 1: a squad of soldiers burst through the door. The men
Speaker 1: try to flee, some of them try to eat the papers,
Speaker 1: but one by one they're arrested. In the days after
Speaker 1: the Salvadoran government will examine troph of documents, and there's
Speaker 1: one in particular that will draw their interest. It's a
Speaker 1: page from a book belonging to a red headed army
Speaker 1: captain named Alvaro Saravia. The book is Sadavia's daddio, his
Speaker 1: day planner. Most of the entries are mundane appointments, but
Speaker 1: there's one page in a strange handwriting. It contains a
Speaker 1: list of items one starlight scope, one two fifty seven
Speaker 1: Roberts rifle, four automatic rifles, grenades, and below a list
Speaker 1: of personnel one driver, one shooter for security. This list
Speaker 1: is believed to be the instructions for Archbishop Romero's murder.
Speaker 1: You'd think that evidence like this would be damning, or
Speaker 1: at least it would put a stop to his political ambitions.
Speaker 1: I mean, the man was literally caught planning a coup.
Speaker 1: He titled his coup plot like a middle schooler, but
Speaker 1: it didn't even slow him down. While imprisoned, that Wei
Speaker 1: soon called every powerful ally he had made, all those
Speaker 1: rich oligarchs that had been funding his TV broadcasts, made
Speaker 1: a huge stink about thatauison being imprisoned. He's released almost immediately,
Speaker 1: and all those documents that were confiscated are buried. Nouison
Speaker 1: goes off and continues operating his death squads with impunity.
Speaker 1: At this point, everyone is aware of these operations, including
Speaker 1: the United States government.
Speaker 10: Roberto d'abisson planned and ordered the murder of Archbishop of
Speaker 10: Oscar Romero. The evidence we have eyewitness accounts of this.
Speaker 10: He is a leader of the death squads.
Speaker 1: That's Robert White, the US ambassador to El Salvador under
Speaker 1: President Jimmy Carter. Carter was aware of the human rights abuses,
Speaker 1: but he was also deeply concerned about the rise of
Speaker 1: communism in Latin America. Just next door to El Salvador, Nicaragua,
Speaker 1: San Denista movement had overthrown the military government in a
Speaker 1: communist revolt. Carter worried that El Salvador would be the
Speaker 1: next Domino to fall, in part because by nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: the FMLN, the Armed Resistance that we mentioned in the
Speaker 1: last episode, had officially declared war against the government. So
Speaker 1: Carter was caught between two imperatives. Stopped the spread of
Speaker 1: communism and stopped the human rights abuses in El Salvador.
Speaker 1: The Carter administration would compromise by sending what it called
Speaker 1: non lethal aid to El Salvador, like jeeps and helicopters,
Speaker 1: and they definitely wanted nothing to do with someone like that.
Speaker 1: We saw. Here's Ambassador Robert White again.
Speaker 10: The Carter administration felt so strong about Roberto Dalbie's son's
Speaker 10: death squad activities that we classified him as a terrorist.
Speaker 10: We took away his fists, We denied him entrance into
Speaker 10: the United States Embassy. We made him a pariah as
Speaker 10: far as our acceptance goes.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen eighty one, a new US president was elected,
Speaker 1: one who had very different ideas on how to deal
Speaker 1: with El Salvador. Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 11: Central America is a region of great importance to the
Speaker 11: United States, and it is so close. Sam Salvador is
Speaker 11: closer to Houston, Texas than Houston is to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Rather than distance themselves from Dauison, Reagan's administration pulled him closer.
Speaker 1: Here's Robert White again.
Speaker 10: The Reaga administration came in, rehabilitated him, issued him a visa,
Speaker 10: made him a welcome guest in the embassy. He was
Speaker 10: constantly being entertained by our high ranking visitors. In a
Speaker 10: very real sense. The Reaga administration created Roberto Dalwison the
Speaker 10: political leader.
Speaker 1: They thought, hey, maybe we can shape this guy into
Speaker 1: someone we can use, and Roberto Dauison seized the opportunity.
Speaker 1: With the support of his new US allies and some
Speaker 1: wealthy salvadorn oligarchs, he created his own political party, one
Speaker 1: with values modeled directly after the US Republican Party. He
Speaker 1: called it La Lance Republican Nationalista or AREA for short,
Speaker 1: a conservative far right party that was pro military with
Speaker 1: anti communist aggression written right into its theme song. In
Speaker 1: case you missed it, that lyric was El Salvador will
Speaker 1: be the tomb where the Reds come to their end.
Speaker 1: With his new political party and the support of the
Speaker 1: U S government, that we sn went on to run
Speaker 1: for the Constituent Assembly, the Salvadoran version of Congress, and win,
Speaker 1: and pretty soon that we Sawn would be running for
Speaker 1: an even higher office, the Salvadoran presidency. That's after the break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that chant from the crowd was patria patriotism, yes, communism, No,
Speaker 1: it's from a rally supporting that we Son's campaign for
Speaker 1: the Salvadoran presidency in nineteen eighty four. Just to recap,
Speaker 1: this is a man who tried to plot a coup
Speaker 1: and now he's running for president.
Speaker 8: Hmmm.
Speaker 1: At this point in his career that we soon felt
Speaker 1: really untouchable, and he acted like it. In press conferences,
Speaker 1: he happily bashed the former US ambassador Robert White.
Speaker 3: What do you think of Ambassador Robert White?
Speaker 7: A DIPLOMATICA.
Speaker 1: He says, I think Robert White is a failed diplomat
Speaker 1: and a sick man. He would go on to say
Speaker 1: that all the news of his involvement with the death
Speaker 1: squads was something that Robert White made up just to
Speaker 1: make him look bad.
Speaker 6: Robert White.
Speaker 1: In the video, there's a group of guys surrounding that wisawn.
Speaker 1: He turns to them and says, are any of you
Speaker 1: and death squads? They all laughingly say no. You can
Speaker 1: feel the confidence pouring off of him. But after years
Speaker 1: of trying to work with him, the Reagan administration realized
Speaker 1: that he was not the kind of ally they wanted.
Speaker 1: After numerous CIA investigations, that Weison had gained a new
Speaker 1: nickname among his American friends, Blowtorch Bob. Rumors had spread
Speaker 1: that his favorite method of interrogation was to use a
Speaker 1: blowtorch on the limbs and genitals of his victims. This
Speaker 1: was not the kind of person that the US could control.
Speaker 1: The US ended up backing that Wuison's competitor, Napoleon d'orthe.
Speaker 1: That Wison lost the nineteen eighty four presidency, but he
Speaker 1: leveraged his national fame into a long career within the
Speaker 1: Legislative Assembly, which came with a perk. As a sitting
Speaker 1: member of the Legislative Assembly, he was basically immune from prosecution.
Speaker 1: In El Salvador. Members of the Assembly can only be
Speaker 1: charged by the Assembly itself, not by the justice system,
Speaker 1: and with so many of his powerful friends being Assembly members,
Speaker 1: that was never going to happen that we saw him.
Speaker 1: Was publicly accused of Romero's murder many times, but he
Speaker 1: was never charged, not for killing Romero, nor for leading
Speaker 1: several death squads.
Speaker 2: Bassan Mosaignos in bernou Chena Maqui Repente now the basis
Speaker 2: in Elaango Burgeconi in La Casa Estra Madre.
Speaker 1: Marisa didn't speak to her brother for several years. She
Speaker 1: would see him on the news on TV. In her mind,
Speaker 1: he was still the boy that she had grown up with,
Speaker 1: the brother that she had gotten along with Bess.
Speaker 2: But Amir and Germano Therment and cran Is.
Speaker 1: Then she would occasionally run into him at her mother's house.
Speaker 1: She remembers one Mother's day in the middle of the
Speaker 1: war that left her shaken.
Speaker 2: May Medio dia p sanchero.
Speaker 12: Hermos Bison pulled up to the house with a full
Speaker 12: military entourage with Cherokee trucks and armed soldiers in toe in.
Speaker 2: T sinko ombres ceo p ohio entreo.
Speaker 1: Albaro saba that red headed army captain he was among them.
Speaker 1: He was Dawison's personal chief of security and never left
Speaker 1: his side. Dauison, always the charmer, introduced his sister to
Speaker 1: the group of soldiers.
Speaker 7: Present Communista.
Speaker 1: I'd like you to meet my sister, the communist, he said.
Speaker 1: Marisa had no choice but to laugh it off, but
Speaker 1: he insisted, asking her to tell them all publicly what
Speaker 1: side she was on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's says is intelligence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes a lot of balls to tell your brother,
Speaker 1: the CIA trained death squad leader, that if he wants
Speaker 1: to know what side you're on, he should investigate a
Speaker 1: little harder. But I guess that's the benefit of being
Speaker 1: his sister. I can tell that it's hard for muddy
Speaker 1: set to talk about all of this, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: just exhausting. In researching her, I came across dozens of
Speaker 1: other interviews from across the decades. In the earliest ones,
Speaker 1: her hair is short, curly, and chestnut brown. In each
Speaker 1: successive interview, the gray in her hair becomes more and
Speaker 1: more prominent. Today it's pulled back into a bun, just
Speaker 1: streaks of white and gray. I finally ask her, point blank,
Speaker 1: do you think your brother had anything to do with
Speaker 1: the archbishop's murder?
Speaker 7: Who's de greg keer YOKREI had the borque?
Speaker 1: She tells me yes, but when she does, she doesn't
Speaker 1: look at me. She looks down at her hand, at
Speaker 1: a ring that she's been tapping against her chair every
Speaker 1: time she gets mad.
Speaker 7: Iquer Romeo.
Speaker 1: I think Romero was a rock in his shoe, she says,
Speaker 1: and that he thought that he needed to get rid
Speaker 1: of him. I feel so much sympathy for her. She
Speaker 1: spent so many years answering for her brother's crimes, trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of the boy that she knew and
Speaker 1: the man that he became. Is Quilos hermanos no ermanos.
Speaker 1: A brother is still a brother. I tell her and
Speaker 1: she says yes with a sigh. Roberto that we saw
Speaker 1: and was diagnosed with an aggressive throat cancer in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two. After a long period of estrangement, Marisa did
Speaker 1: go to the hospital and bid her brother goodbye.
Speaker 7: Jaunt Moribundo jan.
Speaker 2: Jo, Luisita, Luisitades Alessiman.
Speaker 1: Marisa would sit a couple afternoons a week with him,
Speaker 1: watching cartoons. They never spoke about the war or of Archbishop.
Speaker 7: Romero Okay al Meno. Jissimo La.
Speaker 1: Dauisson's cancer progressed rapidly, eating away his vocal passage in
Speaker 1: a dark twist of irony. The man who was the
Speaker 1: voice of so much death and agony died with an
Speaker 1: empty throat at the age of forty eight.
Speaker 7: Bon cancer is a freetent.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I can't help but think about all the
Speaker 1: times that Roerto la Wison could have been stopped. But
Speaker 1: at every turn people saw a charismatic figure who they
Speaker 1: thought that they could use for their own purposes. First
Speaker 1: the military, then the oligarchs, then the US government. Roberto
Speaker 1: da Wison died in nineteen ninety two, but he left
Speaker 1: a long shadow in El Salvador. His party Arena is
Speaker 1: still a major political player, and his son, Roberto Lawison Junior,
Speaker 1: was the mayor of one of the country's largest cities. Still,
Speaker 1: for most he is remembered as the man who planned
Speaker 1: Archbishop Romero's murder. It's a comforting and convenient end to
Speaker 1: the story. The bad man gets a horrible illness, one
Speaker 1: that seems to perfectly fit his horrific crimes, and eyes
Speaker 1: in pain. At least, that's the ending that most of
Speaker 1: l Savador's rich and powerful would like for us to
Speaker 1: leave with. But for people like me and for Nico
Speaker 1: van Elston, that's not quite enough.
Speaker 6: There was a whole group of people that were funding
Speaker 6: these desk squad killings, which were largely organized and orchestrated
Speaker 6: by Delby Sum. But he wasn't the only one.
Speaker 1: That's Nico van Elston. Nico mostly focuses on environmental law, but.
Speaker 6: I've also done over the years a great deal of
Speaker 6: promono work, and in particular in the area of international
Speaker 6: human rights.
Speaker 1: Work, which I find to be an odd hobby. But
Speaker 1: Nico grew up in California like me, and he was
Speaker 1: introduced to the Oscar Romero story pretty early on.
Speaker 6: I was in high school in northern California, and I
Speaker 6: remember was the funeral for Oscar Romero, and I was
Speaker 6: generally aware of the growing number of death squad killing.
Speaker 1: So when Nico got the chance to work on a
Speaker 1: case that would hold Oscar Romero's murderers to account, well,
Speaker 1: of course I leapt at it. After the coup plotters
Speaker 1: were arrested in the eighties, many of them managed to
Speaker 1: get released and disappear. Sadavia, that redheaded army captain who
Speaker 1: was Dawisoon's chief of security, was one of them. But
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four it was discovered that Sadavia
Speaker 1: was living in Modesto, California.
Speaker 6: He had a used car sales shop, as I recall.
Speaker 1: So Nico joined forces with the Center for Justice and
Speaker 1: Accountability to bring a civil lawsuit against Sadavia and his
Speaker 1: unnamed financial backers.
Speaker 6: Why Alberto Sadavia, Because he was in the US and
Speaker 6: we had jurisdiction, we could bring the case against him.
Speaker 6: The problem in Al Salvador is that there had been
Speaker 6: no criminal prosecutions concerning the Romero killing, and it wasn't
Speaker 6: possible at that time, so there was no justice this
Speaker 6: really terrible crime.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, the Salvadoran Assembly voted to enact
Speaker 1: a sweeping amnesty law. It absolved everyone of crimes committed
Speaker 1: during the war. That included not just the high profile
Speaker 1: crimes like the murder of Archbishop Romero, but thousands of
Speaker 1: other killings during the war. For every Oscar Romero, there
Speaker 1: are thousands of teachers, activists, journalists, and normal civilians who
Speaker 1: got caught in the crossfires, thousands whose names we don't know,
Speaker 1: who will never have a monument or plaque named in
Speaker 1: their honor. Likewise, for every Va we Son, there are
Speaker 1: thousands of military generals, politicians, and funders responsible for the
Speaker 1: violence who will never see justice. That's why Niko van
Speaker 1: Elston and the CJA filed their civil lawsuit in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. They couldn't do a criminal suit in
Speaker 1: the US courts, but they could sue for damages, basically
Speaker 1: go after Sadavia and the people who had been bankrolling
Speaker 1: the death squads.
Speaker 6: There was definitely a core of oligarchs that were funding
Speaker 6: a lot of the death squads killings, and Dabisong was
Speaker 6: kind of a bridge between the military elements that were
Speaker 6: doing that work. Taking their uniforms off and going out
Speaker 6: and doing this as a hobby on the side.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit not only named Captain Alberto Saravia as responsible
Speaker 1: for killing Archbishop Romero, it also included ten john does
Speaker 1: those shadowy figures, most of them operating from boardrooms in Miami,
Speaker 1: who were known funders of the death squads the Oligarchs.
Speaker 6: Sadavia was chief of security, as he liked to call himself,
Speaker 6: to Roberto Davison, he was not you know, he was
Speaker 6: not giving the orders except to the low level votes.
Speaker 6: He was, you know, he was taking the orders from Davifont,
Speaker 6: who clearly worked it out with those that were funding
Speaker 6: that those efforts.
Speaker 1: After the war, the documents seized during Thatauison's attempted coup
Speaker 1: were uncovered, including the infamous Saravia Diary, the supposed plan
Speaker 1: for killing Oscar Romero. Sadavia would later testify that the
Speaker 1: person who wrote the list was Dauison himself. He would
Speaker 1: later be interviewed by Salvadoran journalist Carlo Zada in an
Speaker 1: article titled How We Killed Monsigne Romero. Nico van Elsen
Speaker 1: and the CJA won their civil case in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four. A California judge ruled that Sadavia and the
Speaker 1: John Does were responsible for killing Archbishop Romero, and they
Speaker 1: owed ten million in damages. This money was never paid,
Speaker 1: Sadavia was dead broke, and the unnamed oligarchs couldn't be
Speaker 1: sufficiently tied to the murder. Still, the judgment was a
Speaker 1: significant moral victory. It signals that though we may not
Speaker 1: be able to change the past, there's hope for justice
Speaker 1: in the present and in the future.
Speaker 6: And there are in other cases that CG brought in
Speaker 6: the United States against other Salvadorns that were involved in
Speaker 6: the government and in the military for other human rights amusism.
Speaker 1: Roberto Lawison is remembered as one of the worst figures
Speaker 1: in Salvadorn history. The horrors he committed are now well known,
Speaker 1: but he was only the face of a much larger problem.
Speaker 1: He may have been the Boogeyman, but he wasn't the darkness.
Speaker 1: And isn't that what we're all really afraid of, the
Speaker 1: unnamed things that we cannot see, the ones just beyond
Speaker 1: our reach. On the next episode, the moment that finally
Speaker 1: woke up the American public exposed a cover up and
Speaker 1: forced Ronald Reagan to answer for what was happening in
Speaker 1: El Salvador.
Speaker 11: It is reported today from El Salvador that four Americans
Speaker 11: have been killed there.
Speaker 1: That's next time on Nation of Saints. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in learning more about the trial against Albero Seraia, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend Matt Eisenbrandt's excellent book Assassination of a Saint.
Speaker 1: Sacred Scandal. Nation of Saints is a production of a
Speaker 1: HA Podcasts in partnership with Iheart's Mike Wuldura podcast network,
Speaker 1: and is hosted and written by me Jasmine Romero, produced
Speaker 1: by Jasmine Romero with help from Albero Sespelez. Research and
Speaker 1: reporting by Jasmine Romero, Edited by Cyda Kevelo, Jorge just
Speaker 1: and Rose Red. Nation of Saints was recorded in New
Speaker 1: York City at the Relic Room, with engineering by Sam Bear,
Speaker 1: mixing and sound designed by Pachiquinones. Original music by Golden Mines,
Speaker 1: Darko and Iame based on Patrick Hart's original composition. Fact
Speaker 1: checking by it Indira Aquino Ayala. Executive producers are Carman
Speaker 1: geratrol isaac Lee, Rose Reed, and Nando Villa. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers at iHeart are Giselle Bansis and Arlene Santana. Sacred
Speaker 1: Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and Paulo Varro's Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Roberto Valencia, Nico van Elsten, and Matt Eisenbrandt.
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite podcasts.