July 11th, 15th, 16th 2002
Trial Update, Days 10, 11, 12 - Testimony of Defendant General Garcia and Former Ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr
Testimony of Defendant General Garcia
Cross-Examination of General Garcia by Plaintiffs' attorney Jim Green
Redirect Examination by Defendants' attorney Kurt Klaus
Re-cross Examination by Jim Green
Testimony of Edwin Corr, former Ambassador to El Salvador, 1985-1988
Cross-Examination of Ambassador Corr by Plaintiffs' attorney Peter Stern
Direct Examination of General Garcia
The first of the two defendants began to testify on July 11 concerning his role as commander of the Salvadoran armed forces at a time in which those forces were accused of grave human rights abuses. "My name is Jose Guillermo Garcia," the General began, after being administered the oath by Judge Hurley. Defense attorney Kurt Klaus spent most of the morning leading General Garcia through his resume. Garcia had graduated first in his tanda (military class) in 1956, he told the jury. After graduating, Garcia commanded an infantry brigade of 30 men, and later taught cadets at the Military Academy. Garcia described how, at one point, he was deployed to a less-prestigious post because he refused to comply with an order to inflate the grades of undeserving students.
Garcia was later appointed to the Board of Directors of a military bank, and in 1973 he served on the Presidential General Staff. In 1974, he became the President of the National Telecommunications Administration (ANTEL). He then became Commander of the Army in Sonsonate and then San Vicente and finally was appointed as Minister of Defense in 1979. Garcia described his acceptance of the Ministry position as a hesitant one, in which he did not accept until the day after the offer. His hesitancy, he explained, was because such a "convulsive" situation existed in El Salvador that he felt that anything he would do "wouldn't be understood." As Minister of Defense, he described, he and his family received threats from an unknown source, so he sent his five children to live in the United States. "That's why I'm here today," he explained to the jury. He went on to explain how several of his staff had been killed or injured, again by unknown assailants.
"The country was in a chaotic situation when I became Minister of Defense," he said. "There were protests everyday, dead people everyday and also abuses." Describing the October 1979 junta, he said: "I did everything I could to support the declaration of the junta, who carried out reform in a way that had never been seen." He then described what he called an unprecedented bank reform, in which soldiers occupied all of the banks in the country to bring them under military control. The whole operation was carried out in a 24-hour period, he explained, with apparent pride. He also described an agrarian reform program, in which land was taken by the army and given to peasant cooperatives. It was "considered a great event in the country; it was done in one fell swoop," he said. "Was there a rise in violence in the countryside?" Klaus then asked. There was, Garcia explained. The violence came from the right and the left, and the army was infiltrated by both sides in order to make the government look bad, he said.
Klaus then asked about the tortures, disappearances and killings described in the plaintiffs' case. "If you looked in the newspaper," the General stated, "you could see what was happening everyday." "It was total chaos," he repeated. "I want to be honest," he said, "within the armed institutions there were elements that served the right and others who served the 'terrorists' in order to make the armed forces look bad."
"Twenty years ago," he explained, "to speak of human rights in El Salvador was not like it is now. It wasn't unknown but many had reservations. That's why human rights was not taken" as seriously as today. He claimed that he had issued orders to respect human rights, and when Klaus tried to have him read from an apparent order, a debate began among the lawyers and the judge regarding the labeling and admitting of the document from which Garcia wanted to read. Garcia identified the document as a speech that he had given over the radio and television, rather than an order, and it was admitted into evidence over objection. Garcia went on to read the speech entitled "The Salvadoran People Must Trust Its Armed Forces," and the courtroom seemed to go back in time, as observers heard a speech from another era, in which Garcia lauded the role of the armed forces.
Garcia went on to describe to the jury that as Minister of Defense he had invited the International Red Cross to El Salvador and gave the organization's representatives "free and open access" to all detention centers. He had never received any Red Cross reports about any of the plaintiffs, he stated. Detentions were carried out when judges ordered the arrest of certain individuals, he described, and reports were issued about the detained. When the army took prisoners, they would turn them over to the security forces. "No one had the authority to torture," he declared. Responding to a question about the complaints of human rights abuses, he said the complaints went to the President, Ministers, General Staff, and sometimes to commanders.
"Do you acknowledge that people were tortured in the facilities of the armed forces while you were Minister of Defense?" Klaus asked. "No, I never had any proof of that," Garcia answered. "If they were, would it have been against your orders?" Klaus continued. "Yes," said the general. When Klaus asked Garcia what he would have done if he had received reports of torture in detention facilities, Garcia responded that he would have "acted in accordance with the law" and with his "own principles." "I have always been against torture," he said.
Garcia then discussed U.S. military aid received while he was Minister
of Defense and the U.S. advisors who were present in the country. He said
that although advisors spoke with him in general terms about human rights,
they never specified cases. "We never spoke of murder, torture or
massacres, not specifically." When dead bodies showed up in the streets,
Garcia told the jury, it was difficult to know who was responsible because
one group would try to leave the bodies with certain markings to make
it look like another group was responsible. He believed that less than
30,000 civilians were killed from 1979 to 1983 and noted that 14,000 members
of the military had been killed. It was possible that officers had disobeyed
his orders while he was Minister, he said, but he couldn't recall a specific
example. "It is possible that some may have been doing improper things,"
he stated. When asked if he had been aware of corruption, Garcia said
that he was not, but that he tried to set an example by forcing some officers
to turn over Mercedes Benz cars that they had obtained from the Somoza
family in Nicaragua.
Garcia also described coup attempts and efforts to destabilize the government
while he was Minister of Defense. He finally left the position, he said,
because of his opposition to "general actions" like the use
of napalm. He then traveled back and forth between the U.S. and El Salvador,
he explained and later received a "Legion of Merit" award from
the President Reagan, signed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense, for meritorious
performance of duty and "sterling example of military leadership."
Copies of the award were given to the jury.
Cross-Examination of General Garcia
Attorney Jim Green's cross-examination of General Garcia began on Thursday, July 11, and was completed on Monday, July 15 after the testimony of former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Edwin Corr (see below). The cross was followed by a lengthy redirect examination by defense attorney Kurt Klaus, in which he introduced new documentary evidence, continuing well into the morning of July 16. Jim Green finalized the back-and-forth with a re-cross examination that afternoon.
Green began his examination of Defendant Garcia with questions based on ideas of U.S. General MacArthur: "Do you agree with the principle that the soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with protection of the weak and unarmed?… Do you agree that it is the very essence and reason for a soldier's being?… Do you agree that when a soldier violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very fabric of international society?" Garcia agreed on these points.
Green next turned to a series of questions emphasizing Garcia's leadership qualities. Garcia minimized the importance of his own accomplishments. Green went on to verify that Garcia had also been a professor of Tactics and Command, teaching cadets and commanders about the principles of command and subordination.
When asked if, as Minister of Defense, he could have given orders to stop human rights violations, Garcia indicated that he would have had to follow "regular procedures" in doing so, sending information down the chain of command. Green asked him, "if you saw a captain pistol-whipping a civilian, are you telling this jury that you could not give him a direct order to cease and desist?" Garcia responded, "Yes, I could do that in an emergency," indicating that anyone, not just military personnel, would have a duty to intervene in an illegal act.
Green then began a series of questions related to Garcia's service as the Commander of the 5th Brigade in San Vicente (where plaintiff Neris Gonzales had been detained and tortured) beginning in mid-1978. Under questioning, Garcia indicated that the barracks for the brigade were located in the central area of the city of San Vicente, one block from the market. When Green later asked Garcia, "If [during the time you served as a commander in San Vicente] you'd kept your ears and eyes open, wouldn't you have known of the massive repression occurring in San Vicente?" Garcia responded, "There was no repression by the military, and there was a separation between the armed forces and the security forces." Green then asked Garcia, "Would you agree that the National Guard was conducting massive repression against the civilian population in San Vicente?" Garcia responded, "There was repression, but the concept of repression is relative… that's why there was already a certain level of uncertainty or critique concerning what was going on."
Regarding the inspections of jail cells, Green asked whether the International Committee of the Red Cross could only inspect whatever cells it could find. Garcia indicated that the ICRC was allowed access with "absolute freedom." Green then reminded Garcia of the testimony of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission witness Roberto Alvarez, who indicated that the National Guard headquarters had secret cells in 1978. When asked if the National Guard headquarters had such cells in 1979, 1980, or 1981, Garcia indicated that he did not know, but did not think so. Green then asked: "When you became Minister of Defense in 1979, did you order an investigation of the secret cells at the National Guard headquarters in San Salvador?" Garcia answered, "I don't recall, because I believed Vides Casanova had to do it, and I hoped he did…" When Green pressed him on the point, Garcia indicated that on the first day that Vides was appointed, the junta had indicated to Vides that he should investigate, but that Garcia himself did not recall having said it to him.
When Green asked Garcia if he believed he might have prevented Juan Romagoza and Neris Gonzales from being tortured and raped if he had ordered investigations of National Guard premises in the country. Garcia insisted he never had knowledge of torture cells. Green then asked Garcia if a military commander could exercise effective command over his troops if he took the attitude of "I see nothing and I hear nothing." Garcia responded "no, it shouldn't be that way." He stressed that the situation was one of "chaos" and pointed out that it was easy to criticize now what he might have done then. In contrast, Green asked whether Garcia had been able to accomplish bank and agrarian reform because he had the "will" to do it, and Garcia acknowledged that it was so.
Focusing on Garcia's discussions with U.S. ambassadors, Green pointed out that Garcia had had several months to personally investigate the massacre at El Mozote between the date that the massacre occurred and the dates of Ambassador Hinton's inquiries. Green recounted that when asked about the massacre by Hinton, Garcia had responded that reports of the massacre were a "novela" (fairy tale) which he would deny. Garcia claimed that he had never received reports regarding the massacre from the general staff of the armed forces.
On re-direct, defense attorney Klaus published a series of exhibits to the jury and reviewed them with General Garcia. Most were newspaper articles about speeches that the general had delivered. Three of the exhibits were orders that Garcia had issued as Minister of Defense. The first order, emitted on October 1979, urged soldiers to have "discipline, respect and professionalism." The second, dated May 1981, called on soldiers to maintain public order and to protect people and property. The final, dated March 1982, referred to maintaining order during elections of 1982, which he referred to as El Salvador's "first free elections."
"Are you satisfied that you did everything you could to bring peace to your country?" Klaus asked. "I did everything possible to prevent what happened from happening. But the conditions that we now all know prevented me from changing it."
Finally, Jim Green re-cross-examined General Garcia on the newly admitted evidence. He asked: "You have not showed us one piece of documentation that you publicly condemned torture; you never used the word torture in these orders, correct?" "Not in these," Garcia responded. Garcia also admitted that the documents failed to explicitly condemn rape, forced disappearances or cover-ups. "The only thing that specifically mentioned human rights of unarmed civilians was prepared by Red Cross," Green continued, emphasizing that Garcia hadn't disseminated that document among soldiers until 1983, at which point tens of thousands of deaths, rapes, and other abuses had occurred. "I couldn't say how many," Garcia answered, "but there had been abuses of that nature."
Testimony of Edwin Corr, former Ambassador to El Salvador, 1985-1988
On July 15, defense attorney Kurt Klaus called former U.S. Ambassador Edwin Corr to testify. Corr described to the jury how he had entered the Foreign Service in September 1961 and then served for twenty-nine years, including assignments in Mexico, Thailand, Ecuador, at the Department of State Narcotics Division, and finally as Ambassador to Peru, Bolivia and El Salvador from August 1985 to August, 1988. He currently is the associate director for the International Programs Center at the University of Oklahoma. Ambassador Corr testified that he is a "Latin Americanist," has written a book on Colombia, and had drafted a manuscript on El Salvador but has not completed it. His duties, first as a political officer and later as Ambassador, included keeping informed about the situation in the country, negotiating the relevant treaties to which the U.S. and the host country, and keeping in touch with key players in the country.
Ambassador Corr testified about the roots of the conflict in El Salvador. He stated that he thought El Salvador was a "highly violent country" based on murder rates, brutality by the security forces, comparative levels of violence and rates of other violent crimes (he also mentioned that the U.S. was a relatively violent country). He then focused on the number of civilian deaths that occurred between 1979 and 1983, stating that the estimates ranged from 5,000 to 40,000. He acknowledged that many Salvadorans were anxious for the safety of their families and children and were concerned that they might be arrested, treated badly or killed. He conceded that this fear and anxiety was based on real factors.
Ambassador Corr emphasized that El Salvador was a country in chaos in this time period. "There were all kinds of murders, a rise in the death squads, demonstrations, protests, horrendous violence." To Corr, the violence was amorphous, and all of the institutions in society had fragmented, including the armed forces. He asserted two other reasons for the weakness in the military chain of command that he claimed existed. First, regional commanders recruited their own soldiers and no centralized system for training existed. Second, as Professor Karl had testified, officers in the Salvadoran military had maximum loyalty to their own tanda (graduating class at military school). Unlike Karl, who focused on the tandas as the source of military cover-ups and impunity, Corr testified that the tanda system interrupted a normal chain of command.
Ambassador Corr then placed the human rights abuses in the context of
the threat of communism. He emphasized that the U.S. had serious concerns
about the spread of communism from Nicaragua and Cuba to El Salvador.
After the FMLN's "final offensive" in January 1981, U.S. military
assistance increased. and fifty-five military advisors assisted Salvadoran
troops. The Salvadoran military greatly increase the number of recruits
with U.S. assistance.
When queried about what Minister of Defense Vides Casanova, with whom
Corr met regularly, could do to prevent the military from committing human
rights abuses, Corr stated that a code of military law existed. He also
stated that an investigation could lead to abusers being subject to military
or civilian courts. When asked whether, as a practical matter, this could
be effectuated, Corr answered that judges were so frightened of the death
squads and of reprisals that they would not take action against a military
person. He also asserted this fear also applied to cases of guerrillas.
Corr claimed that the Red Cross was able to enter military installations to look for torture cells. He also noted that they met with the High Command and the Minister of Defense to give them a "report card" on the detention facilities. Corr also alleged that the military did make efforts to curb human rights abuses and that their human rights record improved during the 1980s. He said that the ruling junta and the High Command were constantly in fear of coups from the right wing military and their oligarchy supporters. The United States, he asserted, was constantly concerned with "whether the center would hold." He located Vides Casanova and Napoleon Duarte in the center. Instead, he insisted, the guerrillas were responsible for many of the abuses, which were underreported.
In concluding his testimony, Corr reiterated his perpspective. He insisted that "the High Command was dealing with a patient with many maladies. It could kill the patient if it only tried to treat one." The Ministers of Defense, first defendant Garcia and then Vides Casanova, faced chaos in the streets, he said, as well as a guerrilla movement, and tremendous pressure from the left and the right. He argued that Vides Casanova was one of the two people most responsible for improving the human rights situation. In the final analysis, he said, El Salvador had developed into a democracy, the first democracy ever achieved by negotiations with guerrillas.
On cross-examination by plaintiffs' attorney, Peter Stern, Corr admitted his unfamiliarity with El Salvador, prior to his posting in 1985. He knew of no allegations of torture between the years 1979 to 1983. He was not in El Salvador when the massacre at El Mozote occurred. At the time he was Ambassador, he had never met General Garcia. Despite the fact that he claimed to have reviewed U.S. government documents before assuming his Ambassadorship, he was unfamiliar with any cable traffic that dealt with specific instances of torture, such that of a Green Cross volunteer, detailed in a cable which Stern showed to Amabassador Corr.
In regards to another case of torture, documented by Alexander Haig, the ambassador conceded that "no one should have to be tortured like this." He stated that it was the strong opinion of everyone in the U.S. government that the Salvadoran military could not do this and expect to achieve victory. However, Ambassador Corr began to back-track and stated that he could envision circumstances where a commander would not press for an investigation of torture because of concerns for institutional stability. Stern asked him, "You don't seriously contend that stopping what happened to [the victim] would fragment the Armed Forces?" "That depends," Corr answered, "It's not always that simple."
Corr conceded that the Salvadoran military had no logistical or communication difficulties. He also admitted that U.S. officials had informed the Minister of Defense of human rights abuses. In fact, he emphasized that had he been in El Salvador in the early 1980s and been aware of the kinds of cases documented in the cables, he would have taken this information to General Garcia himself. He also conceded that the security forces were responsible for the majority of human rights abuses and that torture was common. Stern pressed him on whether Vides Casanova knew about abuses committed by the National Guard. He admitted that Vides Casanova was aware of the allegations and had to be aware of the bodies in the streets. He also agreed that Garcia and Vides Casanova had a duty to control troops under their command and prevent those troops from committing human rights abuses. However, he stated, that the generals were not "ministers of human rights but ministers of defense."
The last segment of Corr's cross-examination focused on a cable he had
written in June 1988, which had been discussed at length during Professor
Karl's testimony. The report noted an increase in human rights violations.
The cable further noted that the officer corps "circles its wagons"
to prevent "long buried secrets" from being unearthed. His cable
described this as "a code of silence." Corr conceded that the
Salvadoran officer corps enjoyed complete impunity from prosecution for
human rights crimes until, at least, 1986. Corr retreated from his own
cable and stated, at one point, that it was "not scripture, even
if my name is on it."
The cable further emphasized that the civilians in the Salvadoran government
"have acceded to [military] control." He conceded that he himself
would have been hesitant to run in the 1982 elections, which had previously
described as free and fair.
When pressed about an investigation of a massacre, Corr conceded that Vides Casanova had effectively halted any investigation because of the way Vides Casanova had responded to official inquiries. But Corr defended Vides Casanova and claimed that he did help with the investigation of other cases. Stern pressed Corr to give any examples in which Vides Casanova had gone to the site of a massacre and expressed outrage. He could not think of one. He also stated that Vides had never sought his assistance in helping to publicize his condemnation of human rights abuses.
On redirect, Corr re-emphasized the themes of his earlier testimony.
The report on General Garcia's testimony was written by Mary Beth Kaufman, Boalt Hall School of Law, and co-counsel Shawn Roberts. The report on Ambassador Corr's testimony was written by Patty Blum, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic, Boalt Hall Law School, University of California, Berkeley
