The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.
5 October 1990, 11:50 AM - CODEFAM
This group was formed on 9 September 1981 out of the roots of the war in El Salvador by families of captured, disappeared, and assassinated persons. It was originally called Comite. Later, on 14 March 1983 Marianella Garcia Villas was assassinated in Las Bermudas. She was a worker who fought for human rights, and at the time of her death she was investigating the use of chemicals in bombing by the military. She was accompanying ninety families who were escaping from a strong military operation when she was wounded and captured. First she was taken to a military school, then to a military hospital, where she was tortured – burned on the legs and arms, raped, and forced to swallow a grenade which then was exploded. She was a founder of the Human Rights office which PVC just visited, and CODEFAM works in her name today.
(Later we were to meet a young girl named Marianella. Her mother, whose first husband was disappeared, tells us that the child was born just a few months after Marianella Garcia Villas' assassination, and that when she went to register the birth, the authorities questioned her sharply as to whether she was sure that she wanted to give her daughter such a controversial name. She answered them proudly that yes, that was her deliberate intention.)
"The work of the committee is three-fold: 1. to struggle for the defense of human rights, with priority on freeing political prisoners; 2. to struggle to clarify the whereabouts of the disappeared and to enforce existing laws in El Salvador to discontinue this practice; and 3. to bring those persons who are responsible for the violations of human rights to trial and punishment.
"If a person is captured, the family comes to the CODEFAM office to place a denunciation. We make a search to find out in which jail or garrison the person is being held. Then we go to the International Red Cross, the Human Rights Commission, Tutela Legal, and to the particular garrison where the person is. If someone has been a witness to a capture and names a particular brigade, but the brigade denies having the person, we go to the supreme court. Under normal conditions this can be done within seventy-two hours, which is the maximum time by law that a person can be investigated for political crimes. (Note: This "investigation" usually takes the form of intense interrogation and torture.) If the person is already in the courts, we begin their defense.
"On 14 March 1990 we opened a separate office for legal defense. Since then we have been able to get fifteen political prisoners out of prison. In the period before the office opened, we had been successful for twenty prisoners, including myself.
"Before a person is turned over to a judge, he or she can be held and tortured for seventy-two hours. They use the capucha (a plastic sack coated with lime, placed over the head, and tied around the neck), electric shocks, beatings with rifle butts, and an electrified tank of water. A majority of the people who are subjected to the capucha will faint. Always the accusation is the same, that the person is a member of the FMLN.
"We have been obliged to take our struggle to the streets. We organize marches to the garrisons, keeping up the pressure. We make urgent telephone calls to international solidarity groups. In this way we generate lots of direct faxes and telexes to President Cristiani and to the High Command, and this has helped to free people.
"The persecution against us has been constant. There have been times when we have had to take refuge in Catholic churches in order to make our denunciations. We know that when we are open in our activities, repression will surely follow.
"The work of CODEFAM is ample. We have a day care center to attend to children of those who have been captured, disappeared, or assassinated. There are now fifty-three children involved, and we hope to expand this project to over a hundred children if we can get international solidarity. We also have a small piece of land to which we hope to relocate the families of the disappeared, captured, and assassinated."
Question: What is the relationship between COMADRES and CODEFAM?
"There are three organizations which work closely with the families of the disappeared. COMADRES was organized in 1977 and consisted only of mothers. CODEFAM, which began in 1981, includes many family members. And COMEFAC was started in 1985, growing directly out of the Christian base communities. We work very closely together for the same goals, but we each maintain our own headquarters.
"Concerning the disappeared, most are leaders of the popular movement. They are captured in the late hours of the night by persons in civilian clothes, but these persons are part of the military. Even though there are witnesses, the military will deny that they have the disappeared person. There are no laws to punish persons who practice disappearance. We have had approximately 8.000 disappeared since the conflict began.
"For example, in 1989 six members of FEDECOOPADES (a trade union organization) were captured. It has been proven that this was the work of the military. The case has been brought to the attention of U.S. congresspersons, who are working for the release of these six.
"On three occasions we have presented bills to our legislature to make it a crime to disappear a person. The last time that we did this was on 30 August 1990, which is the day of commemoration of the captured and disappeared of Latin America. The president of the assembly has promised a meeting with us, but so far nothing.
Question: Please give us an update on the prisoners who were disappeared from Mariona last month.
"On 26 July 1990 seventy-five prisoners were captured from Mariona. They were taken out late at night by the First Brigade and by jail workers. They were disappeared for one day and one night, but they turned up later in other prisons. We had a demonstration the next day in front of the Ministry of Justice and asked the minister why he had done this. He denied us an audience and forced us to do our own investigation.
"On 9 September there was another capture, this time of a Columbian prisoner. He was taken by helicopter from the prison to a garrison in Morazan, and placed in solitary confinement. We went to the Columbian embassy and began to demonstrate. After fifteen days he was moved to general population."
Question: Why was he imprisoned in the first place?
"He has a degree in journalism and spent nine or ten years in Radio Venceremos, the radio station of the FMLN."
Question: And he was considered a political prisoner rather than a prisoner of war?
"Yes"
Question: Why were you captured?
"On 5 July 1989 I was captured because I was a member of CODEFAM and had a camera. I was working then as a press reporter. I had the camera and a denunciation of the capture of five campesinos, so I was accused of being FMLN. I was imprisoned for eight months. Because of the current administration and the situation which exists, there are hundreds of political prisoners in El Salvador."
Question: Did you have a trial?
"The judge told me at the end of the eight months that there had been an investigation and that I was found not guilty. They were supposed to return my camera, which was worth 1000 colones ($125.00), but they did not. By law there is supposed to be no double jeopardy, but I have now been tried twice by the same judge on the same charges.
"The first time I was beaten very badly. The second time the psychological torture was much worse, though the beating was not so severe. That earlier capture was for five days, during a demonstration. The second time I was taken off of a bus at a military checkpoint. I was told that my family would be assassinated. I was interrogated blindfolded and standing. Up to ten interrogators at one time shouted questions at me, trying to confuse me. They interrogate and threaten at the same time.
"To give you a brief overview of what is happening right now, there are three hundred political prisoners on hunger strike. This has been going on for five days. Yesterday we had a march and a demonstration. We also had a meeting with a person in the Ministry of Justice, hoping that this will help the situation."
He concludes by asking us to put pressure on President Cristiani to release the political prisoners. The freedom of political prisoners is something that has been negotiated, but they have been told that the actual release depends on Cristiani. He also mentions that they have an urgent need for a fax machine.
Copyright © 2022 Marian L. Shatto
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