New York Times
By Julia Preston
March 12, 2015
In
a decision setting a significant human rights precedent, an immigration
appeals court has ruled that a former defense minister of El Salvador, a
close ally of Washington
during the civil war there in the 1980s, can be deported from the
United States because he participated in or concealed torture and murder
by his troops.
The
decision, published Wednesday by the Board of Immigration Appeals in
the case of the former official, Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova,
found that he had a direct
role in the abuse and killings of civilians because of his “command
responsibility” as the top military officer. It is the first time the
highest immigration court has weighed in to interpret a central issue in
a human rights law passed in 2004.
The ruling will make it easier to deport foreigners who were top commanders based on violations by soldiers serving under them.
Among
other crimes, the board found that General Vides was directly involved
in covering up the role of National Guard troops under his command in
the rape and murder
of four American churchwomen in December 1980. Those killings, as much
as any others by the Salvadoran armed forces during the decade-long war,
revealed the rampant violence of the military that Washington staunchly
supported in its Cold War confrontation
with leftist guerrillas.
This immigration case is the first time General Vides has been held responsible in American courts in those murders.
The
board decision upholds — and goes beyond — an opinion in February 2012
by an immigration judge finding that General Vides could be deported. He
is not likely to be
expelled immediately, though, because he can appeal to a federal
appeals court.
But the written decision by the board will still stand for other immigration cases.
The
case is a stunning reversal of fortune for General Vides, 77, who was
defense minister of El Salvador from 1983 to 1989, and was praised by
American officials as a
reformer struggling to root out human rights violators from his corps.
After he retired in 1989, he moved to the United States as a legal
resident and has been living quietly in Florida.
The
immigration board rejected General Vides’s argument that it was
“manifestly unjust” for the United States to deport him since during his
term as commander he was “consistently
and uniformly led to believe that his conduct was consistent with the
official policy” of Washington. A former American ambassador to El
Salvador, Edwin G. Corr, testified on the general’s behalf.
But
another ambassador, Robert White, who dissented from American policy,
testified against General Vides. The board’s decision reads very much
like the reports from human
rights organizations that criticized the Salvadoran government at the
time.
“This
is not a case in which isolated or random human rights abuses took
place at the hands of rogue subordinates,” the judges wrote. General
Vides “affirmatively and
knowingly shielded subordinates from the consequences of their acts and
promoted a culture of tolerance for human rights abuses.”
In
the deaths of the churchwomen, the board found that General Vides “knew
that National Guardsmen confessed to involvement in the murders, failed
to competently investigate
the Guardsmen under his command, obstructed the United States’ efforts
to investigate, and delayed bringing the perpetrators to justice.”
The
decision reviews in chilling detail the torture of two Salvadorans,
Juan Romagoza Arce and Daniel Alvarado. During 22 days in 1980, Mr.
Romagoza was “beaten, shocked
with electrical probes all over his body, sexually assaulted with a
stick, and hung from the ceiling for several days” and also shot in the
arm, his wounds left to fill with worms. Mr. Romagoza reported that
General Vides saw him twice during his captivity.
Mr.
Alvarado was tortured for seven days until he falsely confessed to
killing a United States military adviser, Lt. Cmdr. Albert
Schaufelberger. After an F.B.I. investigation,
United States officials repeatedly advised General Vides, according to
the board’s decision, that his forces were holding and torturing the
wrong man.
The
case was prosecuted by a human rights group within Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, the federal agency also known as ICE.
“It
is incredibly significant that the board is weaving in the concept of
command responsibility as a crucial part of the finding of
responsibility for torture and killing,”
said Carolyn Patty Blum, a lawyer who assisted the Center for Justice
and Accountability, a legal organization in San Francisco that supported
the prosecution.
The
board decision is likely to have an immediate impact on the similar
deportation case of another former Salvadoran defense minister, Gen.
José Guillermo García, which
is also on appeal in Florida.
In
2000, a Florida jury acquitted General Vides and General García of
responsibility for the churchwomen’s murders. But in 2002 in a separate
case, a Florida jury found
the officers liable for the torture of three Salvadorans, including Mr.
Romagoza, and ordered them to pay $54 million. The government started
the deportation cases after those verdicts.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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