Defence chief accused of nun-killing cover-up

Press, 26 May 1984, Page 11

Defence chief accused of nun-killing cover-up

NZPA-Reuter Washington A confidential United States Government report had alleged that the Salvadorean Defence Minister, General Eugenio Vides Casanova, was implicated in a cover-up of the killings, a member of the House of Representatives said yesterday. Representative Mary Rose Dakar (Dem. Ohio), who led the campaign to pressure Salvadorean authorities into holding the trial, said that the Government report would be made public shortly and would substantiate allegations that General Vides Casanova was implicated. The President-elect, Mr Jose Napolean Duarte, said at the end of a four-day visit to Washington, to lobby Congress for more aid that he would reappoint General Vides Casanova as Defence Minister, since he had determined that he had not been linked to the killings. Ms Oakar, said that the report, by a Federal judge commissioned by the State Department, “will indicate that there was a cover-up by the Defence Minister who is being reappointed by

Durate. He (General Vides Casanova) deliberately lied to two American Presidents.” “1 am convinced that someone gave the Guardsmen the orders and they perpetrated the crime,” she said. “You’ll see some substantiation to what I’m saying,” when the report by Judge Harold Tyler was made public. The State Department commissioned Judge Tyler to investigate the killings after allegations surfaced of complicity by highlevel Salvadoreans. Several relatives of the dead churchwomen appeared on television interview shows to say that while they were gratified that justice had been done, they thought the investigation should go further. “I would like to thank the United States Congress and those that helped us bring this trial,” said Judy Keough, sister of one of the victims. “But we’re not finished with this case.” “Who ordered and paid for these killings — for the United States — is a much more important question that just the question of who pulled the trigger, which was solved this morning,”

said Michael Donovan. “It doesn’t make sense that five relatively lowranking National Guardsmen could have left their posts, guarding the airport in San Salvador for three or four hours and then come back and then been participants in an investigation that dragged on for almost two years without there having been higher direction,” said William Ford. The two men said that the State Department had in-

sisted there was no evidence that anyone else was implicated in the killings and had put pressure on the families not to pursue it. “They’re saying, “we have no evidence, so we’re not going to look for any,” Mr Donovan said. A statement from the headquarters of the Maryknoll Sisters in Ossining, New York, said, “We feel that this verdict is a step in the right direction. However, we feel that this is only a beginning step, and what needs to be done now is an investigation of the more than 40,000 civilians who have been murdered in Salvador during the past 3% years. “We also feel there are evidentiary leads indicating that the five National Guardsmen acted under orders. “Justice demands that the next step be the investigation of the involvement of higher officials in the crime.”