Govt, rebels blamed for killing of priests

Press, 18 November 1989, Page 12

Govt, rebels blamed for killing of priests

San Salvador

NZPA-Reuter

Six Jesuit priests were dragged from their beds and gunned down at a San Salvador university yesterday, the fifth day of fierce fighting that has killed nearly 800 soldiers and guerrillas as well as an unknown number of civilians.

Thousands of people fled house-to-house fighting between army troops and rebels bent on overthrowing the United States-backed Government, the worst battles in

an offensive launched on> Saturday after the breakdown of talks aimed at ending the decade-long civil war.

The United States Ambassador, William Walker, said a total of 784 fighters on both sides had been killed and the civilian death toll was impossible to calculate.

In a chilling murder spree condemned around the world, 30 gunmen broke into the Central American University about 2.30 a.m., rousted occupants of the priest’s residence from their sleep and shot six priests and two others in cold blood, said a priest on the campus who had spoken with witnesses.

The United States called the killings “barbarous” and Mr Walker said it was “a crime of such repugnance that to say that I condemn it or deplore it seems totally inadequate.”

The killings were also condemned by Spain, where five of the priests were born, by the Vatican and by a host of religious groups around the world.

The Government of President Alfredo Cristiani said it would conduct an investigation, saying “terrorist groups” were responsible, but a Jesuit leader in the United States charged the killings were part of a pattern of murder by the military in

El Salvador. At least 13 clergymen and religious workers have been killed since the civil war started in 1979. They include three American nuns and a lay religious woman who were raped and murdered in 1980.

The Washington-based Americas Watch human rights organisation, in a letter to United States Secretary of State, James Baker, said the university campus had been under tight control of the Salvadorean Army for several days and the killings were similar to "thousands of death-squad-type murders.”

The United States suspended military aid following the killings of the churchwomen in 1980. Americas Watch said it was essential that it suspend delivery of such aid again.

But in Washington the United States said it, was speeding delivery of military aid at the request of the Cristiani Government.

At Central American University, the bodies of four of the murdered priests, including Ignacio Ellacuria, the university rector and a leading human rights activist, were found on the lawn of the priest’s residence, three of them lined up against a wall and shot at close range with machineguns.

Father Ellacuria was a leading proponent of liberation theology, which calls for involvement by Catholics in political and social issues, especially among the poor.