Peace in New York, but Will It Stick in El Salvador? : Central America: The real test for the treaty will be what happens with the investigation into the six Jesuit murders.

WASHINGTON —  The test of the peace agreement to end El Salvador’s civil war is the continuing investigation into the murder of six Jesuit priests.

The agreement, reached by right-wing President Alfredo Cristiani and leaders of the left-wing Faribundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) in New York last week, promises to end the 11-year civil war. The agreement calls for a cease-fire, reduction of the size of the country’s army and creation of a new civilian police force, which guerrilla troops will be allowed to join. In addition, peasants in rebel-held territory will be able to keep land they have occupied during the war.

The critical question for the Cristiani government and the rebels is whether the diplomatic breakthrough can be translated into a new social consensus the likes of which El Salvador has never known. The trial of the military men accused of killing the Jesuit leaders, which began last week, is the first test of the government’s ability to deliver on its promises.

Six influential priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were executed by a military death squad on the night of Nov. 15, 1989. The most prominent victim was Ignacio Ellacuria, rector of the University of Central America and a prominent advocate of social reforms and peace talks. Initially, U.S. policy-makers suggested the killings could have been the work of either the military or the FMLN. Within six weeks, it was learned that the orders had come from the upper reaches of the Salvadoran military.

So far, nine soldiers and one officer have been charged in the case. But the Catholic Church, U.S. congressional leaders and various human-rights organizations say the senior military officers who ordered the murders have not yet been charged. Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.), who has emerged as the leading congressional critic of Bush Administration policy in El Salvador, has flatly accused the Salvadoran military of continuing to cover up the truth about the murders.

The credibility of the peace agreement among the Salvadoran population depends on the widespread conviction that justice has been done in the Jesuit case, according to Leonel Gomez, a Salvadoran political operative close to both Moakley and U.S. Ambassador William Walker. “The campisino knows that if they can kill Monsignor Romero (the Salvadoran archbishop slain in 1980) or the Jesuits, and get away with it, they can kill anybody,” he says.

Gomez cautions against euphoria. Before the announcement of a settlement he insisted, “They can sign any damn piece of paper in New York. Can they make it stick in Salvador?”

Gomez notes there are grounds for skepticism. First, the Salvadoran and U.S. governments have been promising for 10 years to hold military officers accountable for human-rights abuses. Yet no officer has ever gone to jail for the killing of a civilian. Second, the best available evidence about the Jesuit case points to the complicity of leaders of the Salvadoran military, leaders consulted regularly about the peace negotiations.

Gomez said the raid on the Jesuit residence does not seem to have been improvised. While U.S. officials say there is “no evidence” to indicate that the raid was preplanned, soldiers knew who they were looking for and where to find them.

Investigators from Moakley’s office have learned of two meetings that took place hours before the murders. At the first meeting, a large group of officers discussed plans for dealing with the continuing rebel uprising.

A second, smaller, meeting followed. Attended by Rene Emilio Ponce, now the minister of defense, and Vice Minister of Defense Juan Orlando Zepeda. Seven months before the killings, Col. Zepeda, who had previously been the head of Salvadoran military intelligence, said the University of Central America--where the Jesuits worked and were killed--was a “haven for terrorist leaders.”

This second meeting is the last known point of contact between the army high command and Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides, the one officer charged with the murders. Gomez says the order to kill the Jesuits was probably given at this second meeting.

Washington bears a share of responsibility for the continuing cover-up, Gomez charges. He doubts the Salvadoran high command could have resisted intense domestic and international pressure on the Jesuit case for 18 months without the tacit support of at least some officials in U.S. government agencies.

Gomez notes that senior officers of the Salvadoran military were--and are--in close regular contact with U.S. military and intelligence advisers. The Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Military Group (MilGroup) would be derelict if they had not conducted internal investigations into the circumstances of the Jesuit murders, Gomez notes. If such investigations have been done, he says, their findings have not been shared with Salvadoran legal officials, much less the Salvadoran and U.S. public.

For all the criticism of the Salvadoran armed forces, Gomez says, the crucial information in the Jesuit case was supplied by Salvadoran military officers. “Not by human-rights groups. Not by Congress. Not by the embassy. Not by the CIA. By Salvadorans,” Gomez says. “The men who have talked (to investigators) about the Jesuit case have risked more than any American. What have they gotten in return from the U.S. government? Very little.

“U.S. intelligence has hundreds of full-time employees in Salvador,” Gomez says. “You’re telling me that a small group of Salvadorans acting on their own have developed better information than your CIA?”

Eight Americans have submitted depositions in the case, including six former military advisers. But only as individuals--not as representatives of the U.S. government. Jesuit officials have already expressed skepticism that the U.S. officers will tell everything they know about events leading up to the Jesuit murders. However, U.S. officials in Washington already seem to be distancing themselves from the Americans involved, stressing that none is currently an employee of the U.S. government.

Gomez criticizes both liberals and conservatives in the United States who pressure the Salvadoran government to come clean but do not apply the same pressure to their own government.

“When Congress really wants to know who killed the Jesuits, they will call in the CIA guys and the MilGroup commander and make them testify under oath,” he says.

Jose Maria Tejeira, the Jesuit representative at the murder trial, has also called on U.S. government agencies to release all information about the Jesuit killings--so far to no avail.

But, Gomez says, the possibility of a cover-up in the U.S. government is “a gringo problem.” Salvadorans, he insists, have a different problem. They must make peace in a society where lawlessness by the most powerful still goes unpunished. If the U.S. government is not more forthcoming on the Jesuit case, the real murderers may well escape. The Salvadoran people, he adds, will have no reason to believe in the U.S.-funded judicial system, in the U.S.-backed government or in the prospects for a just and lasting peace.