U.S. DISPUTES REPORT OF 926 KILLED IN EL SALVADOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R000902300021-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 19, 2006
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: February 2, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN

Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R000902300021-0
THE NEW YORK TIMES
2 FEBRUARY 1982
U.S. Disputes Report of 9206 Killed in ~El Salvador
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
Special to The New York Times
sional approval. The Defense Depart-
ment expects to be reimbursed through
budget requests for the fiscal year 1983.
M. Enders also said the United States
Embassy in San Salvador had been
asked to investigate reports last week
that as many as 926 people had been
killed in a Government sweep through
guerrilla-,held territory around the vil-
lage of El Mozote in the northeastern
province of Moraz$n.
Mr. Enders, who was testifying before
a Senate Foreign Relations subcommit-
tee this morning and a House Appropri-
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1- The Admin-
istration today disputed reports that a
major massacre of civilians took place
in a Salvadoran village in December. It
also announced that it was about to send
emergency assistance to El Salvador.
President Reagan is about to sign an
executive order releasing $55 million in
Defense Department funds and supplies
for emergency assistance to El Salva-
dor, Thomas 0. Enders, Assistant Sec-
retary of State for Inter-American At-
fairs, said in Congressional testimony.
The grant does not require Congres-
atioris subcommittee this afternoon,
said the embassy's preliminary report
indicated that no more than 300 peoplt
lived in the region before the Dec. 164
Government attack. The report, he said
was based on recent interviews will
people near but not in El Mozote, whicl
is again in rebel hands,
He said that although the guerrilla,
knew the attack was coming, they dic
nothing to remove civilians from thi
path of battle.
"Civilians did die during the opera.
tion," he said, "but no evidence could be
forces systematically massacred civil-
ians. Nor does the number of civilians
killed even remotely approach the num-
ber being cited in other reports about
theincident."
The State Department, in a statement
today, traced the reports of a massacre
to a broadcast by Radio Venceremos,
the Salvadoran guerrillas' radio.
"Radio Venceremos Issued its first re-
port of the alleged incident on Dec. 27,
two weeks after the sweep occurred,"
the State Department said, addirg that
the radio report said "192 noncombat-
ants had died in El Mozote."
"On Jan. 2, it increased the figure to
472," the statement said. "On Jan. 27,
press reports in the U.S. raised the fig-
ure killed to 700'in.and around' El Mo-
rote."
Mr. Enders said the Human Rights
Commission of El Salvador, which he
said was "not a human rights organiza.
tion at all," raised the figure to "almost
a thousand."
Mr. Enders withheld judgment, how-
ever, on reports of a Government raid in
San Salvador yesterday in which 19
civilians were said to have been killed.
"We are still trying to find out what
happened," he said. "But I do deplore
the violence of what happened there,
and I find it hard to buy the notion that
this was a fire fight."
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4 U.S. twomen's Can
In his testimony, Mr. Enders said he
expected the Salvadoran Government to
announce "almost immediately" that
six Salvadoran National Guardsmen
would be indicted on charges of murder-
ing four American churchwomen in
December 1980. He said the six had been
given polygraph tests with the help of
experts from the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation.
Before the House subcommittee. Mr.
Enders deflected suggestions that the
case was being prosecuted now only to
pacify a Congress increasingly unwill-
ing to look favorably on further aid to El
Salvador.
Mr. Enders and other Administration
officials are facing a week of sharp
questioning by members of Congress
challenging the Administration's certi-
fication that the Salvadoran Govern-
ment has made sufficient progress in
curbing violence and guaranteeing
human rights to allow it to receive
American military and economic aid.
Under current legislation, the United
States will give El Salvador $112 million
in economic support assistance and 5
million in military aid this year. The $55
million in emergency funds and supplies
will be in addition to those amounts.
Lieut. Gen. James H. Ahmann, direc-
tor of the Pentagon's Defense Security
Assistance Agency, testifying today be.
fore the House Appropriations subcom.
mitee on foreign operations, said that
$25 million of the emergency funds
would be used to replace aircraft and
other items destroyed in a guerrilla at-
tack Wednesday on Ilopango Air Force
Base on the outskirts of San Salvador.
General Ahmann said the aircraft lost
in the attack included five or six fighter
planes, a trainer aircraft, five or six
UH-1H helicopters and five C47 trans.
ports.
He said that In addition to replacing,
repairing or adding to El Salvador's air-
craft, the American funds would in-
crease security at Salvadoran airfields
and other military installations and im-
prove communications .for Salvadoran
forces.
Under questioning, General Ahmann
said the increase in military supplies
"may require more U.S. personnel " in
El Salvador. there are 49 American
military trainers in that country now, he
said.
General Ahmann ' also told the sub-
committee that the Administration.
would replac6 the $55 million in Defense
Department funds and supplies through
a Peron budget request for fiscal
1983. The $55 million would therefore not
come from foreign aid money .
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