FORMER ARMY OFFICER IN SALVADOR TELLS OF DEATH SQUAD KILLINGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605040042-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: February 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
~ Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605040042-4
~~~~;:,~L;',rr-~?>,:,~ BOSTON GLOBE
Div PAu~' ?..~. 14 February 1986
~ Former army. officer
`in Salvador teIls of
,death squad .killings
By Robert Parry
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A former Sal-
vadoran army officer, planning to
~~
rights groups that the?Salvadoran
mylitarv" committed massive
abuses in the early 1980s, killing
tens of thousands of civilians.
During-those years, the Reagan
administration- disputed many of
the charges but "acknowledged
that some.abuses"occurred.
In a"July 1.982 report certifying
human .rights progress in El Sal-
vador,. the ~Sfate Department Bald
"there has been no evidence to
support periodic guerrilla allega-
tions of large-scale massacres al-
legedly committed by government
forces."
The administration now con-
tends abuses have largely been
brought under control, although
private human rights groups say
government forces still commit se-
lective murders in the cities and
use indiscriminate firepower in
the countryside.,
An estimated 50,000 civilians
have died in the 6-year-old civil
war. -
Castro said he came to the
United States in mid-1982 to tell
US officials about the corruption
and atrocities that many young
officers felt were undermining
prospects for restoring peace~in El
Salvador. After his appeals re-
ceived little attention, he said he
decided to stay here with his wife
and three children and plans to
request political asylum.
Castro said widespread politi-
cal assassinations represented a
policy established by the military
.high command initially using
army personnel, but he added that,"
by mid-1981, the "death squad"
work had shifted to the govern-
ment security .forces, particularly
the Treasury Police.
"Al] the killings I know of were
done by the armed forces," Castro
said.
seek political asylum in the United
States,. sa s he artict ated in
death aqua it in>7s in ,t a early
1980s and. witnessed the slau~h-
ter of civilians by El~"Salvador's
US-backed'military. ,,.^; ,;.,
Ricardo Ernesto Castros:"35," a
former `army lieutenant' and a
1973 West .Point graduate;. de-
scribed-death squad killing of sus-
pected "subversives" as a routine
activity of the Salvadoran army in
early 1981. He said he personally
commanded four assassination
missions. claiming about a dozen
lives.
Castro said he also saw the
,army execute unarmed women
-and children during a counterin-
surgency sweep near the Rio
Lempa in the fall of 1981 and
leave the bodies in shallow
streams as a warning to leftist
.guerrillas.
"My company was thirsty, but
the soldiers would 'not take water
from one of these streams because
of these kids' corpses," Castro
said in a recent tape-recorded in-
terview at his suburban Washing-
ton home.
Castro, who left El Salvador in
mid-1982, is the first Salvadoran
army officer to publicly state that
he participated in death squad
killings. He initially told his story
to a free-lance reporter for an arti-
cle in the current issue of Progres-
sive magazine.
Castro said in the interview at
his home that he was recruited to
work with the C1A and served as a
translator for an American who
trained the Salvadoran milita
on n erro~ation tec niques.
Castro's statements support al-
legations made by private human
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605040042-4