Romero assassination case re-opened in El Salvador

Jun 10, 2017

By Linda Cooper James Hodge
At first glance, the reopening in El Salvador of the investigation into the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero seems hopelessly problematic, at least in terms of prosecutions. Roberto D’Aubuisson, the mastermind of the crime, is dead, and most of the other accomplices and witnesses have died or been killed.

The only one ever charged, Capt Alvaro Saravia, D’Aubuisson’s security chief, is a relatively minor player reportedly in hiding in another country.

And going after those who allegedly financed the operation, wealthy landowners, would require not only massive resources but also huge political capital.

The Romero case could be the most difficult of the era’s killings to successfully investigate “because it goes to the pillars of Salvadoran society,” said Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and author of Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers To Justice.

While he’s “very cautiously optimistic” about the case, Eisenbrandt said prosecutors would have to “look in detail at D’Aubuisson’s death squad, and looking into that death squad means looking into powerful figures who supported D’Aubuisson. Most of the other cases implicate top military commanders, which will be difficult enough, but I would expect that even that would be ‘easier’ than seriously investigating members of the oligarchy.”

Reopening the Romero case also has the potential of paving the way for the highly polarised country to confront its past.

(This article first appeared on NCRonline.org, the Website of National Catholic Reporter, and is being used with permission)