CJA In The News

On July 26, 2014, CJA and the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia (ASRIC) will hold a forum for Cambodian survivors at the Khmer Arts Center in Long Beach, California, to update them on the progress of Case 002/01.

“Inocente Orlando Montano fue un miembro clave y necesario en el asesinato terrorista de los jesuitas de la UCA [Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas] y sus empleadas el 16 de noviembre de 1989”, así de contundente es el resumen del informe pericial que la profesora de la Universidad de Stanford Terry Karlpresentó al juez Eloy Velasco, el pasado 18 de junio en la Audiencia Nacional. Este documento aporta información nueva y relevante de la matanza de los cinco religiosos españoles en El Salvador, entre los que se encontraba Ignacio Ellacuría, ideólogo de la Teoría de la Liberación.

The memories are etched in Melecia del Carmen Casco’s face. They show in the deep, thin lines that run across her caramel-colored forehead and in the prominent half-star patterns that surround her small brown eyes. Casco wears a turquoise cotton shirt with matching earrings. Her silver hair is pulled into a tight bun. In the green hills above El Salvador’s Lake Suchitlán, she sits in front of her simple home next to a table with a basket full of warm tortillas as her teenage grandson lounges in a nearby hammock. And she begins to remember.

On May 26, 2014, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was sworn in as India’s fifteenth Prime Minister. Modi’s appointment as Prime Minister is not troubling solely because of his actions—or inaction—during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Instead, his appointment signals a broader problem that those linked to mass atrocities evade accountability at the highest ranks of Indian government. Read CJA’s statement on Modi’s appointment here.

In a landmark decision, Judge Santiago Pedraz of the Spanish National Court announced on May 21, 2014 that his investigation of genocide in Guatemala will proceed. The ruling challenges a controversial law enacted in March 2014 that limits Spanish jurisdiction over international crimes. Read the press release here.

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The Ethiopian jail guard suspected of torturing and maiming political prisoners during that country’s “Red Terror” era came to the United States in 2004 under a false identity, seeking asylum and claiming he would be persecuted if he returned home.

El fallo de un juez de inmigración de Miami generó esperanzas de que se allane el camino de abolición de una ley de amnistía en El Salvador, para que los militares y los responsables de matanzas, torturas y violaciones a los derechos humanos puedan finalmente ser juzgados en su país.

An immigration judge issued a final order of removal for former Salvadoran Minster of Defense Garcia because of his involvement in a number of human rights violations, including the assassination of Archbishop Romero, the murder of four American church

The ruling of a Miami judge to deport Army General Jose Guillermo Garcia, a former defense minister of El Salvador, serves as a victory for human rights supporters, despite the difficulties to implement the rule anytime soon.

This week, in response to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times and Julia Preston, the Executive Office of Immigration Review of the Department of Justice released an immigration judge ruling, which ordered that former Salvadoran Defense Minister José Guillermo García is subject to removal from the United States due to his assistance and participation in the torture of Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) client Dr. Juan Romagoza, among many other civilians. The ruling also cites Garcia’s assistance and participation in the 1980 extrajudicial killing of the four American churchwomen, the 1981 Sheraton Hotel killings of two Americans and a Salvadoran land reform leader, the 1981 massacre at El Mozote, the 1980 massacre at the Sumpul River, the assassination of the leaders of FDR, the political opposition, among many other killings and massacres.