Document #1014618
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
The population of El Salvador is virtually
100 % Christian, with roughly 80 % members of the Catholic Church
and 20 % members of other Christian churches. [Europa Year Book
1988, p. 967.] According to the U.S. Department of State human
rights report on El Salvador freedom of religion in El Salvador "is
guaranteed in the Constitution and is respected in practice". [
Country Report on Human Right Practices, (Washington: U.S.
Dept. Of State, 1986), p. 499.] This being said, both Americas
Watch and CUANES (the Christian Urgent Action Network for Emergency
Support, based in Chicago ILL.) report extensive human rights
abuses perpetrated against religious workers and persons affiliated
with some branches of identifiable religious organizations in El
Salvador by the Salvadorian Army. [ America Watch, The Civilian
Toll 1986-87, (New York: 1987), pp. 171-3. and Christian Urgent
Network for Emergency Support, CUANES El Salvador, CUANES
Update, March/April 1988, (Evenston ILL.: 1988).] These reports
include the deportation and harassment of foreign clergy working in
areas considered to be rebel held or rebel strongholds, deportation
of foreign clergy involved in the resettlement of refugees,
detention of clergy, and disruption of religious processions.
[Ibid., pp. 171-2.] Individuals active in Christian
communities and progressive programmes sponsored by the Catholic
Church have been detained and some have disappeared. [ CUANES El
Salvador, Mar./Apr. 1988, pp. 3-5.]
Harassment of Catholic Church workers has usually been due to the
perceived support by those individuals of the guerrilla movement in
El Salvador. The attached section (p. 67 -71) from the Americas
Watch report El Salvador's Other Victims: the War On The
Displaced, gives an overview of the types of treatment afforded
some Catholic Church workers.
The Red Cross:
Americas Watch and the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights has documented the role of the Red Cross in El
Salvador since 1983 in Free Fire (1984) p. 39 and 40, El
Salvador's Other Victims The War On The Displaced (1984) p.
57-61, The Civilian Toll (1987) p. 94-6 and From the
Ashes (1987) 60-2. These sections are attached. In addition
The Civilian Toll, p. 144-6 (attached) discusses the Red
Cross's role in prisoner visits and exchanges .
Displaced populations:
The attached sections from El Salvador's
Other Victims The War On The Displaced, p. 62-3 covers one
attitude regarding the displaced population held by the government
and military of El Salvador.
The "indiscriminate attack by the
Salvadorian Military and forced recruitment by the guerrillas" [
Americas Watch Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights,
Free Fire, A Report on Human Rights in El Salvador, Aug.
1984 Fifth Supplement, (New York: Americas Watch Lawyers Committee
for International Human Rights, 1984), pp. 73-4.] in the four most
easterly provinces of Cabanas, Chalatenango, San Miguel and Moraz n
has led to both voluntary and government sponsored relocation of
500,000 [Aguayo, Central Americans in Mexico and the United
States, Appendix (p.79) .] persons into the central and coastal
areas of El Salvador since 1980.
The government policy of a 'scorched
earth', intended to isolate the FMLN guerrillas from civilian
populations which may lend their support to the armed insurgents,
has caused a de facto "forced evacuation of civilians from areas" [
Americas Watch, El Salvador's Other Victims the War on the
Displaced, (New York: Americas Watch Publications, 1984), pp.
39-40.] of counter-insurgency operations. These areas, are often
raised to the ground by aerial bombardment once the population has
been moved and any infrastructure that may be of aid to the rebels
including any standing crops, crop storage facilities and buildings
are destroyed.
About half of the displaced population have
been relocated in both governmental or non-governmental, (Church or
private charity) administered camps. The rest have moved in with
relatives in urban areas or have resettled into squatter
settlements near urban areas. The government handling of these
displaced populations has been widely criticized. The governmental
organization to assist internally displaced persons, known by its
Spanish acronym, CONADES,
"has conditioned receipt of its
humanitarian assistance for the displaced on registration. This
entails disclosure of the beneficiary's name, age, sex, and place
of origin, as well as their family members. In the context of El
Salvador such information is highly sensitive. Persons whom the
military has branded subversives (in part because it regards all
desplazados from certain areas as guerrilla sympathizers)
are simply, unwilling to share this information with a government
agency. Instead, they receive aid from church and voluntary
agencies, who run risks themselves by aiding the displaced whom the
military regards as subversive if only because they are
unregistered." [ Free Fire, Americas Watch, pp. 86-7.]
The poor conditions of the camps, the human right abuses including
arbitrary arrest and disappearance against both camp populations
and those who assist camp populations, especially in the
non-government sponsored camps, has been well documented by the
Americas Watch group. [ El Salvador's Other Victims the War on
the Displaced, Americas Watch, 1984.] In general, government
run camps are tightly controlled as to the movement of persons in
and out of the sites. Non-governmental camps are also well
monitored by the military for individual personnel movement and the
supply of rations. [ Free Fire, Americas Watch, pp.
77-8.]
In January and February of 1986 "Operation
Phoenix" was undertaken by the Salvadorian Army. This major
counter-insurgency effort to unseat guerrillas from towns and areas
that had been rebel controlled for up to six years was successful,
but in the course of operations several thousand citizens had to be
relocated. [ Keesing's Contemporary Archives Record of World
Events, Vol. XXXII, 1986, No. 6, (Harlow U.K.: Longman Group
Ltd, 1986), p. 34413.] This relocation process was "forced
relocation" according to Americas Watch. [ Americas Watch
Committee, SETTLING INTO /ROUTINE Human Rights Abuses in
Duarte's Second Year, (New York: Eight supplement to the Report
on Human Rights in El Salvador, The Americas Watch Committee,
1986), p. 25.] As well "during the operation 1,045 civilians [were]
captured, many of whom have since disappeared." [Keesing's
Contemporary Archives Record of World Events, Vol. XXXII, 1986,
p. 34413.]
"In late 1986 the government started a
re-population programme called 'United to Rebuild'." [
Ibid., p. 34413.] This effort brought people out of the
relocation camps in central El Salvador and set them up in new
towns in the highland areas. By the end of 1987 "25 public
resettlement efforts had been carried out." [ 1987 Annual Report
On The Human Rights Situation in El Salvador, (Toronto:
ICCHRLA, 1987), p. 16.]
At the same time some of the population who
had not been in the relocation camps began to spontaneously return
to their former residences in the mountainous eastern
provinces.
Along side this government strategy of
counter-insurgency oriented resettlement (often, over the last two
years, in areas but recently "unsettled" by the forced evacuation
of civilians in the course of government military operations),
there have been alternative expressions of a move back to the land.
Independent resettlement efforts are the product principally of
mounting frustration at the duration of displacement caused by the
war and desperation in the face of decaying living conditions in
the cites and other places of refuge." [ Annual Report,
ICCHRLA, 1987, p. 16.]