U.s. Advisors Implicated In Salvadoran Death Squad Activities

U.S. Advisors Implicated in Salvadoran Death Squad Activities

US. military advisors and the Salvadoran Joint Chiefs of Staff are directing death squad activities in El Salvador, according to a Salvadoran soldier who has defected to the United States. Cesar Vielman Joya Martinez, 28, fled El Salvador in July 1989 after learning that his superiors wanted him killed and is now seeking U.S. asylum. Joya Martinez told members of Congress in late October that he was a member of a secret death squad unit that was responsible for at least 72 murders.

Many of Joya Martinez 's claims have been independently confirmed, according to Noam Chomsky (Zeta, December 1989). The following interview was conducted in Spanish in December 1989.

AGENDA: What part of El Salvador are you from?

Joya Martinez: I am from San Salvador and lived in a sector of the city called La Union.

AGENDA: What is your background?

Joya Martinez: I come from a middle class family. My parents own a business.

AGENDA: How long did you serve in the military?

Joya Martinez: When I left in July 1989, I had been in the military for almost two years.

AGENDA: Under what circumstances did you enter the military?

Joya Martinez: I was drafted.

AGENDA: While in the military, did you have special training? If so, what type of training?

Joya Martinez: After basic training I was assigned to the 1st Infantry Brigade's intelligence unit, GC-2. The three-month special training for GC-2 consisted of learning how to use small arms, 45 caliber pistols and Uzi submachine guns. It also consisted of psychological training and methods for recruiting informants. We also had training in the use of plastic explosives.

AGENDA: How long did you serve with GC-2?

Joya Martinez: I was with that unit from November 1987 until I left in July 1989.

AGENDA: Can you tell me specifics about the GC-2 intelligence unit? What is its function?

Joya Martinez: There are three different sections within GC-2. There are the analysis branch, the intelligence branch and the special cases branch, which is where I worked. GC-2 was created by U.S. advisors back in 1981 and 1982 and remains in place to this day. Its main function is to maintain a network of informers and to secretly assassinate so-called terrorists.

AGENDA: Did U.S. advisors work in any way with GC-2?

Joya Martinez: There were two U.S. advisors who were mid-level superiors within the special cases department. They were responsible for training our agents in counterintelligence operations and funding the GC-2's covert activities.

AGENDA: Were there occasions on which you saw the U.S. advisors?

Joya Martinez: Definitely. Their office was right next door. I was around them all the time from Nov. 1987 until I left.

AGENDA: Were there occasions on which you spoke with the U.S advisors?

Joya Martinez: Yes, of course. In fact on various occasions they would request that I go with them as a bodyguard when they went to their headquarters to get funds for GC-2.

AGENDA: Did the advisors speak Spanish?

Joya Martinez: Only one of them spoke Spanish, a captain who said he was from Texas.

AGENDA: Do you know the names of the two U.S. advisors?

Joya Martinez: I don't know their real names because in GC-2 everybody used aliases. No one was called by their real name. The captain went by the name of "William" and the other, a major, simply went by the name "The Major."

AGENDA: During the time that you worked with GC-2 you claim to have participated in the abduction and killing of certain individuals with the full knowledge and acquiescence of the two U.S. advisors. Can you tell me how the U.S. advisors were linked to these activities?

Joya Martinez: Yes. The clandestine operations, as they were called, took place when these two advisors were assigned to GC-2 in San Salvador. The advisors provided us with operating expenses to maintain a safe house, informants and two vehicles, which were used to carry out our secret operations. My understanding was that the U.S. advisors had also furnished the funds to purchase these vehicles. As far as the U.S. advisors knowing what we were doing, it is simply a question of logic. From what I saw in day to day operations, I came to the conclusion that the U.S. advisors were every bit as much a part of the secret assassinations program as I was. In fact, from what saw, I would say that they ran the GC-2 special cases department.

AGENDA: Did the U.S. advisors know about the safe houses used by the special cases department?

Joya Martinez: Yes. They were both present, as was I, when the topic of needing a safe house was discussed with Major Villas Hernandez, the GC-2 chief. They were the ones who proposed the idea for security reasons and specified that they would provide funds to maintain the safe houses. But they also said they did not want to know about our activities.

AGENDA: Were you a participant or merely an observer in GC-2 operations in which persons were abducted and killed?

Joya Martinez: I was an actual participant in those operations, along with other officials in the special cases department. I was part of a secret group within that department, known as Special Forces Commandos (SFC). There were anywhere from seven to nine of us in the SFC at a given time, and all were military personnel.

AGENDA: Were the U.S. advisors aware of SFC activities, namely the abduction, torture and assassination of Salvadoran citizens?

Joya Martinez: In reality they ran the unit. They controlled the purse strings and were responsible for financing the special cases department's operations. They had to know about SFC operations. It's not like they were not interested in what we were doing. They were. However, they made it a point of pretending not to know about SFC operations.

AGENDA: From whom did you get your orders when going out on clandestine operations?

Joya Martinez: First of all, the U.S. advisors' role was to provide financing for GC-2 operations. They provided money and whatever material support was needed to conduct operations. However, our orders carne through the GC-2 chief, Major Villas Hernandez, who in turn got his orders from the brigade commander. Col. Juan Orlando Cepeda and later his successor, Col. Francisco Elena Fuentes. They received their orders, which came in one-page reports, from the Salvadoran Joint Chiefs of Staff.

AGENDA : How do you know that the orders to assassinate people came from the Salvadoran Joint Chiefs of Staff?

Joya Martinez: When we were sent out to pick up and assassinate a victim, I was given a one-page report and at the top was the heading "Joint Chiefs of Staff."

AGENDA: How did you get the names of the people to be abducted and killed by the SFC?

Joya Martinez: We would get the list of victims from Major Villas Hernandez or one of his officials, one of whom was Lt. Mejano, who worked in the analysis branch. They were very confidential operations. Usually we never knew the people we picked up, and l can say that l didn't really know the people we killed. It simply wasn't my role to be concerned about who the victims were. I was in a situation where I had to kill or risk being killed myself. Consequently, I did end up participating directly, along with others in my unit, in the abduction and killing of eight individuals. When I gave a news conference in Washington in late October, I provided the names of those victims.

AGENDA: Did the people in the SFC unit wear military uniforms when conducting operations?

Joya Martinez: No. We always wore civilian clothes, except for a few occasions when it was necessary to wear a uniform. But it would depend on the nature of the operation. The normal operating procedure of our unit was to use unmarked vehicles, wear civilian clothes and most wore our hair long. We carried small arms, and of course money that was given to us for our operations by the U.S. advisors.

AGENDA: Did you get the money directly from the U.S advisors?

Joya Martinez: Yes. The money I received was given to me directly by the U.S. advisors with the knowledge and authorization of the GC-2 chief.

AGENDA: Did the U.S advisors give the money directly to you?

Joya Martínez: Definitely. We used the money for food, transportation and also to pay off informants. Each of us worked with quite a few informers. They were people who did not work for the government, but out of economic necessity provided information in exchange for money.

AGENDA: How did you kill your victims? Were they tortured?

Joya Martinez: Only on a few occasions were the victims tortured. Usually we shot them through the head, and sometimes we slit their throat with a knife and hurled the bodies over a cliff into the Pacific Ocean.

AGENDA: Who supervised the actual operations?

Joya Martinez: Whenever we went out, there was usually a lieutenant with us to supervise the operation. There was always a very big concern that our operations not go wrong. There was always the dreaded possibility on the part of our superiors that we could create serious problems for GC-2 if a job was botched up.

AGENDA: In total, how many killings took place that you know of?

Joya Martinez: I saw reports which indicated that from April to July 1989 a total of 72 people were killed.

AGENDA: Why did you leave the Salvadoran military?

Joya Martinez: In July of this year, a clandestine operation was initiated in which I was sent to assassinate a suspected FMLN sympathizer named Lucio Parada, which I did. The operation was botched up, however, because members of his family saw the abduction and notified human rights groups, and an investigation followed in which I was implicated. Afterward, another assassination was ordered in which my informant for the Parada killing was to be the victim. But I found out that the plan was to also kill me because of the bad publicity surrounding the death of Lucio Parada. My superiors wanted to eliminate all witnesses to that killing.

AGENDA: Do you have an opinion as to who might be behind the Nov. 16 killing of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador?

Joya Martinez: You have to keep in mind that when the Jesuit priests were killed a state of siege was in place. The only ones able to move freely from one place to another would be the security forces [Salvadoran military personnel]. From my vantage point as a former intelligence agent and knowing how the security forces work, I feel that the Jesuits were killed by elements of the Salvadoran security forces.

AGENDA: What is your present status?

Joya Martinez: If I go back to El Salvador, l am a dead man. I have applied to U.S. Immigration for asylum based on fear of persecution.

There are 55 U.S. military advisors and an unknown number of CIA agents in El Salvador (The Ann Arbor News, Oct. 26, 1989).

[Salvadoran military forces prevent families of the disappeared from delivering a petition to the presidential palace calling for an investigation into the whereabouts of their loved ones. PHOTO: EL TALLER/MEDIA WORKSHOP]