A Judge and a Church Join the Fray : U.S. Jurist Pressures State Department for Data on Salvadoran Death Squads

Declaring that he is ready to play “hardball,” a Los Angeles federal judge sharply criticized the State Department Thursday for withholding government reports on torture and death-squad killings in El Salvador.

“It appears people don’t want to give the court information on death-squad activity in El Salvador,” U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon said, referring to the U.S. government. “If somebody in El Salvador did that, that would be normal. But if someone in our own government were to do it, that could be disturbing.

“To be brutally frank, the State Department and the government are playing hardball here. OK, we can play hardball.”

Attorneys for Salvadoran refugees want federal authorities to turn over the reports in a trial before Kenyon that is to decide whether U.S. immigration officials should be required to advise all captured illegals from El Salvador of their right to apply for political asylum in this country.

Among the reports sought by attorneys for Salvadoran refugees are those titled, “CIA Report on El Salvador Right-Wing Violence,” “FBI Investigation on Salvadoran Death-Squad Connections with Salvadoran Expatriates in the U.S.,” “Use of Torture Update” and “Death Squad Killings.”

Attorney Allen Hausman, assistant director of immigration litigation for the Justice Department, told Kenyon that the reports would have to be subpoenaed, although they are not now officially secret.

And by the time a subpoena is issued, Hausman told the judge, Secretary of State George P. Shultz will have declared them secret and will have invoked executive privilege to block their release.

Kenyon responded:

“When the secretary of state does his thing, finds them secret, I’m going to have them in chambers here (to review for possible use in the trial). . . . The court is going all the way on this.”

Under federal law, Kenyon can review secret government documents in his chambers and decide whether they should be made public.

Since the asylum trial began last week, six Salvadoran refugees have told of right-wing violence in El Salvador. The judge also heard testimony that U.S. immigration authorities told illegal immigrants that it would be a waste of time to apply for political asylum in this country.

In court Thursday, the director of Americas Watch, a human rights group, testified that the Salvadoran armed forces are currently involved in indiscriminate bombings and forced relocations of unarmed civilians.

Aryeh Neier, director of Americas Watch, likened the practice of relocating civilians from guerrilla areas to draining “the sea to get at the fish.”