Death Squads? Could Be

A frightening aspect of the bloody civil war in El Salvador is the regularity with which politically motivated assassinations and kidnapings take place far from the battlefield. The practice is so commonplace that it has spawned a new term in the lexicon of international politics: death squad.

Death squads are bands of political thugs who try to harass political activists or members of their families. If intimidation fails, they murder or “disappear” their targets. Various factions in the Salvadoran war have been accused of death-squad tactics, but most specialists agree that the perpetrators most often represent the political right in that country: Either they are hit-men hired by landowners or other wealthy conservatives, or they are policemen and other members of the Salvadoran security forces who conduct such activities in their spare time.

In recent days several people active in Los Angeles’ large Salvadoran community have been the targets of physical abuse or threats that may be linked to death squads or at the very least have been perpetrated by persons trying to imitate death-squad tactics. Two Central American refugee women were kidnaped, and one of them was raped, by men who questioned them about their political activities and warned them to desist. Another woman, a Salvadoran, received telephoned death threats. And a priest active in helping Central American refugees, Father Luis Olivares of Our Lady Queen of Angels Parish in downtown Los Angeles, received a letter similar to those used to threaten priests in El Salvador--a sheet of paper with the initials E.M. printed on it. The initials stand for Escuadron de la Muerte-- Spanish for “death squad.”

There is as yet no solid evidence that these acts are the work of thugs sent here from El Salvador, as some spokesmen for Salvadoran refugee groups fear. Still, given the size of the Salvadoran community here (at almost 300,000 persons, it is probably the largest Salvadoran settlement outside El Salvador itself), it is not unreasonable to assume that the violence taking place in their homeland could eventually reach here. That is why it is important for the Los Angeles Police Department and other law-enforcement agencies to take these incidents as seriously as possible and to treat them not as routine street crimes or pranks but as warning signs of potential political terrorism.

It is reassuring that the LAPD has assigned its terrorism specialists to investigate these incidents. On Friday the FBI announced that it had also opened an investigation into the matter. That is an important and symbolic step, for it shows that authorities in this country are simply not going to tolerate the type of political brutality that has marked the conflict in El Salvador. Whether these incidents are the work of real death squads or local imitations, they must be stopped as soon and as firmly as law-enforcement authorities can do it.