Jailed Salvadoran Student Tells Disputed Version of the Killing of a Rights Activist

A 19-year-old student accused of killing human rights activist Herbert Ernesto Anaya Sanabria asserted Friday that leftist guerrilla leaders ordered the assassination because they believed Anaya was a government spy.

Jorge Alberto Miranda said in an interview from his jail cell that he belonged to an urban unit of the People’s Revolutionary Army and “provided cover” for the gunman who fired five bullets into Anaya on the morning of Oct. 26.

But Miranda’s family disputes his story, and the guerrillas deny that Miranda is one of them. The government, which is promoting Miranda’s account, denies that Anaya was a spy.

It is nearly impossible to verify the tale that Miranda tells in an unwavering voice. Rather than solving the mystery of the murder, the story illustrates how, in El Salvador’s Byzantine world of political warfare, truth often is as elusive as peace.

Commission Blamed Police

Anaya, head of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission, was gunned down as he left home to take his children to school. The commission blamed his death-squad-style murder on the Treasury Police, theorizing that rightists thought he was working with the rebels. The government has long asserted that Anaya belonged to the People’s Revolutionary Army, one of five factions in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the guerrillas’ umbrella organization.

But when President Jose Napoleon Duarte announced Miranda’s confession earlier this week, he said he had “moral, police and judicial evidence” that the guerrillas had murdered Anaya.

Anaya and three other commission members spent nine months in jail from May, 1986, to February, 1987, after a former colleague publicly charged that the commission was a rebel front group and that they were guerrillas. He was released with 50 other political prisoners in exchange for an air force colonel kidnaped by the rebels.

Anaya organized a study on police torture while he was in jail and remained a harsh critic of the government and the military after his release.

‘Space and Democracy’

Presidential aide Gerardo LeChevalier said that Anaya was not a government informant.

“I think they (the guerrillas) believed he was. The fact is, after he got out of jail and stayed in El Salvador, we used him a lot to show that there was political space and democracy here, and the U.S. Embassy did (so), too,” LeChevalier said.

During the two-hour interview, Miranda insisted that he has been well treated during his two weeks in custody, but he said that as treatment for a cold, he received several injections that he could not identify.

He said that two National Policemen coached him on answering journalists’ questions and told him to “look into the camera” when his picture was taken. He said the government paid him $2,400 for weapons he turned in and has offered him protection or safe passage out of the country in exchange for his cooperation.

If Miranda’s account of the murder bears up, this would be one of the first important human rights cases that the government has solved, and would amount to a serious political blow for the leftist guerrillas. If it turns out to be false, however, the president’s statements could send a message to rightist death squads that they will not be punished for their killings.

Escape Reported

Miranda said he was captured by National Police on Dec. 23 as he and another urban guerrilla prepared to burn a soft-drink truck in the Zacamil neighborhood where Anaya was killed. The other man reportedly escaped. On his fifth day in National Police custody, Miranda said, police told him a witness to Anaya’s killing had identified him as one of the gunmen.

No witness to the killing has been presented or previously reported to the public.

“They said if I confessed all of the information they were going to help me, that if I worked with them they would give me protection or get me out of the country,” Miranda said.

He said he told his story to an unidentified American as well as to National Police interrogators.

Miranda gave a reporter this account of the assassination, remaining consistent in all details under repeated questioning:

He belonged to a five-member guerrilla cell that included his sister, Inez, and a leader who used the pseudonym Fernando. On about Oct. 21, Fernando gathered Miranda and two other members--Jose and Carlos--to explain that they had been ordered to kill Anaya.

‘Blame the Armed Forces’

“They gave us four reasons. One, because he was not doing a good job as leader of the Human Rights Commission; two, because he had been in the hands of authorities; three, because he passed information to authorities, and four, to blame the armed forces.”

He staked out Anaya’s house twice in the days following the Oct. 21 meeting with Fernando. On the morning of the murder, he, Carlos and Jose drove to Anaya’s housing complex in a yellow pickup truck.

Jose sat in the getaway car on an adjacent boulevard while Miranda and Carlos waited for Anaya in the parking lot.

“When we saw him come out, we waited for him to get to his car. Carlos was about two or three yards from him. I was about five yards away giving cover to Carlos. Carlos took off his jacket, took out his gun and shot him.”

Miranda stresses that he did not kill Anaya.

“I did not pull the trigger,” he said.

Test at School

Miranda’s mother and sister have told reporters that he was home the morning of the killing and left later to take a test at school. Miranda said he went back home after the shooting to study for the test.

At La Esperanza men’s prison, Miranda is housed alone in a large cell with armed guards posted outside.

Since his capture, Miranda said he has seen International Red Cross representatives but not a lawyer. He said he had no idea whether he would be tried and feared that guerrillas would kill him if he were released.

“I am in their hands now,” he said of Duarte government officials. “They will decide if I leave or not.”