13 Bodies Found in El Salvador; Death-Squad Action Suspected

Thirteen bodies have been found in two weeks, most of them bound, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture typical of “death squad” victims, a spokesman for the non-governmental Human Rights Commission said Tuesday.

Judicial authorities confirmed the discovery Monday of three bodies--two men and a teen-age boy--at the “Devil’s Gate” outcropping in the mountains about 7 miles south of San Salvador. For several years, right-wing death squads have used the area as a dumping ground for bodies.

More than 65,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in eight years of war between left-wing guerrillas and U.S.-backed governments in El Salvador. Human rights organizations blame most of the civilian deaths on right-wing death squads or paramilitary forces.

Twenty-four murders were attributed to death squads in all of 1987 by the Roman Catholic Church’s Legal Aid Society.

Tortured and Shot

Oscar Rene Rivas, justice of the peace in Panchimalco south of San Salvador, said the bodies found Monday were blindfolded, had their thumbs tied behind their backs and showed signs of torture. He said they were shot in the head and chest.

The men were aged 25 to 35 and the boy was about 14, Rivas said. None were identified, but he said they appeared to be laborers.

According to the human rights spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, seven bullet-riddled bodies, two of them women, were found Jan. 17 on a ranch near Ateocoyo, 40 miles northeast of San Salvador.

On Jan. 25 the bodies of three men who had been tortured were found in the same region but they were not identified, he said.

“We are making an exhaustive investigation of these murders, which have been committed according to the modus operandi of death squads and demonstrate that these actions perpetrated by security forces and armed forces are continuing,” the spokesman said.