<i> Escuadron de la Muerte</i>

Could death squads from El Salvador be operating here? Most people would instinctively call that impossible and blot out the thought that the terrible brutality of that country’s civil war is a problem for the many Salvadoran refugees who have fled to the United States. But in the large refugee community, people aren’t so sure. That’s why last week’s action by Los Angeles Police, who named a local Salvadoran businessman as a suspect in death squad-style threats against local priests and refugees, is important. It says that law enforcement is determined not to let the grisly battles of El Salvador surface in the Southland.

The validity of the allegations will have to be determined in a court of law when and if Carlos Rene Mata, 35, is formally charged. Mata, the proprietor of an overnight delivery firm that ships goods between Central America and the United States, is already in jail on suspicion of receiving stolen property and of threatening a former employee of his company, Pipil Express. He also faces trial in U.S. District Court on charges that he smuggled illegal immigrants.

Allegations of Mata’s possible links to death squads in El Salvador were contained in an affidavit filed last week by a police detective involved in the continuing investigation of his activities. The FBI, the U.S. Customs Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service are also involved in the probe.

Death squads are a frightening aspect of the long Salvadoran war. Bands of right-wing thugs who harass and intimidate their political opponents with threats, kidnapings and murder, the death squads have killed almost as many people as have died in combat.

The possibility that death squads might be in Los Angeles was first raised in 1987, after three kidnapings of Salvadoran refugees, one of them a woman who was also raped by her abductors. About the same time, local priests active in helping Central American refugees also revealed that they had received telephoned death threats and anonymous notes signed with the initials “E.M.,” which stands for Escuadron de la Muerte-- Spanish for death squad. Similar threats were recently reported by two local refugee agencies.

After the 1987 incidents, police and the FBI assigned investigators to determine if they might be linked. It is still not known whether the probe of Mata and his company grew out of those incidents. In any event, the actions taken against Mata send a signal to the entire community: Allegations of death-squad activity are taken seriously in Los Angeles, and death squads will not be tolerated here. And anyone inclined to take the dangers posed by death squads lightly should recall how Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier was murdered by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s secret police on the streets of Washington in 1976.

An estimated 300,000 Salvadorans live here, so it’s impossible to keep the tragedy of El Salvador from crossing national borders and brushing the lives of emigrants. But if law enforcement is vigilant, the bloodshed of that war will never spill onto the streets of Los Angeles.