Salvador President Grudgingly Agrees to Retire 15 Army Chiefs

President Alfredo Cristiani has reluctantly accepted U.N. demands to remove 15 of El Salvador’s top army chiefs from active duty by June 30 under conditions generally agreeable to the United Nations, its secretary general said Friday.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he regretted that compliance will not occur until months later than envisioned in peace accords.

The officers, who are implicated in human rights atrocities and corruption, will be removed from command positions by June 30 but put on leave with pay “pending completion of the procedures for their retirement not later than Dec. 31,” Boutros-Ghali said.

In Washington, the State Department took issue Friday with the general amnesty for human rights violators that took effect this week in El Salvador.

“We believe that persons who commit serious human rights abuses should be held accountable and that future human rights violators must not believe that they can act with impunity,” spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Two military officers convicted in the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests were the first to benefit from the amnesty. They were freed Thursday after serving a fraction of their 30-year prison terms.

Also Friday, a former intelligence agent who deserted and exposed the army-backed death squads was freed from prison, his lawyer said.

Attorney Felix Ulloa said that Cesar Joya Martinez, who was extradited from the United States last year, walked free from the Mariona Prison in the capital under the terms of the blanket amnesty.

“We will try to get him out of the country because his life could be in danger,” Ulloa said.