Documents confirm CIA knew Jesuit priests to be executed

[L. Coyote]

Will Montaner and Posada Confess Their Complicity?
= Documents confirm that the CIA knew that the Jesuit priest Ellacuría was going to be killed.
By Jean-Guy Allard - http://www.periodico26.cu/english/coverage/october2009/complicity111609.html


The U.S. State Department, the CIA, and the Spanish intelligence services (the old CESID), all knew that the Jesuit priest, Ignacio Ellacuría, rector of the Central American University (UCA), and five of his colleagues were going to be killed by a death squad from the Salvadoran Army.

That has been confirmed in the Sunday edition of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, citing a series of "recently declassified" U.S. intelligence documents to be handed over to the Spanish courts.

The revelation further supports information indicating how CIA agent Carlos Alberto Montaner, who was stationed in Madrid, was well-informed about the conspiracy when he directly threatened Ellacuría a few days before the horrendous crime.

It also fits perfectly with the theory that international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, then a CIA agent and high official in the repressive Salvadoran apparatus, was involved in the plot. Carriles is currently being protected in the United States with the complacency of U.S. authorities.

The military death squad burst into UCA in the early hours of November 16, 1989, surprising the six Jesuits who were asleep. They ordered them to get up and then took them outside, where they were all shot in the back of the head.

.................

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. The CIA knew?

Fuck, they probably provided the transportation.

[marmar]

2. +1000

You know it.

[L. Coyote]

5. Did they provide the orders? And why were the Jesuits the targets?

William J. Davis, a Jesuit priest, was a principal investigator of Iran-Contra crimes.

The Jesuits posed very significant opposition to the Iran-Contra crimes. The Christic Institute was a public interest law founded in 1980 by Daniel Sheehan, his wife, Sara Nelson and their partner, William J. Davis, who was a Jesuit priest. Its headquarters were based in Washington, D.C.

WHAT IS THE CHRISTIC INSTITUTE?
http://www.skepticfiles.org/socialis/christic.htm

Since 1980 the Christic Institute has won some of the most celebrated public
interest cases of our time. The Institute's strategy combines public interest
law and progressive political education in a unique model for social reform in
the United States. ...

....

THE LA PENCA BOMBING AND INVESTIGATION

On May 30, 1984 a terrorist bomb exploded during a press conference at the
isolated jungle outpost of contra commander Eden Pastora in La Penca,
Nicaragua. Pastora survived the blast, but eight other people--including three
journalists--were killed and two dozen injured.

Among those injured was ABC cameraman Tony Avirgan. Once Avirgan recovered
from his injuries he joined his wife, journalist Martha Honey, who had already
begun an investigation to track down those responsible for the La Penca
bombing.

The two journalists discovered a trail of evidence leading from La Penca to a
secret contra base in Costa Rica, located on a ranch owned by a North American
farmer named John Hull. Eyewitnesses identified the ranch as the staging area
for the La Penca bombing.

Avirgan and Honey learned that Hull was a key figure in the criminal
enterprise of retired military officers, former intelligence officials and
private "soldiers of fortune" who were supplying arms for the contra war
against Nicaragua. They also learned that Hull was allowing Colombian drug
traffickers to use his ranch to smuggle cocaine into the United States. The
profits from the drug operation were used to purchase military supplies for the
contras.

Despite an escalating series of anonymous death threats and the murder on
Hull's ranch of one of their informants, Avirgan and Honey completed their
investigation and published their findings. Realizing they had found evidence
of a broad criminal conspiracy, the two journalists asked the Christic
Institute to represent them in a federal civil lawsuit against the individuals
responsible for the La Penca bombing and other criminal acts. The Christic
Institute, which had already amassed extensive information about the criminal
operations of the Richard Secord Enterprise, agreed to represent the
journalists.

Filed six months before the Iran-contra affair was publicly exposed, the
Avirgan v. Hull lawsuit named as defendants many of the key figures later shown
to be participants in the affair, including former Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard
Secord, businessman Albert Hakim and contra chief Adolfo Calero.

Acting under RICO, a tough federal statute giving private citizens powerful
tools to fight organized crime, the Federal District Court in Miami granted
broad investigative powers to the Institute in 1987. Using these powers to
compel testimony and subpoena evidence, the Institute has established the
outlines of a criminal enterprise originating years before the contra war
against Nicaragua. The investigation revealed:

- Drug trafficking to finance the contra war against Nicaragua. The La Penca
lawsuit charges that key figures in the covert contra supply operation--with
the knowledge of officials in the White House, Justice Department and the
Central Intelligence Agency--smuggled cocaine and other drugs from Colombia to
the United States through contra-controlled bases in Central America. The
Institute has named as codefendants several Cuban-American drug traffickers and
several Colombian drug kingpins.

- A pattern of criminal activity in the conduct of covert operations. The
Institute's investigators have established that major figues implicated in the
Iran-contra scandal have a criminal history dating back to covert operations in
Cuba, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The Institute charges an enterprise
of retired military and intelligence officials with involvement in drug
trafficking, gun running, money laundering and political assassinations.

- Existence of a lawless "secret government" fighting covert wars worldwide.
The La Penca investigation strongly suggests that elements of the Central
Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council are operating outside the
effective control of Congress and the American people. Enlisting the services
of narcotics traffickers and professional assassins, hiding behind dummy
corporations and secret bank accounts, covert operatives have created a "secret
government" which operates independent of democratic oversight.

.......... http://www.skepticfiles.org/socialis/christic.htm

[blm]

10. This stuff is more of why IranContra, BCCI books should NEVER have been closed and their

many outstanding matters deepsixed throughout the 90s by a Dem administration committed to protecting the secrecy and privilege of Poppy Bush and his fascist cronies.


Imagine what the world would look like today had ALL of Poppy Bush's illegal operations received full exposure to the American people and accountability for those crimes.

There would have been no Bush elected to office ever again, and no events like 9-11 from the exposed global terror networks and their funding by Bush and his cronies.

[G_j]

3. US war crimes

are ALWAYS swept under the rug.

[gratuitous]

4. I wonder what the President knew?

Let's see, who was the President on November 16, 1989, and did he have any special affinity with CIA?

Ah, nothing to see here. Back to obsessing over Sarah Palin, stat!

[L. Coyote]

6. I wonder what they knew about the President, especially his Central American adventurism

in Honduras, illegally funneling 100,000,000 dollars the the Contras as the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up.
Gee whiz, if only they had canceled the flight on that morning too cold to launch, instead of insisting the launch provide cover for their ongoing crimes!

So, even today in Honduras is the CIA at work covering up past history??

===========================
REV. WILLIAM J. DAVIS, S.J., chair of our board of directors, is director
of Christic Institute West. His investigation of the contra underworld helped
build the case for the Avirgan v. Hull. ....A Roman Catholic priest,
he has lived in Latin America and travelled
widely in the developing world. Father Davis was an official observer at the
1984 elections in Nicaragua. In 1981, he investigated the disappearance of
Charles Horman, a United States citizen whose murder by the Chilean military
was dramatized in Missing, a film directed by Costa Gavras. He is the former
director of the National Jesuit Office of Social Ministries.

Daniel Sheehan, served as General Counsel for the Jesuit National Headquarters,
National Social Ministry Office when Father William J Davis was Director of the National Office.

Daniel Sheehan for nearly five years investigated criminal
activity by United States citizens supporting the contra war and has testified
on his findings before Congress. He also fought for justice in
some of the most celebrated civil lawsuits of the past two decades: Silkwood,
the Pentagon Papers, Wounded Knee, Attica and Greensboro. He was one of the
attorneys representing Stacey Ann Merkt, the first activist in the sanctuary
movement arrested by Federal authorities for sheltering Salvadoran refugees.
Sheehan assembled the legal team that represented Karen Silkwood's family in
Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee and was coordinating counsel in the Greensboro Massacre
case. Shortly after his graduation from Harvard Law School, he joined the legal
team that represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case. At
Harvard, he was a cofounder and editor of the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties Law Review.

[anonymous171]

7. Not surprising. The elites care nothing for religion or ideology.

:grr: I hope someone gets prosecuted for this.

[Octafish]

8. It's not terrorism when a Friend of Poppy does it. Ask Posada Carriles about Cubana Air

Poppy's pal Posada Carriles helped blow up a Cuban passenger jet in 1976, killing 78 civilians.

Beat the BFEE: Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

Poppy helped cover up that hideous CIA operation, as well.

Thank you for the El Mundo story, L. Coyote. Jesuits have been called the intellectuals of the Church, for good reason.

[L. Coyote]

9. On 20th Anniversary of Killings ... Thousands to Protest “School of the Assassins”

Democracy Now - http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/20/blase


On 20th Anniversary of Killings of 6 Jesuit Priests by US-Backed Salvadoran Forces, Thousands to Protest “School of the Assassins” at Ft. Benning

Thousands are gathering at Fort Benning in Georgia this weekend for the annual protest to shut down the US Army training center dubbed by critics as the “School of the Assassins” for having trained some of the worst human rights violators in Latin America. This year’s protest will mark the twentieth anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador by the US-backed Salvadoran military. It comes days after the priests were posthumously bestowed El Salvador’s highest civilian award, marking the first time the Salvadoran government has honored the priests since their deaths. To talk about the priests and the overall state of Latin American affairs, we’re joined by Blase Bonpane, director of the Office of the Americas. A former Maryknoll priest, he has worked for more than four decades to promote human rights in Latin America.

Thousands of human rights activists are gathering at Fort Benning in Georgia this weekend for the annual protest to shut down the U.S. Army training center once known as the School of the Americas. The school, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is used to train Latin American soldiers in combat, counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics. Critics have dubbed the training center the “School of the Assassins,” because some of its graduates have been responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America.

This year’s protest will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priest in El Salvador by the US-backed Salvadoran military. The Jesuit priests were killed on November 16, 1989–20 years ago this week– when a military unit entered the Central American University campus and shot them to death. The priests’ housekeeper and her daughter were also killed in the attack.The Jesuits had been outspoken advocates for the poor and critics of human rights abuses committed by the ARENA government. Many of the soldiers involved in the murders were graduates of the School of the Americas at Fort Benning.

Earlier this week, in El Salvador, the Jesuit priests were bestowed the nation’s highest civilian award, marking the first time the Salvadoran government has honored the priests since their deaths. El Salvador’s defense minister announced the military is ready to ask for forgiveness and open its archives to a long-sought investigation.

............

Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/20/blase

[karynnj]

13. My daughter went to this protest - as she did to one last year

Last year she went with students from the Jesuit college she gradated from.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. The Catholic Church rulers didn't support didn't support

the socio/revolutionary christianity coming out of the burros

They had their hands on this too.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Really? First I've heard they had any complicity in assassinations of their own.

Do you know more? And what region and level of the Church do you mean? El Salvador lost Bishop Romero to the death squads. Many in the El Salvadoran Church were courageous and genuinely defending the poor. Are you saying it was clergy in the El Salvadoran Church? In Rome? In the Jesuit order?

Actually, I would be genuinely shocked if any of the above were true. I know many higher clergy in the Church are complicit with the rich, and the Vatican and some cardinals/bishops have tried to suppress Liberation Theology priests and nuns, but I have never heard anything to suggest that anybody at any level of the Church, not even the Pope, were complicit or tolerated the assassinations of priests, nuns and a bishop. It's a real big sin! Beyond the pale sin. Totally verboten. Unthinkable.

Do you have something to back this up? Or are you just guessing, on the basis of other bad behavior?