Rule without Law: El Salvador

Abstract

The El Salvador Human Rights Commission and the Legal Aid Office of the Archbishop of San Salvador have done a particularly thorough job of documenting two cases of rights violations. This would not be a noteworthy accomplishment in view of the 30,000 political murders that have occurred since the 1979 military coup, were it not for a series of photographs assembled by the El Salvador Human Rights Commission.' With unusual clarity, they illustrate the harsh reality of human rights in that troubled nation. These records show the entire process from beginning to end: the apprehension of two young men by the National Guard, the act of turning them over to a paramilitary death squad, their execution-style murder, and the identification of their bodies by relatives. Vinicio Bazzaglia, age 24, and Manuel Toledo, 22, who were unknown to each other, had the misfortune of walking past the Family Banking Center in San Salvador on 3 October 1980 when an assault on the bank drew the National Guard into a shoot-out. Caught in this situation along with other passersby, both sought refuge in nearby shops and doorways. In the roundup that followed, they were apprehended and detained by the National Guard because neither had proper identification papers. They were immobilized in the customary manner of having their thumbs bound tightly behind their backs. In an apparently lawless act, the National Guard brazenly handed over custody of both prisoners to a group of armed civilians. Despite the verbal protest of a Green Cross emergency rescue worker, Bazzaglia and Toledo were abducted by the death squad and were last publicly seen being carried away in the bed of a Toyota pickup truck. Four hours later, Bazzaglia's body was found beside a rural road leading out of the capital. Unable to identify the several corpses at the site, a local