A Bad Year for Students

Today was Friday in Judge McCalla’s courtroom. In the middle of the night last night I checked Judge McCalla’s calendar on-line (you can too – http://www.tnwd.uscourts.gov/attorneys/Calendars/McCalla/default.htm ) to see if the starting time had changed and it had from 9:00 am to 9:30 am. Judge McCalla usually gives himself some time in the morning and some afternoons to squeeze in a “Sentencing” or two. No matter, I showed up at 9:30am and Matt Eisenbrandt was already examining Ana Patricia Chavez. She recalls having her mother killed while laying next her only to be alerted by one of the neighbors moments later “that you might want to come outside and have a look at this body that was found on the side of road” (her husband) and then her father too. Completely nightmarish. Fargarson cross-examined, what could he say - mostly the usual questions about a law firm approaching you with this case. Have you ever met/seen Col. Carranza? Did you know the post he held? Did you/do you know anything about the political situation in El Salvador at that time? Did you know you could sue anyone regarding this situation until someone told you could?

BLAH.

Plaintiff’s call their next witness… Daniel Alvarado to be examined by David Esquivel. Daniel was in college (I believe the Central American University.) in 1980 and joined the student council. This was a time in El Salvador when Army soldiers and police spent time poking around campus looking for guerrillas. Or as Daniel explains the year 1980, “It was a bad time for teachers and it was a bad time for students.” One of the first incidents happened when soldiers fired on a moving car paralyzing a student. Things didn’t get much better after that. It was not unusual to be at least harassed, or beaten, or tortured, or worse yet killed. The Army and the Police were determined to flush the subversive guerrillas out of the learning environment. Many students actively protested against dwindling education budgets and growing military expenditures. Daniel says, “The students wanted to be left in peace so they could study but the military wasn’t having any of it.” Student council members became particular targets by the violent government authorities. The student associations would do things like march throughout town and prepare fliers requesting the return of certain “missing” students or demanding freedom and student rights reform. It was a pretty turbulent time and students frequently found themselves staring down the wrong end of a rifle barrel. Daniel Alvarado became a target and was yanked out of the stands at a soccer game one afternoon, blind-folded and put in the back of a car and driven and driven and driven. Hours later he was brutally tortured until he lost consciousness only to be brutally tortured until he lost consciousness again and again. Sometime later he was charged with the murder a United States Military Advisor by the name of Albert Schaufelberger. You and I both know being charged with killing an American on foreign soil usually spells doomsday. Schaufelberger, age 33, was U.S. Navy Lieut. Commander who was in San Salvador to help administer U.S. security assistance. Daniel Alvarado is unique among the plaintiff’s in this case because he actually had come into contact with Col. Carranza. Carranza drug him in front of the reporters at a press conference to announce that the killer of Lieut. Commander Schaufelberger had been captured. You can bet your bottom dollar the members of the
U. S. Senate needed some answers regarding the death of someone like the Lieut. Commander. Remember the United States was pumping crazy cash in military aid to fight the communist insurgency (?) in El Salvador at the time. The American press would need some answers too. Schaufelberger was the first American military advisor to be killed in that country. If El Salvador was being saved and repaired and all was well -why would someone like Schaufelberger be killed? The Salvadorian military high command would need someone fast to cool all the hot questions. In walks Daniel Alvarado. You can probably guess the rest.