A Green Light for Terror

A Green Light for Terror

Today the Plaintiff’s call Professor Terry Karl of Stanford University, an expert witness on Central American history and politics. She is examined by David Esquivel. She explains the rather dire situation around the country in the early 1980’s. The Archbishop’s office was only place that paid attention to all of bodies that were collected on the streets, in the country, by the sea, in the supermarkets, wherever, and whenever. The bodies were collected each and every morning. They were photographed, a proper description made, and cataloged in one massive book after another. People would come to the office to find missing people sometimes bringing photos to show to anyone who would listen. This was the only place in the country to go for help identifying the missing. Frequently people would be abducted, killed, and dumped elsewhere making it hard to figure out who they were or where they came from. The death squads would strip the bodies of anything of value and never leave any type of identification papers or cards if the victims had them at all. Bodies were often left in places of high foot traffic so they could be seen by as many people of possible. This was the method of terrorizing a population. Kill a peasant and stuff his mouth full of dirt suggesting to all those people seeing him after the fact that speaking in favor of land reform was a very bad idea. Kill the priest or the politician of the small town and put his body in the town square sending a message of death to all those who pass by. Professor Karl described the level of violence in 80-83 as “a widespread state of terror,” a complete assault on the civilian population by the state. Additionally, she claimed that Colonel Carranza had effective control, orders were given, and orders were obeyed. Carranza also had knowledge that human rights abuses were taking place and it is inconceivable that he had no knowledge. Carranza failed in his duty; no steps were taken to reduce the level of abuse, it was effectively command failure on his part. Finally, Karl claimed that Colonel Carranza’s resulting failure was “a green light for terror.”