Death Squads Invade California

By Cristina Garcia

The anonymous letter sent to Father Luis Olivares' Los Angeles church earlier this month bore only the cryptic initials E.M., but its message was alarmingly clear. In El Salvador the letters are short for esquadron de la muerte, a vicious right-wing death squad whose modus operandi is to warn its intended victims that they have been marked for torture or assassination because they are suspected of sympathizing with antigovernment guerrillas. Now Olivares and the estimated 600,000 Salvadorans who have fled to the U.S. to escape the homicidal politics of their homeland fear that the death squads have invaded Southern California.

In the past month, a rash of death threats to politically active refugees in Los Angeles has sent a wave of apprehension through the city's Central American community. Threats against 24 people have been reported to the police this month by Salvadoran activists who are working against the government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. Hoarse voices with Salvadoran accents leave ominous messages on answering machines: "For being a Communist, we will kill you." One activist received a list with the names of 19 refugees targeted for killing along with a menacing handwritten note saying, "Nothing will save you. Death, death. Flowers in the desert die."

In the most serious incident so far, Yanira Corea, a 24-year-old Salvadoran activist, was forced at knifepoint by two men who spoke with Salvadoran accents into a van outside the downtown-Los Angeles office of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, a group opposing U.S. policies in Central America. For several hours, she told police, she was kept blindfolded in the van as her abductors cut her hands, burned her with cigarettes and sexually assaulted her, while they questioned her about CISPES' activities and membership. When they set her free, says Corea, the kidnapers told her they had spared her life so she she could tell other refugees that "we are here."

While most of the Central American refugees in Los Angeles are peasants and political exiles, a number of former Salvadoran military men and National Guard members with right-wing connections also live in the area. Some Salvadorans suggest that such bands of extremists may be responsible not only for the threats but also for a nationwide series of break-ins at sanctuary churches and organizations opposed to U.S. involvement in Central America. Says Father Olivares, one of the leaders in the movement to provide sanctuary to the refugees: "My feeling is that it has to be directed from El Salvador because of the tactics, the methodology, and because it is impossible to believe that anyone living here could think these crude tactics could work in the U.S." California Democrat Don Edwards, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, has launched a congressional probe into purported reprisals against Central American dissident groups. Says Edwards: "It is clear that all of the break-ins were against those opposing the Administration's Central American policies. Now it's starting to be violence against people."

Under pressure from Edwards, the FBI began to look into the threats on July 17. Later that day armed men abducted Ana Maria Lopez, 31, a Guatemalan woman involved in helping Central American refugees. After warning her to stop criticizing the Salvadoran government, the kidnapers dumped her in Pomona, Calif., 25 miles east of Los Angeles. "They told her that just as people are killed in Central America, they can be killed here," says Linton Joaquin, director of the Central American Refugee Center in Los Angeles.

The threats against Central Americans prompted Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley to denounce the terrorists last week and offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to their conviction. "If we don't stop it here, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and Washington, D.C., will be next," warned Bradley. His words did not reassure many refugees, who fear they may become the next target for the death squads. Said a 28-year-old Salvadoran: "If they want you, they will find you, even here."

With reporting by Jonathan Beaty/Los Angeles