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Blowtorch Bob’s Fiery End

Eduardo was the son of Roberto D’Aubuisson, a noted Salvadoran terrorist trained by the United States military in Taiwan and in the School of the Americas, whom his trainers called Blowtorch Bob, owing to his predilection for using the blowtorch as an instrument of torture.
The death squads directed by this man assassinated thousands of civilians in the bitter years of the war, starting with the killing in March 1980, of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador.

D’Aubuisson senior died in his bed 15 years ago after founding the ultra-Right party, Arena, which today governs El Salvador. Two of his children, Roberto and Eduardo, members of this formation, took to the path of politics. Today, the first is a Deputy in the legislative Assembly of his country. Till February 19 the second, known as Poison, was part of the Arena grouping in the Central American Parliament when on that day he was killed in an atrocious manner together with two of his party colleagues and their chauffeur at El Jocotillo, a Guatemalan location near the border with El Salvador. It appears that the vehicle in which they were travelling was ambushed, sprayed with bullets and set afire while the occupants were still alive and on board. The links of Poison D’Aubuisson with drugs – both as consumer and dealer – were often commented upon in his country. Of course, neither his ancestry nor his activities justify his assassination, and still less with such cruelty.

The Guatemalan President, Oscar Berger, claimed last Friday (February 23) that the quadruple murder had been committed by a drug cartel helped by the police and said that four policemen had been detained for their crime at El Jocotillo. One of them, Luis Herrera, was the head of the special police unit against organised crime and was betrayed by the satellite tracking system in his car which was found to be in the same place and at the same time of the killings. Another, Korky Estuardo López, was a high-ranking official and the others were investigative agents. The four were moved to the maximum security El Boquerón prison in Cuilapa. Last Sunday (February 25), they were riddled with bullets inside the prison, and it is still not clear how it happened. The authorities say there was an uprising in the jail full of members of the Mara gang and that they killed the policemen. But testimony from civilians indicates that a group of armed men entered the prison, subdued the guards and killed the policemen and that later the prisoners rose up demanding protection and guarantees.

When peace agreements were signed at the end of the armed conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador, there was an abundance of optimism but also warnings that the end of the war in the terms as had happened did not mean the end of violence. The conflicts left the countries dominated, as always, by oligarchic groups and steeped in misery and inequality, as always, but with a surplus of men trained in the business of killing. Crimes of all types were quickly replaced by traditional actors (regular armed corps, death squads and insurgent organisations) and they have been climbing to positions of power, infiltrating government structures and melding with the ruling classes.

The assassinations of El Jocotillo and of Cuilapa can be seen in part as an outcome of this. It is possible things will get worse.

-- Translated by Supriyo Chatterjee

The original report in Spanish is available at La Jornada [ www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/02/27/index.php ]
 
 

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