Start reading slowly, out loud: "Some years after Romero's murder, Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia took off his military rank, left his family and moved to California." In the hand holds several pages to print a newspaper published five years ago. It rearranges the two glass lenses, held by a wire. His fingernails are torn and dirty, and wide-eyed and agitated. Alerts. Reread the first paragraph. "Some years after Romero's murder, Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia ..." He pauses and repeats that name, not in a long time says: "Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia.
raises his head and stares at me.
"You wrote this, right?
"Yes. "Well
wrong.
- Why?
-It says "A few years after Romero's murder." And I did not kill him.
- Who killed him?
-A guy.
- Can a foreigner?
-No. An Indian, of us. That there walks.
"You did not shoot, but participated. -30
years and I'm going to die so desired. Yeah, I participated. So we are talking about.
His hands are worn out by poverty and field work. Hands that have nothing to do with those of that Air Force pilot become deputy leader of the anti-Salvadoran Roberto d'Aubuisson, and then pizza delivery money launderer for the Colombian mafia and finally used car salesman California. Now there's nothing like that. Lost a case that did not attend, which was found guilty of the murder of Monsignor Romero.
"Tell me how it went.
"I'll tell you everything, but slowly. This is long.
***
Details captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia in the home of the most wanted fugitives Immigration and Customs Enforcement United States. Photo: El Faro.
In 1979, Saravia, undisciplined aviation captain, loved by all his colleagues but too inclined to alcohol and fights, ended convinced by Major Roberto d'Aubuisson to work with him in forming an anti-Communist front. In visits convinced him that D'Aubuisson, an army major counter-intelligence expert, was at the headquarters of the National Guard to recruit officers for their struggle.
The biggest D'Aubuisson founded a couple of years later the Arena party and became the top leader of the Salvadoran political right. It was also the president of the Constituent Assembly of 1985 and prominent member of the World Anti-Communist League. Captain Saravia
still remembers sitting in the sand on a beach in El Salvador and a bottle of rum between them, it ended DAubuisson incorporating movement. Missed 15 days with him, went to Guatemala, and put salary, car and everything else that needed to fulfill the request of the elder: "I'll bring some things to me, individuals."
D'Aubuisson died in 1992 of cancer of the tongue, having led her party to the presidency of El Salvador and shortly after the signing of peace accords that ended the civil war. By then, Captain Saravia was already living in the United States had been spared a trial in El Salvador for the murder of Archbishop Romero and other U.S. money laundering. She moved to Modesto, a small town in central California, and used cars sold there until 2004.
In October of that year began to run away from himself, when the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), a nongovernmental organization based in San Francisco, California, stuck a civil trial found him guilty of the murder of Monsignor Romero and ordered to pay $ 10 million to the family. Saravia disappeared shortly before the trial and now lives in hiding. Has returned to a country where English is spoken.
from him once told me an old sandpit with a reputation for hard, "Saravia was crazy. I saw you with a toothache and I wondered what happened to you. We were saying that a dentist fucked up and the next day the dentist was dead. "
Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia was an active member of a group identified as responsible for killings and torture, a death squad. "A psychopath" he calls Ricardo Valdivieso, one of the founders of Arena.
The National Security Archive U.S. information entered that country's embassy in San Salvador, reporting to Washington of kidnapping and murder of Carlos Humberto Guerra Campos in 1985. His family paid the ransom, but he never appeared. According to the U.S. embassy, \u200b\u200bthe kidnappers were Captain Alvaro Saravia and "Tito" Regalado, the man who later became head of security for the Assembly when DAubuisson became president of the Legislative Assembly. Saravia
lived surrounded by kidnappers and murderers, but denies involvement in this or another murder. "I never went no surgery to go kill anyone. I tell you frankly. " He forgets that we are sitting here precisely because it participated in the murder most significant in the history of El Salvador.
does not deny the involvement of his boss, Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, in clandestine operations to kill humans, but argues that this was done through contacts in other security.
At its agenda, which was captured in the San Luis few days after the assassination of Monsignor Romero, are contained lists of your arms and a man named Andy. Andy the Caribbean. An arms dealer U.S. brought from their country, land, trucks full of weapons that Playboy magazine disguised under willingly gave customs agents at all borders. These weapons, Saravia said, were for personal use and to arm the members of the Frente Amplio Nacional, FAN, who led before founding DAubuisson ARENA.
In a break with the largest serving the two versions. One is yours, that are tired of the hectic life and no longer felt confident D'Aubuisson, so he left the United States. Another is to Ricardo Valdivieso, founder of Arena and now director of the Institute Roberto d'Aubuisson: one day, during the long periods conspiring spent in Guatemala, they were called to a bar in Izabal to say that Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia was fighting with several men. When I went to get, Saravia DAubuisson also hit, and that was the relationship.
the assassination of Monsignor Romero, Saravia alleges that he was not involved in planning, and aims to try ensuring that the day had he had more weapons than the two that carried forever. "If you kill is because he will have ... walks around with a machete in his hand even a knife, a razor blade, a fork, anything, what will stick, a pen, but you did not come to me fijate say I need a car .... "
No arrest warrants against Captain Saravia, except in the U.S., where the search for deportation. But no matter because it is not there. A few years ago spoke to the American newspaper The Miami Herald said he had apologized to the Church and tell all in a book. He did not say where you live or even have paper and that the nearest neighbor literate lives 20 minutes from his home. In the absence of a book, you have everything in an interview.
We met the first time in a small hotel in a small town, which came after five hours which combined the cross-country trek, the ride in pickup trucks and two buses. I remembered him as a fat man, with reliefs on the chin, mustache and blond hair that appears in the poster for "Wanted" published by the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2004, "on suspicion of violations of human rights. " That picture, in which the neck and torso are mixed in a Hawaiian shirt, decorated my refrigerator for over a year while he was wanted in California. So expect to find one of the murderers of Archbishop Romero. Gordo, tanned and wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Instead I run a haggard old man, thin, skin withered and torn; his face hidden behind a gray beard and wild, and a deep smell of stale. How small it looks.
- Why you want to talk now?
"For my children. Is that until they see me like Hitler.
For the first time since he started talking, Saravia lowers his head. The mouth tightens. Alone in this table that I am also. And I'm the one who breaks the silence.
- How long ago did not talk to them?
- uffff! Phew! 10 years! I remember them every day. Although afraid I have to talk to me.
During the following days the Captain Saravia confess are other reasons for speak: for all involved, is the only tried and the only one who has lived in hiding. Amado Garay, the driver also lives in hiding, but as a witness protected in the United States. But we must emphasize one thing: the first condition to live in hiding is to be alive. Five other people involved in this crime, or in hiding, could not hide. One was decapitated, another committed suicide, another missing, another was killed at a checkpoint on the road. Another ended up in bits. In Guatemala. So they say. But this last name and no death certificate.
is true, Saravia is the only one who has lived in hiding. He's tried several times, contact with some of his former comrades, but no one has responded. "30 years have passed and still the same shit. I have nothing to hide. Why? And more fucked up than I am, how I'll be. Nothing! To me it seems to me that there is a conspiracy that does not want to know who killed Romero whores. "
He himself has been part of the conspiracy, but now he is alone. His only friend is a man with an old pick up and a small rural property. There is a little hut of wood, similar to the Unabomber, consisting of four walls with a window that protects a dirt floor and nothing else. Saravia lived there more than one year, until it got the thieves and stole a belt and a shirt and a machete, which was all I had.
The second time we meet, in the same hotel floor of his room 15 minutes after the appointed time. Comes pale.
- What's wrong, Captain?
"I just look in the mirror. He had five months of not seeing me in a mirror. ***
Carlos Dada, director of El Faro, during one of the interview with Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia, charged with involvement in the assassination of Monsignor Romero. Photo: Edu Ponces.
Now start talking. Let me take a tape recorder and says, "Give, Charlie, this is going to be good." Want to mention names. Just make a request: "That caught. Being beaten egg a tight as they did before, to see if they do not sing! "
The trial against him was based primarily on two elements: one, the testimony of Amado Garay, the driver who drove the murderer to the church Monsignor Romero in the Mass was March 24, 1980, and two, the agenda that the army captured him in March of that year, in which an operation called Operation consigned Pineapple with features corresponding to those of murder. "I have not seen that agenda since I took it away, "admits Saravia. "I could not walk on his head all my stuff, so the scoring in a agendita, it was natural that score. There was the Operation Pineapple, who had been a long time, we collected a few grenades on the border with Guatemala. "
I show a photocopy of your agenda and the captain is hit in the past. The notes carefully. Operation Pineapple includes a handle. Strange, because you do not need a shooter to pick up grenades at the border. "Yes, that's true," he admits. Keep watching this paginita, entitled Operation Pineapple and suddenly, Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia has an epiphany. "That's not my handwriting. That is the letter of Roberto. "
The letter, in fact, is different to that found on other pages of the agenda. Why have entered Roberto d'Aubuisson Operation Pineapple on the agenda of his deputy? Saravia did not know, but someone who does.
In 1980, Colonel Adolfo Arnoldo Majano was a member of the Revolutionary Government and one of the last military still believed in a negotiated solution to the conflict. It was he who ordered the arrest of D'Aubuisson and his followers in the San Luis, Santa Tecla, and who first had access to the agenda and content Saravia.
"Operation Pineapple match the data of what happened," Majano said, "but was not on the agenda of Saravia. That is a role DAubuisson captured. The staff officer who helped me get the photocopies along with pages of the agenda so as not to lose. " Operation Pineapple
written on a blank paper, without printing the agenda, and with a seal at the edge of the page that corresponds to Tazumal Seafood, a fishing company founded by D'Aubuisson and Fernando "The Black" Sagrera. D'Aubuisson was
, not Saravia, the author of that list, according to the Commission of Truth and Human Rights Commission, for the murder of Monsignor Romero. Here is the list: Operation Pineapple
1. Starlight
1. 257 Robert * s
4. Automatic Grenade
______________
1. Biker
1.
shooter
4.
Security
The Starlight is a riflescope accuracy necessary for a transaction of this type. From the street to the altar of the Church of Divine Providence is about 35 meters, and the shooter needs a scope.
The 257 Roberts is a 25 caliber rifle manufactured by the Remington house, widely used for precision shooting with telescopic sights. It was doubtful that the rifle was assassinated Monsignor Romero. The autopsy revealed that he received a 22-caliber bullet in the heart. But the shooter did not leave the team of D'Aubuisson, but the other conspirator, Mario Molina, the son of former President Arturo Armando Molina. Mario Molina gave the murderer, weapon and equipment safety.
The four automatic and grenades were on the list as part of the armament of the four elements of security that accompany the operation.
The driver left the D'Aubuisson team under the supervision of Saravia. Amado Garay, a former soldier Quezaltepeque native, led the murderer front door of the church and then took him to safety. Garay, until now the only participant in the operation he had given his testimony, live in the United States under the witness protection program. The shooter is
Salvadoran National Guard and was former member of the security team Mario Molina. March 24, an accurate shot, killed the archbishop of San Salvador. Saravia
requested to capture. Makes a second application the next day. He asks me to take you to the nearest town that has a Burger King. When I lived in Modesto, California, closed the sale of cars and went his way home every day buying a Whopper double. This time, here, I asked a special favor:
- Could I buy two?
"You're hungry, sir.
"The other is for tomorrow. I want to take me to the mountain.
"But by tomorrow it will rot.
"If I everything I eat is rotten, do not worry.
***
Saravia at your current address.
To find Saravia must descend into hell. Several kilometers to be completed over the world and live in this place people just wanting to break apart with a machete and get drunk to swell the number of widows or at least mitigate the pain of the screwworm. Manliness, here is measured by deaths. Danilo goes beyond that and killed three, Thomas has just returned, was fleeing because he killed his brother. The landscape seems
copied from a nineteenth-century naturalist painting. Pine forest interrupted only by small plateaus that rise in the villages, green and beautiful were it not have been raised by poverty and the stick. Children wander naked women at age 30 seem old, toothless, with weathered hands and breasts breastfeed both fallen creatures.
A five year old girl huddles to defecate in the bush. The microcosm that took a while for your digestive system discarded food in the form of a green diarrhea, smelly. Not over when some flies begin to invade the scene. Spying a dog waits to feed the child finishes that green cake. This is the food chain of misery. Here nothing is wasted. Only
flies have adequate nutrition. Huge and noisy, mate and then lay their eggs on the backs of cows, dogs, children. A few days later, the chopped leaves and takes their own life bulking. It is a grub that begins to move only in the back of the cow, dog, child. And pica, pica, pica in despair until it hurts so much scraped back. They are worms that only come to pieces, squeezing them like a giant pimple, purple.
In this land of sun-tanned leather and diminished by hunger and field work, live El Gringo, a white man sunburned and diminished by hunger and field work. When he arrived here three years ago, I weighed 282 pounds. Now weighs 165, eats what gives him a neighbor and uses the few coins he earns when he leaves work to buy alcohol decanted to remind you forget your name and where it comes from and why they are here. The only person who has reached out in this macondo remembers appeared here: "When wine did not even know to use the machete, "he says, laughing.
El Gringo live in a small adobe house with wood windows without glass and with just three pieces of clothing hanging on a piece of string running through the room. A corroded and dirty mattress serves as a bed. Living here on borrowed time. The owner of the house sweeps, as she tells someone wants to burn the house. "We were throwing stones but none fell in the window, I thought they were going to destroy," he says. Attackers are some of the 10 children she brought into the world and nursed and raised until they were old enough to kill his own father. "Of the 10, five left me good," account. One night, three months ago, two of the other five family sat down to drink with his father. The talks ended in brawl, there were shouts and threats. "I went to chase and beat him with a stick. Oh no, I said, I killed him. But they just ignored me. There was the old man. Dead. " She was to report to the police, who captured days later but that vacated two weeks ago. Have vowed to return to kill his mother.
"Be careful," he tells the old Gringo. "One of my daughters is going to burn the house to take it away." This woman does not know that the Gringo is Salvadoran. Neither called Alvaro Rafael Saravia. Nor known to be a pilot. She has never seen an airplane. He does not know that El Gringo participated in the murder of an archbishop. Stuck to her skirt walking her granddaughter, who lost her father, who has a beautiful smile and an eye infection.
30 years after the murder of Monsignor Romero, Alvaro Rafael Saravia captain is in hell.
"Sure, it's a punishment. Every where I was involved was a rotting, all went after the money as it is. The media did not matter, but they wanted money. Rich.
"You too.
"Me too. Sure! Go to see me now. I've learned to live with what I have. I've lived with people really suffer. But suffers a terrible calamity. The worst misfortune in the world! Poverty! How could I not be partisan man if he was seeing that their children were dying of hunger? And when they went to shit shat worms. I grabbed my rifle and go to the penis. I hope not twice. Or three. Not need much convincing.
-Today is living.
-La'm living. Firsthand. If someday I could do something for these people do. Even take up arms.
-how life turns.
"It turned my life. Terribly. And I've been on a par with those people, that there is no maize. It will cut bananas. At times there are corn and no how. So the tables have to throw salt. Then eat it with salt. And sometimes there. I have a family front. Sometimes I leave about four tortillas. And if that's a communist ... is a communist. At that time everyone who was a Communist. Take it out, it Toompea home and tell the son of a bitch you're with the guerrillas. Life changes. This is not life.
*** Under the bed of Alex "El Nono" Cáceres two bottles of whiskey and three of champagne. The hides every time you travel, but your tenants know exactly where to find them. In this house in Colonia San Benito, men who form the security team Roberto d'Aubuisson spend a few nights taking advantage of the owner lives in Miami.
Fernando "the Black" Captain Saravia Sagrera and uncover a bottle of whiskey and start their own party. Your boss has gone to San Miguel entire weekend to a friends house. Has not yet returned.
Outside in the parking lot and the security gate of the house, there are at least 12 men waiting for instructions. It's Sunday, a quiet day for the party but busy for politics because it is the day that the Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, celebrates Mass in the cathedral and took the homily to talk about the situation in the country. "There was talk that the homily Romero, who was a man who was alebrestando people ... That was talk of the day on all sides, Romero's homily, recalled after Captain Saravia.
This Sunday, March 23, 1980, Romero has said some terrible things. He spoke to the soldiers, national guards, the police ... to all security forces, telling them not to kill their brother farmers. He told them that God's law prohibits the killing and that this Act prevails over any other. They should not obey any order to kill anyone. "In the name of God, for and on behalf of these suffering people whose cries rise to heaven each day more tumultuous, I beg, I beg you, I order you, on behalf of God: stop the repression. "
For the group they belong to the two who now drink scotch, these words can only come from a communist. And the communist enemy. It's time to kill. Pronto. There are still whiskey for a while, courtesy of Alex Caceres.
***
Esquela invitation to church the first anniversary of the death of Sara Pinto Meardi. Officiate the religious service as Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Photo: El Faro.
Early in the morning March 24, 1980, Captain Eduardo Avila Avila enters the house of Alex "El Nono" and wakes Cáceres Fernando Sagrera and Captain Saravia. Has in hand a copy of La Prensa Gráfica, open on page 20, as proof that today is a good day to kill the archbishop. This page repeated several times both names of Captain Ávila. The newspaper announces a Mass commemorating the first anniversary of the death of Mrs. Sara Pinto Meardi. His son, Jorge Pinto, their grandchildren and families Kriete-Avila, Quinones-Avila, Gonzalez-Avila, Avila-Meardi, Aguilar-Avila and Avila-Avila, among others, invite "The Holy Mass by the Archbishop of San Salvador, in the Church of the Divine Providence Hospital, at 18 am this day."
Captain Eduardo Ávila informs the plan: in that Mass will be assassinated Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero Galdámez. Everything has been coordinated with Mario Molina and Roberto d'Aubuisson. D'Aubuisson
is in that house. Gone is the weekend for San Miguel, to rest in the family home García Prieto. Orders given by telephone. Avila first notifying them that you have to handle: a security team member Mario Molina, only needs a vehicle. That's up to them. "Mario Molina commanded us to ask for a car ... we had to contact Roberto (d'Aubuisson). The Black Sagrera started making some calls and found out where he was. We talked on the phone. The Black Sagrera said, 'He wants to talk with you. " I said 'look, the more, "and what this is? To me it seems strange that we come to ask for a car. " His words were: 'Hacete charge!'. Well, OK, Major, we're doing. Pah. 'Yes, here I'm going to wear, what time we can put together to give the car then?' I told him (Avila). "Look," he said, if we safely we see some ... let's put an hour before Romero's death '. " At 5 pm at the Camino Real hotel parking.
*** Mario Ernesto Contreras Molina was born in a cradle of gold. Just refer to him and his family and retired officers of the army. Son of Colonel Arturo Armando Molina, one of the most powerful military in El Salvador of the twentieth century who led the country between 1972 and 1977, Mario Molina grew up with the growing comfort with the son of a Salvadoran military president of the twentieth century: certainly, impunity and money secured, with the stamp of military nobility, foreign travel, with benefits to be the top of the social scale of the military. Son of Colonel
Molina and Jorge Molina brother of General Contreras, who was Minister of Defense of President Antonio Saca, Mario led a private life and away from military discipline.
Presidential House in his father met two men with whom he agreed a few years after the right-wing movements and ended up also involved in the assassination of Monsignor Romero, Roberto d'Aubuisson Revised and intelligence files and Alvaro Rafael Saravia was part of the advanced security team of President Molina.
At the presidential palace, according Saravia met a group of National Guardsmen who later formed the private security team of Mario Molina and where it came from the man who ended the life of Archbishop Romero. "They were fellows of the National Guard gave protection to the President of the Republic. There was civil people. They were not in uniform. Accompanying the president on the road. Then Mario Molina was the youngest of them. Since you were specifically it up because I already knew. "
Molina, mentioned in the report of the Truth Commission and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has maintained a low profile all these years, away from public life.
His brother George, the former defense minister, not even sure that the man mentioned in the report of the Truth Commission is his brother: "Do not be another Mario Molina? There are many who call. " The general reports that his brother Mario is out of the country.
Few of those involved have ever given their version of events. Captain Avila Avila hit a bullet a few years later, the greater D'Aubuisson died of cancer and Mario Molina has never told his story. Now talk Saravia, lieutenant Roberto d'Aubuisson, who confessed his involvement in the crime and the involvement of his boss.
***
The house of businessman Robert Daglio is, as several of the safe houses, an entertainment center for some of the men surrounding the greater D'Aubuisson. Here are made drug deliveries, trucks arrive at night are prostitutes and alcohol and cocaine. Security party for thirtysomething married made, armed and in full anti-fever.
The owner almost never is. Roberto "Bobby" Daglio, a businessman and pilot, spends most of his time in Miami, Florida. Open your home to ultra-right groups is just one of many ways to support the anticommunist struggle from a distance.
According to declassified State Department U.S. Daglio spent the first years of the 80s meet in Miami with other right-wing businessmen in a group called "Miami Six", which financed illegal operations DAubuisson group. This group is dedicated to terrorism: ordering murders, kidnappings and placement of explosive devices, funded the death squads and was intended to destroy any attempt at reform in El Salvador and kill all the communists.
The other members of this group were, according to State Department documents dating from 1981, the owner of El Diario de Hoy (the that identifies in some documents as "Viera Altamirano", in others as "Enrique Viera Altamirano" and others simply as Enrique Altamirano, who is still director of El Diario de Hoy, the right-wing newspaper El Salvador), Luis Escalante Arturo Muyshondt (in the case of Muyshondt, the U.S. ambassador to the country, Robert White, admitted in an interview with El Faro that he was wrong in name. "I'm sure he was referring to his brother, Roberto Muyshondt" he said) and brothers Salaverría (Julio and Juan Ricardo).
In Miami, Enrique Altamirano Daglio founded the Freedom Foundation, or Foundation Freedom. Fraser hired consultants to lobby in Washington. Fraser is committed to changing the American perception of El Salvador, influenced by "yellow journalism" that headlined his notes on El Salvador to "the murder of American nuns and pictures of excesses committed by the Salvadoran military, and not the" significant industry effort private meeting the legitimate aspirations and desires of the Salvadoran people. "
On March 24, 1980, Daglio's house in San Salvador, Saravia coordinates the delivery of the car from which the fire against the archbishop. Volkswagen Passat is a red four-door, donated to D'Aubuisson months ago by Roberto Mathies Regalado, Volkswagen owner of the agency, as support for the anticommunist struggle. Nobody remembers who was registered name of that vehicle. Sarava also need to locate Amado Garay, his driver to drive the car.
"I had to locate Garay, had to find what car would go ... and unfortunately it was in that red car. Or the car would have been known. We did not know the schedule. We were going to deliver a car. Sure, we knew what was going to take the car, "says Saravia.
At 4:30 pm, in the driveway of the house Daglio, Amado Garay patient awaiting instructions from his boss. A domestic worker looks through a service door to provide bread and soda. Saravia and Sagrera are indoors.
few minutes later, ordered Saravia to drive the Passat to the parking lot of the Hotel Camino Real. Garay But before you board the car, enters the house a stout, low and hoarse voice. Sagrera is friends, but has come to collect a commission. This is probably the dumbest moment in the life of Gabriel Montenegro. The wrong moment in the wrong place and the service more wrong. A blunder that will regret the rest of his life.
involved here, then your friend Fernando Sagrera. Asked to take them to deliver the car. And they go, the three behind Garay, the Camino Real parking lot.
No surveillance in the parking lot of the Camino Real. It is a place moved, but in which nobody is surprised to see armed men in March 1980. There are no income restrictions and is well located. Sometimes, some passing strangers throwing corpses at the entrance of the hotel, but pulled out on the street. Do not enter.
Both cars are parked. Garay remains in the red Passat and Montenegro in the white Dodge Lancer. Captain Saravia and The Black Sagrera down to find five men who are already there in a white van. A tall, thin, bearded, he gets into the backseat of the red Passat. Bring a gun.
"I got into the car and then I said, 'Well, grass the motorist because the motorist so I'm taking." No, but we have not, you have to manage, because the car you asked, no, I do not know why. Then put the Black Sagrera, as always, in that crap ... 'Look, man, come on, I do not know why, already in this, that this matter can not fail. " Finally, I return again to put the legs yo! Seeing that everything was going to fail ... Andate, then! Garay then comes and goes. They go to church.
- And you is there?
-No. We are going to find the church. Because he knew neither the Black nor Bibi or where I was.
- Who will find the church?
"The three that were in the car. We found the church after a while and we parked in front. No front, here (on the side of the entrance).
"And they had not killed yet.
-No. We were parked there, not even five minutes had passed when he heard the shot. If these were coming and killing him.
- So you was opposite the church when he was killed!
"Yes, we were. There was the Black Sagrera, Bibi Montenegro and I in the back seat of the car.
- And see?
"No, no, no. Only the entrance is watched. And the car was parked, the Volkswagen. The car went down and turned to where we were. Thus was lost and we said let's go.
- Why did you decide to go?
"Well, we went ... to fool seems to be perhaps ... For knowledge, curiosity, go see. Ridiculous Right? Ridiculous.
***
is presented as a fascist. Wearing a cap that says "KGB. We are still watching you ", jeans and a lumberjack shirt. Wears a bushy white mustache, the ends rubbing his chin, in a style that experts call "trucker" or "truck driver." Gabriel Montenegro, a man who has spent nearly 30 years living in North America, go to the interview without knowing exactly what we will talk. "I'm not nazi, I'm fascist, which is different," he says, to open the meeting. "I believe in the organization of guilds, and controlled from above. As in the days of my general Maximiliano Hernandez, who had no gang. For the first time thieves first finger. The second time the other, and so the hand. A castrated rapists and murderers escape the law being applied. "
When I say I know where he was on 24 March 1980, their first reaction is denial. "That is false," he says. After eligible calls "the Fifth Amendment, a provision that gives U.S. right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination. He begins to see around nervously. With a paranoia that spreads. I also start to look around for the tables in this cafe a bitter look, hiding behind a newspaper or someone talking to himself, his mouth twisted and a discrete wire around your ear. I find nothing. I follow the gaze of Montenegro, as if seeking something in the sky just because the person next turns his gaze upward. At the next table there are two brand new girls who come of age. A leading kilt and plaid short sleeve shirt, white. The other seems freshly bathed, wearing jeans and a yellow shirt. They drink coffee and talk and talk all the girls of that age, with an adult safety, mature to support the cigarette and give you a mouthful, but naïve smile that reveals not yet finished growing. Montenegro sets them sideways. The notes, trying to they do not see him viewing them. I do not seem to agents at all, but he knows more than I about these things. The schoolgirls have already become suspicious. Montenegro
lights his third cigarette in 15 minutes, and I begin to read the testimony of Saravia. Take a sip from her water bottle, look hard at the next table agents and smoke intensity. Jaw trembles. When finished, the blood has gone to his head and looks set to explode at any moment. "I have 30 years to escape that day," he says. In that seems to Captain Saravia. "Not even my family know I was there. But I will not give statements. " We said goodbye to his confession without narration. The next day, Bibi Montenegro reaches the same cafe, but willing to tell his March 24, 1980.
"I came to the house to pick up some things that were for my use, they asked me for a ride and I gave them. I said wait this person, I said do not worry, here us a little, small veins, give us the ride. " Bibi
Montenegro drives his white Dodge Lancer to the parking lot of the Camino Real. Come armed with a Colt 45, and loaded with medicine. At his side, Fernando Sagrera. Has brought an automatic weapon, a submachine Hechler & Koch MP 5. Ago, a man who had heard Bibi Montenegro many stories, but looking for the first time: Álvaro "Chele" Saravia. This has the two pistols that always carries one at the waist, 45 K gold and one in the ankle, 380. When they reach the hotel parking lot, parked his truck Montenegro near the Volkswagen Passat driving Amado Garay, and his two companions down to discuss with other men. Bibi is in the car, inspecting his medicine. Reach out to see a tall, bearded man with a rifle, get the Passat, and when Sagrera Saravia and return, the Passat starts and goes. Montenegro and his companions decide to go also to the Divine Providence.
"I thought they were going to give cock with a military or a you fucking cared. I was thinking about my business I went to bring and nothing more, "says Montenegro.
Miramonte journeyed to the colony and stopped twice on the way to ask where was the church. When found, parked about 50 meters from the entrance on the street.
"I looked at me pretty nervous and I said: Shit, look, here we can get the police to these things and will be a problem! Sagrera
Saravia and off the wagon again. They did not come to the door of the church. Nearly a block away, waited a few seconds until he heard the shot that killed Romero. One. A rumble some of those present at Mass is remembered as a bombshell. A powerful explosion, no muffler. A blast that Gabriel "Bibi" Montenegro was not enough to listen. He was still inside the car, concentrating on his medicine.
Sagrera Saravia and Dodge Lancer rose and white, Gabriel Montenegro at the helm, he left to return to the home of Robert Daglio. The driver does not remember the conversation in the car. "I was so beside myself, because I had been taking my medicine, I was not paying attention to that. I was paying attention to the absence of a catch. And I still ask: 'What happened? " 'No, no, dale. Go and leave us. " 'And there will be a person? " 'Yeah, man, do not worry, stay with what we gave you. " 'Ah, well, shameful it'. "
three decades and eight heart operations later, Gabriel Montenegro lights another cigarette. He sighs and his eyes moistened. Jaw tremble and mustache. Grit your teeth. The cigar seems held by a hand with Parkinson's. Anger has said, against those who changed their lives that day. "If I had known what we would perhaps not have happened. Two others had been killed. " Two others, in a car in which were three. "It would done everything possible to avoid it. However, as I had to jerk my there, giving it a poor drug addict. But now I have 27 years of being clean, thanks to God and friends who are up there. "
According to him, until the next day he learned where he had been the previous evening. He knew he had gone to kill Archbishop Romero and walked away forever from the circle of the saviors of the country, drugs and prostitutes.
I wonder if he ever claimed to D'Aubuisson and his people for the crime. "Yes. Is the claim. And reminded me that everyday people on the streets appeared. After the news came of a white car. Then I talked to a friend and said, 'Shit, my car is white, you bastard! "...' Deshacete of that car and give you another, 'he said. And that changed my life since. "
*** Fernando Alvaro Rafael Saravia Sagrera and were inseparable. So Marissa remembers d'Aubuisson, sister of Robert and creator of the Foundation Romero. "All sides came together, always looked to Robert," he says. Saravia in the front seat, next to the largest. Sagrera in the back.
Once, he met his brother in the house of his mother. Outside in a van Cherokee, Saravia watch. Marissa went to talk to him. "I told him if he was shielded and I said yes, but that greater protection was painting. Why, I asked. Is it bulletproof? No, he said. But it has many layers of paint and resists it. One day is gray and black the next day. "
Another day, his brother insisted on driving her home. She refused, because they believed very convenient for their personal safety that residents learned of kinship with the oldest. But at the insistence of his brother, climbed into the van. "You could not put your feet, because it came wrapped in arms," \u200b\u200bhe says.
parked the car several blocks. Saravia Sagrera and got out and walked with her to her home. In those days the two were overweight. Chele and the Black. "Is that Robert could not take a step back who walked two. To go together everywhere. "
*** Fernando Sagrera has always been a man to get home early. At 7 or 8 pm. Do not know why they were friends after that hour, but he says, never got into anything. I wonder why three different people, Amado Garay, Captain Saravia and the Bibi Montenegro-engage with the facts. "I have nothing to do."
I miss most yet the fact that these three people have no communication with each other, and two of them agree on their version of "defamatory" just 30 years later. I miss you so much, he says, as when he was questioned by the Commission of Truth for the same crime, and he clarified that they had nothing to do, and yet they mentioned in their report. Or find out, right now, which is also indicated in the report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But all these accusations are false. Where was, then, Fernando Sagrera, the March 24, 1980? "I do not remember. If for me a typical day. How will I to be setting what happened? "
De Saravia never was a friend," because he was mad. That's a crazy alcoholic. " It was, yes, a friend of Roberto d'Aubuisson. Very friendly. "That's my sin. A Saravia only saw him when they gave me a ride somewhere. "
not killed anybody, and participated in clandestine operations. "I was drunk and rowdy, though. Be given such rowdy cock. But nothing more. "
Sagrera has a face that must have seemed innocent or even as a baby. Frowning, two dark bags under the eyes and a gray mustache up the facade of a man who throughout his life was known as rude, grumpy and not very sophisticated. "It was always rustic," says a friend.
In 1979, when they opened the race track the Boar, Fernando Sagrera was associated with Elias Hasbun and together they formed a team of autoracing racing an Aston Martin owned by landowner John Wright. The car was light, and to carry out the goal Sagrera pulled him with a rope and walked to the pits in front of the other runners, threatened with Aston Martin in tow. A team of racing, the competitors he was baptized as "Really Rotten", the truly rotten.
has the body marked by the tracks a burner. When Napoleon Duarte won the presidency on the Arena candidate, it was Roberto d'Aubuisson, in 1984, Sagrera attempted a barbecue campaign documents, and the fire fell on him. Had to be taken to the United States to a military hospital to heal, though he was not American and did not even have a visa from that country. He was placed by the military system.
While lying, recovering, I came to interview men who, he believes, were from the CIA. "Most of all were after the weapons came here to El Salvador, (thought) I was bringing them and I financed." Under pressure from interrogation, he says, fled the hospital. "To get out of the hospital made me a gringo le, I went at 9 am and he had at home. And I was forced to come to me secretly. "
Sagrera was, according to Captain Saravia, "the only casualty we had throughout the war." In addition to the burn, Sagrera was shot that he stuck sitting in a van.
On the murder of Monsignor, Sagrera not remember much. Although before and has said he had seen strange name in the report of the Truth Commission now says it did not even know his name appears in the report of the Commission Truth. Because he has not seen. "You do not happen when you do not have something to do, you are not occupied by the word 'to me a fuck because I have nothing to do with it?"
De Bibi Montenegro was not a friend. I tell you I know that on March 24 he was a white Lancer Dodge, heading towards the church of Divine Providence.
"Look I do not block. I do not remember, I have ... I do not know.
There was a third person in that car, a friend. Remember him?
-No. Bibi
-Montenegro.
- Is this what Montenegro in Montenegro? Bibi
-Montenegro, his friend.
-Go would deny no ... today I clicked, "see? Yes I know, but we are not friends or anything. I've seen five times in my life ... maybe four.
*** Exterior Voglione where the workshop worked in 1980. Then, occupied a rented in Colonia La Rabida of San Salvador. Photo: Mauro Arias. Elias Hasbun
enthusiastically recalls the days of the "Really Rotten" in the Boar. He and Sagrera, running together, and the third friend on support for: Gabriel "Bibi" Montenegro. "He always came, as we were close friends, arrived with his wife to all racing. The Bibi was like the fan of the team, then we all went together. "
Hasbun, known as "URLy" in the world of automobiles, yet still runs and also maintains a specialized tallercito race cars. In 1980 the workshop was in a rented Voglione in Colonia La Rabida San Salvador, one block from the Canada Dry bottling plant. There several workshops operating in the same space open. Today that building is the expansion of the plastics factory Mondini. That, says Captain Saravia, carried the red Passat four-door from which he was assassinated Monsignor Romero: "He was given the mission to Black Sagrera, to say Look, that fucking car ... That is not pot, it burns. Behind Canada Dry is a street. In that street there is a workshop. The Black Sagrera says this took him away. That this person here took him to destroy it. "
Hasbún says he does not remember who took that car. "Yes I remember that I saw there, a red Passat. Nuevitas. One day he came and then I found out I was involved in what Archbishop Romero, but asked no more because in those days was dangerous to go find out. I stood quietly. " The car, says Hasbun, remained nearly a month in the shop, until one day he disappeared and knew nothing more. ***
sketch of the alleged shooter who killed Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero on March 24, 1980 and is part of the judicial file of the case.
Two or three days after the assassination of Monsignor Romero, D'Aubuisson group holds a meeting at the house of Eduardo Lemus O'Byrne. Saravia called this meeting because he, out there, it was to pay the man who shot Romero. Went to pay for their services.
"I did not know the shooter. That day I saw him in the car, get dates and beard. And then I went to deliver it personally that he gave a thousand colones, which borrowed Lemus Eduardo D'Aubuisson O'Byrne. In his house we were when they came to tell you ... A charge! And Roberto d'Aubuisson never handled money. He paid a thousand colones to this so they can deliver. "Eduardo Lemus
O'Byrne is a well known businessman in El Salvador. He was president of the National Association of Private Enterprise, owner of poultry farms and a man well known in American business circles.
was a staunch opponent of land reform since the days of Colonel Molina, and came almost naturally to the group of D'Aubuisson. Saravia and Sagrera said: "These were just killers. I never had anything with them to see. I defend principles, but these had become warriors and gangsters. " Make sure you never, never gave money to D'Aubuisson and if I had asked a thousand colones to give to Romero's murderer undoubtedly remember him. "And no, I do not remember that meeting. That meeting never happened. " O'Byrne Lemus
separated from D'Aubuisson and the founders of Arena soon after. On September 14, 1982, his brother, Julio Vega, a pilot, disappeared in an airstrip in Guatemala. "I think removed him because he was smuggling arms to the FAN, "says Lemus. The FAN was the Broad National Front, a paramilitary movement led by D'Aubuisson which laid the foundation for Arena.
Vega's widow soon married D'Aubuisson, and Eduardo Lemus O'Byrne has not yet ruled out any connection between the murder and the affair. That alone explains that when one of his friends began to investigate the crime, was soon threatened his life: "I tried to kill the group of D'Aubuisson, Sagrera and Saravia. So I said to Robert: you're not kidding me, that I do I'll break your ass. "
insists Captain Saravia put money Lemus O'Byrne. "He gave a thousand bucks. I myself went to deliver it. Came to him and said, look, said Roberto d'Aubuisson that does not know shit about you or that you deal with your boss. "
The money was to hand it to the parking lot of a strip mall west of San Salvador, called Balam Quitzé. There he hoped the shooter, and no beard, accompanied by Walter "Musa" Alvarez, a strange man who was killed shortly thereafter.
"Dio the ratatouille. Gave a thousand bucks, they are leaving me and I told him next. Hence, I never! From there I started to see this, to her name, to, to ... reached Daglio offices and passed. Y (Jorge) "The Goat" Veiled was already an old man, was with him showing off. The guy on the street and he managed. And not only what I saw then. And I must have told people "this was what killed him." He knows the right moves him. " Jorge
Veiled is already an older man. He was a founder of Arena and worked alongside D'Aubuisson for many years. But that, says Veiled, has nothing to do with the murder of Monsignor Romero. Only after several weeks of attempts to talk with him briefly and it accepts Veiled by telephone. "I never knew this Saravia, and I walk with nobody ever walked. Me that I have nothing to say. "
***
Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia sits beneath a painting of the Last Supper. The picture was a request of Saravia. Photo: Carlos Dada. Marissa
d'Aubuisson recalls another scene: a few days after the death of Monsignor Romero, rumors began to circulate that Roberto d'Aubuisson had ordered the murder.
Her elder sister decided to find out and confronted the paramilitary brother. "Robert, they say that you had something to do with the death of Romero. " The biggest D'Aubuisson replied: "Look, better shut up if you do not know, because who killed that son of a bitch you are having a monument."
Murder, and rumors of D'Aubuisson involvement in death squad, helped to consolidate its leadership among the ranks of the Salvadoran right-wing, and became an icon of the anticommunist struggle.
few years after participating in the murder of Monsignor Romero, Major Roberto d'Aubuisson presidential candidate became president of the Constituent Assembly of 1985 and mythical figure, father and guide of the Salvadoran right. The party he founded, Sand, ruled El Salvador for 20 years until March 2009 was voted out by former guerrillas of the FMLN.
Saravia, upset by the turn gave his life and his contact with poverty and marginalization, and also changed his way of seeing the world. Now I want to shoot the same man who gave him a thousand colones. "To be shot! ... Because there is no death penalty in El Salvador, but it's death. I would think so and I would confront him. Because he knows. And if he's alive, what better to grab it? "
On the participation of Roberto d'Aubuisson," I said, 'Hacete charge '. Hacete deliver the car by then. Right? Now, that eventually, you know what I thought? That was an order to kill, then. Right? I thought. I thought. I do not know if D'Aubuisson certainly got into that issue and I was stupid, that all I am, knowing what I know and what I'm telling you I want to know too, and if I shit on the mother of D ' I Aubuisson. Huh? At least I have more .... "
Father Jesús Delgado, and Romero's biographer years who promises that someday in a book will reveal who ordered the murder of the archbishops, says Major Roberto d'Aubuisson was operating only one piece, not the mastermind behind the murder. "A Duarte made it very easy to download all the responsibility on one person. D'Aubuisson did participate, but not ordered, "he says.
With Captain Saravia we agreed to meet again at a cafe in town. When he arrived, I was sitting at a table beneath a painting of the Last Supper. He stopped to see her.
- Why come to sit here?
It was the only table that was free, Captain.
Have you seen? She came to sit under the Last Supper. That has to be a signal.
He said he wanted a photo in the last supper, and I took a cell phone. I abused and asked to pose in front of the Wanted poster that featured her photo, and he accepted. And in these, I told him next time come with a photographer, and also accepted.
The last time we met, had just finished a work setting that left few real machete. We found him shaved, his hair freshly cut and new glasses. "Now, take me the photos they want."
take to put the recording of the last Mass of Archbishop Romero. The captain frowns brow, and listen carefully. Monsignor said his last words: "May this Body immolated and this blood sacrificed for Mankind nourish us also give our body and our blood to suffering and pain, like Christ, not for himself, but to give concepts of justice and peace our people. Unite as intimately in faith and hope, in this moment of prayer by Mrs. Sarita and for us. "
an explosion is heard and Captain Saravia shudders. Take a small jump in the chair. An electric current runs through your body and stops in his eyes, that now open fully behind their new glasses and wet. Stares at me without say anything for a couple of seconds. Breathe deeply.
- Is that the shot?
"Yes, sir. That's the shot.
From: http://www.elfaro.net/es/201003/noticias/1403/
