Jury Weighs Role of Generals in Nuns' Deaths

W E S T   P A L M   B E A C H, Fla., Nov. 2 -- Two ex-Salvadorans generals who retired to American soil after reigning over a military that killed four U.S. church women in 1980 may have to pay big for the deaths.

Twenty years after the killings, a U.S. District Court jury willdecide if former Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia and CarlosEugenio Vides Casanova, former head of the Salvadoran NationalGuard, are liable and owe the womens’ families $100 million.

Nuns Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, both of New York, and nunDorothy Kazel and missionary Jean Donovan, both of Cleveland, wereabducted at a military checkpoint on Dec. 2, 1980, then raped andkilled by Salvadoran soldiers. Their dumped bodies were foundroadside the next day.

Jury deliberations in the case were set to continue this morning. Lawyers for both sides completed closing arguments onWednesday afternoon.

The civil jury of 10 must determine whether Garcia and VidesCasanova, in their positions of power, could have prevented thedeaths or done more to investigate the killings and punish theperpetrators.

Bystanders or Collaborators?

During the three-week trial, Garcia and Vides Casanova admittedthey knew troops were killing innocents, but said there was littlethey could do to stop the atrocities.

Through declassified U.S. documents, testimony from a formerU.S. ambassador and various commission reports on the slayings,lawyers for the families have painted a picture of two militaryleaders who failed to investigate numerous killings of religiousand political figures committed by troops.

The lawyer for the generals, Kurt Klaus, said Wednesday both menwere put into positions of power by leaders of a government juntaworking toward democracy in El Salvador. His clients wanted thesame, Klaus said.

“Both were put into their positions at the behest of the peoplewho started the reforms,” Klaus said during his closing argument.“That’s who their allegiance was to, not the people who weretrying to keep the country in a backward existence. To hold myclients responsible escapes all reason, all logic, allcommon sense.”