THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW HERBERT ANAYA
Jagger, Bianca
the progressive Interview Herbert Anaya Last words from a champion of human rights At 6:30 a.m. on October 26, 1987, Herbert Ernesto Anaya Sanabria left his home in San Salvador accompanied by...
...In this regard, things haven't changed: All the captures are justified on the grounds that the people they pick up are militants, sympathizers, and collaborators of the guerrillas...
...Duarte himself has recognized that the insurgency is born as a response to the lack of social justice...
...Look, they are rounding up practically whole counties, whole neighborhoods, accusing them of collaborating with the Salvadoran insurgency...
...Anaya's assassination posed an embarrassing public-relations problem for Duarte, coming as it did in the midst of the Arias peace negotiations for Central America...
...Q: What are the prospects for a true dialogue to end the civil war...
...The Arias plan calls for a political—not a military—solution to the internal problems of each country so that the conflict does not take on a regional or extraregional dimension...
...ANAYA: Yes, I was freed February 2 [1987] from Mariona Prison, along with fifty-six others...
...If there weren't social and economic problems, there would not be any need for anyone to take up arms...
...ANAYA: Imminent danger...
...A logical response by the government would be to demonstrate the contrary: If they claim we are lying, then they should demonstrate that with concrete evidence...
...She was captured along with her mother, Gloria Esperanza Gonzales, and we don't know her mother's whereabouts because she has not been freed, and the administrative term for arrest has run out...
...I returned to my work in the Commission, and we still have been objects of persecution...
...They don't have it for the plain reason that we simply transmit what the people denounce, and they denounce human-rights violations which impugn the government of Jose Napoleon Duarte...
...Anaya, president of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, was an unrelenting critic of President Jose Napoleon Duarte and an , archenemy of the Salvadoran Right...
...Only yesterday we saw him kiss the U.S...
...His was a radical voice, a radically humane voice, that spoke out against those who commit atrocious crimes...
...We don't accept these charges at all," said Joaquin Caceres of the Human Rights Commission...
...The actions taken against me and my family pressed me into taking responsibility for actions I did not commit...
...Because of such militarism, we watch every day as this nation's resources are invested more and more in war...
...And there are many lies...
...For us this means that our flag, the Salvadoran flag, will continue to be stained with blood...
...on October 26, 1987, Herbert Ernesto Anaya Sanabria left his home in San Salvador accompanied by his wife and five children, who were on their way to school...
...His sister and his mother say he was home at the time of the assassination...
...the Salvadoran people feel themselves locked in a prison when they see no possibility of resolving their own problems...
...They now make more collective captures, taking groups of three, four, or five people...
...Thirty-six-year-old Herbert Anaya, El Salvador's leading human-rights activist, was dead...
...The solution to the crises of Central America is to initiate social and economic transformations that bring dignity to the human being...
...The problem is that the Christian Democratic Party doesn't take responsibility for the current situation...
...In this sense, the Arias plan offers a genuine Central American alternative, and as such it enters into conflict with the Reagan Administration...
...Around $9 million of U.S...
...When we denounced the rape, they simply said that this was our own invention...
...Q: Why is the government cracking down on human-rights groups...
...Or they make massive captures, such as when they took thirty-five people all at once in Las Tunas county...
...The Reagan Administration feeds any war because that brings profits to arms producers in the United States...
...Q: Imminent danger...
...These are the forces that right now are principally responsible for the surveillance and capture of all who are considered to carry the seed of opposition in El Salvador...
...The change in the situation is that today authorization has been given to go ahead and assassinate people point-blank and simply to justify it on the grounds that they are guerrillas, and nothing else...
...But Miranda's story didn't hold up...
...He could not have done it," said his twenty-two-year-old sister, Ana Gladys Miranda...
...In that example, ten soldiers raped a woman, and we are now bringing in her testimony...
...In May, they had me and some of the other companeros under surveillance, and heavily armed plainclothesmen made several attempts to penetrate the Commission...
...War is an enemy to human progress...
...The same day, members of the Peace Brigades International were captured, along with a member of the National Association of Salvadoran Indigenous Peoples...
...They simply persecute anyone they consider to be in opposition-anyone in the humanitarian field, anyone in the cooperatives and the unions...
...ANAYA: Everybody is in danger of being imprisoned...
...My confession in matters relating to this case was not true," he said, adding that he was coerced into confessing...
...They will do whatever they want if it serves them in their propaganda campaign...
...The government is merely trying to escape its responsibility in Herbert's death...
...We are already in a period of selective repression, and now the government has begun to carry out repression on a massive scale, using the war to justify rampant assassinations of civilians...
...He quickly produced a suspect, nineteen-year-old Alberto Miranda, who said he was ordered by the guerrilla high command to assassinate Anaya because the human-rights leader was, according to Miranda, a government collaborator...
...Q: Do you think you are in danger of being imprisoned again...
...money has now been approved to further upgrade the security forces...
...Herbert Anaya was a champion of human rights in a land where human rights are trampled on a daily basis...
...This has always been their pattern...
...This is one aspect of our current reality...
...He studied late the night before the attack, and was still in bed when it happened...
...Dennis Bernstein is a producer of "Contragate," a daily investigative report on the Iran-Contra scandal on WBAI in New York City...
...I saw him there and had to get him up so he would not be late for class...
...A nay a's colleagues also discounted Miranda 's confession...
...it yields no dividend at all...
...They even offer money to people arrested to get them to collaborate with them...
...During the interrogation, however, they questioned him mainly about my activities in the Commission...
...It represents an alternative to the militarism which Duarte continues to promote...
...ANAYA: In our view, the persecution against humanitarian organizations reflects a situation in which the government finds itself gravely compromised by human-rights violations...
...Dennis Bernstein BY BIANCA JAGGER Q: Your work as a human-rights advocate has caused you to be subjected to political persecution, imprisonment, and torture...
...flag and declare his loyalty to the United States...
...They issue falsehoods in a deliberate attempt to obscure the murder of people...
...El Salvadaor is becoming a prison, a prison without bars...
...Bianca Jagger is an actress and human-rights activist...
...Do the attacks continue...
...The interview was translated by Bernstein and Janet King...
...The assailants escaped...
...For instance, at the same time I was released, another person from our Commission was released but his father was then captured on March 4 and accused of being a supporter of the guerrillas...
...As he approached his car, two men came up and shot him at point-blank range with pistols equipped with silencers...
...In February, Miranda recanted...
...Its response continues to be the persecution of those who try to document the reality, which the government doesn't want known...
...In fact, this is no investment at all...
...Q: In the past year, how have the methods of repression changed...
...ANAYA: We have received the Arias accord with hope...
...And these problems persist and grow worse...
...There is no way the government can deny that it captures, tortures, and imprisons people...
...But a solution to such conditions has not been sought...
...They claimed they never arrested this woman, but we have photos of her being captured by the First Brigade...
...He was brutally tortured and imprisoned for long periods of time...
...That is why he was killed...
...In the following interview—conducted by Bianca Jagger just ten days before his assassination—Anaya makes clear in his own words exactly how dangerous he was to the Duarte government...
...The truth is that the government is responsible for the present situation, because it seeks to impose a military solution...
...The National Police capture us with the intent of trying to completely destroy us and to keep us from making public denunciations which hurt the government's image...
...To the contrary, conditions persist and get worse...
...This represents a substantial policy change in the terror they're trying to generate in our country...
...But war is not the solution...
...The truth is that if the government wants to clean up its image, it must discontinue this policy of persecuting the poorest and humblest people of our country...
...his last prison term stretchedfrom May 1986 to February 1987...
...It is a waste of money...
...There's been in-y ternationalpressure over the case, and the government is worried about its democratic image...
...Duarte responded by blaming Anaya's death on the guerrillas...
...ANAYA: Well, it's obvious that there have been very substantial changes...
...However, we believe that Duarte lacks the real will to seek peace in El Salvador...
...The money will keep this system functioning...
...Persecution against humanitarian organizations has continued, culminating in the capture of several members of these groups...
...And it is totally based in corruption...
...A member of our own organization, Maria Victoria Hernan de Gonzales, was captured October 11 by the National Police after visiting the Mariona Prison as part of her work with our Commission...
...There is no production of anything...
...The government insists that our troubles are the inheritance of the past...
...But they don't have the necessary proof to counter our denunciations...
...It isn't necessary to be a prisoner in a prison like Mariona, directly accused of political crimes...
Vol. 52 • April 1988 • No. 4
