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Justice sought for 4 Dutch journalists killed in El Salvador
Source: Associated Press
Justice sought for 4 Dutch journalists killed in El Salvador
By ANDREW SELSKY
March 25, 2019
It was 1982, the height of the civil war in El Salvador. Four Dutch TV journalists had linked up with leftist rebels near the town of El Paraiso, which has an army base on its outskirts.
Planning to spend several days behind rebel lines, the newsmen hoisted rucksacks onto their backs and, carrying their recording gear, walked single-file down a narrow dirt trail.
They had only minutes to live. Lying in wait, Salvadoran soldiers armed with assault rifles and machine guns were ready to spring an ambush.
“They were sitting ducks. The military waited for them and basically executed them,” said Thomas Buergenthal, an American who was part of the three-member United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, set up as part of a U.N.-brokered peace agreement in 1992.
In 1993, the commission’s report on wartime human rights violations concluded that the ambush was set up to kill the journalists, and was ordered by Col. Mario Reyes Mena, a brigade commander.
-snip-
By ANDREW SELSKY
March 25, 2019
It was 1982, the height of the civil war in El Salvador. Four Dutch TV journalists had linked up with leftist rebels near the town of El Paraiso, which has an army base on its outskirts.
Planning to spend several days behind rebel lines, the newsmen hoisted rucksacks onto their backs and, carrying their recording gear, walked single-file down a narrow dirt trail.
They had only minutes to live. Lying in wait, Salvadoran soldiers armed with assault rifles and machine guns were ready to spring an ambush.
“They were sitting ducks. The military waited for them and basically executed them,” said Thomas Buergenthal, an American who was part of the three-member United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, set up as part of a U.N.-brokered peace agreement in 1992.
In 1993, the commission’s report on wartime human rights violations concluded that the ambush was set up to kill the journalists, and was ordered by Col. Mario Reyes Mena, a brigade commander.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/0d4e816f9e7b47cf869cfbab73a59590
