Warning. This episode contains references to violence and domestic abuse. Please use discretion when listening. I'm sitting in MARISAA Martinez's living room and my hands are starting to sweat. Marisa has been kind enough to invite me into her home and sit down with me for over two hours to talk about some of the worst moments in salvador In history. And now I have to ask her a question that I know she won't like, but it's the question that I really came here to ask.
Mira Amirista sorel it.
I'm sorry, I tell her, but I have to ask about your brother, but she cuts me off. She knows the question is coming. She points me to the internet to all of the other interviews that she's done in the past about him. I can't help but wonder what it's like to be in her position, to be the sister of someone who's infamous. It's no coincidence that Marisa goes by her married name, the Martinez, and not her maiden name, Dauison.
He's been called a killer, a gangster, a psychopath. Major Roberto d'abisson has come from the shadows to emerge as the country's new strong man, A man whose solutions to the problems of El Salvador is to liquidate the communists.
Roberto Dabison is one of the most infamous men in salvador In history. He's the founder of one of the country's biggest political parties, he was the leader of one of the country's most notorious death squads, and he's also the person that the UN says was responsible for the murder of Archbishop Romero.
These two cables are both from the American Embassy in El Salvador, and it discusses a meeting during which Roberto do Buisson plans the murder of Archbishop Romero.
I'm Jasmine Romero, and this is sacred scandal. Nation of Saints, episode three, The Executioner. When I was a kid, I was terrified of El Kukui, that's the Salvadoran version of the boogeyman. I would stay up at night staring into the dark corners of my room, certain that at any moment Ilkukui would come out of the darkness and take me away to punish me for being mean to my
sisters or for talking back to my mom. It's very common for Salvadoran moms to say that's the kind of person that Roberto Dawison is for El Salvador, a larger than life creature, a boogeyman who would come under cover of darkness and punish you for your sins. In the same way that Oscar Romero was a symbol for the Church, that Wi Son became a symbol for the military and the lengths to which it would go in the name
of stopping communism. Dawison is commonly called Il Major ra Wison because he started his career as a military officer. He was only sixteen when he enrolled in military school, and by nineteen he was a member of the National Guard. Light skinned and charismatic, Lawuison rose through the ranks, and by nineteen seventy two he was chosen to train at the United States School of the Americas.
According to the Pentagon, the mission of the school is to train the armed forces of Latin America, promote military professionalism, foster cooperation among multinational military forces, and to expand the trainees knowledge of United States customs and traditions.
That's Susan Sarandon narrating a documentary about the school. The School of the Americas was created by the United States in nineteen forty six, with the specific purpose of training the future MI military officers of Latin America. After the Cuban Revolution. JFK ordered that the school focus on teaching anti communist counterinsurgency. They taught cadets that the enemy was within their own people and that any suspected Communist was
a traitor to their country. When Congress later declassified training manuals from the school, they included tactics for torture, blackmail, extortion, and neutralization a euphemism for unsanctioned murder. Here's former US Congressman Joseph Moakley testifying about the school.
Every time there was a heinous killing, Al sawaras somebody that was past graduate of the School of America.
To call the School of the Americas the School for Dictators is not an exaggeration. Literally, eleven Latin American dictators were graduates of the school. Over sixty thousand military officers have graduated from the academy and gone on to run operations across Latin America, and despite years of protests calling
for its closure, the school still exists. It's now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation WINSC for short, and it's used to train border patrol and ICE agents on how to run raids on American cities. Roberto Dawison's sister, Marisa says that it's his time at the School of the Americas that really formed her brother's mindset.
Not the way I see for na Viti made la formasion the defense a lacinteress North americanos perroue for malo pres.
Marisa says that her brother came back from school in the nineteen seventies, right around the time when the students and unions were protesting and being shot at by President Romero's military, So maybe it's not surprising that Dauison was convinced that communists were taking over his country.
Parentonce de Graciamente ban Communistato.
And he was hell bent on stopping them. Highly educated and charismatic Dauison was given a special task by his superiors in the military extract information, by any means necessary, find out who the Communists are in every city, town, and village in the country. Noauisan would go on to train groups of soldiers to kidnap, torture, extort, and murder
to get the information they needed. These groups became known as Los Esquadron the death squads, But even within the Salvadorn military that Weuison's fervor against communists was extreme, so extreme that he was seen as a liability by the other more centrist members of the government, and he was kicked out of the Salvadoran military in nineteen seventy nine. When he heard that his time was up, he stole
a cash of military documents and fled to Guatemala. But the Salvadorn oligarchy wasn't ready to let go of thata Wison. In him, they saw the perfect mouthpiece, someone whose ideology aligned with theirs and who wasn't worried about operating within
the limits of the law. With funding from some of El Salvador's wealthiest families, that we Sun would videotape himself from his exiled place in Guatemala, giving speeches denouncing the state of things in El Salvador, talking about how subversives would ruin the country and naming those who he believed were responsible for the communist.
Revolution, estes forreste.
Merio, pour quatro.
And pais.
Those tapes were then flown back to El Salvador and broadcast on national TV. Those he named often went missing or turned up dead shortly after he named them. It was in those broadcasts that though we saw named one of his biggest targets the church. This was in the years leading up to the assassination of Oscar Romero. The priests had become symbols of the enemy. Those TV broadcasts are where he popularized the phrase aga patria matankura be a patriot, kill a priest.
Who's there.
Recuerda is the Estevan district, wuendo papeless and agapatri matancura.
See the wild is a list of the wissta twas agapatria matancura econ listing man the most total of criminalists.
Second win Father says he remembers seeing flyers out in the street printed with the phrase agapatria matancura. Below it was a list of names of almost forty priests from all over the country, including his name.
See est Sanchez.
Grandeta, Rutilio Sanchez, Rutilio, Rerande.
Octaviortis all priests who were killed. Those flyers were scattered all over cities by men in helicopters who would open the doors mid flight and rein them onto the streets.
Rampapelea, Hello, helicopteros agapatria matrio madame curac e f.
This slogan was brought to life on March twenty fourth of nineteen eighty when Oscar Romero was assassinated. That we sn had personally named him in a TV appearance just that week. When the archbishop was gunned down, everyone suspected it was the work of thatuison and his death squads, but there was no proof, that is until the Sadavia Diary. That's after the Break. Six weeks after Romero's assassination, a group of men gather at a plantation in the Salvadoran mountains.
They're discussing strategy, going over how many weapons they have stashed and when to execute their plan. There are documents scattered everywhere, including one titled how to carry out a political coup in El Salvador, which is exactly what these men are doing. Their leader, il Major himself thrower to the La Wisson, but the meeting is cut short when a squad of soldiers burst through the door. The men try to flee, some of them try to eat the papers,
but one by one they're arrested. In the days after the Salvadoran government will examine troph of documents, and there's one in particular that will draw their interest. It's a page from a book belonging to a red headed army captain named Alvaro Saravia. The book is Sadavia's daddio, his day planner. Most of the entries are mundane appointments, but
there's one page in a strange handwriting. It contains a list of items one starlight scope, one two fifty seven Roberts rifle, four automatic rifles, grenades, and below a list of personnel one driver, one shooter for security. This list is believed to be the instructions for Archbishop Romero's murder. You'd think that evidence like this would be damning, or at least it would put a stop to his political ambitions. I mean, the man was literally caught planning a coup.
He titled his coup plot like a middle schooler, but it didn't even slow him down. While imprisoned, that Wei soon called every powerful ally he had made, all those rich oligarchs that had been funding his TV broadcasts, made a huge stink about thatauison being imprisoned. He's released almost immediately, and all those documents that were confiscated are buried. Nouison goes off and continues operating his death squads with impunity.
At this point, everyone is aware of these operations, including the United States government.
Roberto d'abisson planned and ordered the murder of Archbishop of Oscar Romero. The evidence we have eyewitness accounts of this. He is a leader of the death squads.
That's Robert White, the US ambassador to El Salvador under President Jimmy Carter. Carter was aware of the human rights abuses, but he was also deeply concerned about the rise of communism in Latin America. Just next door to El Salvador, Nicaragua, San Denista movement had overthrown the military government in a communist revolt. Carter worried that El Salvador would be the next Domino to fall, in part because by nineteen eighty the FMLN, the Armed Resistance that we mentioned in the
last episode, had officially declared war against the government. So Carter was caught between two imperatives. Stopped the spread of communism and stopped the human rights abuses in El Salvador. The Carter administration would compromise by sending what it called non lethal aid to El Salvador, like jeeps and helicopters, and they definitely wanted nothing to do with someone like that. We saw. Here's Ambassador Robert White again.
The Carter administration felt so strong about Roberto Dalbie's son's death squad activities that we classified him as a terrorist. We took away his fists, We denied him entrance into the United States Embassy. We made him a pariah as far as our acceptance goes.
But in nineteen eighty one, a new US president was elected, one who had very different ideas on how to deal with El Salvador. Ronald Reagan.
Central America is a region of great importance to the United States, and it is so close. Sam Salvador is closer to Houston, Texas than Houston is to Washington, d C.
Rather than distance themselves from Dauison, Reagan's administration pulled him closer. Here's Robert White again.
The Reaga administration came in, rehabilitated him, issued him a visa, made him a welcome guest in the embassy. He was constantly being entertained by our high ranking visitors. In a very real sense. The Reaga administration created Roberto Dalwison the political leader.
They thought, hey, maybe we can shape this guy into someone we can use, and Roberto Dauison seized the opportunity. With the support of his new US allies and some wealthy salvadorn oligarchs, he created his own political party, one with values modeled directly after the US Republican Party. He called it La Lance Republican Nationalista or AREA for short, a conservative far right party that was pro military with
anti communist aggression written right into its theme song. In case you missed it, that lyric was El Salvador will be the tomb where the Reds come to their end. With his new political party and the support of the U S government, that we sn went on to run for the Constituent Assembly, the Salvadoran version of Congress, and win, and pretty soon that we Sawn would be running for
an even higher office, the Salvadoran presidency. That's after the break. Yeah, that chant from the crowd was patria patriotism, yes, communism, No, it's from a rally supporting that we Son's campaign for the Salvadoran presidency in nineteen eighty four. Just to recap, this is a man who tried to plot a coup and now he's running for president.
Hmmm.
At this point in his career that we soon felt really untouchable, and he acted like it. In press conferences, he happily bashed the former US ambassador Robert White.
What do you think of Ambassador Robert White?
A DIPLOMATICA.
He says, I think Robert White is a failed diplomat and a sick man. He would go on to say that all the news of his involvement with the death squads was something that Robert White made up just to make him look bad.
Robert White.
In the video, there's a group of guys surrounding that wisawn. He turns to them and says, are any of you and death squads? They all laughingly say no. You can feel the confidence pouring off of him. But after years of trying to work with him, the Reagan administration realized that he was not the kind of ally they wanted. After numerous CIA investigations, that Weison had gained a new
nickname among his American friends, Blowtorch Bob. Rumors had spread that his favorite method of interrogation was to use a blowtorch on the limbs and genitals of his victims. This was not the kind of person that the US could control. The US ended up backing that Wuison's competitor, Napoleon d'orthe. That Wison lost the nineteen eighty four presidency, but he leveraged his national fame into a long career within the
Legislative Assembly, which came with a perk. As a sitting member of the Legislative Assembly, he was basically immune from prosecution. In El Salvador. Members of the Assembly can only be charged by the Assembly itself, not by the justice system, and with so many of his powerful friends being Assembly members, that was never going to happen that we saw him. Was publicly accused of Romero's murder many times, but he was never charged, not for killing Romero, nor for leading several death squads.
Bassan Mosaignos in bernou Chena Maqui Repente now the basis in Elaango Burgeconi in La Casa Estra Madre.
Marisa didn't speak to her brother for several years. She would see him on the news on TV. In her mind, he was still the boy that she had grown up with, the brother that she had gotten along with Bess.
But Amir and Germano Therment and cran Is.
Then she would occasionally run into him at her mother's house. She remembers one Mother's day in the middle of the war that left her shaken.
May Medio dia p sanchero.
Hermos Bison pulled up to the house with a full military entourage with Cherokee trucks and armed soldiers in toe in.
T sinko ombres ceo p ohio entreo.
Albaro saba that red headed army captain he was among them. He was Dawison's personal chief of security and never left his side. Dauison, always the charmer, introduced his sister to the group of soldiers.
Present Communista.
I'd like you to meet my sister, the communist, he said. Marisa had no choice but to laugh it off, but he insisted, asking her to tell them all publicly what side she was on.
Yeah, let's says is intelligence.
Yeah, it takes a lot of balls to tell your brother, the CIA trained death squad leader, that if he wants to know what side you're on, he should investigate a little harder. But I guess that's the benefit of being his sister. I can tell that it's hard for muddy set to talk about all of this, or maybe it's just exhausting. In researching her, I came across dozens of other interviews from across the decades. In the earliest ones,
her hair is short, curly, and chestnut brown. In each successive interview, the gray in her hair becomes more and more prominent. Today it's pulled back into a bun, just streaks of white and gray. I finally ask her, point blank, do you think your brother had anything to do with the archbishop's murder?
Who's de greg keer YOKREI had the borque?
She tells me yes, but when she does, she doesn't look at me. She looks down at her hand, at a ring that she's been tapping against her chair every time she gets mad.
Iquer Romeo.
I think Romero was a rock in his shoe, she says, and that he thought that he needed to get rid of him. I feel so much sympathy for her. She spent so many years answering for her brother's crimes, trying to make sense of the boy that she knew and the man that he became. Is Quilos hermanos no ermanos. A brother is still a brother. I tell her and she says yes with a sigh. Roberto that we saw and was diagnosed with an aggressive throat cancer in nineteen
ninety two. After a long period of estrangement, Marisa did go to the hospital and bid her brother goodbye.
Jaunt Moribundo jan.
Jo, Luisita, Luisitades Alessiman.
Marisa would sit a couple afternoons a week with him, watching cartoons. They never spoke about the war or of Archbishop.
Romero Okay al Meno. Jissimo La.
Dauisson's cancer progressed rapidly, eating away his vocal passage in a dark twist of irony. The man who was the voice of so much death and agony died with an empty throat at the age of forty eight.
Bon cancer is a freetent.
Looking back, I can't help but think about all the times that Roerto la Wison could have been stopped. But at every turn people saw a charismatic figure who they thought that they could use for their own purposes. First the military, then the oligarchs, then the US government. Roberto da Wison died in nineteen ninety two, but he left a long shadow in El Salvador. His party Arena is still a major political player, and his son, Roberto Lawison Junior,
was the mayor of one of the country's largest cities. Still, for most he is remembered as the man who planned Archbishop Romero's murder. It's a comforting and convenient end to the story. The bad man gets a horrible illness, one that seems to perfectly fit his horrific crimes, and eyes in pain. At least, that's the ending that most of l Savador's rich and powerful would like for us to leave with. But for people like me and for Nico van Elston, that's not quite enough.
There was a whole group of people that were funding these desk squad killings, which were largely organized and orchestrated by Delby Sum. But he wasn't the only one.
That's Nico van Elston. Nico mostly focuses on environmental law, but.
I've also done over the years a great deal of promono work, and in particular in the area of international human rights.
Work, which I find to be an odd hobby. But Nico grew up in California like me, and he was introduced to the Oscar Romero story pretty early on.
I was in high school in northern California, and I remember was the funeral for Oscar Romero, and I was generally aware of the growing number of death squad killing.
So when Nico got the chance to work on a case that would hold Oscar Romero's murderers to account, well, of course I leapt at it. After the coup plotters were arrested in the eighties, many of them managed to get released and disappear. Sadavia, that redheaded army captain who was Dawisoon's chief of security, was one of them. But in two thousand and four it was discovered that Sadavia was living in Modesto, California.
He had a used car sales shop, as I recall.
So Nico joined forces with the Center for Justice and Accountability to bring a civil lawsuit against Sadavia and his unnamed financial backers.
Why Alberto Sadavia, Because he was in the US and we had jurisdiction, we could bring the case against him. The problem in Al Salvador is that there had been no criminal prosecutions concerning the Romero killing, and it wasn't possible at that time, so there was no justice this really terrible crime.
In nineteen ninety two, the Salvadoran Assembly voted to enact a sweeping amnesty law. It absolved everyone of crimes committed during the war. That included not just the high profile crimes like the murder of Archbishop Romero, but thousands of other killings during the war. For every Oscar Romero, there are thousands of teachers, activists, journalists, and normal civilians who got caught in the crossfires, thousands whose names we don't know, who will never have a monument or plaque named in
their honor. Likewise, for every Va we Son, there are thousands of military generals, politicians, and funders responsible for the violence who will never see justice. That's why Niko van Elston and the CJA filed their civil lawsuit in two thousand and four. They couldn't do a criminal suit in the US courts, but they could sue for damages, basically go after Sadavia and the people who had been bankrolling the death squads.
There was definitely a core of oligarchs that were funding a lot of the death squads killings, and Dabisong was kind of a bridge between the military elements that were doing that work. Taking their uniforms off and going out and doing this as a hobby on the side.
The lawsuit not only named Captain Alberto Saravia as responsible for killing Archbishop Romero, it also included ten john does those shadowy figures, most of them operating from boardrooms in Miami, who were known funders of the death squads the Oligarchs.
Sadavia was chief of security, as he liked to call himself, to Roberto Davison, he was not you know, he was not giving the orders except to the low level votes. He was, you know, he was taking the orders from Davifont, who clearly worked it out with those that were funding that those efforts.
After the war, the documents seized during Thatauison's attempted coup were uncovered, including the infamous Saravia Diary, the supposed plan for killing Oscar Romero. Sadavia would later testify that the person who wrote the list was Dauison himself. He would later be interviewed by Salvadoran journalist Carlo Zada in an article titled How We Killed Monsigne Romero. Nico van Elsen and the CJA won their civil case in two thousand
and four. A California judge ruled that Sadavia and the John Does were responsible for killing Archbishop Romero, and they owed ten million in damages. This money was never paid, Sadavia was dead broke, and the unnamed oligarchs couldn't be sufficiently tied to the murder. Still, the judgment was a significant moral victory. It signals that though we may not be able to change the past, there's hope for justice in the present and in the future.
And there are in other cases that CG brought in the United States against other Salvadorns that were involved in the government and in the military for other human rights amusism.
Roberto Lawison is remembered as one of the worst figures in Salvadorn history. The horrors he committed are now well known, but he was only the face of a much larger problem. He may have been the Boogeyman, but he wasn't the darkness. And isn't that what we're all really afraid of, the unnamed things that we cannot see, the ones just beyond
our reach. On the next episode, the moment that finally woke up the American public exposed a cover up and forced Ronald Reagan to answer for what was happening in El Salvador.
It is reported today from El Salvador that four Americans have been killed there.
That's next time on Nation of Saints. If you're interested in learning more about the trial against Albero Seraia, I highly recommend Matt Eisenbrandt's excellent book Assassination of a Saint. Sacred Scandal. Nation of Saints is a production of a HA Podcasts in partnership with Iheart's Mike Wuldura podcast network, and is hosted and written by me Jasmine Romero, produced
by Jasmine Romero with help from Albero Sespelez. Research and reporting by Jasmine Romero, Edited by Cyda Kevelo, Jorge just and Rose Red. Nation of Saints was recorded in New York City at the Relic Room, with engineering by Sam Bear, mixing and sound designed by Pachiquinones. Original music by Golden Mines, Darko and Iame based on Patrick Hart's original composition. Fact checking by it Indira Aquino Ayala. Executive producers are Carman
geratrol isaac Lee, Rose Reed, and Nando Villa. Our executive producers at iHeart are Giselle Bansis and Arlene Santana. Sacred Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and Paulo Varro's Special thanks to Roberto Valencia, Nico van Elsten, and Matt Eisenbrandt. For more podcasts, go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.