Extra-judicial Executions

"Thirty heavily armed men wearing army combat vests, but masked with hoods lettered 'death squad' came to my village and seized and killed a number of campesinos (peasants). They went then to the neighboring village of Santa Helena, seized Romilia Hernandez, aged 21, raped and then decapitated her. Her relatives buried her head: the rest of her body was burned by her murderers. The head had been left in front of her relatives' house. The members of the 'death squad' were evacuated that day by a Salvadorian army helicopter." Testimony by a Salvadorian refugee, 1981.


Extra-judicial executions have been defined as 'unlawful and deliberate killings of persons by reason of their real or imputed political beliefs or activities, religion, other conscientiously held beliefs, ethics origin, sex, color or language." More than a million people have been victims of extra-judicial executions during the past 25 years. The killings take place outside any legal or judicial process, and the victims are denied any protection from the law.


Sometimes the killings are ordered at the highest level of government: in other cases the government deliberately fails to investigate killings or take measures to prevent further deaths. The pattern of killings is often accompanied by the suspension of constitutional rights, intimidation of witnesses and relatives of victims, suppression of evidence and a weakening of the independence of the judiciary.


Following is a detailed, though revealing testimony from a 17 year old Guatemalan woman, who was attacked on 7 April, 1982. "The soldiers came; we went to the mountains; there we found tree trunks and stones where we hid. A group of soldiers came from behind, they came in behind us. They seized three of us; they took them to the mountains; they tied them up in the mountains and killed them with machetes and knives. There they died. Then they asked me which ones were the guerrillas, and I did'nt tell them, so they slashed me with the machete; they raped me; they threw me on the ground and slashed my head with the machete, my breasts, my entire hand. When dawn came, I tried to get home. By then I could hardly walk. I came across a girl from our village and she was carrying some water. She gave me some and took me to her house. The army also seized my 13 year old brother Ramos and dragged him away and shot him in the foot and left him thrown on the ground. My brother and my parents and my other brothers and sisters had been in the house. The soldiers said 'They are guerillas, and must be killed.' My brother saw how they killed my parents, my mother, my brothers and sisters and my little one-year-old brother; the soldiers machine-gunned them to death when they arrived in the village. Only my brother, Ramos, and I are alive. Our friends are giving us injections and medicines. We can't go the hospital at Coban. I think they would kill us there."


There are innumerable instances similar in brutality to the ones I have quoted above. I have used them since they speak for themselves, as far as explaining the problem of extra-judicial killings go. Most of us have been lucky enough to have never been close to an encounter as horrible as the ones I just stated, and therefore tend to take them for granted, like a scene from some Hollywood epic. These are intended to open the eyes of (most of) the readers, to spread awareness and realization.


There might be a question raised regarding the feasibility of another study on this issue, which has already been dealt with by several International Organizations in considerable detail. However, the need to study this topic further persists, since none of these studies have led to a conclusive result, either theoretically or physically. This study is intended to focus on the issues which have been mostly left uncovered till now.


The fundamental foundation of the argument against extra-judicial executions is based on the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A complete listing of the points can be found in the appendix, however, some sections dealing specifically with the problem of extra-judicial executions are worth mentioning here.


Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.


Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.


Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.


Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.


It is known that it is often hard to ascertain the facts about political killings by governments. The killers usually wish to conceal or distort the facts, and in some cases so do those reporting the killing. The identity of the victim, how he or she was killed, and by whom, are often uncertain. Eye-witness accounts may be difficult to obtain because sometimes the only witnesses were the killers themselves, and at other times the surviving witnesses are themselves at risk. Sometimes the killing itself is hidden and relatives are unable to learn whether the victim is dead or alive. The fact that the victim has been killed may become known, if at all, only months or years later. Even when there is clear evidence of what happened on the spot this may not be enough to prove government complicity.


The assessment of government responsibility poses great problems, even when the actual killers have been clearly identified. Determining responsibility is especially difficult when an established pattern of killings does not exist.


Often, however, the government will deny any responsibility, remain silent or give false explanations. In these cases, assessments have to be made on the basis of circumstantial evidence. However, evidence alone does not usually make a strong case against the governments.


In the past, political killings by governments have been the subject of investigations by United Nations bodies, by regional intergovernmental bodies such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and by non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists. Also, much important work is done by domestic human rights organizations. Although it is understandable -- from a political point-of-view -- that outright action is not a feasible option to discourage states guilty of these crimes from resisting to do so in the future. However, from a humanitarian perspective, some action must be taken by the 'champions' of the free world to reduce the plight of people thus oppressed.