Romero_Trial_Transcript_8_25_04_53_2

8-25-04 Trial Transcript
5 it's an organization that believes in transparency in the
6 government and tries to make public classified documents,
7 particularly in areas where there has been some controversy in
8 the past, and it particularly concentrates on those foreign
9 policy issues. So there was a Freedom of Information effort
10 by the National Security Archives.
11 There was also another set of pressures which became
12 very important on the U.S. government, particularly on the
13 Clinton Administration at the time, and that was in the period
14 of time I have described between the signing of the peace
15 agreements in 1992 and the ending of the implementation of the
16 peace agreements in 1994.
17 In both the Office of the Secretary General of the
18 United Nations and in the U.S. government, which was very
19 strongly in favor of this peace agreement by the time it
20 finally came about, there was a great deal of concern that --
21 the peace agreements required that part of the military and
22 security forces be dismantled.
23 I should just add, your Honor, that in El Salvador,
24 the armed forces, security forces and the police are all under
25 the same command, so they are not separate, as they are in the
KARL - D
277
1 United States. They are separate services, but they are all
2 in the same officer corps, and the police are considered part
3 of the armed forces, on so when I say "the armed forces," I'm
4 including the police. That's just to clarify this.
5 There was a great deal of concern at the time that
6 because the Salvadoran peace agreements required the
7 dismantling of the Treasury Police and the National Police and
8 it required the construction of a new police force, the
Page 84