Héctor Bernabe Recinos in San Salvador, January 2013.

Declassified documents shed light on the illegal detention of Héctor Recinos

Héctor Bernabe Recinos in San Salvador, January 2013.
Héctor Bernabe Recinos in San Salvador, January 2013.

Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights and the National Security Archive, new documents have been declassified relating to the case of Héctor Bernabé Recinos, a leading figure in the human rights movement in El Salvador, and the related case of his wife and daughter.

On August 22, 1980, Héctor Recinos and nine leaders of the electricity workers’ union STECEL at Río Lempa Hydroelectric Company were detained during a strike by men in civilian dress believed to have been linked to the National Guard. Recinos then served as secretary general of the union federation FENASTRAS. As Amnesty International reported in 1985, Recinos and the other leaders were never tried nor informed of the charges against them; instead, they were repeatedly subjected to brutal torture, held as political prisoners, and finally released in October 1984. Upon their release they were immediately granted political asylum in Holland.

On August 20, 1982, while Recinos was still behind bars, his wife, María Adela García, and 13-year-old daughter, Ana Yanira Recinos García, were forcibly disappeared. Witnesses, including Recinos’ oldest son, reported that they were taken away by over a dozen heavily armed men in civilian clothing. To this date no information has surfaced as to their eventual fate, nor has any official investigation been conducted.

In August 2012, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights and the National Security Archive issued FOIA requests to the Department of State, Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and Southern Command of the Department of Defense for all documents pertaining to the detention of Recinos, as well as the disappearances of his wife and daughter. The Department of State released a total of seven relevant documents; links to these documents are provided below. These documents not only corroborate information acquired by victim testimonies—dates of the crimes, sites where Recinos was detained, and the involvement of the National Guard and the National Police—but, they also reveal ample knowledge of the fact that Recinos and other detained labor union leaders were denied the right to a timely and fair trial.

For example, in August 1980, the American Embassy in San Salvador reported that Recinos and other arrested labor leaders “were turned over to a military tribunal for trial” roughly five days after Recinos’s arrest, and that they were being charged with the disruption of public utilities and the unlawful possession of military weapons. Over four years later and on the heels of Recinos’s release, however, it was reported that Recinos and his fellow labor leaders had been “imprisoned in El Salvador without trial since 1980.” In response to this public acknowledgement of the Salvadoran government’s blatant deprivation of their citizens’ due process rights, Recinos and nine other labor union leaders were unexpectedly released and dismissed of all charges.

The documents also provide a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes wrangling that occurred between the administrations of Ronald Reagan and José Napoleón Duarte, then the President of El Salvador, about the Recinos case, which was widely denounced due to Recinos’ recognized leadership and the undisputed details of his detention and torture. Numerous labor organizations in the United States and Europe, as well as Amnesty International and other human rights groups, actively campaigned for Recinos’ release and an investigation into the disappearance of his wife and daughter. US Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson travelled to El Salvador and visited Recinos in prison, calling him the “Lech Walesa of El Salvador.”

While behind bars, Héctor Recinos helped found COPPES, the Committee of Political Prisoners of El Salvador. The organization has recently reconstituted itself and emerged as a leader in the country’s human rights movement, still struggling for truth, justice, and reconciliation in cases of crimes against humanity committed during the war. To date, there has been no official investigation into Recinos’ illegal imprisonment and torture, or into the disappearance of his wife and daughter. Copies of these documents have been provided to the Recinos family for incorporation into criminal complaints filed with the Salvadoran authorities, and their recent petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the Organization of American States.

Read the declassified documents:

For assistance in reading these declassified documents, see the National Security Archive’s guide to State Department diplomatic cables.

Recinos-DoS-005259934
Subject: MILITARY TRIAL FOR INSTIGATORS OF POWER BLACKOUT
Date: August 26, 1980
Communicates press reports that arrested union members including Hector Recinos were to be tried by a “Military Instruction Judge” on charges of “disruption of public utilities” and “unlawful possession of military weapons”.

Recinos-DoS-C05259938
Subject: (U) DISAPPEARANCE OF AMERICA FERNANDA PERDOMO AND SAUL VILLALTA
Date: September 27, 1982
Reports on the capture and disappearance of several people including the wife and daughter of Hector Recinos. Those reported captured include America Fernana Perdomo of the El Salvador Human Rights Commission (CDHES) and Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) member Saul Villalta, who were in the process of negotiating a prisoner exchange between the guerrillas and government at the time of their capture.

Recinos-DoS-C05259939
Subject: (C) BELGIAN REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON SAUL VILLALTA
Date: January 8, 1983
Forwards to the Belgian Ambassador in El Salvador the contents of the September 27, 1982 cable regarding the disappearances of America Fernanda Perdomo and Saul Villalta.

Recinos-DoS-C05336830
Subject: DETENTION AND DISAPPEARANCES, 1983 NO. 1
Date: February 16, 1983
Communicates request to State Department by Congressman William J. Coyne to provide information on detained labor unionists and teachers, including Recinos.

Recinos-DoS-C05336833
Subject: ARA NEWS ITEMS OF OCTOBER 9, 1984
Date: October 10, 1984
Summarizes a wide variety of news sources regarding Latin America and the Caribbean, including a long interview with President of El Salvador José Napoleon Duarte regarding talks with the guerrilla; and a summary of an article on President Duarte’s announcement at the UN of intentions to negotiate, and announcing the impending release of Recinos (see p. 9 of the PDF, p. 12 of original cable).

Recinos-DoS-C05259937
Subject: INTERVIEW WITH STECEL WORKERS AT MARIONA PRISON
Date: October 13, 1984
Reports on a meeting with the STECEL prisoners in response to a campaign by labor and human rights advocates in the U.S., inquiring about their plans following their impending release. According to the cable, “none requested asylum of the U.S. and all were grateful to the Dutch for the generous terms of their asylum offer” from that country. Point 4 of the cable notes Recinos’ belief that his wife and daughter were “being held at a clandestine jail” and his request for U.S. assistence in locating them.

Recinos-DoS-005259934
Subject: EMBASSY RESPONSES TO HUMAN RIGHTS INQUIRIES
Date: December 10, 1982
Dictates standard responses to a variety of human rights inquiries, including the disappearance of “Maria Elena Martinez de Recinos” and her daughter. However, text of the response relating to the Recinos case is not included in this cable.