Ponce dies without a day in court

As I mentioned briefly on Monday, General Rene Emilio Ponce died of a heart attack at the age of 64 in El Salvador. According to the United Nations Truth Commission, Ponce was among those responsible for ordering the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, at the University of Central American in November 1989.

According to the commission,

On the night of 15 November 1989, then Colonel René Emilio Ponce, in the presence of and in collusion with General Juan Rafael Bustillo, then Colonel Juan Orlando Zepeda, Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano and Colonel Francisco Elena Fuentes, gave Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides the order to kill Father Ignacio Ellacuría and to leave no witnesses.

Senator Moakley's investigation also fingered Ponce as the individual primarily responsible for ordering Ellacuria and the other Jesuits' murders. According to the LA Times article, Ponce was "unrepentant" to the end and "always maintained that he and his 32,000-member army fulfilled their mission to stem 'communist aggression.'" Ponce continued to maintain his innocence as recently as 2009.

On the other hand, in Teresa Whitfield's Paying the Price, Ponce supposedly said things to an unnamed Salvadoran military official making its sound like he was in on the plan to kill the Jesuits, but he didn't really want to do it. Instead, the general somehow succumbed to peer pressure.

"I want you to know," Ponce had said, "I didn't want it." (378)

We don't know if he actually said this and it's unclear whether we'll ever know the extent of his involvement.

A few more things, while "U.S. officials were aware of his abysmal human rights record" several US officials could not believe that he was capable of ordering Ellacuria and the other Jesuits' deaths. Even when the learned more details throughout 1990, they were sticking with Ponce because they believed he was capable of ensuring military participation in the peace talks with the FMLN. 

"Peace negotiations began the following year" after the Jesuits' murder is not entirely accurate. Peace negotiations were on again / off again throughout the war (1984, 1986, and 1987) and continued throughout September and October 1989 during the two months prior to the offensive. The FMLN supposedly launched the offensive because they were disappointed with the pace and structure of negotiations. Negotiations then picked up steam in 1990 following the failed FMLN offensive and growing evidence of the military's involvement in the Jesuit murders.

Like Maria Silvia Guillen, I am disappointed that Ponce died without having to answer for his alleged crimes.

But human rights activists said the only thing they were sorry about was that Gen. Ponce was never formally charged or tried.

“I regret that the general died with total impunity,” said Maria Silvia Guillen, head of an independent human rights organization. “I think it is sad that the Salvadoran people have lost an opportunity for the truth about who was responsible to be established officially, with first and last name.

“I would have hoped for a historic moment when justice could have been served.”

While a Spanish court was investigating Ponce's role in the murder of the Spanish-born Jesuits at the time of his death, I'm not convinced that he would have ever stepped foot in a Spanish or Salvadoran court and been forced to answer the charges against him.

In many ways, he is like Bin Laden. He died without ever having to answer the charges against him in a court of law. And like Bin Laden, I'm not sure that had he lived he would have ever had a day in court.