Leaders of ADES and Santa Marta in Cabañas have been arrested

The historical community of Santa Marta in Cabañas woke up today with an operative of the police in which several leaders were arrested. Read their statement below:

URGENT!
To the national and international community, civil society organizations, friends of Santa Marta and the ADES association, we urgently inform:
The Attorney General Office and the National Civil Police, at dawn today, January 11, 2023, executed the administrative arrest warrant against Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García and Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez in the Santa Marta community in the municipality of Victoria. Simultaneously, they captured Teodoro Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega at the offices of the ADES Santa Marta Association, in the municipality of Guacotecti.

Before residents of the Santa Marta community, the prosecutors read the arrest and search warrant, which links the aforementioned comrades to a case that occurred during “the armed conflict”, adding, in addition, to this accusation that of belonging to illicit groups, with all the burden that such term carries in the current Salvadoran context.

All of this portrays a case hastily made whose real purpose is to attack the Santa Marta community and the ADES Association by attacking their leaders.

We want to point out the following:
1. We find it outrageous and suspicious that almost 31 years after the end of the Salvadoran civil war and more than 40 years after the atrocities committed against the civilian population of Santa Marta, where countless human rights violations and crimes against humanity were committed, the Salvadoran state was not able to prosecute a single case. Today, when they say they are acting, they do so to re-victimize the same community in what clearly seems to be political revenge.
2. The spokespersons for the prosecutor’s office present in the community assured that the case has nothing to do with the exception regime, so we hope that the initial hearing will be held within 72 hours and due process will be followed.
3. Santa Marta and ADES will make the complaint and demand a process abiding to the law, different than the procedures of the exception regime and where respect for human rights and justice prevail.
4. Santa Marta and ADES demand respect for the physical and moral integrity of the compañeros captured this morning under suspicious circumstances.
5. Santa Marta and ADES alert public opinion and civil society organizations about the risk that this type of arrests continue in the similar circumstances.

Santa Marta Community, January 11, 2023.

(En español aquí)

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