Unsolved Homicide of Community Leader in Huisisilapa, July 2008

Killing of Community Leader in Huisisilapa another on the List of Unsolved Homicides

Dear Friends,

We write you with more sad news of the shooting of Rafaela Hernández Delgado of the CRIPDES repopulated community of Huisisilapa last Thursday the 24th of July. Rafaela was twenty-seven years old, a community leader, and the wife of the municipal councilmen for the FMLN.  According to preliminary reports from community board of Huisisilapa, Rafaela was shot approximately seven times while sitting on a bus in nearby Aguilares which is located about 25 miles north of San Salvador, and 8 miles to the east of Huisisilapa.  Her death becomes another in the series of unsolved murders of community opposition leaders in CRIPDES communities, including the recent death of Hector Ventura of the Suchitoto 14.

According to preliminary reports on the killing from Huisisilapa, a young man boarded the bus Rafaela was seated on before it left Aguilares, went directly to Rafaela, and shot her repeatedly in front of the other passengers before fleeing the scene.  The shooter never said a word to Rafaela or any of the other passengers.  Some witnesses say the man was accompanied by two others.

The crime occurred just two blocks from the Police Station in Aguilares, and according to community leaders in Huisisilapa, two male suspects were arrested in connection with the killing.  However, witnesses have initially failed to identified the suspects as having been involved in the crime, which remains unresolved.

The community reports that this killing comes after a series of armed attacks on Huisisilapa over the last two years, and is the fifth killing during that time.  In October of 2006, seven armed subjects drove through the town, shooting indiscriminately in the streets.  The drive-by left one nine-year old girl dead, and others wounded.  In May of 2007, another drive-by in the late afternoon left two more young people injured.  Three months later three young people were stopped by an unidentified vehicle along the road just outside Huisisilapa, and all three were killed.  One month later in September, Rafaela’s sister was attacked in her home by a man who claimed to want to purchase from the small store the family runs, but instead shot her and fled the scene, leaving Rafaela’s sister injured.  In January of 2008, two subjects again attacked Rafaela’s family in their home, this time shooting and killing her mother.

With the killing of Rafaela, there have now been three attacks on her family in the last year.  The safety of the family had been a concern, since Rafaela’s mother witnessed the attack on her daughter at the family store last year, and Rafaela was a witness to her mother’s murder.

According to community leaders in Huisisilapa, to date nobody has been brought to trial for any of the armed attacks on the community, and the killings fit the characteristics of the sort of premeditated execution-style killing practiced by the death-squads during the Salvadoran Civil War.  In a press statement from the community board released Friday after the killing, leaders manifested: “we were tired of the violence after the armed conflict that left dozens of our families in mourning after assassinations and disappearances.  We thought the Peace Accords would bring tranquillity and development to this town, but the ghost of violence and death continues to haunt this community, creating the same results as the war we thought we had left behind.”

Huisisilapa was repopulated in 1992 immediately following the Peace Accords.  Most of the town’s inhabitants are originally from Chalatenango which was one of the hardest hit provinces during the war, and nearly all spent time in refugee camps during the war.  Today Huisisilapa is home to approximately 1000 people and is primarily an agricultural community.

CRIPDES and the community are calling on the Salvadoran Attorney General’s Office and the National Civilian Police for a complete investigation into the material and intellectual authors of this wave of violence in the community, as well as their collaboration for the safety of the witnesses and prevention of future violence.

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