p EL SALVADOR’S ROMAN CATHOLIC LEADERS TARGETED BY DEATH SQUADS—Clandestine death squads have mounted a major campaign of intimidation against the Roman Catholic Church here.

p The Salvadoran church’s two top leaders, Archibishop Arruro Rivera y Damas and Auxiliary Archbishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, have received public death threats. And communique^ attached to bodies of recent death squad victims have denounced Catholic church and lay workers who call for dialogue between the government and insurgent forces. . . .

p . . . When Archibishop Rivera y Damas was in hiding in 1977 because of similar threats, death squads issued a series of pamphlets that read: "Be a patriot! Kill a priest."

p Commenting on the threats, Rosa Chavez says, "We are used to repression and we have learned the high price one pays for speaking out against injustice."...

p Chris Hedges, Christian Science Moniter, November 14, 1983

p SALVADOR VILLAGERS CLAIM TROOPS SHOT UNARMED LEFTIST SUPPORTERS—Residents of three small towns in northern El Salvador told foreign journalists who visited the area that army troops rounded up and shot to death more than 100 leftist sympathizers earlier this month.

p The journalists said Thursday they saw 20 bodies and what appeared to be seven fresh mass graves and were given a list of names of 118 victims.

p The armed forces high command confirmed Thursday that there were "about 100 casualties" in the area around Lake Suchitlan but said the bodies were apparently those of guerrillas killed in battle. . . .

p . . . The journalists went to the [town] of Copapayo . . . to check on reports . . . troops from the army’s U.S.-trained Atlacatl infantry battalion "massacred more than 100 people" Nov. 4. ...

p The broadcast [of Radio Venceremos] said the victims were noncombatant supporters of the guerrillas. . . .

p The journalists who visited [area] towns Wednesday said residents told them the victims surrendered to army troops and were herded into houses and killed with submachine-gun fire and grenades.

p . . . "We talked to a lot of people in the three towns and they all had the same version,” said one of the journalists, who asked not to be identified.

p Combined Dispatches, Miami Herald, November 18, 1983

Author’s note: On December 25, 1983, I was notified that Janet and her entire family, with the exception of Aurelio, were victims of this massacre.