Church Issues Report on Alleged Massacre by Salvadoran Army

SAN SALVADOR — The legal aid office of the Roman Catholic Church has issued a detailed report on the alleged massacre of more than 1,000 peasant farmers--men, women, children and elderly--in the province of Morazan by army troops in 1981.

Tutela Legal, as the office is known, said in its 81-page report issued earlier this month that the 13-month-old judicial investigation into the massacre is bogged down and called for renewed efforts to move it forward.

The report gives the names of 794 people it says were shot, beheaded, knifed or burned to death by troops of the elite Atlacatl infantry battalion between Dec. 11 and 13, 1981.

The church says more than 200 other people were also killed, but that their identities have not been established. It says “a high percentage” of those slain were children.

The attorney general’s office issued a statement in response to the Tutela Legal report saying no hard evidence as to the identity of those who committed the killings has been presented. The armed forces and successive governments have denied army responsibility for the massacre.