Salvador Deports 19 U.S. Religious Workers Reportedly Detained in Military Zone

SAN SALVADOR — The government Thursday deported 19 American religious workers who were detained by Salvadoran soldiers in a restricted military zone, the U.S. Embassy said.

Jacob Gillespie, an embassy spokesman, said the Americans, most of them from California, were put on buses to neighboring Guatemala along with two Canadians and two Australians who also were in the group.

They were accompanied by a U.S. Embassy official and a military escort, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Gen. Adolfo Blandon, the Salvadoran military chief of staff, said: “These people . . . have to leave the country because they did not have the necessary authorization to be able to enter the place, endangering the lives of more than 300 people.”

Wednesday Detention

An embassy statement said the workers were detained Wednesday in Aguacayo, 29 miles north of San Salvador.

In San Francisco, Patrice Perillie, immigration project director at Catholic Social Services of San Francisco, said the delegation was an ecumenical group representing various faiths, organized by “an ad-hoc committee of religious people in the Bay Area.”

Perillie said that a member of the group spoke by telephone Thursday morning with the Catholic Social Services office, giving some details of what had happened.

On the first day, heading toward Aguacayo, the group was stopped by soldiers, who after checking with higher authorities permitted them to proceed, Perillie said. The group was also welcomed by the mayor of nearby Suchitoto.

“They had police protection the first evening, and things seemed to be fine,” Perillie said, and then “someone changed their mind” and the army acted against the group.

Ambassador Blamed

“The group holds Ambassador (Edwin G.) Corr responsible for that change of orders,” Perillie said.

Corr dispatched two consulate members to Suchitoto, according to the telephoned report of the group member.

“It is their (the group’s) belief that the ambassador instructed these consulate members to have the delegation deported from the country,” Perillie said, adding that the telephone caller also said they believed that President Jose Napoleon Duarte had instructed the army to deport the group.

Father Miguel Campbell, an official with the Roman Catholic archbishop’s office in San Salvador, said that the group had accompanied about 450 Salvadorans displaced by the civil war to resettle in their homes around Aguacayo.