Roberto D'Aubuisson

Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta was born on 23 August 1943 in Santa Tecla, El Salvador. His father was Roberto d'Aubuisson Andrade, and his mother was Joaquina Arrieta Alvarado, a career civil servant. He is the descendant of Jacques, Marie, Germain, Gustave d'Aubuisson, who was born in Toulouse, France in 1822 and arrived in El Salvador at the age of 20, where he established himself as an ironmonger and salesman. His father, Pierre d'Aubuisson, was Marquis and Lord of Nailloux and Ramonville-Saint-Agne.{{Cite web|url=https://gw.geneanet.org/phido?lang=fr&n=d+aubuisson&oc=0&p=jacques+marie+germain+gustave|title=Généalogie de Jacques,Marie,Germain,Gustave d'AUBUISSON|website=Geneanet}}

D'Aubuisson enrolled in the Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School in 1958 at the age of 15 and graduated in 1963, becoming a member of the National Guard. He was part of La Tandona, the class of 1966 at the Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School. In 1972, he was trained in communications at the School of the Americas, a United States Department of Defense Institute that provides military training to government personnel in US-allied Latin American nations. After completing his studies at the institute, he became a member of the Salvadoran military intelligence.Wayne Partridge. "The School of the Americas: leadership or terrorist training?: jailed Ky. nun to be among protesters at annual rally Sunday", Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), 20 November 1999, 1A: "But the school can hardly be blamed for the misdeeds of its graduates, supporters say. D'Aubuisson, for example, attended only a six-week radio maintenance and repair course at the school."{{cite news|last1=Severo|first1=Richard|title=Roberto d'Aubuisson, 48, Far-Rightist in Salvador|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/21/world/roberto-d-aubuisson-48-far-rightist-in-salvador.html|accessdate=20 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=21 February 1992}} D'Aubuisson was also educated at the Taiwanese Fu Hsing Kang College.{{cite web |last1=Barron |first1=James |title=A league with a dark past |url=https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2022/01/23/2003771895 |website=www.taipeitimes.com/ |date=23 January 2022 |publisher=Taipei Times |access-date=23 January 2022}}{{cite news |last=Beaulande |first=Guillaume |url=https://mondediplo.com/2016/06/10taiwan |title=New left regimes ally with China |work=Le Monde diplomatique |date=June 2016 |accessdate=June 5, 2016 }}

File:Sansalvador-1981.jpg

D'Aubuisson involved himself in death squad activity while in the military, and he became associated with the second death squad to emerge in El Salvador in the mid-1970s, called the White Warriors Union.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}} In October 1979, after a group of progressive officers deposed the government of Carlos Humberto Romero in a bloodless coup d'état and established the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG, 1979–1982), D'Aubuisson was forced out of military service for his death squad connections, although he continued working for senior military commanders secretly. D'Aubuisson was regularly featured on Salvadoran television denouncing alleged traitors and communists, who were then murdered shortly afterwards by death squads.{{cite book|last1=LeoGrande|first1=William M.|author-link1=William M. LeoGrande|title=Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992|date=1998|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|isbn=0807848573|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xBhSo7CBLMMC|page=49}}

On 7 May 1980, six weeks after the assassination of Óscar Romero, D'Aubuisson and a group of civilians and soldiers were arrested on a farm. The raiders found weapons and documents identifying D'Aubuisson and the civilians as death squad organizers and financiers, and of planning a coup d'état to depose the JRG. D'Aubuisson was soon released from prison, after 8 of the 14 military garrison commanders voted for his release, overruling the JRG.{{cite book|last1=LeoGrande|first1=William M.|title=Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–199 |date=1998|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=Chapel Hill, NC|isbn=0807848573|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xBhSo7CBLMMC|page=47}}

His opposition to the JRG gave him international infamy. In August 1981, The Washington Post reported that D'Aubuisson "openly talked of the need to kill 200,000 to 300,000 people to restore peace to El Salvador". Shortly afterwards, on September 30, he founded ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance), a far-right political party. D'Aubuisson accumulated much political capital among Salvadorans for his anti-leftist stridency and for his reputation as an effective counter-insurgency strategist. He often accused the JRG of being a Marxist threat to El Salvador.Loren Jenkins, "El Salvador," The Washington Post, 16 August 1981, Washington Post Magazine, p. 10.

He praised Hitler to West German journalists, out of belief in the Jewish Bolshevism conspiracy: "You Germans were very intelligent. You realized that the Jews were responsible for the spread of Communism and you began to kill them."{{cite news| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1984/07/01/daubuisson-who-me/7a20c778-1f3b-4105-b643-8441b3fb2fa5/| title = D'AUBUISSON Who, Me? - The Washington Post| newspaper = The Washington Post}} He also asked every Jesuit be murdered as instruments of Communism and threatened to kill James Richard Cheek, a State Department official under Carter.{{Cite journal|last1=Bello|first1=Walden|last2=Herman|first2=Edward S.|date=1984|title=U.S.-Sponsored Elections in El Salvador and the Philippines|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40208969|journal=World Policy Journal|volume=1|issue=4|pages=851–869|jstor=40208969|issn=0740-2775}}

In the 1982 legislative election, the PDC won 40 percent of the vote but not a controlling majority in the legislature. Meanwhile, ARENA won 29 percent of the vote, the PCN won 19 percent, Democratic Action (AD) won 8 percent, and other parties won the remaining 4 percent. D'Aubuisson was among one of ARENA's 19 deputies in the Legislative Assembly. Representing the San Salvador Department, he assumed office on 26 April 1982.{{sfn|Legislative Assembly|2006|p=125}}

Although ARENA and the PCN were held a majority and sought to elect D'Aubuisson as the country's president, pressure from the United States dissuaded the PCN which voted with the PDC to elect AD candidate Álvaro Magaña as the country's president.{{cite web|url=https://library.ucsd.edu/research-and-collections/collections/notable-collections/latin-american-elections-statistics/El%20Salvador/elections-and-events-1980-1989.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323211406/https://library.ucsd.edu/research-and-collections/collections/notable-collections/latin-american-elections-statistics/El%20Salvador/elections-and-events-1980-1989.html|archive-date=23 March 2021|access-date=26 September 2023|work=University of California, San Diego|location=San Diego, California|title=Elections and Events 1980–1989}} Rather than being elected as president of El Salvador, D'Aubuisson was instead elected as the president of the Legislative Assembly, serving from 26 April 1982 to 20 December 1983.{{sfn|Legislative Assembly|2006|p=125}} The JRG's government ended on 2 May 1982{{sfn|Bosch|1999|p=114}}

On 31 March 1983, D'Aubuisson was allowed entry to the United States by the State Department after deeming him not barred from entry any longer. When asked about D'Aubuisson's association with the assassination of Archbishop Romero, the State Department responded that "the allegations have not been substantiated."{{Cite news|title=Salvadoran Rightist Leader Issued Visa|last=Knutson|first=Lawrence|date=6 April 1983|agency=Associated Press}} In November 1993, documents by the State Department, Defense Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency were released after pressure by Congress increased. The 12,000 documents revealed that the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush knew of the assassinations conducted by D'Aubuisson, including that of Oscar Romero, and still worked with him despite this.{{Cite news|title=U.S., Aware of Killings, Worked With Salvador's Rightists, Papers Suggest|last=Krauss|first=Clifford|date=9 November 1993|work=The New York Times}}

On 25 March 1984, D'Aubuisson began his campaign for the Salvadoran presidency. On 2 May he lost the presidential election to former President of the Junta José Napoleón Duarte of the Christian Democratic Party, receiving 46.4 percent of the vote to Duarte's 53.6 percent. D'Aubuisson claimed fraud and U.S. interference on behalf of Duarte, who was later confirmed to have been a CIA asset.

In Washington D.C., a supporter of D'Aubuisson was Senator Jesse Helms, who had close ties with D'Aubuisson's ARENA party.{{cite news | last = Bronstein | first =Phil | title=Jesse Helms and his arms-trading staff | work=San Francisco Chronicle | date=July 8, 2008 | url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?&entry_id=27938 | access-date=July 8, 2008}}{{cite news | last = Melissa McEwan | first =Melissa McEwan | title=Republican dinosaur: Although he fought every progressive cause, Jesse Helms aimed special enmity towards black people | work=The Guardian | date=July 7, 2008 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/07/usa | access-date=July 8, 2008 | location=London}}{{cite news|work=National Catholic Reporter |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n41_v30/ai_15802111 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080622192750/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n41_v30/ai_15802111 |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 22, 2008 |date=September 23, 1994 |author=Arthur Jones |title=El Salvador revisited: a look a declassified State Department documents – some of what U.S. government knew – and when it knew it }}

Helms opposed the appointment of Thomas R. Pickering as Ambassador to El Salvador,Link (2007), p. 248 and alleged that the CIA had interfered in the 1984 Salvadoran election in favor of Duarte,{{cite news |first=Reginald |last=Dale |title=CIA role in El Salvador election criticised |work=Financial Times |date=May 10, 1984 }} claiming that Pickering had "used the cloak of diplomacy to strangle freedom in the night". A CIA operative testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee was alleged by Helms to have admitted rigging the election, but senators who attended stated that, whilst the CIA operative admitted involvement, the person did not admit to rigging the election. Helms disclosed details of CIA financial support for Duarte, earning a rebuke from fellow senator Barry Goldwater, but Helms replied that his information came from sources in El Salvador, not the Senate committee.Link (2007), p. 249

In December 1984, D'Aubuisson travelled to Washington and was presented with a plaque by groups such as the American Foreign Policy Council, the Moral Majority and the Young Americans for Freedom for “continuing efforts for freedom in the face of communist aggression which is an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere”.{{Cite news|last=Omang|first=Joanne|date=December 5, 1984|title=D'Aubuisson Honored by Conservatives at Capitol Hill Dinner|newspaper=Washington Post}}

In 1985, D'Aubuisson was re-elected as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly from San Salvador.{{sfn|Legislative Assembly|2006|p=133}} In 1988, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly, but instead from La Libertad.{{sfn|Legislative Assembly|2006|p=140}} In 1991, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly, again from La Libertad.{{sfn|Legislative Assembly|2006|p=146}}

File:Roberto d'Aubuisson.JPG

D'Aubuisson died at 48 after a prolonged battle against esophageal cancer and bleeding ulcers on 20 February 1992.{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-02-21-mn-2740-story.html|title=Roberto D'Aubuisson, 48; Reputed Head of Salvadoran Death Squads|date=21 February 1992|work=Los Angeles Times|author=Marjorie Miller}}

After the Salvadoran Civil War, the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated that D'Aubuisson "gave the order to assassinate the Archbishop" to military officers who also tried to kill judge Atilio Ramírez Amaya "to deter investigation of the case".{{Cite web|url=https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240531004615/https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=31 May 2024 |title=From madness to hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador|publisher=Truth Commissions Digital Collection: Reports: El Salvador. Provided by United States Institute of Peace|pages=119–130}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/ElSalvador11.481a.htm |title=El Salvador, 11.481a: Irregularities in the investigation|publisher=Inter-American Commission on Human Rights|access-date=20 August 2008}} Views of him among contemporary Salvadorans are mixed and often drawn across party lines. ARENA supporters revere him for his right-wing beliefs and steadfast opposition to communism. FMLN supporters vilify him for his alleged human rights atrocities and involvement in Archbishop Romero's assassination.

On January 20, 2007, President Antonio Saca of the ARENA party paid homage to D'Aubuisson upon the anniversary of his death, promising "to continue the ARENA party, based upon his ideologic legacy." Amid opposition debate, ARENA tried to name D'Aubuisson a "meritorious son of El Salvador", a national honor, but failed due to the efforts of protesting Church leaders and human rights workers.{{Cite news |last=Lacey |first=Marc |date=2007-02-21 |title=4 Salvadorans Killed in Way That Evokes '80s Conflict |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/world/americas/21salvador.html |access-date=2023-11-30 |issn=0362-4331}}

He was known as "Chele" (light-skinned face) and was alleged to have been a leader of anti-communist death squads that were alleged to have tortured and killed thousands of civilians before and during the Salvadoran Civil War. To political prisoners he was known as "Blowtorch Bob", due to his frequent use of a blowtorch in interrogation sessions.Shawn Foster. "Window to honor slain church workers: window will stand in memory of assassinations," The Salt Lake Tribune (UT), 22 April 1995, Religion section, D1.Editorial. "No hero for El Salvador ...," The Salt Lake Tribune (UT), 24 February 1992, A10.{{Cite web |title=Trial of Salvadoran generals opens in Florida |url=http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2000d/102000/102000i.htm |access-date=2023-11-30 |website=natcath.org |first=Marianne |last=Armshaw}}

In 1986, ex-U.S. ambassador Robert White reported to the United States Congress that "there was sufficient evidence" to convict D'Aubuisson of planning and ordering Archbishop Romero's assassination, describing D'Aubuisson as a pathological killer, as early as his 1984 Salvadoran presidential run.Rod Nordland. "How 2 rose to vie for El Salvador's presidency," Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 March 1984, A1. In April 2010, Alvaro Saravia, a former army captain who had admitted taking part in Romero's murder, testified in an interview with the Salvadoran newspaper El Faro that D'Aubuisson had given the order to proceed with the killing of the archbishop.{{Cite news |last=O'Connor |first=Anne-Marie |date=2010-04-06 |title=Participant in 1980 assassination of Romero in El Salvador provides new details |newspaper=The Washington Post |language=en-US |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040503234.html |access-date=2023-11-30 |issn=0190-8286}} The report of the U.N. truth commission in El Salvador following the Salvadoran Civil War found that D'Aubuisson was arrested on a farm following the assassination of the archbishop, along with weapons and documents tied to the assassination.

In February 2007, D'Aubuisson's son Eduardo, along with two ARENA politicians and their driver, were killed in Guatemala. Investigators suggested that the murders may have been connected to drug-trafficking groups.{{Cite web |last=Rosenberg |first=Mica |title=A Murder Spree in Central America -- TIME |url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1595944,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070307145151/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1595944,00.html |archive-date=7 March 2007 }} In March 2015, D'Aubuisson's surviving son, Roberto José d'Aubuisson Munguía, was elected mayor of Santa Tecla, a neighboring municipality of the capital San Salvador.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

Tony Plana was cast as Maj. Maximiliano "Max" Casanova in the movie Salvador by Oliver Stone, a thinly disguised depiction of D'Aubuisson.{{Cite news |last=Tunzelmann |first=Alex von |date=2009-04-09 |title=Salvador: Oliver Stone, lose the fast and loose approach |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/apr/08/salvador-oliver-stone |access-date=2023-11-30 |issn=0261-3077}} In the 1989 film Romero, D'Aubuisson was depicted as Lt. Columa and played by Eddie Velez.{{Cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098219/|title=Romero|date=25 August 1989|via=IMDb}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|last1=Bosch|first1=Brian J.|date=1999|title=The Salvadoran Officer Corps and the Final Offensive of 1981|language=en|location=Jefferson, North Carolina; London|publisher=McFarland & Company Incorporated Publishers|isbn=0-7864-0612-7}}
• {{cite book|url=https://www.asamblea.gob.sv/sites/default/files/2017-12/Tomo_IV_Historia_AsambleaLegislativa.pdf|title=Historia del Órgano Legislativo de la República de El Salvador 1824–2006: 1936–2006|trans-title=History of the Legislative Organ of the Republic of El Salvador 1824–2006: 1936–2006|language=es|edition=IV|publisher=Legislative Assembly of El Salvador|date=2006|access-date=25 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210831201637/https://www.asamblea.gob.sv/sites/default/files/2017-12/Tomo_IV_Historia_AsambleaLegislativa.pdf|archive-date=31 August 2021|url-status=dead|ref={{harvid|Legislative Assembly|2006}}}}

• [http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html "Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador"] (1993)
• [http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921635,00.html Democracy Among the Ruins: Citizens struggle with a turbulent campaign]{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (Mario Vargas Llosa's report on the 1984 presidential campaign), TIME, 26 March 1984 (retrieved 6 November 2006).
• [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DE1F3CF931A15754C0A967958260&sec=health&pagewanted=all Salvadoran Far-Right Leader Ill With Cancer], by Shirley Christian, The New York Times, 22 July 1991 (retrieved 6 November 2006).
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1891145.stm "US role in Salvador's brutal war"], BBC World Service, 24 March 2002.

{{s-start}}

{{s-off}}

{{s-bef|before=José Leandro Echeverría}}

{{s-ttl|title=President of the Legislative Assembly|years=1982–1983}}

{{s-aft|after=María Julia Castillo Rodas}}

{{s-end}}

{{Portal bar|Biography|El Salvador|Law|Politics}}

{{Presidents of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Aubuisson, Roberto}}

Category:1944 births

Category:1992 deaths

Category:20th-century Salvadoran politicians

Category:Antisemitism in North America

Category:Candidates for President of El Salvador

Category:Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School alumni

Category:Counterinsurgency theorists

Category:Deaths from cancer in El Salvador

Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer

Category:Far-right politics in North America

Category:Fascism in El Salvador

Category:Members of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador

Category:Nationalist Republican Alliance politicians

Category:Neo-fascist politicians

Category:People of the Salvadoran Civil War

Category:People from La Libertad Department (El Salvador)

Category:Politicide perpetrators

Category:Presidents of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador

Category:Salvadoran mass murderers

Category:Salvadoran people of French descent

Category:Salvadoran war criminals

Category:Fu Hsing Kang College alumni