The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador opposes reopening the prosecution of Salvadoran officials in the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests, he said on Sunday. Human rights activists have pushed for a trial of a former president and 14 other Salvadoran officials in Spain, where five of the killed Jesuits were born. Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle called the killings at the height of the country’s 1980 to 1992 civil war “a frightful crime,” but said he was sure that former president Alfredo Cristiani was not involved. Human rights groups said Cristiani helped to cover up the crime.
■ JAMAICA
Shootings disrupt meeting
One man was shot dead and two others were wounded at the annual conference of the ruling party minutes before Prime Minister Bruce Golding was due to speak on Sunday, police and witnesses said. Finance Minister Audley Shaw was addressing thousands of supporters at the Jamaica Labour Party conference in Kingston and was preparing to hand the microphone to Golding when the shooting occurred behind the stage where members of the party hierarchy were sitting. Police pronounced one man dead at the scene. A few minutes later two other people were shot outside the venue. Party officials blamed the police for the shooting, though police have not taken responsibility.
■ COLOMBIA
Murder suspects fired
Bogota fired 10 army officers and three soldiers on Sunday in a widening scandal over the killing of innocent civilians. The soldiers and officers are accused of shooting seven young men in the northern province of Cordoba and passing the bodies off as leftist guerrillas killed in combat. The government fired 27 army officers last month after a probe implicated them in the deaths of another group of young men who disappeared from their homes and were later shot, piled into mass graves and counted as combat deaths. Similar cases have stiffened opposition in the US Congress to a proposed trade deal.
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