Icarus Films: Justice and the Generals

Justice and the Generals

Directed by Gail Pellett

86 minutes / Color
Release: 2002
Copyright: 2002

In late 1980, the bodies of four American women were exhumed from a crude grave in El Salvador. The women - Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, nuns of the Maryknoll Congregation in New York; Dorothy Kazel, a nun in the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland; and Jean Donovan, a lay missionary from the Cleveland Mission - had been abducted, raped, and murdered. An investigation led to the trial and conviction of five Salvadoran National Guardsmen.

But who was behind the murders? It was clear to Bill Ford, brother of Ita, that the Guardsmen were only triggermen. Ford, with help from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, set out to discover who had ordered, paid for, directed, and covered up the murders.

By the mid-1990's, with the war over and amnesty declared for all human rights abusers, declassified U.S. government records revealed that the State Department had withheld information pointing to involvement at high levels of the Salvadoran military.

In late 2000, the two generals finally faced the families of the victims in a West Palm Beach courtroom. Without direct evidence implicating them, the generals were charged not with killing or ordering the killings of the women, but with responsibility for the crimes under the command responsibility doctrine, which holds that as commanders they knew or should have known about the abuses committed by their troops, and can be held accountable for those crimes. The generals were found not liable for the crimes, but the case is under appeal and a decision is expected early in 2002. More importantly the landmark pursuit of the generals in federal civil court opens the door for more such trials.

JUSTICE AND THE GENERALS offers unique insight into a new chapter in international human rights law, an important step forward in the campaign to bring military commanders to justice for crimes committed within their ranks. At the same time, as it follows efforts to hold human rights abusers accountable, JUSTICE AND THE GENERALS also maps the confusion, barbarism, and, ultimately, the tragic heart of a conflict whose wounds, two decades later, are far from healed.

"It is incredibly encouraging to see a film that accurately depicts so many of the issues involved in securing justice and accountability, whether at a state, regional or international level."—Dr. Kelly Dawn Askin, Director of the International Criminal Justice Institute, Washington, D.C.

"It is a complex story, elegantly conveyed through the lives of people closely connected to the facts of the case. It is particularly strong in highlighting the strengths -- and weaknesses of using courts to redress the massive violations of rights that occur in repressive regimes. The film invites discussion at a dozen levels."—Professor Peter Rosenblum, Harvard Law School Human Rights Program