“THE ÁRBENZ GOVERNMENT threw me in jail for anticommunism!” Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Trinidad Oliva screamed. Then he raised his hands to show his handcuffs. “Now you’ve got me locked up like an animal. What kind of aberration is this? I’m begging you to tell me.”
Colonel Pedro Castañino Gamarra, an army lawyer and the man in charge of military justice, paid him no attention. He continued flipping through papers as if he were in his office alone. He was nearly bald, with a thick mustache like a Mexican cowboy. He was dressed in his uniform, with thick glasses to correct his myopia. Slanting light entered through the broad windows of the barracks housing the Honor Guard, and the sky outside was overcast. Farther off, in the courtyard, there were soldiers standing in formation.
“And what’s worse, I’m accused of plotting to assassinate the president!” the lieutenant colonel roared, feeling drops of sweat drip down his forehead. “I demand more respect for my position and rank. I took part in the peace treaty negotiations in San Salvador. I was a member of the transitional government. The president nominated me to be head of security. I demand respect and consideration. Why won’t you let me speak with my brother, Colonel Juan Francisco Oliva, who was Castillo Armas’s minister of defense? Why won’t you let me see my family? Or are all of them in jail, too?”
Colonel Castañino Gamarra had lifted his head, removed his glasses, and looked at the other man impassively. He didn’t speak until the lieutenant colonel fell silent.
“You are not under arrest for participating in any conspiracy,” he said aridly. “Don’t pay attention to what people are saying. Your family is fine, they are going on about their lives. So calm down. You are under arrest for using the assassination as a pretext to exercise powers beyond the scope of your authority. Moving around military leaders, granting and revoking authorizations, ordering the arrest of honorable people without the least reason for doing so. And for declaring a state of siege without consulting your superiors. What got into you? Did Castillo Armas’s death make you lose your mind?”
“I was only fulfilling my obligations!” the prisoner screamed, furious. “I had to find the president’s killers. That was my duty, do you not understand that?”
“You overstepped your limits,” the military justice chief replied, in a monotone voice, as though repeating a text from memory. “You thought of yourself as the new president of the republic, and you committed numerous abuses without the least justification. That is why you are here.”
“I demand respect for my position and my rank!” the lieutenant colonel screamed, showing his handcuffs again, incensed. “This is an intolerable humiliation. Ridiculous. You haven’t even allowed me to meet with my lawyers!”
The two of them were alone in the room. Castañino Gamarra had asked the guards who brought the prisoner in to leave after forcing him into a seated position in front of the desk. Outside, through the windows, the soldiers in formation were now beginning to march. The officer in charge of them took the lead, and was striding with great conviction. His lips were moving, but his shouts didn’t reach them.
“Calm down a little,” the colonel said, a bit more affable now. “This is not an interrogation. There are no minutes being taken, there’s no stenographer. Do you not see that? This is a private conversation, it won’t make it into the papers, there won’t be a single trace of it anywhere. So relax.”
“A private conversation?” Trinidad Oliva said sarcastically, showing his cuffs a third time.
“The army wants to offer you an opportunity,” the colonel said, lowering his voice a bit. He looked around, as though to assure himself they really were alone. “Calm down and listen closely. I’m warning you, this offer will not be repeated, and if you reject it, you will have to accept the consequences.”
“What’s the offer?”
“You will present your resignation to the army, on whatever pretext you choose. Say you’re exhausted, overwhelmed by what happened to the president, it doesn’t really matter. And accept the charges for exceeding your mandate and abusing your position as director of security services with your appointments and your illicit arrests.”
The colonel paused to measure the effect of his words. Trinidad Oliva had gone pale. In his few days as prisoner, he had lost weight, his features were gaunt, his forehead covered in wrinkles. Sweat coated his temples and cheeks.
“There will be a brief trial, very discreet, without any public spectacle. No press, I mean,” the colonel proceeded slowly. He wanted to see the effect of his words on the captain. “You’ll serve a couple of years in a military prison where you’ll be treated in accordance with your rank. And you will get to keep your pension.”
“You think I would accept such a flagrant insult?” the lieutenant colonel bellowed, once again inflamed. “Two years in prison? For what crime? For performing the duties of a director of security as assigned me by the president of the republic?”
The chief of military justice looked at him with a slightly mocking gaze. There was irony and a bit of contempt in his voice as he responded:
“I assure you, an open trial with journalists present is not in your interest, Lieutenant Colonel. The army is doing you a big favor in making this offer. Think about your future, don’t be a fool and decline it.”
“I’m the victim of an outrage, and I want, I demand an explanation!” Trinidad Oliva clamored, wrathful, never ceasing to show his handcuffs to the chief of military justice, who had by now lost his patience, and spoke again in severe, even aggressive terms:
“If you refuse this offer, a real trial awaits you, in front of a military tribunal. Your role in the assassination will come to light before the public. Everyone will know your lies. Among them that the killer, the soldier whose alleged diary you discovered, killed Castillo Armas to avenge his communist father. Vásquez Sánchez had no father. He never met him, he was the son of a single mother. Moreover, this diary, which you made famous, where the soldier explains the reasons he will commit suicide after murdering the president, is fake from beginning to end. Army investigators, two graphologists, have examined it closely. Both agree it’s an inept fabrication. That soldier couldn’t have written it, he was practically illiterate. Will it suit you to have all these fairy tales you’ve invented scrutinized in a public trial? Resign, accept the two years in the brig, which is a thousand times better than a common jail. Otherwise, you might spend the rest of your life behind bars. Incidentally, did you know that the deceased liked to call you the Lug? I wonder why that might be?”