Rene Emilio Ponce

Nine former Salvadoran soldiers and military officials were in custody Monday at an army base while fighting extradition to Spain in the killings of six Jesuit priests and two others during El Salvador's civil war. The Salvadoran government said in a statement that the men, among 20 ex-soldiers indicted by a Spanish judge in May, were in the custody of a civilian court that handles extradition cases. The suspects turned themselves in at the military installation Sunday afternoon, as Salvadoran police were preparing to arrest them on an extradition order from Interpol.

The murder 19 years ago of six Jesuit priests by a U.S.-trained army unit was the turning point in El Salvador's long civil war, an atrocity so grave that it helped force an end to the fighting. But the soldiers and officers convicted or implicated in the slayings are free under a controversial amnesty law that is receiving new attention thanks to election politics here and a potentially landmark court case in Spain. Relatives of the priests, who were killed along with their housekeeper and her young daughter, have joined with two human rights organizations and today plan to file suit in Madrid against the generals, colonels and soldiers blamed for the killings.

One of the most defining chapters in El Salvador's blood-soaked history--the trial of a senior Salvadoran military officer accused in the killing of six Roman Catholic priests and two of their employees--opened Thursday, mired in bureaucratic disorganization, mind-numbing procedure and doubts that the real criminals are in the dock. This is the first time in El Salvador's history that any soldier has been summoned before a civilian court for human rights abuses.

As air force planes bombarded columns of rebels on the skirts of the San Salvador volcano, President Alfredo Cristiani on Thursday rejected out of hand a cease-fire proposal offered by the guerrillas. The aerial assault came amid reports of guerrilla reinforcements moving near the capital and as the government passed the first parts of a sweeping law aimed at punishing opposition political activities it views as subversive. Cristiani, in a news conference with army Chief of Staff Col.

President Alfredo Cristiani's political life seems to be all he could want these days. Peace talks with leftist guerrillas are to begin next month, largely on his terms, and he appears to have reconciled the conflicting interests of the suspicious military and his American patrons over the most sensitive human rights case, the killing of six priests. Nevertheless, Cristiani's hold on power is unsteady, and his success contains the very factors that could undermine his domination.

President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica urged the Salvadoran government and leftist guerrillas Sunday to declare a Christmas cease-fire after the bloodiest month of combat in that country's decade-old civil war. Arias made the appeal in a proposal submitted at a meeting here of the five Central American presidents. He called on the two sides in El Salvador to stop fighting from Tuesday through Jan.

Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani announced Sunday night that members of the government armed forces committed the Nov. 16 slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at their Central American University residence in San Salvador. In a nationally televised address, Cristiani said a military board of inquiry has been formed to further investigate the case, which has drawn international condemnation and threats from U.S. Congress members to cut off American aid.

Hit with a firestorm of protest over delays in purging El Salvador's armed forces of their worst human rights abusers, President Alfredo Cristiani promised Monday to remove more officers from duty. Warned by both Washington and the United Nations that he must carry out a complete purge, Cristiani sent two special envoys to New York to inform top U.N. officials of his plans to fire or transfer dozens of officers.

A guerrilla policy of terrorizing mayors and other local officials, including the assassination of eight civic leaders and the forced resignation of at least 39 others, is threatening an American-sponsored program aimed at winning rural Salvadorans to the government side. The program, supported by millions of dollars in economic assistance, combines low-intensity fighting with efforts to provide government services in areas where the leftist guerrillas are most active.

The government of El Salvador and leftist guerrillas have failed to meet their deadline for completing a 10-month peace process, and top U.N. officials flew Friday to San Salvador to try to hold together the fragile peace accords. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front has begun to disarm its third group of about 1,500 guerrillas. But 40% of the rebels in the 8,000-member force still carry weapons.