An estimated 75 000 people died in the armed conflict in El Salvador between 1980 and 1992, which led to gross and extensive human rights violations.
Between 11 and 13 December 1981, at least 767 men, women and children were massacred by the Salvadoran armed forces in El Mozote and nearby villages. Even by the standards of what was happening bin the country at the time, this massacre is one of the worst atrocities of the bloody civil war. The youngest victim was a three-months-old girl¸the oldest a 105-year-old man.
Women and girls were subjected to sexual violence before they were killed. Men were interrogated, tortured and executed. Some of the children were stabbed or clubbed to death. The villages were demolished. The survivors and relatives of those killed stil do not know the truth about what happened to their loved ones or where they are buried.
The report of the UN Truth Commission for El Salvador, released in 1993, named many of those responsible for the massacre. However, impunity for those crimes against humanity persists in great part due to El Salvador’s General Amnesty Law. This law came into force only one week after the UN report was released and remains in place to this day despite public commitments from the government to take steps to repeal it.
At the beginning of December 2011, for the first time, the Salvadoran Government finally recognized the state’s responsibility for the El Mozote massacre and apologized for what it described as “the blindness of state violence”.
Following the recent reports on the massacre by the UN Committee Against Torture and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, international pressure on El Salvador on the thirtieth anniversary of the El Mozote killings could contribute to the fight for justice on this case.
Translation of the letter
Dear President
I was informed by the human rights organization ACAT (Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture) in Luxembourg of the thirtieth anniversary, last December, of the EL MOZOTE massacre, in which at least 767 men, women and children were extra judicially executed, in December 1981.
Many of the victims were tortured, including being subjected to sexual violence, before they died. Because of the alarming number of children among them, the El Mozote massacre constitutes one of the most abhorrent crimes committed by the Salvadoran military in the armed conflict which raged in your country from 1980 to 1992.
The suffering caused to the survivors and relatives of those killed has been called torture by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Committee against Torture. Although a UN report released in 1993 named many of those responsible for the massacre, impunity for these crimes persists in part due to the General Amnesty Law, which denies justice to victims and their families, and shields the perpetrators from being punished. This law came into force only one week after the UN report was released.
I therefore call on the authorities of your country to guarantee redress at last for the relatives of those massacred in El Mozote and nearby villages, through access to justice, truth and reparations. To that effect, the Salvadoran State must take all necessary steps and look to the example of the other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Uruguay, which have repealed their amnesty laws, in order to hold to account those who perpetrated these horrific crimes.
I also urge your government to comply with all the recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in December 2010 and by the UN as part of the Universal Periodic Review of El Salvador in February 2010.
I thank you for your attention to my appeal. Yours sincerely and respectfully.
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