The Salvadoran army staff on Monday (September 21) banned a judge from accessing its archives to investigate a massacre of nearly a thousand people committed by the military in December 1981, during the civil war that ravaged the Salvador from 1980 to 1992.
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Judge Jorge Guzman had warned the Defense Ministry of his desire to seek evidence on the massacre at El Mozote (200 km east of the capital).
From December 10 to 13, 1981, soldiers of the Atlacatl battalion launched a "
scorched earth
" operation on the village of El Mozote and its surroundings.
According to the official report, 986 villagers, including 558 children, were executed because they were suspected of collaborating with the guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN, Marxist).
Judge Jorge Guzman, from San Francisco Gotera (east of the country), went to the headquarters on Monday to consult the archives, but a colonel denied him access to military installations, noted a AFP journalist.
Lawyers for civil parties also tried Monday, also in vain, and under the boos of twenty retired soldiers, to enter the headquarters of the General Staff to attend the consultation of the archives by the magistrate.
President Nayib Bukele had however announced in November 2019 the opening of the army archives "
without the need for a judicial order
" to have access to them.
"
We denounce the intransigence, the repeated refusal of the Minister of Defense (René Francis Merino) to allow access to military archives to search for evidence on the El Mozote massacre,
" David told AFP. Morales, lawyer for one of the victims' defense associations.
"
To prohibit access to the judge is an affront to justice, so that we do not know the truth about serious facts of the past
", denounced Me Wilfredo Medrano, lawyer of another association of victims.
The civil war in El Salvador has left over 75,000 dead and missing.