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IACHR rebukes lack of collaboration in the El Mozote massacre

2020-10-15T18:33:59.532Z


The IACHR condemned the refusal of the Ministry of Defense of El Salvador to collaborate in the investigation of the El Mozote massacre.


A painful memory in El Salvador: the El Mozote 2:31 massacre

(CNN) -

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemned this Wednesday the refusal of the Ministry of Defense of El Salvador to collaborate in the investigation of the El Mozote massacre, which occurred in 1981.

The San Francisco Gotera court confirmed to CNN that the Salvadoran army prevented, for the fourth time, Judge Jorge Guzmán from entering the Artillery Brigade in San Juan Opico, department of La Libertad, 42 kilometers from San Salvador.

  • Government of El Salvador does not provide information on the El Mozote massacre

The court in charge of the investigation wants to review the military files to find information that could help to clarify the massacre committed in the middle of the civil war, and for which a group of soldiers is being investigated.

In January, a retired general disassociated himself from the massacre.

Other soldiers have preferred not to give their statement, but their defenses have said that they will prove that they were not responsible for the events.

"Serious concern" in relation to the El Mozote massacre

In addition to expressing its “grave concern” over the position taken by the El Salvador Ministry of Defense, the IACHR asked the State to comply with the judicial decision and guarantee access to the military archives.

CNN asked the government of El Salvador to react to the call made by the IACHR, but there was no response.

For its part, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice rejected last Monday the request of the Ministry of Defense to suspend the scheduled inspections.

The highest court considered that there is no perjury to the armed force and that, on the contrary, the arguments "are of simple disagreement with the content of the action claimed."

  • Military in El Salvador prevent justice from accessing files from the civil war on the El Mozote massacre

The San Francisco Gotera court reported that, despite the Army's refusal, it will continue with the planning of the inspections and that this Thursday it will arrive at the General Archive of the Nation in search of evidence in the case.

What Bukele said

President Nayib Bukele has said that the judge has no jurisdiction over the armed force.

The president relied on article 168, seventh ordinal of the Constitution, which lists the powers and obligations of the president, to prevent the inspection ordered by the court from taking place.

Bukele explained on September 24 that only the Legislative Assembly can request reports, except for secret military plans.

"The institutional position is invariable for the facts that are the subject of this report and for any other future inspection," reads a letter signed by Conan Castro, Legal Secretary of the Presidency.

This document is included in the judicial file to which CNN had access.

On September 24, the Salvadoran president had promised that he would deliver, through an act to the Prosecutor's Office and the San Francisco Gotera court, five folders with the only information that his government had been able to collect on the massacre.

According to Bukele, "most files were destroyed" at some point in the last 40 years.

However, the folders have not yet been delivered according to the court, and Casa Presidencial has not informed when they would be sent.

For its part, the IACHR recalled in a statement that, after its on-site visit to El Salvador in December 2019, it recommended that the Salvadoran government rebuild the archives of the security forces that acted during the armed conflict, and that they had been destroyed.

In the El Mozote massacre, which occurred during a military operation, some 1,000 people died, mostly children, according to the Truth Commission report, prepared with the collaboration of the United Nations in 1993.

El Mozote

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-10-15

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