El Salvador Perspectives

Since the nullifcation of the 1993 Amnesty Law in July, El Salvador's attorney general has been noticeably quiet concerning any cases he might actually bring involving crimes and atrocities during the war.     Although the El Mozote massacre case is moving forward, it is the lawyers for the victims and the court who have reopened and moved that case forward and not any actions by the FGR. This week, attorney general Douglas Meléndez announced that his office is reopening a case from the civil war.   This first case involves the 1987 assassination of human rights advocate Herbert Anaya Sanabria.   Although a trial convicted an ERP guerrilla member for the murder, most believe that the assassination in the city of Mejicanos was carried out by government forces.   The man convicted was subsequently freed after the Amnesty Law was passed. According to an  Amnesty International Report  in 1988: His killing, carried out by men in plain clothes usin...

Monument to civilian victims of El Salvador's civil war During this week, El Salvador asked itself the question -- how does a country engage in post-conflict transitional justice, twenty-five years after the conflict ended with a peace agreement?   The answer from politicians seems to be -- we don't know and we don't really want to think about it. One year ago, the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Judicial Court (the "Sala") nullified the 1993 Amnesty Law.    That law had been quickly passed after a UN Truth Commission Report extensively reported on crimes against humanity committed during the war, and named the persons responsible.   The Amnesty Law meant 23 years with the doors of justice closed to the victims of those atrocities. Then last year, the Amnesty Law went away, and the doors to justice were no longer locked.    But would anyone now open those doors to the victims?   In particular, would state prosecutors from the...