The violence left unpunished

Last week saw the Fourth "Herbert Anaya" International Congress of Human Rights conducted in El Salvador. The event is named for Herbert Anaya, the head of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES) who was assassinated by a death squad in 1987 during El Salvador's civil war. Twenty years after this murder, the crime has never been investigated or prosecuted by the Salvadoran government, part of the legacy of impunity for those who committed war crimes during the civil war. In an article this week, Raul Guttierez at IPS puts this legacy in context.

At the conference, a paper from Harvard Law School released earlier this year and titled No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador was presented. The Harvard report is recommended reading. It examines not only gang violence in the country, but also the institutional structures which contribute to the level of violence in the country.

Comments

Rolando said…
Thank you for your relentless work to inform, in a manner which i feel is balanced, more and more people as to the present social and cultural climate in El Salvador. Your site has been one of my most visited in the past year. I am currently writing my Masters thesis on the representation of violence and the persistence of impunity in Salvadoran Literature of the post-conflict era. You might be interested in some of the work a colleague and I have been doing with regards to testimonials of Salvadorans who have come to Canada to speak of their particular experiences. We have recorded the Testimonials of the late Rufina Amaya and Marina Manzanares 'Mariposa', who both came to London, Ontario within the past year. You can find their testimonials at:

Rufina's testimony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6MywPoe-9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0KaAVVu2No

Marina Manzanares' testimony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm5tNVKC410
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80h0li19Y0o

Please forgive the poor quality of the second video..there might be some way to enhance it.

All the best!

Rolando
3:59 PM
Anonymous said…
Amazing stuff Rolando.
Best wishes on your work.
6:58 PM
Tim said…
Rolando,

Thanks for sharing these testimonies with us.

Tim
9:55 PM
Qiuvo said…
Tim, thank you so much for the link to the Harvard study. Your blog is consistently great.

Rolando, thanks for sharing your work as well.

All the best,

Qiuvo.com
12:49 PM
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