El Salvador Perspectives

There is possible movement towards resolution of the case of the 1981 El Mozote Massacre. A judge has ordered the case into its final phase against the military commanders who led during some of the bloodiest years of El Salvador's civil war. The El Mozote massacre took place on December 10-11, 1981. All but one of the civilians taking refuge in the small village of El Mozote and in surrounding settlements, close to 1000 children, women, and men, were brutally killed by the Salvadoran army. Most of the dead were children, women and the elderly. Of the documented victims, 553, or 57%, were under 18 years of age and 477 were 12 and under. It is a tragedy the world must never forget. The case to hold military leaders responsible for the massacre was reopened in 2016 after the country's Supreme Judicial Court set aside a 1993 amnesty law.  From 2019-2021 a court in the rural town of San Francisco Gotera received extensive exhibits, evidence and testimony including from soldier...

The arrest of a prominent anti-corruption lawyer in El Salvador is highlighting the increased willingness of Nayib Bukele's government to arrest and imprison critics of the regime’s practices. Late Sunday night authorities arrested Salvadoran lawyer Ruth López at her home.  She is the head of the Anti-corruption and Justice unit at Cristosal, the most prominent Salvadoran human rights organization.  Both López and Cristosal have been outspoken critics of the Bukele government for its human rights record and patterns of corruption. The seizure of López comes at a moment when the Bukele regime is taking increasingly hard-line measures against its critics. Other activists and human rights defenders have also been imprisoned this year when they have been defending populations impacted by Salvadoran government policies.  López's is the highest profile arrest yet.  It illustrates that Bukele now feels he can take such actions with impunity. The arrest occurred in ...

Alejandro Muyshondt Days after publicly denouncing a Nuevas Ideas legislator for corruption, Nayib Bukele's national security advisor, Alejandro Muyshondt, was arrested in August 2023 and accused of being a spy for former president in exile Mauricio Funes. Muyshondt disappeared into the incarceration system of the State of Exception, and six months later he was dead. His case is one that leaves more questions than answers, and the government of Bukele is remaining silent on the matter. Alejandro Muyshondt served as a national security advisor to Bukele starting at the beginning of Bukele's presidency in June 2019. Muyshondt had previously served as an advisor to Bukele from 2017 to 2019 while Bukele was mayor of San Salvador, and they were reportedly childhood friends. According to Muyshondt's  curriculum vitae on the Transparency Portal of the Salvadoran government, he graduated from the University of Angers in France with a degree in criminology in 2003, and in 2008 foun...

March 24, is the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Saint Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador.  I am republishing here a post which first appeared on the 40th anniversary in 2020. Carlos Dada , founder of the online periodical El Faro, has been researching and reporting on the Romero murder for years.   His most recent piece, titled  A 5-Millimeter Hole appeared in the English version of El Faro and is taken from a book he is working on.  Dada describes in detail Romero's actions in the final few days of his life, beginning with the planning for the fateful final sermon which Romero would preach on Sunday, March 23 to the time when an assassin's single bullet would end the life of the voice for the voiceless. Dada describes the fateful moment: Romero read from the Gospel of John: “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” It was a short mass and the homily...

Where does the war crimes trial for the 1981 massacre of children and others in El Mozote and surrounding communities stand at the beginning of 2023? It has been more than 41 years since the massacre -- is justice for approximately 1000 victims and their families any closer?  Over the five years after the El Mozote massacre case was reopened in 2016, Judge Jorge Guzman heard not only from the the humble campesinos who are witnesses and victims in his courtroom in San Francisco Gotera, but also from witnesses from the Salvadoran military and from experts who drew the lines of responsibility to the colonels and generals who gave the command for the massacre. Defense lawyers are no longer arguing about the fact that a massacre occurred.  Now, the defense argues to eliminate individual responsibility of particular military officers, but the fundamental fact is now acknowledged that the Salvadoran armed forces committed this atrocity. A hard blow against the process for justice t...

Forty years have passed since their crimes were committed.   But in the past week, former military figures from El Salvador's civil war have been arrested for their roles in the cold-blooded killing of four Dutch journalists covering that war.   In early 1982, El Salvador was a dangerous place for journalists covering the civil war between FMLN guerrillas and the country's armed forces.   Despite the danger, Dutch journalists, Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemse and Hans ter Laag, ventured out to the Department of Chalatenango to get an interview with guerrilla fighters.   The Salvadoran army ambushed their group and killed all the journalists.  The ambush was one of the war crimes documented in the 1993 UN Truth Commission Report following the conclusion of El Salvador's civil war: On the afternoon of 17 March 1982, four Dutch journalists accompanied by five or six members of FMLN, some of them armed, were ambushed by a patrol of the Ato...

The history of El Salvador's military during the 20th century was filled with violations of democratic rule and basic human rights.   Decades of military dictatorship began in 1932 with General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez , who ordered " La Matanza ", the massacre of 10,000-20,000 mostly indigenous campesinos after a peasant-led uprising.   There would follow 47 years of governments imposed by the military and sham elections. During El Salvador's civil war from 1980-1992, the military would be responsible for massacres killing tens of thousands of civilians. The largest single massacre in Latin American history, the the massacre at El Mozote and surrounding communities, left a thousand dead, including more than 400 under the age of 12.   In 1989, a military squad would invade the campus of the University of Central America and kill 6 Jesuit priests, a female employee and her daughter.   At memorial wall to civilian victims of civil war Thr...

Fourth in a series The story of the quest for justice for the victims of the massacre at El Mozote is a story of repeated obstacles placed by El Salvador's political and judicial systems. 40 years later, this crime against humanity remains unjudged and unpunished through the Salvadoran courts.  Today we look at the efforts of human rights advocates for the victims who have refused to give up.   December 10-13, 1981.   Troops of the Salvadoran armed forces massacre 988 children and others in El Mozote and the surrounding communities. October 26th, 1990 .  Pedro Chicas Rivera, survivor of the massacre in La Joya, a village near El Mozote, presented the first criminal complaint for the massacres in La Joya, El Mozote, and the surrounding communities before the court in San Francisco Gotera with the assistance of Tutela Legal, which was the human rights legal office of the Archdiocese of San Salvador. The case, started while the civil war was still taking place...