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Introduction

The dead are more unmanageable every day.Before it was easy with them:

we gave flowers to the uptight ones

we gave the relatives the names on one long list:

to these we gave national borders

to those we gave remarkable peace

that one we gave a monstrous marble tombThen we saluted the memory of the corpses

and went to their cemetery rows

marching to the compass of old music.But where the dead go is different now.

Today they ask ironic questions.And it seems to me that they fall more and more

on account of being

more and more the majority.

-Roque Dalton

Nineteen years ago a U.N. brokered peace agreement was signed to end the twelve year civil

war in El Salvador that left an estimated 75,000 civilians dead. As part of the agreement, the

U.N. initiated a truth commission with the mandate that "The Commission shall have the task

of investigating serious acts of violence that have occurred since 1980 and whose impact on

society urgently demands that the public should know the truth". The report issued by the

commission states that

Article 5 of the Chapultepec Peace Agreement gives the Commission the task ofclarifying and putting an end to any indication of impunity on the part of officers

of the armed forces and gives this explanation: "acts of this nature, regardless of

the sector to which their perpetrators belong, must be the object of exemplary

action by the law courts so that the punishment prescribed by law is meted out tothose found responsible. (U.N. 1993.)

Soon after the peace agreement was signed a general amnesty law was put in place. There

was no change in the ruling party, and the goal of those in power was to eliminate, erase,

and forget the past. (Popkin 2004, 115)


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Today there are signs of re-emerging death squad activity, disappearances, and a murder rate

that is one of the highest in the world. Organized crime and gang violence continue to grow,

and investigations continue regarding corruption, drug trafficking, and ties to gang and

organized crime leaders within the police forces. Government officials claim that the

amnesty law has served its purpose and helped heal the wounds, with the goal still being to

forgive and forget the past, that repeal would simply open old wounds. Survivors of the

victims and human rights activists dispute the notion that wounds have been healed, and call

for the repeal of the law they believe has led to continued impunity for past wrongs. An

official apology was finally issued in 2010, when for the first time since the peace accord the

ARENA party no longer held the executive offices. Neo-liberal economic policies first set in

motion in the early nineteen eighties and post-war structural adjustment policies have served

to solidify and intensify the economic stratification of the Salvadoran society. I intend to

explore the measures taken post conflict, their effectiveness (or lack of), the obstacles to

reconciliation and what possible measures could be taken towards achieving justice. Also, is

legal justice even possible when the judicial system is complicit in maintaining the culture of

impunity those in power are highly motivated to keep in place, having been party to the

human rights abuses of the past.

Background History

The history of El Salvadoran society has long been one of socioeconomic stratification

maintained by repressive oligarchic regimes and challenged by popular social movements.

The privatization of communal agricultural lands in the 1800's led to the consolidation of


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property and wealth into the hands of a small number of families, giving rise to a coffee

oligarchy. In response to an uprising in the early 1930's the military took direct control of

the government, crushing the revolt with the massacre of some thirty thousand peasants and

consolidating an authoritarian military polity that would remain in power for the next fifty

years. (Carrillo 2010)

The 1970's saw an increase in both mobilization of popular dissent and violent repressive

measures by the governing forces. Massive human rights abuses and civil unrest led to a

coup de tat by reformist officers in 1979, instituting a joint military, civilian junta. Among

the stated goals of the junta were the intent to put an end to corruption and violence by the

state, promote social and economic equity and guarantee political and human rights, as well

as a transition to civilian rule. Modest land reform programs were implemented and the

banking system and foreign trade in coffee and sugar exports were nationalized. A new

supreme court and attorney general were appointed, and a special commission was formed to

investigate past human rights violations and locate victims of political violence who had

disappeared under the former regime. The commission was comprised of Salvadorans,

including the newly appointed attorney general, a member of the new Supreme Court, and

the president of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission. No living prisoners were

located, but sixty seven bodies were found. The commission received no cooperation from

security forces during their investigations or in the implementation of their final report and

recommendations, and dissolved itself after issuing their report. (Popkin 2000)

Although the paramilitary organization ORDEN was officially dissolved on paper, there was

no concrete action taken to disarm or disband its working network, and the instances of

disappearances and killings increased following the coup with more than 14,000 deaths


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attributed to state terror in 1980 alone. Hard-line officers took control and newly appointed

cabinet and justice members resigned in the face of the continued culture of impunity and

campaign of military terror. In the following year a coalition of guerilla forces, united under

the banner of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), launched an offensive

marking the start of a twelve year civil war that left an estimated seventy-five thousand

civilians dead. (Carrillo 2010; Popkin 2000; Popkin 2004)

The civil war was marked by a state campaign of repression, torture, assassinations, forced

disappearances, and mass displacement, carried out with impunity by the military and

paramilitary forces. The counterinsurgency was one of the Central American battlefields in

the United States' proxy war against the Soviet Union, with Presidents Carter, Reagan, and

Bush Sr. providing substantial military aid to the Salvadoran forces. Gross human rights

violations were generally discounted or minimized by U.S. officials, the exceptions being

cases in which U.S. citizens were the victims. Investigations of politically motivated killings

were rarely carried out by the Salvadoran government, and then only under external pressure.

Popkin (2000) states that the only cases investigated and prosecuted during the 1980's

involved the deaths of U.S. citizens, and even in those cases only low level operatives were

tried, leaving those responsible for ordering the murders untouched. The lack of judicial

independence and impunity for the authors of gross human rights violations persisted, and a

series of attempts by U.S. agencies to enact technical reforms were not only ineffectual but

seen by Salvadorans as another counterinsurgency tool. A 1991 USAID study concluded that

"It is military aid, rather than any deficiencies in AID's AOJ program that ensures the futility

of any program to democratize the judicial system." (Popkin 2000, p70)


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Transition From War

While resistant to the notion of a negotiated ceasefire, internal factors and international

pressure brought the government of El Salvador and the FMLN to begin a series of

negotiations to bring an end to the war. The FMLN enjoyed widespread popular support, and

the government forces were dependent on U.S. military aid. Following an offensive in

November 1989 during which FMLN forces were able to take and hold position in the capital

of San Salvador for a week, it became clear the warring factions had fought to a stalemate.

Two days into the battle, members of the U.S. trained Atlacatl Battalion murdered six Jesuit

priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, prompting international outrage. With the slow

dissolution of the Soviet Union and winding down of the Cold War, the U.S. conditioned

further military aid on cooperation. With participation of the United Nations and the

Organization of American States, a series of meetings culminated in the signing of the

Chapultepec Peace Accords January 16, 1992. (Baloyra 1992; Sieder 2003) The stated

purpose of the accords was "to end the armed conflict by political means as speedily as

possible, promote the democratization of the country, guarantee unrestricted respect for

human rights and reunify Salvadorian society" (U.N 1992.)

Chapultepec Peace Accords

The negotiated peace not only provided for a ceasefire, but also a series of reforms and

mechanisms designed to transition from the authoritarian military/civilian government

structure to a democratized society. A brief overview of the agreements is provided here,

while the implementation will be addressed in following sections.


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Military and Security Forces Reform

The accords called for doctrinal changes in the armed forces, including respect for the

constitution, rule of law, human rights and dignity, as well as subordinating the armed forces

to civil authority in service to the nation as a professional, apolitical and non-deliberative

body. The military was to be removed from civil policing functions, restructured and

downsized. In order to purify the ranks, an Ad Hoc Committee was established to carry out

lustration procedures, and a Commission on the Truth was given the task of addressing issues

of impunity. Both the National Guard and Treasury Police were to be disbanded, and those

members not purged by the Ad Hoc Committee's findings were to be incorporated into the

armed forces. Paramilitary forces were proscribed, and regulations required for private

security forces. Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalions were to be disbanded, and the

National Intelligence Department abolished and replaced by the State Intelligence Agency

under the direct authority of the President rather than the military. Those soldiers who were

discharged due to reorganization of the armed forces were to be given one year's pay as well

as assistance in transitioning to employment in the civilian sector. (U.N 1992, Chapter 1)

A National Civil Police department was established, with the promise of "a new force with a

new organization, new officers, new education and training mechanisms and a new doctrine",

emphasizing professionalism and independence from partisan control, and respect for

democratic principles, rights and freedoms. This body would be responsible for civil

policing and have national jurisdiction. (U.N. 1992)

Judicial Reform

Although the judiciary in El Salvador was culpable in creating and maintaining the culture of

impunity, the section on judicial reform is given little weight. A National Council of the


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Judiciary was to be established, free from party control and independent from the executive

and legislative bodies, a Judicial Training school was called for, as well as the establishment

of a National Counsel for the Defense of Human Rights. (Chapter 2) During the negotiating

process, FMLN had pushed for a complete replacement of the Supreme Court, prior to the

expiration of their current terms, but given the nature of the ceasefire, which left the current

regime in power, strong ties between ARENA assembly members and Supreme Court

President Gutierrez Castro made that impossible. (Popkin 2000 p104)

Economic and Social Questions

The FMLN was to be demobilized as an armed force, and fully integrated into civil society.

They were not banned from serving on the new Civil Police Force, if all training

requirements were met, and were to be included in the planned job development programs.

The economic restructuring was to take place in the context of the ongoing neoliberal

programs initiated by ARENA and the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social

Development in 1983, with strong backing from U.S. President Reagan. These programs

followed the International Monetary Fund and World Bank philosophies of structural

readjustment, privatization, de-regulation, and loosening of trade restrictions, philosophies,

as noted in the Peace Accords, not shared by the FMLN, but also not up for negotiation.

(U.N. 1992; Carrillo 2010)

In recognition of the "need to provide certain basic guidelines so as to ensure the requisite

social stability during the transitional period, consolidate peace and make progress towards

the reunification of Salvadorian society" (U.N. Security Council 1992), some land reform

programs, including the distribution of land to former combatants, including both military

and FMLN fighters.


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FMLN Political Participation

The FMLN was granted status as a legal political party, with rights to operate within the

electoral structure, and former combatants were to be fully integrated into political, civil and

institutional sectors of society. Political prisoners were freed, and security guarantees made

for exiles and wounded soldiers returning to the country. (U.N. 1992) The latter provisions

led to the approval of the National Reconciliation Law, Legislative Decree No. 147 of

January 23, the first of the post-war amnesties. While the ruling ARENA party preferred a

total amnesty, claiming that any attempts to prosecute war time atrocities would destabilize

the peace process, and what was needed for reconciliation was a policy or forgive and forget,

opposition argued that amnesty not be granted for certain crimes. A compromise was

reached, exempting those found responsible for grave acts of violence by the Truth

Commission. The effects of this act will be addressed below.

Ad Hoc Committee

The Ad Hoc Committee was charged with purifying the military of human rights violators,

with a focus on the senior officer ranks. The Secretary General of the United Nations

selected three members from Salvadoran civil society of "recognized independence of

judgment and unimpeachable democratic credentials" (un p5) to conduct the investigatory

and decision making tasks and two military observer members were appointed by the

President. The Ministry of Defense and other public entities were instructed to supply any

information requested, including officer service records. It was believed that a panel drawn

from Salvadoran society would be better accepted by the military, and the inclusion of the

military observers was meant to quell fears that civilians would not understand military

necessity or actions and were not qualified to judge professional qualifications. While not


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permitted to participate in the investigatory or deliberative functions, the observers were

given access to reports and permitted to provide explanations. (Popkin 2000)

Judgments were based on the officer's professional competence, past conduct, and capacity to

operate in the new peace time context and while consensus was preferred for decisions, a

majority vote was acceptable in its absence. The committee was given a time frame of three

months to complete the investigatory stage, one month for the decision process, and sixty

days for implementation. (U.N. 1993) Unlike the Commission on the Truth, the findings of

the Ad Hoc Committee were secret and no public report was issued, but at the conclusion, the

committee recommended that over one hundred officers be discharged. There was

considerable resistance by the military, and those were eventually discharged faced no

further sanction, many were retired with full honors. (Hayner 2011) Not surprisingly,

following submission of the report, each committee member received death threats, and two

were forced to leave the country for their own safety. (2011 215) Hayner credits the

publishing of the Commission on the Truth's report, its decision to name perpetrators, along

with international pressure, for forcing eventual compliance.

Commission on the Truth

The stated goal of the Commission on the Truth was to "clarify and put an end to any

indication of impunity on the part of officers of the armed forces" (U.N. 1993). The

mandate, negotiated prior to the signing of the Peace Accords, was given only one paragraph

in the Chapultepec document, appearing under the heading END TO IMPUNITY, with

further details found in the final report of the Commission. Despite later claims that the

Commission had ended the need for further discussion or prosecution of human rights


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violations, the wording found in the Peace Accords clearly did not preclude legal action.

Rather, it claims the Parties recognized that such violations "regardless of the sector to which

their perpetrators belong, must be the object of exemplary action by the law courts so that the

punishment prescribed by law is meted out to those found responsible" (U.N 1993)

Mandate

The Commission was tasked with investigating serious acts of violence committed during the

time period from 1980 to the signing of the Accords, and was to make recommendations for

legal, administrative or political remedies based on the findings. Cases could involve one

victim or many; the criteria were not based on the size of the offense, but the severity of the

crime and its impact on the victim and greater Salvadoran society. Both parties agreed to the

binding nature of the recommendations, and pledged, on paper at least, to carry them out.

Although during negotiations, the parties considered drawing up a list of cases to be

investigated, in the end it was left to the Commission which incidents to study, with the

number of cases considered being limited only by the given time constraints of a six month

investigatory period. Given the challenge of properly investigating twelve years of atrocities

and human rights violations within a half year time period, with the purposes of creating

confidence in the changes promised by the peace process, ending impunity and assisting in

national reconciliation, the Commission chose to focus on representative cases. Violations

committed by both parties to the conflict were considered, limited to either individual acts so

heinous that they caused international and domestic outrage, or those that pointed to

systematic patterns of violence designed to intimidate sectors of the larger society. (U.N.

Security Council 1993, Chapter II)


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Composition

Unlike the Ad Hoc Commission, the Commission on the Truth was composed and staffed

entirely by non-Salvadorans. It was created, administered, and funded by the United

Nations, composed of three commissioners appointed by the Secretary General, in agreement

with the signatories of the Peace Accords, and a small support staff of around fifty. Those

chosen were internationally respected figures drawn from regional states, including a former

president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a former president of Columbia, and

a former Venezuelan minister of foreign relations. Some reasons for excluding Salvadoran

nationals included the hope that foreign actors would be seen as impartial in their conclusions

and more trusted by those who gave testimony. There was also the real fear that, given the

continued power position of the ARENA government and their security forces, a domestic

staff would have been more prone to intimidation, a fear borne out by the experience of the

Ad Hoc Committee cited above. (Hayner 2011; Popkin 2004) In their initial statement to the

press, the newly formed Commission let it be known that "they would not let themselves be

pressured or impressed: they were after the objective truth and the hard facts." (U.N.

1993,12) Concerns of perceived bias also led the Commission to avoid working with human

rights organizations with experience in El Salvador, a policy that may have helped mitigate

charges of partiality, but also deprived the investigators of insight into the country and its

politics. (Hayner 2011, 214)

Methodology

While the commission had no Salvadoran members, it was not physically removed from the

country, with offices established in several departments. The invitation to testify was


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extended to the entire society, and public announcements were made thru the papers, radio

and television, asking those with information on past atrocities and abuses to offer testimony,

and giving assurances of discretion and confidentiality. In addition to having offices,

Commissioners also traveled throughout the country to take testimony and to travel to sites

revealed during their investigations. As investigations progressed, they sent summons to

those who, based on information received, were thought to have been involved in or have

further information on the case at hand. Testimony could be given at offices, on site, or in

secret locations, often outside the country when the safety of witnesses was at risk.

While results and conclusions were made public, the sources of the information gathered

were not, in keeping with the guarantee of discretion and confidentiality; the commission had

an " "open-door" policy for hearing testimony and a "closed-door" policy for preserving

confidentiality." (U.N 1993, 13) Care was taken to substantiate testimony received; the

commission checked information against multiple trusted sources, attempted to verify

incidents using official documents when possible, and traveled with a professional team to

investigate reported crimes on site. The Commission listed three degrees of certainty for

their findings, which were

1. Overwhelming evidence - conclusive or highly convincing evidence to

support the Commission's finding;

2. Substantial evidence - very solid evidence to support the Commission'sfinding;

3. Sufficient evidence - more evidence to support the Commission's findingthan to contradict it.

The Commission decided not to arrive at any specific finding on cases or

situations, or any aspect thereof, in which there was less than "sufficient"evidence to support such a finding. (U.N. 1993, 17)


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Although the Peace Accords mandated that they be given access to any and all records they

requested, there was a marked lack of cooperation and intentional cover up on the part of the

military officials. The final report decries the government's concealment and destruction of

records, and the refusal to provide information regarding burial sites and secret prisons.

(U.N. 1993)

By virtue of the depth of United States involvement in training and supporting the

Salvadoran military forces culpable in human rights violations, U.S. officials were an

important source of documentation used by the Commission for verification. Declassified

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents were made available to the Commission by

President H. W. Bush, providing confirmation of senior Salvadoran officers' involvement in

gross violations of human rights. (Sieder 2003, 171) During his presidency, Jimmy Carter

mandated annual country-by-country human rights reports by the U.S. Department of State,

which provided an extensive catalogue of human rights abuses by the Salvadoran military.

Daily dispatches were sent from diplomatic offices reporting on conditions, and as part of

their intimate involvement with the Salvadoran military, U.S. military and intelligence

agencies maintained records as well. (Hayner 2011, Chapter 15) The Atlacatl Battalion is

illustrative of the intertwined nature of U.S.-Salvadoran relations. Created and trained at the

U.S. School of the America's at Fort Benning, the battalion was responsible for numerous

atrocities, including the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, and

the El Mozote massacre, documented in the final report of the Commission as follows:

On the afternoon of 10 December 1981, units of the Atlacatl Rapid Deployment

Infantry Battalion (BIRI) arrived in the village of El Mozote, Department ofMorazn, after a clash with guerrillas in the vicinity.....During the morning, they

proceeded to interrogate, torture and execute the men in various locations


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.

Around noon, they began taking out the women in groups, separating them fromtheir children and machine gunning them. Finally, they killed the children. A

group of children who had been locked in the convent were machinegunned

through the windows. After exterminating the entire population, the soldiers set

fire to the buildings.

The soldiers remained in El Mozote that might. The next day, they went through

the village of Los Toriles, situated 2 kilometres away. Some of the inhabitantsmanaged to escape. The others, men, women and children, were taken from their

homes, lined up and machine-gunned.

The victims at El Mozote were left unburied. During the weeks that followed the

bodies were seen by many people who passed by there. In Los Toriles, the

survivors subsequently buried the bodies. (U.N. 1993, 105-107)

Naming Names

Given the mandate to investigate "serious acts of violence ... whose impact on society

urgently demands that the public should know the truth". (U.N. 1993, 4 ), the Commission

felt it was necessary to name perpetrators, not simply their crimes, otherwise they would be

helping to maintain the impunity they were charged with ending. The members agreed that

"unless both Parties decided to amend our mandate, we were legally and morally obligated to

identify those we found to be guilty of the serious abuses we had been investigating."

(Popkin 2003, 117) Given the lack of an independent judiciary and the continuing power of

those culpable for the majority of abuses, there was little hope that justice would be achieved

in the courts. Therefore, verification was critical to the process, to prevent false accusations

and lend credibility to the findings and recommendations. The FMLN was in favor of full

disclosure; the Cristiani government was opposed and pressured the commission to keep

perpetrators from being publically identified. Had the commission been domestic rather than

a project of the United Nations there may well have been a more limited reporting. (Sieder


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2003) Overall, testimony was taken from over 2,000 primary sources concerning over 7,000

victims, and secondary source testimony concerning over 20,000 victims. (U.N. 1993).

Thirty-two cases were documented in the final report "From Madness to Hope: the 12-year

war in El Salvador: Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador." Deliberations

were based on tenets of international law, given the historical lack of an independent,

impartial and effective judicial system in Salvadoran society to draw from.

Recommendations

The Commission issued its final report March 15, 1993. When signing the peace accords,

both parties agreed that the recommendations of Commission on the Truth would be binding

and carried out once issued, and the U.N. treated implementation of the recommendations as

part of the implementation of the accords. (Popkin 2000, 125)

Lustration

The report concluded the following steps should be taken. Those in the armed forces

implicated in committing, engaging in a cover up, or interfering in the investigation of

serious acts of violence should be dismissed, along with any civil servants who had been

found to assist in the same. It was recommended that those who named in serious acts of

violence, whether previously retired or discharged as a result of the findings, should be

barred from public office for ten years, with a lifetime ban on employment involving military

or security operations. (U.N. 1993)

Judicial Reform

While the commission favored appropriate legal action against those who committed serious

crimes, the question was not whether those guilty of serious crimes should be punished, but


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whether given the current political and judicial state of affairs it was even possible to do so.

(U.N. 1993) Reforms aimed at ending the culture of impunity were among the

recommendations. The question of retiring the sitting Supreme Court before expiration of

their term was raised once again, with the recommendation being immediate replacement of

the sitting Court. The reasoning was twofold; the Supreme Court President Gutierrez Castro

had been castigated in the report for his unprofessional conduct and "inappropriate and

negative" interference in the case of the El Mozote massacre (Popkin 2000), and much

needed recent judicial reforms could not be implemented until the new court was seated.

Reforms regarding the appointment and dismissal of judges were recommended also,

including removing the Supreme Court's power of dismissal of lower court judges and

putting it in the hands of the legislature. (U.N. 1993)

Institutional Reforms

The Commission also recommended institutional reforms designed to prevent the recurrence

of past violations, urging the enactment of reforms in the armed forces and security

structures, disbanding and barring of paramilitary forces, and regulation of private security.

Justice sector reform measures included invalidating the use of extrajudicial confessions,

affirming the presumption of innocence of those arrested, discontinuing the practice of

indeterminate detention and enacting punishment for violators, and allowing for arrestees to

have access to a defense at the start of their detention. (U.N. 1993)

Reconciliation

Citing the need for restorative, as well as retributive justice, the commission recommended

vehicles for material and moral compensation for victims. They called for a special fund to


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be created to provide monetary compensation for victims of both the government and FLMN

forces. Given the financial situation at the time, they called for substantial international

contributions to the fund, "especially the wealthier countries and those who showed most

interest in the conflict and its settlement" (U.N. 1993, 176) Moral compensation was

recommended in the form of a national monument in El Salvador listing the names of all

victims, a national holiday to memorialize the victims and aid in national reconciliation, as

well as restoration of the victims reputations and status, recognition of the serious crimes

committed against them.

As there was no real ownership of the process for Salvadorans, the commission suggested a

Forum for Truth and Reconciliation, to study, analyze and monitor compliance with the

recommendations. Also suggested was a repository in the United States for the materials,

compiled during the investigatory stage of the commission's work, to be made available, with

care taken to maintain confidentiality, for the purposes of research and possible future

prosecutions. This never materialized and the work product of the commission remains

inaccessible.

Reactions

Five days after the final report was released, the legislature passed a second, more sweeping

amnesty law, proscribing civil action as well as criminal. Although the issuance of the report

did re-enforce the rulings of the Ad Hoc commission, leading to the eventual removal of

those slated for dismissal for violations, the amnesty precluded any further attempts at ending

impunity. Those dismissed as a result of the lustration process were often retired with

honors, and some named by the commission remained in positions of power. Rodolfo

Parker, a lawyer found to have aided in the cover-up following the murder of the Jesuit


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priests in 1989, was later appointed to represent the Salvadoran government in the National

Commission for the Consolidation of the Peace, then later, along with General Ponce,

complicit in the murders, to the Foundation for Development in Justice and Peace. (Popkin

200, 127).

The defense minister, one of those named by the commission as being involved in the

conspiracy that led to the murder of the Jesuit priests, denounced the report as "unfair,

incomplete, illegal, unethical, biased and insolent". (Popkin 2000, Hayner 2011) President

Cristiani stated that the report did not meet the need of the Salvadoran society to forgive,

forget, and erase the past, and that he would only feel compelled to implement those

recommendations he felt would promote those needs. Supreme Court President Castro

dismissed the peace accords as executive negotiations, that had no bearing on the Supreme

Court, and that the findings of the truth commission were irrelevant. With so many seats of

power occupied by those named in the commission's report, the dismissal and condemnation

of the findings was not a surprise.

The report was not embraced by the government of El Salvador, and though available was

not widely disseminated to the public. The international nature of the panel allowed for

greater freedom from intimidation, and allowed for citizens giving testimony to trust the

promises of confidentiality and impartiality, but also diminished the sense of ownership of

the proceedings by the Salvadoran society. The decision to distance itself from non-

governmental human rights organizations working in El Salvador may have lessened the

appearance of bias, but also left no domestic civil organizations behind with an investment in


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promoting the report and its recommendations. In the end, those in power were not inclined

to accept recommendations that challenged their personal and partisan privilege and

impunity, regardless of the make-up of the commission. In time many of the reforms were

enacted, but no one was ever charged or tried for any of the serious crimes against humanity

committed during the war, and documented by the Commission on the Truth.

It is questionable that a domestic panel would have been possible in the given situation, let

alone yielded better results. The commission was empaneled during the cease fire while

FMLN fighters were still in de-mobilization camps, the ARENA party, whose founder

Roberto D'Aubuissson was behind the murder of Oscar Romero and other death squad

activity, still in power, and the mechanisms of torture, death and impunity still in place. The

planned transition was simply from a state of war to the absence of war, not one in which

there was a clear, clean break from a discredited and disgraced past political regime. In such

circumstances there was little hope for any form of justice to emerge. With the continuity of

power resting with those who equated national reconciliation with impunity, there was little

chance of any healing. Those in power expected forgiveness in the absence of any admission

of wrong, let along apology, and demanded that the population simply forget the atrocities

committed against them. (Popkin 2000, 2004; Sieder 2003)

Conclusions

Brahm (2007) outlines different modes of measuring the success of truth commissions, with

the most basic being the utilitarian question: did the commission fulfill its mandate of


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investigating, documenting, and reporting its findings for public consumption. Using this

measure, the Salvadoran commission can be deemed a qualified success, as the report

received little distribution within El Salvador. Technically, the commission's work was

impressive, operating in a hostile environment with few historical examples to draw from.

The commission also pioneered a more efficient and thorough model of record keeping and

database maintenance (Hayner 2011) used by subsequent truth commissions. But judging the

success based on the political and social effectiveness, the Salvadoran commission falls short

of the lofty goals attributed to the practice. There seems to have been little impact on the

society in general, and the healing aspect in regards to victims is questionable. It had little or

no effect on the culture of violence and impunity that still exist in Salvadoran society today,

which has one of the highest murder rates in the region, and people live in an atmosphere of

distrust, disconnection and fragmented community. (Moodie 2010) These shortcomings may

not be the sign of a failed truth commission however, but a function of reality clashing with

the purported efficacy of the method itself.

In the case of El Salvador, it seems that the justice component of the transitional justice

model is absent, even when confining the definition of justice to the realm of criminal

accountability, as found in transition justice literature. When incorporating theories of social

and economic justice, the failure is even more apparent. Following the war, the economic

inequalities that were a major impetus for the war have been magnified, as well as the level

of social stratification and fragmentation. Absent the political will to end the culture of

impunity, there was little chance for the commission to fulfill its mandate. Forgiveness of

those who continue to defend their criminal actions as necessary and correct is close to


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impossible, and certainly not healing. Rather than a sense of healing, what has emerged in

post-war El Salvador is a sense that things are worse than during the war. Violence now is

seen as criminal, faceless and pointless. The death rate from murder rivals that of war time

violence, but now people are killed for no reason, with no centralized power to confront. The

promise of social and economic equality which many gave their lives for during the war was

replace with the lack of hope, as the expected benefits of a peace never materialized. People

have a sense of unknowing, and the sense of community and purpose felt during the war have

been replaced by distrust and fragmentation. (Moodie 2011, Peterson 2008, Silber 2011)

The violence has led to a series of laws instituting emergency powers, suspending or

reversing many of the reforms enacted as part of the peace accords, returning to more

authoritarian modes of justice. As the gross domestic product almost doubled, the percentage

of the population living in poverty has also risen. High violence and low income has brought

disillusionment, as the hope of democracy and economic equality has been replaced with the

reality of democratization and neoliberal free markets. It remains to be seen what will

transpire with the election of the first FMLN president in terms of social and economic

justice. The question posed by Arundhati Roy is applicable: "What happens now that

democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism" (Moodie 2011,

140)

The problems faced by El Salvador today were not caused by a failed transitional justice

model, but by the lack of any real transition and the denial of justice by political actors. Even

with the benefit of U.N. funding and follow-up support, the short-term mechanisms of


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transitional justice were incapable of effecting healing or mitigating the effects of free-

market development With the passage of time and shifting political power dynamics, the

search for accountability may lie in post-transitional justice attempts. The electoral transfer

of power from the ARENA party to the first FMLN president has brought about a small step

in that direction. In January of 2010, President Funes issued a long due apology and official

acknowledgment that the government had committed crimes and abuses during the civil war

and in March of the same year addressed the murder of Oscar Romero.

"I am seeking pardon in the name of the state," Mr Funes said as he unveiled a

mural honouring Oscar Romero at El Salvador's international airport. The

archbishop, he said, was a victim of right-wing death squads "who unfortunatelyacted with the protection, collaboration or participation of state agents". (BBC,

March 25, 2010)


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Bibliography

Popkin, Margaret 2000. Peace Without Justice: Obstacles to Building the Rule of Law in El

Salvador. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Hayner, Priscilla B. 2011. Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge ofTruth Commissions. New York: Routledge.

Collins, Cath 2010. Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El

Salvador. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Moodie, Ellen 2010. El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace. Pennsylvania: University of

Pennsylvania Press.

Silber, Irina Carlota 2011. Everyday Revolutionaries: Gender, Violence, andDisillusionment in Postwar El Salvador. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Brahm, Eric. 2007. Uncovering the Truth: Examining Truth Commission Success and

Impact.International Studies Perspectives 8, no. 1:16-35.

Baloyra, Enrique. 1992. Salvaging El Salvador.Journal of Democracy 3, no. 2:70-80.

del Castillo, Graciana 2008. UN-led reconstruction following UN-led negotiations: El

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Sieder, Rachel 2003. War, Peace, and Memory Politics in Central America. Brito,

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Press.

Dodson, Michael and Donald W. Jackson 2003. Horizontal Accountability and the Rule of

Law in Central America. Mainwaring, Scott and Christopher Welna, ed.Democratic Accountability in Latin America. (pp 228-265) Oxford: Oxford

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Segovia, Alexandar 2006. The Reparations Proposals of the Truth Commissions in El

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UN Security Council, Annex, From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador: Report of theCommission on the Truth for El Salvador, S/25500, 1993, 5-8.

Carrillo Carlos Velsquez. 2010. The Neoliberal Oligarchic Consolidation in El Salvador:

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