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El Salvador¹⁸

For twelve years, between 1980 and 1992, El Salvador was devastated by a brutal civil war between its government and a guerrilla movement known as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (fmln). During this period, thousands of cases of political killings, torture and disappearance at the hands of government forces were recorded. Violations were also committed by the fmln, but on a lesser scale. Despite a very few occasions on which low-ranking members of the army or police were successfully prosecuted for abuse of rights, death squads operated freely and the armed forces enjoyed virtually complete impunity, even in the most notorious cases on which international attention was focussed.¹⁹ Finally, both sides committed themselves to achieving an end to the war. A long period of negotiation under increasingly close United Nations supervision led to a series of agreements for the ending of hostilities, culminating in a ceasefire in January 1992.

Among the agreements facilitating the eventual ceasefire was the San José Accord of July 1990, signed in Costa Rica, which provided for the establishment of a United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (onusal) with the task of monitoring the compliance of both sides with certain human rights principles from the date of the agreement. onusal began its operations in July 1991: the first time the U.N. had established such a large presence to monitor the human rights situation in a member state. The ceasefire itself provided for sweeping institutional reforms, including the dissolution of the existing security forces and rapid-reaction battalions of the army, the demobilization and reintegration of the fmln into civilian life, and the establishment of a new civilian police force. It also expanded the mandate of onusal to include the verification of all key aspects of the peace accord. Although this decision has led to a perceived conflict between the role of onusal as human rights monitor and as diplomatic intermediary, which has had some adverse consequences, the overall impact of onusal on the situation in El Salvador has been extremely positive.

Two commissions were formed to investigate abuses which occurred during the war. In April 1991 the parties agreed on the formation of a Commission of Truth, which would review "grave acts of violence which have occurred since 1980 and whose mark on society demands with great urgency public knowledge of the truth"; and in September 1991 an agreement on the "purification" of the armed forces created an "Ad Hoc Commission" to review the tenure of military officers, with a special focus on their human rights records. The work of both commissions began in 1992. Less positively, an amnesty law was also approved by the legislative assembly at the time of the ceasefire in January 1992: although the law specifically exempted those cases for which the Truth Commission might recommend prosecution, it allowed for a review of the amnesty six months after the Commission completes its work, at which time a general amnesty could be granted.

It is too early to say what level of success the two commissions will achieve. Their work is subject to time constraints, which may hinder their effectiveness; and the Ad Hoc Commission in particular depends to a significant extent on the cooperation of the armed forces and of the El Salvadoran and United States governments to obtain information on individual responsibility for human rights abuses carried out by the army. On the other hand, the work of the Truth Commission is much strengthened by its U.N. status: even if no serious prosecutions take place, the Commission will provide a great service to El Salvador if it publishes a rigorous, truthful account of the many tragedies that shook El Salvador during the 1980s.