RIGHTS-EL SALVADOR: Amnesty a `Monument to Impunity' Say Activists
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39625

By Raúl Gutiérrez

SAN SALVADOR, Oct 12 (IPS) - Human rights activists in El Salvador
said they were "indignant over and ashamed of" the government's
presentation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
this week, which described the country's peace process as a success
and the amnesty law as a "contribution to national reconciliation."

The amnesty law passed after the 1992 peace agreement that put an end
to El Salvador's 12-year civil war "has fulfilled its mission, and
has closed the wounds," said Oscar Santamaría, one of the government
representatives who addressed the Organisation of American States
(OAS) commission during a hearing this week in Washington.

Salvador Samayoa, another member of the official delegation to the
IACHR's period of sessions, concurred, saying the amnesty law "made
the peace process viable."

The Salvadoran government was asked by the OAS commission to respond
to demands by human rights groups that the amnesty law be repealed,
and to activists' complaints of a setback in the peace process and
the poor functioning of the country's justice system.

The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said in a statement that the peace
talks and amnesty made possible "the reconciliation of society" and
paved the way for "fast, sustained democratic development…on the
social, political, economic and cultural fronts."

The United Nations-sponsored peace agreement was signed in 1992 in
Mexico by the government of then president Alfredo Cristiani and the
insurgent Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The 1980-
1992 armed conflict left 75,000 people -- mainly civilians -- dead,
8,000 "disappeared" and 50,000 permanently disabled.

In March 1993, Cristiani decreed an amnesty that benefited a large
number of members of the military accused of human rights crimes by
the Truth Commission, which was created by the peace accord to
investigate human rights abuses and identify the perpetrators.

The amnesty law also benefited leaders of the FMLN, which had become
a legal political party and is currently the main opposition party.

Santamaría headed the government committee that negotiated the peace
agreement, and Samayoa is a former member of the FMLN who abandoned
the leftist party over a decade ago and became a public security
adviser to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA),
which has governed the country since 1989.

The hearing in Washington was broadcast live in a forum held by the
Comité de Trabajo en Derechos Humanos Promemoria Histórica, a local
human rights group, where participants expressed indignation when the
government delegates insisted that 15 years on, the peace process
should be held up as an example for the international community.

During the forum on "incompliance with El Salvador's peace process on
the human rights front", organised to present a viewpoint contrasting
with the official stance depicted in the IACHR hearing, Judge Sidney
Blanco said the government's declarations do not reflect reality in
the least.

Blanco acknowledged some advances brought about by the peace process,
such as a more democratic system for the selection of Supreme Court
justices. But he said there are many pending issues, like the
construction of a judicial system that is truly independent of
external pressures.

"I refute the claim that the amnesty law has contributed to
reconciliation; the amnesty represents the failure of the rule of
law, and is an obstacle to the administration of justice," said the
judge.

Local human rights organisations and the U.N. Working Group on
Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances have called for the amnesty
law to be repealed, but to no avail.

Luis Alfaro, a cheese vendor in the Zacamil market on the outskirts
of San Salvador, told IPS that he does not trust the government's
statements, particularly with respect to human rights questions, and
said that in his view, the amnesty has generated impunity.

Although he did not deny that the law may have warded off acts of
vengeance, he said "many cases that should have been clarified have
gone unpunished, like the assassination of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo
Romero and the El Mozote massacre (in which hundreds of villagers
were killed), since it is known who was responsible."

"The government says there is freedom of speech, but that is only
relative, because when you open your mouth, you're accused of being a
leftist," said Alfaro.

Archbishop Romero was killed by a sniper while celebrating mass in
March 1980. The Truth Commission reported that Roberto D'Aubuisson,
the founder of ARENA, was responsible for the murder.

With respect to the 1981 massacre in El Mozote, a village in eastern
El Salvador where an estimated 900 children, women and men were
killed, investigators found that it was committed by the elite U.S.-
trained Atlacatl counterinsurgency battalion.

Both cases have been brought before the IACHR, and are pending
resolution.

The Salvadoran government delegation in Washington was also asked to
respond for the assassination of Romero. According to a communiqué
released by the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), one
of the plaintiffs in the case, "the Salvadoran representatives
reiterated their refusal to accept responsibility for the murder."

That occurred despite the fact that the IACHR "declared in 2000 that
the state was responsible for the violation of the archbishop's right
to life and for the failure to investigate his murder."

At the forum, assistant human rights prosecutor Salvador Menéndez
Leal said the aim of the peace agreement was to bring about in-depth
changes in El Salvador, which had not happened.

Questioning the shining portrait of El Salvador painted by the
government, Menéndez Leal said the country "is not a Democracy but
a `democracy', in lowercase letters and in quotation marks, and one
that is subject to external powers."

Menéndez Leal said the clarification of the atrocities committed
during the armed conflict, the administration of justice, and
reparations to the victims are still pending issues, while pointing
out that no apology has ever been made to the victims.

"The amnesty law is a monument to impunity," said the official.

Alicia García of the Committee of Mothers of Political Prisoners and
the Disappeared (COMADRES), who has been a human rights activist for
over 25 years, said the declarations made by Santamaría and Samayoa
were "embarrassing."

García, who was seized by the security forces when she was five
months pregnant and tortured until she miscarried, called on the
Salvadoran state to issue an apology "to the people for all of the
damages done."

One of García's sons was forcibly disappeared at the age of 12, and
another of her sons was killed after testifying before the Truth
Commission.

She said that as the mother of two victims, she was offended by the
officials' statements. "There is no justice here, which is why we
have to continue our struggle against the amnesty," said the
activist.

In the audience at the forum, two men held a small sign with a photo
of Monsignor Romero that read "Who gave the order to kill him?" next
to a photo of Roberto D'Aubuisson. (END/2007)