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EL SALVADOR: Amnesty Law Biggest Obstacle to Human Rights, Say Activists
By Raúl Gutiérrez
SAN SALVADOR, Mar 26 (IPS) - "We searched for our loved ones everywhere:
military barracks, cemeteries, prisons, but we still know nothing about
what happened to them. Total impunity surrounds their disappearances,"
says Salvadoran activist Alicia García.
The 64-year-old García, of the Committee of Mothers of the
Detained-Disappeared (Comadres), lost a son and a brother to forced
disappearance during El Salvador's 12-year civil war.
Hers is one of the many voices calling for the repeal of a 1993 amnesty
law seen by activists and United Nations experts as the biggest hurdle to
achieving respect for human rights, as the country's homicide rate soars
and forced disappearances are occurring once again.
Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudswoman Beatrice de Carrillo reported a
further rise in the murder rate - already one of the highest in the
world - and a resurgence of forced disappearances in recent months.
She also complained that the amnesty law has created a climate of impunity
and is blocking investigations into the whereabouts of the remains of
thousands of Salvadorans who were "disappeared" during the 1980-1992 armed
conflict.
In February and March, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances and human rights groups called for the amnesty
law to be overturned.
The Human Rights Ombudsperson's Office (PDDH), which is headed by de
Carrillo, also expressed its concern over the Feb. 7 disappearance of
21-year-old student activist Edward Francisco Contreras, which came on top
of three previous disappearances which the police and judicial authorities
have failed to take effective measures to clarify.
Activists say these problems raise doubts about the democratic process
that began with the signing of the peace agreement in 1992, after an armed
conflict that left 75,000 people dead and between 5,500 and 8,000 people
"disappeared".
The Contreras family turned to the PDDH after they had petitioned the
Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus and had searched for Edward in
hospitals and police stations. But "the authorities still have no leads as
to his possible whereabouts," said the ombudsperson's office.
"Despite my request for information on the cases, neither the police nor
the prosecutor's office has provided any," said de Carrillo.
The PDDH, which was created as a result of the peace agreement, is an
independent body charged with receiving allegations of human rights abuses
committed by government officials, investigating them, and if warranted,
lodging complaints against specific officials.
Contreras, a secondary school student, is a member of the left-wing Bloque
Popular Juvenil (Popular Youth Bloc), which is staunchly opposed to the
government of right-wing President Antonio Saca.
The other three cases involving disappearances in the last year are those
of Milton Iván Gutiérrez, and Jorge Alberto Iglesias and María Hortensia
García, a married couple who were both lawyers, and who disappeared in
April 2006. They were last seen having lunch in downtown San Salvador.
A PDDH communiqué referring to the cases of Contreras and Gutiérrez says
"It is particularly striking that in both cases, there are signs pointing
to the involvement of National Civil Police (PNC) agents, although police
files contain no information on the whereabouts of the two men."
But de Carrillo clarified that the disappearances in question did not
necessarily have any connection with political motivations.
In the petition for habeas corpus, Contreras' father stated that when he
visited the police station in Ateos, to the south of the capital, a police
officer who he identified as Sergeant Ayala told him, after making a few
phone calls, that his son had been picked up by the Homicide Investigation
Division.
But when the father asked around at other police stations and offices, he
met with universal denial that Contreras had been arrested.
The cases are reminiscent of El Salvador's military dictatorship of the
1970s and 1980s, when the now partially demobilised security forces and
death squads routinely murdered or "disappeared" political and social
opponents of the regime - similar to what was occurring during that same
time period in other Central and South American countries, such as
Guatemala, Argentina and Chile.
(Under the peace agreement, the security forces were reduced by half and
purged of "known human rights violators").
Activist García is a living example of what was happening during that
time. Her son, José William, was kidnapped in 1978 at the age of 12. He is
still missing, as is one of García's brothers. A second brother was killed
in 1981. And another of her sons, Juan Carlos, was killed in 1993, when he
was 16, after he testified before the Truth Commission.
García herself was seized and tortured. On Oct. 9, 1981, "they shoved me
into a car, blindfolded me, tied my hands together, and started to beat me
in the stomach. I was five months pregnant," she told IPS.
The activist says the men who abducted her belonged to the National Guard.
In the military installations where she was taken, she was tortured by
having a mask tightly wrapped around her head until she almost suffocated,
and with electric shock to her vagina and nipples. She was also raped.
She miscarried three days later. When the cell in which she was being held
began to smell as a result, "one of the torturers told me ‘take that
bitch!'" said García, overcome with emotion.
A few weeks later, she was dumped in the street, tied up, blindfolded and
naked.
Lawyer Gisela De León of the Costa Rica-based Centre for Justice and
International Law said the Salvadoran amnesty has sent a message that
those guilty of human rights abuses can continue to commit crimes with
impunity.
"The investigation, identification and punishment of the perpetrators, on
the contrary, would send a message to future generations that violence of
the kind that occurred in the past will not be tolerated," she told IPS.
De León is representing several cases against the Salvadoran state being
heard by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.
Since the amnesty went into effect under president Alfredo Cristiani
(1989-1994), several governments have refused to repeal it, arguing that
such a move would only reopen old wounds.
But activists and many families of victims argue that the wounds have not
healed because the truth about what happened has not come out and
reparations have not been made.
In early February, the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances visited El Salvador to gather new information. The Working
Group estimates the number of victims of forced disappearance at 5,500,
while families put the total at 8,000.
At the end of the visit, the Working Group "reminded" the state that the
perpetrators of forced disappearance "should not benefit by any amnesty
law" and urged the Saca administration to strike it down or bring it into
line with international law.
Despite these demands, "there are unfortunately very powerful forces that
refuse to accept its repeal," said de Carrillo.
(END/2007)
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