Some 50,000 files on crimes against humanity are languishing in an undisclosed location in El Salvador, prey to damp and the ravages of time, while activists and lawyers frantically try to regain control over them.

Activists and victims’ relatives protesting the closure of Tutela Legal, outside San Salvador’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Credit: Tomás Andréu/IPS

Without prior warning, on Sept. 30 the Catholic Church suddenly closed the office that had spent decades painstakingly collecting the documents: the Tutela Legal del Arzobispado – the legal aid office of the archbishop of San Salvador.

But the former employees of the office, who learned that day that it was being closed, are working to reopen it elsewhere and are laying claim to the files. “We are the legal representatives of the victims of abuses and their families, we are handling the cases, and that means our work has to continue,” Alejandro Díaz, a lawyer who was laid off when Tutela Legal was closed, told IPS.

“We are taking the last steps to relaunch the new office,” which will be called Tutela Legal Doctora María Julia Hernández, in honour of the human rights advocate who was the director of Tutela Legal from 1983 till her death in 2007, Díaz said.

The files contain the accounts given by survivors and victims’ families on audiotapes, videotapes and written documents, photos of victims and relatives, and documentation of places and dates of massacres and other crimes committed during the 1980-1992 civil war.

Tutela Legal spent decades collecting documentary evidence and testimony about the abuses, while providing legal aid to survivors and victims’ families. Funding for the new office will come from the same international organisations that supported Tutela Legal, including the Catholic aid agency for England and Wales (CAFOD), the French Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD), and the Caritas branch in the northern Spanish region of Asturias.

“These organisations have promised us the same support they gave us when we were in the archbishop’s office,” Ovidio Mauricio González, the director of Tutela Legal at the time of its closure, told IPS. Some 300,000 dollars are needed to digitise all of the material and organise it in accordance with international standards, González explained. A portion of the documents on paper are in poor condition due to damp and the passage of time, he added.

The archbishop of San Salvador, José Escobar, alleged a few days after the Tutela Legal office was closed that the decision was due to misuse of funds. But he did not provide any details. According to González, no doubts were ever raised about the management of funds by Tutela Legal, which underwent regular audits by the international organisations that financed it.

Activists point out that 10 days before the office was closed down, the Supreme Court did something that was surprising given the history of the justice system in El Salvador: it agreed to hear arguments challenging the constitutionality of the 1993 amnesty law, which has let the perpetrators of human rights crimes committed during the armed conflict off the hook.

The Tutela Legal archives could serve as key evidence in legal prosecutions that may be reopened, depending on the Supreme Court’s decision. Human rights groups at home and abroad are worried about where the files may be.

The Washington Office on Latin America said in a statement that it “hopes and expects that the Archdiocese will carefully protect these archives and make them available to researchers and investigators, in keeping with the Church’s long tradition of defending human rights and human dignity and the proud history of Tutela Legal.”

A group of around 100 national and international organisations also published lengthy advertisements in the local press, calling for the preservation of the files. The archbishop’s office claims it is protecting the archives, although it transferred them to other installations, which have not been disclosed.