Memory and Repression in El Salvador
Memory and Repression in El Salvador
Friday, 29 November 2013 01:16 By Alexandra McAnarney, Truthout | News Analysis
With a cropping up of public trials and increased access to historical archives, countries like Guatemala and Brazil are moving forward in rescuing the memories of victims of human rights abuses perpetrated during the military regimes and dictatorships of the '60s, '70s and '80s. The alternative narratives of history presented in trials and archives are slowly prying the door open for justice across Latin America. In El Salvador, however, it seems like time is moving backward.
In the early morning hours of November 14, three gunmen broke into the offices of Asociacion Pro-Busqueda de Ninos y Ninas Desaparecidos, detained two staff at gunpoint, and torched records and, removed computers. While backup copies exist, the burned materials provided critical evidence in three cases concerning the forced disappearance of children during El Salvador's brutal 12-year civil war.
The attack comes only six weeks after the Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador abruptly closed its human rights office, Tutela Legal, which housed approximately 50,000 documents detailing human rights abuses.
Both incidents coincide with the Supreme Court's decision to deliberate the constitutionality of its 1993 Amnesty Law, which has protected perpetrators of human rights abuses committed during the civil war from prosecution for 20 years now.
If the law were to be overturned, the archives at Tutela Legal would have provided critical evidence for prosecution in any new cases. The archives were used by the UN's Truth Commission's 1993 report, From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador, which found that 85 percent of human rights violations during this period were carried out by US-backed government forces.
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20253-memory-and-repression-in-el-salvador
