High court strikes down El Salvador's civil war amnesty law

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

High court strikes down El Salvador's civil war amnesty law
Jul 14, 12:35 AM EDT

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- El Salvador's Supreme Court on Wednesday declared as unconstitutional a 1993 amnesty law that helped bring an end to the country's civil war but also prevented authorities from seeking justice for human rights violations committed during the brutal conflict.

The judges in the high court's constitutional chamber ruled that aspects of the amnesty law violated the constitution, and denied Salvadorans the right to access to justice and compensation for war crimes.

In a statement, the court said the judges found that articles in the amnesty law are unconstitutional because they block the state from fulfilling its obligation "to prevent, investigate, judge, punish and offer reparations for series rights violations."

The Salvadoran government fought a 12-year civil war with rebel groups before signing peace accords in 1992. In 1993, the country's legislative assembly enacted the law prohibiting the prosecution of crimes committed by the military and leftist rebels during the conflict that claimed 75,000 lives.


Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_EL_SALVADOR_AMNESTY_LAW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-14-00-04-56

[billhicks76]

1. No Amnesty For Murderers

Don't forget the Reagan and Bush admin created these monsters. And of course with the help of a few democrat lackeys.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Published story from 12-2014: Salvadorans protest plan to name street for death-squad chief

Salvadorans protest plan to name street for death-squad chief

Published December 16, 2014/
EFE

Victims of El Salvador's armed conflict marched Tuesday in this capital to reject the mayor's decision to name a street after the late Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson, suspected mastermind of the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

. . .

The march began with the placing of a floral tribute in commemoration of the late Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas in the San Salvador plaza that bears his name. The protesters walked through the streets and later rode in a caravan of vehicles to the chapel at La Divina Providencia Hospital, where Romero was gunned down during Mass on March 24, 1980.

D'Aubuisson, who died of cancer in 1993, was the founder in 1981 of the rightist ARENA Party, to which the capital city's mayor belongs.

Quijano announced on Nov. 26 that the name of San Antonio Abad street will be changed to D'Aubuisson in honor of his role in leading the Constituent Assembly to formulate El Salvador's current constitution in 1983. D'Aubuisson was involved in the death squads that operated during the 1980-1992 armed conflict, and a post-war truth commission suggested he might have ordered Romero's assassination.

More:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2014/12/16/salvadorans-protest-plan-to-name-street-for-death-squad-chief/

[center]

Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson, A.K.A. "Blowtorch Bob" in reference

to his favorite method of torturing political prisoners in his care.









Archbishop Romero, murdered by the El Salvadoran Army. [/center]

[Judi Lynn]

3. Robert White vs. the Death Squads

Robert White vs. the Death Squads

January 16, 2015
by Melvin Goodman

The death of Ambassador Robert E. White is a reminder of what an American envoy can do to advance our principles and to guide our foreign policy. As an ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s, White demonstrated a commitment to social justice and human rights. Sadly, he was dismissed from the Foreign Service in 1981 by Secretary of State Alexander Haig because the Reagan administration had decided on a policy of militarism in Central America.

Bob White was the ambassador in El Salvador in December 1980 when four American churchwomen were raped and murdered by the armed forces of the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government. The evening before their murders, two of the women had dinner at White’s home to discuss the problems that relief workers were having in El Salvador. At the grave site for two of the women, White repeated over and over again that “This time they are not going to get away with it.”

White took what started as a clandestine assassination attempt and turned it into a full-fledged international incident. He filed cables to the Department of State and testified to the Congress. Secretary of State Haig suppressed White’s cables from El Salvador, and FBI Director William Webster refused to release any documents related to the murders. The Reagan administration made sure that the efforts of the families of the murdered women could get no access to documents from the State Department, the FBI, and the CIA.

In 1989, the CIA even relocated to Miami the Salvadoran defense minister complicit in the murder of the American nuns. Until very recently, White was active in testifying in Florida in the trials of those involved in the murders.

Nine months before the murder of the nuns, Ambassador White informed the State Department that El Salvador’s leading right-wing politician, Robert D’Aubuisson had ordered the assassination of the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero. In this case, the CIA knew exactly who pulled the trigger to kill Romero, but failed to inform the congressional intelligence committees. The CIA’s deputy director for intelligence, Robert Gates, suppressed all intelligence on the killing, part of the Agency’s effort to bury many of the truths of American policy toward Latin America in the 1980s.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/16/robert-white-vs-the-death-squads/

[Judi Lynn]

4. El Salvador's top court repeals amnesty law in order to prosecute war criminals

El Salvador's top court repeals amnesty law in order to prosecute war criminals

By Reuters and VICE News
July 14, 2016 | 1:50 pm

Salvador's Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional a 1993 law that prohibited the prosecution of crimes committed by the military and leftist guerillas during the Central American country's bloody civil war. court's decision, voted favorably earlier this week by four of five Magistrates, could allow prosecutors to investigate atrocities from the civil war that stretched from 1980 to 1992.

"Amnesty is contrary to the right to access justice ... and the right to full compensation for victims of crimes against humanity or war crimes that constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law," the court said in a statement.

The civil war killed 75,000 and left 8,000 missing. A truth commission investigated some of the worst massacres of the war, but El Salvador's Congress passed the amnesty law that impeded the prosecution of alleged war crimes.

Both the military and the guerrilla fighters from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, which is now the ruling party, were accused of atrocities. Many former combatants have become politicians and lawmakers, like the country's president Salvador Sánchez Cerén.

More:
https://news.vice.com/article/el-salvadors-top-court-repeals-amnesty-law-in-order-to-prosecute-war-criminals