Transitional Justice in The Aftermath of Civil Conflict

Transitional Justice
in the Aftermath
of Civil Conflict
Lessons from Peru,

Guatemala and El Salvador
Author
Jo-Marie Burt
Transitional Justice
in the Aftermath
of Civil Conflict:
Lessons from
Peru, Guatemala
and El Salvador
Author
Jo-Marie Burt
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 710

Washington, D.C. 20036
T: (202) 462 7701 | F: (202) 462 7703
www.dplf.org
2018 Due Process of Law Foundation
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by Due Process of Law Foundation
Washington D.C., 20036
www.dplf.org
ISBN: 978-0-9912414-6-0
Cover design: ULTRAdesigns

Cover photos: José Ángel Mejía, Salvadoran journalist; Jo-Marie Burt; DPLF
Graphic design: ULTRAdesigns
Author Acknowledgements iii
Author Acknowledgements
This report would not have been possible without the generosity of so many friends,
colleagues and collaborators whose insights were critical to the preparation of this
report. The experience of writing this report helped reinforce my belief that the theory
of transitional justice much emanate from, and constantly be nourished from the
experiences of those who engage in its day-to-day work: the survivors, the families of
victims, the human rights defenders, lawyers, judicial operators, whose labor creates
the things we understand to be transitional justice.
My first debt of gratitude is to Katya Salazar, Executive Director of the Due Process
of Law Foundation (DPLF), and Leonor Arteaga, Impunity and Grave Human Rights
Senior Program Officer at DPLF, for their invitation to collaborate in the preparation
of a grant proposal to the Bureau of Democracy, Labor and Human Rights, which led
to the two-year funded project on transitional justice in post-conflict Peru, Guatemala
and El Salvador that is the basis for this report. Working with these formidable justice
advocates on this project was an incredible learning experience, and I am grateful to
them for what was a unique opportunity to connect my skills as a researcher with
my passion as a human rights advocate. I’m grateful too to the wonderful DPLF staff,
especially Laura Park and Hannah Odio.
This project was sustainable only because our partner organizations on the ground
believed in the project’s core objectives and in us as collaborators. They worked side-by-
side with us to organize the study trips, which were central to our ability to synthesize
here the complexities of the transitional justice process in each country, as well as a variety
of workshops with victims’ organizations in each country. In particular, I am grateful
and forever indebted to Francisco Soto and Alejandra Castillo, Executive Director and
Deputy Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) in
Guatemala; Carlos Rivera, Executive Director of the Institute for Legal Defense (IDL) in
Peru; and Abraham Abrego, former Executive Director of the Foundation for Applied
Legal Studies (FESPAD) in El Salvador. Finally, I am grateful to all the individuals who
participated in our study trips, our workshops, and who shared their thoughts and
insights with us about their experiences with transitional justice, especially Gloria Cano,
Glatzer Tuesta, Gisela Ortiz, Dorila Márquez, Alejandro Díaz, Claudia Interiano, David
Morales, Sol Yañez, Susana Navarro, Orlando López, Paulo Estrada, César Canil, Yuber
Alarcón, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, María Rodríguez, and Jimmy Ortiz.
iv Transitional Justice in the Aftermath of Civil Conflict: Lessons from Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador
This report is dedicated to Gisela Ortiz, Aura Elena Farfán, and Dorila Márquez, all
survivors of the tragic violence that took their brothers, obliterated their communities,
and sought to silence their demands for truth and justice. Despite their despair over
the losses they endured, they found the courage to speak truth to power; their love for
those they lost was a bright light in those dark times that continues to illuminate the
path toward truth and justice.
Table of contents
Preface........................................................................................................................................................... vii
I. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1
1. Latin America: The Workshop of Transitional Justice............................................ 1
2. Transitional Justice in Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador....................................... 3
II. TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE CASE STUDIES ................................................................ 5

1. PERU................................................................................................................................................ 5
The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission............................................. 6
Reparations.................................................................................................................................... 8
Highlight: The National Plan to Search for Disappeared Persons......... 10
Criminal Prosecutions.......................................................................................................... 12
Highlight: The Fujimori Judgment........................................................................ 13
Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory........................................ 21
Highlight: La Hoyada “Sanctuary of Memory” in Ayacucho................... 23
2. GUATEMALA.......................................................................................................................... 25
Two Truth Commission....................................................................................................... 26
Highlight: The Struggle to Access Military Archives.................................... 28
Reparations................................................................................................................................. 29
Highlight: Civil Society Leads the Search for the Disappeared............... 31
Highlight: The Genocide Trial................................................................................. 36
Highlight: The Kaji Tulan Memory Museum................................................... 41
3. EL SALVADOR........................................................................................................................ 44
The UN Truth Commission............................................................................................... 45
Reparations................................................................................................................................. 48
Highlight: Seeking Justice in International Courts........................................ 49
Highlight: The Legal Challenge to the 1993 Amnesty Law....................... 52
Highlight: Memories in Conflict: El Mozote and Monterrosa................. 59
Highlight: New Impetus to Search for the Disappeared............................. 62
III. LESSONS LEARNED FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PRACTICE........... 65

1. The central role of victims in transitional justice processes.............................. 65
2. Victim participation in transitional justice policies and processes................ 74
3. Human rights organizations play a critical support
role on behalf of victims in transitional justice processes................................... 84
4. Independence of the Attorney General’s Office and Judicial Institutions
and Specialization in Human Rights Norms and Jurisprudence..................... 92
5. Addressing Wartime Sexual Violence.......................................................................... 94
6. Impunity is the mother of illegality, corruption and political
instability; transitional justice promotes more just,
peaceful and democratic nations.................................................................................... 97
IV. CONCLUSION: TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND THE LEGACY OF

CIVIL CONFLICTS IN PERU, EL SALVADOR AND GUATEMALA........101
V. RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................................................107
ENDNOTES.............................................................................................................................................111
Preface vii
Preface
This report is based on the findings culled from a two-year project, “Lessons Learned
and Best Practices in Latin America’s Experience with Transitional Justice: Information
Exchanges and Capacity Building to Strengthen Civil Society Efforts to Address the
Legacy of Civil Conflicts in Peru, El Salvador and Guatemala,” implemented by the
Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) and funded by the Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor at the United States Department of Justice. The project was
designed and implemented by Leonor Arteaga, Senior Program Officer for Impunity
and Grave Human Rights Violations at DPLF, and Jo-Marie Burt, associate professor of
political science at George Mason University and expert on transitional justice in Latin
America, and DPLF consultant.
Transitional justice consists of judicial and non-judicial measures implemented in

order to redress the legacy of grave violations of human rights. These measures include
truth commissions, reparations programs, criminal prosecutions, programs to search
for disappeared persons, memorialization and other commemorative practices, and
vetting, among others. Various kinds of institutional reforms are also typically associated
with transitional justice, including judicial reform and security sector reform. While
these are usually long-term processes, they are fundamental to the promise of non-
repetition. Typically, transitional justice measures are adopted after a country has gone
through a process of political transition from a period of repressive authoritarian rule
and/or internal armed conflict, towards elected democratic rule. Transitional justice
is predicated on the perceived need to rebuild social trust and repair fractured social
relations, democratize the justice system and ensure peaceful coexistence, and build a
democratic system of governance based on the rule of law.1
The project proposed three broad sets of activities: 1) the organization of trips to study
each country’s transitional justice process, in which individuals from the partner
organizations in each country, in addition to other identified partners, participated in
four-day workshops in each country to learn about and analyze in depth the transitional
justice experience of the host country and promote information exchanges and skill-
sharing amongst partner organizations from all three countries; 2) the organization of
workshops with victims in each of the three countries with the objective of targeted
capacity building; and 3) the collection and analysis of data about transitional
justice criminal investigations and prosecutions in collaboration with civil society
organizations to produce actionable information about transitional justice successes,
challenges, and bottlenecks, to identify needed institutional reforms, and for use in
advocacy campaigns, with the overall objective of strengthening dialogue between civil
society and judicial operators and enhancing justice delivery.
1
I. INTRODUCTION: TRANSITIONS
AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
1. Latin America: The Workshop of Transitional Justice
T
ransitional justice emerged, both conceptually and in practice, in Latin America.
The transitions to democracy that followed brutal military dictatorships and
internal armed conflicts coincided with the growing visibility and legitimacy
of the global human rights movement. Campaigns to “name and shame” abusive
governments were replaced with demands for truth and justice for the victims of grave
human rights abuses. In many ways, Latin America was the frontline of experimentation
for grappling with difficult pasts.
The boldest of these early experiments was Argentina. The first successful truth
commission in the world, Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of
Persons (CONADEP), created in 1984 after a brutal military dictatorship (1976-83),
revealed the power of official investigations into past abuses as a mechanism not only
for learning the truth about the fate of individual victims of state terrorism, but also
for the construction of broader social understandings of what happened and why.2 In
the Argentine case, trials of the military leadership followed the truth commission
report. Five of nine generals from the military juntas were convicted after a public
trial that captured national and international attention, and set a precedent for the
centrality of accountability to transitional justice processes.3 This was a sharp contrast
to neighboring Uruguay and Brazil, where pacted transitions led to political deals that
shielded the military and other actors from criminal responsibility through amnesty
laws, and where no official truth commission was established to examine the past.4
Instead, the dominant narratives of denial prevailed for years, though decades later,
new movements emerged to challenge both amnesty deals and denial narratives.5
However, the Argentine model, which linked truth-seeking to criminal justice, was
severely tested after a series of military uprisings that sought to end prosecutions
of military officials who, in their view, had saved the country from communism.
The government passed a series of amnesty laws (the Final Stop Law, 1986; the Due
Obedience Law, 1987; 1989 presidentially decreed pardons) that brought an end to
criminal prosecutions for dictatorship-era crimes.6 In the absence of criminal trials,
other transitional justice measures acquired renewed relevance, including truth-telling
processes for individual cases through “truth trials” (juicios de la verdad), reparations
programs, memorials and commemorations, and civil-society led efforts to prevent the
2 Transitional Justice in the Aftermath of Civil Conflict: Lessons from Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador
promotion of military and other officials who were found to be responsible for human
rights violations. Virtually all of these measures were the result of the persistent efforts
by victims’ associations and human rights organizations. Legal processes continued
in some cases of children of the detained-disappeared, who had been appropriated
by military families, as they were not covered by the amnesty laws.7 In 2005, the
Supreme Court ruled that the amnesty laws were unconstitutional, opening up a
new phase in Argentina’s transitional justice process and resulting in a new wave of
criminal prosecutions for dictatorship-era crimes.8 As of September 2016, more than
650 perpetrators have been convicted and sentenced for these crimes.9 Along with this
renewed effort to hold perpetrators accountable, memory initiatives, both official and
civil-society based, emerged with the objective of educating new generations about
state terrorism in Argentina.10
The experience of Chile was quite different from that of Argentina. After 17 years of
a military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), the incumbent
regime negotiated a carefully managed transition to democracy with the opposition.
Pinochet stepped down as president, but he retained significant power as head of the
armed forces, even publicly warning newly elected president Patricio Aylwin that
he would not tolerate efforts to hold members of the security forces accountable for
serious human rights abuses. Under such constraints, the Aylwin government kept the
1978 self-amnesty law in place. At the same time, he established a truth commission
to investigate deaths and enforced disappearances committed during the Pinochet
dictatorship and a reparations program for victims of extrajudicial execution and
enforced disappearance, and to facilitate the return of exiles. Only in a few exceptional
cases were criminal prosecutions pursued, most notably the case of the head of army
intelligence, retired general Manuel Contreras, who, along with another military officer,
was convicted for the murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington,
D.C., in 1978.11
Other truth commissions, from South Africa to El Salvador, followed a similar logic to
that of Chile: negotiated transitions with the ancien régime faced serious constraints
and resulted in compromises in which transitional governments established official
truth commissions to investigate (some of) the crimes of the past, but eschewed
criminal trials, which were viewed as impossible given the continued power of former
elites.12 However, this conventional wisdom was soon turned on its head. The 1998
arrest of General Pinochet in London, based on the concept of universal jurisdiction,
which holds that crimes against humanity can be prosecuted in any place and at any
time, shifted the terms of the debate in Latin America.13 Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón
was seeking Pinochet’s extradition so that he could prosecute him in Spain on several
counts of torture. The Law Lords’ decision to approve the extradition request helped
Introduction: Transitions and Transitional Justice 3
reignite efforts in Latin America to pursue accountability for grave human rights
violations, even though in the end Pinochet was allowed to return to Chile based on
humanitarian grounds.14 It also opened new space for victims in Chile to demand new
forms of truth-telling.15
Since these early experiments in transitional justice, the international human rights
regime has shifted considerably. The creation of international ad hoc tribunals to
investigate the genocides in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, followed by the
signing of the Rome Statute in 1998 and the creation of the International Criminal Court
in 2002, ushered in a new era in which criminal responsibility became a central part of
both the discussion and practice of transitional justice.16 Theorists and practitioners of
transitional justice began to advocate for an integral concept of transitional justice, in
which truth and justice were not antagonistic, but rather, complementary elements.17
Integral notions of redress would include not only truth recovery, but also criminal
sanction of those responsible as well as symbolic and material reparations for the
victims. They would as well include guarantees of non-repetition, which seek to alter
the dynamics of violence to prevent new atrocities from occurring in the future. These
may include the demobilization and disarmament of armed groups, vetting processes,
and institutional reforms, among others. Peru, which transitioned to democracy after
20 years of internal armed conflict and authoritarian rule, was one of the first countries
to adopt such an integral or holistic approach to transitional justice.
2. Transitional Justice in Peru, Guatemala and

El Salvador
As transitional justice has become both a global idea and a global practice, there is
an increasing need to better understand not only the design and implementation of
transitional justice mechanisms, but their impact and significance as well. Any such
effort requires an examination of the specific mechanisms of transitional justice, as
well as the broader political context that gives shape to these mechanisms and their
implementation. This report seeks to respond to this need by analyzing the experience
of transitional justice in three countries that have been relatively understudied: Peru,
Guatemala and El Salvador. This report draws upon research and workshops conducted
over the course of eighteen months in each of these three countries, to better understand
the transitional justice processes in each country and from a comparative perspective.
The project workshops were organized in close collaboration with in-country partner
organizations: the Institute for Legal Defense (IDL) in Peru; the Center for Human
Rights Legal Action (CALDH) in Guatemala; and the Foundation for Applied Legal
Studies (FESPAD) in El Salvador.
These three countries were selected for a number of reasons. First, the transitional
justice literature on Latin America has focused primarily on the experience of repressive
military rule in the Southern Cone of the region (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay).
While Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador all experienced authoritarian and military
rule, they also experienced prolonged internal armed conflicts. The dynamics of post-
conflict countries pose distinct challenges for transitional justice efforts.
Second, unlike the Southern Cone, where victims were in large part middle and
working-class political activists, the vast majority of victims in Peru, Guatemala and El
Salvador come from historically marginalized sectors of society: poor, rural farmers. In
the case of Peru and Guatemala, the majority of victims are also indigenous: 75% in the
case of Peru, 80% in the case of Guatemala. The history of racism and socio-economic
exclusion in these countries has meant that victims have faced greater hurdles in having
their demands for truth and justice heard, which inevitably impacts the outcome of
transitional justice processes.
Finally, there have been significant changes over time in the transitional justice processes
in each of these three countries that merit closer scrutiny. For example, in the cases of
Peru and Guatemala, there have been important efforts to move away from situations
of near-total impunity to greater accountability for crimes of the past. While truth
commissions challenged official narratives of denial, many sectors of society, including
some government officials, continue to deny that such abuses were committed. In the
face of ongoing campaigns of denial, there have been significant efforts in each country
to develop local memory sites and spaces of commemoration, to develop coalitions
to strengthen the voices of victims, and to implement national programs to search for
persons who were forcibly disappeared.
This report seeks to identify the factors that have allowed for successful transitional
justice processes as well as those that have hindered or undermined these processes
in each of the three countries; to highlight innovative practices; and to discern key
lessons from the transitional justice processes of these three countries that might be
useful for other countries transitioning from a period of conflict and authoritarian rule.
5
II. TRANSITIONAL CASE STUDIES:

PERU, GUATEMALA, EL SALVADOR
1. PERU
I
n 1980, as Peru transitioned to democratic government after more than a decade of
military rule, the Shining Path launched an insurgency from the rural hinterlands
of Ayacucho, with the objective of toppling the state and imposing a form of
agrarian Communist rule. Inspired by Maoism, the Shining Path believed that violent
revolution was the only possibility for achieving social change in a country marked
by deep class and racial divisions. Led by philosophy professor Abimael Guzmán, the
Shining Path demanded total allegiance from its followers. Those who engaged in legal
political activities, including trade unionists, peasant federation and social movement
leaders, and women community leaders, were seen as deviating from the “correct path”
of violent revolution and faced punishment and often death at the hands of the Shining
Path. A second insurgent movement, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
(MRTA), launched armed actions in 1984. The MRTA resembled the more traditional
urban revolutionary movements inspired by the teachings of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
In response to the insurgent threat, the State deployed massive and often arbitrary
violence to combat the insurgents, resulting in massacres, forces disappearances, and
other grave human rights violations. It was only toward the end of the 1980s that the
state security forces reevaluated their counterinsurgency policy and began to focus more
on intelligence gathering with an aim to dismantle the leadership of both insurgent
movements. During the conflict, human rights organizations, survivors, and relatives
of victims pressed tirelessly to document human rights abuses and defend the rights of
victims.18 In 1985, the most prominent organizations united under the umbrella of the
National Human Rights Coordinator (Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos,
CNDDHH) in order to more effectively respond to the ongoing human rights crisis.19
The CNDDHH provided legal advice to victims, filed writs of habeas corpus in cases
of enforced disappearance and publicly denounced the massacres that began filling the
headlines on a near daily basis. While the human rights organizations sought to bring
those responsible for the worst abuses to justice, the norm was impunity for state agents
accused of committing abuses.20
In the midst of a massive economic crisis and spiraling violence, a political outsider,
Alberto Fujimori, was elected to office in 1990. In 1992, with the backing of the armed
forces, he carried out a “self-coup” in which he suspended the Constitution, dissolved
Congress, and took over the Judiciary. Fujimori argued this centralization of power
was necessary to combat corruption and the insurgent movements. Many Peruvians,
exhausted by the war and fearful of the future, embraced Fujimori’s heavy-handed
measures. In September 1992, reflecting the shift in counterinsurgency strategy focusing
on intelligence, Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán was arrested by a special police
counterterrorism unit. This marked a decisive turning point in the war.
Rather than use this opportunity to rebuild Peruvian democracy, the Fujimori
government further centralized power, repressed perceived opponents, and co-opted
the communications media. Corruption flourished in this context, and reinforced
the regime’s authoritarian tendencies, even as it retained the semblance of electoral
democracy.21 In 2000, Fujimori was elected to a third term in office amidst massive
charges of electoral fraud and massive social protests challenging the legitimacy and
fairness of the elections. A few months later, the regime collapsed in the wake of a
series of corruption scandals.22 To avoid criminal investigation, Fujimori fled to Japan,
his parents’ birthplace, in November 2000. From there, he faxed his resignation as
president. Congress declared him unfit to be president, and appointed opposition
leader Valentín Paniagua to lead an interim government to manage the transition to
democracy and to convene new elections in 2001.
The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Victims’ associa-

tions and human rights groups called upon the Paniagua government to create a truth
commission to investigate the abuses of the past and provide redress for victims. After
a series of consultations between the government and civil society organizations,
Paniagua passed a presidential decree in June 2001 creating a truth commission
empowered to investigate the crimes of the past 20 years. Alejandro Toledo reaffirmed
his support for the truth commission after his inauguration as president a few months
later. He renamed it the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) and sought to
balance the presence of a member of Fujimori’s party and a senior military official by
expanding the number of commissioners to twelve. Among the new commissioners
was executive secretary of the CNDDHH Sofía Macher, who had played a key role in
challenging the worst abuses of the Fujimori regime and in the restoration of Peruvian
democracy, and former Senator Rolando Ames, who led the Senate commission of
inquiry into the 1986 El Frontón prison massacre.23
The CVR adopted a comprehensive view of transitional justice resting on three pillars:
truth-seeking to determine the extent of political violence and human rights violations
during the internal armed conflict and to help locate and identify the victims of enforced
disappearance; individual criminal trials, to the extent possible, to hold perpetrators
Transitional Justice Case Studies: Peru 7
of grave human rights violations accountable for their acts and to end impunity; and
meaningful reparations for victims.24 Peru’s integral model of transitional justice was
a significant departure from prevailing models in places such as Chile,25 El Salvador,26
and South Africa,27 where pacted or negotiated transitions left members of the ancien
régime with significant quotas of power, and where truth commissions emphasized
truth and reconciliation, with the more or less explicit understanding that justice was
impossible in such unstable contexts. Victims’ groups and human rights organizations
championed the adoption of an integral model from the outset, but two external factors
also played a critical role. In March 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
ruled in the Barrios Altos massacre case, finding the Peruvian State responsible for the
massacre and ordering it to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible. The
Court also determined that the 1995 amnesty laws lacked legal effect. This removed
a key obstacle to retributive justice in Peru and led to the immediate reopening of the
investigation in the Barrios Altos case.28 The second factor has to do with the weakened
status of the military due to revelations of its involvement in the Fujimori regime’s
corruption. Dozens of military officials were arrested and prosecuted for corruption,
including General Nicolás de Bari Hermoza, who had served eight years as head of
the armed forces during the Fujimori regime. The military’s credibility was further
undermined after the release of a video in April 2001 revealing a secret ceremony in
which hundreds of senior military officials signed a loyalty pact to Fujimori and the
1992 ‘self-coup.’ To mitigate the scandal, the armed forces issued a public statement
apologizing for its past support of the Fujimori regime and pronounced its support for
a truth commission.29
After two years of work, the CVR presented its final report on August 28, 2003. According
to the CVR, this was the longest and bloodiest conflict in Peru’s history. It found that
the immediate cause of the conflict was the decision, in May 1980, of the Shining Path
to take up arms against the newly installed democratic regime in its effort to impose
communism. The CVR noted that the indiscriminate and brutal response of the state
prolonged the conflict, until the 1992 arrest of the senior leadership of both insurgent
movements. However, the authoritarian exercise of power by the Fujimori government
prolonged the climate of fear and intimidation, as the regime used repression to silence
its opponents, and allowed corruption to expand exponentially.
The CVR determined that the conflict produced 69,280 politically motivated deaths,
8,000 cases of enforced disappearance30, the forced displacement of 600,000, an
estimated 5,000 cases of arbitrary detention, and the widespread practice of torture and
sexual violence, especially against women. The CVR found that 54 percent of the victims
were attributable to the Shining Path; 1.5 percent to the MRTA; and approximately 37
percent to state agents, including government forces, paramilitary groups, and civil
defense patrols. Seventy-five percent of victims spoke Quechua or another native
language as their mother tongue; only 16 percent of Peruvians share this characteristic,
revealing the disproportionate impact of political violence on indigenous populations,
the most historically excluded and marginalized populations of Peru.31 The CVR also
noted the differentiated impact of the violence on women, the role women played in
resisting violence during the conflict, and included a chapter specifically analyzing
sexual violence against women.32
The CVR called upon all Peruvians to reflect on the indifference with which the
majority of society viewed the victims of the conflict and called for a series of measures,
including symbolic and material reparations for victims, a national plan to search for
the disappeared, the prosecution of grave human rights violations, and institutional
reforms, to provide redress to victims and ensure non-repetition.33 In addition to
its report, the CVR produced an exhibit of over 200 photographs collected from
photographers whose cameras chronicled the internal armed conflict. The exhibit,
entitled “Yuyanapaq,” which means “to remember” in Quechua, “reveals the face of
suffering” as “visible proof of the injustices committed” in Peru, while also serving as a
way “to dignify the victims,” according to Salomón Lerner, the president of the CVR.34
The CVR also held public hearings, where survivors and families of the victims were
invited to share their stories with the nation. In a public ceremony, President Toledo
accepted the final report and asked for forgiveness in the name of the Peruvian state.
In 2004, following a recommendation by the CVR to create a mechanism to oversee
implementation of the CVR’s recommendations, Toledo also established the High-Level
Multi-Sectoral Commission (CMAN). Implementation of the CVR’s recommendations
was slow to come, however.
Reparations. Two early laws addressed the demands of specific groups of victims:
one law created humanitarian assistance programs for displaced persons, while another
created the legal category ‘absence by enforced disappearance,’ which was meant to
clarify the legal status of victims of enforced disappearance without a formal declaration
of death. A law establishing the Integral Reparations Plan was passed in July 2005, but it
would be another year before it was finally signed into law by President Toledo in July
2006, just before he was set to leave office.35 The law identified the different categories of
beneficiaries,36 established that the CMAN would coordinate the reparations programs,
and created the National Reparations Council and charged it with establishing a
National Registry of Victims, which would be the basis for the later distribution of
collective as well as individual reparations, including monetary reparations, health
benefits, and education scholarships.
One controversial aspect of the reparations law was a provision that excluded individuals
who were “members of subversive organizations” from being categorized as victims or
receiving any benefits, even if they had been the victims of grave human rights abuses.37
This was a notable departure from the CVR’s recommendations, which urged the state
to provide reparations to all victims, regardless of whether the perpetrator was an agent
of the state or one of the armed insurgent groups. This notion of state responsibility
to provide reparations even for harm occasioned by private actors is derived from
international human rights law, which holds the state responsible not only for criminal
acts committed by its agents but also for failing to protect its citizens from criminal
acts occasioned by third parties.38 Several human rights advocates in Peru noted that
applying this principle was politically impossible due to the extreme social stigma of
armed insurgent groups. One advocate affirmed that the reparations law “would never
have been approved” had it not incorporated the exclusion of presumed members of
insurgent groups as potential beneficiaries of reparations. The National Reparations
Council adopted this exclusion as it began registering victims, but it lacked clear criteria
for determining membership in subversive organizations.39
Implementation of the reparation programs fell to the government of Alan García

(2006-2011), who was perceived as antagonistic to the CVR recommendations, in
large part because of the massive human rights violations that occurred during his
first government from 1985 to 1990. The continued demands by victims’ associations,
human rights organizations, and other organizations, including the Ombudsman’s
Office, forced the government to move forward on implementing collective reparations
and initiating the process of registering victims. However, the collective reparations
were criticized for being more akin to traditional social programs rather than
reparations designed to benefit communities affected by the armed conflict,40 and the
National Reparations Council was faulted for being excessively slow and bureaucratic
in registering victims and for a determination that no reparations would be paid out
until all victims had been registered.
The García government finally passed legislation authorizing payment of individual

economic reparations at the very end of its term in July 2011. The implementation
legislation was sharply criticized, however. It limited benefits to one occurrence per
individual, denying the reality that many victims suffered multiple violations. One
elderly woman from Ayacucho explained that two of her sons were forcibly disappeared,
but she only received reparation for one of them due to this rule. It also established
December 31, 2011 as the last day for victims to register, which human rights groups
criticized as arbitrary. Victims also questioned the amount the García determined
would be paid to victims—10,000 soles, approximately US$3,125—as insufficient
restitution for the life of an individual who was arbitrarily killed or disappeared by
the state. They noted that individuals who participated in the civil defense patrols
have received much more robust reparations, as much as 33,000 soles (approximately
US$10,000) per family.41
ANFASEP and other organizations staged protests, marches, and meetings with
members of Congress during the following administration of Ollanta Humala (2011-
2016) to overturn this ruling. During his electoral campaign, Humala promised to
fully implement the Integral Reparations Plan. His government prioritized payment of
individual reparations, and by January 2016, an estimated 100 million soles (US$31.2
million) had been paid out to 30,000 registered victims.42 The Humala government
implemented other reparations programs, most notably education scholarships to
victims (Beca 18), and, after intense lobbying by victims’ organizations, agreed to
extend this benefit to their children. The limit of one occurrence per victim was later
lifted, allowing victims to receive compensation for multiple violations suffered, and
the cut-off date for registering as a victim was also lifted indefinitely.43
In a significant recognition of the value of the work of both the CVR and the Reparations
Council, and their value in consolidating peace and reconciliation in Peru, UNESCO
incorporated the archives of both institutions into its “World Memory” Program in
November 2016. As noted by Magaly Robalino Campos, UNESCO’s representative in
Peru: “Recovering the memory of the [conflict] is key for the construction of peace, and
to ensure that similar [atrocities] never happen again.”44
Highlight: The National Plan to Search for Disappeared Persons

In its Final Report, the CVR recommended the creation of a national plan to search
for the victims of enforced disappearance during the internal armed conflict. While the
search for victims of enforced disappearance has been ongoing for years, it has been
conducted on an ad hoc basis, with some results albeit limited. Current estimates suggest
that there are over 15,000 victims of enforced disappearance.45 To date, investigators have
exhumed 3,202 human remains. Of these, 1,833 have been identified and 1,644 have been
returned to their relatives.46
In 2015, victims’ organizations, in alliance with the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology

Team (EPAF), the National Human Rights Coordinating Committee (CNDDHH), the
Human Rights Ombudsman and international organizations, developed a working group
to advocate for legislation to create a national plan to search for the disappeared. They also
devised a public campaign to promote support for the proposed legislation called “Reúne”
(Reunite).47 After months of intense lobbying efforts by victims’ organizations and civil
society groups, on June 22, 2016, the Executive promulgated the National Law to Search
for Disappeared Persons during the Period of Violence 1980-2000.48 In December 2016,
in a first critical step in the implementation of the law, the Justice Ministry established the
National Plan to Search for Disappeared Persons.49
The law’s main objective is to accelerate the process of searching, recovering, identifying
and returning the remains of individuals who were forcibly disappeared during Peru’s
internal armed conflict to their families. The law mandates that the Justice Ministry
establish a National Registry of Victims and Burial Sites as well as a national DNA
database to store reference samples provided by victims’ relatives. This is intended to
facilitate the work of collecting, cross-checking, verifying, updating, and unifying the
existing databases of public and private institutions of victims of enforced disappearance
and of clandestine burial sites. It is estimated that there are more than 4,000 such sites in
Ayacucho alone, and 6,400 throughout the national territory.
The law adopts a humanitarian focus, meaning that the location and restitution of remains
is prioritized rather than the criminal responsibilities of perpetrators. This is not meant
to replace or interfere with criminal justice initiatives, but under previous legislation,
families of victims of enforced disappearance were required to present a formal complaint
before the Attorney General’s Office before the state would initiate a search process. If
the perpetrators were unidentified, or if there was not sufficient evidence to prove that
a crime had occurred, authorities could not commence the search process. With this
humanitarian focus, the National Law to Search for Disappeared Persons allows for a
new approach which prioritizes the right of the families of victims to find their missing
loves ones and give them a dignified burial. Further, the law provides for psychosocial
support for the relatives of the victims, material and logistical assistance to facilitate
their participation in the different stages of the process and mandates the protection of
clandestine graves and other burial sites from alteration.50
Criminal Prosecutions. During the internal armed conflict, impunity for grave
violations of human rights committed by state agents was the norm. Few cases were
investigated by authorities, and even fewer were prosecuted in civilian courts. In those
few instances in which cases came before the courts, the military routinely asserted
jurisdiction, claiming that any human rights cases involving military personnel were
function-related crimes. Conflicts over jurisdiction would be resolved by the Supreme
Court, which almost always ruled in favor of the military courts. As Human Rights
Watch noted, such courts lacked “the most elementary guarantees of independence and
autonomy,” and, unsurprisingly, routinely dismissed human rights charges.51 In 1995,
this system of de facto impunity was formalized when Congress passed two laws that
explicitly granted blanket amnesty to state agents allegedly involved in human rights
violations. Shining Path abuses were prosecuted in civil and military courts, including
the infamous “faceless” courts in which judges’ identities were kept hidden, presumably
for security reasons. These courts came under harsh criticism for failing to uphold basic
due-process guarantees.52
In the face of institutionalized impunity, victims and human rights organizations

sought redress in the Inter-American System of Human Rights. In dozens of cases, the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the State of Peru responsible for human
rights violations and ordered the investigation, prosecution and punishment of those
responsible. The Court’s 2001 Barrios Altos ruling, which, as previously mentioned
ruled that the amnesty laws lacked legal effect, proved critical to transitional justice
efforts in Peru.
In its final report, the CVR recommended the criminal prosecution of 47 cases and
called for the creation of a specialized system to investigate and adjudicate these cases.
The majority of these cases involved members of government security forces, who had
until this point enjoyed total impunity. Many of the crimes committed by Shining Path
had already been prosecuted, and the organization’s principal leaders were either in
prison or had been killed, though new cases continued to be brought before the courts
as other members of the organization were detained.53
In response to the CVR’s recommendation, the Public Ministry established specialized

units to investigate human rights and terrorism cases, while the Judiciary established
the National Criminal Court (Sala Penal Nacional, SPN), which was charged with
adjudicating cases of human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and terrorism.54
The special prosecutions unit and the SPN were designed to guarantee impartial and
swift criminal trials in these cases, and to ensure that the proceedings conformed
to international law and norms. Prosecutors and judges were to receive specialized
training in international human rights law, and dedication to only these cases would
ensure celerity in the investigation and adjudication of such human rights cases.
There have been important successes in Peru’s criminal prosecution efforts. The most
notable of these is without doubt the successful extradition, prosecution and conviction
of former president Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for
aggravated homicide, assault, and kidnapping in several human rights cases.55 The
Fujimori trial was a watershed in anti-impunity efforts in Peru, demonstrating that
powerful political elites can be brought to account in a fair trial that fully respects due
process rights and administers justice fairly and effectively.56 Convictions have been
handed down in a number of other emblematic cases, including the 1991 enforced
disappearance of university student Ernesto Castillo Páez;57 the 1991 Barrios Altos
massacre;58 and the 1986 massacre of 69 peasants in Accomarca.59
Highlight: The Fujimori Judgment

The Fujimori judgment set a new precedent in the struggle for global justice. The conduct
of the tribunal was widely lauded by international observers for maintaining impartiality,
adhering to the rule of law, and upholding the defendant’s due process guarantees. The
judgment relied on national and international law and contributed to human rights
jurisprudence by demonstrating that it is possible to hold to account not only the material
authors of grave human rights crimes, but also the intellectual authors of such crimes.60
The evidence showed that the crimes were perpetrated by the Colina Group, consisting
of officers of the Peruvian Army and created by the high command in an official though
secret manner. The Colina Group operated clandestinely, but it was under the orders and
control of the army high command, which itself was commanded by Fujimori. The court
determined that the military members of Colina Group were the direct authors of the
1991 Barrios Altos massacre, in which 15 people were killed and four gravely wounded,
the enforced disappearance and killing of nine students and a professor from La Cantuta
University, and the kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel
Dyer. The court found Fujimori criminally liable under a specific form of indirect or
intellectual authorship (autoría mediata, sometimes translated as perpetration by means):
the commission of crimes through the use of an organized apparatus of power.61
The court also established that in complex human rights cases such as this, where direct
orders and evidence may have been destroyed or may have been only verbal in nature,
a preponderance of circumstantial evidence may be sufficient in determining criminal
responsibility. The judges found Fujimori guilty of the crimes of aggravated homicide, assault
and aggravated kidnapping, crimes outlined in the Peruvian criminal code. At the same time,
the judges clearly state in their verdict that these crimes were part of a generalized pattern of
human rights violations during the Fujimori regime that constituted state policy, and that in
international law these constitute crimes against humanity.62
The court also ordered Fujimori to pay reparations to the victims and established that
the victims from Barrios Altos and La Cantuta were not members of any terrorist
organization. This was a particularly significant gesture towards reparation for the families
of the victims, who for years had endured the stigma of being repeatedly associated with
terrorist organizations in an attempt to delegitimize their demands for truth and justice.
On December 24, 2017, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted Fujimori a

humanitarian pardon. Fujimori is ineligible for a regular presidential pardon because
Peruvian law prohibits those convicted of aggravated kidnapping from receiving such a
benefit. The decision was immediately criticized, as evidence mounted that Kuczynski
had granted the pardon as part of a political deal to save himself from impeachment. As
of this writing, the families of the victims are seeking to have the pardon revoked.
At the same time, human rights groups have pointed to a number of concerns with
Peru’s criminal justice process. The special investigations units at the Attorney General’s
Office remained under resourced, so investigations take an exceptionally long time.
The CVR envisioned that the system would focus on the 47 cases it had recommended
for criminal prosecution, but individuals and victims’ associations began filing charges
in hundreds of other cases. To date, only a fraction of cases of human rights violations
denounced before the Public Ministry have gone to trial. Over half of the 3,000
complaints filed by victims have been dismissed by prosecutors, due to lack of evidence
or lack of an ability to identify a perpetrator, while hundreds of other cases languish
in the Attorney General’s Office.63 The Defense Ministry has steadfastly refused to turn
over official documents that might assist these investigations, even when ordered to do
so by competent judicial authorities.64
Further complicating the situation, the mandate of the National Criminal Court
was expanded beyond human rights and terrorism cases to include drug trafficking,
organized crime, money laundering, and a host of other crimes. This loss of
specialization and subsequent increase in the Court’s caseload has had nefarious
consequences for human rights prosecutions. The system has been overwhelmed by
these other cases, with human rights cases now constituting less than ten percent of the
National Criminal Court’s overall caseload. Hearings are held sporadically—two hours
every week or every ten days—leading to lengthy, drawn-out proceedings. For example,
the public trial in the Accomarca case, a 1985 massacre by the army of 69 indigenous
peasants, lasted five years and ten months. The case of Los Cabitos 1983 (a military
base in Ayacucho that was a clandestine center of detention, torture, sexual assault,
extrajudicial execution, and forced disappearance) started in May 2011, and the verdict
was handed down more than six years later, in August 2017.65 Such delays are highly
problematic on procedural grounds, and they also undermine the reparative nature of
criminal trials for victims. These changes in the Court’s mandate came at a time when
there were intense public smear campaigns against those pursuing accountability in
Peru, often by the highest authorities in the land. Human rights groups believe that the
intention is to obstruct the criminal justice process in these cases.66
Human rights advocates have also been critical of several sentences handed down by
the National Criminal Court, saying they diverge from international human rights
standards of evidence and of theories of intellectual authorship, such as command
responsibility, superior responsibility, and perpetration by means (autoría mediata).67
A review of sentences handed down between 2005 and 2016 shows that defendants
in human rights cases are twice as likely to be acquitted than convicted. (See Table 1.)
Human rights lawyers have also denounced efforts on the part of military officials to
persuade or intimidate judicial operators in certain human rights cases. In one case,
a leaked email exchange revealed that a National Criminal Court judge had agreed to
guarantee an acquittal for a general accused in the Matero massacre case, in exchange
for gifts and money.68 In another case, the 1997 hostage rescue operation known as
Chavín de Huantar, the trial court found in 2012 that one of the MRTA hostage-takers,
Eduardo Nicolás Cruz Sánchez, alias “Tito,” had been extrajudicially executed after he
had surrendered, but acquitted the three officials charged as the intellectual authors of
the murder (one other was fugitive). In 2013, an audio recording was released revealing
a conversation in which the president of the Supreme Court, the minister of justice,
and the government representative before the Inter-American Court, instructed the
trial court judge in the case to acquit the three military officials charged and provided
advice about how to discount forensic evidence presented by the prosecution.69 While
there were investigations into allegations of improper interference in the case, no
one was charged.70 These examples raise serious questions about the level of political
interference in transitional justice cases in Peru and the ability of the courts to remain
independent in the face of pressure and perhaps intimidation.
This scenario has been further complicated by a sometimes hostile political environment
for transitional justice. Particularly during the García administration, government
officials, former military officers, and conservative politicians attacked human rights
lawyers and government prosecutors in these cases of “political persecution” of the
military. They also frequently questioned the motives of judicial operators and human
rights advocates engaged in justice processes, at times accusing them of harboring
“terrorist sympathies.71 During this period, there were renewed attempts to impose
amnesty laws.72 Since 2006, the state has assumed the financial costs of legal counsel
for military and police officials accused of human rights violations, even though many
victims lack legal representation as well as adequate witness protection. In 2010, the
Peruvian Army published the report En Honor a la Verdad (In Honor of the Truth),
in which it provides its viewpoint on Peru’s internal armed conflict. The army report
fundamentally challenges the findings of the CVR, asserting that while there may
have been “excesses” in the course of implementing the military’s counterinsurgency
strategy, in no way could these be considered systematic violations of human rights,
much less official state policy.73
Table 1. Sentences in Cases of Grave Human Rights Violations in Peru, 2005-2016
Year of Number Number Number Second

CASE Crime (1) Status (2)
Sentence Procecuted Convicted Acquitted Instance
Delta Pichanaki (4) 2005 10 10 0 H Conviction Ratified
Moisés Carvajal Quispe 2005 1 0 1 H Acquittal Ratified
Rafael Salgado 2005 3 0 3 H, AOA Acquittal Nullified. New trial.
Ramírez Hinostroza 2005 1 0 1 K Acquittal Ratified
Benito Céspedes y otros 1 2006 1 0 1 H, K Acquittal Ratified
Ernesto Castillo Páez 2006 16 4 12 FD Mixed Ratified
J.C. Alcides and A. Sandoval Flores 2007 1 0 1 FD Acquittal Ratified
Benito Céspedes y otros 2 2007 1 0 1 H, K Acquittal Ratified
2007 sentence nullifed.
Chuschi 1, 2 2007 / 2014 7 2 4 FD Mixed
New trial, mixed sentence.
Eladio Mancilla Calle 2007 3 0 3 FD Acquittal Ratified
Hugo Bustíos 2007 2 2 0 H Conviction Ratified
Cantuta 1 2008 14 11 0 H, FD, K Conviction Ratified
Pedro Haro 2008 5 0 5 FD Acquittal Ratified
Zulema Tarazona 2008 1 0 1 H, AA Conviction Ratified
Barrios Altos, La Cantuta (A. Fujimori) 2009 1 1 0 H, K Conviction Ratified
Constantino Saavedra 1 2009 4 0 4 FD Acquittal Nullified. New trial
Desaparición Autoridades de Acocro 2009 5 1 3 K Mixed Ratified
Adrian Medina 2010 2 0 2 H Acquittal N/A
Barrios Altos, Santa y Pedro Yauri 2010 30 18 12 H, IA, AH, K Mixed Ratified
Continues
Transitional Justice Case Studies: Peru
17
18

Felipe Huaman Palomino 2010 1 0 1 FD Acquittal N/A
Appeal pending of one
Cantuta 2 y 3 (09-2008) 2008 / 2010 2 2 0 FD, H, K Conviction
convicted.
Indalecio Pomatanta 1 y 2 2009 / 2011 4 1 3 H Mixed Appeal pending
Jeremías Osorio 1 y 2 2008 / 2011 1 0 1 FD Acquittal Appeal pending
Jorge Gutierrez Quintero 2011 2 1 1 FD Mixed Appeal pending
Pucayacu 2011 3 2 0 H Conviction N/A
Walter Castillo Cisneros 2011 1 0 1 FD Acquittal N/A
Bernabé Baldeón García 2012 1 1 0 AA Conviction N/A
Constantino Saavedra 1 y 2 2009 / 2012 4 0 4 FD Acquittal Ratified
Efrain Aponte Ortiz 2 2007 / 2012 4 3 1 H Mixed Appeal pending
Gualberto Chipana Wayra 2012 1 0 1 AA Acquittal Nullified. New trial.
2012 Acquittal nullified.
Luis Manrique Escobar 2012 / 2017 1 0 1 FD Acquittal
Acquitted in second trial.
Santa Barbara 2 2008 / 2012 8 1 7 FD Acquittal Appeal pending
Aucayacu o del capitán Carlos Esparza 2013 1 1 0 FD Conviction N/A
Cantuta 4 2013 3 3 0 H, FD, K Conviction Ratified
Curgos 2013 4 0 4 FD Conviction Nullified
2013 conviction nullified.
Rather than order a new
Lircay 2013 2 0 2 FD Conviction
trial, the SCJ acquits the 2
defendants.
Los Laureles 1 y 2 2009/2013 7 0 7 FD Acquittal Ratified
Transitional Justice in the Aftermath of Civil Conflict: Lessons from Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador
Manyacc o Santiago Antezana 2013 1 1 0 FD Conviction Ratified
Marcelino Valencia y
2009 /2013 6 0 5 H Acquittal N/A
Zacarías Pasca 1 y 2
2008 / 2010
Matero 1, 2 y 3 5 0 5 FD Acquittal Ratified
/ 2013
Navarrete 2013 1 0 1 T Acquittal Nullified
Parcco y Pomatambo 1 y 2 2010/2013 6 0 5 FD Acquittal Appeal pending
Testigos del caso Bernabé Baldeón 2013 1 1 0 T Conviction Ratified
Agente Carrión 2014 8 0 8 H Acquittal Appeal pending
Hilario Ayuque Zuniga 2014 2 0 2 FD Acquittal Appeal pending
Javier Tineo 2014 1 1 0 FD Conviction Nullified. New trial.
Lucmahuayco (5) 2014 30 0 30 H, T Acquittal Appeal pending
Mixed. Two convictions
Pucará 1 y 2 2010 / 2014 16 2 9 H Mixed ratified,
8 nullified.
Nullified. SCJ acquits 2
Universidad Nacional del Centro 1 y 2 2010 / 2014 2 0 2 H, FD Conviction
defendants.
Pachaconas 2015 1 1 0 H Conviction N/A
Gutierrez Quinteros 2015 1 0 1 FD Acquittal N/A
2007 / 2010
Marco Barrantes 1,2,3 y 4 5 2 3 FD Conviction N/A
2013 / 2015
Chilliutira 1 y 2 2011/2015 2 1 1 H Conviction N/A
Parccocucho 2016 2 0 2 FD, H Acquittal Appeal pending
Accomarca 2016 26 10 5 H, FD, K Mixed Appeal pending
Transitional Justice Case Studies: Peru
Continues
19
20

Sótanos SIE 2016 4 3 0 FD Conviction Ratified
MMMB 2016 10 3 7 SV, K Mixed Ratified
Appeal pending of one
Chavín de Huantar 1 y 2 2012/2016 4 0 4 H Acquittal
convicted
TOTAL 298 91 182
KEY
*Some cases have been litigated more than once, either because the Supreme Court of Justice nullified the verdict and ordered a new trial; or because a separate trial was opened for the same crime but with
different defendants. In the case of the former we list the case one time and each trial is listed 1, 2, 3, and so on. Where different defendants are being prosecuted for a case in which others have been prosecuted
for the same crime, the case is listed separated, but we still include a numeral annotation to indicate that the same events are being prosecuted involving different alleged perpetrators. The number of prosecuted
is often higher than the number of convicted and acquitted because some defendants fail to appear before court.
(1) CRIMES: H=Homicide; FD=Forced disappearance; T=torture; K=kidnapping; AA= aggravated assault; AOA= abuse of authority;
SV= Sexual Violence; IA= illicit association; AH= attempted homicide
(2) Status: refers to first-instance sentence. Conviction=all defendants convicted; Acquittal=all defendants acquitted; Mixed=at least one defendant convicted and at least one acquitted.
(3) Second instance: The Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) rules on appeals of first-instance verdicts. The SCJ can ratify or nullify, partially or totally, a first-instance sentence.
(4) All of those convicted are civilian members of civil defense patrols.
(5) Five of those convicted are civilian members of civil defense patrols.
SOURCE: Peru Human Rights Trials Project, Jo-Marie Burt, Director.

Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory. Memorials and other

forms of commemoration may be seen as informal transitional justice mechanisms,
but they are an important way that post-conflict societies acknowledge past harm and
dignify victims. These may take the form of ad hoc commemorations, memorial sites,
and museums, be these local or national in nature. Increasingly, some of these sites are
considered to be a key element of the symbolic reparations that states are obliged to
provide to restore the dignity of the victims of grave human rights violations. Often,
such memory spaces and sites are born of civil society initiatives. There are sometimes
also state-sponsored memorialization projects. In both instances, such sites are often the
subject of bitter controversy. This is especially true in countries such as those examined
here, where competing narratives about what happened during the internal armed
conflict and who is responsible continue to circulate in the public sphere.
In Peru, victims’ associations and local communities have created memorials,

museums, and other sites to commemorate the victims of the conflict. One of the first
such spaces was the Memory Museum created by the National Association of Families
of the Kidnapped, Detained and Disappeared of Peru (ANFASEP), the first and most
important association of victims of the conflict. The museum is located on the third
floor of ANFASEP’s building in the city of Huamanga, the capital of Ayacucho and
epicenter of the political violence that wracked Peru between 1980 and 2000. The
ANFASEP Memory Museum presents the victims’ view of the conflict, and highlights
the abuses committed by government forces as well as the Shining Path. One of its most
controversial aspects is a replica of a prison cell where the visitor can peek through a
small window to witness an ongoing torture session. Clothing and other belongings
of individual victims, donated by their families, are on display at the museum, as are
several pieces of art depicting a variety of scenes from the conflict period. At the end of
the exhibit is an informative timeline of events related to the conflict, and a powerful
collage of photographs of the members of ANFASEP, almost all of them indigenous
Quechua.
Because of the contentious nature of memory in Peru, memorials and other memory
spaces are often fraught with controversy. The Ojo que Llora (the Eye that Cries) is a
memorial space designed by artist Lika Mutal and created with support from human
rights organizations and the municipality of Jesus María in Lima. Inaugurated in
August 2005, it sits in a corner of the Campo de Marte park, and consists of a labyrinth
of circular pathways paved with smooth, grey stones, each of which is inscribed with
the name of the victims of the conflict. A large stone block at the center emits a slow
stream of flowing water, simulating tears. The memorial site became a subject of intense
controversy in 2007, when conservative politicians and media figures warned that
the memorial was “a monument to terrorism,” and sought its removal.74 Though the
monument had been in existence for more than a year, it drew the ire of conservative
politicians after a ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that ordered
the Peruvian State to inscribe onto the stones of the memorial the names of the victims
of the Canto Grande massacre, all high-ranking members of Shining Path killed after
a government raid on the high-security prison in the days after the April 5, 1992 ‘self-
coup.’ Ironically, all the victims named by the CVR were already inscribed on the
stones, including those killed at Canto Grande. In response to the backlash, Mutal and
the civil society groups that oversee the site agreed to revise the names on the stones
to conform to the list developed by the National Registry of Victims, hence erasing the
names of hundreds of people who, though they were victims of human rights violations,
were not included in the Registry because of their presumed membership in subversive
organizations. There have also been frequent vandal attacks against the memorial,
including one incident shortly after the extradition of Alberto Fujimori to Peru in
September 2007. Dozens of stones were broken or destroyed, and the stone block where
the “eye that cries” is located was defaced with orange paint—the color of fujimorismo.75
In 2016, eight years after its inception, the Peruvian government inaugurated the Place
of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion (LUM, Lugar de la Memoria, la Tolerancia
y la Inclusión Social), with a permanent exhibit chronicling the internal armed conflict,
a library, and an auditorium for public events. The LUM was controversial from the
start; then-president García rejected an initial donation offer of two million euros by
the German government to create a memory museum, stating Peru had no need for
such a museum, but that he would gladly accept the money to build roads. After a sharp
rebuke by Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, García agreed to accept the donation,
and asked Vargas Llosa to lead the initiative.76
After long delays and several leadership changes, the LUM project advanced steadily
under the stewardship of renowned jurist and former judge of the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights, Diego García Sayan. García Sayan appointed a professional
curatorial team and tasked them with developing the LUM’s permanent exhibit and the
narrative script that would guide visitors through it. As part of the decision-making
process, the team engaged in country-wide consultations with people and communities
affected by the violence, collecting valuable insights about what ordinary Peruvians
wanted to see in a memory space.
The long delay in opening the LUM was at least in part related to intense discrepancies
over what its core message should be. María Eugenia Ulfe, an anthropologist who has
specialized on the topic of art and memory in Peru, noted that some believed that
the LUM should reflect the vision of the internal armed conflict laid out by the CVR
Transitional Justice Case Studies 23
and that it should include the Yuyanapaq photography exhibit produced by the CVR,
which chronicles the conflict and its consequences.77 This was, of course, the exhibit
that motivated the original donation by the German government. Yet others saw the
LUM as an opportunity to develop a distinct narrative that is far less critical of the role
of the armed forces than the CVR report. The LUM admits that the military committed
some abuses, which are referred to in the permanent exhibit as “excesses.” The CVR
report, however, fundamentally challenges the “excesses” thesis, stating instead that the
Peruvian armed forces engaged in systematic violations of human rights that rise to the
level of crimes against humanity.
Yet there are important, innovative elements of the LUM that are of great import,
including life-size screens that loop the videotaped testimonies of 16 individuals
affected by the violence, including survivors of army massacres and of Shining Path
violence, members of the clergy and armed forces, among others. One of the most
powerful testimonies is that of José Carlos Agüero, who talks about his parents, both
Shining Path militants, who were killed by government forces in separate incidents (his
father is one of the 200 alleged Shining Path militants killed during the 1986 Fronton
prison uprising; his mother was the victim of extrajudicial execution a few years later).
He claims his status as a victim, since his parents were both killed unlawfully by the
state, but he notes that the broader society does not consider him a victim, and in many
ways, extends its reprobation of his parents to him by association. It should be noted
that the Yuyanapaq photography exhibit is not housed at the LUM; instead it is now a
permanent exhibit at the more remote National Museum in San Borja.78
Highlight: La Hoyada “Sanctuary of Memory” in Ayacucho

The CVR documented dozens of cases of enforced disappearance, extrajudicial execution,
torture, and sexual violence at the “Los Cabitos” military base in Huamanga, Ayacucho
between 1983 and 1985. During this period, the armed forces had virtually total political
and administrative control of Ayacucho and surrounding departments that had been
declared “states of emergency” by the government.79 Victims’ organizations, including
ANFASEP, denounced the arbitrary detention of hundreds of individuals at Los Cabitos,
many who remain disappeared to this day. Individuals who were detained at Cabitos but
were subsequently released have testified that they were tortured while in detention.80
Women survivors have testified that they were sexually violated while detained at Los
Cabitos.81
In 2004, journalist Ricardo Uceda published the confession of a military officer who
told him that he and others were ordered by their superiors to build ovens to dispose
of hundreds of bodies of former detainees who had been killed and were buried at the
Los Cabitos military base.82 Between 2006 and 2009, investigators exhumed 109 bodies
and approximately 100 kilos of ashes in the area surrounding the military base known
as La Hoyada, which served as a training area for the military. They also found the ovens
that were allegedly used to cremate the remains of an unknown number of victims. In
2014, the remains of three individuals detained and disappeared at Los Cabitos were
positively identified using DNA and returned to the families.83 According to legal advisor
to ANFASEP Yuber Alarcón, investigators have not been granted access inside of the
military base to conduct exhumations.84
In the aftermath of the exhumations, ANFASEP launched an initiative to create a memory

space in La Hoyada. The members of ANFASEP view La Hoyada as “a sacred place,
because of the people who were buried here,” says former president of the organization
Adelina García, whose husband was forcibly disappeared. The Sanctuary of Memory La
Hoyada “will be a place for the families of the disappeared to be able to visit to remember
their missing loved ones, to leave them flowers, to leave them some fruit,” says García.85
After much negotiation, and the intercession of the Ombudsman’s Office and civil society
organizations, the regional government of Ayacucho designated six hectares of land for the
Sanctuary of Memory in 2014. However, construction of the memorial has been delayed
as a group of people invaded a portion of the assigned land plot.86 A judged approved an
injunction filed by ANFASEP to have the squatters removed, but the scheduled removal has
been repeatedly delayed. In the meantime, construction of the memorial remains on hold.
A similar and larger invasion occurred shortly after ANFASEP proposed the Sanctuary
of Memory. Many of the squatters are army veterans, and many human rights observers
believe that they were encouraged to invade the land to prevent further exhumations. These
have been legally recognized as formal settlements, making it highly unlikely that further
exhumations will take place.87
The Sanctuary of Memory remains to date an empty field, marked only by a traditional cross
on one end and, on the other, a cement structure in the middle of the field that fueled the
crematories. More than three decades after the atrocities at La Hoyada, the victims are still
waiting for this important initiative of symbolic reparation to become a reality.
Transitional Justice Case Studies: Guatemala 25
2. GUATEMALA
G
uatemala endured a 36-year internal armed conflict between 1960 and 1996,
when peace accords were signed between the Guatemalan government and
the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrilla movement.
The armed conflict took shape in the aftermath of the overthrow of democratically
elected President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 by the military, in close alliance with landed
elites and the U.S. government.88 In 1960, a group of young military officers organized
an insurgent movement in opposition to extensive government repression. In the
following years, other guerrilla organizations appeared, mostly in the capital city and
in eastern Guatemala, but they were eliminated after intense government repression.
A new wave of guerrilla organizations emerged in the 1970s in northern and western
Guatemala, regions primarily populated by indigenous Maya, while urban organizing
against successive military governments also became more intensive.89 The military
government of Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982) attacked the urban political opposition
with a policy of selective assassination of moderate politicians, union organizers,
academics, students and community leaders. In June 1980, prominent social democrats
Manuel Colom Argueta and Alberto Fuentes Mohr were assassinated, and 27 leaders of
the National Workers’ Confederation (CNT) were forcibly disappeared.
As the army began to identify the indigenous communities as allies of the guerrillas,
the state campaign of terror was extended to rural areas and continued under General
José Efraín Ríos Montt, who overthrew Lucas García in a coup d’état in March 1982.90
Between 1981 and 1983 the army’s scorched-earth campaign against the indigenous
population in the western highlands resulted in brutal massacres that left tens of
thousands dead and hundreds of communities destroyed. This provoked the massive
displacement of indigenous populations.91 Many fled to the capital or the coast, while
others hid in the mountains, or left the country altogether.92 Those who remained
in their communities were forced to submit to Army control and surveillance. The
military forced all men between the ages of 15 and 60 to participate in the Civil Defense
Patrols (PACs), which fostered deep divisions within rural communities as many civil
patrol members committed abuses against the villagers.
Ríos Montt was overthrown in a coup by Oscar Mejía Víctores in August 1983. Death
squad activity in the city continued and even intensified under Mejía Víctores. Victims’
organizations began to organize public protests of military repression, but they were
victimized as well. One of the most notorious cases is that of Rosario Cuevas, who co-
founded the Mutual Support Group (Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo, GAM), after her husband,
Carlos Ernesto Cuevas Molina, was forcibly disappeared in May 1984. The government
publicly accused GAM of being a guerrilla front and a threat to national security. In
April 1985, Rosario Cuevas was found dead, along with her 21-year old brother and her
two-year old son. The autopsy showed that the victims had been brutally tortured, and
Rosario Cuevas sexually violated, prior to their deaths.93
By 1985, the insurgency had been severely weakened by the policy of state terror and
selective assassinations. Military power over society was near-total, and fear was
widespread. Under these conditions, the Mejía Víctores government promoted the
transition of power from military to civilian government. The military oversaw the
drafting of a new Constitution and the 1986 election of Vinizio Cerezo as president. The
military retained significant power and privileges, however. A blanket amnesty law passed
in 1986 shielded military officers from prosecution for human rights and other crimes.
In 1990, under international pressure, the Guatemalan government began peace

negotiations with the URNG. In 1996, with oversight from the United Nations, a peace
agreement was signed.94 The accords consisted of twelve agreements on substantive
issues for the transformation of the country, including respect for human rights, socio-
economic rights and the agrarian situation, governmental reforms, rights of indigenous
peoples, military reform and the creation of a new police force, and the creation of
the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH). The international community
supported the peace process and the implementation of the accords through the United
Nations Guatemala Mission (MINUGUA), which operated between 1994 and 2004.
Two Truth Commissions. The CEH conducted its inquiry between 1997 and 1999.
It visited 2,000 communities, interviewed 20,000 people, and took the testimonies of
7,338 victims. The CEH’s 1999 report examined the historical and structural factors
contributing to the violence, and determined that in the course of Guatemala’s armed
conflict more than 200,000 people were killed, 45,000 were forcibly disappeared, and a
million people were driven from their homes.95 The CEH noted that during the conflict
the distinction between combatant and non-combatant was not respected, resulting
in the killing of unarmed civilians, including women, children, members of the
church, and indigenous leaders. The CEH documented 626 massacres and determined
that at least 400 villages were completely destroyed in the course of state-sponsored
counterinsurgency operations. The CEH also documented the extensive sexual violence
suffered primarily by women during the armed conflict.
According to the CEH, 93 percent of abuses were committed by government forces,

three percent by the guerrillas, and four percent was undetermined. Four out of five
victims were members of Guatemala’s indigenous Maya groups, leading the CEH to
conclude that the Guatemalan state had committed ‘acts of genocide’ against Maya
groups in five regions of the country between 1981 and 1983. The period of greatest
violence occurred under the regime of General José Efraín Ríos Montt (March
1982-August 1983)96 and included widespread massacres, the forced displacement of
populations, targeted attacks against indigenous Mayan communities, and widespread
and systematic sexual violence against women.97
The Human Rights Office of the Archbishop’s Office (ODHAG) launched its own
commission of inquiry in 1995, prior to the signing of the peace accords, known as
the Interdiocesan Project for the Recovery of Historical Memory (REHMI).98 Dioceses
throughout the country collaborated with the REHMI project. Some 600 members of
affected communities were trained to conduct interviews with survivors and families of
victims, usually in their native languages, a process that was designed not only to collect
testimonies but also to create spaces for dialogue within local communities about the
nature and impact of the violence.99 Over the course of three years, REHMI collected,
coded and analyzed 5,180 testimonies. These testimonies, along with other sources,
including official military documents, declassified U.S. government documents, and
perpetrator testimonies, served as the basis for the REHMI’s final report, Guatemala:
Nunca Más.
Two days after Bishop Juan Gerardi presented REHMI’s final report in a public cere-
mony on April 21, 1998, he was assassinated on order of the Presidential High Command
(Estado Mayor Presidencial).100 Gerardi’s murder, which occurred as the CEH was in
the midst of its investigation, underscored the extreme difficulty of collecting victim
testimony and speaking publicly about the atrocities committed during Guatemala’s
internal armed conflict, given the continued power of the very actors responsible for
the crimes.
In its final report, aptly titled “Memory of Silence,” the CEH identified the key factors
underlying the conflict and outlined a number of recommendations designed to
provide redress for victims and to strengthen peace and a democratic political system
based on respect for human rights. The Commission affirmed that one of the causes of
the internal armed conflict was the Guatemalan State itself. The State’s authoritarian
and exclusionary policies, based on the marginalization of the indigenous majority,
served to protect the interests of a small group of powerful elites who deployed direct
violence against any effort to alter the status quo. The CEH thus recommended a series
of measures to provide redress for victims as well as to change the underlying structure
of the Guatemalan State. The CEH called upon the state to provide integral reparations
for victims, including economic reparations and restoration of material possessions;
to investigate all cases of enforced disappearance and create a national plan to search
for the remains of the victims; and to take measures to preserve the memory of the
victims. The CEH also recommended reforms of the electoral system, the judiciary, and
the armed forces to strengthen the democratic system, as well as a series of measures
designed to consolidate the peace, including fiscal reform and policies to overcome
racism and the historic oppression of the indigenous Maya population.
Even as the international community praised the CEH for its report and recommen-
dations, in Guatemala, conservative politicians, economic elites and the armed forces
balked at the Commission’s report and recommendations. Then President Álvaro
Arzú publicly rejected the report and refused to sign it. A decade would pass before a
Guatemalan president officially acknowledged the veracity of the CEH report and its
findings. In a public ceremony in 2009, then President Álvaro Colom recognized the
CEH report and issued a formal apology to victims of the armed conflict for abuses
committed by the Guatemalan State. However, his successor, Otto Pérez Molina, a
retired general who was an active-duty commander in the Ixil region during the Ríos
Montt government, returned to a policy of denial of the abuses of the past.
Victims’ associations, human rights groups, and allied organizations have continued to
demand implementation of the CEH’s recommendations, but for years the indifference
of the State to their demands was overwhelming. Even so, as will be discussed below, a
combination of factors has allowed Guatemala to make some progress in its transitional
justice process, though the road has been fraught with difficulties and there have been
significant setbacks along the way.
Highlight: The Struggle to Access Military Archives

The Guatemalan military has steadfastly resisted handing over official documents to facilitate
human rights investigations. The Law of National Reconciliation of 1996 mandated that all
state entities “provide the Commission of Historical Clarification the support it requires.”101
Yet, the state repeatedly denied the CEH access to official documents, particularly the files
of the military and intelligence services, based on the claim that documents were protected
by military or national security exemptions,102 or that the requested information never or no
longer existed due to the irregular nature of the armed conflict.103 The State has also asserted
that the irregular nature of the conflict meant that records were not produced, or were not
preserved, that otherwise would have been.
Nevertheless, several official documents have come to public light and have been
important in helping families discover the truth about the fate of their missing loved
ones. For example, the Military Diary, a logbook that revealed the fate of scores of
Guatemalan citizens who were forcibly disappeared by security forces during the mid-
1980s, was leaked in 1999 to National Security Archive researcher Kate Doyle.104 The
logbook revealed that the Guatemalan military kept detailed records of its death-squad
operations. It included photographs of 183 people who were forcibly disappeared and
coded references to their executions. To date, the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology
Foundation (FAFG) has identified seven of the Military Diary victims using DNA
evidence. All of the remains were found in clandestine graves on military bases.105
A major breakthrough in accessing official documents came in 2005, when millions of

pages of National Police files were discovered in an abandoned warehouse. The National
Police Historical Archive (AHPN) was created to organize the documents, which include
administrative police documents for the National Police, a state entity in operation from
1882 to 1996 that was implicated in numerous human rights violations. The records
include identification cards, vehicle license plates, photographs, police logs, as well as
loose files on kidnappings, murders and assassinations. The Police Archives are now
public in their entirety, digitized and partly accessible online.106
The executive and state security forces have sought to limit access to AHPN. However,
the engagement of civil society, the financial support of international actors, and the
oversight of the Human Rights Ombudsman, have allowed it to remain operative and
open to the public.107 Documents from the archive have been used to assist families in
the search for the disappeared, and in numerous judicial investigations by government
prosecutors and human rights lawyers. In 2009, the AHPN established an Access to
Information Office to provide families a way to easily access information in the Archive.
The AHPN’s website states that hundreds of family members of victims have visited the
Archive seeking information about their disappeared relatives.108
Reparations. Four years after the publication of the CEH report, the government
created the National Reparations Program (PNR). The PNR was the result of a
government resolution, rather than a law passed by Congress, as requested by victims’
groups.109 As a result, the PNR, which is functionally dependent on the Peace Secretariat,
is highly contingent on the priorities and political will of the incumbent government.
Some administrations have approached reparations policy as a source of clientelistic
handouts, whereas others that give low importance to acknowledging the state’s
obligations to the victims of the internal armed conflict have virtually abandoned the
reparations program. Such was the case, in particular, with the government of retired
army general Otto Pérez Molina (2012-15). Victims’ associations continue to demand
that Congress pass legislation establishing the PNR as official state policy. They say that
this would reduce the uncertainty that has characterized the reparations program to
date, as it would give the PNR functional autonomy, guarantee that it has an annual
budget, and cushion it from the political vagaries of different administrations.110
The 2003 resolution establishing the PNR includes reparations for victims of enforced
disappearance, extrajudicial execution, torture, forced displacement, and sexual
violence. The crime of genocide is not included, despite the fact that the CEH highlighted
“acts of genocide” in its report.111 The reparations program includes four different types
of reparations: material, individual economic, psychosocial, and symbolic reparations.
Material reparations aim to address material losses suffered during the armed conflict,
including land restitution, housing, and productive projects. Individual economic
reparations provide a specific sum to victims or their families, and represent official
acknowledgment of the moral, physical, and material harm caused. Psychosocial
reparations and rehabilitation measures seek to address the mental and physical
health issues among affected individuals and communities. Symbolic reparations
seek to acknowledge victims and promote historic memory, including the creation of
museums and monuments, commemorating National Victims’ Day, and supporting
the exhumation and reburial of victims of the internal armed conflict, among others.
The PNR has 15 regional offices in areas affected by the internal armed conflict,
though decision-making has remained centralized in the Guatemala City office.112
In practice, the integral focus laid out in the design of the reparations program has
not been respected. Instead, the PNR has focused on small, individual payments to
victims. Still, many victims have been denied compensation because they are not able
to comply with all the legal requirements of the PNR. This is especially the case for
indigenous victims who lack identification documents, are not familiar with the state
bureaucracy, and do not speak Spanish. Victims’ associations also criticize the PNR for
not implementing programs to promote moral, cultural and psychosocial reparations
as well as scholarships for the children of the victims of the conflict.113
Under the Pérez Molina administration, the PNR’s budget was cut by half and reparations
payments to victims virtually ceased.114 This state of affairs has continued under the
government of Jimmy Morales, who was elected president in 2015 with the National
Convergence Front (FCN), a party founded by senior military officials linked to the
counterinsurgency war. In fact, the PNR appears to have collapsed entirely. According
to Impunity Watch, the Congress allocated 25 million quetzales (approximately $3.3
million) to the PNR for 2016, less than 10 percent of the 300 million ($40 million) it
should receive.115
Another source of reparations for victims emanates from the rulings handed down by
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In numerous cases, such as the Plan de
Sánchez massacre and the enforced disappearance of Marco Antonio Molina Theissen,
the Court has found the State of Guatemala responsible for grave human rights
violations and has ordered the State to deliver economic and symbolic reparations to
victims. However, implementation of the full range of Court-ordered reparations has
been uneven. The Guatemalan State has been more likely to implement the symbolic
reparations measures ordered by the Court, such as publication of the Court’s ruling;
public apologies to the victims; and commemorative measures. For example, in the
Molina Theissen case, the sentence was published, a public apology was made to the
victims, and a public school was named after Marco Antonio.116
However, the state has obviated its obligation to implement other measures ordered
by the Court. The state has not pursued its obligation to search for and return the
remains of Marco Antonio and other victims of enforced disappearance, nor has it
created a mechanism to facilitate the search for all the disappeared as ordered by the
Court. Toward that end, victims’ groups have sought passage of legislation that would
establish a National Commission to Search for Victims of Enforced Disappearance and
other forms of Disappearance (Law 35-90).117 To date, Congress has not approved this
legislation. Even as the State has failed in its obligation to search for the disappeared,
civil society organizations, most notably the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology
Foundation (FAFG), have taken the lead in the search for the disappeared in Guatemala.
Since the mid-1990s, the FAFG has conducted hundreds of exhumations. It also
established a DNA bank and laboratory to help identify the remains of the victims in
order to return them to their families for proper burial. (See Highlight: Civil Society
Leads the Search for the Disappeared.)
Finally, in virtually all the cases dealing with the internal armed conflict, the Inter-
American Court has also outlined the obligation of the Guatemalan State to investigate,
prosecute and punish the perpetrators. For many years the Guatemalan State failed to
fulfill this obligation, but since 2008 there have been important efforts to investigate
and prosecute several cases, which will be discussed further below.
Highlight: Civil Society Leads the Search for the Disappeared

The Guatemalan countryside is riddled with clandestine and unmarked graves from the
conflict period. As elsewhere, the absence of a body to mourn and a gravesite to remember
and honor their loves ones is a particular source of anguish for the families of victims,
especially in indigenous communities for whom burial rituals are a constituent element
of their religious and culture practice. One of the most important forms of reparation
sought by families of victims is to know the truth about what happened to their loved
ones, to recover their remains, and to bury them with dignity. The process of exhuming
the remains of victims and returning them to their communities where they are laid to
rest has become an integral part of the process of reconstructing local memories of the
recent past and dignifying the victims.
The FAFG began forensic investigations at the request of surviving victims and the
families of victims of enforced disappearance. Since 1992, the FAFG has carried out
hundreds of multidisciplinary forensic investigations toward this end. Investigations start
with interviews with survivors and families of the victims, and continue with forensic
archaeology, anthropology, and genetics to locate, recover, document, analyze, and
preserve forensic physical evidence of human rights violations committed during the
armed conflict. Violations investigated by the FAFG include mass killings, extrajudicial
executions, enforced disappearances, and other unlawful killings. Families of victims take
on an active role in the exhumation process, sometimes even helping with the physical
labor of digging for remains.
The FAFG has contributed decisively to truth-recovery in Guatemala. As of December 2016,

FAFG reports conducting 1,273 exhumations, in which 5,935 individuals were exhumed.
A total of 2,179 individuals have been positively identified using DNA and other scientific
methods.118 The FAFG has presented 1,350 expert reports to the Attorney General’s Office,
including six expert reports demonstrating patterns of human rights violations. The FAFG
also assists the families of the identified victims through psycho-social support and by
helping arrange burials of their loves ones’ remains.
Through its forensic work, the FAFG was able to locate and identify seven of the 183
victims listed in the Military Diary, as noted above. The identifications were critical in
corroborating the authenticity of the logbook and the information contained therein.119
In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Guatemalan State
responsible for several of cases of enforced disappearance registered in the Military
Diary, and ordered the investigation, prosecution and punishment of those responsible.
The case is currently under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office for possible
adjudication in Guatemala’s domestic courts. In 2016, the pretrial judge in the case,
Miguel Ángel Gálvez seized military documents he deemed pertinent to his investigation
into the disappearances described in the military logbook.120
FAFG has also worked closely with victims’ associations in their efforts to promote
accountability for grave crimes. In collaboration with the Attorney General’s Office and
Families of the Disappeared in Guatemala (FAMDEGUA), the FAFG used DNA to help
locate and identify two children survivors of the Dos Erres massacre, in which 201 people
were killed in 1982. The two survivors became key witnesses in later trials that ended in
convictions of several elite soldiers (known as Kaibiles).121 In additional, a judge determined
in April 2017 that former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt should stand trial for his role as
intellectual author of the massacre.122 Forensic evidence produced by the FAFG was also
used in the genocide trial against Ríos Montt.
The forensic evidence gathered by the FAFG is at the center of another major case, known
as the CREOMPAZ case. Eight officers, including the former head of the army Benedicto
Lucas García, are accused of criminal responsibility for numerous cases of enforced
disappearances, torture, sexual violence, and extrajudicial execution carried out between
1981 and 1987 in Military Zone 21 (MZ21), in Cobán, Alta Verapaz. MZ21 is currently
a center for training UN peacekeepers known by its acronym CREOMPAZ. Investigators
from the FAFG exhumed 565 bodies from 85 mass graves at the former military base. To
date, they have identified 143 of the victims.123
As these examples suggest, the synergistic relationship between the FAFG, victims’
associations, and prosecutors has galvanized the search for truth and justice in Guatemala.
Criminal Prosecutions. As part of the peace process, the Guatemalan Congress

passed the Law of National Reconciliation in 1996.124 The law nullifies the 1986 amnesty
law, put in place by the outgoing Mejía Víctores regime, which was intended to guarantee
immunity from prosecution for all crimes committed during his government as well
as that of his predecessor, Ríos Montt, in which he served as defense minister. While
the 1996 law does grant amnesty for those who had taken part in the war, it explicitly
excludes from the amnesty provisions the international crimes of genocide, enforced
disappearance, torture and other crimes against humanity. In theory, therefore, criminal
prosecutions could be pursued in post-accord Guatemala. However, the persistence
of de facto arrangements favoring impunity for those who ordered and committed
such atrocities meant that judicial authorities were reticent to criminally investigate
these and other crimes, save a few high-profile cases, including the 1990 murder of
anthropologist Myrna Mack and the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi.125
In the face of this institutionalized impunity and official denial, victims’ associations and
their allies in civil society persisted in their demands for accountability. They continued
to work at the national level collecting evidence, including witness testimonies, physical
evidence, and official documents, among others, to document grave human rights
violations. In light of inaction by domestic courts, they also began to press their claims
for truth and justice before regional and international courts.126 One of the earliest
cases to come before the Guatemalan courts was the Plan de Sánchez massacre. When
the case was dismissed, CALDH, the civil complainant, brought it before the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights, which in turn brought the case before the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In 2004 the Inter-American Court found the
Guatemalan State responsible for the massacre and ordered it to investigate, prosecute
and punish the perpetrators.127 This ruling, along with a number of other rulings by the
Inter-American Court against the State of Guatemala, including the Molina Theissen
enforced disappearance case, the Dos Erres massacre, and the Military Diary case,
created pressure on the domestic justice system to pursue criminal prosecution in cases
of historic human rights abuses.128
International courts have also played a critical role in pressuring the Guatemalan State
to prosecute human rights cases in domestic tribunals. In 1999, invoking the principle
of universal jurisdiction (not long after Chile’s Pinochet had been arrested in London on
this principle), indigenous rights activist and Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú
Tum filed charges before the Spanish National Court against eight senior Guatemalan
government officials, including former heads of state Fernando Romeo Lucas García,
José Efraín Ríos Montt and Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores.129 The case remained
inactive until 2005, when the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled in favor of Spanish
jurisdiction in the Guatemala genocide case. The case came before Judge Santiago
Pedraz, who in 2006 requested the extradition of Ríos Montt and others named in the
case. The Guatemalan Constitutional Court rejected the extradition request.130 Pedraz
nevertheless continued to investigate the case, taking witness and expert testimony in
2008 and 2009. But, without a defendant, he could not render a verdict. Even so, says
Juan Francisco Soto, Executive Director of CALDH, the extradition request and the
unfolding proceedings in Spain galvanized international attention and created pressure
on the Guatemalan State to pursue domestic prosecution in the genocide case.131
Back in Guatemala, the creation of the International Commission Against Impunity in

Guatemala (CICIG) in 2007 was prompting a series of shifts within the domestic justice
system. A UN body established to strengthen the capacity of the legal system to combat
illegal groups and clandestine security structures that continued to operate in postwar
Guatemala, the CICIG works side by side with the Attorney General’s Office and has
played a critical role in strengthening the justice system.132 CICIG helped establish new
procedures to select the attorney general and senior judges, as well as in the creation
of a specialized court system, the High Risk Tribunals, to adjudicate complex criminal
cases. The High Risk Tribunals would become a critical element in strengthening the
judicial system’s capacity to adjudicate complex cases such as organized crime and
international crimes cases, including the Ríos Montt genocide case. As one international
study noted: “Since 2009, all major cases of organized crime and human rights abuses
have used these specialized courts, ensuring greater judicial independence, heightened
expertise, and greater protection for the judges and other participants.”133 The CICIG
also helped strengthen the technical capacities of the Public Ministry to investigate
complex cases of organized crime and grave human rights violations.134
In the context of these changes within the Guatemalan justice sector, reform-minded
legal professionals took positions in the Public Ministry and in key leadership roles in the
Judiciary. The then-president of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice,
César Barrientos Pellecer, supported the creation and subsequent implementation
of the High Risk Tribunals, and worked diligently to ensure the independence and
effective operation of these tribunals.135 Within the Public Ministry, independent
attorneys general, including Amílcar Velásquez Zarate (2008-2010), Claudia Paz y
Paz (2010-2014) and Thelma Aldana (2014-2018), have spearheaded investigations
aimed at combatting Guatemala’s dismal impunity rate for serious crimes, including
grave crimes related to the internal armed conflict.136 Claudia Paz y Paz oversaw a
reorganization of the Human Rights Section within the Public Ministry, appointing
experienced prosecutors to head and spearhead investigations in the Section’s unit on
human rights violations during the armed conflict.
As investigations into past human rights cases began moving forward, public
prosecutors began to work more closely with civil society actors in their investigations.
Individual victims, victims’ associations, and human rights organizations representing
them can act as civil complainants to the cases (querellante adhesivo), facilitating this
collaborative relationship. Victims’ associations and human rights groups have played
a critical role in collecting witness testimony and other evidence that has been central
to legal cases. This combination of factors contributed to a new wave of prosecutorial
activity for past human rights crimes, culminating in several convictions for cases of
forced disappearance, massacres and extrajudicial execution.
Critical to this process was a long-term process of alliance-building among civil society
actors and sectors within the state, and specifically within legal institutions, committed to
challenging impunity for past human rights crimes. The fruits of these new prosecutorial
efforts can be seen in the number of cases brought to trial and resulting in convictions
between 2008 and 2013, the period in which Zarate and Paz y Paz were at the helm of the
PPO. As can be seen in Table 2, aside from the genocide case, ten convictions were handed
down between 2008 and 2013, with a total of 26 individuals convicted. This is a relatively
small number, and those convicted were primarily low-ranking officers and soldiers.
Nevertheless, these convictions breached the wall of impunity in Guatemala, illustrating
the capacity of the country’s legal system to investigate and adjudicate complex human
rights cases and laying the groundwork for the prosecution of senior military officials in
several cases, including the celebrated Maya Ixil genocide case, in which former dictator
José Efraín Ríos Montt was prosecuted and convicted of genocide and crimes against
humanity. Unlike previous convictions, the genocide trial triggered a massive backlash
by conservative military and economic elites, who successfully lobbied the Constitutional
Court to intervene. It partially suspended the proceedings, effectively vacating the ruling.
After several failed attempts, the case is being retried in court as of this writing.137 (See
Highlights: The Genocide Trial.)
Table 2. Human Rights Convictions in Guatemala, 2008-2016
Year of Number
Case Crime*
Sentence Convicted
Rio Negro138 2008 5 H, CAH
Chuatalum 2009 1 FD
El Jute 2009 4 FD
Edgar Fernando García 2010 2 FD
Dos Erres 2011 4 H, CAH
Plan de Sánchez 2012 5 H, CAH
Dos Erres (2nd trial) 2012 1 H, CAH
Edgar Enrique Sáenz Calito 2012 1 FD, CAH
Paredes Cheguen Chiquimula 2013 1 FD
Ixil Genocide** 2013 1 (1 acquitted) G, CAH
Edgar Fernando Garcia (2nd trial) 2013 2 FD
Burning of the Spanish Embassy 2015 1 H, CAH
Sepur Zarco 2016 2 CAH, FD, H
* H=Homicide, CAH=Crimes against humanity; FD=Forced disappearance; G=Genocide
** Sentence vacated after Constitutional Court decision of 20 May 2013.
Source: Attorney General’s Office; table created by author.
Highlight: The Genocide Trial

When Ríos Montt’s legislative mandate expired on 14 January 2012, so too did his
parliamentary immunity.139 This created a new opportunity for the justice system to
act on the complaint presented by the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR),
an association of 22 communities in the five regions affected by government violence,
and CALDH more than a decade earlier.140 Indeed, within days, presiding judge Carol
Patricia Flores ordered Ríos Montt to appear before the court to respond to the charges
against him. Ríos Montt complied, and he was placed under house arrest. His lawyers
filed dozens of legal motions, including a recusal against Judge Flores, effectively delaying
the start of the trial by more than a year. In January 2013, the new judge presiding over
the case, Miguel Ángel Gálvez, found sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial. The
start date for the trial was set for 19 March 2013.
On 10 May 2013, before a packed courtroom, a Guatemalan court found Ríos Montt
guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.141 The conviction was handed down
for crimes committed against Guatemala’s Maya Ixil indigenous population during Ríos
Montt’s 17-month rule between March 1982 and August 1983, the bloodiest period of
Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict.142 The 86-year-old Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80
years in prison—50 years for genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity. His
house arrest was revoked, and he was immediately transported to Matamoros Prison.
Retired General Manuel Rodríguez Sánchez, the former head of military intelligence
under Ríos Montt, was acquitted. The judgment against Ríos Montt came 30 years
after the crimes and more than a decade after survivors first brought a complaint to the
Attorney General’s Office.
The Ríos Montt trial marked the first time a former head of state was prosecuted in
a domestic court for the crime of genocide, representing a milestone in the annals of
global justice. For Guatemala, while a number of domestic prosecutions for human rights
violations had taken place, this was the first time that a former head of state and senior
military officials were prosecuted for grave human rights violations. By holding a former
head of state responsible for crimes committed on his order and demonstrating that these
were crimes of state rather than ‘excesses’ committed by individual soldiers or rogue
military units, the Ríos Montt verdict struck at the heart of the institutionalized impunity
surrounding grave crimes cases in Guatemala.
The trial and verdict held specific significance for Guatemala’s historically marginalized
and excluded indigenous population. Some 100 Maya Ixil survivors and families of
victims testified at the genocide trial, recounting for the first time in public the atrocities
they, their families, and their communities endured. Women who were victims of sexual
violence also gave wrenching testimony about the multiple rapes they endured at the
hands of soldiers. For the victims, the guilty verdict represented both an acknowledgment
of the grave abuses suffered at the hands of the state and a recognition of their rights as
citizens to legal and moral redress.143
However, powerful forces mobilized against the genocide trial from day one. As the
proceedings unfolded, conservative politicians and pro-military groups challenged the
legitimacy of the trial and accused those promoting it of being guerrilla sympathizers
and using the justice system to exact revenge on the military. Sitting president Otto
Pérez Molina —himself a retired army general who had been a commander in the Ixil
region during the Ríos Montt period—asserted publicly, before, during and after the
proceedings, that no genocide had occurred in Guatemala.144 This amounted to outright
interference by the Executive in judicial matters, and no doubt provided cover for the
intimidation campaign conservative sectors were waging against judicial operators,
human rights organizations and victims’ associations. Army veterans staged a public
protest the day after the verdict was handed down. The powerful business association,
the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial
Associations (CACIF), held a press conference at which it decried the verdict as a stain
on Guatemala’s international reputation and called for its reversal.145
Ten days after the verdict was handed down, in a split decision, the Constitutional Court
(CC), arguing procedural violations, partially suspended the genocide proceedings,
effectively undoing the verdict against Ríos Montt. Human rights activists denounced
the CC for bypassing the normal appeal process and asserted that the ruling was illegal.146
(Two judges wrote dissenting opinions further elaborating this argument.) As a result
of the CC decision, Ríos Montt was released from custody, though he remained under
house arrest. Rodríguez Sánchez, who had been freed, was returned to a military hospital.
The undoing of the genocide verdict revealed profound vulnerabilities within Guatemala’s
justice sector and the ability of de facto powers to circumscribe transitional justice efforts.
Survivors and families of the victims who celebrated the verdict now felt vulnerable, and
some feared for their physical safety. A new tribunal was appointed to hear the case. After
several failed attempts to restart the genocide trial, in October 2017, the High Risk Tribunal
B began hearing testimony in the case, but with the defendants in separate proceedings.
This is because Ríos Montt has been diagnosed to be mentally unfit to stand trial and is
therefore being prosecuted under special proceedings in which he is not required to be
present and which are not open to the public.147 After his death in April 2018, the case
against Ríos Montt was dismissed. The proceedings against Rodríguez Sánchez are open to
the public.148
Despite their continued participation the retrial proceedings, victims and their civil
society allies continue to uphold the 10 May 2013 verdict as legitimate. They filed a
petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asserting that the
Guatemalan State has failed to fulfill its obligation to guarantee victims their right to
justice, given that after more than 30 years no one has been held responsible for the
human rights violations suffered by thousands of victims.149
Beyond the legal process, the victims and their allies in civil society emphasize the political
and historic victory that the genocide trial represents, despite the undoing of the verdict and
the long delays in moving forward in the retrial proceedings. As Juan Francisco Soto, executive
director of CALDH, states, “We demonstrated in a court of law that there was genocide
in Guatemala. The verdict was vacated, but this was done using procedural arguments—
questionable ones at that—rather than substantive ones.”150
The Constitutional Court’s undoing of the genocide verdict, along with a series of
other incidents, raised concern among human rights activists that a backlash from
conservative sectors might undermine Guatemala’s transitional justice process. For
example, Ricardo Méndez Ruiz, president of the Foundation Against Terrorism (FCT), a
group that staunchly opposes prosecutions of military officials, filed numerous lawsuits
against judicial operators and human rights advocates involved in the genocide case,
including presiding judge Yassmín Barrios, Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, lead
prosecutor Orlando López, and Fredy Peccerelli, executive director of the FAFG. In
May 2014, Paz y Paz was removed from her post six months early and left the country
for fear of reprisals. Méndez Ruiz has filed frivolous charges intended to dissuade
and intimidate others active in transitional justice litigation, including human rights
lawyers151 and judges.152
With Claudia Paz y Paz no longer at the helm of the Attorney General’s Office, no
new indictments in human rights cases were filed for the remainder of 2014 and all of
2015. Only two cases already in advanced stages of the investigation process moved
forward in the courts: the enforced disappearance of Edgar Fernando García and the
Spanish Embassy massacre. In September 2013, two police officers, including the
former chief of the National Police, Héctor Rafael Bol de la Cruz, were convicted to 40
years in prison for the 1984 disappearance of García.153 In January 2015, Pedro Garcia
Arredondo, former head of the Sixth Command unit of the now defunct Guatemalan
National Police, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and crimes against
humanity for ordering the setting of the fire that engulfed the Spanish Embassy on
January 31, 1980, killing the 37 students and peasants who were staging a protest to
call attention to human rights violations in the Quiché department, including murders,
kidnappings, rapes and torture.154 These convictions held great symbolic importance,
given the high visibility of the victims. Edgar Fernando García was a well-known labor
activist. After he was disappeared, his wife, Nineth Montenegro de García, co-founded
the Mutual Support Group (GAM), the first victims’ association in Guatemala. The
Spanish Embassy massacre was also a highly visible case given the diplomatic strain it
caused between Guatemala and Spain, and also because Víctor Menchú, the father of
Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú, was among those killed.
Things changed dramatically in 2016, when key developments brought transitional

justice back to the forefront of public debate. On January 6, the Attorney General’s
Office arrested 18 senior military officers on charges of criminal responsibility for
dozens of cases of enforced disappearances and massacres committed between 1981 and
1988.155 Four of those arrested were charged in the enforced disappearance of fourteen-
year old Marco Antonio Molina Theissen and the illegal detention, torture and sexual
assault of his sister Emma Guadalupe Molina Theissen in 1981, while the other 14 were
charged in relation to the mass graves found at Military Base No. 21 in Cobán, Alta
Verapaz, currently known as CREOMPAZ. Among the accused are military officials
long believed to be untouchable, including former Army Chief of Staff Benedicto Lucas
García and Manuel Callejas y Callejas, former head of military intelligence and reputed
head of the “Cofradía” crime syndicate.156 Both of these cases have been sent to trial.157
Just a few weeks later, the Sepur Zarco sexual violence case came to trial, after many
years in preliminary proceedings. After four weeks of intensive public hearings, on
February 26, 2016, a court found two former senior military officers guilty of crimes
against humanity in a case involving murder, sexual violence, sexual slavery and other
atrocities committed at the Sepur Zarco army base in 1982 and 1983.158 Presiding judge
Yassmín Barrios said that rape had been deliberately used at Sepur Zarco as a weapon
aimed at destroying the local indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ community. The military
officials were sentenced to 120 and 240 years in prison. These new and significant cases
indicate that, despite continued obstacles, the institutional reforms within the Attorney
General’s Office and within the judicial system have created the impetus for transitional
justice cases to continue to move forward.
Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory. Memory debates are

highly contentious in Guatemala. As already discussed, Bishop Gerardi was assassinated
after publicly presenting the findings of the REHMI report, and it took the Guatemalan
State a decade to finally acknowledge the final report of the Commission for Historical
Clarification and apologize to victims. Even so, subsequent governments have returned
to a narrative of denial that grave violations of human rights took place during the
internal armed conflict, instead reviving the old discourse about the military saving the
country from communism and impugning the motivations of those pursuing historical
truth and justice, claiming that they are motivated by vengeance or financial gain.
It is not surprising that in this context, most memorials and commemorations are
local in nature and at the initiative of victims’ groups and civil society organizations.
These initiatives are quite varied. Communities across the country have constructed
local memorial spaces to commemorate the victims of massacres and enforced
disappearance.159 In the Ixil region, community leaders developed an oral history
project to reconstruct the events of the past and understand their impact for the present.
Community members created the Monument for Peace and Tolerance near the site of
the 1978 Panzós massacre. With Maya and Christian alters, the space is frequently used
by the community and has become an integral part of community life that connects the
history of past violence to present struggles.160 Murals are another common way local
communities remember traumatic events and commemorate those lost to the violence,
as evident in Rabinal, where a series of murals depict the Rio Negro massacres, and
in numerous other massacre sites throughout the country. These memorialization
initiatives have fulfilled a number of objectives: they have served to document and
to denounce the atrocities committed, to dignify and honor the victims, to recover
the histories of heroism and resistance of the survivors, and to promote community
organization and the rebuilding of the social fabric. They also serve to inform and
educate the new generations. And in some cases, these initiatives have worked to
demand justice and reparations.
Civil society organizations have also developed initiatives that seek to have national
reach, such as the interactive exhibit “Why Are We the Way We Are?” on the inequality
and racism throughout Guatemalan history organized by the Mesoamerican Regional
Research Center (CIRMA). Originally an itinerary exhibit, it is now a permanent
exhibit in Guatemala City and is open to the public. The exhibit aims to encourage
visitors to challenge their own assumptions and stereotypes as a way of dismantling
the racism and discrimination that has characterized Guatemala since Independence.
The internal armed conflict is only tangentially mentioned in this exhibit, however. In
2014, the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) inaugurated the Memory
Museum Kaji Tulam, a memory space that depicts the internal armed conflict from the
perspective of the victims. (See Highlight: The Kaji Tulam Memory Museum).
Highlight: The Kaji Tulam Memory Museum

In 2014, CALDH opened the doors of the Kaji Tulam Memory Museum, which translates
as four cosmic points or elements in K’iche’. Located in downtown Guatemala City, the
museum’s main objective is painted on the wall at the entrance in large, bold letters: “Para
no olvidar” (So that we do not forget). CALDH’s executive director, Juan Francisco Soto,
says that CALDH worked in close consultation with different victims’ organizations to
create the Memory Museum, which they view as “a space for young people to learn about
the history of struggle and resistance, as a way to help transform the country.”161
The museum consists of several rooms, dating from the Maya civilizations and the Spanish
Conquest, to the “democratic spring” of 1944 to 1954, when reformist governments sought
to break the hold of military dictatorship and oligarchic rule, strengthen democratic
governance and overcome equality through land reform, the abolition of labor laws that
virtually enslaved indigenous populations, and education reform, to the period of the
internal armed conflict. One room evokes the painful absence that the repressive strategy
of enforced disappearance imposes on the families of the victims and their communities.
Another depicts the scorched-earth policies of the Guatemalan army and the hundreds of
massacres that destroyed lives, villages, and entire ways of life. A room at the end of the
exhibit displays hundreds of cotton squares upon which individual survivors and families
of victims have written their memories of their loved ones: “Pedro Cruz Maaz was killed
by the army in the massacre of the villages of T’zuncoc on June 22, 1982, leaving behind
his adoring daughter, Concepción Cuz Cac.”
The Memory Museum is also a vibrant cultural space, where public events, including
concerts, theater performances, photography exhibits, workshops, and book readings are
held. The museum directors encourage public school teachers to bring their students to
view the museum, and many young people have joined the volunteer team of museum
guides.
The lines from a poem by Humberto Akabal greet visitors at the main entrance of the
museum and capture the essence of this memory space: “Sometimes I walk backwards;
that is my way of remembering. If I walked only forwards, I could only tell you what
forgetting looks like.”
The memorialization process has taken place within an adverse environment. Politically
and economically powerful groups have continuously manifested their opposition to
remembering the past and have insisted that the country ought to focus upon resolving
the problems of the present. In general, the governments that came to power after the
signing of the peace accords have maintained a policy of silence with respect to the
past. However, there have been some official initiatives, particularly during the Colom
administration, including commemorative events, public apologies, and support for the
creation of local monuments.162 It is not surprising, therefore, that there is no official
memory museum, as in the Peru case.
Unlike in Peru, where the military has sought to consolidate its version of the conflict
through memorials, commemorations, publications, films and the like, in Guatemala
the military has not spent much time on such initiatives. Instead it and its supporters
have created organizations, such as the Association of Military Veterans of Guatemala
(AVEMILGUA) and the Foundation Against Terrorism, that seek to reinforce denial
narratives and challenge other understandings of Guatemala’s recent past. These
groups became especially active in recent years, when the criminal justice system
started to prosecute senior military officials. Members of these organizations write op-
ed columns, give radio and television interviews, organize public demonstrations and
protests, and engage in social media including Facebook and Twitter. They also have
filed tendentious lawsuits against human rights defenders, as noted previously, which
human rights groups view as an effort to intimidate them and undermine their efforts.
Memory debates in Guatemala are highly contentious, as competing narratives about

what happened during the internal armed conflict—and who is responsible—continue
to circulate in the public sphere. At the same time, there is a broad understanding in
Guatemala that the long struggle for memory and memorialization has contributed to a
shift in the way victims of the armed conflict perceive themselves. Whereas those affected
by state violence once saw themselves as passive victims of state violence, by recovering
their own local histories, locating and burying their dead, holding commemorations
and building memorials, they have come to see themselves as survivors who resisted
state repression.163 Memorialization has served as a process of empowerment for many
victims, who now have a clear understanding of themselves as citizens who actively
demand their rights to truth, justice, reparation and memory.
3. EL SALVADOR
E
l Salvador’s history has been marked by extreme inequality and cycles of
government-sponsored violence against groups seeking social, economic and
political change. A small group of powerful landowners, known as the “Fourteen
Families,” ruled the country through a series of military dictatorships. A major peasant
revolt in 1932 led by Agustín Farabundo Martí was crushed in a military assault known
as la matanza: the slaughter. An estimated 30,000 civilians were massacred, the majority
of whom were indigenous people. Military control was consolidated in the aftermath
of the uprising. Reformist efforts to take power at the ballot box were met by fraud and
repression. In this context, death squads emerged and were soon centralized under
the control of Major Roberto D’Aubuisson and the intelligence sectors of the military.
Death squads became a central element of the state’s repressive apparatus, murdering
thousands of union leaders, activists, students and teachers suspected of sympathizing
with the left. The repression led to growing criticism by the Catholic Church, whose
members also became victims of repression.
In 1979 a civil-military Revolutionary Government Junta deposed the military

dictatorship, promising limited reforms to ease mounting tensions. The United States,
wary after the overthrow of the Somoza regime in neighboring Nicaragua, began
providing massive economic and military assistance to the junta government. The
reformist initiative was short-lived, however: a hard-right faction within the armed
forces, in alignment with conservative landowners, pressured the civilians to resign, and
repression began anew. Archbishop Oscar Romero called upon the U.S. Government
to cut off all military aid to the Salvadoran government; a month later, on March 24,
1980, he was gunned down while celebrating mass. Many see this as the opening act in
a twelve-year civil war that would leave tens of thousands of innocent civilians dead.
In May 1980, disparate opposition groups unified to form the Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front (FMLN), with the express intent of overthrowing the existing
government. In the meantime, Major D’Aubuisson—widely believed to be responsible
for Romero’s assassination164—sought to consolidate his role as leader of the extreme
right, founding the Nationalist Republican Alliance party (ARENA) in September
1980. He remained a key leader of the right-wing death squads throughout the war.
D’Aubuisson lost the elections in 1984 to centrist José Napoleón Duarte—El Salvador’s
first elected president in 50 years—but government repression continued unabated,
worsening further after Alfredo Cristiani of the ARENA party was elected in 1989.
Despite its atrocious human rights record, the Salvadoran government retained the
financial and political backing of the United States, which was determined to prevent
Transitional Justice Case Studies: El Salvador 45
“another Nicaragua,” in reference to the successful 1979 Sandinista Revolution

against the Somoza dictatorship. The Salvadoran government launched a ferocious
counterinsurgency campaign that included scorched-earth policies meant to “drain the
sea”—eliminate the rural civilian population—in order to “kill the fish”—the guerrilla
insurgency. The result was countless large-scale massacres of unarmed civilians. In a
single operation carried out in December 1981, the U.S. trained Atlacatl Battalion of
the Salvadoran Army killed an estimated 1,000 peasants in El Mozote and surrounding
villages, the largest known massacre in modern Latin American history. In urban areas,
individuals perceived by the state to be political opponents were forcibly disappeared
and tortured by the armed forces and/or the death squads. This included members
of the FLMN but also trade unionists, religious leaders, teachers, students, and
social movement leaders.165 The FMLN was responsible for acts of sabotage, selective
assassinations, and some instances of violence against civilians, but the bulk of abuses
were committed by state and state-sponsored agents. Estimates put deaths at 75,000
and enforced disappearances at 8,000; hundreds of thousands of people were subjected
to torture, sexual violence, and forced displacement.
One of the most prominent cases was the government killing of six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter in 1989. The murders, widely believed to be
in retaliation for an FMLN offensive on the capital city, helped spur international
pressure for a negotiated settlement to the conflict.166 The United Nations brokered
a peace agreement between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN, which was
finally signed in Chapultepec, Mexico, on January 16, 1992. The agreement signed by
the parties to the conflict sets forth the overarching objectives of the peace process:
demobilization and demilitarization of the country; democratization and respect for
human rights; and the reconciliation of Salvadoran society. A key pillar for achieving
such objectives is overcoming impunity for past human rights violations. However, in
the case of El Salvador, a series of legal and political obstacles were put in place to make
accountability a near impossibility. Successive governments instead encouraged society
to “forgive and forget” the crimes of the past as necessary to building the peace.
The UN Truth Commission. The peace agreement included provisions for the
creation of a truth commission tasked with investigating the “serious acts of violence”
that had occurred since 1980 whose “impact on society urgently demands that the public
should know the truth.”167 The Salvadoran truth commission, which was established in
July 1992, operated under serious constraints. It was given only six months to complete
its investigation, though this was extended for two additional months. Elites connected
to the military were openly hostile to the truth commission’s work. In an effort to ensure
objectivity, the truth commission was led and staffed by foreigners.168
The truth commission took the testimony of some 2,000 victims and witnesses and
documented more than 7,000 cases of massacres, extrajudicial executions, enforced
disappearances, torture, and sexual violence. It documented 20,000 additional victims
based on secondary sources. The truth commission found that the security forces,
state-sponsored paramilitary groups, and death squads were responsible for the great
majority of human rights violations that occurred during the armed conflict. In its
final report, entitled From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador, the truth
commission focused on 32 emblematic cases of grave human rights violations.169
The truth commission was under intense pressure to soft-peddle its findings.170 It did
not succumb to those pressures, however, producing a hard-hitting report that not
only provided detailed information about dozens of cases, but also named over 40
senior members of the military, judiciary, and armed opposition for their role in the
atrocities. The commission concluded that 85 percent of the abuses were committed
by government forces, and five percent by the FMLN.171 The report also stated that “it
is impossible to blame this pattern of conduct on local commanders and to claim that
senior commanders did not know anything about it.”172
While the truth commission recommended criminal investigations into the paradigmatic
cases of grave human rights violations included in its report, it did not believe that
the judicial system would be able to do so in a fair and impartial manner, given the
close collusion between the authoritarian government and the judiciary.173 The report
therefore emphasized other forms of reparation and guarantees of non-repetition,
including a recommendation to pursue structural reforms of the judiciary. The truth
commission report also called for banning from public services the individuals it had
identified as key perpetrators of gross human rights violations.174 This included several
members of the judiciary.
The truth commission report was sharply criticized by the military high command
and by sitting ARENA president Alfredo Cristiani.175 Three days after the report was
presented publicly, President Cristiani proclaimed that it was necessary to “erase,
eliminate, and forget the past in its entirety,” and appealed for “a general and absolute
amnesty, to turn that painful page of our history and seek a better future for our
country.”176 Two days later, on March 20, 1993, the ARENA-controlled legislature passed
a blanket amnesty law, which effectively precluded investigation into conflict-era crimes.
Human rights organizations criticized the law and challenged its constitutionality,
but the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld the amnesty, saying it
represented “an eminently political act.”177 The FMLN was focused on the process of
demobilization and creating a new political party, and there were reported divisions
within its ranks over whether to oppose the amnesty law or not. As Margaret Popkin
notes: “Concerned about the fact that some of their leaders could be prosecuted in a
justice system they did not trust, the FMLN leadership decided to look forward.”178
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and different bodies of the United
Nations system of human rights protection repeatedly called upon the Salvadoran
government to modify or nullify the amnesty law, since it impedes victims of grave
human rights violations from accessing their rights to truth, justice and reparation.179
Another challenge to the law brought by victims in 1998 was dismissed by the
Constitutional Chamber, which asserted that the amnesty law was consistent with the
Salvadoran Constitution. This interpretation was upheld for more than two decades,
effectively preventing any real accountability for human rights violations in El Salvador.
Some perpetrators were removed from their posts (most with full military honors) and
banished from holding public office in the future. But impunity for the crimes of the past
has been a permanent feature of post-war El Salvador.180 Despite the implementation of
judicial reforms, the vetting of judges called for by the truth commission was never carried
out.181 No independent prosecutions have taken place for grave human rights violations.
On the contrary, political leaders across the political spectrum repeatedly affirmed that
the amnesty law is the bedrock of El Salvador’s successful peace process and that it is a
requisite for national reconciliation. This gave rise to a culture of silence and intimidation
that has undermined victims’ capacity to organize and press for mechanisms of legal and
symbolic reparation.182 Only recently, in 2016, after several years of deliberation, did the
Constitutional Chamber declare that the amnesty law was unconstitutional, opening the
possibility of criminal prosecutions and challenging the narratives of denial and silence.
This decision and its impact will be discussed further below.
Thus, despite the signing of the peace agreement and the effective end of the war, the
structure of political, social and economic power in El Salvador has changed precious
little. Though El Salvador transitioned from authoritarian rule to representative
democracy, the elites who ruled El Salvador during the conflict years have retained
power in the post-war period. The conservative ARENA party continued to rule
post-war El Salvador for more than a decade and a half after the signing of the peace,
controlling not only the Executive but also Congress.183 ARENA and their allies in the
business community, landed oligarchy, and military leadership, frequently asserted
that challenging the amnesty law would cause a backlash. In large part because of this
overall climate of denial of the grave nature of the crimes of the past, until relatively
recently, there has been no comprehensive reparations program for survivors and the
families of victims, nor effort to search for victims of enforced disappearance, and no
accountability for international crimes.
Reparations. The system of institutionalized impunity has endured in El Salvador, but

cracks have emerged, particularly after 2009, when the opposition FMLN was elected
to the presidency for the first time. In 2010—18 years after the peace accords were
signed—the State of El Salvador officially acknowledged its responsibility for the human
rights violations. On January 16, 2010, the government of President Mauricio Funes
convened a massive public gathering that brought together the two forces that fought
during the conflict, as well as representatives of victims’ organizations.184 Addressing
the crowd, Funes acknowledged that state agents, including the armed forces and other
public security forces, as well as paramilitary organizations, committed grave violations
of human rights and abuse of power. He also acknowledged that state agents engaged
in the illegitimate use of violence, disrupted the constitutional order, and violated basic
norms of peaceful coexistence. “For all of this,” he said, “in the name of the state of
El Salvador, I ask forgiveness.”185 Former ARENA presidents Alfredo Cristiani and
Calderón Sol were highly critical of Funes’ statements. Cristiani lambasted Funes for
apologizing only for the abuses committed by the state. Calderón Sol said that the state
had nothing to apologize for, as it acted only in response to the guerrilla threat.186
Funes announced a series of measures to address the legacy of the conflict, including
the creation of a commission that would provide reparations to victims. It was not
until near the end of his administration in 2013 that Funes signed a presidential decree
creating the reparations council.187 Funes’ successor, President Salvador Sánchez Cerén,
oversaw the implementation of the program in 2014. It was important to give continuity
to the reparations program, he said, because “we have a historic debt to overcome”
with the victims of the armed conflict.188 While the proposed program emphasizes
comprehensive reparations, to date it has focused primarily on monetary reparations.189
Human rights groups have criticized the program, saying it is overly bureaucratic and
has insufficient resources. They have also criticized the program’s formula for paying
reparations, consisting of a small monthly payment of $15-50 per victim.190 Despite the
importance of this program, it has received little attention and oversight from national
or international bodies.
Funes also promised to conduct a national search for the hundreds of children who are
reported missing from the conflict years. This was a mandate of the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights in the sentence handed down in 2005 in the case of Ernestina
and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, sisters who, at the ages of seven and three, were separated
from their family while fleeing an army incursion into their village in 1982 and have
never been seen again.191 (See also: Highlight: Seeking Justice in International Courts.)
The Serrano Cruz sisters are among the more than 900 children estimated to have
been “disappeared” during the internal armed conflict by Asociación Pro-Búsqueda,
a human rights organization that brought the Serrano Cruz sisters case.192 In partial
fulfillment of the Court’s ruling, Funes created the National Commission to Search
for Disappeared Children in 2010.193 According to the Commission’s most recent
report, between 2011 and March 2016, it had assisted in locating 284 children, and
helped many of them encounter their biological families. It also provided psychological
assistance to the victims and their families.194
Criminal Prosecutions. For more than two decades, the 1993 Amnesty Law,
combined with inaction at the level of the Attorney General’s Office, meant that there
were no meaningful criminal prosecutions in El Salvador. This did not change much
under Funes: while his government addressed the issues of reparations and the search for
disappeared children, he balked on the issue of criminal investigations for past human
rights violations, despite the fact that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights clearly
outlined the obligation of the Salvadoran State in its ruling in the El Mozote massacre case
(2012) and in other sentences to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for
these atrocities. Instead, Funes demurred, saying criminal investigations into crimes of
the past would “open old wounds” and could undermine governability in El Salvador.195
Victims, distraught by the persistent refusal of the government to address the pending
issue of justice for past abuses, have pursued litigation in international courts (see
Highlight: Seeking Justice in International Courts) and continued to seek to challenge
the constitutionality of the 1993 Amnesty Law in domestic courts (see Highlight: The
Legal Challenge to the 1993 Amnesty Law) as complementary strategies to overcome
entrenched impunity in El Salvador.
Highlight: Seeking Justice in International Courts
As in Peru and Guatemala, in the face of institutionalized impunity, Salvadoran human

rights groups sought to bring cases before the Inter-American Human Rights System.196
There have been several key rulings in human rights cases from the Salvadoran civil war,
though it is important to note that Salvadoran human rights groups have brought far
fewer cases to the Inter-American system than their counterparts in Peru and Guatemala.
This is likely due to the fact that civil society in El Salvador is not as well organized
and networked in comparison to civil society in Peru and Guatemala. Among the most
important judgments are the 2005 ruling in the Serrano Cruz case and the 2012 judgment
in the El Mozote massacre case.
The first case centers on the disappearance of two children during El Salvador’s civil war,
Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, seven and three years old respectively, who were
captured by soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran Army during a military
operation known as “Operación Limpieza” (Operation Cleansing) in 1982. The Court did
not examine claims relating directly to the sisters’ disappearance as this occurred before
El Salvador’s acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction. However, the Court did find that
an effective remedy had not been provided to the sisters’ family members in the years
following the disappearance. Specifically, the Court found that the Salvadoran criminal
courts’ lengthy delay in investigating the sisters’ disappearance was itself a violation of
the right to a fair trial, denying the family members their right to know the truth of
what happened and the opportunity to hold those responsible for the disappearance
accountable for their actions. The Court ordered El Salvador to provide reparations to the
victims, launch an effective investigation into the sisters’ disappearance, and establish a
national commission to locate persons who disappeared during the armed conflict when
they were children.197
In 2012, the Court issued a ruling in one of the most emblematic cases of the Salvadoran
civil war: the El Mozote massacre, in which some 1,000 Salvadorans were killed over
the course of a few days in 1981. The Court found the Salvadoran State responsible
and ordered it to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible. Following its
jurisprudence in other cases, the Court also determined that the 1993 amnesty law could
not continue to obstruct the criminal investigation of the alleged perpetrators of the
massacre. Finally, the Court ordered the State of El Salvador to identify and return the
remains of the victims and to provide monetary reparations to the families of victims.198
Victims, in alliance with international human rights organizations such as the Center for
Justice and Accountability (CJA), have also brought civil suits in international courts.
Using the Torture Victims Protection Act, victims and their lawyers have brought suits
against senior military officials living in the United States, resulting in the deportation
of several retired military officials to El Salvador.199 Given the lack of judicial activity in
past human rights cases, those deported did not face any legal action back in El Salvador.
For example, when former minister of defense José Guillermo García was deported to El
Salvador in January 2016, he faced no legal action for crimes he is alleged to be responsible
for during the time he was in command of the armed forces. Now that the amnesty law
has been declared unconstitutional, this may be changing. García, in particular, is now on
trial in the El Mozote massacre case.
Victims have also sought to prosecute perpetrators of human rights violations in foreign
courts, primarily Spain, by invoking the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which allows
a court in one country to prosecute egregious atrocities committed in another. In 2008,
the Central American University (UCA) and CJA filed a criminal case against several
senior military officers before the Spanish National Court for the 1989 massacre of the
six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter.200 The attack was orchestrated by senior
military commanders who targeted university rector Father Ignacio Ellacuría, who was
among the six priests killed, in an attempt to derail the peace talks. UCA and CJA decided
to file the case in Spain given the failure of the domestic courts to adequately prosecute it.
After what most observers view to be a sham trial in 1991, the two individuals convicted
were set free just two years later after the passage of the amnesty law in 1993.201 Judge
Eloy Velasco of Spain’s National Court began investigating the case in 2008, and in 2011,
he issued international arrest warrants against 20 military officers, including leaders of
the Salvadoran high command in 1989, accused of planning, ordering, and carrying out
the murders. Predictably, El Salvador has refused to act on Spain’s extradition request.
Velasco issued a new extradition request in early 2016, but again the government of El
Salvador refused to cooperate.202 In the meantime, the U.S. government prosecuted on
immigration fraud one of the senior military officials implicated in the case, Colonel
Inocente Orlando Montano, who was living in the United States. It also approved
Spain’s request to extradite him to stand trial in the case after completing his 21-month
sentence. Victims’ groups and local human rights lawyers are seeking to have the case
reopened in domestic courts in El Salvador, now that the amnesty law has been declared
unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Chamber’s decision to overturn the 1993 Amnesty Law opens
the legal door for criminal prosecutions and has brought new hope for the victims. It
remains to be seen whether additional criminal investigations will move forward in El
Salvador. The Attorney General’s Office has been historically very weak and unwilling
to challenge powerful sectors favoring continued impunity.203 Indeed, the Attorney
General’s Office defended the amnesty law before the Constitutional Chamber and has
used it to avoid bringing charges in the past.
Moreover, conservative sectors remain staunchly opposed to criminal investigations

into conflict-era human rights violations. This includes the leadership of the ARENA
party as well as former military officials, who remain powerful in post-war El Salvador.
Many in the FMLN also are opposed to following such a path. A few months before the
Constitutional Chamber’s decision, President Sánchez Cerén of the FMLN warned the
court to be “careful” in its deliberations on the amnesty law so as to avoid a problem
of governability.204 More likely, the FMLN leadership is concerned that if criminal
investigations are opened against former military officers, then there will be pressure
to investigate international crimes that may have been committed by members of the
FMLN leadership.
Highlight: The Legal Challenge to the 1993 Amnesty Law

The 1993 amnesty law sealed the notion that to consolidate peace it was necessary to
“forgive and forget” past human rights abuses. A prosecutorial model of transitional
justice that could have brought human rights abusers before the courts to face justice was
never implemented. Impunity remained the norm in El Salvador for the following two
decades, though the amnesty law was challenged internationally by the United Nations
and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and domestically by the Salvadoran
Constitutional Chamber, which ruled in 2000 that the law should not stand in the way
of criminal prosecution for grave crimes cases, and by the Salvadoran Ombudsman.205
In 2016, in a major shift, following a challenge brought by victims, the 1993 amnesty law
was declared unconstitutional. This has given renewed hope to victims that there might
be some forward movement on truth and justice efforts in El Salvador.
In March 2013, a group of human rights organizations filed a lawsuit before the
Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice requesting that the Court re-
examine the constitutionality of the 1993 Amnesty Law. After more than three years
of deliberation, on July 13, 2016, the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme
Court ruled, in a 4-1 decision, that the 1993 amnesty law is unconstitutional and
is thereby nullified.206 The judges based their decision on the victims’ rights to access
justice, to judicial protection of fundamental rights, and to full reparations, and upon
the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, particularly its 2012
ruling in the El Mozote massacre case.207 The Chamber clearly establishes that individual
criminal responsibility applies to direct perpetrators as well as to those who gave orders
or who were in a position of command and could therefore have prevented the crimes
from occurring but did not do so. The Chamber also affirmed the now well-established
jurisprudence that statutes of limitation are not applicable for war crimes and crimes
against humanity.208
In response to the Constitutional Chamber’s judgment declaring the Amnesty Law

unconstitutional, on September 30, 2016, at the request of the victims, a criminal court
judge Jorge Guzmán Urquilla issued an order to reopen the investigation into the
El Mozote massacre. This historic judicial decision, issued 23 years after the case was
closed due to the Amnesty Law, is the first issued in accordance with the Supreme Court
judgment declaring the Amnesty Law unconstitutional.209 In his resolution, Judge Guzmán
ordered the investigation of the direct perpetrators and senior military officers who led
the war effort during December 1981, when hundreds of soldiers under the command
of the late Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa murdered more than 1,000 people
in eight townships in the northern part of the Morazán department, including the El
Mozote village. Among the accused is former minister of defense between 1979 and 1983,
José Guillermo García, who in 2016 was deported back to El Salvador from the United
States.210
Sectors affiliated with the military forcefully rejected both the amnesty decision and the
order to open legal proceedings in the El Mozote case.211 Former minister of defense and
retired army general Otto Romero referred to the international human rights organizations
working with victims in the El Mozote case as “judicial mercenaries” and said that the
Constitutional Chamber’s decision was a “disaster” that would result in a legal “ping-pong
game.” He called upon the military to organize to defend those being investigated and to
make certain society understand that “we are not the bad guys.”212
This recalcitrance notwithstanding, the trial opened in March 2017. Twelve of the 18
former military officers indicted in the case, including García, stood before the court on
March 28 and 29 and heard the nine criminal charges against them, including murder
and aggravated rape. Judge Guzmán has called several survivor-witnesses to testify in
court, but several have since passed away, including Rufina Amaya, whose testimony of
the massacre was reported by journalists even as the government denied that anything
had happened at El Mozote.
The case has advanced slowly. It is taking place under an old criminal system in which
the judge leads the investigation and the prosecution and defense lawyers cannot directly
interrogate the witnesses.213 Still, the El Mozote massacre trial is unprecedented in El
Salvador and is providing victims an opportunity to tell the country, and the world, what
happened in El Mozote in December 1981. A second case, the El Calabozo massacre, in
which the Atlacatl Battalion killed an estimated 200 people, has also been reopened.214
Other factors could also result in continued inaction. Criminal prosecutions require
substantial human and financial resources. Should new cases come to trial, security for
prosecutors, judges and witnesses may be an issue, as has been the case in neighboring
Guatemala. Elsewhere, serious investigations of complex crimes have required the
creation of special investigative units, but whether such a unit will be established in
El Salvador remains unclear. Moreover, civil society, which has played a crucial role
elsewhere as advocates for justice, remains weak and divided, and has little experience
in litigation.
Finally, those who stand to lose from such investigations remain powerful and will
certainly be staunch opponents of war crime prosecutions. For example, Mauricio
Ernesto Vargas, a member of Congress for the ARENA party and a retired general who
represented the armed forces in the peace negotiations, said that trials would intensify
political polarization in a country already suffering from gang violence, a migration
crisis, and economic stagnation. “The country doesn’t have the economic and social
conditions to add one more destabilizing ingredient to the mix,” he said.215 It is of
course true that El Salvador also faces massive criminal and gang violence, and there is
intense pressure to focus investigations on “present” rather than “past” cases.
DPLF, in collaboration with FESPAD in El Salvador, collected information about

cases of grave human rights violations that have been denounced before the Attorney
General’s Office and in which there has been some level of investigation into the key
facts of the case. We documented 60 cases, as noted in Table 3, that could become the
subject of future criminal investigations.
Table 3. Human Rights Cases In El Salvador
Number of Crime
Case Location Year Current Status
Victims (1)
Masacre de San Francisco Angulo Tecoluca, San Vicente 1981 45 EE Initial phase of investigation
Masacre de las Canoas Texistepeque y Metapán, Santa Ana 30 EE Initial phase of investigation
José Azucena Santos & 5 Others San Salvador y Santa Tecla 1980-1983 6 FD Initial phase of investigation
José Mauricio Zamora Tobar Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
José Orlando Zamora Tobar Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
German Rutilio Zamora Tobar Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Carla Catalina Zamora Tobar Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Douglas Zamora Tobar Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Ana María Menjivar Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Faustino Recinos Alas Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Ana Mejia Ramírez, Carmelina Mejía
San Francisco Gotera, Morazán 1981 2 FD Initial phase of investigation
Ramírez
Emelinda Lorena Hernández San Francisco Gotera, Morazán 1981 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
José Adrián Rochac Hernández San Martín 1980 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
José Vicente, Juana Nohemí & 2 Others San Vicente 1982 5 FD Initial phase of investigation
María Amparo Romero & Nine Others Chalatenango 1982 10 FD Initial phase of investigation
Masacre de El Río Sumpul Chalatenango 1980 600 EE Initial phase of investigation
Masacre La Quesera San Agustín, Usulutan 1981 376 EE Initial phase of investigation
José Ovidio & Ten Others Jiquilisco, Usulutan 1981 11 FD Initial phase of investigation
Masacre de San Gregorio Sensuntepeque, Cabañas 1980-1981 30 EE Initial phase of investigation
Mario Luis Reyes Ramos NA 1 EE Initial phase of investigation
Transitional Justice Case Studies: El Salvador
Continue
55
56
Number of Crime
Victims (1)
Fermín Moreno Alfaro Usulután 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Masacre de Santa María Ostuma (El
La Paz EE Initial phase of investigation
Carrizal)
Edwin Rosabel Sibrián Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Sofía García Cruz San Vicente 1981 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Vilma García Cruz San Vicente 1983 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
María de los Ángeles Mejía Ortega Suchitoto, Cuscatlán 1983 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Serapio Cristian, Gregoria Herminia y
San Vicente 1982 3 FD Initial phase of investigation
Julia Inés Contreras Recinos
José Rubén Rivera Tecoluca, San Vicente 1983 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Pastor Omar Ayala Cuscatlán FD Initial phase of investigation
Santos Inés Salinas San Vicente 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Manuel Bonilla Osorio y Ricardo Ayala
San Esteban Catarina, San Vicente 1980 2 FD Initial phase of investigation
Abarca
Maria de los Ángeles Mejia Ortega Cuscatlán 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
José Mauricio Zamora Orellana Chalatenango FD Initial phase of investigation
Ana Lilian Ayala Serrano Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Rafael Rivera Castillo, Israel Flores
Chalatenango 8 FD Initial phase of investigation
Ortega y Otros (6 children)
Masacre del Cantón Las Ánimas San Antonio Nonualco, La Paz 1980 12 EE Initial phase of investigation
Masacre los Almendros Huizúcar, La Libertad 1981 5 EE Initial phase of investigation
Masacre el Despertar San Salvador 4 EE Initial phase of investigation
Nelson Rutilio Castro Chalatenango 1982 1 FD Initial phase of investigation

Number of Crime
Victims (1)
Santos Ernesto Salinas San Nicolas Lempa, San Vicente 1981 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Masacre de Tenango y Guadalupe Suchitoto, Cuscatlán 1983 EE Initial phase of investigation
Jorge Alberto Rodríguez Romero y
Cuscatancingo 1981 2 NA Initial phase of investigation
Francisco Milton Romero Sequeira
Douglas Zamora Orellana Chalatenango 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Manuel de Jesús Franco Ramirez San Salvador 1980 1 EE Initial phase of investigation
Francisco Arnulfo Ventura Reyes y José
San Salvador 1980 1 FD Initial phase of investigation
Humberto Mejía
Felix Ulloa San Salvador 1980 1 EE Initial phase of investigation
Patricia Emilie, Mauricio Cuellar
San Salvador 1982 3 NA Initial phase of investigation
Cuellar, Julia Orbelina Pérez
Natividad de Jesús, Salvador, José Elí,
Jorge Alberto Ramírez, Guadalupe San Salvador 1982 5 FD Initial phase of investigation
Roble
Rolando Ernesto González Morales San Salvador 1981 1 T Initial phase of investigation
Carlos Ernesto Santos Menjivar San Salvador 1983 1 T Initial phase of investigation
José Ernesto Contreras García San Salvador 1977 1 T Initial phase of investigation
Roque Dalton San Salvador 1975 1 EE Initial phase of investigation
Julián, Felipe, y Domingo Bernal
Zacatecoluca, La Paz 1986 3 EE Initial phase of investigation
Martínez
María Teresa Guardado Chalatenango 1991 1 EE Initial phase of investigation
Víctor Hernández Vásquez La Libertad 1988 1 EE Initial phase of investigation
Masacre Sacerdotes Jesuitas y dos
Antiguo Cuscatlán, La Libertad 1989 8 EE Currently on trial
mujeres
Transitional Justice Case Studies: El Salvador
Continues
57
58
Number of Crime
Victims (1)
Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero San Salvador 1980 1 EE Currently on trial
Masacre de El Mozote y Sitios
San Francisco Gotera, Morazán 1981 986 EE Currently on trial
Aledaños
Ernestina y Erlinda Serrano Cruz Chalatenango 1982 2 FD Currently on trial
San Esteban Catarina, Santo
Masacre El Calabozo Domingo, San Sebastián, Santa 1982 200 EE Currently on trial
Clara y San Lorenzo, San Vicente
(1) CRIMES: EE=Extrajudicial Execution; FD=Forced disappearance; T=torture.
(2) Initial phase of investigation: cases under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office; Currently on trial: cases currently being processed before a court.
SOURCE: Ombudsman’s Office; human rights organizations. Research conducted by author, DPLF, FESPAD.
Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory. The Truth Commi-

ssion made specific recommendations about the importance of memorials as a
mechanism to redress the harm done to victims during the civil war, and to consolidate
national reconciliation. In its Final Report, under the category ‘Moral Reparation,’ the
Truth Commission recommended a series of actions in this regard: the construction of
a national monument bearing the names of all victims; recognition of the victims and
the serious crimes they suffered; and the creation of a national holiday to memorialize
the victims of the conflict and to serve as a symbol of national reconciliation.
Official acknowledgement of state-sponsored violations is a critical element of truth-telling

and of redress owed to victims. Until very recently, the government of El Salvador has not
followed through on these recommendations. As noted earlier, between 1992 and 2009,
the government, led by the conservative ARENA party, failed to acknowledge the state
or military responsibility for human rights abuses. On the contrary, there are numerous
memory sites as well as commemorations and tributes to senior military officials, including
some who are accused of participation in grave violations of human rights. The Salvadoran
armed forces regularly organize public homages to senior military officials who fought
in the counterinsurgency war, such as the now deceased Coronel Domingo Monterrosa,
who was identified by the U.N. sponsored Truth Commission as being responsible for the
El Mozote massacre (see Highlight: Memories in Conflict: El Mozote and Monterrosa).
In another example, in 2014, the mayor of San Salvador, Norman Quijano, announced
that the City Council had voted to rename San Antonio Abad Street after the late Major
Roberto D’Aubuisson. D’Aubuisson, who founded the ARENA party, of which Quijano is
a member, is believed to be the intellectual author of the 1980 assassination of Monseñor
Romero, and to have organized the death squads that terrorized the Salvadoran population
in the 1980s.216 Victims’ groups and other civil society organizations protested the decision
and called for the name change to be dropped.217
Highlight: Memories in Conflict: El Mozote and Monterrosa

The Salvadoran State denied the El Mozote massacre for more than a decade after its
occurrence in 1981. In 1992, on order of a judge, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology
Team (EAAF) began to investigate at the site of the massacre. EAAF exhumed the remains
of 136 people; several years later an additional 250 remains would be found.218 A year
later, in its final report, the Truth Commission said that it had found a preponderance of
evidence that Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, commander of the Atlacatl Battalion, and
other military officials were responsible for the massacre at El Mozote. The investigating
judge dismissed the case after the Legislative Assembly approved the amnesty law.
Monterrosa, who was killed in confusing circumstances in 1984, was viewed by the
Salvadoran military as a hero. Years after his death, he continues to be revered in military
discourse and public ceremonies as a hero of the armed forces and of the Salvadoran
nation. The army has organized annual commemorations of Monterrosa in Joateca, the
location where his remains and those of his comrades were recovered in 1984. In 2008,
for example, a plaque was erected at Joateca that states, “Here lie the heroes of Joateca. At
all times and despite the risks, obey the superior officer who commands you, even at the
cost of your lives. Yes, we swear! 23OCT1984 – 23OCT2008.”
It was not until 31 years after the El Mozote massacre, in a speech in January 2012
commemorating the 20th anniversary of the signing of the peace, that then President
Funes acknowledged the role of the state in the El Mozote massacre and apologized to the
families of the victims. He went further, however, noting that the Truth Commission had
identified Coronel Monterrosa and other senior officials as responsible for the massacre,
and called upon the Salvadoran armed forces to cease its policy of publicly revering
Coronel Monterrosa. This was necessary, Funes said, to depoliticize the military and
ensure their full integration into Salvadoran society, and also to contribute to national
reconciliation and thereby strengthen democracy and peaceful coexistence. Funes stated
further: “Precisely because 20 years after the Peace Accords, we have a different military,
one that is professional, democratic, and obedient to civilian power, we cannot continue
to revere and portray military leaders linked to serious human rights violations as heroes
of the institution and of the country.”219
Yet, the following year, in October 2013, in what El Faro deemed an act of open
defiance of Funes’s instruction, the Salvadoran army organized yet another tribute to
Coronel Monterrosa. The army deployed five units and about 200 troops to the site of
Monterrosa’s death in Joateca. The troops were from the Third Brigade of San Miguel,
which is named in honor of Coronel Monterrosa, and whose barracks contains a bust
and a mural honoring him with the words, “Monterrosa Lives!” Commanders and troops
from Military Detachment No. 3 of La Unión also attended; at their base, a mural is
decorated with the coat of arms of the military detachment that bears Monterrosa’s name,
with the phrase, “With the iron will to overcome.” The ceremony in honor of Monterrosa
and his fallen comrades included demonstrations of equestrian skills and hand-to-hand
combat.
As noted previously, it was only after the election of Mauricio Funes of the progressive
FMLN party to the presidency in 2009 that the state acknowledged its role in past violence
and made a series of historic apologies for state violence, along with a number of other
initiatives intended to respond to the demands of victims and address the legacies of the
conflict. Chief among these include the creation of a national commission to search for
children who disappeared during the war as well as a reparations program. Though they
have come late, these recent government acts are of great significance for victims.
Given the absence of official action in the sphere of memorialization, civil society actors
have taken up the task of creating monuments, museums and other memory spaces
to document the recent past, construct historical memory narratives that challenge
official versions based on denial, and to commemorate victims. The Monumento a la
Memoria y la Verdad (The Monument to the Memory and the Truth) was inaugurated
in December 2003 as “an homage to the civilians who were killed or disappeared
during the armed conflict in El Salvador (1980-1991). Erected in Parque Cuscatlán in
the capital, San Salvador, the monument is composed of an 85-meter black granite wall
etched with the names of more than 25,000 civilian victims, organized by year of death
or disappearance. The message engraved on the monument refers to the memorial
as “a space for hope, to continue to dream and construct a more just, humane, and
equitable society.” Another portion of the monument contains colorful stucco reliefs
depicting daily life as well as images of past struggle and violence. The monument was
an initiative of victims’ groups and civil society organizations. There is also a website of
the same name, where a complete list of the victims’ names can be viewed.220
Another notable civil society memorial initiative is the Museo de la Palabra y el

Imagen (Museum of the Word and the Image, MUPI), located in downtown San
Salvador. MUPI was created with the explicit objective of documenting the history of
the Salvadoran civil war. The museum collects and exhibits photographs, manuscripts,
audio recordings, and film, comprising what may be “the most comprehensive archive
of the Salvadoran civil war.”221 Its installation includes mention of several of the worst
massacres of the civil war, including an entire exhibit about the El Mozote massacre.
MUPI, a member of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, hopes that such
exhibits help to dignify the victims of the conflict, particularly since justice in such
cases remains, to date, elusive in El Salvador.
There have also been several local level efforts to preserve memory on behalf of the
victims, their families and their communities. Local municipal governments have in
many instances worked alongside survivors and families of victims to construct local
memorials and organize commemorative events. Ana Mirian Abrego, a survivor of
the 1981 massacre at San Francisco Angulo, in which 45 civilians, primarily women,
children and elderly, were massacred by a death squad made up of members of the
army and the local defense force of Tecoluca, described one such initiative. The San
Francisco Angulo Committee, an organization led by survivors and families of the
victims of the massacre, developed an alliance with the municipal government in
Tecoluca to develop local initiatives to strengthen historic memory. This alliance was
critical to the exhumations carried out in 2005 and 2006, in which the remains of 30
victims were recovered and returned to their families for burial. The initiative has also
developed a series of programs including psycho-social support for victims, a local

reparations program, and a youth-led effort to interview survivors and families of
victims that was the basis for a short pamphlet describing the massacre and its impact
on the local community.222
Highlight: New Impetus to Search for the Disappeared

In the context of the dramatic changes in recent years in El Salvador, a new transnational
victims’ organization was established, the Mauricio Aquino Foundation, comprised
of Salvadorans who came to live in the United States during the 1980s. Some of the
Foundation members are children of victims of enforced disappearance, while others
came to the United States having been adopted by U.S. families. In 2016, the Mauricio
Aquino Foundation launched an international campaign entitled “Our Parents’ Bones”
(“Los Huesos de Nuestros Padres”), to call attention to the unresolved issue of the
estimated 10,000 victims of enforced disappearance from the Salvadoran civil war.
Alexandra Aquino-Fike, whose father was forcibly detained and disappeared in April
1981, is co-founder of the Mauricio Aquino Foundation. Her motivation in launching
this campaign is simple, she says: “My dream is to give my father the sacred burial he
deserves. I want to know. I demand to know: Where is my father? Where are my father’s
bones?”223
Between 2016 and 2017, the leaders of the Mauricio Aquino Foundation conducted a series
of consultations with victims’ organizations in different locations in the United States and
in El Salvador, as well as with local and international human rights organizations, with
the purpose of pressuring the Salvadoran government to create a national mechanism
to investigate the fate of the disappeared.224 The Foundation hosted a series of meetings
in El Salvador in January 2017 with victims’ organizations, civil society groups, and an
international delegation that included U.S. Representative Jim McGovern, as well as
representatives of religious groups, universities, and local and international human rights
organizations. This coalition of organizations, which included the Association for the
Search of Disappeared Children (Pro-Búsqueda), the Center for Applied Legal Studies
(FESPAD), the Central American University, the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF)
and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), called upon the government to
establish a National Commission to Search for Disappeared Persons. This coalition,
alongside associations of victims of the conflict, presented President Sánchez Cerén
with a technical proposal, which emphasized that the Search Commission should be
institutionally autonomous; have legal faculties to receive and request information about
the disappeared; provide psycho-social support to victims; have specialized forensic and
genetic personnel; and have its own budget. In response to these demands, President
Salvador Sánchez Cerén announced on January 27 that his government would establish a
National Commission to Search for the Disappeared.225
Just a few weeks earlier, in the context of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Peace
Accords, Sánchez Cerén also called for a National Reconciliation and Integral Reparations
Law that would provide economic reparations to victims of the Salvadoran civil war. “In
the past, many civilians were victimized by the State, and today these men and women
who suffered the war should be recognized,” stated the President.226 He added that
improving the lives of the victims of the conflict will contribute to national reconciliation
and help consolidate the peace.
65
III. LESSONS LEARNED FOR

TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PRACTICE
T
his section offers key lessons learned from the history of transitional justice
processes in Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador. The lessons outlined here are
derived from in-country workshops conducted with project partners, interviews
with key stakeholders, and direct field research in each of the three countries, as well as
a review of existing literature.
1. The central role of victims in transitional

justice processes
1.1. In societies that have experienced mass atrocities, victims are the driving
agents of demands for truth, justice, reparation, and memory. Survivors of human
rights violations and the families of victims, alongside human rights organizations and
associations that advocate on their behalf, are the key protagonists of transitional justice
processes. The capacity of victims’ associations to organize and mobilize public opinion
in favor of transitional justice plays a key role in the success of different transitional
justice mechanisms. Of course, there are other powerful factors at play in what is
ultimately a contentious and long-term process.
In many transitional contexts actors associated with the previous regimes, including
military officials, government authorities, business leaders, and sometimes religious
authorities, have encouraged victims to “forgive and forget” the atrocities of the past,
based on the premise that new challenges must be prioritized and that “opening old
wounds” would undermine fragile democracies. Policies of “forgive and forget” exclude
victims and denigrate their experiences and their suffering; they also deny their rights
as citizens to redress for the abuses suffered.
Victims understand that as citizens they are endowed with the right to demand truth,
justice and reparation for abuses committed by state agents against them and their
families and communities. As those who directly suffered abuse at the hands of the
state, they have a powerful moral claim to demand redress. However, the state is often
unable or unwilling to respond to these demands. In the face of denial and impunity at
the domestic level, victims have sought diverse ways to break the silence and demand
truth, justice and reparation. Victims have denounced the abuses suffered domestically
and internationally. They have sought out allies in domestic and international human
rights organizations, the news media, progressive parliamentarians, and churches to
support their claims in the face of official indifference and, sometimes, repression. In
the face of government inaction, they have brought their claims to the United Nations
system and to the Inter-American Human Rights System to demand redress. This has
contributed to the development of new legal regimes recognizing victims’ rights to truth,
justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-repetition, and has given victims in these and
other cases new tools to press their demands within their domestic jurisdictions. The
persistence of victims, and their resilience in the face of denial and institutionalized
impunity, is the single-most important element of the transitional justice process.
1.2. Victims are not a monolithic group; they may have different demands, and
these may change over time depending on shifting circumstances and opportunities.
There is an ongoing debate in the transitional justice literature about what victims
prioritize in the transitional justice process. Some claim that victims primarily seek
retributive justice, while others argue that victims are mostly interested in truth and
reparations. This is an especially poignant question in our case studies, where victims
are overwhelmingly from the most disadvantaged and historically marginalized
sectors of society —rural, farmers, and indigenous peoples— for whom economic and
other forms of reparation (health care, education scholarships) would have enormous
consequences for improving their daily lives.
Our work with victims from diverse regions in each of the three countries represented
in this project confirms our belief that victims are not a monolithic category and their
demands cannot be pigeonholed into hierarchies or priority lists. Victims across the
three countries expressed a desire for integral reparations, including truth, symbolic
and economic reparations, justice and accountability, memorialization, and assurances
that the abuses they suffered do not recur. But they are also rational actors who
understand that their preferences may not be attainable in given political contexts.
Victims may prefer to emphasize reparations given their dire economic situation,
which often is exacerbated after the original human rights violation, which may have
resulted in forced displacement, the loss of the family head of household, and other
privations, occurred.
Victims may also desist from demanding justice because of a rational decision that
seeking justice is costly, may expose victims to new forms of trauma, may be unsafe,
and may be impossible if the perpetrators cannot be clearly identified, which is often
the case given the state’s unwillingness to declassify official records that would help
investigators identify the military structures that carried out abuses as well as the
individual material and intellectual authors of those abuses. Yet, our case studies reveal
that victims’ demands for truth, justice, reparations and memory remain present even
Lessons Learned for Transitional Justice Practice 67
in the face of government indifference or inaction. Demands that have been silenced
may be reactivated when new opportunities to promote them arise; in other instances,
victims’ groups and their allies may organize specific campaigns to push long-silenced
demands.
At the same time, survivors and families of victims made clear that no transitional
justice mechanism can fully repair the damage done, whether it is the loss of a loved
one, the destruction of a home or a community, or the enduring scars of torture or
sexual violence.
1.3. Leadership of victims’ rights can take many forms: individual survivors
or family members of victims may emerge as powerful interlocutors of victims’
demands; at other times, local, regional and even national-level associations
of victims may organize to articulate victims’ demands and present them in the
public sphere. In each country examined here, individual victims and local or regional
associations of victims have emerged as active protagonists demanding government
responses to their demands for truth, justice, reparations, memory and guarantees of
non-repetition. During the conflict period, victims’ groups were ignored, repressed, and
stigmatized. The transitions created new opportunities for them to make their voices
heard and to organize and press for their demands. Though national-level organizations
(such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina) are rare in our case studies,
the leadership of individual victims as well as local and regional associations of victims
have national-level impact at both the symbolic and policy levels. While there are
sometimes disputes in leadership, often rooted in political and other differences, our
research suggests that victims’ associations seek ways to complement each other’s work,
and that such collaborative networking makes their voices stronger and their role as
advocates more effective.
There are numerous examples to draw from; here we highlight a few we have encountered
in the context of our research. In Guatemala the Human Rights Law Clinic of Rabinal,
Baja Verapaz has played a critical role mobilizing and working with victims, in the
majority Maya Achí, of the Guatemalan military’s scorched-earth counterinsurgency
policies in the 1980s. The association was founded by Jesús Tecú Osorio, a survivor of
the Rio Negro massacre, perpetrated by the Army on March 21, 1981, after he received
the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1997. The Clinic, which represents victims in
conflict-era human rights cases, land disputes, and domestic violence cases, is one
of half a dozen organizations working collaboratively as civil party litigants in the
Military Zone No. 21 case (also known as the CREOMPAZ case), currently awaiting
trial. Another important organization is the Association for Justice and Reconciliation
(AJR), an organization of survivors and relatives of victims from 22 communities in

five regions affected by the genocide during the Guatemalan internal armed conflict.
AJR filed the case against Ríos Montt and other members of the Guatemalan High
Command for genocide in 2000, along with CALDH, and was a civil party litigant
to the 2013 genocide trial against Ríos Montt and his intelligence chief Mauricio
Rodríguez Sánchez.
In Peru, the first association of victims, the National Association of Families of the
Kidnapped, Detained and Disappeared of Peru (ANFASEP), was established in
Ayacucho in 1983. The founders were primarily Quechua women, hailing from poor
rural households, whose husbands, sons and daughters were forcibly disappeared by
government forces in the context of the counterinsurgency war against the Shining Path
insurgent movement. ANFASEP members suffered from major social stigmatization
during the conflict period, in part because of their ethnic and social status, but also
due to the widely held perception, which was encouraged by the government and
some news media, that survivors or families of victims were guilty by association of
involvement in armed insurgent movements. ANFASEP took on a critical leadership
role after Peru’s return to democracy, demanding creation of a truth commission,
implementation of an integral reparations program for victims, accountability for the
worst cases of human rights violations, and the creation of a national plan to search for
disappeared persons. ANFASEP has also led efforts to create memorials in Ayacucho,
which is especially important given that half of the victims of the conflict are from the
Ayacucho region. These include the ANFASEP Memory Museum and the La Hoyada
Sanctuary of Memory at the Los Cabitos military base in Ayacucho, the site of hundreds
of extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances during the conflict.
Individual victims have also evolved into powerful national actors speaking out on
behalf not only of their own cases, but those of others as well. This has occurred in each
of the countries under study in relation to highly visible emblematic cases. In El Salvador,
for example, Rufina Amaya, the sole surviving witness of the El Mozote massacre,
traveled the world giving testimony about the murder of some 1,000 villagers by the
U.S.-funded Atlacatl battalion of the Salvadoran Army.227 Her testimony challenged
the denial narratives of both the Salvadoran and the United States governments that
the massacre did not occur, a truth borne out by the exhumations nearly a decade later
of the human remains of more than 800 people. In the face of legal inaction in the El
Mozote case in El Salvador, the case was brought by families of the victims, represented
by Tutela Legal, to the Inter-American Human Rights system. In October 2012, the
Inter-American Court found El Salvador responsible for committing the massacre,
covering it up, and failing to provide justice to the victims. The Court ordered the
government to investigate the case, to prosecute and punish the perpetrators, and to
compensate the victims’ families. The Inter-American Court also ruled that the 1993
amnesty law could not continue to be an obstacle to criminal accountability in this
case. The Court ruling galvanized a previously scattered community of family members
to organize and meet monthly to continue to their fight for justice. They petitioned
the Constitutional Chamber to review the constitutionality of the amnesty law, and
after several years of deliberation, in July 2016, the Court declared the amnesty law
unconstitutional. Thirty-six years after the events, the trial for the El Mozote massacre
began in 2017.
Similarly, in Peru, the families of the nine students and a professor from La Cantuta
University who were forcibly disappeared from the campus on July 18, 1992, organized
immediately to search for their missing love ones, despite the fact that Peru was living
under a de facto government at the time. The discovery of the partial remains of some
of the victims a year later brought renewed national and international media attention
to the case, and the families, especially Gisela Ortiz and Raida Cóndor, whose brother
and son were among those missing, became national spokespersons for the disappeared
in Peru. They advocated tirelessly for truth and justice in their case, ultimately resulting
in the extradition, trial and conviction of former president Alberto Fujimori for the La
Cantuta case among others, as well as the conviction of several senior military officers
associated with the Colina Group death squad found responsible for the killings. Gisela
Ortiz remains a highly visible spokesperson for the victims of Peru’s internal armed
conflict. After the conclusion of the criminal trial against Alberto Fujimori, she joined
the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), where she advocates on behalf of
the missing across the country.228 EPAF, and Ortiz in particular, played a central role
in the recent passage of the National Law to Search for Disappeared Persons, a long-
delayed demand of families of victims of enforced disappearance.
In Guatemala, Aura Elena Farfán, who was drawn into human rights advocacy after
her brother, Rubén Amílcar Farfán, was disappeared by government forces in 1984,229
has become a leading human rights advocate. Through the organization she helped
found, the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA),
Farfán has actively worked on behalf of victims of the internal armed conflict. She
has led human rights investigations into army massacres and other cases of enforced
disappearance, especially of children, resulting in critical breakthroughs. Farfán played
a central role, for example, in locating two former Kaibil soldiers who participated in
the 1982 Dos Erres massacre, in which government forces killed over 200 civilians, a
large number of them children.230 Their court testimony led to the conviction of four
military officials in 2011 and another in 2012. Another ex Kaibil, who was deported to
Guatemala from the United States in August 2016, will be tried starting in August 2018.
A court ruled that Ríos Montt would also be prosecuted in this case, but with his death
in April 2018, the case against him was closed.231 Farfán’s investigation, conducted
in close collaboration with the Attorney General’s Office and the FAFG, also led to
the identification of Oscar Alfredo Ramírez Castañeda, who at the age of three, was
abducted after the massacre by the commanding army officer and given a new identity.
Oscar’s mother and eight siblings were killed in the massacre, but his father survived;
they were reunited, in large part because of Farfán’s investigation, in 2011.232
In none of the case studies examined here was there a national-level association that
successfully integrated a broad-based membership of victims of different types of
human rights violations and from different regions of the country. For several years,
the Ombudsman in El Salvador sponsored annual meetings of victims, which helped
victims socialize and develop stronger networks, but this has not yet resulted in a
stand-alone national victims’ movement or association. Such a national association
of victims could provide a stronger platform for victims to interact as rights-bearing
subjects vis-à-vis governments at the local, regional and national levels, and vis-à-vis
international bodies. In Peru, there are a wide range of victims’ organizations, from very
local associations of specific massacres, such as the Association of Families Affected by
Political Violence from the District of Accomarca (AFAPVDA), organizations based on
the type of violation, such as the Association of Displaced Families in Lima (ASFADEL),
and broader associations of victims of state violence including ANFASEP. The National
Commission of Victims of Political Violence (CONAVIP) seeks to be this unifying body
and has played an important role in advocating on behalf of victims of the violence,
particularly in relation to the reparations program. It has not succeeded in integrating
other organizations into its membership, which, for historic and other reasons, have
sought to maintain their autonomy. CONAVIP has made important efforts to work
collaboratively with other victims’ organizations such as ANFASEP on specific issues,
such as the creation of the National Law to Search for Disappeared Persons.
1.4. Consolidating victims’ organizations through leadership and advocacy

training is critical to ensuring victim participation and influence over transitional
justice processes. When victims are organized, they are in a better position to
mobilize for specific transitional justice mechanisms and policies and to oversee
government implementation of those policies. The persistent activism of the victims
and the organizations representing them has been decisive in truth-recovery processes,
including the search for disappeared persons, in landmark criminal prosecutions
(including the Fujimori case in Peru and the Rios Montt case in Guatemala), and in
pressuring governments to recognize victims’ rights to comprehensive reparations.
Victim participation and influence over the transitional justice process is also critical
to ensuring victims’ sense of ownership over the process, which can contribute to
rebuilding trust between victims and the state.
Long-term advocacy work may become hard to sustain due to a number of factors,
including leadership and organizational challenges; the financial demands of
sustaining long-term advocacy work; and burn-out, especially in the face of recalcitrant
governments or pushback from the military or other sectors. This is particularly so in
countries such as Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador, where the vast majority of victims
come from poor rural areas and/or indigenous communities. In order to have a lasting
impact on reducing levels of impunity, these organizations require leadership that is
well-trained in advocacy and communications strategies. They also need to be more
consistently and permanently networked, and to be able to monitor and influence
relevant policies over a sustained period of time. Capacity-building and advocacy
training are critical for the consolidation of victims’ associations and to strengthen their
ability to continue to organize and to participate on an equal footing in the transitional
justice process.
1.5. The role of the international community is critical in supporting victims’

organizations. Private foundations, governments, churches, and individual donors
have helped sustain the work of victims’ organizations such as FAMDEGUA, the Human
Rights Law Clinic of Rabinal, ANFASEP, and the Victim’s Association of El Mozote.
Yet, victims’ associations often have limited access to funding and often suffer from
organizational precariousness. Some victims’ organizations have sought to develop
small self-financing projects that contribute to sustaining their work. ANFASEP, for
example, charges a modest entry fee and offers weavings and other crafts for sale at
the Memory Museum it constructed at its headquarters in Huamanga, Ayacucho. Such
schemes are very modest, however. Philanthropy at the domestic level is simply not
widely available, making international support of utmost importance.
International funding that provides direct support for victims’ organizations can help
contribute to the development of more stable organizational structures and therefore
strengthen the capacity of such organizations to engage in sustained advocacy work
and alliance-building. Alongside financial support, however, is the need for leadership
trainings and other capacity-building activities to ensure transparency and good
management of resources. Otherwise, management of external funds can become a
source of conflict that further divides and alienates members of these organizations.
1.6. Victims have been at the forefront of campaigns aimed at achieving specific
goals, even in the face of recalcitrant governments. Such campaigns are especially
effective when they mobilize different sectors in support of a clear, identifiable goal. In all
three countries, victims’ associations, in alliance with human rights organizations, have
been the driving force in advocating for a holistic approach to transitional justice. Victims’
groups demanded that their governments establish national commissions of inquiry
into the nature of past violations, integral reparations for victims, including retributive
justice, individual and collective reparations, and memorialization initiatives. Victims
have also spearheaded campaigns to establish national programs to search for individuals
who were forcibly disappeared during the internal armed conflicts. Governments in all
three cases have been slow to respond to this latter demand, but there have some positive
developments that raise hope that there may be forward movement in specific cases and
that this could spur other countries to follow suit.
In Peru, for example, after a year-long campaign spearheaded by victims’ organizations,

allied human rights organizations, and the Ombudsman’s Office, Congress approved a
law in June 2016 creating the National Plan to Search for Disappeared Persons, which
now awaits implementation. In El Salvador, after many years of inaction, the persistent
demands of victims entreating the state to pursue a nation-wide search for the
estimated 900 children who went missing during the conflict period finally resulted in
the creation of a national body dedicated to this effort, with important results to date, as
noted previously. Most recently, victims’ groups and allied human rights organizations
spearheaded a campaign to pressure the government to pass the National Law to Search
for Disappeared Persons, which was signed into law in February 2017.
In Guatemala, the country with the largest number of victims of enforced disappearance
at 45,000, in the face of government inaction on this issue of the search for victims,
FAMDEGUA, along with other victims’ associations and local and international human
rights organizations, established a working group. The group worked with legislators
to put forth Bill 3590, which would establish a national level program to search for
disappeared persons.233 The bill was presented to Congress in December 2006, but it
was not approved in session in 2007, and remains stalled in Congress. In the absence
of state action, civil society groups, most notably the FAFG, have made significant
advances in the search for the disappeared, though much remains to be done. Victims’
organizations have played similar roles in pressuring governments to adopt and
implement other transitional justice mechanisms, such as reparations programs and
criminal trials.
1.7. Psycho-social support for individual victims, their families and communities
is a critical element of the transitional justice process. During the conflict period,
violence was deployed not only against individuals but also against entire communities,
with the aim of destroying or disrupting local forms of governance, reproduction and
culture. Psycho-social support must integrate work with individual victims with an
approach that addresses the impact of violence on the community. This is critical in
societies such as those studied here, in which communities and not just individuals
are the targets of state violence, in order to rebuild community relations, trust, and
resilience. This integration of the individual and collective dimensions of trauma
aim to help the victims understand the violence they endured, foment rebuilding at
the community level, and help victims understand their rights as citizens to demand
comprehensive reparations from the state. Psycho-social support is often provided
by specialized NGOs or independent professionals. Victims and experts vigorously
highlighted the importance of psycho-social support at every level of the transitional
justice process, particularly when survivors and families of victims provide testimonies
to investigative bodies such as truth commissions or in criminal procedures; in the
context of the search for the disappeared; and more broadly as a foundational element
of individual and community healing.234
Guatemala is exemplary in the development of collaborative engagements between

victim’s associations and human rights organizations to develop ongoing programs to
support not only the individual victims but also their families and their communities.
In the Sepur Zarco case, the Alianza Rompiendo el Silencio coalition worked for
years with victims, their families and their communities in Sepur Zarco, prioritizing
individual and collective forms of healing and community rebuilding. Group work with
the surviving women was deemed particularly important to helping women overcome
their sense of shame and the societal stigma that they had endured for so many years.
But it also required work with the broader community to help others understand that
the women survivors were not to blame for what happened to them, and to facilitate
their reintegration into the social fabric.235 This individual and societal healing was
fundamental to the women’s later decision to pursue their case in court. Because of
this, the experience of testifying before a judge was difficult but not traumatizing and
contributed to a process of transformation and empowerment. In our workshops, the
women of Sepur Zarco reported that for them, bringing their case to court, testifying
before a judge, and participating in the criminal trial in which they were able to confront
the perpetrators face-to-face in a court of law, was a profoundly empowering process,
helping to transform them from victims to citizens with rights and dignity.236
1.8. Victims and their civil society allies continue to face serious risks even decades
after the moment of transition to democracy. Witness protection and security for
human rights defenders must be a priority during the transitional justice process.
Attacks against human rights defenders have been an ongoing feature of the post-
transition period in the three countries, particularly when entrenched elites feel that
their interests are at risk. This is in part due to the fact that many of the structures that
engaged in violence during the conflict periods remain operational. The impunity that
accompanied postwar settlements in El Salvador and Guatemala in particular has made
this an unsettling part of the post-conflict reality in each of these countries, fueling
corruption and violence.
The reactivation of these structures of impunity was evident during the Ríos Montt
genocide trial, for example. Survivors and families of victims who testified in the
genocide trial reported being harassed and threatened in their local communities.
Victim-witnesses, human rights workers, and judicial operators were viciously
attacked in the press, on social media, and through paid advertisements in the media
and anonymous circulars. Human rights activists and judicial operators, including the
judges and prosecutors in the genocide case, have also faced frivolous lawsuits that seek
to silence them and limit their activities.
In Peru, victims’ groups and human rights organizations have been frequently attacked
in the press. Sometimes the attacks come from conservative politicians or media
personalities, and sometimes from retired military officers, and even sometimes from
government authorities. During the second administration of Alan García, for example,
President García and his Vice President, former navy admiral Luis Giampetri, frequently
attacked human rights defenders as being terrorist fronts and for “persecuting” the
military.
This is highly retraumatizing for victims and generates stress among human rights
workers who are often overworked and themselves affected by secondary forms of
trauma due to their work with victims. In post-conflict settings, security and mental
health programs for victims and human rights defenders must be a high priority for
funders and the domestic and international organizations that support transitional
justice processes.
2. Victim participation in transitional justice policies

and processes
2.1. Victim participation is key to achieving the main objectives of transitional
justice. In his initial report as United Nations Rapporteur for Transitional Justice,
Pablo de Greiff wrote that victim participation is critical to providing victims with the
recognition and trust that is indispensable for consolidating the rule of law.237
This finding was reiterated frequently in our study groups and workshops in Peru,
Guatemala and El Salvador. Victims clearly expressed their desire to be involved in dialogue
with government officials and agencies responsible for developing key transitional justice
policies, such as reparations programs. In the case of criminal trials, victims in Guatemala
noted their satisfaction that new leadership in the Attorney General’s Office has given
them a greater role in the criminal justice process. Clear leadership that prioritizes respect
and inclusion of the victims has been critical to making victims feel like their voices and
concerns are being heard and has contributed to mending the frayed relations between
victims and legal institutions in Guatemala. In El Salvador, by contrast, there have been
limited opportunities for victim participation and oversight in criminal investigations,
leaving victims feeling newly traumatized as a result.
Victims expressed discouragement at the fact that they are often not meaningfully
engaged in these policy debates and especially during the implementation process.
This generates a feeling of double victimization: in addition to the original abuse
suffered, the failure of the state to engage victims in a meaningful way in the design and
implementation of transitional justice policies contributes to feelings of resentment,
isolation, and mistrust of government authorities. In our case studies, this is exacerbated
by the fact that the victims come from historically marginalized and oppressed
populations—rural, indigenous populations in Peru and Guatemala, and poor rural
populations in El Salvador. Women who were victims of sexual violence especially
felt excluded, as the crime of sexual violence was largely invisible during and after the
conflict. This is deeply problematic given the fact that transitional justice processes, at
their core, aim to address the legacies of violence and create mechanisms to integrate
victims into society in order to lay the groundwork for peaceful coexistence.
The lack of victim participation in the transitional justice process is most pronounced
in the case of El Salvador. While many victims were able to give their testimony to
the Salvadoran truth commission, the short timeframe the commission was given to
conduct its work, and the pervasive fear that continued to permeate the country at the
time, meant that victim participation was necessarily limited. The blanket amnesty law
promulgated just days after the publication of the truth commission report in 1993,
along with a long-standing official policy of denial about the nature and extent of the
human rights violations committed by the state during the internal armed conflict,
fundamentally denied victims a role in postwar El Salvador. The state maintained this
attitude for nearly two decades, during which victims were not recognized by the state
and no meaningful policies were developed to address the legacies of the conflict.
Victims’ associations remained on the defensive and passive in the face of government
indifference. This began to shift under the FMLN regimes that have been in office
since 2009, when the government made some important efforts to acknowledge state
responsibility for human rights violations and implemented programs to provide
reparations and search for disappeared children. However, there is still very strong
resistance to acknowledge victims and their rights to truth, justice, reparation and
memory. Victims’ fundamental right to access justice, in particular, continues to be
denied, though the overturning of the 1993 amnesty law has opened new opportunities
for victims to pursue their cases in court.
The Peruvian experience offers a different model, in which victims played an important
role in the transitional process, though the post-CVR policies that were adopted by
successive administrations did not always adhere to the same spirit of including
victims in the design and implementation process. The transitional government of
Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) made important efforts to acknowledge the victims
of the internal armed conflict, both in terms of the process and the outcome of the
CVR’s work. In addition to taking the testimony of 17,000 victims, the CVR also invited
victims to speak in several public forums in which their experience could be heard
and acknowledged. The president of the CVR, Salomon Lerner, stated that these public
forums were conceived as an opportunity to correct the societal indifference faced by
victims for so many years: “This is a space and a time for the victims. It is an occasion
for them to tell the difficult history of the experience they went through and for the
rest of the country to offer them the acknowledgment that has so long been denied
them.” 238 Such forums symbolized a shift in the state’s response from one of indifference
or hostility to one of acknowledgement and recognition.239 It is also important that
President Toledo welcomed the CVR’s Final Report, which he accepted from the hands
of CVR president Salomón Lerner in a solemn ceremony in Lima on August 29, 2003.
A second ceremony took place a few days later in Ayacucho, which was symbolically
quite significant, since nearly half of the victims from the armed conflict were from that
region. Toledo accepted the report and acknowledged its importance in moving Peru
toward national reconciliation.
This represents a marked contrast from El Salvador and Guatemala, where the sitting
presidents refused to accept, and openly criticized, the final reports of their truth
commissions. One reason for this is that Peru’s transition represented more of a
rupture from the previous regime than was the case in El Salvador and Guatemala,
which were negotiated transitions in which elements of the ancien regime retained
significant power. This meant that in Peru, the transitional government had far more
leeway to adopt transitional justice policies and incorporate victims’ participation.
Another factor is the relatively stronger organization of human rights groups in
Peru. In 1985, in the face of intense polarization and attacks against human rights
defenders from the government as well as from armed insurgent groups, human
rights organizations and victims’ associations such as ANFASEP decided to develop a
coalition, the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Human Rights
Coordinator), to serve as a platform to develop more strategic interventions in the

defense and promotion of human rights at the national, regional and international
levels. The nature of the conflict in Peru was also quite different: whereas the state
was overwhelmingly responsible for human rights violations in both El Salvador and
Guatemala, Shining Path was responsible for more than half of the victims, according
to the CVR. The fact that there were victims “on both sides” meant that there was less
resistance to the CVR Final Report and implementation of some of its most important
recommendations.240
At the same time, however, implementation of specific transitional justice policies to

benefit victims not only took many years to bring to fruition, but also did not always
incorporate victim participation. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in
successive governments’ handling of the Comprehensive Reparations Program. The
Toledo government did not adopt the CVR’s recommendation to create a comprehensive
reparations program until the very end of its term, leaving implementation to the
more conservative government of Alan García (2006-2011).241 The García government
prioritized collective reparations over individual reparations. It did not consult with
victims’ associations or human rights organizations in making this determination or
in the subsequent implementation of the program. As a result, the García government
treated the reparations program as a source of general economic assistance and even
clientelistic handouts, distorting the nature of the reparations program.242 Nor were
victims included as active participants in the design or implementation of these
projects. Peruvian anthropologist María Eugenia Ulfe describes a fish farm that was
developed, presumably as a reparation program, in Lucanamarca, an Andean village
that was hard hit by the violence, and which registered the first massacre committed
by the Shining Path in 1983. The local mayor who proposed the fish farm saw it as “his
project,” notes Ulfe. “There is no awareness that reparation is a right of restitution of
citizens [who were victims during the violence]”243 and has instead come to be seen as
a form of general economic assistance.
Reparations programs require documentation to verify individual claims of

victimization, and a victims’ registry in principle is a valid mechanism for achieving
such a goal. In the Peruvian case, however, the process was extremely bureaucratic, and
it tended to be guided by political concerns rather than humanitarian ones. A review
board consisting of seven members was set up to evaluate victims’ applications to be
included in the registry. Not only did individuals have to provide proof of the violation
suffered; they also had to demonstrate that they had no affiliation with armed groups,
since the law prohibited anyone with such an affiliation from accessing reparations.
Among the members of the review board during this initial period were two retired
military officials and a police officer, who effectively vetoed many applications on the
basis of often unproven charges that the individual in question was involved in one
of the two armed groups, Shining Path or the MRTA, which made them ineligible for
reparations.244 During the conflict, the armed forces and government frequently failed
to distinguish between illegal armed groups and members of the legal left and social
movement organizations. This same logic resulted in the exclusion of many victims
of grave violations from the National Victims’ Registry who had no demonstrated
affiliation with an armed insurgent group. This was the case of Doris Caqui, whose
husband, Teófilo Rímac Capcha, a teacher, trade union leader, and member of the
United Left who was disappeared by government agents in 1986, was excluded from the
National Victims’ Registry by the review board after one of its members claimed that
he was a known militant of Shining Path. (Caqui successfully contested the decision
and was later able to apply for reparations.)245 At the same time, many individuals who
were forcibly recruited to participate in Shining Path and the MRTA, or were forced
to collaborate under extreme duress, continue to be excluded from the reparations
program; as do members of those organizations even if they suffered grave human
rights violations such as sexual violence, torture, or enforced disappearance.246 Can
reparations programs that prima facie exclude entire categories of people who were
victims of violence promote national reconciliation?
Finally, the García government delayed authorization of individual economic reparations

payments until July 16, 2011, twelve days before his term expired. The government did
not consult with victims’ associations or human rights organizations in drawing up its
reparations plan, which imposed a December 31, 2011 deadline for victims to register
for reparations, limited reparations to a single violation per individual, and established
a maximum payment per violation of 10,000 soles, approximately US$3,000. Victims’
groups vigorously contested these limitations. ANFASEP and other organizations staged
protests, marches, and meetings with members of Congress to change the ruling. More
than five years later, the government finally lifted the deadline to register victims as well
as the limitation on seeking reparation for only one violation. The amount offered per
violation remains unaltered.
The rule excluding members of armed groups also remains in place. Female members
of Shining Path who were sexually assaulted while in detention, for example, cannot
access any monetary benefit or any of the health benefits that the reparations program
offers. Nor can children who were orphaned when their parents, who were militants
of the insurgent groups, were arbitrarily killed or forcibly disappeared by the state.247
Policies such as these that exclude victims from accessing reparations on the basis of
politics may in the end undermine the desired outcome of national reconciliation.
2.2. In transitional justice criminal proceedings, it is of critical importance to

ensure victim participation as well as the adoption of victim-centered approaches
that seek to respect the dignity of victims and avoid traumatization during all
phases. This is especially true in cases dealing with sexual violence. In any criminal
proceedings in which individuals have been victimized, mechanisms and procedures
must be put in place to ensure that the proceedings do not traumatize victims. This
is especially important in transitional justice criminal proceedings, in which victims/
survivors have often had to wait years if not decades to access the justice process, and
in which the trauma suffered involves the loss of life or the enforced disappearance of
loved ones and/or direct physical trauma, including torture and sexual violence, among
others. A victim-centered approach seeks to minimize traumatization associated with
the criminal justice process by providing victims with the support of victim advocates
and service providers, empowering survivors as engaged participants in the process,
and providing survivors and families of victims an opportunity to play a role in seeing
justice done.
In each of the countries under study there are specific mechanisms allowing for victim
participation in criminal prosecutions, via the querellante adhesivo (complementary
prosecutor) system in Guatemala, the querellante system in El Salvador, and the civil
party mechanism in Peru. These mechanisms, while not specific to transitional justice
processes, have been key to ensuring victim participation in criminal investigations and
prosecutions when they occur. The querellante adhesivo system in Guatemala allows
victims to participate in judicial proceedings in a complementary prosecutorial role
alongside the Attorney General’s Office, while in Peru’s civil party system, the victim
participates in the judicial proceedings to ensure their rights to reparation for the harm
caused by the alleged crime.
Even with such systems in place, this does not guarantee that the criminal proceedings
themselves are victim-centered. Many factors work against victim-centered approaches
in criminal justice processes. By definition, criminal trials are focused on demonstrating
the culpability of alleged perpetrators. They thus must emphasize due process guarantees
for the accused, which is often abused by defense lawyers, sometimes to the detriment
of an expeditious judicial process. Heavy caseloads in prosecutor’s offices can often take
the focus off the victim’s need for sensitive treatment and helping the victim understand
what occurs during the prosecution of a case. Special attention is needed to ensure
procedures that protect the rights of victims, prevent retraumatization, and ensure their
access to justice throughout the process. Trainings and workshops in victim-centered
approaches for law enforcement officials, public prosecutors, judicial operators, and
other service providers is critical for ensuring respect for victims at all levels of the
justice process. Ideally, the legal institutions that engage with victims of human rights
violations should adopt protocols to ensure respectful treatment of victims by their
agents, from the moment of the initial investigation, to the taking of testimony, to the
engagement with the victim during the criminal proceedings.
A powerful example of a “best practice” in this regard is the work of the Attorney
General’s Office in Guatemala during the Maya Ixil genocide trial in 2013. The Attorney
General’s Office constructed a litigation strategy that was respectful of the victims, and
that sought not only to avoid their retraumatization, but to empower them through their
participation in the legal process.248 The leadership role played by then Attorney General
Claudia Paz y Paz was critical in this regard. As someone with years of prior experience
in civil society organizations working on behalf of victims, she focused on developing
protocols to ensure that victims were treated with dignity and to promote mutually
respectful relations between the public prosecutors working on the case and the civil
party and victim organizations. This allowed for the development of a collaborative
relationship between prosecutors and victims and their legal representatives, creating
institutional spaces that facilitated victims’ participation and minimized chances of
retraumatizing victims.
The treatment of victims of sexual violence in the genocide case, and within the
Attorney General’s Office more broadly speaking, provides a clear example of this.
Sexual violence was widespread and systematic during the Guatemala internal conflict,
yet in Guatemala, as elsewhere, it was rarely acknowledged, let alone investigated
and prosecuted. Because of the intimate nature of sexual violence, and the social
stigma involved, there are also enormous challenges to protecting the physical and
emotional wellbeing of victims. During Paz y Paz’s tenure, the Attorney General’s
Office developed a clear and specific strategy for identifying crimes of sexual violence
committed during the internal armed conflict and pursuing criminal investigations
against alleged perpetrators of those crimes. Paz y Paz issued a directive establishing
the need to investigate and prosecute sexual violence cases and outlining a series of
protocols for investigating crimes of sexual violence.249 It instructs prosecutors engaged
in investigations of massacres, illegal detentions, forced displacement and extrajudicial
executions to inquire whether sexual violence occurred in the context of these abuses,
and to implement a protocol to ensure respect for the dignity of the victims and to
prevent retraumatization.250 The protocol outlines the need to protect the identities of
victims; to assist victims in obtaining psychological help; and encourages the use of
different mechanisms, such as pre-recorded witness testimony, so that victims would
not have to repeatedly testify about the abuses they suffered. Prosecutors were also
instructed to determine whether victims felt fearful, whether the alleged perpetrators
lived in close proximity, and therefore whether the victims required protection and
how to provide it as needed.
This careful approach to collecting different types of evidence and protecting the dignity
and safety of victims was central to the ability of the Attorney General’s Office to build
a case that incorporated the testimonies of victims of sexual violence. The sensitivity
displayed by the Attorney General’s Office help build confidence between the women
survivors and the prosecutors, and many of them agreed to testify. When the trial court
made known that it would require the women to testify in open court rather than in
private, as the Attorney General’s Office had requested, the prosecutors explained the
implications of this decision to the women and their legal representatives. They did not
try to compel the women to testify, giving them the option to withdraw their testimony
if they so chose.251 They also petitioned the court to allow the women to cover their faces
with their shawls, which the court allowed. While some of the women did withdraw
their testimony, ten women decided to testify. This was the first time in Guatemala that
female victims of sexual violence during the internal conflict testified in court about the
abuses they suffered, effectively breaking the silence that had historically surrounded
such crimes. Significantly, their testimonies were central to the court’s determination
that genocide had occurred during the Ríos Montt government. The women expressed
their satisfaction with their decision to testify, saying they felt empowered that they
were given the opportunity to tell a judge about what happened to them.252
Also significant is the fact that these protocols for ensuring victim participation and
protecting the dignity of victims have become institutionalized in the Attorney General’s
Office. This was evident when, three years after the genocide trial, the first case focusing
exclusively with the crime of sexual violence, along with sexual and domestic slavery,
came to trial in February 2016. During the Sepur Zarco trial, 15 Q’eqchi’ women
testified about the sexual assault, sexual slavery, and domestic slavery they endured at
the hands of the military for several years during the 1980s, resulting in the conviction
of a retired coronel and a former military commissioner. While the investigation into
the Sepur Zarco case began under Claudia Paz y Paz, the formal indictment was issued
under her successor, Thelma Aldana. The survivors reported their satisfaction with the
criminal justice process and particularly with the work of the head prosecutor in the
case, Hilda Pineda, who was later promoted to be the head of the Human Rights Section
within the Attorney General’s Office. The protocols and mechanisms to protect victims
and guarantee their dignity and their safety established during Paz y Paz’s tenure were
being used in the Sepur Zarco case. In addition, there was an important improvement
in the way the women’s testimonies were rendered: Pineda petitioned the pretrial judge,
Miguel Ángel Gálvez, to allow the women’s testimony in the preliminary proceedings
to be video recorded and admitted as evidence. Judge Gálvez agreed, and as a result,
during the public trial, the women did not have to testify again; rather, their recorded
testimony was played in court while they observed the proceedings, covered by their
traditional shawls, alongside the public prosecutor.253 This helped protect the women’s
identities and prevented their retraumatization.
We had the opportunity to observe the Sepur Zarco proceedings and to speak with the
women who testified in the case after the verdict was handed down. They expressed
their satisfaction at being able to testify publicly about what happened to them, about
the sensitivity of the judicial operators involved in their case, and about the outcome of
the trial. They felt vindicated and empowered. “Now everyone knows we were not lying
about what happened to us,” one of the women told us during a workshop with the
survivors from Sepur Zarco and four other regions of the country. Many of the women
stated that they were motivated to testify about what happened to them in order to
make people aware of the abuses they suffered so that it won’t happen to other women.
“What we want, what we ask of the tribunals, is that others do not suffer what we
endured, so that our granddaughters do not suffer what we suffered.”254 They also spoke
of feeling empowered. During the workshop, one of them made a drawing of herself,
which she described this way: “This is a drawing of a woman who has wings, who no
longer is fearful, because she testified, and news of the verdict, and of the recognition of
what happened during the armed conflict, reached the community, people heard about
it on the radio.”255
By testifying in court, the women survivors of Sepur Zarco helped to ‘break the silence’
that had surrounded sexual violence during the Guatemalan armed conflict. This speaks
to the power of testimony not only to denounce past abuses put also to contribute
to violence prevention by generating awareness of what happened and demanding
punishment of perpetrators. The women survivors of Sepur Zarco reclaimed their
dignity as individuals and their rights as citizens seeking access to justice and redress.
Bringing their case to trial helped establish the truth about the sexual violation the
women of Sepur Zarco and other regions of Guatemala suffered during the internal
armed conflict, and by so doing, to help ensure that such abuse not recur in the future.
Of course, to fully ensure such guarantees of non-repetition requires the engagement
of the State, which must not only respond to the abuses suffered by the victims through
different measures of reparation and restitution, but also by establishing programs and
policies to ensure that state actors do not engage in similar behavior in the future.
From a comparative perspective, the strategies adopted by the Guatemalan Attorney

General’s Office in sexual violence cases were deliberate and methodologically sound.
The Attorney General’s Office laid out a careful strategy to identify crimes of sexual
violence, and also developed mechanisms to protect the physical and emotional safety
of the victims. This is more extraordinary than one might think. Our interviews with
victims in Peru and El Salvador made clear that prosecutors investigating historic
human rights abuses do not always have an awareness of the magnitude of sexual
violence, and lack protocols for incorporating questions about sexual violence into their
investigations, for taking testimony of victims of sexual violence, and for protecting the
physical and emotional safety of sexual violence survivors. The inevitable result is the
retraumatization of survivors of sexual violence and limited access to justice for victims.
We learned of at least one case in Peru in which a survivor of sexual violence who had
been imprisoned in a military base in Ayacucho agreed to testify on the condition that
her identity would remain confidential. Her husband did not know about the abuses
she had endured, because of her previous experience with her first husband, who, upon
learning the she had been raped by soldiers, beat her and abandoned her because she
was “tarnished.” Due to a lack of protocols for protecting the identities of sexual violence
survivors, the prosecutor’s office unwittingly revealed to her spouse that she was a victim
of sexual abuse by the military. Her husband, infuriated, left her. The woman, who felt
betrayed and traumatized, said her faith in the public prosecutors had been broken
and she asked to withdraw her testimony. Incredibly, rather than respect her wishes,
the prosecutor in the case threatened to compel the woman’s testimony. In this case,
prosecutors prioritized their case over the needs of the victim, causing resentment and
retraumatization. Far from feeling empowered by this experience, the woman felt bitter
and regretted her decision to become involved in the court case in the first place.256
This experience highlights that especially in rural indigenous communities, victims
of sexual violence suffer social stigmatization, and failure to understand the cultural
dynamics at play can result in retraumatization of victims and undermine confidence
in the legal institutions that are supposed to be working on their behalf.
Adopting a victim-centered approach in all transitional justice mechanisms should

be a priority. This approach is defined as the systematic focus on the needs and
concerns of a victim to ensure compassionate and sensitive engagement with victims
that is respectful of their dignity and autonomy. A victim-centered approach seeks to
minimize retraumatization associated with the criminal justice process by providing
the support of victim advocates and service providers, empowering survivors as
engaged participants in the process, and providing survivors an opportunity to play a
role in the justice process. A victim-centered approach plays a critical role in supporting
victims’ rights, dignity, autonomy, and self-determination, and is critical to a successful
criminal case.
3. Human rights organizations play a critical support

role on behalf of victims in transitional justice
processes
3.1. Human rights organizations have played a critical role supporting victims and
victims’ associations in advocating for transitional justice mechanisms. Human
rights organizations are nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations comprised of
professionals—lawyers, psychologists, social workers and sociologists, among others—
whose mission is to promote and defend human rights. In Peru, Guatemala and El
Salvador, as elsewhere in Latin America, numerous human rights organizations emerged
in the context of authoritarian rule and internal armed conflicts to accompany victims
by documenting human rights violations, filing habeas corpus and other protective
measures on behalf of victims, providing free legal aid and psychosocial support to
victims and their families, and denouncing human rights violations nationally and at
the international level. During the transition from conflict to peace, these organizations
continued to work on behalf of victims by advocating for the creation of truth
commissions, the implementation of integral reparations for victims, the establishment
of national programs to search for disappeared persons, and representing victims
before domestic, regional and international legal bodies in pursuit of retributive
justice. Human rights organizations developed strategies in close collaboration with
victims’ associations to demand accountability, to challenge institutionalized impunity
and overturn self-amnesty laws, and asserting the obligation of the state to investigate,
prosecute and punish gross human rights violations.
Human rights organizations are most effective in advocating for transitional justice
policies when they act in coordination with each other and with victims’ associations,
and in coordination with key partner civil society organizations within country and
internationally. Alliances with individuals and agencies within the state apparatus are
also of critical importance. Peru provides two excellent examples. The National Human
Rights Coordinator (Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDDHH),
a coalition of more than 80 human rights groups nationwide including victims’
associations such as ANFASEP, played a critical role denouncing human rights violations
during the conflict period and in the struggle against the Fujimori dictatorship, and
was the leading advocate for the creation of a truth commission during the transitional
government of Valentín Paniagua (2000-2001). The Paniagua government, which
was not fully sold on the idea, created a working group consisting of the Minister of
Justice, the Minister of Defense, and civil society organizations, to study the matter.
The Coordinadora engaged in strategic lobbying with representatives of the Paniagua
government to promote the creation of a truth commission that embraced a holistic

model of transitional justice, which sought to provide victims not only truth, but
also justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition.257 The Peruvian Truth and
Reconciliation is considered a model truth commission precisely because it adopted
that integral model of transitional justice.
Another example from Peru is the more recent #Reune (#Reunite) campaign, which was
critical to the eventual passage of the National Law to Search for Disappeared Persons,
which is described in greater detail above. The campaign was spearheaded by human
rights and victims’ organizations, in close collaboration with international organizations
and the Ombudsman. The campaign organizers designed a clear communications
strategy that was closely aligned with lobbying efforts to promote passage of legislation
to create a national plan to search for disappeared persons. A critical lesson learned from
this experience is that even in the face of long-standing government indifference and
inaction, and clear resistance by military sectors, a campaign that has clearly defined
objectives (in this case, the creation of a national law that would establish a mechanism
to establish a national plan to search for the missing), a clearly defined strategy for
lobbying key stakeholders (members of Congress), a purposeful communications
strategy (strategic use of new social media for example), and that is able to mobilize
multiple actors to serve its objective (in addition to the immediate stakeholders, they
mobilized other civil society organizations such as trade unions and the national press
association, some of whose members are among the disappeared, as well members
of Congress and domestic and international human rights organizations), can be
successful. A similar campaign in early 2017 in El Salvador, spearheaded by the now
adult children of victims of the internal armed conflict or who were orphaned by the
war and now live in the United States, secured passage of a similar law to search for the
disappeared in El Salvador, as discussed above.
An example from Guatemala is the coalition Alianza Rompiendo el Silencio y la

Impunidad (Alliance to Break Silence and Impunity), which brought together human
rights organizations, women’s rights and feminist organizations, and victims’ rights
organizations, in support of the women of Sepur Zarco, who brought the first criminal
case of sexual violence, sexual slavery and domestic slavery before the Guatemalan
domestic courts, and resulted in a landmark conviction of two military officials.258 The
Alianza coalition developed a careful strategy to work at the local level with victims to
address the mental and physical health needs of individual victims, as well as strategies
to promote community healing and rebuilding, which they saw as the first step prior
to any possible future litigation. The Alianza worked for several years with the women
of Sepur Zarco and their families, friends and neighbors in the community. Once
the victims and the community members reached a decision to pursue litigation, the
coalition sustained its actions by implementing local development projects, providing
ongoing psycho-social assistance to victims, and legal assistance. This was later
complemented by a vigorous media and outreach campaign to support the women of
Sepur Zarco once the case went to trial. The media campaign focused not only on the
violence these women suffered during the war, but also the current violence women
in Guatemala today face (one of the highest rates of femicide in the Hemisphere). The
Alianza generated broad levels of social support for the victims and the proceedings,
as evident in the wide media coverage and the presence of women survivors of sexual
violence from other regions of the country, of school children from high schools, and
other organizations, during the course of the proceedings. The women of Sepur Zarco
told us that they were very grateful, and felt supported, by the interest in their case,
expressed in the extensive national and international press coverage of the proceedings,
and the presence in the courtroom of diplomats (including United States Ambassador
Todd Robinson), international human rights advocates, and Nobel laureates Rigoberta
Menchú and Jody Williams.
3.2. Human rights organizations, in close collaboration with victims’ groups, have
developed different strategies to challenge denial narratives that persist from the
conflict period, or that have been revived in post-conflict contexts. Closely allied
to this work, human rights organizations have helped develop different types of
memory “work” and memory sites that seek to commemorate the victims, visually
document past violations, and contribute to establishing a fuller understanding of
the causes and consequences of past human rights violations among broad sectors
of society.
In El Salvador, for example, victims’ associations and human rights organizations

worked together to create a memorial to the victims of the El Mozote massacre. In the
absence of a national memory museum or other memory space, these organizations
have also worked closely with local municipalities to develop memory sites that
document past abuses, commemorate victims, and create public spaces that contribute
to a broader understanding of what happened during the conflict.259
In Guatemala, CALDH created a memory museum that is open to the public, and that
has been visited by numerous student delegations since its opening in 2014. The Kaji
Tulam Memory Museum (which means “the four cosmic spaces” in K’iche’) traces the
origins of the Guatemalan conflict to the Conquest, when indigenous populations were
colonized and subjugated by the Spanish invaders, outlines the importance of the 1954
coup d’état against the Arbenz regime that, with CIA-sponsorship, ushered in more
than three decades of military rule and resistance that resulted in the death of 200,000
people.260
Similarly, in Peru, the Pro-Human Rights Association (APRODEH) worked with

victims’ groups to create the Ojo que Llora (Eye that Cries) memorial, an outdoor space
granted by the municipality of Jesús María in Lima, consisting of a labyrinth made up
of stones inscribed with the names of the victims of Peru’s internal armed conflict. Such
spaces are sometimes, however, the site of conflict and controversy. The Ojo que Llora
memorial, for example, has been attacked on several occasions by Fujimori supporters
who have defaced the memorial.261 Victims groups have worked together to restore and
clean up the memorial.
This work goes beyond support for specific memorials and memory sites, however.
Human rights organizations support commemorative acts that occur throughout the
year that serve as important gathering points for victims’ associations and their allies
in civil society, where they can renew their commitment to the pursuit of truth, justice
and reparations, and seek to influence public opinion in relation to specific objectives.
3.3. Human rights organizations have played a critical role developing strategic
litigation to access formal justice for victims, but also to challenge the mechanisms
of institutionalized impunity, contribute to the dismantling of the structures that
perpetrated grave human rights violations, and engage the entire society in a
national dialogue about the causes and consequences of human rights violations
that occurred during the periods of conflict. Strategic litigation in this context is an
integral strategy to accessing justice, pursued with the objective of producing broader
social impact through application of the law in a particular case or cases; strengthening
judicial institutions; promoting public debate and education; and strengthening the
role of victims in the transitional justice process. Strategic litigation is a method that
seeks to bring about significant changes in the law, practice or public awareness. As far
as transitional justice goes, strategic litigation may involve taking emblematic cases of
grave human rights violations to court; pursuing litigation of leadership cases, as in
the Ríos Montt and Fujimori cases; or litigating so as to access key official documents,
or to find assets. Human rights organizations in each of the countries studied here
have pursued strategic litigation, in pursuit of justice, comprehensive reparations for
victims, and guarantees of non-repetition at the domestic and international levels.
In strategic litigation focusing on emblematic cases of grave human rights violations,

a key component is developing a clear communications strategy that positions human
rights violations committed during periods of internal armed conflict as crimes of
international importance that are not subject to statutes of limitations, and which
states have the obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish. This is necessary to
build public support for the criminal justice process, reduce the space for spoilers, and
ensure support for victims. A strategy to assess and address the risks and vulnerabilities
associated with litigation is also a necessary component of strategic litigation.
Finally, strategic litigation in transitional justice cases foresees the need to generate
capacities to address the psychosocial effects of violence for individuals, families and
communities and promote healing at each of these levels, develop mechanisms to
prevent retraumatization during the litigation process, and to strengthen the leadership
and community involvement of victims in the defense of their human rights.
There are numerous examples of successful strategic litigation in each of the three cases
examined here. One critical example is the litigation surrounding the case of the Barrios
Altos massacre. On November 3, 1991, a clandestine military unit known as the Colina
Group assassinated 15 people they believed to be members of Shining Path, including
an eight-year-old child. The case was under investigation in domestic courts in Peru
when the 1995 amnesty laws shuttered the case. Human rights groups representing
the victims took the case to the Inter-American System, and in 2001, the Court ruled
that the Peruvian state was responsible for the massacre and ordered it to fulfill its
international obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators. In
addition, in response to a request by human rights groups to address the 1995 amnesty
laws, the Court stated that those laws were in violation of the American Convention
on Human Rights and lacked legal effect. In a subsequent ruling, the Court determined
that this was applicable to all amnesty laws whose objective is to shield perpetrators of
grave human rights abuses from punishment. This ruling was a game-changer, not only
for Peru—where ten days later a judge reopened the Barrios Altos investigation, and
later a former president, as well as dozens of senior military officials were convicted
in relation to this case—but for human rights defenders throughout the region, who
invoked the Barrios Altos ruling in their efforts to challenge existing amnesty laws in
their domestic jurisdictions.262
There are several other examples that we could point to. In the case of El Salvador, to
date such litigation has played out primarily in regional and international courts: the
Jesuits case in Spain, or the El Mozote massacre case in the Inter-American system.
Perhaps most significantly, however, is the successful litigation of two leadership cases
in Peru and Guatemala: the trial against former head of state Alberto Fujimori for
grave human rights violations in Peru, which resulted in a conviction in April 2009;
and in Guatemala, the 2013 conviction of former head of state José Efraín Ríos Montt
for genocide and crimes against humanity. In both cases, these complex trials were
respectful of due process guarantees and consistent with international standards of fair
trial, though the genocide verdict against Ríos Montt was vacated by an illegal ruling
based on spurious arguments.263 Both trials were televised, broadcast on local and
national radio stations across the country, and live streamed on the Internet, which gave
broad swaths of society access to view the proceedings and learn about the systematic
violations of human rights that occurred under their governments.
These landmark decisions are important because they challenge impunity for long-
standing abuses by upholding—or at least seeking to uphold—the fundamental
democratic norm that no one, even the most powerful authorities, is above the law.
They are part of a global trend of increasing accountability for former heads of state,
but they stand out because in contrast to many other situations, the Peruvian and
Guatemalan national court systems demonstrated the will, capacity, and independence
to try a former president. These leadership trials are excellent examples of strategic
litigation because they have helped open new pathways for other transitional justice
cases—despite momentary setbacks, as we saw in the case of Guatemala—and create
political momentum for change. The international dimensions of both cases—Fujimori
was extradited from Chile; Spain sought the extradition of Ríos Montt—also sent a
strong signal that the world is a less hospitable place for high-level leaders accused of
committing international crimes.
3.4. In the face of amnesty laws and other obstacles to domestic prosecutions,
human rights organizations have adopted strategic litigation strategies in regional
and international courts that have played a key role in opening spaces for criminal
prosecution in domestic courts. Regional and international bodies, especially the
Inter-American Human Rights System, have played a critical role in transitional justice
processes throughout the region, though the impact varies country to country. The
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has served as an alternative arena in
which victims who are unable to bring cases in their domestic jurisdictions, due to
amnesty laws or other obstacles to criminal prosecution, can bring complaints both in
specific cases and in relation to general trends regarding human rights in their home
countries. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has developed a progressive
jurisprudence on a state’s duty to combat impunity, and on the rights of victims to
truth, access to justice, and to reparations, that has directly or indirectly promoted
transitional justice throughout the region.
In cases brought by human rights organizations throughout the region, the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court have asserted
a proactive and autonomous right of victims to truth.264 Victims not only have the right
to know the truth about the events that led to serious violations of human rights, as well
as the identity of those responsible for those violations. The right to truth creates an
obligation upon States to clarify and investigate the facts, and to prosecute and punish
those responsible, and to guarantee access to official information that would help
clarify the circumstances surrounding serious human rights violations. This has been
a critical tool for activists demanding access to official documentation that would help
clarify the events surrounding specific cases of past violence, identify perpetrators, and
reconstruct a more historically accurate version of the past than the official narratives
deployed under authoritarian regimes. The Court has also established that states are
obligated to provide victims with integral reparations, including access to justice,
symbolic reparations, and monetary and other forms of restitution, such as health care,
scholarships, and housing.265
On the question of accountability, the Court has played a critical role establishing
victims’ rights of access to justice, and the obligation of states to investigate, prosecute
and punish grave human rights violations. A critical element of this has been the Court’s
position on self-amnesty laws designed to shield alleged perpetrators from criminal
liability. The Court’s position has evolved from statements declaring the inapplicability
of self-amnesty laws, which are deemed to violate the American Convention on
Human Rights, to a proactive decision in the Barrios Altos case (2001) that declared
that existing amnesty laws lacked legal effect, thereby opening the way for criminal
prosecutions in Peru and beyond.266
This principle has been upheld in subsequent rulings, though it has not always had
immediate effect, as the case of El Salvador demonstrates so clearly.267 This highlights
that amnesty laws are not the only obstacles to criminal investigations and prosecutions
in domestic jurisdictions. On the contrary, amnesty laws are best conceived as one
element of systems of impunity that are created and supported by coalitions of actors
and institutions interested in preventing criminal investigation into the crimes of the
past. In this sense, the absence of independent legal institutions is a sure-fire way to
guarantee that impunity systems remain in place. Our case studies all highlight the
critical importance of strengthening the independence and autonomy of the Attorney
General’s Office and the Judiciary, and to ensure that individuals assigned to work in
these institutions are professionals of integrity and good character who will honorably
fulfill the duties and obligations of their office.
There is a notable disparity in the number of cases brought by human rights

organizations in Peru and Guatemala to the Inter-American Human Rights System
(IAHRS) compared to the case of El Salvador. In fact, Peru and Guatemala are among
the countries with the highest number of sentences from the Inter-American Court.
This disparity in accessing the IAHRS can be at least partly explained by the more
robust development of human rights organizations in Peru and Guatemala. It does
not seem at all coincidental that the countries that have pushed more aggressively for
redress in the IAHRS have had greater success in pursuing accountability efforts in
domestic courts. This suggests that while the IAHRS is an absolutely critical component
in the advancement of victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation, and memory in Latin
America, its impact in domestic jurisdictions is directly related to the capacity of local
organizations to engage the IAHRS.
Transnational litigation has also played an important role in the transitional justice
processes in the three countries examined here. In the case of El Salvador and Guatemala,
criminal complaints based on universal jurisdiction have been brought before the
National Court (Audiencia Nacional) in Spain, though to different effects in each
country. In the case of Guatemala, the ongoing investigation by Spanish Judge Santiago
Pedraz into the genocide case, and especially Pedraz’s request to extradite Ríos Montt
and other members of the military high command, put pressure on local authorities
to prosecute the case domestically.268 In the case of El Salvador, the Central American
University (UCA) and the U.S.-based Center for Justice and Accountability brought the
case of the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests and their cook and her daughter to Spain’s
National Court. As in Guatemala, the Salvadoran authorities refused to extradite the
accused to Spain, but the case has been one more pressure point challenging the failure
of the government to investigate this and other grave crimes cases.
In all three countries, U.S. immigration courts and civil complaints linked to the Alien
Tort Statute have also played a role. Foot soldiers and high-ranking military officials
allegedly involved in human rights violations from all three countries under study have
been found living in the United States. The U.S. immigration courts have pursued cases
against these individuals for immigration fraud, resulting in their removal from the
United States and their return to their countries of origin or, in a smaller number of
cases, in the prosecution of that individual in U.S. courts. International human rights
organizations have also pursued civil suits against these individuals in U.S. courts using
the Alien Tort Statute, giving victims an alternative to pursue their cases in a court of
law. In a particularly hopeful development, the U.S. courts have allowed the extradition
of Coronel Inocente Orlando Montano, who is accused of being one of the intellectual
authors of the 1989 murder of the Jesuits, and who had lived illegally in Boston since
2001, to stand trial in Spain in the Jesuits case.269
3.5. Human rights organizations have made important contributions to the

diffusion of human rights law and jurisprudence through educational workshops
and trainings for public prosecutors and judges. This has been especially true in Peru
and Guatemala, where judicial operators have been more open to such trainings than
in El Salvador. Human rights organizations have provided trainings on international
human rights and humanitarian law; on the diverse regional and international
instruments in human rights protection; in international and regional jurisprudence
on international human rights, among others. This training and information-sharing
function is a critical one that has helped strengthen the capacity of judicial operators in
these countries to address cases they are investigating using the tools of international
human rights law. These trainings are less effective when they are one-off, abstract
presentations of information than when they are ongoing, iterative engagements and
when they are based on specific problems and scenarios facing judicial operators.
International human rights organizations have played an important complementary

role to the role played by domestic human rights organizations on behalf of victims’
rights. Organizations such as the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and
the Due Process of Law Foundation have focused much of their work at the level of
the Inter-American Human Rights system. CEJIL has played a critical role working
collaboratively with domestic human rights organizations in bringing cases before
the Inter-American system, both in thematic hearings before the Inter-American
Commission of Human Rights, and litigation of specific cases before the Inter-American
Court. As we have seen, the successful litigation of cases before the Inter-American
Court has resulted in several rulings that led to the nullification of self-amnesty laws in
Peru and El Salvador, and, in all three countries, has established the obligation of the
state to provide comprehensive reparations for victims and to investigate, prosecute and
punish those responsible for grave violations of human rights. In addition, workshops
led by DPLF and other groups have focused on sharing regional best practices and
jurisprudence on prosecutions, court selection criteria, and other topics.
4. Independence of the Attorney General’s Office and

Judicial Institutions and Specialization in Human
Rights Norms and Jurisprudence
4.1. The formation of special units to investigate and adjudicate cases of human
rights violations is critical to successful criminal prosecutions. So too is the
provision of the necessary knowledge and expertise on the applicable legal framework
and the application of relevant international human rights law and jurisprudence
for prosecutors and judges. Both Peru and Guatemala saw the creation of special
investigative units within the Attorney General’s Office and special courts within the
Judiciary that were critical for the advancement of independent criminal investigations
in grave crimes cases in those countries. In the case of El Salvador, in the aftermath
of the nullification of the 1993 amnesty law in 2016, the Attorney General appointed
a small team of prosecutors to conduct investigations of past human rights violations
from the civil war period.270
Prosecutors in these specialized units received training in human rights, international

criminal law and international human rights law, and were focused exclusively on
these types of cases. They acquired specialized knowledge of the contexts that gave
rise to human rights violations and of international norms and concepts. They
also acquired specialized knowledge and experience that allowed them to develop
stronger investigative skills. Specialization also facilitated the fostering of synergistic
relationships between public prosecutors and victims. Prosecutors came to understand
the importance of working collaboratively with victims and the human rights lawyers
and organizations representing them in building cases.
Similarly, the creation of special courts to adjudicate human rights cases is of utmost
importance. Assuring the existence of independent judges, with relevant levels of
specialization in international human rights law, is critical to the success of these
processes. Special courts that guarantee heightened security also assure greater
protection for judges and other stakeholders engaged in complex and sensitive cases.
The creation of these specialized systems has been fundamental for the development
of effective strategies of investigation and prosecution that have resulted in important
convictions in Peru and Guatemala, as detailed above.
4.2. The sustainability of specialized prosecutorial units and courts requires

political support to ensure adequate financial and human resources and to protect
judicial operators from external interference. The experience of Peru and Guatemala
make abundantly clear that these specialized human rights systems to investigate and
prosecute grave human rights violations are vulnerable on many fronts. They require
political support to continue their work. Human rights investigations are time-
consuming and costly. Specialized prosecutorial units require sustained financial and
human resources to conduct investigations into complex crimes and mount viable
criminal cases. Prosecutor’s offices should have access to resources to travel to remote
areas to collect witness testimony, to provide for witness protection and to hire experts
to testify on specific matters (such as sexual violence against women, command
responsibility, etc.).
Such specialized units may be vulnerable to political pressure from conservative

sectors, which seek to undermine their work by attacking them publicly and accusing
them of engaging in partisan behavior. There may also be behind-the-scenes efforts
to pressure, bribe or intimidate those working within these special units. The court
systems remain vulnerable to malicious litigation, influence peddling, and physical
and other forms of intimidation.
The cases of Peru and Guatemala illustrate both the critical importance of independent,
specialized prosecutorial and judicial institutions to successful transitional justice
cases, and the vulnerability of these institutions when charges are brought against
powerful actors or are perceived to affect corporate interests, particularly of the armed
forces or the business community. The advances seen in transitional justice trials
underscore the importance of collaboration between victims’ groups, human rights
organizations and victims’ advocates, and legal institutions, especially the prosecutor’s
office. Even under circumstances where national government officials continue to deny
the existence of systematic human rights violations, independent judicial institutions
may have the capacity to move forward on criminal investigations into human rights
cases. This was nowhere more evident than in Guatemala under both the Pérez Molina
administration and the current Morales administration. Despite continued denial of
genocide by then President Pérez Molina, the trial against former dictator José Efraín
Ríos Montt moved forward thanks to the independence of prosecuting authorities at
the Attorney General’s Offices and the judges in the High Risk Tribunals. Similarly,
while Morales came to office with the backing of former military officials linked to
the counterinsurgency years who staunchly oppose criminal prosecutions, this did not
deter investigations into grave human rights violations, and in January 2016, 18 senior
military officials were arrested in two separate cases and 12 of them await trial.
5. Addressing Wartime Sexual Violence

5.1. Wartime sexual violence is often ignored or justified; deliberate strategies and
protocols must be adopted by government officials to investigate sexual violence,
provide integral reparations to victims of these crimes, and prosecute and punish
those responsible in ways that are respectful of the victims and that guarantee
their emotional and physical safety. In Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador, sexual
violence was used as a weapon of war, deployed primarily by state security forces to
intimidate, threaten and undermine women and their families and communities of
origin, though it was sometimes also used by insurgent groups, particularly in the case
of Peru.271 The impact of sexual violence persists well past the conflict period, including
trauma, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and stigmatization, not
to mention the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators. Meeting the needs of survivors—
including medical care, HIV treatment, psychological support, economic assistance
and legal redress—requires resources that most post-conflict countries do not have.
Wartime sexual violence is intimately linked to gender inequality that preexisted the
conflicts, and which is strongly influenced by inequalities based on race and class. This
is clearly evident in our three case studies, which are societies highly segmented by
race and class. Victims of violence in each of these cases are from the most historically
marginalized and excluded sectors of society; in Peru and Guatemala, 75% and 80%
of victims came from poor, rural indigenous populations. In El Salvador, the majority
of victims are from poor rural populations. In such highly stratified systems, gender-
based violence is often overlooked, as was the case in each of these countries during
the conflict period. And because these inequalities persist into the post-conflict period,
victims of gender-based violence are often left out of the conversation about truth,
justice and reparation in periods of transition.
Shifts in the way wartime sexual violence is perceived in domestic and international
jurisdictions is changing this, however. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court recognizes wartime rape as a crime against humanity, and several international
courts and domestic tribunals have handed down judgments in wartime sexual violence
cases. As stated by Zainab Hawa Bangura, the UN Special Representative on Sexual
Violence in Conflict, “Sexual violence in conflict needs to be treated as the war crime
that it is; it can no longer be treated as an unfortunate collateral damage of war.”272
Nonetheless, in many transitional contexts it remains rare that such crimes are investigated,
and the perpetrators prosecuted and punished. Traditional views that see such crimes as a
normal part of warfare—the “boys will be boys” mentality—are pervasive among judicial
operators. Domestic legal codes may also not reflect the understanding of sexual violence
during wartime as a crime against humanity. The result is that wartime sexual violence
is explained away, in some cases justified, and too often not treated as an international
crime that imposes specific obligations on the state.
In El Salvador, sexual violence against women during the conflict has hardly been
addressed. In Peru and Guatemala, important steps have been taken toward addressing
wartime sexual violence. The truth commissions in Peru and Guatemala adopted a
gender perspective in their investigations, and their final reports helped to pierce the
veil of silence that surrounded the crime of sexual violence. In both countries, some,
but not all, victims of sexual violence have received economic reparations and other
restitution mechanisms such as health care. Each country has also seen an effort to
criminally prosecute sexual violence cases to court. While there have been some
positive results, huge limitations remain.
5.2. The prosecution of sexual violence cases faces unique challenges. Protocols can
help direct investigators to identify such crimes and can provide clear frameworks for
how to take victim testimony in ways that respect victims’ dignity and assure their
physical and emotional safety. Sexual violence against women in wartime often occurs
in the context of other violations, such as massacres, enforced disappearance, and
illegal detention. However, prosecutors often fail to distinguish sexual violence against
women as a crime that requires investigation. Susanna Navarro, executive director of
the Team of Community Studies and Psychosocial Action (ECAP), which works with
victims of conflict and postwar violence in Guatemala, explained that this was common
in Guatemala, until recently: “It was as if the prosecutors, having two ears, only used
one: they heard about the disappearances and massacres that took place, but they didn’t
use the other ear, to hear what had happened to the women. It was a huge challenge to
get the prosecutors to listen to the victims using both ears.”273
This observation could easily be applied to Peru, as well. We met with survivors
and families of the victims from the 1985 Accomarca massacre, in which 69 people,
including 21 children, were killed by soldiers. Dozens of women were raped before they
were killed, as attested to by numerous witnesses. The case came to trial in November
2010, with charges brought against 29 military officers for aggravated homicide and
torture, but not for the crimes of sexual violence committed against the women.
Another issue is that victims of sexual violence, whether in wartime or in peacetime,

face massive social stigmatization. This is especially true in rural and indigenous
societies. Victims of sexual violence in Peru and Guatemala told us that they were seen
as “the soldiers’ women” and were shunned by their communities. One mechanism
for addressing this problem adopted in both Guatemala and Peru is to protect the
identities of victims who wished to testify about the abuses they suffered, but who did
not want members of the family and community to know what had happened to them.
In Guatemala, human rights organizations have adopted a different approach, seeking
to transform local understandings of sexual violence. As Paula Barrios, director of
Women Transforming the World and member of the Alianza Rompiendo el Silencio,
which represented the victims in the Sepur Zarco case, stated, “We sought to transfer
the guilt associated with sexual violence from the victim to the perpetrator.” The
criminal trial in the Sepur Zarco case, which concluded with the conviction of the two
military officials accused, succeeded in doing this, says Barrios.274
The changes outlined earlier in this report under Claudia Paz y Paz’s term as Attorney
General of Guatemala help explain how a deliberate institutional strategy to change
the way problems were addressed resulted in new practices. Protocols instructed
prosecutors to ask about whether sexual violence occurred in the context of other
human rights violations, provided prosecutors with guidelines for protecting victims’
identities, and instructed them to determine whether psychological assistance and
security measures were necessary to protect the physical and emotional safety of the
victims. Such protocols provide judicial operators with the tools to engage with victims
in ways that are respectful of women’s dignity and can help empower victims by giving
them a safe space to testify about the abuses they endured. These strategies were central
to the successful prosecution of the genocide case in 2013, and the successful conviction
in the Sepur Zarco sexual violence/sexual slavery case in 2016 demonstrate that these
strategies were institutionalized over time.
Developing institutional protocols to investigate and prosecute cases of sexual violence

against women in ways that are culturally sensitive, respectful of women’s dignity, and
guarantee women’s emotional and physical safety, is an example of a “best practice” in
transitional justice that can be usefully applied elsewhere.
6. Impunity is the mother of illegality, corruption and

political instability. Transitional justice promotes
more just, peaceful and democratic nations.
When grave human rights crimes are unacknowledged and left unpunished, and
impunity is allowed to flourish, new forms of illegality and criminality may easily
take root, undermining democratic governance, allowing corruption to flourish, and
threatening peace and reconciliation. Transitional justice processes are long, protracted
and contentious, but they hold the promise of creating more just, more peaceful, and
more democratic nations.
Transitional justice provides a series of tools for societies dealing with mass atrocity to
address the legacy of violence; its seeks to provide recognition to victims, foster civic
trust, strengthen the rule of law, and promote reconciliation. Failure to acknowledge
the abuses endured by victims undermines trust, hampers reconciliation, and foments
social fragmentation and possibly violence. Failure to dismantle authoritarian enclaves
and the impunity that shielded perpetrators from having to answer for their crimes
erodes citizens’ faith in new structures of governance and emboldens perpetrators to
engage in new forms of illegal activity.
This is nowhere more evident than in Guatemala, where actors who enjoyed impunity
after the peace accords were signed organized new clandestine structures to defraud
the state and engage in other illicit activities. The WOLA report “Hidden Powers in
Post-Conflict Guatemala” carefully documents the evolution of criminal structures
connected to the Guatemalan counterinsurgency into organized crime networks
that have operated freely in the context of the country’s fragile democracy and weak
legal institutions.275 This is one of the key reasons that human rights organizations
began to lobby for international action to combat impunity in Guatemala, which
ultimately resulted in the creation of the International Commission Against Impunity
in Guatemala (CICIG). CICIG has made important strides in strengthening legal
institutions and combating illegal structures in Guatemala, but much remains to be

done. Senior military officials implicated in grave violations of human rights have been
arrested for involvement in massive corruption schemes, including former president
and retired army general Otto Pérez Molina, while others remain active behind the
scenes trying to influence the political process to guarantee impunity for past human
rights violations as well as current crimes.
The connection between past and present is visible in other ways in our three case studies.
Though each of these countries are defined as post-conflict societies, violence has not
disappeared; on the contrary, El Salvador and Guatemala (along with neighboring
Honduras) have clocked among the highest homicide rates per capita in recent years
in the world, at numbers that at times have exceeded the conflict period. The nature
of violence has certainly changed, being more localized, less political (though political
violence can and does persist), and in some instances privatized. Yet experts have noted
that this violence is rooted in the same structural conditions of poverty, inequality,
and limited opportunities especially for young people, that gave rise to revolutionary
movements in the 1970s and 1980s.276 This volatile scenario has been exacerbated by
the U.S. government’s deportation policies, which fueled the formation of violent gangs
in El Salvador.277
The state’s response to gang violence has largely mirrored the strategies deployed by
previous authoritarian regimes of repression and arbitrary violence.278 The language
of counterinsurgency is often deployed in discussions about how to combat current
challenges such as drug trafficking, organized crime, or gang violence. Instead
of developing more effective police forces, the government has sought to deploy
the armed forces to combat gang violence, further fueling the flame of violence.
Authoritarian understandings of law and order have come to dominate state and social
responses to these challenges and in many ways has fueled a backlash against human
rights. This is why it is so important for countries to fully examine the failures of past
institutional responses to violence, in order to modify legislation, policing practices,
and understandings of citizenship to be more fully democratic and inclusive.
In the aftermath of mass atrocities, it is essential that there is an official acknowledgement

of the harms inflicted upon victims. This is critical to helping (re)construct the moral
trust that underlies the social contract, essential for any community; that there are
shared rules by which we live and which we can count on to protect and guide us.
Transitional justice can thus play an instrumental role in restoring the normative
foundations of a society. Similarly, holding perpetrators of the worst abuses responsible
for their crimes shows that justice systems are able to function as they should, and
helps restore the understanding that in a democracy, all citizens are equal before the
law, and no individual, no matter how powerful, is above the law. This is also critical
to establishing the foundations of a modern, democratic society. Thus, the process
of reckoning with the past through transitional justice is intimately connected to the
process of constructing a more solid democratic future.
101
IV. CONCLUSION: TRANSITIONAL
JUSTICE AND THE LEGACY OF
CIVIL CONFLICTS
T
he debate about transitional justice in Latin America has heavily emphasized the
experience of the Southern Cone countries that led the first wave of transition
away from military authoritarian rule to democratic government in the early
and mid 1980s. We can identify a second wave of transitions that occurred in countries
that experienced both repressive military or civil-military rule as well as protracted
internal armed conflicts in which armed guerrilla movements sought to overthrow the
state. This encompasses the cases of El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru, spanning the
early 1990s through 2000. The nature of protracted civil conflict in these second wave
transitional countries raises a series of challenges that are worthy of separate study and
consideration. In particular, though the nature of each insurgent movement(s) in each
country varied, in terms of ideology, strategy, and levels of popular support, the very
dynamic of armed conflict creates different challenges and limitations for transitional
justice efforts and long-term peace building in those societies.
Each of these countries inherited a legacy of exclusionary, repressive government and

has faced enormous challenges in constructing solid democratic institutions. Each of
these countries also experienced massive human rights violations and institutionalized
impunity. Government forces were found responsible for 93 percent of human rights
violations in Guatemala; 85 percent in El Salvador, and 37 percent in Peru. Insurgent
groups were also found responsible for a series of abuses in each of these cases, though
in the case of Peru the percentage is significantly higher. Insurgent groups were found
responsible for five percent of abuses in El Salvador and three percent in Guatemala; in
the case of Peru, Shining Path was found responsible for more than half—54 percent—of
violations documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The polarization
that characterizes civil conflict in societies such as these does not disappear magically
after the transition to democracy, and often reemerges in complex ways that constrain
and complicate the transitional justice process.
Another issue to consider is the way in which the conflicts were ended. In El Salvador
and Guatemala, the conflicts were ended via peace agreements, in which armed actors
were demobilized and allowed to reincorporate into political life; in both cases insurgent
groups formed political parties though with much more electoral success in the case of
El Salvador. In Peru, the conflict proper was ended when the top leadership of Shining
Path and the MRTA were arrested, signaling their political and military defeat. The
perception of military victory in Peru gave the armed forces a much stronger platform
from which to assert their demands for guarantees of impunity, which they obtained
as a result of their alliance with the Fujimori government. But when the Fujimori
government collapsed, that alliance became a handicap for the military. The balance
between persistent military power, military claims of having successfully defeated
terrorist or communist insurgencies, and political jockeying in the post-conflict
period, have all played a role in shaping the possibilities for transitional justice in these
countries.
In each of these three countries, victims and their allies in civil society have persisted
in their demands for truth, justice and reparations. That persistence, combined with
alliance building with local civil society organizations, international human rights
groups and institutions, and actors in key state institutions, that has been the driving
force in the transitional justice processes in each of these countries. And in several
instances, victims have moved beyond a focus on their individual cases and have become
human rights defenders advocating for broader process of truth recovery, criminal
accountability, reparations, and memorialization. The Inter-American system of human
rights protection has played a critical role as an institutional arena in which victims
have been able to seek redress in the face of state inaction or obstruction, and which
has contributed to breaking down mechanisms of impunity such as amnesty laws so
that criminal investigations in specific cases can advance in domestic jurisdictions. The
Inter-American system has also played a vital role consolidating the rights of victims to
truth and reparations. All told, the Inter-American system has helped victims of grave
human rights violations reclaim their status as rights-bearing citizens and consolidate
their identities as human rights defenders and, more broadly, as change-makers.
Each of the three countries has engaged in important processes of truth recovery,
provision of reparations for victims of human rights violations, legal accountability
efforts, and memorialization, but with significant differences. In Peru, there have been
substantive steps forward in truth-recovery, integral reparations, and achieving justice
in specific human rights cases, such as the conviction of former president Alberto
Fujimori, as well as high-ranking military officials responsible for numerous cases
of massacres, enforced disappearance, and torture. The defeat of the Shining Path
and MRTA insurgent movements in the early 1990s, followed by the collapse of the
authoritarian Fujimori regime in 2000, created an opportunity for a newly elected
democratic government to institute important democratic reforms, prosecute officials
accused of corruption (and later human rights violations), and pursue a transitional
process that was victim-centered. However, as noted above, the return to power of
politicians implicated in grave human rights violations, such as Alan García, who was
elected to a second term in 2006, ushered in a period in which conservative politicians
Conclusion: Transitional Justice and the Legacy of Civil Conflicts in Peru, El Salvador and Guatemala 103
and sectors of the armed forces sought to roll back some of the advances made. While
efforts to impose full blown amnesty laws have faltered, other mechanisms have been
employed to reduce the effectiveness of judicial proceedings, as noted above. Trials take
an unusually long time, in some cases up to five or even six years, taxing the resources
and energies of all involved parties. Victims’ associations and human rights groups
have tended to focus on individual cases rather than the systemic problems that result
in questionable sentences and the overturning of convictions on appeal.
Following the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the

Peruvian government created a National Reparations Law guaranteeing integral
reparations for victims. However, some categories of victims were excluded by design
and in practice, and the system for registering victims has been overly bureaucratic,
resulting in a long, drawn-out and ultimately frustrating process for victims. Indeed, as
described above, victims expended enormous energy organizing protests and meeting
with government officials to pressure the government to implement the program of
integral reparations. They have had to combat bureaucratic lethargy and an absence
of political will to implement the different reparations programs, including monetary
benefits as well as programs focusing on health care and educational scholarships,
despite being enshrined by law in 2005. A similar lethargy is evident in the long delays
in finally approving in 2016—13 years after the CVR’s recommendation—the creation
of a National Plan to Search for Disappeared Persons. Though it now has a functioning
office, it has not yet devised a clear plan of action.
Ultimately, the backtracking in the justice sector and the bureaucratic delays in
implementation of the reparations program and the search for disappeared persons
are reflective of the ambiguity with which elite groups view the transitional justice
process. Peru continues to be sharply divided, with some sectors denying up front the
right of victims to truth, justice and reparations. Some of these sectors continue to
talk in the language of the conflict, conflating all victims with terrorism and all efforts
to seek justice with persecution of the armed forces. The armed forces apologized in
2001 for its close association with the Fujimori regime, but it has never apologized
for its involvement in systematic human rights violations, which it continues to deny.
In this context, transitional justice has become a key arena in the battle over how to
understand the past and how to apportion blame for the atrocities that occurred.
Like Peru, Guatemala, has seen some important progress in terms of criminal
accountability, including convictions in emblematic cases, such as the convictions in
the Las Dos Erres massacre and the conviction of former dictator Jose Efrain Rios
Montt. However, the backlash evident as the genocide trial unfolded, the heightened
security risks that ensued, and the undoing of the genocide verdict through a legally
questionable process signals the challenges that this Central American country faces
in its ongoing transitional justice efforts. The new wave of transitional justice cases
in Guatemala in 2016, including the conviction in the Sepur Zarco sexual violence/
sexual slavery case, suggests that the Attorney General’s Office has acquired significant
capacity and autonomy in the pursuit of criminal accountability. But at the same time,
the reparations program has been gutted, the government has failed to adopt a national
program to search for disappeared persons, and security issues remain a real concern
for victims, human rights advocates, and judicial operators.
Of particular importance here is the persistence of structures of impunity from the

conflict period. The failure to prosecute any of the individuals responsible for gross
violations of human rights in the immediate post-war period allowed those individuals
to retain power and restructure their alliances. Many of them became powerful
politicians (Ríos Montt himself, who was elected to Congress; and Pérez Molina, a
commander in the army in the Ixil region during the Ríos Montt administration who
was elected president in 2011) while others reportedly became involved in organized
crime syndicates. This issue became especially relevant in early 2016, when it came to
light that several retired military officials who were arrested in relation to two major
human rights cases were likely to be named as cabinet members in the incoming
administration of Jimmy Morales.279 Morales himself was elected with the backing of
the National Convergence Front (FDN), a party created by former counterinsurgency
military officers. The head of the FDN at the time of Morales’ election, Edgar Justino
Ovalle, was impeached and faces charges in the CREOMPAZ enforced disappearance
case, but he went into hiding and remains a fugitive.
Civil society organizations in Guatemala have gained experience operating in a hostile

environment and have developed an impressive capacity to develop new, strategic
alliances to move cases forward. They have gone further than Peru or El Salvador in
promoting gender justice, and several organizations have shown particular concern
for promoting a grassroots process of organization and participation in the transitional
justice. Of the three countries, human rights organizations in Guatemala are also the
most adept at promoting integral and multidisciplinary forms of intervention and are
especially careful in promoting individual and community healing in the context of their
litigation strategies.
Impunity has been more entrenched still in El Salvador. Denial narratives about
the role of the military in human rights violations remain predominant, though the
official recognition of state responsibility since 2009 and a formal apology to victims
Conclusion: Transitional Justice and the Legacy of Civil Conflicts in Peru, El Salvador and Guatemala 105
marked a turning point that may signal new hope for policies that address the needs
and demands of the victims of human rights violations. For more than two decades,
the 1993 amnesty law and inertia in the Attorney General’s Office and criminal courts
prevented effective prosecutions in human rights cases. The 2016 Constitutional
Court’s decision declaring the amnesty law unconstitutional opens new possibilities
for accountability in El Salvador. However, several challenges remain: the Attorney
General’s Office remains reticent to work on past crimes cases; judges have had no
specialized training in international human rights law and jurisprudence or in victim-
centered approaches to transitional justice; and civil society organizations have limited
experience litigating human rights cases.
Transitional justice is a dynamic process. Numerous actors interact and engage in this
process, and their positions and alliances can change and shift over time. Support for
different mechanisms can be constructed at different points in time, but that support
can erode or even vanish. Victims’ associations and human rights organizations play
a critical role in moving this process forward, but these organizations must address
challenges of institutional precariousness, the need to sustain their advocacy work
over time, and in the face of dwindling international support for transitional justice
in Latin America. They also must address the recomposition of conservative sectors
who seek to slow down or obstruct transitional justice. Victims and their allies remain
vulnerable even decades after the moment of transition to democracy, particularly
when entrenched elites feel that their interests are at risk. Attacks against human
rights defenders have been registered in each of the countries examined here, ranging
from character assassination to overt or more subtle forms of intimidation, as well as
frivolous lawsuits that seek to distract energy, resources and time. Our case studies
also demonstrate that even when victims are successful in obtaining recognition for
their demands in the form of public policy, there is often a significant time lag in
implementation. This is most often the result of wavering political will on the part of
governing elites.
Despite some forward movement, impunity persists in all three countries. The failure
to adopt early on robust transitional justice policies that ensure integral reparations for
victims —truth, justice, economic and symbolic reparations, and guarantees of non-
repetition— weakens citizens’ trust in government, undermines the consolidation of
the rule of law, and makes national reconciliation an elusive goal. Weak implementation
of transitional justice gives cover to pro-impunity sectors who seek to retain power to
preserve their privilege, which undermines the rule of law and threatens instability, as
we see especially in the cases of El Salvador and Guatemala.
Adopting an integral model of transitional justice, that takes into account the rights
of victims to truth, to access justice, reparations, and memory, is the gold standard
to which all post-conflict governments should aspire. Victims can more effectively
promote their needs by developing solid organizations that are inclusive and able
to construct strategic alliances with domestic and international human rights
organizations, leveraging regional and international institutions and courts in support
of their cause, and engaging in outreach to diverse publics, including young people,
to build a societal consensus about the benefits of transitional justice for repairing the
harms born of the conflict era and for building a more robust democracy based on the
rule of law and peaceful coexistence.
107
V. RECOMMENDATIONS
1. National and international human rights organizations as well as international

foundations provide critical support to victims’ associations. Such support should
seek to develop the institutional strength and autonomy of victims’ associations,
and to develop better networking and advocacy capacities of victims’ associations.
2. Psycho-social support for victims should be provided early and broadly to address
the long-term impacts of the human rights violations suffered by survivors, families
of victims, and the communities affected. Ideally the state should implement a
broad social program of psycho-social care for all victims of the conflict, and private
organizations, including human rights organizations, churches and universities
may serve as alternative providers.
3. Governments should adopt integral programs of reparation for victims, which

includes programs that ensure truth-recovery, individual and collective forms of
reparation that may include monetary reparations but should not be exclusively
about such forms of reparation. Other forms of reparation are also highly valued
by victims, including access to health care, psychological support, educational
trainings and scholarships, housing, access to land, no-interest loans, etc. The
bodies charged with the design and implementation of such programs should
be granted functional and financial autonomy to avoid being used or abandoned
based on political considerations.
4. Of special humanitarian concern is the search for disappeared persons. Governments

should prioritize the creation of national mechanisms and plans to search for
disappeared persons, determine their identities and the circumstances in which
they were disappeared, and return their remains to their families for proper reburial.
The bodies charged with the design and implementation of such programs should
be granted functional and financial autonomy to avoid being used or abandoned
based on political considerations. Governments should work collaboratively with
private providers, including non-profit organizations specializing in forensic work,
in the process of searching for, identifying, and returning the remains of victims to
their families. Victims should receive psychological counseling during all aspects
of the search process. The support of the international community for government
and independent forensic teams engaged in the search of disappeared persons is
critical.
5. Special systems to investigate and prosecute cases of grave human rights violations
should be established, guaranteeing prosecutors and judges access to specialized
training in international human rights law and jurisprudence, including training
on transitional justice so that they are aware of the international obligations of
states to fulfill victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-
repetition, and on the importance of adopting victim-centered approaches in
their work. These systems should be provided sufficient resources to guarantee
independence in conducting their investigations and to guarantee efficiency and
expediency in judicial proceedings. The international community should support
international trial monitoring and other systems to monitor the behavior of judicial
operators to ensure that it is in compliance with international norms and law.
6. Strategic litigation has proven to be useful for prosecuting human rights violations
in domestic and international jurisdictions, as well as pursuing other objectives,
such as gaining access to official information. Strategic litigation is predicated
not only on legal strategy, but also a political and communications strategy to
develop a broader social understanding of the nature of human rights violations
and the rights of victims to integral forms of reparation. Strategic litigation also
incorporates methods to address the psycho-social and security needs of victims.
7. Independence of legal institutions, especially the Attorney General’s Office and

the Judiciary, must be assured. This may require legal and judicial reforms, more
robust processes of selection of judicial authorities, mechanisms to monitor the
behavior of judicial authorities, and other related measures.
8. The creation of memory sites, such as museums, memorials, commemorative

events, and artistic productions including film, photography, and visual arts, can
play a critical role in supporting social repair for victims of gross human rights
violations, and can play an important role in consolidating victims’ role as change-
makers. When the state pursues the creation of a memory museum or other memory
site, it should involve representatives of victims’ organizations and civil society
in all decision-making aspects, and it should adopt specific measures to ensure
transparency in decision-making as well as administrative and financial decisions.
Local and international artists, universities, and foundations should be encouraged
to contribute to this process in close collaboration with victims’ associations.
9. Transitional justice is a long-term process that is subject to setbacks and backlashes,

but also important and sometimes unexpected breakthroughs. International
funders should develop multi-year programs to help sustain the anti-impunity
work of victims’ associations and human rights advocates. International funders
Recommendations 109
should also provide guidance and economic support to governments to ensure that
they are meeting their obligations to victims of grave human rights violations.
10. Transitional justice processes must necessarily take into account the specificities of
the local context, and especially different impacts on the most vulnerable sectors of
society, including children, women, and indigenous populations.
11. Transitional justice is about the past, but it is also, fundamentally, about the present
and the future. The survivors of human rights violations and the families of victims
have immediate needs that must be addressed for society to move forward. The
families of the disappeared, in particular, continue to live in the anguish of not
knowing the fate of their missing loved one. More systemically, until institutions that
permitted human rights violations and shielded perpetrators with amnesty laws or
other mechanisms of impunity are fundamentally transformed, the ghosts of the past
will haunt the present and impede a more peaceful, prosperous future for all.
Specific recommendations
For the donor community:
●● Invest in data and research on transitional justice processes. The behavior of

the government institutions involved in transitional justice processes should
be monitored, using baselines and databases, to ensure effective policy and
program development and implementation. Such tools are also important to
assess the impact of transitional justice policies on the victims.
●● Support civil society organizations by providing resources to strengthen and

sustain their legal teams and personnel involved in the accompaniment of
victims. Given that transitional justice processes are long-term investments,
consider providing institutional support for these organizations.
●● Support victims’ associations by providing resources to strengthen their

organizations and develop new, strategic networks, as well as their capacity
to articulate and communicate their demands and to influence government
policy and programs more effectively.
For civil society:
●● Strengthen strategic litigation by developing multidisciplinary capacities that

integrate the legal sciences, as well as the sciences of anthropology, archival
science, social psychology, strategic communications, among others.
●● Build alliances with different strategic actors, including victims’ associations,

other civil society organizations, international organizations and foundations,
and government agencies as appropriate. Develop networks to more effectively
promote your message and execute your campaigns. The construction of
consensus and unity among human rights and victims’ organizations should be
encouraged, with an eye toward prioritizing strategic action and engagement.
●● A gender perspective must be incorporated in the work with victims, in its

different dimensions. This implies hiring more female staff; gender training of
staff and personnel; and implementing support processes that include a gender
perspective. Priority should be given to work focusing on gender violence and
sexual violence, and on developing alliances with civil society organizations
that specialize in women’s rights.
For governments:
●● Acknowledgment of state responsibility for grave violations of human rights

should be done in public ceremonies, taking into consideration the needs
and expectations of victims. Such acknowledgment should include a clear
commitment to non-recurrence and, above all, should exclude any attempt
to justify the crimes. It is more restorative if one includes the institutions that
directly participated in the atrocities (such as the armed forces) and if these
acknowledgments of responsibility are coherent with other transitional justice
measures.
●● Create and implement integral reparations programs and national plans to

search for the disappeared shortly after the transition to democracy. Establish
agencies to carry out these programs and grant them functional autonomy and
provide them with sufficient human and financial resources.
●● Amnesties, pardons, and other mechanisms designed to ensure impunity

for grave human rights violations are contrary to international human rights
law and should be avoided. States should encourage a robust process of
accountability and provide adequate financial and human resources to the
Attorney General’s Office and to the Judiciary.
●● Establish a functionally autonomous institution to monitor the recommen-

dations of the truth commission and implementation of an integral model of
transitional justice, including truth-recovery, retributive justice, collective and
individual reparations, and memorialization.
Endnotes 111
Endnotes
1 United Nations, Guidance from the General Secretary: United Nations Approach to Transitional
Justice, March 2010. Available at: https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/TJ_Guidance_Note_
March_2010FINAL.pdf. See also, Pablo de Greiff, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the
promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Human Rights
Council 30th Session, United Nations General Assembly, September 7, 2015. Available at:
https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G15/202/04/PDF/G1520204.pdf?Open
Element; and Pablo de Grieff, “Theorizing Transitional Justice,” Transitional Justice 51 (2012),
pp. 31-77.
2 See Emilio Crenzel, Memory of the Disappearances: The Political History of Nunca Más (New
York: Routledge, 2012).
3 For discussions of the early efforts to prosecute dictatorship-era crimes, see Carlos Santiago
Nino, Radical Evil on Trial (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Jaime Malamud-Goti,
Game without End: State Terror and the Politics of Justice (Kansas, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1996); and Elizabeth Jelin et al., Vida cotidiana y control institucional en la Argentina de
los 90 (Buenos Aires: Nuevohacer, 1996).
4 In the face of official truth commissions, the human rights group SERPAJ in Uruguay, and
the Archbishop’s Office in Brazil, engaged in important truth-recovery projects. See Lawrence
Wechsler, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (University of Chicago Press,
second edition, 1998).
5 J.M. Burt, “Challenging Impunity in Domestic Courts: Human Rights Prosecutions in Latin
America,” In Felix Reategui, ed., The Transitional Justice Handbook for Latin America (Brasilia
and New York: The Brazilian Amnesty Commission, Ministry of Justice and the International
Center for Transitional Justice, 2011), pp. 285-311.
6 Human rights organizations continued to pursue accountability efforts, however. In 1997,
Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo filed charges against several senior military officials for the illegal
appropriation of children, a crime that was not covered in the amnesty laws. Former junta
member Jorge Videla was arrested in this case in 1998. Horacio Verbitsky, “Videla es Mundial,”
Pagína 12, June 10, 1998. Available at: http://www.archivo.pagina12.com.ar/1998/98-06/98-06-
10/pag03.htm.
7 For example, in 1995, Carmen Lapacó, Emilio Mignone and Marta Vázquez presented a legal
complaint demanding to know the truth about what happened to their children, who were
forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship. Given that the cases could not move forward in the
Argentine judiciary, they brought their case to the Inter-American system, eventually leading to
a friendly settlement in which the Argentine state acknowledged the relatives’ right to truth and
promised to convene “truth trials” to that effect in federal courts.
8 The 2005 Supreme Court decision upheld the earlier 2001 ruling by federal judge Gabriel Cavallo
declaring the amnesty laws unconstitutional. Cavallo based his decision on the argument of
Poblete’s lawyers from the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) that it was a violation of
international law that the courts could investigate Poblete’s illegal appropriation, but not the enforced
disappearance of her parents due to the amnesty laws. Judge Cavallo found that the amnesty laws
interfered with the Argentine state’s international duty to investigate and prosecute crimes against
humanity and declared them unconstitutional. See, CELS, “Pedido de inconstitucionalidad de
las leyes de punto final y obediencia debida - Caso Poblete,” no date. Available at: http://www.
cels.org.ar/agendatematica/?info=detalleDocF&ids=11&lang=es&ss=41&idc=592.
9 Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), Blog: Juicios: Procesos de justicia por crímenes de
lesa humanidad. Available at: http://www.cels.org.ar/blogs/estadisticas/.
10 This includes official memory sites such as the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Center
for Memory and Human Rights), which is based at the former detention center known as ESMA
(http://www.espaciomemoria.ar), and civil society initiatives such as Memoria Abierta, http://
www.memoriaabierta.org.ar/wp/?page_id=778, which includes efforts to preserve the archives
of the dictatorship period.
11 Juan Jesus Aznarez, “Supremo de Chile condena a los dos ex jefes de la policía política de Pinochet
por el ‘caso Letelier’,” El País, May 31, 1995. Available at: http://elpais.com/diario/1995/05/31/
internacional/801871207_850215.html.
12 See for example, Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson, Truth v. Justice: The Morality of
Truth Commissions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). See also, Priscilla Hayner,
Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions (New York:
Routledge, 2010, 2nd Edition); and the collection of essays edited by Thomas Miller Klubock
and Greg Grandin, “Truth Commissions: State Terror, History, and Memory,” in Radical History
Review, No. 97 (2006).
13 Naomi Roht-Arriaza, The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights
(Pittsburgh: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
14 See Naomi Roht-Arriaza, The Pinochet Effect. On the Chile case, see Cath Collins, Post-
transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador (University Park, PA: The
Pennsylvania State Press, 2010).
15 For example, victims demanded investigations into dictatorship-era crimes that had not been
investigated by the first truth commission (illegal detention and torture), leading to the creation
of a second truth commission, the Valech Commission. This, in turn, led to new demands for
reparations for political prisoners and torture victims, and in 2015, the Chilean government
authorized a one-time payment to the 38,000 torture victims recognized by the Valech
Commission.
16 Ruti G. Teitel, Transitional Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
17 Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena, Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century:
Beyond Truth Versus Justice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
18 Coletta Youngers, Violencia política y la sociedad civil en el Perú (Lima: Instituto de Estudios
Peruanos, 2003).
19 For a history of the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, see Coletta Youngers,
Violencia política y sociedad civil en el Perú: historia de la Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos
Humanos (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2003).
Endnotes 113
20 During the conflict period, the few cases of human rights violations that came before Peruvian
courts were transferred to military courts, where those implicated were set free or given minimal
administrative sanctions. In 1995, two laws were passed that granted a blanket amnesty to alleged
perpetrators for human rights violations. In 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
ruled in the case of the Barrios Altos massacre that the amnesty laws violated the American
Convention on Human Rights and lacked legal effect.
21 According to one study, the Fujimori government was the most corrupt in Peruvian history. See
Alfonso Quiroz, Corrupt Circles: A History of Unbound Graft in Peru (Woodrow Wilson Center
Press, 2008).
22 There is an extensive literature on the Fujimori regime. See for example: Carlos Iván Degregori,
La década de la antipolítica. Auge y huida de Alberto Fujimori y Vladimiro Montesinos (Lima:
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2001); Julio Carrión, Ed., The Fujimori Legacy: The Rise of
Electoral Authoritarianism in Peru (Pennsylvania State Press, 2006); and Jo-Marie Burt, Political
Violence and the Authoritarian State in Peru: Silencing Civil Society (New York: Palgrave Press,
2007).
23 For an analysis of the CVR, see Eduardo González-Cueva, “The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and the Challenge of Impunity,” in Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First
Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice, edited by N. Roht-Arriaza and J. Mariezcurrena (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 70–93. Also see L. J. Laplante and K. Theidon, “Truth
with Consequences: Justice and Reparations in Post-Truth Commission Peru,” Human Rights
Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2007): 228–50.
24 Javier Ciurlizza and Eduardo González, ‘Verdad y Justicia desde la óptica de la Comisión de la
Verdad y Reconciliación,’ in El legado de la verdad. La justicia penal en la transición peruana,
edited by Lisa Magarrell and Leonardo Filippini (Lima: International Center for Transitional
Justice/IDEHPUCP, 2006).
25 Rettig Commission, Final Report, February 1991. Available at: https://www.usip.org/
publications/1990/05/truth-commission-chile-90.
26 El Salvador Truth Commission, De la Locura a la Esperanza: La Guerra de 12 años en el Salvador,
March 1993. Available at: http://www.derechoshumanos.net/lesahumanidad/informes/
elsalvador/informe-de-la-locura-a-la-esperanza.htm.
27 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, 1998. Available at: http://
www.justice.gov.za/Trc/report/index.htm.
28 Inter-American Court for Human Rights, Barrios Altos v. Peru, Judgment of March 14, 2001.
Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_75_ing.pdf. This ruling has
since been upheld in various legal proceedings in Peru, including in a ruling by the country’s
Constitutional Tribunal. The Peruvian state attempted to assert that the nullification was valid
only for the Barrios Altos case. In response to a petition by the human rights community, the
Inter-American Court issued a second ruling in September 2001 affirming that it applied across
the board. Inter-American Court for Human Rights, Barrios Altos Case, Judgment of September
3, 2001, (Interpretation of the Judgment of the Merits). Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/
docs/casos/articulos/seriec_83_ing.pdf. For a useful discussion of the role of the Inter-American
system of human rights in Peru, see Susana Villarán, “Peru,” in Victims Unsilenced: The Inter-
American Human Rights System and Transitional Justice in Latin America (Washington, D.C.:
Due Process of Law Foundation, 2007), pp. 95-126.
29 The three recently named heads of the armed forces were among those who had signed the
loyalty pact, giving Paniagua no choice but to fire them. See J.M. Burt, “Guilty as Charged: The
Trial of Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for Grave Violations of Human Rights,”
International Journal of Transitional Justice 3, No. 3 (2009): 384–405.
30 Forensic organizations later estimated the number to be much higher, at 15,000 cases of enforced
disappearance, the majority at the hands of government forces.
31 Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, Informe Final (Lima, 2003), Vol. VIII, ‘Conclusiones
Generales’, conclusion 6, p. 316. Available at: www.cverdad.org.pe.
32 Julissa Mantilla Falcón, “La Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación en el Perú y la perspectiva
de género: principales logros y hallazgos,” Revista IIDH, No. 43 (2006), pp. 323-365.
33 Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, Informe Final.
34 Salomon Lerner, Inauguration of the Yuyanapaq Photography Exhibit, Lima, Peru, no date,
http://cverdad.org.pe/apublicas/p-fotografico/discurso.php.
35 Decreto Supremo No. 015-2006-JUS, July 5, 2006. Available at: http://www.ruv.gob.pe/archivos/
Reglamento_de_la_Ley__28592.pdf. For an extensive analysis of Peru’s reparations programs,
see Christian Correa, Reparaciones en Perú: El largo camino entre las recomendaciones y la
implementación, International Center for Transitional Justice (2013). Available at: https://www.
ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Report-Peru-Reparations-Spanish-2013.pdf.
36 The categories included victims of extrajudicial execution; enforced disappearance; and arbitrary
arrest, torture, rape and kidnapping. Members of the military, police and self-defense committees
injured as a result of the conflict were also included. Other victims included: children born as
a result of rape, children recruited by self-defense committees, and those unjustly accused on
charges of terrorism or treason.
37 This exclusion has been criticized by international organizations as undermining the concept of
human rights as inalienable and making national reconciliation much more difficult. See Correa,
Reparaciones en Perú, pp. 5-6.
38 “Por lo tanto, y en cuanto garante del orden social y público, el deber de reparar de los Estados
se extiende a las violaciones de los derechos humanos a manos de actores privados, incluyendo
grupos subversivos y terroristas. Consecuentemente, la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación
y su Plan Integral de Reparaciones (PIR) recomiendan establecer un trato igual para todas las
víctimas, ya sean víctimas por hechos cometidos por agentes del Estado o por grupos subversivos
terroristas.” Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, “Programa Integral de Reparaciones,”
Informe Final (2003). Available at: http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/pdf/TOMO%20IX/2.2.%20
PIR.pdf.
39 Correa, Reparaciones en Perú, p. 6.
40 María Eugenia Ulfe Young, ¿Y, después de la violencia qué queda? Víctimas, ciudadanos
y reparaciones en el contexto post-CVR en el Perú (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2013),
pp. 60-65. Available at: http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/becas/20130628122643/
Ydespuesdelaviolencia.pdf.
Endnotes 115
41 “Víctimas de la violencia política piden modificar decreto de reparaciones,” La República,

November 3, 2016. Available at: http://larepublica.pe/politica/818187-victimas-de-la-violencia-
politica-piden-modificar-decreto-de-reparaciones.
42 Jorge Paucar Albino, “Estado peruano ha pagado más de 100 millones a 30,000 afectados por
conflicto armado interno,” La Mula, January 8, 2016. Available at: https://redaccion.lamula.
pe/2016/01/08/estado-peruano-ha-pagado-mas-de-s-100-millones-a-30-mil-afectados-por-
conflicto-armado-interno/jorgepaucar/.
43 These changes occurred under the subsequent government of Pedro Pablo Kuczcynski (2016-).
44 UNESCO: “CVR y Registro Único de Víctimas subrayan importancia de la memoria y la
verdad,” Buletín de UNESCO Lima, No. 2 (December 2016). Available at: https://www.scribd.
com/document/335224839/Unesco-Boletin-N-2.
45 There are several existing databases on the disappeared. The CVR’s Final reported estimated that
8,558 individuals had been forcibly disappeared between 1980 and 2000 (http://www.cverdad.
org.pe). The National Reparations Council registered a total of 7,399 victims into its Registry
of Victims (http://www.ruv.gob.pe/archivos/Todos_Los_Nombres_MINJUS.pdf). The Public
Ministry estimates the number of disappeared to be 15,731.
46 “Law Eases Search for Persons Missing in 1980-2000 Armed Conflict,” The Peruvian Times,
June 22, 2016. Available at: http://www.peruviantimes.com/22/law-eases-search-for-persons-
missing-in-1980-2000-armed-conflict/26990/.
47 The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights did not play a significant role in the development or
passage of this legislation.
48 Ley No. 30490, Ley de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas Durante el Período de
Violencia 1980-2000, El Peruano, 22 Junio 2015. Available at: http://www.elperuano.com.pe/
NormasElperuano/2016/06/22/1395654-1.html.
49 Resolución Ministerial No. 0363-2016-JUS, El Peruano, 23 diciembre 2016. Available at: http://
busquedas.elperuano.pe/normaslegales/aprueban-el-plan-nacional-para-la-busqueda-de-
personas-desa-resolucion-ministerial-no-0363-2016-jus-1466873-1/.
50 Several graves and burial sites have been destroyed or altered, seriously obstructing the search
process. One notorious example is the Los Cabitos military base, the center of military operations
in Ayacucho during the civil conflict. Thousands of Peruvians, including women and children,
were held in detention at Los Cabitos, where many of them were tortured and sexually violated;
others were forcibly disappeared or extrajudicially executed. The journalist Ricardo Uceda
reported, based on an interview with a former army commander, that in an effort to eliminate
any evidence of wrongdoing, in 1985 the head of the Los Cabitos military based ordered the
installation of two ovens and had army personnel dig up the remains of victims who had been
buried in the fields surrounding the military base and dispose of them by cremation. Investigators
exhumed the remains of some 100 individuals between 2006 and 2008, as well as several tons
of ashes. To date, four of the bodies have been identified as victims of enforced disappearance
during the early years of the war. Further exhumation in the area has been impossible, however,
following a wave of land invasions that many informed observers in Ayacucho say were promoted
by the military precisely to prevent further exhumations in the area. See J.M. Burt, “Militares en
juicio por el caso Los Cabitos: ¿Héroes o amnésicos?” La Mula, August 23, 2011. Available at:
https://lamula.pe/2011/08/23/militares-en-juicio-por-el-caso-los-cabitos-heroes-o-amnesicos/
jomarie/; and “The Bones Tell the Story: The Search for Peru’s Missing,” Al Jazeera, March 30,
2013, Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013330141926998582.
html.
51 Human Rights Watch, “Peru: Torture and Political Prosecution in Peru,” December 1997.
Available at: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/peru/#_1_9.
52 Human Rights Watch, “Peru: Torture and Political Prosecution in Peru.” The Inter-American Court
of Human Rights found that the faceless and military courts violated due process guarantees and
ordered Peru to prosecute hundreds of terrorism cases in the ordinary justice system.
53 After an Inter-American Court ruling that the military courts violated due process, hundreds of
terrorism suspects, including Abimael Guzmán, were subsequently retried. See Luis E. Francia
Sánchez, ‘Los procesos penales contra las organizaciones terroristas,’ in El legado de la verdad.
La justicia penal en la transición peruana, ed. Lisa Magarrell and Leonardo Filippini (Lima:
International Center for Transitional Justice/IDEHPUCP, 2006).
54 Some cases involving crimes of the Fujimori-Montesinos period, such as the Barrios Altos and
La Cantuta cases, were adjudicated in specially constituted courts.
55 The conviction was ratified by the Supreme Court of Justice on December 30, 2009. On the
Fujimori trial, see J.M. Burt, “Guilty as Charged.”
56 Fujimori was also convicted on several other charges of corruption and abuse of authority. In
February 2017 the Supreme Court of Chile authorized his extradition for six cases of enforced
disappearances in Pativilca, and on corruption charges.
57 This was the first ruling in Peru to acknowledge the crime of enforced disappearance. The Court
determined that cases of enforced disappearance in which the body of the victim(s) has not yet
been found constitute continuing crimes and affirmed the inapplicability of statutes of limitation
in such cases. See Carlos Rivera Paz, Una sentencia histórica: La desaparición forzada de Ernesto
Castillo Páez (Lima: Instituto de Defensa Legal, 2006).
58 Carlos Rivera, “Barrios Altos: el fracasado intento de hacer retroceder la justicia,” Aportes DPLF,
18:6 (2013), pp. 55-57.
59 Exemplary Sentences for Accomarca Massacre,” The Peruvian Times, September 2, 2016. Available
at: http://www.peruviantimes.com/02/exemplary-sentences-for-accomarca-massacre/27369/.
See also: J.M. Burt and M. Rodriguez, “Justicia, verdad y memoria: el proceso penal para el caso
de la masacre de Accomarca,” in Políticas en justicia transicional: miradas comparativas sobre
el legado de la CVR, edited by P. del Pino and L. Huber (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos,
2015), pp. 135-168.
60 Juan Méndez, “Significance of the Fujimori Trial,” American University International Law
Review, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2010): 649-656.
61 In Peruvian law autoría mediata is attributed to those who have the power to create and direct
an organized “power apparatus,” and order those who participate in it to commit crimes—in this
case, human rights violations. (Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán was also convicted using
this same legal concept.) See J.M. Burt, “Guilty as Charged.”
Endnotes 117
62 J.M. Burt, “Guilty as Charged.”

63 J.M. Burt, “The Paradoxes of Accountability: Transitional Justice in Peru,” in The Human
Rights Paradox: Universality and its Discontents, Edited by S.J. Stern and S. Strauss (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press-Critical Human Rights Series, 2014), pp. 148-174.
64 See J.M. Burt and C. Cagley, “Access to Information, Access to Justice: The Challenges of
Accountability in Peru,” in Sur International Journal on Human Rights 18 (2013), pp. 75-95.
65 Valeria Reyes, “Justicia para las víctimas de Los Cabitos: Un análisis del fallo,” Instituto de
Democracia y Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Católica del Perú (IDEHPUCP), August
21, 2017. Available at: http://idehpucp.pucp.edu.pe/notas-informativas/justicia-las-victimas-
los-cabitos-analisis-del-fallo/.
66 Carlos Rivera, “Corrupción en la Sala Penal Nacional,” Revista idéele, No 251 (2015). Available
at: http://revistaideele.com/ideele/content/corrupción-en-la-sala-penal-nacional. See also
Carlos Rivera, “Balance del proceso de justicia.”
67 In recent years, in a number of cases, convictions have been overturned on appeal by the
Supreme Court. Carlos Rivera, “Balance del proceso de justicia en los casos de crímenes contra
los derechos humanos,” Justicia Viva, December 19, 2014. Available at: http://justiciaviva.org.pe/
notihome/notihome01.php?noti=1521.
68 J.M. Burt and M. Rodríguez, “La jueza Mirta Bendezú: reina de la impunidad,” La Mula, July 14,
2015. Available at: https://redaccion.lamula.pe/2015/07/14/la-jueza-mirta-bendezu-reina-de-la-
impunidad/albertoniquen/.
69 In the recording, the government officials can be heard instructing the judge how she could dismiss
the forensic evidence presented by the Attorney General’s Office and acquit the four officials charged
in the case. The court absolved three high-level officials (former intelligence chief Vladimiro
Montesinos, former army commander Nicolas Hermoza Ríos, and former army intelligence
advisor Roberto Huaman Azcurra) of the accusation that they had ordered Cruz Sanchez’s death.
See Peru Support Group, “Ministers recorded ‘interfering’ in trial for Chavin killings,” August
19, 2103. Available at: http://www.perusupportgroup.org.uk/news-article-661.html. In 2016, the
Inter-American Court ruled that the Peruvian State was responsible for the extrajudicial execution
of Cruz Sanchez after he had surrendered to government forces and ordered a new investigation
to determine who is responsible. See “Inter-American Court Declares Peru Responsible for an
Extrajudicial Execution in Chavín de Huántar case,” Center for Justice and International Law
(CEJIL), January 21, 2016. Available at: https://cejil.org/en/inter-american-court-declares-peru-
responsible-extrajudicial-execution-chavin-huantar-case-0.
70 “Peru,” Annual Human Rights Report 2013, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S.
Department of State. Available at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/220675.pdf.
71 J.M. Burt, “The Paradoxes of Accountability: Transitional Justice in Peru.”
72 In 2008 APRA lawmaker Mercedes Cabanillas proposed a bill that would provide for a general
amnesty for military and police officials accused of human rights violations, but the initiative
did not prosper. In September 2010, President García passed Decree Law 1097, which critics
charged was a veiled amnesty law designed to halt human rights prosecutions. Domestic and
international outcry forced García to revoke the decree law, but calls for general amnesties
continue to be heard inside and outside the halls of Congress.
73 Comisión Permanente de Historia del Ejército del Perú, En Honor a la Verdad,

Lima, 2010. Available at: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid
= Z G Vm Y X V s d G R v b W F p b n x z c 3 N z M j E y M j J 8 Z 3 g 6 N z V k Z D I w O D M 2 Ym Z l Z
WIxZA. See also Antonio Zapata, “En honor a la verdad,” Revista Argumentos,
May 2012. Available at: http://revistaargumentos.iep.org.pe/articulos/en-honor-a-la-verdad/.
74 P. Drinot, “El Ojo que Llora: las ontologías de la violencia y la opción por la memoria en el Perú,”
hueso húmero, No. 50, pp. 53-74.
75 “Mutilaron el Ojo que Llora,” La República, September 23, 2007. Available at: http://larepublica.
pe/politica/242907-mutilaron-el-ojo-que-llora.
76 Mario Vargas Llosa, “El Perú no necesita museos,” El País, March 8, 2009. Available at: http://
elpais.com/diario/2009/03/08/opinion/1236466813_850215.html.
77 Interview, María Eugenia Ulfe, Lima, Peru, January 27, 2016.
78 Prime Minister Angela Merkel was moved to donate the initial funds to create the LUM upon
viewing the Yuyanapaq photography exhibit. See Vargas Llosa, “El Perú no necesita museos.”
79 Comisión de la Verdad y Reconcilicación, “Desapariciones, torturas y ejecuciones extrajudiciales
en la base militar Los Cabitos (1983-1985)”. En Informe Final. Lima: CVR, Tomo VII, 2003. pp.
71-87.
80 J.M. Burt and M. Rodríguez, “‘Ya te fregaste, estás en el cuártel.’ Juicio por el caso Los Cabitos.
Crónicas de las audiencias en Ayacucho (II),” Noticias SER, August 29, 2012. Available at: http://
www.noticiasser.pe/29/08/2012/contracorriente/“ya-te-fregaste-estas-en-el-cuartel”.
81 This observation is based on the author’s direct observation of the Los Cabitos judicial
proceedings, and personal conversations with Gloria Cano, Executive Director of APRODEH
and legal representative of the victims in the case, and Dr. Luz del Carmen Ibañez, the lead
prosecutor representing the Attorney General’s Office in the case.
82 Ricardo Uceda, Muerte en el Pentagonito: Los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano (Lima:
Planeta, 2004).
83 J.M. Burt, “The bones tell the story: The search for Peru’s missing,” Al Jazeera, March 30, 2013.
Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013330141926998582.
html. See also, “Los huesos hablan: Identifican los restos de tres personas desaparecidos en
Los Cabitos,” La Mula, March 22, 2013. Available at: https://lamula.pe/2013/03/22/los-huesos-
hablan-identifican-los-restos-de-tres-personas-desaparecidas-en-los-cabitos/noticiasser/.
84 Interview, Yuber Alarcón, Ayacucho, June 15, 2016.
85 Interview, Avelina García, Ayacucho, June 14, 2016.
86 Jairo Rivas Belloso, “La Hoyada: ¿Nueva burla a las víctimas?” Noticias SER, May 11, 2106.
Available at: http://www.noticiasser.pe/11/05/2016/cruce-de-caminos/cruce-de-caminos/la-
hoyada-¿nueva-burla-las-victimas.
87 Interview, Yuber Alarcón, Ayacucho, June 15, 2016.
88 Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in
Guatemala (New York: Doubleday Press, 1982).
Endnotes 119
89 The Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA) and the Guerrilla Army of the
Poor (EGP).
90 C. Figueroa Ibarra, El recurso del miedo: Estado y terror en Guatemala. Guatemala: F&G Editors,
second edition, 2011.
91 There are more than 20 language groups in Guatemala who primarily inhabit the mountainous
region in the western part of the country. These groups maintain distinct forms of local
organization and religious and cultural practices.
92 B. Manz, Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of Counterinsurgency in Guatemala (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1988); R. Falla, Massacres in the Jungle: Ixcan, Guatemala,
1975-1982 (New York: Westview Press, 1994); V. Sanford, Violencia y genocidio en Guatemala
(Guatemala: F&G Editores, second edition, 2004).
93 Government officials attributed the deaths to a car accident. The CEH found that government
officials were responsible for the deaths, and for failing to properly investigate the crime.
Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, Ejecución arbitraria de María del Rosario Godoy
Aldana de Cuevas, Maynor René Godoy Aldana y el niño Augusto Rafael Cuevas Godoy, Caso
Ilustrativo No. 35, Memoria del Silencio (Guatemala, 1999).
94 Susanne Jonas, Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala’s Peace Process (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 2000).
95 Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, Memoria del Silencio (Guatemala, 1999). Summary
and conclusions available at: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/guatemala/docs/publications/
UNDP_gt_PrevyRecu_MemoriadelSilencio.pdf.
96 After the coup d’état of March 23, 1982, Ríos Montt dissolved the ruling military junta and
declared himself President of Guatemala. On August 8, 1983 he was ousted in a coup d’état
carried out by his defense minister, Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores.
97 Victoria Sanford, Sofia Duyos-Alvarez and Kathleen Dill, ‘Sexual violence as a weapon during
the Guatemalan genocide’, in Victoria Sanford et al (eds.), Gender Violence in Peace and War:
States of Complicity (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, in press), pp. 38-52.
98 Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala, Guatemala: Nunca Más
(Guatemala City, 1998). Available at: http://www.odhag.org.gt/html/Default.htm.
99 Carlos Beristain, Coordinador del Grupo de Investigación Guatemala Nunca Mas, “Metodología
de investigación,” October 16, 2000. Available at: http://www.remhi.org.gt/portal/metodologia-
de-investigacion/.
100 See Francisco Goldman, The Art of Political Murder: Who killed the Bishop? (New York: Grove
Press, 2008).
101 National Reconciliation Law, Decree 145-96 (1996), Art. 10.
102 Constitution, Art. 30. Article 30 provides for public access to information “except when military
or diplomatic matters relating to national security or information supplied by individuals under
the pledge of confidence is involved.”
103 Letter from Minister of National Defense, Héctor Mario Barrios Celada, to Chairman of CEH,
Christian Tomuschat, January 5, 1998. CEH Report, Vol. XII, Annex III, Title 2, pp. 102-107.
104 Kate Doyle, “The Atrocity Files,” Harper’s Magazine, December 2007, p. 52. In March 2016, the
judge investigating the Military Diary case seized key military documents.
105 Alexandra Smith, “Remains of Seventh Individual Listed in Notorious Guatemalan ‘Death Squad
Diary’ Identified,” National Security Archive, January 16, 2015. Available at: https://nsarchive.
wordpress.com/2015/01/16/remains-of-seventh-individual-listed-in-notorious-guatemalan-
death-squad-diary-idd/.
106 The Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) is located in Guatemala City. See: http://
archivohistoricopn.org. A collaborative arrangement between the AHPN and the University of
Texas at Austin has made millions of pages available digitally. See: https://ahpn.lib.utexas.edu.
107 Kate Doyle, “The Atrocity Files,” Harper’s Magazine, December 2007, p. 52.
108 See the National Police Historical Archive website: http://archivohistoricopn.org/pages/
institucion/historia.php?lang=EN.
109 Red de organizaciones de víctimas, “Informe: Auditoría social a la política de reparación del
Estado de Guatemala” (Guatemala City: Centro de Análisis Forense y Ciencias Aplicadas-
CAFCA, 2015). Available at: http://www.cafca.gt/uploads/6/0/1/4/60143551/auditor%C3%ADa_
informe_social_final_cafca_2015.pdf.
110 Red de organizaciones de víctimas, “Informe: Auditoría social a la política de reparación del
Estado de Guatemala,” pp. 19-20.
111 Impunity Watch, Research Report. We Struggle with Dignity: Victims’ Participation in
Transitional Justice in Guatemala, 2016. Available at: http://www.impunitywatch.org/docs/
Victim_participation_Guatemala.pdf.
112 Impunity Watch, We Struggle with Dignity, p. 52.
113 Impunity Watch, “Guatemala resists forgetting: Post-Conflict Memory Initiatives,” Guatemala
City, 1992, p. 22.
116 Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta Marco Antonio Molina Theissen.
117 FAMDEGUA, “¿Qué es la Iniciativa de Ley 35-90 sobre Desaparición Forzada?” Available at:
http://famdeguagt.blogspot.com/2013/11/el-respeto-la-vida-es-la-base-de-todo.html.
118 As of December 2016. FAFG reports receiving reports of 7,908 victims of enforced disappearance.
See FAFG report on exhumations at: https://www.fafg.org/bd/.
119 Kate Doyle, “Death Squad Dossier: Guatemalan military logbook of the disappeared,” National
Security Archive, July 1, 2008. Available at: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/guatemala/logbook/index.
htm.
120 J.M. Burt, “Major Breakthrough for Guatemala Grave Crimes Cases: Judge Seizes Previously
Denied Military Documents,” International Justice Monitor, April 1, 2016. Available at: https://
www.ijmonitor.org/2016/04/major-breakthrough-for-guatemala-grave-crimes-cases-judge-
seizes-previously-denied-military-documents/.
121 The search for the two boys is chronicled in the documentary film produced by Steven Spielberg,
Finding Oscar. See the documentary website, http://findingoscar.com.
Endnotes 121
122 J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “Ríos Montt to Face Second Genocide Trial for the Dos Erres Massacre,”
International Justice Monitor, April 3, 2017. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/04/
rios-montt-to-face-second-genocide-trial-for-the-dos-erres-massacre/.
123 J.M. Burt, “Eight Military Officers to Stand Trial in CREOMPAZ Grave Crimes Case,”
International Justice Monitor, June 17, 2016. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2016/06/
eight-military-officers-to-stand-trial-in-creompaz-grave-crimes-case/.
124 Decreto Número 145-1996, Ley de Reconciliación Nacional, Congreso de la República de
Guatemala, 27 de diciembre de 1996, http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3dbe6a606.pdf.
125 On the Myrna Mack case, see Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, ‘A test of justice in
Guatemala: the Myrna Mack murder trial’, (no date) https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-
content/uploads/pdf/test_of_justice.pdf. On the Gerardi case, see Goldman, The art of political
murder.
126 See Jeffrey Davis, Seeking human rights justice in Latin America: truth, extra-territorial courts,
and the process of justice (London: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
127 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of the Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala,
Judgment of April 29, 2004, http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_105_ing.pdf.
128 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of Molina Theissen v. Guatemala, Judgment of May
4, 2004, http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_106_ing1.pdf; Inter-American
Court of Human Rights, Case of the “Las Dos Erres” Massacre v. Guatemala, Judgment of
November 24, 2009, http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_211_ing.pdf; Inter-
American Court of Human Rights, Case of Gudiel Álvarez et al. (“Diario Militar”) v. Guatemala,
Judgment of November 20, 2012, http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_253_
ing.pdf.
129 Kate Doyle, “The Guatemala Genocide Case: The Audiencia Nacional, Spain,” National Security
Archive, July 2, 2008. Available at: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/guatemala/genocide/round1.htm.
130 Victoria Sanford, ‘Command responsibility and the Guatemalan genocide: genocide as a military
plan of the Guatemalan Army under the dictatorships of Generals Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt and
Mejia Víctores,’ Genocide Studies International, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 2014), pp. 86–101.
131 Author interview with Juan Francisco Soto, CALDH, Guatemala City, November 15, 2013.
132 Ivan Briscoe and Marlies Stappers, “Breaking the wave: critical steps in the fight against crime in
Guatemala,” Clingendael Institute/Impunity Watch, January 2012.
133 Open Society Justice Initiative, ‘Unfinished business: Guatemala’s International Commission
Against Impunity (CICIG)’, March 2015. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/
sites/default/files/cicig-report-english-20150319.pdf.
134 Claudia Paz y Paz, personal communication with author, June 14, 2016.
135 Barrientos was mercilessly attacked by pro-military and conservative sectors. In March 2014, he
committed suicide.
136 Marco Antonio Canteo, ‘Impactos del juicio por genocidio en el sistema de justicia de Guatemala’,
Aportes DPLF, 2013, p. 48.
137 J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “The genocide trial resumes,” International Justice Monitor, October 20,
2017. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/10/the-guatemala-genocide-trial-resumes/.
Also, J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “Victims testify in genocide retrial of Ríos Montt and Rodríguez
Sánchez,” International Justice Monitor, December 14, 2017. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.
org/2017/12/victims-testify-in-genocide-retrial-of-rios-montt-and-rodriguez-sanchez/.
138 Three military commissioners were prosecuted and convicted in this case in 1999, but the
conviction was overturned. They were convicted in a new trial, along with two others, in 2008.
On the 1999 trial, see Fernando Moscoso Moller and Victoria Sanford, ‘Along with the poor,
the powerful must face prosecution too’, Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1999, http://articles.
latimes.com/1999/oct/22/local/me-24967.
139 Because of the international arrest order connected to the Spanish case, he could not leave
Guatemala without risking arrest.
140 The AJR also filed a case against retired general Romeo Lucas García, who presided over Guatemala
between 1978 and 1982, and his brother and head of the army retired general Benedicto Lucas García,
for genocide and other crimes against the Mayan population. Romeo Lucas García died in 2006.
On January 6, 2016, Benedicto Lucas García, along with 17 other high-ranking military officers, was
arrested for his role in a series of forced disappearances between 1981 and 1988. ‘Benedicto Lucas
García, entre los señalados por atrocidades en base de Cobán’, El Periódico, 7 de enero de 2016,
http://elperiodico.com.gt/2016/01/07/pais/cae-el-capo-de-capos/. Charges were also brought against
former generals Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores—Ríos Montt’s successor as president and his former
defense minister—and Hector Mario López Fuentes, who was Army Chief of Staff under Ríos Montt.
Both were captured in 2011, but the cases against them were suspended on account of their state of
health. López Fuentes died in 2015, and Mejía Victores in 2016.
141 Sentencia por genocidio y delitos contra los deberes de la humanidad contra
el Pueblo Maya Ixil, C-01070-201-000215, Tribunal Primero de Sentencia Penal, Narcoactividad
y Delitos contra el Medioambiente, May 10, 2013. Available at: https://drive.google.com/folder-
view?id=0BxOjd8OI5wmhcUhNU3ZMQy1TeUU&usp=sharing.
142 Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, Memoria del silencio: informe de la Comisión para
el Esclarecimiento Histórico de las violaciones a los derechos humanos y los hechos de violencia
que han causado sufrimientos a la población guatemalteca (Guatemala City: FyG Editores,
1999).
143 See J.M. Burt, “From heaven to hell in ten days: the genocide trial in Guatemala,” Journal for
Genocide Research, 18:2-3 (2016), pp. 143-169.
144 Martín Rodríguez Pellecer, ‘Quiero que alguien me demuestre que hubo genocidio’, Plaza Pública,
July 25, 2011, http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/quiero-que-alguien-me-demuestre-que-
hubo-genocidio; Pérez Molina as cited, Diario de Centroamérica, March 14, 2013, http://www.
dca.gob.gt/index.php/template-features/item/14263-%E2%80%9Cen-guatemala-no-hubo-
genocidio%E2%80%9D.html; Prensa Libre, May 15, 2014, http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/
politica/punto_resolutivo-Genocidio-Efrain_Rios_Montt-Caso_por_Genocidio-Otto_Perez_
Molina-Congreso_0_1138686279.html.
145 J.M. Burt, “Historic Verdict in Guatemala’s Genocide Case Overturned by Forces of Impunity,”
NACLA Report on the Americas, June 17, 2013. Available at: http://nacla.org/news/2013/6/17/
historic-verdict-guatemala’s-genocide-case-overturned-forces-impunity-0.
Endnotes 123
146 Substantively, critics charged that the alleged due-process violation had been remedied
and in any case the decision to overturn a conviction in a case involving grave crimes was
disproportionate to the alleged violation. Procedurally, critics charged that the Constitutional
Court violated the normal procedural rules of appeal by delivering a decision before the case
went to the Court of Appeals. See International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), Genocidio
en Guatemala: Rios Montt Culpable (July 2013). Available at: https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/
informe_guatemala613esp2013.pdf.
147 In August 2015, the High Risk B Tribunal found that Ríos Montt was mentally unfit and ruled
that, following Guatemalan law, he would face the charges against him in special proceedings.
A trial under these conditions cannot result in criminal sanction, but security measures, such as
admission to a psychiatric institution, may be adopted. J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “Genocide Trial
Suspended; Plaintiffs Claim Proceedings Illegal,” International Justice Monitor, May 6, 2016,
https://www.ijmonitor.org/2016/05/genocide-trial-suspended-plaintiffs-claim-proceedings-
illegal/.
148 J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “The Genocide Trial Resumes,” International Justice Monitor, October
20, 2017. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/10/the-guatemala-genocide-trial-
resumes/. See also J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “Victims Testify in the Genocide Retrial of Ríos
Montt and Rodríguez Sánchez,” International Justice Monitor, December 14, 2017. Available
at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/12/victims-testify-in-genocide-retrial-of-rios-montt-and-
rodriguez-sanchez/.
149 “International Complaint against the Guatemalan State for Denial of Justice in the Genocide
Case,” Press release of AJR, CALDH, CEJIL and BDH, November 7, 2013. Available at: http://
nisgua.blogspot.com/2013/11/survivors-submit-complaint-against.html. See also International
Center for Transitional Justice, “Lawyers Representing Guatemala’s Ixil Community Take Justice
Demands to Inter-American Commission,” December 2, 2013. Available at: https://www.ictj.
org/news/lawyers-ixil-justice-demands.
150 Author interview, Juan Francisco Soto, Guatemala City, November 15, 2013.
151 For example, Méndez Ruiz brought charges against Ramon Cadena of the International
Committee of Jurists (ICJ) and Miguel Mörth of the ICJ and the Human Rights Law Firm (Bufete
Jurídico de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala).
152 Méndez Ruiz filed a petition to impeach Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez of High Risk Court B, who
has overseen preliminary investigations in high-profile transitional justice cases, including the
Ixil genocide case, the Sepur Zarco case, the Military Diary case, as well as key corruption cases,
including the “Cooptation of the State” case involving former president Pérez Molina, former
vice president Roxana Baldetti, former ministers, and other government officials. See “Ricardo
Méndez Ruiz presenta solicitud de antejuicio contra juez Gálvez,” La Hora, September 16, 2016.
Available at: http://lahora.gt/ricardo-mendez-ruiz-presenta-solicitud-antejuicio-juez-galvez/.
153 ‘Ex policías irán presos 40 años por desaparición de Fernando García’, Prensa Libre, September 21,
2013, http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/justicia/Expolicias-iran-presos-anos_0_997100301.
html.
154 “Guatemala ex-police chief sentenced in embassy attack,” BBC World News, January 20, 2015.
Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30895524. See also, Oswaldo
Hernández,‘34 años de fuego y una sentencia para intentar apagarla’, Plaza Pública, January
15, 2015, http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/34-anos-de-fuego-y-una-sentencia-para-

intentar-apagarlo
155 Benedicto Lucas, entre los señalados por atrocidades en base de Cobán, El Periódico, 7 de enero
de 2016, http://elperiodico.com.gt/2016/01/07/pais/cae-el-capo-de-capos/. See also, Jo-Marie
Burt, “Ghosts of Past Violence Haunt New President of Guatemala,” Huffington Post, January
17, 2016. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jomarie-burt/ghosts-of-past-violence-
haunt-guatemala_b_8981182.html.
156 The Cofradía crime syndicate later evolved into La Línea (“The Line”), a corruption scheme
involving the customs authority that cost Guatemala millions of dollars. Investigations into
La Línea led by CICIG and the Attorney General’s Office led to the arrests of the sitting vice
president Roxana Baldetti and later the sitting president, Otto Pérez Molina, in 2015.
157 In June 2016, a judge ruled that there is sufficient evidence to initiate criminal proceedings
against eight of the 14 accused in the CREOMPAZ case, though the case remains on hold while
the courts sort through a series of appeals and other legal motions filed by the plaintiffs and
the defense lawyers. In April 2017, a judge ruled that the four accused, plus Benedicto Lucas
García, will go to trial in the Molina Theissen case. The trial is slated to begin on March 1,
2018; see J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “High-profile Molina Theissen Trial to Start in Guatemala
in March 2018,” International Justice Monitor, October 27, 2017. Available at: https://
www.ijmonitor.org/2017/10/high-profile-molina-theissen-trial-to-start-in-guatemala-in-
march-2018/. For updates on the case, see International Justice Monitor, https://www.ijmonitor.
org/?s=molina+theissen&category_name=guatemala-trials.
158 J.M. Burt, “Military Officers Convicted in Landmark Sepur Zarco Sexual Violence Case,”
International Justice Monitor, March 4, 2016. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2016/03/
military-officers-convicted-in-landmark-sepur-zarco-sexual-violence-case/.
159 Impunity Watch, “Guatemala resists forgetting: Post-Conflict Memory Initiatives.”
160 Laura Arriaza and Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “Social repair at the local level: the case of Guatemala,”
Transitional Justice from Below: Grassroots Activism and the Struggle for Change, edited by K.
McEvoy and L. McGregor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 143-166.
161 F. Soto, CALDH, as quoted, S. Sebastian, “Casa de la Memoria,” Plaza Pública, February 6, 2014.
Available at: https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/casa-de-la-memoria.
162 Colom also ordered the military to turn over its archives, to further truth recovery; the military
did not fully comply with the order and released only a small part of its archives.
163 Impunity Watch, “Guatemala resists forgetting: Post-Conflict Memory Initiatives,” pp. 17-18.
164 This belief was corroborated by the U.N. sponsored truth commission.
165 The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights estimated that 1.4 percent of the population was
killed during the conflict. See Martha Doggett, A Death Foretold: The Jesuit Murders in El
Salvador (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press, 1993). For other texts on this period in El Salvador, see: Elizabeth Jean Wood,
Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2003); James Dunkerly, The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador (New
York: Verso, 1985); Leigh Binford, El Mozote: Anthropology and Human Rights (Phoenix:
Endnotes 125
University of Arizona Press, 1996); Joan Didion, Salvador (New York: Vintage, 1994); Raymond
Bonner, Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador (New York: Times Books, 1984).
166 Teresa Whitfield, Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), and Doggett, Death Foretold.
167 Despite the fact that the United States was deeply involved in support for the Salvadoran state
during the internal armed conflict, providing some $4.5 billion in military and other aid to defeat
the FMLN, the Salvadoran truth commission did not investigate the role of the United States in
the conflict.
168 Priscilla Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth
Commissions (New York: Routledge, 2010, 2nd ed.).
169 United Nations. Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. De La Locura a La Esperanza: La
Guerra De 12 Años en El Salvador: Informe De La Comisión De La Verdad Para El Salvador (1992-
1993). San Salvador, El Salvador: Editorial Arcoiris, 1993. Available at http://www.derechos.org/
nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html.
170 Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, p. 50.
171 United Nations. Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. De La Locura a La Esperanza.
172 United Nations. Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. De La Locura a La Esperanza, Chap.
IV, Sect. C, No. 4, “Pattern of the Conduct.”
173 T. Buergenthal, “The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador,” Vanderbilt Journal
of Transnational Law 27:3 (1994); M. Popkin, Peace Without Justice: Obstacles to Building the
Rule of Law in El Salvador (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000; Benjamín
Cuellar, “El Salvador,” Victims Unsilenced: The Inter-American Human Rights System and
Transitional Justice in Latin America (Washington, DC: Due Process of Law Foundation, 2010).
174 M. Popkin, Peace Without Justice; T. Buergenthal, “The United Nations Truth Commission for
El Salvador.”
175 Hayner, Unspeakable Crimes, p. 51.
176 Benjamín Cuellar, “El Salvador,” p. 43.
177 Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador, Decision of May 20,
1993. Available at www.jurisprudencia.gob.sv/VisorMLX/.
178 Margaret Popkin, “La amnistía salvadoreña: Una mirada comparativa ¿se puede enterrar al
pasado?” Revista ECA, No. 597-598 (July-August 1998). Available at: http://www.uca.edu.sv/
publica/eca/597art4.html.
179 Benjamín Cuellar, “El Salvador”; Leonor Arteaga, “Desafíos de la justicia en El Salvador: ¿la Ley
de Amnistía es un obstáculo para la persecución de crímenes del conflicto armado?” Aportes:
Revista de la Fundación para el Debido Proceso 18:6 (2013), pp. 38-41; Daniel Cerqueira and
Leonor Arteaga, “Challenging the Amnesty Law in El Salvador: Domestic and International
Alternatives to Bring an End to Impunity,” Due Process of Law Foundation, June 2016. Available
at: http://www.dplf.org/sites/default/files/amnesty_law-final-24june.pdf.
180 René Emilio Ponce, minister of defense at the time of the publication of the truth commission
report, was among those named as having participated in major atrocities. He was retired with
full military honors. In the retirement ceremony, President Cristiani praised him and others for
performing with “merit, efficiency, and loyalty to the highest duties that the nation can demand.”
Hayner, Unspeakable Crimes, p. 51.
181 Daniel Cerqueira and Leonor Arteaga, “Challenging the Amnesty Law in El Salvador.”
See also Alexander Segovia, Transitional Justice and DDR: The Case of El Salvador (New
York: International Center for Transitional Justice, 2009). Available at: https://www.ictj.org/
publication/transitional-justice-and-ddr-case-el-salvador-case-study.
182 Daniel Cerqueira and Leonor Arteaga, “Challenging the Amnesty Law in El Salvador,” p. 12.
183 ARENA, which governed El Salvador along with other right-wing organizations during the
armed conflict, is composed of and supported by landowners, business leaders, media magnates,
and high-ranking military officers or former officers.
184 Daniel Valencia Caravantes, “Funes pide perdón por abusos durante la guerra,” El Faro, January
16, 2010. Available at: https://www.elfaro.net/es/201001/noticias/932/Funes-pide-perdón-por-
abusos-durante-la-guerra.htm.
185 “Estado salvadoreño pide perdón por violaciones a DDHH en guerra,” El Nuevo Diario,
January 16, 2010. Available at: http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/internacionales/66227-estado-
salvadoreno-pide-perdon-violaciones-ddhh-gu/.
186 Daniel Valencia Caravantes, “Funes pide perdón por abusos durante la guerra.”
187 Presidential Decree No. 204, October 23, 2013. Available at: http://www.jurisprudencia.gob.sv/
DocumentosBoveda/D/2/2010-2019/2013/10/A300B.PDF.
188 “El Salvador presenta program de reparaciones a las víctimas de la dictadura,” Telesur, July
7, 2014. Available at: http://www.telesurtv.net/news/El-Salvador-presenta-programa-de-
reparacion-a-las-victimas-de-la-dictadura-20140707-0073.html
189 “Presidente Sánchez Cerén lanza programa de transferencia monetaria para víctimas del
conflicto armado,” Presidencia de la República, El Salvador, August 31, 2016. Available at:
http://www.presidencia.gob.sv/presidente-sanchez-ceren-lanza-programa-de-transferencia-
monetaria-para-victimas-del-conflicto-armado/. Programa de Reparaciones a las Víctimas de
Graves Violaciones a los Derechos Humanos Ocurridas en el Contexto del Conflicto Armado
Interno, Decreto 204, October 23, 2013. Available at: http://www.jurisprudencia.gob.sv/
DocumentosBoveda/D/2/2010-2019/2013/10/A300B.PDF.
190 “Gobierno dará entre $15 y $50 mensuales en concepto de reparación a víctimas de masacre de El
Mozote,” El Faro, November 25, 2013. Available at: https://elfaro.net/es/201311/noticias/14011/
Gobierno-dará-entre-$15-y-$50-mensuales-en-concepto-de-reparación-a-v%C3%ADctimas-
de-masacre-de-El-Mozote.htm?st-full_text=all&tpl=11.
191 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of the Serrano-Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador,
Judgment of March 1, 2005. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/
seriec_120_ing.pdf.
192 Association Pro-Búsqueda is a human rights organization founded in 1994 by Father Jon
Cortina, a Jesuit priest, that works to locate children who were forcibly disappeared during
the armed conflict, provide support to victims and their families, and pursue justice for those
Endnotes 127
affected by the conflict. It began as an effort by those who accompanied families in the search for
their children in the department of Chalatenango after the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992.
193 National Commission, http://www.cnbelsalvador.org.sv/.
194 Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda de Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos durante el Conflicto Armado
Interno, “Origin, misión, visión, atribuciones y resultados obtenidos por la CNB,” May 2016.
Available at: https://es.calameo.com/read/003512072e096cd4cb9fe.
195 Valencia Caravantes, “Funes pide perdón por abusos durante la guerra.”
196 Benjamín Cuellar, “El Salvador,” in Victims Unsilenced: The Inter-American Human Rights
System and Transitional Justice in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: Due Process of Law
Foundation), pp. 33-70.
197 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of the Serrano-Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador,
Judgment of March 1, 2005. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/
seriec_120_ing.pdf.
198 Inter-American Court of Human Rights Case of the Massacres of El Mozote and Nearby Places
v. El Salvador, Judgment of October 25, 2012. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/
articulos/seriec_252_ing1.pdf.
199 Center for Justice and Accountability, “El Salvador: Twelve Years of Civil War.” Available at:
http://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/.
200 Center for Justice and Accountability, “The Jesuits Massacre Case.” Available at: http://cja.org/
what-we-do/litigation/the-jesuits-massacre-case/.
201 Salvadoran authorities prosecuted eight soldiers in 1991 in response to mounting international
pressure for justice in the Jesuits case. Six of the officers were acquitted. Coronel Guillermo
Benavides, the officer who oversaw the killing, and his point man at the scene, Lt. Yusshy
Mendoza, were found guilty of murder and terrorism, but were freed two years later, in 1993,
after the amnesty law was passed. The intellectual authors were never prosecuted in El Salvador.
202 “Human rights organizations presented an amicus curiae for the Jesuits case in El Salvador,” Due
Process of Law Foundation, May 23, 2016. Available at: http://www.dplf.org/en/news/human-
rights-organizations-presented-amicus-curiae-jesuits-case-el-salvador.
203 Roht-Arriaza, “El Salvador’s Constitutional Court Invalidates Amnesty Law; Will
Prosecutions Follow?” Roht-Arriaza notes that in its decision, the Chamber rebukes the
Attorney General’s Office for failing to act on an earlier decision in 2000 declaring that the 1993
amnesty law could not stand in the way of investigating and prosecuting cases of violations of
fundamental human rights. This inaction, they said, required the Chamber to issue a declaration
of absolute unconstitutionality.
204 Carlos Mendoza, “Ceren pide cuatela frente a la amnistia,” InformaTVX, May 26, 2016. Available
at: http://www.informatvx.com/ceren-pide-cautela-frente-a-amnistia/.
205 Leonor Arteaga, “Desafíos de la justicia en El Salvador.”
206 Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, Inconstitucionalidad (Ley de Amnistía
General para la Consolidación de la Paz), 44-2013/145-2013, July 13, 2016. Available at: http://
www.jurisprudencia.gob.sv/VisorMLX/PDF/44-2013AC.PDF.
207 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of the Massacres of El Mozote and Nearby Places
v. El Salvador, Judgment of October 25, 2012. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/
articulos/seriec_252_ing1.pdf. According to international law expert Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “the
Court held that the amnesty is unconstitutional as applied to all crimes against humanity and those
war crimes that violate the fundamental guarantees of Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions,
committed by either side in the conflict. The amnesty violates the country’s international obligations
to investigate and prosecute under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
American Convention on Human Rights, Protocol II, and the constitutional right of the victim of
a crime to civil damages and to judicial protection of fundamental rights. Regarding war crimes,
although Protocol II calls for the ‘widest possible amnesty,’ that provision must be read in light of all
the country’s international obligations, and the amnesty cannot be absolute. With respect to crimes
against humanity, those crimes are by definition not subject to amnesty or statutes of limitations
and are subject to universal jurisdiction.” Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “El Salvador’s Constitutional
Court Invalidates Amnesty Law; Will Prosecutions Follow?” IntLawGrrls, July 19, 2016. Available
at: https://ilg2.org/2016/07/19/el-salvadors-constitutional-court-invalidates-amnesty-law-will-
prosecutions-follow/.
208 Roht-Arriaza, “El Salvador’s Constitutional Court Invalidates Amnesty Law; Will
Prosecutions Follow?”
209 Fátima Peña, “Juez ordena reapertura del caso El Mozote y abre proceso contra el Alto Mando
de 1981,” El Faro, September 30, 2016. Available at: https://www.elfaro.net/es/201609/el_
salvador/19339/Juez-ordena-reapertura-del-caso-El-Mozote-y-abre-proceso-contra-el-Alto-
Mando-de-1981.htm.
210 Nelson Rauda Zablah, “Pedro Chicas resuscita para enjuiciar a los responsables de El Mozote,” El
Faro, April 1, 2017. Available at: https://elfaro.net/es/201703/el_salvador/20194/Pedro-Chicas-
resucita-para-enjuiciar-a-los-responsables-de-El-Mozote.htm.
211 Jorge Beltrán Luna, “Gral. Otto Romero: ‘No somos los malos de la película’,” Elsalvador.com,
October 1, 2016. Available at: http://www.elsalvador.com/articulo/sucesos/gral-otto-romero-
somos-los-malos-pelicula-127125.
212 As cited, Jorge Beltrán Luna, “Gral. Otto Romero: ‘No somos los malos de la película’.”
213 Nelson Rauda Zablah, “El juicio por El Mozote continua su lenta marcha,” El Faro, September
24, 2017. Available at: https://elfaro.net/es/201709/el_salvador/20936/El-juicio-por-El-Mozote-
continúa-su-lenta-marcha.htm.
214 Blanca Archila, “Juzgado inicia investigación sobre massacre de El Calabozo,” El Mundo,
February 2018. Available at: http://elmundo.sv/juzgado-inicia-investigacion-sobre-masacre-de-
el-calabozo/.
215 Sarah Ester Maslin, “El Salvador strikes down amnesty for crimes during its civil
war,” The Washington Post, July 14, 2016. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.
com/”orld/the_americas/el-salvador-strikes-down-amnesty-for-crimes-during-its-civil-
war/2016/07/14/5eeef2ec-49bf-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html. The Archbishop’s Office
was abruptly closed shortly after the Constitutional Chamber agreed to hear the petition seeking
to nullify the 1993 amnesty law, making its thousands of records of grave crimes inaccessible
to investigators and even to the survivors and relatives of the victims of the cases they had
documented over the years. Human rights organizations believe that the Catholic Church was
Endnotes 129
pressured into closing the Archbishop’s Office by conservative sectors fearing that the Chamber’s
decision could open the way for criminal trials against high-ranking military officials. Leonor
Arteaga, “Desafíos de la justicia en El Salvador.”
216 “Salvadorans protest plan to name street for death-squad chief,” The San Diego Union-Tribune,
December 16, 2014. Available at: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/hoy-san-diego/sdhoy-
salvadorans-protest-plan-to-name-street-for-death-2014dec16-story.html.
217 “La Calle Roberto D’Aubuisson,” Contrapunto, 2016. Available at: http://www.contrapunto.com.
sv/archivo2016/opinion/editorial/la-calle-roberto-daubuisson.
218 Carlos Dada, “Las fotos vivas de El Mozote,” El Faro, January 19, 2017. Available at: https://elfaro.
net/es/201701/paz25/19755/Las-fotos-vivas-de-El-Mozote.htm.
219
Daniel Valencia Caravantes, “Ejército salvadoreño homenajea a dos de los
comandantes de la masacre de El Mozote,” El Faro, October 28, 2013. Available at:
https://w w w.elfaro.net/es/201310/noticias/13730/Ejército-salvadoreño-homen
ajea-a-dos-de-los-comandantes-de-la-masacre-de-El-Mozote.htm.
220 Monumento a la Memoria y a la Verdad. Available at: http://www.memoriayverdad.org.
221 Robin DeLugan, “Museums, Memory, and the Just Nation in Post-Civil War El Salvador,”
Museum & Society, July 2015. 13 (3) 266-279.
222 Presentation by Ana Mirian Abrego, Comité San Francisco Angulo, at the Workshop, “Lecciones
aprendidas y mejores prácticas en la experiencia latinoamericana sobre justicia transicional:
Intercambio de sociedad civil de Perú, El Salvador y Guatemala,” DPLF and FESPAD, San
Salvador, November 17, 2015.
223 Alexandra Aquino-Fike, “Mauricio Aquino Chacón’s Story,” Our Parents’ Bones, n/d. Available
at: http://www.ourparentsbones.org/about/mauricio-aquino/.
224 “Organizaciones de DDHH demandan creación de Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda para
personas desaparecidas en El Salvador,” Due Process of Law Foundation, June 30, 2016. Available
at: http://www.dplf.org/es/news/organizaciones-de-ddhh-demandan-creacion-de-comision-
nacional-de-busqueda-de-personas.
225 “El Salvador contará con una Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas
durante el conflicto armado,” Due Process of Law Foundation, February 2, 2017. Available at:
http://www.dplf.org/es/news/el-salvador-contara-con-una-comision-nacional-de-busqueda-
de-personas-desaparecidas-durante-el.
226 “Reparación, violencia y desigualdad, deudas de El Salvador en 25 años de paz,” Agencia
EFE, January 16, 2017. Available at: http://www.efe.com/efe/america/portada/el-presidente-
salvadoreno-insta-a-apoyar-la-ley-de-reparacion-victimas-guerra/20000064-3150505?utm_
source=wwwefecom&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.
227 Mark Danner, “The Truth about El Mozote,” The New Yorker, December 3, 1993. Available at:
http://www.markdanner.com/articles/the-truth-of-el-mozote.
228 “Gisela Ortíz: Estado peruano debe determinar la cifra de desaparecidos por violencia política,” La
Mula, August 15, 2016. Available at: https://redaccion.lamula.pe/2016/08/15/gisela-ortiz-estado-
peruano-debe-determinar-cifra-de-desaparecidos-por-violencia-politica/redaccionmulera/.
229 Rubén Amílcar Farfán is one of the victims listed in the infamous Diario Militar, a military
logbook that lists 183 individuals who were disappeared between 1984 and 1985.
230 “What Happened at Dos Erres,” This American Life, May 25, 2012. Available at: https://www.
thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/465/what-happened-at-dos-erres.
231 J.M. Burt and P. Estrada, “Ríos Montt to face second genocide trial for the Dos Erres massacre,”
International Justice Monitor, April 3, 2017. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/04/
rios-montt-to-face-second-genocide-trial-for-the-dos-erres-massacre/.
232 “What Happened at Dos Erres,” This American Life, May 25, 2012. Available at: https://www.
thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/465/what-happened-at-dos-erres. The story is
recounted in the documentary film by Steven Spielberg, Finding Oscar, http://findingoscar.com.
233 “¿Qué es la Iniciativa de Ley 35-90 sobre Desaparición Forzada?” FAMDEGUA, November 21,
2013. Available at: http://famdeguagt.blogspot.com/2013/11/el-respeto-la-vida-es-la-base-de-
todo.html.
234 Susana Navarro, Executive Director, Community Studies and Psychosocial Action Team (ECAP),
Guatemala City, March 10, 2016.
Guatemala City, March 10, 2016.
236 Workshop with Women Survivors of Sexual Violence from Five Regions of Guatemala,
Guatemala City, March 9-11, 2016.
237 Pablo de Greiff, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation
and guarantees of non-recurrence, Human Rights Council, 21st Session, United Nations General
Assembly, A/HRC/21/46, August 9, 2012. Available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/
UNDOC/GEN/G12/158/58/PDF/G1215858.pdf?OpenElement.
238 Lerner specifically stated that the public forums were not spaces to discuss contrasting versions
of events, but rather a moment to hear the voices of the victims. Salomon Lerner, Inauguración
de las audiencias públicas, Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. Available at: http://cverdad.
org.pe/apublicas/audiencias/inaugura.php.
239 Ensuring victim participation was difficult especially at first, as victims did not have trust in
government representatives, and in some regions remnants of Shining Path were still active. As
the public hearings, which focused on specific cases and institutions, went live, more victims
became interested in participating in order to tell their stories. Due to limited resources, the
CVR was unable to accommodate the demand, and in response created an alternative, the public
assemblies, in which local communities organized their own public forums in coordination with
the local offices of the CVR. Seven of these assemblies were organized, in Chumbivilcas, Cusco,
Cajatambo, Pucallpa, Tarapoto, Huánuco and Chungui. Transcripts available at the CVR website:
http://cverdad.org.pe/apublicas/audiencias/apublicas.php. For more on the public hearings in
general, see: http://cverdad.org.pe/apublicas/audiencias/index.php. Direct communication with
Eduardo González-Cueva, June 22, 2016.
240 Conservative groups and the military continued to challenge the legitimacy of the CVR, accusing
it of being co-opted by the “caviar left,” and criticizing the Final Report as biased.
241 The new president, Alan García, had been president between 1985 and 1990. The CVR found
that he had political responsibility for the systematic abuse of human rights during his regime
Endnotes 131
but stopped short of holding him criminally responsible for such abuses, saying this should be
determined by the courts in specific cases.
242 María Eugenia Ulfe Young, ¿Y, después de la violencia qué queda?, pp. 60-65. Christian Correa,
an expert on reparations at the International Center for Transitional Justice, levied a similar
assessment of the collective reparations program under the García government: “Another
problem faced by the program has been in ensuring that projects are perceived as constituting
reparations and not development projects. While collective reparations projects are important
for communities, in many cases they are activities that the government is already obligated
to provide to citizens and communities as components of development, and not reparations
policies specifically. This is especially true in regards to building or improving roads, schools,
and health clinics.” Correa, Reparations in Peru: From Recommendations to Implementation
(New York: ICTJ, June 2013), p. 13.
243 María Eugenia Ulfe Young, ¿Y, después de la violencia qué queda?, p. 64.
245 Personal communication with Doris Caqui, Lima, June 2012. Caqui also sought, unsuccessfully,
to have President García apologize publicly for the disappearance of her husband, which occurred
during his first government, in June 1986. Nilton Torres, “Que este gobierno me pida perdón,” La
República, February 12, 2007. Available at: http://larepublica.pe/12-02-2007/que-este-gobierno-
me-pida-perdon.
247 For a compelling testimony by a writer and human rights activist whose parents were Shining
Path militants and were both killed in separate incidents by government forces on the failure of
Peruvian society to acknowledge his status as a victim due to the political beliefs of his parents,
see José Carlos Agüero, Los rendidos: sobre el don de perdonar (Lima: Instituto de Estudios
Peruanos, 2016).
248 J.M Burt, “From heaven to hell in ten days: the genocide trial in Guatemala.”
249 The directive references the final report of the Commission for Historical Clarification, which
identified 1,465 cases of sexual violence and concluded that sexual violence was generalized
and systematic during the internal armed conflict. Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico,
Memoria del silencio. It also establishes that such crimes during conflict are crimes against
humanity and are therefore not subject to statutes of limitation. For a fuller discussion, see: J.M.
Burt, “From heaven to hell in ten days,” pp. 158-161.
250 J.M Burt, “From heaven to hell in ten days,” pp. 158-161.
251 Interview, Alejandra Castillo, Sub-director, CALDH, Guatemala City, July 10, 2013.
252 J.M Burt, “From heaven to hell in ten days,” pp. 155.
253 J.M. Burt, “Six Witnesses Recount Atrocities at Sepur Zarco on Day Two of Landmark Trial,”
International Justice Monitor, February 8, 2016. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2016/02/
six-witnesses-recount-atrocities-at-sepur-zarco-on-day-two-of-landmark-trial/; and J.M. Burt,
Victim Witnesses Tell of Atrocities at Sepur Zarco,” International Justice Monitor, February 8,
2016. Available at: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2016/02/victim-witnesses-tell-of-atrocities-at-
sepur-zarco/.
254 Encuentro de Mujeres para reflexionar sobre los avances en memoria, verdad y justicia durante
el Conflicto Armado Interno en Guatemala, Guatemala City, Organized by CALDH and the
Alianza Rompiendo el Silencio in collaboration with the Due Process of Law Foundation, March
9-11, 2016.
255 Encuentro de Mujeres, Guatemala City, March 9-11, 2016.
256 Author’s field notes, Los Cabitos trial, Sala Penal Nacional, Ayacucho, Peru, August 2012.
257 J.M. Burt, “Guilty as Charged.” See also Eduardo González-Cueva, “The Peruvian Truth and
Reconciliation Commission and the Challenge of Impunity.”
258 The members of the Alianza who worked on the Sepur Zarco case are: Women Transforming the
World (Mujeres Transformando el Mundo, MTM); the Community Research and Psychosocial
Action Team (Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y de Acción Psicosocial, ECAP); and the National
Union of Guatemalan Women (Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas, UNAMG).
259 Mary Jo McConahay, “Massacres of El Salvador’s past haunt the present,” National Catholic
Reporter, October 4, 2013. Available at: https://www.ncronline.org/news/global/massacres-el-
salvadors-past-haunt-present.
260 Sandra Sebastián, “Casa de la memoria,” Plaza Pública, February 6, 2014. Available at: https://
www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/casa-de-la-memoria.
261 Cynthia E. Milton, “At the edge of the Peruvian Truth Commission: Alternative Paths to
Recounting the Past,” Radical History Review 98 (2007).
262 For more detail, see the chapters by Susana Villarán de la Puente and Santiago Cantón in Victims
Unsilenced: The Inter-American Human Rights System and Transitional Justice in Latin America
(Washington D.C.: Due Process of Law Foundation, 2007).
263 See International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), Genocidio en Guatemala: Rios
Montt Culpable (July 2013). Available at: https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/informe_
guatemala613esp2013.pdf.
264 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, The Right to Truth in the Americas, OEA/
SER.L/V/II.152, Doc. 2, August 13, 2014. Available at: http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/
pdfs/Right-to-Truth-en.pdf.
265 See Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Principal Guidelines for a Comprehensive
Reparations Policy, OEA/SER/L/V/II.131, Doc. 1, February 19, 2008. Available at: http://www.
cidh.org/pdf%20files/Lineamientos%20Reparacion%20Administrativa%2014%20mar%20
2008%20ENG%20final.pdf. See also, Gina Donoso, “Inter-American Court of Human Rights’
reparation judgments. Strengths and challenges for a comprehensive approach,” Revista Instituto
Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, Vol. 49 (2009): 29-68.
266 Santiago Cantón, “Amnesty Laws,” in Victims Unsilenced: The Inter-American Human Rights
System and Transitional Justice in Latin America (Washington D.C.: Due Process of Law
Foundation, 2007), pp. 167-190.
267 Brazil is another case in which the Court has determined that the 1979 amnesty law cannot
continue to preclude criminal investigations into dictatorship-era crimes, yet the Supreme
Court of Justice has continued to uphold the constitutionality of the amnesty law and to date no
criminal prosecutions have moved forward.
Endnotes 133
268 Naomi Roth-Arriaza, “Prosecuting Genocide in Guatemala: The Case Before the Spanish Courts and
the Limits to Extradition,” Project on Human Rights, Global Justice & Democracy Working Paper No.
2, Center for Global Studies, George Mason University (Spring 2009). Available at: https://www.gmu.
edu/centers/globalstudies/publications/hjd/hjd_wp_2.pdf. For a report on the victim testimonies,
see Kate Doyle, “The Guatemala Genocide Case: The Audiencia Nacional, Spain,” National Security
Archive, July 2, 2008. Available at: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/guatemala/genocide/round1.htm. On
the genocide case in Guatemala, see J.M. Burt, “Heaven to hell in ten days.”
269 Elisabeth Malkin, “U.S. Judge Approves Extradition of Former Salvadoran Colonel,” The
New York Times, February 5, 2016. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/world/
americas/us-judge-approves-extradition-of-ex-colonel.html?_r=0. See also: Nina Lakhani,
“Spanish trial of soldiers who killed priests raises hopes of ending impunity in El Salvador,”
The Guardian, April 8, 2016. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/
spanish-trial-of-soldiers-behind-uca-atrocity-raises-hopes-of-ending-impunity-in-el-salvador.
270 “IACHR Urges El Salvador to Continue Fighting Impunity for Serious Crimes of the Past,” Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights, February 9, 2017. Available at: http://www.oas.org/
en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2017/012.asp.
271 According to the United Nations, “Rape committed during war is often intended to terrorize the
population, break up families, destroy communities, and, in some instances, change the ethnic
make-up of the next generation. Sometimes it is also used to deliberately infect women with HIV
or render women from the targeted community incapable of bearing children.” United Nations,
“Background Information on Sexual Violence used as a Tool of War,” n/d. Available at: http://
www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/about/bgsexualviolence.shtml.
272 As cited, United Nations, “Background Information on Sexual Violence used as a Tool of War.”
ANFASEP-DPLF Workshop, Ayacucho, Peru, July 15, 2016.
274 Paula Barrios, Executive Director, Women Transforming the World, Guatemala City, March 8,
2016.
275 Susan C. Peacock and Adriana Beltran, Hidden Powers in Post-Conflict Guatemala: Illegal
Armed Groups and the Forces Behind Them (Washington, D.C.: Washington Office on Latin
America, 2003). Available at: https://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/downloadable/Citizen%20
Security/past/Hidden%20Powers%20Long%20Version.pdf.
276 El Salvador’s Politics of Perpetual Violence, International Crisis Group, December 19, 2017.
Available at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/central-america/el-
salvador/64-el-salvadors-politics-perpetual-violence.
277 “MS13 in the Americas,” Insight Crime, n/d. Available at: https://www.insightcrime.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/02/MS13-in-the-Americas-InSight-Crime-English-3.pdf.
278 Mo Hume, “Mano Dura: El Salvador responds to gangs,” Development in Practice 17:6
(2007):739-751.
279 The cases include: the massive case of enforced disappearance at Military Zone No. 21, also
known as CREOMPAZ, and the enforced disappearance of 14-year old Marco Antonio Molina
Theissen and the illegal detention, torture and sexual assault of his sister Emma Guadalupe
Molina Theissen.
As transitional justice has become both a global idea and a global practice, there is an increasing
need to better understand not only the design and implementation of transitional justice mech-
anisms, but their impact and significance as well. Any such effort requires an examination of the
specific mechanisms of transitional justice, as well as the broader political context that gives shape
to these mechanisms and their implementation. The Transitional Justice in the aftermath of Civil
Conflict: lessons from Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador report seeks to respond to this need by
analyzing the experience of transitional justice in three countries that have been relatively under-
studied: Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) is a regional organization comprised of professionals with
a variety of nationalities, which promotes the Rule of Law in Latin America through the use of
analysis and recommendations, cooperation with private and public organizations and institutions,
exchanges of experiences, and advocacy efforts.
DPLF works with local organizations, provides legal technical assistance, promotes dialogue with
government representatives and creates opportunities for exchange of information and experience.
DPLF also conducts research and publications to analyze and discuss, in the light of international
law, some of the major challenges for the respect of human rights in the region, trough our four pro-
gram areas: a) Judicial Independence, b )Human rights and extractive industries, c ) Inter-American
System, and d) Impunity and Grave Human Rights Violations.
The Impunity and Grave Human Rights Violations Program, which is responsible for the production
of this report, seeks to strengthen criminal prosecutions, truth processes, reparation, and preserva-
tion of memory in Latin America. It also promotes compliance with international standards and the
use of Inter-American and International law to improve legislation, policies and practices.
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, suite 710

Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-462-7701 / Fax: 202-462-7703
www.dplf.org /[email protected]

Transitional Justice in The Aftermath of Civil Conflict

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Transitional Justice in The Aftermath of Civil Conflict

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Transitional Justice in The Aftermath of Civil Conflict

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is the purpose of the report?

What is the purpose of the report?

What countries does the report analyze?

What countries does the report analyze?

Transitional Justice

Lessons from Peru,

1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 710

Cover design: ULTRAdesigns

II. TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE CASE STUDIES ................................................................ 5

III. LESSONS LEARNED FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PRACTICE........... 65

IV. CONCLUSION: TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND THE LEGACY OF

Transitional justice consists of judicial and non-judicial measures implemented in

1. Latin America: The Workshop of Transitional Justice

2. Transitional Justice in Peru, Guatemala and

II. TRANSITIONAL CASE STUDIES:

The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Victims’ associa-

Implementation of the reparation programs fell to the government of Alan García

The García government finally passed legislation authorizing payment of individual

Highlight: The National Plan to Search for Disappeared Persons

In 2015, victims’ organizations, in alliance with the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology

In the face of institutionalized impunity, victims and human rights organizations

In response to the CVR’s recommendation, the Public Ministry established specialized

Highlight: The Fujimori Judgment

On December 24, 2017, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted Fujimori a

Year of Number Number Number Second

Year of Number Number Number Second

Year of Number Number Number Second

SOURCE: Peru Human Rights Trials Project, Jo-Marie Burt, Director.

Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory. Memorials and other

In Peru, victims’ associations and local communities have created memorials,

Highlight: La Hoyada “Sanctuary of Memory” in Ayacucho

In the aftermath of the exhumations, ANFASEP launched an initiative to create a memory

In 1990, under international pressure, the Guatemalan government began peace

According to the CEH, 93 percent of abuses were committed by government forces,

Highlight: The Struggle to Access Military Archives

A major breakthrough in accessing official documents came in 2005, when millions of

Highlight: Civil Society Leads the Search for the Disappeared

The FAFG has contributed decisively to truth-recovery in Guatemala. As of December 2016,

Criminal Prosecutions. As part of the peace process, the Guatemalan Congress

Back in Guatemala, the creation of the International Commission Against Impunity in

Table 2. Human Rights Convictions in Guatemala, 2008-2016

Highlight: The Genocide Trial

Things changed dramatically in 2016, when key developments brought transitional

Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory. Memory debates are

Highlight: The Kaji Tulam Memory Museum

Memory debates in Guatemala are highly contentious, as competing narratives about

In 1979 a civil-military Revolutionary Government Junta deposed the military

“another Nicaragua,” in reference to the successful 1979 Sandinista Revolution

Reparations. The system of institutionalized impunity has endured in El Salvador, but

Highlight: Seeking Justice in International Courts

As in Peru and Guatemala, in the face of institutionalized impunity, Salvadoran human

Moreover, conservative sectors remain staunchly opposed to criminal investigations

Highlight: The Legal Challenge to the 1993 Amnesty Law

In response to the Constitutional Chamber’s judgment declaring the Amnesty Law

DPLF, in collaboration with FESPAD in El Salvador, collected information about

Nelson Rutilio Castro Chalatenango 1982 1 FD Initial phase of investigation

Memorials, Commemoration and Collective Memory. The Truth Commi-

Official acknowledgement of state-sponsored violations is a critical element of truth-telling

Highlight: Memories in Conflict: El Mozote and Monterrosa