Survivor of Massacre by Military of El Salvador Files Criminal Complaint Against Former Military Official, Sitting Legislator
At 3pm today in San Salvador, María Hernández, accompanied by representatives of victims’ organizations and human rights advocates, presented a criminal complaint against a former high-ranking military official for the deaths of five of her family members in a 1981 massacre by the Salvadoran armed forces. The complaint filed by Hernández names retired Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa Pérez as responsible for the November 1981 “Santa Cruz” massacre, a multi-day military sweep in the state of Cabañas in which the army and air forces razed villages and killed fleeing civilians.
According to news reports at the time, the sweep was reported by Armed Forces authorities as a great success, so much so that Col. Ochoa Pérez personally invited Salvadoran and foreign journalists to visit the area at the conclusion of the operation. Yet the testimony of numerous survivors, including Ms. Hernández, describes a brutal and indiscriminate attack against the civilian population, which left more than 200 people dead.
The charges against Ochoa Pérez come of the heels of unprecedented human rights activity in El Salvador. In March 2013, survivors presented criminal complaints in 43 cases of massacres, forced disappearance, extrajudicial executions, and torture. In early September the Salvadoran Attorney General’s office announced it would open investigations into key wartime atrocities, including the massacre at El Mozote. On September 20, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court announced its intent to rule on the constitutionality of a long-standing amnesty law which has been used to block prosecutions for crimes of the past.
“Thanks to the courage of survivors like Ms. Hernández, the justice system of El Salvador now has the opportunity—and the obligation—to determine responsibilities and assign accountability for grave violations of human rights committed against the civilian population during the armed conflict,” said Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, Director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, who was in San Salvador for the presentation of the charges. “A serious reckoning with the past is needed in order to confront the legacy of violence which continues to affect Salvadoran society.”
Over the course of the past year, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights has collaborated with the Institute of Human Rights at the Central American University and the International Foundation Baltasar Garzón in research on crimes against humanity committed during the war, which devastated El Salvador between 1980 and 1992. The University of Washington Center for Human Rights is launching “Unfinished Sentences,” a campaign in support of justice in El Salvador, featuring a website which will offer historical materials including recently declassified U.S. government documents regarding the Salvadoran civil war; breaking news regarding Salvadoran initiatives for truth and against impunity; and ways in which people around the globe can take action to support Salvadoran survivors and human rights defenders.