World Fact Research

El Salvador and Guatemala were split along very similar political and social lines regarding
willingness to cooperate with, and provide support to, their respective truth commissions. The
civilian governments of both countries, led by presidents Cristiani and Aral who claimed to
support efforts toward reconciliation, avoided handing over any information that the TC and
CEH requested that could be used to demonstrate government implication in or complacency
towards atrocities. During the first month of the CEH’s investigative work, September 1997, the
Commission tested out the government’s readiness to cooperate with a trial run. The Agreement
on the Commission’s establishment had specified that the Parties would undertake their
responsibility to “collaborate with the Commission in all matters” for the fulfillment of its
mandate 113 This trial run also checked the government’s compliance with the accord. This
government cooperation test requested from the President detailed information of four different
disappearance cases spanning the entire investigative period. When the commission had
received no response, Guatemala President Arai explained that he had passed the request along
53to the Minister of Defense where it had ‘gotten lost.’ 114 The Minister of Defense later “found” it
and passed it to the Minister for Internal Affairs and the Head of Police, none of whom could
find any evidence of substance.)
t5
The only documentation that the CEH received back as
nominal “effort” of a search for evidence was a few pages from the police files — a letter sent to
the victims employers asking if their employees had, in fact, disappeared. There was no
behavior that showed desire to understand the true story of their disappearances.)
t6
What it did
demonstrate was how well the military still controlled the President. It showed that the executive,
the armed forces, and the civilian police institutions were undeniably still linked together in a
(coercive) network of hidden secrets and covering for each other. All requests for information
were required to filter through a central path at the Ministry of Defense. Commissioner
Beurgenthal reflects on the Commission’s same challenge to break through the impenetrable wall
of denial and impunity that the Salvadoran military had built around its institution.
All of them, moreover, seemed to have great faith in the ability of the system to
cover up, protect them, and to punish those who talked. As one officer put it,
“most officers knew who had done what, but we also knew that none of us
would tell on them, and that if we did, we would be dead.” 17
In Guatemala, direct dealings with the military did not have this delay and hesitation in response,
as in the above situation with El Salvador. The military’s response was straight-faced denial that
any operational records from the decades being investigated existed in the military archives. Of
course, the CEH knew that in reality the military had kept meticulous account of this information
ever since the institution was established. TC requests for service records or personnel files of
military officers were declined with the explanatory excuse that such files “had been destroyed,
could not be found, or were incomplete.” 118 Access to the Guatemalan secret services files and to
the Salvadoran security services records was impossible.
54While investigating the specific cases that the Salvadoran TC planned to use as illustrative in
its report, it requested personal interviews with alleged perpetrators and others who might have
held key information. Interviews were the only source of primary data, as public hearings broke
the mandate requirement that the TC and CEH proceedings be carried out confidentially. 119
Thomas Beurgenthal describes below the results of those efforts:
Most civilians, former FMLN combatants, and military personnel presented
themselves at the Commission after being summoned by it… Of course, it is one
thing for individuals to appear for questioning; it is quite another for them to tell
the truth or, for that matter, to provide information…Initially it appeared that
none of the military officers we interviewed, whether or not they were
implicated in any of the cases under investigation, would provide any useful
information. For the most part, they lied, when responding to our questions.
Many of them made it quite clear, either by the manner in which they spoke or
by their body language, that their careers or their lives were at risk if they told
the truth….It was obvious to us that the military had built a defensive wall to
protect itself. 12°
The military provided the commission with false cooperation, agreeing to meet with the
commission but answering with shameless, transparent lies. The officers believed that, as
members of the military institution, they were above the truth. This behavior significantly
curtailed the TC’s access to rich, valuable information that would have amplified the truth
established and avoided inconvenient, time-consuming waiting periods and the investigation of
secondary routes to the same sought information. For the sake of the commission’s objectives, it
was at least positive that the FMLN and other civilians were tolerant of the TC’s request for
informational interviews.
The guerrilla groups of both El Salvador and Guatemala were more responsive than the
militaries, though the FMLN’s reaction was comparatively more guarded than that of the URNG.
Although the FMLN showed up for their interviews as well, they were not terribly open and
obliging in turning over requested information that contained names and deployment
assignments of various field commanders. 121 They were specifically reticent about turning over
55certain facts that would help the commission determine identities of those responsible for
ordering or permitting certain violations of human rights.
122
In Guatemala, the CEH found the
URNG and other former combatant guerillas more cooperative. In contrast to the formalities and
unresponsiveness of the military officers in meetings at the Salvadoran Ministry of Defense, the
meetings with the guerillas were more dynamic, mutually organized, and numerous.
123
Some
questions put forth were never clearly answered. 124 However, whereas no one from the military
once recognized the wrong of what they had perpetrated, the URNG openly acknowledged its
fault. 125 The URNG also more readily complied with the terms of the accords in cooperating
with CEH requests of information.
This disparity between the government and military’s willingness to cooperate and that of the
URNG reflects the fact that the military knew it was at a disadvantage and attempted to obstruct
this truth. The effect was to begin to polarize opinion of the CEH along political party and
ideological lines: the military and the conservatives were against, while the leftists were
supportive. As will be discussed further on in this paper, the military later claimed that the
report was biased, infiltrated with “leftist” agenda. Reconciliation with truth commissions,
acknowledgement of the victims, and pursuit of justice became “leftist.” On the other hand, the
political right purported a “reconciliation” of pardoning perpetrators, forgetting the pain of the
past, and “moving on” in order to maintain the systemic injustice that affords them power.
The reality in Guatemala and El Salvador during the work of the TC and CEH, and when the
countries were supposedly under democratic governance, was that the Parties to the peace
accords did not comply with their own pledged cooperation with the Truth Commissions.
Furthermore, the CEH’s failure to gain access to governmental archives, which should belong to
the public domain, illustrates the tight, manipulative, forcible grip held by the Minister of
56Defense and the Secret Services (Estado Mayor Presidencial) on the civilian leaders. With no
legal repercussions possible, the Truth Commissions were effectively bare in the face of the
military’s power to answer the TC or CEH’s calls or questions with unabashed lies. Given this
reality, it is indisputable that the TC and CEH should have had stronger investigative powers that
would have been threatening to the military institutions, and which could have frightened or
compelled the military to hand over sources vital to disclosing the truth of the past. The weak
mandates regarding investigative powers granted to the TC and CEH let the military keep the
vast majority of their lies secret and receive no penalty for doing so. The Truth Commissions’
lack of compulsory powers thus perpetuated the legacy of impunity for the military in El
Salvador and Guatemala. There can be no doubt that in both countries the military’s grip was
upon the government when it spoke for “its” interests in negotiating for weak investigative
powers in the Salvadoran and Guatemalan Truth Commission mandates.

Both the TC and CEH were established to be definitively independent of the juridical realm.
The Salvadoran commission mandate in the April 1991 Mexico Agreements set these
boundaries, asserting that the TC was not to “prevent the normal investigation of any situation or
case … nor the application of the relevant legal provisions to any act that is contrary to law.” I I°
The CEH mandate explicitly states that its “work, recommendations and report…shall [not] have
any judicial aim or effect.” 111 Although some wished that the truth commissions had been
allowed more direct effect on impunity in the two countries, the logistical separation of the TC
and CEH from any judicial processes made them more acceptable to the conservative
government, economic elite, and military powers — and therefore possible. The Salvadoran and
Guatemalan society had to take what it could get. Unfortunately, what they got were bodies with
very little investigative clout.
52Both the TC and the CEH were created with the handicap of no legal powers of subpoena,
search, or seizure. Without the power to lawfully require the appearance of certain individuals
before the commission, the means to compel the surrender of evidence, or the right to search any
premises where relevant archives could be stored or hidden, 112 the amount of incriminating
information to which they could gain access on their own was considerably reduced. They had to
rely on voluntary information of truth-testimonies and on the responsiveness of the government,
ministry of defense, FMLN or URNG, media sources, and civil society to specific requests. The
investigation process became a test of others’ cooperation.

The parties to the Peace Accords who created the TC recognized the need to narrow the
mandated scope of the investigations in order to focus the commission’s attention on that which
would be the most effective towards the TC’s goals. Investigating all of the human rights
violations that occurred during the twelve years of intense civil conflict in El Salvador would
have been humanly impossible. The mandate specified that the TC was to examine “serious acts
of violence” committed after 1980, and which “outraged Salvadoran society and/or international
opinion,” or exemplified a “systematic pattern of violence or ill-treatment.” 91 However, time
limitations did not allow for an adequate investigation of the infamous death squads.
92
The CEH
found it did not have the time, nor the appropriate investigative jurisdiction, to delve deeply
enough into information about the death squads. 3 More time and expertise would have been
required to understand death squads in order to prevent resurgence: their clandestine nature of
action, members’ hidden identities, intricate connections to the State and Intelligence Services,
and covert financing (including from Salvadoran exiles living in Miami). 93
The CEH faced a similar, potential dilemma of a broad, nondescript mandate. Their
objective was to “clarify…the human rights violations and acts of violence that have caused the
3
Excerpted from From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador: Report of the Commission on the Truth
for El Salvador, 1993. http://www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/el salvador/tc es 03151993 casesD1 2.html#D2
Between 1980 and 1991, human rights violations were committed in a systematic and organized manner by groups
acting as death squads. The members of such groups usually wore civilian clothing, were heavily armed, operated
clandestinely and hid their affiliation and identity. They abducted members of the civilian population and of rebel
groups. They tortured their hostages, were responsible for their disappearance and usually executed them.
The death squads, in which members of State structures were actively involved or to which they turned a blind eye,
gained such control that they ceased to be an isolated or marginal phenomenon and became an instrument of terror
used systematically for the physical elimination of political opponents. Many of the civilian and military authorities
in power during the 1980s participated in, encouraged and tolerated the activities of these groups.
44Guatemalan population to suffer…”94 The fact that the drafters of the mandate articulated the
CEH’s task as clarifying the human rights violations, implied all violations.
95
It was, of course,
not possible to investigate a time span of 36 years in six months’ time. The Guatemalan CEH
looked, therefore, to the examples of how the Salvadoran and Chilean commissions, faced with
similarly vague or broad mandates, had reduced the overwhelming workload to a more feasible
goal. 96 The commissioners decided that priority must be given to attacks on life and individual
dignity, especially extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, and sexual crimes.
97
These
violations were considered to be most serious; they would draw more of the country’s attention
to the gravity of the violence and had more of a chance to stir up a national and international
acknowledgment and reaction of denunciation of the abuse.
In addition to that of scope, a crucial variable that exerted its influence on the degree of truth
that was established by these commissions was the variable of time. The very little time given to
the TC and CEH for establishing the historical truth of the conflicts required them to focus the
investigations by narrowing their scope. The limited time in their respective mandates served
also as an obstacle to both the completeness and the detail of the truth told in each commission’s
concluding reports. The TC was given only six months — and took eight — to investigate twelve
years of civil conflict. The CEH originally was given six months, with a possible six-month
extension — and had to take eighteen months — to cover 36 years. Both the TC and the CEH were
commanded to begin work immediately upon the signing of the respective final peace
agreements that put the entire series of accords in action. However, for both commissions,
immediately starting the count down of the time it had to complete its mandate was impractical
because of the immense logistical set-up and preparation required before it could start its actual
45work. This pre-investigation organization took the TC six months and the CEH seven months,
alone.
The drafters of the mandate were naïve to think that the CEH work could start right away.
The logistics of securing office space, both centrally and throughout the country in rural
departments (provinces), of collecting and organizing resources, and of hiring personnel would
prove to take significant time. Finding the commission’s staff — a conglomeration of people with
specific training in law, social work, anthropology, and statistics, as well as personal integrity,
strength, and sensitive character — was a chore in itself. After being identified, the staff was put
through a one-month introductory course that included an historical background to Guatemala, as
well as mental preparation and training. The Guatemalan CEH was delayed further because, not
having been allotted any funding, it had to launch a fundraising campaign during this entire set-
up and preparation period. Soliciting aid from other countries and international organizations
was essential in order to get on its feet, but was costly in time. The CEH finally began the
investigative process in September of 1997, eight months after the signing of the final Peace
Agreement and nearly two years after its initial establishment in the series of peace accords.
The manner in which the CEH conducted its work during the investigations was marked by
the short period of mandated operational time. Adhering to the mandate was important to
maintain legitimacy with the Parties and with the public. As explained above, this pressure
caused the CEH to restrict the cases that it dealt with, focusing on the most severe violations of
human rights. Even more importantly, the lack of time altered the fundamental interaction and
truth-telling experience of the victims and survivors of la violencia with disappointing
consequences for reconciliation. The commission needed to be able to reach a large number of
people and to take down the basic facts of the atrocities committed in order to compile statistical
46evidence to release with the report. In its six months of investigations, the commission was able
to conduct 7,200 interviews. However, group interviews were common, especially in rural,
mostly indigenous areas where a translator was necessary. Group interviews would sometimes
be conducted with fifteen people and one solitary interviewer. 98 “Time allowed for little more
than the cataloguing of the violations prioritized by the [CEH.]” 99 The insufficient time to
collect this data meant that truth-testimony often turned into a collection of descriptive facts,
neglecting the person, his or her real pain, and his or her multifaceted human identity. The truth
commission focused on the identity of the person as, primarily, the category they took on in the
context of the war: the victim, the widow, the perpetrator. Listening as a healing opportunity and
empowerment of the victim or survivor seems to have been considered the ideal, rather than the
general practice in the CEH’s interviewing experience, due to the lack of time. The hurried tone
of the investigations cut short the listening elements of the truth testimony. It cut out time for
sympathy with the individual victims, crucial to their healing process and to capitalizing on the
potential of truth-telling experiences to further reconciliation at this individual level. Professor
Anita Isaacs tells the story of a person she interviewed about his experiences with the CEH. He
was in the middle of telling his story when the statement-taker interrupted and explained that he
did not need to hear the rest because he had already heard far worse. Surely there were other
statement-takers working with the CEH that expressed more sensitivity and respect for the
potentially cathartic experience of truth-telling. However, this anecdote encapsulates the
problem of rushing a truth commission through its work to the unfortunate extent that
commissioners and staff change their approach to the truth finding and truth testimony
experience. More time given to the CEH to carry out investigations in a manner more conducive
47to victim healing and with more attention to reinforcing survivor dignity would have resulted in
greater success building confidence for reconciliation.
The rapidity with which the CEH had to move through much of the country did not allow for
the commission to develop relationships with communities in order to genuinely help heal and
reconcile these people with their past. Trust, such a key element in fruitful truth-telling, and
confidence in the unknown investigators did not grow because there was little time to establish a
relationship. Thus, besides the CEH’s minimal direct effect on the healing of those who testified
and reconciliation at the individual level, the lack of trust in the commission investigators —
“statement-takers” as they are often called — on the part of the truth-tellers affected the quality
and depth of information and details given in testimonies.
The extremely limiting mandated time frame lost the CEH many opportunities to help
individual and micro-level reconciliation in truth-telling participant communities. In terms of
national or macro-level reconciliation, Commissioner Tomuschat seemed to support the idea that
while an expanded, more than a year-long period of operation mandated in the CEH would have
been beneficial, 10° a significantly extended period of time could have had negative
consequences: “A bureaucratic exercise extending over more than five years would eventually
end in general boredom,” im rather than societal engagement in reconciliation initiatives. Despite
these less than encouraging nuances of the CEH truth investigations, some propose that the CEH
should still be praised for overcoming time frame limitations and managing to get the necessary
and relevant facts from the communities visited. 102 Though fact-extraction from these
communities seems to have been substantial enough to make important, critical, progressive
conclusions in the CEH’s final report, it has not helped foster reconciliation for those from whom
the facts were taken.
48A longer period of investigation would have recognized the victims more appropriately and
substantially, according to the goal of societal reconciliation. A longer truth-telling period
tailored to the victims’ needs, rather than the commission’s problematic mandate, would have
been more likely to make known the victims’ criteria for reconciliation — probably the most
comprehensive and profound in demands — and move the whole of society towards their
enactment. The speed at which the CEH had to work contributed to society’s detached
relationship to the commission, the lack of awareness of and investment in its purposes, and the
consequently negligible effect of the CEH on public life since the presentation of its report.
The limited time frame also directly affected the truth that the Salvadoran TC could produce
in a number of ways. Firstly, the situation of rushed, superficial truth-telling interactions
described above in the Guatemalan case also presented itself in El Salvador. The TC’s contact
with communities was transitory and usually resulted in a shallow level of healing. Furthermore,
the TC’s communication with communities was not structured to include follow-up closure
activities, 103 such as therapeutic or educational workshops on citizen mobilization, political
participation, human rights and the justice system, etc. At a minimum, the CEH had a
secondary research team of Guatemalan historians who conducted public meetings and
workshops to discuss policy with the villagers or townspeople.
104
Secondly, the lack of time not
only weakened the TC or CEH’s experience with each community, but limited their overall
access to rural areas. This impaired the representative-ness of the truth established. By leaving
out certain territories or provinces from truth testimony investigations or scantily passing
through, those voices are not represented in the truth report. During the three years it worked,
the REMHI project in Guatemala was able to penetrate much deeper and more broadly over the
entire country than the CEH was able to accomplish in its six months of investigations. El
49Salvador set up four decentralized offices, but this small network was not sufficiently penetrating
into rural provinces. Accessibility was further impeded by the threat of violence still lingering in
these areas during the beginning of the TC’s operations. Launching into the TC mission
immediately after the end of the conflict, as mandated, was premature timing The Salvadoran
people were deterred from testifying to the truth commission not only because they were
paranoid about the political risk, but because they feared for physical safety, especially if they
had to travel far to reach a TC office.
Finally, the lack of time also curbed the number and extent of the “illustrative” cases
included in the body of the TC report. These cases were chosen to receive special, detailed
attention for either their international prominence or for their paradigmatic qualities,
documenting a certain pattern or policy of violence.
105
The commission compiled a list of
exemplary cases which it deemed deserving of distinct recognition in the report, but later had to
cut many from that list due to the impending deadline. The TC did not have enough time to
acquire evidence on all of these important cases before the six-month investigative period
expired. The result was that it could only present thirty-two emblematic cases in the final TC
report, compared to the eighty paradigmatic cases described in the CEH report. 106 Pouring
nearly all of its attention into the investigation of these key cases, several of whose
circumstances were left without adequate clarification, meant that the report did not address the
majority of victims’ cases told in their truth-testimonies. The problem was that pieces of history
that the TC had judged as vital for the country’s understanding of its past had to be left out of the
truth commission report. A momentous document that was supposed to embody the complete
truth of El Salvador’s recent conflict past failed to be complete. A truth commission must ensure
that it represents all of the voices of the country in order for them to feel heard, acknowledged,
50and, eventually, reconciled. National reconciliation requires a common sentiment of
reconciliation across all sectors and regions of the recovering country.
The unrealistically short operation time mandated to the TC and the CEH clearly impeded the
completeness and representative quality of the truth they drew from their contact with
communities. The TC’s and CEH’s grueling six-month schedules of investigations did not allow
them time to tend to the healing and reconciliation of the very same victims they interviewed.
The undermining of the truth established and the lack of proper attention given to the healing of
the victims was not simply an unfortunate consequence of the Parties’ ignorance of an
appropriate length of time to mandate. Sadly, it was the calculated intention of certain interested
Parties who established the commissions to give the TC and CEH insufficient time to do their
work. Some Parties to the Accords feared a national movement that would unearth incriminating
evidence of their guilt if the truth commissions were allowed to complete their jobs thoroughly.
They were afraid that ground-breaking truth revealed would attract too much attention and would
undermine their own institutions’ legitimacy and power. In this way, the government and
guerillas in both El Salvador and Guatemala agreed to the bare minimum of a truth commission
and purposely designed it to have only a minimal effect on the public. Thomas Beurgenthal, one
of the TC commissioners, sheds light on this disappointing reality when he laments that the time
given “was not sufficient time to do justice to all the terrible injustices committed by both sides
to the conflict in El Salvador, but that was not the objective of the Parties.” 107 Rather than
genuinely wanting to do justice to the victims of the conflict, the tone of the mandate reveals
how they wanted to reach closure quickly. They wanted to come to a swift resolution of this past
and move on to a future in which this problem had disappeared. They cared to “[focus] on some
51of the most egregious acts” 108 only as much as was required to clear up misconceptions of the
past. They did not want the past to come back to haunt them: “they wanted a set of
recommendations to help ensure that the past would not repeat itself.” I°9
The pure lack of time to carry out its mission to the fullest was an intrinsic weakness in each
of the truth commissions. Created with the time frames already limited, these truth commissions
were destined to be undermined. However, the truth commissions, themselves, can not be faulted
for these shortcomings. The strengths of the TC and CEH were purposely undercut by external
forces: the politically interested Parties that crafted the TC and CEH mandates in order to limit
the truth produced and to prevent reconciliation initiatives that would empower the third party
victims and de-legitimize the government.

The composition of the commission itself is fundamental to the truth outcome. The
commissioners are the truth managers and the staff are truth excavators. The managers decide
where to dig; the excavators are responsible for the manner in which they dig. Hopefully, they
dig patiently, carefully, and with attention to detail so that certain pieces of the puzzle are not left
hidden or extracted too brashly, sustaining them damage. The skills and sensitivities of those
who work with the various actors in the history to be clarified greatly affect the commission’s
success, the nature of the truth revealed, and the way the commission is perceived by the various
actors and the public as a whole. The goal is that the commission wins trust and commands
respect and authority so that its conclusions will be accepted and affirmed by all as the newly
expanded history (historical narrative) of the conflict years. It is crucial that this new, fuller truth
can be accepted by all. In order for reconciliation, the people must agree on the past to be able to
36work cooperatively together towards the future. These commission members have the potential
to write or rewrite the chapter of the conflict in the history books for the generations to come.
The credibility of the commission determines the persuasive strength of the truth revealed.
The power of the truth revealed affects what the people, government, civil society, and political
parties do in response. The potential that a truth commission has to help facilitate trust, to
acknowledge the victims, and to establish personal or institutional responsibility and justice is
great. To have this effect, it must first be recognized as a legitimate, impartial, and respectable
body by all parties to the conflict and by the general public.
Naming an impartial commission in the eyes of the country can be difficult as no person is
completely neutral. Their life experiences shape their frame of mind, priorities, sympathies, and
interpretations of history. The political and social climate in the country at the time of the truth
commission creation greatly affects what composition will be acceptable. In El Salvador where
the peace accords officially ending the war were signed only months before the truth commission
began its work, the wounds were painfully fresh, the country was still extremely polarized, and
identities were politicized according to party affiliation or ideological tendency. Neutrality did
not exist. It was impossible to find any notable Salvadoran person or public figure who could
lead the commission, never mind an entire Salvadoran commission and staff. Any Salvadoran
suggested would have been rejected by either the government or FMLN for having political
sways or vested interests in a certain outcome. The solution was to construct a commission of
internationals whose distance from the situation contributed to their relative objectivity. The
Salvadoran TC’s composition was novel in that it was the first to be made completely of foreign
nationals. The UN Secretary General appointed the three commissioners, Belisario Betancur
(ex-President of Colombia), Thomas Beurgenthal (ex-President of the Inter-American Court),
37and Reinaldo Figueredo (Ex-Minister of Foreign Relations for Venezuela) who were then
approved by both of the parties to the agreement on the commission establishment. They were
accepted by the government, FMLN, and the public as an external, independent authority
because they had no association with internal Salvadoran political entities.
The TC’s impartiality provided it with the minimal required legitimacy it needed to conduct
its search for the truth. Its international composition, rather than Salvadoran, meant that the
credibility of the truth is produced would at least be considered, rather than immediately
disregarded. However, their foreignness made Salvadoran people skeptical of their ability to
empathize. Salvadorans were hesitant to trust the Commission’s outsiders, and were reticent and
reluctant to come forward, especially at the beginning. Indeed, “commissioners and staff could
not fully comprehend the nuances of the locality — knowledge that national would have had to
their advantage.”73 Beurgenthal highlights the “general mistrust” of the TC on the part of the
majority of the Salvadoran population. 74 Gaining Salvadorans’ trust presented one of the most
difficult challenges. In order to encourage people to come forward to give their truth-testimony,
the TC maintained an “Open Door” policy in which anyone could walk in to one of the four
offices stationed around the country at any time to tell their story. They did not need to make an
appointment or call ahead. Additionally, the TC advertised in the newspapers and on the radio,
seeking to gain a more visible, prominent presence and legitimacy in the eyes of the public. In
the first two or three months — nearly half of their six-month investigation period — the TC was
able to gather very little information of value. 75 As Beurgenthal explains,
It should not be forgotten that the average Salvadoran had no reason to assume
that the Commission would in fact carry out an honest and serious investigation.
There had been many so-called “investigations” in the past, principally domestic
ones, and they produced little information and even less truth. More often than
not, they were publicity stunts staged by the Salvadoran government, frequently
as a result of U.S. pressure and timed so as to anticipate some action by the U.S.
Congress. Given this experience, Salvadorans certainly had no reason to trust
yet another commission, or three foreigners about whom they knew little. 76
38This shows that despite the efforts that the TC made to open up to the Salvadoran people, the
commission’s international make-up still impeded people’s trust of the Commission’s motives.
Consequently, also negatively affected were the extent of primary information it could gather for
its report and the cathartic effects of truth-telling that could have meanwhile benefited many who
were still suffering.
If a commission cannot get people to come forward to tell their stories in substantial
numbers, it cannot be sure that the testimonies collected are representative of the country and of
the historical truth. If a truth commission cannot complete its first, fundamental goal of
establishing the truth, it cannot call the entire country’s attention to the basic, sinister realities of
the conflict — what violence has been committed, to what extent it has been perpetuated, and who
is responsible. If no impressive truth report stirs the country upon release, it will not spur or
pressure the acknowledgement of crimes and their victims. In countries with corrupt judiciaries,
such as El Salvador and Guatemala, the justice system will not consequently be called to reform
in order to accommodate trials of human rights abuse. Even if cases are filed, most likely there
will never be enough political force to compel those cases to be brought to trial and to convict
the defendant perpetrators. A movement for justice is dependent on a previously established,
accepted, and grounded truth. This one example shows how a complete, credible truth is
absolutely essential for any true reconciliation movement to succeed.
A few months into the period of investigations there was an important shift in willingness to
participate in the TC and give truth-testimony. The Salvadoran Ad-Hoc commission, created to
review the human rights records of the officers in the military and recommend dismissal or
demotion of members guilty of violations, came out with an incriminating final report in October
of 1992. 77 It called for the dismissal of over one-hundred officers, including the Minister and
39Deputy Minister of Defense and the Chief of General Staff due to egregious breaches of human
rights. 78 The effect was to win confidence in the work of such commissions at the same time as
it diminished the power of the military institution. It was the Salvadoran people’s fear of the
military’s power and their impunity that had discouraged many from coming to tell their stories.
The very governmental institutions and the individuals responsible for many of
the most egregious acts of violence in El Salvador remained in place and in
power, which explains the fear of the vast majority of individuals who appeared
before the commission. 79
Once the Ad-Hoc commission’s report struck a huge blow to the prestige of the military
institution, people felt empowered to add their own truth to the growing pool of personal truths
that would help shape the collective, national historical truth. At that point, in contrast to just a
few months before, the international composition of the TC proved to be a critical reason that the
Salvadoran people could trust the independent motives of the TC’s investigation. Gradually,
more and more victims and survivors, in addition to a few perpetrators, started coming forward
to give testimony, affecting a greater cathartic influence on Salvadoran society.
The Ad Hoc Commission had proven to the country at large that the power and
control of the government and the military was beginning to weaken, and that
things were changing in El Salvador. Therefore, many more ordinary citizens
also came forward to provide evidence, still very fearful, but now with greater
confidence in the integrity of the process. 8°
As will be elaborated on further, the quality of truth established by the TC turned out to be
impressive relative to that of other truth commission investigations around the world. The
potential for reconciliation was allowed, first, by the airing of the truth and the disproving of
false rumors and systematic lies. The international composition of the Salvadoran TC was an
asset to building trust and gaining legitimacy from the Salvadoran public, despite the fact that
this trust was slow in coming. In the beginning it appeared that the international composition of
the TC was the crippling obstacle to gaining trust and access to the Salvadoran’s stories.
However, once the release of the Ad Hoc Commission report assuaged people’s fear of military
40power and built their confidence in these commissions’ punitive effect, they began going to the
TC in increasing numbers. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that it was mistrust of the TC
outsiders compounded by the people’s deep fear of the consequences of truth-testifying that
prevented progress during the first few months. While the nonnational composition of the TC
was an intrinsic aspect that affected the quality of truth produced, the people’s fear of the
military was an external pressure, rather than an internal weakness, which restricted (for a time)
the progress of the TC towards reconciliation.
Guatemala found itself in similar, although perhaps not as extreme, circumstances to those in
El Salvador when the CEH began its work. The country was divided and broken from suffering
civil conflict over the previous few decades. When the Parties to the CEH creation agreement
were writing the mandate, they wanted the commission to be made of Guatemalans.
Guatemalans should be the ones investigating their own past and presenting the truth of their
recent history to the rest of their people. As Christian Tomuschat, chair commissioner for the
CEH, explained, “one would…expect that the task of dealing with a criminal past would be
entrusted to citizens of the country concerned.’
,81
However, in order to guard the CEH from
charges of bias, the Parties decided to include an impartial international presence to provide
“balance” and legitimacy to the CEH. As a result, the Guatemalan CEH was unique in its
mixed-nationality composition: one international figure appointed by the UN Secretary-General,
•
a Guatemalan “of irreproachable conduct,” and a Guatemalan academic.
82
Christian Tomuschat
was designated as Commission coordinator on Feb 8, 1997 and, in turn, appointed Otilia Lux de
Cot( and Alfredo Balsells as the Guatemalan commissioners. 83
41The Guatemalan CEH’s mixed composition was successfully objective. The variety in
nationalities, discipline backgrounds, investigation approaches, and truth interpretations brought
many complementing perspectives and strengths to the table. In turn, the truth that was
established was not only impressively comprehensive, but was a landmark in the international
experience of truth commissions. Striking, daring, yet carefully methodical truth commission
reports, such as the CEH Memoria del silencio (Memory of Silence), have the most potential to
compel official acknowledgment of the crimes committed and innocent victims wronged and to
empower victims and civil society to pressure the government for redress and concrete reform.
It is important whether commissioners choose a social science or legalistic approach to truth-
finding. 84 Commissioners with legal backgrounds will draw up legal definitions of what
constitutes a violation of domestic law, international human rights law, and international
humanitarian law and then compare cases from the investigations, in search of those that qualify
as violations. 85 Social scientists, in contrast, tend to ask the hows and the whys. One possible
implication is that during testimonies, “statement-takers” of a more legalistic approach would be
more interested in facts surrounding the circumstances of violent incidents and more focused on
identifying the gravest of crimes. Social scientists would pay careful attention to the story
progression, the manner in which the individual tells the story, and the personal emotions that
come through. Social scientist ’statement-takers’ and report writers may come across as more
sympathetic to the horror of the human experience.
A commission composed of professionals from different backgrounds — lawyers vs. social
scientists — has the potential to cause conflict of priorities and perspectives. However, in
Guatemala the mix of orientations among commissioners (two lawyers and one social scientist) 86
and approximately 200 staff provided a most dynamic interchange. Through the variety of
42intellectual strengths, a more comprehensive interpretation of Guatemala’s recent past was
possible. For example, the CEH employed quantitative analysis to prove that genocide had
occurred in Guatemala. It showed that in several crucial regions rates of indigenous people
killed by the state were five to eight times greater then rates among non-indigenous people.” 87
Conversely, the report’s historical examination of the root causes of the conflict and the systemic
injustice that perpetuated it was a qualitative, social science-oriented analysis. As a result, the
truth that the CEH presented in its report was uniquely striking, comprehensive, and profound. It
is, in the words of Greg Grandin, an “impassioned search for the meaning of Guatemala’s
violence”88 and a “damning narrative that indicts not just the nation’s ruling elite, but its culture
and history as well.”89 The CEH report was a departure from the Salvadoran (and the Chilean
and Argentine) TC’s juridical-style conclusions about human rights violations committed, which
concentrated on the whos and whats. 90 The Guatemalan report presented plenty of scientific
statistical evidence, but also branched out, daring to answer the complex question of “why?”
The why — the racism, economic exploitation, and political exclusion of the vast majority of the
country - was a part of the truth that was taboo; it had never been uttered aloud by any official
body before. However, these systemic grievances were a fundamental source of distrust of much
of the population towards the government and, therefore, an obstacle to reconciliation. By
exposing and addressing these larger problems the government became accountable to fix them.
Civil society could also be more vocal and active in fighting these problems from their angle. Of
course real change in systemic patterns or structure must be set as long term goals because
revealing and recognizing their detrimental effects is only the first step. However, it is an
essential step for reconciliation at any deeper level.

A truth commission’s success is hard to measure because “success” is so subjective and
relative when the objectives — harmony, peace, trust, reconciliation, etc — are also ambiguous.
The five prominent truth commissions mentioned above won their status as relatively successful
when measured against other commissions’ attempts to satisfy the priorities, purposes, and goals
articulated in their mandates. The Argentine, Chilean, Salvadoran, South African, and
Guatemalan commissions have also received considerable international attention, often due to
the direct involvement of prominent international figures or substantial economic and/or
administrative support from the United Nations or foreign countries.
Rather than evaluate the success of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth commissions — a
seemingly impossible task - this paper seeks to analyze the two truth commissions’ realized and
potential connections to reconciliation as a process and as a goal. In what ways have the
Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth commissions contributed to national reconciliation and why
have they not been able to achieve more? To what extent have the TC and CEH been catalysts
for reconciliation?
35National reconciliation requires that the truth of the past be known and recognized; that the
responsible parties publicly acknowledge their guilt, their role, the wrongness of committing
such atrocities against their victims, and regret for their actions; and that justice, according to the
needs of the victims, be served with restorative, reparative measures and with punitive, deterrent
juridical action. As explained in the theoretical section, truth commissions have the potential to
contribute to reconciliation in any and each of these directions. The remainder of the paper will
be dedicated to analyzing the consequences of the TC’s and CEH’s specific compositions,
mandates, conclusions, recommendations, and report dissemination visa vis the ideals of truth,
acknowledgment, and justice for reconciliation

Like El Salvador, Guatemala was embroiled in a long, costly, internal conflict that was, at
least, partially rooted in the economic exploitation and economic injustice of a feudal-like
system. Authoritarian leaders had ruled Guatemala and protected the economic interest of the
landed elite and foreign land-owners until Guatemala finally elected its first democratic civilian
leader, Jose Arevalo, to office in 1944. From 1944-1954, Guatemala enjoyed ten years of
democratic rule that brought land redistribution and significant economic, political, and social
reform to the colonial-modeled systems of old. However these reforms were unpopular among
the Guatemalan economic elite and foreign corporation landholders such as the American-owned
United Fruit.
In March of 1954, the Guatemalan military, backed by the CIA, overthrew the democratic
Jacobo Arbenz government in a coup that ended Guatemala’s popular “revolution.” 66 The
following leaders re-instated rigid authoritarian-esque economic policy, revoking and reversing
Arevalo and Arbenz reforms, while holding elections that would qualify Guatemala as a
democracy in name. Opposition to the government’s policy rose with leftist guerilla insurgent
groups that first organized during the early 1960s. The guerrillas were all but crushed by a
military counter-insurgency reaction in the 1960s. The Guatemalan government, as well as the
US government in 1954, had framed the “threat” as a communist one, in the context of the Cold
War. 2
2
In reality, these first “guerrillas” who organized the insurgency in the 1960s and reorganized in the 1970a were ex-
military soldiers or officers who had defected from the Armed Forces. The Guatemalan military has a history of
factions; these men constituted one such faction that broke from the military once it became disillusioned by the
corruption in the institution.
32The guerrillas regained strength again by the mid 1970s, this time with critical support from
mobilized indigenous Mayans, determined to fight against the systematic racism,
marginalization, and poverty they suffered. The Maya make up over half of Guatemala’s
population. The bloodiest, most gruesome years of the war came in the early 1980s under
General Romeo Lucas Garcia and General Efrain Rios Montt, the notorious conceiver of the
scorched-earth campaigns in indigenous Mayan villages. The anti-guerilla counterinsurgency
took on a distinctly racist tone towards the end of the 70s and after. Massacres, disappearances,
rapes, and tortures of indigenous people were strategically carried out in order to “break the
popular base of the leftist guerrillas,” or, perhaps more accurately, terrorize the indigenous
population back into fearful subordination within the traditional system that benefited the rich
and exploited the poor, rural Maya. Peace talks began in the form of a national dialogue in 1987
after a return to civilian rule two years earlier. In the early 1990s the “Oslo process” succeeded
in producing a slow series of peace agreements between the Guatemalan government and Unidad
Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) guerrillas, mediated by the UN’s Jean Arnault.
The long peace negotiation process finally culminated in official end to the civil conflict on
December 29, 1996 with the Agreement for a Firm and Lasting Peace. The human loss of the
thirty-six year war was devastating: 200,000 deaths and disappearances, tens of thousands of
refugees, and a million internally displaced people in a country with only 12 million people.
The establishment of Guatemala’s truth commission was, like El Salvador’s, negotiated
between the parties to the peace agreements as part of the accords. On June 23, 1994 the URNG
and the Guatemalan government created the “Agreement on the establishment of the
Commission to clarify past human rights violations and acts of violence that have caused the
Guatemalan population to suffer.” 67 This truth commission was given the official name la
33CornisiOn para el Esclarecimiento HistOrico (the Historical Clarification Commission, hereafter
CEH). The 1994 agreement clearly states the CEH’s primary purpose: “To clarify with all
objectivity, equity and impartiality the human rights violations and acts of violence that have
caused the Guatemalan population to suffer, connected with the armed conflict. “68 Towards the
ideal of reconciliation, the truth commission is established on the basis of the Guatemalans’
“right to know the whole truth” and with the expectation that it will promote a “culture of
harmony and mutual respect.” 69 The parties express their “wish to open as soon as possible a
new chapter in Guatemala’s history which…will…help lay the bases for peaceful coexistence
and respect for human rights among Guatemalans.”7° Despite their different political interests,
the Parties compromised in order to form this truth commission. From the beginning, the URNG
supported the idea of a truth commission and finally convinced the government to negotiate. The
government decided that it would be beneficial because they realized it was important for the
country to perceive them each as working towards bringing peace, stability, and reconciliation.
It remains to be seen later in the paper what the outcome was of this CEH.
According to this agreement, the commission was to draw up a report that contained their
findings and factual, objective conclusions regarding the events and the factors (both internal and
external) that led to their occurrence. The recommendations to be made by the commission must
“encourage peace and national harmony in Guatemala” and must include specific “measures to
preserve the memory of the victims, to foster a culture of mutual respect,” and strengthen human
rights observance and democracy. 71 This mandate included elements that are clearly identified
with national reconciliation. The CEH’s mandate, negotiated between the two parties to the
conflict, was considered weak, as the government surely made its existence conditional on very
limited powers and a restrictive time frame. However, its resulting conclusions were striking and
34its effects were surprisingly powerful. As Audrey Chapman and Patrick Ball declared, “the CEH
model proved to produce a more complete, consistent, and coherent report than any other
commission to date.”72 The following will analyze how well this seemingly restricted
Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission and the similarly mandated Salvadoran
Commission on Truth were able to cope with such daunting missions and the overarching end-
goal of fostering national reconciliation.