Report Conclusions to the Salvadoran and Guatemalan Truth Commissions
On March 15, 1993 and on February 25, 1999, the Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth
commissions, respectively, presented their final reports to their countries and to the entire world.
After months of grueling professional work and deep emotional challenges, the TC and the CEH
had opportunities to tell the truth of what they had found about the recent conflicts of their
respective countries. Despite external pressures and intrinsic weaknesses of their mandates, these
truth commissions were able to produce poignant, impartial, extensive accounts of what really
had happened in these warfare-torn countries and how. The CEH went even further to debunk
why the conflict had surged.
63The Salvadoran Truth Commission Report, From Madness to Hope, came out with
astonishing conclusions. During its six months of investigations, it had collected 22,000
denunciations of severe human rights violations, mostly of extra-judicial executions, forced
disappearances, and torture. 148 An overwhelming proportion of the crimes were committed by
the armed and security forces, state-sponsored paramilitary groups, or death squads. Only 5% of
the violations were perpetrated by the FMLN.
Over 60 percent of all complaints concerned extrajudicial executions, over
25 percent concerned enforced disappearances, and over 20 percent included
complaints of torture. Those giving testimony attributed almost 85 percent of
cases to agents of the State, paramilitary groups allied to them, and the death
squads.
Armed forces personnel were accused in almost 60 percent of complaints,
members of the security forces in approximately 25 percent, members of
military escorts and civil defense units in approximately 20 percent, and
members of the death squads in more than 10 percent of cases. The complaints
registered accused FMLN in approximately 5 percent of cases. I49
One element of the Salvadoran TC success is the broad variety of severe human right
violations it was able to document. The report delves into the factual details and the human story
of specific cases, leaving the reader or listener shivering. Though the report only cites 33
principle cases, the cases were agreed to be widely representative of the systematic, violent
tactics used during the conflict to insinuate power through fear. “The Salvadoran Truth
Commission’s mandate was broadly worded, allowing it to investigate what it deemed were
`serious acts of violence. -150 During the negotiations each side to the conflict wrote out a list of
specific atrocities it wanted the TC to investigate. 151 However, the parties could not agree on
how to merge their lists into a final version for the mandate. Thus, they left it considerably open
to interpretation. In this way, the TC enjoyed a small degree of flexibility and ability to insert its
own judgment as to the priorities of the historical investigation. They avoided being rigidly
controlled by the parties to the mandate as was the experience in Guatemala. The commissioners
64later agreed that investigating extra-judicial executions, forced disappearances, and torture 152
constituted a priority.
Tags: Armed forces, Guatemalan, Salvadoran