The Ultimate Test: Compliance with Recommendations And Implementation of Reform
EL SALVADOR: LIMITED PROGRESS
The TC recommendations were binding. However, binding obligation does not mean that
implementation has been smooth or complete. The UN was slow and not insistent enough to
81push for compliance with the TC recommendations as it gradually turned its attentions
elsewhere. Thus, the implementation of the recommendations has largely been left up to the
Parties and El Salvador’s very weak civil society. The FMLN had advocated for the truth
commission during the negotiations, but retreated somewhat, to the level of the government’s
compliance, once the Commission report was finalized and the recommendations were out on the
table. 208
Despite the fact that eleven years have passed since the TC report was presented to the
public, only a few of the recommendations have actually been implemented. The Salvadoran
government has been much more reluctant to implement punitive measures of administrative
sanctions or bans on individuals named in the report, and measures specifically for national
reconciliation, than to carry out structural and institutional reforms. 209