(El Mozote) The United States, which participated financially in the civil war in El Salvador (1980-1992), announced on Saturday that it had handed over to the justice of this country declassified documents on the massacre committed by the army in El Mozote in 1981.
“Yesterday (Friday) we presented declassified United States government documents requested by the investigating tribunal and will present more in the future,” diplomat Brendan O’Brien said in Spanish. of the American Embassy in San Salvador responsible for negotiations.
The archives were handed over to a court in San Francisco Gotera, where 17 servicemen are being sued for their participation in the massacre.
Almost 1,000 people were massacred in El Mozote, in the northeast of the department of Morazán (east), in 1981.
Between December 9 and 13, 1981, in the context of the civil war, soldiers of the Atlacatl army battalion, trained by the Americans, now dissolved, set houses on fire and executed the inhabitants of El Mozote and neighboring villages, suspected of having collaborated with the leftist guerrillas. According to testimonies, all – men, women and children – were massacred.
The United States recognizes the importance of continuing the “search for truth and justice so that support for survivors and families of victims” can be continued, said O’Brien, whose country provided financial and military assistance to the Salvadoran junta.
In addition, the US government recently provided assistance in “digitizing” legal documents relating to the massacre investigation, the US diplomat added.
The Salvadoran government established in 2017 that at least 988 people, including 558 children, were murdered in El Mozote and neighboring villages.
In addition, 712 other people who escaped the massacre have abandoned this area. El Salvador’s civil war left some 75,000 dead, 7,000 missing and thousands displaced.
The massacre was denied by the military-civilian government of the day, which was chaired by the now-dead Christian Democrat José Napoleón Duarte, and by the administration of US President Ronald Reagan, which provided aid to ‘a million dollars a day during the civil war at the ruling junta in El Salvador.
“El Mozote was one of the darkest chapters in the history of El Salvador: 40 years ago more than 1000 victims, more than half of them children, were murdered here in the space of three days . It was a tragedy that truly shocked the conscience, ”added Mr. O’Brien.
The announcement was made ahead of a commemoration ceremony for the 40e anniversary of the massacre in which some 300 relatives of the victims participated in the central square of El Mozote, 200 km northeast of San Salvador.