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INTRODUCTION OF THE CASE AND PURPOSE OF THE APPLICATION
1.
On March 8, 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the
Inter-American Commission” or “the Commission”) submitted to the jurisdiction of the Court, in
accordance with Articles 51 and 61 of the American Convention, case No. 10,720 against the
Republic of El Salvador (hereinafter also “the Salvadoran State,” “the State” or “El Salvador”).
The initial petition was lodged before the Commission on October 30, 1990, by Oficina de Tutela
Legal del Arzobispado de San Salvador (OTLA). On April 5, 2000 the petitioners accredited the
Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) as co-petitioner in this case. The Commission
declared the petition admissible in Admissibility Report No. 24/06 of March 2, 2006. 1 On
November 3, 2010, it approved Report on Merits No. 177/10 (hereinafter “the merits report”),
under Article 50 of the Convention, in which it made a series of recommendations to the State.
On December 8, 2010, this report was notified to the State, which was granted two months to
comply with the Commission’s recommendations. In view of the State’s failure to present
information, the Commission decided to submit the case to the Court’s jurisdiction. The
Commission appointed Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro and Santiago A. Canton, at the time Commissioner
and Executive Secretary, respectively, as delegates, and its Deputy Executive Secretary
Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, together with Isabel Madariaga and Silvia Serrano Guzmán, lawyers at
the Commission’s Executive Secretariat, as legal advisers.
2.
The case relates to the alleged successive massacres committed between December 11
and 13, 1981, in the context of a military operation by the Atlacatl Battalion, together with other
military units, in seven places in the northern part of the department of Morazán, Republic of El
Salvador, during which approximately 1,000 people were killed, “including an alarming number
of children,” as well as to the alleged investigation that was opened into these events and the
“decision of September 27, 1993, to halt it based on the Law of General Amnesty for the
Consolidation of Peace, which is still in force in El Salvador” and, finally, to the alleged
exhumations performed over the following years, without leading to the reactivation of the
investigations, “despite reiterated requests to the corresponding authorities.”
3.
According to the Commission, the alleged massacres of the instant case occurred during
the ruthless period of the so-called “counterinsurgency” operations, deployed against civilians on
a massive scale by the Salvadoran army during the armed conflict. It was the systematic and
generalized nature of this type of action, designed to terrorize the population, which allows it to
be concluded that the alleged massacres of the instant case constituted “one of the most
heinous manifestations of the crimes against humanity committed at the time by the Salvadoran
military.” However, owing to the alleged validity of the Law of General Amnesty for the
Consolidation of Peace, as well as reiterated omissions by the State, these grave events remain
unpunished.
4.
In its merits report, the Commission reached the conclusion that the State of El Salvador
was internationally responsible for violating:
The rights to life, to personal integrity and to personal liberty established in Articles
4, 5, and 7 of the American Convention in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the
detriment of the victims who were extrajudicially executed;
The special obligations with regard to children, established in Article 19 of the
American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of this instrument, to the to the
detriment of the children who were extrajudicially executed;
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In this report, the Commission declared that petition No. 10,720 was admissible in relation to the presumed
violation of Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 19, 21 and 25 of the American Convention in relation to the obligations established in
Article 1(1) and 2 of this treaty.
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