-20considerable lack of concern for the situation of the children who disappeared.
The Salvadoran Red Cross provided some help when they started searching,
but then its attitude changed and they were told that it had lost all the files.
Sometimes the orphanages did not provide them with any information. The
“Children’s Villages” did not help Pro-Búsqueda either, because they
considered that the Association was “interfering.”
Through his work in Pro-Búsqueda, he had close contact with the Serrano
Cruz family, especially with María Victoria Cruz Franco, the alleged victims’
mother, who, from the outset, told him that the children “were disappeared
and that she wanted to find them.” This was why she appeared before the
Truth Commission. María Victoria was always trying to find the children in her
own way; always asking for help in her search. About one month after the
Truth Commission’s report was published, he accompanied Mrs. Cruz Franco
to the Chalatenango court to ask about the whereabouts of the disappeared
children; they were told that they should not ask and that “nothing could be
done because the Atlacatl Battalion had been disbanded.” Several days later,
they visited the Attorney General’s Office where they were received and
treated in a “demeaning manner.” Even though the war had ended, they were
told that they would be reported to the National Police. He heard the
children’s mother say she was very afraid to mention that her daughters had
disappeared in a “guinda”; this was worse than saying they had disappeared
from their own home. Saying that she was in her home, meant that she had
not fled. Fear paralyzes people and makes them change their version of the
facts. He knows that María Victoria was not a member of the guerrilla. Shortly
before Ernestina and Erlinda’s mother died, she was going blind as a result of
diabetes, and she said to the witness “I hope that I don’t lose my sight
because I may still be able to see my daughters.” “I feel that Ernestina and
Erlinda are alive somewhere.” The day of the hearing before the Court, she
received a telephone call from El Salvador telling her that, through DNAtesting, a girl child had been found who had disappeared in the “guinda de
mayo,” when Erlinda and Ernestina had also disappeared. The child had lived
in an orphanage for more than 10 years and the orphanage never gave the
information to Pro-Búsqueda. The children who disappeared in the “guinda de
mayo” and who were traced by Pro-Búsqueda were found alive; they did not
discover any who had died.
A positive measure the State should adopt to facilitate family reunification
would be to create a national tracing commission. As of 1999, this has been
proposed to the Legislative Assembly on three occasions and has not been
approved. Both Amnesty International and the Committee on the Rights of
the Child have recommended that this commission be created. The witness
considers that, with the information the Armed Forces and some humanitarian
organizations could provide, it would be possible to find 10 or 12 more
children quite rapidly. Orphanages should also provide information.
He knew of no case in which someone had been accused of being responsible
for the forced disappearance of a child during the armed conflict. Nonetheless,
documents exist with the names of people and places related to the
disappearance and handing over of several children. Although the justice
system and the reliability of some of its members have improved, judicial
proceedings are still unsatisfactory in El Salvador. The Truth Commission’s
recommendations concerning the reform of the judicial system have not been