2 5. On March 22, 2006, the Commission notified the parties of that report and, pursuant to article 38.1 of the rules of procedure then in force, set a time limit of two months for the petitioners to present their additional observations on the merits. On May 23, 2006, the State presented written documentation and, after an extension was granted, the petitioners submitted their observations on the merits on July 7, 2006. On May 3 and on December 10, 2007 the petitioners presented additional observations. For its part, the State presented additional observations on October 17, 2007. In a communication dated December 27, 2007 the Commission sent the last communication from the petitioners to the State, but had received no reply as of the date of approval of this report. 6. On August 24, 2010 the Commission contacted both parties to report on procedural questions related to the case. On September 24, 2010 the petitioners presented additional information, which was transmitted to the State for its observations. At the time this report was approved, no response had been received from the State. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. The petitioners 7. The petitioners allege that the State is responsible for violating the rights enshrined in articles 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 19, 21, 22 and 25 of the American Convention, in relation to articles 1.1 and 2 4 thereof, by the massacre of more than 765 persons , including children, women and elderly persons, on December 11, 12 and 13, 1981, in the locales known as El Mozote, La Joya, Ranchería, Los Toriles, Cerro Pando, and Jocote Amarillo, in the jurisdiction of Meanguera, Department of Morazán. 8. According to the petitioners, between December 11 and 13 of 1981, in the context of the armed conflict in El Salvador, troops of the Atlacatl Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalion (hereinafter the “Atlacatl Batallion”) invaded the villages and townships mentioned and carried out the mass and indiscriminate execution of the civilians they found there. According to the description by the petitioners, these deeds were perpetrated with extreme cruelty and were preceded by torture. The petitioners claim that these deeds have gone unpunished, that investigations were opened only in 1990, years after the massacre, and that they were not conducted in a serious manner, a situation reinforced by application of the General Amnesty Law for Consolidation of the Peace (hereinafter “LAGCP”), which has impeded continuity of the investigations. 9. The details of the events and judicial proceedings will be discussed in the section of this report dealing with the evidence in the case, based on the information contributed by both parties. The present section summarizes the main arguments of law outlined by the petitioners with respect to the rights that were included in the Commission’s admissibility report or that were put forth subsequent to that report. 10. The petitioners maintain that the State violated the right to life enshrined in article 4 of the Convention, by allowing civilians to be massacred during the military operation in the vicinity. Those massacres were planned and executed in a cruel and inhumane manner by the armed forces of the Salvadoran State who, despite knowing that the people in that area had no ties to the outlaw bands, treated them as “potential support for guerrilla movements, whose social base they intended to eliminate.” The petitioners claim moreover that this “aberrant military strategy, of a genocidal nature” was applied at various places in the country during the first years of the Salvadoran armed conflict. They maintain that the operation was carried out by the Atlacatl Battalion, with the support of two other units of the Armed Forces. 11. The petitioners argue that El Salvador violated the rights to humane treatment, to privacy, and to property, enshrined in articles 5, 11 and 21 of the Convention, through acts that preceded and 4 The petitioners maintain that there is no exact count of the victims who died in and near El Mozote. “The report of the Truth Commission found a total of more than 500 victims, the Tutela Legal counted more than 765 victims, and the IDHUCA report of November 1990 set the total at between 900 and 1,200 persons massacred by the Atlacatl Battalion.”