8 Violence was a fire which swept over the fields of El Salvador: it burst into villages, cut off roads and destroyed highways and bridges, energy sources and transmission lines; it reached the cities and entered families, sacred areas and educational centres; it struck at justice and filled the public administration with victims; and it singled out as an enemy anyone who was not on the list of friends. Violence turned everything to death and destruction, for such is the senselessness of that breach of the calm plenitude which accompanies the rule of law. (...) The victims were Salvadorians and foreigners of all backgrounds and all social and economic classes, for in its blind cruelty violence leaves everyone equally defenceless. The main characteristics of this period were that 14 violence became systematic and terror and distrust reigned among the civilian population. 39. The Truth Commission found that the military counterinsurgency operations took a high toll among civilian noncombatants in lives and displacements. According to the Commission, “all the complaints indicate that this violence originated in a political mind-set that viewed political opponents as subversives and enemies (...). This situation is epitomized by the extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and murders of political opponents (...). Counter-insurgency policy found its most extreme expression in a general practice of ‘cutting the guerrillas’ lifeline’ (...). Roughly 50 per cent of all the complaints analysed concern incidents which took place during the first two years, 1980 and 1981; more than 20 per cent took place in the following two years, 1982 and 1983. In other words, over 75 per cent of the serious acts of violence reported to the Commission on the Truth took place during first four 15 years of the decade (...) and 95 per cent of complaints concerned incidents in rural areas.” 40. In its general overview, the Truth Commission “registered more than 22,000 complaints of serious acts of violence that occurred in El Salvador (...). Over 60 per cent of all complaints concerned extrajudicial executions, over 25 per cent concerned enforced disappearances, and over 20 per cent included complaints of torture. Those giving testimony attributed almost 85 per cent of cases to agents of the State, paramilitary groups allied to them, and the death squads. Armed forces personnel were accused in almost 60 per cent of complaints, members of the security forces in approximately 25 per cent 16 (...). The complaints registered accused FMLN in approximately 5 per cent of cases.” 41. With specific reference to the year 1981, in which the events of this case occurred, the Truth Commission found that “individual extrajudicial executions continued and mass executions in rural 17 areas increased (...). The increasing flow of resources was intended to train, modernize and expand the structure of a number of elements of the armed forces. The Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalions, specialized in anti-guerrilla warfare”, began to be created, including the Atlacatl Battalion, created in 18 March 1981. 42. With respect to this Battalion, various reports relate that most of its thousand members were trained at military bases in the United States in a first effort to reorganize the Salvadoran armed 19 forces to carry out a counterinsurgency war at all levels. On this Battalion’s links to the mass murders at the time of the armed conflict, the statements of its commander in chief, Colonel Domingo Monterrosa referring to a massacre in Chalatenango may be cited: “It is natural that in these subversive redoubts the armed men are not there alone... that is to say, they need their ‘masses,’ people, women, old people, or children... they are all mixed up with the subversives themselves ... so in the clashes and in the distinct 14 Report of the UN Truth Commission, op. cit.. Cited in IACHR: report 37/00, case 11,481, op. cit. 15 Report of the UN Truth Commission, op. cit. 16 Report of the UN Truth Commission, op. cit., page 41. The Truth Commission notes that these complaints do not cover every act of violence, as it was able to receive only a significant sample in its three months of gathering testimony. 17 Report of the UN Truth Commission, op. cit. 18 Report of the UN Truth Commission, op. cit., page 29. 19 . IDHUCA, Consideraciones sobre la impunidad a propósito de la masacre del El Mozote. Number 451 of November 7, 1990; and Americas Watch. The Massacre at El Mozote: The Need to Remember. March 4, 1992. (Annexed to the petitioners’ communication of April 24, 1992)