5. On November 3, 1994, the IACHR again asked the petitioners to comment on the presentations made by the State. On January 10, 1995, the Commission again requested that information from the petitioners, warning them that failure to answer would cause the application to be archived. As the parties did not reply, on May 14, 1995, the Commission advised them of its decision to archive the case without prejudice to such comments as the petitioners might eventually file. In the seven years that followed, they did not reactivate the application and it was only ten years later that they requested the reopening of the case file, explaining their reasons. 6. On April 5, 2000, the petitioners presented the Center for International Justice and Law (CEJIL) [Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional] as co-petitioners in the case. On October 22, 2002, the petitioners submitted additional information on the events and on the exhaustion of internal remedies. On March 3, 2005, the petitioners requested the reopening of the case. On March 9, 2005, during its 122nd Regular Session, the Commission decided to reopen the case and resume hearing it. On March 10, 2005, the IACHR notified the parties of this decision and conveyed to the State the relevant portions of the additional information submitted by the petitioners, giving the State two months to file comments. On May 10, 2005, the State filed its comments on the admissibility of the petition. On June 2, 2005, the Commission conveyed to the petitioners the information filed by the State. On September 22, 2005, the Commission received from the petitioners their answer to the State's comments, which were relayed to the State by a note dated September 8, 2005. On October 12, 2005, the State asked for a 30-day extension to file its comments. On November 15, 2005, the IACHR received the State's answer to the petitioners' position. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. The petitioners 7. The petitioners explained that the events known as the "Massacre of El Mozote" refer to the massacres committed in the course of an anti-guerrilla military operation called "Rescue Operation," which was carried out by joint units of the Atlacatl Battalion, the Third Infantry Brigade and the Commando Instruction Center of San Francisco Gotera. In this series of massacres at least 765 persons died (mostly children) and an unknown number were displaced and became refugees in Honduras. 8. The petition points out that the purpose of "Operation Rescue" was to eliminate the entire civilian population, including women and children, in the cantons of La Joya and Cerro Pando, as well as in the hamlets of El Mozote, Jocote Amarillo, Ranchería and Los Toriles, all of them located in the municipality of Meanguera, in the neighboring Department of Morazán. The petitioners say that the operation was conducted in a coordinated and systematic manner between December 8 and 16, 1981, with the massacres taking place on the 11th (in El Mozote and La Joya), the 12th (in Ranchería and Los Toriles) and the 13th (in Cerro Pando and Jocote Amarillo). 9. According to the petitioners, troops from the Atlacatl Battalion entered the hamlet of El Mozote on December 10, 1981. At dawn the next morning, the villagers were gathered in the hamlet square and later divided into two groups, one for the men, the other for women and children. The soldiers locked up the men and teenagers in the church and the women, girls and younger children in a house facing the square. 10. About 8 a.m., the petitioners say, mass executions of the adult men and teenagers began. The victims were taken in groups of approximately ten persons to areas adjacent to the square, tortured and subsequently riddled with bullets from heavy-caliber guns. Around noon, several soldiers went into the house where the women and small children were. They selected a group of younger women and took them away to places near the hamlet, especially to the "El Chiringo" and "La Cruz" mountains, where they raped them. Then, all women were taken out in groups and shot to death in a house at one end of the square, where their piled-up bodies were left. The petitioners point out that there was only one survivor from this massacre, Mrs. 2