29.
However, during the processing of this request for interpretation, the Commission
has argued that, in one of the lists presented as annexes to its brief submitting the case, it
had included “victims from the localities of Tierra Colorada, Arambala, El Pinalito and
Guacamaya,” and that this annex was part of the factual framework of the case. In this
regard, it is important to note that, even though the brief submitting the case included three
annexes to the Merits Report, and that two of them mention the said places in a column
headed “location,” the Commission never referred to the circumstances in which the events
that took place in those places occurred or explained the relationship between this
information contained in the lists with the facts and violations declared in its Merits Report
during the proceedings on merits before the Court. The argument that these localities are
nearby or are part of the places in which the massacres were perpetrated has only just been
presented by the Commission in the context of the request for interpretation.
30.
Thus, the Court considered to be victims those persons identified and individualized
by the Commission and/or by the representatives in their lists who had suffered any human
rights violation in the context of the massacres in the village of El Mozote, the canton of La
Joya, the villages of Ranchería, Los Toriles and Jocote Amarillo, the canton of Cerro Pando,
and a cave on Cerro Ortiz, provided that the Court had the necessary evidence to verify the
identity of each of these persons. Based on the political-administrative division of the
territory of the Republic of El Salvador, for the places indicated by the Commission as
cantons (La Joya and Cerro Pando), the Court took into account the whole territorial
extension, so that it included all the villages and hamlets that belonged to this area as part
of the factual framework, in keeping with the evidence provided. To the contrary, with
regard to those places specifically indicated in the Merits Report as villages (El Mozote,
Ranchería, Los Toriles and Jocote Amarillo), the Court only considered the individual village
and, if appropriate, the adjoining rural area. Thus, the Court notes that neither the
representatives nor the Commission provided a satisfactory explanation for the difference in
the designation in the Merits Report of the places where the massacres occurred; in other
words, the reasons why, in the case of some localities, only the village was included, and in
others mention was made of the canton, in keeping with the political-administrative division
of the territory of El Salvador. This is why the Court determined that the persons included
on the lists who had suffered a possible violation of their rights in “the departmental capital
of Arambala, the canton of Tierra Colorada, the village of El Pinalito and the village of La
Guacamaya” would not be considered by the Court as victims, unless the evidence revealed
that these persons were in one of the places that are the object of this case at the time of
the facts.
31.
This Court underscores that, when it delimited, by person and by territory, the scope
of the status as victims in paragraph 56 of the Judgment and explicitly excluded persons
whose rights had been affected in localities that did not fall within the places specified in the
Merits Report, it did so in order to be able to take a decision in this specific case that would
provide legal certainty to the parties and would make it possible to determine the
beneficiaries of the reparations ordered. Then, in the chapter of the Judgment on
reparations, the Court acknowledged the constraints arising from the complexity of the
case, and on this basis left open the possibility of including as victims other persons who
were identified and individualized as such under the “Single List of Victims and Next of Kin
of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations during the Massacre of El Mozote.” 20 Thus, the
Court’s decision, far from being contradictory or incompatible with the application of Article
35(2) of the Rules of Procedure (supra paras. 11 and 22), is perfectly congruent, because it
provides legal certainty, inasmuch as it establishes clearly the victims who have been
20
Cf. Case of the Massacres of El Mozote and nearby places v. El Salvador, paras. 310 and 311.
10