57 The next of kin of the victims and society as a whole must be informed of everything that happened 310 in relation to such violations . The right to the truth is subsumed in the right of the victim or his next of kin to obtain clarification of the facts relating to the violations and the corresponding responsibilities from the competent State organs, through the investigation and prosecution 311 established in Articles 8, 25 and 1.1 of the Convention 300. The Commission will now analyze the response of the Salvadoran State to the massacres in El Mozote and vicinity, in light of the foregoing standards, and in the following order: (i) the obligation to open an investigation ex officio; (ii) the judicial process initiated on October 30, 1990; (iii) the dismissal of proceedings under the General Amnesty Law for Consolidation of the Peace; and (iv) actions subsequent to the dismissal. 1. The obligation to open an investigation ex officio 301. The Commission accepts it as proven that initial reports of the massacres were dismissed by the military as terrorist propaganda. The Salvadoran authorities did not take the initiative to open an investigation into the massacres, with the result that from December 13, 1981 until October 30, 1990, when one of the survivors filed a complaint, no official action was taken to verify the facts. 302. Thus, the investigations into the massacres began nine years after the event, and were launched not at the initiative of the Salvadoran State but as the result of a complaint submitted by Pedro Chicas Romero, a survivor from the canton of La Joya. This failing cannot be laid to any lack of public knowledge of the events, for as early as 1982 the international media were carrying accounts of the massacres and, moreover, those massacres were systematically planned and carried out by the State in a context of known excesses in the fight against subversion during the period referred to by the Truth Commission “institutionalization of violence”. 303. The Commission considers that the State’s failure to investigate the massacres ex officio constitutes in itself a violation of the rights enshrined in articles 8.1 and 25.1 of the American Convention in relation to the obligations established in article 1.1 thereof, to the detriment of the relatives of the 312 victims. 2. The judicial proceedings initiated on October 30, 1990 304. The evidence shows that, as a result of the complaint filed by Pedro Chicas Romero on October 30, 1990, a judicial investigation was opened by the Second Court of First Instance of San Francisco Gotera. In the course of that investigation, most of the court’s time was devoted to hearing statements from survivors or relatives, and to the initial exhumations conducted in 1992. From a reading of the complete file, the Commission has identified a series of omissions and irregularities that impeded clarification of the events, the identification of those responsible, and the possibilities of returning the victims’ remains to the next of kin after a serious effort at identification. 305. The Commission notes, for example, that between October 30, 1990 and August 21, 1992 statements were received from 16 persons, all of them relatives or survivors. The Second Court did not summon any governmental authority who might have been able to provide information on the military operation or respond to the facts related by the witnesses. 306. The only efforts to obtain official information on the operations and their perpetrators were represented by the subpoenas sent to the President of the Republic as Commander-in-Chief of the 310 I-A Court. Carpio Nicolle et al. vs. Guatemala. Judgment of 22 November 2004. Series C No. 117; Para. 128; Plan de Sánchez Massacre vs. Guatemala. Judgment of 19 November 2004. Series C No. 116, Para. 97; and Tibi vs. Ecuador. Judgment of 7 September 2004. Series C No. 114, Para. 257. 311 312 I-A Court, Bámaca Velásquez. Judgment of 25 November 2000. Series C No. 70. Para, 201 In a similar vein, see IACHR. Petition presented to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Rainer Ibsen Cardenas and José Luis Ibsen Peña case, May 12, 2009, paragraph 275.