neither completes nor substitutes for the State’s obligation to establish the truth and to ensure the judicial determination of individual or State responsibilities also by judicial proceedings.496 317. The Court reiterates that investigation is a peremptory obligation of the State, and also the importance that such actions be conducted in conformity with international standards. Therefore, the Court considers that the State must adopt clear and specific strategies to overcome impunity in the prosecution of the masterminds and perpetrators of the massacres of El Mozote and nearby places committed during the Salvadoran armed conflict. 318. First, since the Law of General Amnesty for the Consolidation of Peace lacks effectiveness according to the considerations made in paragraphs 283 to 296, the State must ensure that this law never again represents an obstacle to the investigation of the events that are the subject of this case or to the identification, prosecution and eventual punishment of those responsible for these events and other similar grave human rights violations that occurred during the armed conflict in El Salvador. This obligation is binding on all the State’s powers and organs as a whole, which are obliged to exercise ex officio the control of conformity between the domestic norms and the American Convention; evidently, within the framework of their respective competences and the corresponding procedural regulations.497 319. Based on the foregoing and also on its case law, 498 this Court establishes that the State must, within a reasonable time, initiate, promote, re-open, direct, continue and conclude, as appropriate, with the greatest diligence, the pertinent investigations and proceedings in order to establish the truth of the events and to determine the criminal responsibilities that may exist, and remove all the obstacles de facto and de jure that maintain total impunity in this case, taking into account that around 31 years have passed since the said massacres took place. In this regard, the State must investigate effectively all the facts of the massacres including, in addition to the extrajudicial executions, other possible serious violations of personal integrity and, in particular, the acts of torture, and the rape of the women, as well as the enforced displacements. To this end, the State must: a) Abstain from resorting to mechanisms such as amnesty in favor of the perpetrators, as well as any other similar provision, prescription, non-retroactivity of the criminal law, res judicata, ne bis in idem, or any other mechanism that exempts responsibility, to waive this obligation; b) Take into account the systematic pattern of human rights violations in the context of the Salvadoran armed conflict, as well as the large-scale military operations within which the events of this case took place, so that the pertinent investigations and proceedings are conducted bearing in mind the complexity of these events and the context in which they occurred, avoiding omission in the collection of evidence in following logical lines of investigation based on a correct assessment of the systematic patterns that gave rise to the events investigated; c) Identify and individualize all the masterminds and perpetrators of the massacres in this case. Due diligence in the investigation signifies that all the State authorities are obliged to collaborate in the collection of evidence; therefore they must provide the judge, prosecutor or other judicial authority with all the information required and abstain from actions that entail an obstruction to the progress of the investigation; 496 Cf. Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, para. 150, and Case of the Río Negro Massacres v. Guatemala, para. 259. 497 Cf. Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, para. 124, and Case of Cabrera García and Montiel Flores v. Mexico. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 26, 2010. Series C No. 220, para. 225. 498 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Merits, para. 174, and Case of the Río Negro Massacres v. Guatemala, para. 257. 104