In her testimony at “The State of Exception in El Salvador: Taking Stock” hearing before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, WOLA’s Director for Central America, Ana María Méndez Dardón, addressed the state of the judicial system in El Salvador and the lack of justice for victims of human rights violations. She discussed the erosion of the system of checks and balances under President Nayib Bukele, and the threat to democracy posed by the concentration of power and control over the judiciary and legislative branch held by President Bukele and his party, Nuevas Ideas.
Furthermore, she highlighted the lack of justice in historic cases of human rights violations, such as the the 1989 murder of 6 Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter, and the El Mozote case, in which over a thousand people, including hundreds of children, were executed by Salvadoran troops in December 1981. She called on the U.S. government to work to continue to declassify U.S. documents from the Salvadoran civil war, such as U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence records. She also urged the U.S. government to place greater emphasis on strengthening democratic institutions in its bilateral relationship with El Salvador, and call on the Bukele government to make available public information about the state of human rights, women’s rights, citizen security measures and the reality of gang-related violence.
To read the complete oral testimony, click here.
To watch the full hearing, click here.
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Publish date : 2024-12-11 03:42:00
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