The United States, which contributed financially to the El Salvador civil war (1980-1992), announced on Saturday that it had handed over to the Central American country a declassified document on the massacre committed by the army in the village of El Mosote in year 1981.
“Yesterday (the day before yesterday, Friday), we submitted declassified US government documents requesting the court in charge of the investigation and we will deliver more in the future,” Brendan O’Brien said in Spanish. , US embassy diplomat in San Salvador who has been assigned to negotiate the issue.
The documents were served in a San Francisco Gotera court, where 17 soldiers are being prosecuted for their involvement in the massacre.
Nearly 1,000 people were slaughtered in El Mosote, in the northeastern part of the Morasan region, in 1981.
Between December 9 and 13, 1981, in the midst of the Civil War, American-trained Atlacatl soldiers – this unit has since been disbanded – set fire to houses and cold-blooded residents of El Mosote and nearby villages, suspected of collaborating with left-wing guerrillas. According to eyewitnesses, everyone – men, women and children – was slaughtered.
The United States recognizes the importance of continuing to “investigate to bring the truth to light”, to deliver “justice” and to continue to “support the survivors and relatives of the victims”, according to Mr O’Brien. , whose country provided financial support to the Salvadoran military junta’s armed forces.
The US government recently assisted in the “digitization” of cases related to the massacre investigation, the US diplomat added.
In 2017, the then government of El Salvador announced that at least 988 people, including 558 children, had been killed in 1981 in El Mosote and neighboring villages. Some 712 survivors fled the area.
In the El Salvador civil war, an estimated 75,000 people were killed, another 7,000 “disappeared” and countless thousands were displaced.
The military-political government of the time, led by the Christian Democrat Jose Napoleon Duarte – now extinct – categorically denied that the massacre had taken place. Like the government of then-President Ronald Reagan, which offered $ 1 million a day in aid to the military junta in El Salvador during the civil war.
“El Mosote is one of the darkest chapters in Salvador’s history: 40 years ago, more than 1,000 people, more than half of whom were children, were killed here in three days,” he said. Bryan. It is a “tragedy” which is “truly shocking”, he added.
He spoke in support of the US Alliance, but said that maintaining some independence was not the answer.
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