[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 151 (Friday, August 27, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E929-E930]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DISAPPEARED OF EL SALVADOR

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, August 27, 2021

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, August 30th has been designated by the 
United Nations as The International Day of the Victims of Enforced 
Disappearance. I rise today to talk about the history of forced 
disappearance and its impact on individuals, families; communities, and 
all of society in one country, El Salvador.
  Madam Speaker, I fell in love with El Salvador and the Salvadoran 
people during very dark days. As a young aide to our former colleague, 
Congressman Joe Moakley of Boston, my first trip to El Salvador was in 
1983, and I have returned more than 30 times.
  During the civil war and afterwards, I have had the privilege to meet 
with so many Salvadoran families throughout the country. I've often met 
with nuns and local priests, listened

[[Page E930]]

to them describe the daily lives of their communities. They would 
introduce me to the people of their parish who had lost loved ones. The 
disappeared have always been with us. For decades they have haunted El 
Salvador. You can hear their voices in every corner of the country.
  Yet in all these meetings with individuals and families who have 
suffered such great loss--and who still suffer--what has struck me most 
is their generosity of spirit, their courage and resilience, their 
ability to embrace mercy and forgiveness, seek reconciliation and 
demand truth.
  Next year, El Salvador will celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the 
Peace Accords--a very important milestone in El Salvador's history--and 
reason for celebration, reflection and recommitment. But as we all 
know, peace does not come with the signing of accords. The work of 
building peace, of creating peace, of strengthening democratic 
institutions, of promoting reconciliation, truth and justice--all of 
that hard work begins the day the peace accords are signed.
  Much has been accomplished by the Salvadoran people over these past 
three decades--but so very much is left to do. Among the work left 
unfinished is an accounting for the disappeared.
  The past is never simply the past--it lives in the present, it echoes 
in the daily lives of thousands of Salvadorans whose family members, 
loved ones, friends; neighbors and colleagues disappeared during the 
civil war. There is nothing abstract about the suffering endured by 
these sons and daughters, these mothers and fathers, husbands and 
wives, brothers and sisters. They are haunted by memories and questions 
about their relatives: Where are they? What happened to them? Where are 
their remains? Will I ever be able to bury them with dignity and love? 
Will I ever know the truth? For thousands of Salvadorans and 
Salvadoran-Americans, the effects of the war are still felt in very 
real ways.
  It is no secret that the United States bears part of the 
responsibility to help find answers to these questions. Billions of 
dollars in U.S. military and economic aid was poured into the 
Salvadoran war. And during the twelve years of the war, the U.S. 
government tolerated terrible human rights abuses.
  We share accountability for its consequences, and we share the 
responsibility to help bind up the wounds that remain so long after the 
accords were signed. This is why I and so many of my colleagues in the 
U.S. Congress were so moved when we were approached in 2016 by American 
citizens who are the sons and daughters of Salvadorans who disappeared 
during the war. They asked us to help them in their quest to find out 
the truth about what happened to their parents.
  Working together, we asked the U.S. and Salvadoran governments to 
release all remaining documents that U.S. agencies have kept classified 
on the Salvadoran civil war. On the U.S. side, the good news is that 
most U.S. documents were declassified and released during the 
presidency of Bill Clinton and have long been available to human rights 
researchers. But some documents still remain classified, mainly those 
of U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. There's still more that 
could be released, and I and many of my congressional colleagues 
continue to press for further declassification.
  In 2010, El Salvador established a National Commission for the Search 
of Children Disappeared during the Armed Conflict--or the CNB. The CNB 
seeks to investigate and determine the whereabouts and situation for 
disappeared children, including finding children alive and promoting 
their reunion with their families of origin. The CNB also formally 
institutionalized decades of work to find missing children and help 
reunite them with their Salvadoran families and relatives carried out 
by my dear friend Father Jon Cortina at the University of Central 
America (UCA) Jose Simeon Canas.
  Equally as important, in 2017, the Salvadoran government established 
the National Commission for the Search of Disappeared Adults in the 
Context of the Armed Conflict in El Salvador, known as Conabusqueda. 
Its mandate is to investigate, locate, exhume, identify, and return the 
bodily remains of persons disappeared at the hands of the State during 
the armed conflict. I am grateful that President Bukele has continued 
support for the work of each of these two critical commissions.
  Forced disappearance is a crime of long-lasting pain and harm. Not 
only for the victim who so abruptly disappears, deprived of liberty and 
often made to suffer torture, beatings, rape, and other brutality 
before being killed and disposed of--but also because it affects the 
lives of their relatives and communities. Family members and those 
close to the victim always harbor the hope that someday they will meet 
the disappeared person again. They keep questions about what happened 
to them. Often faced by the denial of official authorities and society, 
the need to discover the truth and find closure means that the search 
for the missing is passed from grandparents to parents, to their 
children and grandchildren for generations until the events surrounding 
a disappearance are clarified.
  Last year, in August 2020, Conabusqueda released a seminal study on 
the disappeared of El Salvador: Forced disappearance in the context of 
the armed conflict in El Salvador: a first approach to the phenomenon. 
The report described how forced disappearance was a repressive practice 
used systematically by the State from the 1970s onward. The report also 
made clear is that forced disappearance is not something that happened 
several decades in the past, it is a painful reality of the present 
that continues to affect thousands of families throughout El Salvador.
  Many people continue to disappear as part of the violence ripping 
apart El Salvador's communities and families. According to the January 
2021 Human Rights Watch Worldwide Report covering the events of 2020, 
from January 2014 to October 2019, ``the Salvadoran police registered 
over 11,900 disappearance victims, including more than 400 children.'' 
This exceeds the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 disappeared during the civil 
war (1979-1992). Today's disappearances are committed by a range of 
actors, including gangs and the police. Few cases are investigated. As 
in the past, they remain in impunity.
  How can we hope to stand up for these latest victims and their 
families if we fail to confront and resolve the issue of the past 
disappeared? The denial of past disappearance, the lack of cooperation 
by authorities to clarify the circumstances surrounding the forced 
disappearances of thousands of victims in the past, and the failure to 
pursue legal action perpetuates the crime and the impunity that has 
always surrounded it.
  In both El Salvador and the United States, we must do more to support 
efforts to advance the search for the disappeared and provide thousands 
of families the closure and healing they have been so long denied. It 
is the right thing to do; it is the moral thing to do; and it is the 
humane thing to do.

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