[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19853-19854]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE EL MOZOTE MASSACRE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, those of us who remember the massacre at El 
Mozote, El Salvador, are reminded that last week was the 36th 
anniversary of that horrific tragedy.
  For those who are not aware, on December 11, 1981, Salvadoran 
soldiers, including an elite battalion trained and equipped by the 
United States, systematically murdered more than 900 innocent men, 
women, and children. The Salvadoran military high command falsely 
denied the crimes had occurred, and their denials were echoed by the 
U.S. Embassy and the State Department. For more than 35 years, the 
perpetrators of the massacre avoided justice, due to the cover-up and 
an amnesty law passed in 1993, but in 2016, the Salvadoran Supreme 
Court overturned that law and the case was reopened. Let us hope that 
those who ordered, participated in, and covered up those crimes against 
humanity will finally receive the punishment they deserve.
  On December 2, good friend Congressman Jim McGovern traveled to El 
Salvador. More than any other Member of Congress, Jim has been a 
tireless advocate for human rights and justice in that country. After 
returning to Washington, on December 11, Jim spoke about the El Mozote 
massacre in the House of Representatives. I ask unanimous consent that 
his remarks be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         [Five-Minute Special Order, Monday, December 11, 2017]

               36th Anniversary of the El Mozote Massacre

                      (By James P. McGovern (MA))

       Mr. Speaker, thirty-six years ago, nearly one thousand men, 
     women and children were murdered by Salvadoran soldiers in El 
     Mozote, El Salvador. It's considered one of the worst 
     massacres in modern Latin American history.
       On December 2nd, I traveled to El Mozote with a delegation 
     led by the Washington Office on Latin America. Four hours 
     after leaving San Salvador, we arrived at El Mozote in the 
     northern region of Morazan, near the border of Honduras.
       Three decades ago, El Mozote included about 20 houses on 
     open ground around a square. Facing the square was a church 
     and, behind it, a small building known as ``the convent,'' 
     used by the priest to change into his vestments when 
     celebrating Mass. Nearby was a small school house.
       Our delegation sat in the town square with survivors and 
     victims of the massacre. We listened to their stories, shared 
     prayers for their loss and suffering, toured the grounds 
     where this atrocity took place, and visited memorials the 
     community built to commemorate and preserve this tragic 
     history. We also heard from lawyers with Cristosal, a U.S.-
     based NGO providing legal aid to the association of victims 
     and survivors.
       On December 10, 1981, the Salvadoran army brigade based in 
     San Miguel and the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite infantry unit 
     based in San Salvador, arrived in El Mozote. Over the next 
     two days, these troops methodically and viciously murdered 
     the town's residents and those of nearby villages.
       On the morning of December 11th, troops assembled the 
     people in the town square. They separated the men from the 
     women and children and locked them in separate groups in the 
     church, the convent, and various houses. According to eye-
     witness accounts, they then interrogated, tortured, and 
     executed the men at several different sites.
       Around noon, they began taking the women and girls in 
     groups, separating them from their children and machine-
     gunning them after raping them. Many families were ordered to 
     remain in their homes while soldiers set fire to the houses.
       Over 140 of the children, some mere infants, were jammed 
     into ``the convent'' next to the church. There, soldiers 
     blocked the doors, aimed guns through the windows, and fired 
     into the mass of children, murdering them all in cold blood. 
     They then threw an incendiary bomb into the building, 
     collapsing the roof and adobe walls.
       I walked with members of the community to the site where 
     the children were murdered. A garden cultivated in their 
     memory blooms on the site where they perished. A mural on the 
     side of the church facing the garden depicts tiny angels 
     ascending to heaven.
       Beneath the mural are plaques with the names and ages of 
     the children killed so brutally. They range from zero to 
     sixteen years. Walking on such hallowed ground, I was deeply 
     moved and outraged by the atrocity that took place there.
       In October 1990, the Salvadoran courts opened an 
     investigation into the El Mozote case, and in January 1992, 
     the civil war ended with peace accords signed between the 
     Salvadoran government and FMLN guerrillas. In November 1992, 
     the U.N. Truth Commission on El Salvador supervised 
     exhumations of El Mozote remains by Argentine forensics 
     experts, confirming that the stories told by survivors were 
     indeed true. Then, everything was cut short when the 
     Salvadoran congress passed a sweeping amnesty law in 1993.
       However, last year, in July 2016, the Salvadoran Supreme 
     Court overturned the amnesty law as unconstitutional. And in 
     October 2016, a judge reopened the El Mozote case and began 
     taking testimony, which continues today.
       There are many reasons why we in Congress should be engaged 
     in the search for justice in the El Mozote case.
       First, in the post-war period, the U.S. has supported a 
     strong and independent judiciary in El Salvador, capable of 
     prosecuting corruption and human rights abuses. El Mozote is 
     viewed as an exemplar case on whether this is possible to 
     achieve.
       Second, in the 1980s, the United States armed, trained and 
     equipped the Salvadoran armed forces, in particular, the 
     Army. At El Mozote, U.S. guns and bullets were used to 
     massacre infants, children, women and men.
       Third, the U.S. established and trained the Atlacatl 
     Battalion. Ostensibly an elite rapid reaction counter-
     insurgency force, it was a major actor in the mass murder at 
     El Mozote; nine years later, the unit also murdered six 
     Jesuit priests and two women at the University of Central 
     America in San Salvador.
       Finally, at the time of the massacre, the Salvadoran High 
     Command denied that it had happened. The U.S. embassy and 
     State Department echoed those denials and denigrated the 
     Washington Post and New York Times reporters who traveled to 
     El Mozote and published detailed stories about the massacre.
       Mr. Speaker, the U.S. should support the Salvadoran judge 
     presiding over the El Mozote case and the Attorney General's 
     Office, including releasing all information in our military 
     and intelligence files relevant to that period of the civil 
     war. It would be a

[[Page 19854]]

     significant contribution to ending the culture of impunity in 
     El Salvador.

                          ____________________