Jesuit case 1989-2016: a journey through the search for justice and truth

Abstract

From the very day of the UCA massacre, there have been calls for justice and truth. In response, a sham trial was staged against some of the perpetrators of the murders, and the prosecution of others identified by the Truth Commission was blocked by institutionalizing a policy of “forgiveness and forgetting” and legalizing a broad, absolute, and unconditional amnesty. Later, it seemed possible to prosecute the masterminds, following the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the rulings of the Constitutional Chamber; however, the Salvadoran judicial system argued that the passage of time prevented this. Consequently, the victims’ families sought universal jurisdiction through the courts of their homeland, Spain—the country to which five of the martyred Jesuits belonged. The path to justice and truth remains open: universal justice seeks to prosecute those allegedly responsible. However, for this to happen, the National Civil Police and the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador must, at this time, cooperate with this justice system by capturing and extraditing the former military personnel repeatedly accused of having participated in the massacre.