Former home of Jose Maria Marquez where exhumation revealed the remains of 15 victims of the 1981 Mozote massacre, El Mozote, El Salvador 2016
I was wondering around for 2 hours, I barely remember, when I came back it wasn’t really easy, coming back to where you were born and grew and not finding your family, and trying to make a new life again wasn’t easy.
-Orlando Marquez, from an Interview with Susan Meiselas, El Mozote, El Salvador 2016
The burst covered us with leaves, I was holding up one kid and the other one was grabbing my skirt because he was 5 years old. I was raising my hand so they could see that we didn’t have anything and my husband who was wearing a hat raised his hand with the hat to show them that we didn’t have any weapons. But bursts continued, so I told my husband I would not walk anymore, they are going to kill us anyway.
I want to keep working really hard until the last exhumations are done, for the good of the families that are waiting.
-Dorila Marquez, from an interview with Susan Meiselas, El Mozote, El Slavador 2016
Newly renovated monument commemorating the 1981 Mozote massacre. Flowers mark the grave of Rufina Amaya, whose testimony was instrumental in the investigation by the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, El Mozote, El Salvador 2016
In October 2012, the Inter-American Court found El Salvador guilty of committing the massacre, covering it up, and failing to investigate after the war. The Court ordered the government to re-open the case, punish the perpetrators, and compensate victims’ relatives. The ruling has brought tokens of government aid to El Mozote—instruments for the cultural center, plaques for the memorial—but more importantly, it has united the splintered community of family members.
This July, in an unexpected twist, El Salvador’s Supreme Court declared the amnesty law unconstitutional. In September, a judge re-opened the archived case against the massacre’s culprits. Government investigators have spent the past month exhuming graves—among them, the shallow hole in Cerro Pando where Ramírez buried his five relatives—though political resistance and legal obstacles abound.
This year, for the first time since 1993, a Salvadoran judge opened a case against 13 military officers accused of participating in the massacre. But the judge, Jorge Guzmán, decided not to order the officers’ arrest, raising questions about his intent to pursue unbiased justice. Guzmán claims he lacks sufficient evidence, but over the past month, investigators have exhumed the remains of at least 43 individuals in seven separate graves. Their reports will be added to the case file, alongside evidence of 36 skeletons exhumed in April 2015, 143 skulls excavated in 1992, and the remains of several hundred people unearthed between 1993 and 2011.
- Sarah Esther Maslin, "Remembering El Mozote, the Worst Massacre in Modern Latin American History," The Nation, Dec 2016
Detail of first stage of exhumation of Orelia Ramirez and her daughter Susanna, along with her 3 children, Cerro Pando, Morazon, El Salvador 2016
On November 30, Trinidad Ramírez led a group of prosecutors, police detectives, and forensic anthropologists to the sapote tree. Barely taller than him in 1981, it now towered over the other trees on the hilltop, providing shade as the investigators picked up their shovels and broke ground. Ramírez stood at the edge of the worksite beside his sister-in-law, Paula Portillo, and his brother-in-law, Antonio Castro, the father of the two children killed here 35 years ago.
Ramírez, now 74 years old, paced back and forth. He took his straw hat off and put it back on. “I don’t know if they’ll still be here after all these years,” he said.
The anthropologists sifted through layer after layer of dirt. Then: a hint of blue. A tiny sandal. “My daughter’s,” Castro said. Over the next week, one by one, five skeletons emerged, intertwined with the roots of the sapote.
- Sarah Esther Maslin, "Remembering El Mozote, the Worst Massacre in Modern Latin American History," The Nation, December 2016
Watching the EAAF Argentine forensics team exhume the remains of Orelia Ramirez and her daughter Susanna, along with her 3 children, is their extended family; Paola Portillo de Ramirez, Orelia?s daughter-in-law; Raquel, Paola?s daughter; Chaya, a neighbor; and Lydia, Paola?s daughter-in-law. Cerro Pando, Morazon. El Salvador. 2016.
Watching the EAAF Argentine forensics team exhume the remains of Orelia Ramirez and her daughter Susanna, along with her 3 children, is their extended family; Paola Portillo de Ramirez, Orelia?s daughter-in-law; Raquel, Paola?s daughter; Chaya, a neighbor; and Lydia, Paola?s daughter-in-law. Cerro Pando, Morazon. El Salvador. 2016.
The first stage is the pre-mortem stage, when we collect all the information. Then we develop the next stage of field study or archeology with the exhumations and the gathering of the remains associated with biological and non-biological evidence.
After we finish with the field research stage we start the lab stage. This stage is long because of the fragility of the remains, we have to manipulate them very carefully. Once we start taking samples is for the genetic process — this is also a very complicated process because these are very old remains and getting genetical information sometimes is possible and sometimes not — this also takes a lot of time.
One problem is at that time the registration of the people in the town halls wasn't very detailed, and it was worst with the kids. The Fiscalia responded very humanely when we told them what the problem was with the kids who we don't have any information about. And their response from the legal side was that if the community becomes responsible, we can give the remains to them so they have a dignified burial even though there is no way to know who they might really be.
This means not denying that someone was there, even though we don't know who this person was. They existed, lived and were there and are going to be treated with dignity and be buried with the rest who died back then.
- Saul Quijada, from an interview with Susan Meiselas, December 2016
Recently exhumed remains from the 1981 Mozote massacre at the Medicina Legal Masferrer laboratory, San Salvador, El Salvador 2016
Recently exhumed remains from the 1981 Mozote massacre at the Medicina Legal Masferrer laboratory, San Salvador, El Salvador 2016
Medicina Legal Masferrer laboratory, San Salvador, El Salvador 2016
The Interamerican-Court established the right to compensation for survivors. It could be the son, or in case of his death with so much time having past, the grandson of the victim has the right to inherit the compensation. But then the process is difficult because they have to accept inheritance and present the documentation that proves the family's link with the victim.
The problem is how to prove the validity of inheritance, for example, the documentation. Sometimes there is no death or birth certificate, and not having access to that makes it more difficult to prove the link with the survivor.
DNA has been a problem because when the first exhumations were done in ‘93 they gathered bones, but they didn't do DNA tests.
- Ovidio Maricio Gonzalez of Tutela Legal, December 2016
Maria Julia had the vision to leave enough strong forensic and scientific evidence, that is why we believe that some justice will happen in the future because in none of the cases of the Truth Commission and other serious violations was there justice. There was no one arrested or taken to trial in these cases, and we know there are thousands of them.
- Alejandro Lening Díaz Gómez, Assocation of Human Rights: Tutela Legal, El Mozote, El Salvador 2016
San Salvador, El Salvador 2016