UN Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador, Report, 15 March 1993, in UN Secretary General, Letter to the President of the Security Council (S/25500), Annex. (PDF link)
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III. CHRONOLOGY OF THE VIOLENCE
In determining the methodology that would govern the conduct of the investigations essential to the preparation of this report, the Commission took a number of factors into account.
The text of its mandate was a binding condition and a starting-point for the Commission, in that it stated the Parties’ intentions in this connection. The preamble to the mandate indicates that the Commission was established because the Parties recognized "the need to clear up without delay those exceptionally important acts of violence whose characteristics and impact ... urgently require that the complete truth be made known ...".
In establishing the procedure that the Commission was to follow in performing its functions, paragraph 7 of the mandate provided that the Commission would conduct its activities "on a confidential basis". Paragraph 5 established that "The Commission shall not function in the manner of a judicial body". Paragraph 8 (a) stipulated that "The Commission shall be completely free to use whatever sources of information it deems useful and reliable", while paragraph 8 (b) gave the Commission the power to "Interview, freely and in private, any individuals, groups or members of organizations or institutions". Lastly, in the fourth preambular paragraph of the mandate, the Parties agreed that the task entrusted to the Commission should be fulfilled "through a procedure which is both reliable and expeditious and may yield results in the short term, without prejudice to the obligations incumbent on the Salvadorian courts to solve such cases and impose the appropriate penalties on the culprits".
In analysing these provisions of the mandate, the Commission thought it important that the Parties had emphasized that "the Commission shall not function in the manner of a judicial body". In other words, not only did the Parties not establish a court or tribunal, but they made it very clear that the Commission should not function as if it were a judicial body. They wanted to make sure that the Commission was able to act on a confidential basis and receive information from any sources, public or private, that it deemed useful and reliable. It was given these powers so that it could conduct an investigation procedure that was both expeditious and, in its view, reliable in order to "clear up without delay those exceptionally important acts of violence whose characteristics and impact ... urgently require that the complete truth be made known ...".
So it is clear that the Parties opted for an investigation procedure that, within the short period of time allotted, would be best fitted to establishing the truth about acts of violence falling within the Commission’s sphere of competence, without requiring the Commission to observe the procedures and rules that normally govern the activities of any judicial or quasi-judicial body. Any judicial function that had to be performed would be reserved expressly for the courts of El Salvador. For the Parties, the paramount concern was to find out the truth without delay.
Another important overall consideration which influenced the Commission’s methodology was the reality of the situation in El Salvador today. Not only was this reflected in the Commission’s mandate, but it also had a profound impact on the Commission’s investigation process and modus operandi. It forced the Commission to gather its most valuable information in exchange for assurances of confidentiality.
It was not just that the Parties authorized the Commission, in the peace agreements, to act on a confidential basis and to receive information in private; the reality of the situation in El Salvador forced it to do so for two reasons: first, to protect the lives of witnesses and, secondly, to obtain information from witnesses who, because of the climate of terror in which they continue to live, would not have provided such information if the Commission had not guaranteed them absolute confidentiality.
The situation in El Salvador is such that the population at large continues to believe that many military and police officers in active service or in retirement, Government officials, judges, members of FMLN and people who at one time or another were connected with the death squads are in a position to cause serious physical and material injury to any person or institution that shows a readiness to testify about acts of violence committed between 1980 and 1991. The Commission believes that this suspicion is not unreasonable, given El Salvador’s recent history and the power still wielded or, in many cases, wielded until recently by people whose direct involvement in serious acts of violence or in covering up such acts is well known but who have not been required to account for their actions or omissions.
Even though the fears expressed by some potential witnesses may have been exaggerated, the fact is that in their minds the danger is real. As a result, they were not prepared to testify unless they were guaranteed absolute secrecy. It should be pointed out that many witnesses refused to give information to other investigatory bodies in the past precisely because they were afraid that their identity would be divulged.
The Commission can itself testify to the extreme fear of reprisals frequently expressed, both verbally and through their behaviour, by many of the witnesses it interviewed. It is also important to emphasize that the Commission was not in a position to offer any significant protection to witnesses apart from this guarantee of confidentiality. Unlike the national courts, for instance, the Commission did not have the authority to order precautionary measures; neither, of course, did it have police powers. Besides, it is the perception of the public at large that the Salvadorian judicial system is unable to offer the necessary guarantees.
The Commission also received reports from some Governments and international bodies, on condition that the source was not revealed. This information was subjected to the same test of reliability as the other information received and was used principally to confirm or verify personal testimony and to guide the Commission in its search for other areas of investigation.
From the outset, the Commission was aware that accusations made and evidence received in secret run a far greater risk of being considered less trustworthy than those which are subjected to the normal judicial tests for determining the truth and to other related requirements of due process of law, including the right of the accused to confront and examine witnesses brought against him. Accordingly, the Commission felt that it had a special obligation to take all possible steps to ensure the reliability of the evidence used to arrive at a finding. In cases where it had to identify specific individuals as having committed, ordered or tolerated specific acts of violence, it applied a stricter test of reliability.
The Commission decided that, in each of the cases described in this report, it would specify the degree of certainty on which its ultimate finding was based. The different degrees of certainty were as follows:
1. Overwhelming evidence - conclusive or highly convincing evidence to support the Commission’s finding;
2. Substantial evidence - very solid evidence to support the Commission’s finding;
3. Sufficient evidence - more evidence to support the Commission’s finding than to contradict it.
The Commission decided not to arrive at any specific finding on cases or situations, or any aspect thereof, in which there was less than "sufficient" evidence to support such a finding.
In order to guarantee the reliability of the evidence it gathered, the Commission insisted on verifying, substantiating and reviewing all statements as to facts, checking them against a large number of sources whose veracity had already been established. It was decided that no single source or witness would be considered sufficiently reliable to establish the truth on any issue of fact needed for the Commission to arrive at a finding. It was also decided that secondary sources, for instance, reports from national or international governmental or private bodies and assertions by people without first-hand knowledge of the facts they reported, did not on their own constitute a sufficient basis for arriving at findings. However, these secondary sources were used, along with circumstantial evidence, to verify findings based on primary sources.
It could be argued that, since the Commission’s investigation methodology does not meet the normal requirements of due process, the report should not name the people whom the Commission considers to be implicated in specific acts of violence. The Commission believes that it had no alternative but to do so.
In the peace agreements, the Parties made it quite clear that it was necessary that the "complete truth be made known", and that was why the Commission was established. Now, the whole truth cannot be told without naming names. After all, the Commission was not asked to write an academic report on El Salvador, it was asked to investigate and describe exceptionally important acts of violence and to recommend measures to prevent the repetition of such acts. This task cannot be performed in the abstract, suppressing information (for instance, the names of persons responsible for such acts) where there is reliable testimony available, especially when the persons identified occupy senior positions and perform official functions directly related to violations or the cover-up of violations. Not to name names would be to reinforce the very impunity to which the Parties instructed the Commission to put an end.
In weighing aspects related to the need to protect the lives of witnesses against the interests of people who might be adversely affected in some way by the publication of their names in the report, the Commission also took into consideration the fact that the report is not a judicial or quasijudicial determination as to the rights or obligations of certain individuals under the law. As a result, the Commission is not, in theory, subject to the requirements of due process which normally apply, in proceedings which produce these consequences.
Furthermore, the Commission’s application of strict criteria to determine the degree of reliability of the evidence in situations where people have been identified by name, and the fact that it named names only when it was absolutely convinced by the evidence, were additional factors which influenced the Commission when it came to take a decision on this analysis. As a result, the Commission is satisfied that the criteria of impartiality and reliability which it applied throughout the process were fully compatible with the functions entrusted to it and with the interests it had to balance.
The considerations which prompted the Commission to receive confidential information without revealing the source also forced it to omit references from both the body and the footnotes of the reports on individual cases, with the exception of references to certain public, official sources. As a result, reference is made to official trial proceedings and other similar sources, but not to testimony or other information gathered by the Commission. The Commission took this approach in order to reduce the likelihood that those responsible for the acts of violence described herein, or their defenders, would be able to identify the confidential sources of information used by the Commission. In some of the reports on individual cases, the Commission also omitted details that might reveal the identity of certain witnesses.