Amnesty International Report 1996 - El Salvador

Members of non-governmental organizations were subjected to death threats and harassment. There was an unsuccessful attempt to reinstate the death penalty. El Salvador ratified the (First) Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in June. The work of observers from the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL), whose task was to monitor compliance with the 1992 peace accords, continued but was scaled down during the year. The Mission's mandate expired on 30 April; it was replaced by the Misión de las Naciones Unidas para El Salvador (MINUSAL), UN Mission for El Salvador. The mandate of MINUSAL, which had only a small number of officials, was due to end on 31 October but was then extended to May 1996. There was no further progress in implementing the recommendations of the Comisión de la Verdad, Truth Commission, which examined human rights abuses committed during the armed conflict from 1980 to 1992 (see previous Amnesty International Reports). Key areas not implemented included further judicial reforms, reparation for victims of past human rights violations and accession to a number of human rights instruments. Members of non-governmental organizations were subjected to harassment and threats. The director and staff of the Fundación Nacional de Prevención, Educación y Control del Paciente vih-sida (FUNDASIDA), National Foundation for HIV-AIDS Prevention, Education and Control, an AIDS organization in the capital, San Salvador, received a series of death threats. In June, three armed men raided the FUNDASIDA offices, threatened to kill its director, Dr Francisco Carillo, and took away equipment and confidential files. The raid was followed by numerous threatening telephone calls. In July members of Entre Amigos, Among Friends, a gay men's group, received telephone death threats from an anti-homosexual "death squad" calling itself La Sombra Negra, the Black Shadow. In April members of the ruling Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), Nationalist Republican Alliance, decided to propose a constitutional reform to reinstate the death penalty for offences including murder, kidnapping and rape. The death penalty was abolished in El Salvador in 1983 for all but exceptional crimes. Under the 1983 Constitution it can only be imposed for certain offences in the Military Code, such as treason, committed during times of international war. However, the proposal had not been put to the Legislative Assembly by the end of the year. Amnesty International appealed to the government of President Armando Calderón Sol to take measures to ensure the safety of members of non-governmental organizations subjected to intimidation, to make clear its condemnation of such threats and to bring those responsible to justice. Amnesty International also asked the authorities what steps had been taken to implement the recommendations on the eradication of "death squads" issued by the UN-sponsored Grupo Conjunto para la Investigación de Grupos Armados Ilegales con Motivación Política, Joint Group for the Investigation of Politically Motivated Illegal Armed Groups (see Amnesty International Report 1995). Amnesty International expressed deep concern about the proposed constitutional reform to reintroduce the death penalty. It pointed out that if it were approved, El Salvador would be infringing its international commitments as a party to the American Convention on Human Rights which states that "The death penalty shall not be reestablished in states that have abolished it".