Unfinished Sentences
Unfinished Sentences is an initiative of the UWCHR which aims to document and share stories of survivors of crimes against humanity committed in the context of El Salvador’s armed conflict, and to support Salvadoran efforts for truth and accountability.
Unfinished Sentences is an initiative of the UWCHR which aims to document and share stories of survivors of crimes against humanity committed in the context of El Salvador’s armed conflict, and to support Salvadoran efforts for truth and accountability.
In July 2016, El Salvador’s amnesty law, which blocked prosecutions of wartime crimes against humanity for more than two decades, was declared unconstitutional. Now is a pivotal moment for a concerted push for truth, justice, and reparations in El Salvador, involving strategic coordination between Salvadoran victims’ organizations and international actors.
The UWCHR’s Unfinished Sentences project supports this movement by producing research reports on under-documented human rights violations, creating online outreach and educational materials, and accompanying Salvadoran and U.S. partners in transnational advocacy campaigns.
Since 2013, milestones of Unfinished Sentences project include:
- Publication of the Yellow Book, a secret document from the civil war era cataloging the Salvadoran military’s “enemies,” many of whom were killed or disappeared. The document is available in full online, alongside analysis by Kate Doyle of the National Security Archive and Patrick Ball of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.
- Creation of the Unfinished Sentences Testimony Archive, a free online collection of oral histories by survivors of the Salvadoran armed conflict from the community of Arcatao, Chalatenango.
- Publication of a collection of 200+ U.S. government documents, declassified via the Freedom of Information Act, relating to human rights violations during the armed conflict in El Salvador.
- Documentation of the 1981 Santa Cruz massacre in a research report and 17-minute video, “God Alone was with Us“.
- Publication of multimedia storytelling project, “He Couldn’t Close His Eyes to Injustice: The Life and Legacy of Efraín Arévalo Ibarra,” told in collaboration with the Arévalo Ibarra family.
Partners
Asociación Pro-Búsqueda
San Salvador, El Salvador
Human Rights Data Analysis Group
San Francisco, CA
IDHUCA
San Salvador, El Salvador
Our Parents' Bones
Berkeley, California
