A/HRC/45/45/Add.2 Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Fabián Salvioli, conducted an official visit to El Salvador from 23 April to 3 May 2019 at the invitation of the Government. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government for the invitation and for the extensive and efficient cooperation provided in the preparation of the visit and during the visit itself. He also extends his thanks to the regional and country offices of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the valuable support received. 2. The objective of the visit was to see and assess the measures adopted by the Salvadoran authorities in the fields of truth, justice, memory, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence to address the serious human rights and international humanitarian law violations committed during the armed conflict. The visit was aimed at developing a broad view of the various initiatives adopted, identifying best practices and determining problems and challenges. 3. The Special Rapporteur visited San Salvador, Morazán, La Paz and San Vicente. The visit provided an opportunity to meet with State officials, victims of the armed conflict and their relatives, representatives of various civil society organizations, academic and religious institutions, and representatives of United Nations agencies, international and regional organizations and the diplomatic community. 4. The Special Rapporteur also carried out field visits to memorial sites, such as the monument to memory and truth in Cuscatlán Park, the monument and memorial at the site of the El Mozote massacre, the memorial site of the El Calabozo massacre, the memorial to the San Francisco Angulo victims, the mausoleum for Monsignor Romero and sites holding historical archives of the armed conflict, such as the Human Rights Office at the Archbishop’s Office in San Salvador and the Monsignor Rivera y Damas Documentation Centre and Archives. 5. Over the course of the visit, the Special Rapporteur had the honour to meet with the President of the Republic, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, and the Vice-President elect of the Republic, Félix Ulloa, and with officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Supreme Court, the Legislative Assembly, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, the Office of the Human Rights Advocate, the Public Information Institute, the Secretariat for Transparency and Anti-Corruption, the Communications Secretariat of the Office of the President, the Technical and Planning Secretariat of the Office of the President, the Secretariat for Social Inclusion, the National Commission on the Search for Adults Who Disappeared in the Context of the Armed Conflict in El Salvador (the National Commission on the Search for Disappeared Adults), the Monitoring Commission for the El Mozote judgment and the National Reparations Programme for Victims. 6. The present report focuses on the situation as it was during the visit, although some specific references are made to some subsequent developments. The report was sent to the Government for comments on 21 April 2020 and was completed on 18 June 2020. I. General impressions 7. The Chapultepec Agreement ended the armed conflict that had ravaged the country from 1980 to 1992. Twenty-seven years later, the pain caused by the events of those years and their impact on the people of El Salvador are still evident. Although the Peace Agreement led to a series of positive institutional reforms that sought to steer a peace process underpinned by the rule of law, the effects of the failure to fully implement the transitional justice project outlined in the Agreement are now being felt. 8. At the start of the transition, the Government, with the support of the international community, made significant advances in terms of truth and guarantees of non-recurrence. In 1993, the Truth Commission, backed by the United Nations, published a report documenting the cases of more than 75,000 people who had been tortured, killed or disappeared during the armed conflict. The Commission recommended that those GE.20-09158 3