They ask that the Salvadoran Army recognize authorship in the murder of Dutch journalists

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Relatives and humanitarian organizations asked this Thursday that the Salvadoran army recognize their participation in the murder of four journalists from Holland 40 years ago, during the Civil War (1980-1992), and that there be justice for the victims.

“I would like there to be an acknowledgment of this crime. I have the impression that political and military authorities still do not recognize this crime. It was no coincidence that they were killed, [they were] killed with intention,” Gert Kuipier, brother of Jan Kuipier, one of the deceased journalists, said at a press conference.

In 1993, a Truth Commission created by the UN determined that Dutch journalists were killed in an ambush.

According to the report of that commission, Colonel Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, decided to conduct the ambush, with the knowledge of other officers.

Kuipier assured that it is imperative to know the “truth” and that there is “justice”.

“I ask for recognition of what happened, recognition that an ambush has been made, that they have been killed with intention, I want this to be said, I am not talking about money, it is not the most important thing,” Kuiper said Wednesday during a conversation with AFP.

Sonja ter Laag, sister of another of the murdered journalists, Hans Lodewijk ter Laag, was present at the press conference with Kuipier, who spoke in Spanish.

His colleagues Koos Jacobus Andries Koster and Johannes Jan Willemsen were also killed in the 1982 crime.

The murder of the four Dutch journalists was never investigated in El Salvador. It was at the end of 2017 that the Prosecutor's Office opened a file after in July 2016 the Supreme Court of Justice repealed an Amnesty Law that had condoned the atrocities that occurred during the Civil War.

“We feel like there is little will to advance the investigations of this case,” said Oscar Pérez, director of the Comunicandos Foundation, which together with the Salvadoran Association for Human Rights, represent the victims' families in the judicial process.

The Salvadoran civil war ended on January 16, 1992 and left 75,000 dead and heavy losses to the national economy.

if/mav/dga