IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 19 
Acknowledging the role of the United States in El Salvador’s civil war and 
urging increased United States support for strengthening civil society, 
human rights protections, and for humanitarian and development assist-
ance for El Salvador. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 10, 2023 
Mr. KHANNA submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on the 
Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in 
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdic-
tion of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Acknowledging the role of the United States in El Salvador’s 
civil war and urging increased United States support 
for strengthening civil society, human rights protections, 
and for humanitarian and development assistance for 
El Salvador. 
Whereas January 16, 2023, marks the 31st anniversary of 
the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords which for-
mally ended the 12-year Salvadoran civil war and estab-
lished the United Nations Commission on the Truth for 
El Salvador (Truth Commission) that was charged with 
investigating and reporting to the Salvadoran people on 
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•HRES 19 IH 
human rights crimes committed by all sides during the 
course of the war; 
Whereas millions of Salvadorans in El Salvador and in dias-
pora communities throughout the United States and 
world continue to suffer from the multigenerational im-
pact of the rampant destruction, violence, displacement, 
family separation, and trauma that the war inflicted on 
the country; 
Whereas the United States played a significant role in the 
civil war through its extensive military support for the 
Salvadoran army, and bears a special moral responsibility 
to support the Salvadoran people in their continued ef-
forts to recover from the aftermath of the war; 
Whereas Salvadoran Army backed right-wing paramilitary 
death squads and left-wing guerrilla groups ravaged the 
country in a deadly spiral of political violence throughout 
the 1970s, with violence continuing to escalate after Gen-
eral Carlos Romero’s seized the Presidency in a fraudu-
lent election in 1977; 
Whereas General Romero was ousted by a civil-military junta 
in a coup in October 1979, plunging El Salvador into a 
full-blown civil war; 
Whereas, in March 1980, Archbishop of San Salvador and 
critic of the military regime Oscar Romero was assas-
sinated under the orders of the Salvadoran military, while 
presiding over mass, and the next week the Salvadoran 
military fired at the gathering of mourners grieving his 
death; 
Whereas, in December 1980, four American churchwomen 
were raped and murdered by members of the Salvadoran 
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•HRES 19 IH 
National Guard, leading to President Jimmy Carter’s de-
cision to temporarily cut off military aid to El Salvador; 
Whereas, in 1980, Salvadoran guerilla military groups formed 
the 
Farabundo 
Martı´
National 
Liberation 
Front 
(FMLN), and announced plans for an armed insurrec-
tion, and through a series of coordinated military attacks, 
the FMLN seized control of numerous regions of the 
country and launched a full-scale attack on the Salva-
doran Government on January 10, 1981; 
Whereas President Reagan responded to the FMLN’s attack 
by resuming and increasing military assistance to the 
Salvadoran Government, including funding for the forma-
tion of the Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalions, groups 
later identified by the UN-sponsored Truth Commission 
as ‘‘the primary agents of war crimes’’; 
Whereas, throughout the 1980s, the war between govern-
ment, guerilla, and paramilitary forces resulted in sys-
tematic human rights violations, subjecting civilians to 
torture, mutilation, forced disappearance, summary exe-
cutions, indiscriminate bombings, and mass rape, leading 
to the brutal killing of more than 75,000 Salvadorans; 
Whereas the Truth Commission found that more than 85 
percent of the killings, kidnappings, and torture had been 
perpetrated by government forces, which included 
paramilitaries, death squads, and army units trained by 
the United States; 
Whereas the largest single massacre of civilians in modern 
Latin-American history was carried out on December 11, 
1981, when the Salvadoran Army’s counterinsurgency 
battalion and other military forces occupied the village of 
El Mozote, and massacred approximately 1,000 civilians 
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•HRES 19 IH 
over a three-day period with guns, machetes, and bayo-
nets, with more than 45 percent of the dead under 12 
years old; 
Whereas the Atlacatl Battalion which executed the massacre 
at El Mozote had completed counterinsurgency training 
at the United States School of the Americas, now called 
the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Coopera-
tion (WHINSEC), and a United States military advisor 
was in Morazan with a commander of the Atlacatl Bat-
talion during the massacre; 
Whereas during the Reagan administration, the United 
States provided $1–2 million per day in economic aid to 
the Salvadoran Government and significant training and 
equipment to the Salvadoran military, while deploying 
United States military personnel to accompany Salva-
doran forces into battle and coordinate closely with the 
Salvadoran High Command on important strategic and 
tactical decisions; 
Whereas, on November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests and fac-
ulty members of the Universidad Centroamericana Jose´ 
Simeon Can˜as (UCA) located in San Salvador—Father 
Ignacio Ellacurı´a, Ignacio Martin-Baro´, Segundo Montes, 
Amando Lo´pez, Juan Ramo´n Moreno, and Joaquı´n 
Lo´pez y Lo´pez—and housekeeper Julia Elba Ramos and 
her daughter, Celina Mariceth Ramos, were executed by 
members of the Salvadoran Army; 
Whereas, on December 6, 1989, United States Speaker of the 
House of Representatives Thomas Foley appointed a Spe-
cial Task Force on El Salvador chaired by Representative 
John Joseph Moakley, to monitor the Salvadoran Govern-
ment’s investigation into the murders of the Jesuit 
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•HRES 19 IH 
priests and two women and to investigate related human 
rights violations in El Salvador; 
Whereas the Speaker’s Task Force on El Salvador concluded 
that members of the High Command of the Salvadoran 
military were responsible for ordering the murder of the 
Jesuits and two women and for obstructing the investiga-
tion into these crimes, findings that were later confirmed 
by the Truth Commission in 1993; 
Whereas the international and Salvadoran outcry in response 
to the deaths of the six Jesuits and two women and the 
subsequent investigations into this crime served as a cat-
alyst for the United Nations-mediated negotiations that 
led to the signing of the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords 
in Mexico City, marking a formal ending to the civil war; 
Whereas the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords created a 
foundational framework for a more open and democratic 
society in El Salvador, limiting the mandate of the 
Armed Forces to national defense, to help guard against 
their historic abuses in internal security matters; 
Whereas throughout the course of the war and for years fol-
lowing the formal ending of the civil war and the failure 
to implement the transitional justice reform called for by 
the Chapultepec Peace Accords, tens of thousands of Sal-
vadorans migrated to the United States and other coun-
tries around the world to find refuge due to dangerous 
living conditions in El Salvador; 
Whereas the United States lacked adequate services for the 
resettlement of Salvadoran refugees, exacerbating poverty 
and violence in Salvadoran refugee communities strug-
gling to build a new life in the United States and 
throughout Mexico and Central America; 
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•HRES 19 IH 
Whereas the United States deported thousands of Salva-
dorans to El Salvador without adequately supporting the 
Salvadoran authorities to establish the means and insti-
tutions in place to absorb this population while protecting 
the safety of Salvadorans; 
Whereas after deportation, some of these individuals orga-
nized into armed gangs that continue to threaten El Sal-
vador, Central America, and North America today; and 
Whereas the country of El Salvador continues to be ravaged 
by the aftermath of the civil war as political violence con-
tinues to threaten the daily lives of the Salvadoran peo-
ple: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) urges the President of the United States to 
formally acknowledge the involvement of the United 
States in the Salvadoran civil war, from 1979–1992; 
(2) condemns the atrocities committed by all 
sides of the war against civilians and supports tran-
sitional justice for the victims of atrocities to access 
truth, justice, and measures for accountability and 
redress; 
(3) urges the Administration to work through 
nongovernmental entities in El Salvador to increase 
investments in education, violence and gang preven-
tion and rehabilitation, human rights protection, job 
creation and job training, and strengthening civil so-
ciety and the judicial system; 
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•HRES 19 IH 
(4) applauds the Administration’s recent exten-
sion of Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans 
among other specified vulnerable populations until 
June 30, 2024, and urges the Administration to fur-
ther extend their Temporary Protected Status and 
for Congress to grant longer term protections and a 
pathway to citizenship for Temporary Protected Sta-
tus beneficiaries and comprehensive immigration re-
form for the millions of immigrant families rooted in 
communities across the United States; 
(5) recognizes the extraordinary contributions 
of the Salvadoran community in the United States; 
and 
(6) reaffirms the United States commitment to 
promoting democratic governance, peace, stability, 
human rights, and economic prosperity in El Sal-
vador, as well as the right of all people to enjoy the 
benefits of democratic institutions, the rule of law, 
and the freedom of religion, speech, press, and as-
sembly. 
Æ 
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