This essay will examine some new developments in the case of one of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Salvadoran security forces during the twelve year long civil war: the massacre on the campus of the José Simeón Cañas University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador on November 16, 1989. This is an immensely important issue because it could begin to balance the dialectic between impunity and accountability to the side of accountability. For the first time, a high-ranking army officer may soon be tried for this crime.

The United States on Wednesday deported Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, El Salvador’s former defense minister, accused of involvement in torture and killings 30 years ago during the Central American country’s bloody civil war, U.S. officials said.

WASHINGTON — Inocente Orlando Montano Morales went from elite military training in Georgia and a high-ranking position in El Salvador to a lowly prison cell in North Carolina. Now the Justice Department wants to pack off the 72-year-old Salvadoran former army colonel to face murder charges in Spain for his alleged role in a 1989 massacre in El Salvador. The new charges reopen a notorious chapter in Central American history, and they come just days before Montano Morales is set to be freed from the privately run Winton, N.C., prison that’s currently his home.

Former defense minister of El Salvador, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, leaves federal court in Palm Beach, Fla. An immigration appeals court earlier this week ruled that a former defense minister of El Salvador can be deported back to the Central American country due to his participation in or concealment of torture and murder by his troops during the bloody civil war in the 1980s.

The Criminal Chambers of the Spanish National Court decided unanimously Monday that Spain has jurisdiction to investigate the November 16, 1989, massacre of the Jesuits at the Central American University and their two employees as a crime against humanity after a reversal of legislation that had prevented Spanish jurisdiction over international crimes.

The first female Attorney General of Guatemala is taking on some of the country’s most powerful kingpins, past dictators and local crime bosses. She’s lowered the Central American nation’s high crime rate and brought justice for victims of the 36 year old civil war. Dr. Paz y Paz will be receiving the 2013 Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award at CJA’s 15th Anniversary Dinner.

For the first time in history a former head of state, Guatemala’s Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, is on trial for genocide in the country where the crime occurred. Two hundred thousand died over 36 years of armed conflict in the Central American nation, mostly Maya indigenous noncombatants at government hands. The unfolding judicial process has global repercussions, strengthening possibilities for prosecution of other prominent human rights cases.

A former Central American general took the stand in his own defense at a deportation hearing on Tuesday, saying he did not commit or order any acts of torture or extrajudicial killings during El Salvador’s brutal civil war.

CJA mourns the passing of Father Dean Brackley who left this world on Sunday, October 16th surrounded by his Central American family in El Salvador after a struggle with pancreatic cancer. Fr. Dean arrived to El Salvador when he volunteered to join the staff at the Central American University the year after the assassination of his fellow Jesuit priests in order to continue their important work. He spent more than 20 years serving and supporting the poor in El Salvador. Father Dean also believed in the importance of accountability for the massacre and worked closely with CJA on the development of the Jesuits Massacre Case in Spain.