El Salvador Massacre Apology on 20-Year Peace Mark El Salvador's president has formally apologized for the 1981 El Mozote massacre and acknowledged the government's responsibility for killing 936 civilians in a counterinsurgency operation. President Mauricio Funes says the army committed "the biggest massacre of civilians in the contemporary history of Latin America." Funes was elected on the ticket of the former leftist rebels. He was a journalist at the time and did not take part in the country's 12-year civil war. Funes spoke Monday on the 20th anniversary of the 1992 peace accords that ended the conflict. He asked forgiveness on behalf of the government from the relatives of the estimated 75,000 people killed and 12,000 disappeared in the conflict.