Diputado Sigfrido Reyes (Deputy Speaker , Legislative Assembly of El Salvador) intervenes on behalf of PGA sharing our position on the agenda items at the forthcoming Review Conference of the Rome Statute

On January 27, 2010, Diputado Sigfrido Reyes (El Salvador, Deputy Speaker) intervened at the ICC special session session sharing with OAS member States the position of PGA with respect to the various items in the agenda for the Review Conference of the Rome Statute set to take place in Kampala on in May-June 2010. On this, Diputado Reyes conveyed the committment of PGA to work with both civil society and states parties to promote an agreement to make operative the jurisdiction of the ICC over the crime of aggression, as well as to expand the protection of the ICC over potential victims of henious crimes by ensuring the definite deletion of Article 124 from the Rome Statute and the expansion of the use of weapons that constitute war crimes.

Diputado Reyes also shared with member states the steps taken at the parliamentary level and with a pluripartisan inclusive approach, in line with the position of the FMLN party and the Government of Mauricio Funes to ensure that El Salvador accedes promptly to the Rome Statute. The fight against impunity is important because it ensures that crimes committed in the past do not recur to doom the people of El Salvador. Diputado Reyes shared in this context news of an important development, the Request for Forgiveness for human rights abuses committed by the State, as expressed by President Funes on 16 January 2010, on the occasion of the anniversary of the peace agreements that ended a bloody civil war in 1992.

The mission to Washington on this occasion allowed for Dip. Reyes and Sen. Andreychuk (Canada) to hold consultations at the US Congress aimed at re-engaging parliamentarians with a principled and unfettered support to the ICC.