Civil War Massacres Aftermath Alfredo Félix Cristiani Burkard (born 22 November 1947)[1] is a Salvadoran politician who was President of El Salvador from 1989 to 1994.

[2] He was educated at the 'Escuela Americana' (American School) in San Salvador and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he graduated with a degree in Business Administration.

He returned to El Salvador to work for the family business, which included pharmaceuticals, coffee, cotton and until July 2008 the Semillas Cristiani Burkard (SCB) the Central American Monsanto Company representative, leading corn seed company focused on hybrid corn production.

[citation needed] He remained generally outside politics until the beginning of the 1980s when the armed conflict in El Salvador reached a critical point.

As insurrection became more widespread, he became involved with the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which had been founded by School of the Americas trained military intelligence officer Roberto D'Aubuisson.

The guest list included figures such as Sir Alfred Sherman (policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher), Professor Antony Flew, Zigmunt Szkopiak, Denis Walker and Dr Harvey Ward, all of whom were active anti-communists.

[4] This visit, along with others that included Spain, Italy, United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and all Central American countries, was part of a diplomatic effort carried out by Cristiani and his delegates in order to find and secure international support for the peace negotiation efforts that were being carried out by his government.

[citation needed] In 2008, two human rights organizations, The Center for Justice and Accountability and The Spanish Association for Human Rights, filed lawsuit in a Spanish court charging Cristiani and fourteen members of the Salvadoran military with direct responsibility for the 1989 murders of Jesuits in El Salvador.

[9] During the course of the judicial process, recognized Salvadoran personalities travelled to Spain to intercede for president Cristiani and remove him from the list of the accused.

Despite the efforts, an unknown witness in the case confessed his participation in this massacre, implicating the High Command of the Salvadoran Military as well as former Cristiani.

Judge Velasco's resolution on the demand, initially included investigations on the 14 implicated members of the Salvadoran Military, excluding the former Salvadoran president, but including the Military High Command, represented by General (then Colonel,) René Emilio Ponce (then the chief of defence of El Salvador).

[18] In June 2023, Cristiani's properties were raided and seized by the office of the attorney general as a part of a "war on corruption".