Connivance of authorities in human rights abuses

The most frequently cited example is that of the connivance of religious, military and government leaders and others in authority who assisted Nazi war criminals to escape justice. In a more passive mode, the USA is believed to have deliberately concealed its knowledge of human rights crimes in El Salvador during the 12-year civil war, including massacres of civilians at El Mozote and the murder of six Jesuit priests. The deception apparently began in 1980, under President Carter, continued through the terms of the Reagan and Bush administration, and involved alleged official attempts to dupe Congress and also discourage investigation by news officials.

In the period 1992-94 the executive branch of the government of the USA deliberately avoided any explicit acknowledgement that actions of the Serbs against the Bosnian Muslims was a form of genocide, despite increasing internal pressure to do so. Despite a UN resolution recognizing that ethnic cleansing was a form of genocide, public statements only went as far as recognizing that they "bordered on genocide" or were "tantamount to genocide". It was accepted that State Department officials were indulging in equivocation in their response to the question of whether such acts were in fact genocide or of allocating resources to make that determination, especially since any such determination would then increase pressure for higher levels of response, with the political risks that that would entail.