The Truth Commission for El Salvador (Spanish: Comisión de la Verdad para El Salvador) was a restorative justice truth commission approved by the United Nations to investigate the grave wrongdoings that occurred throughout the country's twelve year civil war. It is estimated that 1.4 percent of the Salvadoran population was killed during the war. The commission operated from July 1992 until March 1993, when its findings were published in the final report, From Madness to Hope. The eight-month period heard from over 2,000 witness testimonies and compiled information from an additional 20,000 witness statements.

In December 1991, preliminary talks began between the Salvadoran government and the leftist guerrilla militia, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), with UN secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar overseeing the negotiations. The agreement was finalized and signed by both parties on 16 January 1992, at what is known as the Chapultepec Peace Accords.

Pérez de Cuéllar appointed three lead commissioners, with the agreement of both the Salvadoran government and the FMLN, to head the investigation. Unlike preceding restorative justice initiatives, the Salvadoran commission was composed entirely of international commissioners.

Since its independence in 1838, El Salvador experienced years of political strife mostly due to the unequal spread of wealth throughout the country, a long-term effect of Spanish colonization. Despite this unrest however, political violence was relatively low until 1931 with the emergence of military dictatorship. In 1931, President Pío Romero Bosque permitted the country's first free elections. This however resulted in a military coup led by General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez later that year.

Hernández Martínez was elected to a four-year term as president in 1935 and re-elected in 1939 to a six-year term. In 1944 legislation was passed to allow Hernández Martínez to serve another five years yet this proved too much for the Salvadoran people. In May 1944 revolution broke out forcing him to resign from office and allowing the military to seize control of the government. General Andrés Menéndez assumed the presidency, however after only five months another revolt took place leaving Colonel Osmín Aguirre y Salinas in control, marking another period of unrest in the country.

This cycle of instability and military intervention plagued the country until 1961 when a junta of conservative military officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Julio Adalberto Rivera, executed a countercoup. The new administration demonstrated their progressive ideologies, introducing over 300 new laws within nine months. In 1962, Rivera resigned from the junta in order to seek the presidency. He was elected and served a full term which concluded in 1967. His successor General Fidel Sánchez Hernández was elected in March 1967, what was considered the most honest presidential election up to that point.

In January 1932, labour leader Farabundo Martí led a peasant revolt in the western countryside of El Salvador. The revolt was in opposition to the military dictatorship and what is known as the Fourteen Families, the oligarchy which controls a disproportionate share of wealth. The two-day revolt was opposed and suppressed by Hernández Martínez, who authorized the execution of thousands of Salvadorans, in what is commonly referred to as la matanza. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians were killed as a result of the peasant revolt, with a majority of the casualties being indigenous people.

Clashes between the right-wing military government and left-wing guerrillas continued virtually incessantly until the 1970s. Throughout the 1970s guerrillas faced constant antagonization from paramilitary death squads, leading to increasing violence. In October 1979 the government was ousted by the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) promising reform. By January 1980 right-wing extremists were threatening violence against the JRG, forcing all of its civilian members to resign.