El Salvador's civil war (1981-1992)
- LatamSinFiltro
- Jan 29
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 2
The Salvadoran civil war was particularly long and bloody.
Since the 1930s, El Salvador had been ruled by the (right-wing) army, and the liberalization of its economy had been very limited. The military government was repressive and violent. In the 1970s, the widening of socio-economic inequalities and the urgent need to reform the agricultural sector through better land redistribution gave rise to new demands from citizens who began to protest.
In the 1972 presidential elections, the army staged a coup d'état to prevent the victory of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) represented by candidate José Napoleón Duarte. As of this year, all presidential and legislative elections held had been fraudulent, intensifying social polarization and legitimizing violence as a means of political participation. Moreover, the military government implemented a policy of repression against opponents of the regime and against the Church.
General Carlos Humberto Romero "won" the 1977 elections. Faced with the demonstrations that took place the same year, the government reacted again with a very violent repression. Political violence had been part of daily life in El Salvador for a few years now.
On October 15, 1979, "reformist" army officers staged a coup against the Romero government and created the first government junta. However, the junta failed to gain full support from the army and its failure to implement land reform resulted in its dismantling just 75 days after its creation. Thus, the political violence continued.
U.S. Involvement in the Conflict
In the context of the Cold War, Latin America represented a strategic area for the United States, which considered that the region should be under the control of the superpower in order to prevent Latin American regimes from tipping over to communism. As part of its foreign policy, the United States supported many right-wing dictatorships in Latin America from the 1970s onwards, including El Salvador’s.
Indeed, the United States aimed to make El Salvador a model of democracy led by a center-right government. Thus, in December 1970, the United States supported the formation of a politico-military alliance with the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) through a second government junta led by José Napoleón Duarte (PDC). This second junta was particularly violent: thousands of citizens were killed.
On March 24, 1980, the archbishop of San Salvador, the respected Oscar Romero, who had repeatedly denounced the government's violence and U.S. support for the dictatorship, was assassinated by the government junta. On the one hand, on 10 October 1980, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) was created, bringing together four guerrilla movements and the Salvadoran Communist Party. On the other hand, in 1981, the conservative party ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) was created by Roberto d'Aubuisson Arrieta. It brought together a group of landowners and entrepreneurs who sought to give voice to their conservative ideals against the FMLN and the military junta. It should be highlighted that d'Aubuisson was part of the junta's death squads before founding the ARENA party. [1]
Faced with government repression, on January 10, 1981, the FMLN began a guerrilla war against the government that lasted from 1981 to 1992. From 1981 onwards, violence in El Salvador escalated drastically. Most experts consider that the civil war really began at the time of the first offensive of the FMLN against the government in 1981 but other consider that it began in 1979.
In 1982, a constituent assembly[2] was organized. However, the results did not meet the US expectations: the PDC only managed to win 24 seats out of the 60 in the assembly against 36 seats for the right-wing opposition, including 10 for the far-right (ARENA). The new constitution was drafted in 1983.
While the Carter administration in the United States (1977-1981) had fostered an alliance between the military and the right in an attempt to end violence in the country, the Reagan administration (1981-1989) aimed to eliminate the FMLN and make El Salvador a capitalist democracy led by the PDC. For years, the Reagan administration funded the country’s military and its repression. Several U.S. military advisers have been sent to support the dictatorship.
President Reagan pressured the Salvadoran government to bring forward the next presidential elections in 1984 and support the PDC. It is estimated that the US government has sent around US$10 billion to support the PDC campaign and candidate Duarte.[3] The victory of the PDC led to an increase in US financial and military aid. From 1984 to 1989, Duarte undertook several negotiation processes with the FMLN in vain.
In 1986, the UN Truth Commission concluded in a 165-page report that most of the violence against civilians had been committed by state agents, allied paramilitary groups and death squads. Other acts of violence included torture, sexual and gender-based violence and mutilation. The report also indicates that the United States supervised these various acts of torture. Despite the publication of this document and the many criticisms the US received, President Reagan continued to support the dictatorship. Internal pressure eventually forced Regan to halve U.S. military and financial support for the Salvadoran dictatorship.
In the presidential elections of March 1989, the PDC lost to the ARENA and Alfredo Cristiani became the new president of El Salvador. Reagan’s dream of seeing El Salvador becoming a center-right democracy collapsed. Meanwhile, civil war continued to ravage the country. On November 11, 1989, the FMLN launched its largest offensive in 10 years of war against the ARENA government. The army took advantage of the situation and launched a murderous crackdown.
The Path to Peace
With the coming to power of George H.W. Bush in the United States (1989-1993) in January 1990, the involvement of the United States in the conflict gradually diminished. On 4 April 1990, an agreement was signed in Geneva providing for the participation of the UN in the resolution of the conflict as a mediator. From the 1990s onwards, the peace process with the participation of the UN progressed until it led to the Chapultepec Accords, signed on 16 January 1992 in Mexico between the government of El Salvador and the FMLN. A 9-month ceasefire was implemented from 1 February 1992. It was never interrupted and the FMLN eventually became a political party at the end of 1992.
In just over 10 years, the civil war in El Salvador has left 75,000 dead. Of the 5.5 million Salvadorians, 1 million have had to flee the country which represents 18% of the population.
After the Civil War
The text of the Chapultepec Accords does not change the country's economic regime and does not provide for a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. The post-war period was marked by the continuity of clashes between the FMLN and ARENA, but from then on it was done through democracy and votes. The content of the Chapultepec Accords focuses on the future and the reintegration of the guerrillas and the army of the junta into Salvadoran society and the demobilization of the armed forces.
The "Land Transfer Program" ("Programa de Transferencia de Tierras" in Spanish) was created mandating a specialized institution, the Land Bank, to finance the purchase of agricultural land. This program was intended to respond to one of the oldest demands of the leftist guerrillas, El Salvador being a country, like many Latin American countries, where most of the land belongs to a small group of wealthy landowners (latifundistas).
In general, the process of reintegrating former guerrillas and combatants into society has been a failure.
While many victims of the civil war had to emigrate to the United States, after the war, many others had to emigrate due to the difficult economic situation in El Salvador.
[1] A death squad refers to paramilitary groups organized with the aim of ending the lives of others. In general, they are organized by dictatorial or authoritarian regimes. Death squads carry out targeted assassinations.
[2] A constituent assembly is "a collegial body whose function is to reform or draft the Constitution. It is generally defined as "the people's assembly, representatives of the people, who are responsible for enacting the fundamental law of organization of a state or amending the existing law." In this perspective, the Constituent Assembly is constituted as a participatory and democratic mechanism for the total or partial reform of the Constitution" Inter-American Court of Human Rights. "Constituent Assembly". Accessed January 9, 2025. https://www.corteidh.or.cr/sitios/tesauro/tr556.htm.
[3] Olivier Dabène, L'Amérique latine à l'époque contemporaine, 9ème (Armand Colin, s. f.).
Bibliography:
Buergenthal, Thomas. «La Comisión de Verdad para El Salvador», s. f.
Dabène, Olivier. L’Amérique latine à l’époque contemporaine. 9ème. Armand Colin, s. f.
«El Salvador – CJA». Accessed on December, 30 2024. https://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/.
Garibay, David. «Quand la paix se construit sur l’oubli des démobilisés : anciens guérilleros et anciens soldats dans la société salvadorienne de l’après-guerre». Revue internationale des sciences sociales 189, n.o 3 (2006): 501-12. https://doi.org/10.3917/riss.189.0501.
«Historia - ARENA», Accessed on March, 25 2023. https://arena.org.sv/historia/.
Muñoz-Ledo, Rocío. «¿Quién es Nayib Bukele? El recorrido del controvertido presidente que busca un segundo mandato en El Salvador». CNN, Accessed on January, 30 2024. https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2024/01/29/quien-es-nayib-bukele-controvertido-presidente-segundo-mandato-salvador-orix.
«Salvador | Histoire du pays | Perspective Monde». Accessed on December, 30 2024. https://perspective.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/servlet/BMHistoriquePays/SLV.
Comments