Salvadoran Civil War - wikipedia Salvadoran Civil War Salvadoran Civil War Part of the Central American crisis and Cold War A billboard serving as a reminder of one of many massacres that occurred during the Civil War in El Salvador. The Spanish inscription to the left reads in English : `` They tore out the flower, however the roots are sprouting among us. '' Date 15 October 1979 -- 16 January 1992 ( 12 years, 3 months and 1 day ) Location El Salvador Result Chapultepec Peace Accords of 1992 ; Restructuring of Salvadoran Armed Forces National Guard, National Police and Treasury Police are dissolved ( new civilian - overseen police created ) FMLN guerrilla are dissolved FMLN becomes a political party, its combatants are exonerated Belligerents Salvadoran military government Paramilitary death squads Foreign mercenaries ( unknown number, possibly hundreds ) Supported by United States Chile Argentina ( 1979 -- 1982 ) Israel Taiwan FMLN ( CRM ) FDR FPL RN ( FAPU ) PRTC ( MLP ) PCS Supported by Cuba Nicaragua ( 1979 -- 1990 ) Commanders and leaders Roberto D'Aubuisson Álvaro Magaña José Guillermo García José Napoleón Duarte Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova Alfredo Cristiani Schafik Handal Joaquín Villalobos Cayetano Carpio Salvador Sánchez Cerén Strength 9,850 ( 1980 ) 39,000 -- 51,150 ( 1985 ) 63,000 -- 70,000 Some 55,000 Regulars and 15,000 paramilitary ( 1992 ) 12,000 -- 15,000 ( 1984 ) 6,000 -- 15,000 ( 1985 ) ( probably 10,000 ) 8,000 -- 10,000 ( 1992 ) Casualties and losses 7,000 dead 20,000 dead 70,000 -- 80,000 ( total dead ) ; 8,000 disappeared ; 550,000 internally displaced and 500,000 refugees in other countries Salvadoran Civil War 1979 coup d'état Assassination of Óscar Romero El Mozote massacre El Calabozo massacre 1985 Zona Rosa attacks 1989 murders of Jesuits 1980 murders of U.S. missionaries Chapultepec Peace Accords Truth Commission for El Salvador The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military - led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( FMLN ), a coalition or `` umbrella organization '' of five left - wing guerrilla groups. A coup on October 15, 1979, led to the killings of anti-coup protesters by the government as well as anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas, and is widely seen as the tipping point toward civil war. By January 1980 the left - wing political organizations united to form the Coordinated Revolutionaries of the Masses ( CRM ). A few months later the left - wing armed groups united to form the Unified Revolutionary Directorate ( DRU ). It was renamed the FMLN following its merger with the Communist Party in October 1980. The full - fledged civil war lasted for more than 12 years and saw extreme violence from both sides. It also included the deliberate terrorizing and targeting of civilians by death squads, recruitment of child soldiers and other violations of human rights, mostly by the military. An unknown number of people disappeared during the conflict, and the UN reports that more than 75,000 were killed. The United States contributed to the conflict by providing large amounts of military aid to the government of El Salvador during the Carter and Reagan administrations. The Salvadoran government was considered `` friendly '' by the U.S. in the context of the Cold War. The United Nations has estimated that the FMLN guerrillas were responsible for 5 % of the murders of civilians during the civil war, while approximately 85 % of all killings of civilians were committed by the Salvadoran armed forces and death squads. In 1990 the UN began peace negotiations and on January 16, 1992, a final agreement, The Chapultepec Peace Accords, was signed by the combatants in Mexico City, formally ending the conflict. Contents 1 Background 2 Coup d'état, repression and insurrection : 1979 -- 81 3 `` Draining the Sea '' 4 Interim government and continued violence : 1982 -- 1984 5 Duarte presidency : 1984 -- 1989 6 Death squads and peace accords : 1990 -- 1992 7 Aftermath 7.1 Truth Commission 7.2 Military reform 7.3 National Civilian Police 8 Human Rights Commission of El Salvador 9 Post-war international litigation 10 See also 11 References 12 Further reading 12.1 Books 12.2 Journals / academic studies 13 External links Background Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, military president of El Salvador ( 1977 -- 1979 ). His presidency was characterized by increased civil unrest and government repression. El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America after Belize. As in many nations of Latin America, the history of El Salvador has been characterized by marked socioeconomic inequality. In the late 19th century coffee became a major cash crop for El Salvador, bringing in approximately 95 % of the country 's income. However, this income was restricted to only 2 % of the population, sharply dividing the people between a small but powerful elite and an impoverished majority. Socioeconomic tension grew through the 1920s and were compounded by a drop in coffee prices following the stock - market crash of 1929. In 1932 the Central American Socialist Party was formed and led an uprising of peasants and indigenous people against the government. The government brutally suppressed it in what became known as the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre or simply `` La Matanza '' ( the Massacre ), with the military murdering between 10,000 and 40,000 people. Farabundo Martí, the leader of the uprising, was eventually arrested and put to death, and the military subsequently took power over the country. `` La Matanza '' also served to reinforce feelings of strong distrust and animosity among the populace towards the government, the military and the landed elite. On July 14, 1969, an armed conflict erupted between El Salvador and Honduras over immigration disputes caused by Honduran land reform laws. The conflict ( known as the Football War ) lasted only four days, but had major long - term effects for Salvadoran society. Trade was disrupted between El Salvador and Honduras, causing tremendous economic damage to both nations. An estimated 300,000 Salvadorans were displaced due to battle, many of whom were exiled from Honduras ; in many cases, the Salvadoran government could not meet their needs. The Football War also strengthened the power of the military in El Salvador, leading to heightened corruption. In the years following the war, the government increased military spending and expanded purchases of weaponry from sources such as Israel, Brazil, West Germany and the United States in an attempt to modernize the Salvadoran army. The 1973 oil crisis led to rising food prices and decreased agricultural output. This worsened the existent socioeconomic inequality in the country, leading to increased unrest. In response, President Arturo Armando Molina enacted a series of land reform measures, calling for large landholdings to be redistributed among the peasant population. The reforms failed, thanks to opposition from the landed elite, reinforcing the widespread discontent with the government. On 20 February 1977 Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, representing the National Conciliation Party ( PCN ), defeated the National Opposing Union in elections marred by blatant fraud and voter intimidation by government - sponsored paramilitary forces such as the feared ORDEN, which intimidated voters with machetes. The period between the election and the formal inauguration of President Romero on 1 July 1977 was characterized by massive protests from the popular movement, which were met by state repression. On 28 February 1977 a crowd of political demonstrators gathered in downtown San Salvador to protest the electoral fraud. Security forces arrived on the scene and opened fire, resulting in a massacre as they indiscriminately killed demonstrators and bystanders alike. Estimates of the number of civilians killed range between 200 and 1,500. President Molina blamed the protests on `` foreign Communists '' and immediately exiled a number of top UNO party members from the country. Repression continued after the inauguration of President Romero, with his new government declaring a state - of - siege and suspending civil liberties. In the countryside the agrarian elite organized and funded paramilitary death squads, such as the infamous Regalado 's Armed Forces ( FAR ) led by Hector Regalado. While the death squads were initially autonomous from the Salvadoran military and composed of civilians ( the FAR, for example, had developed out of a Boy Scout troop ), they were soon taken over by El Salvador 's military intelligence service, ANSESAL, led by Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson, and became a crucial part of the state 's repressive apparatus, murdering thousands of union leaders, activists, students and teachers suspected of sympathizing with the left. The Socorro Jurídico Cristiano ( Christian Legal Assistance, a legal aid office within the archbishop 's office and El Salvador 's leading human rights group at the time ) documented the killings of 687 civilians by government forces in 1978. In 1979 the number of documented killings increased to 1,796. The repression prompted many in the Catholic Church to denounce the government, which responded by repressing the clergy. Historian M.A. Serpas posits the displacement and dispossession rates as a major factor. El Salvador is an agrarian society, with coffee fueling its economy, where `` 77 % of the arable land belonged to. 01 % of the population. Nearly 35 % of the civilians in El Salvador were disfranchised from land ownership either through historical injustices, war or economic downturns in the commodities market. During this time frame, the country also experienced a growing population amidst major disruption in agrarian commerce and trade. '' A threat to land change meant a challenge to a state where `` marriages intertwined, making the wealthiest coffee processors and exporters ( more so than the growers ) also those with the highest ties in the military. '' -- M.A. Serpas Coup d'état, repression and insurrection : 1979 -- 81 Part of a series on the History of El Salvador Spanish conquest ( 1524 - 1539 ) 1811 Independence Movement 1931 - 1979 Salvadoran Civil War ( 1979 - 1992 ) With tensions mounting and the country on the verge of an insurrection, the civil - military Revolutionary Government Junta ( JRG ) deposed President Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero in a coup on October 15, 1979. The US viewed the coup as a fortuitous event, given the recent overthrow of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, and embraced the junta with large offers of military and economic aid, including a six - man Mobile Training Team ( MTT ) in November 1979 and $5.7 million in military aid for FY 1980, in order to prevent at all costs `` another Nicaragua. '' Under pressure from the military, all three civilian members of the junta resigned on January 3, 1980, along with 10 of the 11 cabinet ministers. On January 22, 1980, the Salvadoran National Guard attacked a massive peaceful demonstration, killing up to 50 people and wounding hundreds more. On February 6 US ambassador Frank Devine informed the State Department that the extreme right was arming itself and preparing for a confrontation in which it clearly expected to ally itself with the military. Wishing to project a populist image, the JRG enacted a land reform program, which restricted landholdings to a 100 - hectare maximum, nationalised the banking, coffee and sugar industries, scheduled elections for February 1982 and disbanded the paramilitary private death squad ORDEN on November 6, 1979. However, the land reform program was received with hostility from El Salvador 's military and economic elites, which sought to sabotage the process as soon as it began. Upon learning of the government 's intent to distribute land to the peasants and organize cooperatives, wealthy Salvadoran landowners began killing their own livestock and moving valuable farming equipment across the border into Guatemala, where many Salvadoran elites owned additional land. In addition, most co-op leaders in the countryside were assassinated or `` disappeared '' soon after being elected and becoming visible to the authorities. The Socorro Jurídico documented a jump in documented government killings from 234 in February 1980 to 487 the following month. `` In one case that has received little attention, '' Human Rights Watch noted, `` US Embassy officials apparently collaborated with the death squad abduction of two law students in January 1980. National Guard troops arrested two youths, Francisco Ventura and José Humberto Mejía, following an anti-government demonstration. The National Guard received permission to bring the youths onto Embassy grounds. Shortly thereafter, a private car drove into the Embassy parking lot. Men in civilian dress put the students in the trunk of their car and drove away. Ventura and Mejía were never seen again. '' In February 1980 Archbishop Óscar Romero published an open letter to US President Jimmy Carter in which he pleaded with him to suspend the United States ' ongoing program of military aid to the Salvadoran regime. He advised Carter that `` Political power is in the hands of the armed forces. They know only how to repress the people and defend the interests of the Salvadoran oligarchy. '' Romero warned that US support would only `` sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights. '' On 24 March 1980, the Archbishop was assassinated while celebrating mass, the day after he called upon Salvadoran soldiers and security force members to not follow their orders to kill Salvadoran civilians. President Jimmy Carter stated this was a `` shocking and unconscionable act ''. At his funeral a week later, government - sponsored snipers in the National Palace and on the periphery of the Gerardo Barrios Plaza were responsible for the shooting of 42 mourners. On 7 May 1980, former Army Major Roberto D'Aubuisson was arrested with a group of civilians and soldiers at a farm. The raiders found documents connecting him and the civilians as organizers and financiers of the death squad who killed Archbishop Romero, and of plotting a coup d'état against the JRG. Their arrest provoked right - wing terrorist threats and institutional pressures forcing the JRG to release D'Aubuisson. In 1993, a U.N. investigation confirmed that D'Aubuisson ordered the assassination. A week after the arrest of Roberto D'Aubuisson, the National Guard and the newly reorganized paramilitary Organización Democrática Nacionalista ( ORDEN ), with the cooperation of the Military of Honduras, carried out a large massacre at the Sumpul River on May 14, 1980, in which an estimated 600 civilians were killed, mostly women and children. Escaping villagers were prevented from crossing the river by the Honduran armed forces, `` and then killed by Salvadoran troops who fired on them in cold blood. '' Over the course of 1980, the Salvadoran Army and three main security forces ( National Guard, National Police and Treasury Police ) were estimated to have killed 11,895 people, mostly peasants, trade unionists, teachers, students, journalists, human rights advocates, priests, and other prominent demographics among the popular movement. Human rights organizations judged the Salvadoran government to have among the worst human rights records in the hemisphere. `` The immediate goal of the Salvadoran army and security forces -- and of the United States in 1980, was to prevent a takeover by the leftist - led guerrillas and their allied political organizations. At this point in the Salvadoran conflict the latter were much more important than the former. The military resources of the rebels were extremely limited and their greatest strength, by far, lay not in force of arms but in their `` mass organizations '' made up of labor unions, student and peasant organizations that could be mobilized by the thousands in El Salvador 's major cities and could shut down the country through strikes. '' Critics of US military aid charged that `` it would legitimate what has become dictatorial violence and that political power in El Salvador lay with old - line military leaders in government positions who practice a policy of ' reform with repression. ' '' A prominent Catholic spokesman insisted that `` any military aid you send to El Salvador ends up in the hands of the military and paramilitary rightist groups who are themselves at the root of the problems of the country. '' As the government began to expand its violence towards its citizens, not only through death squads but also through the military, any group of citizens that attempted to provide any form of support whether physically or verbally ran the risk of death. Even so, many still chose to participate. But the violence was not limited to just activists but also to anyone who promoted ideas that `` questioned official policy '' were tacitly assumed to be subversive against the government. A marginalized group that metamorphosed into a guerilla force that would end up confronting these government forces manifested itself in campesinos or peasants. Many of these insurgents joined collective action campaigns for material gain ; however, in the Salvadoran Civil War, many peasants cited reasons other than material benefits in their decision to join the fight. Piety was a popular reason for joining the insurrection because they saw their participation as a way of not only advancing a personal cause but a communal sentiment of divine justice. Even prior to the Civil War, numerous insurgents took part in other campaigns that tackled social changes much more directly, not only the lack of political representation but also the lack of economic and social opportunities not afforded to their communities. In addition, the insurgents in the Civil War viewed their support of the insurrection as a demonstration of their opposition to the powerful elite 's unfair treatment of peasant communities that they experienced on an everyday basis, so there was a class element associated with these insurgencies. They reveled in their fight against injustice and in their belief that they were writing their own story, an emotion that Elisabeth Wood titled `` pleasure of agency. '' The peasants ' organization thus centered on using their struggle to unite against their oppressors, not only towards the government but the elites as well. A struggle that would soon evolve itself into a political machine that came to be associated with the FMLN. In May 1980, the Salvadoran revolutionary leadership met in Havana, forming a consolidated politico - military command, which soon morphed into the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( FMLN ) honoring insurgent hero Farabundo Martí, killed by the National Guard in 1932. The FMLN immediately announced plans for an insurrection against the government, which began on 10 January 1981 with the FMLN 's first major attack. The attack established FMLN control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments for the war 's duration. Attacks were launched on military targets throughout the country, leaving hundreds of people dead. On December 2, 1980, members of the Salvadoran National Guard were suspected to have raped and murdered four American nuns and a laywoman. Maryknoll missionary nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Ursuline nun Dorothy Kazel, and laywoman Jean Donovan were on a Catholic relief mission providing food, shelter, transport, medical care, and burial to death squad victims. U.S. military aid was briefly cut off in response to the murders but would be renewed within six weeks. The outgoing Carter administration increased military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces to $10 million which included $5 million in rifles, ammunition, grenades and helicopters. In justifying these arms shipments, the administration claimed that the regime had taken `` positive steps '' to investigate the murder of four American nuns, but this was disputed by US Ambassador, Robert E. White, who said that he could find no evidence the junta was `` conducting a serious investigation. '' Other countries allied with the United States also intervened in El Salvador. The military government in Chile provided substantial training and tactical advice to the Salvadoran Armed Forces, such that the Salvadoran high command bestowed upon General Augusto Pinochet the prestigious Order of José Matías Delgado in May 1981 for his government 's avid support. During the same month, the JRG strengthened the state of siege, imposed by President Carlos Humberto Romero in May 1979, by declaring martial law and adopting a new set of curfew regulations. Between January 12 and February 19, 1981, 168 persons were killed by the security forces for violating curfew. `` Draining the sea '' In its effort to defeat the insurgency, the Salvadoran Armed Forces carried out a `` scorched earth '' strategy, adopting tactics similar to those being employed by the counterinsurgency in neighboring Guatemala. These tactics were primarily derived and adapted from U.S. strategy during the Vietnam War and taught by American military advisors. An integral part of the Salvadoran Army 's counterinsurgency strategy entailed `` draining the sea '' or `` drying up the ocean, '' that is, eliminating the insurgency by eradicating its support base in the countryside. The primary target was the civilian population -- displacing or killing them in order to remove any possible base of support for the rebels. The concept of `` draining the sea '' had its basis in a doctrine by Mao Zedong which emphasized that `` The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea. '' Aryeh Neier, the executive director of Americas Watch wrote in a review of 1984 : `` This may be an effective strategy for winning the war. It is, however, a strategy that involves the use of terror tactics -- bombings, strafings, shellings and, occasionally, massacres of civilians. '' Beginning in 1983, guerrilla strongholds were found by U.S. reconnaissance planes that relayed intelligence to the Salvadoran military. In its report covering 1981, Amnesty International identified `` regular security and military units as responsible for widespread torture, mutilation and killings of noncombatant civilians from all sectors of Salvadoran society. '' The report also stated that the killing of civilians by state security forces became increasingly systematic with the implementation of more methodical killing strategies, which allegedly included use of a meat packing plant to dispose of human remains. Between August 20 and August 25, 1981, eighty - three decapitations were reported. The murders were later revealed to have been carried out by a death squad using a guillotine. On 15 March 1981, the Salvadoran Army began a `` sweep '' operation in the department of Cabanas in northern El Salvador near the Honduran border. The sweep was accompanied by the use of scorched earth tactics by the Salvadoran Army and indiscriminate killings of anyone captured by the army. Those displaced by the `` sweep '' who were not killed outright fled the advance of the Salvadoran Army ; hiding in caves and under trees to evade capture and probable summary execution. On 18 March, three days after the sweep in Cabanas began, 4 - 8,000 survivors of the sweep ( mostly women and children ) attempted to cross the Rio Lempa into Honduras to flee violence. There, they were caught between Salvadoran and Honduran troops. The Salvadoran Air Force, subsequently bombed and strafed the fleeing civilians with machine gun fire, killing hundreds. Among the dead were at least 189 persons who were unaccounted for and registered as `` disappeared '' during the operation. A second offensive was launched in the department of Cabanas on 11 November 1981 in which 1,200 troops were mobilized including members of the Atlacatl Battalion ; organized in 1980 at the US Army School of the Americas in Panama. The operation was commanded by Lt. Col. Sigifredo Ochoa, a former Treasury Police chief with a reputation for brutality. Ochoa was close associate of Major Roberto D'Aubuisson and was alleged to have been involved in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. D'Aubuisson and Ochoa were both members of La Tandona, the class of 1966 at the Escuela Militar. From the start, the invasion of Cabanas was described as a `` cleansing '' operation by official sources. Hundreds of civilians were massacred by the army as Col. Ochoa 's troops moved through the villages. Col. Ochoa claimed that hundreds of guerrillas had been killed but was able to show journalists only fifteen captured weapons, half of them virtual antiques, suggesting that most of those killed in the sweep were unarmed. This operation was followed by additional `` sweeps '' through Morazán Department, spearheaded by the Atlacatl Battalion. On December 11, 1981, one month after the `` sweep '' through Cabanas, the Battalion occupied the village of El Mozote and massacred at least 733 and possibly up to 1,000 unarmed civilians in what became known as the El Mozote Massacre. The Atlacatl soldiers accused the adults of collaborating with the guerrillas. The field commander said they were under orders to kill everyone, including the children, who he asserted would just grow up to become guerrillas if they let them live. `` We were going to make an example of these people, '' he said. As details became more widely known, the event became recognized as one of the worst atrocities of the conflict. The repression in rural areas resulted in the displacement of large portions of the rural populace, and many peasants fled. Of those who fled or were displaced, some 20,000 resided in makeshift refugee centers on the Honduran border in conditions of poverty, starvation and disease. The army and death squads forced many of them to flee to the United States, but most were denied asylum. On January 17 -- 18, 1981, a US congressional delegation visited the refugee camps in El Salvador on a fact finding mission and submitted a report to Congress. The delegation concluded that `` the Salvadoran method of ' drying up the ocean ' is to eliminate entire villages from the map, to isolate the guerrillas, and deny them any rural base off which they can feed. '' In total, Socorro Jurídico registered 13,353 individual cases of summary execution by government forces over the course of 1981. However, the true figure for the number of persons killed by the Army and security services could be substantially higher, due to the fact that extrajudicial killings generally went unreported in the countryside and many of the victims ' families remained silent in fear of reprisal. An America 's Watch report described that the Socorro Jurídico figures `` tended to be conservative because its standards of confirmation are strict '' ; killings of persons were registered individually and required proof of being `` not combat related ''. Socorro Jurídico later revised its count of government killings for 1981 up to 16,000 with the induction of new cases. Interim government and continued violence : 1982 -- 1984 Jose Napoleon Duarte at a Christian Democratic Party press conference during the Salvadoran war ( 1982 ) In 1982, the FMLN began calling for a peace settlement that would establish a `` government of broad participation ''. The Reagan administration said the FMLN wanted to create a Communist dictatorship. Elections were interrupted with right - wing paramilitary attacks and FMLN - suggested boycotts. El Salvador 's National Federation of Lawyers, which represented all of the country 's bar associations, refused to participate in drafting the 1982 electoral law. The lawyers said that the elections could n't possibly be free and fair during a state of siege that suspended all basic rights and freedoms. Attacks against military and economic targets by the FMLN began to escalate. The FMLN attacked the Ilopango Air Force Base, destroying six of the Air Force 's 14 Bell UH - 1 Iroquois helicopters, five of its 18 Dassault Ouragan aircraft and three C - 47s. Between February and April, a total of 439 acts of sabotage were reported. The number of acts of sabotage involving explosives or arson rose to 782 between January and September. The United States Embassy estimated the damage to the economic infrastructure at US $98 million. FMLN also carried out large - scale operations in the capital city and temporarily occupied urban centres in the country 's interior. According to some reports, the number of rebels ranged between 4,000 and 5,000 ; other sources put the number at between 6,000 and 9,000. Pursuant with measures put in place by the JRG on October 18, 1979, elections for an interim government were held on April 29, 1982. The Legislative Assembly voted on three candidates nominated by the armed forces ; Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja, leader of the moderate Democratic Action and thus effectively politically independent, was elected by 36 votes to 17, ahead of the Nationalist Republican Alliance ( ARENA ) and Party of National Conciliation candidates. Roberto D'Aubuisson accused Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez Avendaño of imposing on the Assembly `` his personal decision to put Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja in the presidency '' in spite of a `` categorical no '' from the ARENA deputies. Magana was sworn into office on 2 May. Decree No. 6 of the National Assembly suspended phase III of the implementation of the agrarian reform, and was itself later amended. The Apaneca Pact was signed on 3 August 1982, establishing a Government of National Unity, whose objectives were peace, democratization, human rights, economic recovery, security and a strengthened international position. An attempt was made to form a transitional government which would establish a democratic system. Lack of agreement among the forces that made up the government and the pressures of the armed conflict prevented any substantive changes from being made during Magaña 's presidency. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported that on May 24, 1982, a clandestine cemetery containing the corpses of 150 disappeared persons was discovered near Puerta del Diablo, Panchimalco, approximately twelve kilometers from San Salvador. On June 10, 1982, almost 4,000 Salvadoran troops carried out a `` cleanup '' operation in the rebel - controlled Chalatenango province. Over 600 civilians were reportedly massacred during the Army sweep. The Salvadoran field commander acknowledged that an unknown number of civilian rebel sympathizers or `` masas '' were killed, while declaring the operation a success. Nineteen days later, the Army massacred 27 unarmed civilians during house raids in a San Salvador neighborhood. The women were raped and murdered. Everyone was dragged from their homes into the street and then executed. `` The operation was a success, '' said the Salvadoran Defense Ministry communique. `` This action was a result of training and professionalization of our officers and soldiers. '' During 1982 and 1983, government forces killed approximately 8,000 civilians a year. Although the figure is substantially less than the figures reported by human rights groups in 1980 and 1981, targeted executions as well as indiscriminate killings nonetheless remained an integral policy of the army and internal security forces, part of what Professor William Stanley of the University of New Mexico has described as a `` strategy of mass murder '' designed to terrorize the civilian population as well as opponents of the government. General Adolfo Blandón, the Salvadoran armed forces chief of staff during much of the 1980s, has stated, `` Before 1983, we never took prisoners of war. '' In March 1983, Marianella Garcia Villas, president of the Non-Governmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, was captured by army troops on the Guazapa volcano, and later tortured to death. Garcia Villas had been on Guazapa collecting evidence about the possible army use of white phosphorus munitions. In April 1983, Melida Anaya Montes, a leader of the Popular Forces for Liberation ( FPL ) `` Farabundo Marti '', was murdered in Managua, Nicaragua. Salvador Cayetano Carpio, her superior in the FPL was allegedly implicated in her murder. He committed suicide in Managua shortly after Anaya Montes ' murder. Their deaths influenced the course within the FMLN of the FPL 's Prolonged Popular War strategy. On February 7, 1984, nine labor leaders, including all seven top officials of one major federation, were arrested by the Salvadoran National Police and sent to a military court. The arrests were part of Duarte 's moves to crack down on labor unions after more than 80 trade unionists were detained in a raid by the National Police. The police confiscated the union 's files and took videotape mugshots of each union member. During a 15 - day interrogation, the nine labor leaders were beaten during late - night questioning and were told to confess to being guerrillas. They were then forced to sign a written confession while blindfolded. They were never charged with being guerrillas but the official police statement said they were accused of planning to `` present demands to management for higher wages and benefits and promoting strikes, which destabilize the economy. '' A U.S. official said the embassy had `` followed the arrests closely and was satisfied that the correct procedures were followed. '' Duarte presidency : 1984 -- 1989 Mesa Grande refugee camp in Honduras 1987 In 1984 elections, Christian Democrat José Napoleón Duarte won the presidency ( with 54 % of the votes ) against Army Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, of the Nationalist Republican Alliance ( ARENA ). The elections were held under military rule amidst high levels of repression and violence, however, and candidates to the left of Duarte 's brand of Christian Democrats were excluded from participating. Fearful of a d'Aubuisson presidency for public relations purposes, the CIA financed Duarte 's campaign with some two million dollars. After Duarte 's victory, human rights abuses at the hands of the army and security forces continued, but declined due to modifications made to the security structures. The policies of the Duarte government attempted to make the country 's three security forces more accountable to the government by placing them under the direct supervision of a Vice Minister of Defense, but all three forces continued to be commanded individually by regular army officers, which, given the command structure within the government, served to effectively nullify any of the accountability provisions. The Duarte government also failed to decommission personnel within the security structures that had been involved in gross human rights abuses, instead simply dispersing them to posts in other regions of the country. While reforms were being made to the security forces, the army continued to massacre unarmed civilians in the country side. An Americas Watch report noted that the Atlacatl Battalion killed 80 unarmed civilians in Cabanas in July, 1984 and carried out another massacre one month later, killing 50 displaced people in the Chalatenango province. The women were raped and then everyone was systematically executed. ERP combatant Perquín 1990 Through 1984 and 1985, the Salvadoran Armed Forces enacted a series of `` civic - action '' programs in Chalatenango province. This consisted of the establishment of `` citizen defense committees '' to guard plantations and businesses against attacks by insurgents and the establishment of a number of free - fire zones. These measures were implemented under former Cabanas commander, Lieutenant Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, who had previously been exiled to the US Army War College for mutiny. By January 1985 Ochoa 's forces had established 12 free - fire zones in Chalatenango in which any inhabitants unidentified by the army were deemed to be insurgents. Ochoa stated in an interview that areas within the free fire zone were susceptible to indiscriminate bombings by the Salvadoran Air Force. Ochoa 's forces were implicated in a massacre of about 40 civilians in an Army sweep through one of the free fire zones in August 1985. Ochoa refused to permit the Red Cross to enter these areas to deliver humanitarian aid to the victims. Ochoa 's forces reportedly uprooted some 1,400 civilian rebel supporters with mortar fire between September and November 1984. In San Salvador ( 06 / 16 / 85 ), Shirley Christian reports in the New York Times that the National Federation of Trade Unions was `` making tough wage demands, '' and that Christian Democrats said they were `` haunted by the memory of 1979, when the same groups were prominent in the near - anarchy that swept El Salvador. '' But `` by mid-1980, the agitation dried up as many street activists joined the guerrillas and others disengaged out of fear for their lives, while the Government imposed the wage freeze and state of siege '' amidst `` accusations '' of human rights abuses. The fear they said was that these subversive groups, who admitted their former affiliation with the political arm of the guerrillas, may try to reestablish the `` mass organizations '' that were destroyed by the violent repression of strikes and demonstrations in the early 1980s. In its annual review of 1987, Amnesty International reported that `` some of the most serious violations of human rights are found in Central America, '' particularly Guatemala and El Salvador, where `` kidnappings and assassinations serve as systematic mechanisms of the government against opposition from the left ''. On 10 / 26 / 87, unknown gunmen shot and killed Herbert Ernesto Anaya, Director of El Salvador 's nongovernmental Human Rights Commission. Anaya was in his car in his driveway with his wife and children at the time. Some human rights groups linked the increase of death squad - style killings and disappearances to the reactivation of the popular organizations, which had been decimated by mass state terror in the early 80s. The U.S. Trade Representative told Human Rights Watch that the government 's repression of trade unionists was justified on the grounds that they were guerrilla supporters. Col. Renee Emilio Ponce, the Army operations chief, asserted that the guerrillas were `` returning to their first phase of clandestine organization '' in the city, `` and mobilization of the masses ''. During the Central American Peace Accords in 1987, the FMLN demanded that all death squads be disbanded and the members be held accountable. In October 1987, the Salvadoran Assembly approved an amnesty for civil - war - related crimes. The Amnesty law required the release of all prisoners suspected of being guerrillas and guerrilla sympathizers. Pursuant with these laws, 400 political prisoners were released. Insurgents were given a period of fifteen days to turn themselves over to the security forces in exchange for amnesty. Despite amnesty being granted to guerillas and political prisoners, amnesty was also granted to members of the army, security forces and paramilitary who were involved in human rights abuses. In October 1988, Amnesty International reported that death squads had abducted, tortured, and killed, hundreds of suspected dissidents in the proceeding eighteen months. The squads were made up of members of the intelligence sections of the Armed Forces and the security services. They customarily wore plain clothes and made use of trucks or vans with tinted windows and without license plates. They were `` chillingly efficient '', said the report. Victims were sometimes shot from passing cars, in the daytime and in front of eyewitnesses. At other times, victims were kidnapped from their homes or on the streets and their bodies found dumped far from the scene. Some joined `` the long list '' of the `` disappeared '' and were never heard from again. Victims were `` customarily found mutilated, decapitated, dismembered, strangled or showing marks of torture or rape. '' The death squad style was `` to operate in secret but to leave mutilated bodies of victims as a means of terrifying the population. '' Most of the victims were trade unionists and members of cooperatives, human rights workers, members of the judiciary involved in efforts to establish criminal responsibility for human rights violations, returned refugees and displaced persons, and released political prisoners. Angered by the results of the 1988 elections and the military 's use of terror tactics and voter intimidation, the FMLN launched a major offensive with the aim of unseating the Christiani government on November 11, 1989. This offensive brought the epicenter of fighting into the wealthy suburbs of San Salvador for essentially the first time in the history of the conflict, as the FMLN began a campaign of selective assassinations against political and military officials, civil officials, and upper - class private citizens. The government retaliated with a renewed campaign of repression, primarily against activists in the democratic sector. The non-governmental Salvadoran Human Rights Commission ( CDHES ) counted 2,868 killings by the armed forces between May 1989 and May 1990. In addition, the CDHES stated that government paramilitary organizations illegally detained 1,916 persons and disappeared 250 during the same period. On February 13, the Atlacatl Battalion attacked a guerrilla field hospital and killed at least 10 people, including five patients, a doctor and a nurse. Two of the female victims showed signs that they had been raped before they were executed. Nearly 2 weeks earlier, Vice President Dan Quayle, on a visit to San Salvador, had told army leaders that human rights abuses committed by the military had to stop. Sources associated with the military said afterword that Quayle 's warning was dismissed as propaganda aimed at the Congress and the U.S. public. Meanwhile, U.S. advisers were apparently sending a different message to the Salvadoran military - `` do what you need to do to stop the commies, just do n't get caught ''. A former U.S. intelligence officer suggested the death squads needed to leave less visual evidence, that they should stop dumping bodies on the side of the road because `` they have an ocean and they ought to use it ''. In San Salvador on October 1, eight people were killed and 35 others were injured when a death squad bombed the headquarters of the leftist labor confederation, the National Trade Union Federation of Salvadoran Workers ( UNTS ). Earlier the same day, another bomb exploded outside the headquarters of a victims ' advocacy group, the Committee of Mothers and Family Members of Political Prisoners, Disappeared and Assassinated of El Salvador, injuring four others. As in the early 1980s, the University of Central America fell under attack from the army and death squads. On 16 November 1989, five days after the beginning of the FMLN offensive, uniformed soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion entered the campus of the University of Central America in the middle of the night and executed six Jesuit priests -- Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin - Baro, Joaquín López y López, Juan Ramón Moreno, and Amando López -- and their housekeepers ( a mother and daughter, Elba Ramos and Celia Marisela Ramos ). The priests were dragged from their beds on the campus, machine gunned to death and their corpses mutilated. The mother and daughter were found shot to death in the bed they shared. The Atlacatl Battalion was reportedly under the tutelage of U.S. special forces just 48 hours before the killings. One day later, six men and one youth were slaughtered by government soldiers in San Salvador. According to relatives and neighbors who witnessed the killings, the six men were lined up against a masonry wall and shot to death. The seventh youth who happened to be walking by at the time was also executed. The Salvadoran government then began a campaign to dismantle a liberal church network that the army said were `` front organizations '' supporting the guerrillas. Church offices were raided and workers were arrested and expelled. Targets included priests, lay workers and foreign employees of humanitarian agencies, providing social services to the poor - food programs, health care, relief for the displaced. One church volunteer, who was a U.S. citizen, said she was blindfolded, tortured and interrogated in Treasury Police headquarters in San Salvador while a U.S. vice consul `` having coffee with the colonel in charge '' did nothing to intervene. In a November 29 press conference, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said he believed President Cristiani was in control of the army and defended the government 's crackdown on opponents as `` absolutely appropriate. '' The murder of the six Jesuit priests and the November 1989 ' final offensive ' by the FMLN in San Salvador, however, were key turning points that increased international pressure and domestic pressure from war - weary constituents that alternatives to the military stalemate needed to be found. International support for the FMLN was declining with the end of the Cold War just as international support for the Salvadoran armed forces was weakening as the Reagan administration gave way to the less ideological Bush administration, and the end of the Cold War lessened the anti-Communist concerns about a potential domino effect in Central America. By the late 1980s, 75 % of the population lived in poverty. The living standards of most Salvadorans declined by 30 % since 1983. Unemployment or underemployment increased to 50 %. Most people, moreover, still did n't have access to clean water or healthcare. The armed forces were feared, inflation rose almost 40 %, capital flight reached an estimated $1 billion, and the economic elite avoided paying taxes. Despite nearly $3 billion in American economic assistance, per capita income declined by one third. American aid was distributed to urban businesses although the impoverished majority received almost none of it. The concentration of wealth was even higher than before the U.S. - administered land reform program. The agrarian law generated windfall profits for the economic elite and buried the cooperatives in debts that left them incapable of competing in the capital markets. The oligarchs often took back the land from bankrupt peasants who could n't obtain the credit necessary to pay for seeds and fertilizer. Although, `` few of the poor would dream of seeking legal redress against a landlord because virtually no judge would favor a poor man. '' By 1989, 1 % of the landowners owned 41 % of the tillable land, while 60 % of the rural population owned 0 %. Death squads and peace Accords : 1990 -- 1992 President Alfredo Cristiani, Sept 1989 ERP combatants Perquín 1990 After 10 years of war, more than one million people had been displaced out of a population of 5,389,000. 40 % of the homes of newly displaced people were completely destroyed and another 25 % were in need of major repairs. Death squad activities further escalated in 1990, despite a U.N. Agreement on Human Rights signed July 26 by the Cristiani government and the FMLN. In June 1990, U.S. President George Bush announced an `` Enterprise for the Americas Initiative '' to improve the investment climate by creating `` a hemisphere - wide free trade zone. '' President Bush authorized the release of $42.5 million in military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces on January 16, 1991. In late January, the Usulután offices of the Democratic Convergence, a coalition of left - of - center parties, were attacked with grenades. On February 21, a candidate for the Democratic National Unity ( UDN ) party and his pregnant wife were assassinated after ignoring death squad threats to leave the country or die. On the last day of the campaign, another UDN candidate was shot in her eye when Arena party gunmen opened fire on campaign activists putting up posters. Despite fraudulent elections orchestrated by Arena through voter intimidation, sabotage of polling stations by the Arena - dominated Central Elections Council and the disappearing of tens of thousands of names from the voting lists, the official U.S. observation team declared them `` free and fair. '' Death squad killings and disappearances remained steady throughout 1991 as well as torture, false imprisonment, and attacks on civilians by the Army and security forces. Opposition politicians and members of church and grassroots organizations representing peasants, women and repatriated refugees suffered constant death threats, arrests, surveillance and break - ins all year. The FMLN killed two wounded U.S. military advisers and carried out indiscriminate attacks, kidnappings and assassinations of civilians. The war intensified in mid-1991, as both the army and the FMLN attempted to gain the advantage in the United Nations - brokered peace talks prior to a cease - fire. Indiscriminate attacks and executions by the armed forces increased as a result. Eventually, by April 1991, negotiations resumed, resulting in a truce that successfully concluded in January 1992, bringing about the war 's end. On 16 January 1992, the Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed in Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City, to bring peace to El Salvador. The Armed Forces were regulated, a civilian police force was established, the FMLN metamorphosed from a guerrilla army to a political party, and an amnesty law was legislated in 1993. Aftermath The peace process set up under the Chapultepec Accords was monitored by the United Nations from 1991 until June 1997 when it closed its special monitoring mission in El Salvador. During the 2004 elections, White House Special Assistant Otto Reich gave a phone - in press conference at ARENA party headquarters. He reportedly said he was worried about the impact an FMLN win could have on the country 's `` economic, commercial, and migratory relations with the United States. '' In February 2004, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega told voters to `` consider what kind of a relationship they want a new administration to have with us. '' He met with all the candidates except Schafik Handal, the FMLN candidate. This prompted 28 US Congress members to send a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell saying Mr. Noriega `` crossed a boundary '' and that his remarks were perceived as `` interference in Salvadoran electoral affairs. '' A week later, two US congressmen blasted Reich 's comments as inflammatory. Truth Commission Main article : Truth Commission for El Salvador At war 's end, the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador registered more than 22,000 complaints of political violence in El Salvador, between January 1980 and July 1991, 60 percent about summary killing, 25 percent about kidnapping, and 20 percent about torture. These complaints attributed almost 85 percent of the violence to the Salvadoran Army and security forces alone. The Salvadoran Armed Forces, which were massively supported by the United States ( 4.6 billion euros ), were accused in 60 percent of the complaints, the security forces ( i.e. the National Guard, Treasury Police and the National Police ) in 25 percent, military escorts and civil defense units in 20 percent of complaints, the death squads in approximately 10 percent, and the FMLN in 5 percent. The Truth Commission could collect only a significant sample of the full number of potential complaints, having had only three months to collect it. The report concluded that more than 70,000 people were killed, many in the course of gross violation of their human rights. More than 25 per cent of the populace was displaced as refugees before the U.N. peace treaty in 1992. The statistics presented in the Truth Commission 's report are consistent with both previous and retrospective assessments by the international community and human rights monitors, which documented that the majority of the violence and repression in El Salvador was attributable to government agencies, primarily the National Guard and the Salvadoran Army. A 1984 Amnesty International report stated that many of the 40,000 people killed in the preceding five years had been murdered by government forces, who openly dumped their mutilated corpses in an apparent effort to terrorize the population. Despite mostly killing peasants, the Government readily killed any opponent they suspected of sympathy with the guerrillas -- clergy ( men and women ), church lay workers, political activists, journalists, labor unionists ( leaders, rank - and - file ), medical workers, liberal students and teachers, and human - rights monitors. The State 's terrorism was affected by the security forces, the Army, the National Guard, and the Treasury Police ; yet it was the paramilitary death squads who gave the Government plausible deniability of, and accountability for, the political killings. Typically, a death squad dressed in civilian clothes and traveled in anonymous vehicles ( dark windows, blank license plates ). Their terrorism consisted of publishing future - victim death lists, delivering coffins to said future victims, and sending the target - person an invitation to his / her own funeral. Cynthia Arnson, a Latin American - affairs writer for Human Rights Watch, says : the objective of death - squad - terror seemed not only to eliminate opponents, but also, through torture and the gruesome disfigurement of bodies, to terrorize the population. In the mid-1980s, state terror against Salvadorans became open -- indiscriminate bombing from military airplanes, planted mines, and the harassment of national and international medical personnel ; all indicate that, although death rates attributable to the death squads have declined in El Salvador since 1983, non-combatant victims of the civil war have increased dramatically. Though the violations of the FMLN accounted for five percent or less of those documented by the Truth Commission, the FMLN continuously violated the human rights of many Salvadorans and other individuals identified as right - wing supporters, military targets, pro-government politicians, intellectuals, public officials, and judges. These violations included kidnapping, bombings, rape, and killing. Military reform In accordance with the peace agreements, the constitution was amended to prohibit the military from playing an internal security role except under extraordinary circumstances. During the period of fulfilling of the peace agreements, the Minister of Defense was General Humberto Corado Figueroa. Demobilization of Salvadoran military forces generally proceeded on schedule throughout the process. The Treasury Police and National Guard were abolished, and military intelligence functions were transferred to civilian control. By 1993 -- nine months ahead of schedule -- the military had cut personnel from a wartime high of 63,000 to the level of 32,000 required by the peace accords. By 1999, ESAF strength stood at less than 15,000, including uniformed and non-uniformed personnel, consisting of personnel in the army, navy, and air force. A purge of military officers accused of human rights abuses and corruption was completed in 1993 in compliance with the Ad Hoc Committee 's recommendations. National civilian Police The new civilian police force, created to replace the discredited public security forces, deployed its first officers in March 1993, and was present throughout the country by the end of 1994. In 1999, the PNC had over 18,000 officers. The PNC faced many challenges in building a completely new police force. With common crime rising dramatically since the end of the war, over 500 PNC officers had been killed in the line of duty by late 1998. PNC officers also have arrested a number of their own in connection with various high - profile crimes, and a `` purification '' process to weed out unfit personnel from throughout the force was undertaken in late 2000. Human rights Commission of El Salvador On 26 October 1987, Herbert Ernesto Anaya, head of the CDHES, was assassinated. His killing provoked four days ' of political protest -- during which his cadaver was displayed before the U.S. embassy and then before the Salvadoran armed forces headquarters. The National Union of Salvadoran Workers said : `` Those who bear sole responsibility for this crime are José Napoleón Duarte, the U.S. embassy... and the high command of the armed forces ''. In its report the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, established as part of the El Salvador peace agreement, stated that it could not establish for sure whether the death squads, the Salvadoran Army or the FMLN was responsible for Anaya 's death. Moreover, the FMLN and the Revolutionary Democratic Front ( FDR ) also protested Mr. Anaya 's assassination by suspending negotiations with the Duarte government on 29 October 1987. The same day, Reni Roldán resigned from the Commission of National Reconciliation, saying : `` The murder of Anaya, the disappearance of university labor leader Salvador Ubau, and other events do not seem to be isolated incidents. They are all part of an institutionalized pattern of conduct ''. Mr. Anaya 's assassination evoked international indignation : the West German government, the West German Social Democratic Party, and the French government asked President Duarte to clarify the circumstances of the crime. United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Americas Watch, Amnesty International, and other organizations protested against the assassination of the leader of the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador. Post-war International litigation This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( January 2017 ) Groups seeking investigation or retribution for actions during the war have sought the involvement of other foreign courts. In 2008 the Spanish Association for Human Rights and a California organization called the Center for Justice and Accountability jointly filed a lawsuit in Spain against former President Cristiani and former defense minister Larios in the matter of the 1989 slaying of several Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter. The lawsuit accused Cristiani of a cover - up of the killings and Larios of participating in the meeting where the order to kill them was given ; the groups asked the Spanish court to intervene on the principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. Long after the war, in a U.S. federal court, in the case of Ford vs. García the families of the murdered Maryknoll nuns sued the two Salvadoran generals believed responsible for the killings, but lost ; the jury found Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, ex-National Guard Leader and Duarte 's defense minister, and Gen. José Guillermo Garcia -- defense minister from 1979 to 1984, not responsible for the killings ; the families appealed and lost, and, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their final appeal. A second case, against the same generals, succeeded in the same Federal Court ; the three plaintiffs in Romagoza vs. García won a judgment exceeding US $54 million compensation for having been tortured by the military during El Salvador 's Civil War. The day after losing a court appeal in October 2009, the two generals were put into deportation proceedings by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ), at the urging of U.S. Senators Richard Durbin ( Democrat ) and Tom Coburn ( Republican ), according to the Center for Justice and Accountability ( CJA ). Those deportation proceedings had been stalled by May 2010. However ; one of the plaintiffs in the case believes the U.S. CIA / DOD -- protecting its `` assets '' -- has stymied the Obama Justice Department, for now. The Spanish judge who issued indictments and arrest warrants for 20 former members of the Salvadoran military, charged with murder, Crimes Against Humanity and Terrorism requested that U.S. agencies declassify documents related to the killings of the Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter but were denied access. In his report, Judge Velasco writes : `` The agencies in charge of making the information public have identified 3,000 other documents that remain secret and are not available ; the reasoning given is that privacy is needed to protect sources and methods. Many of the documents, from the CIA and the Defense Department, are not available... '' See also Chapultepec Peace Accords Children of Memory, a documentary film Command responsibility El Mozote massacre History of El Salvador Human rights abuse International law MS - 13 Romero ( film ) Salvador ( film ) Voces inocentes ( film ) Weapons of the Salvadoran Civil War References ^ Jump up to : Michael McClintock. The American connection : state terror and popular resistance in El Salvador. London : Zed Books. p. 388. ISBN 0862322405. ^ Jump up to : El Salvador, In Depth, Negotiating a settlement to the conflict, Uppsala Conflict Data Program Conflict Encyclopedia, Uppsala, Sweden : Uppsala University, US government increased the security support to prevent a similar thing to happen in El Salvador. This was, not least, demonstrated in the delivery of security aid to El Salvador access - date = requires url = ( help ) Jump up ^ Peter Kornbluh ( September 11, 2003 ). The Pinochet File : A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New York : The New Press. p. 587. 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Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1981 Jump up ^ Americas Watch, US Reporting on Human Rights in El Salvador : Methodology At Odds With Knowledge, New York, June 1982, p. 33 Jump up ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. `` Refworld - El Salvador : Human Rights Violations by the National Police during the Initial Years of the Civil War ''. Refworld. Jump up ^ Amnesty International. Amnesty International Report 1984 Jump up ^ `` Salvador rebels adapt to long war with new strategy. They focus on getting civilian support and exploiting Duarte 's problems for political gains '' Christian Science Monitor, November 26, 1986 Jump up ^ The New York Times, 7 February 1982. Jump up ^ Centro Universitario de Documentación e Información, Proceso, Año 3, No. 98, February -- April 1982. Jump up ^ United Nations, Report of the Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights, 1982, p. 33 Jump up ^ United States Embassy in San Salvador ( cable 02165 ), 3 March 1983. Jump up ^ United States Embassy in San Salvador ( cable 00437 ), 3 December 1982. Jump up ^ Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador. 1993. p. 30. Jump up ^ OAS - IACHR, Annual Report, 1981 - 1982, pp. 115 -- 116. Jump up ^ `` U.S. Tactics Fail to Prevent Salvadoran Civilian Deaths '' Washington Post, June 10, 1982 Jump up ^ `` Salvadoran Troops Massacre Civilians '' The Associated Press, January 29, 1982 Jump up ^ Danner, Mark. The Massacre at El Mozote ( New York : Vintage Books, 1994 ). Jump up ^ 9 Salvador Unionists Face Trial on Charges of Being Guerrillas, Boston Globe, February 7, 1984 Jump up ^ `` Observing El Salvador : The 1984 Elections '' By PC Chitnis Jump up ^ `` Salvador 's Duarte backs down on peace talks, further weakening his influence '' Christian Science Monitor, January 25, 1985 Jump up ^ Amnesty International. Amnesty International Report 1985 ( London : AI, 1985 ), p. 143. Jump up ^ New York Times. LeMoyne, James. `` A Salvador Police Chief Vows an End to Abuses '' ( San Salvador : 1 July 1984 ). Jump up ^ Amnesty International. Amnesty International 's Current Concerns in El Salvador ( London : AMR 29 / 09 / 85, June 1985 ), p. 3. Jump up ^ `` A Year of Reckoning : El Salvador a Decade After the Assassination of Archbishop Romero '' Americas Watch, 1990 Jump up ^ `` Salvadoran Army Accused of Massacres '' Associated Press, Mar. 28, 1985 Jump up ^ `` Salvador colonel who mutinied is back in war '' Christian Science Monitor, September 26, 1984 Jump up ^ `` U.S. - backed strategy creates militias, free - fire zones '' Dallas Morning News, January 21, 1985 Jump up ^ `` Salvador colonel runs province as a warlord '' Christian Science Monitor, March 21, 1985 Jump up ^ `` NEWLY ACTIVE UNIONS A CHALLENGE FOR EL SALVADOR '' New York Times, 07 / 16 / 85 Jump up ^ `` Central America Report '', Inforpress Centroamericana, 1988 Jump up ^ `` Salvador rights leader 's murder seen tied to rise of death squads '' Christian Science Monitor, 10 / 27 / 87 Jump up ^ `` Labor Rights in El Salvador '' Human Rights Watch, 01 / 01 / 88, pp. 98 - 100 Jump up ^ `` As discontent in El Salvador mounts, students spearhead militant opposition '' Christian Science Monitor, 07 / 15 / 87 Jump up ^ Manuel, Anne ( September 1988 ). Nightmare Revisited, 1987 - 1988 : Tenth Supplement to the Report on Human Rights in El Salvador. Background to the Deterioration : Human Rights Watch. pp. 5 -- 7. Jump up ^ `` Salvadoreans attack amnesty law. They criticize new bill for absolving death squads '' Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 1987 Jump up ^ `` El Salvador : Death Squads, a Government Strategy '' Amnesty International, 1988 Jump up ^ Anne - Marie Hilsdon, M. Macintyre, V. Mackie, and M. Stivens, eds. ( 2000 ). The Contemplacion fiasco : The hanging of a Filipino domestic worker in Singapore. Human Rights and Gender Politics : Asia - Pacific perspectives. London and New York : Routledge. p. 193. CS1 maint : Uses editors parameter ( link ) Jump up ^ Central America Report 14 Sept. 1990, 277 Jump up ^ Central America Report 31 Aug. 1990 Jump up ^ `` Salvador Raid on Rebel Hospital Charged : Rights Group Says 5 Patients Among 10 Dead ; Atrocities Cited '' L.A. Times, 02 / 25 / 89 Jump up ^ `` U.S. Salvador Policy '' In These Times, 02 / 22 / 89 Jump up ^ `` The Most Interesting Gubernatorial Candidate in the World '' Mother Jones, 03 / 27 / 12 Jump up ^ `` Bombing at Salvadoran Leftists ' Office Kills Eight '' New York Times, 11 / 01 / 89 Jump up ^ `` 6 PRIESTS KILLED IN A CAMPUS RAID IN SAN SALVADOR '' New York Times, November 17, 1989 Jump up ^ `` Salvadoran Justice Wears Out Patience '' The New York Times, May 13, 1990 Jump up ^ `` Second Salvador Massacre, But of Common Folk '' Associated Press, 11 / 28 / 89 Jump up ^ `` Salvador Seeks to Quell Liberal Church Network '' L.A. Times, 12 / 13 / 89 Jump up ^ Church Worker says Salvadoran Police Tortured Her, Washington Post, November 30, 1989 Jump up ^ U.S. staffers in El Salvador urged to leave homes, Chicago Tribune, November 30, 1989 Jump up ^ Pugh, Jeffrey ( January 2009 ). `` The Structure of Negotiation : Lessons from El Salvador for Contemporary Conflict Resolution ''. Negotiation Journal. 25 ( 1 ) : 83 -- 105. Jump up ^ `` Rightists Deal U.S. - backed Duarte A Crushing Defeat '' March 27, 1988 ^ Jump up to : After Parades and Promises, Duarte Flounders in Salvador, New York Times, February 16, 1987, retrieved January 22, 2017 Jump up ^ Lindsey Gruson ( September 28, 1987 ). `` Land for Salvador 's Poor : To Many, Bitter Victory ''. New York Times,. Special to the New York Times. Rosario de Mora, El Salvador. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016. Retrieved January 22, 2017. Jump up ^ `` Central America 's Health Plight '' Christian Science Monitor, March 22, 1990 Jump up ^ `` Amnesty Reports Increase In Death Squad Killings '' The Orlando Sentinel, October 24, 1990 Jump up ^ `` Bush Asks Hemisphere - wide Free Trade '' Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1990 Jump up ^ `` Bush to Free El Salvador Military Aid '' Associated Press, January 16, 1991 Jump up ^ `` Rightist intimidation wins in El Salvador '' In In These Times, April 3, 1991 Jump up ^ `` Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 - El Salvador '' Human Rights Watch, 1 January 1992 Jump up ^ `` PEACE in Action - Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution ''. promotingpeace.org. Jump up ^ Amnesty Law Biggest Obstacle to Human Rights, Say Activists by Raúl Gutiérrez, Inter Press Service News Agency, May 19, 2007 Jump up ^ `` El Salvador vote recalls cold - war power play '' The Christian Science Monitor, March 19, 2004 ^ Jump up to : Belisario Betancur, ed. ( January 26, 2001 ). From madness to hope : the 12 - year war in El Salvador Part IV. Cases and patterns of violence ( PDF ) ( Report ). Reports : El Salvador, United States Institute of Peace. Truth Commissions Digital Collection. Retrieved January 22, 2017. Jump up ^ El Salvador 's Decade of Terror, 107. Jump up ^ `` U.S. role in Salvador 's brutal war, '' BBC News, March 24, 2002. Jump up ^ El Salvador 's decade of terror, Americas Watch, Human Rights Watch Books, Yale University Press, 1991. Jump up ^ El Salvador : ' Death Squads ' -- A Government Strategy. New York : Amnesty International, 1988. Jump up ^ From Madness to Hope : the 12 - year war in El Salvador : Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. Jump up ^ Extrajudicial Executions in El Salvador : Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Examine Post-Mortem and Investigative Procedures in Political Killings, 1 - 6 July, 1983. Amnesty International Publications. May 1984. Jump up ^ Amnesty International Report. Amnesty International Publications. 1985. p. 145. Jump up ^ El Salvador 's decade of terror, vii. Jump up ^ El Salvador 's decade of terror, 47. Jump up ^ Martin, Gus. Understanding terrorism : challenges, perspectives and issues, Sage Publications, 2003, 110. Jump up ^ El Salvador 's decade of terror, 21. Jump up ^ Arnson, Cynthia J. `` Window on the past : a declassified history of death squads in El Salvador, '' in Death squads in global perspective : murder with deniability, Campbell and Brenner, eds., 86. Jump up ^ Lopez, George A. `` Terrorism in Latin America, '' in The politics of terrorism, Michael Stohl, ed. Jump up ^ `` El Salvador ''. U.S. Department of State. Jump up ^ Jose Gutierrez : `` The Killing of Herbert Anaya Sanabria '' Green Left Online, 7 April 1993 Jump up ^ Daniel Woolls, Associated Press. `` El Salvador massacre case filed in Spanish court, '' November 13, 2008. Retrieved 2008 - 11 - 14. Jump up ^ `` The Right to Information is the Right to Justice : Declassified Documents and the Assassination of the Jesuits in El Salvador '' The National Security Archive, November 16, 2009 Further reading Books Americas Watch ( 1993 ). El Salvador 's Decade of Terror : Human Rights Since the Assassination of Archbishop Romero. New Haven, London : Yale University Press. Bonner, Raymond ( 1984 ). Weakness and Deceit : U.S. Policy and El Salvador. New York, NY : Times Books. Commission on the Truth for El Salvador ( 1993 ). From Madness to Hope : The 12 - Year War in El Salvador ( PDF ). UN Security Council. Federal Research Division ( 1988 ). A Country Study : El Salvador. Washington, DC : US Library of Congress. Guzman, John ( 2011 ). Reflections behind the retina. United States : Xlibris. ISBN 9781465309440. LeoGrande, William M. ( 1998 ). Our Own Backyard : The United States in Central America, 1977 - 1992. Chapel Hill, NC : University of North Carolina Press. Montgomery, Tommie Sue ( 1995 ). Revolution in El Salvador : From Civil Strife to Civil Peace. Boulder, CO : Westview Press. Whitfield, Teresa ( 1995 ). Paying the Price : Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador. Philadelphia, PA : Temple University Press. Binford, Leigh ( 1996 ). The El Mozote Massacre. University of Arizona Press. Wright, Barbara. White Hands ( Novel Excerpt ). Stony Brook, NY : Southampton Review, Vol. IV, No. 1, Spring 2010. Lafeber, Walter ( 1993 ). Inevitable Revolutions : The United States in Central America. New York City, NY : W.W. Norton & Company. Fish, Joe ( 1988 ). El Salvador : testament of terror. London : Zed Books. Carothers, Thomas ( 1993 ). In the Name of Democracy : U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in the Reagan Years. University of California Press. Lowenthal, Abraham ( 1991 ). Exporting democracy : the United States and Latin America : themes and issues. Johns Hopkins University Press. Anderson, Scott ( 1986 ). Inside the League : the shocking exposé of how terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American death squads have infiltrated the world Anti-Communist League. Dodd Mead. Grandin, Greg ( 2007 ). Empire 's Workshop : Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. Holt Paperbacks. McClintock, Michael ( 1985 ). The American Connection : State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador. Zed Books. McClintock, Michael ( 1992 ). Instruments of statecraft : U.S. guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency, and counter-terrorism, 1940 - 1990. Pantheon Books. Journals / academic studies UNHCR Refworld search for FMLN Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador ( 1993 ) CIA World Factbook on El Salvador UN General Assembly Resolution on the `` Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in El Salvador '' CIA Threat Assessment of El Salvador in 1979 External links Unrest in El Salvador from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives El Salvador at the Uppsala Conflict Data Program El Salvador articles History Pre-Columbian history Spanish conquest New Spain Captaincy General ( Guatemalan ) 1811 Independence Movement Federal Republic of Central America World War II History of El Salvador ( 1931 -- 79 ) Salvadoran Civil War ( 1979 -- 1992 ) Geography Biota Cities Earthquakes Islands National parks Rivers Volcanism Water resources Politics Administrative divisions Constitution Court system Elections Foreign relations Human rights Law enforcement Legislative Assembly Military Political parties Presidents Economy Central bank Coffee production Currency Energy Telecommunications Tourism Transport Society Abortion Crime Demographics Regions by HDI Education Gender Inequality Languages Religion Water supply and sanitation Culture Anthem Coat of arms Cuisine Flag Literature Music Public holidays Sport Television Outline Index Category Portal Years in El Salvador ( 1821 - present ) 19th century 1821... 1880... 1890... 20th century 1900... 1910... 1920... 1930... 1940... 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1984 1985 1986 21st century 2017 2018 2019 Cold War USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact 1940s Hukbalahap Rebellion Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Forest Brothers Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed soldiers Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito -- Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War ( Second round ) Malayan Emergency Albanian Subversion 1950s Bamboo Curtain Korean War McCarthyism 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany Dirty War ( Mexico ) Bricker Amendment 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit ( 1955 ) Bandung Conference Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis `` We will bury you '' Operation Gladio Arab Cold War Syrian Crisis of 1957 1958 Lebanon crisis Iraqi 14 July Revolution Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Sino - Soviet split 1960s Congo Crisis 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet -- Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea - Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis Sino - Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic ( 1965 -- 66 ) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967 -- 74 USS Pueblo incident Six - Day War War of Attrition Dhofar Rebellion Protests of 1968 French May Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Communist insurgency in Malaysia Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino - Soviet border conflict CPP -- NPA -- NDF rebellion Corrective Move 1970s Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement ( Syria ) Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping - pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution ( Egypt ) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China North Yemen - South Yemen Border Conflict 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino - Albanian split Cambodian -- Vietnamese War Sino - Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Saur Revolution New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union 1980s Soviet -- Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état Invasion of Grenada 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars People Power Revolution Glasnost Perestroika Nagorno - Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall 1990s Mongolian Revolution of 1990 German reunification Yemeni unification Fall of communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia Frozen conflicts Abkhazia China - Taiwan Korea Nagorno - Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino - Indian border dispute North Borneo dispute Foreign policy Truman Doctrine Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War Ideologies Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply - side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism -- Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Other Islamism Liberal democracy Social democracy Third - Worldism White supremacy Organizations ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB MI6 Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club Stasi Propaganda Active measures Crusade for Freedom Izvestia Pravda Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia Races Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race See also Soviet espionage in the United States Soviet Union -- United States relations Soviet -- US summits Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union and Russian Federation NATO -- Russia relations Brinkmanship CIA and the Cultural Cold War Cold War II Category Commons Portal Timeline List of conflicts Armed conflicts involving Cuba External & international Ten Years ' War Cuban War of Independence Spanish -- American War World War I World War II 1952 Cuban Coup Cuban Revolution Congo Crisis Bay of Pigs Invasion Sand War Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War Ñancahuazú Guerrilla Eritrean War of Independence South African Border War Yom Kippur War Ethiopian Civil War Angolan Civil War Ogaden War Nicaraguan Revolution Salvadoran Civil War Invasion of Grenada Related articles Military history Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces Cold War Sphere of influence Intervention in Angola Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Salvadoran_Civil_War&oldid=804884737 '' Categories : Salvadoran Civil War History of El Salvador Guerrilla wars Communism in El Salvador Civil wars involving the states and peoples of North America Civil wars post-1945 MS - 13 Revolution - based civil wars 20th century in El Salvador Communism - based civil wars Cold War Conflicts in 1986 Hidden categories : Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL CS1 Spanish - language sources ( es ) CS1 maint : Uses authors parameter CS1 maint : Uses editors parameter All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from January 2017 Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2016 Articles with unsourced statements from July 2016 Articles with unsourced statements from July 2012 Articles needing additional references from January 2017 All articles needing additional references Talk Contents About Wikipedia Languages Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Català Čeština Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara Français Ido Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska 日本 語 Norsk Polski Português Русский Slovenčina Suomi Svenska Edit links This page was last edited on 11 October 2017, at 18 : 29. 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Question: when did the civil war in el salvador end
Answer: January 16, 1992