El Salvador Travel Guide

In October 1980 the formal integration of all left-wing guerrilla organizations led to the foundation of the Frente Faribundo Martí de Liberación Nacional, or FMLN . Three months later, in January 1981, the FMLN launched its first general offensive, gaining territory in the eastern and northern departments of the country and forcing the government into defensive action.

Events within El Salvador were watched closely abroad, particularly in the White House. The newly installed Reagan administration, paranoid about communist insurgency in the region, began to pump aid to the government to expand and equip fighting forces. Between 1980 and 1992 this aid totalled over US$1 billion, while aid channelled through covert sources is estimated to be at least a further US$500 million. The money flowed despite concerns over the army's modus operandi and close connections between government security forces and the death squads. The El Mazote massacre in December 1981 - when US-trained troops systematically murdered more than a thousand people - was first denied then ignored by both Salvadorean and US authorities and only fully investigated in the early 1990s. Despite US support, the army remained hampered by insufficient organization, leadership and endemic corruption, unable to confront with success the guerrillas' organized ambush tactics and targeted attacks against strategic infrastructure and economic installations. Army response, tending towards the blanket attack of large areas of "free fire" zones, rebounded most heavily upon the civilian population. During the course of the war eighty thousand people were killed and more than 500,000 fled the country as refugees.

Against a background of continued fighting, the promised transfer of power from military to civilian hands was completed, with parliamentary elections in 1982 and a new constitution introduced in 1983. In 1984 presidential elections brought Duarte to power on a mandate for continuing reform, although the FMLN remained outside the political process, disrupting ballots in this and subsequent local and national elections. Sporadic attempts at peace talks foundered upon the seemingly irresolvable demands for fundamental changes in the role and structure of the army and for incorporation of the FDR (the political wing of the FMLN) into political life.

Widely perceived as incompetent and corrupt, Duarte was succeeded in 1989 by Alfredo Cristiani , candidate of the right-wing ARENA (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) party founded by Roberto D'Aubuisson. Regarded internationally as a moderate leader, Cristiani began to unpiece economic reforms achieved over the previous decade. The response of the FMLN was to renew offensives against the government, most spectacularly during its " final offensive " of November 1989, when areas of major cities, including San Salvador, were occupied. In turn, the death squads and the military intensified their activities. Suspected FMLN sympathizers, trade unionists and Church activists were intimidated and assassinated. Thousands died when San Salvador and other cities were indiscriminately bombed by the air force and - in an incident that caused international outrage - six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were massacred in their rooms on the campus of the Universidad de Centroamérica on November 16, 1989.