Civil war

Shortly after General Romero’s ouster, the country was plunged into a civil war that would last for the next 12 years. There were other significant consequences to be noted. Most obvious was the military’s loss of the monopoly it had held on the direct exercise of governmental authority for nearly 50 years. At the same time, there was a change in the relationship between the military and the country’s propertied elite. The latter group felt it could no longer rely entirely on the armed forces for protection and sought to broaden its base of support by the formation in 1981 of a new political organization, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista; Arena), led by retired major Roberto D’Aubuisson Arrieta.

In addition, the role of the United States, which previously had shown very little interest in the affairs of El Salvador, changed markedly with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as president in January 1981. During the balance of the decade, the United States supplied El Salvador with financial aid amounting to $4 billion; assumed responsibility for the organization and training of elite military units; supported the war effort through the provision of sophisticated weaponry, particularly helicopters; and used its influence in a variety of ways to guide the political fortunes of the country.

The years following Romero’s downfall provided a kaleidoscopic array of events. The governing junta made up of civilians and army officers that had formed in October 1979 collapsed three months later when its civilian members resigned because of their failure to reach agreement on reforms and their inability to bring the military under control. Duarte returned from exile and became head of the second junta, which enacted a package of laws that included an agrarian-reform program. The reforms did not contribute to any reduction in the level of political violence, however. That was made clear in March 1980 when Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who had become a vehement critic of the military establishment, was assassinated while performing mass; it was further demonstrated at the end of the year when the military murdered three American nuns and a Roman Catholic lay worker.

By that time the guerrilla units had joined in a single organization, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional; FMLN), and announced the opening of a “final offensive” in January 1981. The offensive was by no means final, however, and the fortunes of the guerrilla army would ebb and flow throughout the balance of the decade. During that time the guerrillas initiated and survived hard-fought battles with government troops who were trained and supplied by the United States.

Elections held in 1982 enabled the formation of a constituent assembly that organized a provisional government and drafted a new constitution (the third since 1948), which was promulgated in December 1983. Duarte was elected president the following March. Although a meeting held with guerrilla leaders in the fall of 1984 raised hopes that Duarte could negotiate an end to the civil war, the talks led nowhere; furthermore, his presidency was plagued by misfortune. He made no progress in his efforts to achieve peace or advance social and economic reforms. At the end of his term, charges of widespread corruption in the government contributed to the victory of the Arena candidate, Alfredo Cristiani, in the 1989 presidential election. Duarte died of stomach cancer shortly after Cristiani’s inauguration.

Cristiani continued to enforce harsh strictures on dissent, but he also showed willingness to examine FMLN proposals for peace. In November 1989 the FMLN launched a major offensive on a number of urban centers in the country, including the capital city, San Salvador. The fierceness of the attack took the army by surprise, and it was only after weeks of intense fighting and indiscriminate aerial bombardment of San Salvador’s neighborhoods by the Salvadoran Air Force that the guerrilla units were forced to retreat from the city. In the course of the battle for San Salvador, the U.S.-trained Rapid Response Atlacatl Battalion killed six Jesuit priests and two housekeepers at the Central American University of José Simeón Cañas on November 16, 1989. Strong international pressure to prosecute the perpetrators of the crime and Cristiani’s loss of faith in the army’s capacity to defeat the FMLN strengthened the president’s commitment to reaching a negotiated settlement. UN-mediated peace negotiations began in the spring of 1990, and the two parties signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City on January 16, 1992. By that time more than 75,000 people (mostly noncombatants) had lost their lives, the economy was in shambles, and massive damage to the infrastructure was evident everywhere.