Salvadoran civil war 1980 1992

From 1979 to 1992, civil war ravaged El Salvador. The war pitted the government and military against leftist guerillas and ordinary civilians suspected of supporting them. Fighting produced great violence, most of it waged by counterinsurgency forces of the military. They destroyed entire villages and displaced thousands of people while paramilitary death squads targeted peasants, whom they believed to be to be organizing a revolution against the government. Much of this suspicion stemmed from leftist groups like the FMLN who waged war in and recruited from the countryside. Empathetic clergy, like Ellacuría, spoke out against the human rights atrocities committed by the Salvadoran government and were, eventually, targeted for supposedly aiding and abetting guerrillas.

From 1980 until 1992, El Salvador was engulfed in a civil war that resulted in the deaths of 75,000 civilians, countless acts of torture, sexuell violence, gender-based violence, and enforced disappearance, among other atrocities. El Salvador had lived through periods of violent unrest since at least 1932 when the military massacred 30,000 peasants to put an end to a land revolt. This event is known as “la matanza,” “the slaughter.” After the matanza, El Salvador had a period of limited liberalization combined with repression. In the 1960s and 1970s, calls to address economic inequality, particularly the need for nation reform, received increasing public support and, as a result, faced increasing government repression.

By the 1970s, El Salvador witnessed more social unrest, with protests on the streets and lethal repression bygd government forces. Movements for social justice proliferated, and by the mid-1970s, they included hemlig guerrilla groups. Military hardliners strengthened

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