October 15, 1979 – A military coup takes place in El Salvador, sparking a twelve-year civil war

El Salvador in Central America

On October 15, 1979, a group of army officers, alarmed that the increasing violence was creating conditions favorable to a communist take-over similar to that which occurred in Nicaragua, carried out a coup that deposed General Romero.  A five-member civilian and military junta, called the Revolutionary Junta Government (JRG; Spanish: Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno) was formed to rule the country until such that time that elections could be held.  In March 1980, after some restructuring, Duarte joined the junta and eventually took over its leadership to become the country’s de facto head of state.  The junta was openly supported by the United States, which viewed Duarte’s centrist politics as the best chance to preserve democracy in El Salvador.

However, neither the coup nor the junta altered the power structures, and the military continued to wield full (albeit covert) authority over state matters.  The junta implemented agrarian reform and nationalized some key industries, but these programs were strongly opposed by the oligarchy.  Militias and “death squads” that the junta ordered the military to disband simply were replaced with other armed groups.  The years 1980 and 1981 saw a great increase in the military’s suppression of dissent.

(Taken from Salvadoran Civil WarWars of the 20th Century – 26 Wars and Conflicts in the Americas and the Caribbean)

The Civil War Intensifies On March 24, 1980, Monsignor Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was killed while delivering religious services.  Archbishop Romero, like many other Salvadoran clergymen, advocated Liberation Theology, a radical variation of Catholicism which taught that the Church had a moral obligation to fight social and economic injustices and work for a fair and equitable society.  Two months before his assassination, Archbishop Romero had written an open letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, requesting the latter to stop providing military support to the Salvadoran military.  Archbishop Romero’s death also took place one day after he had called on Salvadoran soldiers to disobey their commanders and not attack civilians.

One week after Archbishop Romero’s assassination, on March 30, 1980, during the Archbishop’s funeral services which were attended by some 250,000 people and held at the public square near the San Salvador Cathedral, gunmen hidden in the buildings nearby opened fire on the crowd.  Pandemonium broke out and in the stampede that followed, scores of people were crushed and killed.  Investigations conducted by independent organizations following the two incidents pointed to government forces as the party most likely to have carried out the archbishop’s murder and the attack on civilians during the funeral services.

Archbishop Romero’s assassination greatly raised revolutionary fervor, and generally is cited as the event that started the civil war, or greatly accelerated it.  Many activists abandoned non-violent, political means for change and joined the various revolutionary armed movements in the countryside.

In May 1980, the four major insurgent groups (Salvadoran Communist Party, FPL, ERP, RN) merged to form the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (Spanish: Dirección Revolucionaria Unificada), which in turn, six months later in October 1980, in Havana, Cuba under the auspices of Fidel Castro, reorganized as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN; Spanish: Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional).  Another leftist organization, the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers (PRTC; Spanish: Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos), joined the FMLN in December 1980.

The FMLN, together with its political wing, the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR; Spanish: Frente Democrático Revolucionario), had as its main objectives the overthrow of the government through armed revolution, formation of a communist regime, and the overhaul of the country’s social and economic infrastructures.  Because of its (initially) small combat capability, the FMLN envisaged a strategy that combined carrying out a protracted guerilla war and economic sabotage, and derived support from its main base among the rural population, which could furnish new recruits, food, logistical support, and information.  Combat operations were limited to ambushing army patrols, raiding remote outposts, and skirmishing with small army units.  The insurgents also destroyed public infrastructures (roads, bridges, public utilities, etc.) and private properties (plantation farms, grain mills, warehouses, etc.).

The FMLN established relations with Cuba and Nicaragua, and working ties with the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, and other communist countries.  In 1981, it received a diplomatic boost when France and Mexico recognized it as a “legitimate political force”.  However, the United States and most western democratic countries viewed the FMLN in the Cold War context, as that of a Marxist (and terrorist) organization that was striving to overthrow a democratic government in order to set up a communist regime.

In January 1981, the FMLN launched coordinated attacks in many parts of the country, which failed in their objective (as the “final offensive”) to incite a popular uprising to topple the government.  The rebels did, however, seize some regions in the north, including large areas of Chalatenango and Morazan, as well as Cuscatlán, Cabañas, and the mountain areas north of San Salvador centered in Guazapa.  The offensive also came in the wake of the recent electoral victory of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who had campaigned on a rigidly anti-communist platform.

President Reagan’s predecessor, President Carter, generally had been reluctant to provide full military support to El Salvador because of the Salvadoran army’s poor human rights record.  The U.S. government had even stopped U.S. aid in December 1980 following the rape and murder of three U.S. Catholic nuns and one female church lay worker by soldiers of the Salvadoran National Guard.  President Carter did, however, resume U.S. assistance following the increasing threat of the FMLN insurgency.

Consequently, with the Reagan administration, the United States infused large sums of economic and military assistance to El Salvador; the major part of the $7 billion total amount provided during the war took place during President Reagan’s term of office (1981-1989).  Aside from weapons, the United States also sent military advisors to train the Salvadoran Armed Forces in counter-insurgency techniques that the U.S. Army had developed in the Vietnam War.

The Salvadoran Army found it difficult to tell apart the mainly inconspicuous insurgents from the conspicuous rural population, and soon regarded the two groups as one and the same, i.e. the enemy, particularly in areas where the insurgency was strong.  A campaign known as “draining the sea” was carried out, i.e., the insurgency’s support base (the “sea”) would be targeted and eliminated, instead of attempting to locate the rebels.