Reddit reviews Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992

El Salvador was a country of 5 million, 85% of the wealth and land was owned by 14 prominent families. So, El Salvador had a long history of repression and violence since La Matanza in 1932 when around 40,000 peasants were slaughtered after an attempted Communist uprising, lead by a guy called Farabundo Martí. This violence continued with repression against any sort of protest and eventually the Church, inspired by Liberation Theology in the 1970s would start to encourage people to form trade unions and attempt to gain more human rights. Basically these priests etc. would help people “conscientise” (aka teach them how to read, make them understand they weren't dying and poor because of themselves, but rather oppression) and then be killed/ targeted by the death squads or the army.

Oscar Romero was made Archbishop in 1977, a few weeks afterwards his friend Father Rutilio Grande was killed by the police, and a few weeks later the army stormed Grande’s parish of Aguilares and killed around 400 people there. They were considered subversive due to their organisation into unions and them attempting to get increased rights, wages and so on...

In 1979 a coup occurred promising to stop the repression of the previous government. However, the army kept on killing and nothing changed. Oscar Romero was at this point an outspoken defender of human rights. He gave a homily saying "in the name of God: Stop the repression!" and was assassinated celebrating mass the next day in 1980. At his funeral, the state placed bombs and shot at the crowd as they ran for shelter into the cathedral.

At this point, everyone knew Civil War was imminent. After Che’s failure in Bolivia, Cuba understood that you had to have a united left to win any kind of war. So, Cuba insisted that all of the guerrilla groups in El Salvador merge into one. The FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) formed from a merger of several Salvadoran communist guerrilla groups. Their ethos was Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, and they drew upon Che Guevara's foco theory and theory of guerrilla warfare...

So, the FMLN declared war and very quickly the US began pouring money into El Salvador in response. This is basically because of the Domino Theory, where the US felt if one Central American country fell to socialism, the surrounding countries would also succumb.

The army would commit multiple genocides, kill civilians and so on for the next 12 years. US would give the country (which is tiny- smaller than Wales – over $6 billion in funding – most of which went to army training). At the same time, the Soviets, Cuba and Nicaragua were providing funding/arms/training to the FMLN.

Throughout the war, the right/state was responsible for around 85% of atrocities during this time. There were multiple genocides in El Mozote, El Calabozo and the army would also forcibly recruit young boys into the army, where they would then have to commit atrocities. There was also widespread rape, torture, kidnap and murder by the army. Eventually, the army killed six priests (who had Spanish citizenship) who had been outspoken critics of the war and the repression by the Salvadoran state. It got a lot of attention on the international stage and the US withdrew funding due to this, previously they had been complicit in sweeping murders under the rug.

Ultimately, El Salvador tried really hard to follow in Cuba’s footsteps, with Cuba's support, but the US wouldn’t let that happen. Basically, the two protagonists in this war were the US and the FMLN. Without US funding, the war would have ended much quicker. The FMLN took part in the elections following the end of the war and won. (But also an amnesty law meant no one got punished.)

Sources:

https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nsa/publications/elsalvador2/

http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/homilies-and-writings

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Own-Backyard-Central-1977-1992/dp/0807848573

https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Civil-War-El-Salvador/dp/146962866X

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-rHosu4buhMC&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=fmln+tactics&source=bl&ots=_Pp1Ksy767&sig=RgsaiyaaU_qo1XYMwetYDjmbzxw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi31Nbqj_jTAhXNEVAKHQwnCiMQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=fmln%20tactics&f=false