February 16, 1989 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full interview: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/john-stockwell-on-cias-biggest-wa...
The Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992) was a conflict in El Salvador.
It was between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing militias. Significant tensions and violence had already existed, before the civil war's full outbreak, over the course of the 1970s.
The United States supported the Salvadoran military government. The conflict ended in the early 1990s. Some 75,000 people were killed.
José Napoleón Duarte Fuentes (November 23, 1925 - February 23, 1990) was a Salvadoran political figure who, from 1980 to 1982, led the civil-military Revolutionary Government Junta that took power in a 1979 coup d'état. He also served as civilian President of El Salvador between June 1, 1984 and June 1, 1989.
On 15 October 1979, the civil-military Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno (Revolutionary Government Junta) — JRG — deposed right-wing President General Carlos Humberto Romero. Inspired by left-wing politics, and wishing to project a moderately-civilized Salvadorian world image, the JRG — Col. Adolfo Arnaldo Majano Ramo, Col. Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez Avendaño, Guillermo Ungo, Mario Antonio Andino, Román Mayorga Quirós — governed El Salvador from 1979 to 1982, effecting some land reform (Decree No. 43, 6-XII-1979) restricting landholdings to a hundred-hectare maximum, nationalized the banking, coffee, and sugar industries, and disbanded the paramilitary private death squad ORDEN.
The civil war escalated and the infrastructure collapsed when the FMLN captured much countryside, despite failed attacks in January 1981 and in April 1982.
In May 1980, the Salvadoran guerrillas had met in Havana, forming the consolidated politico-military command, the DRU — Dirección Revolucionaria Unificada (Unified Revolutionary Directorate) — a Cuban condition for military aid. In October, they founded the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (comprising the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional [FMLN] and the Frente Democrático Revolucionario [FDR]) honouring insurgent hero Farabundo Martí, whom the Salvadoran National Guard killed in 1932.
In preparing for a mass insurrection against the U.S.-sponsored military government of El Salvador, the FMLN's feasible military victory was a two-pronged strategy of economic sabotage and a prolonged guerrilla war-of-attrition (per the principles of Ché Guevara, Mao Zedong, and the Vietnamese) fought with rural guerrillas and urban civil political support; thus, in the 19801982 period political violence increased when alienated political groups metamorphosed, first into terrorists, then into guerrillas. On 10 January 1981, the FMLN's first, major attack established their control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments for the war's duration.
Elections occurred during the civil war, but were interrupted with right-wing paramilitary attacks and the FMLN-ordered boycott. In 1986, an earthquake calmed the warriors, for three years of relative peace and negotiation, and the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES) published a 165-page report documenting the routine use of forty types of torture applied to political prisoners in the Mariona men's prison, and that U.S. military advisers often supervised said interrogations.
Meanwhile, the JRG re-allowed political activity; on 28 March 1982, Salvadorans elected a new Constituent Assembly that, in turn, elected Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja as interim-president. In 1983, the Assembly drafted a new, national, political Constitution ostensibly strengthening civil rights, limiting provisional detention and unreasonable search-and-seizure, establishing a pluralistic, republican government, strengthening the legislature, guaranteeing judicial independence, and codifying labor rights — especially of agricultural workers; the FMLN thought them too little.
Despite the nominal reforms, El Salvador's human rights record registered only death squad terrorism. In 1984, Christian Democrat José Napoleón Duarte won the presidency (with 54% of votes) against Army Major Roberto dAubuisson, of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), becoming the first, freely-elected President of El Salvador in more than fifty years; fearful of a D'Aubuisson presidency, the CIA financed Duarte's campaign with some two million dollars, because, per U.S. ambassador Robert White, the "pathological killer" D'Aubuisson and his ARENA party were the death squads.
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When was this interview? I'm doing a project on the effect of media on the American public's perception of war.
HuttonGlutton 1 year ago
@HuttonGlutton I've added the date: February 16, 1989
thefilmarchive 1 year ago