would lessen and that the reforms proffered by the junta, including agrarian reform, would proceed. As a result, José Napoleón Duarte, who had been denied the presidency eight years earlier, joined the junta and became its president in December 1980.
Rather than subside, however, the levels of violence increased. Death squads and right-wing paramilitary groups began “disappearing”73 those associated with labor unions, peasant groups, the church, and students. Between 1980 and 1982, approximately forty-two thousand people were killed by police, military, and paramilitary death squads.74 More than thirteen thousand people were murdered or disappeared in 1980 alone, most of them peasants, workers, and students.75 Innocent civilians, including children, were frequently caught in the military’s “low-intensity,” counterinsurgency strategy. Numerous massacres of civilians, including those at the Sumpul River, El Mozote, the Lempa River, El Calabozo, and the Gualsinga River, demonstrated the brutality of government forces. At El Mozote, more than seven hundred unarmed civilians, including infants and children, were summarily executed.76 One of the most frequent perpetrators of the massacres was the “elite” U.S.-trained Atlacatl Batallion, which was widely regarded as “the most efficient killing machine that the Salvadoran army had to offer.”77
A series of high-profile assassinations in 1980 effectively ended any prospect for a peaceful settlement to the conflict. Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero was assassinated while celebrating mass on March 24, 1980. Although initially thought to be a conservative Vatican appointment, Romero was radicalized by the overwhelming violence in El Salvador, particularly the attacks on priests and the murder of his good friend Rutilio Grande. During the three years that Romero was the archbishop of San Salvador, he implored government forces, paramilitary death squads, and revolutionaries to lay down their weapons. His powerful sermons on themes of social justice, impunity, repression, and poverty made him the “voice of the voiceless.” They also made him a threat to elites. The month before his assassination, Romero wrote a letter to U.S. president Jimmy Carter asking him to prohibit military aid. So compelling was his presence that many combatants would later say that his assassination drove them to join the revolution.78 Six leaders of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), including the organization’s president, Enrique Álvarez Córdova, were abducted, tortured, and murdered in November 1980 by security forces as they gathered for a press conference.79 The remaining leadership was forced into exile. Weeks later, in December 1980, three American nuns and a layworker were abducted, raped, and murdered by members of the National Guard. Three days later the bodies of Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan, who served as a pallbearer at Romero’s funeral, were found buried in a single shallow grave. These deaths shocked Salvadorans and the international community and convinced many that the space for political settlements had closed.
With all avenues for nonviolent protest eliminated, increasing repression drove once divided opposition groups together. The Democratic Revolutionary Front was established in April 1980 by three center-left parties, members of which had participated in the junta. During the summer of 1980 the FDR organized several general strikes designed to demonstrate the popular support for the group.80 The public nature of the FDR’s activities naturally drew the attention of the military. The murders of one organization’s leadership later that year had a dramatic impact on the group’s organizational capacity within the country. The FDR gained international prominence through the establishment of diplomatic missions abroad and was recognized as the Salvadoran representative to the Socialist International. In 1981 the FDR was recognized by the governments of France and Mexico as a “representative political force.”81 In October 1980 five guerrilla organizations formed the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).82 The FDR, which had an open alliance with the FMLN’s predecessor, the United Revolutionary Directorate (DRU), then aligned with the FMLN.83 The polarizing events and heightened repression of 1979–82 provided ample opportunity for recruitment. The FMLN peaked in 1983 with some twelve thousand troops, making it one of the largest, most disciplined guerrilla movements in the hemisphere. Almost one-third of FMLN combatants and 20 percent of commanders were women. The FMLN derived much of its strength from the grassroots and peasant organizations, both in terms of recruitment and general support.
U.S. Policy and the Emergence of ARENA
U.S. interest in El Salvador, which had been fairly negligible compared to other countries in the region before 1979, rose sharply with the victory of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the emergence of the FMLN. The goal of the Carter administration was to prevent the accession of a leftist regime in El Salvador while promoting human rights, a policy it sought to promote throughout Latin America. Believing that the 1979 junta offered the best solution to the political violence, the Carter administration approved the reprogramming of $5.7 million in nonlethal military aid to the junta in March 1980.84 In an effort to support the junta and diminish support for the guerrillas, the administration developed a policy that included agrarian reform and the nationalization of banks and coffee.85 These policies, which many elites characterized as socialist, were deeply at odds with the interests of most elites and their policy preferences at the time. Despite efforts by some in the Carter administration to tie human rights to aid, abuses increased and aid continued to flow in an effort to combat the encroaching “communist threat” posed by the FMLN rebels.86
But elites found a much more suitable partner in the Reagan administration.87 The attitudes and policy preference of hardliners within the administration coincided with those of El Salvador’s elites. Salvadoran elites and the military successfully resurrected the 1932 narrative, which was also echoed by the administration: the situation in El Salvador was the result of Soviet encroachment into the hemisphere and a consequence of Carter’s permissive policy environment in the region.88 The FMLN’s failed January 1981 offensive fueled speculation in Washington that the guerrillas were receiving significant assistance from Cuba and Nicaragua.89 The Reagan administration, eager to use El Salvador as a showcase in its efforts to combat communism in the hemisphere, developed a strategy to undercut support for the guerrillas while also supporting democracy.90 The Reagan Doctrine, as it came to be known, and the fear of communist expansion in the hemisphere dominated U.S. policy in the region for almost a decade.91
The dominant narrative about the FMLN’s military weakness and lack of popular appeal undermined attempts for political resolution of the conflict throughout the decade. The military, many elites, and the Reagan administration believed that the FMLN could be defeated on the battlefield. During the 1980s the United States spent $4.35 billion, $1.035 billion of that in military aid, to defeat the FMLN.92 As a result, there was little support for a negotiated end to the conflict during much of the 1980s. Failed talks between the Duarte administration and FDR-FMLN at La Palma, Chalatenango, in October 1984, Ayagualo in November 1984, and numerous overtures in 1985–86 received no support from the military or the Reagan administration.
While the support of a military victory was clearly one of the defining features of Reagan’s policy, elections were paramount for achieving the administration’s overall goal. Not only would elections provide legitimacy for the Salvadoran government and guarantee continued aid from a highly critical, Democrat-controlled Congress, but they would also undermine guerrilla efforts by providing a democratic alternative.93 Elections were held in 1982 for a Constituent Assembly, which would, in turn, elect a provisional president and replace the junta. The primary goal of the assembly was to draft a new constitution to create a new framework for a more inclusive electoral democracy. These elections, and the subsequent elections in 1984, were touted as “free elections” by the United States despite obvious deficiencies—not the least of which was that they were held against the backdrop of the war.94 Seven parties registered with the new Central Elections Council (CCE), including the PCN and the PDC.
In 1981 a new party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), emerged as the political expression of right-wing extremism. In some respects, ARENA mirrored past patronage party networks, combining repression with tightly
