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El Salvador's History of Violence

FMLN

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Extreme Violence Plagues War

Violence Intensifies Throughout War

1980: Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMNL) is created out of five major leftist revolutionary organizations to oppose right-wing military and government power.

1980: After the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, 250,000 mourners gather at his funeral. During the ceremony, right-wing supporters shot at the crowd. 42 civilians were killed, and 200 were wounded.

1980: Four U.S missionaries working in El Salvador to help the victims of war were stopped by military forces, raped and then killed. The Salvadorian Regime blamed the deaths on robbery. An article discussing the lives of the missionaries during their time spent in El Salvador highlights the severity of the war: "She thought about leaving El Salvador. 'I almost could,' she wrote, 'except for the children, the poor, bruised victims of this insanity. Who would care for them? Whose heart could be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and loneliness? Not mine, dear friend, not mine'" (3).

1981: A U.S trained military group surrounded the town of Mozote, claiming the people of the town aided FMNL guerilla forces. The death squads separated the people by gender and age. The women were all raped, while the men and children were lined up and shot. Over 900 civilians were killed.

1989: Right-wing military forces invaded a University and murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter.

Throughout the 12 year war, civilians were exposed to mass rape, torture, and extra judicial killing. 75,000 civilians were killed by massacres, bombings, and executions. That these actions were occurring on a day to day basis to innocent civilians, mostly mestizo and native, and were largely undocumented or brought to justice.

The division between races had never been so strong or so violent.
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Citations:
1. "El Salvador | CJA." CJA. Accessed October 13, 2016. http://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/.
2. Cortera, Maria, Simon Cohen, Kristin Mrozek, and Zeke Tan. "Transnational Gang Transfer: El Salvador and the United States." War in El Salvador. University of Michigan, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2016
3. Wilkins, Brett. "World." Moral Low Ground. Moral Low Ground, 2 Dec. 2010. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.