El Salvador: Dance of the Death Squads, 1980–1992 (Cold War)

Categories: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Description

When the world held its breath …

It is more than 25 years since the end of the Cold War. It all started over 75 years ago, in 1944 – long before the last shots of the Second World War had echoed across the wastelands of Eastern Europe – with the brutal Greek Civil War. The battle lines are no longer drawn, but they linger on, unwittingly or not, in conflict zones such as Syria, Somalia and Ukraine. In an era of mass-produced AK-47s and ICBMs, one such flashpoint was once El Salvador …

The twelve-year guerrilla war in El Salvador – the smallest country in Central The us after Belize – was once one of the intense insurgencies fought in the Central and South American region since the end of the Second World War. Backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, the struggle was once initiated on 15 October 1979 – in large part from Nicaraguan soil – by the radical Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or ‘umbrella organization’ of five socialist and communist guerrilla groups.

Fearful of supporting an oppressive regime in San Salvador and media reports of ‘death squads’, this drew a quick but muted response from a United States headed by Jimmy Carter and a Democratic majority in Congress. On the other hand, once Ronald Reagan was once elected into office, through quite a lot of US intelligence bodies, the CIA especially, a great deal of military hardware – including plenty of the same aircraft and helicopters originally deployed in Vietnam – were pumped into the country to counter Soviet efforts to make stronger the rebels. The Salvadorian security forces were eventually molded into an effective counter-guerrilla force that was once to force the rebels to the negotiating table.
See:

Related products

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Arts and Photography » History and Criticism » History » Americas » Central America » El Salvador » El Salvador: Dance of the Death Squads, 1980–1992 (Cold War)

Recent Products