Blackwell Reference Online

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The Salvadoran Civil War, taking the lives of about 70,000 people, was fought between the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) . In spite of countless massacres and executions perpetrated by Salvadoran security forces and right-wing death squads, the US government continued to support the Salvadoran government and military throughout the war, providing US$7 billion in assistance. The Reagan administration, largely ignoring the unjust political, economic, and social structures in El Salvador, saw the conflict in purely Cold War terms as part of the global battle between the US and Soviet Union. Only 8,236 square miles in size, El Salvador is the smallest nation in Central America and the most densely populated country in the western hemisphere. The land has no important mineral resources and at least half of its people are dependent on agriculture for survival, while less than 2 percent own 60 percent of the country, including nearly all fertile land. Salvadoran per capita income is among the lowest in Latin America. In the late nineteenth century El Salvador's indigo-centered economy was replaced by coffee exports. The oligarchy, often called the Fourteen Families, already held most of the fertile land, but the potential for large coffee profits led this oligarchy to expand landholdings by usurping communal lands and small plots of the ... log in or subscribe to read full text