A Salvadoran man speaks about the finding of twelve local campesinos who were killed and thrown down a 180-foot well, bottom center, in the village of Los Mangos, Sonsonate department, El Salvador, April 7, 1984. The two men implicated in the murder were members of a civil defense unit associated with local death squads. Civil defense patrols were utilized by the Salvadoran state regime as a form of paramilitary control, specifically over the rural sectors of society. The civil defense patrols along with the Salvadoran National Guard were complicit in indiscriminate attacks on peasant cooperatives and villages suspected of subversive sympathies.
A Salvadoran National Guardsman, right, speaks to the media, including radio reporter Edith Caron, left, about the killing of twelve local campesinos in the village of Los Mangos, Sonsonate department, El Salvador, April 7, 1984. The two men implicated in the murder, in which they reportedly threw the twelve men down a 180-foot well, were members of a civil defense unit associated with local death squads. Civil defense patrols were utilized by the Salvadoran state regime as a form of paramilitary control, specifically over the rural sectors of society. The civil defense patrols along with the Salvadoran National Guard were complicit in indiscriminate attacks on peasant cooperatives and villages suspected of subversive sympathies.
A handcuffed Salvadoran man implicated in the killing of twelve local campesinos speaks to the media, including radio reporter Edith Caron, right, in the village of Los Mangos, Sonsonate department, El Salvador, April 7, 1984. The two men implicated in the murder, in which they reportedly threw the twelve men down a 180-foot well, were members of a civil defense unit associated with local death squads. Civil defense patrols were utilized by the Salvadoran state regime as a form of paramilitary control, specifically over the rural sectors of society. The civil defense patrols along with the Salvadoran National Guard were complicit in indiscriminate attacks on peasant cooperatives and villages suspected of subversive sympathies.
A crowd of local townspeople listen to a handcuffed Salvadoran man implicated in the killing of twelve local campesinos as he speaks to the media in the village of Los Mangos, Sonsonate department, El Salvador, April 7, 1984. The two men implicated in the murder, in which they reportedly threw the twelve men down a 180-foot well, were members of a civil defense unit associated with local death squads. Civil defense patrols were utilized by the Salvadoran state regime as a form of paramilitary control, specifically over the rural sectors of society. The civil defense patrols along with the Salvadoran National Guard were complicit in indiscriminate attacks on peasant cooperatives and villages suspected of subversive sympathies.
A woman holds a picture of Archbishop Óscar Romero on the fourth anniversary of his assassination, San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Romero spoke out against the increasing violence and economic inequality sustained by the Salvadoran state regime and was murdered during mass on March 24, 1980 by a right-wing death squad under the orders of Roberto D’Aubuisson. The martyred Romero was officially canonized as a saint by Pope Francis in 2018.
Leftist guerrillas from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, interrogate a family member involved in the paramilitary group Organización Democrática Nacionalista, National Democratic Organization, ORDEN, seated left, after a takeover of a nearby village in Santa Anita, El Salvador, February 22, 1981. ORDEN was established in the late 1960s with support from the United States Army Special Forces by General José Alberto Medrano, known as the father of Salvadoran counterinsurgency. ORDEN, along with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, widely considered to be the origin of the death squads, were employed by the military to infiltrate and terrorize rural populations considered subversive to the regime. Although ORDEN was nominally disbanded in 1979, many of its members were folded into civil defense units who continued to use extrajudicial violence and torture to repress the civilian population throughout the armed conflict.
Leftist guerrillas from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, interrogate a family member involved in the paramilitary group Organización Democrática Nacionalista, National Democratic Organization, ORDEN, seated center right, after a takeover of a nearby village in Santa Anita, El Salvador, February 22, 1981. ORDEN was established in the late 1960s with support from the United States Army Special Forces by General José Alberto Medrano, known as the father of Salvadoran counterinsurgency. ORDEN, along with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, widely considered to be the origin of the death squads, were employed by the military to infiltrate and terrorize rural populations considered subversive to the regime. Although ORDEN was nominally disbanded in 1979, many of its members were folded into civil defense units who continued to use extrajudicial violence and torture to repress the civilian population throughout the armed conflict.
Unidentified men look at one of two corpses in the city morgue, La Libertad, El Salvador, August 10, 1984. Both victims were shot in the face and showed additional signs of bruising. The twelve-year armed conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
Unidentified men look at one of two corpses in the city morgue, La Libertad, El Salvador, August 10, 1984. Both victims were shot in the face and showed additional signs of bruising. The twelve-year armed conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
Unidentified men look at one of two corpses in the city morgue, La Libertad, El Salvador, August 10, 1984. Both victims were shot in the face and showed additional signs of bruising. The twelve-year armed conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
A group of residents look underneath a sheet covering two bodies killed and dumped by a right-wing death squad on the outskirts of San Salvador, El Salvador, February 1, 1982. Death squads in El Salvador emerged from the paramilitary groups Organización Democrática Nacionalista, National Democratic Organization, ORDEN, and Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, founded in the early 1960s with funding and administrative assistance from the C.I.A. and U.S. agents during the Kennedy administration. In the civil war the death squads were organized primarily by the right-wing landowning oligarchy and members of the political and military elite, including founder of the political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, Roberto D’Aubuisson.
Members of a local human rights commission look at the body of an exhumed civilian in San Salvador, El Salvador, January 1, 1984. The victim was presumably killed by a paramilitary death squad. The country was engaged in a twelve-year civil war between successive authoritarian regimes, backed by the United States, and the guerrilla coalition Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN. The conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
An elderly woman is helped into a Roman Catholic church by family members on the fourth anniversary of the death of Archbishop Óscar Romero in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Archbishop Romero spoke out against the increasing violence and economic inequality sustained by the Salvadoran state regime and was murdered during mass on March 24, 1980 by a right-wing death squad under the orders of Roberto D'Aubuisson.
A woman lights a votive candle on the fourth anniversary of the death of Archbishop Óscar Romero in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Archbishop Romero spoke out against the increasing violence and economic inequality sustained by the Salvadoran state regime and was murdered during mass on March 24, 1980 by a right-wing death squad under the orders of Roberto D'Aubuisson. The martyred Romero was officially canonized as a saint by Pope Francis in 2018.
Guerrilla fighters from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, interrogate family members of a right-wing death squad, right with cap, following an overnight attack on a nearby village in Santa Anita, El Salvador, February 22, 1981. At the time the FPL controlled the majority of the mountainous Chalatenango department. FPL merged with four leftist organizations in 1980 to form the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN. The group drew its name from Salvadoran communist leader and revolutionary Agustín Farabundo Martí, whose 1932 peasant revolt had lasting consequences for the indigenous and campesino communities.
View of mourners in a funeral procession for a member of the political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, who was killed during the 1982 campaign for presidential elections, central El Salvador, March 1, 1982. ARENA was founded in 1981 from a convergence of the landowning oligarchy and the extreme anti-communist right. The party received formative support from Guatemala’s fascist ultra-right political party Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, National Liberation Movement, MLN, and from influential members of the Republican party of the United States. Founding member and party leader Roberto D’Aubuisson was known to have close ties to the death squads and had a reputation for extreme violence.
At a press conference, a leader of the left-wing labor union coalition Movimiento de Unidad Sindical y Gremial de El Salvador, Unitary Trade Union and Guild Movement of El Salvador, MUSYGES, displays a headline in the El Mundo daily newspaper reporting threats by the right-wing death squad Éjercito Secreto Anticomunista, Secret Anticommunist Army, ESA, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 5, 1984. The Salvadoran political elite viewed labor unions as subversive enemies of the state and considered its leaders to be as dangerous as the guerrilla insurgency. El Salvador is a country burdened with one of the most rigid class structures in all of Latin America. Resistance to labor unions and land redistribution can be attributed to the economic oligarchy's overwhelming influence in the political and military spheres, as well as their connection to right-wing death squads.
At a press conference, a leader of the left-wing labor union coalition Movimiento de Unidad Sindical y Gremial de El Salvador, Unitary Trade Union and Guild Movement of El Salvador, MUSYGES, displays a headline in the El Mundo daily newspaper reporting threats by the right-wing death squad Éjercito Secreto Anticomunista, Secret Anticommunist Army, ESA, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 5, 1984. MUSYGES was founded in 1983 as a result of the coordination amongst union activists working clandestinely in urban zones. Although it dissolved in November of 1984 over factional disputes, MUSYGES, in its short existence, led demands against state repression and wage controls in place since 1980 and opened space for labor organizing later in the decade.
A captured member, second right, of the paramilitary militia Organización Democrática Nacionalista, Democratic Nationalist Organization, ORDEN, stands with his family behind a table of weapons following the takeover of their village by leftist guerrillas from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, in San Antonio de la Cruz, El Salvador, February 20, 1981. ORDEN was established in the late 1960s with support from the United States Army Special Forces by General José Alberto Medrano, known as the father of Salvadoran counterinsurgency. ORDEN, along with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, widely considered to be the origin of the death squads, were employed by the military to infiltrate and terrorize rural populations considered subversive to the regime. Although ORDEN was nominally disbanded in 1979, many of its members were folded into civil defense units who continued to use extrajudicial violence and torture to repress the civilian population throughout the armed conflict.
One of five captured members of the paramilitary militia Organización Democrática Nacionalista, Democratic Nationalist Organization, ORDEN, stands behind a table of weapons following the takeover of their village by leftist guerrillas from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, in San Antonio de la Cruz, El Salvador, February 20, 1981. ORDEN was established in the late 1960s with support from the United States Army Special Forces by General José Alberto Medrano, known as the father of Salvadoran counterinsurgency. ORDEN, along with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, widely considered to be the origin of the death squads, were employed by the military to infiltrate and terrorize rural populations considered subversive to the regime. Although ORDEN was nominally disbanded in 1979, many of its members were folded into civil defense units who continued to use extrajudicial violence and torture to repress the civilian population throughout the armed conflict.