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.
Roberto D'Aubuisson, center, founder of right-wing conservative party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, campaigns during a presidential rally in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, March 1, 1984. ARENA was established in 1981 and was primarily supported by right-wing extremists and members of the country's economic elite. D'Aubuisson's connection with the death squads made him a controversial figure in United States-Salvadoran relations during the war. He did, however, receive support from influential U.S. Republicans looking to safeguard economic interests, proving no coincidence in the name Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (National Republican Alliance).
Roberto D'Aubuisson, center, founder of right-wing conservative party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, addresses a crowd during a presidential campaign rally in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, March 1, 1984. D'Aubuisson had previously served as Deputy Director of the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, known as the intelligence sector of the death squads, and was named responsible as giving the orders for the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero on March 24, 1980. D'Aubuisson died of throat cancer at the age of 48 in February of 1992, one month after the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords.
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.
Roberto D'Aubuisson (1944-1992), center left, shakes hands with Roman Catholic Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas (1923-1994), right, at an event in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 1, 1983. Salvadoran President Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja (1925-2001), center, looks on. D’Aubuisson helped establish the paramilitary network of death squads around the country in the late 1970s was named responsible as giving the orders for the assassination of Rivera y Damas’ predecessor, Archbishop Óscar Romero, on March 24, 1980.
Roberto D'Aubuisson (1944-1992), left, shakes hands with Roman Catholic Bishop José Oscar Barahona Castillo (1938-2016), right, at an event in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 1, 1983. Salvadoran President Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja (1925-2001), center, looks on. D’Aubuisson founded the extreme right-wing political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, in 1980. He was known to have close ties to the death squads and had a reputation for extreme violence.
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.
Presidential candidate Mario Sandoval Alarcón, the leader of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, National Liberation Movement, MLN, speaks to media during an interview in Guatemala City, Guatemala, March 1, 1982. Sandoval was one of the CIA's leading protégés in the 1954 coup to overthrow democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz. Known as the "godfather" of the Central American death squads, he trained the notorious Salvadoran Roberto D'Aubuisson along with other paramilitary and death squad leaders. Sandoval was a leader and organizer of the Guatemalan chapter of the World Anti-Communist Leage (WACL), which served as an international lobby for covert and paramilitary operations including funding for the contras in Nicaragua and Operation Condor in the Southern Cone.
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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Members of the organization Comadres protest on the anniversary of Archbishop Óscar Romero's death in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1984. Comadres is a committee of mothers and relatives of prisoners, the disappeared and the politically assassinated of El Salvador. It was established in December 1977 with the help of Archbishop Óscar Romero. 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.
Roberto D'Aubuisson, founder of right-wing conservative party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, addresses a crowd during a presidential campaign rally in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 1, 1984. ARENA was established in 1981 and was primarily supported by right-wing extremists and members of the country’s economic elite. D’Aubuisson’s connection with the death squads made him a controversial figure in United States-Salvadoran relations during the war. He did, however, receive support from influential U.S. Republicans looking to safeguard economic interests, proving no coincidence in the party name Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (National Republican Alliance).
Roberto D'Aubuisson, founder of right-wing conservative party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, addresses a crowd during a presidential campaign rally in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 1, 1984. D’Aubuisson’s connection with the death squads made him a controversial figure in United States-Salvadoran relations during the war. He did, however, receive support from influential U.S. Republicans looking to safeguard economic interests, proving no coincidence in the party name National Republican Alliance.
Local and international journalists attend a press conference with Salvadoran presidential candidate for the party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, Roberto D’Aubuisson, center left, following the national presidential elections two days earlier in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 27, 1984. José Napoleón Duarte of the Partido Demócrata Cristiano, Christian Democratic Party, PDC, was officially declared the winner after a second run-off election that ended on May 12, 1984.
A man killed by a right-wing death squad lies on the floor of the city morgue in San Salvador, El Salvador, September 24, 1984. The twelve-year armed conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
Salvadoran military commanders and the head of the Treasury Police Colonel Nicolás Carranza, 3rd left, sit during a military ceremony at the Escuela Militar Capitán General Gerardo Barrios in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, May 1, 1983. Carranza worked with Roberto D'Aubuisson and José Guillermo García to establish the paramilitary network of death squads around the country in the late 1970s. As Vice Minister of Defense from 1979 to 1981 and head of the notorious Treasury Police in 1983, he exercised command over the forces responsible for widespread attacks on civilians. A paid CIA informant who received $90,000 annually to procure intelligence on the Salvadoran left, he resided in the United States from 1985 until his death in 2017. In 2015, Carranza was found guilty in United States Federal District Court for crimes against humanity, extrajudicial assassination, and torture.
Pedestrians walk past a presidential election poster for the right-wing political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, on their way home from work in the Mejicanos neighborhood of San Salvador, El Salvador, May 1, 1984. 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 several influential members of the Republican party of the United States. Roberto D'Aubuisson, founding member of ARENA and the presidential candidate for the party in the 1984 elections, was known to have close ties to the death squads and had a reputation for extreme violence.
Salvadoran Treasury Police Colonel Nicolás Carranza sits during a military ceremony at the Escuela Militar Capitán General Gerardo Barrios in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, May 1, 1983. Carranza worked with Roberto D’Aubuisson and José Guillermo García to establish the paramilitary network of death squads around the country in the late 1970s. As Vice Minister of Defense from 1979 to 1981 and head of the notorious Treasury Police in 1983, he exercised command over the forces responsible for widespread attacks on civilians. A paid CIA informant who received $90,000 annually to procure intelligence on the Salvadoran left, he resided in the United States from 1985 until his death in 2017. In 2015, Carranza was found guilty in United States Federal District Court for crimes against humanity, extrajudicial assassination, and torture.
A private security guard for Roberto D'Aubuisson, center, speaks with Salvadoran army soldiers about potential leftist guerrilla attacks in Suchitoto, El Salvador, March 1, 1982. D'Aubuisson founded the right-wing political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, in 1980. He was known to have close ties to the death squads and had a reputation for extreme violence.
United States Ambassador Deane Hinton, center, hands an American flag to Roberto D'Aubuisson, President of the Constituent Assembly, in San Salvador, El Salvador, April 1, 1983. In addition to founding the conservative political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, D'Aubuisson was a former official of the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, the intelligence sector of the death squads. He was named responsible as giving the orders for the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero on March 24, 1980.
Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, right, listens to Salvadoran presidential candidate Roberto D'Aubuisson, left, from the right-wing party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, National Republican Alliance, ARENA, on the campaign trail in San Salvador, El Salvador, May 9, 1984. Vargas Llosa was reporting and writing about the Salvadoran presidential elections for Time magazine. José Napoleón Duarte of the Partido Demócrata Cristiano, Christian Democratic Party, PDC, was elected president on May 12, 1984. This victory can be largely attributed to the more than $3 million in aid, both overt and covert, provided by the United States to finance the elections in an effort to produce a moderate reformist government compliant with Washington's interests.