SUMMARY
A former Spanish colony and subsequently a former member of the United Provinces of Central America, El Salvador was formally declared independent in 1840. After independence, Salvadoran politics were largely controlled by an oligarchy known as “las catorce”, originally fourteen aristocratic families whose support was paramount for the Government of El Salvador. After the Second World War, an alliance of civilian conservatives (dominated by “las catorce”) and military officers ruled the country until the late 1970s. In March 1972, a military faction led primarily by Colonel Benjamin Mejia unsuccessfully attempted to stage a coup against the regime of President Fidel Sanchez Hernandez; the abortive coup reached the level of a minor intra-state conflict.
In October 1979, the President of El Salvador – General Carlos Humberto Romero – was deposed in a coup and replaced by a joint civilian-military junta, led by Colonels Adolfo Arnaldo Majano Ramos and Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez Avendaño. The civilian component of the junta was quickly marginalized, and the new military regime became known as the “Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador”. In December 1980, José Napoleón Duarte (a civilian) became the new head of the junta, but he was largely unable to control the Salvadoran military. In the aftermath of the 1979 coup, various left-wing armed groups initiated an armed conflict against the military-dominated Government of El Salvador.
In March 1982, the Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador was replaced following the holding of legislative elections. In May that year, Álvaro Magaña was installed as President of El Salvador. Since then, the Government of El Salvador has been appointed via elections, all of which were marred by irregularities until the end of the Salvadoran intrastate conflict in 1992. When the Government of El Salvador and FMLN signed the Chapultepec Peace Accord in January 1992, the government was led by President Alfredo Cristiani. Post-conflict politics in El Salvador was dominated by the democratic competition for power between the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance and the left-wing FMLN, which had transformed itself into a political party after 1992; in 2009, a FMLN candidate - Mauricio Funes - won the presidential election for the first time.
At the beginning of the Salvadoran armed conflict in 1979, the Government of El Salvador had access to around 17 000 troops. This number grew during the conflict, and by the late 1980s the government forces was comprised of around 50 000 troops. The government also made extensive use of right-wing militias during the conflict against FMLN.
The United States of America provided substantial military aid to the Government of El Salvador in its conflict against various left-wing armed groups, staring in 1980. The financial aid totaled US$35 million in 1981, and from 1985 until the end of the decade the level of aid ranged between US$80 million and US$137 per year. The United States also provided military advisors and materiel during some years. In 1989 there were significant controversies regarding US aid to El Salvador, due to both human rights abuses perpetrated by the Salvadoran military (including the murder of 6 Jesuit priests) and due to mismanagement of aid.
