The Pipil tribe who occupied the region that is now El Salvador put up strong resistance to the 1524 Spanish expedition led by Pedro de Alvarado. By the following year, however, the Spanish had prevailed and established a settlement named San Salvador, near the Pipil capital of Cuscatlan. The territory of El Salvador became part of the captaincy-general of Guatemala. When the independence of Guatemala was accepted by the Spanish in 1821, El Salvador accepted its new status but strongly objected to the Guatemalans’ plan to incorporate it into the Mexican empire. In 1824, after a brief war
and having established its own constitution, El Salvador became one of the United Provinces of Central America (later the Federal Republic of Central America). Nonetheless, it was several decades before El Salvador was able to rid itself of the overwhelming influence of Guatemala. This came about largely through the influence of the country’s coffee barons whose substantial economic clout was converted into effective political control and who dominated the country until the 1920s.
At this point, the military entered the political arena – by virtue of successfully putting down a farm workers’ revolt led by Augustin Farabundo Marti – and has retained a central role ever since. The repressive nature of military government and the alliance formed between senior army officers and the land-owning families who controlled the economy, caused growing discontent among workers and, gradually, the Catholic clergy, which had traditionally sided with the ruling classes. Economic problems grew throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, with a brief diversion provided by the 1969 ‘Soccer War’ with Honduras (essentially a border dispute, despite its title). A disputed election in 1972, won by a Conservative military candidate, triggered widespread political violence. But it was the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Romero – a leading critic of civil rights abuses – by right-wing elements, which accelerated the country’s plunge into civil war.
There was a sharp increase in recruitment to the various guerrilla organizations that had been gradually organizing throughout the 1970s. As the war spread throughout the country during the 1980s, the Government received huge amounts of US military and civil aid (a consequence of the ‘Reagan Doctrine’ of rolling back communism) with which it fought a brutal and fairly effective counter-insurgency campaign against leftist guerrillas of the Faribundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN). Peace talks began in earnest in 1989, after a major offensive by the guerrillas persuaded the Government that there would be no outright military victor. Cajoled by President Alfredo Cristiani of the right-wing ARENA party, formed in 1981 to represent landowning interests, hard-line factions of the military reluctantly accepted the need for a settlement. A formal ceasefire, under UN auspices and supervised by a joint forum of the two sides entitled the National Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ), came into force at the beginning of 1992.
Since then, ARENA has dominated domestic politics as the FLMN tried to find its feet in the new political environment. It was not until the March 2000 National Assembly election that the FLMN became the largest in the
Asemblea Nacional (National Assembly), although ARENA continues to control the Government with the support of smaller right-wing parties. (This pattern was repeated at the most recent poll in 2004 which again saw an ARENA candidate elected for president for the fourth successive term.) Political differences were temporarily set aside in January 2001, when the country was struck by a massive earthquake, which killed several thousand and left tens of thousands homeless. The reconstruction period has been overshadowed once again by the legacy of the civil war. There have been repeated clashes over compensation, between ex-fighters and security forces, while in 2002, several former generals in exile in the USA have been convicted in US courts of human rights abuses. Abroad, El Salvador’s sole territorial dispute – with Honduras, over the ownership of three islands in the Gulf of Fonseca – was finally resolved in January 1998. This will ease plans that are currently on the drawing board for further regional economic integration linked to the US-dominated NAFTA trade bloc.
GovernmentExecutive power in the Republic of El Salvador is vested in a President, elected by universal adult suffrage every five years. He is assisted by a Vice President and a Council of Ministers. Legislation is formulated by the 84-member
Asamblea Nacional, elected by universal adult suffrage every three years.
EconomyThe long-running civil war caused a significant decline in El Salvador’s mainly agricultural economy. More recently, a fall in world coffee prices has hit rural communities. The strengths of today’s economy lie in a successful textiles and clothes manufacturing industry, as well as the country’s growing service industries, in particular call centers in the financial sector.
A steady recovery has helped reduce poverty from 66% in 1991 to 34.5% in 2004. However, remittances from Salvadorans working abroad remain a vital source of income for many families.
The Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) implemented in 2006 provides El Salvador preferential access to American markets. The areas most expected to benefit from this accord are textiles and clothing as well as processed food sectors.
In 2005, annual growth was 2.8%, while inflation was 4.7%. El Salvador is a member of the Central American Common Market.
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