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General Information
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led by General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez,
who then establishished an ultra-conservative
and authoritarian government. With the army, he
suppressed a peasant and indigenous uprising in
the west part of the country, resulting in the death
of thousands of people. The number of casualties
from this event is still debated. The death toll differs
according to historians, and varies from 7,000 to
30,000 people. Historians still debate the influence
of the leadership of Farabundo Martí, the Salvadoran
leader of the Communist Party and its members on
the uprising. General Martínez was deposed through
a general strike known as the “Fallen Arms Strike”
in 1944. His government marked the beginning
of a series of successive authoritarian military
governments. These governments ended in 1979with
a coup against General Carlos Humberto Romero by
the PCN political party (National Conciliation Party)
and the installation of the Revolutionary Government
Union. In 1982, a Constituent Assembly was elected
and the Union relinquished its power. Later, in 1984,
the first democratic presidential elections were held.
In 1969, a brief war with Honduras took place. Its
official name is “Legitimate Defense War”, also
known as the “100 Hour War” and erroneously called
“The Soccer War”. The conflict was caused by the
initiative of the Honduran government to carry on
an agrarian reform within their borders. Such land
distribution only favored Honduran citizens and
obliged thousands of Salvadorans, established
there, to return to their country losing their land
through expropriation. El Salvador’s answer to this
situation was to declare war against Honduras.
Civil War
The political environment through the previous
decade contributed a great deal to a civil war that
began in 1980 and lasted 12 years (1980-1992).
This military conflict, defined as a Low Density War
or Popular Prolonged War, by the FMLN (Farabundo
Marti’s National Liberation Front) guerrilla forces
took a toll of 75,000 lives between those dead and
missing in action.
Some factors that contributed to the war were: the
international fall of coffee prices, constant fraudulent
elections, and elimination of the military way of
governing. One of the dramatic events that led to the
armed conflict was the murder of the Archbishop of
San Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero in 1980.
The turbulent environment ended in 1992, when
the combatants of the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN), formed by five leftist
groups, and the right-wing government at the time
of President Alfredo Cristiani, from The Nationalist
Republican Alliance (ARENA) signed the “Peace
Treaty” in January 16, 1992 in Chapultepec, México.
This ensured military and political reforms, but did
not elaborate upon social reforms.
Post-war Period
In 1992, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) sent
the delimitation of the “Bolsones” (a border area
disputed by El Salvador and Honduras). Thanks
to the intervention of the Organization of American
States (OAS) and the ICJ in 2003, total delimitation
of the land border was concluded in 2006. Also in
1992, the ICJ advised a tri-party resolution to create
ocean borders at the Golf of Fonseca. El Salvador
continues to claim the Conejo Island, which was not
included on the ICJ decision of this case.
San Salvador, the capital, is known for its many
earthquakes; as a result, since the Colonial Period,
it has popularly been called “The Valley of the
Hammocks”. In 1986, a 10 second, 7.5 (on the Richter
scale) earthquake destroyed most of San Salvador.
On January 13, 2001 another earthquake, this one
a 7.9 (on the Richter scale) took place, causing
destruction throughout the country. One of the largest
tragedies that occurred, as a consequence of the
quake, was a landslide in an area known as the
Balsam range in the city of Santa Tecla, Department
of La Libertad, that killed nearly 800 people and left
several thousand homeless. On February 13, 2001,
a month later, another earthquake with a similar
intensity killed 255 people and left thousands of
families homeless especially in the interior of the
country, where the poorest sector of society lives.
Another important change was that the last
presidential elections held on March 13, 2009
resulted in the victory of journalist Mauricio Funes
from the FMLN party (Farabundo Marti’s National
Liberation Front) winning control from ARENA (The
Nationalist Republican Alliance), who had held
control of the country since 1989.
The flag
The National Flag consists of two blue horizontal,
equally sized stripes, interposed by a white strip;
NATIONAL SYMBOLS