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held, but true changes in leadership came only through while the FMLN has become a potent force in El
internal coups. In the late 1960s, resistance to the Salvador’s governing republic.
regime began to coalesce; by 1972 the middle-class,
See also FARABUNDO MARTI FRONT FOR NATIONAL
centrist Christian Democratic Party appeared certain
LIBERATION
to win that year’s presidential election. The army
responded with widespread election fraud and exiled Further Reading
Jose Duarte, the Christian Democrat’s leader. Many
political dissidents, having lost faith in the electoral McClintock, Cynthia. Revolutionary Movements in Latin
America: El Salvador’s FMLN and Peru’s Shining Path.
process, began to look for other methods of opposing
Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press,
the dictatorship.
1998.
The ERP was founded in late 1972 by leftist dis-
Menzel, Sewall H. Bullets Versus Ballots: Political Violence
sidents, many of them former students at the National
and Revolutionary War in El Salvador, 1979-1991.
University of El Salvador, a Marxist stronghold. New Brunswick, CT: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
Although the ERP was aligned with Communists, Waller, J. Michael. The Third Current of Revolution: Inside
unlike other leftist groups, it emphasized action over the “North American Front” of El Salvador’s Guerrilla
dogma. ERP leaders were far more concerned with War. Lanham, VA: University Press of America;
overthrowing the dictatorship while the time was ripe Washington, DC: Council for Inter-American Security
than with the political character of the government Foundation, 1991.
that would replace it; they also were not opposed to
working with El Salvador’s moderate middle class. In
1975, the ERP came to widespread attention when its PERSIAN GULF WAR
leadership assassinated Roque Dalton, a Salvadoran
poet who had advocated a more strictly Marxist-
Leninist, long-term political approach. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led
By the late 1970s, the ERP had established a base international coalition expelled an invading Iraqi
of operations in the eastern province of Morazán. It Army from Kuwait, is a watershed in post-Cold War
was also involved in terrorist activities in the capital, international relations and the development of modern
San Salvador, kidnapping businessmen and political terrorism.
leaders, orchestrating bombings, and attacking secu-
rity forces. At the peak of civil unrest in 1979, leftist HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT
guerrillas formed an alliance to better pool their
resources, calling the new group the Farabundo Marti Iraq and Kuwait have a long-standing border dispute
Front for National Liberation (FMLN). Of the five that has caused tension between the two countries for
guerrilla groups involved, the ERP was the second decades; Iraq has accused Kuwait of drawing oil from
largest and believed by many to have the best-trained fields on the Iraqi side of the border. Following
guerrillas. The ERP’s leader, Joaquin Villalobos, the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988; also called the First
became one of the most prominent spokesmen for the Persian Gulf War), Iraq was heavily in debt and des-
FMLN. perate to increase its oil revenue. At this time, the
In 1981, ERP guerrillas were an essential compo- price of oil declined, and Iraq accused Kuwait of
nent of the FMLN’s “Final Offensive,” an assault on deliberately manipulating world oil markets to Iraq’s
the capital and security forces planned in accordance disadvantage. Experts now believe that President
with the ERP’s direct, action-oriented revolutionary Saddam Hussein of Iraq acted against Kuwait in the
vision. When the Final Offensive failed to inspire a hope of annexing the country and its oil fields,
mass uprising of the populace, the guerrillas withdrew thereby making up Iraq’s shortfall in oil revenues.
to the countryside. A stalemate ensued until 1989, Anti-Kuwaiti rhetoric became more and more evident
when another large-scale FMLN offensive pushed and shrill in the Iraqi press and in official statements
the government into negotiations; a peace agreement in months leading up to Iraq’s August 2, 1990, inva-
was signed in January 1992. After the war, the ERP sion of Kuwait.
and particularly its flashy commander, Villa Lobos, Foreign policy experts in the U.S. government were
emerged as a moderate, center-left political force, preoccupied in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the