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of El Salvador |
| 1838 |
Salvadoran Independence |
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Following a coffee depression, a popular movement is led by Austine Farabundo Marti. 30,000 peasants are subsequently killed in La Matanza (The Massacre). Marti and others leaders are later publicly executed. |
| 1968 |
A theology of liberation and a “preferential option for the poor” is articulated by Latin American Bishops in Medellin, Colombia. |
| 1977 |
Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, S.J. is assassinated by the death squad. He is the first of seven priests killed in the next two years. The new Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, experiences a conversion following the death of his friend Rutilio. Violence and repression escalates. The US increases military and economic aid. |
| 2/17/80 |
Archbishop Romero writes a letter to President Carter: “Please don’t send any military, economic or diplomatic aid to this government or there will be a blood bath in my country.” Carter ignores his plea. |
| 3/23/80 |
Romero calls soldiers to obey higher law of God and not kill their brothers/ sisters. |
| 3/24/80 |
Archbishop Romero is killed at the Chapel of the Divina Providencia while celebrating mass. Naming itself after the 1930’s revolutionary leader, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is formed in opposition to the government. |
| 5/24/80 |
Six hundred campesinos die at the Sumpul River Massacre. US Ambassador Robert White denies that the killings occurred. |
| 12/2/80 |
Four US church women, Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan, and Maura Clarke, are kidnapped, raped, and murdered. |
| 12/81 |
Massacre of over 1,000 campesinos in Mozote and surrounding villages by the Atlacatl Battalion, trained by the School of the Americas. It is denied by both the Salvadoran and US governments. Deaths in 1981 number over 16,000. By this time, Reagan and the US Southern Command have taken over military direction of the war. |
| 1986 |
US aid reaches $625.4 million, over $1.5 million per day. |
| 11/89 |
The FMLN launches a major military offensive in San Salvador, occupying one third of the capital. By bombing the neighborhoods, the military forces the FMLN to retreat. |
| 11/16/89 |
Six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter are assassinated at the Central American University by the Atlacatl Battalion of the Armed Forces. |
| 1992 |
Under pressure from the US, peace accords are signed. In a country of 6 million, 75,000 Salvadorans, mostly civilians, were killed and another 300,000 disabled in this 12 yr. Civil war. By this time, 96% of the families were living under the poverty line. The US invested over $6 Billion in this war. |
| 1993 |
The Truth Commission publishes a report detailing human rights violations during the war. Salvadoran Legislature pardons all those named. |
| 2000 |
Human Rights workers express concerns over increasing US military presence in El Salvador in the name of the “war on drugs.” |