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Article: Salvadoran reconciliation.(El Salvador Armed Forces and Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front)
- Article from:
- Military Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 U.S. Army CGSC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
WHEN THE BRUTAL 12-year civil war between the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the El Salvador Armed Forces (ESAF) finally ended in 1992, it had claimed more than 75,000 mostly innocent civilian lives and left another 8,000 missing. (1) In its later years, the fighting had bogged down. Neither the FMLN nor the ESAF could muster enough offensive strength to win decisively, so battles increasingly involved irregulars who demonstrated little regard for civilians. Eventually, a UN-sponsored negotiated peace process paved the way for amnesty, reintegration, and reconciliation (AR2).
At times the AR2 approach worked ...