In the decades preceding the outbreak of war, El Salvador was plagued by stark and deepening socioeconomic inequality. When an opposition movement began to form in the midst of the Cold War, tensions quickly escalated, and a guerrilla army formed to respond to the indiscriminate violence of the countrys military and paramilitary forces. Twelve years of civil war ensued, costing tens of thousands of civilian lives.Background: Building to WarDrying coffee on a plantation in El Salvador, 1905. Source: History Trust of South AustraliaSince legal decrees in the late 19th century had outlawed the collective ownership of land by Indigenous communities, El Salvadors wealth had been concentrated in the hands of the land-owning minority producing coffee for export. The Great Depression further exacerbated inequality, prompting peasant uprisings against the elites, swiftly put down in a violent wave of repression called La Matanza. Since then, order had been maintained by either military dictatorships or civilian governments with the trappings of democracy upheld by the military. Land ownership became further concentrated still.It wasnt until the 1970s that any viable opposition to the status quo began to reappearin the midst of a Cold War, the United States was determined to win by eliminating any hint of communism in the Western hemisphere. As an opposition movement began to take shape, pushing a leftist agenda that included land reform and peasants rights, organizers and supporters were quickly branded communist and met with violence. In return, a guerrilla movement began to emerge to retaliate. Despite growing human rights violations and ample evidence of electoral fraud that kept reformists out of government, military and financial aid from the US poured in.Undated photo of scar Romero greeting worshippers in San Salvador, El Salvador, Octavio Duran/CNS. Source: The Catholic SunWhen a coalition government took over in 1979, there was a brief moment of hope that reformist positions and popular organizations could be incorporated into the political system. Land reform and other measures to address poverty were promised. But as aspiring politicians, organizing campesinos, and members of activist groups continued to be targeted and slaughtered, the left-leaning elements of the coalition defected. Government forces killed a number of prominent left-wing politicians who were trying to obtain reforms through legitimate avenues. Archbishop scar Romero, a popular voice for the poor who had condemned state-sponsored violence, was murdered, followed by a group of nuns providing humanitarian aid. As it became increasingly clear that no dissent would be tolerated and no one was safe, leftist organizations turned further toward guerilla warfare, meeting the states violence with violence. The country was at war.Stakeholders and CombatantsMembers of El Salvadors Atlacatl battalion cross a river during an operation in the San Miguel department in the summer of 1983, Robert Nickelsberg. Source: WLRNOften oversimplified as El Salvador vs. guerillas, there were, in fact, many factions involved in the countrys civil war; the chaos of the previous decades had sown broad distrust throughout the country, which remained even among groups fighting for the same end goals. Targeted violence was used to purposefully disrupt and fragment cooperation among the opposition, while non-combatant civilian activists were treated much the same as guerrilla fighters by the military and other right-wing operatives.The leadership of El Salvadors government changed numerous times throughout the war but remained right-leaning and heavily influenced, if not ruled outright, by the military. A relatively free hand was given to the military and national police to root out the insurgency, and despite documented human rights violations, US aidwhich included weapons, training, intelligence, and moneypoured into the country throughout the conflict.The countrys wealthiest men continued to have an outsized influence as well. Though the military targeted both individuals and organizations on the left, including politicians, organizers, human rights groups, and trade organizations, when their actions werent sufficient to appease the countrys extreme right-wing, death squads stepped in, often financed by the countrys wealthy. These paramilitary organizations were quite often made up of soldiers and police officers acting outside their official capacityand largely known to the government, which looked the other way. They were responsible for the murders of numerous politicians, journalists, clergy, union leaders, and campesinos.Salvadorans fleeing government bombing, San Salvador, El Salvador, 1989, Donna De Cesare. Source: dwherstories.comGovernment opposition included various political and labor organizations, human rights groups, and even prominent clergy of the Catholic Church, once a reliable ally of the countrys elites. With the birth of Liberation Theology after Vatican II, some Latin American clergy adopted a more active approach to social justice issues, advocating reforms that would reduce poverty and working directly to alleviate suffering. In El Salvador, this often included denouncing the indiscriminate violence of the government and its agents and seeking justice for victims.A number of underground opposition groups from the 1970s ultimately united under the banner of the Frente Farabundo Mart para la Liberacin Nacional (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), named after a prominent leader of the 1930s peasant uprisings. First engaged primarily in protests and acts of civil disobedience, the FMLN ultimately became a well-regulated and trained guerrilla army, with support coming from both Cuba and the Soviet Union.1980-1992: Twelve Years of Civil WarTraining in a guerrilla camp in Guazapa, San Salvador, Giovanni Palazzo/Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen. Source: El FaroWhile the earliest years of the war were its most violent, death and destruction besieged the country for twelve years as the US-armed and trained military battled a guerrilla army numbering fewer than 10,000 combatants. The prolonged conflict was marked by attempts at political resolutions repeatedly derailed by one or the other side immediately ratcheting up violence in response. Various center-right politicians and parties controlled the government throughout the conflict, while targeted attacks on left-leaning political groups and politicians made it nearly impossible for any progressive political movement to gain traction. The FMLN boycotted and attempted to disrupt elections, which it perceived as illegitimate.After the rape and murder of four American churchwomen by the countrys National Guard, US President Jimmy Carter suspended aid to El Salvadors government in late 1979, but just six weeks later, it was restored and increased. Over the course of the war, the US sent over $6 billion in military and financial aid to the country. Growing concern regarding the activities of the death squads prompted a visit from then-US Vice President George Bush in 1983, during which he delivered a list of suspected military death squad members to the government, insisting they be reined in. Though they were not completely dismantled, their activities did decrease for a time, suggesting not only the influence the US had over the conflict but also the deep connection between El Salvadors government and these rogue death squads.Memorial to the victims of the El Mozote massacre. Source: TripadvisorThe true horror of the conflict was the impact on the countrys civilian population, particularly the poor. The military and paramilitary groups waged war against not only guerrilla fighters and sympathizers but, on numerous occasions, large groups of peasants who had the misfortune of living in or near places where the FMLN was operating or had wrested control. The worst of these campaigns against civilians was the El Mozote massacre, in which over 800 civilians were killed over two days in December 1981, but various other offensives throughout the conflict claimed hundreds of peasants lives at a time.In the wars early days, the FMLN largely focused its attacks on military, political, and economic targets, with the result that victims of guerrilla violence were primarily soldiers and politicians. As the war progressed, the groups indiscriminate use of landmines began to inflict civilian casualties. The group pursued a campaign of abductions and executions that at first targeted mayors and other pro-government leaders but ultimately grew to include civilians deemed to be government or military sympathizers. The death squads, similarly, continued to carry out targeted executions of journalists, clergy, and educators they accused of being anti-government.The 1992 Peace AccordsFr. Ignacio Ellacuria, killed by the Salvadoran army in November 1989. Source: The Jesuit PostThough half-hearted negotiations had been attempted on and off throughout the conflict, by the late 1980s, it had become clear that a decisive military victory was not to be had by either side, and support for a negotiated settlement grew. As the Cold War waned, so too did the US urgency to root out the communist threat in Latin America; it threw its support behind peace negotiations, and with the looming threat of decreased US military aid, the Salvadoran government had little choice but to agree.Earnest negotiations began in 1989 with the support of the United Nations but were marred by ongoing attacks against clergy, labor unions, social workers, and other civilian targets, and retaliation by the FMLN, which would continue throughout the negotiating process. Most notable among these were the bombing of the Federacin Nacional Sindical de Trabajadores Salvadoreos, a trade union federation, which led the FMLN to suspend negotiations and launch their largest and most violent offensive of the war, and the murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter by paramilitaries.Yet by 1990, real progress had been made. An agenda and timetable for negotiations were agreed on early in the year. In July, both parties signed the San Jose Agreement on Human Rights, which included a mechanism for UN verification, which resulted in a decrease in civilian deaths. The following year, parties reached agreements on some constitutional reforms and, significantly, decided to create a Commission on the Truth, which would investigate serious acts of violence occurring since 1980. Finally, on January 16, 1992, both parties signed the El Salvador Peace Agreement, formally ending the armed conflict.Aftermath: Death Toll, Displacement, & MS-13A refugee camp in Honduras, 1988. Source: Mdecins sans FrontiresThe UN Truth Commission that was agreed on in the peace accords began its work in July 1992; it reached its conclusions eight months later. The commission found that 85% of the instances of violence during the war were attributable to the government or its agents; just 5% were the result of FMLN activity. The commission made a series of recommendations for moving forward with peace and reconciliation, including judicial reform and reparations. The commissions report was rejected by the government, which shortly thereafter passed an amnesty law covering all crimes related to the war.An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed or disappeared during El Salvadors civil war, and because of the blanket amnesty law, ultimately overturned in 2016, almost no one has been held accountable for these deaths. Civilians who werent killed outright were often forced to flee. Over 1 million people, an estimated 25% of the countrys population, were displaced during the war. Some fled to other countries, others remained in El Salvador but were forced to abandon their homes, becoming internally displaced persons. Over the course of the war, nearly half a million Salvadorans fled to the United States.The peace agreements did little to address the root causes of the war, namely the countrys stark socioeconomic inequality, which was only deepened by the conflict. In addition, in order to secure desperately needed loans for its financial recovery, the country implemented a series of economic policies pushed by international lenders that reduced social spending and privatized public services at a time when the majority of the population was living below the poverty line. For many, the primary source of income became remittances from friends and family in the United States.Members of the Western Locos clique of the Mara Salvatrucha in the mid-80s in Los Angeles. Source: El FaroFollowing the war, however, space for an opposition political movement opened. The FMLN morphed into a legitimate political party comprised primarily of communists, socialists, and social democrats. The new party quickly began winning local and municipal elections, gaining political capital, until it won the presidency in 2009 under Mauricio Funes.Perhaps the best-known legacy of the war was the rise of MS-13 and other street gangs; its also one of the most complex. MS-13 was not actually born in El Salvador but in the United States among refugees. Navigating the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s, young Salvadoran men formed their own gangs in a bid to protect themselves from the citys native gangs. Salvadoran refugees were rarely granted asylumas few as 2%and so were mostly undocumented. Once the conflict ended, President Bill Clinton deported thousands of refugees, including gang members, back to a country just months removed from the chaos of war, with a barely functioning economy, a largely useless police force, and replete with discarded firearms. It was a recipe for disaster. MS-13 and other street gangs began to flourish, providing the countrys poor and disaffected youth with the financial opportunities and social resources that the government continued to systematically deny them. Quickly, gangs grew into one of El Salvadors most pressing post-war issues.