El Salvador’s Negotiated Solution to Civil War

After years of violent conflict (1980-92) involving the military, rebel forces, and paramilitary ‘death squads, ’ El Salvador had suffered some 75,000 casualties, mostly civilians. After three years of negotiations, the government and the FMLN rebel alliance signed a historic comprehensive peace accord which brought an end to the war and instituted wide-reaching political and social reforms. This paper employs a broad structural analysis to understand the conditions which led to the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords ending the war. Within this explanation of broad power dynamics, however, a multi-stage framework separates the negotiation process into different phases characterized by distinct strategies, goals, and motivations. This combination of structural and integrative conceptual tools offers a nuanced explanation of the negotiations and the resulting peace agreement. The negotiations were shaped profoundly by alterations in the power relationship between the parties, resulting from domestic events, changing norms, and the evolution of the international political context. The unsuccessful November 1989 FMLN offensive on San Salvador and the subsequent murder of six Jesuit priests by the Salvadoran military (with the resulting international backlash) were the immediate triggers that forced both parties to reassess their positions and come to the negotiating table, a decision that was strongly reinforced by external structural realignments including the end of the Cold War, increased pressure for human rights reform and decreased military assistance from the United States government, and the availability of United Nations mediation to push the process along. In response to calls for the application of ‘El Salvador’s lessons ’ to contemporary conflicts, the paper considers how these historical parallels can be usefully (but carefully) applied today