Talk:Salvadoran Civil War

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Salvadoran Civil War article.
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[edit] 1979 Coup

I was very surprised to see that there was no discussion of Adolfo Arnoldo Majano or Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, who led the reformist faction that carried out the 1979 coup, and their subsequent conflicts over (which led to Majano's eventual exile). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.72.137.241 (talk) 21:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Immigration issues with Honduras

This article needs to address the fact that the Soccer War led to an end to Salvadoran illegal immigration to Honduras -- and that this was a key cause to the war. 209.195.164.34 13:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I do agree that one of the major roots of this war is the immigration issue. However, this issue is best left, I believe, in the Soccer War section. The immigration issue becomes an understood staple of the Salvadoran Civil War. May I suggest the following change to the prelude section?
Change :> "The origins of the war lie in the early 1970s. Salvadorean industry and economy was devastated by the Football War with Honduras in 1969."
To :> "The origins of the war are deeply rooted in immigration issues. The resulting tensions violently climax with the Football War in 1969 wreaking devastating havoc throughout El Salvador's economy" Soldier.pitre (talk) 23:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-American centric

In addition, this article focuses FAR, FAR too much on the American-centric issues of the Maryknoll nuns, and not enough of events taking place during the actual fighting, the goals/aspirations of various Salvadoran parties (of left and right,) etc. Nearly half the article discusses the killing of the nuns -- a signifcant event, but too much for an article purportedly about the Civil War. 24.3.142.198 15:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Moreover, even the section on U.S. involvement focuses too heavily on a couple of incidents and claims — the 1980 murders, the 1989 murders, the number of U.S. military in the country initially, and the 21st century lawsuits. In discussing the goals of the different parties, it also is necessary to reduce POV, while simultaneously avoiding letting issues be whitewashed. I just reverted one set of edits that tended to apply labels to the left and remove even sourced material that reflected badly on the right, then had to go into the U.S. section and try to neutralize language that was calling the Salvadoran government "repressive" and putting air quotes, as it were, around words like "trainers" that were used at the time to describe the role of U.S. military in the area. So it cuts both ways, and there is considerable need to improve the article.Lawikitejana 01:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
It isn't a question about anything 'cutting both ways'. The Maryknoll Nuns incident, although a cause celebre for the left in the U.S., really didn't affect the outcome. U.S. policy was certainly unchanged. I agree with the original poster that there needs to be less focus on issues of concern to Americans, and more focus on what was actually happening on the ground, so to speak. 64.72.137.241 21:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The US tax payer spent a good sum of money on El Salvador, therefore a section of the article framing this war from an American perspective does seem logical to me. However, I do believe that there should be some mention of the famous "White Paper". From an american perspective, I would assume that this publication would be highly controversial. In "A Splendid Little War: Drawing the Line in El Salvador", William Leogrande argues that the intent of this paper is to frame El Salvador in an East vs. West contest. Soldier.pitre (talk) 16:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was El Salvador Civil War → Salvadoran Civil War — I don't see any reason for departing from usual naming conventions for this particular war. This article has had its name long enough to have accumulated a lot of links to this location (though many are probably due to Template:Cold War), but the inconvenience of switching links will only grow the longer the move is put off. Groggy Dice T | C 00:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've switched the Cold War template link to a new article I've started, Central American Crisis, so that's no longer true. The template, by the way, called it the Salvadoran Civil War, and piped to this location. --Groggy Dice T | C 03:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  # '''Support'''  or  # '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

[edit] Survey - in support of the move

  1. Support as nom. --Groggy Dice T | C 03:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support it sounds awkward as is. Per American Civil War. Patstuarttalk·edits 01:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support This is certainly the term I think of it by. But we're supposed to be concerned with what terminology is used by scholars, so I ran a series of searches (Amazon, Yahoo, Google, and Google Scholar). Sparing everyone the maddening details, all I can say is, there don't appear to be more than a tiny number of instances where the exact term "El Salvador Civil War" is used at all. (Actually, the most common term I encountered was "El Salvador's Civil War", with the possessive "s".) Cgingold 21:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support. Bolivian Unicyclist 18:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  5. Support, of course. —Nightstallion (?) 09:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey - in opposition to the move


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from El Salvador Civil War to Salvadoran Civil War as the result of a move request.

[edit] Verdict against the generals

I added that the verdict against the generals in US federal court has been reversed. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to add a proper reference other than just placing the link in parentheses. Someone please fix. Best, WH —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.86.136.211 (talk)

Reformatted -- will still have to look up the author and title info.Lawikitejana 01:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:FDR.gif

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BetacommandBot 09:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for additional sourcing

In the general outline for Salvadoran Civil War, there is a line with numbers reflecting death tolls. " In total the civil war killed 75,000 people, left 8,000 more missing and a million homeless with another million exiled. " Can we get a source to verify these numbers?? Soldier.pitre (talk) 23:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC) soldier.pitre

I added a source (CIA World factbook) for the 75,000 dead - I'm still stabbing away through documentation for verifiable sources with regards to the homeless and exiled statistics. Soldier.pitre (talk) 00:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC) soldier.pitre

According to Latin American historian Greg Grandin, "After twelve years of fighting, fifty to sixty thousand civilian deaths, another twenty to thirty-four thousands military deaths and more than six billion of Washington's dollars it took an unvanquished insurgency to force the kind of democratization that the United States had grudgingly supported as a means to defeat the insurgency in the first place." (Grandin, Greg. Empire's Workshop: Latin america, The United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, Henry Holt and Company,2006, p.8)
Grandin uses the casualty figures of Mitchell A. Seligson and Vincent McElhinny, ”Low Intensity Warfare, High Intensity Death: The Demographic Impact of the Wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua.Demographic Diversity and Change in the Central American Isthmus, ed. Anne Pebley and Luis Rosero-Bixby, Santa Monica, RAND, 1997, p.66)
Regarding external and internal refuhees, Human Rights Watch noted in their book "El Salvador's Decade of Terror" that "more than a quarter of the population were turned into refugees or displaced persons before a UN-brokered peace deal was signed in 1992." (El Salvador’s Decade of Terror, Americas Watch, Human Rights Watch Books, Yale University Press, 1991, 107)BernardL (talk) 04:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Should we modify the introduction of the article to reflect the difference in numbers between Grandin and the CIA World Factbook? Furthermore, I believe that material from Human Rights Watch as well the work of a notable historian should be included in the Further Reading section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Soldier.pitre (talk • contribs) 14:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)