N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
The El Salvadoran leftists started some great revolution or civil war or something. It left El Salvadore a bigger "shithole" than it was before their Great Revolution began. Lots of tragedy among the populace.
Yes there was a uprising of peasant groups, unions and church groups that rose up against the ruling junta. Archbishop Romero wrote to Jimmy Carter personally and begged him to stop providing aid. In response the Archbishop was assassinated and campaign of civilian terror by the ruling Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador began in earnest. The junta was supported by Carter, and by Reagan. There was some uproar stateside when four American nuns were raped and murdered by El Salvador National Guardsmen, and Carter briefly stopped the funding, but Reagan favoured the junta and increased military aid as well as sending troops ("advisors").
Forced conscription was similar to the Congo, where soldiers scooped up children from slums and subjected them brutalization, forced them to watch the torture, rape and murder of suspected militants, etc.
All tolled, the death toll against leftists was around 75,000.
It's still bad down there, but not as bad as it was during that time.
I've seen documents that put the leftist death toll upwards of 180,000 over the period 1980-1989 and the right with a death toll of as much as 76,000.
Not included in official death tolls are the Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Cubans, and Bolivians who died fighting as volunteers for the FMLN. They may number as many as 10,000.
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