El Salvador - sälväthōrˈ, officially Republic of El Salvador, republic (1995 est. pop. 5,870,000), 8,260 sq mi (21,393 sq km), Central America. The country is bounded on the south by the Pacific Ocean, on the west by Guatemala, and on the north and east by Honduras. The capital and largest city is San Salvador.

Land and People

Two volcanic ranges, running roughly west to east, segment the country, but in between are broad, fertile valleys, such as that of the Lempa, the principal river. There are several fairly large lakes. The country is divided into seven provinces. El Salvador is the smallest Latin American republic and the most densely populated; overpopulation is a critical problem. The vast majority of the population is of mixed indigenous and European descent. Spanish is the official language, and Roman Catholicism the prevailing religion. There is, however, substantial activity by evangelical Protestant groups.

Economy

El Salvador's economy is primarily agricultural, with farming employing about 40% of the workforce and accounting for a quarter of the gross national product. Nonetheless, it is more highly industrialized than its neighbors. El Salvador's economy was adversely affected by its 12-year civil war. Beginning in the early 1990s, however, attempts were made to revive the country's economic life, and the economy had recovered by the beginning of 2001, when El Salvador adopted the U.S. dollar as its official currency.

Two thirds of the land is used for either crops or pasturage. Corn is the chief subsistence crop, and rice, beans, oilseeds, sorghum, and wheat are also grown; coffee is the major cash crop. Textiles, processed foods, clothing, tobacco products, and chemicals are among El Salvador's leading manufactures. The Inter-American Highway crosses El Salvador and forms the heart of an excellent transportation system that links San Salvador with the ports of La Unión, Acajutla, and La Libertad and the inland cities of San Miguel and Santa Ana.

Coffee is the main export, accounting for nearly half of El Salvador's export income. Other exports include cotton and sugar. The leading imports are petroleum products, consumer goods, foodstuffs, and machinery.

Government

El Salvador is governed under the 1991 constitution. The president is popularly elected for a five-year term and cannot serve two consecutive terms. The members of the 60-seat unicameral National Assembly are elected for three-year terms under a system of proportional representation. The principal parties are the National Republican Alliance (ARENA), the Christian Democratic party (PDC), and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Despite this democratic structure, El Salvador has been under military dictatorship for most of its history.

History

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, El Salvador was inhabited by the Pipils, descendants of the Aztecs and the Toltecs of Mexico, who had arrived in the 12th cent. In 1524 Pedro de Alvarado landed and began a series of campaigns that resulted in Spanish control. With independence from Spain in 1821, it became briefly a part of the Mexican Empire of Augustín de Iturbide, and after the empire collapsed (1823) El Salvador joined the Central American Federation. El Salvador protested the dominance of Guatemala and under Francisco Morazán succeeded in having the federal capital transferred (1831) to San Salvador. After the dissolution of the federation (1839), the republic was plagued by frequent interference from the dictators of neighboring countries, notably Rafael Carrera and Justo Rufino Barrios of Guatemala and José Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua.

The primacy of coffee cultivation in the economy began in the second half of the 19th cent. Intense cultivation led to the predominance of landed proprietors, and the economy became vulnerable to fluctuations in the world market price for coffee. In 1931, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, capitalizing on discontent caused by the collapse of coffee prices, led a coup. His dictatorship lasted until 1944, after which there was chronic political unrest.

Under the authoritarian rule of Major Oscar Osorio (1950–56) and Lt. Col. José María Lemus (1956–60) considerable economic progress was made. Lemus was overthrown by a coup, and after a confused period a junta composed of leaders of the National Conciliation party came to power in June, 1961. The junta's candidate, Lt. Col. Julio Adalberto Rivera, was elected president in 1962. He was succeeded in 1967 by Col. Fidel Sánchez Hernández. Relations with Honduras deteriorated in the late 1960s. There was a border clash in 1967, and a four-day war broke out in July, 1969. The Salvadoran forces that had invaded Honduras were withdrawn, but not until 1992 was an agreement settling the border controversy with Honduras signed.

In the 1970s El Salvador's overpopulation, economic problems, and inequitable social system led to social and political unrest; by the end of the decade, murder and other terrorism by leftist guerrillas and especially by right-wing "death squads" had become common. In 1979, Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, the last in a series of presidents whose elections were denounced by many as fraudulent, was overthrown by a military junta. Murders and other terrorism continued, and the unrest erupted into a full-scale civil war between the government and guerrillas of the leading opposition group, the FMLN.

In 1990, José Napoleon Duarte, a Christian Democrat, assumed the presidency under the junta and called for presidential elections, which he won in 1984. Despite his reputation as a reformer, he did not appear able to rein in the army and control the death squads. These excesses continued or worsened after the election in 1989 of President Alfredo Cristiani, leader of the right-wing ARENA party.

In 1991, however, the Cristiani government, with help from the United Nations, negotiated with the FMLN, and in Jan., 1992, a peace treaty with the rebels was signed, ending the bloody 12-year civil war that killed over 70,000 people. The FMLN demobilized and participated in the postwar 1994 elections, which resulted in the presidency of Armando Calderón Sol, the ARENA candidate. The army was apparently reined in, and terrorism and violence, by both left and right, virtually disappeared. A major program was put in place to transfer land (80% of which was concentrated in the hands of the wealthy) to former combatants. However, progress in implementing reforms and rebuilding the economy was slow, and was further hindered by a major hurricane in 1998.

The ARENA party remained in power with the election of Francisco Guillermo Flores Pérez to the presidency in 1999. In Mar., 2000, however, the FMLN won the greatest number of seats in the National Assembly, although not enough to control the legislature. Two earthquakes struck central El Salvador a month apart early in 2001, killing about a thousand people and leaving many homeless. In Mar., 2003, the FMLN again won the largest bloc of assembly seats, but failed to win a majority. The presidential elections a year later resulted in an ARENA victory; Antonio Elías "Tony" Saca received 57% of the vote.

Bibliography

See T. P. Anderson, Matanza: El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932 (1971); D. Browning, El Salvador: Landscape and Society (1971); A. White, El Salvador (1973); P. L. Russell, El Salvador in Crisis (1984); J. Dunkerley, The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador (1985); R. A. Haggerty, ed., El Salvador, a Country Study (1990).

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