Timeline El Salvador
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The area of El Salvador is 8,416 square miles.
(AP, 3/21/04)
The elected president serves one five-year term. A unicameral
legislature, elected every three years, has 84 seats.
(AP, 3/21/04)
1811 Nov 5, El
Salvador fought its 1st battle against Spain for independence.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1821 Sep 15, A junta convened by
the captain-general in Guatemala declared independence for its
provinces Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua San Salvador and
Chiappas.
(AP, 9/15/97)(EWH, 1968, p.843)
1823 Jul 1, The United Provinces
of Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and San
Salvador) gained independence from Mexico. The union dissolved by 1840.
(PC, 1992, p.393)(ON, 12/99, p.5)
1839-1840 The Liberals of the United Provinces of
Central America under leader Francisco Morazan were defeated in a civil
war led by Rafael Carrera. The confederation dissolved into its 4
component states: El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
(EWH, 1968, p.857)
1854 Apr 16, San Salvador was
destroyed by an earthquake.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1930 Oct 13, Shafik Handal, later
head of the Salvadoran left, was born to immigrant Palestinian parents
from Bethlehem in the city of Usulutan, El Salvador.
(AP, 1/24/06)
1932 Jan 23, El Salvador army
killed 4,000 protesting farmers.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1960 The Central American Common
Market was set up by a treaty between El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, and later Costa Rica. It fell apart by the end of the decade.
(Econ, 5/14/05,
p.41)(www.bartleby.com/65/ce/CentrACM.html)
1969 Jun 27, Honduras and El
Salvador broke diplomatic relations due to soccer match. El Salvador
and Honduras fought a 4-day "Soccer War" when fans brought out
long-simmering tensions during World cup qualifying matches.
(WSJ, 6/19/98,
p.W7)(www.onwar.com/aced/data/sierra/soccer1969.htm)
1972 Feb 20, El Salvador held
presidential elections. The blatancy of fraud employed to maintain the
PCN in power outraged and disillusioned many Salvadorans, including
members of the armed forces. Leftists protested the election fraud.
(http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/11.htm)(WSJ,
1/10/05, p.A10)
1972 Mar 25, In El Salvador a
group of young army officers, led by Colonel Benjamin Mejia, launched a
coup. Their immediate goal was the establishment of a "revolutionary
junta." It seemed clear, however, that the officers favored the
installation of Jose Duarte as president.
(http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/11.htm)
1972 Shafik Handal (1930-2006)
became leader of the Salvadoran Communist Party.
(AP,
1/24/06)(www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060130/news_1m30handal.html)
1977 In El Salvador guerrilla
activities by the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) intensified amid reports of increased human rights violations by
government troops and right wing death squads.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, p.A7)
1979 In El Salvador guerrilla
warfare broke out in the cities and countryside amid government
repression.
(WSJ, 1/10/05, p.A10)
1979-1981 In El Salvador an estimated 30,000 people
were killed by army-backed right-wing death squads.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, p.A7)
1980 Mar 24, Archbishop Oscar
Arnulfo Romero, one of El Salvador's most respected Roman Catholic
Church leaders, was shot to death by gunmen as he celebrated Mass in
San Salvador. Roberto D’Aubuisson (d.1992), leader of the ARENA party,
was credited with masterminding the assassination as well as founding
the national death squads. In 2004 a California federal judge found
Alvaro Rafael Saravia, a retired Salvadoran air force captain living in
Modesto, Ca., liable in the slaying of archbishop Romero and ordered
him to pay $10 million in damages.
(AP, 3/23/97)(SFC, 1/18/96, p.C1)(SFEM,11/16/97,
p.17)(SFC, 9/4/04, p.B7)
1980 Apr, In El Salvador Army
Major Roberto d’Aubuisson (d.1992) founded the rightist Republican
Nationalist Alliance (ARENA).
(www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=345)
1980 Sep 11, In Santa Rosita, El
Salvador, soldiers in search of leftist rebels killed Dolores Soriano
(19) and 16 of her neighbors. Soriano was 6-months pregnant.
(SFC, 2/17/00, p.A12)
1980 Dec 2, Three American nuns
and a lay worker were abducted, raped and shot in San Salvador. Nuns
Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Maura Clark, and lay worker Jean Donovan were
raped and shot by guardsmen. The murders occurred as the US began a
10-year $7 billion aid effort to prevent left-wing guerrillas from
coming to power. Five national guardsmen were later convicted in the
killings, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)(AP, 12/2/00)
1980 Dec 3, Peasants discovered
the bodies of nuns Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Maura Clark, and lay worker
Jean Donovan and buried them.
(AP, 12/2/00)
1980 Dec 4, In El Salvador the
bodies of four American nuns slain two days earlier were unearthed.
Colonel Edgardo Casanova was the military commander of the area at the
time. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder and
sentenced in May 1984 to 30 years in prison. In 1998 the guardsmen
admitted that they were acting on orders from above. In 1993 a UN Truth
Commission report concluded that Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova,
director of the National Guard and brother of Edgardo, and Gen’l. Jose
Guillermo Garcia, the minister of defense, had organized an official
cover-up. Both men were granted residence in the US. 3 of the 5
convicted guardsmen were released in 1998 due to prison overcrowding.
In 1999 families of the victims filed suit against Casanova and Garcia
who were living in Florida. In 2000 a federal jury cleared the 2
retired generals. In 2002 a Florida jury found Casanova and Garcia
responsible for torture and ordered payment of $54.6 million to 3
victims living in Florida.
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98,
p.A16)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A10) (SFC, 7/23/98, p.C2)(SFC, 5/13/99,
p.C3)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A3)(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A12)
1980 Dec 13, Christian Democrat
Jose Napoleon Duarte was named the president of El Salvador’s new
government.
(AP, 12/13/00)
1980 El Salvador instituted
agricultural reform and the Finca El Espina coffee plantation was
confiscated from the Duenas family and given to their workers, who
formed a cooperative. The Duenas received $4 million in compensation.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C18)
1980 The Salvadoran Communist
Party, led by Shafik Handal (1930-2006), merged with four other leftist
groups into the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN.
(AP, 1/24/06)
1980-1992 In El Salvador a civil war raged during
which security forces have been blamed for killing 40,000 civilians
with torture commonplace. It was later reported that the US had pumped
$1.5 million a day into the fight "to make El Salvador safe for
democracy."
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-19)(SFEM,11/16/97, p.28)
1981 Jan 7, An operational and
planning assistance team (OPAT) arrived in El Salvador to provide
assistance in protecting the harvest from the guerrillas. By the end of
the Carter Administration, nineteen US military advisors had been
deployed there.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bk6f3)
1981 Feb 19, The US State
Department called El Salvador a "textbook case" of a Communist plot.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1981 Mar 2, The United States
planned to send 20 more advisors and $25 million in military aid to El
Salvador.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1981 Mar 25, The US Embassy in San
Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked, firing rocket propelled
grenades and machine guns.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1981 Dec 10, Hundreds of people
were killed in the El Salvadoran village of El Mozote by an elite
US-trained army battalion. In 1991 the office of Maria Julia Hernandez
(1939-2007) published the first investigation into El Mozote. In 1992,
under a UN sponsored Truth Commission, the Argentine Forensic
Anthropology Team found 143 skeletons, 131 of which belonged to
children under 12. The bullet cartridges showed manufacture in Lake
City, Mo.
(SFC, 5/12/96, Z1p.4)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.97)
1981 El Salvador’s FMLN was
recognized by France and Mexico recognized in as a legitimate political
force, while the US was criticized for aiding the military government,
whose army backed right-wing death squads.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, p.A7)
1981 A dozen suspected leftist
Salvadorans were thrown from a plane to there deaths, says a former US
diplomat.
(V. Sun, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1982 Mar 28, Voters in El Salvador
went to the polls for a constituent assembly election that resulted in
victory for the Christian Democrats, led by President Jose Napoleon
Duarte.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1982 Apr 29, Alfredo Magana was
elected president of El Salvador.
(www.cedmagic.com/museum/press/ced-timeline-1982.html)
1982 In El Salvador 3 police
officers arrested 6 university students, held them in a clandestine
prison and tried to kill them. The officers became fugitives in Oct
1996 when faced with the accusations.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A14)
1982 In El Salvador 10 police
officers were involved in the killing of a Nicaraguan mechanic and a
Honduran farmer suspected of transporting arms to rebels in El
Salvador. They were charged with the murders in July 1995.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A14)
1983 Apr 6, Melida Anaya Montes
("Comandante Ana Maria"), Salvadoran FMLN guerrilla leader, was killed
in Nicaragua, where many Salvadoran guerrillas took refuge under its
leftist government. In 2007 her body was exhumed and buried in her
homeland.
(AP,
6/14/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Mar%C3%ADa)
1984 Mar 25, Jose Napoleon Duarte
(1925-1990), a Christian Democrat political moderate, was elected
president of El Salvador following 5 years of military rule.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_presidential_election,_1984)(SSFC,
3/15/09, p.A7)
1985 Jun 19, In El Salvador 4
off-duty US Marines and 9 others were killed at sidewalk restaurants in
the Zona Rosa section of San Salvador. Pedro Antonio Andrade Martinez
(aka Mario Gonzalez), a Marxist guerrilla, was one of the reputed
masterminds of the massacre. Andrade later became an informant for the
CIA and sought US asylum. Andrade was deported from the US in 1997.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A21)(SFC,11/6/97, p.C3)
1986 A large earthquake hit El
Salvador. The US provided $60 million in emergency aid and $98 million
in reconstruction funds.
(SFC, 3/2/01, p.D4)
1987 Oct 26, Herbert Anaya
Sanabria, the head of Salvadoran Human Rights Commission, was
assassinated by death squads.
(www.cidh.org/annualrep/87.88eng/chap4a.htm)
1987 Under a conservative El
Salvador government the Supreme Court ruled that the Finca El Espina
coffee plantation had been illegally expropriated from the Duenas
family and should be returned.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C18)
1989 Feb 13, Salvadoran army
attacked Encuentros hospital where they raped and killed patients.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1989 Mar 19, Alfredo Cristiani of
the right-wing ARENA party was elected president of El Salvador,
defeating Fidel Chavez Mena of the Christian Democratic Party.
(AP, 3/19/99)
1989 Oct, In El Salvador the CIA
station in San Salvador began providing the Salvadoran security forces
with money to the resettle Marxist guerilla turned informer, Pedro
Antonio Andrade Martinez (aka Mario Gonzalez), in the US. He had been
recently captured and became a highly paid informer for the Salvadoran
armed forces. Information from Andrade later led to the capture,
torture or disappearance of some 200 guerrillas. In 1996 he was
arrested in the US for failure to renew his visa. In 1997 the Clinton
administration sought to deport him.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A21)(SFC, 2/22/96, p.A7)
1989 Nov 16, Six Jesuit priests
and two other people were slain by uniformed gunmen at the Jose Simeon
Canas University in El Salvador in an attack later blamed on army
troops. Later 19 Salvadoran soldiers, trained at the US Army School of
the Americas, were linked to the killing. In 2006 US police in Los
Angeles arrested a Salvadoran ex-lieutenant convicted of killing the 6
Jesuits. In 2009 a Spanish judge opened an investigation into 14
ex-Salvadoran military officials and considered indicting them over the
killings.
(AP, 11/16/99)(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/27/06,
p.A1)(AP, 1/13/09)
1989 Nov 23, Lucia Barrera de
Cerna, a housekeeper who said she had witnessed the slaying of six
Jesuit priests and two other people at the Jose Simeon Canas University
in El Salvador, was flown to the US under heavy security.
(AP, 11/23/99)
1989 Nov 26, El Salvador broke
relations with Nicaragua after a weapons-loaded plane from that country
was downed in El Salvador.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1989 El Salvador’s right-wing
ARENA party began to be supported by the US government.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-19)
1989 El Salvador military officers
Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, director of the National Guard
and Gen’l. Jose Guillermo Garcia, the minister of defense, retired to
Florida. In 2002 a Florida jury found Casanova and Garcia responsible
for torture and atrocities committed in 1983 and ordered payment of
$54.6 million to 3 victims living in Florida. [see El Salvador Dec 4,
1980]
(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A12)
1989 Lori Helene Berenson, an
American, began work in El Salvador as the personal secretary to Leonel
Gonzalez, top commander of the FMLN guerrillas. She stayed for about
for about 4 1/2 years and moved to Peru.
(WSJ, 12/27/96,
p.A7)(www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1881)
1990 Jan 7, The president of El
Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani, said in a nationally broadcast address
that military men two months earlier had massacred six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter.
(AP, 1/7/00)
1990 Feb 23, Former Salvadoran
President Jose Napoleon Duarte died at age 64.
(AP, 2/23/00)
1990 Adam Kufeld published “El
Salvador.” He had made 8 trips to the country as a photographer between
1985-1989.
(SFEM,11/16/97, p.28)
1990 The US House of
Representatives voted to cut aid to El Salvador by 50%.
(WSJ, 1/10/05, p.A10)
1991 Dec 31, Representatives of
the government of El Salvador and rebels reached agreement at the
United Nations on a peace accord aimed at ending 12 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 An El Salvador government
commission decided to return a swath of the Finca El Espina land to the
Duenas family and that 865 acres be turned into a reserve. The 550
families of the cooperative that acquired the land in 1980 were to be
left with 700 acres of the poorest, driest land.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C18)
1992 Jan 16, Officials of the
government of El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a pact in Mexico
City ending 12 years of civil war that had left at least 75,000 people
dead.
(AP, 1/16/98)
1992 Jan 24, A judge in El
Salvador sentenced an army colonel and a lieutenant to 30 years in
prison for their part in the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests, their
housekeeper and her daughter.
(AP, 1/24/02)
1992 Dec, A peace treaty was
signed between leftist rebels and the El Salvador government. The
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front became legal and described
itself as social democratic. The Peace Accords introduced reforms to
give land to ex-combatants of the FMLN and the military. The National
Civilian Police replaced the National Police.
(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A9)(SFEM,11/16/97, p.22)(SFC,
6/15/99, p.C2)
1992 In El Salvador the new US
Embassy was completed. Plans for the structure had been drawn up in
1984.
(SFEM,11/16/97, p.27)
1992 In El Salvador after the
guerrillas demobilized the Communist Party kept guerrilla leader
Jose Louis Merino’s network of safe houses intact and continued to
kidnap for ransom. In 2008 Merino, a dominant force in the FMLN, was
implicated in helping Colombia’s FARC contact two Australia arms
dealers.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A9)
1992 El Salvador Army Major
Roberto d’Aubuisson, founder of the rightist Republican Nationalist
Alliance (ARENA), died at age 48.
(SFC, 2/25/96, p.a12)(SFC, 3/23/00, p.A1)
1993 Mar 14, An independent
UN-sponsored commission released a report blaming the bulk of
atrocities committed during El Salvador's civil war on the country's
military.
(AP, 3/14/98)
1993 Oct 25, Francisco Velis, El
Salvador guerilla leader (FMLN), was murdered.
(www.hrw.org/reports/1994/WR94/Americas-04.htm)
1993 Oct 30, Hernan Heleno Castro,
El Salvadorian guerilla leader, was murdered.
(http://tinyurl.com/br5h7)
1993 Along with the peace accord
El Salvador Pres. Alfredo Cristiani reprivatized the banks and set
himself and a tight circle of friends, secretly called “The Apostles,”
in control of the biggest institutions.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A1,7)
1993 A broad amnesty was given to
all combatants of the 1980-1992 El Salvador civil war.
(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A12)
1993 In El Salvador a
high-interest pyramid scheme bilked some $35 million from thousands of
middle-class investors. The ARENA government of Pres. Cristiani did not
stop it or prosecute those responsible.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A7)
1994 Mar 20, El Salvador held its
first presidential election following the country's 12-year-old civil
war. Armando Calderon Sol of the ARENA party led the vote, but needed
to win a run-off to achieve the presidency.
(AP, 3/20/99)
1994 There were 7,673 people
murdered in this year according to the El Salvador attorney general’s
office.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B5)
1995 Aug 9, A Boeing 737 belonging
to Guatemala’s Aviateca airline hit the Chichontepec volcano in El
Salvador on a flight from Miami and killed all 65 on board.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)
1995 Some 40 El Salvador citizens
banded together to form the Patriotic Movement. Their first project was
the 1996 exchange program Goods for Guns.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, A9)
1995 A pilot CARE program surveyed
El Salvador ranches under joint title to former guerrillas in order to
establish specific ownership to improve development. It grew to a $26
million program by 1998.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A27)
1995 There were 7,877 people
murdered in this year according to the El Salvador attorney general’s
office.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B5)
1996 In San Salvador the two
largest street gangs signed a peace accord that ended four years of
vicious street warfare. The Catholic Church mediated between the
members of the MS gang and the M-18 gang.
(SFC, 4/10/96, A-10)
1996 Mar 19, In El Salvador an
Emergency Anti-Crime Law was approved by President Armando Calderon
Sol. Its language called for all Salvadorans charged with crimes abroad
to be locked up and re-educated.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 Mar 20, In El Salvador 4
teenaged members of a youth gang were summarily executed in the
provincial capital of Santa Ana.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 Mar 21, In El Salvador a case
against narcotics traffickers was dropped when the judge learned that
the evidence, 46 lbs. of cocaine, had disappeared from police
headquarters.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 Mar 23, In El Salvador 8
police officers opened fire on citizens in a rural hamlet and killed
four people including an 11-year-old boy. The incident began when the
police tried to buy beer from a store after being told that it was
closed for the night.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 Sep, In El Salvador the Goods
for Guns project began and in 2 weeks collected 1,262 weapons and
14,580 units of ammunition.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, C12)
1996 There were 6,792 people
murdered in this year according to the El Salvador attorney general’s
office.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B5)
1997 Feb 9, It was reported that
developers wished to convert part of the Finca El Espino land in El
Salvador to a $100 million luxury development while farmers wished to
maintain coffee growth and the government sought a park.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C18)
1997 Feb 22, It was reported that
the Clinton administration was seeking to have the former El Salvador
rebel, Pedro Antonio Andrade, deported as a terrorist.
(SFC, 2/22/96, p.A7)
1997 Mar 16, Elections for mayors
in 262 El Salvador cities and for the 84-member unicameral Legislative
Assembly was scheduled. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) party was a front-runner. Hector Silva of the Democratic
Convergence Party won the mayoral elections for San Salvador. He ran
under a coalition led by the FMLN.
(SFC, 2/25/97, p.a12)(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun, In El Salvador a Credi
Club bank scandal involved the disappearance of $11 million in
depositor’s savings.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A18)
1997 Jul 14, El Salvador
regulators seized Financiera Insepro, which collapsed and left more
than 1000 account holders demanding justice. The $15 million bank
failure led to a call for US investigators and 5 prominent business
leaders were jailed.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A18)
1997 Jul, In El Salvador Roberto
Mathies Hill was arrested on fraud charges for having bilked at least
$115 million from depositors in a complex financial shell game.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Nov 16, It was reported that
22 murders a day occur in El Salvador. Vehicles in the capital have
increased fivefold in 5 years and the garbage dump in San Salvador is
full. The opposition FNLN now controls 45% of the country.
(SFEM,11/16/97, p.20)
1997 Castellanos Moya (b.1957),
Honduras-born Salvadoran writer, authored “”Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard
in San Salvador” (El asco, Thomas Bernhard en El Salvador), a barbed
monologue against everything Salvadoran.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, Books
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horacio_Castellanos_Moya)
1998 Jan 16, Israel Job Pineda, a
fisherman in La Herradura, El Salvador, was shot and killed by a pirate
intruder. Pirates had become a growing threat to the local shrimp
fisherman. Police later arrested nine fishermen linked to the attack.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.A26)
1998 Jun 1, It was reported that
just 2% of the forest remained in El Salvador, which was once covered
by forest.
(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul 12, Honduras, Guatemala
and El Salvador agreed to join forces to build a $2 billion railroad
network to link Central America with Mexico.
(SFC, 7/13/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 22-1998 Nov 9, Hurricane
Mitch was one of the Caribbean's deadliest storms ever causing at least
at least 9,000 deaths in Central America. The storm hit Honduras,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Jamaica, and Costa
Rica. Later reports put the death toll in Honduras to 6,076. In
Nicaragua the deaths reached 4,000, in Guatemala it was157, and in El
Salvador it was 222. The storm parked over Honduras and rain poured for
6 days straight. Aid of $66 mil was ordered from the US, $8 mil
from the EU, $11.6 mil from Spain along with pledges from other
countries and private organizations.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A9)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A14)(AP,
9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1998 El Salvador police records
indicated that 115 officers were killed during the year.
(SFC, 6/15/99, p.C2)
1999 Mar 6, It was reported that
extermination squads in El Salvador were killing gang members at the
rate of 1-2 a week.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 7, In El Salvador
presidential elections were scheduled. FMLN candidate Facundo Guardado
was expected to lose to ARENA candidate Francisco Flores (39). Flores
and his Republican National Alliance won with about 52% of the vote.
(SFC, 3/4/99, p.A12)(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A12)(SFC,
3/9/99, p.B10)
1999 Mar, In El Salvador a deputy
police commissioner was killed by a hail of bullets in San Vicente
province as she left a restaurant after dinner with friends.
(SFC, 6/15/99, p.C2)
1999 Jun, In El Salvador Francisco
Flores (39) took office and included in his cabinet Mauricio Sandoval
as the national police commissioner. Sandoval was implicated in the
1989 murders of 6 Jesuits when he ran a pro-government radio network
which allegedly instigated the murders. Crime was a national concern
with the annual murder rate at 128 per 100,000.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.D4)
1999 Sep, Salvadoran authorities
opened the floodgates to save the hydroelectric dam on the Lempa River.
Massive flooding left 13 people dead.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.A21)
1999 Oct 3, Flooding in Central
America left 21 dead in Honduras, 10 dead in Nicaragua, and 11 dead in
El Salvador and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A13)
2000 Mar 12, Elections were held
in El Salvador. The FMLN won 31 of the 84 assembly seats in Congress.
ARENA was left with only 29 seats. 78 of 262 city elections were also
won by the FMLN along with 8 of 14 provincial capitals.
(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A8)
2000 cApr 1, The US and El
Salvador signed a 10 year agreement for drug surveillance missions to
be flown from Comalapa Int’l. Airport.
(SFC, 4/14/00, p.A21)
2000 May 11, Mexico reached a
free-trade agreement with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
(SFC, 5/12/00, p.D2)
2000 Oct 8-2000 Oct 11, In El
Salvador a week of deaths from sugarcane liquor contaminated with
methyl alcohol increased to 51. Bottles of Thunderbolt were suspected
to have been refilled with a mixture of methanol and resold to poor
farmworkers. Liquor sales were banned after 117 deaths.
(SFC, 10/9/00, p.A11)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A14)(WSJ,
10/12/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 22, In El Salvador Pres.
Francisco Flores proposed to adopt the US dollar as the official
currency.
(SFC, 11/24/00, p.D8)
2001 Jan 13, In El Salvador a 7.6
earthquake hit near San Salvador. Some 1200 people were not accounted
for in the buried Las Colinas neighborhood. The “slab earthquake”
originated 24-36 miles below the surface. The earthquake death toll
later climbed to over 840. Damages were estimated at $1 billion.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.D1)(AP,
1/13/06)
2001 Jan 14, In El Salvador
aftershocks continued from the Jan 13 earthquake and the death toll
climbed to over 400.
(SFC, 1/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 15, The Jan 13 El
Salvador earthquake death toll climbed to over 707 and damages were
estimated at $1 billion [see Jan 13].
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.D1)
2001 Feb 11, In El Salvador armed
men attacked a bus carrying a local soccer team near Zacatecoluca. The
coach was killed and 3 others injured.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.D3)
2001 Feb 13, In El Salvador a 6.6
earthquake killed at least 127 people. It was centered between San
Vicente and San Salvador. The death toll soon rose to 402 with 2432
injured. It struck one month to the day after another quake killed more
than 800 people.
(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A12)(AP,
2/13/02)
2001 Feb 17, In El Salvador
another earthquake hit San Salvador. The 5.3 quake killed at least 1
person.
(SSFC, 2/18/01, p.D6)
2001 May 8-2001 May 9, Some 100
small earthquakes hit El Salvador over a 24-hour period.
(SFC, 5/10/01, p.C5)
2001 May 11, It was reported that
a new Salvadoran government report documented brutal conditions in its
maquiladora factories. The report was suppressed but one copy made it
to the National Labor Committee.
(SFC, 5/11/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 18, It was reported that
a month-long drought ravaged Central America. Honduras lost 80% of its
basic grains, El Salvador lost 80% of grains in its eastern provinces,
Nicaragua lost 50% and Guatemala lost 80% of its beans in the eastern
provinces. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were affected.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep, El Salvador Pres. Flores
was among the heads of state who signed the Inter-American Democratic
Charter that committed all members to refuse to recognize any
government resulting from a military coup.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A24)
2001 Nov 2, Gunmen killed 10
people in San Salvador in a suspected drug trade execution.
(SFC, 11/3/01, p.C2)
2001 Dec 27, In El Salvador
forensic scientists found human bones buried under the national police
headquarters. The were believed to belong to people who disappeared
during the 1980s civil war.
(WSJ, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 El Salvador adopted the US
dollar as the official currency.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A18)
2002 Mar 4, El Salvador declared a
state of emergency in the town of Berlin after some 60 horses died from
apparent anthrax infections.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Jun 7, Mauricio Gonzalez
(68), retired dental hygienist from San Ramon, Ca., was kidnapped near
Sonsonate, El Salvador. A demand for $500,000 was made. This was the
4th kidnapping of a US citizen here since Jan 1, 2000.
(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A19)
2002 Sep 9, In El Salvador a small
plane crashed into the slopes of a mountain, killing four prominent
Guatemala businessmen and the pilot.
(AP, 9/9/02)
2003 Feb 28, Fidel Sanchez
Hernandez (85), former El Salvador President (1967-1972), died. He
directed the so-called 100-hour war, when the Salvadoran army invaded
Honduras in 1969 over a territorial dispute.
(AP, 3/1/03)
2003 Mar 27, In Afghanistan
Ricardo Munguia (39), a Red Cross water engineer from El Salvador, was
killed by Taliban gunmen.
(SFC, 4/8/03, p.A5)(Reuters 3/28/03)
2003 Mar 29, In El Salvador a
cargo truck carrying dozens of passengers went out of control and
flipped over, killing at least 12 people and injuring 42.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Aug 12, El Salvador sent 360
peacekeepers to Iraq.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Dec 4, El Salvador's
government ignores and sometimes contributes to widespread labor
abuses, Human Rights watch said in a new report.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 9, In southern Mexico
Salvatrucha gang members attacked illegal immigrants from Central
America on a train, killing three people and wounding four in the
latest in a series of violent incidents in the region. The Mara
Salvatrucha spanned Central America. It was named for its Salvadorean
founders, who claimed to be as wise as trout.
(AP, 12/10/03)(Econ, 5/22/04, p.31)
2003 Dec 17, The Bush
administration reached a free-trade deal with El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua for immediate duty-free access to half of all US
farm exports and 80% of consumer goods.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 El Salvador Pres. Francisco
Flores led 4 other Central American countries to form a Central
American Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.38)
2004 Mar 21, Tony Saca, former
sportscaster and Arena Party candidate, easily won El Salvador's
presidential race, promising to continue the direction of one of the
most pro-US governments in the hemisphere.
(AP, 3/22/04)(Econ, 3/27/04, p.38)
2004 Apr 28, Masked demonstrators
stormed the main cathedral in El Salvador's capital and demanded the
country's new president withdraw troops from Iraq and rehire dozens of
fired government employees.
(AP, 4/29/04)
2004 May 28, US officials and 5
Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua) signed a free trade pact (CAFTA), to be later
approved by Congress. The Dominican Republic would be included later.
(SFC, 5/29/04, p.A4)
2004 Jun 9, Human Rights Watch
said as many as one-third of the workers in El Salvador's sugarcane
fields are under the age of 18, urging companies to boycott Salvadoran
sugar.
(AP, 6/9/04)
2004 Aug 14, In El Salvador a bus
careened off a mountain highway and toppled into a ravine in eastern El
Salvador, killing 34 people and injuring 24 others.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 18, In El Salvador rival
inmates fought each other with knives and sticks at a San Salvador
prison, leaving at least 31 people dead and two dozen injured.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Sep 3, A California federal
judge found Alvaro Rafael Saravia, a retired Salvadoran air force
captain living in Modesto, liable in the 1980 slaying of Salvadoran
archbishop Oscar Romero and ordered him to pay $10 million in damages.
(AP, 9/4/04)(SFC, 9/4/04, p.B7)
2004 Sep 24, An uprising by some
800 gang members at two Salvadoran prisons ended peacefully on Friday
following government promises to study complaints by inmates.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Nov 5, Jose Gilberto Soto
(49), a US citizen of Salvadoran origin from Cliffside Park, N.J., was
shot in the back outside his family's house in Usulutan, 70 miles
southeast of San Salvador. In December Salvadoran police arrested his
mother-in-law, along with five other suspects, describing the slaying
as a contract killing that was the result of a family dispute.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Nov 12, In El Salvador US
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld awarded bronze stars to six
soldiers who fought in Iraq, and he praised the tiny nation for being
the only Latin American country to have kept its troops there.
(AP, 11/12/04)
2004 The population of El Salvador
at this time was about 6.5 million.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2005 Mar 3, The seven Central
American nations (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua and Panama) agreed to create a rapid-response force to combat
drug trafficking, terrorism and other regional threats.
(AP, 3/3/05)
2005 Apr 8, Former Salvadoran
President Francisco Flores, the US government's choice to lead the
Washington-based Organization of American States, withdrew his
candidacy. His withdrawal means that, for the first time in the 57-year
history of the OAS, Washington's candidate will not win.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 May 20, Hurricane Adrian
slammed into El Salvador, unleashing torrential rains in an area prone
to devastating floods and forcing some 14,000 people to seek higher
ground.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 25, A new plaza on San
Salvador's Jerusalem Avenue was inaugurated in honor of the late
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Migrants from Palestine flowed to El
Salvador for decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and
several families became prominent in business and politics.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 Jun 26, Heavy rains caused
flooding and landslides in El Salvador and Honduras, leaving a total of
39 dead in both countries, including 21 people killed when a bus was
carried away by flood waters.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Honduras Central
American leaders agreed to create a regional special forces unit to
fight drug trafficking, gang violence and terrorism within their
borders. The 2-day regional meeting included the presidents of Costa
Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua,
and Panama.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Aug 11, El Salvador sent its
fifth contingent of 380 soldiers to Iraq for humanitarian missions.
President Tony Saca said it was in the same spirit as the countries
that helped El Salvador during its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Sep 6, Dominican Republic
legislators overwhelmingly approved a free-trade agreement with the US
and five Central American countries, rejecting arguments that the pact
would devastate the domestic sugar industry. The other five countries
are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Costa
Rica and Nicaragua had not yet ratified the pact.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 8, El Salvador said that
“Operation International” simultaneous raids this week in El Salvador,
the US, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico netted 660 dangerous gang
members.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Oct 1, A volcano in western
El Salvador erupted, sending a column of ash 50,000 feet into the air
and killing two farmers buried by chunks of earth and boiling water
that tumbled down the slopes.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 3, In El Salvador heavy
rains triggered landslides that killed at least 31 people, while rising
rivers forced the evacuation of dozens of people there and in
neighboring Guatemala.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 5, Hurricane Stan knocked
down trees, ripped roofs off homes and washed out bridges in
southeastern Mexico, but it was the storms it helped spawn that were
far more destructive, killing more than 65 people in Central America.
Officials in El Salvador said 49 people had been killed, mostly due to
two days of mudslides sparked by rains. 9 people died in Nicaragua,
including six migrants believed to be Ecuadorians killed in a boat
accident. Four deaths were reported in Honduras, three in Guatemala and
one in Costa Rica.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 6-2005 Oct 8, In
Guatemala rescue workers searched for victims of a mudslide near Lake
Atitlan, a volcano-ringed lake popular with tourists. Panabaj and
Tzanchaz were entombed by a mudflow half a mile wide. The death toll in
the region from flooding sparked by Hurricane Stan soon climbed to 617
with 42 dead in Mexico, 72 dead in El Salvador and 11 dead in Nicaragua.
(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05,
p.43)
2005 Oct 29, Salvadoran President
Tony Saca urged Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to support his
request to President Bush to allow undocumented Salvadorans to remain
in the US while the country recovers from Hurricane Stan.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Nov 18, A federal jury in
Tennessee held that Nicolas Carranza (72), a former Salvadoran colonel,
was responsible for murder and torture during the 1980s civil war in El
Salvador and ordered him to pay $6 million in damages to his accusers.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A5)
2005 Dec 31, El Salvador's 22
penitentiaries, designed to house 7,370 inmates, were packed with more
than 12,500 prisoners.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2006 Jan 4, A US federal appeals
court in Atlanta reinstated a $54.6 million verdict against two retired
Salvadoran generals, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova (67), and Jose
Guillermo Garcia (72), accused of torture during the civil war
(1980-1992) in their home country.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 24, Shafik Handal (75),
leader of the Salvadoran left, died of a heart attack in San Salvador.
The ex-guerrilla commander had fought US-backed troops during the
country's 12-year civil war.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Feb 6, El Salvador said it
will send another contingent of 380 soldiers to Iraq, making it the
country's sixth group to serve six-month rotations in the war-torn
nation.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 28, Thousands of street
vendors, university students and labor unionists marched in San
Salvador against a regional free trade accord with the United States,
which they say will hurt small businesses and organized labor.
(AP, 2/28/06)
2006 Mar 1, El Salvador became the
first Central American nation to join a regional free trade agreement
with the United States.
(AP, 3/1/06)
2006 Mar 12, El Salvador held
elections. The next day the conservative ruling party claimed several
victories over former leftist rebels in elections for congressional
seats and mayorships across the country.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 20, Venezuela agreed to
sell fuel under preferential terms to an El Salvador association
created by a group of leftist mayors.
(AP, 3/20/06)
2006 May 16, Scientists warned
that tropical forests, which house El Salvador's famed coffee
plantations and provide habitat for migrating birds, are being depleted
at an alarming rate.
(Reuters, 5/16/06)
2006 Jul 5, In El Salvador
violence broke out after police fired tear gas to disperse students
protesting against a hike in electricity rates and public
transportation fees. Two officers were killed and 10 others were
wounded by gunshots. The next day police arrested Luis Antonio Herrador
Funes (37), who allegedly was captured on tape shielding a man who was
shooting an M-16 rifle. Police were still looking for the shooter.
(AP, 7/6/06)
2006 Jul 11, Central American
presidents agreed on a plan to ease border controls and install a
common customs system on the way to negotiating an eventual free-trade
agreement with the EU. The agreement signed by Panama, Costa Rica,
Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize would allow
residents to cross borders without passports or visas.
(AP, 7/11/06)
2006 Jul 27, In Iraq a rocket and
mortar barrage followed by a car bomb blasted an upscale, mostly Shiite
district of Baghdad, killing 31 people and wounding 153. A US Marine
was killed in action in western Iraq. A Salvadoran soldier was killed
in Iraq, the 2nd soldier from this Central American nation to be killed
in the conflict in 8 days.
(AP, 7/27/06)(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Sep 5, Cellular telephones
were found inside four prisoners in El Salvador's maximum-security
prison after suspicious officials took X-rays of each of the inmates.
(AP, 9/6/06)
2006 Oct 18, El Salvador’s Pres.
Antonio Saca pledged to support Taiwan's bid to join world bodies and
called for a free trade agreement between the two countries. El
Salvador is one of only 24 countries that affords Taiwan diplomatic
recognition over the island's rival China.
(AFP, 10/18/06)
2007 Jan 6, Riots erupted
overnight in a maximum-security prison in western El Salvador, leaving
21 inmates dead.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Feb 19, Police found the
charred bodies of three Salvadoran representatives to the Central
American Parliament and their driver on a rural road outside Guatemala
City.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Mar 12, Israel confirmed that
it has recalled Tsuriel Raphael, its ambassador to El Salvador,
after he was found naked, bound and drunk two weeks earlier.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 26, Four children and
Pedro Rodriguez (28), their father, were found dead in the family's
suburban Washington, D.C., home. The mother Deysi M. Benitez (25) was
missing. Her sister from El Salvador said she had been beaten by her
husband and wanted to separate.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 30, In El Salvador Maria
Julia Hernandez (b.1939), a renowned human rights activist, died of a
heart attack. She had aided victims of El Salvador's civil war.
(AP, 3/31/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.97)
2008 Jul 3, In El Salvador a bus
carrying members of an evangelical church was swept off a bridge in San
Salvador. 29 bodies were recovered the next day.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Dec 23, El Salvador’s
President Tony Saca announced he will withdraw Salvadoran troops from
Iraq after Dec. 31, pulling out the only remaining soldiers from Latin
America.
(AP, 12/23/08)
2008 El Salvador this year had the
world’s highest murder rate.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.39)
2009 Jan 18, In El Salvador polls
ahead of six-party elections indicated the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front, a former guerrilla group known as the FMLN, will
increase its 32-seat plurality in the 84-member legislature while
winning the capital and most of the 262 mayors races up for grabs.
(AP, 1/18/09)
2009 Jan 19, El Salvador's chief
leftist party lost its stronghold in the capital but was winning the
most seats in the Legislative Assembly.
(AP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 24, In El Salvador final
results showed that the former leftist rebels won more seats than any
other party in legislative elections but fell short of a majority.
(AP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 28, El Salvador police
said they found the remains of what they believe to be eight to 10 gang
victims at the bottom of a well in Tonacatepeque, located outside San
Salvador.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Mar 15, El Salvador's
entrenched conservatives faced a stiff challenge from the party of
former guerrillas in presidential elections. Mauricio Funes (b.1959), a
leftist television journalist, made history by bringing the FMLN, a
party of former guerrillas, to power for the first time since the end
of a bloody civil war. Funes won 51.3% to 48.7% for Rodrigo Avila.
(AP, 3/15/09)(AP, 3/16/09)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.40)
2009 Mar 18, Costa Rica said it
will re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba, and El Salvador's new
president-elect, Mauricio Funes, promised to do the same after he takes
office.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 May 31, El Salvador’s
President-elect Mauricio Funes appointed his wife and a former Marxist
guerrilla to Cabinet posts just hours before starting his five-year
term.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, In El Salvador
Mauricio Funes, a journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas,
became the country's first leftist president, immediately restoring
ties with Cuba while promising to remain friendly with the United
States.
(AP, 6/1/09)
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