Name: Circle Period #: 8A / 8B
The Monroe Doctrine and the Civil War in El Salvador Homework
Focus Question: Was the United States following the Monroe Doctrine (1823) during the Civil War in El Salvador (1979-1992)?
Document 1
The Monroe Doctrine Overview
President James Monroe announced a policy that has come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine during his State of the Union Address in 1823. During this period, most of Latin America was winning its independence from European countries. The Monroe Doctrine told European countries that they could not conquer or extend their influence over any countries in North or South America. If any European country did this, the United States would consider it a hostile act against the United States, and this could possibly even lead to war.
Document 2
The Cold War, 1947-1991
The Cold War was a conflict between the United States and Russia. It is called a cold war because there was no direct war between the United States and Russia, rather both countries used other ways to try to hurt each other. The conflict was over capitalism and communism. The United States government believes that people should be free to control their own economic lives. In this system, some are rich, some are poor, and some are in the middle. It's up to the individual person to try to make it for themselves. The Russians believed in communism, which believes that the government should try to make people as equal as possible. They claim that no one should be a millionaire or billionaire in a country where some people are hungry and homeless. The United States has a democracy where people can vote. Russia under communism was a dictatorship. They believed that if people were allowed to vote as in our system people would just be selfish and forget about all of the hungry and homeless people.
The Russians sent money and supplies to places in Latin America to help them become communist. The United States claimed this was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, and therefore the United States had to do something about it.
Document 3
Civil War in El Salvador, 1979-1992
In 1979, full scale fighting broke out between Marxist-led leftist guerillas and the military backed right wing government of El Salvador. The wealthy elite and the military had long dominated the government, while the majority of the people lived in crushing poverty. Various democratic reform movements had all been brutally repressed by the military led government leading up to the start of the civil war.
The rebellion against the government was led by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The FMLN leadership supported a Marxist ideology, and received support in the forms of weapons and money from the communist governments in Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. The ultimate goal of the FMLN was to create a communist led government in El Salvador. Like all communist movements, the FMLN wanted to seize land and property from well off individuals to spread it around to the impoverished masses.
The United States was alarmed by the threat of a communist take over of El Salvador. While El Salvador's government was not very democratic, it supported capitalism. Under president Reagan, the United States began sending millions of dollars in economic and military aid to the government of El Salvador to help them win the war.
In 1992, both sides agreed to stop fighting and formed a joint government. The FMLN became a legal political party in a functioning democratic system. The war claimed 75,000 lives.
Document 4
Address to the Nation on United States Policy in Central America
United States President Ronald Reagan, May 9, 1984
In this televised speech to the nation, Ronald Reagan makes the case to the American people that the United States should send aid to the government of El Salvador to help them win their civil war against “Cuban-supported aggression.”
Central America is a region of great importance to the United States. And it is so close: San Salvador is closer to Houston, Texas, than Houston is to Washington, DC. Central America is America. It's at our doorstep, and it's become the stage for a bold attempt by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua to install communism by force throughout the hemisphere.
When half of our shipping tonnage and imported oil passes through Caribbean shipping lanes, and nearly half of all our foreign trade passes through the Panama Canal and Caribbean waters, America's economy and well-being are at stake.
Right now in El Salvador, Cuban-supported aggression has forced more than 400,000 men, women, and children to flee their homes. And in all of Central America, more than 800,000 have fled -- many, if not most, living in unbelievable hardship. Concerns about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Communist oppression to seek entry into our country are well-founded.
What we see in El Salvador is an attempt to destabilize the entire region and eventually move chaos and anarchy toward the American border.
As the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, chaired by Henry Kissinger, agreed, if we do nothing, if we continue to provide too little help, our choice will be a Communist Central America with additional Communist military bases on the mainland of this hemisphere and Communist subversion spreading southward and northward. This Communist subversion poses the threat that a hundred million people from Panama to the open border of our South could come under the control of pro-Soviet regimes.
Document 5
Massacre at El Mozote
As part of American aid to the government of El Salvador, the U.S. Military helped train an elite military unit called the Atlacatl Battalion.
In December, 1981, the Atlacatl Battalion entered the village of El Mozote searching for guerrilla fighters from the FMLN. Frustrated by their inability to find evidence, but suspecting that the entire village supported the guerillas, the Atlacatl Battalion executed the entire population of the village. The soldiers tortured people, raped the women (including girls as young as 10), and systematically shot their victims and burned the bodies. Around 1,000 people died.
News of the massacre gradually leaked out. The massacre at El Mozote, and other government atrocities led many Americans to question why the United States was backing the military government of El Salvador. The Reagan administration questioned whether these atrocities had actually occurred, suggesting that many stories were FMLN propaganda. While the war caused much uncertainty, the massacre at El Mozote is widely accepted as having actually happened today. The government of El Salvador officially apologized for the killings in 2011.
Document 6
The Truth Commission
Following the war's end in 1992, the newly established government established a truth commission to investigate the violence that occurred during the war. The commission took testimony from individuals reporting on over 10,000 cases of murder (deaths that did not occur during combat). The FMLN was accused of only 5% of these deaths, while government forces were accused of the remaining killings. The Study was not complete or scientific (relying only on personal testimony), and the accuracy of these figures is very difficult to establish.
Questions
1) Do you think the United States was following the Monroe Doctrine in its actions during the Civil War in El Salvador? [Write at least 4 sentences]
2) Do you think the actions of the United States during the Civil War in El Salvador helped the people of El Salvador? [Write at least 4 sentences]