The United Nations (UN) reports that the war killed more than 75,000 people between 1979 and 1992, along with approximately 8,000 disappeared persons. Human rights violations, particularly the kidnapping, torture, and murder of suspected FMLN sympathizers by state security forces and paramilitary death squads – were pervasive.[18][19][20]
The Salvadoran government was considered an ally of the U.S. in the context of the Cold War.[21] During the Carter and Reagan administrations, the US provided 1 to 2 million dollars per day in economic aid to the Salvadoran government.[22] The US also provided significant training and equipment to the military. By May 1983, it was reported that US military officers were working within the Salvadoran High Command and making important strategic and tactical decisions.[23] The United States government believed its extensive assistance to El Salvador's government was justified on the grounds that the insurgents were backed by the Soviet Union.[24]
Counterinsurgency tactics implemented by the Salvadoran government often targeted civilian noncombatants. Overall, the United Nations estimated that FMLN guerrillas were responsible for 5 percent of atrocities committed during the civil war, while 85 percent were committed by the Salvadoran security forces.[25] Accountability for these civil war-era atrocities has been hindered by a 1993 amnesty law. In 2016, however, the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador ruled in case Incostitucionalidad 44-2013/145-2013[26] that the law was unconstitutional and that the Salvadoran government could prosecute suspected war criminals.[27]
^Cite error: The named reference McClintock_1985 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference honours was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^El Salvador, In Depth, Negotiating a settlement to the conflict. Uppsala Conflict Data Program Conflict Encyclopedia. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. US government increased the security support to prevent a similar thing to happen in El Salvador. This was, not least, demonstrated in the delivery of security aid to El Salvador
^ abcMichael W. Doyle, Ian Johnstone & Robert Cameron Orr (1997). Keeping the Peace: Multidimensional UN Operations in Cambodia and El Salvador. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 222. ISBN978-0521588379.
^ abMaría Eugenia Gallardo & José Roberto López (1986). Centroamérica. San José: IICA-FLACSO, p. 249. ISBN978-9290391104.
^ abAndrews Bounds (2001). South America, Central America and The Caribbean 2002. El Salvador: History (10a ed.). London: Routledge. p. 384. ISBN978-1857431216.
^Charles Hobday (1986). Communist and Marxist parties of the world. New York: Longman, p. 323. ISBN978-0582902640.
^El Salvador, In Depth: Negotiating a settlement to the conflict. Uppsala Conflict Data Program Conflict Encyclopedia. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2013. While nothing of the aid delivered from the US in 1979 was earmarked for security purposes, the 1980 aid for security only summed US$6.2 million, close to two-thirds of the total aid in 1979.
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