Death Squads Threaten Journalists in El Salvador
In 2005, with the United States facing resilient resistance in Iraq, Newsweek reported that officials in the Pentagon were debating the use of the “Salvador Option,” referring to the US-supported death squads that terrorized El Salvador through the 1980s as part of the first ‘War on Terror.’
These groups were notoriously barbaric, using random violence, decapitations, torture and committing atrocities in order to spread terror. Independent media outlets were targeted and essentially silenced in the early 1980s by intimidation, attacks, kidnappings and murder. The violence and widespread repression were justified as part of a civil war against leftist groups that had taken up arms against the junta. The result was more than a million refugees and as many as 70,000 people killed over the course of a decade.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Guest Scholar Ross Eventon
To read the full article, click here.
Blog de Octavio Islas 