Civic Foreign Policy: Human Rights, Faith-Based Groups and U.S.-Salvadoran Relations in the 1970S

2004 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svenja Blanke
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Economic Elites

El Salvador, the smallest but most densely populated country of Central America, experienced one of Latin America's bloodiest civil wars, accompanied by widespread human rights violations. State repression was especially brutal against opposition groups such as peasant associations, unions, students, and religious people. Twenty-five church people were murdered and many religious workers were persecuted, expelled, or tortured. Several U.S. missionaries were among those murdered or expelled victims. Although the number of religious victims is relatively small in comparison to the tens of thousands of people who were killed in the three civil wars of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, the murders of religious personnel had a profound impact on the religious community in Central America, and particularly in El Salvador. This impact also reached religious groups in the United States. Given the traditional alliance between the Catholic Church and the political and economic elites throughout most of Salvadoran history, the murders of religious leaders by government or government-linked forces symbolized a remarkable shift.

Strategy, Ideology, and Human Rights: Jimmy Carter Confronts the Left in Central America, 1979–1981

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Soares
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jimmy Carter

This article discusses the Carter administration's policies toward Nicaragua and El Salvador after the Sandinistas took power in Nicaragua in July 1979. These policies were influenced by the widespread perception at the time that Marxist revolutionary forces were in the ascendance and the United States was in retreat. Jimmy Carter was trying to move away from traditional American “interventionism” in Latin America, but he was also motivated by strategic concerns about the perception of growing Soviet and Cuban strength, ideological concerns about the spread of Marxism-Leninism, and political-humanitarian concerns about Marxist-Leninist regimes' systematic violations of human rights.

Reagan and the White House’s Maryknoll Nun

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-160
Author(s):  
Theresa Keeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public

This chapter explains how Ronald Reagan's public diplomacy campaign reflected conservative Nicaraguan and U.S. Catholic viewpoints and language. It talks about the officials who worked with Catholic allies, including a former Maryknoll sister, that critique the Maryknoll and liberation theology in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. It also recounts Reagan's promotion as defender of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church to win support among conservative Catholics for U.S. policy and his reelection bid. The chapter discusses the White House's attempt to move the public focus from human rights in El Salvador to Nicaragua by alleging that the Sandinista government persecuted religion and was trying to create a fake church. It describes the public diplomacy campaign that involved cooperation with religious conservatives, including its design and execution that reflected conservative Catholic viewpoints and language.

Saint Óscar Romero, Liberation Theology, and Human Rights in El Salvador

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cangemi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
Social Violence ◽  
San Salvador ◽  
Shortwave Radio ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Church

Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (b. Ciudad Barrios, San Miguel, El Salvador, August 15, 1915; d. San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1980) was the seventh Archbishop of San Salvador. During his episcopate (February 22, 1977–March 24, 1980), Romero gained international renown for his human rights activism, advocacy for the poor, and denunciation of El Salvador’s political repression and violence. Romero was one of Latin America’s most influential political and social voices and routinely drew thousands of people to San Salvador’s Metropolitan Cathedral, while his homilies were broadcast across Central America on shortwave radio. In 1978, members of Britain’s Parliament, the United States Congress, and the US press supported Romero’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts to halt the economic, political, and social violence that plagued El Salvador and, more broadly, Central America, during the late 1970s. In his final homily, delivered on March 23, 1980, Romero directly addressed members of the Salvadoran military and police forces, “in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.” The following day, Romero was murdered by Salvadoran government forces while he celebrated Mass at the Church of Divine Providence in San Salvador. His assassination sent shockwaves through Central America, and over one hundred thousand people attended his funeral. In May 2015, Pope Francis beatified Romero and elevated him to sainthood on October 14, 2018.

Kissinger and Central America

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-182
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Rabe
Keyword(s):  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central American ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter explores U.S. relations with Central America during the Kissinger years. In the 1980s, civil wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala frightened the Reagan administration into reasoning that the Cold War had come to the doorstep of the United States. The civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua erupted during Henry Kissinger's tenure (in 1972 and 1974, respectively). Wholesale political violence carried out by “death squads” continued to characterize life in Guatemala in the 1970s. Examining the U.S. response to the mounting right-wing oppression in Central America provides historical background to the crisis of the 1980s and deepens an understanding of Kissinger's worldviews. Whereas Kissinger may have been impervious to Central American violence, he acted boldly toward Panama, pushing both of his presidents to renegotiate U.S. control of the canal and the Canal Zone.

Subversives in El Salvador

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-100
Author(s):  
Theresa Keeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
White House ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Implications

This chapter clarifies how the Maryknollers and San Salvador's Archbishop, Óscar Romero, unsuccessfully tried to persuade Jimmy Carter to accentuate human rights in U.S.–El Salvador policy. It recounts El Salvador as a major conflict between the White House and the religious community by 1980. It also discusses the Salvadoran government that accused Maryknoll priests John Halbert and Ron Michaels of being “subversives.” The chapter describes priests, brothers, and nuns in El Salvador and the United States that played a crucial role in aiding Salvadorans' push for societal change. It talks about how Maryknollers approached the situation from a faith-based perspective, but their decision to side with the poor had political implications.

The United States and the Rise of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Grieb
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
American Politics ◽  
State Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Central American ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The Military

The militarycoup d'étatwhich installed General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez as President of El Salvador during December 1931 created a crisis involving the 1923 Washington Treaties. By the terms of these accords, the Central American nadons had pledged to withhold recognition from governments seizing power through force in any of the isthmian republics. Although not a signatory of the treaty, the United States based its recognition policy on this principle. Through this means the State Department had attempted to impose some stability in Central America, by discouraging revolts. With the co-operation of the isthmian governments, United States diplomats endeavored to bring pressure to bear on the leaders of any uprising, to deny them the fruits of their victory, and thus reduce the constant series ofcoupsandcounter-coupsthat normally characterized Central American politics.

Reflections

2019 ◽  
pp. 66-72
Author(s):  
Williams Guevara Martínez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
College Credits ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
Legal Relief ◽  
Formal Status

Born in El Salvador, Williams Guevara Martínez left home at seventeen to escape domestic abuse and seek refuge with family members living in the United States. After a hazardous journey and crossing into the United States in a context of heightened migration, he was immediately apprehended, detained in federal custody, and ultimately released to his brother’s care in Maryland. He found excellent legal representation and was granted legal relief in the form of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Now with formal status, steady work, and college credits he looks back to chronicle the challenges of youth who enter the country alone and without authorization. Guevara Martínez recounts his life in El Salvador, his harrowing journey, experience in federal custody and after release, including personal attachments, educational opportunities and his commitment “to give back” by helping others like himself. He shares the lessons he learned commenting critically on violence, the migration process, human rights, and his hopes for the future..

Buffering North America

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-159
Author(s):  
David Scott FitzGerald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
The United States ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Central Americans ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
The U.S

Washington and Ottawa have tried to keep out most of the Central Americans fleeing to North America beginning in the civil wars of the 1980s. Central America and Mexico buffer the United States, which in turn buffers Canada. The U.S. government has propped up client states in Central America; paid for refugee camps; and provided training, equipment, and financing for migration controls further south. Mexico has weak rights of territorial personhood, so rather than strictly controlling entry across its southern border, its entire territory has become a “vertical frontier” with the United States. Aggressive U.S. enforcement at the Mexican border traps transit migrants in Mexico and creates an incentive for the Mexican government to deport them. But harsh U.S. enforcement on its border and the fact that it targets Mexicans as well as third-country nationals impedes the bilateral cooperation that would make Mexico a more effective buffer.

Making Sense of Central America

Worldview ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 10-12
Author(s):  
Gregory F. Treverton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Making Sense

Most discussions of U.S. policy in Central America have focused on operational questions: Should the United States support the Contras seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua? Should we condition military aid to El Salvador on curbing the death squads? These are the issues debated too by the Kissinger Commission on Central America, whose report was presented to President Reagan earlier this year. They are important, vexing, and decisive. But they are also essentially unanswerable on their own terms.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document