Transnational support for the Salvadoran counterrevolution

Aaron T. Bell has a terrific article on A matter of western civilisation: transnational support for the Salvadoran counterrevolution, 1979-1982 in Cold War History.

This article considers how transnational right-wing networks contributed to the origins of El Salvador's civil conflict (1980–1992) using research from the archives, scholarship, media, and popular histories of the United States, El Salvador, Mexico, and Guatemala. Salvadoran counterrevolutionaries used material resources, training, and advice procured from foreign sympathisers to develop a political-paramilitary organisation that undermined socioeconomic and political reforms through violence and intimidation, before transforming that organisation into a formal political party capable of participating in the democratisation process. Additionally, these networks facilitated right-wing Salvadoran contributions to debates in the United States over the direction of US policy in El Salvador at the beginning of the Ronald Reagan administration.

I think that the title of the article is somewhat inaccurate as the history told is more about the mobilization strategies and effectiveness of the Salvadoran right-wing to gain international support for their policies. They sought assistance in South and Central America, Taiwan and in the United States to help confront the threat posed by the revolutionary and moderate left as well as the centrist alternatives proposed by the Carter administration. As is, the title makes it sounds as if D'Aubuisson, de Sola, ORDEN, FAN, and ARENA were more passive recipients of assistance organized from outside of El Salvador rather than active participants. The article really emphasizes their agency in a way that the title does not.

Another minor quibble, is using counterrevolution in the title. Counterreaction is more common to characterize ARENA and the Salvadoran right's response to the reforms proposed by the US and PDC and the revolutionary alternative posed by the FMLN. The Contras would be an example of counterrevolutionaries organized in response to the Salvadoran revolution. Perhaps it's a disciplinary matter.

While the article covers up to the year 1982, it is really light on 1981 and 1982. There's little coverage of the relationship between the Salvadoran right and the US right in that pivotal 1981 - the January offensive, Reagan inauguration, progress on the investigation into the churchwomen murders, and the December 1981 massacre at El Mozote. And into 1982, it would have been helpful to learn more of the Salvadoran right's mobilization against the certification process imposed by the US congress on the Reagan administration, if there was such mobilization. Instead, Bell focuses on the relationship between the Salvadoran and Guatemalan right that led to the creation of ARENA.

Jesse Helms is still awful.

Bell provides some great insights into the Salvadoran right's lobbying firms located in Washington, D.C. When studying Guatemala, I don't think that I've come across any work that addresses that issue. However, there's more coverage of the Guatemalan right's relationship with the US evangelical community. I was wondering if there was the same level of success among the Salvadoran right. It's clear that they did have an important relationship, it's just absent from this article.

Anyway, it's a really solid contribution to recent academic work on the Salvadoran civil war.