History of El-Salvador

موضوع: History of El-Salvador السبت أبريل 18, 2015 3:22 pm

History of El-Salvador

source :
S1- en- Wikipesia
S2- others when referenced

موضوع: رد: History of El-Salvador الأحد أبريل 19, 2015 12:51 am

Sophisticated Civilization in El Salvador dates to its settlement by the Native American Lenca people which are the first and oldest indigenous civilization to settle in El Salvador, these were followed by the Olmecs who then disappeared leaving their monumental architecture in the pyramids of western El Salvador, the Maya arrived and settled in western El Salvador only to be diluted by the Illopango supervolcano eruption which caused a massive exodus of Mayas out of El Salvador, centuries later they were replaced by the Pipil people, Nahua speaking groups[17] who migrated from Mexico in the centuries before the European conquest and occupied the central and western regions, the Pipil were the last indigenous people to arrive in El Salvador.[18][18] They called their territory Cuzcatlan, a Pipil word[19] meaning The Place of Precious Jewels, hispanicized as Cuzcatlán.[20][21] The people of El Salvador today are variably referred to as Salvadoran, while the term Cuzcatleco is commonly used to identify someone of Salvadoran heritage.

In pre-Columbian times the country was also inhabited by various other Native American peoples, including the Lenca, a Chilanga Lencan-speaking group[22] who settled in the eastern highlands.[23] Cuzcatlan was the larger domain until the Spanish conquest. Since El Salvador resided on the eastern edge of the Maya Civilization, the origins of many of El Salvador's ruins are controversial. However, it is widely agreed that Mayas likely occupied the areas around Lago de Guija and Cihuatan. Other ruins such as Tazumal and Joya de Ceren and San Andres may have been created by the Pipil or the Maya or possibly both.[24]
=======================
Sources for this paragraph :

17^ Lyle Campbell (1985). The Pipil Language of El Salvador. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 924–925. ISBN 978-0-89925-040-3.

18^ a b William R. Fowler, Jr. (6 August 1991). The Formation of Complex Society in Southeastern Mesoamerica. CRC Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-8493-8831-6.

19^ Juan Luna Cárdenas (1950). Tratado de etimologías de la lengua aztekatl: para uso de profesores y estudiantes de historias de América y de México, de ciencias naturales y ciencias sociales de las escuela secundarias, normales y preparatorias. U. Tl. I. Aztekatl. p. 27
.
20^ María de Baratta (1951). Cuzcatlán típico: ensayo sobre etnofonía de El Savator, folklore, folkwisa y folkway. Ministerio de Cultura. p. 15.

21^ Juan Luna Cárdenas (1964). Aztequismos en el español de México. Secretaría de Educación Pública. p. 47.

22^ Lyle Campbell. American Indian Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 167. ISBN 978-0-19-534983-2.

23^ Catherine M. Tucker (2008). Changing Forests: Collective Action, Common Property, and Coffee in Honduras. Springer. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-4020-6977-2.

24^ Thompson, John Eric Sidney (1990). Maya History and Religion, pp. 84–102.

European contact (1522):

By 1521 the indigenous population of the Mesoamerican area had been drastically reduced by the smallpox epidemic that was spreading throughout the territory, although it had not yet reached pandemic levels in Cuzcatlán.

Refer to :
^ Stephanie True Peters (2005). Smallpox in the New World. Marshall Cavendish. pp. 13–18. ISBN 978-0-7614-1637-1.
^ Jeb J. Card (2007). The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Change in Mesoamerica. ProQuest. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-549-26142-1.
^ Explorer's Guide El Salvador: A Great Destination. Countryman Press. 4 October 2010. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-58157-114-1.
^ Deborah L. Nichols; Christopher A. Pool (18 October 2012). The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-19-539093-3.

The Spanish Admiral Andrés Niño led an expedition to Central America and disembarked on Meanguera island, which he named Petronila, in the Gulf of Fonseca, on May 31, 1522. Thereafter he discovered Jiquilisco Bay on the mouth of Lempa River. This was the first known visit by Spaniards to what is now Salvadoran territory. The first indigenous people to have contact with the Spanish were the Lenca of eastern El Salvador.

Conquest of Cuzcatlán

In 1524, after participating in the conquest of Mexico, Spanish Conquistadors led by Pedro de Alvarado and his brother Gonzalo crossed the Rio Paz (Peace River) from the area comprising the present Republic of Guatemala into what is now the Republic of El Salvador. The Spaniards were disappointed to discover that the indigenous Pipil people had no gold or jewels like those they had found in Guatemala or Mexico, but recognized the richness of the verdant land's volcanic soil.

Pedro de Alvarado led the first incursion by Spanish forces to extend their dominion to the nation of Cuzcatlan (El Salvador), in June 1524

When Pedro de Alvarado arrived into the borders of the Cuzcatlan kingdom, he saw that all civilians women, children and elders, in towns and large urban centers had been mandatory evacuated to a safe unknown location. The warriors of Cuzcatan had deployed to their battle stations in Acajutla and waited for Pedro de Alvarado and his forces in that coastal city. Pedro de Alvarado approached confident trusting that the result was going to be like in Mexico and Guatemala where the people saw them as gods, and thought he was going to easily defeat this new indigenous force because his Mexican allies and the Pipil of Cuzcatlan spoke a similar language and communication was going to be easy and fast. However unlike in Mexico and Guatemala, the Indigenous peoples of El Salvador never saw the Spanish as gods, but as foreign, gold lusting, barbaric, alien invaders who would resort to anything to steal away their land. Once Pedro de Alvarado arrived, he saw the shock troops of the Cuzcatlan kingdom in Acajutla ready for battle, he saw that the Cuzcatan force had a significantly large number of soldiers, which easily outnumbers his Spanish soldiers and Mexican Indian allies, once he saw this he order his army for the first time to quickly retreat, but the Cuzcatlec army was not satisfied by this and made a decisive shock and awe attack on the Spanish army, running behind them war chanting and shooting bow arrows, Pedro de Alvarado had no choice but to fight to survive. Pedro de Alvarado describes the Cuzcatlec soldiers in great detail with shields made of colorful exotic feathers, a vest-like armor made of three inch cotton which arrows could not penetrate and large spears. The Cuzcatlec soldiers were so fully armed, that those who were wounded by the Spanish guns and swords, found it difficult to get up because of their wounds and heavy armor. Both armies suffered great casualties, a wounded Pedro de Alvarado retreated losing a lot of men especially close Mexican Indian auxiliaries. Once his army had gathered Pedro de Alvarado decided to head to the Cuzcatlan metropolis capital, however half way the same Cuzcatlan army was waiting for them. Wounded, unable to fight and hiding in the cliffs, Pedro de Alvarado sent his Spanish men on their horses to approach the Cuzcatlec platoons to see if they would fear the horses, however the Indigenous warriors stood their ground and did not move an inch, as Pedro de Alvarado recalls in his letters to Hernan Cortez. Pedro de Alvarado was so stunned and imprinted with their monumental military power and size which he describes as large number of male warriors in colorful feather armors and long spears, a large army of indigenous men which spooked him. The Cuzcatlec shock troops made another decisive shock and awe attacked on the Spanish on which both sides lost men, but this time Pedro de Alvarado lost many Spaniards, horses, and weapons which the Natives of Cuzcatlan had taken. Pedro de Alvarado retreated and sent Mexican Indian messengers to communicate with the Cuzcatlan warriors, Pedro de Alvarado sent for them to return the stolen weapons and to surrender to the Spanish king, to which the Cuzcatecs responded with the famous response, "If you want your weapons, come get them". As days passed, Pedro de Alvarado fearing an ambush sent more Mexican Indian messengers to negotiate, but these messenger never came back and were presumably executed.

The Spanish efforts were firmly resisted by the indigenous people, including the Pipil and their Mayan-speaking neighbors, defeated the Spaniards and what was left of their Mexican Tlaxcala Indian allies, forcing them to withdraw to Guatemala, it was Pedro de Alvarado first defeat. There, Pedro de Alvarado was again wounded, this time on his left thigh, which left him handicapped for the rest of his life. He abandoned the war and appointed his brother, Gonzalo de Alvarado, to continue the task. It took two subsequent expeditions (the first in 1525, followed by a smaller group in 1528) to bring the Pipil under Spanish control. However the Pipil were defeated by the smallpox epidemic not by the Spanish which resorted to spreading the disease to gain terrain. In 1525, the conquest of Cuzcatlán was completed and the city of San Salvador was established. The Spanish faced much resistance from the Pipil and were not able to reach eastern El Salvador, the area of the Lencas.

Finally, with reinforcements, in 1526 the Spanish established the garrison town of San Miguel, headed by another explorer and conquistador, Luis de Moscoso Alvarado, nephew of Pedro Alvarado. Oral history holds that a Maya-Lenca woman, crown Warrior Princess Antu Silan Ulap I, daughter of Asisilcan Nachan I and Lady Omomatku, Monarch of the Lencas, organized resistance to the domination of the gold- and profit-hungry Conquistadors. The Lenca kingdom was alarmed by de Moscoso's invasion, and Antu Silan dealt with it by going from village to village, uniting all the Lenca towns in present-day El Salvador and Honduras against the Spaniards. Through surprise attacks and their overwhelming numbers, they were able to drive the Spanish out of San Miguel and destroy the garrison.

For ten years, the Lencas prevented the Spanish from building a permanent settlement. Then the Spanish returned with more soldiers, including about 2,000 forced conscripts from indigenous communities in Guatemala. They pursued the Lenca leaders further up into the mountains of Intibucá. Legend tells that Antu Silan Ulap continued leading the united forces until, late in pregnancy, she slipped out of the conflicted area to a safe haven, Tihuilotal, where she gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy. Their father was Prince Salaiki Kanul from Sesori. The daughter became Atonim Silan I – she and her twin and another brother lived in the mountains near the lake Olomega and Maquigue – in this way they escaped the Spanish and their allies who were hunting them. Tihuilotal is a little southwest of the present city of La Unión, near the source of the sacred Managuara River.

Antu Silan Ulap eventually handed over control of the Lenca resistance to Lempira (also called Empira). Lempira was noteworthy among indigenous leaders in that he mocked the Spanish by wearing their clothes after capturing them and using their weapons captured in battle. Lempira fought in command of thousands of Lenca forces for six more years in El Salvador and Honduras until he was killed in battle. The remaining Lenca forces retreated into the hills. The Spanish were then able to rebuild their garrison town of San Miguel in 1537.

In the early 16th century:
the Spanish conquistadors ventured into the natural harbors to extend their dominion of the area.

They called the land "Provincia De Nuestro Señor Jesus Cristo, El Salvador Del Mundo" ("Province of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World"), which was subsequently abbreviated to "El Salvador" (The Savior).

During the colonial period, El Salvador was part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala (Spanish: Reino de Guatemala), created in 1609 as an administrative division of New Spain.

The Salvadoran territory was administered by the Mayor of Sonsonate, with San Salvador being established as an intendancia in 1786.

Towards the end of 1811:
a combination of internal and external factors motivated Central American elites to attempt to gain independence from the Spanish Crown. The most important internal factors were the desire of local elites to control the country's affairs free of involvement from Spanish authorities, and the Creoles' long-standing aspiration for independence. The main external factors motivating the independence movement were the success of the French and American revolutions in the 18th century, and the weakening of the Spanish Crown's military power as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, with the resulting inability to control its colonies effectively.

On 5 November 1811 :
Salvadoran priest José Matías Delgado rang the bells of Iglesia La Merced in San Salvador, calling for insurrection and launching the 1811 Independence Movement. This insurrection was suppressed and many of its leaders were arrested and served sentences in jail. Another insurrection was launched in 1814, and again it was suppressed.
----------------------------
on September 15, 1821:
In light of unrest in Guatemala, Spanish authorities capitulated and signed the Act of Independence of Central America, which released all of the Captaincy of Guatemala (comprising current territories of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and the Mexican state of Chiapas) from Spanish rule and declared its independence. In 1821, El Salvador joined Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in a union named the Federal Republic of Central America.

In 1822
the authorities of the newly independent Central American provinces, meeting in Guatemala City, voted to join the newly constituted First Mexican Empire under Agustín de Iturbide. El Salvador resisted, insisting on autonomy for the Central American countries. A Mexican military detachment marched to San Salvador and suppressed dissent

on 19 March 1823
The fall of Iturbide
---------------------------
1823
Mexican military army decamped back to Mexico.
----------------------------
Shortly thereafter, the authorities of the provinces revoked the vote for joining Mexico, deciding instead to form a federal union of the five remaining provinces. (Chiapas permanently joined Mexico at this juncture.)

in 1841:
the Federal Republic of Central America dissolved
El Salvador maintained its own government until it joined Honduras and Nicaragua in 1896 to form the Greater Republic of Central America, which later dissolved in 1898.

After the mid-19th century:
Salvador economy was based on coffee growing. As the world market for indigo withered away, the economy prospered or suffered as the world coffee price fluctuated. The enormous profits that coffee yielded as a monoculture export served as an impetus for the concentration of land into the hands of an oligarchy of just a few families.
refer to : Thomas P. Anderson (1988). Politics in Central America: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua

Throughout the last half of the 19th century:
a succession of presidents from the ranks of the Salvadoran oligarchy, nominally both conservative and liberal, generally agreed on the promotion of coffee as the predominant cash crop, the development of infrastructure (railroads and port facilities) primarily in support of the coffee trade, the elimination of communal landholdings to facilitate further coffee production, the passage of anti-vagrancy laws to ensure that displaced campesinos and other rural residents provided sufficient labor for the coffee fincas (plantations), and the suppression of rural discontent.

In 1912, the national guard was created as a rural police force.

Events of the 20th century in Savador

In 1898, Gen. Tomas Regalado gained power by force, deposing Rafael Antonio Gutiérrez and ruling as president until 1903. Once in office he revived the practice of designating presidential successors. After serving his term, he remained active in the Army of El Salvador, and was killed July 11, 1906, at El Jicaro during a war against Guatemala. Until 1913 El Salvador was politically stable, but there were undercurrents of popular discontent. When President Dr. Manuel Enrique Araujo was killed in 1913, there were many hypotheses advanced for the political motive of his murder.

Araujo's administration was followed by the Melendez-Quinonez dynasty that lasted from 1913 to 1927. Pio Romero Bosque, ex-Minister of the Government and a trusted collaborator of the dynasty, succeeded President Jorge Melendez and in 1930 announced free elections, in which Arturo Araujo came to power on March 1, 1931 in what was considered the country's first freely contested election. His government lasted only nine months before it was overthrown by junior military officers who accused his Labor Party of lacking political and governmental experience and of using its government offices inefficiently. President Araujo faced general popular discontent, as the people expected economic reforms and the redistribution of land. There were demonstrations in front of the National Palace from the first week of his administration. His vice president and Minister of War was Gen. Maximiliano Hernández Martínez.

In December 1931
a coup d'état was organized by junior officers and led by Gen. Martínez; the first strike started in the First Regiment of Infantry across from the National Palace in downtown San Salvador. Only the First Regiment of Cavalry and the National Police defended the Presidency (the National Police had been on its payroll), but later that night, after hours of fighting, the badly outnumbered defenders surrendered to the rebel forces.

The Directorate, composed of officers, hid behind a shadowy figure, a rich anti-Communist banker called Rodolfo Duke, and later installed the ardent fascist Gen. Martínez as president. The causes of the revolt were probably due to the army's discontent at not having been paid by President Araujo for some months. Araujo left the National Palace and later unsuccessfully tried to organize forces to defeat the revolt.

refer to :
Thomas P. Anderson (1992). Matanza: The 1932 "Slaughter" That Traumatized a Nation, Shaping Us-Salvadoran Policy to This Day

The U.S. Minister in El Salvador met with the Directorate and later recognized the government of Martínez, who agreed to hold presidential elections later. He resigned in 1934, six months before the presidential elections, to run for the presidency, which he won—not a difficult achievement, seeing as he was the only candidate. He ruled from 1935 to 1939, then from 1939 to 1943. He began a fourth term in 1944, but resigned in May after a general strike. Martínez had said he was going to respect the Constitution, which stipulated he could not be re-elected, but he refused to keep his promise.

From December 1931, the year of the coup in which Martínez came to power, there was brutal suppression of the rural resistance. The most notable event was the February 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising. Originally led by Farabundo Martí and Abel Cuenca, and university students Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata, these leaders were captured before the planned insurrection. Only Cuenca survived; the other insurgents were killed by the government. After the capture of the movement leaders, the insurrection erupted in a disorganized and mob-controlled fashion, resulting in government repression that was later referred to as La Matanza (The Massacre), because tens of thousands of peasants died in the ensuing chaos on the orders of President Martinez.

In the unstable political climate of the previous few years, the social activist and revolutionary leader Farabundo Martí helped found the Communist Party of Central America, and led a Communist alternative to the Red Cross called International Red Aid, serving as one of its representatives. Their goal was to help poor and underprivileged Salvadorans through the use of Marxist-Leninist ideology (strongly rejecting Stalinism). In December 1930, at the height of the country's economic and social depression, Martí was once again exiled due to his popularity among the nation's poor and rumors of his upcoming nomination for President the following year. Once Arturo Araujo was elected president in 1931, Martí returned to El Salvador, and along with Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata began the movement that was later truncated by the military.

They helped start a guerrilla revolt of indigenous farmers. The government responded by killing over 30,000 people at what was to have been a "peaceful meeting" in 1932; this became known as La Matanza (The Slaughter). The peasant uprising against Martínez was crushed by the Salvadoran military ten days after it had begun. The Communist-led rebellion, fomented by collapsing coffee prices, enjoyed some initial success, but was soon drowned in a bloodbath. President Martínez, who had himself toppled an elected government only weeks earlier, ordered the defeated Martí shot after a perfunctory hearing.

Historically, the high Salvadoran population density has contributed to tensions with neighboring Honduras, as land-poor Salvadorans emigrated to less densely populated Honduras and established themselves as squatters on unused or underused land. This phenomenon was a major cause of the 1969 Football War between the two countries.
As many as 130,000 Salvadorans had been forcibly expelled or had fled from Honduras.
refer to :
"El Salvador – Migration". Library of Congress Country Studies

The PDC and the PCN parties :
José Napoleón DuarteThe Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the National Conciliation Party (PCN) were active in Salvadoran politics from 1960 until 2011, when they were disbanded by the Supreme Court because they failed to win enough votes in the 2004 presidential election;

[Refer to : "El Salvador Supreme Court disbands two parties". BBC News. 2011-04-30]

Both parties have since reconstituted. They share common ideals, but one represents the middle class and the latter the interests of the Salvadoran military.

PDC leader José Napoleón Duarte was the mayor of San Salvador from 1964 to 1970, winning three elections during the regime of PCN

President Julio Adalberto Rivera Carballo (who allowed free elections for mayors and the National Assembly). Duarte later ran for president with a political grouping called the National Opposition Union (UNO) but was defeated in the 1972 presidential elections. He lost to the ex-Minister of Interior, Col. Arturo Armando Molina, in an election that was widely viewed as fraudulent; Molina was declared the winner even though Duarte was said to have received a majority of the votes. Duarte, at some army officers' request, supported a revolt to protest the election fraud, but was captured, tortured and later exiled. Duarte returned to the country in 1979 to enter politics after working on projects in Venezuela as an engineer.

§The October 1979 coup d'état:
In October 1979 a coup d'état brought the Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador to power. It nationalized many private companies and took over much privately owned land. The purpose of this new junta was to stop the revolutionary movement already underway in response to Duarte's stolen election. Nevertheless, the oligarchy opposed agrarian reform, and a junta formed with young liberal elements from the army such as Gen. Majano and Gen. Gutierrez, as well as with progressives such as Ungo and Alvarez.
[ref.:
^ Román Mayorga Assume Embajada en Venezuela. www.elsalvador.com.
^ . Chronology of the Salvadoran Civil War, Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame

Owing to pressure from the oligarchy, this junta was soon dissolved because of its inability to control the army in its repression of the people fighting for unionization rights, agrarian reform, better wages, accessible health care and freedom of expression. In the meantime, the guerrilla movement was spreading to all sectors of Salvadoran society. Middle and high school students were organized in MERS (Movimiento Estudiantil Revolucionario de Secundaria, Revolutionary Movement of Secondary Students); college students were involved with AGEUS (Asociacion de Estudiantes Universitarios Salvadorenos; Association of Salvadoran College Students); and workers were organized in BPR (Bloque Popular Revolucionario, Popular Revolutionary Block). In October 1980, several other major guerrilla groups of the Salvadoran left had formed the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN. By the end of the 1970s, death squads were killing about 10 people each day, and the FMLN had 6,000 – 8,000 active guerrillas and hundreds of thousands of part-time militia, supporters, and sympathizers.[Mason, T.D.; D.A. Krane (1989). "The Political Economy of Death Squads: Toward a Theory of the Impact of State-Sanctioned Terror". International Studies Quarterly 33 (2): 175–198. doi:10.2307/2600536]

The U.S. supported and financed the creation of a second junta to change the political environment and stop the spread of a leftist insurrection. Napoleon Duarte was recalled from his exile in Venezuela to head this new junta. However, a revolution was already underway and his new role as head of the junta was seen by the general population as opportunistic. He was unable to influence the outcome of the insurrection. Monsignor Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, denounced injustices and massacres committed against civilians by government forces. He was considered "the voice of the voiceless", but he was assassinated by a death squad while saying Mass on 24 March 1980
[Refer to :Oscar Romero: Bishop of the Poor. www.uscatholic.org]

Some consider this to be the beginning of the Salvadoran Civil War in full, which lasted from 1980 to 1992.

A reconstruction of Radio Venceremos, at the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, San SalvadorOn January 16, 1992, the government of El Salvador, represented by president Alfredo Cristiani, and the FMLN, represented by the commanders of the five guerrilla groups – Shafick Handal, Joaquin Villalobos, Salvador Sánchez Ceren, Francisco Jovel and Eduardo Sancho, all signed the peace agreements brokered by the United Nations which ended the 12-year civil war. This event, held at the Chapultepec Castle in Mexico, was attended by U.N. dignitaries and other representatives of the international community. After signing the armistice, the president stood up and shook hands with all the now ex-guerrilla commanders, an action which was widely admired.

The so-called Chapultepec Peace Accords mandated reductions in the size of the army, and the dissolution of the National Police, the Treasury Police, the National Guard and the Civilian Defense, a paramilitary group. A new Civil Police was to be organized. Judicial immunity for crimes committed by the armed forces ended; the government agreed to submit to the recommendations of a Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (Comisión de la Verdad Para El Salvador), which would "investigate serious acts of violence occurring since 1980, and the nature and effects of the violence, and...recommend methods of promoting national reconciliation." In 1993 the Commission delivered its findings reporting human rights violations on both sides of the conflict.

[Refer to :
From madness to hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador, Part IV. Cases and patterns of violence, Truth Commissions Digital Collection: Reports: El Salvador, United States Institute of Peace]

Five days later the El Salvadoran legislature passed an amnesty law for all acts of violence during the period.

End of the 20th century:
From 1989 until 2004, Salvadorans favored the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party, voting in ARENA presidents in every election (Alfredo Cristiani, Armando Calderón Sol, Francisco Flores Pérez, Antonio Saca) until 2009, when Mauricio Funes was elected president from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party.

Economic reforms since the early 1990s have brought major benefits in terms of improved social conditions, diversification of its export sector, and access to international financial markets at investment grade level. However, crime remains a major problem for the investment climate.

This all ended in 2001, and support for ARENA weakened. Internal turmoil in ARENA weakened the party, while the FMLN united and broadened its support.
[Ref.:"El Salvador Country Brief". World Bank. 2008]

21st century

The unsuccessful attempts of the left-wing party to win presidential elections led to its selection of a journalist rather than a former guerrilla leader as a candidate. On March 15, 2009, Mauricio Funes, a television figure, became the first president from the FMLN party. He was inaugurated on June 1, 2009. One focus of the Funes government has been revealing the alleged corruption from the past government.

ARENA formally expelled Saca from the party in December 2009. With 12 loyalists in the National Assembly, Saca established his own party, GANA (Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional or Grand Alliance for National Unity), and entered into a tactical legislative alliance with the FMLN.[41] After three years in office, with Saca's GANA party providing the FMLN with a legislative majority, Funes had not taken action to investigate or to bring corrupt former officials to justice.

§Putting environmental issues in the heart of government[edit]Early in the new millennium, El Salvador's government created the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales – the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) and began promoting the integration of climate change into national policy. This move was in response to the increase in extreme weather events affecting the country. Initially MARN aimed to fulfil the country’s obligations following its ratification of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto protocol However, since Hurricane Ida in 2009, the government’s stance has shifted towards integrating risk reduction into all areas of policy, including financial.

In a specific effort to increase the resilience of its economy and people to climate-related events, El Salvador commissioned a project in 2011 to develop and implement a National Policy and Strategy for Climate Change, which culminated with the launch of the National Environmental Policy in June 2012 and the National Environmental Strategy in June 2013, both incorporating climate change goals. This work was undertaken with support from the Climate & Development Knowledge Network. The government is now preparing Action Plans for putting the strategy into practice.]

El Salvador's economy has been hampered at times by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, by government policies that mandate large economic subsidies, and by official corruption. Subsidies became such a problem that in April 2012, the International Monetary Fund suspended a $750 million loan to the central government. President Funes' chief of cabinet, Alex Segovia, acknowledged that the economy was at the "point of collapse."]

Antiguo Cuscatlán has the highest per capita income of all the cities in the country, and is a center of international investment

San SalvadorGDP in purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2008 was estimated at $25.895 billion USD. The service sector is the largest component of GDP at 64.1%, followed by the industrial sector at 24.7% (2008 est.). Agriculture represents only 11.2% of GDP (2010 est.)

The GDP grew after 1996 at an annual rate that averaged 3.2% real growth. The government committed to free market initiatives, and the 2007 GDP's real growth rate was 4.7%.

In December 1999, net international reserves equaled US $1.8 billion or roughly five months of imports. Having this hard currency buffer to work with, the Salvadoran government undertook a monetary integration plan beginning January 1, 2001 by which the U.S. dollar became legal tender alongside the Salvadoran colón, and all formal accounting was done in U.S. dollars. Thus, the government has formally limited the implementing of open market monetary policies to influence short-term variables in the economy. As of September 2007, net international reserves stood at $2.42 billion.

It has long been a challenge in El Salvador to develop new growth sectors for a more diversified economy. In the past, the country produced gold and silver,[59] but recent attempts to re-open the mining sector, which were expected to add hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy, collapsed after President Saca shut down the operations of Pacific Rim Mining Corporation. The U.S.-Canadian company had spent $77 million to discover a gold deposit estimated at 1.4 million troy ounces. President Funes and the FMLN upheld the gold and silver mining ban.

As with other former colonies, El Salvador was considered a mono-export economy (an economy that depended heavily on one type of export) for many years. During colonial times, El Salvador was a thriving exporter of indigo, but after the invention of synthetic dyes in the 19th century, the newly created modern state turned to coffee as the main export.

San Miguel is an important economic center of El Salvador and home to the "Carnival of San Miguel", one of the biggest festivals of entertainment and food in Central America.[60]The government has sought to improve the collection of its current revenues, with a focus on indirect taxes. A 10% value-added tax (IVA in Spanish), implemented in September 1992, was raised to 13% in July 1995.

Inflation has been steady and among the lowest in the region. Since 1997 inflation has averaged 3%, with recent years increasing to nearly 5%. As a result of the free trade agreements, from 2000 to 2006, total exports have grown 19% from $2.94 billion to $3.51 billion, and total imports have risen 54% from $4.95 billion to $7.63 billion. This has resulted in a 102% increase in the trade deficit, from $2.01 billion to $4.12 billion

» تاريخ جزر ماريانا الشمالية
» Ostrogoths
» History of Nicaragua
» Iranian history
» History of Laos