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North & Central America and Caribbean
El Salvador |
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Last reviewed: 08 June 2009 |
Country information
History
300-600 El Salvador forms part of the Mayan Empire.
1524 Spanish adventurer Pedro de Alvarado conquers El Salvador.
1540 Indigenous resistance finally crushed and El Salvador becomes a Spanish colony.
1821 El Salvador gains independence from Spain but joins the Mexican empire.
1823 El Salvador becomes part of the United Provinces of Central America, which also encompass Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
1840 El Salvador becomes fully independent following the dissolution of the United Provinces of Central America.
1859 President Gerardo Barrios introduces coffee growing.
1932 Some 30,000 are killed during the suppression of a peasant uprising led by Agustine Farabundo Marti. Right-wing National Conciliation Party (PCN) comes to power in the wake of a military coup.
1969 On 14 July war broke out on the Honduras-El Salvador border ostensibly caused by a disputed result in a soccer match between the 2 countries. After 3 days, around 2,000 deaths and a complete rupture of diplomatic relations, the Organisation of American States (OAS) negotiated a cease-fire.
Only in 1992 did both sides accept an International Court of Justice ruling demarcating the border in its current location.
1977 Guerrilla activities by the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) intensify amidst reports of increased human rights violations by government troops and death squads. General Carlos Romero elected President.
1979-81 Around 30,000 people are killed by army-backed right-wing death squads.
1979 General Romero ousted in coup by reformist officers who install a military- civilian junta, but this fails to curb army backed political violence.
1980 Archbishop of San Salvador and human rights campaigner Oscar Romero assassinated; Jose Napoleon Duarte becomes the first civilian president since 1931.
1981 France and Mexico recognise the FMLN as a legitimate political force but the US continues to assist the Salvadorian Government whose army continues to back right-wing death squads.
1982 Extreme right-wing National Republican Alliance (ARENA) wins parliamentary elections, held in an atmosphere of considerable iolence. Duarte wins presidential election. Duarte begins quest for negotiated settlement with FMLN.
1989 FMLN attacks intensify; another ARENA candidate, Alfredo Cristiani, voted president in elections widely believed to have been rigged.
1992 Government and FMLN sign United Nations sponsored peace accord; FMLN recognised as political party.
1993 Government declares amnesty for those implicated by UN-sponsored commission on human rights atrocities.
1994 ARENA candidate Armando Calderon Sol elected president.
1997 FMLN makes good progress in parliamentary elections; leftist Hector Silva elected Mayor of San Salvador.
1999 ARENA candidate Francisco Flores beats former guerrilla Facundo Guardado in presidential election.
2001 January, February – massive earthquakes kill 1,200 people and leave a million homeless.
2004 21 March Presidential Elections Antonio Saca of the ARENA party wins in the first round with 57.51% of the votes (a second round not therefore being required). The main opposition FMLN party, led by Schafik Handal, trailed at 35.9%
2004 1 June inauguration of new Salvadorean President Elias Antonio Saca.
2006 (24 January), Schafik Handel, the 75-year old leader of the opposition FMLN party dies of a heart attack.
2006 (17 March), Violeta de Menjivar from the FMLN party was declared the winner of the San Salvador Mayoral election, the first woman to hold the post.
2009 (18 January), FMLN win 35 seats in the legislative elections. The governing ARENA party lose 3 seats, but Norman Quijano wins the San Salvador mayoral election, the first time in 12 years a ARENA candidate has held the post.
2009 (15 March) Maurico Funes of the left-wing FMLN party emerged victorious in the largely peaceful and free Presidential elections. Funes garnered 51.3% of the vote compared with 48.3% for the governing party's candidate, RodrigoÁvila
2009 (1 June) Maurico Funes sworn in as President. One of Funes’ first acts as President was to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba, thereby officially re-establishing relations broken off since 1961.
BBC News Country Timeline: El Salvador
