Counterinsurgency and union movement in El Salvador (1967-1968)

MOLINARI, LUCRECIA

Genocide Studies and Prevention

University of Toronto Press

Año: 2013

1911-9933

The present paper will analyze urban worker and teacher union labor protests between 1967 and 1968 in El Salvador. It will also describe the strategies that the State, the security forces and the paramilitary organizations implemented in response to those protests. Numerous studies analyze the way in which security forces and paramilitary groups responded to the protests and popular movements, emphasizing the challenge that guerillas posed to the state since the mid-70s. This paper will discuss with this perspective because even though guerrillas first arose in 1970, and became recognized in 1972, it is possible to detect a counter-insurgency structure as early as 1963 and a change in its function in 1967. This paper will then highlight the use of the counterinsurgency structure from its beginning (1963) to the protest wave that occurred from 1967 to 1968, that is to say: several years before the emergence of the guerrilla organizations. In this sense, the paper will emphasize the idea that the status quo was threatened by said mobilization before their members decided to take up arms. This must be linked to the characteristics of the social and political ties of the unions and teacher organizations that lead the protests. Revista indexada en IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, DOAJ.