Epilogue: El Salvador Today

Abstract

The Chapultepec Accords of January 1992 destroyed the political power of the Salvadoran armed forces and reduced them to a size necessary to respond to natural disasters. In 2009, seventeen years later, the business community lost presidential power to the candidate of the FMLN, Mauricio Funes. Together, these two events ended two centuries of landowning and military dominance of El Salvador. New forces gained the opportunity to lead the country. President Barrack Obama and his administration strongly supported Funes, with the Secretary of State attending the inaugural ceremonies and the President paying a State Visit in April 2011. The United States has strengthened its ties with the Salvadoran government, but recognized that Salvadoran recollections of the civil war remain strong. President Obama’s visit to Archbishop Romero’s tomb in San Salvador’s cathedral highlighted the memory for both the warriors and the victims of that war.