El Salvador: Political Pamphlets

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 3032 EN 320 PAM
Held at	: Institute for the Study of the Americas   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://ilas.sas.ac.uk/resources/library ›
Full title	: El Salvador: Political Pamphlets
Date(s)	: 1976-
Level of description	: Collection (Fonds)
Extent	: 5 boxes
Name of creator(s)	: Institute for the Study of the Americas

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Most of the materials held here date from the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period in which the tensions that had plagued El Salvador since the 1930s finally erupted into civil war. The war with Honduras in 1969 had exacerbated economic problems and the demand for land reform, whilst the rigging of the 1972 election against the Christian Democratic Party (PDC)'s Jos Napoeon Duarte diminished people's belief in the likelihood of effecting peaceful change. Authoritarian rule and human rights abuses on top of the above led to the formation of a plethora of leftist political and guerrilla groups and an alliance was formed between the Frente Democratico Revolucionario (FDR) and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). Despite elections and new constitutional guarantees the continued operation of paramilitary death squads with the support of the army meant the FDR-FMLN fought on until the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in 1992. The roles of the United States (which continued to supply aid to the country throughout the 1980s) and the Catholic Church (including that of Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered in 1980) in the civil war are covered by the materials here, as are the problems of refugees and the terrible human rights abuses and state violence that occurred. The materials originate from NGOs, Church groups, revolutionary organisations, trade unions and political parties, as well as from the United States government.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Reports, pamphlets, platforms, constitutions, conference proceedings, manifestos, newspaper advertisements, histories, testomonies and letters, 1976 onwards, issued by American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, Archbishop Oscar Romero Christian Legal Aid Service, Asociación de Trabajadores Agropecuarios y Campesinos de El Salvador (ATACES), Bloque Popular Revolucionario (El Salvador), Catholic Church, Catholic Institute for International Relations, Center for National Security Studies, Central America Human Rights Committee, Comisión de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador, Comité de Madres y Familiares de Presos y Desaparecidos políticos de El Salvador, Comité Mexicano de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Salvadoreño, Comisión de Refugiados Salvadoreños, Comité pro Libertad de los Presos Políticos de El Salvador, Conferencia Sindical Internacional de Solidaridad con los Trabajadores y el Pueblo de El Salvador (1981 : Bogotá, Colombia), Coordinadora Revolucionaria de Masas, Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (El Salvador), Faculty for Human Rights in El Salvador and Central America (U.S.), Frente de Acción Popular Unificada(FAPU), Foreign Policy Association, Frente de Acción Popular Unificada (El Salvador), Frente Democrático Revolucionario, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America, International Commission of Jurists, Law Union of Ontario, Movimiento de Liberación Popular (El Salvador), Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (El Salvador), Organization of American States, Parliamentary Human Rights Group, Partido Comunista de El Salvador, Partido de la Revolución Salvadoreña, Partido Demócrata Cristiano (El Salvador), Partido Union Democratica Nacionalista (El Salvador), Radio Farabundo Martí, Socorro Jurídico Cristiano, Unidad Nacional de Trabajadores Salvadoreños, United States Dept. of State, United States House Committee on Appropriations (Subcommittee on Foreign Operations), and World Council of Churches.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
Spanish and English

System of arrangement:

Randomly within boxes (at present)

Conditions governing access:

Open for reference purposes to all researchers and postgraduate students.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can usually be obtained - apply to library staff.

Finding aids:

Records at item level on library catalogue (SASCAT)

Archival Information

Archival history:

The majority of the materials held in the political archives of the Library Institute of Latin American Studies originate from the Contemporary Archive on Latin America (CALA), a documentation and research centre on Latin America which donated its holdings upon its closure in 1981. This core collection has continued to be supplemented by further donations and by materials acquired through the visits of Institute staff and their contacts to the relevant countries.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Allied Materials

Related material:

See also Political Pamphlet material for the rest of Latin America, as well as related material in the library's main classified sequence, all held in the ILAS library.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Description compiled by Daniel Millum, Political Archives Project Officer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Created 01/02/2005 AIM25