Primary Sources: The 1980s: Central America - 1980s

"Declassified Documents from 1989 Show Initial U.S. Unwillingness to Consider Salvadoran Military's Responsibility"

"The C.I.A. airdropped thousands of these 15-page illustrated manuals telling "Nicaraguans who love their country and cherish freedom" how they could sabotage the Sandinista-led government. The leftist Sandinistas had overthrown a military dictatorship in 1979; the U.S. supported rightwing Contras in their efforts to remove the Sandinistas from power. A Contra fighter in Honduras, where the C.I.A. based its anti-Sandinista efforts, gave a copy of the manual to a reporter in 1984."

"Presents a speech by El Salvador President Jose Napoleon Duarte, delivered at the Alfred M. Landon Lecture on Public Issues in Manhattan, Kansas on November 2, 1984. Views of the president on the technological advances of news and communication media; Assistance offered by the U.S. to El Salvador; Information on the ideological and political concept proposed by Duarte."

"This collection of over 7,800 documents consists of documents processed under three different El Salvador Human Rights special projects cases. Documents concerning allegations of human rights abuses committed by Salvadoran security forces and FMLN rebels (1979 to 1991) were produced by the Department of State in response to inquiries by the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador and the U.S. Congress in 1993 - 1994. Documents concerning the murder of four American Churchwomen (Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan) by five Salvadoran National Guardsmen on December 2, 1980 are also included."

"In 1995 prompted by strong Congressional, media, and public interest, both President Clinton and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested the Department's records on the deaths of Michael Devine, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, Jack Shelton, Nicholas Blake and Griffin Davis, the abuse of Sister Diana Ortiz and the reported role of Guatemalan military Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez in the deaths of Devine and Bamaca. This collection is comprised of over 4,800 documents and covers the Bamaca case and other cases involving human rights abuses against American citizens in Guatemala from 1984 to 1995."

May 3, 1981 March on the Pentagon organized by the People's Antiwar
Coalition/May 3 Coalition. Speech on American militarism. Actuality from
march. Includes speech by Bella Abzug. This protest is against military
involvement with El Salvador. Recording was made from about 11am until 2pm.
Part one contains speeches by Michio Kaku, Sister Geraldine (Gerri) Brake,
and Bella Abzug. Bella Abzug is also interviewed after her speech, which is
cut off and contiuned in part two. (Interviewee is Ronnie Lovler). Part two
contains a speech by Lori Feinstein[sp?], music by Sweet Honey in the Rock,
speeches by Sister Theresa Kane, Ida Torres, Reverand Herbert Daughtry, and
Arnoldo Ramos, and more music by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Other Pacifica
voices heard include Nan Rubin, Askia Mohammed, and the Pacifica National
News Service.

May 3, 1981 March on the Pentagon organized by the People's Antiwar
Coalition/May 3 Coalition. Speech on American militarism. Actuality from
march. Includes speech by Bella Abzug. This protest is against military
involvement with El Salvador. Recording was made from about 11am until 2pm.
Part one contains speeches by Michio Kaku, Sister Geraldine (Gerri) Brake,
and Bella Abzug. Bella Abzug is also interviewed after her speech, which is
cut off and contiuned in part two. (Interviewee is Ronnie Lovler). Part two
contains a speech by Lori Feinstein[sp?], music by Sweet Honey in the Rock,
speeches by Sister Theresa Kane, Ida Torres, Reverand Herbert Daughtry, and
Arnoldo Ramos, and more music by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Other Pacifica
voices heard include Nan Rubin, Askia Mohammed, and the Pacifica National
News Service.

"In December 1980 three US Roman Catholic nuns and a layworker were abducted and murdered in El Salvador. Their work speaking out on behalf of the poor had made them targets for the country's fiercely anti-communist military. A close friend and colleague, Sister Patricia Murray, was one of the last people to see them alive."

"About the Project - In July 1994, the Guatemalan government and armed rebel groups signed the Human Rights Accord establishing the Historical Clarification Commission. That same month, the National Security Archive began work on a Guatemala Documentation Project, an effort to obtain the release of secret U.S. files on Guatemala. The project's first objective was to support the human rights investigations of the UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission, charged with analyzing the origins of the country's brutal 36-year civil conflict. After the commission published its report in 1999, the Archive began working with Guatemalan human rights organizations to mine the U.S. records for use in several pivotal human rights cases." ...

By Kate Doyle and Carlos Osorio
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 11

"is composed of oral histories shared by 48 people who were residents of the community of Arcatao, in the department of Chalatenango, El Salvador, during the period of the Salvadoran civil war. More than 170 interview excerpts tell the story of the conflict from the perspective of people who experienced it first-hand."