Low-intensity warfare, high-intensity death: The demographic impact of the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua

Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Volumn 21, Issue 42, 1996, Pages 211-241

  Seligson, Mitchell A ^a   Mcelhinny, Vincent ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 27844536600     PISSN: 08263663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08263663.1996.10816742     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. An earlier version of this article was presented to the Seminario Internacional sobre la Población del Istmo Centroamericano (International Seminar on Central American Population), 10-21 October 1995.
2. For the purposes of this article, the Nicaraguan Civil War and the subsequent Contra War will be referred to as a single conflict, although the political nature of each war had different implications for the reporting of war-related deaths.
3. For a similar summary of this issue in Argentina's "Dirty War," see Alison Brisk, "The Politics of Measurement: The Contested Count of the Disappeared in Argentina," Human Rights Quarterly 16 (1994): 676-692,
4. and Thomas B. Jabine and Richard P. Claude, eds., Human Rights and Statistics: Getting the Record Straight (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).
5. The estimate of 75,000 has been cited by the United Nations-Salvadoran Truth Commission Report, From Madness to Hope, published in 1992. Population is taken as an average over the course of the war.
6. See Table 4, note a for sources. Population estimates are taken from B. R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics: Africa, Asia, Oceania (New York: Stockton Press, 1992); see also note b, Table 3.
7. Americas Watch, Second Supplement to the Report on Human Rights in El Salvador (New York: AW, 1983), p. 9.
8. Liisa North, Bitter Grounds: Roots of Revolt in El Salvador (Westport, CT: Lawrence-Hill, 1985), p. 108.
9. Year-to-year information on combat deaths is incomplete and based on inconsistent sources.
10. See note 7, Table 1.
11. See note 5, Table 2.
12. See note 14, Table 1, for estimating FAS deaths from FMLN reports of bajas (casualties).
13. Despite certain violations by the FMLN, the Truth Commission estimated that over 90 percent of the civilian deaths were carried out by the Armed Forces, GOES security forces or right-wing death squads.
14. In 1986, CPDH accepted $50,000 from the NED for report duplication in the United States. Envío editorials have criticized CPDH for soft criticism of the Contras in their reporting of human rights abuses. One noted example is CPDH's reporting of only 15 Contra kidnapping cases out of an estimated 912 during 1987. See Paul Laverty, Human Rights Report - The CPDH: Can It Be Trusted? (Glasgow: Scottish Medical Aid for Nicaragua, 1986).
15. Catholic Institute for International Relations, Right to Survive: Human Rights in Nicaragua (London: CIIR, 1987), pp. 39-40.
16. Right to Survive: Human Rights in Nicaragua Ibid., p. 179. There is some doubt that Contra forces ever actually reached above 10,000 regulars. The Contras formally demobilized 19,613 combatants in July 1990, although only 16,000 weapons were turned in.
17. The FSLN estimates that only 50 percent of the demobilized forces were actually combatants (Envío, July 1990, p. 40).
18. The CNPPDH (Boletín, December 1985) gives 1,062 investigated and confirmed killings of civilians by contra forces for the period 1980 to 30 June 1985 (see CIIR, Right to Survive, p. 53). Many of the Contra victims were social service workers (teachers, health-care workers, co-op administrators), as part of the Contra strategy to neutralize the government's social programs in remote regions. Investigation of Contra abuses was also obstructed by kidnapping of human rights workers.
19. The most notable incidents include the EPS killing of between 14 and 17 Miskito civilians in Zelaya in December 1981 and the similar killing of 69 Miskito civilians in Puerta Cabezas in 1982. See Americas Watch, On Human Rights in Nicaragua (New York: AW, 1982), pp. 64-65,
20. and Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, Nicaragua Revolutionary Justice (New York: LCIHR, 1985), p. 140. Former DGSE official Alvaro Baldizon claims that the Sandinista Interior Ministry Forces (DGSE), under direction of Minister Tomás Borge, directed the murder of some 2,000 people. Americas Watch has challenged this claim, and reports that the number of recorded killings outside combat and disappearances for which the Nicaraguan government is responsible is closer to 300 between 1980-86. These incidents were committed by DGSE or army agents in remote areas of Matagalpa and Jinotega, and in some cases involved torture. Many Sandinista violators have been convicted of these offenses and imprisoned.
21. See Americas Watch, Human Rights in Nicaragua 1985-86 (New York: AW, 1986), pp. 127-149,
22. and Nicaragua: A Human Rights Chronology July 1979-July 1989 (New York: AW, 1989), p. 13. Other noted Sandinista abuses involved forced relocation of Miskito and Sumu communities in 1981-83, forced recruitment, lack of due process for certain incarcerated Contra prisoners and the suspension of civil liberties under the declared state of emergency.
23. For instance, in a 9 May 1984 speech, Reagan declared that "there has been an attempt to wipe out an entire culture, the Miskito Indians, thousands of whom have been slaughtered or herded into detention camps where they have been starved and abused" (cited in Holly Sklar, Washington's War on Nicaragua [Boston: South End Press, 1989], p. 105). This seems to lack credibility, given that conditions at the camps had improved considerably that year, certain EPS violators had been prosecuted, and later in 1984 resettlement in the Rio Coco region was permitted.
24. La Prensa Gra"fica, 24 March 1995. Report by the Salvadoran Attorney General on the level of violence. In addition to homicides, there were 6,443 victims wounded in attacks, and 3,600 reported death threats.
25. In Nicaragua, the first item was altered in form somewhat. It read: "Diga Ud. Si durante el conflict armado de la última década: ¿Algún miembro de su familia fue asesinado por esa causa? (incluir desaparecidos)." The main difference in the two versions is that in El Salvador, in addition to familia (family), the item included reference to pariente cercano (close family relative). We assume that the term familia includes both categories, but it may have been responsible for higher reporting in El Salvador than in Nicaragua.