Luciak, Ilja A. After The Revolution - Gender and Democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

After the Revolution
Q
AFTER THE REVOLUTION
Gender and Democracy in
El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala
Ilja A. Luciak
The Johns Hopkins University Press

Baltimore & London
© 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2001
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press

2715 North Charles Street
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www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Luciak, Ilja A.
After the Revolution : gender and democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua,
and Guatemala / Ilja A. Luciak.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-8018-6780-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Women in politics—Central America—Case studies. 2. Women
revolutionaries—Central America—Case studies. 3. Democratization—
Central America—Case studies. 4. Central America—
Politics and government—1979 – —Case studies. I. Title.
hq1236.5.c35 L83 2001
306 2⬘082⬘09728—dc21
2001000677
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Für Olena
Contents
List of Tables ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
List of Acronyms xxvii
1
The Gender Composition of the Central American
Guerrilla Movements 1
2
Gender Equality and the Central American Peace Accords 32
3
Voices from the Salvadoran Grass Roots: A Case Study of San José Las
Flores, Meanguera, and San Esteban Catarina 65
4
The Vanguard in Search of a New Identity:
Incipient Democratization 95
5
Transforming the Party: Gender Equality in the Revolutionary Left 146
6
Gender Equality and Recent Elections 194
viii Contents
Conclusion
Gender Equality and Democratization 227
Notes 243
Bibliography 265
Index 283
Tables
1.1 Gender Composition of FMLN Membership by Demobilization

Category 4
1.2 Gender Composition of FMLN Groups 5
1.3 Gender Composition of Demobilized FMLN Members by FMLN
Group and Demobilization Category 6
1.4 Age Distribution of FMLN Combatants 8
1.5 Number of Demobilized Nicaraguan Resistance Fighters and
Families by Zone of Demobilization 22
1.6 Composition of URNG Combatants by Group, 1997 25
1.7 Gender Composition of URNG by Demobilization
Category, 1997 26
2.1 State of Land Transfer Program, March 1994 42
2.2 Gender Distribution of the Land Transfer Program Beneficiaries—
Titled Private Properties, March 1996 44
2.3 Gender Composition of Reinsertion Programs 46
2.4 Gender Composition of Economic Reinsertion Program for FMLN
Leaders and Middle-Level Officers 47
2.5 Land Distributed under the Chamorro Government, April 1990 –
March 1992 52
2.6 Titled Properties by Department, September 1992–July 1993 54
4.1 FMLN Legislative Assembly Candidates for the 1994 Elections by
FMLN Group 98
4.2 Party Structure of the FMLN 99
4.3 Party Structure of the URNG 134
5.1 Gender Composition of the FMLN’s National Structures,
1992 –2001 160
x Tables
5.2 Gender Composition of the FSLN’s National Directorate,

1979 –2001 174
5.3 Gender Composition of the URNG’s National Structure,
1997 and 1999 186
6.1 Gender Composition of FMLN Candidates for the 1994
Elections by FMLN Group 202
6.2 Gender Composition of FMLN Candidates for Parliament,
1994 and 1997 203
6.3 Gender Composition of FSLN Candidates for Parliament,
1984–1996 208
6.4 Gender Composition of FMLN Representatives in the Legislative
Assembly (until December 1994) 211
6.5 Gender Composition of Partido Demócrata in the Legislative
Assembly, 1994 –1997 211
6.6 Female Candidates Elected in 1994 and 1997 Salvadoran
Elections 214
6.7 Results of 1994 and 1997 Salvadoran Legislative Elections
(valid votes) 216
6.8 Gender Composition of FSLN Members of Parliament,
1980–1996 217
6.9 Nicaraguan Legislative Elections, 1996 219
Preface & Acknowledgments
In the wake of the demise of Realsozialismus in the Soviet Union and East-
ern Europe, the 1990s became an era of revisionism. It has become fash-
ionable to question many commonly held beliefs of the past. In the case of
the revolutionary Left in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala some ob-
servers and protagonists who used to glorify the revolutionary movements
have joined their most vocal critics. In Guatemala one encounters the ar-
gument that the Guerrilla Army of the Poor “provoked” the death of its
supporters, prolonging a war that it knew had been lost.1 In Nicaragua,
some members of the revolutionary government of the 1980s have come to
question the legitimacy of the elections held in 1984, which were recog-
nized by the international community as “fair and free.” Reevaluation is an
exercise central to gaining a full understanding of the past; however, we
need to be careful not to exchange old ideological blinders for new ones.
While it is easy to criticize with 20/20 hindsight, Central American real-
ity needs to be interpreted in the context of the conditions prevailing at
the time. The guerrillas were never the glorified heroes of the 1980s, nor
are they the villains of the 1990s. It is my hope that this study contributes
to a more balanced assessment of the revolutionary Left’s record.
As the title of the book suggests, the study compares El Salvador, Nic-
aragua, and Guatemala, three countries whose recent history was shaped
by revolutionary struggles. I employ a gender perspective to analyze the
transformation of the revolutionary Left from guerrilla movements into po-
litical parties. I want to inform the reader from the outset that all three
countries are not analyzed in the same depth. The Salvadoran experience
is at the core of this book. Nicaragua and Guatemala are examined in or-
der to obtain a more comprehensive view and to put the Salvadoran record
xii Preface & Acknowledgments
in context. A wealth of excellent studies has been published which exam-

ine the Sandinista record in Nicaragua.2 Thus, I limit myself to exploring
pertinent developments following the 1990 electoral defeat of the revolu-
tionary government. In the case of Guatemala, the analysis has to be pre-
liminary in nature, since the transformation of the Guatemalan guerrilla
movement into a political party is so recent.
This book is based to a large extent on interviews. My analysis, there-
fore, is by necessity informed by the views and recollections of my infor-
mants. I have been careful, however, to take every individual’s history and
role in the struggle into account when drawing my own conclusions. The
reader has to trust that more than fifteen years of field research in Central
America have honed my analytical skills so that I can reach conclusions
that are consistent with reality. I also do not pretend to be an “objective”
observer. We all carry our own biases. My own views in favor of a transfor-
mation of the Central American societies toward substantive democratic
political systems, based on equality for all citizens regardless of their class,
gender, or ethnic background, inform my writing. Within this context I
have done my best to evaluate and present the record of the revolutionary
Left as objectively as possible.
The long-drawn-out military conflicts in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and
Guatemala have finally ended. Following the demobilization of the Nicara-
guan Resistance in 1990, the Salvadoran and Guatemalan guerrilla forces
signed peace accords in 1992 (El Salvador) and 1996 (Guatemala) with
their respective governments. In the wake of these agreements, Central
America presents a new reality. The focus has shifted from war strategies to
the consolidation of emerging democratic structures. The revolutionary
Left, one of the main protagonists in the conflict that ravaged the region
during the 1980s, now confronts a new challenge: it must demonstrate to
its supporters and the general public that it indeed presents a viable polit-
ical alternative.
The guerrilla movements of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala
waged their struggle under the banner of social and economic justice for
the people. Many women who sought to participate in the construction of
a new society joined their fight. Now it is important to establish whether
the strong participation of women during the war is being translated into
effective representation in the political structures that have emerged or are
Preface & Acknowledgments xiii
still developing. I seek to establish the extent to which the revolutionary

Left has instituted a gender perspective in its policies, seeking to affect the
process of internal and societal democratization in the direction of in-
creased equality between women and men. I maintain that gender equal-
ity is a central indicator in assessing whether the revolutionary Left is ful-
filling its promises toward its female constituents and continues to fight for
a society based on greater justice.
Gender can be understood as a socially produced category, defined in Ter-
rell Carver’s terms as “the ways that sex and sexuality become power rela-
tions in society.”3 Equality is used as a twofold concept. It includes “formal
equality, which can be achieved by means of legislation” and “substantial
equality, which aspires to being able to deal with relations between indi-
viduals in different original positions.”4 Further, Carver makes a crucial
point by emphasizing that “gender is not a synonym for women.” Gender
analysis is not directed against men but seeks to understand relations be-
tween the two sexes. In the prevailing societal relations both women and
men are negatively affected. This view also leads to the conclusion that
only men and women together can transform the inherited power relations.
This conviction is at the core of the current emphasis on “mainstreaming”
gender. Sustainable development and democracy require the explicit inte-
gration of a gender perspective: women and men have to be in the main-
stream of development. I argue that sustainable development requires sub-
stantive democracy and can be achieved only if equality between men and
women becomes an integral part of societal development.
In this book, I explore the following central research question: How do
gender politics illuminate the process of democratic consolidation in Cen-
tral America? Specifically, I seek to establish whether the revolutionary
Left in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala has instituted a gender per-
spective in its policies. My book is a case study of the role political parties
play in the process of democratic consolidation. In light of the argument
that “one of the principal fault lines of democracy in the hemisphere is to
be found in the exclusion of women from participation in the political sys-
tems of many countries,”5 it is essential to assess women’s role in Central
American politics. I intend to show that women are assuming an increas-
ingly important role in the development of Central American society.
Their active participation as combatants during the civil wars that ravaged
xiv Preface & Acknowledgments
the region has now been translated into significant representation in po-
litical parties and social movements.
The key analytical concepts that I rely on in exploring my central re-
search question are formal versus substantive democracy and formal versus
substantive gender equality. These concepts inform my analysis of several
key issues that are an integral part of the literature on democratic transi-
tion and consolidation. I specifically address the legacy of women’s partic-
ipation in the Central American guerrilla movements, the gender dimen-
sion of the peace accords, the conflict between neoliberal policies and
democratization, and the transformation of military organizations into po-
litical parties with its inherent difficulties in achieving internal democra-
tization. I conclude with an examination of the electoral politics of these
newly established political parties.
This study examines gender politics and democratization both at the na-
tional level (electoral politics) and at the level of party politics. I maintain
that a gendered analysis of democratization is essential to obtaining a
meaningful picture of the social and political reality confronting societies
in transition toward more democratic forms of government. In order to
make such an analysis, the study explores several key questions: Are female
party members successful in changing gender relations within the revolu-
tionary Left and in moving toward substantive equality? What strategies do
they employ? For evidence that gender relations have undergone change,
I examine women’s participation in the Central American revolutions and
their inclusion or exclusion from the peace accords. I further study the rep-
resentation of women in party structures, in candidate lists for public of-
fice, and in the composition of legislative assemblies. In addition to this fo-
cus on quantitative indicators, I look at women’s strategies for achieving
greater female representation to provide the context in which to examine
their struggle to achieve substantive equality. Thus, my study contributes
to our understanding of the challenges faced by the ex-combatants of the
revolutionary Left as they build political parties to advance the process of
democratization in their respective societies. It provides evidence of the
crucial role women play in this process. It is a key argument of my study
that democracy can not be successfully consolidated without the full in-
corporation of women into the political process at both party and societal
levels. Women’s rights have to be recognized, whether in their role as party
Preface & Acknowledgments xv
militants or as citizens. In their role as militants, women contribute to the

internal democratization of their parties, which in turn is a precondition
for a more inclusive democratic political system. I demonstrate that the in-
creased role of women in party politics can be translated into increased par-
ticipation for women in decision-making structures at the national level.
A central thesis that runs throughout the book holds that meaningful
democratization at the national level requires that the key political actors,
that is, political parties, observe the basic norms of internal democracy. The
construction of “effective democratic governance depends fundamentally
on the quotidian building, exercise, and maintenance of democratic polit-
ical practice.”6 The revolutionary Left confronts a particularly difficult task
because it has to transform itself from authoritarian, hierarchical, military
organizations into democratic political parties. The Left has to learn to ac-
cept dissent within its ranks. Otherwise, internal division rooted in ideo-
logical differences and opposing views on how to increase a party’s politi-
cal strength and gain political power limit and constrain the development
of internal party democracy. The struggle to achieve internal democracy is
complex. Indeed, the Salvadoran experience indicates that the Left has to
navigate between Scylla and Charybdis: the Scylla of repressing dissent and
the Charybdis of allowing for “too much democracy,” that is, institutional-
izing norms and procedures that invite division and are impossible to ad-
here to at early stages of party development.7
Latin America in the 1990s was characterized by two main trends: a con-
tinuation of the transition to democracy initiated in the previous decade
and economic reforms guided by the dominant paradigm of neoliberalism.
Politicians and academics alike, particularly in Western Europe and the
United States, have celebrated the “globalization of democracy.” The ad-
vance of liberal constitutionalism has led some to talk of “the end of his-
tory.” Yet this celebratory mood is not replicated among the poor majori-
ties in Central America. It is central to ask the important question, what
does this “democratization” mean for them. What are the real changes from
a substantive as opposed to a formal democratic perspective?
An extensive body of literature on democratization analyzes the “third
wave” of democratization, which started in the 1970s.8 Whereas these stud-
ies initially focused on the breakdown of authoritarian regimes, they sub-
sequently emphasized democratic consolidation. Some writers in this tra-
xvi Preface & Acknowledgments
dition tend to equate democracy with liberal constitutionalism. This leads

analysts to emphasize the absence or existence of competitive party poli-
tics as the main indicator of democratic consolidation instead of looking at
the wider distribution of power in society. This narrow focus allows them
to ignore gender inequalities.9 More sophisticated analysts agree that
democracy cannot be reduced to the holding of elections.10 Instead, we
need to focus on a comprehensive concept of democracy. Larry Diamond
describes such a concept as encompassing “extensive protections for indi-
vidual and group freedoms, inclusive pluralism in civil society as well as
party politics, civilian control over the military, institutions to hold office-
holders accountable, and thus a strong rule of law secured through an in-
dependent, impartial judiciary.”11 Similarly, Jorge Domínguez and Marc
Lindenberg understand the process of democratization as “the shift to free,
fair, and competitive elections, held at regular intervals, in the context of
guaranteed civil and political rights, responsible government (i.e., ac-
countability of the executive, administrative, and coercive arms of gov-
ernment to elected representatives), and political inclusion (i.e., universal
suffrage and nonproscription of parties).”12 Further, as Felipe Agüero and
Jeffrey Stark have emphasized, the concept of consolidation itself is con-
troversial since it “comprised the idea that the democratic nature of post-
transition regimes ceased to be problematic.”13 The authors concur with
Diamond and Andreas Schedler who seek “to replace the focus from
the endurance of situations of precarious democratic credentials to the
problems of becoming fully democratic.”14 Still there is a lack of gender
analysis.
A growing number of students of democratic transitions maintain that
only a gendered analysis of democratization provides a meaningful picture
of the social and political reality prevailing in a society in transition. Fe-
male political theorists have long recognized that “philosophical discus-
sions of political democracy have been carried on largely in the absence of
a discussion of women’s rights or the impact of gender inequities on the
function of a democratic political order.”15 In the Latin American context,
Marysa Navarro and Susan C. Bourque, while acknowledging some posi-
tive trends for increased female participation during the last two decades,
have argued that “equal access to political participation and leadership re-
main distant goals for women in the region’s newly constituted democra-
Preface & Acknowledgments xvii
cies.”16 The two authors criticize that “in the flurry of scholarly works on
redemocratization in Latin America, and more specifically on the subject
of democratic consolidation, relatively little attention has been paid to the
question of women’s participation.”17
My own work is based on a comprehensive view of democracy and seeks
to address key obstacles to democratic consolidation that have been raised
in the literature. In particular, I start with the premise that “inclusive plu-
ralism in civil society as well as party politics” requires gender equality.
Thus, I seek to fill in some of the lacunae in the literature about democra-
tization.
The emphasis on the challenge of transforming the revolutionary Left
from armed movements into democratic political parties, seen from a com-
parative perspective and through a gender lens, helps us to see Central
American reality in a new light. The end to the military conflicts in Nica-
ragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala adds an important dimension to the re-
gion’s process of democratization that deserves further study. Few would ar-
gue the merits of a move toward more democratic forms of government,
efforts to correct the severe economic problems endemic in the region, or
peace as opposed to war. In order to evaluate these significant regional de-
velopments, however, we need to examine what these changes entail for
the people of Central America.
Cynthia Arnson has demonstrated that there is much to learn from a
systematic analysis of the peace processes underway in Nicaragua, El Sal-
vador, and Guatemala. In postwar situations, the successful reintegration
into society of the former combatants has to be a central part of the process
of building peace and democracy.18 In the Nicaraguan context, Rose Spal-
ding has argued that political space for ex-combatants and the state’s ca-
pacity to attend to their (and society’s) needs are key factors in the peace
building process.19 Most ex-combatants belong to traditionally marginal-
ized sectors and are thus particularly affected by the policies implemented
by their respective governments. Further, these groups challenged their
governments militarily in order to bring about changes in the political sys-
tem. Thus it is essential to establish whether the emerging political struc-
tures reflect their interests and to what degree the ex-combatants have been
able to establish themselves as political actors in the postwar era.
I argue that much of the optimism found in the literature on democratic
xviii Preface & Acknowledgments
transitions is premature. It is justified only if we focus on formal democracy.20

From this perspective, elections held during the 1990s in Central America
were crucial steps toward the consolidation of democracy in the region. Yet
the institutionalization of electoral democracy is by no means a sufficient
guarantee that the emerging political structures will reflect popular interests.
Abraham Lowenthal and Jorge Domínguez, recognizing that “democratic
political norms and procedures are increasingly common throughout Latin
America and the Caribbean,” emphasize that “effective democratic gover-
nance—the daily practice of constitutional law with stable political institu-
tions that mediate among power contenders, restrain the dominant and pro-
tect the weak—is far from consolidated; in many countries it is not even
gaining strength. In fact, effective governance has yet to be construed in
most countries of the region.”21 Carlos Vilas concurs and affirms that de-
mocratization in Central America requires “fuller and more effective [citi-
zen] participation” as well as “a broad-based process of institution-building
that includes honest and independent courts, effective safeguards for con-
stitutional guarantees and human rights, and real subordination of the armed
forces and security forces to civilian authority.”22 Susanne Jonas argues that
in the case of Guatemala, it is this broader political process that has to be
the focus of the analysis rather than the occurrence of elections as such.23
Rachel McCleary affirms this view, arguing that the democratization of Gua-
temala requires a broadening of political participation.24
In order to facilitate and guarantee political participation, the Central
American countries need effective political parties that are “autonomous,
stable, and powerful enough to express and aggregate social interests.”25
Alan Angell maintains that the evolution of the Latin American Left “will
inevitably affect the nature of the transition to democracy, especially in re-
gard to two central challenges: consolidating democratic rule and comply-
ing with popular demands for socioeconomic development and distributive
justice.”26 The challenge is especially great for the revolutionary Left in
Central America, which represents a constituency that once sought to
achieve its objectives through violence and has to build new parties in
countries with weak party systems. In Guatemala, Edelberto Torres-Rivas
argues, the weakness of the political party system “is explained not only by
its precarious temporal existence but also by its programmatic void and,
even more, by its weak social implantation.”27 Parties tend to be created
Preface & Acknowledgments xix
for electoral purposes, winning parties tend to lack a strong mandate, and
the previous governing party is often reduced to insignificance. Torres-
Rivas maintains that “the experience of Guatemala is clear proof that
democracy cannot function without political parties: government, a sense
of order, and institutional stability will elude consolidation unless political
parties rigorously shape the collective private sphere.”28 It is essential that
political parties “learn from past experiences and introduce democratic
practices and procedures into the life of each party.”29
From a gender perspective, parties have the responsibility for providing
avenues for the previously underrepresented sectors of society, particularly
women, to be heard. Although many political parties claim to share a com-
mitment to gender equality, there is evidence that women continue to be
excluded from important decisions and are underrepresented in party struc-
tures. Concerning public office, Georgina Waylen has argued that few
women were “being chosen as candidates by political parties in the first
competitive elections” following a transition from authoritarian rule.30 On
the other hand, a recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank
maintains: “Democratization gives women and other groups formerly ex-
cluded from the political process greater opportunity to participate. It
opens space for women in governance, within both state and civil institu-
tions.”31 It is time to establish whether these opportunities do indeed ex-
ist and are being realized.
In order to advance democratization, the former guerrilla movements
have to democratize themselves and effectively “articulate the demands
and perspectives emerging from the newly-mobilized sectors.”32 Women
are at the core of this new social movement as evidenced by the prolifera-
tion of a strong women’s movement throughout the region. Women’s de-
mands have traditionally been neglected by a male-dominated party sys-
tem. Starting in the late 1980s, the women’s movement has publicly
challenged the political parties to incorporate its demands into their polit-
ical programs. The revolutionary Left has been more receptive than other
political forces in heeding women’s call for justice. I argue that the fight for
gender equality has to be a central part of the program of any modern party
on the Left. In the wake of the demise of real socialism, the revolutionary
Left needs to reflect on its identity and formulate an agenda for societal
change that brings to the fore the essence of its revolutionary heritage—
xx Preface & Acknowledgments
the fight for a society based on justice for all. At a time when the possibil-
ity for immediate radical economic change appears remote, the fight for
gender equality is an essential part of a political agenda that demonstrates
to its militants and potential new supporters that the Left has not aban-
doned its ideological principles and represents a viable political alternative.
Can the Central American Left rise to this challenge? If it does not, the
epitaph of the Left in the new millennium will read no differently from this
assessment from the 1990s: “It is true that the Left in the 1990s has no dis-
tinctive policies to offer that are politically attractive and represent a true
alternative to those of the neo-liberal Right.”33
Before we examine the record of the Central American revolutionary
Left vis-à-vis its female constituents, a brief historical background is use-
ful. The discussion focuses on three parties: the Salvadoran Frente Fara-
bundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Lib-
eration Front, or FMLN) the Nicaraguan Frente Sandinista de Liberación
Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN), and the Gua-
temalan Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (Guatemalan Na-
tional Revolutionary Unity, or URNG).
The FMLN became a legal political party in 1992, following the Chapúl-
tepec peace accords signed by representatives of the guerrillas and the Sal-
vadoran government. It faced its first electoral test in 1994, when it par-
ticipated in the first democratic elections in El Salvador’s history. The
former guerrilla movement obtained a respectable 21 percent of the popu-
lar vote, making it the second-largest party after the governing Alianza
Republicana Nacionalista (National Republican Alliance, or ARENA).
Since 1994, ARENA and the FMLN have been the two main protagonists
of the Salvadoran political process. In March 2000, the former guerrillas
became the strongest party in the Salvadoran parliament.
The Sandinista movement in Nicaragua enjoyed considerably greater
experience as a political actor than its Salvadoran counterpart. It came to
power on July 19, 1979, following the overthrow of the Somoza regime. The
FSLN governed Nicaragua until the 1990 elections, when it was defeated
by a multiparty coalition, the Unión Nacional Opositora (National Oppo-
sition Union, or UNO) led by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. In 1990, the
FSLN received 40 percent of the vote and continued to be the strongest
single political party in Nicaragua. The UNO later disintegrated, and the
Preface & Acknowledgments xxi
FSLN’s main rival in the October 1996 elections was the Alianza Liberal
(Liberal Alliance). In that contest, the FSLN failed to regain power and
remained the strongest opposition party.
On December 29, 1996, the guerrilla forces of the URNG and the
Guatemalan government, headed by president Alvaro Arzú, signed historic
peace accords, which ended a conflict that had traumatized Guatemala for
thirty-six years. In the wake of the peace accords, the URNG started the
process of becoming a legal political party, seeking to provide political rep-
resentation for its supporters. In October 1998 the URNG was officially
registered as a new party. The process of legalization was completed six
months later when the URNG held its constituent assembly. Formal recog-
nition, however, was a necessary but by no means sufficient step in the ar-
duous process of transforming the URNG’s military, hierarchical structures
into those of a democratic party of the people. In October 1999, the new
party competed in its first elections, which were won by the right-wing
Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (Guatemalan Republican Front, FRG).
The analysis in Chapter One focuses on women’s participation in the
Central American guerrilla movements. I examine the relative strength of
women at the time of demobilization in El Salvador and Guatemala, where
records are available, and analyze the various roles women performed dur-
ing the struggle from a gender perspective. I also explore the reasons that
women joined the guerrilla movements and their view of gender relations
during the war. The chapter concludes with an account of the human di-
mension of the war and the process of reintegration into society, empha-
sizing the difficulties women encountered because of their gender.
Chapter Two presents a gender perspective in discussing the various pro-
grams established under the peace accords to facilitate the former combat-
ants’ transition into civilian life. The first important test for the armed
groups seeking to transform themselves into democratic political parties
was the successful integration into society of their combatants and politi-
cal cadres. From a substantive democratic perspective, it is essential to es-
tablish whether the female combatants who had contributed significantly
to the war effort were incorporated into civilian life on the same terms as
their male counterparts. In the case of El Salvador, I maintain that early
instances of overt discrimination and sexism were mostly corrected. How-
ever, since the gender differences between male and female FMLN mem-
xxii Preface & Acknowledgments
bers were not taken into account in the design and implementation of the
programs, female militants suffered. In Nicaragua, where the FSLN com-
pleted its reintegration as the governing party in the early 1980s, I evalu-
ate the more recent reintegration into society of the Nicaraguan Resistance
or Contras, focusing on the controversial property issue. The data for the
Resistance are not separated by sex, which makes it impossible to compare
the male and female record. Nevertheless, I am able to take women’s post-
war reality into account, since they form part of the families that were given
land. I conclude with an analysis of the ambitious Guatemalan accords and
the factors that impeded their full implementation.
Chapter Three provides a grass-roots perspective on the reintegration
into society of the Salvadoran revolutionary Left. It gives voice to ex-com-
batants and FMLN supporters living in three Salvadoran towns: San José
Las Flores in the department of Chalatenango, Meanguera in Morazán, and
San Esteban Catarina in San Vicente. It is impossible to fully understand
the reality of the Salvadoran peace process without listening to the voices
of the individuals who participated in the process. I begin the discussion by
examining the background of the people interviewed in the three towns.
Next I explore their reasons for joining the revolutionary struggle and as-
sess to what degree they have benefited from the reinsertion programs. I
then establish whether the former combatants continue to be active in the
party and present their views on gender relations during and after the war.
I conclude with the beneficiaries’ expectations for the future.
Chapter Four explores the challenges posed by the difficult transforma-
tion of secretive, hierarchical guerrilla movements into democratic politi-
cal parties. Internal democratization is a sine qua non if the revolutionary
Left is to become a viable political option. Issues related to internal democ-
racy that tend to lead to conflict within the revolutionary Left concern the
question of “renewal” and the nature of the political agenda to be pursued.
I focus on the Salvadoran case and contrast this experience with Nicaragua
and Guatemala. In the case of Nicaragua my analysis is centered on the
FSLN’s process of internal democratization subsequent to its 1990 electoral
defeat. For comparative purposes I also discuss the attempt of the
Nicaraguan Resistance to transform itself into a political movement. In
Guatemala, I examine the first steps of the URNG, which became a legal
political party in May 1999.
Preface & Acknowledgments xxiii
The participation of female militants in the emerging party structures is

the subject of Chapter Five. The significant female participation in the
Central American guerrilla movements raises the question of whether
women continue to play an important role now that these movements have
evolved into political parties. It is common for female militants to express
the fear that women have lost their influence as a result of the transition
from the popular revolutionary struggle of the 1970s and 1980s, which was
characterized by mass participation, to a return to the traditional party pol-
itics in the 1990s, when the grass roots were only activated for election
campaigns.34 What are the consequences of this transition? Have women
obtained significant representation in the parties’ political structures?
What is the impact of the female militants on the formulation of the Left’s
political projects?
Chapter Six analyzes recent elections in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and
Guatemala from a gender perspective. I focus on the revolutionary Left and
discuss the record of the governing parties in the three countries to provide
a context for the analysis. I examine the strategies used by female militants
to increase women’s representation on the candidate list for parliament and
reflect on the relations between party militants and the women’s move-
ment. The discussion of the Guatemalan experience is limited to an
overview of the November 1999 elections, the first time that the URNG
competed in a national election.
I conclude with an evaluation of the Central American revolutionary
Left’s record concerning its female militants and seek to draw general con-
clusions from the experience of the three individual countries in my study.
My work provides evidence for the crucial role women play in the process
of consolidating democracy. Further, a focus on substantive as opposed to
formal democracy shows that the democratic consolidation of Central
American society is far from complete. I emphasize that only joint efforts
by both sexes will lead to meaningful democratization.
the research for this manuscript was made possible by grants from
DIAKONIA and Lutherhjälpen in Sweden, the European Commission,
and the substantial support provided by Virginia Tech in the form of nu-
merous grants and several teaching releases. I am especially grateful for the
support the two Swedish organizations have given to my work. In particu-
xxiv Preface & Acknowledgments
lar, I want to express my gratitude to Tomas Jonsson from Lutherhjälpen

and Ewa Widén and Ia Katarina Adolfsson from DIAKONIA-Sweden.
I want to thank all of my informants who have shared their insights and
given me their valuable time. Sofía Montenegro, María Teresa Blandón,
Nidia Díaz, Deysi Cheyne, Lorena Peña, Ana Gertrudis Méndez (“Lety”),
Salvador Sánchez, Francisco Jovel, Gerson Martínez, Facundo Guardado,
Luz Méndez, and Ana Leticia Aguilar were especially helpful. I am partic-
ularly indebted to Ana Francis Góngora, a knowledgeable and astute ob-
server of Salvadoran reality for her contribution to the chapter on the Sal-
vadoran grass roots. Ana Francis headed a team of researchers that carried
out most of the interviews in the three towns discussed in Chapter Three.
We conceived the questions together, and Ana Francis wrote summaries
based on the interviews. In this particular chapter, her contribution goes
beyond the work of a research assistant and comes closer to that of a coau-
thor. I would also like to thank my copy editor, Kennie Lyman, for an ex-
cellent job on the manuscript.
Finally, I am grateful to my wife, Jane Goette, and my son, Carl David,
for understanding that I had to be away from home on numerous occasions.
It is their support and love that inspires me.
Excerpts from Chapters One, Two, Four, and Five originally appeared in
“Gender Equality in the Salvadoran Transition,” Latin American Perspec-
tives 26, no. 2 (March 1999), © 1999 Latin American Perspectives, and in
Género y Cultura en América Latina, edited by María Luisa Tarrés (Mexico
City: El Colegio de México, 1998).
An earlier version of Chapter Six appeared in “Gender Equality and
Electoral Politics on the Left: A Comparison of El Salvador and Nica-
ragua,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 40, no. 1 (Spring
1998). A Spanish version of this material was published as “Izquierda rev-
olucionaria, igualdad de género y democratización: una comparación entre
El Salvador y Nicaragua,” Pensamiento Propio 3 ( January–April 1998).
Excerpts from several chapters were also included in my contribution to
Radical Women in Latin America: Left and Right, edited by Victoria Gonzá-
lez and Karen Kampwirth (University Park: Penn State University Press,
2001), and in “Democracy and Its Discontents: Life in Post-conflict Cen-
tral America,” Development 43, no. 3 (September 2000).
Preface & Acknowledgments xxv
This material is protected by copyright and is used here with permission

from the publishers.
My work has been conducted with the financial assistance of the Euro-
pean Union. The views expressed in this book are my own and in no way
reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
Methodological Note
My analysis is based on field research carried out over a number of years.
This research was not conducted by “remote-control.” I have visited all
three countries numerous times and have personally observed many of the
events I discuss. In many instances my work is based on participant obser-
vation. I interviewed 103 key officials in the three countries. These were
structured interviews that I taped. Thirty-three of these officials were in-
terviewed at least twice (several up to five times) in order to get their per-
spective over time. In addition, I coordinated a team of interviewers who
carried out a survey of 200 ex-combatants in El Salvador.
Field research has its own perils. Interrogation for several hours by the
Salvadoran police, the contraction of severe hepatitis, and the theft of im-
portant interview materials in both Nicaragua and Guatemala need to be
absorbed with stoicism. The writing for this book was initially informed by
field visits to Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution. I worked in
Nicaragua from October 1984 to July 1985 as a guest professor and con-
ducted research from December 1985 to February 1986 as well as July–Au-
gust 1988, July–August 1989, and November–December 1989. Following
the 1990 electoral defeat of the Sandinistas, I observed meetings and con-
ducted interviews during June and July 1992, August 1993, January 1996,
January and February 1997, November 1997, June 1998, and February
2001. Field research in Guatemala was carried out in June 1989, July 1993,
February 1997, April 1997, November 1997, March 1999, and May 2001.
Finally, I began field research in El Salvador in June 1988 while the war was
still going on. Subsequently, I made field visits in July–August 1993, March
1994, April–May 1995, December 1995, February 1996, April 1996, Feb-
ruary 1997, March 1997, November 1997, June 1998, March 1999, March
2000, and February 2001.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations of both written and oral mater-
ial are mine.
Acronyms
AMNLAE Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses, Luisa Amanda

Espinoza (Association of Nicaraguan Women)
ANN Alianza Nueva Nación (New Nation Alliance,
Guatemala)
ARENA Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (National
Republican Alliance, El Salvador)
CIAV Comisión Internacional de Apoyo y Verificación
(International Commission on Support
and Verification, Nicaragua)
DIA Desarrollo Integral Auténtico (Authentic Integral
Development, Guatemala)
DRU Dirección Revolucioniaria Unificada (Unified
Revolutionary Directorate, El Salvador)
EGP Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of
the Poor, Guatemala)
ERP Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (Revolutionary
Army of the People, El Salvador)
FAL Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (Armed Forces
of Liberation, the armed forces of the
Communist Party, El Salvador)
FDNG Frente Democrático Nueva Guatemala
(New Guatemala Democratic Front)
xxviii Acronyms
FMLN Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional

(Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front,
El Salvador)
FPL Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (Popular Forces

of Liberation, El Salvador)
FRG Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (Guatemalan

Republican Front)
FSLN Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional

(Sandinista National Liberation Front,
Nicaragua)
MAM Movimiento de Mujeres “Mélida Anaya Montes”

(Mélida Anaya Montes Women’s Movement)
MINUSAL Misión de Naciones Unidas en El Salvador (United

Nations Mission in El Salvador)
MRS Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (Sandinista

Reform Movement, Nicaragua)
OEA Organización de Estados Americanos (Organization

of American States)
ONUSAL Misión de Observadores de las Naciones Unidas

en El Salvador (United Nations Observer Mission
in El Salvador)
ORPA Organización Revolucionaria del Pueblo en Armas

(Revolutionary Organization of Armed Citizens,
Guatemala)
PAN Partido de Avanzada Nacional (Party for National

Advancement, Guatemala)
PD Partido Demócrata (Democratic Party, El Salvador)
PGT Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo (Guatemalan Labor

Party)
Acronyms xxix
PRN Partido Resistencia Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan

Resistance Party)
PRTC Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores

Centroamericanos (Revolutionary Party
of Central American Workers, El Salvador)
PSD Partido Social Demócrata (Social Democratic Party,

El Salvador)
RN Resistencia Nacional (National Resistance,

El Salvador)
UNAMG Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas

(National Union of Guatemalan Women)
URNG Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca

(Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity)
After the Revolution
Q
1
The Gender Composition of
the Central American Guerrilla Movements
War is men’s business and as hard as women try,

they will never play the same role.
—Facundo Guardado, FMLN leader
In his comprehensive study of Latin American guerrilla movements, Tim-

othy Wickham-Crowley found that female participation during the first
wave of revolutions (1956 –70) varied greatly. At the leadership level, ex-
clusively male structures were not uncommon, although in some instances
women represented up to 20 percent of the leadership. There were no cases
of “female predominance in either numbers or power within a movement
[and not] a single case of a female peasant joining as an arms-bearing guer-
rilla.”1
It was obviously the Cuban revolution that shaped the first revolution-
ary wave. Che Guevara, a key protagonist of the Cuban struggle, codified
the lessons of guerrilla warfare learned in the Sierra Maestra in his book,
Guerrilla Warfare. It became the bible for a generation of revolutionaries.
Che recognized the importance of the potential contribution women could
make to the revolutionary struggle. He emphasized that “the part that the
woman can play in the development of a revolutionary process is of extraor-
dinary importance.”2 Indeed, a number of women held leadership positions
in the early days of the Cuban war. In 1957, the urban leadership repre-
sented in the National Directorate of the July 26 movement included
Celia Sánchez, Vílma Espín, and Haydée Santamaría. At that time, Che
2 After the Revolution
himself had yet to join the exclusive rank of the Directorate.3 The first fe-
male volunteer to join the guerrilla forces in the mountains in July 1957
was seventeen-year-old Oniria Gutiérrez.4
In Che’s view, “The woman is capable of performing the most difficult
tasks, of fighting beside the men; and despite current belief, she does not
create conflicts of a sexual type in the troops. In the rigorous combatant life
the woman is a companion who brings the qualities appropriate to her sex,
but she can work the same as a man and she can fight; she is weaker but no
less resistant than he. She can perform every class of combat task that a
man can at a given moment, and on certain occasions in the Cuban strug-
gle she performed a relief role.”5 In the Cuban context of the 1950s, in
which societal relations were characterized by machismo, this was an en-
lightened position. Che maintained that “naturally the combatant women
are a minority.”6 He saw the primary role of women as being in “commu-
nications between different combatant forces,” and other support roles,
such as teachers, social workers, and nurses attending to the guerrilla fight-
ers and the population living in the zone of operations. Guevara’s tradi-
tional gender views come through when he argues for women to perform
the “habitual tasks of peacetime . . . The woman as cook can greatly im-
prove the diet and, furthermore, it is easier to keep her in these domestic
tasks; one of the problems in guerrilla bands is that all works of a civilian
character are scorned by those who perform them; they are constantly try-
ing to get out of these tasks in order to enter into forces that are actively in
combat.”7
Central American women encountered the same stereotypes when they
joined the Central American revolutionary movements in the 1970s.
Much had changed since the early days of the Cuban revolution, yet the
basic challenges remained the same. It took fifteen years following the tri-
umph of the Cuban revolution before women started to participate in
greater numbers and served as regular combatants. The ascendancy of the
international feminist movement provided a context that was conducive
to increased interest in the role of women in revolutionary struggles. The
success of the Sandinista revolution in 1979 highlighted the significant role
women had played in the insurrection. It was reported that at the high
point of the Nicaraguan insurrection, women constituted between 25 and
30 percent of the combatants.
Gender Composition of Guerrilla Movements 3
The Central American guerrilla movements should be held to a high

standard in terms of their position vis-à-vis the female members. After all,
they thought of themselves as a vanguard representing the values of a new
society. However, it is important to keep in mind when examining gender
relations during the war period that the struggle for women’s rights was not
a factor motivating women to join the Central American guerrilla move-
ments; and, in the final analysis, the men and women of the FMLN, FSLN
and URNG embodied and reflected the prevailing culture.
Women in the FMLN: Social Justice versus Gender Equality
In El Salvador, the guerrillas opposed the hegemony of the United States

and its Salvadoran allies. Until 1995, the FMLN was made up of five dis-
tinct groups: the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (Popular Forces of Liber-
ation, or FPL); the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (Revolutionary
Army of the People, or ERP); the armed forces of the Communist Party,
the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (Armed Forces of Liberation, or FAL);
the Resistencia Nacional (National Resistance, or RN); and the Partido
Revolucionario de Trabajadores Centroamericanos (Revolutionary Party
of Central American Workers, or PRTC). Tommie Sue Montgomery and
other students of the Salvadoran revolution have maintained that in the
1980s women represented 30 percent of the FMLN’s combatants and about
40 percent of the total membership.8 There have been long-standing ar-
guments over the reliability of the figures cited in studies assessing women’s
participation in revolutionary movements, since they could not be inde-
pendently verified. In the Salvadoran case, we can at last have an informed
debate, because we now have reliable data.
Upon the signing of the peace accords, the FMLN forces were supposed
to demobilize in a five-stage process between May 1 and October 31, 1992.
The demobilization was supervised by the United Nations Observer Mis-
sion in El Salvador (ONUSAL), which processed and registered the FMLN
membership that had been concentrated in camps throughout the country.
FMLN members were registered according to their status as combatants,
wounded noncombatants, or políticos (FMLN militants who were engaged
in political work on behalf of the guerrillas both in El Salvador and abroad).
Due to various delays, the combatants were actually demobilized between
Table 1.1 Gender Composition of FMLN Membership by Demobilization Category
Source: ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilicación del personal del FMLN (San Salvador: Imprenta El Estudi-
ante, n.d.).
June 30 and December 15, 1992, while the wounded noncombatants were
registered between October 15 and November 20, 1993. The políticos
were processed on March 25, 1993.9 Their demobilization, not foreseen in
the original accords, was negotiated by the FMLN in order to be able to
provide these cadres with some minimal material benefits.
ONUSAL collected a variety of data regarding the FMLN members, in-
cluding their affiliation with one of the five groups making up the FMLN,
their sex, educational level, age, and place of origin. According to the 1994
data, a total of 15,009 FMLN members were registered: 8,552 combatants,
2,474 wounded noncombatants, and 3,983 political cadres. The number of
women in the FMLN was 4,492.
Some caution is in order when examining the ONUSAL figures, since
knowledgeable sources report that about 10 to 15 percent of the FMLN’s
membership was not processed.10 There were a variety of reasons an indi-
vidual might decide not to register. Several high-ranking FMLN officials,
including members of the FMLN National Council, chose not to go through
official channels because they did not want to be perceived as taking ad-
vantage of the benefits every registered person was entitled to. Other mili-
tants were not prepared to reveal themselves as such after having success-
fully infiltrated state institutions during the war. By far the most important
reason was simple fear. Many former combatants had little faith in the vi-
ability of the peace accords. Having survived years of clandestine struggle,
they were understandably reluctant to be officially registered as having
been part of the guerrilla movement. The memories of death lists of “sub-
versives” that were read by the late Major Roberto d’Aubuisson and others
on national TV was still too fresh in their minds. With these limitations,
Table 1.2 Gender Composition of FMLN Groups
Source: ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilicación del personal del FMLN.
the ONUSAL data reveal that women made up from 27 to 34 percent of

the membership of the five armies (Table 1.2). In terms of the three de-
mobilization categories, women were strongest among the political cadres,
where they represented 36.6 percent.
Table 1.3 provides a detailed picture of the FMLN’s gender composition
by FMLN group and demobilization category. Of the 8,552 combatants that
were processed, 2,485 or 29.1 percent were female. Among the five groups,
the Resistencia Nacional had the highest percentage of women in its ranks
with 35.2 percent. The Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores Cen-
troamericanos had the lowest rate of participation with about 24 percent.
The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo and the Fuerzas Populares de Lib-
eración had numerically the largest number of women in their ranks, 754
and 696 respectively, and ranked in the middle in terms of the percentage
of women in their ranks. Finally, the armed forces of the Communist Party,
the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación had a female participation rate of 30.1
percent and a total of 334 women fighters.
In the case of the FMLN políticos, the data indicate that 3,983 FMLN
members were processed as being part of political structures. Among them
were 1,458 women, representing 36.6 percent of the total. Female partici-
pation ranged from a high of 40 percent in the case of the ERP, to 34 per-
cent for the FPL. The FPL had by far the largest number of políticos. Their
political cadres included 951 men and 488 women, compared with 615
male and 381 female políticos for the FAL, which had the second largest
overall number. The dominance of FPL and FAL members among the
Table 1.3 Gender Composition of Demobilized FMLN Members by FMLN Group

and Demobilization Category
Source: ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilicación del personal del FMLN.
FMLN’s political personnel was an important basis upon which these two
groups built their strong positions within the political party that emerged
out of the guerrilla movement.
In addition to the combatants and the políticos, 2,474 wounded non-
combatants were processed by ONUSAL. Of these, 549 (22.2%) were
women. This latest category comprised “noncombatant personnel who had
been injured in the war and belonged to the FMLN.”11 According to Ger-
son Martínez (Orlando Quinteros legalized this nom de guerre), a senior
FMLN official, some members of this group were not FMLN militants but
civilians who had been caught in the crossfire without having expressed
negative or positive views about the guerrillas.12 The various FMLN groups
apparently included them out of a sense of responsibility, thus making them
eligible to receive some benefits.
When examining the gender composition of the five groups at the time
of demobilization in detail, it is important to keep in mind that the data re-
fer to the rank order of the five groups in 1992. The relative rankings tended
to change somewhat over the course of the war. Norma Guevara, a senior
FMLN official, proudly maintained that in the mid-1980s the FAL had the
most female members in its ranks, while some students of the Salvadoran
revolution argued that the ERP had the greatest number of female com-
batants and officers.13 The different views can be attributed largely to
the particular statistics that are being used. According to 1993 internal
ONUSAL data, the ERP had indeed the largest overall number of female
combatants (754), whereas the Communist Party’s 334 female fighters rep-
resented the second highest percentage of female combatants (second only to
the RN) among the five groups. Thus the FAL forces could easily have had
the highest percentage of women at some point in the war.
The data are consistent with the estimates of the 1980s on women’s par-
ticipation as combatants. The estimate was 30 percent compared with the
actual 29.1 percent at the time of demobilization. The ONUSAL figure of
29.9 percent women members, however, does not accord with the wartime
claim that women represented 40 percent of the FMLN membership.
Another aspect of the data on the FMLN combatants deserves further
scrutiny: If we examine the age distribution of male and female members,
it is evident that not all of them were arms-bearing fighters. According to
1993 ONUSAL data, 60 FMLN members processed as combatants (0.75%)
were younger than thirteen, while 170 (2.1%) were older than sixty. It is
reasonable to assume that at least those over sixty years of age did not serve
as armed combatants.
The group of combatants over sixty years of age included 41 females.
The FPL had 4 women fighters at the biblical age of ninety-two. The ERP
had only 4 women over sixty, and the PRTC’s records show 1 ninety-one-
year-old female combatant. The RN had 22 women over sixty, the oldest
being eighty-five, and the FAL lists showed 10 women over sixty, with the
Table 1.4 Age Distribution of FMLN Combatants

A: Distribution of Combatants by Gender
B: Distribution of Female Combatants by Group
Source: ONUSAL.
Note: Data for 453 combatants were not available.
oldest being seventy-two. Older guerrilla supporters were not the exclusive
domain of the FMLN. In the case of Guatemala’s URNG, demobilized per-
sonnel included a number of senior citizens. Indeed, 77 combatants or po-
litical cadres14 were older than sixty-one, while 7 had passed the age of sev-
enty-six.15
The Salvadoran records also indicate that a one-year-old baby and a six-
year-old girl were processed as FAL combatants, while the RN had a five-
year-old female fighter, and the ERP also demobilized a one-year-old baby
girl. The infants were obviously children who were born in one of the fif-
teen sites where FMLN members were assembled to await demobilization.
In the case of the young children, it seems likely that combatants, lacking
alternative child-care options, had brought them along to the camps.
Some FMLN officials have questioned whether there were indeed “bib-
lical-age women” in the ranks. Nidia Díaz (María Marta Valladares legal-
ized this nom de guerre), one of the top PRTC officials and then the
FMLN’s vice-coordinator, claimed that she had absolutely no knowledge
of a ninety-one-year-old woman in the ranks of the PRTC. In this instance,
it could easily be that a civilian collaborator was demobilized as a combat-
ant. The apparent discrepancies could also be the result of the precarious-
ness or nonexistence of a decent civil register in the rural areas of El Sal-
vador.16 This makes it possible for people to invent their ages. The
difficulties in the data collection process are conveyed in the following
story told by ONUSAL officials: a fifty-five-year-old man, when asked his
age and date of birth during the verification, answered that “only the mid-
wife could know it, since she had helped him to come into this world.”17
In short, the data have some limitations. Gerson Martínez explained that
women over ninety years old were processed as combatants at their insis-
tence so that they would be recognized as having actively participated in
the guerrilla struggle. A typical argument would be: “We have cooked and
cared for the muchachos [boys] for many years. We have earned the right to
be considered combatants.”
In terms of the overall numbers of male and female fighters, the very old
and very young FMLN members who were processed as combatants are not
significant. Almost 90 percent of all female combatants and 82 percent of
all male combatants were between fourteen and forty years old. Thus, the
excellent data we have in the Salvadoran case permit us to deepen our un-
derstanding of the social composition of guerrilla movements. It is obvious

that in the eyes of the guerrillas themselves, the category of “combatant”
was not limited to the arms-bearing fighter. Instead, as in any other army
in the world, it included males and females in support roles. Yet many ac-
ademic sources discussing women’s participation in guerrilla movements
distinguish between arms-bearing combatants and women in support roles.
The latter group is considered part of the guerrilla membership but is not
included in the estimates of the combatants. This artificial distinction
tends to obscure and denigrate the important role played by women and
men who provided logistical support.
During the first wave of Latin American guerrilla movements (1956 –
70), female participation was indeed largely restricted to the traditional
roles of women as cooks, caretakers for the wounded, or messengers. It ap-
pears that when women started to participate in combat, some observers
considered it important to distinguish between actual fighters and those
women in support positions in order to stress the change that had occurred.
Medardo González, one of the FMLN’s early members, who held the posi-
tion of secretary of organization, estimated the number of arms-bearing fe-
male combatants to have ranged between 15 and 20 percent.18
His views were supported by the findings of a representative study of one
third of all women registered by ONUSAL. According to this survey some-
what less than 30 percent of the women affiliated with the FMLN during
the war worked in the kitchen, while 15 percent were engaged in health-
related tasks. About 15 percent were actual fighters with an additional 11
percent acting in support roles. The remaining 40 percent had tasks of a
different type.19 Finally, it is significant that based on the gender composi-
tion of those FMLN fighters over sixty years old, more men were in support
positions than women.
The controversy over the part female combatants played is part of the
larger question of gender relations during the war. There is a tendency
among some protagonists and students of the Central American revolu-
tions to glorify male-female relations during the war. Although there were
important changes in gender relations, on the whole, the subordination of
women prevalent in prewar society continued. When women speak freely
of their participation in the war, critical testimonies tend to predominate.
FMLN supporters in North America and Europe have expressed admi-
ration for the guerrilla movement for having shown creativity and courage
in resisting the Salvadoran army and the United States. This admiration
appears to have extended to the FMLN’s handling of gender relations dur-
ing the war. In contrast to the guerrilla movement’s success in the military
and political sphere, however, there were “serious deficiencies in the dis-
course and practices of the FMLN in internal matters, [such as] the private
sphere of life, gender relations, and women’s subordination.”20 FMLN
commanders experienced great difficulties when forced to reflect on gen-
der relations in the camps. They believed in a “revolutionary utopia,”
which pretended “that the equality desired for the future existed already in
the revolutionary nuclei, where all types of differences were decreed elim-
inated, for example, those existing between men and women . . . With such
a conviction, the leadership of the guerrilla groups rejected the validity of
an analysis [focusing] on the different situations of men and women within
the group.”21
With few exceptions, women linked up with the FMLN out of a sense
of social justice, to escape the repression of the army and police forces, or
because a family member had joined or was in the process of joining. Of-
ten women joined for a combination of these reasons. This is exemplified
in the statement of a former combatant who joined the FMLN with her
family:
Really, it was my father who joined in 1979 when I was eight years old. I re-
member that he started to work clandestinely, specifically with the FPL. In
1980, when I was nine years, people started to notice that we belonged to
this group [the FPL] and we were forced to leave this place. That is, we had
to leave our houses because there was already a lot of repression developing
against my family. They knew we were guerrillas, and thus the repression
began and we had to leave our place of origin, and we started to flee. The
operations [search and destroy missions] started, and we had to run. The war
began in serious. I was always with my mother and my three sisters and for
three years we walked around together in the zone of conflict and then, well,
we stayed with the Front.22
After joining the FMLN, female combatants were confronted with tra-
ditional gender views. Women faced these difficult situations alone. This
isolation was conducive to the belief that they deserved to be mistreated

due to personal failures and weaknesses. The following testimony is repre-
sentative:
During the war, we, the women, were always thought of as a supporting
force. Even when we assumed military command positions, it was difficult
for us to get the top command. In my case, for a long time, I interpreted this
as being my problem or a problem with me, and not a problem that hap-
pened to all women. I continued to feel this way when I did the work and
others reaped the rewards. I saw it in my case but also in the case of other
women. Well, for example, a women’s organization that emerged in Gua-
zapa in 1982 provided impressive logistical support in the military arena. An
important military operation took place in which these women played a de-
cisive role. At the hour of the military communiqués, which served as both
propaganda and moments of recognition, they were not mentioned. This
bothered me a lot. Still I did not make the connection that this was a prob-
lem of female discrimination.
Those women who did manage to obtain a leadership position in the

military hierarchy paid a high price. The demands were different on men
and women. The situation was particularly difficult for female leaders who
had family responsibilities:
Not only did one have to do everything right, but one had to demonstrate
that one knew how to do it right. I remember that I was a lot tougher, that
is more demanding than other [male] leaders so that the combatants would
respect me, so they would accept me as the leader. In general, the men didn’t
need to be tougher or more demanding to have their leadership respected.
I think that the breaking of my role as a mother tore me up. To be a leader
at that time, or to assume a command position or tasks of military leader-
ship was in absolute contradiction to being a mother. It is not like this for
men because the father-son relationship is different in this society. I wish it
would be equal, but it is not. I remember this price I had to pay. On one oc-
casion one of my daughters had broken her arm, and I was notified that the
arm was broken and that she called for me from the hospital. I asked the
leadership for permission to leave and they told me: “Look, you know that
none of us can leave here without authorization of the compañeros that are
at the Guazapa volcano. Since within a month we will go to a meeting with
them, it’s better to wait.” Well, O.K., I arrived at the meeting—it was in the
western part of the country—full of hope that I would get permission to go
and see my children. It had been almost four years since I had seen them. I
state this and they told me: “Well, you have the right to leave, but we have
a problem. We have to open a logistical corridor in the West. If you leave,
the strategic work to open the corridor is halted. But we can not deny you
permission. You decide.” I remember how I cried that night and I said to my-
self: “What do I do, oh, what do I do, I want to go and see my daughter. For
so long has she had a broken arm.” But there was the urgent task. And be-
sides, I knew the price I would have to pay if I opted to go. So I stayed. I
couldn’t see my daughter until a year later.
Unlike its Nicaraguan counterpart, the FMLN did not explicitly address
women’s rights in its early programs and pronouncements. FMLN militants
attribute this to several factors: strong religious influence, the predomi-
nantly rural background of the FMLN base, and the culture of machismo
that inhibited even strong female leaders. Other studies have confirmed
that religion, in the form of Liberation Theology, had a considerable im-
pact on gender relations within Central American guerrilla movements.
Liberation Theology, a rethinking of traditional Catholic doctrine, was
popular throughout Central America. It resulted from the 1968 meeting of
the Latin American bishops in Medellín, Colombia. The bishops spoke of
the need to liberate human kind from cultural, social, economic, and po-
litical slavery, declaring that it was the role of the Church to take “a pref-
erential option for the poor.” They broadened the concept of sin to include
an entire social system if it did not guarantee the right to a decent standard
of living for all people. Liberation Theology led many to criticize the cap-
italist system and support guerrilla movements that fought to bring about
change to unjust economic and political conditions. Norma Vázquez and
her colleagues have reported that “although it had a very positive influence
in many spheres, in the case of issues related to sexuality and maternity, it
was very conservative, especially in its impact on the role of women.”23
In addition to these factors, women in the FMLN lacked organization.
In the early days of the war few women participated in the guerrilla move-
ment, and those who did were not organized around women’s issues. This
changed in the late 1970s, when women’s groups emerged within the var-
ious Salvadoran guerrilla groups. For example, Tula Alvarenga, the wife of
the FPL’s eminent leader Salvador Cayetano Carpio, favored women’s or-
ganizing efforts. She was marginalized, however, following the assassination
of Mélida Anaya Montes and the 1983 suicide of Carpio, who was accused
of having ordered the murder of his number two commander. As a conse-
quence of these events, the FPL women’s group first split into two and even-
tually dissolved.
In general, female FMLN commanders did not focus their energy or
thoughts on women’s rights. Mélida Anaya Montes, the most eminent
woman during the early years of the struggle, is remembered for her lack of
support for women’s organizing. “Maybe she was in the first meeting of
AMES [a precursor of FMLN women’s groups]. But after that I never saw
her in the work that we did,” said one key female FMLN organizer. Even
though some female militants considered Anaya Montes supportive, it was
clear that women’s issues were not high on her list of priorities. Nidia Díaz
and Ana Guadalupe Martínez, two other high-ranking commanders, were
thought of in the same light: “Even in 1987, 1988, the highest ranking fe-
male FMLN leaders did not listen to one on the woman’s question.”
Women who served in leadership positions at the intermediate level were
no different in their attitudes. Those female leaders who were outspoken
in their support for women’s rights tended to have spent some time outside
of the country, where they were exposed to and influenced by the interna-
tional dialogue on women’s rights.
The early efforts of female organizing in the FMLN were greatly influ-
enced by external factors. FMLN cadres engaged in political work in other
countries, particularly Mexico, were exposed to the international discus-
sion on women’s rights. They, in turn, talked to their compañeras who
served as urban commandos or were active in guerrilla forces operating in
the Salvadoran countryside. Opportunities for such meetings arose when
the political cadres entered the country or the combatants left El Salvador
for periods of training or recuperation. One political cadre remembers that
these conversations “were very tenuous, very soft. I was talking with sev-
eral female FMLN leaders in Mexico in order to motivate them, so they
would be sensitized to the woman’s question and I was not heard.” It was
common that FMLN militants who tried to introduce a gender perspective

met with great resistance. “I gave training exercises with a gender perspec-
tive. There were two or three workshops where the FMLN women asked
me to leave because they thought I wanted to divide the revolution, since
in what I was saying was a gender analysis that was not compatible with
class analysis. My reasoning, on the other hand, was that the woman’s sit-
uation has to be looked at from a class and a gender perspective. Well, the
compañeras still remember that at that time they pulled me out of the
workshops.”
Women’s special needs were rarely taken into account in the mountains.
For example, it is reported that male commanders showed little under-
standing of why precious financial resources should be allocated for the pur-
chase of articles of female hygiene. On the other hand, birth control pills
were readily available, since they were essential to the FMLN’s policy on
reproductive choice. In general, sexual relations between combatants were
also characterized by a double standard for male and female behavior. “For
example, the male military leaders seduced, or used their power, or it was
easier for them to establish sexual relations. For the women, it was not like
this. The fact that a woman in a leadership position would slip up was
grounds for a scandal that had costs when her political performance was
evaluated.”
According to the testimony of many female combatants, sexual harass-
ment was a common phenomenon for the women who served in the guer-
rilla forces. Significantly, it was not only frequently condoned by superiors,
but some FMLN leaders were among the transgressors. Female combatants
tolerated this difficult climate with the help of a variety of rationalizations.
Some claimed that things would improve after the war with a return to nor-
malcy, arguing that the war situation facilitated the hostile climate. With
only a few women in any particular camp, there was great pressure on them
to give in to demands for sexual favors. Men and women tended to ratio-
nalize their behavior with the thought, “I might die tomorrow.” Women, in
particular, had few alternatives to dealing with their difficult situations in a
stoic fashion. For the majority, packing up and leaving the FMLN was not
a viable option. In some instances sexual abuses were denounced, but the
individuals in question were almost never punished. Morena Herrera re-
counted such an incident: “In 1987 I lodged a complaint that a Comman-
der had sexually harassed a compañera over a long period of time. I brought
it to the attention of the highest authority of the organization, and they told
me that they would take the necessary measures, but they never did.”
Very few combatants dared to challenge FMLN authorities so openly,
and most decided to remain silent. Only in the final days of the Salvado-
ran war, and then only in the case of a limited number of female FMLN
members, was the fight for social justice expected to include a conscious
emphasis on the struggle for gender equality.
The Female Insurrection in Nicaragua
The most widely reported estimates of female involvement in the San-

dinista movement in Nicaragua state that women constituted between 25
and 30 percent of the combatants.24 Patricia Chuchryk, for example, has
maintained that in Nicaragua the “rate of women’s participation in armed
combat during the insurrection was the highest of any Latin American
revolutionary movement.”25 Unfortunately there are no hard data to sup-
port these estimates. While it is clear that women participated in great
numbers in the revolutionary struggle, the FSLN never released official fig-
ures on the composition of its guerrilla force at the time of demobilization.
For this reason, we are left with considerable variations in the reported es-
timates of female participation.
Carlos Vilas, basing his estimates on a review of Sandinista combatants’
death certificates, found that women constituted only 6.6 percent of San-
dinista forces.26 His findings differ considerably from the predominant im-
age of a force that was one-third female. Two observations are helpful in
reconciling this conflict: One point, already made earlier, has to do with
the concept of combatant. Vilas’s data obviously emphasize arms-bearing
combatants, while the definition of combatant employed by most other
studies tends to be much broader and includes support personnel. Secondly,
it is important to distinguish between women’s participation during the fi-
nal insurrectional phase and their involvement in the revolutionary strug-
gle in general. Almost all studies reporting a 30 percent participation rate
refer to the final stage of the struggle.27
Whereas women did participate in significant numbers and came to oc-
cupy important leadership positions by the later stages of the conflict, fe-
male participation in the early years of the revolutionary struggle was very
limited. This becomes evident when one listens to the accounts of women
who joined the FSLN early on. They share the view that few men consid-
ered it important to incorporate women into the guerrilla movement.28
Women who were sympathetic to the FSLN’s revolutionary goals started to
organize in the 1960s. In 1963, a group of women sharing a left-wing ide-
ology formed the Federación Democrática (Democratic Federation). These
were mainly militants from the Socialist Party and female students who
supported the FSLN.29 In 1967, women organized the Alianza Patriótica
Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Patriotic Alliance), which served as a recruit-
ing pool for FSLN cadres.
In 1967, the FSLN leadership decided to integrate women into the rural
guerrilla forces.30 Until then, women had served only in support roles, act-
ing as messengers, providing safe havens, and preparing the peasantry for
the impending creation of a guerrilla foco (a center of guerrilla activity that
would, according to Che Guevara’s theory, eventually spark an uprising) in
their area. The first woman to join the FSLN as a full-time armed combat-
ant was Gladys Báez, who had been active in the Nicaraguan Patriotic Al-
liance. Báez was conscious of the responsibility of being the first female
combatant: “In the first place, to accept the presence of women was a new
experience for the men. The challenge in my case was that it depended on
me whether more women would be brought to the mountains. I understood
this clearly, that it depended on me. The compañeros were accustomed to
see us arrive as messengers, to see us engaged in logistical support, but our
full-time permanent presence, this was a different story.” Out of this belief,
Báez refused to leave the mountains even when she became ill and was ad-
vised to do so by medical personnel. At the time she suffered from, among
other ailments, seven different types of parasites. When she was finally cap-
tured, it took her three years to recover her health.
Dorotea Wilson, a member of the FSLN National Directorate (1994 –
98), joined in 1977–78 motivated by strong religious beliefs. She experi-
enced the socioeconomic injustices oppressing the Nicaraguan people in
her own home. Her father, a miner, struggled to feed her and her nine
brothers and sisters. After having collaborated for a number of years as a
courier inside and outside the country Wilson became an FSLN combat-
ant: “I had to do it, since I was pursued by the Guardia, which was already
looking for me everywhere because they had information that I had con-
tact with the guerrilla in the mountains.”31 As a combatant, Wilson con-
tinued her work in communications. An account of her years in the moun-
tains depicts a challenging situation.
Men and women were required to carry the same forty-pound backpacks
with ammunition and also shared in traditionally female tasks such as food
preparation. Men, however, dominated the command structures. “I didn’t
know a single female commander of a column,” Wilson emphasized, al-
though she maintained that women held lower-level command positions.
Information and authority were restricted, “but at the hour of combat men
and women were in the first line of fire.” Eventually a number of women
assumed leadership positions. At the time of the FSLN triumph in 1979,
Dora María Telléz, Doris Tijerino, and Leticia Herrera were high-ranking
commanders, just below the nine-member FSLN National Directorate.
Gender relations in the Sandinista guerrilla forces were not different
from those in the Salvadoran FMLN. Leticia Herrera, the fifth woman to
join the Sandinistas as a full-time combatant, affirms that joining the guer-
rillas as a woman was a difficult experience. “It was very hard. I always say
that this is one of the things few people take into account and value. We
as women joined the movement, maybe not because of gender conscious-
ness, but with the realization that we would fight for substantive, profound
changes. We did not foresee that we would have to face a dual struggle—
the struggle against the system of government and the fight against the men
in the movement.”32 In Herrera’s view, gender inequality was reflected
early on: even though the FSLN gained a public profile between 1961 and
1963, female figures did not emerge until 1967. Even then women were not
accepted as full-time members. At that time the predominant thinking was
that a “woman was useful only to cook the meals in the house where those
who were in the underground lived, wash their clothes, run their errands,
[and] serve as cover for clandestine personnel. It was never contemplated
that a woman could be an officer in charge of an underground structure.
This is where the gender issue manifested itself, and this quadrupled the
complexity of our efforts as women.”33
Gladys Báez remembers that her brothers-in-arms “thought that when a
woman joined, they had their meals and laundry taken care off. I said that
if this is what I had to do, I would prefer to stay in my house and take care
of my children’s meals and laundry. I didn’t join for this.” The struggle
against sexist attitudes had many dimensions and included subtle chal-
lenges like the concept of the “new man.” The male leaders talked about
“‘the new man,’ and I said, ‘the new woman.’ They said by saying ‘man’
everyone is included, and I said, No, señor, if one gives birth to a male child
it is male, and when one gives birth to a female it is a female.” Báez was aware
how important it was to challenge sexist attitudes from the very beginning.
“If I start to serve him the first day, I will always remain in that role.”
Women obviously resented being used by their male companions but
were reluctant to talk about these problems. As a rule, female combatants
did not evaluate their experiences from a gender perspective, and women
rarely discussed the sexist attitudes of their male companions among them-
selves. This should not be surprising because, as in El Salvador, women did
not join the struggle to advance a feminist agenda but were motivated by
a much broader desire to fight for social justice.
Mónica Baltodano, who joined the FSLN in 1972, represented an ex-
ception to the rule that women joining the FSLN lacked gender con-
sciousness. In Baltodano’s words: “I went underground with a female, fem-
inist motivation. I had read some books that discussed female emancipation
and equality—women’s rights.” She immediately confronted sexist atti-
tudes in her male companions. In one incident, she was asked to wash a
male militant’s pants. She reacted as follows: “I told him I would not, be-
cause I had not gone underground to wash pants. He became very annoyed
and told me that he had asked me because we were in a peasant’s house and
it would appear strange if he went out to wash the pants, that this was not
suitable for a man according to the culture of the environment.” Based on
this explanation, Baltodano agreed to her companion’s request. He, how-
ever, was no longer interested in having his laundry done, being very of-
fended by her views.
On another occasion, when she was in guerrilla training school, Balto-
dano could not take the hard training and readily gave up when the train-
ers gave her the option. She was admonished for her attitude by Ana Julia
Guido (who later became a commander of the Sandinista police), a woman
of peasant origin who was physically more suited to the challenges of guer-
rilla training. Guido told her: “Look, it is for this reason that the men say
we are not equal to them.” Upon reflection, Baltodano answered: “It is true,
I am taking advantage of being a woman in order not to put forward the

greatest effort.”34 Thus, women had to be careful not to overreact or take
advantage of traditional gender views while struggling to convince their
male companions that they should be treated as equals.
By 1974, the men in the FSLN had come to accept women’s participa-
tion as an integral part of the movement. Yet, in the eyes of female mili-
tants, this acceptance was rooted in the FSLN’s appreciation for the con-
tributions women could make to the struggle rather than an understanding
of women’s rights. Bayardo Arce, for example, a member of the FSLN di-
rectorate, appreciated women’s talent for political work or for the recruit-
ment of new members, characteristics especially important for the growth
of urban guerrilla structures.35 This recognition of women’s potential was
self-serving and was not grounded in support for women’s rights. The lead-
ership’s lack of understanding of women’s issues was surprising in light of
the strong support for women’s rights stated in the 1969 Historic Program of
the FSLN.36 The discrepancy between programmatic statements and prac-
tice led some female militants to conclude that the passages on women’s
rights were written by an internacionalista, a foreigner who supported the
FSLN. Officially, Carlos Fonseca, the FSLN’s eminent intellectual leader,
was given credit for the Sandinista Program.
Women proved themselves as combatants in a variety of fashions. Three
women were part of the FSLN commando group that captured a number of
foreign dignitaries and Somozista officials in the December 1974 raid on
the house of Chema Castillo. By that time, women had proved their valor
in combat at a considerable cost. Luisa Amanda Espinosa had been killed,
while Gladys Báez and Doris Tijerino had been captured and tortured. Re-
pression was particularly fierce in the wake of the 1974 FSLN raid, and
women proved invaluable in maintaining the communication lines be-
tween the urban and rural FSLN forces. During this difficult period, tradi-
tional gender views were exploited to the FSLN’s advantage. Realizing that
“maybe the only part of the woman that they [the National Guard] would
not search was the vagina . . . we made the messages in the form of a tam-
pon. Then the task was to explain to a peasant woman who had never used
a sanitary napkin what a tampon was, teach her how it was introduced and
how it should be taken out, and how to make this tampon safe so that it
would not be destroyed.”37
In summary, women’s participation in the Sandinista guerrilla move-

ment can be analyzed in terms of three distinct phases. During the first
phase, lasting from the origins of the FSLN in 1961 to the early 1970s, few
women participated and only in exceptional cases did they serve in com-
bat roles. During this period FSLN forces were extremely small, numbering
only a few dozen fighters. Women joined in greater numbers during the sec-
ond phase, which lasted from 1973 to 1977. This period marked a growing
guerrilla movement with women mainly in support roles. The last stage,
1977 to 1979, witnessed the massive incorporation of women and coin-
cided with popular uprisings in support of the FSLN. According to Balto-
dano, “These uprisings served as the seed, supplying people—combatants
and women [to the small force of FSLN fighters].”38 When the FSLN staged
its strategic retreat from Managua to Masaya in June 1979, the number of
female combatants was considerable. To showcase female participation, the
FSLN staged a parade in the town of Carazo of an exclusively female
squadron consisting of 150 women.39 The contribution of female leaders
to the triumph of the revolution was most prominent in the case of the
FSLN’s western front. Its general command was headed by Dora María
Téllez and of its seven members, five were women. This command would
take credit for the first major military victory of the guerrilla forces—the
liberation of the provincial capital of León.
Women’s participation in Nicaragua’s armed movements was not lim-
ited to the revolutionary Left. In the 1980s, a number of women who op-
posed the Sandinista revolution joined the counterrevolutionary Resisten-
cia Nicaraguënse (Nicaraguan Resistance, or Contras) as combatants.
Women also occupied political positions within the Nicaraguan Resis-
tance. In a 1997 interview, Azucena Ferrey, the only woman in the Contra
directorate recounted the difficulties of being a woman in an otherwise
completely male structure, although she emphasized that “jealousy over
leadership [positions] and clashes between political adversaries” were more
problematic.40
When the Nicaraguan Resistance was disarmed in 1990, the Comisión
Internacional de Apoyo y Verificación (International Commission on Sup-
port and Verification, or CIAV), whose officials were appointed by the Or-
ganization of American States (OEA), was in charge of demobilization. It
reported that a total of 22,413 fighters,41 with 58,721 family members were
Table 1.5 Number of Demobilized Nicaraguan Resistance Fighters

and Families by Zone of Demobilization
Source: CIAV-OEA, “Cuadros Estadísticos del Proceso de Desmovilización y Repatriación en Nicaragua.”
processed in nine different security zones established throughout the coun-

try. Unfortunately the data collected by CIAV-OEA were not separated by
sex. Thus, as in the case of the Sandinistas, we have to rely on estimates
and indirect methods of data collection in order to determine the gender
composition of the counterrevolutionary forces. It is established that there
were a number of female fighters among the Contras, although the popu-
lar image holds that it was basically a male force. Karen Kampwirth, an au-
thority on the gender composition of the Contras, has emphasized that fe-
male participation in the Nicaraguan Resistance “has been consistently
ignored in the literature.”42 Based on interviews with Contra commanders
and on news reports, Kampwirth has concluded that women constituted 7
to 15 percent of Contra combatants.43 Indirect evidence suggests that fe-
male participation was at the lower end of this spectrum. CIAV-OEA also
registered the family members of the fighters who lived in camps in Hon-
duras. The data show the relationship of the demobilized family members
to the fighters themselves. It is revealing that there were 7,300 wives and
3,132 common-law wives among the family members but only 236 hus-
bands and 238 common-law husbands. Thus the male partners waiting in
the camps for their loved ones to return from the war represented less than
5 percent of the female partners. This raises the interesting question of

whether the majority of female combatants were single, whether their com-
panions were active fighters, or whether they were somewhere else than in
the camps. The evidence, however, while difficult to interpret and not con-
clusive, could also suggest a relatively low female participation rate. Since
it was arguably even more dangerous for a male Nicaraguan with a spouse
or companion in the Resistance to remain in Nicaragua, such a person
would have been likely to seek refuge in Honduras.
It is interesting that the socioeconomic profile of the right-wing Resis-
tance did not differ significantly from those of the left-wing guerrilla move-
ments discussed in this chapter. The general demobilization records present
a picture of a predominantly young, poorly educated force with a rural back-
ground. Of the actual combatants 1,832 (8.2%) were ten to fifteen years of
age and 6,235 (27.8%) were between sixteen and twenty. Only 2,183
(9.7%) fighters were over forty. The great majority (84%) had three years
or less of primary education. Not surprisingly, only 42 Contras had univer-
sity diplomas. More than 70 percent shared a rural background, yet less
than 24 percent owned property.44 These statistics illustrate the challenge
of incorporating such a force into civil society.
The Guatemalan Experience: Two Generations

of Female Combatants
The Guatemalan guerrillas initiated their struggle around the same time
that the Sandinistas set up their movement. While the Sandinista struggle
ended in 1979 with the overthrow of the Somoza regime, however, the
URNG’s fight continued on for close to two decades. The Guatemalan ex-
perience encompasses thirty-five years of struggle, and this had repercus-
sions on the gender composition of the URNG. While female participa-
tion during the 1960s and 1970s was limited, it started to increase in the
1980s. There is no question that the Salvadoran conflict, with its strong in-
cidence of female FMLN fighters played a role in this development. In ad-
dition, the international context of the 1980s favored increased female par-
ticipation.
When the URNG signed the 1996 peace accords, the Guatemalan guer-
rilla movement was composed of four different groups: the Ejército Guer-
rillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor, or EGP), the Organi-
zación Revolucionaria del Pueblo en Armas (Revolutionary Organization
of Armed Citizens, or ORPA), the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (Rev-
olutionary Armed Forces, or FAR), and the Partido Guatemalteco del Tra-
bajo (Guatemalan Workers’ Party, or PGT). Throughout the struggle there
was much speculation as to the strength of the respective groups, with the
Guatemalan army claiming several times to have eliminated the guerrillas.
Most observers agree that the URNG was considerably weakened by the
end of the 1980s. According to Jack Spence and his coauthors, “In the last
years of the war the URNG was estimated to field no more than 1,000 –
1,500 guerrillas and militarily became only a nuisance to the Guatemalan
army.”45 While speculation will continue regarding the URNG’s strength
during the war, we have detailed records of URNG personnel at the time
of demobilization.
In an accord signed in Oslo on December 4, 1996, as part of peace ne-
gotiations, the URNG agreed to a definitive cease-fire.46 While the im-
plementation of the peace accords was supervised and facilitated by the
United Nations Mission for Human Rights Verification in Guatemala
(MINUGUA), the demobilization and disarmament of URNG personnel
was monitored by a United Nations peacekeeping mission. A group of 155
military observers, authorized by the United Nations Security Council, was
in charge of security for the eight camps, located on six sites, where URNG
combatants were concentrated and processed. The URNG agreed to de-
mobilize its forces in three phases beginning on March 3, 1997, and con-
tinuing over a period of two months.47
By the end of March, all URNG forces had been concentrated in the es-
tablished camps. According to Lieutenant Colonel Araujo Lima from
Brazil, who was in charge of the demobilization camp located at Finca Clau-
dia, Esquintla, the URNG presented an initial list of 3,614 combatants.
This list was eventually revised down to 3,250. The actual number of de-
mobilized combatants was somewhat lower still because some URNG
members had no interest in going through the demobilization process.
Some were already integrated into civilian life, while others did not want
to appear in the official demobilization list.48 As had been the case in El
Salvador, some guerrilla fighters had little faith in the viability of the peace
agreement. In light of the extreme political violence of the past, they were
Table 1.6 Composition of URNG Combatants

by Group, 1997
Source: MINUGUA.
not prepared to endanger their lives by officially registering as a member of

the URNG.
To complicate matters further in terms of the reliability of the data we
have, the URNG members who did congregate in the camps were not al-
ways actual combatants. In addition to those URNG fighters who went to
the camps from their areas of operation inside Guatemala, a considerable
number of URNG supporters were brought back from refugee camps in
Mexico. Not all in the latter group were URNG combatants, a fact mani-
fested by the considerable number of children among them. Based on
United Nations records, 125 children under the age of fourteen were de-
mobilized, several of them infants.49 Some observers maintained that only
about half of the URNG personnel in the camps were “actual former com-
batants.”50 In light of these observations one needs to take the member-
ship statistics with a grain of salt.
According to United Nations data, 2,940 URNG combatants officially
demobilized. The EGP and FAR constituted the great majority of the fight-
ers, with 50 and 41 percent, respectively. The ORPA forces constituted less
than 10 percent of the total, while the PGT (according to the official
record) had no military forces at all. Ricardo Rosales, the head of the PGT
since 1974, explained that although the number of PGT combatants was
indeed small, the Communist Party did have a military force. In 1984 the
PGT had established its own military front. When the army destroyed this
front in December 1985, however, the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party decided to offer the party’s personnel and military resources
to the remaining guerrilla groups.51 Thus a number of PGT combatants
were integrated into the military forces of the other URNG groups. For ex-
ample, the Frente Unitario (Unified Front) established in 1993 and origi-
nally consisting of only ORPA fighters, included 16 PGT combatants.52
In addition to the combatants concentrated in the various camps, the
URNG demobilized 2,813 additional members. This latter group consisted
of 493 people who had served as URNG international cadres, while the rest
were URNG leaders and other personnel who had served as political cadres
inside the country. Thus, according to United Nations records, the total
URNG membership at the time of demobilization was 5,753.53
Unfortunately, the Guatemalan data, particularly in regard to the
URNG’s gender composition, are not as complete as those from El Sal-
vador.54 This situation reflects the continued climate of fear within the
country at the time of demobilization and the extremely secretive nature
of the URNG.55 Nevertheless, a European Union–sponsored study of the
socioeconomic background of the URNG membership gives a reasonably
accurate picture of the URNG’s gender composition. URNG members car-
ried out this study during the demobilization process. The study is based on
a survey of 2,778 URNG combatants (of the 2,940 concentrated in the
camps) and 1,410 of the 2,813 political cadres. Although only half of the
political cadres were surveyed, we have an almost complete picture of
the URNG combatants.
According to Table 1.7, women represented 410 (15%) of the 2,778
combatants interviewed and 356 (about 25%) of the 1,410 political cadres.
These data demonstrate that compared to their involvement in El Salvador
and Nicaragua, female participation in Guatemala’s revolutionary struggle
was rather limited.56 Among combatants (where we have the most com-
plete data), the percentage of women in the URNG was only half as great
as the percentage of women in the Salvadoran guerrilla movement.
While lower levels of female participation distinguished the Guate-
Table 1.7 Gender Composition of URNG by Demobilization Category, 1997
Source: URNG, Personal Incorporado, 2–4.

malan guerrilla movement from its Central American counterparts, simi-

larities were evident in other areas. For example, the reasons that women
joined the guerrillas and the nature of gender relations during the war are
both comparable to the situations in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
The reasons female combatants gave most frequently when asked why
they joined the URNG had little to do with their gender interests. Instead
they were similar to those given by their male counterparts. Many women
joined out of a conviction that conditions in Guatemala had to be changed,
some sought greater safety following the assassination of family members,
while others joined the guerrillas together with their family. Representa-
tive reasons include “the need to move the country forward”; “the knowl-
edge that Guatemala suffered severe repression”; “the death of my mother
in combat in 1981”; “because of ethnic discrimination and the economic
situation at the time and the advice of my father, who was a member of the
revolutionary party.” One combatant said, “my parents were organized be-
fore I was born. I joined conscientiously at the age of thirteen.”57
In the early years of the Guatemalan guerrilla movement, female par-
ticipation was very limited. In 1962, says former guerrilla Aura Marina Ar-
riola, “the armed struggle was initiated with the organization of the first
Rebel Armed Forces (FAR). In these [forces] a number of us women par-
ticipated who also initiated our struggle for the liberation of women. Then
we didn’t know it, but in a society as machista as the Guatemalan, we were
true pioneers.”58 This female participation, however, was largely restricted
to the urban areas and involved support activities. URNG leader Juan José
Hurtado has affirmed that during the 1960s “the revolutionary movement
of the time failed to fully incorporate women. In fact, there were almost no
women combatants in the guerrilla ranks.”59 Even in the early 1970s
women were largely excluded. For example, Yvon Le Bot has emphasized
that the initial group that started the EGP guerrilla front in 1972 consisted
of fifteen men and not a single woman.60 Indeed, “Comandante Lola”
(Alba Estela Maldonado), the most senior female URNG commander at
the time of demobilization, recounts that when she joined the EGP in
1974 she found only two women among her group. It was only in 1978 – 80
that women started to join in greater numbers, but at no time did women
constitute more than 25 percent of the membership.61 In the 1970s, an in-
creasing number of indigenous women became part of the guerrilla move-
ment. Military leadership functions, however, were almost exclusively re-

served for male Ladinos.62 No woman held a rank higher than captain.63
The leadership initially strictly regulated sexual relations. Couples had
to go through a trial period and had to prove themselves before they could
seek permission to form a family. These stringent norms broke down as the
guerrilla movement grew in numbers. Many of the new recruits lacked
the political education and awareness of the old cadres. In the opinion of
the old guard, they exhibited a different level of commitment. Whereas the
original cadres held the view “if we join, it is for life” the new recruits
viewed their experience differently, announcing “I’ll join the guerrillas for
one year.”64 Once the movement started to grow, the strict discipline en-
forced during the early years of the conflict started to break down. Indeed,
the level of female participation in the URNG fluctuated because of the
number of fighters who had to leave the mountains because they were preg-
nant. Interestingly, experience in the guerrilla movement not only affected
gender relations but was an important factor in breaking down ethnic bar-
riers. According to Maldonado, members of different indigenous groups got
to know each other for the first time in a context where “ethnic differences
did not play a role in amorous relations.”65
Traditional gender relations were reinforced and challenged at the same
time. As noted above, women in the military command structure were the
exception. Those women who had power were often resented. For exam-
ple, in the ORPA, the wives of the commanders formed a tight network
that enabled them to exercise influence. Mid-level commanders resented
the informal power that their status and networking granted these
women.66 Most female combatants were active in communications, logis-
tics, and rear-guard activities. Traditional domestic activities, however,
such as preparing meals, washing clothes, cutting fire wood, or cleaning,
were more equally shared between the sexes. These experiences established
important precedents for the postwar period. Many female combatants
were reluctant to (re)assume traditional gender roles upon demobilization.
Others accepted the traditional gender roles assigned to them in the house-
hold as if their experiences in the guerrilla movement had never occurred.
Between April 15 and May 3, 1997, the ex-combatants left the camps
to reintegrate themselves into civilian life. The process of reintegration
promised to be complex and challenging. The URNG demobilized a pre-

dominantly young force, which was “demanding opportunities in educa-
tion, training, and work.”67 Almost two-thirds of the former combatants
were between the ages of sixteen and thirty. Of particular concern was the
fact that many fighters had lost their local roots. For example, 600 URNG
members had to be put into temporary housing upon leaving the camps,
since they had no place to go. Many had lost their entire families in the
war, while others were afraid to return to their village of origin, since they
would be stigmatized as official URNG combatants.68 The Ixcán incident
of May 1998 was ample proof that their fears were justified. The incident
occurred when a group of demobilized ex-combatants sought to return to
their communities and some villagers used violent means to prevent them
from doing so. This became a high-profile case because these communities
were considered sympathetic to the URNG.69
Conclusion: The Human Dimension
The data presented in this chapter clearly demonstrate the increased

role women came to play in Latin American guerrilla movements. In gen-
eral, neither the revolutionary Left nor the Nicaraguan Resistance had an
“enlightened” position regarding women’s emancipation during the days of
the military struggle. Thus, it is not surprising that only in exceptional cases
did women join the guerrillas because they considered these movements to
be fighting for women’s rights. Instead, concerns for a better future for their
children or a more just society motivated them.70 Nevertheless, the
counter-traditional nature of the revolutionary Left made it easier for
women to get accepted, while the Nicaraguan Resistance’s counterrevolu-
tionary struggle tended to uphold and reinforce traditional values, which
had obvious implications for potential female participation.71
All women, regardless of their ideology, suffered discrimination during
the reintegration phase. Their experiences during the war had raised the
expectations of many female combatants as to their role in the construc-
tion of their postwar societies. Having experienced the relative freedom
and equality of combat, which was characterized by the predominance of
nontraditional values, many women were reluctant to return to the
straightjacket of gender inequality imposed by traditional societal norms.

The former combatants paid a high price for their newly acquired gender
consciousness.
Female combatants seeking to rejoin their families were treated as out-
casts by their own parents, siblings, and children for having abandoned
their children during the war and chosen the revolutionary struggle over
their families.72 Not surprisingly, the feelings of guilt these women experi-
enced were foreign to fathers in similar situations. Whereas women were
seen as “having betrayed their families” men were recognized for “their
heroic struggle.” A number of female combatants felt deeply humiliated be-
cause at the war’s conclusion, their spouses, who started relationships with
younger women, abandoned them. Although this caused great resentment
among the women, the men’s decisions were not openly criticized. The
Central American societies, like other cultures, applied different standards
to men and women.
The personal stories of many combatants illustrate the high price
women paid for joining the struggle. Nidia Díaz’s personal difficulties are
representative of the challenges that many female guerrilla leaders faced
during and after the war. Díaz, one of the most senior female commanders
in the FMLN, played an important role in the negotiations ending the war.
She continued to hold important leadership posts in the FMLN following
its conversion into a political party and was nominated the FMLN’s vice-
presidential candidate in 1998.
Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban-American advisor to the Salvadoran armed
forces, had captured Díaz in 1985. She was imprisoned and tortured for
eight months. Rodriguez, infamous among the Left for his role in the cap-
ture and execution of Che Guevara, managed to prolong Diaz’s humiliat-
ing experience long after she regained her freedom by putting her brassiere
on exhibit in his Miami house.73 After she was exchanged for the daugh-
ter of President Napoleón Duarte, who had been abducted by an FMLN
commando, Díaz went to Nicaragua. Her mother had fled to Sweden with
Díaz’s four-year-old son Alejandro when Díaz was captured. When Díaz and
her son were reunited, Alejandro failed to recognize his mother. With her
hair burned and her body scarred from bullet wounds she seemed a stranger
to him. Alejandro, whose father was disappeared in 1985 in Guatemala,
was raised by his grandmother in Sweden and Cuba. For many years, he
considered his grandmother his real mother. Even after the peace accords,
Alejandro, by then a teenager, was afraid to return to El Salvador. This was
not surprising in light of the attempts on his mother’s life and the general
climate of violence prevailing in the country.
After the peace accords, Díaz continued to be a prime target for assassi-
nation attempts. Being close to her was considered so risky that her own
family initially refused to share a house with her. Considered “the psycho-
logical author” of the assassination of a group of U.S. Marines in an event
known as the Zona Rosa incident, Díaz was on repeated occasions refused
a visa to the United States, despite having become a member of the Sal-
vadoran parliament and being in charge of her party’s department of inter-
national relations.
During Díaz’s campaign as the FMLN’s vice-presidential candidate for
the March 1999 elections, Felix Rodríguez reappeared in her life. Four days
before the elections, Rodríguez came to El Salvador. In interviews with the
local media, he recounted the story of Díaz’s capture, claiming that chil-
dren had been among the FMLN fighters who had accompanied her at the
time. Two days later, Díaz finally had a chance to view a tape of the inter-
view. The interview brought back unpleasant memories; and after a night
of nightmares, Díaz awoke on election eve physically ill. She perceived the
purpose of Rodríguez’s visit as a “psychological operation” intended to cast
the FMLN in a bad light with the voters. Uncertain of the former CIA
agent’s intentions, she was particularly concerned about her son’s security.
Knowing that San Salvador was swarming with U.S. agents preparing for
the impending visit of President Clinton did nothing to allay her fears. The
March 1999 presidential election ended on a sadly personal note for Díaz.
The FMLN ticket headed by Facundo Guardado was defeated by ARENA
candidate Francisco Flores.
Q
2
Gender Equality and
the Central American Peace Accords
Of all those who shouldered a rifle,

only to the women did they give back a broom.
—Julio Manuel Canales-Cerro de Guazapa
Peace and democracy have returned to Central America. This is the view
held by many policymakers in the West who focus on the end to the civil
wars that were ravaging the region during the 1980s. Is it really the case
that El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala have now joined the “third
wave of democratization?”1
The Resistencia Nicaragüense2 was disarmed between April and June
1990, in the wake of the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
The conflict between the revolutionary government and the United
States–sponsored counterrevolution led to 30,865 Nicaraguans being
killed.3 These casualties were in addition to the 50,000 people who had
died during the Sandinista struggle to oust dictator Anastasio Somoza from
power. The Nicaraguan peace agreement was followed on January 16, 1992,
by the historic peace accords, signed at Chapúltepec Castle, Mexico, be-
tween the government of El Salvador and the guerrilla forces integrated in
the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. This agreement ended a
twelve-year conflict (1979 – 92) that had traumatized a whole nation. The
war ravaged the country, creating 1.5 million refugees and claiming the
lives of more than 70,000 people, most of them civilians. In the wake of
the accords, optimism regarding El Salvador’s future was widespread. On
Gender Equality and Peace Accords 33
December 29, 1996, the final Central American peace accord was com-
pleted. The guerrilla forces integrated into the URNG and the Guatemalan
government, headed by President Alvaro Arzú, signed an agreement that
ended the conflict that had engulfed Guatemala for thirty-six years. The
human suffering during this period defies imagination. According to the re-
port by the Commission for Historical Clarification, charged under the
peace accords with establishing the truth about Guatemala’s violent past,
more than 200,000 Guatemalans were killed or disappeared over the course
of the conflict.4 In addition, hundreds of villages were destroyed and 1.5
million people were internally displaced or sought refuge in Mexico.5
In all three wars, the United States government was a major player, ei-
ther backing repressive governments or sponsoring counterrevolutionary
forces. In March 1999, President Bill Clinton acknowledged the destruc-
tive role played by the United States in the Guatemalan conflict. In an un-
precedented gesture, President Clinton formally apologized to the Guate-
malan people at a meeting held in Antigua, Guatemala: “For the United
States, it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and
intelligence units which engaged in widespread repression was wrong, and
the United States must not repeat that mistake.”6
A comparison is useful for understanding the scope of the human tragedy
caused by these wars. The Vietnam War, in which 58,000 North American
soldiers were killed, led to the Vietnam Syndrome. The impact of the war
on the North American public was so great that it took years to rebuild
public support for open foreign interventions involving U.S. troops. Yet the
human cost incurred by the United States in the Vietnam War pales in
comparison to the suffering wrought on the Central American societies. In
terms of the U.S. population, the victims of the Nicaraguan revolutionary
and counterrevolutionary wars would amount to a staggering 7.3 million.
The conflict in El Salvador would correspond to 3.5 million deaths and 75
million refugees. Finally, the genocide in Guatemala would have been the
equivalent of 6 million dead North Americans.
Despite the end of the Central American wars, I argue that the prevail-
ing optimism regarding the future of democracy in Central America might
be premature.7 First, we have to question whether the Central American
countries should have been considered democracies before the civil con-
flicts intensified. They were ruled by military or authoritarian civilian gov-
ernments, which frequently violated established norms of formal democ-

racy and did little to satisfy the basic needs of their people. Thus it makes
little sense to talk about a “return” to democratic rule. Further, the current
emphasis on democratization is justified only if we focus on formal democ-
racy.8 While the institutionalization of electoral democracy9 in the wake
of the peace accords is encouraging, it is by no means a sufficient guaran-
tee that the emerging political structures will reflect popular interests. The
political transitions taking place in Central America have to be analyzed
in light of the wars that ravaged the region for so many years. The defini-
tive resolution of these conflicts, a precondition of sustainable peace and
democracy, requires more than an end to armed struggle. Rose Spalding has
emphasized that “peace building is not an inevitable extension of regime
transition, and it should not be subsumed under an electoral process.”10
Instead we need to focus on substantive (real) democracy, which re-
quires social and economic justice. From this perspective, a successful im-
plementation of the Central American peace accords was a sine qua non
for democratization in the region to have any meaning. In postwar
Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, the successful reintegration of the
former combatants into society had to be a central part of the process of
building peace and democracy. In the Nicaraguan context, Spalding has ar-
gued that political space for ex-combatants and the state’s capacity to at-
tend to their (and society’s) needs were key factors in the peace-building
process.11 Most ex-combatants belonged to traditionally marginalized sec-
tors and were thus particularly affected by the policies implemented by
their respective governments.
The Evolution of the Peace Agreements
The Central American peace process was driven by the need to find a
solution to the war between the revolutionary government in Nicaragua
and the U.S.-sponsored counterrevolutionary forces. The eventual disarm-
ing of the Nicaraguan Resistance required agreements far more compre-
hensive than any negotiation between the Sandinista government and the
counterrevolutionary forces could achieve. Accords between the Sandin-
istas and the Resistance became possible only after all the countries in the
region had agreed on the necessity of finding a peaceful solution to all con-
flicts ravaging Central America. The most important breakthrough oc-

curred at the second reunion of the Central American presidents, held Au-
gust 6 –7, 1987, in Guatemala.12 The agreements reached at this meeting
became known as the Arias Plan. The fundamental points of the treaty in-
cluded the recognition of the legitimacy of the Sandinista revolution by
the other Central American governments. Further, the agreement called
for an end to U.S. aid for the Nicaraguan Resistance and Soviet aid to the
Sandinistas as well as an amnesty program and the promise of a dialogue
between the two hostile camps.13
Negotiations between the Central American presidents began in 1986
in Guatemala, after the efforts of the Contadora group (consisting of
Colombia, Panama, Mexico, and Venezuela) had failed to bring about
peace in the region. The process concluded after six meetings on April 3,
1990, in Montelimar, Nicaragua. On this occasion, peace seemed finally at
hand. The Sandinista government, defeated in the elections of February
1990, was in the process of transferring power to the newly elected
Chamorro administration. This opened the space for the disarming of the
Resistance.
Following the initiation of the regional negotiations, the Sandinista
government had started a dialogue with the Contras. Initial contacts be-
tween the two sides began in 1987, but little progress was made. The first
significant breakthrough occurred in March 1988, when an important
agreement was signed in Sapoá, Nicaragua. The two sides established pro-
cedures for a cease-fire, disarmament, and an amnesty; and the Contras
agreed to accept only humanitarian aid from the United States.14 Subse-
quently the Resistance went through a divisive stage, characterized by in-
ternal struggles over the issue of negotiations with the Sandinistas.15 While
moderate leaders recognized the need to end the armed struggle, an in-
transigent sector opposed any accommodation with the revolutionary gov-
ernment. This left the Resistance without decision-making capability and
impeded further progress at the negotiating table. In the end, the moder-
ates won out. The support provided by the United States to the Contras’
cause was a crucial factor prolonging the war, although the U.S. govern-
ment became increasingly reluctant to continue funding in the wake of the
Iran-Contra scandal. According to Jack Child, it was only after Violeta
Chamorro had been elected president of Nicaragua that U.S. officials stated
publicly that “the United States expected the Contras to disarm.”16 Rep-
resentatives of the newly elected government met with the Contra leader-
ship during March 1990 in Toncontín, Honduras, and in April in Managua.
On these occasions, a definitive cease-fire was agreed upon, and the mech-
anism for the demobilization process was worked out. The indigenous
forces integrated into Yapti Tasba Masraka nanih Aslatakanka (Organiza-
tion of the Nations of the Motherland) and the Frente Sur (Southern
Front) of the Resistance signed separate accords.17
The disarming of the Contras began on April 16, 1990, and was com-
pleted on July 5. The main institution entrusted with verifying the demo-
bilization process was the CIAV-OEA. The CIAV-OEA was created with
the mandate of overseeing the demobilization of insurgent forces in Cen-
tral America and providing humanitarian assistance.18 In return for agree-
ing to disarm, the Nicaraguan government promised the Resistance “cash,
housing, health centers, schools, personal security and support for their full
reintegration into civilian life.”19
The initial government plan consisted in the creation of polos de desar-
rollo (development areas). The Resistance was supposed to receive land in
several regions of Nicaragua. The idea behind the areas was that they would
offer protection (they were supposed to be controlled by a new rural police
force consisting mainly of former Contras) and allow the government to
attend to the needs of the Contras in a coherent fashion.20 Yet these areas
were never created. The government simply lacked the resources to make
them a reality. In addition, the land to be set aside for the ex-Resistance
was already occupied by peasants who were not willing to give up their prop-
erties.21 Joaquín Lovo, vice-minister of Government, expressed a widely
held belief when he argued that the planned development areas were eco-
nomically and politically not viable.22 Thus, the members of the Resis-
tance were dispersed throughout the country. This situation complicated
their efforts to organize into a unified political force.
Developments in El Salvador were influenced by events in Nicaragua.
With the Sandinistas out of power, the FMLN had lost its main supporter
in the region. Further, the post–Cold War reality, following the demise of
the Soviet Union, represented a context that forced the main protagonists
of the Salvadoran conflict to see the benefits of a negotiated settlement.
Peace talks between the guerrillas and the government had been initiated
in 1984 under President Napoleon Duarte. Little progress was made during
the subsequent five years of “war with dialogue,” since the military option
still appeared viable to both sides.23
In November 1989, the FMLN began an offensive against the Salva-
doran government, hoping that the people would support it with a mass up-
rising. Despite significant battle successes (the guerrillas even occupied
large parts of the capital for days) mass support failed to materialize. In the
end, the FMLN was forced into a strategic retreat. The failure of this of-
fensive led the FMLN leadership to rethink the possibilities of continued
armed struggle. It became clear that the war could not be won militarily. In
particular, core FMLN supporters were growing increasingly tired of the
war. Morena Herrera, an FMLN leader, recounted that after the offensive
the leadership started to realize “that people no longer wanted war. People
who loved us a lot, including me personally, told us: ‘ Look, I collaborate
with you in whatever you want, but this has got to end.’ This was the first
time that the war had been experienced here [in the capital]. People got
scared. This led us to reflect on the possibilities of continuing the armed
struggle.”24 The Salvadoran government and the Bush administration, on
the other hand, which had claimed that the guerrillas had ceased to be a
military threat, were greatly embarrassed that the FMLN succeeded in oc-
cupying parts of the capital. The offensive was countrywide and led to at-
tacks on all the country’s major cities.25 In the wake of the offensive a fi-
nal two-year period of “war with negotiation” began.26
At the beginning of 1990 when the United Nations assumed a direct
role in facilitating the peace talks between the FMLN and the government,
prospects for a settlement improved.27 With negotiations making progress,
the Security Council authorized the May 1991 deployment of ONUSAL,
the United Nations Observer Group in El Salvador. ONUSAL’s mission
consisted in supervising the implementation of the accords between the
Salvadoran government and the guerrillas.28 The final breakthrough came
with the signing of a cease-fire on New Year’s Eve 1991 in New York, fol-
lowed by the January signing of the Chapúltepec peace accords. As part of
the comprehensive peace accords, the guerrillas agreed to demobilize their
military structures, and the Salvadoran government committed itself to re-
ducing the size of its armed forces. The FMLN demobilized its fighters in
five stages beginning on June 30, 1992, and ending on December 15.
The accords that ended the Guatemalan war were the result of negoti-
ations that were conducted over seven years and involved three successive
administrations. The first accord concerned democratization and was
signed in Querétaro, Mexico, on July 25, 1991. Interestingly, it was the gov-
ernment of Jorge Serrano, a conservative, who took this first important
step. When Serrano instigated a failed coup in May 1993, however, and was
subsequently forced from office, the negotiation process stalled. It was res-
urrected in 1994 under President Ramiro de León Carpio, with the United
Nations assuming the role of moderator. Further, a group of countries—
Norway, Colombia, Venezuela, Spain, Mexico, and the United States—
officially organized as the Group of Friends of the peace process, exerted
pressure on the two parties to resume talks.29 It took two more years and a
third Guatemalan administration, under President Alvaro Arzú, before the
government signed the final peace agreement with the leadership of the
URNG on December 29, 1996. The guerrilla movement agreed to demo-
bilize its forces in three phases over a period of two months. The disarming
of the combatants started on March 3, 1997. It was completed in August
of the same year, in a final, originally not programmed, fourth phase.
In contrast to the accords process in Nicaragua and El Salvador, civil so-
ciety contributed greatly to the successful initiation and conclusion of the
negotiations. The talks held between various sectors of Guatemalan soci-
ety, including the business sector, the religious community, and the labor
unions that preceded the signing of the first accord were essential because,
as Edgar Gutiérrez has pointed out, they “legitimized the idea of a negoti-
ated end to the armed conflict.”30 The role of civil society in the peace
process was institutionalized by an accord that established the Asamblea
de la Sociedad Civil (Assembly of Civil Society, or ASC). The ASC con-
sisted of ten diverse organizations representing the main sectors of
Guatemalan society and derived its legitimacy from the January 1994
framework agreement, giving it “official recognition as an interlocutor
by the parties to the peace talks.”31 Specifically, the ASC was charged with
the mandate “of transmitting to the UN moderator, the government and
the URNG, nonbinding recommendations” and “of acting as guarantor
for bilateral agreements to give them the character of national commit-
ments.”32
El Salvador
Women’s issues received scant to no attention in the peace negotiations

in El Salvador, although Nidia Díaz, Lorena Peña, and Ana Guadalupe
Martínez, all high-ranking female commanders, participated in this process.
At the time, none of the three women could have been considered an ad-
vocate for women’s rights. Peña has affirmed that the special problems of
women were simply not discussed during the negotiations. Now a commit-
ted feminist, she recognizes that women’s emancipation was not an issue
during the war and that she had had no idea of gender consciousness at the
time of the demobilization.33 Díaz strongly supported women’s rights
within the FMLN but tended to keep a low public profile on gender issues,
a habit she maintained during the negotiations.34 Martínez, on the other
hand, was the least likely supporter of a women’s rights agenda. Although
she expressed support for the inclusion of women in all party activities, she
considered the organized women’s movement extremist and radical.35
The lack of a gender perspective evident in the design of the reintegra-
tion programs translated into discrimination when female combatants ini-
tially did not receive equal treatment in the allocation of crucial resources
such as land.36 The reasons were many, ranging from machismo to lack of
support from the male-dominated leadership of the guerrilla movement.
Nidia Díaz, the FMLN official originally in charge of the land program, has
said that while the exclusion of female combatants was not officially sanc-
tioned or designed, the sociocultural context often made it a reality.37
Lorena Peña concurs: “I believe that the principal problem that we have
experienced is that the reintegration of the female combatant into civilian
life has taken place under the classical sexist concepts that have predomi-
nated in all political forces of the country, including the FMLN.”38 This
was particularly evident in the case of the Land Transfer Program estab-
lished to provide land to ex-combatants.
Early appraisals of the Land Transfer Program were quite pessimistic. In
1993, Lorena Peña claimed that an estimated 70 to 80 percent of female
combatants did not receive the benefits allocated to them.39 She based her
opinion on the findings of a study sponsored by UNICEF that recorded the
difficult situation female ex-combatants faced a year after the signing of the
peace accords.40 Later data on the reintegration programs, however, re-

vealed that the early instances of discrimination had largely been rectified.
The concern over the treatment of female FMLN militants regarding their
access to land under the reinsertion program was definitely justified. Land
was a particularly scarce resource in El Salvador.
Many observers considered the conflict over land a key issue that had
fueled the civil war. Mitchell Seligson has noted that many studies associ-
ate the country’s “high population density, greater than that of India, ex-
treme concentration in the distribution of land,” and the masses of “land-
less, land-poor, and tenant populations” with the prolonged confrontation
between the FMLN and the government.41 He himself suggests that the
agrarian question was less problematic than commonly believed and argued
that a “relative decline (not disappearance) of the agricultural sector has
occurred and with it a decline in the proportion of the population that is
landless and land-poor.”42 Although there is controversy regarding the de-
gree to which the land issue was a central cause underlying the Salvadoran
conflict, there is no question that living conditions in the countryside—
including access to land—were precarious. It is important to briefly ana-
lyze the situation of land tenure in order provide a context for the Land
Transfer Program.
Under pressure from the U.S. government, the military junta headed by
José Napoleon Duarte announced an agrarian reform in March 1980. Con-
ceived by U.S. advisors, the reform—on paper—was much more radical
than the 1981 Sandinista agrarian reform law in Nicaragua. It consisted of
three phases. Under Phase 1, all properties over 714 manzanas (500 hect-
ares) were to be expropriated (in Nicaragua, there was no limit on the
amount of land an individual could hold). Phase 2 would have expropri-
ated holdings between 143 (100 hectares) and 714 manzanas, while Phase
3 involved a “land-to-the-tiller” program.43
The reform suffered from many deficiencies: in addition to having been
designed from above without input from the intended beneficiaries, it had
internal contradictions, lacked ideological clarity, and could not overcome
the resistance of the dominant interests.44 Phase 2, which would have af-
fected the interests of the powerful coffee growers, was modified in 1983.
In order to protect the coffee oligarchy, the new rules stated that those
properties with less than 350 manzanas could not be expropriated.45 The
expropriations called for by Phase 1 were the catalyst for the formation of
death squads financed by the former owners, which plunged the country
into the insanity of the early 1980s when forty thousand people were mur-
dered. Finally, Wim Pelupessy has observed that Phase 3 was “more an ex-
ercise in establishing a permanent reserve labour force of smallholders than
an effort to meet their needs or to restructure the agrarian sector.”46
With the land issue unresolved during the 1980s, it naturally became an
important point of discussion during the peace negotiations. It has been ar-
gued that although “the FMLN chose, or was forced to choose, to rectify
political and military issues rather than socio-economic problems” in the
negotiations, the land question is the “chief exception to vagueness in the
reconstruction section of the accords.”47
The accords established that outside the zones of conflict, properties in
excess of the 350 manzanas limit established in Phase 2 of the 1980 agrar-
ian reform as well as state-owned lands were to be transferred to benefit
those peasants and small farmers who needed land.48 For the zones of con-
flict, the FMLN was supposed to present an inventory of occupied proper-
ties. This inventory eventually came to comprise a list of 4,666 properties,
representing 375,714 manzanas or 18 percent of the country’s arable land.49
Following many arguments, the government and the FMLN agreed that
seventy-five hundred FMLN combatants, twenty-five thousand tenedores
(squatters generally considered supportive of the FMLN), and fifteen thou-
sand demobilized members of the Armed Forces, were to receive land un-
der the Land Transfer Program.50
The program was plagued by difficulties, and several deadlines passed be-
fore its various phases were successfully completed. There was more than
enough blame to go around. Officials from the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), which financed a large part of the
program, accused the FMLN of not providing beneficiary lists on time. The
FMLN, on the other hand, criticized USAID for being overly bureau-
cratic51 and faulted government agencies for the exceedingly slow imple-
mentation of the program.52
As Table 2.1 indicates, by March 1994, only limited progress had been
made. Based on data supplied by the United Nations, 10,619 beneficiaries
had received title to 41,709 manzanas of land. Of those, 7,748 were former
FMLN combatants and tenedores, while 2,871 were former soldiers. In ad-
Table 2.1 State of Land Transfer Program, March 1994
Source: ONUSAL.
11 manzana ⫽ 0.7 hectares ⫽ 1.75 acres.
2Cost of titled state properties not included.
dition, FMLN officials had successfully negotiated the sale of 80,217 man-
zanas, benefiting 18,269 people, but legal proceedings had not been com-
pleted. The titling process was cumbersome indeed. A year later, on April
30, 1995, when the ONUSAL mission was downgraded to MINUSAL
(United Nations Mission in El Salvador)53 and yet another deadline for
the completion of the program had passed, the number of beneficiaries had
almost doubled to 20,790. It now comprised 3,818 former guerrillas, 13,121
tenedores, and 3,851 members of the Armed Forces.54 Although the rate
of the titling process had increased, more than three years after the signing
of the accords, the needs of less than 50 percent of the intended 47,500
beneficiaries had been met.
The slow implementation of the Land Transfer Program created serious
problems for the former combatants and tenedores. They were generally
impoverished and thus could not afford being idle while waiting until all
legal hurdles had been cleared. Those who wanted to farm the land despite
the legal uncertainties could not do so due to lack of credit, which was only
available to those with a secure title.55 As a result, many beneficiaries aban-
doned the properties that they had occupied and were in the process of ne-
gotiating. According to MINUSAL, when the mission was about to con-
clude its mandate in March 1996, these problems had reduced the number
of beneficiaries from 7,500 FMLN combatants to 5,896 and from 25,000
tenedores to 22,525. Interestingly, the greatest decrease could be observed
in the case of the Armed Forces. Of the 15,000 soldiers entitled to receive
land, there were only 8,130 final beneficiaries.56
By mid-1996, about 90 percent of the final beneficiary population had
received land, yet only 50 percent had completed the process of legally reg-
istering their properties. Several officials involved in the program main-
tained that the process should not be rushed. They pointed to neighbor-
ing Nicaragua, where the insecurity of land tenure contributed to the
violence engulfing the countryside, and argued that the more orderly, al-
beit slow, process in El Salvador was the preferable way to proceed. A
shortcoming of the Salvadoran program was that it discriminated against
young FMLN fighters. Only guerrillas who were sixteen years old on Feb-
ruary 1, 1992, were eligible to receive land, which excluded an estimated
700 teenagers.57
As of March 1996, a total of 4,282 ex-combatants and 14,652 tenedores
Table 2.2 Gender Distribution of the Land Transfer Program Beneficiaries—Titled Private Properties, March 1996
Source: Land Bank.

had received titles to private properties. From a gender perspective, the

central problem in the implementation of the land program was that ini-
tially many women were excluded. By the time the program neared its com-
pletion, however, one could not detect evidence of gender discrimination.
Of the universe of 18,934 beneficiaries who obtained private properties,
1,122 ex-combatants and 5,203 tenedores (33.4%) were female. In terms
of gender equality, the case of the ex-combatants is most illustrative.
Women represented 29.1 percent of the FMLN’s combatants at the time of
demobilization. Since the 1,122 female militants receiving land titles made
up 26.2 percent of the beneficiary population, the data no longer supported
the earlier reports of gender discrimination. Further, according to Antonio
Alvarez, the FMLN official in charge of the reintegration programs, an ad-
ditional 677 former combatants received properties owned by the state. In
this case too, about one third of the beneficiaries were female.58 Thus
women received land according to their relative strength in the FMLN at
the time of demobilization. In light of this evidence the question must be
raised why the perception of widespread discrimination continues to pre-
vail among female FMLN officials as well as rank-and-file members.
While the later record of the land-titling program contradicts claims of
massive discrimination, evidence from the early stages of the reintegration
programs indicated that women were indeed discriminated against.59 A
1993 study of the Land Transfer Program concluded: “A good part of the
tenedoras, particularly those that are acompañadas (common-law spouses)
or married, remain at the margins of the benefits of the Land Transfer Pro-
gram, because the communal leaders apply discriminatory criteria to
women.”60 Indeed, senior FMLN officials confirmed that there were prob-
lems, particularly in the departments of Cuscatlán and San Salvador. Ac-
cording to Alvarez, these problems were due to actions taken by local offi-
cials and not the product of official FMLN policy.61 These instances of
discrimination took a variety of forms.
In cases in which both husband and wife were tenedores, frequently only
the husband was registered as a potential beneficiary, a practice in direct
violation of the official guidelines. Alvarez argues that local officials mis-
interpreted the rules and allocated land per family group and not per indi-
vidual as established in the guidelines. An opportunity to correct these
problems presented itself when the official universe of potential beneficia-
ries was revised in 1993, and 7,280 people were added.62 Thus, women who
had been excluded originally could be incorporated into the new lists.
Yet women faced other hurdles as well. Communal leaders established
their own requisites for potential beneficiaries, such as knowing how to read
and write or possessing birth certificates or voter registration cards.63 Since
women were more likely than men to be illiterate and to lack proper doc-
umentation, these measures were discriminatory. For example, Michelle
Saint-Germain has estimated that of the seventy-five thousand Salvado-
rans who did not succeed in obtaining their voter registration cards in 1994
because their personal identification papers were missing or not in order,
75 percent were women.64 Further, those women who were successful in
obtaining land “had more problems in securing loans and technical assis-
tance than the men did.”65 Another manifestation of these subtler and
therefore hidden forms of discrimination could be found in the poor qual-
ity of the land that was often assigned to women. In addition, many po-
tential female beneficiaries excluded themselves, feeling they were inca-
pable of assuming the responsibility of repaying the assumed debt. Others
argued that they were too old or lacked farming experience.66
The statistics on the remaining reintegration programs showed little ev-
idence of gender discrimination. According to Table 2.3, which summa-
Table 2.3 Gender Composition of Reinsertion Programs
Source: FMLN internal document.

Note: The universe of beneficiaries in the three tables differs. Table A refers only to ex-combatants; Table
B to ex-combatants, political personnel, and wounded noncombatants; and Table C shows data only for
demobilized members of the FPL. The total number of FMLN beneficiaries in the Industry and Service
Program is 880.
Table 2.4 Gender Composition of Economic Reinsertion Program for FMLN Leaders and
Middle-Level Officers
Source: FMLN internal document.
rizes the agricultural credit program for ex-combatants, about one quarter
of the beneficiaries were female. Although this percentage is somewhat
lower than the percentage of female FMLN members at demobilization, the
data do not support claims of institutionalized discrimination.
In the Study Grant and Industry and Services programs, women were in
fact somewhat over-represented, constituting about 40 percent of the ben-
eficiaries. However, the analysis of yet another program, which provided
for financing of small economic projects to help FMLN leaders and mid-
dle-level officers with their reintegration into society, reveals that one
needs to go beyond the statistics to understand the gender dynamics of the
peace process.
The program for FMLN officers provided financing to 119 female FMLN
leaders, who represented 20 percent of the 598 beneficiaries (Table 2.4).
This number corresponds to the wartime estimate of women holding 20
percent of the military leadership positions.67 Financial awards were made
according to the level of responsibility held during the war. The 16 women
at the highest level represented 11.5 percent of the total in that category.
The remaining women were split rather evenly between the two lower lev-
els but made up a somewhat greater percentage of the total. It is not sur-
prising that so few women were to be found in the highest category, con-
sidering that the 15-member Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU) in-
cluded only 3 women during the war.
While the overall number of women who participated in this program
corresponded to their respective strength in leadership positions, argu-
ments arose over the relative rankings of particular women. The testimony
of Morena Herrera, a former FMLN leader and head of Las Dignas, an im-
portant women’s organization, is representative of the sentiments of other
women in her position:
A friend came and told me: “Look, Morena, they are making a list [of ben-
eficiaries] for 600 FMLN leaders, and you can be part of it” . . . There were
three levels, A, B, and C, according to the leadership position one had oc-
cupied, and they asked me, “At what level are you?” “Show me the criteria
for how these categories are established,” I said to the girl who was register-
ing, and she explained it to me. “Put me in level A,” I told her. But it [the
list] was checked by the leaders, the Political Commission of the Front . . .
and they left me in category B. However, they proposed initially to take me
out [of A] and put me in category C.68
Whether Herrera was justified in her self-appraisal is beside the point.

What is significant about her story is that female FMLN leaders felt that
their contribution to the cause was not sufficiently valued by their male
counterparts and that they suffered discrimination in the implementation
of the reintegration programs. Morena Herrera emphasized in a recent con-
versation that her story should be understood in light of the struggle for au-
tonomy being waged at the time of the demobilization by several women’s
groups affiliated with the FMLN. Because of this struggle, relations between
male and female leaders tended to be tense.69
Male and female FMLN members alike faced enormous challenges in
their efforts to reintegrate themselves into society. Yet, according to a rep-
resentative FMLN study of beneficiaries of the accords, female combatants
were confronted with additional hurdles “due to their gender, since society
in general restricts the opportunities for development of women as such
and because of this there is greater discrimination toward FMLN women
who did and do not conform totally with the stereotypical roles assigned to
women.”70 Also, the programs failed to consider the special needs of
women. FMLN women who gathered for a national meeting in August
1993 emphasized this problem: “The reintegration plans did not take
women’s specificity into account and because of this the benefit for women
ex-combatants has been minimal. Also, there are programs that were im-
plemented with a stereotypical vision of women. There has been no re-
sponsible follow-up of widows, wounded ex-combatants, or the orphan
children of the war.”71 This reality explains the frustration and anger en-
countered in interviews with female militants.
Women were allowed a “counter-traditional role” as long as it was in the
interests of the struggle. After the war, when their new identities threat-
ened traditional gender relations, an attempt was made to relegate them to
the private sphere and disempower them.72 A 1993 study of 1,100 FMLN
women provided evidence that this was indeed the case. In one important
indicator, 57 percent of the women interviewed reported that they had
worked primarily in the household before the war, while barely a year after
the peace accords 95 percent said they were engaged in domestic work.73
With no immediate remedies available to address the resulting psycholog-
ical traumas and emotional scars, women focused their energies on chal-
lenging the discriminatory practices encountered within the FMLN. As we
will see, eventually their efforts translated into increased gender equality
within the party. This suggests that many women who had joined the FMLN
in their early teens and had experienced relative freedom to establish their
gender identity during the war were forced back into traditional roles.
Nicaragua
The central issue complicating the reintegration into society of the

Nicaraguan resistance was the ongoing dispute over property rights. Un-
like El Salvador, Nicaragua was blessed with low population density. Al-
though land scarcity was a problem in the densely populated pacific regions
of Nicaragua, it was the insecurity of land tenure that was the crux of the
problem. According to 1992 estimates, more than 165,000 rural house-
holds that owned property had some defect in their titles.74 Many of these
problems stemmed from the days of the Sandinista government.
The Sandinista revolution profoundly changed Nicaragua’s land tenure

structure. Almost 50 percent of the country’s arable land was affected by
the agrarian reform. The percentage of large farms (those over 500 man-
zanas)75 was reduced from 36.2 to 6.4 percent. At the same time, new pro-
ductive relations, comprising state enterprises and production coopera-
tives, emerged. In 1989, these new types of producers controlled about 23
percent of total arable land.76 According to Jaime Wheelock, the Sandin-
ista official in charge of the agrarian reform, a total of 59,200 families re-
ceived 1,495,953 manzanas of land between 1981 and 1990. Further, thou-
sands of squatters in the agricultural frontier were given title to their land.77
The agrarian reform suffered from a major deficiency—the land distri-
bution program was not definitive. At the time of the Sandinista electoral
defeat on February 25, 1990, many cooperatives and individual producers
who had received land under the agrarian reform lacked legal titles. The
problem was quite extensive. Although the Sandinistas accelerated the
pace of the land titling process during the election campaign of 1989 – 90,
a considerable number of agrarian reform beneficiaries remained without
secure property rights. The revolutionary government sought to address
this issue during the transition period. According to official data, 76 per-
cent of all land distributed to individuals before April 1990 was titled be-
tween August 1989 and April 1990. In the case of cooperatives the corre-
sponding figure was 49.6 percent.78
Between February 25 and April 25, 1990, the Sandinistas passed laws
85, 86, and 88, which legalized urban and rural properties that had been
distributed while the revolutionary government was in power but whose
owners had not received legal titles. Yet the Sandinistas also transferred
new land during this period. Critics of the revolutionary government main-
tained that during the two-month transition more than 750,000 manzanas
were distributed to supporters of the revolutionary government. Official
data released by the Chamorro government show that during March and
April 1990, 399,846 manzanas were titled to 8,583 families.79 Wheelock,
however, acknowledged the distribution of only 130,000 manzanas of new
land. He claimed that the rest concerned the titling of previously distrib-
uted land.80 The distribution of new land and the misappropriation of state
property by Sandinista officials during the transition period (events known
as the piñata) damaged the reputation of the revolutionary authorities and
did little to solve the insecurity of land tenure. While the Sandinistas could
pass last-minute laws, which provided agrarian reform beneficiaries with ti-
tles, they were not able to get these titles registered. Without having their
properties legally registered, the beneficiaries frequently faced challenges
to their ownership by parties who held titles to the same property and, in
some instances, had their titles legally registered.
It was in this difficult climate that a new group with land demands
emerged—the demobilized Nicaraguan Resistance. Its members from rural
areas were originally promised about 70 manzanas each in the above-men-
tioned development areas.81 Having left these faltering centers, the ex-
combatants requested land in the communities where they had eventually
settled down. Since land was not made immediately available, the ex-Con-
tras invaded private properties, cooperatives, and state farms. The Contras
were part of a wave of land invasions, initiated in 1990 by farm workers oc-
cupying state farms. By 1994, over a thousand invasions had taken place,
destabilizing the Nicaraguan countryside.82 In northern Nicaragua, where
the departments of Matagalpa and Jinotega are located, twelve hundred ex-
Contras occupied thirty-three private farms in the first year following their
demobilization.83 Overall, members of the Resistance occupied more than
half a million manzanas, including state, private, and cooperative farms.84
Sandinista production cooperatives were prime targets of attacks. In 1990
members of the Resistance invaded over 220 cooperatives.85 Although
many cooperatives became battlegrounds between Sandinista peasants and
Contras, there were numerous examples of cooperatives that gave part of
their land to ex-combatants. According to the Unión Nacional de Agricul-
tores y Ganaderos (National Union of Farmers and Ranchers), over 30,000
manzanas were given to demobilized Contras.
The number of land invasions started to decline once the Chamorro
government’s agrarian reform program began to be implemented. Although
the new government was justified in claiming credit for distributing a con-
siderable amount of land during its first two years in office, the manner in
which land was distributed was not definitive, that is, titles were often pro-
visional and conflicted with existing property claims. By March 1992,
701,500 manzanas had been distributed benefiting 24,038 families. Ac-
cording to official data, 80 percent of the distributed land went to members
of the ex-Resistance. Overall, more that half a million manzanas were
given to 15,691 families. This left about 7,000 Contras without land. It is
reasonable to assume that a considerable number of the 22,500 demobilized
fighters were not interested in engaging in agricultural production, since 29
percent did not have rural backgrounds. Further, almost one-fourth had
been property owners prior to joining the Resistance. Nevertheless, the
continued pressure for land indicated that the land issue had not been suc-
cessfully settled.
In addition to the ex-Resistance, several other groups demanded land.
Foremost were over 77,000 members of the Sandinista army and security
forces who had to find means of subsistence, having lost their jobs when
the army was restructured between 1990 and 1992.86 Another group in
need was agricultural workers who had been laid off when the state farms
were privatized. By March 1992, over 35,000 agricultural workers were un-
employed as a consequence of the privatization program.87 It is reasonable
to assume that some members of this group returned to their original land
and were not in need of land allocated under the reintegration program. Fi-
nally, there were about 22,000 peasants without land or with insufficient
land whose needs had not been satisfied under the Sandinista govern-
ment.88 In light of the considerable number of people demanding land, it
is surprising that José Boanerges Matus, minister of Agrarian Reform, ar-
Table 2.5 Land Distributed under the Chamorro Government, April 1990–March 1992
Source: Data obtained by author from the Minister of Agrarian Reform, José Boanerges Matus.
gued in 1992 that the land distribution program was basically completed,
since all state land accumulated under the Sandinistas had been distrib-
uted.89
Although most members of the Nicaraguan Resistance did receive land,
access to land by itself did not guarantee their economic subsistence. Many
other problems remained to be solved. Former owners frequently succeeded
in their efforts to dispossess beneficiaries because the distribution program
was badly designed and violated existing property rights. In addition, many
Contras had little experience in production, having joined the Resistance
as teenagers. Further, as agricultural producers were quick to point out, the
new farmers lacked the resources to use their land productively.90 The cen-
tral problem revolved around the access to credit. Under the agricultural
development policies of the Chamorro government, large capital-intensive
production units were given priority over small-scale producers who were
typical of the beneficiary population. Further, the banking system itself was
under severe strain and had little capital to lend. Another problem was the
lack of a legal title, a prerequisite for obtaining agricultural credit. The
overwhelming majority of the ex-combatants had no legal title. Govern-
ment officials acknowledged the problem in 1992 and promised an efficient
titling process for the future. Yet the titling process proceeded at a snail’s
pace.
The data in Table 2.6 indicate the extent of the problem. By July 1993,
only 16 percent (111,809 manzanas) of the 700,000 manzanas distributed
by 1992 had been titled. Members of the Resistance received about one-
third of all titles, representing 45,742 manzanas. The titling process con-
tinued at a slow pace. A year and a half later, in December 1994, a little
over 300,000 manzanas had been titled, again with one-third going to the
Resistance.91 Considering that the Contras had received more than half a
million manzanas, the titled area was insignificant. Under these circum-
stances, it is not surprising that the instability in the Nicaraguan country-
side continued.
Following the October 1996 election of Arnoldo Alemán as president
of Nicaragua, the property issue remained the key area of conflict between
the government and the Sandinistas. The magnitude of the problem was
impressive, and there was evidence of it every day. Announcements in the
news section of the main Nicaraguan newspapers warned potential buyers
Table 2.6 Titled Properties by Department, September 1992–July 1993
Source: Nicaraguan Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) internal data.
that several parties contested the rights to certain properties advertised for
sale. With the Alemán government taking the position that it would not
“negotiate” the property question with the Sandinistas, relations between
the government and the main opposition party remained acrimonious dur-
ing 1997.92 The reality behind the tough rhetoric on both sides, however,
was different. By September 1997, it became public knowledge that the
FSLN leadership and the Alemán government had been secretly negotiat-
ing the property question for seven months. The September public an-
nouncement of a draft for a new property law, elaborated by the FSLN and
government officials, caused strong reactions. During Spring 1997, the gov-
ernment and the FSLN agreed to convoke a meeting with representatives
from all major sectors of civil society. This conference, called the Diálogo
Nacional (National Dialogue) was charged with helping to find solutions
to Nicaragua’s most pressing problems.93 Not surprisingly, the property
question headed the agenda. When the deal struck between the two main
political forces became public, key participants in the Dialogue (in which
the FSLN had refused to participate) wondered aloud whether the Dia-
logue had been relegated to a sideshow. While the participants had been
working between July and September 1997 to achieve a societal consensus

to solve the thorny property issue, the FSLN and the government had cre-
ated a faît accompli. The National Assembly, with the votes of the FSLN
and Liberal Alliance, approved the new property law in December.
The sense of betrayal extended to high-ranking Sandinistas. Henry Ruiz,
one of the historic FSLN commanders and a member of its National Di-
rectorate felt so deceived that he announced, “the draft for a new property
law was for me the point to leave.”94 In his view, the Sandinista leadership
had abandoned its core constituency, the poor majority: “We have lost the
meaning of the historic mission that we carried and because of that I no
longer want to continue in this Sandinismo.”95 In the opinion of many ob-
servers, a pact among the elites had once again protected their interests
while abandoning the poor. The Contras were part of this disenfranchised
majority whose needs were not taken into account. The reintegration into
society of the Nicaraguan Resistance had encountered many problems. As
a result, Nicaragua continued to be plagued by high levels of rural violence.
Guatemala
In Guatemala, a vocal women’s movement supported the efforts of a few

high-ranking female URNG officials to put gender equality on the agenda
of the peace negotiations.96 For example, Luz Méndez, a member of the
URNG’s commission negotiating the peace accords, was conscious of the
importance of incorporating women’s rights into the agreements.97 She
had learned from the Salvadoran experience. As discussed, the FMLN lead-
ership had paid little attention to women’s rights in the peace negotiations.
Although Méndez and several other officials advocated the necessity of in-
corporating a gender perspective into the accords, this view was not repre-
sentative of the URNG in general. Awareness of gender issues was limited
in the guerrilla movement. This made it imperative for the advocates of
women’s rights to be supported from sectors within society at large.
The Assembly of Civil Society particularly played an important role in
advocating the inclusion of women’s rights into the accords. A highly vis-
ible group within the ASC was the Women’s Sector. URNG official Co-
mandante Lola affirmed that “the Women’s Sector, practically the only one
with a permanent presence in the Assembly of Civil Society, influenced . . .
the coordination and the content of some of the accords.”98 As a result,

women’s rights were specifically addressed in four of the seven substantive
agreements that were reached between July 1991 and September 1996.
This fact was publicized only days after the signing of the accords in a study
of the accords’ gender content conducted by researchers from the Univer-
sity of San Carlos and released in January 1997.99 The emphasis on gender
issues in the Guatemalan peace accords indicates that the level of gender
awareness in the region had changed since the 1992 Salvadoran agreement.
Indeed, there were a number of important passages on women’s rights in
the accords. In the accord establishing procedures for the resettlement of
populations uprooted during the war, the parties agreed “to emphasize in
particular the protection of families headed by women, as well as the wid-
ows and orphans who have been most affected.”100 Further, the Guate-
malan government “committed itself to eliminating all forms of discrimi-
nation, factual or legal, against women, and to make it easier [for them to
have] access to land, housing, [and] credit and to participate in develop-
ment projects. A gender perspective will be incorporated in the policies,
programs and activities of the global development strategy.”101 In the im-
portant agreement on the rights of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples, con-
sidered one of the key achievements of the URNG leadership, indigenous
women were given special protection. For example, sexual harassment of
an indigenous woman was to be punished particularly severely under
Guatemalan law.102 Women’s political rights were also addressed. The
accord concerning the strengthening of civil society advocated the intro-
duction of measures of positive discrimination to increase female partici-
pation. The agreement required the signatory parties “to take the corre-
sponding measures in order to ensure that organizations of political and
social character adopt specific policies tending to encourage and favor
women’s participation as part of the process of strengthening civilian
power.”103
Luz Méndez emphasized the importance of the international climate
during the peace negotiations. For example, discussions on the socioeco-
nomic and agrarian accord coincided with the 1995 Fourth World Confer-
ence on Women in Beijing. Having gender issues on the forefront interna-
tionally made it easier to incorporate provisions favoring women’s rights
into this accord.104 A key passage of the agreement stated:
Recognizing the insufficiently appreciated contribution of women in all

spheres of economic and social activity, particularly their work in favor of
improving the community, the [signatory] parties recognize the necessity of
strengthening women’s participation in economic and social development
on terms of equality. To this end the government commits itself to take the
specific economic and social situation of women into account in the strate-
gies, plans and development programs and to train civil servants in the
analysis and planning based on this perspective. This includes: recognizing
the equality of rights between women and men in the home, the workplace,
production, as well as in social and political life and assuring them the same
possibilities as men, in particular concerning access to credit, the awarding
of land and other productive and technological resources.105
Thus, the Guatemalan accords were unique in addressing the role of

women in society and advocating change toward greater gender equality.
The accords reflected a rethinking of women’s role in society. At least at a
formal level, women were acknowledged as key protagonists in Guatemala’s
future development.106 Yet the challenge remained to implement the pro-
visions in the accords in a way that would transform Guatemalan society.
Jack Spence and his colleagues have emphasized that “the Guatemalan
agreement contains more wide ranging language on social and economic
areas, by far, than the Salvadoran accord, but a great many of the provi-
sions are stated in sufficiently general terms as to make them virtually un-
enforceable.”107 The authors point to this as the Achilles’ heel of the
accords. David Holiday has argued that the guerrillas were considered “rel-
atively weak actors with minority support within society” and therefore
“lacked the kind of leverage exerted by revolutionaries in neighboring El
Salvador.”108 There is strong consensus that the URNG’s weakness at the
bargaining table made it impossible for the guerrilla leadership to negoti-
ate more specific, enforceable agreements, a reality that impeded the full
realization of the provisions in the accords.
The challenge of reintegrating the URNG combatants into civilian life
was enormous. Of particular concern were the poverty and the ethnic back-
grounds of the ex-combatants. The majority of the URNG’s personnel
came from Guatemala’s twenty-one indigenous peoples and belonged to
the most marginalized sectors of society. Among URNG combatants, in-
digenous people represented 82 percent of the total, while they made up

about 50 percent of the political cadres.109 Communication between
URNG members was difficult due to significant language barriers within
the indigenous community. According to Rachel McCleary, “among the
rank-and-file supporters of the URNG, 16 indigenous languages [were] spo-
ken.”110 The living conditions of Guatemala’s indigenous communities
were appalling. The people had little access to the most basic human needs,
including health care, housing, and education. World Bank data reveal that
in the countryside, where the overwhelming majority of the indigenous
population is located, 90 percent lived in conditions of abject poverty.111
In the case of URNG personnel, government statistics indicated that in the
zones of origin of the majority of URNG members, 82 percent of the pop-
ulation lived in poverty or absolute poverty.112
In a few areas, the socioeconomic profile of URNG members was re-
markably different from that of the population in general. For example, 84
percent of the ex-combatants and political cadres were literate, and an
equally large group had some form of technical or university education.113
In the general population, on the other hand, the literacy rate was only 66
percent.114 In most regards, however, the URNG members shared the char-
acteristics of the general population. The majority of the former combat-
ants was of peasant background without access to land or stable jobs.115
Thus, the URNG leadership, seeking to provide for the needs of its sup-
porters in the wake of the peace accords, confronted an enormous chal-
lenge.
Not surprisingly, early evaluations of the peace accords’ impact sounded
a pessimistic note. Leaders of the women’s movement argued that “the de-
mands of women in respect to the implementation of the accords lack tan-
gible results. Fourteen months after they took effect, it is difficult to per-
ceive how these commitments have been converted into actions; the
reality is that six out of every ten Guatemalan women live in rural areas,
and the absence of public services is common.”116 The government was
criticized for “failing to have an idea of how to attend to women’s historic
problems” and for lacking a strategy of action designed to ensure that the
provisions of the accords would not remain empty words.117
Unlike the Salvadoran accords, the accords in Guatemala did not enti-
tle ex-combatants to receive land. The URNG leadership criticized the
lack of “an immediate and effective solution” for URNG cadres with a
farming background.118 Whereas most ex-combatants shared a peasant
background, only 16 percent indicated they had any land.119 Their predic-
ament reflected the conditions prevailing in Guatemala’s rural sector: ex-
treme inequality in land tenure and extensive insecurity over property
rights. Not surprisingly, the situation was particularly precarious for URNG
women. Only 25 female ex-combatants had any land, while 635 (out of the
total 766 interviewed) had responsibility for the support and survival of
their families. The burden of responsibility was particularly heavy in the
case of the 141 single mothers.120
The prospects for URNG militants were bleak because the “URNG was
unable to get agreement in the negotiations for provisions calling for a land
reform that would have been a pale version of that legislated by the Arbenz
government forty five years earlier because the issue is anathema to the gov-
ernment and the large landholders that back it.”121 Due to the resistance
of the rural bourgeoisie, it was believed that only “small numbers of former
combatants” would be able to obtain “land and credit for purchasing it un-
der the accords.”122 The positive exception to the bleak situation was the
successful distribution of land to returning refugees.123
The initial stage of reintegrating URNG forces into Guatemalan soci-
ety—under the shared responsibility of the government, the URNG, and
a group of countries supporting the accords—concluded in May 1998.124
The reintegration program was multifaceted and included economic, edu-
cational, human rights, family reunification, documentation, health care,
housing, and training components. Interviews conducted with political
cadres and former URNG combatants between August 1997 and June 1998
show that the great majority of URNG personnel had received some ben-
efits under the reinsertion programs.125 Overall the international commu-
nity pledged close to $2 billion to aid Guatemala with the implementation
of the peace accords.126 Obviously, URNG members received only a frac-
tion of these funds. Most were given about $600 to cover their immediate
monetary needs following their demobilization. They also received an
equivalent amount in agricultural inputs. The most fortunate obtained
credit to buy land. Those not interested in farming received training in var-
ious vocations or obtained study grants to continue their education. In-
evitably, some URNG members fell through the cracks. A local URNG
leader complained that “there are historic fighters who have been left out
[of the reinsertion programs].” As in El Salvador there were instances of
gender discrimination in the allocation of benefits. María, a young female
combatant, complained that she had received no land “because they gave
it to my compañero.”
After years in the mountains, URNG combatants had to start over un-
der precarious circumstances. Despite these difficult circumstances, ex-
combatants expressed hope that they had not fought in vain. Doña Vir-
ginia, formerly an armed combatant explained, “Many of us had nothing
or we lost everything in the war. In fact, we needed something in order to
live with dignity, and for this we fought—not only for us but for a lot of
people who will also benefit from the productive projects.” Several com-
batants emphasized the enormous difficulty they faced in making a new life.
Dozens of former fighters had to spend more than a year in hostels follow-
ing their demobilization because they had nowhere to go. Almost all
URNG cadres had problems obtaining the legal documents required for a
successful reintegration into society. Expectations generally exceeded the
limited benefits. Disappointment and the pressures of daily life made many
former combatants reluctant to continue their militancy in the URNG.
As in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the URNG leadership had problems
in maintaining close relations with its supporters from the war days. Sev-
eral party leaders affirmed, and personal interviews with URNG cadres
confirmed, that the URNG had lost part of its rank and file during the
transition from a military organization to a political movement. Grass-roots
leaders, sympathetic to the ideas of the revolutionary Left, complained that
their constituents who had fought with the URNG were not aware of the
content of the URNG’s political project.127 For several months following
the signing of the peace accords, the URNG lacked the organic structures
necessary to maintain contact with the grass roots. The military structures
from the war days had been dissolved, and the structures of the emerging
political party were still under construction at the local and regional level.
Once the ex-combatants returned to their communities, they struggled
to make a new life. The great majority had no economic resources or sup-
port from their families. According to a 1999 study, 19 percent of the
URNG militants interviewed felt rejected by their communities and 80
percent reported being unemployed.128 The daily fight for survival left
them little time for activities involving the emerging party. This was par-
ticularly true for female militants.129 Also, a number of URNG militants
were disillusioned with the peace accords and showed little interest in be-
coming part of a new political movement. Other old cadres were simply left
out, a development that caused great resentment. Those militants who
were active in party-building were accustomed to taking orders from the
leadership and had a difficult time adjusting to the new “democratic” real-
ity, where the neatness of following the directions from the leadership was
replaced by messy participatory decision-making.
At the same time there was an influx of new people who frequently
lacked the commitment to the political project that had originally given
rise to the Guatemalan guerrilla movement. One of the advantages these
newcomers had was that their documentation was in order while many
longtime URNG supporters lacked the legal documents required to offi-
cially join a political party. Once again, this was especially the case for fe-
male militants. It was a common practice in the Guatemalan countryside
not to register female children.130 The lack of birth certificates subse-
quently impeded women from fully exercising their political rights. Women
were confronted with a variety of societal norms and expectations that
were discriminatory in nature. Most importantly, female cadres were ex-
pected to resume their roles in the private sphere of the household follow-
ing their demobilization. Since they were not supposed to be politically ac-
tive, few became legal members of the emerging party. In this regard
Guatemala followed a pattern similar to the one we encountered in El Sal-
vador.
Conclusion
The peace agreements of Guatemala and El Salvador failed to resolve

the fundamental problems that led to the wars in the first place; and the
Contras, who never had a coherent objective apart from overthrowing the
Sandinistas, were marginalized in postrevolutionary Nicaragua. The suc-
cess of the three armed movements in reintegrating their former combat-
ants into civilian life varied from country to country. The Salvadoran ex-
perience differed significantly from the experiences in Nicaragua and
Guatemala. While the Contras demobilized after the 1990 elections that
brought Chamorro to power, the 1992 peace accords permitted the Sal-
vadoran guerrilla movement to establish itself as a political party in time
to participate in the 1994 elections. The URNG had a similar advantage,
since it became a legal political party in time for the 1999 elections. But
the Guatemalan and Salvadoran peace accords differed significantly. The
1992 Salvadoran accords constituted, in the words of United Nations ne-
gotiator Alvaro de Soto, “a negotiated revolution.” Under its terms, the
Salvadoran government agreed to many demands made by the FMLN. The
URNG, on the other hand, lacked a comparable bargaining position, with
the Contras playing the weakest hand by far.
The Contra leaders lacked a political vision for the postwar era and suf-
fered from internal division. Thus, they proved incapable of forging a po-
litical movement that could defend the interests of their former rebel force.
The Contra field commanders, while adept at warfare, had little or no po-
litical experience. On the other hand, key civilian members of the Contra
directorate, such as Alfredo César and Azucena Ferrey, chose to rejoin the
political parties they had belonged to previously instead of dedicating
themselves to the task of building a new party. Once the demobilization
sites were abandoned and the Contra army dispersed throughout the coun-
try, the Nicaraguan Resistance ceased to exist as a coherent force at the
military level. Without a shared ideology and with its military structure dis-
solved, the Resistance was easily marginalized.
These weaknesses impeded the Resistance from playing an active role
in the design and implementation of the government programs intended
to ease the ex-combatants’ transition into civilian life. Abandoned by their
leaders, the members of the Resistance were left to fend for themselves ex-
cept for the help offered by CIAV-OEA. It is not surprising that this situa-
tion, particularly in the context of a poor economy and a crisis over prop-
erty rights, resulted in high levels of political violence. The state of anarchy
that characterized several regions of Nicaragua during the early 1990s se-
verely damaged the Chamorro government’s credibility and highlighted
the unique challenges of regime transitions in postwar situations. Many
peasants had voted for Violeta Chamorro in the expectation that she would
bring about a climate of peace and security in the countryside. The presi-
dent’s failure to deliver on the promise of peace was a key factor in the rise
to power of Alemán’s Liberal Alliance in the 1996 elections.
Five years after the peace accords, it was too early to provide a definitive
assessment of the URNG’s success in reintegrating its forces into civil so-
ciety. Compared to the attempted integration of the Nicaraguan Resis-
tance, the process was orderly. The URNG leadership maintained control
over their forces but lacked the clout to pressure the government to live up
to its commitments. Progress was slow for the ex-combatants with even
greater hurdles remaining for the implementation of the overall accords.
By 2001, the emphasis given to women’s rights in the accords had not trans-
lated into concrete improvements for the female population.
On May 16, 1999, Guatemala held a referendum on the constitutional
reforms necessary to fully implement the peace accords. The referendum
failed to gain the support necessary to change the constitution and raised
serious questions regarding the viability of the accords. In a victory for voter
apathy, 81 percent of the registered 4.08 million voters abstained. Of those
who did go to the polls, slightly over 50 percent voted against the re-
forms.131 According to longtime observer David Holiday, the negative
outcome was partially the result of “well-funded attacks from rightist opin-
ionmakers—many arousing latent racist fears and prejudices and prognos-
ticating an eventual balkanization” that influenced the middle-class vote.
Others rejected the reforms due to “the increased cost to citizens for im-
plementation of such policies as multilingual access to justice and educa-
tion.”132 The core of the reform measures entailed recognition of the rights
of Guatemala’s indigenous communities (of the seven million indigenous
people of Central America, six million live in Guatemala). According to
foreign minister Eduardo Stein, in those areas of the country most affected
by the war and with a predominantly indigenous population, voters sup-
ported the referendum.133 Stein emphasized that many of the proposed re-
forms could be implemented under regular laws. The failure of the referen-
dum also indicated that the URNG lacked the power to mobilize enough
voters in support of its vision of Guatemala’s future. The first two years of
President Alfonso Portillo, elected in 1999, indicated that such pressure
would be required to force the new government to fully implement the
peace accords.
In El Salvador, the FMLN’s political strength permitted the new party
to pressure the government to adhere to the provisions of the peace ac-
cords, which established benefits for the ex-combatants. Although the
transfer of land was plagued by many difficulties, in the end the over-
whelming majority of the intended beneficiaries obtained secure titles.
Analysis of the various reinsertion programs reveals the special difficulties
that women had to confront. While formal gender equality was achieved
in most instances during the implementation of the benefits programs, the
prevailing cultural norms impeded progress toward substantive equality.
The disenchantment evident among the former ex-combatants in
Guatemala and El Salvador, male and female alike, was to a great degree
the result of feeling abandoned by their leaders and of holding unrealistic
expectations regarding the benefits to be derived from the accords.134
While the leaders focused their energies on making sure that the peace ac-
cords were implemented and on building their parties, they lost contact
with their rank and file. For El Salvador, FMLN leader Francisco Jovel has
affirmed that “many of the cadres of the highest leadership [focused] more
on taking care of the business of San Salvador than on a dynamic of estab-
lishing links between the leadership and the base.”135 The FMLN tried to
rectify this situation and instituted specific programs designed to maintain
and reestablish relations with its rank and file. For example, all members of
the Political Commission were assigned departments that they had to visit
every weekend. It was their task to communicate with the militants in
those areas and explain party policies and decisions. The observation of
some of these meetings leads one to conclude that the party faced a tremen-
dous challenge in fostering base democracy. In one such meeting, held in
San Vicente in June 1998, attendance was abysmal even though the two
featured speakers, Nidia Díaz and Facundo Guardado, were eminent party
leaders. Despite great efforts by Díaz to discuss the party’s platform for the
1999 presidential election in a didactically appropriate fashion, there was
little participation by the audience. As has been discussed, the priorities of
the ex-combatants were elsewhere. They had to focus on daily survival and
had little time or energy left to participate in political activities of any kind.
The challenges facing the FMLN and its counterparts can best be under-
stood by listening to the voices from the FMLN’s grass roots.
Q
3
Voices from the Salvadoran Grass Roots
A Case Study of San José Las Flores, Meanguera,
and San Esteban Catarina
Today we have to make the effort to identify more with women, in order to
integrate them in all programs, those of the government as well as those of
nongovernmental organizations. So, I think that we need clear programs
with the most minimal training for the men to help them understand that women
need a place, need an opportunity, and that this is part of the respect given
in the home and that women should not only be considered
the guardians who take care of the house.
—Mayor of San Esteban Catarina
It is impossible to fully understand the reality of the Salvadoran peace

process without listening to the voices of the grass roots. As I have argued,
statistics give us only a partial picture and, for that matter, frequently a dis-
torted one. It is essential to hear the human voices in order to grasp the dif-
ficulties people confronted in the wake of the peace accords. While I fo-
cused my research on women, I included a considerable number of men to
obtain a comprehensive view. My research assistants and I interviewed a
total of 201 beneficiaries of reintegration programs: 141 women and 60 men
between December 1995 and September 1996. The group included ex-
combatants, FMLN supporters, as well as internal and external refugees
who returned to or were settled in the towns that were studied. The study
was conducted in three towns in different areas of the country, all of which
were strongly contested during the war: San José Las Flores in the depart-
ment of Chalatenango, Meanguera in Morazán, and San Esteban Catarina
in San Vicente. When we conducted the interviews, FMLN mayors gov-
erned all three towns. During the conflict different FMLN groups were cen-
tered in each of the three departments. Unless otherwise noted, all the quo-
tations that follow are taken from a questionnaire that my team of
researchers and I administered to all respondents. Except for the three may-
ors and one FMLN official, all names have been changed to protect our re-
spondents.
In order to put the voices of the three towns into context, I will briefly
summarize the results of a 1993 FMLN study, sponsored by the United Na-
tions Children’s Fund. It assessed the overall state of the FMLN’s female
members a year after the signing of the accords and included 1,100 of the
3,285 women registered at that time by the United Nations Observer Mis-
sion in El Salvador.1 The study emphasized that the accords “do not deal
explicitly with the gender question” and noted that women confronted a
special set of problems in the reintegration phase due to the “difficulties in-
herent in their condition as women and the strong influence of patriarchal
ideology that permeates Salvadoran society.”2 The socioeconomic profile
of the female ex-combatants highlighted the challenge of reintegrating this
sector into society. Two-thirds of the women were younger than thirty, and
almost 20 percent were illiterate. Many suffered from health problems.
Twenty percent suffered from headaches, 12 percent had problems with
their nerves, and another 20 percent had poor vision. A central problem
was the psychological trauma from the war. The ex-combatants had expe-
rienced the death, disappearance, and torture of loved ones and now faced
rejection from their families for having abandoned them to join the strug-
gle. The reencounter with their children was particularly painful.
Historical and Socioeconomic Background

San José Las Flores
San José Las Flores, a small town located 85 kilometers from the capi-
tal in the department of Chalatenango, had 5,854 inhabitants before the
war. Due to bad roads, the town is much more isolated than the short dis-
tance from the capital would indicate. During the conflict, San José was
Voices from the Salvadoran Grass Roots 67
part of the territory controlled by the Popular Forces of Liberation. The FPL
used the town as one of its strongholds. The level of fighting was particu-
larly intense during the early 1980s, when heavy army bombardments de-
stroyed most of the town’s infrastructure. Subsequently many members of
the community were forced to abandon the town. They fled to Mesa
Grande in Honduras or joined the guerrilla movement. Their shared suf-
fering forged strong bonds among them.
When the war ended ex-combatants and FMLN supporters represented
the majority of the town’s population. With this base of support, the FMLN
succeeded in getting its candidate for mayor elected in 1994. A total of
sixty-two women and twenty men were interviewed during three field vis-
its between December 1995 and July 1996. They reported that they had
had little education, and 30 percent of the men and a slightly higher per-
centage of the women were not able to read or write. Living conditions
were poor, and the inhabitants were in dire need of the benefits available
under the various reintegration programs.
Meanguera
The town of Meanguera is located almost 200 kilometers from San Sal-
vador in the department of Morazán, which borders Honduras. The area
was the scene of fierce battles between the FMLN and the Salvadoran army.
During the war, the town and its surrounding areas were part of the opera-
tional territory of the Revolutionary Army of the People led by Joaquín Vil-
lalobos. At the time of the interviews in 1996, the ERP leadership had left
the FMLN and started to build a new party.3
The town stretches out alongside a main road. Of its 10,869 inhabitants
in 1988, more than 10,000 were classified as rural. Many inhabitants of the
town had to flee to Honduras during the conflict or seek safe haven in ar-
eas controlled by the guerrilla movement. The civilians were frequently
caught in the crossfire. When they tried to escape to Honduras, the Hon-
duran army pursued them; and when they stayed in El Salvador, they were
considered guerrilla sympathizers and faced the onslaught of the Salvado-
ran army. Even before the signing of the peace accords, the former inhab-
itants of this area started to return from Honduras. During this period they
counted on the support of the renowned academic and Jesuit priest Se-
gundo Montes. Montes, the director of the human rights institute of the
Central American University in San Salvador, studied the plight of the re-
turning refugees and became their spiritual leader. He was assassinated by
Salvadoran army personnel together with five other academics, their house-
keeper, and her daughter, during the November 1989 FMLN military of-
fensive. In honor of his memory some neighborhoods in the town adopted
the name Segundo Montes. Rogelio Poncel, another Catholic priest, was
also active in the area. The legacy of these two priests explains the strong
commitment of the town’s people to the tenets of Liberation Theology.
In 1996 Meanguera was one of a handful of towns governed by a female
mayor. Concepción Márquez had been elected on the FMLN ticket. My
colleagues and I interviewed forty women and twenty men here. Meanguer-
ans had a higher rate of literacy than the inhabitants of the other towns in
the study. Only 15 percent of the men and 20 percent of the women inter-
viewed did not know how to read or write. As in the rest of El Salvador,
fertility rates were high. On the average, the women interviewed had four
children.
San Esteban Catarina
San Esteban Catarina in the department of San Vicente is located an

hour by car from the capital. The town council in San Esteban Catarina
was controlled by the FMLN in 1996. Initially, its members were suspicious
of our interviewing activities and sought to impede them. The mayor had
to intervene before the research could proceed. Nevertheless, comments
such as “Here the council is in charge not the mayor” continued to be
heard. The roots of this apparent conflict over authority were to be found
in the continuing rivalries between the original FMLN groups. The mayor
had been affiliated with the FPL in whose ranks he had fought for thirteen
years. FPL members, however, were a minority in the department of San
Vicente, where the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers had
been the predominant force during the war.
The majority of the population of San Esteban Catarina consisted of ex-
combatants, FMLN supporters, and resettled refugees. Most of the respon-
dents were from an outlying community called originally Caserío Calderi-
tas. It was subsequently renamed Napoleón Marillas in honor of a priest
who was assassinated by a death squad in 1979. About seventy ex-combat-

ants lived in this community. A substantial number of the population orig-
inated from other parts of the country, such as Santa Ana, La Libertad, and
Chalatenango. These people had sought safety in the capital, San Salvador,
during the conflict of the 1980s. In addition to the internal refugees there
were several families who had been in Honduras during the war. Around
the time of the signing of the peace accords, these internal and external
refugees were sent to San Esteban Catarina, one of the areas designated to
be repopulated.
A total of thirty-nine women and twenty men were interviewed. The
people in the town had little formal education. More than half had never
attended primary school, and only one man and one woman had more than
a secondary education. All shared a humble socioeconomic background.
Most lived in wooden huts without the amenities people in urban areas
take for granted. The houses had electricity but no indoor plumbing. The
school building was in a state of severe deterioration. Of the three villages
studied, San Esteban Catarina appeared to be the poorest. With no indus-
try of any sort, the population lived from agriculture and remittances from
family members living in the United States.
Joining the Struggle

During the conflict many women and men went “to the mountains” to
join the guerrilla movement. Although most were motivated by their de-
sire to fight social injustice, some were forced recruits. As we will see in the
other towns, the FMLN did indeed at times use coercion to increase its
ranks. Yet the repression unleashed by the army was a much more signifi-
cant reason why Salvadorans became part of the guerrilla movement. San
José Las Flores and its surroundings were the site of several massacres com-
mitted by the Salvadoran army. Survivors frequently decided that their
chances of survival were better fighting with the FMLN than hoping that
the army would respect the lives of civilians living in the combat zone. One
afternoon in December 1995, Doña Avelina recounted her own personal
tragedy from the war. In 1982, on the day the army attacked, she tried to
escape by hiding in a ravine at the outskirts of town. On the way there her
husband was shot by a soldier and died. When she reached the ravine, she
covered her eight-year-old son with her own body hoping to protect him
from the hail of bullets flying around them. When the soldiers finally with-
drew, she discovered that her little boy was dead, having been shot despite
her efforts. Over the course of the war, four of Doña Avelina’s brothers and
four of her nephews were killed. Avelina herself spent the rest of the war
cooking for the muchachos.
Doña Antonia joined the struggle because of “the repression and not
having land.” Doña Amparo sought change: “The people didn’t have jobs,
and organized we could effect change.” Doña Cecilia said, “we had no other
alternative than this one.” Doña Carmen considered fear the most impor-
tant motivator: “I joined out of fear that the armed forces were in the area
persecuting people. Many people died. This made one afraid.” Some
women simply followed the example of their fathers, being too young to
have any personal ideological convictions. Doña Rosa joined the guerrilla
movement at the age of seven. “Since my father joined, so did I. If my fa-
ther had been part of ORDEN [a right-wing paramilitary organization], I
also would have been part of it.” Others fought to avenge their loved ones.
Doña Mirta took up arms “to follow my brothers. There were three of them,
and all died in the war.” Doña Raquel, on the other hand “was part of a
massive incorporation. They said it would be only for three months but it
became more.” Raquel’s example illustrates that at times whole villages
joined the FMLN. Many did so in the mistaken belief that the war would
soon conclude with an FMLN victory. While some people deluded them-
selves into joining the guerrilla movement, others were given no choice.
There were a number of clear instances of forced recruitment. Doña
Abigail had no choice: “Well, they told us that if we didn’t go voluntarily,
they would take us along by force. So I joined voluntarily.” Doña María
said: “We organized because the FMLN told us to. We didn’t know why.
They told us that those who did not join—who knows what would become
of them? At best, they would be killed by one group or the other.” Thus
people were left with little choice if they did not want to get caught in the
crossfire.
At times, the FMLN gained recruits for very specific reasons. In the ar-
eas of the country that were under its control, the guerrilla movement was
successful in establishing a healthcare system. These services were provided
to combatants and FMLN supporters. Dental care was particularly difficult

for the FMLN fighters to obtain in the mountains. Since tooth problems
were common, the guerrilla movement struggled to find a solution. The
PRTC was especially ingenious. It sent four cadres to Mexico to receive
training in basic dental care. Francisco Jovel, the PRTC commander, told
me one evening that morale had improved enormously among PRTC fight-
ers once their dental problems were attended to. He joked that the best way
for Salvadoran security forces to identify FMLN collaborators in the coun-
tryside would have been to look for the peasants with the cleanest teeth.
So some Salvadorans joined the guerrilla movement to attend to their
health needs. Doña Reyna, who served the FMLN as a cook, told us, “Why
should I lie to you. I joined because I was pure illness. I was only bones. I
joined, and I cured myself.”
Meanguera
Like women elsewhere, women in Meanguera joined the FMLN to

change prevailing social conditions, and almost all of them served in sup-
port roles. Doña Lucia followed the call of the FMLN: “Party members told
us that they were joining forces to improve the situation and that if we won,
there would be a government with the participation of all, and there would
be equality.” Doña Purificación wanted to “help and support the mucha-
chos in their just war.” Doña Dora also wanted to help the guerrillas. She
started to feed hungry FMLN fighters in 1979 and continued to serve in
this civilian support role throughout the war. Although she was not offi-
cially demobilized, her contribution was recognized, and she received land.
Doña Bartola wanted to escape the army’s repression, particularly “the mas-
sacres and bombardments that happened in the community.” Doña Miriam
had nothing left to lose: “The army killed my family, and they threw bombs.
One of them fell on my house, and I was left with nothing. They burned
everything.”
Don Gerundio who joined the FMLN in 1982, “wanted to help to end
the injustice that had engulfed the country and felt the need to participate
as a combatant to stop this situation.” Others had experienced suffering up
close. Don Ricardo became an FMLN combatant “because the army killed
my parents and my brothers. Because of this, I decided to join.” A small mi-
nority regretted their decision to join. Don Eligerio thought “it was a de-
ception, because they said that they would win the war. But, as you know,
one never knows the outcome of a war.” Don Luis, who had started to col-
laborate in 1979, had similar thoughts: “They lied to us. They told us they
would help us, but they took advantage of us.”
As in the other towns, there were a few instances when men and women
reported that they had been recruited by force. Doña Angela joined “out
of fear, because they forced us.” Sometimes the pressure was subtler, and
there were no claims of outright coercion. A number of female recruits
went to the mountains to fight, “because they told us to.”
Several of the women and men interviewed in San Esteban Catarina

also said that they joined the FMLN because they were “obligated” to do
so. Donã Flora emphasized: “We were recruited by force. And, yes, my hus-
band stayed [with the FMLN] and he was killed.” Thus, forced recruitment,
a standard method employed by the Salvadoran army was to some degree
also used by the guerrillas. The majority of the respondents, however, par-
ticipated in the struggle out of their own free will.
While most men were inspired by the possibility of combating prevail-
ing injustices, women tended to join “because family members were already
in the guerrilla movement, because their families had been assassinated, or
because they sought to escape persecution by the Salvadoran army.” Doña
Felicita joined “because there was so much suffering and because they killed
my two brothers in cold blood—they hanged them.” Others supported the
ideals the FMLN stood for. Doña Romilia got involved “because they were
fighting for us—the poor—and to escape the poverty, but things got worse.”
Doña Fidelina, who served as a cook from the early 1970s until 1983, was
motivated by love: “I loved my people, and this is the only reason for me.
There was no clothing nor money or anything, only love for my people.”
Doña Vasilia went on to become an armed combatant and was eager to
fight. She became a member of the guerrilla forces in 1977 at the age of
twelve, “because I wanted to fight and because of my mother who had been
killed by the army.” The great majority of the former guerrilla members,
both male and female, joined the struggle in the 1970s and 1980s. Only
one FMLN supporter was a latecomer to the cause, getting involved with
the guerrilla movement in the 1990s. Two-thirds of the men said they were
armed combatants during the war, while the rest served in support func-
tions. The four women who reported that they had been combatants were
all young. Older women contributed to the war effort by becoming mem-
bers of grass-roots movements or performing logistical duties.
The human cost of the war was tremendous. Doña María Teresa’s story
is representative: “Yes, I had one child, a girl. She died when we were in
the war. She got an inflammation. I took her to a doctor who was with us
in the mountains, and he told me that the girl had water in one lung. She
lasted me only three more days.”
Demobilization and Benefits under the Peace Accords
Under the peace accords, the Land Transfer Program was conceived to
resolve disputed land claims and provide resources for ex-combatants on
both sides as well as civilians who were affected by the war.4 The govern-
ment, with financing from the United States and the European Commu-
nity bought land and sold it to the beneficiaries. No individual mortgage
was to exceed 30,000 colones (about $3,450). In the end, beneficiaries re-
ceived an average of 6.8 acres costing about $3,000. The beneficiaries were
supposed to repay their loans following a five-year grace period. Spence et
al. have emphasized that most international observers agreed that the lands
would not be “viable under the mortgage terms if planted in traditional
peasant food crops.”5 Indeed there were a lot of problems. Following a mass
protest in the mid-1990s, the government chose to forgive most of the
agrarian debt.
According to a study of all demobilized female FMLN members, only
half of the fighters asked to be included in the Land Transfer Program while
two-thirds requested credit. All potential beneficiaries who had served as
combatants were eligible to receive land and could apply for credit under
another program. Almost 60 percent of the women intended to use their
credit to start micro-enterprises, about 20 percent wanted to improve their
housing, while 24 percent planned to buy land.6 The average age of the de-
mobilized combatants was twenty-seven, which indicates that most female
combatants had joined the FMLN while in their teens. Thus the great ma-
jority had no knowledge or experience of productive activities such as farm-

ing. Further, only one-fifth of the former fighters reported having housing
of their own. Female FMLN members were in great need indeed.
The needs of ex-combatants living in the town were most readily rec-
ognized. With few exceptions, the combatants went through the official
ONUSAL demobilization process and appeared on beneficiary lists. FMLN
supporters, on the other hand, faced a more difficult situation. Returning
refugees in particular had to establish that they had lost loved ones and
were entitled to benefits. Since women constituted the majority of the lat-
ter group, they were at a disadvantage from the outset. Doña Alicia em-
phasized that women frequently experienced problems because they lacked
the documentation required to qualify for benefits. The most important
program benefiting the respondents was the Land Transfer Program.
Despite their great need, female beneficiaries frequently showed little
knowledge of or interest in the parcel of land that had been allocated to
them. Instead, they tended to defer to their male companions. Doña Al-
bertina knew she had received land but complained that those in charge
“have not even shown me where the land is. I know it is very far away, and
people say it is a deserted area.” Her complaints do not reflect any incom-
petence by the official in charge but rather show the lack of interest of a
number of respondents because their parcels of land were apparently not
conveniently located or they had no farming experience. This became clear
when respondents were questioned more closely. Doña Albertina was not
very excited about her land for another reason: “My husband does not farm.
He works more as a bricklayer and carpenter.” Although these kinds of
complaints were more representative of female beneficiaries, there were
also men who cared little about the land they had received. Don Manuel
admitted that he had not inspected his property: “Look, I have not gone
there yet, because the other day I was going to, and then there wasn’t time.
That is, the officials in charge said ‘not today, better another day,’ and so
we still haven’t gone to see it.” FMLN officials, who worked very hard to
help the beneficiaries refused to share responsibility for these problems.
While they acknowledged some shortcomings of the program, they criti-

cized the lack of initiative shown by some respondents.
The majority of the beneficiaries decided to farm their land collectively.
Don Alfonso explained: “Here we hold the land as a cooperative. We farm
and get a little out of it—mostly basic grains—but we don’t produce
much.” Don Fabian also emphasized the benefits of communal farming:
“The land here is communal, and we work all together so everything is done
more easily.” Yet there were also voices of dissent. Doña Amparo objected
to having to share the fruits of her labor: “Here, everything is done in ben-
efit of the community, and we have nothing of our own.” To be able to farm
collectively was especially helpful to single female beneficiaries since they
generally had no farming experience. Doña Elena lamented, “The most im-
portant problem is that we lack technical training for women.” Wounded
ex-combatants faced additional hurdles. Vilma had joined the FMLN at the
age of twelve. She served as an armed combatant and was wounded. Al-
though she had received land she was not able to farm it. “It has not been
possible to work the land. I can’t work it, and there is no one who can. The
community can’t work it because the land is in Nueva Concepción.”
Most beneficiaries were either producing basic grains for family con-
sumption or were raising cattle. Those who were not producing for the mar-
ket had limited possibilities of generating cash income. Although this made
it difficult for them to save the capital required to repay their loans, it
greatly improved the beneficiaries’ food security. The families involved in
cattle farming showed a greater willingness to repay their loans. They were
optimistic that they would be able to acquire the necessary funds during the
five-year grace period. Until they could sell their cattle, however, their
daily lives were quite precarious. In the best instances, beneficiaries partic-
ipated in communal farming, giving them access to their daily subsistence
needs, and raised cattle individually. Doña Elena was convinced of the ben-
efits of cattle farming: “We invested the loan in cattle and the capital is
growing. We have the grace period to get the money because now we don’t
have to pay.”
In some families, several members had been supporting the FMLN in
different capacities, and all of them were entitled to land. Don Miguel re-
counted that his wife, his daughter, and he himself received land: “My wife
received land benefits as tenedora [people who had occupied land generally
supportive of the FMLN], my daughter for being an ex-combatant, and I
got land too. The three of us received benefits.” The tenedores played an
important role during the war. They occupied properties in areas that were
controlled by the guerrilla movement and served as a logistical support
structure, supplying food and information on enemy movement.
Meanguera
Fifty percent of the men interviewed had gone through the official de-
mobilization process, and two-thirds had received benefits under the rein-
sertion programs. The loans they obtained had been invested in cattle and
the reconstruction of their homes. Less than half of the women had been
officially demobilized, yet most affirmed that they had received land. The
perception prevailed among the female beneficiaries that some women had
been left out of the programs because they were pregnant, lived far away
from the places of registration, or had to take care of their children, which
inhibited them from registering their claims. There were also mispercep-
tions regarding the programs. Several ex-combatants believed that they
had the right to benefit under several programs simultaneously. For exam-
ple, Doña Cecilia complained that she had been left out of the Land Trans-
fer Program. On closer examination, it turned out that she had been in-
cluded in the Industry and Services Program and thus had no right to
receive land.
Rosa Elia Argueta, the FMLN official in charge of the local land distri-
bution program, confirmed that a considerable number of militants had
chosen not to demobilize and exhibited no interest in obtaining land. In
her view, potential beneficiaries were reluctant to get into debt or thought
that the land that would be allocated to them was too far away from their
town to be of interest.7 Some of these fears were justified. The land in the
Meanguera area was of such poor quality that beneficiaries needed to bor-
row a great deal of money to make the land productive. Potential benefi-
ciaries who had little or no experience in farming under such conditions
were understandably reluctant to assume such a high debt burden. Resi-
dents of the town had the option of moving to another department of the
country, such as Usulután, where land was of better quality and readily
available; but with their roots firmly planted in Meanguera, FMLN mili-
tants and supporters showed no interest in this solution.8
As in the two other towns, most female beneficiaries knew little about
the land they had acquired. Doña Isidra was representative of this lack of
interest. When asked whether she had seen her new property, she replied:
“No, we are still in this process. We still haven’t gone to inspect it.” As in
so many other cases it was the distant location of her land that explained
her attitude. Isidra, together with several other female beneficiaries, had re-
ceived land outside of the neighboring town of San Miguel, at a distance
of about 30 kilometers. None of the women had seen the land. They relied
on Efigenio, the local FMLN representative, to take care of everything.
While Efigenio could find an available plot of land and negotiate its sale
on behalf of the women, he could not farm it for them. In many instances
it was clear that the beneficiaries had abdicated their individual responsi-
bility to such an extent that they didn’t even know the amount of the loan
they had taken out to buy their land. Others were not fully informed re-
garding the total cost of the land owned by the members of their collective.
In light of this detached attitude, it is not surprising that most beneficiaries
felt strongly that they should not be required to repay their loans.
The ex-combatants in Meanguera had a special reason to be disap-
pointed with the reinsertion programs. During the war, the area was con-
trolled by the ERP. The ERP leadership reportedly told its supporters that
all the occupied land was theirs and that the guerrillas would defend it at
all cost. When the ERP forces demobilized, honoring the peace accords,
the guerrilla army could not make good on its promise. Without its pro-
tection the occupiers had to give up their claim to the land. As a conse-
quence many felt deceived.
Only six women and four men in San Esteban Catarina acknowledged
having been registered by ONUSAL. Because many more claimed to have
been members of the guerrilla armies and had received land and other ben-
efits it is clear that the number of people in San Esteban Catarina who were
officially demobilized was much greater. It is evident that some people had
gone through the official demobilization process but did not admit it. Oth-
ers should have been part of the official process but were impeded from
registering. In the case of the female respondents, it was frequently their
husbands who did not permit them to be registered by ONUSAL. Typi-
cally, the men decided whether “their women” would participate. As Don
Jesús recounted, “My wife did not receive benefits; I did not send her. I
thought the more we had to pay back, the more problems it would cause.
That’s why I didn’t register her.” Don Jesús was reluctant to accept funds
under the available loan programs for fear that the family would not be
able to repay them. The small number of officially demobilized beneficia-
ries also indicated that many of the respondents were tenedores or re-
turned refugees.
All the men and 80 percent of the women we spoke to received land.
Some women told of having been left out because they lacked proper doc-
umentation. Doña María Teresa told of the case of her own daughter: “Yes,
some were left out because they had no papers. My little girl, who was go-
ing to be seventeen, was one of them. They said that since she had no pa-
pers she would not get anything.” Potential beneficiaries sometimes could
not establish that they were entitled to benefits because they had no proof
that their companions had been killed in the conflict. Women were less
likely than men to have their basic legal documents in order. For example,
a 1993 study of all female FMLN combatants established that while 80 per-
cent had a birth certificate, 40 percent had no carnet (the Salvadoran elec-
tion ID).9 It is clear that many women were not able to exercise their full
citizen rights because they lacked proper documentation. Women were fre-
quently confined to the private sphere of the household, while the hus-
bands were the full citizens. Young people also experienced special prob-
lems. Ex-combatants, whether male or female, who had not reached the
age of sixteen at the time of the accords were not eligible to receive land.10
The majority of the beneficiaries had their properties legally registered
with the help of a local FMLN official in charge of the Land Transfer Pro-
gram. Many, particularly women, had never visited their properties and had
little information about them. Doña Sofía’s response was typical: “I got land
where the property of Salvador Zavala is located. I don’t know it very well.”
Most of the beneficiaries were organized in collectives. It was not always
clear whether the women we interviewed had benefited personally or
whether only their husbands had received property. Even when the prop-
erty title was in their names, female militants indicated that their male
companions would farm the land while they would be in charge of domes-
tic duties.
The interviews showed little evidence that traditional gender relations
were changing. The mayor portrayed the current situation as follows: “The
problem we have is that the man, at times, due to the tradition and custom
that we have in this country, is the one that decides. And he has the con-
trol because of his practical experience in agriculture. It is he who domi-
nates the agrarian decisions. But the women also play an important role in
that they are the support in the family.”
Although the great majority of the people interviewed had received land
and loans, they were discouraged about their living conditions. Some ben-
eficiaries had been able to use their loans productively, but most reported
that they did not believe they would be able to repay their debts. Several
had used their loans to pay for contingencies such as sickness instead of in-
vesting in their properties. Most argued that they would be incapable of re-
paying their loans, and several thought that “in light of so many years of
struggle, the land should have been given free of charge.”
According to the mayor, the lack of adequate housing was the biggest
problem. He claimed that all the housing programs went to the southern
parts of San Vicente, leaving the ex-combatants in San Esteban Catarina
without benefits.11 Another problem that needed to be resolved was that
a number of people living in the community had been assigned properties
in other locations. Yet they refused to move and continued to occupy the
housing allocated to other beneficiaries.12
The community was creative in finding ways to help those who had not
received land because they had been in hiding and were not included in
any of the beneficiary lists. In some instances, several members of a fam-
ily had received land. Those family members who did not need their land
or were not willing or able to pay for it, ceded their properties to the late-
comers in need.13 The benefits that these “outsiders” received, however,
created considerable resentment. The voices of dissent argued that this
group had resettled in San Esteban Catarina only to get land, and that
they had not participated in the war effort. Doña Luisa complained bit-
terly, “People who have not suffered have benefited the most. We have
suffered bitterly because we confronted the government. This afternoon
is not long enough to tell you all our suffering. And here they brought in
people who have benefited and have not suffered; they don’t know what
war is like.”
Current Participation in the FMLN

Even though this town had been a guerrilla stronghold during the war,
there was great political apathy there in early 1996. The majority of the
beneficiaries showed little interest in participating in FMLN activities, and
only a handful had officially joined the new party. The lack of information
was astounding at times. For example, few respondents were aware that the
FPL, the FMLN group that had dominated life in the town for many years,
had formally ceased to exist, having held its final meeting in December
1995. Doña Albertina knew about the FPL dissolution from the news, not
from any local FPL cadres. Although municipal assemblies were held to
give the rank and file up-to-date information on party business, they were
not well attended. Doña Angelita considered that these meetings were only
for former armed combatants, not for people like her who had served in a
support role: “I didn’t go,” she said. “This was only for those that carried
weapons, not for helpers.” Angelita had served the FMLN as a cook for
twelve years, and two of her sons were killed fighting with the guerrillas.
War-related illness also kept interested militants from attending party
meetings. Doña Celina and several other women reported that they could
not attend because they were ill. Doña Yolanda gave the saddest explana-
tion for not having participated: “I didn’t go. I was confined at home be-
cause my child died.”
These statements indicate gender-related difficulties and an apparent
lack of discussion among the rank and file concerning important develop-
ments. Party cadres failed to adequately explain key developments to the
grass roots, and delegates to national meetings appear to have been selected
without full participation by the base in the municipal meetings leading up
to the national convention.
Similarly, the people we spoke with showed little knowledge about the
events surrounding the FMLN’s recent National Congress. Party officials
explained that this was because FMLN supporters were having difficulty in
adjusting to the postwar reality. Thus, the inability of party cadres to in-
volve the grass roots in the decision-making process was not only a re-
flection of their own inadequacies but was also the result of difficult cir-
cumstances. The former combatants and supporters still held favorable
views of the FMLN, but they had to give priority to the necessities of daily
life over active involvement in the party. Women, in particular, stated that
their daily responsibilities left them no time to engage in party activities.
Doña Isabel emphasized how difficult it was to combine domestic duties
with an active political life: “Only my husband went to the FPL meeting
because I have small children.” Doña Angelita concurred: “Only Samuel,
my husband, went.” Doña Vilma added: “I would have gone, but my child
was ill.” However, these impediments to active participation in the life of
the party could not explain the limited knowledge rank-and-file members
had of national party activities. For example, only a handful of militants
were able to name the party’s secretary general, Salvador Sánchez, who had
been the main commander of FPL forces during the war.
Meanguera
In Meanguera, the FMLN leadership confronted a particularly complex

task in maintaining and reestablishing ties to its supporters. As discussed
in Chapter Four, the ERP, the main FMLN group present in the area dur-
ing the war, broke with the FMLN in 1994. This left militants in the area
in a quandary. Should they support “their” group—the ERP—and join the
new Partido Demócrata (Democratic Party, or PD) being built by Joaquín
Villalobos, or should they affiliate with the FMLN. Adding to the confu-
sion, the PD dissidents claimed they represented the “true FMLN” and
asked militants to join their new party. In general, local residents had lit-
tle knowledge regarding the key issues that had precipitated the break.
Thus they were without direction, making it difficult for either the FMLN
or the PD to connect with potential supporters. A sizable minority of both
men and women was alienated by the infighting and refused to be active in
either party. The mayor, Concepción Márquez, was caught in the middle of
this fight. She remained loyal to the FMLN and thus faced opposition from
the supporters of the PD.14 No love was lost between the former allies. One
of her critics told her: “I am supporting the party of the center [the Demo-
cratic Party] and you the radical communists.” To which the mayor replied:
“You are not of the center, but of a corrupt party that sold out.”
These special circumstances distinguished Meanguera from the two
other towns in the study. Many respondents felt a need to reaffirm their mil-
itancy within the FMLN or advertise their support for Villalobos. The great
majority of the men supported the FMLN and voiced disapproval of their
former leader, Villalobos. Despite their acknowledged support for the
FMLN, however, half of them could not name the current head of the party.
Women were similarly out of touch with party affairs at the national level,
although two-thirds claimed to be active in the FMLN.
The mayor had been invited to participate in the FMLN’s National
Congress. She did not attend, however, due to illness. The involvement of
most militants in party events was obviously restricted to FMLN activities
at the local level. At the time of the interviews, the FMLN held a meeting
to inform the people about the state of the Land Transfer Program and the
agrarian debt and the measures the party was proposing. The assembly was
well attended by women and men. This suggests that FMLN militants were
involved in the life of the party when it mattered to them personally, while
they stayed aloof from the internal squabbles at the national level.
The majority of the men and women who were born in San Esteban
Catarina were organized in the PRTC, whereas most of the people who
were relocated there had belonged to the FPL or the ERP. By mid-1996, the
partisan struggle within the FMLN had not been resolved. Doña Flora in-
dicated that her family was not active in the party because “my companion
is from the ERP, and this causes problems.”
Two thirds of the males claimed to be active in the FMLN. Although 50
percent of the men were aware that the 1995 Party Congress had taken
place, only one could name the party’s secretary general, Salvador Sánchez.
This lack of knowledge was astounding considering that several militants
expressed interest in being FMLN candidates for local government posi-
tions. The picture was no different for the women. Although half of them
claimed to be politically active, few had knowledge of the Party Congress,
and not a single woman could name the party’s leader.
It was evident that the FMLN experienced problems in its efforts to

maintain and reinforce relations with its militants. Yet there were also
FMLN supporters who had had little involvement with the FMLN in the
first place. Doña Blanca, who had fled to the United States during the war,
announced that she was not active in the party: “I never got involved, since
I never understood what they wanted.” When asked whether she knew
about the recent Party Congress, she went on to elaborate: “They didn’t
tell us about the congress, but the one who knows of these things is my hus-
band.” Her lack of political involvement did not keep her from eagerly
seeking to benefit from the land program. “Thanks to God they included
us in the lists, and we got some land.” For several women political activity
was no longer a priority under the prevailing conditions. As Donã Reyna
said, “Today we are not active any more, but we always give them our sup-
port.” Doña María expressed similar sentiments when she said, “Today, not
any more. Every one looks out for her bone. Before one had to be of one
band or the other.”
At the time of the interviews, an FMLN assembly took place to nomi-
nate a group of possible candidates for the 1997 elections. Several of the
men from San Esteban Catarina attended, but not a single women. Women
suffered from the tradition under which “the man goes and the woman stays
at home preparing the food.” The gender composition of this meeting con-
firmed the impression that men were more active in the daily life of the
party than women. Even though participation in party activities was lim-
ited, this did not mean that FMLN officials were not actively involved in
the life of the community. In particular, the members of the community
benefited from the work of FMLN cadres who had facilitated the imple-
mentation of the reintegration programs. The beneficiaries depended es-
pecially on the member of the community council designated to solve prob-
lems related to the Land Transfer Program.
Gender Relations during and after the War
During the war, gender roles within the FMLN were not drastically dif-
ferent from those that prevailed in civil society. Based on a study of all de-
mobilized female combatants, almost 30 percent had served as cooks in the
guerrilla movement, and 15 percent had been engaged in health-related ac-
tivities. Only 15 percent had been armed combatants, while 11 percent had
been in support roles. The remaining 40 percent had exercised other func-
tions.15
Women were obviously pushed to resume traditional roles once the war
ended. While somewhat over 50 percent had worked in the household be-
fore the war, a year after the signing of the peace accords 95 percent re-
ported being engaged in domestic work. However, this change was proba-
bly not quite as drastic as the figures indicate, since many women joined
the war when they were still in their teens and had no primary responsi-
bility for the household. In 1993, one-third of all women were heads of
household, while another 20 percent were single. Half of the female ex-
combatants had a steady companion or husband. Fifty percent of these
women claimed that their partners shared all domestic tasks with them,
while one-third had partners who supported them financially. Fewer than
4 percent, however, reported that their male partners helped in taking care
of the children.16
When discussing gender relations within the FMLN it is important to
keep in mind that the culture that prevailed within the guerrilla movement
and the party reflected, to a great extent, the conditions of Salvadoran so-
ciety. Thus a representative 1993 study found that “although there exists a
level of consciousness concerning [gender] equality among FMLN mem-
bers, awareness regarding the significance and implications of gender is still
incipient.”17
Both men and women in this town tended to agree that decisions dur-
ing the war were made jointly. However, while men were primarily armed
combatants, women served mostly in support roles. In confirmation of this,
few women could be found in leadership positions at the time of demobi-
lization. Women were frequently assigned traditional domestic tasks dur-
ing the conflict, including the preparation of meals.
The majority of the women in San José Las Flores held the view that
gender relations had improved since the war. Two-thirds reported that their
husbands helped with domestic chores, including taking joint responsibil-
ity for childcare. Yet there were also descriptions of typically male attitudes.
Doña María felt she had a good husband, but he had his limits when it came
to cooking: “Concerning meals he says he is not going to do it, thank you.”
Doña Vilma concurred. Her husband refused to share domestic tasks. He
was in charge of their milpa (plot of land) and that was it. Doña Deysi re-
ported that her husband would never participate in the kitchen. However,
when necessary, he was willing to watch the children. Older men were par-
ticularly reluctant to engage in domestic chores. Don Nazario who was
sixty-eight confessed that under exceptional circumstances he would be
willing to lower himself to such a task: “I have done the dishes. Sure, man,
I have done it. When she got sick I helped her.”
Women conveyed a strong belief that their husband “worked” while
they only “took care of the household.” Thus, contrary to the beneficiaries’
statements, traditional gender relations appeared to have changed little.
The perceptions of improvement appeared to be based on how easy civil-
ian life was compared with the harsh reality of the war. Don Manuel de-
scribed his view as follows: “Before, things were pretty fucked up, primar-
ily the suffering of walking up and down in the hills. Now things are better
even though they are not good, but at least one gets a rest.”
In general, family relations were greatly affected by the war. Many men
and women were killed in the conflict, making traditional nuclear families
the exception. Doña Alicia attested to these difficulties when asked about
the relationship with her current husband: “Now we are doing fine because
he loves my children even though he is not their father.” In light of the dif-
ficult conditions men and women faced during their reintegration into so-
ciety, it is noteworthy that there were only isolated cases of acknowledged
domestic violence.
Half the women claimed to be active in the local women’s movement.
Those who were involved were better informed about their rights. They
had received information concerning laws governing child support, pater-
nal responsibility, and domestic violence. The other half participated more
in activities sponsored by organizations, such as peasant movements, that
dealt with their immediate needs. Practical concerns also dominated the
agenda of the women’s movement. During the period of the interviews, a
women’s meeting was held to plan the main activities for the year. Inter-
estingly, the goals they arrived at concerned community needs instead of
women’s practical or strategic gender interests. They included rebuilding
the church and the houses in the community, strengthening religious faith,
presenting more projects benefiting women to potential donors, and pre-
serving the environment.
Meanguera
Only one of the forty women interviewed reported having served as an

armed combatant during the war. Almost half had served as cooks, while
the others had been in various support roles. In the case of the twenty men,
on the other hand, the picture was reversed. The majority had been armed
combatants, and only a few were in support roles. The traditional division
of labor that tended to prevail in the guerrilla movement had an obvious
impact on gender relations. Although the majority of both men and women
reported that decisions during the war were made jointly, men tended to
make the important decisions while women carried out orders. As Doña
Blanca put it: “Men made the decisions because they were in charge.” The
sense of joint decision-making was based more on formal equality and the
climate of camaraderie in the guerrilla movement than on substantive
equality. Doña María emphasized that the members of the guerrilla move-
ment were all equal and thus made decisions jointly “because we all fought
for the same goals.” Both women and men did make decisions but mostly
in their own realms. Doña Lucia made this point succinctly: “In the shop,
where we made bombs, the person in charge was a man, and in the kitchen,
I was in charge.” Doña Reinalda confirmed that “the women made the de-
cisions in the kitchen, but for the rest, it was the men.”
Gender relations between former fighters and FMLN supporters in the
wake of the peace accords did not differ noticeably from those in society at
large. While two-thirds of the men noticed improved relations with their
partners since the war, only 40 percent of the women did. While life be-
came easier for men once the fighting ended, the situation was different for
women. The perceived equality of the war days gave way to a life domi-
nated by a traditional division of labor that favored men. This situation in-
fluenced spousal relations. The interview process itself revealed that tradi-
tional patterns were very much alive. Men continued to dominate the
conversation. In many interviews conducted with female respondents they
interfered, speaking for their wives or telling them what to say. Doña Mar-
tina emphasized that men “preferred to speak for their wives and won’t let
women talk.”
The overwhelming majority of the male respondents claimed that they
helped their partners with domestic chores and contributed financially to
their children’s living and education expenses. Not surprisingly, women
had a somewhat different view. While half the women reported that their
husbands helped in bringing up the children, a substantial minority (about
20%) said that their partners did not help with either the household or the
children. One-third of the women refused to answer any questions dealing
with current gender relations. It is reasonable to assume that they were not
too pleased with the current state of affairs. Only a handful of women, how-
ever, acknowledged having been mistreated by their spouses. It was evident
that this was a subject they were reluctant to talk about.
Although the town had a female mayor, it hardly meant that women en-
joyed a higher status in Meanguera compared to other towns. The mayor
commanded respect, not because people had a strong gender consciousness,
but because she had earned it with her participation in the struggle. Almost
one-third of the women in Meanguera were active in the local women’s
movement. The great majority, however, had little knowledge about
women’s rights under Salvadoran law. Almost no one had attended work-
shops or received instruction on domestic violence or reproductive health
issues.
Many respondents had been widowed due to the war, and most lived in
common-law marriages. Some, like Doña María, had remarried: “I found
me another old man after they had killed my other one.” Interestingly, the
younger and older men (those under forty and over sixty) argued that dur-
ing the war, only men made decisions. Several middle-aged men, on the
other hand, maintained that decisions were made by both genders. Except
for those over sixty, all men claimed that they participated actively in
household duties, contributing financially and personally to the children’s
education. The older men emphasized that they spent the majority of their
time farming. In their eyes, helping with household duties was of little sig-
nificance, since this was “women’s work.” They considered gender relations
to have improved compared to the war period. Considering their views,

that meant they were satisfied that traditional gender roles were once again
dominant. However, they believed that the tranquillity of family life was
under attack from the increase in crime and violence. An indication of the
prevailing insecure living conditions was the strong military presence in
the village. In addition, there were patrols by the local National Civilian
Police forces.
The majority of the younger women either agreed with their male co-
horts that men tended to make the decisions during the war or refused to
answer the question. Yet women over sixty maintained that women and men
had made decisions jointly. It appears that the latter had overly rosy mem-
ories of the actual conditions women experienced during the war or simply
had much lower expectations than the younger generation. Fewer than half
the women thought that gender relations had improved since the war.
Those who did see improvement claimed that their husbands helped with
household chores and raising the children. While all the women who an-
swered this question denied that they were mistreated by their husbands or
suffered domestic violence, one-third refused to comment on this problem.
The ideological affinities of the respondents were also a factor that at
times got in the way of tightly knit family relations. Although the FMLN
was officially a unified party in 1996, old divisions, based on affiliation with
one of the five groups, emerged whenever controversial topics were being
discussed. These conflicts even played themselves out between members of
the same family.
Only six of the female respondents were active in the women’s move-
ment. None of them belonged to the older generation. This was not too
surprising if we take into account that no women’s movement had estab-
lished a local chapter in the area. Few women exhibited any kind of ab-
stract knowledge of their rights as codified in the Family Code or knew of
the existence of the Family Tribunals. Yet several women were informed re-
garding issues that affected their lives directly. For example, they knew
about their right to alimony and that children from common-law marriages
had the right to inherit. Few had benefited from workshops sponsored by
the women’s movement. For example, only 10 percent had received any
training in health, and only one woman acknowledged having had access
to information on reproductive rights.
Daily Life and Expectations of the Future

in the Three Communities
The members of this community had little confidence in 1996 that the
ARENA government would fully comply with the peace accords, and many
voiced disappointment that their living situation had improved so little.
The sense of disillusionment was particularly evident among those who had
joined the war effort in order to contribute to a new society with greater
equality.
Discontent with the requirement that beneficiaries repay their loans was
widespread. There was a general perception that the loans were gifts that
had been earned because of the suffering inflicted on them during the war.
Don Juan expressed the opinion of many: “If I have to repay the loan, I will
be lost. The government has to pay it because we have suffered so much in
the war. Also, they say that this is money donated by Germany.” Women
and men concurred that it would be impossible for them to repay the loans
they had received to buy land. There was concern in the community that
people would not be able to build a new life under the prevailing difficult
economic circumstances. Poverty was omnipresent, and there were signs of
malnourishment. In some cases, the legacy of the war complicated people’s
life. Don Pablo emphasized that his problems had to do with war-related
illness. He was having problems making ends meet: “I am doing badly now
because I got ill from the war. I have a kidney tumor. I had to spend the
loan on this.” Others had problems because they invested in cattle that sub-
sequently died or were stolen. In general, beneficiaries were overwhelmed
by the magnitude of their needs compared with their limited resources.
Doña Liliam wondered whether she and her companion had used her loan
badly: “We used up this loan; we used it badly. Well, it was necessary for us
to buy some things because what they gave us [beneficiaries received a pack-
age of basic farm implements] was not sufficient.”
There was also criticism of the local authorities who belonged to the
FMLN. Charges of favoritism in the implementation of the benefits pro-
grams were coupled with recriminations over a perceived lack of commit-
ment to improve the lives of the townspeople. At the same time, there were
expressions of unconditional support for the FMLN. Don Cándido replied
when asked whether he was politically active in any party: “Yes, in the
FMLN until I die. As long as there is no political and economic justice, I
will not stop fighting.”
Respondents tended to have a parochial perspective on their difficul-
ties. They did not know about the economic policies implemented by the
government and how they affected their lives. Several donor agencies were
pursuing development projects in the town. Alas, most were in disarray,
due to misuse of funds or other problems. Reflecting conditions in the
country in general, crime was on the rise. There were incidents of robbery,
assault, and kidnapping. The difficult economic and social situation man-
ifested itself in the appearance of drunks. Neither crime nor public intox-
ication had existed during the war. Evangelical movements were on the
rise, indicating that the people were looking for new answers to their prob-
lems. All these phenomena were a sign that the social fabric, so tightly knit
during the conflict, was torn. Overall, San José Las Flores presented the
image of a desolate town whose inhabitants’ spirits were low. The only
church was in ruins, with its roof caved in; the public square lay aban-
doned; and the streets were dirty. These conditions made a number of ex-
guerrillas question whether the struggle had made sense. With this town,
which had achieved prominence as a guerrilla stronghold, in such bad
shape, one also had to wonder how other, less well-known places were do-
ing.
Yet despite these difficulties, FMLN militants and supporters hoped that
the future would hold improvements for themselves and their children.
Doña Miriam expressed the expectations of many: “I don’t want to be a mil-
lionaire, but at least I would like decent food, good health, and work in or-
der to support and maintain the children. I would like to see a good future
so my children can have everything: a house, education, healthcare. I want
them to have the best so they can make their place in the world. One gives
them food but not everything they want or need.”
Meanguera
The male respondents in Meanguera were quite sophisticated in their

understanding of national economic policies. They knew about neoliber-
alism and globalization and rejected the policies of privatization imple-
mented by the ARENA government. Their attitudes and level of informa-

tion contrasted sharply with those of the respondents in the two other
towns. Both men and women agreed that they were unable to repay the
loans they had received. Most had no intention of even trying. They con-
sidered that they deserved these financial benefits in light of their suffering
during the war.
Meanguera projected a positive image. It was less isolated than the two
other towns, mainly because of its location alongside an important paved
road. The town had also become a tourist attraction. The murder of the Je-
suits had jolted world consciousness, and many people wanted to see the
town that so strongly identified with the legacy of Segundo Montes. There
was also an important FMLN museum in Perquín, a neighboring town. Be-
cause it was so well known, the town was the center of activity for a num-
ber of nongovernmental aid agencies, which implemented programs there.
In general, the townspeople presented a spirit of solidarity. This mani-
fested itself in the number of small businesses that were jointly owned and
managed by the community. Also, there was concern for the most vulner-
able members of the community, exemplified by this statement by Don
Carlos: “I am worried for all my compañeros in the community because
there are many women who have been left alone and have many children.
They don’t have work to buy food. These are the ones that should get help.
Also, there are people suffering from war wounds, and they have received
no help.”
In contrast to San José Las Flores, Meanguera showed no evidence of in-
creased crime or other obvious signs of social deterioration. People had
concrete ideas about how to improve their lives. The demobilized women
in particular expressed the hope that they would be able to continue their
education, which had been interrupted during the war.
Those interviewed in San Esteban Catarina expressed mixed evalua-

tions of the peace accords. A typical phrase heard was the hope “to see their
dreams realized, such as having land in their name, being able to sow, and
having money to educate sons and daughters.” They expected that in their
old age they would be able to count on their children’s support. As one
women said: “I want to help my son to study so he can help me when I am

old.” Younger men were particularly critical of the ARENA government
and argued that “they were poorer than ever before.” In their view, the rein-
sertion programs were inadequate, and they felt they “had fought so hard
for so little.” Despite their disappointments, however, they continued to
express support for the FMLN.
Several members of the community expressed solidarity with the ex-
combatants of the Salvadoran army, who, in their opinion, had also been
left out in the cold. On several occasions former FMLN combatants joined
forces with demobilized soldiers in national demonstrations to press the
government to comply with the accords. Both sides had come to realize that
ex-combatants from both the FMLN and the army suffered under the in-
justice that some members of their respective institutions did receive ben-
efits under the accords while others were left out.
The work of FMLN officials on behalf of the community was generally
recognized. Don Cecilio emphasized: “Look, I think that those who have
worked the hardest on behalf of the population have been in the Party.”
Doña Felipa shared his opinion: “Well, it was the Party that fought so we
could realize this goal, that they would give us this little piece of land. Be-
cause before we didn’t have a place to grow corn. We were renting and
maybe didn’t make enough to pay for the fertilizer or the rent.”
In terms of gender relations, one is left with the general impression that
little has changed to affect women’s subordination to their partners or fa-
thers. Some women expressed the view that they had been better off under
the government of President Napoleón Duarte that had preceded the two
ARENA administrations. This view prevailed even though the current
mayor was strongly in favor of women’s rights and fought to provide op-
portunities for the women in the community:
When I took office here in the municipality, there were projects, for exam-
ple street building, that were financed by the Secretariat of National Re-
construction. I always sought the participation of women in those programs
and saw to it that women earned the same wages as men. I incorporated 50
percent women and 50 percent men in the work of street construction. The
community appreciated me. They said that it was the first time in history
that a mayor gave women the opportunity to work and that no other mayor’s
office in the Department had taken any woman into account in the work
plan. But I had problems with the Secretariat, with those who were admin-
istering the funds. The Secretariat, well there they had restrictions on
women. They even made fun of me.
Conclusion
In all three communities we find common themes. A general problem

for both genders was rising, unmet expectations. Former combatants and
FMLN supporters questioned whether their sacrifices had been worth it.
Although they had received benefits, particularly land, as a result of the
peace accords, their standard of living continued to be abysmal. There was
general agreement that the financial burden the beneficiaries assumed in
order to buy land was too great and that the debt had to be forgiven. The
FMLN leadership shared the concerns of its constituents. It had been aware
from the beginning that the reinsertion programs would do little to im-
prove the standard of living of its ex-combatants. In an October 1992 let-
ter to the secretary-general of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Gahli,
the FMLN leadership expressed its concern “that the size of the lots would
leave the land-transfer programme’s beneficiaries at current levels of sub-
sistence and poverty.”18
The FMLN leadership tried its best to rectify unforeseen problems re-
lated to the reintegration programs, and its officials worked very hard on
their implementation. The early perception of widespread institutionalized
discrimination against women under the peace accords was not confirmed
by the study of the two hundred beneficiaries in the three villages. How-
ever, the stories that women told made it clear that the implementation of
the peace accords needs to be seen through a gender lens. Such a perspec-
tive reveals the gender-specific challenges that female FMLN militants and
supporters faced. Significantly, even though women did benefit from the
reinsertion programs, they tended to defer to the men in all aspects of own-
ership, whether it concerned establishing legal property rights, knowledge
of where their properties were located, or cultivating their plots. Never-
theless, one important change from prewar conditions was that women had
become landowners. Don Miguel, a respondent from Meanguera, empha-
sized that before the war few women owned property. Those who did had
either inherited land from their parents or had assumed ownership after
their husbands passed away.
Based on the interviews in the three towns, the practice of forced re-
cruitment by the FMLN, while not institutionalized, was nevertheless more
widespread than commonly believed. Further, the interviews provided ev-
idence that the FMLN faced a difficult task in maintaining and strength-
ening its relations with rank-and-file members after the war ended. The
lack of participation by FMLN militants in local meetings is of particular
concern from the perspective of internal party democracy. In general,
FMLN supporters affirmed that the flow of information had been better
during the war.
Although all respondents were pleased to have escaped the harsh con-
ditions of the war, many emphasized that peace brought a host of new chal-
lenges. During the war their basic needs were taken care of. The combat-
ants found shelter as best they could in the mountains and shared their
meager supplies, or they starved together. No one had to worry about pay-
ing rent or electric bills or finding a job so that they could feed the chil-
dren. Don Jesús expressed the sentiments of many: “During the war it was
tough, but entering peace, entering civil life, one lacks the necessary eco-
nomic resources.”
Q
4
The Vanguard in Search of a New Identity
Incipient Democratization
Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members
of one party—however numerous they may be—is not freedom at all.
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom
for the one who thinks differently.
—Rosa Luxemburg
Political parties are key actors in the Central American transition toward
more democratic forms of government. In order to advance the process of
democratization in their countries, the former guerrilla movements have to
democratize themselves and effectively “articulate the demands and per-
spectives emerging from the newly-mobilized sectors.”1 For the revolu-
tionary Left this challenge comes at a time when it has to reinvent itself
ideologically. Forrest Colburn has argued that “the shared intellectual cul-
ture of contemporary revolutions has centered on a commitment to ‘so-
cialism.’”2 In Central America the guerrilla leadership was quite explicit
that the revolutionary war was conducted under the banner of socialism.
The demise of Realsozialismus in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,
however, led to a rethinking of socialist ideology within the revolutionary
Left of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The socialist paradigm, the “guid-
ing light” of revolutionary movements in the developing world, was sud-
denly perceived to have lost its legitimacy. Schafik Hándal, former leader
of the now dissolved Communist Party of El Salvador 3 and one of the five
FMLN military commanders during the war, affirmed recently that in light
of this postsocialist reality the FMLN started the process of formulating a

new political project. Referring to the communists within the FMLN, he
argued, “When we talk about the communists, we are talking about the
communists at the end of this century, people who are elaborating a think-
ing that is not yet written.”4
El Salvador
The FMLN officially completed the conversion from an armed guerrilla

movement to a legal political party by the end of 1992. The new party con-
sisted of the same five distinct groups that were part of the FMLN during
the war: the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, the Ejército Revolucionario
del Pueblo, the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación, the Resistencia Nacional,
and the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores Centroamericanos. The
party leadership recognized the difficulties entailed in the transformation
from a hierarchical military movement into a democratic political party.
According to Francisco Jovel, one of its five original commanders, the
FMLN had learned several important lessons from observing the Sandin-
ista and Cuban experiences up close. It particularly wanted to avoid the
paternalism of the revolutionary leadership in Nicaragua and its failure to
sufficiently democratize the Sandinista party. It also considered Cuba’s de-
pendence on the Soviet Union a shortcoming.
The FMLN conceived a long-term project that would slowly transform
the authoritarian structures prevailing in El Salvador. It was foreseen that
this plan would be achieved over a time period of two or three presidential
elections and three to four parliamentary elections, stretching until 2005.5
The leadership recognized that it needed to develop the capacity to gov-
ern over time. The initial priority was to gain power at the local level—
the municipalities. At the grass-roots level the FMLN would be better able
to attend to the needs of its constituents, in particular the ex-combatants
and their families. In the wake of the 1992 peace accords, some FMLN lead-
ers actually feared that the new party might win the 1994 elections. They
argued that the new party needed time to grow into a political force capa-
ble of satisfying the demands such a victory would unleash among its sup-
porters. In their view the FMLN’s goal should be more modest and focus on
gaining representation in parliament. The party could then use this plat-
The Vanguard in Search of a New Identity 97
form to strengthen the parliament’s power vis-à-vis the executive branch

and to push for a decentralization of power in general. Before the FMLN
could focus on these more realistic propositions, however, it had to evolve
from a military organization into a political party.
From Guerrilla Movement to Political Party
Schafik Hándal has acknowledged that the first steps of the new party
were difficult ones. The FMLN knew the rules of armed struggle quite well,
but it was a novice in the political game.6 Officials of the governing party
reportedly enjoyed it when they were given an opportunity to embarrass
FMLN militants who failed to observe proper protocol. In one instance, a
high-ranking FMLN official went before the commission overseeing the
implementation of the peace accords to denounce a number of abuses and
instances of noncompliance with key provisions of the agreement. The
commission chair responded to his hand-written note of protest by throw-
ing it back to him with this comment: “Type this in triplicate, and then re-
submit it for our consideration.” Much more significant than these personal
embarrassments was the failure of the FMLN leadership to fully grasp the
complexities of the Salvadoran electoral system. Out of ignorance, the
FMLN failed to insist on several reforms that would have leveled the play-
ing field.7
An immediate problem that the party leadership had to confront was
whether or not to preserve the FMLN’s decision-making structures. During
the war, the FMLN was led by a five-member comandancia general (Gen-
eral Command) made up of the commanders of the five armies. The Gen-
eral Command was part of a fifteen-member Political Commission, which
constituted the second-highest decision-making body. Each of the five
commanders selected two other members from his army to serve on the
commission. The first casualty in the process of transforming the guerrilla
movement was the Comandancia.8 Thus, the fifteen-member Political
Commission replaced the General Command as the highest decision-mak-
ing body of the new party. The Commission was to be led by a coordinator
who needed two-thirds of the fifteen members’ votes to be elected. This
qualified majority was very difficult to achieve, leaving the new party for
several months without an elected leader.9 Following the 1994 revision of
the FMLN statutes, the coordinator needed only 60 percent of the vote to
get elected. A further problem that the new party leadership had to solve
concerned the composition of the FMLN’s decision-making structures. Tra-
ditionally, each of the five groups incorporated into the FMLN had been
given equal weight in terms of the number of seats allocated to a particu-
lar group.10 In order to preserve unity, this system was left intact. Thus,
each group had three representatives on the Political Commission. In the
early 1990s, the members of the Commission were not chosen in a com-
petitive electoral process. Rather, each FMLN group presented three can-
didates whose selection was ratified by the National Council.
Each FMLN group had ten guaranteed seats on the party’s main delib-
erative body, the National Council. There were indications, however, that
the quota system ensuring each FMLN group equal representation would
not be maintained indefinitely. In 1992, fourteen new members who rep-
resented El Salvador’s departments were added to the Council.11 The allo-
cation of these fourteen seats (one for each department) was based on the
relative strength the five groups had in a particular department, thus fa-
voring the three large groups, the FPL, the ERP, and the FAL.
One of the initial tasks for the emerging party was to select its candi-
dates for the March 1994 legislative elections. While candidates were se-
Table 4.1 FMLN Legislative Assembly Candidates for the 1994 Elections
by FMLN Group
Source: This distribution is based on candidate lists provided by the FMLN.

*Relative strength of FMLN groups at the time of demobilization.
Table 4.2 Party Structure of the FMLN
Source: FMLN.
lected from all the five groups, the data indicate that the party was begin-
ning to shift away from the maintenance of an artificial balance. Other fac-
tors, such as a potential candidate’s political experience, began to take
precedence. The FPL’s 26.2 percent share of candidates was somewhat less
than its due, based on the relative strength of the five groups at the time of
demobilization. Most noticeable, however, were the underrepresentation
of the ERP and the rise of the Communist Party and the PRTC. It is not
surprising that the Communist Party was successful in the political arena.
Its cadres constituted the second largest contingent of the FMLN’s politi-
cal personnel at the time of the 1992 demobilization. Even more impor-
tant, the Communist Party cadres had honed their political skill over
decades, while many of the other FMLN militants had no previous experi-
ence in politics.
The nomination process for candidates to the legislative assembly in-
volved the FMLN’s national and departmental structures. In El Salvador,
the legislative assembly consists of eighty-four members. Twenty members
are elected from the countrywide national list of candidates, while the re-
maining sixty-four are selected by voting for candidates in individual de-
partments.12 In accordance with this system, the FMLN’s national deci-
sion-making bodies were responsible for selecting national candidates,
while both national and departmental party structures determined the
make-up of the lists in the fourteen departments. In the case of department
lists, the Political Commission decided on the rank-order of candidates
whereas the departments selected the candidate. At the national level, the
National Council selected the candidates. The three historic FMLN lead-
ers who decided to run in the elections occupied prominent positions on
the list. Eduardo Sancho, the leader of the RN, headed the list of candi-
dates in the department of San Salvador, while Francisco Jovel, the leader
of the PRTC, occupied the top position on the national list of candidates.
The Communist Party’s Schafik Hándal was the FMLN’s candidate for
mayor of San Salvador. Only the ERP’s Joaquín Villalobos and Salvador
Sánchez of the FPL were not nominated. The FMLN’s Political Commis-
sion decided that Villalobos could not run, because he had been found
guilty of war crimes during the conflict.13 Salvador Sánchez, on the other
hand, chose not to run. He held the opinion that the government had not
complied with the peace accords and questioned the wisdom of the FMLN’s
participation in the elections.
Another question debated by the party leadership concerned the affili-
ation of new party members. Should they join the party as FMLN members
or did they have to affiliate first with one of the five groups? This question
was not resolved until 1995 when new members were able to join the
FMLN directly. The debate surrounding this issue revealed tension within
the leadership and among the five groups. These disagreements, funda-
mental in nature, became more pronounced as the 1994 electoral campaign
proceeded. A central conflict manifested itself in the controversy sur-
rounding the choice of the FMLN’s presidential candidate. The ERP,
headed by Joaquín Villalobos, had its own agenda. It proposed Abraham
Rodríguez, a founder of the Christian Democratic party, as the candidate
of the Left, arguing that the Left needed to broaden its electoral appeal.
The FMLN majority, however, united behind the candidacy of Rubén
Zamora for the presidency. Although Zamora was not an FMLN militant,
he shared a history of struggle with the revolutionary Left. Once it became
clear that the ERP’s position was not going to prevail, ERP leaders assumed
a low profile in the campaign. Most observers agreed that this development
weakened the FMLN’s 1994 campaign.
The results of the 1994 Salvadoran elections for president, parliament,
and municipal councils were mixed. The FMLN’s presidential candidate,
Rubén Zamora (he headed a ticket supported by the FMLN, the Demo-
cratic Convergence, and the Democratic Revolutionary Movement) was
soundly defeated in the second round run-off of the 1994 elections.
ARENA’s Armando Calderon Sol won with 68 percent of the vote. In the
legislative elections, on the other hand, the FMLN’s results were re-
spectable. The former guerrillas obtained 287,811 votes out of a total of 1.3
million and won twenty-one out of the eighty-four seats in parliament.14
At the municipal level, the election results were a disappointment for the
FMLN. In its first electoral contest, the new party won only 15 mayoralties
out of 262 towns. This raised questions regarding the FMLN’s strategy for
democratizing the country. While it had gained access to a platform to ad-
vocate change with its success in the legislative contest, it had failed to ac-
quire a base to project its vision at the grass-roots level.
The Quest for Unity
Following the 1994 elections, a serious rift developed in the FMLN. The
problems arose over a secret agreement concluded between leaders of two
FMLN groups—the ERP and the RN—and the ARENA party. Going
against an official FMLN decision, several deputies who were members of
the ERP and RN lent their support to procedural changes that strength-
ened ARENA’s control in the Salvadoran parliament. As a quid pro quo,
Ana Guadalupe Martínez of the ERP became vice-president of the parlia-
ment, and Eduardo Sancho of the RN became secretary. Because of this,
the FMLN suspended the ERP and RN leadership from the party.15 Thus,
problems that had been brewing within the FMLN for quite some time be-
came public.
According to interviews with leaders of the five groups within the
FMLN, the infighting that came to the surface in 1994 had historic roots
going back to the days of the armed struggle.16 Salvador Sánchez, then the
FMLN coordinator, emphasized that before the peace accords, the FMLN
was a military organization consisting of five armed movements. While the
five groups shared a common strategy on how to conduct the war, they es-
poused different ideologies.17 During the war it was possible to paper over
these differences and unite behind the common goal of bringing down the
government. The ideological differences, however, became more evident
after the signing of the accords when the five groups announced different
visions on how to rebuild, develop, and democratize the country.18 Three
groups—the FPL, the Communist Party, and the PRTC—regarded the ac-
cords “as the beginning not the institutionalization of democracy.”19 For

some groups within the ERP and the RN, on the other hand, the accords
represented the building of a new state. In the eyes of the dissidents, the
FMLN was a part of this project, and they demanded that all confrontation
with the government had to end.20 In the opinion of the latter two groups
it was possible to work within the existing institutions. Gobernabilidad, ef-
fective government, was to be the issue of the day, not a fundamental re-
structuring of Salvadoran society.21
Another area of conflict was the result of attempts by the two largest
groups, the FPL and the ERP, to dominate the FMLN. Francisco Jovel re-
garded the fundamental issue “of all the problems of unity that exist among
the Left and that are legendary anywhere in Latin America, particularly
during periods of peace or election campaigns,” to be “the tendency of the
Left to atomize. This is a product of the hegemonic desires that predomi-
nate in different groups that compose the Left.”22 In the wake of the peace
accords, both the ERP and FPL hoped to expand their support base and be-
come the dominant group within the FMLN. Hegemony was considered
essential in order for the group to determine the content of the FMLN’s po-
litical project. The ERP considered itself well positioned because it had its
own media, Radio Venceremos, its cadres were experienced in publicity,
and it hoped to find support for its political positions in the urban areas.
These factors failed to work to the ERP’s benefit, however, because of in-
creasing internal infighting. Militants and social movements close to the
ERP rebelled against the autocratic style of the leadership. With the ERP
becoming weaker and the FPL growing, the stage was set for confrontation.
The struggle over control of the FMLN resulted in frequent clashes among
its leaders, culminating in the éclat over the elections of the Legislative As-
sembly directorate when ERP and RN deputies supported ARENA candi-
dates. A special congress of the FMLN, held in December 1994, recognized
that the differences among the five groups could not be reconciled. Amidst
mutual charges of betrayal, sectors of the ERP and RN left the FMLN. Sev-
eral top ERP and RN leaders, such as Eugenio Chicas, as well as a majority
of the militants supporting the two groups, remained with the FMLN. The
others, led by Joaquín Villalobos, Eduardo Sancho, and Ana Guadalupe
Martínez set out to form a new party, the Partido Demócrata (Democratic
Party, or PD). This exodus reduced the number of FMLN legislators elected
in 1994, from twenty-one to fourteen, since seven joined the new “social-
democratic” sector.
The division threw the FMLN into disarray. Confusion was particularly
pronounced among FMLN militants and supporters in the countryside who
had not been privy to the discussions among the leadership and had diffi-
culty following the public arguments. Despite the turmoil, several FMLN
leaders emphasized the positive side of the split. They argued that the
power struggle over who would gain effective control of the new party had
prevented the FMLN’s consolidation, since it did not permit the develop-
ment of a coherent postwar ideological identity. In the eyes of Norma Gue-
vara, for example, the division permitted the initiation of a process that
would transform the FMLN from an alliance consisting of distinct groups
into a unified party.23 Most importantly, the traditional arrangement that
had guaranteed each FMLN group equal representation in the decision-
making structures was limiting the party’s internal democracy. During the
height of the controversy, the FMLN’s Women’s Secretariat released the
following statement:
We question the viability of constructing true internal democracy in the

FMLN and of fighting for our aspirations within the model of a pact of par-
ties based on historic conditions of the Left and the established interests of
each force and leadership group. These interests, however, do not corre-
spond to the interests of the people nor of the current rank-and-file of the
FMLN itself. We oppose the continuation of the practice of negotiating in-
terests at the leadership level that takes the place of the expression of the
majority interests of the FMLN’s grass roots.24
Thus, the FMLN break-up had its positive aspects. Nevertheless, the cost
of the division was considerable. During the first months of 1995, the for-
mer allies engaged in public recriminations that damaged the reputation of
the Left overall. Most importantly, much energy was devoted to charges
and countercharges instead of presenting credible alternatives to the ne-
oliberal policies being pursued by the ARENA government.
The sectors remaining in the FMLN reorganized the party at the second
National Convention, held December 17–18, 1994. Several crucial deci-
sions were made on this occasion. First and most important, the FMLN
continued to transform itself from a “political movement consisting of five

distinct parties” to a “single party with several recognized factions.” The
leadership was aware of the challenges posed by the transition to a truly
unified movement. As an initial step, the five groups constituting the
FMLN made a commitment to dissolve their party structures.25 Further, to
emphasize the goal of unification, the old quota system that had protected
the smaller FMLN groups was abandoned. In order to prevent future prob-
lems, the FMLN sought to regulate the existence of factions within the
party. The convention charged the FMLN’s National Council with de-
signing rules governing the existence of factions within the FMLN.26 Fac-
tions “were considered permanent or temporary groups that form them-
selves within the FMLN according to general or specific agreements of
political and/or ideological nature.”27 The new statutes emphasized that
“no faction could have an organic structure that would convert itself into
a parallel center of decision-making.”28 Factions were also forbidden to
promote the division of the FMLN or to make public statements in favor
of or against FMLN decisions.
Another important outcome of the 1994 Convention was the political
commitment of the leadership to establish measures of positive discrimi-
nation; the delegates agreed to support quotas for the participation of
women and youth.29 The importance given to women and young party
members was also evident in the new statutes, which gave the heads of the
FMLN’s Women’s and Youth commissions the right to participate and vote
in meetings of the Political Commission.30 Further, the party statutes were
revised to reduce the size of the National Council from sixty-six to fifty-
two seats. The leadership decided to end the policy of adding fourteen rep-
resentatives from the country’s departments to the fifty core Council mem-
bers. Instead the fifty core seats were reallocated. Twenty seats were set
aside for departmental representatives. Each department had the right to
present a slate of candidates and have a least one representative elected by
the convention delegates. The six departments with the largest number of
party members had the right to two Council seats.31 In addition to these
twenty representatives, thirty members were elected directly by the con-
vention delegates. Further, the coordinator of the FMLN’s parliamentary
bench and the coordinator of the Council of Mayors held ex officio Coun-
cil seats.
During the course of 1995, all FMLN groups officially dissolved. PRTC
militants voted on July 30 to abolish their party. Although the decision was
unanimous and all PRTC assets were transferred to the FMLN, some PRTC
members had reservations because they feared that the FPL would seek to
dominate the other groups. These concerns were justified, since FPL cadres
had exhibited such hegemonic tendencies in the past. The PRTC was skep-
tical about its future within the FMLN because it was the smallest of the
five original groups. The Communist Party followed the PRTC’s example
on August 5, when it transformed itself into the Communist branch of the
FMLN.
The last FMLN group to dissolve was the Popular Forces of Liberation,
which held a final congress on December 9, 1995.32 Over the course of a
day filled with emotion, FPL delegates representing local party structures
took a final inventory of the twenty-five years their movement had existed.
Many tears were shed when the delegates remembered their comrades
killed during the civil war. Symbolizing their solidarity with the fallen com-
batants, the participants lighted an eternal flame in their honor. Several
FPL militants expressed resentment because this was their final meeting.
The event started with the delegates shouting the slogan: “Long live the
FPL.” One militant reacted to this and remarked: “Why do they say ‘Long
Live!’ if they are killing us?” Statements like this one indicated that sectors
of the rank and file perceived the decision to dissolve as one imposed by
the leadership. Schafik Hándal, the leader of the Communist Party, who
was present at the beginning of the convention, aroused the suspicion of
some participants. They interpreted his presence as making sure that the
FPL militants were indeed disposed to join the FMLN.
The most controversial item on the agenda concerned the FPL’s eco-
nomic assets. The FPL had properties and businesses worth several million
dollars in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Dis-
solving the party required the FPL to put its economic affairs in order.
There was considerable discussion about the money that many of the FPL
businesses had lost, and several militants argued that the FPL officers re-
sponsible for overseeing the party’s economic affairs should not be exoner-
ated. Their excitement was understandable considering the amount of the
losses and the miserable income of most militants. It required the inter-
vention of Salvador Sánchez, who had commanded the FPL forces during
the war, to calm the heated tempers of the delegates. He pointed out that
the FPL had not been running traditional for-profit enterprises but had used
these businesses to achieve its war objectives. Some FPL corporations had
served as fronts for acquiring arms, while others were part of an effort to
break the economic embargo that the United States had imposed on Cuba.
In Sánchez’s view, traditional standards of sound economic practice did not
therefore apply. His argument carried the day. One FPL leader, however,
shared a different assessment of these economic problems. In his opinion
the FPL’s economic difficulties were not unique, rather they were endemic
among the revolutionary Left. He emphasized that “revolutionary move-
ments have been a failure in managing their financial affairs.” Confidential
conversations with FPL leaders support this judgment. The leaders revealed
that there were heated discussions inside the FPL over the mismanagement
of party funds and businesses. In the end, the circumstances of the war were
used to justify discrepancies for which those responsible should have been
held accountable.
The convention agreed to transfer about $700,000 from the remaining
FPL assets to the FMLN, to donate one property in Guatemala to the
URNG, and to forgive a $100,000 debt by the Cuban Communist Party.
The last measure was a sign of gratitude for the support the FPL had re-
ceived from Cuba during the war and took into account the severe eco-
nomic difficulties Cuba was experiencing at the time. The FPL kept almost
$1 million to settle its own affairs and take care of its rank and file. As part
of this, $100,000 was allocated for efforts to get FPL militants out of pris-
ons in Nicaragua and various parts of South America. A dozen or so mili-
tants had been languishing for years in these prisons, some of them sen-
tenced to life, for activities carried out on behalf of the guerrilla movement.
Other funds were established to provide credit to FPL militants and to help
FPL members who had been left out of the reinsertion programs and were
in need of economic support. These funds created controversy: some dele-
gates, arguing “We are all FMLN now,” proposed that the money be used
to support FMLN militants in general and not exclusively FPL members.
Numerous other speakers vehemently objected to this proposal, holding
that the FPL needed to take care of their own first. The delegates finally
agreed to restrict the fund to FPL militants, with special emphasis on the
needs of ex-combatants and those supporters whose personal suffering and
losses during the war had been especially great. One delegate, in favor of
this last provision, recounted the story of a female supporter who had lost
six children in the war. Gerson Martínez, a member of the FPL’s leadership,
proposed that all members of the Political Commission including himself
should be precluded from benefiting from this fund. His proposal received
unanimous support.
Martínez offered another resolution intended to ensure that FMLN of-
ficials would distinguish themselves from their colleagues in other Sal-
vadoran parties. He proposed that all FMLN deputies in parliament be ob-
ligated to give 30 percent of their salaries to the party. Martínez wanted to
make sure that future candidates for public office would agree to serve out
of a commitment to the people and not be motivated primarily by a desire
to seek personal economic gain. This proposal passed and was later ap-
proved by the FMLN National Council. The congress concluded with the
delegates taking a final vote on whether to dissolve and join the FMLN.
Applause greeted the nearly unanimous vote (there was only one absten-
tion). In a final symbolic act, the FPL flag was handed over to an FMLN
representative while the participants listened to the “March of Unity.”
The FMLN started to reregister its members in order to reflect its evo-
lution toward a unified party and to consolidate the different membership
registers of the individual groups. At the time of the third National Con-
vention, held in December 1995, the FMLN had about 28,000 official
members. One of the priorities of the convention was to strengthen the
process of unification. FMLN leaders made the distinction between the
goal of establishing a “partido único” (a single party) versus the existing re-
ality of a “partido unificado” (unified party). Particularly at the grass-roots
level, FMLN members continued to identify themselves with the old
FMLN groups.33 Seeking to ensure stability at the leadership level during
this transition period, the delegates reelected Salvador Sánchez as party co-
ordinator. The central themes at the convention included party modern-
ization, the definition of the FMLN’s political project, and the organic na-
ture of the party.
Key figures in the FMLN leadership were convinced that it was impor-
tant to begin transferring power from the established leadership figures to
newer candidates. This idea was reflected in the 1995 party statutes that
limited the number of consecutive terms any leader could serve. Under the
new rules, no one could serve as a member of the Political Commission or

the National Council for more than two consecutive terms. Party coordi-
nators were limited to one year.34 Equally important was a new provision
that all “leadership structures have to be renovated every term and in an
obligatory fashion, in a percentage no less than 30 percent of its mem-
bers.”35 This meant that one-third of the membership of the Political Com-
mission and the National Council had to be people who had not served the
previous year. The goal of reform was to be strengthened further with ad-
ditional revisions to the party statutes in 1997. The new measures con-
cerned FMLN cadres who held public office. They restricted the period that
any FMLN member could serve in parliament to two consecutive terms ex-
cept when two-thirds of the members of the National Council approved a
third-term candidacy.36
The FMLN failed to hold its annual party convention in December 1996
because all the party’s energies were devoted to the 1997 elections. Al-
though this violated the statutes, it was considered a minor problem by the
leadership. Nevertheless, party leaders agreed that at least the mandate of
the party coordinator had to be reconfirmed. This issue was solved in an ad
hoc fashion. According to the 1995 statutes, the term of the party coordi-
nator and his two deputies expired by the end of 1996. Without a Party
Congress to elect the new authorities, the FMLN leadership opted to have
the current coordinator and his deputies reelected to another term by the
National Council. It was this leadership that led the FMLN into the 1997
elections.
The results of the March 1997 parliamentary and municipal elections
were evidence that the FMLN had consolidated its political structures and
that voter support for the new party was strengthening.37 The former guer-
rillas almost doubled the number of their representatives in parliament.
The FMLN leadership had learned from the mistakes they had made in the
1994 elections when the party failed to win several seats in parliament and
the mayoralties of about forty towns by a few votes because the party chose
to enter few electoral alliances.38 A reversal of this policy allowed Hector
Silva, the candidate of the Left, to gain the position of mayor of San Sal-
vador.
The FMLN’s 1997 electoral success also came with a price. Seeking to
improve on the poor 1994 showing at the municipal level, the FMLN re-
cruited “popular” candidates in 1997. These candidates were generally not

party members with a long history of commitment to FMLN goals, but peo-
ple who enjoyed community support. While some of them had charisma,
few showed they had the skills needed to govern effectively, and most re-
fused to accept party discipline. When the party leadership tried to correct
irregularities at the local level, some mayors chose to leave the FMLN and
declared themselves independent rather than accept the consequences of
their actions. This was the path chosen by the mayor of Guazapa. Accused
of trafficking in identification documents, he chose to quit the FMLN be-
fore the party’s demands for his removal from office could succeed. Prob-
lems in the department of Usulután were particularly notorious.
The 1997 elections also proved that Joaquín Villalobos and his allies,
who had formed the Democratic Party, enjoyed little support among the
electorate. One year before the elections, PD leaders expressed confidence
that the new party would obtain 10 percent of the vote and gain eight seats
in parliament.39 Their predictions proved to be overly optimistic. The PD
suffered a devastating defeat and gained an embarrassing 13,533 votes (out
of 1,119,603). Only one of its previous seven deputies was reelected to par-
liament, and this was only due to an electoral alliance the party had formed
with the Christian Democrats.40 The electoral defeat of the FMLN dissi-
dents replicated the outcome of the 1996 Nicaraguan elections, when dis-
sident Sandinistas, led by former vice-president Sergio Ramírez, failed to
obtain substantial support from the voters.
Reform versus Orthodoxy
In the wake of the party’s 1997 electoral success, many observers con-
sidered the FMLN to be in a position to win the 1999 presidential elections
and to become the governing party. Instead the FMLN self-destructed.
Having weathered the 1994 division, it failed to successfully resolve im-
portant internal disputes that had been festering for several years. These
conflicts had personal and political roots. The basic disagreement con-
cerned how to transform the FMLN into a majority party. Interestingly, the
key protagonists opposing each other had belonged to the same FMLN
group—the FPL. Facundo Guardado, a former FPL leader who had led the
party to its electoral success as campaign manager for the 1997 elections,
sought to modernize and reform the FMLN. From his point of view it was
essential for the party to gain power. Only as the governing party would the
FMLN be able to implement its economic and political projects. In order
to achieve his objectives, Guardado was prepared to abandon and modify
long-standing party positions. For example, he argued that the FMLN had
to accept that neoliberalism was the predominant paradigm. Instead of
fighting a battle it could not win, Guardado argued, the FMLN should
abandon its support for socialist policies and find a way to administer ne-
oliberal policies that would protect the interest of poor Salvadorans.41 Sal-
vador Sánchez led the opposition to Guardado. The FPL’s top commander
during the war, Sánchez headed the “orthodox” or “revolutionary socialist”
branch of the FMLN. Sánchez and his supporters argued that the preser-
vation of the ideological heritage of the FMLN should take priority over
the urge to gain the reins of government by assuming positions considered
acceptable to the majority of the electorate. The basic principles that the
FMLN had fought for could not be compromised, even if this meant that
the FMLN had to remain in opposition. The significant differences be-
tween these two political visions of the FMLN’s future were exacerbated by
clashes between individual militants who supported one group or the other.
There was a tendency for the orthodox sector to demonize Guardado. His
supporters, in turn, launched vehement personal attacks against Sánchez
and his ally Schafik Hándal. Personal attacks were so common that sev-
eral militants maintained the two FMLN factions were separated by their
allegiance to different leadership figures rather than by their ideological
convictions. In addition to the two main factions, there were three other
dissident FMLN groups led by Raúl Mijango, Dagoberto Gutiérrez, and
Francisco Jovel.
At the December 1997 Party Congress, Guardado’s reform movement
gained control over the party’s leadership structure with Guardado himself
elected party coordinator. Guardado’s victory was the result of diligent
preparation, or—as the opposing group saw it—manipulation by his asso-
ciates. In the opinion of the opposition, the conference delegates knew lit-
tle about the FMLN’s internal struggles and were easily manipulated. At
the convention, Guardado’s followers distributed four distinct candidate
lists for the National Council to the delegates, urging them to vote for those
candidates whose names had been marked on the lists. A number of can-
didates were on several or all of these lists, a strategy that helped them to
get a lot of votes. Some successful candidates, such as Violeta Menjívar, an
ex-spouse of Guardado, were well-known and popular figures; but the suc-
cess of several relatively unknown candidates could only be explained by
this kind of election engineering. Some FMLN leaders who had enjoyed
great popularity in the past but were not on the lists promoted by the re-
formers received relatively few votes this time. For example, Nidia Díaz,
who had received the most votes in the last Council election, dropped from
first to eighth place.
Guardado’s strategy of packing the National Council with his support-
ers was a resounding success. Since the Council chooses the Political
Commission, Guardado’s followers could impose their will. Despite a poor
personal showing in the election to the National Council (he received only
361 of the 719 valid votes cast by the convention delegates, which left him
in thirteenth place), Guardado was elected to the Political Commission.
With his supporters in the majority on the Commission he then managed
to get elected party coordinator, defeating his main rival, Sánchez, who had
been in fourth place in the Council elections with 435 votes. Menjívar,
who had obtained the most votes (631), and Francisco Jovel, who had the
second highest vote total (535), were elected as Guardado’s deputies. In-
terestingly, Menjívar received unanimous support from the Council when
it elected the Political Commission. Nevertheless, she decided not to run
for the position of coordinator. Almost two-thirds of the old Commission
members were replaced. Most significant was the failure of Schafik Hándal,
one of the FMLN’s historic leaders, to get reelected. Ironically, Guardado,
who publicly called for the renewal of the FMLN’s leadership, was himself
one of the party’s historic figures.
A key item on the convention’s agenda was the modernization of the
party. Several high-ranking leaders considered the FMLN still a “premod-
ern” party. They advocated internal democratization; greater efficiency;
and, above all, a “new ethic.” The fight for a new ethic, essential for mod-
ernizing the party, was considered to be part of the FMLN’s revolutionary
tradition. The party required a new ethic so it could be a credible advocate
for societal change.
From an organizational perspective, one of the FMLN’s deficiencies was
the lack of a clear division of labor between its parliamentary bench and
its national decision-making structures. Further, the Political Commission

tended to micromanage the party’s affairs instead of leaving the adminis-
trative details to a secretariat while focusing its energies on the formula-
tion of an alternative political platform. As part of the 1997 reforms, the
administrative duties of the Political Commission were given to a newly
created Executive Secretariat. The proposed term limits discussed earlier
were approved, since they reduced the risk that FMLN leaders would lose
touch with their constituents. They were also intended to distinguish the
FMLN from the traditional parties. Positioning the party for the 1999 pres-
idential elections, Guardado emphasized the “social-democratic” nature of
the FMLN, in contrast to the predilection for “socialism” espoused by his
predecessor.
The convention failed to solve the conflict between the orthodox cur-
rent and the reformers who controlled the party leadership. Guardado af-
firmed in mid-1998 that his attempt to transform the FMLN was not yet
consolidated and that the “reform movement” was more popular in the so-
ciety at large than within the party.42 Guardado considered himself a prag-
matist with the task of offering the electorate concrete solutions for the
many problems affecting Salvadoran society. He saw his political rivals in
the party mired in traditional thought, better at denouncing prevailing par-
adigms, such as neoliberalism, than at offering alternatives. In turn, he was
accused of moving the party to the right and selling out. Members of the
orthodox faction of the party circulated an anonymous document in May
1998, in which they attempted to discredit the political plan of their ideo-
logical enemy. They argued that “it is not easy to define it or denounce it
because it does not have a written platform, not internally toward the party
and not toward the outside. This is not due to incompetence, but is a strat-
egy. It is the deliberate intention [of the reformers] not to put the plan for-
ward in a clear fashion. If it were explained openly, it would not find sup-
port within the party.”43
A Lesson in Self-destruction: The 1999 Nominating Process
The two main FMLN factions tested their strength in the selection
process for the 1999 presidential candidates. The orthodox group, led by
Sánchez and Hándal, started with a preemptive strike by publicly endors-
ing Salvador Arias and Victoria Marina de Avilés. Arias, an economist, had
most recently left his mark as an advisor to the FMLN parliamentary bench
on the topic of the agrarian debt. An outspoken defender of the rights of
the country’s marginalized classes, he was popular with the labor and peas-
ant constituencies. Avilés, a former human rights ombudsperson, on the
other hand, was admired by a broad sector of Salvadoran society. The ticket
fulfilled an important requirement established by the FMLN’s National
Council in May 1998—it included a man and a woman.44 While impor-
tant sectors of the women’s movement supported Avilés as the candidate
for the presidency, many leaders of both sexes wanted her to run for vice-
president. There was great concern that Salvadoran society was not ready
to support the election of a female president.
Guardado’s group answered by supporting Hector Silva, the mayor of
San Salvador. Silva made it clear from the beginning that he would only
accept a nomination to be the presidential candidate and had no interest
in being number two on any ticket. Although other nominees were under
consideration, in the end only Silva, Arias, and Avilés were officially reg-
istered as candidates when the FMLN delegates convened in August 1998
to nominate the presidential ticket.
In a turbulent meeting, the convention failed to successfully complete
its task.45 According to the rules established by the FMLN’s National
Council, a candidate needed 50 percent plus one vote of the 1,034 regis-
tered delegates in order to be named to the ticket. In a contest between two
strong candidates, it was difficult, if not impossible, for either candidate to
obtain the 518 necessary votes. This was especially true in this case because
only 890 votes were cast. Press accounts of the number of registered dele-
gates who failed to attend the convention varied from 78 to 135.46 In ad-
dition, a number of those present abstained from voting. Avilés, in partic-
ular, argued unsuccessfully that it should be enough for a candidate to
obtain 50 percent plus one of the votes of the delegates present instead of
a majority of the delegates who were registered. In the end, the contest was
close, with Avilés obtaining 441 of the required 518 votes and Silva re-
ceiving 431 votes. Arias, who ran only for vice-president, also failed to get
the minimum votes required. According to Norma Guevara, a member of
the committee supervising the elections, he received fewer votes than
Avilés.47 Thus all candidates failed to clear the hurdle of obtaining the ma-
jority required by the party’s rules. Avilés supporters were stunned that their
candidate failed to get the required majority, since eight of the fourteen de-
partment conventions had supported her candidacy. They attributed her
defeat to manipulative tactics by the reformers who supported Silva.
There were two major additional complications. One was that only
Avilés was a candidate for either position on the ticket. Silva ran only for
the presidential position, and Arias only for the vice-presidential spot. If
Silva had been a candidate for both positions, a simple solution would have
been to select the two candidates with the most votes. Also, because of the
requirement that a woman had to be part of the ticket, there were only three
possible outcomes: Avilés-Arias, Silva-Avilés, and Avilés-Silva. Since the
Avilés-Arias ticket did not enjoy majority support and since neither Avilés
nor Silva were prepared to consider the number two spot on a ticket headed
by their nemesis, there was no obvious solution. The meeting ended with
as much tumult as it had begun, with Avilés supporters calling on Silva to
withdraw his candidacy, something he refused to do.
The FMLN leadership was concerned with its public image. In light of
its guerrilla past, it was vulnerable to charges of undemocratic behavior.
Thus the leaders wanted to make sure that no procedural rules were vio-
lated. This limited their ability to find a way out of the dilemma by devis-
ing pragmatic procedures that would have ended the crisis. Following sev-
eral hours of negotiation on how to solve the impasse, candidate Arias
expressed the sentiments of the FMLN leadership: “What is advisable is
that a second round takes place. Otherwise, it will create the impression
that we have not been faithful to the democratic principle embodied in the
rules governing the candidate selection, and it will seem that we cut a
deal.”48 It was decided to reconvene the convention within fourteen days.
All three candidates wanted to change the selection rules for the second
round. According to the proposed change, the candidate with a simple ma-
jority of those voting would win. During the following days, advocates for
the different candidates attempted to secure the votes of the delegates who
had not attended the first round. On August 25 Hector Silva made the sur-
prise announcement that he was withdrawing his candidacy in order to sup-
port party unity. His supporters argued that with Silva out of the picture
other nominees should be permitted into the contest. In the end, however,
only Avilés and Arias ran in the second round. The reformers argued suc-
cessfully that because Avilés was running unopposed, the FMLN should
keep the original requirement of a qualified majority of the registered del-
egates. Once again Avilés failed to clear this hurdle. She obtained 435
votes. There were 31 invalid votes, and the rest of the delegates abstained.
Reportedly, this result reflected the position of the FMLN leadership. In
the second round most FMLN leaders failed to support Avilés. This threw
the race wide open. It forced the FMLN to call a new convention, requir-
ing the election of new delegates and inviting the entry of new candidates.
Days of heavy politicking followed. In the end, Facundo Guardado, the
FMLN’s coordinator, emerged as the competition to Avilés and Arias. The
candidacy of Guardado was not a great surprise. For several months he had
made it clear that he considered himself to be among three potential FMLN
candidates who had a chance of winning the presidency. Nidia Díaz, an-
other member of the FMLN’s Political Commission, joined Guardado on
the ticket.49 Seeking to prevent a recurrence of the difficulties of the first
two rounds, the rules for the third round were changed. Winning candi-
dates required only a simple majority, and delegates voted for a particular
ticket instead of for individual candidates. The Guardado-Díaz ticket re-
ceived 33 more votes (463 to 430) than the ticket of Avilés and Arias. The
FMLN finally had its official candidates for the presidential race. The cost,
however, was high. Guardado’s victory was Pyrrhic indeed. He received
only a few more votes than Avilés. Guardado’s failure to unify the oppos-
ing camps behind his candidacy left the FMLN as divided as ever. Avilés
supporters were disgusted with the final outcome of the selection process.
In their opinion, Avilés had been defeated by foul play. They argued that
Guardado’s followers had manipulated the process. Further, both Guardado
and Díaz had served as FMLN commanders during the war, and this was
seen as a major drawback. It restricted the appeal of the ticket to the fac-
tion of hardcore FMLN militants who supported the reformers instead of
broadening the ticket’s appeal to members of the electorate who were sym-
pathetic to the goals of the reformers but resented the war records of his
two nominees. Further, many Avilés sympathizers in the revolutionary so-
cialist faction, particularly women, failed to support the final ticket. This
hurt the FMLN in the election, since the members of this group were con-
sidered to be the most active militants in the party.
The fallout from the convention affected the FMLN in numerous ways.
Internal divisions became more profound, many FMLN activists and sup-
porters no longer saw the FMLN as a viable political option, and society at
large reevaluated its opinion of the FMLN. The damage was severe. The
FMLN presented to the Salvadoran electorate the picture of a party that
was deeply divided and unable to solve its disagreements in a civil fashion.
Ironically, the FMLN’s openness had backfired. Holding a public conven-
tion covered by the media and adhering strictly to the established selection
rules paid no dividends. Instead of being praised for demonstrating inter-
nal democracy, the FMLN was perceived as a divided party that could not
be entrusted with running the country. This benefited the governing party,
which had selected its candidate in the traditional fashion, hidden from
public scrutiny. ARENA leaders were quick to denounce the FMLN as
being too immature to govern. Some FMLN leaders publicly explained
the party’s difficulty in the selection of the presidential ticket as the price
the FMLN had to pay for observing internal democracy. Unfortunately for
the new party, this argument was not well received by the voters—the
FMLN was soundly defeated in the first round of the March 1999 election.
A few days after the election, Facundo Guardado assumed responsibility for
his party’s poor showing and resigned from his positions as party coordina-
tor and member of the Political Commission. He left, accusing the ortho-
dox sector of being “a minority, fanaticized and anxious to gain power.”50
Following its electoral defeat, the FMLN decided to hold a party con-
vention to rally the party faithful and to resolve the disputes between the
reformers and the revolutionary socialists. The FMLN’s fourth convention
took place May 9, 1999. The convention was closed to the public except
for the formal opening and closing ceremonies. This was an apparent
attempt to avoid another spectacle. The public display of infighting and
turmoil that had engulfed the three nominating conventions had to be
avoided at any price. FMLN leaders were convinced that many potential
voters had been turned away by this public display of immaturity among
the ranks of the FMLN. The May meeting resolved little. Finding no con-
sensus, the showdown between the two main FMLN currents was post-
poned until the convention could be reconvened at the end of July. In an
apparent victory for the revolutionary socialists, the delegates decided to
move up the date for the election of new party authorities (then dominated
by reformers) from December to July. Further, reforms to the party statutes
adopted by the convention defined the character of the FMLN as “a dem-

ocratic, pluralist, revolutionary and socialist party.”51
The delegates approved new provisional rules for the election of party
authorities. These rules, to be approved at the July meeting, established that
candidates running for one of the thirty national seats on the National
Council could do so as individuals or as part of a list. Candidates were to be
elected by direct, secret vote. In the case of the twenty seats allocated by
department, each department delegation had the right to present a list of
three candidates. The convention would than elect one representative from
each list by majority vote. In a further move to democratize the party, it was
decided that the candidates for parliament at the national level should be
elected by the convention delegates and not by the National Council.
The July 1999 convention saw the victory of the orthodox faction of the
party. The revolutionary socialists gained control of over half the seats in
the National Council. This put them in position to get their candidates
into the Political Commission and to elect Fabio Castillo, a proponent of
their ideology, party coordinator. Castillo, considered one of the most bril-
liant lawyers in the country, was a legitimate candidate for the coordinator
position, having obtained the most votes in the election for National
Council. He had two deputies, Raúl Mijango and Irma Amaya. Mijango
was the key candidate of the reformers. The July elections brought the most
significant change in the composition of the FMLN’s national decision-
making structures since the signing of the peace accords. For the first time
the coordinator position was not held by one of the historic FMLN figures,
and none of the original five guerrilla commanders held a seat on the Po-
litical Commission. Furthermore, only Fabio Castillo, Raúl Mijango, and
Ileana Rogel were reelected to their seats on the Political Commission. In
addition to those three, only seven members of the National Council se-
cured consecutive mandates. This was true change. It remained to be seen,
however, whether the extensive renewal of the FMLN leadership would
benefit the party’s development.
Nicaragua
The development of the Sandinista party occurred in a fundamentally

different context from that of its Salvadoran counterpart. The FSLN came
to power as a result of the revolution and remained in power for over a

decade. This created important opportunities and, at the same time, hin-
dered the party’s development. Following their 1990 electoral defeat, many
FSLN militants “realized that the FSLN was not prepared to function as a
political party. It had not developed this partisan political experience be-
cause all its efforts were always channeled into trying to govern while de-
fending the revolution from North American aggression; and all this was
in the context of a confusion of state and party.”52 Because the FSLN went
directly from being a guerrilla movement to assuming the role of govern-
ing party, the crucial process of transformation from an authoritarian, hi-
erarchical, elitist organization into a democratic mass party was delayed.
This led to an interesting contradiction. The Sandinista leadership could
rightly lay claim to having institutionalized electoral democracy in Nica-
ragua.53 Yet at the same time that the FSLN was successful in democratiz-
ing society, it failed to strengthen the internal democracy of the party.
When the FSLN gained control of Nicaragua in July 1979, all power was
concentrated in the nine-member Sandinista National Directorate. Each
of the three Sandinista factions controlled three seats. The FSLN was a
vanguard party with an estimated 1,500 members in 1979.54 The member-
ship increased during the first years of the revolution, but the party still had
only 12,000 members in 1985.55 Membership expanded further during the
late 1980s, leaving the FSLN with a reported membership of 30,000 in
1988.56 This was still a low figure compared to traditional mass-based par-
ties. Apparently the FSLN leadership had made a conscious decision to rely
on “an elite party of limited membership, systematically incorporating only
the most committed revolutionary individuals.”57 The FSLN could not be
considered a mass-based party since “it maintained its military structure
from the days of the insurrection and . . . [failed] to implement the princi-
ples of democratic centralism envisioned by V. I. Lenin as the path to fol-
low upon taking power.”58
Below the Directorate was the Sandinista Assembly, a body appointed
by the FSLN leadership that lacked decision-making power. Although its
members held important party and government positions and were “influ-
ential in their own areas of responsibility, the authority of the Assembly
[was] quite circumscribed.”59 It convened only a few days every year and
lacked independence from the Directorate. The first Sandinista Assembly
was constituted in September 1980, during the Third National Assembly

of Sandinista Militants, held September 13 –15, 1980. It consisted of sixty-
six members whose selection was based on evaluations made by the party
leadership.60 This Assembly included fifteen women, representing 23 per-
cent of the membership. An analysis of the First Assembly provides clear
evidence that the majority of the initial members earned their appoint-
ments based on their contributions during the guerrilla struggle. The As-
sembly was later expanded to over one hundred members and changed its
composition on an irregular basis. For example, the Directorate replaced
some members before and after the 1984 elections. Between 1984 and 1991,
however, the Sandinista Assembly remained basically unchanged. Mem-
bership came to be recognized as being “a permanent status.”61 In 1994, the
membership composition of the party’s structures was significantly affected
by the decision of the Party Congress to establish a 30 percent quota for
women and a 10 percent quota for youth.62 Also, the terms for members of
the Sandinista Assembly and the Directorate were limited to three years.63
The party, however, subsequently failed to enforce this provision.
Daniel Ortega’s faction assumed greater and greater control within the
Directorate. Ortega’s status had evidently been greatly strengthened dur-
ing his years as Nicaragua’s president—he was now the primus inter pares.
In 1991, his “de facto leadership of the party was codified by his election to
the newly created position of secretary-general.”64 After the Directorate
was enlarged from nine to fifteen members in 1994, the status of individ-
ual members changed substantially. Knowledgeable sources affirmed that
there were different categories of members—those who had real power and
those in support roles. Following the 1996 general elections, in which the
FSLN suffered its second defeat in a row, the Directorate became immobi-
lized, and Daniel Ortega basically made decisions alone. Several members
ceased to attend the regular meetings, and divisions within the Directorate
over the future course of the FSLN became increasingly public. Henry Ruiz,
for example, one of the original nine Commanders of the Revolution, was
outraged over the party’s lack of support for the poor majority, the FSLN’s
core supporters. He was particularly incensed over the fact that the FSLN
leadership had cut a deal with the newly elected Alemán government over
the highly sensitive property issue. The agreement protected the property
rights of high-ranking Sandinista officials while leaving poor peasants and
urban dwellers open to possible expropriation. As a consequence of his be-

lief that the party leadership had abandoned the rank and file, Ruiz an-
nounced in November 1997: “I don’t want to continue in the FSLN.”65
Efforts of Internal Democratization
The FSLN’s 1990 electoral defeat ushered in a period of self-reflection

within the party. At a historic meeting in June 1990, the majority of the
party notables agreed to abandon violent struggle as an option to regain
power and recognized that the FSLN was deficient in its democratic de-
velopment. A document acknowledged “authoritarianism, lack of sensi-
tivity to rank-and-file concerns, imposition of leaders and organizational
structures without democratic discussion . . . and arrogant behavior and
abuse of power on the part of Sandinistas with civilian and military re-
sponsibilities.”66 Although the Sandinista leaders recognized their past er-
rors publicly, they failed to relinquish any real measure of control to the
grass roots.67
The first signs of an incipient internal democratization could be detected
in 1991 when the FSLN convened a National Congress. At this point, the
party finally institutionalized formal democratic procedures in the election
of its national authorities. The 581 delegates, who represented all depart-
ments of the country, elected the members of the National Directorate in
a secret ballot. The choices of candidates given to the delegates for election
to this body were limited, however. The Directorate “decreed that election
to the new body would be by slate only, with no voting for individual mem-
bers.”68 Thus, the seven old and two suggested new members (Sergio
Ramírez and René Núñez) ran on an unopposed slate. This procedure was
adopted in an effort to avoid the defeat of any of the seven remaining orig-
inal Directorate members. Several of them had become very unpopular and
were certain to suffer defeat in an open contest. The old Directorate also
sought to prevent individuals who lacked the approval of the old guard from
gaining seats in the inner sanctum of power. The imposed election proce-
dure, which in effect eliminated the candidacy of Dora María Téllez who
enjoyed the support of many rank-and-file members, engendered consider-
able controversy. Female militants were furious over the exclusion of Téllez
and intensified their efforts to change the FSLN’s gender composition.69
Efforts to democratize the party were most evident at the level of the
Sandinista Assembly. It finally ceased to be an appointed body. For the first
time the delegates of the Party Congress elected its ninety-eight members.
Interestingly, less than 50 percent of the previously appointed members ob-
tained the support necessary to be reconfirmed in their positions.70 Ac-
cording to the revised party statutes, the Assembly was to be “dominant
over the National Directorate.”71 This reversal of roles was first evident at
the 1994 Congress. The delegates first elected the members of the Assem-
bly, which then proceeded to choose the new Directorate.72
The FSLN’s efforts were not limited to the national level. Departmen-
tal and municipal party officials, who used to be appointed, also became
subject to election. While this was an important development, there were
important limitations from a formal democratic perspective. Candidates
were not allowed to campaign for their positions, which tended to benefit
those who had charismatic personalities and a proven work record.73 In
general, however, the FSLN began to move away from its position as a party
made up of only the vanguard of the revolution. A few months after the
1990 national elections, the FSLN relaxed its membership criteria and es-
tablished the category of party affiliate. By August 1990, the FSLN reported
60,398 affiliates in addition to 35,349 traditional members.74
In an effort to reach out to the grass roots and to strengthen the inter-
nal democracy of the party, the Sandinista Assembly decided to select the
FSLN candidate for the 1996 presidential elections through an open pri-
mary, a consulta popular (people’s consultation). Party militants were en-
thusiastic, thinking that this would be a real opportunity for the people to
have input in the candidate-selection process. The Women’s Commission
of the Sandinista Assembly decided to support Vilma Núñez as a nominee.
Núñez enjoyed an excellent reputation among the party faithful. She had
served the party as the president of the FSLN’s Ethics Commission (1991–
94) and the revolutionary government as the vice-president of the
Supreme Court. Since 1991 she had been a member of the Sandinista As-
sembly. Widely popular, she had received the most votes of any female can-
didate (coming in fourth overall after Tomás Borge, Daniel Ortega, and
Lumberto Campbell) in the 1994 Sandinista Assembly elections. Núñez
was an attractive candidate because she could make a legitimate claim that
her electoral appeal extended beyond core FSLN supporters. As the presi-
dent of the Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Nicaraguan Hu-

man Rights Center), she had acquired prominence in Nicaraguan society
for her excellent work on behalf of human rights.
According to Núñez, she accepted the nomination out of the convic-
tion that a contest among several candidates would strengthen the party’s
democratization. At the same time she was “completely clear and con-
vinced that she had no possibility of winning.”75 While Núñez harbored
no illusions and was certain that Daniel Ortega would be the FSLN’s can-
didate, she became disenchanted with the way the party leadership was
handling the selection process. Initially persuaded of the leadership’s desire
to democratize the party she “soon started to realize that the democracy
that was being promoted, was not a genuine effort.” Ortega’s allies appar-
ently were threatened by her candidacy and took steps to make sure Núñez
would not succeed. “The whole party machinery began to function to dis-
mantle my candidacy. In no way can I say that they stole my candidacy. I
am convinced that Daniel did win. What they did, however, was to un-
dertake this campaign to keep me from gaining more votes.” In spite of
these efforts, Núñez obtained 26 percent of the vote. Backed by this sub-
stantial show of support, Núñez challenged Ortega at the party’s nomi-
nation convention. Although many female militants who had initially
supported her had been persuaded to abandon their efforts to get her nom-
inated, she received 30 percent of the votes.
In Núñez’s opinion, her gender was not a factor in this contest. “I don’t
think that we had [an instance of] gender consciousness here to say: Let’s
support this woman that has fought, that has a track record . . . I don’t think
either, that one has to.” Núñez emphasized that she wanted to be supported
because of her proven record, not because she was a woman. Interestingly,
the women’s movement that had organized itself into the Women’s Coali-
tion in order to support female candidates was lackluster in its support of
Núñez.76 “At no time did I sense that the Women’s Coalition was sup-
porting me,” reported a hurt Núñez. Some overly suspicious feminist lead-
ers even thought that Núñez’s candidacy was “only a maneuver on my part
to lend legitimacy to the candidacy of Daniel.” In hindsight, Núñez offered
a pessimistic view of her effort: “Examining it already from a distance, I
think it accomplished nothing.” It appears that Núñez’s defeat is better un-
derstood in the context of the desire of the Ortega faction to maintain con-
trol of the party than from a gender perspective. Yet if her analysis is cor-
rect, female militants lost an excellent opportunity to strengthen gender
awareness within the FSLN.
Orthodoxy versus Reform
The key debate within the party as it evolved after 1990, concerned the
future nature of the FSLN. Should it transform itself into a modern social-
democratic party or remain true to its roots as a “party of cadres involved
chiefly in day-to-day struggles in the unions, the neighborhood, and the
countryside.”77 These opposing perspectives manifested themselves in the
position the two camps took vis-à-vis the Chamorro government. The or-
thodox or radical faction sought a confrontation with the new government
to protect the rights of the Sandinista base, whereas the pragmatist reform
wing argued that a tactical alliance with the Chamorro administration was
necessary to defend revolutionary achievements.78 While the rhetoric of
Sandinista leaders, in particular Daniel Ortega, was very critical of gov-
ernment policies, the FSLN bench in the National Assembly did in fact
support the administration’s agenda. In Ortega’s case, it appears that his po-
sition reflected his need to cater to the needs of different constituencies and
his own ambivalence about deciding on the right strategy.
For two years the Sandinistas cooperated with the Chamorro govern-
ment so fully that many spoke of a “cogovernment.” The pendulum started
to swing in 1993, when a group of prominent Sandinistas—the Group of
29—criticized the party’s course in an open letter. “Fearing a challenge
from the left . . . Ortega began to identify more closely with the popular
factions and to distance himself, at least in rhetoric, from Chamorro.”79
Because the leadership was divided, an Extraordinary Party Congress was
convened for May 1994 to decide on the FSLN’s course of action.80 In the
weeks before the scheduled congress, two main groups emerged: Daniel
Ortega headed the Democratic Left and Sergio Ramírez led a reform
movement that advocated for a return to a Sandinista majority. The Dem-
ocratic Left emphasized the importance of socialism, whereas Ramírez’s
movement focused on democracy. Beneath the rhetoric, the differences
distinguishing the orthodox group from the reformers were “between
commitment to the popular classes and openness to multiclass compro-
mise and between more democratic versus more verticalist methods of

work.”81
The 1994 Congress failed to unify the two camps behind a common plat-
form and strategy. Instead the different ideological factions fought openly.
The results of the elections to the national governing bodies of the party
indicated majority support for Daniel Ortega’s orthodox faction. His group
won 53 percent of the seats in the National Directorate and 65 percent of
the seats in the Sandinista Assembly.82 Significantly, Sergio Ramírez was
not reelected to the Directorate. Although the existence of opposing fac-
tions within the FSLN was public knowledge, the party—unlike the FMLN
in El Salvador—was not in favor of institutionalizing them. This decision,
however, did little to impede groups with opposing visions from emerging
within the party.
Many Sandinista militants had grown disenchanted with the orthodox
party leadership and supported Sergio Ramírez’s reform movement.
Ramírez maintained that party unity had been corrupted by money. He op-
posed the view of those within the FSLN who argued that “in order to have
political power one has to have money.”83 In Ramírez’s view this mindset
had led to the piñata (the appropriation of government resources by high-
ranking Sandinistas following the 1990 election defeat) which, in turn, dis-
credited the FSLN in the eyes of many supporters.
A crucial issue for reform-minded militants was whether to try to reform
the party or to create a new movement. Even among those party members
who supported Ramírez’s ideas, many opposed splitting the party. Vilma
Núñez, courted by both factions to run for a seat on the National Directorate,
was one of them: “I considered that Sergio’s choice, to form another party, to
separate himself, was not the correct one. I thought then that the right thing
for him to do was to stay within and to try to change the party from the in-
side, because I thought that he as well as Dora María Téllez had a lot of power
within the Front. Sergio Ramírez was the intellectual brain of the military
leadership and guerrilleros. These were people with a lot of power, with a
lot of experience . . . Thus the choice to break up never convinced me.”
Despite the misgivings of Núñez and many other militants, the FSLN
split in January 1995, when three members of the Directorate, Dora María
Téllez, Luis Carrión, and Mirna Cunningham, together with Ramírez and
other renowned Sandinista intellectuals left the FSLN. Subsequently Ra-
mírez created the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (Sandinista Re-

form Movement, or MRS). The new party was most influential in the
Nicaraguan parliament. Of the thirty-eight Sandinista deputies only seven
publicly supported Ortega’s FSLN.84 The deputies paid a high price for sup-
porting the MRS, however. In the 1996 elections, the FSLN dissidents
were, for obvious reasons, not nominated as FSLN candidates; and those
that ran on the MRS ticket failed to get elected.
Interestingly, both the FMLN in El Salvador and the FSLN broke up
around the same time. The MRS suffered a fate similar to the Democratic
Party in El Salvador, which was formed by FMLN dissidents following the
1994 division. Both new parties failed to gain significant support from the
electorate. In the opinion of Victor Hugo Tinoco, the FSLN dissidents
made a fundamental political misjudgment in thinking that they could suc-
cessfully compete with the FSLN.85 The experience of the MRS and the
Democratic Party demonstrated that there was no room for two viable par-
ties on the revolutionary Left.
The apparent similarities in the divisions affecting the FSLN and FMLN
should not obscure the fundamental difference in the evolution of the two
parties. The problems in the Nicaraguan case had their roots in the FSLN’s
time as the governing party. The three FSLN factions that existed before
1979 merged into the FSLN that ruled the country for more than ten years.
Divisions in the FSLN began to emerge after the 1990 electoral defeat.
Dora María Téllez, one of the key FSLN dissidents, emphasized the impor-
tant contrast between the two former guerrilla movements. She pointed
out that the FMLN was not a unified party but a coalition of five distinct
groups at the time of its break-up. Her interpretation of the events in El
Salvador was that two of the five FMLN constituent groups “decided not
to go forward with the formation of a unified party.”86 Thus, in the Sal-
vadoran case militants divided over the proper strategy on how to get into
government while in Nicaragua the FSLN struggled with defining its role
as the main opposition party.
Zoilamérica and the 1998 Party Congress
The May 1998 FSLN Congress brought the party’s weaknesses to public
light. The Congress convened following the FSLN’s second general elec-
tion defeat in a row. It was clear that the Congress needed to reform the
party program, strengthen the FSLN’s organizational structure, and elect
new party authorities that would lead the FSLN back into power. When
Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, Daniel Ortega’s stepdaughter, accused him in
February 1998 of having sexually abused her, the focus of the Congress
changed dramatically.87 Her charges brought the internal discussion over
party reform to a halt. Ironically, Zoilamérica had been invited in January
1997 by the National Directorate to become a member of the Commission
of Design of the FSLN, charged with elaborating a proposal for the trans-
formation of the party.88 Now, in the eyes of many militants, any recom-
mendation coming out of this commission was inevitably tainted by what
was seen as Zoilamérica’s effort to destroy the leader of the party.
With the reform efforts stalled and the Congress “converted into a place
where the discussion focused on who would remain in the [party] posi-
tions,” a number of Sandinista leaders expressed their outrage that their
hopes for reform had been destroyed.89 Vilma Núñez, for example, voiced
her disapproval in an open letter to the FSLN that included strong criti-
cism from a gender perspective:
The fight to get positions, the efforts allotted to further concentrate power,
and the system of representation by various factions . . . has weakened the
possibilities of this Congress . . . [I have decided] not to continue to be part
of party structures that have transformed themselves into entities void of
content that neither decide nor lead; that do not perform the function that
the party statutes assign to them; and that only serve to hide a system that
is increasingly less democratic and, because of this, less revolutionary . . .
My experience [as a presidential nominee] has served to reaffirm my con-
viction that there will be no transformation in the FSLN if women are not lis-
tened to, if our sentiments are not respected, if we are used or abused, if we have
ever less power to make decisions and to act, if our contribution continues to be
underestimated and if we are denied the right to full participation.90
In her letter, Núñez reaffirmed her commitment to the Sandinista cause

while strongly criticizing the party leadership.
At the Congress, the Ortega supporters closed ranks behind their em-
battled leader. Like Núñez, many key Sandinista figures, including several
present and former members of the National Directorate, chose not to le-
gitimize the Congress and did not attend. In the absence of Henry Ruíz,
Humberto Ortega, Luís Carrión, Jaime Wheelock, Dora María Téllez, and
Sergio Ramírez, the nature of the Congress was considered by some ob-
servers to be more “Danielista than Sandinista.” The leadership crisis re-
vealed that the FSLN remained a captive of its past. Loyalty to the historic
leadership tended to prevail despite the opinion of many militants that
change in the leadership was in the best interest of the party. Despite ex-
pressions of dissent, the tradition of an elite party with its members fol-
lowing the directions of a charismatic leader imposed itself over the FSLN’s
incipient internal democratization. Daniel Ortega was reelected to the po-
sition of Secretary General even though he was under the cloud of the
charges raised against him and had very low approval ratings. According to
a poll conducted before Zoilamérica went public with her allegations, 55.4
percent of respondents gave Daniel Ortega’s work as Secretary General an
unfavorable rating, while only 32.2 percent approved of his conduct as
party leader.91 His poll numbers were similar to those of President Alemán
who had equally low approval ratings. These numbers indicated that the
country’s two main political figures had difficulty in gaining support beyond
their hardcore constituencies.
Ortega’s reelection raised few eyebrows. It was expected that party loy-
alists would support their embattled leader, who was the sole candidate for
the party leadership. The election of Tomás Borge to the position of deputy
secretary, however, was controversial. Borge, one of the cofounders of the
FSLN, who had held this post since 1994, claimed the right to be reelected
without opposition. He based his claim on his distinguished record as a
Sandinista leader. It was not to be the case. Víctor Hugo Tinoco, a leader-
ship figure of the next generation and the FSLN’s parliamentary whip, chal-
lenged him. Tinoco said that he chose to run for party deputy because a
broad sector of the membership urged him to do so.92 This was the first time
in the FSLN’s history that one of the original leaders was being challenged
by a member of the new leadership generation.
In the election of members of the National Directorate, Tinoco obtained
more votes than Borge. Indeed, he received the second highest number of
votes after Ortega. Nevertheless, in the race to become Ortega’s deputy, it
was Borge’s turn to be victorious. He succeeded in defeating Tinoco (224
votes to 199) because he campaigned astutely for the deputy position.

Tinoco appeared ambivalent about his challenge to Borge, campaigning
only half-heartedly. This left his supporters in doubt as to his seriousness.
Borge, on the other hand, brought his mattress to the conference center for
a sleepover with the out-of-town delegates and effectively evoked the
FSLN’s guerrilla past in his favor.93 The most important factor ensuring
Borge’s victory, however, was the endorsement he received from Daniel Or-
tega. Borge justified his struggle to remain in a key leadership position in
machista terms, reflecting the adverse climate for gender equality at the
Congress: “Youth is not in the years, it is in other things. If it concerns
youthful energy, I can swim across the Xiloá Lagoon. If it concerns sexual
energies, I just had two children. So why should I retire.”94 Borge’s boast-
ful remarks were disturbing in a context where women were under attack.95
Tinoco argued that many militants perceived the charges brought by Zoil-
américa “as an aggression against Sandinismo.” The controversy fostered
the anti-women factions in the party and resulted in a backlash for the
struggle to achieve greater gender equality.96
The central battle was between those who sought to bring about change
in the FSLN and those who were clinging to the status quo. Formally there
appeared to be important changes in the composition of the National Di-
rectorate, with eleven new members entering the leadership. The Direc-
torate now included Catholic and Protestant priests, a businessman, and
two leaders of the Sandinista youth. The new faces obscured the fact that
several of the new leaders had served the FSLN in one capacity or another
for a long time. What bound the new members together was their shared
loyalty toward Ortega. In addition, the new leaders were considered “pli-
able” by most observers. For example, female militants who did not have a
record of assuming independent positions replaced the outspoken women
of the outgoing Directorate.
On the surface the Congress was an exercise in democratic decision-
making. For example, the elections to the Directorate and the Sandinista
Assembly were conducted by secret ballot. Also, in order to decentralize
the party, the delegates elected only 30 percent of the new Assembly mem-
bers. An additional 30 percent of the membership was to be determined by
the various interest groups in the party, which had yet to be defined.97 The
rest were to be selected in meetings held at the town and department
level.98 Yet the real power struggles went on behind the scene, with the Or-
tega faction controlling the nomination process. Mónica Baltodano, an
outgoing Directorate member, expressed the outrage many militants felt
over these machinations: “It is shameful what is going on inside of San-
dinismo. There are political and economic deals being made behind the
scenes and at the margins of the Congress’s rank and file.”99 Baltodano,
who had been in charge of party organization, chose to leave the leader-
ship out of the conviction that she could fight better for the transformation
of the FSLN “outside of the National Directorate than inside of it.” She
preferred, she said, “to be a dreamer than to be the killer of dreams.”100
Sandinista dissidents viewed the FSLN’s evolution toward a democrat-
ic party with skepticism. Dora María Téllez maintained:
From a formal perspective, there is progress but from the point of view of
substance there is none. A process of democratization within a party should
tend to shape the party’s leadership, to strengthen the party as an organiza-
tion, not to deplete it . . . If one reads the statutes from a formal perspective,
one sees them much improved. But at the same time one sees a diminished
leadership, the absence of a program, of a political vision, a political strat-
egy—in short, conservatism.101
Following the 1998 Party Congress, there was profound disappointment

among those who had hoped the FSLN would use this opportunity to re-
form itself. Victor Hugo Tinoco affirmed that the party had “serious prob-
lems in organization.” In his view the Congress did not bring about the
“changes necessary to prepare the FSLN for the future.”102 Although there
had been an influx of new people into the decision-making structures, there
had been “no structural change in the party.” Tinoco was particularly con-
cerned with the party’s weakness at the intermediate level. Thousands of
committed militants, including all the comandantes guerrilleros (Guerrilla
Commanders, a rank just below the Commanders of the Revolution), who
had been part of a “generational cohort of the 1970s” had left the party in
frustration in the early 1990s. These cadres had a wealth of experience and
were the backbone of the FSLN’s organizational structure. Their absence
left a hole that the FSLN was unable to fill. In the wake of the 1998 Con-
gress, the FSLN was left with some of its historic leaders and new party
members who had joined in the 1980s and 1990s. For the moment, Daniel
Ortega and his supporters were firmly in charge and could impose their de-
cisions on the party. In the eyes of several high-ranking party members, the
Sandinista Assembly had “not the most minimal influence over party de-
cisions.” Although the period of openness and self-reflection that had char-
acterized the FSLN in the early 1990s appeared to be at its end, one should
note that most analysts concurred that Tinoco, despite his unsuccessful
challenge to Borge, had positioned himself as the eventual successor to
Daniel Ortega.
Guatemala
The original nucleus of what became the URNG emerged in 1960, when
a group of army officers started to form a guerrilla movement. They
protested corruption in the military and the government and were incensed
over the Guatemalan government’s decision to permit the use of its terri-
tory for the training of Cuban exiles who later participated in the Bay of
Pigs invasion. These reformist officers attempted a coup on November 13,
1960. It failed, but it gave birth to the first guerrilla activities in the coun-
try. Yon Sosa and Turcios Lima, joined by students, workers, and peasants,
led the effort to establish the first guerrilla foco.103 This foco in the moun-
tains of Concuá, Baja Verapaz, only two hours from Guatemala City, was
destroyed by the army in March 1962, and more than half of the twenty-
three insurgents there were killed in combat.104 By 1963, the surviving
guerrillas formed a movement that became known as the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias. FAR militants were subsequently involved in the cre-
ation of several other armed groups. The first one, the Ejército Guerrillero
de los Pobres announced its existence in 1972. At the same time, another
group of disgruntled FAR militants started to build the Organización Rev-
olucionaria del Pueblo en Armas. ORPA went public officially in 1978.
Both the EGP and ORPA organized primarily within the indigenous com-
munity. The three groups, together with a faction of the Partido Guatemal-
teco de Trabajo, which had existed since 1949, officially formed the URNG
on February 7, 1982.
The divisions and infighting that had plagued the Salvadoran and
Nicaraguan guerrilla movements also affected the Guatemalan revolution-
ary Left. A key issue in all three cases was the difficulty the leadership of
the Communist Party had deciding whether to join the armed struggle or
to continue to work within the system. In all three countries, this conflict
resulted in a division of the Communist Party and led to conflict between
the “traditionalists” and those who took up arms. In Guatemala, this situ-
ation was the basis for the long-standing animosity between sectors of the
PGT and the FAR. Over the years many conflicts rooted in personal rival-
ries and disagreements over the most effective war strategy developed be-
tween the various guerrilla groups. Dissidents were often punished by the
withdrawing of material support. One militant who chose the option of
the armed struggle recounted: “Since the disagreements were very intense,
the PGT, to exert pressure, left me without a cent.”105 The problems be-
tween the various groups did not always manifest themselves in such a rel-
atively benign fashion. In some instances, these differences were settled by
force, resulting in the death of cadres who had played significant roles in
the struggle. This legacy complicated tremendously any attempt to unify
the four groups.
According to Comandante Jorge Soto, the leader of the FAR, the
process of unifying the various guerrilla groups into the URNG was long
and complex.106 In 1978 –79, at a time when the ORPA was still consoli-
dating its organization, the EGP and the FAR initiated the first efforts to
join forces. Ricardo Ramírez, the historic EGP leader who was elected the
first president of the URNG in April 1997, affirmed that this attempt
mostly took the form of coordinating the activities of those sectors of
Guatemala’s social movement with ties to the two groups.107 In mid-1980,
conversations were initiated with the ORPA, which subsequently joined
the unification effort. It is evident that the Guatemalan guerrillas benefited
from the Salvadoran experience. “When the FMLN was formed—the first
voluntary attempt of the FMLN,” said Jorge Soto, “we were invited to at-
tend, to be something like witnesses of this process. This influenced us and
accelerated a little the process of our unification.”108 In the final months
of 1980, an attempt was made to form a dirección unitaria (a single leader-
ship body). This attempt did not succeed “due to the internal problems that
the unification process generated in some organizations.”109 Comandante
Ramírez acknowledged that early unification attempts failed because the
leadership, without sufficient consultation with the grass roots, imposed
them.110 Later attempts saw the guerrilla movements debilitated from

counterinsurgency offensives launched by the Guatemalan army in the
early 1980s. With their organizations in disarray neither the leadership nor
the rank and file found it easy to overcome long-standing animosities
among the various groups.111
Unification efforts intensified because the four guerrilla groups consid-
ered that the triumph of the July 1979 Sandinista revolution and the in-
creased activities of the Salvadoran guerrillas showed that the situation in
the region favored advances by the Guatemalan revolutionary organiza-
tions.112 Alas, this turned out to be an illusion. The Guatemalan military
launched its offenses of 1980 and 1981, which led to a fragmentation of the
guerrilla forces and their strategic retreat. In the early 1980s, “the guerrilla
movement lost contact with its broad support bases. It saw itself forced to
retreat and moved into a defensive phase during which the most important
objective was to preserve what it had in order to advance later.”113 It was
under these difficult circumstances that the unification project finally made
progress.
The URNG was constituted during 1982 in Managua, Nicaragua,
amidst infighting among the leaders and the rank and file of the four orga-
nizations. Officials of the Department of the Americas of the Cuban Com-
munist Party who mediated the unification process finally suppressed the
mutual recriminations.114 Ramiro Abreu, an official of the Central Com-
mittee of the Cuban Communist Party in charge of Central America, ac-
knowledged that Cuba “served as a channel, as an intermediary between
the different factions.”115 When the dirección unitaria was finally estab-
lished, it had limited decision-making power. It was not until 1985, with
the creation of the comandancia general that the URNG had an execu-
tive national structure, whose members had the authority to make deci-
sions on behalf of their respective organizations. The three leaders in the
Comandancia were Rodrigo Asturias for the ORPA, Jorge Soto for the
FAR, and Ricardo Ramírez for the EGP. Ricardo Rosales, the leader of
the PGT, joined the Comandancia first in 1986. Before 1986, Mario
Sánchez, who headed a PGT splinter group, represented the PGT. The
URNG did not want to get involved in the internal squabbles of the PGT
and asked the two PGT factions to nominate a representative who could
speak for the whole Communist Party. When the two factions were unable
to reach an agreement, the URNG decided to choose Ricardo Rosales, the

Secretary General of the traditional party. Rosales had legitimacy because
the Soviet Union and its allies recognized his party. Approval by the
Cuban Communist Party was particularly helpful. This process took so
long that the participation of the PGT in the URNG was not made pub-
lic until 1990.116
In August 1996, as the end of the peace negotiations came in sight, the
URNG leadership agreed to take this unification process to its logical con-
clusion and dissolve the historic structures of the four constituent
groups.117 This move was an effort to initiate the difficult transition from
a secretive, hierarchical, political-military movement to a democratic
party. In neighboring El Salvador, the FMLN had suffered from intense in-
fighting among its five groups after having signed the peace accords. These
problems eventually led to the 1994 exodus of militants belonging to two
of its constituent groups. The FMLN finally decided in 1995—three years
after the accords—to dissolve its five original organizations. The URNG
learned from this experience. It started the dissolution process even before
the Guatemalan accords were signed.
In October 1996, the FAR was the first URNG group to officially dis-
solve. Its example was followed in February 1997 by the EGP. The ORPA
and the Communist Party held their final meetings in El Salvador in March
1997.118 The dissolution process was difficult for the members, since many
shared a strong identification with the political-military goals of their re-
spective organizations. One reason for the dissention among the rank and
file was that the grass roots had little to no say in the decision to abolish
the individual groups. In the case of the ORPA, it was reportedly left to
Comandante Santiago to inform the combatants of Rodrigo Asturias’s de-
cision to dissolve.”119 Some militants chose not to obey their leadership’s
instructions. In the opinion of the dissenters they “were not prepared to en-
ter this new phase of the struggle.” While many objected in private, some
militants took a public stance. For example, two high-ranking members of
the Communist Party (where the decision to dissolve had been made by
the party’s Political Commission) refused to join the URNG and preferred
to remain outside the evolving URNG structures.
During the war, the two key URNG structures had been the Coman-
dancia, consisting of the commanders of the four groups and the National
Table 4.3 Party Structure of the URNG
Source: URNG.
Directorate made up of seven representatives from each group. Like the

FMLN, the URNG ensured equal representation for each group regardless
of its troop strength. In 1996, this body of twenty-eight was enlarged to
forty-four. The four comandantes, who held their positions on the Direc-
torate ex officio, each had the right to name ten representatives. It was this
Directorate that in April 1997 elected the Provisional Executive Commit-
tee. This body represented the highest decision-making authority of the
emerging party and had as its main task guiding the URNG through the le-
galization process. Table 4.3 shows the URNG party structure.
In the elections for the new party authorities, the group quotas were no
longer observed. In addition to the seats reserved for the four comandantes,
the EGP had five representatives, the FAR had three, the ORPA had two,
and the PGT had one. This outcome, which reflected the relative military
strength of the four groups, is interesting because the elections were sup-
posed to be secret. Ricardo Ramírez, the EGP leader, was elected party pres-
ident, while Jorge Soto became vice-president.120 The new party leader-
ship faced the challenging task of building a viable political movement.
The dissolution of the original group structures had left a vacuum, and the
leadership struggled to reconnect with its base while at the same time seek-
ing to recruit new members.
On September 11, 1998, URNG president Ricardo Ramírez died from
heart failure. This untimely death added another complication to the
URNG’s transition toward a political party. While there was immediate
speculation that the death of the EGP comandante would lead to a power
struggle within the URNG, the leadership effectively presented a united
front. Arnoldo Noriega was chosen to take the place of Ramírez on the Ex-
ecutive Committee, and Soto assumed the leadership of the party in for-
mation.
The URNG confronted an enormous challenge in shedding its image as
an authoritarian movement. Even some longtime supporters held the view
that “one of the fundamental problems of the Guatemalan movement is
that it does not accept criticism. It is a movement in which space for dia-
logue, for discussion, is just beginning to open up. But, in general, the
leader’s monologue dominates. He rejects the slightest hint of criticism and
in reality expects submission.” These critics characterized the URNG as
sectarian and dogmatic and accused it of having “a lack of respect for di-
versity” and of using authoritarian, Stalinist methods to destroy “those who
think differently.”121
Some disgruntled former URNG supporters who did not believe in the
capacity of the URNG to transform itself even advocated its dissolution.
In their opinion, other movements to the left of the political spectrum
“should unite not with, but against the URNG. It should disappear because
it renounced the political program of the Left by agreeing to the contents
of the peace accords and because by doing so it openly became part of the
Right.” The URNG was further accused of having carried out kidnappings
during the final stage of the peace negotiations in order “to assure the re-
tirement of its leadership” and having eliminated “its own people who have
ceased to be useful to the group in power.”122 While these polemical posi-
tions represented a minority opinion, they manifested the deep divisions
among the Guatemalan Left and reflected a political reality that saw a loss
of popular support for the URNG because of a number of high-profile scan-
dals involving URNG leaders.
The URNG understood that it needed to broaden its base of support if
it wanted to play a significant role in Guatemalan politics. Evidence of this
was the party leadership’s decision to join an electoral coalition to compete
in the November 1999 elections. This electoral alliance, the Alianza
Nueva Nación (New Nation Alliance, or ANN) consisted of the Desar-
rollo Integral Auténtico (Authentic Integral Development, or DIA), the
Unidad de Izquierda Democrática (Democratic Left Unity, or Unid), the
Frente Democrático Nueva Guatemala (New Guatemala Democratic
Front, or FDNG), and the URNG. The alliance’s candidate for the presi-
dency was Alvaro Colom, the former director of the Fondo Nacional para
la Paz (National Fund for Peace, or Fonapaz). Significantly, he was not a
URNG militant. Rosalina Tuyuc, a FDNG representative in the Gua-
temalan parliament, was supported by many female militants as the al-
liance’s candidate for vice-president. When the FDNG pulled out of the al-
liance, however, citing disagreements with the URNG leadership, Vitalino
Similox was nominated as the ANN’s candidate for the vice-presidency.
On May 9, 1999, the URNG fulfilled the last requirement to become a
legal political party. It held a National Assembly to elect the party leader-
ship. Anticipation was high in the weeks leading up to the Assembly. In
the end, the result was anticlimactic. The 110 delegates who represented
55 municipalities, reelected the Provisional Executive Committee without
making any changes. Jorge Soto was confirmed in his position as party pres-
ident. Only a few weeks earlier, the URNG leadership had planned to elect
a new National Political Council at the Assembly and to determine the
candidates for the November elections. But the new party was clearly over-
whelmed by this task. Instead, it ratified the status quo while postponing
all difficult decisions to a later date. URNG leaders claimed that their fail-
ure to produce candidate lists was not entirely the party’s fault. In deter-
mining the lists, the URNG had to reconcile the preferences of the other
members of the electoral alliance with its own. With the other members of
the alliance behind in their selection process, the URNG apparently pre-
ferred not to act unilaterally. As one leader emphasized, shortcomings were
to be expected, since “this is the first time that we have gotten involved in
this mess.”
The URNG’s failure to elect a National Political Council, however,
clearly indicated that the emerging party structures were still quite fragile.
Electing this national decision-making body would have demonstrated
that the consolidation of the party structures was proceeding as planned.
The postponement indicated that the URNG had not yet matured to the
point where it could guarantee that all the commitments by its leadership
regarding quotas for women and indigenous groups would be observed. It
could also be interpreted as a sign that the URNG leadership was afraid to
risk party unity by instituting measures that many members considered con-
troversial. In this context, even the reconfirmation of the Executive Com-
mittee was problematic since it violated the URNG’s commitment to
strengthen the role of women and indigenous groups within the party. Co-
mandante Lola remained the only woman who was a full member on the
Committee. Among the five substitute members, there was also only one
female representative, Fermina López.
Postponing the election to the National Political Council until after the
November 1999 elections left decision-making in the URNG highly cen-
tralized, raising concerns over its future leadership style. Comandante Lola
acknowledged the difficulties ahead: “We legalized a skeleton. Now we
have to put muscles and meat on it.” Ricardo Rosales, the URNG’s secre-
tary of organization, acknowledged that the URNG was not able to adhere
to its original time plan for the construction of the party. In his view it was
preferable to accept delays and build the party democratically with the par-
ticipation of rank-and-file members who showed a true commitment to the
URNG. He argued that by doing so the URNG distinguished itself from
Guatemala’s traditional parties whose membership base was established pri-
marily with legal requirements in mind.123 Not withstanding these affir-
mations, it remained to be seen how committed the URNG’s members were
to the new party’s political program.
As we discussed previously, the URNG leadership had problems in
maintaining close ties with its wartime supporters, since it had to dissolve
its wartime military structures before the new party structures were opera-
tional. The disillusionment of many URNG ex-combatants coupled with
their problems in obtaining the legal documents required to officially join
a political party further complicated the situation and left many of URNG’s
original supporters outside the new party. They were replaced by an influx
of new people who frequently lacked the commitment to the political prin-
ciples that had originally given rise to the guerrilla movement.
For these reasons, newcomers dominated the URNG’s constituent as-
semblies in some townships and thus came to control the newly elected
municipal party authorities. The URNG leadership tried to rectify these
problems by giving greater attention to incorporating their historic sup-
porters.124 In this task the URNG faced the challenge of explaining to their
longtime cadres the difference between the “formal party structure,” which
included those legally registered as party members, and “real party struc-
tures,” which consisted of the traditional base.125 An additional problem
was that civilian supporters who had operated in clandestine structures dur-
ing the war were often not even known to those party bureaucrats who were
supposed to establish contact with them.126 In short, the URNG faced a
complex situation, seeking to maintain and strengthen its ties with its core
supporters while reaching out to new converts. The party leaders were
overwhelmed by the demands of building a popular democratic party in a
societal context that lacked a democratic culture.
Contrasting Left and Right: The Nicaraguan Resistance
The armed movements in Central America that attempted conversion

into political parties included the Nicaraguan Contras, a counterrevolu-
tionary force. It is instructive to compare the problems faced by the revo-
lutionary Left with those encountered by a movement built to overthrow
a revolutionary government.
Following the 1990 electoral defeat of the Sandinista government, the
Contra leadership believed it could finally realize its ambition of playing an
important role in postrevolutionary Nicaragua. The commanders of the
Nicaraguan Resistance were convinced that it was their right to take con-
trol of army and police structures. A sense of betrayal was widespread once
it was clear that Sandinista officers would continue to hold high-ranking
positions in these institutions. The harshest criticism was reserved for Pres-
ident Violeta Chamorro’s decision to retain Humberto Ortega as head of
the armed forces.127 The president actually had little choice, since the San-
dinistas had passed Military Organization Law Number 75 two days before
the 1990 election. This law “broke the link between the FSLN and the
army but did not subordinate the military to executive authority. For all
practical purposes, it declared the EPS [Sandinista People’s Army] an au-
tonomous body by creating a military council with the authority to name
the army chief, determine promotions, and make virtually all important de-
cisions affecting the armed forces.”128
Upon demobilization, several leaders of the Nicaraguan Resistance did
obtain important government positions. Israel Galeano became director of
Interinstitutional Coordination in the Ministry of Government, while Os-
car Sobalvarro was given a position as vice-minister of the Repatriation In-
stitute. Azucena Ferrey and Alfredo César, who had served as civilian mem-
bers of the Contra directorate, joined parliament when they were elected
to the National Assembly in February 1990. Carlos Hurtado and his suc-
cessor, Alfredo Mendieta, who were Ministers of Government (in charge
of the police), as well as José Boanerges Matus, the Minister of Agrarian
Reform, were also affiliated with the Nicaraguan Resistance. Although
some individuals associated with the Resistance held important political
positions, the Contras failed to become a central political force in post-
Sandinista Nicaragua.
A key handicap was that the February 1990 elections took place before
the Contras had demobilized. Thus they were not given the opportunity to
participate in the electoral process as an organized political movement. Ini-
tially, the great majority of the Resistance viewed Chamorro’s victory as
their own. It soon became evident, however, that the Contras lacked ef-
fective advocates in the new government. This was not surprising, since
“both in terms of social class (elites vs. medium-to-poor peasants) and re-
gional base (Pacific Coast vs. Interior), government officials had few links
with the contra base.”129 Most of the fighters and their families were part
of the poor majority that had traditionally been marginalized. Not surpris-
ingly, the new administration, faced with a host of competing demands,
tended to give low priority to the needs of the poor, since they had little
bargaining power.
The Resistance also encountered great problems in speaking with a uni-
fied voice. Interviews with several Contra commanders revealed that a par-
ticular leader could, at best, count on the loyalty of the group of fighters he
had previously commanded. This made it impossible for any leader to speak
on behalf of the entire Resistance. Azucena Ferrey emphasized that the
members of the Resistance never represented a cohesive force. People
joined for multiple reasons, and “the Resistance was always an expression
of people who had a defined political ideology and those who did not. I
think this was one of the factors that impeded greater control. In addition,
the hierarchical structure based on military rank did not help the Resis-
tance.”130
The most visible Contra group in the early 1990s was a hard-line sector,
led by Sobalvarro and Rodolfo Ampié, two former commanders. They
headed the Asociación Cívica de la Resistencia Nicaragüense (Civic As-
sociation of the Nicaraguan Resistance), a nongovernmental organization
created to assist with the reinsertion of the Contras into civil society. This
group controlled considerable assets, which made it a player in the Contra

community. Most of their funds came from CIAV-OEA, the institution en-
trusted with verifying the demobilization process. CIAV-OEA had been al-
located about US $50 million from USAID to help with the difficult task
of demobilization and reintegration into society.131 Sobalvarro and Ampié
considered any Contra leader who was willing to enter into dialogue with
the Sandinistas a traitor. In their view, efforts to build alliances between
Contra and Sandinista supporters were political projects intended to coopt
the Resistance. They were also suspicious of attempts to create an official
party that would represent the Nicaraguan Resistance.132
By 1993, several political parties had formed that explicitly claimed to
represent the demobilized Resistance. In May of that year, the Partido Re-
sistencia Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Resistance Party, or PRN) obtained le-
gal status. Luis Angel López, the party’s president, argued that the Contras
should no longer wait for other parties to represent their interests but
needed their own political organization.133 He acknowledged that sectors
of the Resistance opposed the new party, yet he claimed an improbable
membership of 80,000. The PRN distinguished itself from the established
parties by calling for the abolition of the army and the creation of a na-
tional police to guarantee public order.134 In addition to the PRN, there
were other attempts to organize the ex-combatants politically.
The same year, Edén Pastora, a Sandinista commander who betrayed the
FSLN and became the head of the Contra Southern Front, formed the
Movimiento de Acción Democrática (Democratic Action Movement).
Pastora claimed to have the peasantry behind him and to be the only for-
mer Contra leader with the charisma and credibility to successfully com-
pete in the 1996 elections. His ideological views were quite distinct from
other commanders who had waged war against the revolutionary govern-
ment during the 1980s. With his roots in the Sandinista struggle to over-
throw the Somoza dictatorship, he despised those Contra commanders
with connections to Somoza’s National Guard. Opposed to the conserva-
tive views espoused by the former leaders of the Northern Front, Pastora
considered himself a Social Democrat. He argued that the other leaders of
the Resistance lacked “political skill and moral authority.”135 With these
divergent positions and historic animosities, the main figures who had led
the military opposition to the Sandinista government never managed to
formulate a political program that was supported by a majority of their fol-

lowers. While the emergence of these parties indicated efforts by different
factions of the Resistance to gain political representation, their political
clout was limited at best.
How minimal was the political support these parties enjoyed became ev-
ident in the October 1996 elections. The Nicaraguan Resistance Party re-
ceived 21,068 votes, gaining one seat in parliament, while a mere 5,272
voters supported Pastora’s Democratic Action Party.136 The weak perfor-
mance of the two parties claiming to represent the Resistance had several
roots. Infighting continued to plague the PRN, culminating in a “takeover
of the PRN nominating convention by a group of outsiders.”137 Pastora’s
party, on the other hand, suffered when its founder was barred from run-
ning as a presidential candidate because he had renounced his Nicaraguan
citizenship during the days of the Contra war. In light of these problems it
was not surprising that the demobilized fighters of the Resistance found
“their” parties so unappealing that some even supported the FSLN in the
1996 elections.138
Conclusion
The Nicaraguan Resistance had been a creation of the United States,

which had financed and directed the counterrevolution, and this came
back to haunt it. The United States abandoned its former allies once the
Sandinistas were out of power. Suddenly, the Contras had lost their raison
d’être. The Contras did not succeed in building a viable political move-
ment following their demobilization. Bad timing of the 1990s elections
contributed to this failure, but the most significant reason was that the
Contra membership and their supporters did not have a coherent ideolog-
ical agenda or a universally recognized leadership. In the end, there was no
organic movement that could be transformed into a political party, only a
group of Nicaraguan peasants who had been used as pawns to advance
agendas that were foreign to their interests.
The record of the Salvadoran guerrillas compares favorably with the ex-
perience of the Nicaraguan Contras. The former guerrillas enjoyed a cru-
cial advantage over the Nicaraguan Resistance, because the FMLN entered
the postwar era as an organized political force. The timing of the peace ac-
cords permitted the FMLN to build a viable political party in time for the
1994 elections. Although the conversion from a hierarchical, secretive,
military force into a democratic political party posed considerable chal-
lenges for the FMLN leadership, by 1994 the Salvadoran guerrillas were be-
ginning to learn to navigate these hurdles successfully.
Lack of a common political vision and personal rivalries among the five
groups that originally were part of the FMLN resulted in its 1994 division;
but these events, which could have destroyed the revolutionary Left, in-
stead led to its consolidation. The split occurred early on in the history of
the new party and involved mostly a small group at the leadership level.
The March 1997 elections demonstrated that the FMLN had an effective
political structure. The FMLN increased its level of electoral support so
that it equaled the governing party in strength. This electoral success had
its own price. It exacerbated the power struggle within the FMLN between
the revolutionary socialists and Facundo Guardado’s reform movement.
The controversy surrounding the nomination process for the 1999 presi-
dential election showed how this internal struggle over control of the
FMLN impeded the party’s progress toward internal democratization and
damaged its reputation in the eyes of the electorate.
The fight between the revolutionary socialists and those seeking to re-
form the FMLN was not the only ideological struggle within the revolu-
tionary Left. The competition for votes between the FMLN and those
FMLN members who had left the party following the 1994 elections con-
tinued into the new millennium. Juan Ramón Medrano, the only repre-
sentative of the Democratic Party in parliament, acknowledged in Decem-
ber 1999 that his party had committed a strategic error when it sought an
alliance with the Right. Three months before the March 2000 elections,
the PD reconstituted itself as the Partido Social Demócrata (Social Dem-
ocratic Party, or PSD) to emphasize its social-democratic ideology and to
distance itself from its past failures. At the refounding convention,
Medrano argued: “We will overcome the errors of the past such as the close-
ness we had with the Right in which we were deceived and never obtained
anything positive.”139 Medrano was referring in particular to the San An-
drés pact that the PD had concluded with ARENA following the 1994
elections. At that time, the PD leadership was convinced that a strategic
alliance with the governing party would convert the PD into an important
player in Salvadoran politics. Instead the voters punished the PD for its op-
portunism.
For the March 2000 election the newly formed PSD allied itself with
Rubén Zamora’s Convergencia Democrática (Democratic Convergence)
and formed a coalition named Centro Democrático Unido. This coalition
competed with the FMLN for the votes of the moderate Left. The March
2000 elections were a great disappointment for the alliance. It failed to ob-
tain the 6 percent of the vote required for the partners in an electoral al-
liance to maintain their legal status. The FMLN, on the other hand, be-
came the strongest party in parliament.
Changing the culture of a party formed over decades is necessarily a slow
process. New attitudes and beliefs held by the leadership take time to filter
down to the grass roots. In the case of the FSLN in Nicaragua, many mili-
tants at the local level continue to hold the principle “dirección nacional or-
dene” (National Directorate give us the order) dear. Víctor Hugo Tinoco
maintained that the grass roots were accustomed to carrying out the orders
of the leadership and continue to demand to be given instructions.140 In
the case of the Sandinistas, the legacy of the guerrilla war and its decade as
the governing party have influenced the evolution of the FSLN toward
greater internal democracy.
The 1990 electoral defeat presented the Sandinista leadership with a
historic opportunity to strengthen internal democracy. Instead, the leaders
focused their energies on resolving the conflict between two opposing
groups with different visions of the FSLN’s role as an opposition party.
When the reformists led by Sergio Ramírez left the party in 1995, the FSLN
lost many of its best cadres, who could have played an important role in de-
mocratizing the FSLN. The 1998 charges of sexual abuse leveled against
Daniel Ortega once again diverted attention from the task of party reform.
The FSLN membership decided to close ranks behind its leader, and the
voices of dissent were silenced.
The FSLN emerged from the 1998 Party Congress in a weakened posi-
tion. Instead of assuming the role of strong opposition to the Alemán gov-
ernment, the FSLN leadership sought accommodation. There had been
numerous signs of an impending deal between the Sandinistas and the gov-
erning party. For example, before the 1998 Congress, President Alemán en-
dorsed Ortega’s reelection as party leader and publicly urged the Congress
delegates to vote for him. The pact between Nicaragua’s two major parties
was finalized in December 1999. The Liberal party and the Sandinistas
joined forces to reform the Nicaraguan constitution with the support of 72
of the 93 deputies in parliament. Of the seventeen articles that were re-
formed, one concerned the future of President Arnoldo Alemán, who was
guaranteed a seat in parliament following the end of his presidential man-
date. Knowledgeable observers interpreted the guaranteed seat as a way for
the president to escape potential corruption charges after leaving office. In
an apparent quid pro quo the Nicaraguan parliament refused to lift Daniel
Ortega’s parliamentary immunity, making it impossible for Zoilamérica to
proceed with the court case against her stepfather.
Dissenters within the Sandinista party considered the pact between for-
mer political enemies a sellout of the revolutionary principles the Sandin-
istas claimed to support, while party leader Daniel Ortega praised the re-
forms as “a way to abandon the weapons . . . We have to give up resorting
to war in order to change governments. We paid a high price to learn that
this was essential.”141 The reaction of several important donor countries in
Western Europe to the implications of the pact between the Sandinistas
and the government were not favorable. The pact was seen as a sign that
the two major parties were weak and were cutting deals in order to insulate
themselves from challenges to their hegemony. There was great concern
that Nicaragua was taking a step back from democratizing its governmen-
tal structures and was reverting to the days of two-party rule. Indeed, con-
cerns over events in Nicaragua were so great that donor countries froze
their aid programs and the International Monetary Fund delayed Nicara-
gua’s entry into the Most Indebted Countries Initiative. Being part of this
initiative was essential for Nicaragua to effectively deal with its enormous
foreign debt problem. Thus, the Sandinistas who had started the decade
contributing to the democratization of Nicaragua were now assuming po-
sitions they had previously criticized. It appeared that the ambitions of in-
dividuals were given priority over the best interests of party or state.
The URNG in Guatemala appeared simply overwhelmed by the task of
building a new party, exerting pressure on the government so the agree-
ments of the peace accords would be fully implemented, taking care of its
demobilized combatants, and fighting an election campaign. A key prob-
lem was the lack of capable cadres to attend to all of these different tasks.
For example, many of the most capable URNG officials went to work for
the foundation created to facilitate the reintegration of the ex-combatants
into society. This created a shortage of party leaders who could engage in
the vital task of party building. Concerns by funding agencies over the po-
tential misuse of their funds further complicated the situation. These con-
cerns resulted in a strict separation between the party and the foundation
and restricted the possibility of URNG officials working for both organiza-
tions even further.
The slow development of the URNG into a democratic mass party re-
sulted in criticism from inside and outside the party. The party leadership
chose to focus on the 1999 elections and neglected to consolidate the in-
cipient party structures. Female militants were particularly concerned that
the commitments to strengthen their role in the party continued to await
implementation. The slow progress in building a viable party made the
URNG vulnerable to criticism from those who proclaimed that the URNG
was incapable of evolving into a democratic party.
In addition to the many institutional and societal hurdles and the seri-
ous internal problems that both the FMLN and the URNG faced, they also
experienced enormous constraints in their struggle to transform into polit-
ical parties because of a severe shortage of economic resources. In no case
was this more evident than for Guatemala’s URNG. URNG leaders were
unified in their complaints about the lack of funds, which represented a sig-
nificant disadvantage vis-à-vis the political Right. The evidence that re-
sources were tight was everywhere. For example, in November 1997, almost
one year after the signing of the peace accords, a visit to the party head-
quarters showed a dilapidated building with mostly empty offices that
lacked the most basic furniture. Packages were everywhere, indicating that
the emerging party’s operational base was still under construction. In
March 1999, a big sign on the entrance advertised various food products
sold by URNG members. In El Salvador, the national FMLN party office
exhibited signs of a similar lack of financial resources. Even key party fig-
ures had economic problems. FMLN leaders shared a modest living stan-
dard, as anyone visiting the residences of Schafik Hándal, Gerson Martínez,
or Nidia Díaz could confirm. The advantage of this relative lack of eco-
nomic resources was that FMLN leaders remained in touch with the eco-
nomic reality of the average citizen.
Q
5
Transforming the Party
Gender Equality in the Revolutionary Left
The construction of a true democracy entails the full realization of women and
their creative participation in all spheres of national life. This is a fundamental
principle in the societal program for which the FMLN fights. We have a
commitment to win equal rights for women, [and] to overcome their
marginalization and oppression in Salvadoran society.
—FMLN, Carta de principios y objetivos
The Sandinista Popular Revolution will abolish the detestable discrimination that
women have suffered with regard to the men [and] establish economic, political
and cultural equality between women and men.
—FSLN, Programa histórico del FSLN
The Guatemalan woman must be guaranteed, under conditions of equality, her

full participation in political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life, and the
eradication of every form of gender and sex discrimination that constitutes an
obstacle for the full display of her talents and potential in support of the
development and progress of the country.
—URNG, Posición de URNG sobre la mujer guatemalteca
Women are at the core of the newly mobilized sectors that the revolution-
ary Left seeks to represent in Central America. Their increased importance
is evidenced by the proliferation of strong women’s movements throughout
the region. Women’s movements have been effective advocates for the re-
alization of women’s rights that have traditionally been neglected by a male-
Gender Equality in the Revolutionary Left 147
dominated party system. Starting in the late 1980s, women’s movements

publicly challenged the political parties to incorporate their demands into
their political programs. The question is to what extent the former guerrilla
movements have responded to this challenge from their female members.
Margaret Randall maintains that revolutionary movements have too of-
ten neglected to fight for women’s rights upon assuming power. In her view
“socialism’s failure to make room for a feminist agenda . . . is one of the rea-
sons why socialism as a system could not survive.”1 Indeed, she considers
the lack of a feminist agenda “a fundamental error of twentieth century rev-
olutions.”2 Richard Harris supports this position. He emphasizes that “the
historical evidence indicates that Marxism must be refocused to encompass
the feminist perspective, and socialist regimes must take the appropriate
steps to create the ideological context and material conditions for the gen-
uine emancipation of women and the elimination of gender inequality in
all its forms.”3 If we accept this premise, it will be of great significance for
the political future of the Central American revolutionary Left—whether
in opposition or in power—to embrace gender equality as a central goal.
In order to provide a context for the Central American data, I will pre-
sent some figures on women’s representation in the Cuban Communist
Party. In the early years of the Cuban revolution, women were a distinct
minority within the party. For example, in 1967 women constituted 10 per-
cent of the membership. Their numbers grew to 15 percent by 1974.4 From
1985 to 1993, female membership increased from 21.6 percent to 26.3 per-
cent.5 As of 1996, women represented 29.4 percent of the 767,944 party
members. The relative strength of women at the rank-and-file level, how-
ever, did not translate into significant representation in the leadership
structures. For a long time, Vilma Espín, the head of the Cuban Women’s
Federation and one-time spouse of Raúl Castro, was the only female who
held full membership on the Politburo. Between 1985 and 1991, three
women were represented in the Politburo. Yet at the Fifth Party Congress
in 1997, only two women were elected to the twenty-four-member Polit-
buro. At the level of the Central Committee female representation de-
creased from 18.2 percent in 1985 to 16.9 percent in 1991. In that year, 38
women were elected to a Central Committee consisting of 225 members.6
In 1997, the Central Committee was reduced to 150 members. Of these
only 20 (13.3%) were female.7 At the regional level, one could observe a
similar decline. Female participation in the provincial committees was re-

duced from 24.5 percent in 1988 to 20.6 in 1991. Only at the municipal
level did women make strides, increasing their strength from 21 percent to
25.5 percent over the same time period.8 The Cuban experience indicates
that female participation in a party of the revolutionary Left does not nec-
essarily translate into strong representation in national decision-making
structures. Interestingly, as the number of female party members increased,
their numbers in leadership structures declined.
The evidence shows that women have started to play a significant role
within the revolutionary Left in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.
The record of the major revolutionary parties in the three countries, however,
is mixed. Although one can find significant similarities, there are also great
differences. For example, FMLN women successfully strengthened their role
within the party, sometimes with the support of a women’s movement that
was nevertheless conflicted in its position vis-à-vis the party. On the other
hand, their Nicaraguan counterparts in the FSLN were rather isolated in their
struggle for gender equality. There, a vocal, well-organized women’s move-
ment had historic reasons to stay aloof from developments inside the FSLN.
The challenges in Guatemala were particularly complex, with the added com-
plication of the ethnic question. I argue that several key factors account for
the different development of the three parties: (1) the role women played in
their respective guerrilla movements during the war, (2) the strength of the
international climate in favor of increased women’s participation, (3) the
effectiveness of the strategies pursued by female militants, and (4) the rela-
tionship between the party and the women’s movement in each country.
The data on Guatemala are limited because the URNG transformed it-
self into a political party so recently. For this reason my analysis includes
the Frente Democrático Nueva Guatemala, a party on the Left that shared
ideological affinities with the former guerrillas.
Gender Equality in the FMLN
The initial efforts of female FMLN activists and their supporters to

change gender relations in the party led to several public announcements
by the party in support of gender equality. Following the signing of the
peace accords, the party leadership had apparently started to rethink its po-
sition regarding its female constituents. This was quite a contrast to the
FMLN’s record during the war, when references to women’s emancipation
were conspicuously absent from official FMLN documents. The 1993 party
program contained an explicit statement in support of women’s rights:
“The construction of a true democracy entails the full realization of women
and their creative participation in all spheres of national life. This is a fun-
damental principle in the societal program for which the FMLN fights. We
have a commitment to win equal rights for women, [and] to overcome their
marginalization and oppression in Salvadoran society.”9
At the time this statement was made public, the situation for women in
the party was difficult to say the least. FMLN women who held their first
national meeting in August 1993 criticized the party for its lack of support:
“We consider that in the FMLN our problems have not been incorporated
in an adequate fashion into revolutionary thought and practice. By not
having a consciousness that is able to see the inequality between the gen-
ders, cultural schemes are reproduced, discriminatory practices manifest
themselves, and the great potential of women is not recognized and pro-
moted. Our leadership and our militants have been tolerant of this situa-
tion, because of their conscious or subconscious sexist ideology.”10
The peace accords had certainly changed reality. Female militants would
have never challenged the FMLN leadership publicly during the war. Now,
however, they vented their increasing frustration with a party that seemed
incapable of living up to its promises. Although their criticism was osten-
sibly directed against the FMLN, it really addressed problems prevailing in
the five constituent groups. As discussed earlier, in 1993 the FMLN was far
from being a unified party. Thus, the struggle for gender equality took place
on two fronts. Women who had been subordinated within their respective
groups during the war tried to free themselves from their old shackles. At
the same time they fought to make sure that the new party they were build-
ing would be different.
The Party and the Women’s Movement:

From Subordination to Autonomy
Female FMLN members who had started to organize during the war re-
newed their efforts in the wake of the peace accords. One example of this
drive was the emergence of the Movimiento de Mujeres “Mélida Anaya

Montes” (Mélida Anaya Montes Women’s Movement, or MAM). MAM
had been founded by militants in the Popular Forces of Liberation in July
1992 and was initially closely associated with the FPL. However, as a reac-
tion to the FPL’s lack of support for women’s rights and the efforts by party
members to exercise control over the movement, the MAM leadership de-
clared its autonomy from the FPL. Nevertheless, the great majority of
MAM members continued to be active in FPL structures.
Women affiliated with other FMLN groups experienced similar prob-
lems. The key issue always concerned autonomy. According to interviews
with several high-ranking female party members, the women’s groups cre-
ated by the FMLN were often used to secure funds from development agen-
cies eager to support women’s organizing. The leadership viewed its affili-
ated women’s groups as perfect vehicles to raise funds for the party. Moneys
contributed by development agencies for the purpose of strengthening
women’s organizing were frequently spent for general party purposes in-
stead. Following the peace accords female militants resented being treated
as pawns to raise funds for the party coffers, a role they had acquiesced in
during the war. FMLN militants affirmed that “The [organizing] efforts be-
fore the peace accords had as their principal objective the collection of
funds and the mobilization of women in support tasks for the war, since the
work of women had considerable support from international groups.”11 Al-
though FMLN women realized that they were, in essence, being used, they
rationalized their participation in this deception in the hope that these “ef-
forts would open the space for more authentic women’s work.” However, as
soon as the female militants “wanted to make small shifts in how they con-
ceived their work,” they were confronted with “jokes, total marginaliza-
tion, disparagement before the grass roots, and intervention by the leader-
ship to correct these deviations.”12
The discrimination women suffered in their respective FMLN groups
made them realize that they had to seek their independence from the party.
Female FMLN members were conscious of the importance of avoiding a
repetition of the Nicaraguan experience. During the revolutionary experi-
ment of the 1980s, the women’s movement in Nicaragua had remained sub-
ordinated to the Sandinista party.13 While the great majority of FMLN
women agreed on the importance of achieving and maintaining autonomy
from the party, they had important differences over how to achieve this in-
dependence.
In one instance, a women’s organization became so infuriated with the
manipulation of women by its party’s leadership that it broke completely
with its group. This was the case of Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida
(Women for Dignity and Life, or Las Dignas), founded by militants of the
National Resistance. The Dignas’s experience led its members to conclude
that their autonomy was incompatible with party militancy. On the other
hand, the majority of women who had been active in guerrilla structures
were open to continued dialogue within their movements. They argued
that activism in a women’s movement did not preclude continued work in
a party. Indeed, these roles could be combined. For example, in El Salvador,
the Instituto de Investigación, Capacitación y Desarrollo de la Mujer (In-
stitute for Women’s Research, Training, and Development), originally
closely associated with the Communist Party, also sought (and eventually
achieved) greater independence.14 Unlike the Dignas, however, the ac-
tivists in the Institute concurred with the MAM and considered it impor-
tant to remain active in the FMLN. These female leaders took the position
that the most effective strategy was to change the FMLN from within.15 In
their view, women’s pressure inside the FMLN had made the leadership
more aware of women’s issues.16 At times these opposing viewpoints led to
internal fights that weakened the movement.
These different positions became the basis of severe conflicts between
FMLN activists. The issue came to public light during the 1994 election
campaign. In 1994, the central dividing issue among the women who par-
ticipated in Mujeres ’94 (Women ’94), a women’s coalition formed for the
elections, concerned the question of doble militancia: Were active partici-
pation in both the women’s movement and a political party compatible?
The conflict concerned women who served as representatives of their
women’s group in Women ’94 and were simultaneously active party mili-
tants. To no one’s surprise, the main opponents in this debate were the
MAM and the Dignas. The Dignas considered party militancy incompati-
ble with membership in a women’s movement, while the Mélidas argued
that these roles could be combined.17
The dilemma of autonomy versus integration that the female FMLN
members faced was an issue confronting women in many Latin American
societies in transition from authoritarian rule toward more democratic pol-

itics. Throughout the region, female activists argued that they were being
used by their political parties, and many broke off all contact. By the mid-
1990s, however, many women came to see the issue “not as a choice be-
tween either autonomy or integration, but as the necessity of both.”18
The female activists who attempted to contribute to the building of the
FMLN were affected by these debates. Fighting for gender equality within
a political party isolated them from those sectors of the women’s movement
who frowned upon trying to change political parties from within. In order
to strengthen their position within the party, these women demanded the
creation of an institutional mechanism—a Women’s Secretariat.
The Women’s Secretariat
In August 1993, the FMLN created a Women’s Secretariat. One should

not infer from this that the party leadership was fully supportive of women’s
rights. Evidence indicates that it agreed to the creation of such an institu-
tion to appease female activists who demanded a Secretariat and to present
the picture of a progressive movement to its many international supporters.
This explains the criticism voiced by the Secretariat’s leadership against
the party. Specifically, female activists complained that the Secretariat was
not given any program funds and that the disorganization within the party
made it impossible for it to obtain vital statistics. For example, despite nu-
merous requests, the party would (or could) not reveal the number of fe-
male members at the municipal level.19 In addition, the Secretariat lacked
a clear mandate and identity. Indeed, it took several years for the Secre-
tariat to become a recognized institution within the party. This situation
made it difficult for the Secretariat to develop into an effective force.
The turmoil engulfing the FMLN during 1993 – 94, particularly the in-
fighting among the five FMLN groups, also affected the Secretariat. Until
1995, the Secretariat had to balance the interests of the five distinct groups.
Each group had its own representatives on the Secretariat. Not all of them
shared the same vision, and there was frequent turnover.20 When female
leaders did have a clear objective, they realized that the Secretariat did not
have the clout to make it a reality. For example, its members failed to per-
suade the party leadership to agree to a 30 percent female quota in the se-
lection of candidates for the 1994 parliamentary elections
In its early years, the Secretariat appeared ill equipped to take on the
challenge of changing gender relations within the FMLN. Senior female
FMLN leaders considered the Secretariat to be subordinated to the FMLN’s
Political Commission.21 The Secretariat’s leadership acknowledged this
lack of autonomy. It affirmed that “At the organizational level we have dif-
ficulty finding a structure that provides democratic and participatory ori-
entation to the program from the perspective of our interests as women and
not as party members.”22 The Women’s Secretariat confronted an experi-
ence similar to the one faced by female militants in the Sandinista party.
In Nicaragua, the revolutionary leadership had acted on the belief that the
survival of the revolution required the subordination of the struggle for
women’s emancipation. In El Salvador, one noticed a comparable ten-
dency. In many instances the Women’s Secretariat appeared to work on be-
half of the overall goals of the party instead of focusing its energy on rep-
resenting the interests of the female membership.
Judging from the main activities it sponsored between August 1993 and
April 1995, the Secretariat limited itself to fighting for practical as opposed
to strategic gender interests. Its effectiveness was further curtailed by its ex-
treme lack of resources. In the opinion of Norma Guevara, this reflected
the poor financial state of the FMLN and should not be interpreted as lack
of support for the female members.23 Regardless of the reasons behind the
lack of funding, the financial straits had an adverse impact on the Secre-
tariat’s effectiveness. This could be observed during the Third National As-
sembly of FMLN Women, which was organized by the Secretariat and held
on April 30, 1995, in San Salvador.
While plagued by organizational difficulties, this meeting constituted
encouraging evidence that grass-roots democracy was in the process of be-
ing strengthened. Three hundred delegates, representing all fourteen de-
partments, met to elect the Secretariat’s new leadership.24 Overcoming a
defective sound system and poor logistics, the women participated in an
electoral process that indicated effective grass-roots democracy. The Sec-
retariat’s leadership, seeking to control the outcome of the elections, pre-
sented a slate of candidates that would have ensured the representation of
all five FMLN groups.25 Yet its proposal was rejected in a heated debate,
with the resistance being organized by María Ofelia Navarrete, a charis-
matic leader who enjoyed particular influence because of her long involve-
ment in the revolutionary struggle and her prestige as a member of the
FMLN’s Political Commission.
As a result of these open elections, no representative of the Communist
Party or the National Resistance obtained a seat on the seven-member Sec-
retariat. The Popular Forces of Liberation gained four seats, one went to a
woman formerly affiliated with the Tendencia Democrática, and PRTC
members obtained two positions. The outcome reflected the number of FPL
members among the delegates and how little known the candidates of the
Communist Party and the RN were among the assembled women. The FPL
was more effective in getting its delegates to the meeting and thus “packed”
the convention. Violeta Menjívar, an FPL member elected to the Secre-
tariat, lamented that the two groups were not represented and argued that
“the elections were so democratic as to be antidemocratic.”26 While it is
easy to see her point of view, true grass-roots democracy has its own dy-
namics. The leadership, however, evidently feared the consequences of ex-
cluding the two groups. In order to rectify the election result, the newly
elected leadership invited the Communist Party and the RN to nominate
a representative to the Secretariat’s executive board.27 While the Com-
munist Party responded positively to this offer (the RN remained silent),
it never sent a representative.
There were signs that the militants were seeking to leave the conflict
among the various FMLN groups behind. As a strong indicator that the
unification of the FMLN was considered an important goal, the delegates
chose Ana Gertrudis Méndez as the new coordinator even though she was
opposed by members of her own Tendencia Democrática. This group re-
sented her announcement that she would no longer be beholden to any
FMLN group. Declaring her independence Méndez argued that it was time
to put partisan bickering aside and be loyal only to the FMLN.28 Under her
leadership, the Secretariat played a central role in getting the party to adopt
a gender perspective.
It had taken two years (1993– 95) for the leadership to define its mis-
sion and develop clear goals. Initially, the Secretariat was established as a
“movement” representing the broadly conceived interests of women, in-
stead of an institutionalized party structure with a specific mandate. Once

its identity was secure, the Secretariat could move forward on its goal of
transforming the party in the direction of greater gender equality. The lead-
ership formulated three specific objectives it sought to achieve:
1. That the political rights of women in the party and in society be rec-
ognized and made to count.
2. That the party analyze the situation of women from a gender perspec-
tive that permits recognition of the existing inequalities between men and
women. These need to be corrected as a fundamental step toward achiev-
ing democracy in the party as well as in society.
3. That the party adopt a gender perspective in establishing its identity,
strategic and operational plan, party principles, statutes, internal rules, and
organic structure.29
The most serious challenge facing the Secretariat was the continued re-
sistance by powerful sectors within the FMLN to moving the party toward
gender equality. In an important symbolic gesture, the party leadership re-
fused to grant the same level of monetary compensation to the head of the
Secretariat as was given to the leaders of other party bodies with the same
institutional rank. Female leaders often felt that they were taking one step
forward and two steps back. Shortly after the Secretariat had succeeded in
getting the party leadership to incorporate a women’s-rights agenda into
the FMLN’s 1997 Socio-economic Proposal and to adopt a gender per-
spective in the daily functioning of the party, the Secretariat’s vocal lead-
ership was replaced with more docile figures. At the 1997 party conven-
tion, Méndez, a tireless advocate for gender equality within the party, failed
to get reelected to the powerful Political Commission and lost her position
as the Secretariat’s leader to Mercedes Peña. In Méndez’s view she had paid
the price for having pushed too hard for gender equality, thereby antago-
nizing influential male and female colleagues. The new FMLN leadership
under Facundo Guardado that controlled the party’s policies during 1997–
99 was considered less supportive of gender equality than the orthodox fac-
tion that had been in charge before. Thus, the fight between the reform
and the orthodox factions within the party also had repercussions for the
construction of gender equality.
Measures of Positive Discrimination: The Impact of Quotas
By 1996, the FMLN’s Women’s Secretariat was starting to play a central

role in the effort to raise the consciousness of the male leadership regard-
ing women’s rights. The Secretariat maintained that the position of female
militants within the party could only be strengthened if the gender com-
position of the party structures were changed fundamentally. Women’s un-
derrepresentation in leadership positions was “the most discussed topic” af-
ter the war ended. Already in 1993, FPL militants demanded that their
group adopt a 30 percent quota to increase female participation in deci-
sion-making structures. Once the FPL congress had approved the quota,
however, “the topic took on a lower profile, which contributed to the non-
implementation of the agreement.”30 With this precedent in mind, the
Women’s Secretariat renewed the fight.
Female leaders argued that the strong participation of women during the
war had earned them the right to have significant representation in party
structures. The female militants certainly had a case. Of the 15,009 FMLN
members who were officially demobilized, 4,492, or 29.9 percent, were fe-
male.31 In order to achieve acceptable levels of representation for women,
the Secretariat fought for the introduction of measures of positive discrim-
ination. It maintained that “the democratization of the FMLN has to in-
clude and guarantee special measures so we women can achieve full par-
ticipation at all levels of decision-making.”32 The Secretariat argued that
gender equality in the party could be achieved only if “initial disadvantages
were compared. This would assure the creation of mechanisms that would
specify the participation and leadership roles of women and the establish-
ment of goals and indicators to measure progress objectively.”33
The initial demand focused on the introduction of quotas. FMLN mili-
tants could point to the experience of other progressive parties, particularly
in Argentina and Chile, where the introduction of quotas had changed the
gender composition of leadership structures. In the case of the Chilean Par-
tido Humanista and other parties on the Left, support for measures of pos-
itive discrimination had resulted in a great influx of women into the party
and the fielding of a significant number of female candidates for public of-
fice.34 Mark Jones has emphasized the significance of increased female rep-
resentation in a country’s legislature and demonstrated the effectiveness of
quotas in achieving this objective in the Argentine parliament.35 A num-

ber of recent studies have concluded that “Quotas are proven to be the most
effective means of achieving gender parity in leadership [positions] in the
short term.”36 Using these experiences and arguments to bolster their case,
female activists advocated the adoption of quotas.
Eventually, the party leadership agreed to guarantee women representa-
tion in party structures based on the number of female party members. The
basis of this agreement was a political commitment made by the party lead-
ership. The Secretariat would have preferred a change in the statutes in-
stead. According to deputy party leader Francisco Jovel, the leadership op-
posed a revision of the statutes because they believed that the Supreme
Election Council would not approve such a change, since it was considered
to violate the equality clause of the Salvadoran constitution.37 The Secre-
tariat’s leadership was savvy enough to realize that the commitment itself
would not guarantee greater representation for women. Thus it developed
effective strategies, such as separate candidate lists for elections to the
party’s decision-making bodies and public office positions, to ensure wom-
en’s representation.
The establishment of a quota system for women was controversial. There
were technical problems and substantive disagreements. The quota was
supposed to be based on the number of women affiliated with the FMLN.
This was not a feasible proposition because in the early 1990s no one knew
the exact number of female members.38 On the basis of estimates of the
party’s gender distribution, a commitment was made to aim for a female par-
ticipation rate in all party structures of at least 30 percent. By the 1995 party
convention, FMLN records had become better. They showed about 28,000
current members, one-third of them female. Precise FMLN membership
figures were impossible to obtain due to the ongoing campaign to reaffili-
ate the membership from the five member groups to the FMLN.
The relative influence of women in the party remained fairly stable dur-
ing this process. By March 1996, FMLN records showed a total of 33,000
members. Of those, 10,890, or 33 percent, were women. As the 1997 elec-
tion campaign started to heat up, the membership drive received less at-
tention and proceeded at a slower pace. In March 1997, FMLN sources
claimed a membership of 40,000 to 80,000.39 The higher estimates ap-
peared to be based on inflated figures, however. According to a high-rank-
ing FMLN source, the number was below 50,000, one-third of them women.
Based on these estimates, the FMLN women fought for a quota of 35 per-
cent, as opposed to the 30 percent they had conquered previously. The 35
percent quota was approved by the party leadership and became part of the
internal rules governing the candidate selection process.
In addition to these technical difficulties, some female leaders were
against quotas in principle. Catalina Rodríguez de Merino, a senior party
official with a long history in the movement, voiced the opinion of a num-
ber of female ex-combatants who opposed the quota system: “This is an in-
sult,” she argued. “We have fought in the war. We earned our leadership
positions.”40 Most senior FMLN leaders, however, including Norma Gue-
vara and Lorena Peña, argued that the quota system was a necessity. Aída
Herrera, then the coordinator for the Revolutionary Party of Central
American Workers, emphasized that the quota system was not a panacea.
Quite frequently not enough women volunteered to be nominated for the
positions that the quotas made available.41
Particularly in the countryside, female militants argued, the prevailing
division of labor raised the cost for women to assume the burden of party
office to prohibitive levels. FMLN women recognized this problem at their
first National Convention in August 1993: “A great obstacle to an in-
creased political participation of women is the domestic workload. The
‘rules of the game’ are determined by the hours and the lifestyles of men
and objectively exclude women who have to assume domestic responsibil-
ities.”42 This view was asserted in interviews with female FMLN militants
conducted in three rural municipalities. The majority of the respondents
maintained that their household responsibilities precluded any considera-
tion of running for public office or seeking leadership positions within the
party.43 Women had to take care of the children, secure food for their fam-
ilies under difficult conditions, and share in agricultural activities. Those
who nevertheless wanted to be politically active had to face jealous hus-
bands. Their companions felt threatened if their spouses participated in ac-
tivities where they would encounter male colleagues. These conditions,
particularly male chauvinism, held women back.
A historical analysis of the evolution of the gender composition of the
FMLN’s national decision-making structures indicates clearly that mea-
sures of positive discrimination strengthened women’s participation in the
party structures. For comparative purposes it is interesting to note that dur-

ing the war three women held positions in the Dirección Revolucionaria
Unificada (Unified Revolutionary Directorate), the highest decision-mak-
ing structure of the Salvadoran guerrilla movement, apart from the five
commanders. The Directorate consisted of fifteen members. Thus women
represented 20 percent of the commanders during the war.44
Following the transformation of the FMLN into a political party in
1992, the FMLN elected its new party authorities. As discussed earlier, they
consisted of a Political Commission with fifteen members and the sixty-six-
member National Council. The first Political Commission had three fe-
male members while the party’s National Council was made up of nine
women and fifty-seven men. At the December 1994 party convention,
when the commitment to implement a female quota was not yet in force,
four women, Nidia Díaz, Angela Zamora, María Ofelia Navarrete, and
Mirna Perla (the wife of murdered human rights advocate Herbert Anaya),
were elected to the FMLN’s Political Commission.45 Further, women in-
creased their participation in the National Council from 13.6 to 18.2 per-
cent when twelve female militants were elected. The Council also included
a specific women’s delegate who had a voice but no vote.46 Thus, follow-
ing the 1994 convention, women held about 20 percent of the votes in the
two most important political structures of the new party. Salvador Sánchez,
the FMLN’s coordinator, acknowledged in 1995 that “the levels of female
participation are still pretty low, as are also their levels of representation in
the different party structures.”47
The political commitment to guarantee a minimum level of female rep-
resentation was first implemented at the party’s December 1995 National
Convention. As discussed, the quota was based on the number of female
party members. Party records at the time indicated 28,000 members, one-
third of them female. In order to ensure that women would indeed gain the
seats allotted to them, separate slates were used for male and female can-
didates in the elections to the National Council. This was an efficient
mechanism that led to the election of 17 women (32.7%) to the fifty-two-
member body.48 The council members, in turn, honored the political ac-
cord guaranteeing women’s representation and voted for five women to join
the Political Commission. In the elections for municipal and departmen-
tal party structures, however, female candidates were not as successful,
Table 5.1 Gender Composition of the FMLN’s National Structures, 1992–2001
Source: Internal data provided by an FMLN official.
demonstrating the need to universalize the voting procedures used at the

national level.
The results of the December 1997 FMLN party convention were en-
couraging for women. They made progress toward achieving formal equal-
ity, and the convention added a new objective to its Document of Princi-
ples. The new objective emphasized that the FMLN needed “to strengthen
[its] left-wing profile for [building] a socialist society from a gender perspective.”49
This was an important acknowledgement that the FMLN leadership now
conceived the fight for gender equality as part of its identity as a leftist
movement. In addition, there were quantitative advances for women. Vio-
leta Menjívar obtained the most votes from the delegates and was elected
to the position of vice-coordinator of the party. Female militants succeeded
in maintaining one-third of the seats on the party’s Political Commission
and increased their representation on the National Council from 33 to 38.5
percent. This progress continued at the 1999 convention when women
raised their representation on the party’s executive committee to 40 per-
cent. Their numbers in the National Council, however, declined from
twenty to nineteen (36.5%) of the fifty-two seats.
The advances female militants made within the FMLN were largely lim-
ited to the national level. In the country’s fourteen departments, the FMLN
had only one female coordinator in mid-1998. María del Carmen Córdova
headed the party structures in the department of La Paz. The picture was
not much brighter for women at the local level. In the 244 towns where
the FMLN had municipal structures, only forty-four women occupied the
positions of coordinator or vice-coordinator.
There were also some women who occupied leadership positions in the
party or held public office who did not live up to expectations. These offi-
cials were easy targets of criticism. A number of female representatives on
the FMLN’s parliamentary bench failed to earn the respect of their col-
leagues because of poor job performance. Even male leaders who supported
gender equality in the party argued that these women damaged the party’s
image and cautioned the party not to go too far with measures of positive
discrimination. Although there was an obvious double standard at work—
several male leaders had equally bad work records—this situation led to a
critical reexamination of the benefits of quotas.
Quality of Participation
While it is important to establish the formal participation of women in

FMLN political structures, it is the quality of this participation that is cru-
cial. This quality is a function of the social construction of gender and au-
thority prevailing in Salvadoran society and the FMLN. Formal equality
can be legislated, but societal norms are very difficult to change. The ad-
vances women made within the FMLN threatened many male militants.
Men feared the loss of power that would result from women’s advancement
as well as being held accountable for their acts of sexual harassment or ir-
responsible fatherhood. As a consequence, women frequently encountered
hostility from some groups within their party. In 1995, Eugenio Chicas,
then the FMLN’s vice-coordinator, criticized that “the party still suffers
from a male-dominated structure [estructura machista].” In his view “many
women feel alienated from the FMLN.”50
In order to change this male-dominated culture, the Women’s Secre-
tariat advocated the adoption of an official gender policy by the FMLN
leadership. Female leaders argued that “internal democratization, includ-
ing the democratization of gender relations, is essential if the party is to play
its revolutionary role in society . . . [and] break with the double standard
that permits the male to be a revolutionary in one area of life and an op-
pressor in another.”51 These arguments persuaded the members of the
FMLN’s National Council to approve the proposed gender policy in April
1996. It set the parameters for a fundamental rethinking of party theory and
practice. After years of lobbying and education by the Women’s Secretariat,
the FMLN leadership had reached the conclusion that it was necessary to
apply a “gender perspective” to the daily functioning of the party in order
to increase the membership’s awareness of the difficulties women were fac-
ing within the party and in society at large.52 The members of the FMLN’s
Political Commission even agreed that they themselves had to become
more familiar with gender theory and accepted training sessions offered by
the Women’s Secretariat. The international climate was an important fac-
tor in the leadership’s decision. The Fourth World Conference on Women,
held in Beijing, in particular highlighted the importance of instituting spe-
cific policies to achieve greater gender equality.
Despite the leadership’s apparent good will, the party’s culture vis-à-vis
women was slow to change. Men and women had difficulty changing their
thinking. It is interesting to look at the example of key female leaders and
how they fared within the party. A number of female leaders enjoyed
tremendous prestige and had occupied positions of power for many years.
Nevertheless, they faced real hurdles in their daily work within the FMLN.
Although some structural problems had been eliminated, psychological
barriers remained. These psychological hurdles reflected the gender-spe-
cific societal conditions women in leadership positions had to face.
The political career of Nidia Díaz is a good example. Her personal record
had contributed greatly to strengthening women’s image within the FMLN
and Salvadoran society. A high-ranking commander during the war, Díaz
played a key role in the peace negotiations, starting with the meeting be-
tween the government and the guerrillas in La Palma. Following the peace
accords, she became a highly visible member of the Salvadoran legislature,
being elected to two consecutive terms. When she had to leave due to term
limits, she was elected to the Central American parliament. At the 1994
party convention, Díaz received the most votes in the National Council
elections and could have been a serious contender for the position of party
coordinator had she decided to run. Since she did not, Salvador Sánchez
ran unopposed. He was reelected in 1995, when Díaz—who once again re-
ceived the largest number of votes—again took the position that it was not
the opportune moment for her to seek the party leadership. However, she
did agree to be a candidate for deputy coordinator, a position to which she
was easily elected. Díaz’s level of support in the party was not unique. In
the 1997 party convention, another woman, Violeta Menjívar, received
the most votes of any candidate. She received 631 out of 719 votes in the
National Council elections. She then received unanimous support from
the newly elected Council to become a member of the Political Commis-
sion. However, like Díaz before her, she elected not to run for the position
of coordinator.
The reluctance of both women to vie for the position of coordinator was
based on their conviction that they could not be effective party leaders
while simultaneously serving in parliament. Díaz, in particular, considered
herself already overcommitted and was pessimistic concerning the level of
support she could expect were she to assume this important post. Díaz
pointed out that she had been burned in the past when she was urged to
accept new duties. Generally she did accede to these calls to serve with the
understanding that significant institutional support would be provided. In-
variably, the promised support failed to materialize. This left Díaz trying to
find ways to incorporate new duties into an already heavy schedule. In ad-
dition, she had some reservations about whether the time had come for a
woman to assume the leadership of the party. At a time when the party was
still struggling to overcome past divisions, it was not the right moment for
a potentially divisive leadership struggle with female militants confronting
traditional male stereotypes.53
Psychological barriers in the form of societal norms and attitudes against
women’s advancement in the party were particularly evident in the con-
troversy surrounding the nomination process of the 1999 presidential can-
didate. This process clearly demonstrated to Díaz and other female leaders
that the FMLN was a long way from reaching gender equality. The 1999
election campaign was overshadowed by the conflict emanating from the
party’s nomination process. As described earlier, the candidate of the
women’s movement, Victoria de Avilés, did not obtain the support neces-
sary to win the nomination. Instead, Facundo Guardado and Nidia Díaz
were the choice of the delegates. Guardado’s followers played on machista
sentiments in promoting their candidate, arguing that a woman would not
be an effective president. With Avilés defeated, support for the FMLN’s
electoral ticket from the women’s movement vanished. Not even the in-
clusion of Díaz, who was greatly respected by female leaders, could change
this. Díaz received little to no support from Salvadoran feminists. Although
not an outspoken feminist herself, she was supportive of the feminist
agenda. Under the circumstances, however, her solid record was not
enough to obtain the support of the women’s movement. Its leaders felt be-
trayed when Avilés could not secure majority support from the party.
The women’s movement and sectors of other social movements who
generally supported the FMLN were in a quandary. Should they support the
FMLN ticket despite its rejection of “their candidate” or should they pun-
ish the FMLN by abstaining. The FMLN tried to convince these groups
that it constituted the lesser evil, an argument that had worked in the past.
This time, however, the FMLN failed to persuade its longtime supporters.
For the first time in Salvadoran history the “social left” maintained its in-
dependence from the “political left.”54 While their position was a key fac-
tor in the FMLN’s election defeat, leaders of the women’s movement
viewed it as positive since it ended their emotional dependence on the
FMLN.
Avilés herself was furious and disappointed. Being an outsider, she knew
next to nothing about the FMLN’s internal divisions before she was drafted
as a candidate. Originally, she had thought that her candidacy was sup-
ported by the FMLN as a whole. Only after she had become a member of
the FMLN and the selection process started to heat up did she realize that
there were two main factions. Suddenly she had to come to terms with her
identification with the orthodox faction.55 After the second convention,
Avilés faced a lot of pressure to withdraw her candidacy. The women’s
movement left this difficult decision up to her. Out of respect for her many
supporters, the former human rights ombudsperson decided to carry on.56
She considered it important to take her chances despite the mounting odds.
What if she were successful in the end?
Díaz’s decision was also a very personal one. She decided to accept her
party’s nomination for vice-presidential candidate in the March 1999 elec-
tion despite strong personal reservations. Her judgment was based on the
conviction that she could heal the rift that had divided her party. Too much
was at stake—the FMLN could not afford to squander the historic oppor-
tunity to take power. Her own future was not the issue. Until the very end,
Díaz was willing to sacrifice herself.57 In a meeting with Avilés before the
final showdown, Díaz offered to withdraw her candidacy if Avilés would be
willing to accept the vice-presidential spot. Avilés, however, was not about
to join a ticket headed by the main representative of the FMLN faction
that opposed her. She also viewed the offer as a personal and not a formal
one.58 From the perspective of the women’s movement, Díaz was not sin-
cere and had lent her prestige to the effort to get rid of Avilés.
Nidia Díaz’s decision to become a candidate had been a difficult one.
During the months of the campaign, she came to realize the high price she
had to pay for trying to do what she considered best for her party. As a for-
mer leader of the PRTC, the FMLN’s smallest constituent group, Díaz was
marginalized from the outset. Lacking a significant core constituency she
had to rely on a close circle of friends and advisors to survive in the cam-
paign. In these circumstances, the hostility she faced from the women’s
movement was even more hurtful.
Díaz also had to confront a male-oriented campaign designed by North
American public relations specialists. The campaign’s focus was on Guar-
dado, the male presidential candidate, while little attention was paid to
promoting the ticket’s female candidate for vice-president. For example, for
every three pictures taken of Guardado, Díaz managed barely one. The
FMLN leadership chose to downplay the inclusion of a charismatic woman
on its ticket. In Díaz’s opinion, personal jealousies also played a role. Guar-
dado resented Díaz’s apparent popularity on the campaign trail and tried to
isolate her when he could. This reality limited her chances of adding her
strength to the ticket.
The Women’s Secretariat tried to heal the rift between the social move-
ment and the party. It invited female leaders to breakfast meetings to pro-
mote the candidacy of Nidia Díaz. Alas, no one showed up.59 Several mem-
bers of the Secretariat were conflicted about lending support to Díaz, since
the Secretariat had officially supported the candidacy of Avilés. In the end,
loyalty to their party won out. Yet the Secretariat’s support for the FMLN
ticket alienated some sectors of the women’s movement and weakened the
alliance for gender equality. The aftereffect of this episode was a debilitated
Secretariat.
From a feminist perspective, the 1999 fiasco constituted further evi-
dence that obtaining formal gender equality could be an empty victory.
More significant than the gender of an office holder was his or her position
in support of women’s rights. In the final analysis, female legislators were
hardly more supportive of a feminist agenda than male parliamentarians.
This insight became broadly accepted following the FMLN’s 1997 success
in getting its female candidates elected to parliament. Salvadoran feminists

naturally expected that these women would support an agenda of women’s
rights. Instead, the feminists were bitterly disappointed. On key issues, such
as legalized abortion, female FMLN parliamentarians failed to join forces
with the women’s movement.
In 1998, conservative legislators tried to preempt any effort by the
women’s movement to successfully advocate the legalization of abortion.
They accomplished their objective with an amendment to Article One of
the Salvadoran constitution that protects the sanctity of life. Members of
the governing party ARENA proposed incorporating a passage stating that
life would be protected from its inception. This passage completely elimi-
nated a woman’s right to choose, which was already extremely restricted.
Until 1998, abortion was legal only if a physician recommended it for
health reasons. After the amendment was adopted, danger to the life of the
mother was no longer a valid reason for a doctor to perform an abortion.
The amendment passed with overwhelming majority. Seventy-nine of
the eighty-four legislators voted in favor. Lorena Peña, the most outspoken
FMLN legislator in favor of women’s rights, did not participate in the vote,
having returned from Japan the night before. The FMLN, afraid of a back-
lash from the Catholic Church, argued that its deputies should vote their
consciences. Eugenio Chicas, an FMLN deputy, was the only member of
parliament who openly opposed the reform. The passage of this amend-
ment by such an overwhelming margin indicated that the feminist position
had little support. Female militants were furious and argued that they had
the right to expect support for their view from the female legislators they
had helped to elect. Key leaders argued that had the FMLN supported their
position, the feminists would have supported the revolutionary Left’s pres-
idential ticket even though Victoria de Avilés was not on it. The repro-
ductive choice issue was just one of many where leaders of the women’s
movement felt they had fought in vain to get women elected.
After years of struggle to get women into positions of power there was
great disillusionment. A new debate started, and the fight for gender equal-
ity went from a formal to a substantive focus: did the participation of
women in decision-making structures make a difference? Knowledgeable
insiders considered that the FMLN was far from reaching the goal of mean-
ingful female participation. One female activist summarized it this way:
I think what is happening is that the same women who have filled the spaces
of this formal percentage [the quota] need to be more convinced of the spe-
cific demands of the moment. I have the impression that they are not con-
vinced and that this impedes them from having an impact on the party
structures. If they were convinced that the fight for women’s rights takes
precedence over the struggle of the party, they would make their voices and
their demands felt. I think that at this point women continue to have little
impact on the party.
Based on this realization, the Women’s Secretariat changed its strategy

and became more sophisticated in its struggle for gender equality. It now
focused on tactics that would contribute to “the quantitative and qualita-
tive inclusion of women into the party.”60 Equally important, female mili-
tants realized the necessity of gaining the support of their male colleagues
if they wanted to transform the party. This led the Secretariat to advocate
the consideration of “women and men with gender consciousness for internal
party positions and for public office.”61
Gender Equality in the FSLN
The Sandinista commitment to women’s emancipation in Nicaragua

was already expressed in the 1969 Historic Program of the FSLN. According
to this document, the Sandinista revolution “will abolish the detestable
discrimination that women have suffered with regard to men [and] estab-
lish economic, political, and cultural equality between women and men.”62
The progressive position regarding women’s rights taken by the FSLN early
on—quite in contrast to the guerrilla movements of El Salvador and
Guatemala—raises some interesting questions. Who wrote the section on
women’s rights, and what relevance did the program have in the daily life
of Sandinista militants? The authorship of the program has been attributed
to Carlos Fonseca, the cofounder and charismatic leader of the FSLN. Yet
high-ranking FSLN officials now admit that Fonseca might not be the real
author. There is well-founded speculation that an international FSLN col-
laborator conceived the section on women. Further, Dora María Téllez, one
of the top female commanders, has affirmed that the program was not dis-
cussed during the conflict since “it was a program to be executed after the
Revolution . . . I never recall that we have had an ample debate about the
participation of women, nor about anything on gender.”63 Thus, during
the war, the progressive content of the Sandinista program had little to no
impact on gender relations within the FSLN.
Once in power, the revolutionary government reaffirmed its commit-
ment to fight for the full equality of men and women. The 1979 Statute of
Rights and Guarantees of Nicaraguans and the 1987 Constitution stated the
Sandinista position. Yet despite the official support for gender equality and
the strong participation of women in the revolution—they constituted an
estimated 30 percent of the combatants and held several key combat posi-
tions—women were underrepresented in the decision-making bodies of
the revolutionary government.64
Several former field commanders did obtain important government
portfolios. Mónica Baltodano became vice-president of the Council of
State, Doris Tijerino headed the police, and Lea Guido became minister of
health. Yet these women were the exception to the rule. The gender com-
position of the Sandinista army, created after the successful insurrection,
clearly indicated that the female combatants, who had contributed greatly
to the success of the insurrection, were no longer appreciated in a tradi-
tionally male domain. The military leadership actively encouraged “women
to assume nonmilitary duties.”65 In 1980, women represented less than 10
percent of army personnel; and out of 231 top army officials, only 13 women
(6%) held command positions of any significance.66 Revolutionary Nica-
ragua was no exception to the rule that women are welcome to assume
counter-traditional roles only when there is a perceived need. Once the cri-
sis has ended they are supposed to return to the private sphere of the house-
hold.
In some instances the career path of female militants changed over
night. Vilma Núñez, who had worked as a lawyer for the FSLN during the
insurrection and had been imprisoned by the Somoza regime, was nomi-
nated to the vice-presidency of the Supreme Court. She received word of
this honor while still in prison. Despite her personal success story, Núñez
was not blind to the lack of correspondence between the positions of
authority women obtained in the revolutionary government and party
structures and the significant participation of women in the revolutionary
struggle. She did “not agree with those compañeras who didn’t recognize
this reality because they personally had the opportunity to assume positions
of importance.”67
Revolutionary Nicaragua (1979– 90) presented a good example of the
challenges the revolutionary Left faces in the struggle for women’s rights
when it is in power. The Sandinista experience reflects the complex real-
ity a leadership confronts when it attempts to build a new society. On the
one hand, the Sandinista commitment to women’s emancipation trans-
lated into “legal reforms intended to eliminate discriminatory laws; im-
provements in living conditions; an increase in the public presence of fe-
males; [and] the opening of opportunities for women to organize and start
to question their subordination.”68 On the other hand, there was only lim-
ited progress toward substantive gender equality.
In the view of Paola Pérez Alemán, the Sandinista record was mixed.
Improvements for women, such as access to education and health care, co-
existed with continuing “oppressive gender relations” in the private
sphere.69 In general, progress in the area of practical gender interests was
not repeated in the area of strategic gender interests.70 Two key factors con-
tributed to this situation—the traditional gender views espoused by the
Sandinista leadership and the limited capacity of the women’s movement
to fight for radical change in gender relations. In another assessment of
Sandinista policies toward women, Ana Criquillon maintains that “the
specific demands of particular sectors or social groups, particularly women,
. . . were for much of these ten years considered diversionary or—in the
best of cases—secondary, relative to the strategic interests of the Revolu-
tion.”71 It was this subordination of women’s interests to the survival of the
revolution as defined by men, that led many feminists to criticize the San-
dinista record. Margaret Randall maintains that “the FSLN’s inability to
confront feminism . . . had contributed to its defeat” in the 1990 elec-
tions.72 It is only fair, however, to point out that the views of the FSLN
leadership were representative of the sentiments held by society at large.
Even after a decade of revolutionary rule, Helen Collinson reached the
conclusion that “Feminism remains a dirty word for large sectors of the
Nicaraguan revolution. Seen as an anti-male doctrine, it is commonly de-
fined as the opposite of machismo—in other words, extreme and unac-
ceptable.”73 For the purpose of our discussion it is important to emphasize
that Sandinista policies vis-à-vis women while the party was in power had
significant impact on the situation of FSLN militants, once the party was
in opposition.
Female Participation during and after the Revolution
Considering that women represented 38 percent of the FSLN’s mem-

bership in 1979, a large number of leadership positions should have been
occupied by female militants.74 Indeed, in the days following the Sandin-
ista victory, women occupied a number of important positions in the party.
For example, female militants headed the party structures in five of the
country’s departments where they held the post of FSLN political secre-
tary.75 This early success story changed rapidly. Female militants were soon
replaced in many of the positions they had held initially. Dorotea Wilson
maintained that these positions were lost due to a lack of gender con-
sciousness. “These positions disappeared because they were not occupied
from a gender perspective. These were positions, indeed, because we had
earned them with our capacity, with our responsibility, and for having
demonstrated that we were capable.”76 According to Wilson, the reality of
the war days favored greater equality in gender relations. The normal rules
of society did not apply, since there were no children or households to take
care of. But with the return to the norms of public life, “machismo and male
chauvinism blossomed” and men secured their positions first. In addition
to those women who were pushed out, many others who had been active
in the FSLN during the war assumed traditional gender roles and limited
their activities to the private sphere of the household. Dora María Téllez
affirmed that many female combatants “returned to the exact roles that
they had had before, without any variations” as soon as the “specific com-
bat circumstances had ceased to exist.”77 This development was reflected
in a decline of female membership in the FSLN to 22 percent in 1984.78
In general, women participated in greater numbers in the guerrilla move-
ment than in the Sandinista party, and female leaders tended to experience
more equality in gender relations during the days in the mountains than
following the taking of power.
Women were excluded from the center of power—the nine-member
National Directorate—while the FSLN governed Nicaragua. They were,
however, represented in the Sandinista Assembly. While the Assembly was
a body appointed by the Directorate and lacked decision-making power,

membership was only awarded to militants with distinguished records. In
the beginning the Directorate consisted of sixty-six members whose selec-
tion was based on evaluations made by the party leadership. The first As-
sembly, constituted in 1980, included fifteen women, representing 23 per-
cent of the membership. The level of female participation in this body
remained stable during the 1980s.
Dora María Téllez has emphasized that the low levels of female partici-
pation in the party’s decision-making structures became a hot topic at the
end of the 1980s. Interestingly, the focus on women’s role in the party co-
incided with “the atomization of AMNLAE.”79 The Asociación de Mu-
jeres Nicaragüenses, Luisa Amanda Espinoza (Association of Nicaraguan
Women) was formed by the Sandinista leadership to represent women’s in-
terests. AMNLAE grew into an important mass movement claiming to rep-
resent eighty-five thousand members in 1985.80 However, the organization
suffered from a fatal flaw. It was completely subordinated to the party lead-
ership.81 Evaluating AMNLAE’s development in 1998, Téllez character-
ized it as “an organization that the FSLN created to organize women. It is
not a women’s organization. This is how it was born, how it grew, how it
developed, and this is how it continues to be. It was impossible to change
it.”82 This lack of autonomy prevented AMNLAE from evolving into an
effective advocate for women’s strategic gender interests. When AMNLAE
disintegrated following the Sandinista election defeat, it gave birth to a
number of autonomous women’s groups. These organizations became the
driving force behind the push to realize an agenda for gender equality in
the 1990s. Their efforts to transform Nicaraguan society also translated
into important changes within the FSLN. The Nicaraguan women’s move-
ment consisted basically of former FSLN militants. Changing the FSLN
continued to be a goal close to their hearts.
It took women a long time to break into the party leadership. It was not
until 1994 that women were elected to the FSLN’s National Directorate.
Since the Sandinistas were in opposition by then, the significance of the
Directorate in the country’s political process was much reduced. Dorotea
Wilson, a key advocate for gender equality within the party and one of the
five women elected to the fifteen-member National Directorate in 1994,
recalled that a concerted effort to increase women’s representation within
the FSLN had started at the 1991 Party Congress. Women thought that
their time to gain access to the Directorate had finally arrived when Dora
María Téllez was proposed for a seat. In the eyes of many, Téllez was assured
a seat. She had been a high-ranking commander during the insurrection
and had occupied key positions in the revolutionary government, includ-
ing Minister of Health. She had also demonstrated her capacity within the
party, particularly as Political Secretary for Managua. A charismatic leader,
she enjoyed the support of many rank-and-file members.
Yet the FSLN leadership had other ideas. In order to preserve the pre-
vailing balance of power, the Directorate engineered voting procedures
that were effective in keeping Téllez from being elected.83 Female leaders
were furious that the male leadership had designed exclusionary procedures
and had exerted strong pressure on Téllez to withdraw her candidacy. They
were convinced that the exclusion of Téllez was related to her gender.
Téllez herself described her exclusion this way: “It had to do with my per-
sonality, it had to do with my gender, it had to do with my political posi-
tions, and it had to do with my generation.”84 This incident was not the
only time Téllez was to suffer discrimination at the hands of the party. In
one of the darker moments in the history of the Sandinista party, Téllez was
subjected to a terrible smear campaign. In 1995, Téllez and her supporters
left the FSLN. In an outpouring of homophobia by Sandinista party mem-
bers, her sexual preference—Téllez had the reputation of being a lesbian—
was linked to her political “deviancy.”
In the opinion of Mónica Baltodano, Téllez’s problems were the result
of her ideological positions (she favored a faction within the party that later
evolved into the MRS) rather than a manifestation of gender discrimina-
tion.85 Her potential integration into the Directorate was perceived as re-
inforcing a group within the leadership that did not have majority support.
Sergio Ramírez, who shared Téllez’s views, did manage to join the Direc-
torate on the same occasion. He was perceived to have greater clout, hav-
ing served as vice-president and being the leader of the Sandinista parlia-
mentary bench. The other male who joined in 1991 was René Núñez. In
the eyes of many party militants, he had always been a member of the Di-
rectorate, albeit not an official one so as not to upset the delicate balance
between the three factions. Núñez participated in the meetings of the Di-
rectorate from the beginning and served as its secretary. Considered “the
man of all secrets” he knew more about the party’s dirty linen that any of
his colleagues.86 Whatever the main rationale for excluding Téllez was, the
perception that gender discrimination was the cause prevailed.
The Fight for a Quota
In the wake of Téllez’s defeat, female militants redoubled their efforts to

break into the exclusively male leadership club. In light of the positive ex-
perience with quotas for female participation in El Salvador, many FSLN
women argued that the party needed to institute measures of positive dis-
crimination. Even though some leaders expressed reservations, most rec-
ognized the advantage of quotas. Vilma Núñez expressed the majority opin-
ion: “I don’t think that quotas are ideal, but they are a mechanism that
serves to help women to succeed, to break through this discrimination.”87
The discussion of how to implement a quota was similar to the one we an-
alyzed in the case of the Salvadoran Left. One issue was whether to base
the quota on the number of female FSLN militants or on the gender distri-
bution of Nicaraguan society.
According to the FSLN, women constituted 24 percent of the party
membership in the late 1980s and held about 20 percent of the seats on the
Sandinista Assembly.88 Male party leaders favored basing the quota on
women’s relative strength in the party, while female leaders advocated
taking the country’s gender statistics as the norm, which would have led to
a quota of 50 percent. Looking at the gender makeup of leadership of
the country’s political parties, it was easy to make the case that some-
thing needed to be done to change male-dominated party structures. One
study found that of the 272 people in the national executive bodies of the
twenty-four legally recognized parties in 1993, only 24 (less than 1%) were
women.89
At the 1994 National Convention, female militants demanded that 50
percent of all positions in the party structures be allocated to women. This
admittedly unrealistic demand was part of a conscious strategy to counter
the leadership offer of 25 percent representation.90 The women’s strategy
proved successful when the party statutes were revised to allocate a mini-
mum of 30 percent of all positions in the party’s decision-making structures
to women. As a result of the new quota, five women, Dora María Téllez,
Table 5.2 Gender Composition of the FSLN’s National Directorate,

1979–2001
Source: Internal data provided by an FSLN official.
Mirna Cunningham, Mónica Baltodano, Benigna Mendiola, and Dorotea

Wilson, were elected to the Directorate which was enlarged from nine to
fifteen members.
The statistics presented in Table 5.2 clearly demonstrate that the intro-
duction of quotas changed the gender composition of the FSLN’s decision-
making structures. The decline in female representation between 1995 and
1998 has the following background: In January 1995, after the split of the
FSLN discussed in Chapter Four, three members of the Directorate, Dora
María Téllez, Mirna Cunningham, and Luis Carrión resigned their seats.
Since the statutes did not provide guidelines for such a scenario, the lead-
ership decided to offer the three vacant positions to the three candidates
who received the highest number of votes after the top fifteen in the 1994
Directorate elections. Edgardo Garcia, who had obtained the sixteenth-
highest vote total, came to substitute for Carrión. The case was more com-
plex when Doris Tijerino and Leticia Herrera, who were next in line, were
asked to assume the two female positions that had been abandoned. Con-
siderable controversy prevailed concerning this proposed substitution.
Herrera maintained that she was never officially invited to become part of
the Directorate, although she acknowledged that there were unofficial
soundings.91 In the end, neither of the two women joined. High-ranking
female FSLN leaders speculated that both these potential candidates for
seats on the Directorate disagreed with the political position of the current
authorities or did not want to become part of a leadership that was being
criticized by important sectors of the party. Until 1998 the Directorate
functioned with only thirteen members, leaving the party in noncompli-
ance with its own statutes. To put the Sandinista record in perspective, it
is interesting to note that President Alemán’s Partido Liberal Constitu-
cionalista (Liberal Constitutionalist Party) included only one woman in its
leadership body.92
The FSLN finally was in compliance with its own quota on female rep-
resentation following its National Congress in May 1998. Five new women
assumed positions on the Directorate. Yet complying with the 30 percent
quota did not fulfill the expectations of many militants. In the weeks lead-
ing up to the Congress, several female leaders were advocating an increase
in the female quota to 50 percent. They based their demand on women’s
50 percent representation in the party’s membership. The majority of male
and female party leaders, however, claimed they had no knowledge of ei-
ther the exact level of party membership or its gender composition.93
According to reliable sources, the party leadership apparently had al-
ready prepared a document to be presented at the Congress, recommend-
ing that the FSLN adopt a female quota of 40 percent. Female leaders spec-
ulated that this was done in an effort to appease female party activists and
to curry favor with a delegation of women from the Socialist International
who were in Nicaragua to attend the Congress. Once the meeting was in
session, however, the quota remained at 30 percent. The adverse climate
vis-à-vis an agenda for women’s rights was evident when not a single fe-
male member of the old Directorate was reelected. Two of the three women
who were replaced were strong independent-minded figures. As discussed
in Chapter Four, the Congress was under the cloud of the allegations
against party leader Daniel Ortega for having sexually abused his step-
daughter. In this context the Ortega supporters wanted to make sure that
every member of the new Directorate would be supportive of the longtime
leader.
The allegations by Ortega’s stepdaughter had led to a series of contro-
versies within the FSLN in the preceding months. Several important fe-
male leaders decided to distance themselves from the party under these cir-
cumstances and chose not to run for reelection. Others paid the price of
being perceived as lacking in support for the embattled party leader.
Dorotea Wilson and Mónica Baltodano, strong advocates for gender equal-
ity within the party, chose not to run, while Benigna Mendiola failed to re-
ceive the support necessary to get elected. Of the five new female members
on the Directorate, only Marta Heriberta Valle was considered a strong ad-
vocate for women’s rights. Gladys Baez and Doris Tijerino had long track
records as Sandinista militants but had not distinguished themselves as de-
fenders of women’s rights. Leaders of the women’s movement considered
them submissive to the wishes of the male leadership. Emilia Torres also
lacked a background of taking independent positions as did María Esther
Solís, who completed this quintet. Solís had obtained her position due to
the quota for Sandinista youth and was considered a lightweight. In the eyes
of key Sandinista militants as well as leaders of the women’s movement, the
struggle for gender equality within the FSLN had suffered a setback.
Female party members also sought to increase women’s participation in
the Sandinista Assembly, which had been around 20 percent in the 1980s.
In the 1994 elections, women fell three seats short of the 30 percent quota
based on the number of votes received by male and female candidates.
Thus, the new statutes were applied, and three women were allocated seats,
bypassing male candidates who had received more votes.94 While the quota
was implemented at the national level, a similar commitment to execute
official party policy could not be found in the departments. Ironically, the
FSLN’s progress toward internal democracy was hurting women. In the
mid-1980s, when leaders at the intermediate level were selected and im-
posed by the National Directorate, female leaders occupied 56 percent of
the positions, a level that corresponded to the relative strength of women
in the party. By 1996, when candidates for intermediate positions were
elected by duly constituted local assemblies, female participation declined
to 29.2 percent. What concerned female leaders the most, however, was
that in almost 80 percent of the intermediate leadership structures not a
single woman occupied one of the important positions, including secretary
of organization or finance.95 Formal adherence to the quota could not pre-
vent the exclusion of women from positions of power.
Many male party members viewed the enforcement of measures of pos-
itive discrimination unfavorably. There were indications of mounting re-
sistance to the enforcement of the party’s gender policy. Men and women
grew further apart in their views about the role of women in the party.
While men started to object to efforts to secure the limited goal of formal
equality, female activists argued that it was time to move toward substan-
tive equality.
Paying for Past Sins: The Lack of a Women’s Secretariat
Mónica Baltodano, in charge of the FSLN’s Organizational Secretariat

(1994 –98), argued that the quota should be seen as an initial tool in the
struggle to increase women’s participation. In her view, female party mem-
bers and activists in the women’s movement needed to move beyond their
focus on formal compliance with the quota and demand increased alloca-
tions of those party positions where the real decision-making power was lo-
cated. For example, in 1998 not a single woman held the position of polit-
ical secretary in any of the nine departments and autonomous regions. It
was particularly evident at the departmental and local levels that a quota
mandated from above accomplished relatively little. Women entered the
party structures, yet they remained excluded from the important positions.
Women are not given “the principal responsibilities, when it comes to the
election of the secretary of the organization or the treasurer,” Baltodano
noted. In those positions, “their presence is very low . . . It is proven that
women do not rush to get elected to important posts. There is much greater
shyness. The cost is very high to stand for election and to assume the chal-
lenge.”96 Similar problems rooted in a mere emphasis on formal adherence
to the quota were manifest in the candidate selection process for the 1996
parliamentary elections.97
This situation led female leaders to rethink the strategy and advocate
election for specific positions. They argued that “it didn’t do much good to
have women in these structures if they were not in leadership positions.”
Under the procedures they proposed, the quota would be applied not only
overall, but for every specific position. Thus, if it were implemented,
women would be guaranteed 30 percent of all positions, including those of
political secretary. Not surprisingly, this initiative met stiff resistance from
male leaders and failed to receive sufficient support at the 1998 Congress.
The FSLN lacked a viable organizational structure that allowed women
to organize effectively in support of an agenda of women’s rights. Although
the Sandinista Assembly did have a Comisión de la Mujer (Women’s Com-
mission), it lacked the institutional support and resources available to the
established party secretariats. Nevertheless, the Commission was used as a
platform to advance the struggle for gender equality. Because of its limita-
tions, however, female leaders advocated the creation of a Women’s Sec-
retariat that would be part of the FSLN’s national structure and would be
given the same support and recognition as the other secretariats, such as
party finances or organization. According to Mónica Baltodano, the femi-
nists within the party, supported by leaders in the Nicaraguan women’s
movement, opposed the creation of a Secretariat for fear that it would be
used to control the women’s movement.98 In her view, such a Secretariat
“was indispensable, in order for a permanent mechanism to exist that would
. . . permit us to obtain the resources to train women, to make our own pro-
paganda, and to develop a campaign of consciousness raising . . . directed
also toward men.”99
The controversy surrounding the creation of a Women’s Secretariat had
its roots in Sandinista policies toward women while the party was in gov-
ernment. As discussed above, the women’s movement was created and con-
trolled by a Sandinista leadership that maintained that the defense of the
revolution required the subordination of women’s interests. The short-
comings in Sandinista policies were officially recognized in March 1987.
The FSLN Directorate acknowledged in the Proclama Sobre la Mujer (Pro-
nouncement about Women) that “discriminatory laws and social practices,
the subordination of women in society and the family, paternal irresponsi-
bility, physical and moral mistreatment, and machismo” continued to pre-
vail in Nicaraguan society.100 The document emphasized that the struggle
for women’s emancipation should no longer be subordinated to the revo-
lution’s priorities.101 This acknowledgment only confirmed what women
had been arguing all along. It provided FSLN militants with the justifica-
tion needed to start to build an independent women’s movement. In light
of this legacy, it is easy to understand why leaders of the women’s move-
ment rejected the idea of creating an institution that could potentially be
used to revert to the old days of party control. Another factor that compli-
cated the already difficult situation between the women’s movement and
the Sandinista party was the 1995 split of the FSLN. Mónica Baltodano,
an advocate of women’s rights within the FSLN, explains:
The feminist movement was strongly affected by the breakup that took
place. Here the reform movement, the groups allied with Sergio Ramírez
demonstrated greater ability to exchange ideas with these women’s groups
. . . The majority of the feminist organizations and the feminist leadership
supported Sergio . . . They didn’t support me. They felt that Dora María
Téllez represented feminist interests better than I. I was considered more a
woman of the party structure, of the organization. They never supported me
strongly. My support came from the FSLN party members.102
Thus, in contrast to the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinista party did not
have a Women’s Secretariat to oversee and advocate the implementation
of the FSLN’s gender policy. It lacked an institution that could serve as a
bridge between the party militants and the women’s movement. The lack
of such a coordinating structure had a negative effect on relations between
the party and the feminist movement. Even more important, the work of
female militants to advance an agenda of women’s rights within the party
had to be conducted under unnecessarily difficult circumstances. The May
1998 Party Congress finally remedied this situation. During its course, the
FSLN established a Women’s Secretariat.
The creation of a Secretariat did not show increased support for gender
equality within the party. On the contrary, in the eyes of many, the 1998
Congress was a severe setback for those militants seeking to establish more
equal gender relations. Vilma Núñez held the view that “we have seen a
setback . . . If we look at how the party has developed in terms of recent re-
sults culminating in the current [1998] Congress, the setback is evident.”
Her view was not surprising considering the fallout from the charges lev-
eled by Ortega’s stepdaughter.
Quality of Participation: The Zoilamérica Factor
The Zoilamérica case raised crucial questions concerning gender equal-

ity within the FSLN. Her charges created a firestorm that engulfed Nicara-
guan society, the Sandinista party, and the women’s movement and led to
seemingly irreparable rifts. In a document introduced in court, Zoilamérica
charged that she had been “sexually abused by Daniel Ortega Saavedra,
since she was eleven years old, with these acts being maintained for almost
twenty years.”103 What made this case so explosive was not only that the
charges involved the most eminent Sandinista leader but that they threat-
ened the past, current, and future credibility of the Sandinista revolution-
ary program itself. Ortega’s stepdaughter exposed the double moral stan-
dard prevailing in the party and emphasized that there could be no “polit-
ical discourse that is inconsistent with a personal, individual practice.” She
further alleged that high-ranking Sandinista officials, including her own
mother, had been aware of her predicament but had chosen to remain
silent. In addition, Zoilamérica explicitly argued her case from a gender
perspective. “I have to reiterate that those injuries to my gender are the most
severe to my integrity and human rights. It was from the characteristics of my
sexuality, from the exploitation of my position of disadvantaged inferiority
that the essence of the domination and incarnation of the patriarchal sys-
tem mixed.”104
Whereas the majority of the Sandinista leadership, male and female
alike, closed ranks behind Ortega and rejected the charges, an important
minority saw its worst possible scenario confirmed. When feminist leaders
formed a Committee in Support of Zoilamérica, a witch-hunt started.
Death threats against those women who supported Zoilamérica were com-
mon, and the whole case was treated as an aberration of radical feminism.
Some of Ortega’s defenders maintained that radical feminists had invented
the whole case in order to destroy the Sandinista party. This view was par-
ticularly repugnant to women in light of the high incidence of sexual abuse
in Nicaraguan society. Yet this argument served to convince party militants
to support their leader in the interest of the party’s survival. In the eyes of
female militants, however, the “survival of the revolution” argument had
reared its ugly head.
Ortega was not the only leader engulfed in controversy. Tomás Borge,
one of the most outspoken defenders of the former president, was under a
cloud himself. In March 1998, Cornelia Marshall, a German who had
worked as a translator for Borge in 1990, accused him of sexual harassment.
Borge, who vigorously defended Ortega, denied the charges. His credibil-
ity, however, was severely damaged. Yet other Ortega supporters were above
suspicion. Several supportive high-ranking women could point to impec-
cable records of having advocated gender equality in the party. Not sur-
prisingly, the case destroyed many long-standing friendships and greatly af-
fected the climate for women in the party.
In the eyes of female leaders, the party’s retreat regarding gender equal-
ity was particularly hurtful because women had been optimistic in light of
earlier indications that male attitudes in the leadership had started to
change. In the mid-1990s, the Sandinista National Directorate had par-

ticipated in a seminar on gender theory, listening for four hours to a spe-
cialist on the subject. At its conclusion, several members of the Directorate
expressed their astonishment that their behavior toward women had its
roots in machismo, maintaining that they were acting in this way “because
they considered it to be natural.”105 While one might question the effec-
tiveness of such an exercise in changing hearts and minds, it was the open-
ness of the male leadership to engage in a dialogue on the party’s gender
policy that was important. A few years later this openness was nowhere to
be detected. In contrast to his previous commitment to gender equality,
Daniel Ortega addressed the delegates at the 1998 Congress and criticized
measures of positive discrimination. He pointed to the party’s quota system
as an obstacle to men’s assumption of leadership positions although they
were better qualified than the women. This criticism was perceived as “an
effort to discredit women.”106 Ortega’s hostility toward women was obvi-
ously rooted in the Zoilamérica case.
Nicaraguan feminists were particularly concerned that the strong women
who had served on the Directorate between 1994 and 1998 had been re-
placed. They maintained that the female cadres who now were in power
were likely to give priority to the official party line rather than lend sup-
port to women’s rights. They had little confidence that the new leadership
would be capable or willing to resolve the case against the party leader. Fe-
male militants warned that the FSLN’s “internal democracy is perceived in
a traditional way, without a gender perspective.”107 In their view, the party
needed “to adopt the gender policy as a global theme, train women, and
promote them to leadership positions.” Instead men “continued to believe
that the issues of women should be resolved by women.”108 Without a dras-
tic shift in prevailing attitudes, high-ranking officials were justified in their
fear that the party had ceased to make progress toward formal, much less
substantive, gender equality.
Gender Equality in the URNG
In order to understand the position of women within the URNG, it

helps to examine the role women played in the FDNG. This party was
formed in 1995 with the clandestine support of URNG militants. Com-
peting in the 1995 elections, the FDNG gained 10 percent of the vote and
subsequently had six deputies in parliament, three of them women. The
high incidence of women on the FDNG’s parliamentary bench should not
be interpreted as the result of the party’s commitment to gender equality.
Instead it reflected the strength of the female deputies who had gained a
national reputation on their own merits. Mariela Aguilar, the head of the
Women’s Secretariat, confirmed that 50 percent of the FDNG’s deputies
being women “has to do with other reasons that are not exactly related to
the gender struggle. It is because they are natural leaders—more than nat-
ural—historic leaders.”109 For example, Nineth Montenegro, a key FDNG
leader, had emerged on the national scene as the leader of the Grupo de
Apoyo Mutuo (Group for Mutual Support), an organization of women that
pressured the government to account for their husbands, who had been dis-
appeared or detained. The other two female deputies, Rosalina Tuyuc and
Manuela Alvarado, were prominent figures in the struggle for indigenous
rights.
According to Montenegro, discussions about gender equality within the
FDNG were not initiated until 1997. Then, one of the first goals was to in-
crease the number of women in the party’s decision-making structures. For
example, until 1997, the party’s executive committee consisted of ten
members and included only one woman. To rectify this situation, female
members proposed the introduction of a 30 percent female quota. In this
fight, the FDNG women were not able to count on the support of the
women’s movement, since relations between the party and the movement
were not close.110 Manuela Alvarado, who headed the Women’s Commis-
sion in parliament, favored the creation of a Women’s Secretariat within
the FDNG to better organize female militants in their struggle for gender
equality.111
When the FDNG held its National Assembly in June 1997, the dele-
gates approved the creation of a Women’s Secretariat, officially named Sec-
retaría de Asuntos Políticos de la Mujer (Secretariat of Women’s Political
Matters), as well as the 30 percent quota. It speaks for the persuasive pow-
ers of the female national leaders that they were able to push for a 30
percent quota when only 9 percent of the party’s affiliates in 1997 were fe-
male.112 By the time of the November 1999 elections, women’s participa-
tion had increased. The FDNG officially had 13,566 members, 21 percent
of them female.
The leadership’s commitment to increase women’s participation within
the party proved limited. Although the newly elected Executive Commit-
tee had five women among its fifteen members, only 10 percent of the seats
on the FDNG’s Political Council were held by women.113 The explanation
given by Mariela Aguilar was that while the Executive Committee’s role
was mainly to implement policies, “the Political Council is to define poli-
cies and party lines at a macro level, and there are few women with that
experience, or maybe they do exist but they are not in a position to get in-
volved at this moment.”114 Thus the FDNG was confronted with a situa-
tion similar to the one we encountered in Nicaragua and El Salvador where
many women were reluctant to assume the burden of party or public office
or felt they were not prepared for such an important position. The party
leadership also rationalized their noncompliance with the quota by noting
that Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Commission had refused to approve
the modified statutes, claiming such a provision violated the constitution.
The difficulties female FDNG militants faced in their struggle for gender
equality were similar to those facing female combatants in the URNG.
The struggle for gender equality in Guatemala clearly has its roots in the
era of the reformist governments led by Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Ar-
benz. Particularly during the Arbenz government, women became active
in the public sphere. One of the first manifestations of women’s organizing
was the creation of the Alianza Feminina Guatemalteca (Guatemalan
Feminine Alliance) which fought for the right to vote, just salaries, and
other demands raised at that time. The March and April 1962 protests
against the government of Ydígoras Fuentes were another catalyst for
women’s organizing. In the wake of these events, the first women commit-
ted to seeking social change “went to the Sierra de Las Minas in the east of
the country . . . [and] rose up in arms,” joining the guerrillas.115
During the thirty-six years of conflict, specific statements on women’s
rights were notably absent from the manifestos and programs of the four
groups integrating the URNG. Women’s issues were part of URNG plat-
forms only in the most general fashion. Comandante Lola has claimed this
was because different priorities prevailed during the conflict. “I believe
there were errors, justified in their great majority. It wasn’t that we didn’t
consider gender issues important, but that our life was very hard, full of ac-
tivity directly related to combat, to military activities, to the recruitment
for military units. Thus it was not a priority at that moment.”116 It is also
important to point out that the Guatemalan guerrilla movement was part
of the first wave of Latin American guerrilla movements (1956–70). Gen-
der equality was hardly on the agenda then, and few women participated
in combat. The traditional views espoused by the URNG leadership dur-
ing the 1960s and early 1970s were difficult to overcome. URNG officials
have acknowledged that “the gender theme was rejected” by many male
leaders before the signing of the peace accords. The dialogue and discus-
sions with various sectors of civil society, especially the Women’s Forum,
during the peace negotiations led to greater acceptance of the importance
of focusing on gender equality.117
The four URNG groups differed somewhat in the opportunities they
provided to female constituents. Comandante Lola has confirmed that the
EGP was late in taking up gender issues: “I couldn’t say it was in the last
years, rather in the last months, that an effort was made to have discussions
among ourselves [the women]. . . . This is one of the lacunae that we have,
but I think that all organizations were in the same situation, because we
didn’t consider it necessary. It was a lack of vision.”118 In the case of the
FAR, however, women succeeded somewhat earlier in getting their views
incorporated into official documents. In 1991, an FAR meeting ended with
the resolution that “In Guatemala, women’s liberation is an inseparable
part of society’s liberation.” One can even find specific references to gen-
der equality. The resolution went on, “It is our fundamental goal to pro-
mote the effective and efficient incorporation, participation and represen-
tation of the Guatemalan woman in the political, social and economic
process; as part of the integral development of Guatemalan society, in the
context of the search for democracy, peace, and the construction of a New
Guatemala, where gender equality will be one of the elements that define
the democratic character of society.”119
The views expressed in the resolution of the 1991 FAR Congress became
the basis of a September 1996 FAR document that elaborated the group’s
position on the gender dimension in revolutionary thought. The document
uses Molyneux’s concepts of strategic versus practical gender interests to
discuss the challenges confronting women in Guatemala. It emphasizes

that only a focus on the realization of women’s rights can lead to a funda-
mental restructuring of society, one that would guarantee gender equity.120
Thus, of the four constituent groups, the FAR appears to have played the
key role in formulating an agenda on women’s rights. The URNG as a
whole only recently started to emphasize women’s rights. According to
high-ranking leaders, it was only in 1994 that a section on women’s rights
was incorporated into an official URNG document.
Female URNG militants differed in their views on how to advance an
agenda of women’s rights most effectively within the emerging political
party. In January 1997, following the signing of the peace agreement,
women organized the first meeting of female militants and formed the Es-
pacio de Mujeres (Women’s Space) in the URNG. Several key protagonists
in the struggle for women’s rights held the position that one should not ad-
vocate the creation of a Women’s Secretariat within the party. Having ob-
served the fight for gender equality within the FMLN and FSLN, they were
concerned that such a Secretariat would stifle women’s autonomy and al-
low the party to control the agenda. Most women who held this position
eventually changed their point of view and agreed to the necessity of cre-
ating an institutional forum to fight for women’s rights.121 Thus, when the
initial structures of the new party were created, a Secretaría de Asuntos
Políticos de la Mujer (Secretariat for Women’s Political Matters) was set
up, headed by Comandante Lola.122
The Secretariat for Women’s Political Matters
The Secretariat’s work focused on achieving two main objectives: “To

strengthen the participation and the integral contribution of the women
who are part of the URNG in the construction of the party and in the strug-
gle that it promotes for the effective fulfillment of the peace accords,
democracy, economic development, and social justice,” and “To con-
tribute to the fight for the eradication of discrimination toward women in
Guatemalan society, for the equality of rights between men and women,
and for the construction of relations between the two genders based on
equality.”123 Even though the party leadership agreed that “these two ob-
jectives should be promoted simultaneously, without postponing or subor-
dinating either one of the two,”124 it became soon evident that the first ob-
jective was prioritized. Thus, the URNG followed the path established by
its Nicaraguan counterpart during the Sandinista revolution, when
women’s emancipation was subordinated to the overall goals of the revo-
lution.
A key issue for the newly formed Secretariat was the fight to implement
measures of positive discrimination to strengthen female representation in
the party structures. Female leaders, following the initial standard em-
ployed by the FMLN in El Salvador, argued for a 30 percent quota. After
considerable discussion, the URNG leadership made a political commit-
ment that neither gender should have more than 70 or less than 30 percent
representation in the new party structures. This commitment “was sup-
posed to be implemented in the election process for the leadership bodies
at the municipal, departmental, and national levels.”125 Such a commit-
ment was indeed important, especially in light of the composition of the
provisional executive committee of the URNG; Comandante Lola was
the only woman among fourteen men. With biting criticism, members of
the women’s movement characterized this situation as “Lola y los catorce”
(Lola and the fourteen guys).
When asked why only one woman had been elected to the executive
committee, male leaders argued that women simply did not have sufficient
support to get elected and that one had to accept the outcome of a secret,
democratic election. Women’s participation was hardly more significant
in the URNG’s National Council. Only four women were among its forty-
four members. Female leaders recognized that much work lay ahead of
them for the new quota to be adhered to in the elections for permanent
party authorities. Comandante Lola admitted that, given the low historic
level of female representation, increasing women’s representation was a
Table 5.3 Gender Composition of the URNG’s National Structure, 1997 and 1999
Source: Internal data provided by a URNG official.

long-term project; one could not expect to reach a 30 percent base im-
mediately.126
Her realistic appraisal of the future for women’s rights within the URNG
proved accurate when the party held its first National Congress in May
1999 to elect permanent party authorities. As discussed earlier, the URNG
leadership chose to postpone the election of its Political Council and sim-
ply ratified the existing Provisional Executive Committee on which Co-
mandante Lola was the sole female representative. With this act, the
URNG violated its commitment to guarantee women 30 percent of the
seats on its highest decision-making body.
The November 1999 legislative elections were further proof that female
militants had a long way to go in their efforts to increase female participa-
tion in key positions. Only one of the nine URNG deputies elected to par-
liament that year was a woman. Female candidates experienced great diffi-
culties in their efforts to be ranked high on candidate lists, a requirement
to have a reasonable chance of getting elected.127 In general women were
underrepresented, considering that female militants represented 25 per-
cent of the 5,202 party members. There were some indications that the
URNG leadership realized the importance of preparing women for leader-
ship positions in order to strengthen women’s participation within the
party. For example, female militants were allocated one third of all spaces
in leadership training courses held in Spain. These courses were supposed
to train 700 cadres who could fill party positions at all levels.
The challenges confronting women in the URNG were even greater
than in El Salvador because of the complex ethnic composition of the fe-
male constituency (a number of female militants did not speak Spanish)
and its high incidence of illiteracy. Fermina López, a Maya Quiché, noted
that very few indigenous women were participating in the URNG. She at-
tributed her own selection as deputy head of the Women’s Secretariat to
the leadership’s need to have some members with her ethnic background
in leadership positions.128 The agreed-upon strategy was for female party
activists to assess their current strengths and weaknesses and to train and
educate women to fill the available positions of leadership. The URNG was
still some time away from using mechanisms, such as separate ballots, to
guarantee the established female quota. The Secretariat also needed to ex-
pand its organizational structures to have an organizational base for its
work. By Spring 1999, the Secretariat had municipal structures in less than
40 percent of the eighty towns where the URNG had established offices.
Representatives of the National Secretariat participated in the municipal
assemblies and exerted pressure on the local party members to vote for the
establishment of a Women’s Secretariat. Even when they were successful,
however, the new bodies were weak. The women elected to head the local
structures were often not qualified for the job or simply did not carry out
the tasks they were meant to do.129 The weakest link in the Secretariat’s
structure was at the level of the country’s departments, where it had no rep-
resentation of any kind.130 The daily operations of these local structures
were severely limited by their lack of funds. The priority of the National
Secretariat was to consolidate the existing bodies before trying to establish
new ones.131
Relations with the Women’s Movement
While the URNG leadership created the Secretaría with the intention
of giving women increased representation within the party, it also sought
to reach out to Guatemalan women in general. This was an important de-
cision because the URNG had come under increasingly vocal criticism
from female leaders who were disenchanted with the URNG’s policies fol-
lowing the peace accords. One bridge, connecting the URNG to those
sectors of Guatemala’s social movement that were sympathetic to the
URNG’s social and political agenda, was the Unión Nacional de Mujeres
Guatemaltecas (National Union of Guatemalan Women, or UNAMG).132
The UNAMG had originally emerged in 1980. It was the result of several
years of organizing by women close to the guerrilla movement. The orga-
nization suffered greatly from the repression unleashed by the Guatemalan
government in the 1980s. For example, in 1985, Silvia Gálvez, a cofounder
and general secretary of the UNAMG was disappeared. In these difficult
circumstances, the organization became defunct. It was resurrected in
1997, under the leadership of Luz Méndez. Méndez, a key URNG leader
with a recognized record of fighting for women’s rights, emphasized that the
UNAMG was autonomous from the party. Some sectors of the women’s
movement, however, which rejected the notion of doble militancia (active
participation in both the women’s movement and a political party) con-
sidered the UNAMG to be subordinate to the URNG. Whereas only time

could clarify the degree to which the UNAMG was independent, it repre-
sented an important link between women sympathetic to the political pro-
ject of the URNG and the women’s movement at large. In 1999, Coman-
dante Lola acknowledged that the URNG’s Women’s Secretariat had not
developed a relationship with the women’s movement and was not partic-
ipating in activities sponsored by women’s groups outside of the URNG.
She attributed this fact to the priority the Secretariat had given to party
building and planned to address this situation in the near future.133
Conclusion
Here are the key factors that shape the struggle for gender equality in
the three countries under discussion: Female FMLN militants played the
most significant role in the guerrilla movement during the war, providing
them with a strong argument in favor of women’s participation in the party.
Sandinista women also contributed greatly, whereas female URNG mili-
tants were a distant third. The international climate favoring increased
women’s participation in decision-making bodies was strongest at the time
of the Guatemalan peace accords. While it translated into strong provi-
sions in favor of women’s rights in the accords themselves, it had little sig-
nificance in the early development of the URNG. FMLN women, on the
other hand, did benefit from international pressure for gender equality. In
the case of Nicaragua, Sandinista women were first able to take advantage
of a favorable international climate when the FSLN was out of power. For
reasons discussed above, it was the women’s movement that grew strong
while party activists faced a difficult struggle in the Sandinista party. FMLN
members were clearly most effective in pursuing shrewd strategies to
strengthen formal equality in the party. They did so with the support of the
women’s movement. FSLN women had good ideas but ultimately lacked
the clout to get them adopted, while URNG priorities worked against its
female party members.
The analysis of the revolutionary Left’s record on gender equality reveals
that the fight for gender equality is complex. Although the three countries
have much in common, there are important differences. Idiosyncratic de-
velopments make it impossible to adhere to universal recipes. For historic
reasons, the strength of the Nicaraguan women’s movement is a key factor

in the lack of progress of female militants within the Sandinista party. On
the other hand, FMLN women in El Salvador have made considerable ad-
vances, although effective support from the women’s movement alternated
with lost opportunities due to infighting.
The Nicaraguan situation clearly demonstrates that measures of positive
discrimination and strong organizational structures are necessary but by no
means sufficient conditions to advance the struggle for women’s emanci-
pation. Without a fundamental change in the consciousness of women and
men, advances in women’s rights will remain limited. The Zoilamérica case
indicated that the progress women achieved in the party had not yet been
consolidated. Only the future will show whether these precarious achieve-
ments will be able to weather the storm of the strong backlash brewing
within the party. Recent events in Nicaragua have strengthened the con-
viction of key feminists that the FSLN cannot be reformed. Most leaders
in the revolutionary Left realize and acknowledge the potential benefits
their parties can reap by emphasizing gender equality. Sectors within the
women’s movement, on the other hand, have questioned whether it still
makes sense to fight to transform the parties of the Left. Political parties
throughout the world are confronted with a crisis of credibility. This crisis
has been most evident in the Central American context. Female leaders
have seriously been considering whether they should continue to focus
their energies on established parties, a strategy that, at best, will have lim-
ited results. An eloquent minority has argued for the creation of alterna-
tive modes of political representation. In their opinion, the revolutionary
Left is beyond redemption and has hardly distinguished itself from the tra-
ditional parties.
Any evaluation of gender equality and democratization within the
URNG has to emphasize the enormous task facing the URNG leadership
and its female members and supporters. At the dawn of the new millen-
nium, the Guatemalan peace process is still in its early stages and the
URNG has yet to complete its transition from a political-military organi-
zation into a democratic political party. In this context, gender equality has
simply not been a priority in the minds of many key officials. Female lead-
ers have affirmed that the URNG and Guatemala’s society at large, lack
gender awareness.
URNG militants have debated many of the key issues that their coun-
terparts in Nicaragua and El Salvador encountered, such as doble militan-
cia and the autonomy of the women’s movement. In addition to these de-
bates, however, URNG women have confronted problems specific to the
Guatemalan situation. Most importantly, party members of both sexes have
been overwhelmed by the demands that the demobilization and the cre-
ation of a political party placed on them. A central challenge facing the
women who have sought to advance gender equality within their emerg-
ing party structures was that they are still in the process of getting to know
each other. The problem has two roots: first, the majority of the female
URNG members have only recently acknowledged their militancy pub-
licly; and, second, despite advances in the unification process and the dis-
solution of the historic structures of the four constituent groups, many ac-
tivists are only slowly shedding their identities as members of the subgroups
in order to assume full membership in the URNG. Female activists from
these subgroups have had to overcome years of mutual distrust in their ef-
forts to find a common platform for their struggle. It appears that women
have been the vanguard in the effort to forge a URNG identity. In the eyes
of some leaders, the bonds of solidarity among women from the four groups
helped to heal the divisions among the organizations.
Practical gender interests continue to be of paramount interest to the
FMLN’s female constituents. Nevertheless, there has been growing aware-
ness among women, that the time has come to fight for women’s emanci-
pation, starting with gender equality in the party and the society at large.
Overall the record of the FMLN’s female members has been impressive. Ar-
guably the greatest impact came from the adoption of quotas in 1994 and
the 1996 implementation of a gender policy perspective by the party. This
created the overall context that made everything else possible. At the end
of the last millennium, one-third or more of the positions in the party’s de-
cision-making bodies were held by women. In addition, a similar propor-
tion of those FMLN officials who held public office were female. At the lo-
cal and regional levels, however, there is ample room for improvement. Yet
even there, the FMLN’s record compares well with parties from other coun-
tries.
Despite these important achievements, the FMLN Women’s Secretariat
continues to function under precarious conditions. By 2000, the Secre-
tariat was still not fully institutionalized because its status was not deter-
mined in the party’s statutes. Also, the 1997 convention brought changes
to the leadership of the Secretariat. From the perspective of some of the
long-serving members, the newcomers, including Mercedes Peña, the new
head, have showed little interest in the Secretariat’s work and lack a com-
mitment to implement a feminist agenda. In their eyes, the new members
are party hacks whose loyalty is not with the female militants. As a conse-
quence, there has been discord in the Secretariat, and its work has suffered.
In addition to these problems, structural constraints persist.
A central problem has been the lack of financial resources. At the end
of the 1990s, the Secretariat still lacked a regular budget. Instead it had to
finance its activities in an ad hoc fashion. Financial support came mostly
from international sources.134 There was also a tremendous lack of quali-
fied people to fill leadership positions. This combination of material and
personnel deficits has made it particularly difficult for the FMLN to reach
out to its membership. For example, the Secretariat sought to increase sig-
nificantly the number of women affiliated with the party. Yet as its leaders
acknowledged, it failed to accomplish this objective.135 Also, a series of
workshops and seminars designed by the Secretariat to strengthen gender
awareness within the party had to be cancelled or postponed for financial
reasons.
The Secretariat’s leadership has criticized local and national party au-
thorities for not embracing the gender perspective wholeheartedly and ab-
dicating all responsibility for its implementation. In effect, the burden for
achieving gender equality has been put on the Secretariat.136 As female
leaders have pointed out, the lack of concrete measures to implement the
commitment to achieve gender equality and the failure of women in lead-
ership positions to take full advantage of the opportunities they have had
has impeded further advances. These limitations help to explain why sub-
stantive gender equality remains elusive. Final success needs a transforma-
tion of the male vision whose “schedules, evaluations and established pro-
cedures” continue to hold women back.137 The Secretariat’s leadership
recognizes that men and women need to come together to implement the
party’s gender policy and the necessary economic resources have to be al-
located for the policy’s successful execution.138
The analysis of women’s advancement or the lack thereof within the
revolutionary Left demonstrates one thing clearly: the fight for formal gen-
der equality is but the first step in a long, protracted struggle. The experi-
ence of the three parties leads to the conclusion that only the main-
streaming of the gender agenda will ultimately lead to success. It is the lack
of support for such an agenda by the predominantly male leadership and by
female leaders who are too compliant that has held back the FMLN, the
FSLN, and the URNG. Mainstreaming would put the responsibility for ad-
vancing gender equality where it belongs—in the hands of women and
men.
Q
6
Gender Equality and Recent Elections
Cuando una mujer llega a la política cambia la mujer; pero . . . cuando

las mujeres llegan a la política cambia la política.
—Poder Feminino, FMLN Election Pamphlet
In an excellent study of post–civil war elections in Nicaragua and El Sal-

vador Karen Kampwirth found significant differences in the gendered con-
tent of these electoral experiences. Regarding the 1990 Nicaraguan elec-
tions, Kampwirth argues that “seen from a feminist perspective, the first
post–civil war election in Nicaragua was close to disastrous.” She ac-
knowledges, however, the important role played by organized feminists in
the case of El Salvador.1 The analysis of subsequent elections in both coun-
tries shows that women’s organizing becomes more effective over time. The
first postwar elections in Guatemala emphasize how difficult it is for women
on the Left to take the initial steps toward effective participation. So how
did the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan women’s movements try to put gender
equality on the political agendas of their parties and how successful were
they in getting women on the candidate lists and increasing their repre-
sentation in parliament?
Putting Gender Equality on the Agenda

El Salvador
The FMLN’s Women’s Secretariat in El Salvador fought for the intro-
duction of measures of positive discrimination, such as quotas. As discussed
in Chapter Five, female leaders argued that the strong participation of
women during the war had gained them the right to participate in the
party’s leadership structures. An extension of this fight was the struggle to
increase the number of FMLN women holding public office. The leader-
ship of the Secretariat began to work for this in the months leading up to
the 1994 elections. They fought for a 30 percent female quota of the can-
didates selected for the 1994 parliamentary elections. This initial effort was
unsuccessful.
In January 1993, representatives of a number of Salvadoran women’s or-
ganizations began to build “a broad-based coalition to press for women’s de-
mands.”2 Having concluded that women had been marginalized in the
peace accords, they attempted to exert pressure on the political parties
competing in the 1994 elections to support a platform advocating women’s
rights. Upon realizing that “the political parties were no more interested in
women’s issues than the peace negotiators had been,” they launched Mu-
jeres ’94 (Women ’94), a multipartisan coalition of women that worked to
increase female voter turnout, persuade parties to include women’s de-
mands in their platform, and elect female candidates.3 FMLN women
played a key role in this organizing effort. Although women made some
progress in putting gender equality on the national agenda, the experience
of the 1994 elections convinced them of the need to elaborate a more ef-
fective strategy for the next elections.
In 1997, the FMLN’s Women’s Secretariat obtained an important agree-
ment from the party leadership giving the female candidates complete au-
tonomy in conducting their campaigns. This was done in an effort to make
sure that the party’s precarious financial situation would not negatively af-
fect the current female candidates, who expected to be allocated fewer re-
sources than their male counterparts. To give an idea of the limited re-
sources available for the campaign, Nidia Díaz, then the FMLN’s deputy
coordinator, was given less than $900 to run the party’s campaign in the
department of San Vicente.
The FMLN women set up the Comando Electoral de Mujeres (Women’s
Electoral Command) to coordinate their efforts. The Comando was led by
four women, representing the female candidates and the Women’s Secre-
tariat. Its strategy aimed to achieve three goals: to design a women’s plat-
form to make clear to the voters what the female candidates stood for, to
pressure the party to give the female candidates as much visibility as possi-
ble in the election campaign, and to lobby within the FMLN to make sure
that the overall election campaign promoted women’s issues.
The Comando composed a campaign song, designed propaganda and
campaign posters, and produced radio and television advertisements. It also
set up brigades, consisting of three to five women who lobbied door to door
for female mayoral candidates. Furthermore, the women were so successful
at obtaining favorable prices from female heads of advertising agencies that
their male colleagues pleaded with them to negotiate on their behalf also.4
Male candidates were so eager to use the propaganda designed by the Co-
mando in their own election campaigns that the Comando finally had to
refuse them so as to keep enough resources available for the female candi-
dates. The Comando’s success was evident in the streets of the capital,
where the faces of the FMLN’s female candidates were omnipresent, while
male candidates had little exposure.
Members of the Comando were also involved in a more comprehensive
effort—launched by representatives of the Salvadoran women’s move-
ment—to put women’s issues on the electoral agenda. This initiative was
designed to build on the experience of Mujeres ’94. Mujeres ’94 had not
been without its problems. In 1994, the central dividing issue among the
women had been doble militancia. The question was whether women who
participated in Mujeres ’94 as representatives of the women’s movement
could also be active party militants. The main opponents in this debate
were the Movimiento de Mujeres “Mélida Anaya Montes” and the Mujeres
por la Dignidad y la Vida. Las Dignas considered party militancy incom-
patible with maintaining autonomy as an activist of the women’s move-
ment, while the MAM argued that these roles could be combined. This con-
troversy had its roots in the struggle for autonomy, a salient issue for several
women’s groups that emerged in the 1990s and had close ties to the FMLN.5
In February 1996, representatives of the women’s movement held a
meeting to evaluate the experience of Mujeres ’94. The first task of the Ini-
tiativa de Mujeres por la Igualdad en la Participación Política (Women’s
Initiative for Equality in Political Participation, its cumbersome official
name) was to revise and update the 1994 platform.6 The group of women
who worked consistently on this task was rather small.7 Over the course of
1996, it became evident that several key issues divided the women involved
in the project.
The question of impartiality had replaced the problem of the doble mil-
itancia. Women affiliated with Las Dignas argued that the Women’s Coali-
tion had to work impartially and promote female candidates regardless of
their ideology. The majority of participants in the Initiativa de Mujeres,
however, held the view that they were all women supporting parties on the
left of the ideological spectrum and therefore they could not work on be-
half of their political rivals. One woman put it succinctly: “We are women
of the Left and we can’t call on people to vote for the women of ARENA.”
This position particularly made sense from the MAM point of view. Not
only was Irma Amaya, the movement’s coordinator, herself a candidate for
parliament, but four other female FMLN candidates were members of the
MAM. (All five of them were elected.)
In the end, the group settled on a nonpartisan approach embodied in
the slogan “Woman, vote for yourself,” although many participants still
questioned its effectiveness. Because of this infighting, the crucial task of
agreeing on a common agenda was not completed until February 1997, a
whole year after the organizing effort began. In the words of Deysi Cheyne,
a key protagonist, “This was a wall that we never managed to surmount.
We could never reach an agreement, which left us discussing for weeks and
weeks.”8 This delay defeated the organizing effort’s main purpose—to get
the parties to sign the platform and commit themselves to implementing
an agenda benefiting women’s rights. Indeed, the final version of the plat-
form was first available on March 10 (six days before the election)—the
day representatives of all parties were invited for its presentation. Only
three parties, ARENA, the FMLN, and the Coalition (three parties sup-
porting a joint candidate for mayor of San Salvador), bothered to show up;
and not surprisingly, all three refused to sign the protocol of commitment.
The obvious argument was that the representatives could not commit their
parties to a document no one had even seen yet. The disappointed women
had no one to blame but themselves.
Nicaragua
In Nicaragua, female FSLN militants confronted difficult conditions in

their struggle to increase the number of women holding elected office. As
we have seen, during the revolutionary period, the fight for gender equal-
ity within the party was given a low priority. Awareness that the party had
to move toward more equal gender relations increased dramatically after
the FSLN’s 1990 electoral defeat. In 1994, FSLN women succeeded in per-
suading the party leadership to revise the party statutes and allocate a min-
imum of 30 percent of all party positions to women. This same quota was
also to be applied in the selection of the candidates for the 1996 elections.
In their struggle for gender equality, the militants were supported by the
Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses, Luisa Amanda Espinoza, the San-
dinista women’s organization. This movement played a key role in fighting
for increased female participation within the party. AMNLAE, which had
lacked autonomy under the Sandinista government, was making an effort
to evolve into a broad-based, nonpartisan movement. As part of this strat-
egy it reached out to other sectors of the women’s movement and became
a participant in the Nicaraguan Coalición Nacional de Mujeres (Women’s
Coalition).
The Coalition began as an initiative by a group of women who were
working in various capacities for the government of Violeta Chamorro.
They considered it important for women affiliated with the political Right
to reconsider their view of the women’s movement, which those women
had dismissed as being controlled by the Sandinista party. The group held
several seminars to help the different groups get acquainted. The idea was
for all participants to join forces to combat discrimination against women.
According to María Teresa Blandón, who helped organize these first en-
counters, initially it was even a challenge to obtain a consensus that women
were indeed discriminated against in Nicaraguan society. For example,
Azucena Ferrey, a former leader of the Nicaraguan Resistance and a mem-
ber of parliament, took the position that she was not subordinated, that she
had power, and that she had always been able to achieve what she had
wanted.9 Ferrey’s position reflected her distrust of the views held by “San-
dinista feminists” rather than any lack of recognition of Nicaraguan soci-
ety’s discrimination against women.
On March 8, 1987, Ferrey convoked a rally to commemorate Women’s
Day and to protest the plight of women who did not favor the Sandinista
revolution. This demonstration was brutally repressed by the Sandinista
police, headed by Doris Tijerino, one of the historical female FSLN com-
manders. Only in the early 1990s, when both Ferrey and Tijerino were serv-
ing in the Nicaraguan parliament, could the two women start a dialogue
that made it possible to bridge ideological boundaries and unite in the fight
for women’s emancipation.10 Until these women with diverse backgrounds
agreed on a strategy to “fight for women’s rights and transformation of the
traditional ways to make politics,” the process was, indeed, slow.11
In 1996, the women of the Coalition were working to overcome the past.
They developed an agenda mínima (basic platform) that included the call
for women’s rights in the political and socioeconomic arena.12 All demands
that were part of the agenda were based on consensus. Despite this cum-
bersome process, the participants managed to include even controversial
demands, such as the delivery of reproductive health services.13 The Coa-
lition’s first official task was to organize the celebration of Women’s Day
on March 8, 1996. For the first time, women from across the ideological
spectrum joined forces with feminists, lesbians, and autonomous women’s
groups to celebrate this event. Subsequently, the Coalition held meetings
with representatives of the various political parties to obtain their com-
mitment to implement the agenda mínima if their candidates were elected.
Several parties, including the FSLN, the Nicaraguan Resistance Party, and
the Alliance UNO ’96, signed a protocol of commitment. Most notably,
the Liberal Alliance refused to sign. The Liberal Alliance supported Ar-
noldo Alemán, the eventual winner of the election, for president.
As in El Salvador, one of the key debates for the Women’s Coalition was
whether to support individual female candidates or to promote women’s
participation in the elections regardless of party. Coalition members who
were party militants refused to support candidates nominated by ideologi-
cal opponents. Many feminists had little interest in supporting female can-
didates at all, since in their opinion, “not a single candidate was a femi-
nist.”14 This conflict was never resolved, and it limited the Coalition’s
effectiveness. Ironically, the female candidates, fully immersed in their own
campaigns, had little time available to advance the Coalition’s goal; thus
the Coalition’s work was carried out mainly by the feminists. Feminists or-
ganized public events and wrote the speeches to be given, but the female
candidates fearing that they “would get burned” from being associated with
“radical” groups, told the feminists to remain invisible.15
The Nicaraguan experience was not free from conflict. In contrast to
their Salvadoran counterparts, however, the members of the Women’s
Coalition were effective in forging a pluralistic alliance that presented a

united front to the political parties. More important, their agenda was fi-
nalized more than six months before the elections, giving the movement
ample time to lobby the political establishment. In particular contrast to
the Salvadoran case, the Coalition’s efforts received financial support,
mainly from governments and nongovernmental organizations in the
Scandinavian countries.16 Eivor Halkjaer, the Swedish ambassador, whom
the Coalition considered “our godmother,” was a key figure in this effort.17
Moreover, the funds received from the U.S. Agency for International De-
velopment constitute evidence that the Coalition was indeed considered
to be a pluralist, multipartisan effort.18
Candidate Selection: Women’s Innovative Strategies
The female militants of the FMLN and FSLN developed innovative

strategies to increase their representation on the candidate lists.19 The first
line of attack was to get the party leadership to adopt a quota for female
candidates. The next step was to make sure that the quota was observed in
the selection of departmental and municipal candidates.
In addition, women were well aware of the central requirement for a suc-
cessful candidate under a system of proportional representation: to hold a
top position on the candidate list. Under proportional representation, the
number of votes a party receives corresponds to the number of seats it wins
in parliament. Thus, a party that wins 10 percent of the vote gets about 10
percent of the seats in the legislature. Only the top candidate on most de-
partmental lists had a good chance of getting elected. Most departments
have fewer than five representatives in parliament. Thus, no major party
can expect to win more than two or three seats in any department. The
higher a candidate is on the candidate list, the better his or her chances of
getting elected. For the national list, a “safe” position for a candidate of the
Left was to be among the first five candidates. Only a candidate in such a
position was assured election, assuming that the party came in first or sec-
ond in the electoral contest.20 The party’s male militants could concede
the numerical quotas and claim adherence to formal equality without in-
curring any real cost in terms of increased competition from women if
women’s names appeared near the bottom of the lists. So women had to
fight to be ranked at the top in the department lists and very high in the
national list. In general, the women in both countries benefited under their
countries’ electoral systems, in that “proportional representation electoral
systems lead to better representation of women than majoritarian electoral
systems.”21
In the 1994 parliamentary elections in El Salvador, the female militants
succeeded in getting 21 women, representing 25 percent of the 84 candi-
dates, onto the party lists (see Table 6.1). Although the FMLN’s Women’s
Secretariat had argued unsuccessfully for a 30 percent female quota in the
selection of the candidates for parliament, the gender composition of the
FMLN candidates demonstrates that women had considerable success in
getting the attention of the party hierarchy. Women were most successful
at the national level, where they represented 35 percent of the candidates
and 40 percent of the substitutes. Female representation in the municipal
elections was not as strong. Of the 240 candidates for mayor that were of-
ficially registered one week before the elections, only 23 were women. The
candidate lists were established in a difficult bargaining process between
the five groups then constituting the FMLN.
In terms of gender distribution, the Communist Party had the highest
number of female candidates with six, representing 27.3 percent of its can-
didates and the ERP had the lowest rate with 20 percent. The absolute
number of candidates gives us some information regarding the bargaining
power of the female membership. Yet it is much more important to exam-
ine the number of safe seats allocated to women, since under a system of
proportional representation, being a candidate by no means guarantees suc-
cess. Before the 1994 elections, senior FMLN officials were confident that
the new party would gain at least twenty seats. Women were allocated four
seats considered safe.22
Ana Guadalupe Martínez and Lorena Peña, who had held the second
and third spot, respectively, were elected from the national list. In addition,
Norma Guevara and Sonia Aguinada, who had occupied positions four and
five in the department of San Salvador, were elected, as was Nidia Díaz—
the only women heading a department list. Thus, women performed some-
what better than expected.
In the 1997 elections, women did considerably better in occupying top,
“safe” positions on candidate lists and thus being virtually assured of elec-
Table 6.1 Gender Composition of FMLN Candidates for the 1994 Elections
by FMLN Group
Source: This distribution is based on candidate lists provided by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Front.
PCS: Partido Communista de El Salvador; MNR: Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario; CD: Convergen-
cia Democrática.
tion. These gains, however, were won after a hard fight. In June 1996, when
about 50 of El Salvador’s 262 municipal conventions had already selected
their candidates, the FMLN’s Women’s Secretariat conducted a survey and
found that not a single woman had been proposed as a candidate for mayor
and only a few were on candidate lists for municipal councils. With this
finding, several female leaders “went to scare” the FMLN’s Political Com-
mission, persuading it to “communicate to all departments that they
needed to observe the quota at the municipal and departmental level.”23

This pressure had results in the national elections.
In the end, there were twenty-four female candidates (28.6%) and
twenty-six substitutes (30.1%) on the FMLN candidate list for Member of
Parliament. Of the five top positions considered safe on the national list,
women occupied two. In the department of San Salvador, women held the
top two positions as well as the fifth place, which was also considered safe.
Female candidates also headed the departmental lists in Santa Ana, Cha-
latenango, and San Vicente. Overall, in four out of fourteen departments,
women headed the ticket. Based on the 1994 election results, seven women
were considered to hold safe positions. In light of the positive polls, how-
ever, female FMLN leaders expected a minimum of eight women to be
elected and considered up to ten female representatives a realistic outcome.
According to their calculations, they had ensured that 35 percent of the
safe candidate positions were held by women.
The improvement in the female candidates’ chances of election was not
an accident but evidence of the female militants’ hard work persuading
their male counterparts to accept gender equality within the party. The
record indicates that their efforts were more successful at the national than
at the departmental level. Interviews with the party leadership and female
candidates support the view that the issue of gender equality enjoyed sup-
Table 6.2 Gender Composition of FMLN Candidates for Parliament, 1994 and 1997
Source: A: Secretaría Electoral del FMLN, in Las Dignas, Las mujeres, p. 28. B: Based on data provided by the FMLN.
port at the national level, while considerable resistance to any kind of pos-
itive discrimination programs for women prevailed at the departmental and
local levels. The situation cannot be generalized, however, because there
were considerable differences among departments. In several of them, es-
pecially San Salvador, women forged effective alliances with male party
members and employed a variety of innovative strategies to get female can-
didates on the lists.
The department of San Salvador had a total of sixteen candidates. It was
considered a difficult department for women to get elected in, because they
had to compete with male leaders of great renown. Realizing that the
FMLN could not expect to win more than eight seats in this department,
the departmental leadership took the position that women needed to oc-
cupy at least three of the first eight positions. To ensure that all delegates
voted for at least three women, the leadership of the department agreed
that any ballot that did not include the names of three female candidates
would be declared invalid. The rank order of the candidates was based on
the total number of votes received.
According to Violeta Menjívar, who eventually headed the depart-
ment’s slate, the reaction of many men was vehement: “This is a violation
of human rights. This is an imposition of the women. What are these quo-
tas about? Women are no good for leadership positions; when they are
elected they don’t deliver.”24 This position, however, was more than coun-
terbalanced by those males in the department leadership who were inter-
ested, not in window dressing, but in achieving substantive equality for fe-
male militants. Thus the voting proceeded as planned. Women did even
better than expected, with four female candidates among the first seven
names on the list. Most surprising was that the women outdistanced im-
portant male leaders, such as Gerson Martínez, then the FMLN’s parlia-
mentary whip, who enjoyed an excellent reputation among the party faith-
ful yet came to occupy only the fourth position on the list.
The victory of the female candidates was the result of an astute strategy.
A group of female delegates got together and decided to nominate fewer
candidates in order to concentrate the vote. While only five women ran for
the first eight positions, there were twenty male candidates. Indeed, several
female delegates, urged by their male counterparts to run, declined to do
so. They suspected that this was a ruse by their male competitors intended
to dilute the vote.
While San Salvador was a success story for female candidates, other de-
partments had problems. In Ahuachapan, one of the leading male candi-
dates started a defamation campaign against Aída Herrera, the nominee of
the women’s movement. Herrera was accused of being a wealthy and loose
woman, wearing miniskirts, smoking, and drinking. These charges created
a furor among some delegates. According to one account, an old peasant
almost suffered a heart attack and announced, “We can’t have a prostitute
as a deputy.” To no one’s surprise, divisions emerged among the delegates,
and Herrera was not elected. This enraged several female leaders and they
insisted that she be included on the national ticket. The “misogynist views”
that had carried the day in Ahuachapan, they argued, should be countered
immediately. Herrera, fearing another humiliation, was at first reluctant to
be a candidate; but after much discussion she agreed that a point had to be
made. Eventually she was nominated to the seventh position on the na-
tional list. With her nomination, the FMLN’s National Council (whose
members played a key role, choosing the candidates) sent a strong message
of support for gender equality.
In Chalatenango’s departmental convention, María Ofelia Navarrete
displaced Eduardo Linares, the incumbent from 1994. Navarrete, a charis-
matic figure with a long history of struggle in the FMLN, faced consider-
able opposition from within her own party. Her candidacy was opposed by
FMLN members who had joined the party following the 1992 peace ac-
cords and did not share the ideological views of those FMLN cadres who
had fought in the war. These newer members had joined forces with
landowning interests that feared the “radical” FMLN leader.
In San Vicente, the leadership of Nidia Díaz was uncontested, but old
rivalries among the groups that historically made up the FMLN raised prob-
lems. Díaz, a leader of the old Revolutionary Party of Central American
Workers, faced opposition from a sector previously affiliated with the Pop-
ular Forces of Liberation, led by Facundo Guardado. Elected FMLN presi-
dent in December 1997, Guardado advocated renovación, in the belief that
the party should nominate “new faces” instead of historical leaders. His po-
sition did not carry the day. The resistance to Díaz’s candidacy was over-
come when women identified with the FPL convinced their male friends
that Díaz was an ideal candidate. Recent surveys, they argued, had shown
that she was one of the most popular FMLN leaders, and the FMLN would
lose votes if she were not nominated.
As in 1994, women did best at the national level, where they accounted
for 45 percent of the candidates and 50 percent of the substitutes (see Table
6.2). While department lists were determined by the FMLN delegates
elected to the departmental conventions, the national list was voted on by
the fifty-two-member National Council, the highest decision-making body
after the fifteen-member Political Commission. In light of the success
women had achieved in several departments, particularly in San Salvador,
several male leaders were apprehensive when it came time to choose the
national list. The women argued for la trenza (“the braid”), an arrangement
whereby males and females would alternate on the list, but this was not ap-
proved. Instead the voting proceeded in several rounds. Candidates were
elected in slates of five, with separate ballots for men and women. Of the
five top positions, two were allocated to female candidates.
In the first round of voting, Ileana Rogel received the most votes, and
Lorena Peña came in fourth. Unlike the voting procedures used in San Sal-
vador, however, a subsequent round of voting established the rank order of
the first five candidates. Schafik Hándal, one of the historic FMLN com-
manders, was voted into first place, displacing Rogel, while Peña was
dropped to the fifth position. In her case, eleven of the fifty-two ballots gave
her zero votes. Peña, probably the most outspoken feminist in the party,
had apparently antagonized a considerable number of male leaders. The
same procedure was employed to determine the remaining fifteen positions.
At the national level, a total of nine women were nominated.
In 1997, women constituted 29.8 percent of all candidates and substi-
tutes compared with 23.2 percent in 1994 (Table 6.2). This was a substan-
tial improvement and was only slightly below the relative strength of
women in the party. The success of the candidates for parliament was not
replicated at the municipal level, however. Out of 262 FMLN candidates
for mayor, only 16 (6%) were female, as were about 20 percent of the can-
didates for city council. It was evident that women had been most success-
ful in mobilizing their forces at the national level and for the high-profile
parliamentary elections. Female leaders also acknowledged that their ef-

forts met with greater success in urban areas than in the countryside. A
main obstacle to increasing the number of women elected to municipal of-
fice was many women’s expressed reluctance to be nominated. This, in turn,
was the result of traditional gender relations, which relegated women to the
private sphere. Nevertheless, the FMLN record was impressive, particularly
when compared to that of the other parties.
The governing party, the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, by com-
parison, had a total of sixteen females on its 1997 party lists for seats in the
parliament. Gloria Salguero Gross, then president of the parliament and
one of the three ARENA legislators elected in 1994, headed the national
list. She was, however, the only woman in a prominent list position. Not a
single department list was headed by a female, and only three of the twenty
ARENA candidates on the national list were women. As a consequence of
women’s weak positions on the candidate lists, only four female ARENA
candidates were elected to parliament. ARENA’s record indicates that the
support FMLN women received from their national leadership was not
replicated in the governing party. According to female FMLN leaders, Glo-
ria Salguero Gross acknowledged as much: in private conversations with
her FMLN counterparts, she expressed admiration for the strong positions
female candidates held on the FMLN lists.
The challenges that confronted FSLN women in Nicaragua were very
similar to those that faced FMLN militants in El Salvador. Despite the
strong participation of women in the revolutionary struggle, women were
given only limited representation on the Council of State, Nicaragua’s cor-
poratist, colegislative body, which was established in 1981. Of its fifty-one
initial members, who represented different sectors of Nicaraguan society,
only four were women. Women increased their representation on the 1984
FSLN candidate lists for the first democratic elections following the insur-
rection. That year, the FSLN presented 16 female candidates and 18 sub-
stitutes, 19 percent of the 180 candidates and substitutes it put forward for
parliament (see Table 6.2). Only a few women, however, headed the can-
didate lists for regional positions.25 Among the few were Dora María Téllez
and Leticia Herrera, historic FSLN leaders who headed the ticket in Man-
agua, and Gladys Báez, who led the list of candidates in Boaco-Chontales.26
Table 6.3 Gender Composition of FSLN Candidates for Parliament, 1984–1996
Source: Calculated from candidate lists published by the Consejo Supremo Electoral and the FSLN.
In Zelaya Norte, one of the three Atlantic Coast electoral districts, all three
candidates were female, with Dorotea Wilson heading the ticket; the other
two districts had no female candidates at all.
For the national elections of 1990, the FSLN presented nineteen female
candidates and fifteen substitutes. Only in region six (Matagalpa and
Jinotega) did a woman, Doris Tijerino, lead the list of candidates. In Man-
agua, Dora María Téllez and Leticia Herrera had been placed after Carlos
Núñez Téllez, then president of parliament; Gladys Baéz was running in re-
gion two, where she was ranked fourth; Dorotea Wilson was not up for re-
election.
On the candidate lists for 1996—when the 30 percent quota for women
was applied for the first time—the women of the FSLN substantially in-
creased their representation. In these elections for parliament, women rep-
resented 35.6 percent of all candidates and substitutes, as compared to 18.9
percent in 1990. Of the ninety candidates, thirty-two were female. As in
El Salvador, women were more successful in getting on the national list
than the departmental lists. In Nicaragua, the composition of the national
list was decided by delegates elected to a National Congress. This body in-
cluded the Sandinista Assembly, the highest party authority after the Na-
tional Directorate. While female candidates held about one-third of the
positions on the department lists, they held 45 percent of the twenty seats
on the national slate.
This positive picture is deceptive, however. Considering the department
lists from the perspective of order of names, it is evident that few female
FSLN candidates occupied secure spots. Only in two instances were the
lists of the country’s fifteen departments and two autonomous zones headed
by women. In Managua, Mónica Baltodano held the top spot on the ticket
as did Edna Stubbert in Boaco. At the municipal level, the situation was
even worse, with few women even being proposed as candidates.
This situation had three main roots. First, “the good will on behalf of
the male compañeros was missing,” and the intent of the 30 percent quota
mandated in the party statutes was subverted by putting women in posi-
tions from which they could not be elected.27 Second, many women in the
FSLN were simply not willing to accept a candidacy. For many of them,
particularly at the local level, cultural prejudices and harsh economic real-
ities raised the cost of assuming a leadership position to a prohibitive level.
According to Dorotea Wilson, this problem was compounded by the 1995
split in the FSLN. Many educated, highly qualified members left the party
when Sergio Ramírez established the Movimiento Renovador Sandin-
ista.28 Finally, the efforts of female militants to increase women’s partici-
pation on the candidate lists lacked coordination. As discussed in Chapter
Five, the Sandinista party did not have a women’s secretariat to oversee
these kinds of activities.
By the time the FSLN convened the 1996 National Congress to estab-
lish the national list, female leaders were outraged that so few women were
in safe positions on the departmental lists. They argued that in compensa-
tion women should receive special consideration at the national level. To
secure good positions, the female militants persuaded the party leadership
to adopt “the braid,” alternating males and females. Women used the
metaphor of a braid to argue that only if they were given equal considera-
tion on the candidate lists would the party represent all its members.
Through this procedure, four women obtained safe positions.
Despite obvious shortcomings, the Sandinista record compared favor-
ably to the gender composition of the candidate lists established by other
Nicaraguan parties. For example, the Liberal Alliance had only eight fe-
male candidates and fourteen substitutes in its lists, none of them in a
prominent position. As a result, despite winning the elections and gaining
forty-two seats in parliament, the Liberal Alliance had only a single female
representative. Three minor parties—the MRS, the Nicaraguan Unity
Party, Workers, Peasants and Professionals and the Democratic Nicaraguan
Alliance—had female candidates heading their national lists. The last two
did not gain a single seat, while the sole seat won by Sergio Ramírez’s MRS
went to Jorge Samper, a party heavyweight who headed the ticket in Man-
agua. (Samper is the husband of Rosa Marina Zelaya, the president of
Nicaragua’s Supreme Election Council. This fact led to speculation that
the seat allocated to Samper was actually won in another department.)29
The dissident Sandinistas of Ramirez’s MRS obtained so few votes that
Dora María Téllez, who headed the national ticket, failed to win election.
It is also interesting that of the twenty-two presidential candidates, only
one was a woman: The Partido Alianza Popular Conservadora supported
Miriam Arguello Morales. One other minor party had a female vice-presi-
dential candidate.
Election Results from a Gender Perspective
The 1994 Salvadoran elections for president, parliament, and munici-

pal councils were indeed remarkable, since the FMLN, a former guerrilla
movement, participated for the first time. While the participation of the
revolutionary Left lent legitimacy to the electoral process, the elections suf-
fered from serious shortcomings. The FMLN presidential candidate, Rubén
Zamora (he headed a ticket supported by the FMLN, the Democratic Con-
vergence, and the Democratic Revolutionary Movement), was soundly de-
feated in the second round run-off of the 1994 elections. ARENA’s Ar-
mando Calderon Sol won with 68 percent of the vote.
In the legislative elections, on the other hand, the FMLN’s results were
respectable. The former guerrillas obtained 287,811 votes out of a total of
1.3 million and won twenty-one out of the eighty-four seats in parliament.
The gender distribution of the FMLN’s legislators showed that of the five
groups that formed the FMLN at the time, the Revolutionary Army of the
People had the highest number of women. Of the ERP’s five representatives
in parliament, two were female. Three of the other groups had one female
legislator each. Only the National Resistance had none of its three female
candidates elected.
Following the elections, disagreements among the five groups intensi-
fied, resulting in the December 1994 exodus of parts of two of the historic
FMLN groups, the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo and the Resistencia
Table 6.4 Gender Composition of FMLN Representatives in the Legislative Assembly

(until December 1994)
Source: Distribution based on data provided by the FMLN.
Nacional.30 This breakup had only a minor impact on the gender distribu-
tion of the FMLN’s bench.
As discussed in Chapter Four, those that left formed their own political
party, the Partido Demócrata. All female legislators and substitutes of the
ERP and RN joined the new party. In the case of the male parliamentari-
ans, only Eugenio Chicas, the previous number two of the RN, remained
with the FMLN. Since this split reduced the number of female representa-
tives within the FMLN from five to three, and the number of male repre-
sentatives from sixteen to eleven, the relative strength of women on the
FMLN bench remained basically unchanged.
ARENA won thirty-nine seats in parliament and thus did not have
an absolute majority (see Table 6.6). At the municipal level, however,
Table 6.5 Gender Composition of Partido Demócrata in the Legislative Assembly,

1994–1997
Source: Distribution based on data provided by the FMLN.

ARENA swept the elections, gaining control of 207 of the 262 municipal
councils. The FMLN was victorious in only 15 towns. This setback was par-
ticularly significant because local elections were conducted according to
the winner-take-all system. Thus the FMLN was largely left out of local
government. Nevertheless, FMLN leaders considered the party’s first elec-
toral performance “a partial but important victory.”31 They argued that tak-
ing circumstances into account, the FMLN did reasonably well, becoming
the second strongest political force in the country and attracting close to
300,000 votes in the parliamentary elections.
Calderon Sol, elected president of El Salvador, characterized the 1994
elections as “another step toward the definitive consolidation of democ-
racy.”32 His own mandate, however, was in question, since 54.5 percent of
the registered voters abstained in the second round of the presidential elec-
tions. In Central America, only Guatemala had a worse participation
record.
Of those voters in possession of voting cards, only 29.9 percent endorsed
the ARENA candidate.33 In addition, judging from the reports of election
observers, the elections were fraught with irregularities, which leaves one
to wonder about the meaning of Calderon’s statement. It appears that once
again, thousands of Salvadoran voters were unable to cast their votes. It has
been estimated that “the total number unable to vote may have been nearly
20 percent of those who did cast ballots.”34 Although the inclusion of these
potential voters would not have changed the outcome of the presidential
election, it did make a difference in the parliamentary and municipal elec-
tions. FMLN officials argued that their party lost several townships because
so many of their supporters could not vote. The elections results lend cred-
ibility to this view. The FMLN came in second in sixty-nine municipali-
ties. In eighteen of those, the new party trailed the winner by less than 10
percent of the vote.35
There is evidence that women were particularly affected by the irregu-
larities surrounding the elections. A survey found that one month before
the elections, 58 percent of those who complained of not having voting
cards were women.36 Female voters experienced greater difficulties than
males in their efforts to obtain cards. Many of them lacked the required
records (for example, birth certificates), and their domestic responsibilities
made it difficult if not impossible to resolve their problems. Similarly, on
the day of the elections, those women who were in possession of voting
cards experienced difficulties in exercising their right to vote. Many lacked
transportation to the polls, and those who did get there were faced with
complicated procedures that could present hurdles impossible for illiterate
peasants to overcome. Adding this group of female voters to the ones with-
out voting cards, one can estimate that about 275,000 women could not
vote.
In 1994, the comparative success rate for male and female FMLN can-
didates was almost the same. Five of the twenty-one women and sixteen of
the sixty-three men who ran on the FMLN ticket were elected. Women
thus constituted 23.8 percent of the FMLN’s representatives in parliament,
a rate that is quite high by international standards. The party’s record also
compared favorably with its domestic competitors. Of a total of nine
women in the Salvadoran parliament, five belonged to the FMLN.
ARENA had three female legislators including the president of the Na-
tional Assembly, Gloria Salguero Gross, and the Christian Democratic
Party had one female representative. This meant that less than 11 percent
of all seats in parliament were held by women. Similarly, few women were
elected as mayors. Out of a total of 262 mayors, only 32 were female. Of all
the political parties in El Salvador, only ARENA and the FMLN had any
female representatives at that level.
Women made considerable progress in the 1997 parliamentary elec-
tions. Nine of the twenty-four female candidates were elected. Although
female leaders were jubilant, they were also saddened that Aída Herrera,
who had occupied the seventh position on the national list, missed joining
her friends in parliament by a mere 1,414 votes (0.4% of the FMLN vote).
On the male side, eighteen of the sixty candidates were successful. The
electoral success of 37.5 percent of the women, compared to 30 percent of
the men, indicates that the female militants had indeed managed to place
their candidates in safe list positions. A crucial part of their success was
their strategy of fighting for one-third of the safe positions and not being
satisfied with merely securing their quota on the list as a whole. With
women representing 33.3 percent of the FMLN members of parliament (as
opposed to 28.6% of the candidates), the political commitment made by
the FMLN leadership to ensure women’s representation had become a re-
ality. The FMLN increased the number of its deputies from fourteen to
Table 6.6 Female Candidates Elected in 1994 and 1997 Salvadoran Elections
Sources: FLACSO, El proceso electoral en El Salvador, pp. 189, 193; Movimiento Salvadoreño de Mujeres
(MSM), “Las mujeres salvadoreñas y los resultados electorales,” in Las Dignas, Las mujeres, p. 29; Tri-
bunal Supremo Electoral.
1The total includes one township gained by a candidate of the Movimiento Auténtico Christiano
(MAC).
2These parties formed an election alliance in several departments.
twenty-seven, more than making up for the seven it had lost to the Partido
Demócrata. Of the thirteen new members, six were women. Thus female
representation on the FMLN bench was effectively tripled.
Again, the accomplishment of the FMLN militants becomes more im-
pressive when one compares it to ARENA’s record. While only four of the
sixteen female candidates of the governing party gained a seat in parlia-
ment, this represented a gain of one compared to 1994. The male candi-
dates suffered a debacle: only twenty-four of the sixty-eight candidates were
elected, a loss of twelve representatives. For this reason the relative influ-
ence of women on the ARENA bench actually increased from 7.7 percent
in 1994 to 14.3 percent, while the total number of successful women can-
didates only increased by one. Of the remaining parties represented in par-
liament, only the Partido Liberal Demócrata had a female representative.
At the municipal level, women won only 8.8 percent of the 262 mayoral-
ties. Although the FMLN did somewhat better than ARENA in getting its
female mayoralty candidates elected, the success of female FMLN militants
was largely limited to the national level. Only six of the fifty-four towns
controlled by the FMLN (six of those in coalition) had female mayors.
Nevertheless, four FMLN women were elected mayors of large, important
municipalities in the department of San Salvador.
Overall, the FMLN performed exceptionally well in 1997. It almost dou-
bled its number of representatives in parliament. The FMLN gained thir-
teen seats for a total of twenty-seven. ARENA, on the other hand, was re-
duced from thirty-nine to twenty-eight seats. Compared to 1994, the
former guerrillas gained 82,000 votes, while the governing party lost about
210,000.
One of the key victories for the Left was to gain control of the capital
and several other important cities. Indeed, although the FMLN controlled
only 53 of the country’s mayoralities compared to ARENA’s 162, more peo-
ple lived under its municipal government.37 In the 1997 election, the
FMLN obtained more votes in every department than it had in 1994, with
the sole exception of Morazán, where it received 678 fewer votes. The
FMLN’s weak performance in this department was probably a consequence
of the internal struggle and subsequent division that resulted in the forma-
tion of the PD. During the war, the ERP had its social base in Morazán. Per-
sonal interviews with ERP supporters revealed that they had difficulty com-
Table 6.7 Results of 1994 and 1997 Salvadoran Legislative Elections (valid votes)
Source: Tribunal Supremo Electoral as reported in FLACSO, El proceso electoral 1994, p. 175; Tribunal
Supremo Electoral (1997).
1
Party did not participate in 1994 elections.
2
Party did not participate in 1997 elections.
prehending the struggle within the FMLN leadership and were therefore
alienated from politics. The only department where the FMLN won no par-
liamentary seats was Usulután, where it had also failed to win any seats in
1994.
The revolutionary Left in Nicaragua was not as successful as its Sal-
vadoran counterpart in increasing women’s representation on its parlia-
mentary bench. Of the thirty-six FSLN deputies elected in 1996, only eight
were female (see Table 6.8). Only four candidates were elected from depart-
ment lists. In addition to the two women who headed the lists in Managua
and Boaco, one other candidate was elected to parliament from Managua,
and Angela Ríos was elected from the Chinandega list. Ríos’s success was
a surprise, since she had held the weak fourth position on her list. In the
opinion of a member of the Sandinista directorate, Ríos’s election was the

result of manipulations by the Supreme Electoral Council. The council sup-
posedly distributed residual votes in an arbitrary fashion. In this official’s
opinion, the FSLN lost a seat in the Autonomous Region Atlantic North,
while gaining the seat of Ríos. The maneuvers were alleged to have secured
the election of Jorge Samper.
In the case of the FSLN, the “braid” resulted in the election of four
women from the national list, giving female candidates at that level the
same success rate as their male counterparts.38 At the departmental level,
however, the poor performance of FSLN women was pronounced. Out of
twenty-three female candidates only four were elected, whereas twenty-
four of the forty-seven male candidates were successful. On paper, FSLN
women had been in a strong position, representing 32.9 percent of the de-
partmental candidates. Yet the lack of safe positions meant that only 17
percent of these women were elected as opposed to 51 percent of the men.
The electoral results were a setback for the female militants trying to in-
crease their influence in the legislature. Indeed, the relative strength of
FSLN women in parliament actually declined, from 23.1 percent in 1990
to 22.2 percent in 1996 (see Table 6.8).
The FSLN’s record is evidence that guaranteeing a quota for women is
not enough. Instead, more energy needs to be devoted to securing safe po-
sitions for women on the lists of nominees. Nevertheless, the FSLN record
is quite good when compared with those of its political rivals. Only two
Table 6.8 Gender Composition of FSLN Members of Parliament, 1980 –1996
Sources: Calculations based on membership lists provided by FSLN; data for 1990 reported in Olivera, de Montis,
and Meassick (1992), 169.
1In 1980, the members of the Council of State were appointed by the FSLN leadership.
2Includes the losing presidential candidate, Daniel Ortega.
other parties represented in the new parliament had any female legislators.
The Liberal Constitutionalist Party and the Liberal Independent Party
each had one. Women also were left out of municipal government. Of the
145 Nicaraguan towns, the FSLN won the mayoralty in 52 and the Liberal
Alliance in 91; among these the FSLN had 3 female mayors, and the gov-
erning party had 6.
The Liberal Alliance was the big winner of the 1996 elections. Arnoldo
Alemán won the presidency, and his party gained forty-two of the ninety-
three seats in parliament. The FSLN, which had documented a myriad of
irregularities, charged election fraud. In the end, however, the Sandinistas
accepted the verdict of the Supreme Election Council and conceded the
legality of the new government while continuing to question its legitimacy.
The FSLN decided to oppose the Alemán administration in the legislative
arena where the FSLN controlled thirty-six seats. More than half the par-
ties participating in the elections failed to win a single seat. Indeed, the
1996 elections moved Nicaragua further toward domination by two parties.
It is important to note that in a regional context, the record of the rev-
olutionary Left in Nicaragua and El Salvador for women’s representation
looked quite good. The number of female legislators in Central American
parliaments is generally low, although it does not differ that much from the
records of many industrialized societies. Costa Rica and El Salvador in par-
ticular have a competitive record by international standards. In Latin
America as a whole (as of June 1994), an average of 10 percent of the leg-
islators in the various countries are women, with Cuba, a revolutionary so-
ciety, reporting 23 percent. If one looks at the overall international stan-
dards, the FMLN also compared well. Only 10 percent of parliamentary
seats are held by women in the United States, only 7 percent in Japan, 6
percent in France, 15 percent in Spain, and 20 percent in Germany. Only
the Nordic countries with an average of 35 percent, the Netherlands with
29 percent, and the Seychelles with 27 percent, had a better record.39 For
the purpose of our discussion it is significant to note that the parties on the
political Left in these countries had an even higher proportion of female
legislators.
There is, however, a matter that is of great concern for the future of dem-
ocratic consolidation in Nicaragua and El Salvador. This is the decreasing
number of people who vote in elections. Nicaragua’s figures for the 1996
Table 6.9 Nicaraguan Legislative Elections, 1996
Source: Data provided by Consejo Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Council), Nicaragua.
elections still represent a decent turnout by international standards, but in

El Salvador, the lack of interest in the electoral process has reached crisis
proportions. In the presidential elections of 1989, 48 percent of eligible
voters failed to vote, and in the first postwar elections only half the elec-
torate participated.40 In the 1997 elections, however, 62 percent of the vot-
ers decided not to go to the polls or cast invalid ballots. This phenomenon
was described as “the first important result of the elections.”41 Female lead-
ers in both countries maintain that women constituted the majority of

these nonparticipating voters, a development that raises serious questions
about the overall role and involvement of women in the Central Ameri-
can transitions. As discussed above, institutional barriers explain why
women are disenfranchised in greater numbers than men. This problem is
now compounded by increased apathy among the female electorate.
The Guatemalan Experience
Historically, Guatemala’s voting record is the worst in the region, with

poor turnout rates that rival those of the 1997 Salvadoran elections. For
example, in the presidential elections of 1995, 53 percent of the voters
chose to stay at home in the first round, while 63 percent did not vote in
the second round. There was considerable hope that the 1996 peace ac-
cords, which made it possible for the revolutionary Left to participate in
the electoral process, would strengthen the legitimacy of the political sys-
tem in the eyes of the electorate and lead to increased turnout. These ex-
pectations proved to be justified. In the November 1999 elections, 53 per-
cent of the electorate went to the polls.
Alfonso Portillo, the candidate of the Frente Republicano Guatemal-
teco gained almost 48 percent of the vote, just shy of the majority required
to be elected in the first round. Oscar Berger, the candidate of the govern-
ing Partido de Avanzada Nacional (Party for National Advancement, or
PAN), came in second with 30 percent. The candidate of the left-wing
Alianza Nueva Nación, Alvaro Colom, came in a distant third with 12 per-
cent. The Alliance, centered around the URNG, obtained 270,891 votes
in the presidential elections, gained nine seats in the legislature, and con-
trolled twenty-nine townships. Eleven towns were won outright by the Al-
liance, while civic committees with affinities for the Alliance won the oth-
ers. This was substantially better than had been expected. No poll
conducted prior to the elections had predicted that the ANN candidate
would win more than 7 percent of the vote. The ANN’s poor showing in
the polls and respectable showing at the polls indicated to many observers
that, almost three years after the signing of the peace accords, many
Guatemalans were still reluctant to publicly state their support for the for-
mer guerrillas.
In the legislative elections the picture was similar. Of the 113 parlia-
mentary seats contested, the FRG secured an absolute majority of 62 . The
PAN won 38 seats, while the ANN secured 9. Compared to the 1995 elec-
tion results, the FRG improved dramatically, tripling its seats from the orig-
inal 21. The PAN lost 5 of the 43 seats it held previously, while the FDNG
which had represented the Left in the 1995 election lost all of its 6 seats.
Since the number of deputies was increased to 113 from the 80 deputies
who constituted Congress in 1995, the changes in public support were most
dramatic in the case of the PAN. The governing party’s share of the vote
declined from 54 to 30 percent. The FRG, on the other hand, improved its
share from 42 to 48 percent. The PAN paid the price for the public’s dis-
content with the limited results of the peace accords, the high crime rate,
the difficult economic situation, and the corruption scandals engulfing
PAN politicians.
Female candidates did not do well in the 1999 elections. The election
results demonstrated that Guatemala was lagging behind its neighbors in
increasing women’s participation in public office. The two female presi-
dential candidates, Ana Catalina Soberanis of the FDNG, and Flor de
María Alvarado of the National Reconciliation Alliance gained 1.3 and
0.1 percent of the vote, respectively. In the legislature, only eight female
deputies were elected. Five of them belonged to the FRG, two were PAN
deputies, and one came from the ANN. This represented a decline from
1995, when eleven women representatives had been elected. The majority
of the 1999 female representatives (five of the eight) were elected in the
capital, the central district. This abysmal result is no surprise if one exam-
ines the candidate lists of the various parties. The candidate lists show
ninety-one people running in the country’s twenty-three districts. An ad-
ditional twenty-two deputies were chosen from a national list. With few
exceptions, women were placed in noncompetitive positions on the can-
didate lists, making it clear from the outset that they would not be elected.
The governing party did not have a single female candidate heading ei-
ther its national list or any of its twenty-three district lists. The record of
the FRG was only marginally better. It had one woman, Aura Otzoy, head-
ing the list in the department of Chimaltenengo. Among the parties of the
Left, the ANN had only one woman among its top candidates. Nineth
Montenegro was ranked as the first candidate on the capital’s list. The
FDNG was the only party whose candidate lists showed a gender composi-
tion that was not as lopsided. The top two candidates on its national list
and on the list of the department of Santa Rosa were female, as was the
leading candidate in Chiquimula. As noted above, however, not a single
FDNG candidate was elected to parliament.
The struggle over the composition of the candidate lists was complex,
particularly in the case of the URNG. Having barely completed its trans-
formation into a legal political party, it was faced with the task of selecting
its candidates for the 1999 elections. The URNG leadership had to balance
the interests of its four historic groups with the demands of its coalition
partners in the ANN. All parties wanted to secure top list positions for their
candidates. This inevitably led to conflict. The ANN, formed in February
1999, brought together the URNG, the FDNG, DIA, and Unid (a party in
formation). By the end of July, however, the FDNG had pulled out of the
coalition.
A main reason for the fracture of the initial Alliance was the position
of Rafael Arriaga, the FDNG’s secretary general, who wanted to impose
militants from the Partido Revolucionario on the candidate lists of the
ANN. When the FDNG decided to run its own separate campaign, Nineth
Montenegro, one of the key FDNG leaders, left her old party and ran on
the ANN ticket. She was the only one of the six FDNG deputies who was
reelected to parliament. The great majority of the FDNG base also chose
to support the ANN over their old party. Soberanis, the FDNG presiden-
tial candidate, attracted barely more than 1 percent of the vote. Amilcar
Méndez, an FDNG deputy, acknowledged after the elections that “personal
ambitions had damaged the party.”42 Méndez himself, elected to Congress
as a FDNG deputy for Quiche in 1995, failed even to be renominated by
the party’s grass roots.
The controversy between the FDNG and the other members of the Left
Alliance made it even more difficult for female militants to advance their
agenda of gender equality. As in El Salvador, ideological disputes took
precedence over building coalitions to favor women’s rights. There was
great disappointment that the parties on the Left failed to take advantage
of a historic opportunity to join forces for the first postwar elections.
Women were divided in their support between the URNG, which re-
mained in the ANN, and the FDNG, which pulled out, although the ma-
jority of women supporting the Left voted for the ANN. In the end, URNG
militants managed to get some statements supporting women’s rights into
the ANN’s electoral program but failed to get women into strong positions
on the candidate lists.
Conclusion
From a gender perspective, the strategies FMLN and FSLN militants

employed to increase the representation of women in public office were im-
pressive. The Guatemalan experience, on the other hand, showed that the
fight for gender equality within the URNG is still inchoate. The status of
women within the revolutionary Left of Nicaragua and El Salvador has un-
doubtedly improved significantly, yet excessive optimism is premature. The
Salvadoran legislative elections of March 2000 demonstrate how quickly
initial gains in formal gender equality can erode.
The FMLN’s electoral success in the March 1997 parliamentary elec-
tions surprised many. Most astonishing was the success of the female FMLN
candidates, who outperformed their male colleagues. Women tripled their
numbers from three to nine representatives, greatly encouraging those mil-
itants advocating greater gender equality within the party. The substantial
gains by FMLN women had an immediate impact in the legislature. FMLN
representatives introduced legislation in parliament that forced Salvado-
ran society to take note of gender issues. For example, as a small but sig-
nificant sign of a changed climate, all male representatives elected to the
legislative assembly in the 1997 elections had to present evidence that they
were up-to-date on their child-support payments before they were allowed
to assume office.
Yet female militants failed to maintain the high levels of organization
achieved in 1997. The reason for this decline is to be found in the infight-
ing among the two main FMLN currents. At the time of the 2000 election
campaign, internal squabbles had destroyed the effective organization that
women had built in 1997 to advance female candidates. Women were not
united behind female candidates. This lack of unity, in turn, prevented
them from forging effective coalitions with men. Ideological disputes were
given priority over advancing the gender equality agenda. Candidates who
were not identified with either of the main FMLN currents paid a high price
for their independence. For example, Violeta Menjívar, who had gained the
top position on the FMLN candidate list for the department of San Sal-
vador in 1997, failed to be supported by either reformers or revolutionary
socialists, since she refused to commit to either group. As a consequence
she obtained only the seventh position on the list for the March 2000 elec-
tion, despite having served effectively as the FMLN’s deputy coordinator
and having been a respected member of the parliament’s executive coun-
cil for the past three years. While the number of female candidates did not
decline substantially in 2000—only two fewer female members were nom-
inated—not a single woman obtained the top position on any of the can-
didate lists. Predictably, the result was a decline in female representation.
While the FMLN increased its number of deputies from twenty-seven to
thirty-one, only seven women were elected to the FMLN bench, a loss of
two seats. This outcome reduced female representation on the FMLN
bench from 33.3 percent to 22.6 percent.
Women’s representation also declined in ARENA, the governing party,
from four to one representative. Although ARENA gained one seat in the
elections overall, the party’s showing was considered a defeat. ARENA had
won a convincing victory in the 1999 presidential election, but by 2000 it
failed to maintain its status as the strongest party in parliament. Gloria
Salguero, a former president of ARENA, called the election result “cata-
strophic” and publicly criticized her party for having included only one fe-
male candidate. In her opinion the “low presence of women” had con-
tributed to ARENA’s election defeat.43
The national political climate in Nicaragua following the 1996 elections
did not favor women’s emancipation. In February 1997, President Alemán
attempted to railroad the National Assembly into creating a Family Min-
istry, which was supposed to replace the Instituto Nicaragüense de la Mu-
jer (Nicaraguan Women’s Institute). Only the rapid mobilization of the
women’s movement in opposition to this proposal—considered a threat to
the institutions favoring women’s rights—prevented the immediate ap-
proval of this initiative. The measure was referred instead to a congres-
sional committee, which gave the women’s movement time to convince
the legislators that the Women’s Institute must be preserved.
Despite the forces mounted against it, the Nicaraguan women’s move-
ment is growing stronger and more cohesive, while the female FSLN mili-
tants are still struggling to extend their organizing efforts from the national
level to intermediate party structures. It is interesting to observe that the
situation in El Salvador presents a different picture. FMLN women who
were initially very successful in their fight for gender equality within the
party, are now struggling to preserve these achievements. Compared to its
Nicaraguan counterpart, the Salvadoran women’s movement failed in the
last elections to mount a strong organizing effort. This raises the question
of what lessons may be learned from the comparative study of the Sal-
vadoran and Nicaraguan experiences.
At present, it appears that only the Left is prepared to accept the chal-
lenge of gender equality and revise party doctrine and structures accord-
ingly. Continuing efforts by party militants are therefore likely to bear fruit.
These partisan efforts need to be broadened, however, and incorporated
into pluralist alliances to have an impact on gender relations in society at
large. Unity and lack of infighting are preconditions for the women’s
movement to become an effective advocate of women’s rights and to exert
pressure on political parties to take up the banner of gender equality. Fur-
thermore, although the implementation of quantitative measures of posi-
tive discrimination, such as quotas, is an essential part of the struggle to in-
crease women’s representation in the public sphere, too much emphasis on
this strategy can easily trap women in mere statistical equality and not lead
to a truly equal presence in public office. It also indicates that the struggle
is still at the stage of ensuring formal equality only. At this point, party lead-
ers often pay attention to women’s issues out of concern for their image in
the eyes of the female electorate. Positive developments in terms of formal
equality must be distinguished from a fundamental rethinking of tradi-
tional gender relations, a precondition for the realization of substantive
equality.
On the basis of the candidate selection process in both El Salvador and
Nicaragua, it is evident that, at this juncture, the fight for gender equality
continues to be a basically urban phenomenon. The discussion in Chapter
Three emphasized that the women’s movement needs to reach out to its
rural constituents and bring the debate on women’s rights to the country-
side. It is evident that the center of resistance to women’s emancipation is
located in the departmental and local party structures. While men resist
because they feel threatened, women are reluctant to assume the burden of
public office without the necessary network of support. In light of their dif-
ficult economic conditions, they can not afford the luxury of being active
within the party. Our interviews showed that although female members
professed support for the FMLN, they had little or no knowledge of what
was happening at the national level, a situation that contrasted starkly with
their male counterparts.
Finally, the fight for gender equality is a long-term project. Accumulated
experience is what allows effective strategies to emerge. In Nicaragua,
many women began to rethink their role in society during the Sandinista
revolution. The expertise in grass-roots organizing on behalf of the revolu-
tion, acquired during the 1980s, proved helpful in creating a strong
women’s movement. Similarly, the current success of FMLN militants in
making gender equality a central issue within the party has its roots in the
“extensive network of organizations and personal contacts” female FMLN
members cultivated during the war.44 Militants of the revolutionary Left
are aware that the struggle for gender equality has just begun. In this light,
the advances made so far are encouraging.
Q
Conclusion
Gender Equality and Democratization
Si la mujer no está, la democracia no va
The Central American experience discussed in this book teaches us that a

focus on gender politics can indeed illuminate the process of democratic
consolidation. Gender equality and meaningful democratization are inex-
tricably linked. From a normative point of view, the democratization of the
region requires the full incorporation of women as voters, candidates, and
office holders. Looking through the lens of gender equality, we have seen
the revolutionary Left’s strengths and weaknesses as it struggles to establish
itself as a force for democracy in the region. The Central American guer-
rilla movements have accepted the challenge of transforming themselves
from hierarchical military organizations into democratic political parties.
By doing so, they have made an important contribution to the consolida-
tion of formal, representative democracy, which requires a party system that
is capable of representing voters across the political spectrum. An empha-
sis on gender equality sheds light on the Left’s incipient democratization
that transcends adherence to formal norms and procedures of democracy
and focuses on the substance of this transformation.
The revolutionary Left has started to institute a gender perspective in
its policies, particularly as they relate to internal party development and
electoral politics. Women are the key advocates behind the drive for the
institutionalization of gender equality. In their struggle for equality be-
tween men and women, they have sought to change traditional gender re-
lations and to strengthen the internal democratic decision-making pro-
cesses of the former guerrilla movements of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and
Guatemala. A distinction between formal and substantive gender equality

reveals the accomplishments of female party members and the hurdles they
have yet to overcome on the road to full, substantive equality. Female mil-
itants advocating gender equality share an inherent interest in the inter-
nal democratization of their political parties. Standing to benefit from party
rules favoring measures of positive discrimination, they are natural advo-
cates for strict adherence to formal rules and procedures, a prerequisite for
democratic decision-making.
When we focus on formal gender equality, it becomes evident that women
have increased their participation in the new parties that grew out of the
Central American guerrilla movements. The evidence presented in this
book strongly supports the thesis that measures of positive discrimination
are indispensable tools in the fight to strengthen female participation in
political party structures and increase the number of women holding pub-
lic office. The Salvadoran experience, in particular, demonstrated that quo-
tas and gender-based candidate lists can be effective mechanisms to open
previously closed doors for women. Yet such measures are by no means suf-
ficient to guarantee greater access for women to positions of authority and
power. Measures of positive discrimination are ultimately mere tactical
tools to be used by committed women and men in the fight for gender
equality. The most effective tools are of no value if the environment for
their successful application does not exist. In the final analysis, it is the
level of organization and coordination that women achieve that deter-
mines whether these measures can be used effectively. In particular, coali-
tion-building with open-minded men who can be enlisted in the struggle
is essential. In the case of Guatemala, the tools for increasing the percent-
age of women in the party’s decision-making structures were put in place,
but a male-dominated leadership lacked the political will to apply them. In
Nicaragua, male FSLN militants who opposed any effort to increase female
representation successfully managed to subvert women’s efforts to guaran-
tee the effective implementation of measures of positive discrimination at
the local and regional level.
The importance of positive discrimination to increase women’s repre-
sentation in leadership positions at the national level entered the realm of
public discussion in Latin America in 1991, when Argentina introduced
compulsory gender quotas for candidates for political office. The new quota
law required that female candidates would be allocated at least 30 percent

of the positions on candidate lists. By 2000, ten other Latin American
countries had joined Argentina and adopted quota laws, which established
minimum participation rates for female candidates ranging from 20 to 40
percent.1 In Central America, the revolutionary Left supported the cause
of gender quotas. Although women across the ideological spectrum have
come to recognize the importance of quotas and have sought to emulate
the example of Argentina, neither El Salvador, Nicaragua, nor Guatemala
passed national quota laws. By the end of 2000, only El Salvador had made
a serious effort to introduce national quotas.
The day after the March 2000 Salvadoran elections, Gloria Salguero,
president of the Salvadoran parliament and head of the governing ARENA
party during the 1990s, met with several colleagues from the Left and pro-
posed collaboration. She wanted to use the waning days of the legislature
to introduce a constitutional amendment modeled after the Argentine law
that would require all political parties to institute a 30 percent female
quota for candidates for public office. In her view, a simple law was not
good enough, since it could too easily be reversed. Realizing that the votes
were not there for a constitutional amendment, Salguero introduced a law
in the next to last session of the legislature that would have established
a minimum quota of 30 percent for either sex for all public office and
party leadership positions. The women behind this effort had obtained
fifty-six (out of eighty-four) supporting signatures from their colleagues.2
In the end the effort failed. The proposed law obtained only forty-one of
the forty-three required votes. The unexpected defeat shocked the advo-
cates of gender equality. In a victory for male chauvinism, several female
ARENA and Christian Democrat legislators who had signed on in support
changed their position under pressure from influential male colleagues.
Further, two male FMLN deputies who had committed themselves to vote
for the law engaged in a last minute political maneuver and left the session
without casting their votes. Nidia Díaz, one of the initiative’s supporters,
admitted that the backers of the legislation had committed a vital error in
failing to involve the women’s movement in the effort to get it passed. She
recognized that jointly they might have been able to exert sufficient pres-
sure on the legislature to succeed.3 Despite this setback, the coalition-
building by female legislators was an excellent sign that women had started
to transcend ideological differences and were joining forces in the struggle

for gender equality.
The gender distribution in the national decision-making structures of
the Salvadoran FMLN and the FSLN in Nicaragua indicated that women
had made progress in obtaining formal representation that corresponded to
their numerical strength in the party membership. However, more time is
needed to assess the quality of this representation. While there is no doubt
that women have made substantial progress in their fight for gender equal-
ity, much remains to be done. The FMLN’s Women’s Secretariat summa-
rized its achievements and remaining challenges in 1998:
Progress has been made in [women’s] quantitative participation and in the

organization of women’s committees at the party’s grass-roots level.
Through the gender policy and internal rules, the quota has been institu-
tionalized as a tool, as have been the National, the Departmental, and the
Municipal Women’s Secretariats. The statutes have been reformed. But we
need to make progress in increasing the skills and sensibility of men and
women and in the creation of mechanisms that improve the conditions of
women’s participation in relation to men. We need to increase the power of
the National Women’s Secretariat with economic and material resources
and guarantee that the whole party apparatus supports the execution of the
gender policy.4
In general, the relative success in the area of formal gender equality has
yet to translate into substantive change. Women confront a difficult situa-
tion when they seek to win substantive equality within the revolutionary
Left. Some significant changes notwithstanding, traditional gender rela-
tions continue to characterize relations between male and female party
members. Recent developments in Nicaragua and El Salvador suggest that
the fight for gender equality is suffering a backlash. Male leaders see their
privileges threatened. This indicates that the strategies to strengthen for-
mal gender equality have been effective. Women have to defend their gains
in the fight for formal gender equality and establish alliances with their
male colleagues in order to transform party cultures in the direction of sub-
stantive equality.
A central battle concerns the fight to address male chauvinism within

the ranks of the revolutionary Left. A vocal minority within the male lead-
ership and among rank-and-file members, has resisted attempts to institute
effective policies that would ensure greater gender equality. “Gender” is a
concept that has only recently begun to be used to address the societal in-
equalities between men and women. It is often misinterpreted and tends to
polarize men and women. For this reason, it is hardly the best way to com-
municate the issue of equality between women and men in the Central
American context, yet female leaders are reluctant to abandon it, having
struggled too long to achieve its current level of acceptance. Nevertheless,
there needs to be greater emphasis on the fact that the goal is a societal
transformation that liberates both women and men from the fetters of tra-
ditional norms.
The road to this new social order is a long and difficult one, considering
the limited progress that has been made worldwide in achieving formal
equality between men and women. According to the 1999 Human Devel-
opment Report, in only five of the world’s countries do women hold more
than 30 percent of the seats in parliament.5 It is important that we keep
this in mind when we assess the record of the revolutionary Left. While it
is true that the Left has made limited progress toward achieving gender
equality within its ranks, the record of the Central American Left looks
quite good when compared with the rest of the world. With the exception
of the Nordic countries, few parties in Western Europe or North America
can point to a similar level of accomplishment.
There have been some encouraging signs that the gains in the area of
formal gender equality were being translated into substantive gender equal-
ity. Male and female militants were starting to build alliances that chal-
lenged traditional gender relations. For example, the candidate-selection
process for the 1997 Salvadoran elections demonstrated that a number of
male leaders had revised long-held stereotypical views regarding women.
At the same time, female militants exhibited a newly gained confidence
that indicated they no longer felt confined by traditional boundaries.
The struggle for gender equality will be greatly shaped by the degree to
which party militants can build alliances with the women’s movement. For
a constructive partnership to be possible, the controversy over doble mili-
tancia, which is rooted in the question of autonomy, needs to be resolved.

Infighting over the issue whether a woman can be loyal to both party and
the women’s movement has plagued all three countries.
In Nicaragua during the 1980s, the FSLN subordinated the fight for
women’s rights to the survival of the revolution. As a result female mili-
tants have had only limited success in their struggle to transform gender re-
lations within their party and their society. Following the 1990 electoral
defeat of the Sandinistas, an autonomous women’s movement emerged,
and female militants renewed their efforts to achieve gender equality
within the FSLN. Although they could point to some positive results,
female leaders faced great challenges in their efforts to transform party
structures. At the same time, the Nicaraguan women’s movement was in-
creasingly successful in putting women’s rights on the national agenda.
Nicaragua confirms that it is difficult to advance the struggle for gender
equality on both fronts—party and society—simultaneously. The price of
the independence the women’s movement gained from the Sandinistas was
the arrested development of gender equality inside the FSLN. When many
of the best minds among the female FSLN militants chose to focus their
energy on building a strong women’s movement, female leaders who re-
mained in the party were left without the support they needed to make sub-
stantial progress.
El Salvador presents yet another picture. There, female FMLN militants
have demonstrated a remarkable ability to increase their representation in
the party’s decision-making structures and in the Salvadoran parliament.
Having observed women’s subordination in the FSLN, female militants be-
gan their fight for autonomy even before the final peace accords were
signed. Although some key leaders broke with the FMLN to ensure their
full autonomy, most remained in the party, committed to fighting the bat-
tle for gender equality from within. The Salvadoran women’s movement
supported the efforts of FMLN cadres during the 1990s to change the party.
Although the issue of doble militancia has come up, it has not had the same
prominence as it has in Nicaragua. Problems, however, have emerged in a
different arena. The controversy over the nomination process for the
FMLN’s presidential candidate in the 1999 elections destroyed the alliance
between the women’s movement and FMLN militants. Key leaders of the
movement, albeit sympathetic to the FMLN, were so disgusted with the
machinations surrounding the nomination process that they distanced

themselves from the party. A number of high-profile leaders abstained from
voting in order to protest what they perceived as discrimination against
Victoria Marina de Avilés, the female nominee. The fallout from this
episode was a general weakening of the forces for gender equality within
the FMLN.
The URNG would benefit from paying close attention to the experi-
ences of the revolutionary Left in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Two key
lessons can be derived from these experiences for Guatemala. Efforts by fe-
male URNG militants to strengthen gender equality in the party will bear
fruit if measures of positive discrimination are strictly enforced during the
early stages of the fight for women’s rights. For this to happen, female mil-
itants need to be well organized and prepared to seek alliances with male
party leaders. Simultaneously, these partisan efforts need to be broadened
and incorporated into pluralist coalitions to affect gender relations in soci-
ety at large. Unity and lack of infighting are preconditions for success.
Guatemalan women who seek to strengthen gender equality in political
parties and society need to keep this in mind.
The women of Central America confront the necessity of broadening
the struggle for gender equality. For too long it has been essentially an ur-
ban, middle-class issue. The fight has to be moved from its elitist quarters
to encompass the great majority of poor, rural women. It is essential that
progress made at the national level filters down to the grass roots. A sig-
nificant gap has prevailed between the opportunities and support available
to women who participate in national politics and those working within
the departmental and municipal party structures. In this fight, interna-
tional solidarity is of importance.
Gloria Salguero argued recently that international pressure is both
needed and very effective in moving recalcitrant parties toward adopting a
platform of gender equality. This is an important statement coming from a
representative of the political Right, which has traditionally objected to
any meddling by international agencies or groups in El Salvador’s internal
affairs. The Central American experience discussed in this book supports
the view that the international context has been an important factor in the
fight for gender equality. Nevertheless, recent developments force us to re-
flect on the relevance of international meetings and the resulting conven-
tions favoring women’s rights. The state needs resources to guarantee sec-
ond generation human rights. It appears that in the age of neoliberalism
and a shrinking state, governments are more willing than ever before to
sign conventions committing them to institute important changes favor-
ing women. There is justified suspicion that this change of heart can be ex-
plained by the fact that government officials know full well that they will
lack the resources to carry out their commitments.
The quest for the most effective strategy to consolidate democracy and
advance gender equality continues. Two main schools of thought have sur-
faced. One advocates fighting within the existing parties of the Left to
transform them into effective vehicles for greater gender equality. In the
opinion of Deysi Cheyne, one of the foremost Salvadoran women’s leaders,
this strategy requires that female militants succeed in establishing “emo-
tional independence” from the Left. This permits women to support the
revolutionary Left when they consider it in their interest, instead of lend-
ing unconditional support to the Left’s agenda out of a sense of historic
commitment. Female leaders are becoming increasingly sophisticated in
their struggle for women’s rights. In the eyes of many women the events of
the 1990s confirmed that the fight for formal gender equality could only
take them so far. For example, after having succeeded to greatly increase
the number of female deputies in the Salvadoran parliament, the women’s
movement was disappointed when these new women leaders failed to sup-
port an agenda for women’s rights. This situation, while painful, was also
liberating. Women, whether they were active in the party or the move-
ment, were free to explore new and better ways to reach their goals. Sofía
Montenegro from Nicaragua, one of the most lucid theoreticians of the
women’s movement, has already taken the next logical step. She advocates
the building of a new political movement, convinced that the current par-
ties on the Left are beyond reform. At this point it is not obvious which ar-
gument will carry the day. A likely outcome is a combination of both strate-
gies. The traditional parties require the threat of popular alternatives to
reform themselves.
The beginning of the new millennium saw Ricardo Rosales and Schafik
Hándal, who once headed the Communist parties of Guatemala and El Sal-
vador, respectively, as the leaders of their parliamentary benches. In 1994
it was still unusual to see former guerrilla commanders in the Salvadoran
Legislative Assembly sharing a bench with their former military enemies.

By the end of the decade, however, this situation raised nobody’s eyebrows.
FMLN legislators, who were novices in 1994, had evolved into influential
figures in parliament, often dominating the legislative agenda together
with other opposition parties. Similarly, Guatemalan revolutionaries were
now challenging their former enemies in the political arena. Nine URNG
deputies, elected in November 1999, opposed the legislative agenda of the
majority party headed by the URNG’s nemesis, former dictator Ríos Montt.
In Nicaragua, the Sandinista revolutionaries, who had governed the coun-
try during the 1980s, were the main opposition party in the 1990s. This sit-
uation serves as a reminder that the struggle has moved from the military
to the political arena and that the revolutionary Left has transformed itself
into a political actor. With this transformation, the Left has strengthened
the legitimacy of the region’s political structures. Apart from this impor-
tant contribution, however, has the Left been capable of defending the in-
terests of its constituents?
The revolutionary Left encountered an extremely difficult socioeco-
nomic and political situation during the 1990s. In the face of this chal-
lenge, the Left was frequently its own worst enemy. The electoral success
of the former guerrilla movements was respectable, but it could have been
greater had it not been for the internal conflicts that disrupted party-build-
ing. Even at moments of victory, internal divisions could not be overcome.
Following the March 2000 Salvadoran elections, which saw the FMLN be-
come the largest political force in the country, there was speculation that
the FMLN would once again officially divide into two parties. In many re-
gards, the two main factions were already operating as distinct political
forces. They operated separate headquarters in many towns, held their
meetings apart, supported opposing political agendas, and no longer so-
cialized together. The few important party figures who were not clearly
identified with either faction faced increased pressures to align themselves
and became increasingly isolated. It is symbolically important that the
March 2000 election victory was celebrated in two distinct venues, with
revolutionary socialists in the streets outside the party headquarters and the
reformers joining the victory party of Hector Silva, reelected to a second
term as mayor of the capital. In the opinion of the latter group, it had “won
San Salvador.” The reformers vowed to use the capital as their power base
in the struggle over control of the party. Thus, the inability to find com-
mon ground that had led to the FMLN’s division in 1994 threatened to lead
once again to a break-up of the party. This time the consequences would
be truly devastating. Joaquín Villalobos’s exit in 1994 affected only a small
group of party militants. The threat of his challenge to the FMLN leader-
ship was more symbolic than substantive. A parting of the revolutionary
socialists and the reformers would have far greater consequences. Had the
leadership learned the right lessons, or was history to repeat itself?
Similar problems plagued the FMLN’s counterparts in Nicaragua and
Guatemala. The Sandinistas had survived the 1995 exodus of the reform-
ers led by Sergio Ramírez, albeit at high cost. A united FSLN would have
been a formidable contender in the 1996 elections. Instead the weakened
Sandinistas had to resign themselves to their position as the strongest op-
position party. The scandals that permanently blackened the image of the
FSLN leadership at the end of the decade paralyzed the party and reduced
it to a vehicle for the political ambitions of Daniel Ortega. Under attack,
the FSLN abandoned incipient democratic practices and reverted to an au-
thoritarian style. Legitimate dissent became anathema as demonstrated
when Tomás Borge threatened FSLN leaders who opposed the party’s pact
with the Alemán government with expulsion. Deprived of many of its best
minds, the Sandinistas faced an uncertain electoral future, despite the
FSLN’s comeback in the 2000 municipal elections, when the Sandinistas
won Managua, the capital, and many of the other most important cities.
One could not escape the irony that the FSLN, which had strengthened
representative democracy in Nicaragua during its decade in power, had
failed to make similar progress in democratizing its internal decision-mak-
ing process.
The URNG survived its first anniversary as a legal political party with-
out public splits. Yet disagreements were raging behind the façade of unity.
The disintegration of the electoral coalition formed for the 1999 elections
indicated that the Guatemalan Left was unable to reconcile differences
among its constituent groups, even though the failure to do so had a clear
impact on its strength as a political player. Only the future will tell whether
the URNG has been able to learn from the mistakes it observed in
Nicaragua and El Salvador.
The cost of these internal problems was considerable. The fight in all
three countries between reformist and orthodox factions over party hege-
mony restricted the ability of the Left to effectively confront its political
enemies and to consolidate its transformation into a democratic political
force. It also adversely affected the struggle for greater gender equality. In
the final analysis, the revolutionary Left had yet to learn how to deal with
dissent. Legitimate disagreements over the role of the Left following the
peace accords were considered too divisive and threatening to be aired in
open, frank discussion. The legacy of the war days where similar disputes
had resulted in conflicts with deadly outcomes continued to shape the view
of key players. This inability to compromise and integrate opposing views
into a new powerful vision indicated the limits of the Left’s progress toward
a truly democratic movement.
During the days of the revolutionary struggle the Left offered society the
vision of an alternative model of development. Now, however, it has to
demonstrate that it can convert its newly gained political power and im-
plement constructive proposals that address the region’s problems. The
Left’s future credibility, in the eyes of its current constituents and the elec-
torate in general, will to a great extent depend on the degree to which it
can be an effective agent for social change and reinvent itself ideologically.
The FMLN and its counterparts need to diffuse the frequently voiced crit-
icisms that revolutionaries are good at taking power but lack the skills to
administer it efficiently. Two central questions need to be resolved: will the
revolutionary Left assume the modernizing role that the traditional parties
have failed so far to carry out; and can this role be assumed successfully
while protecting the interests of the Left’s core constituency, or will the par-
ties on the Left be reduced to the status of more efficient administrators of
neoliberalism. For decades the revolutionary Left waged civil war under the
banner of achieving social justice for all. Now it faces the challenge of con-
tinuing its fight for substantive democracy while being a part of an estab-
lished system that emphasizes formal democracy but is becoming increas-
ingly unjust.
The peace agreements of Guatemala and El Salvador failed to resolve
the fundamental problems that led to the wars in the first place. In
Nicaragua, the Contras contributed to the Sandinista electoral defeat but
were marginalized in postrevolutionary society. The success of the armed
movements in reintegrating their former combatants into civilian life var-
ied from country to country. The relative success of the Salvadoran process
emphasizes the importance for guerrilla movements of entering the politi-
cal process as a cohesive force capable of effectively representing the in-
terests of their constituents. The timing of the peace process appears to be
of great importance. It is essential for armed movements to complete their
evolution into political parties in time for the first postconflict elections.
Yet even under the relatively favorable conditions for the FMLN prevail-
ing in El Salvador, Herculean efforts were required during the reintegration
phase. The Salvadoran situation posed important challenges for the FMLN
and its supporters. The party’s electoral successes in 1997 and 2000 tended
to obscure important problems. Many supporters of the revolutionary Left,
including former combatants, were disillusioned. FMLN militants and sup-
porters were struggling economically and felt abandoned by the FMLN
leadership. As the FMLN was positioning itself to attract support from new
sectors of the electorate, it was running the risk of losing its historic base.
A general problem for ex-combatants in all three countries were rising, un-
met expectations. Many questioned whether their sacrifice had been worth
it. Although they had received some material benefits, particularly land, as
a result of the peace accords, their standard of living continued to be
abysmal. The former fighters were pleased to have escaped the harsh real-
ity of the war, yet many emphasized that peace brought a host of new chal-
lenges they were ill-equipped to deal with.
When we examine the reintegration process through the lens of gender,
it is evident that it was especially difficult for women, who suffered both
open and hidden forms of discrimination. Women paid a high price for be-
ing perceived as having violated societal norms by joining the armed strug-
gle. Female combatants, seeking to retake their place in family structures
they had abandoned during the war, were treated as outcasts by their own
parents, siblings, and children. They were accused of having neglected
their children and having chosen the revolutionary struggle over their fam-
ilies. In addition to these societal pressures, female militants faced special
challenges evident when one analyzes the implementation of the reinser-
tion programs. Although an evaluation of the Salvadoran programs shows
no evidence of open discrimination, women’s gender-specific needs were
seldom taken into account. The true story of the peace programs can not
be read in the statistics. The accounts of female combatants indicate that

we need to study the daily problems that female beneficiaries confront, if
we are to comprehend the situation of women in the peace process. If we
listen to what these women have to say, the crucial difference between for-
mal and substantive equality is impossible to ignore.
The ex-combatants shared their difficult economic circumstances with
the great majority of the citizens in the three countries. Hope for a better
life had seemed realistic in the wake of the peace accords. Unfortunately,
these hopes remained unfulfilled. While government officials and interna-
tional lending agencies celebrated the macroeconomic indicators that
showed growing economies, people in the villages and towns of Central
America faced hunger, illness, and crime. The assumed benefits of neolib-
eral economic policies could not be detected at the grass-roots level.
The harsh economic situations in postwar Nicaragua, El Salvador, and
Guatemala, together with an abundance of cheap weapons, led to ex-
tremely high levels of violent crime. In a 1997 report, the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment acknowledged that 19,821 violent crimes against people had
taken place in 1996, an increase of more than 10 percent over 1995.6 El
Salvador, on the other hand, had the dubious distinction of having “the
highest murder rate in the Western Hemisphere.”7 In 1996, more than
8,000 people died violent deaths, surpassing the civilian casualty rate dur-
ing most civil war years. The capital, San Salvador, witnessed 359 murders
in 1999, making it a truly dangerous place. Political violence continued to
be of major concern. Between 1992 and 1996, 2 former FMLN comman-
ders who had served on the party’s Political Commission together with 57
FMLN ex-combatants were assassinated.8 The most publicized case was the
murder of former FMLN commander Francisco Véliz. At the time of his as-
sassination on October 25, 1993, he was a candidate for a seat in parlia-
ment. Véliz’s murder, which had a chilling effect on the FMLN’s 1994 elec-
tion campaign, has not been solved.9 In the early 1990s, political violence
was also rampant in Nicaragua, where hundreds of ex-members of the Re-
sistance and Sandinista militants were killed. A particularly high-profile
victim was Enrique Bermúdez, the former Contra commander. The record
of Guatemala was not much different. According to World Bank data, both
Guatemala and El Salvador had a murder rate fourteen times as high as that
of the United States. The crime waves that engulfed the three countries
were symptomatic of the difficult socioeconomic conditions and imperiled
the consolidation of democracy.
What we observe in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador is, at best,
the consolidation of formal, representative democracy. Yet this transition
to more democratic forms of government taking place in the political arena
is linked to the implementation of structural adjustment programs guided
by the dominant paradigm of neoliberalism. These economic policies carry
a high price for the poor majorities of Central America, who have experi-
enced deteriorating living conditions instead of improvements. Little re-
mains of the promise of a popular program, based on participatory democ-
racy that was the rally cry of the revolutionary Left during the 1980s.
Not surprisingly, many citizens have become cynical and have lost faith
in the institutions of government. This is confirmed by increasingly low
voter turnout and polls showing low levels of approval for the main insti-
tutions of government. In the elections of Guatemala and El Salvador,
about half the electorate routinely abstains from voting. An abstention rate
of this magnitude does not bode well for the future. Whereas voters did turn
out in large numbers in the 1996 Nicaraguan elections (officially the par-
ticipation rate was 76%), the electoral process was marred by extensive ir-
regularities that led the FSLN to reject “the legitimacy of the election.” In
the opinion of knowledgeable observers, “the 1996 elections were a step
backward from achieving [democratic] legitimacy.”10
The citizens of the three countries have chosen different political solu-
tions to their predicaments. Guatemalans chose the party of Ríos Montt, a
right-wing dictator from the early 1980s, in the October 1999 elections,
while the Salvadoran electorate made the FMLN the strongest party in par-
liament in the March 2000 electoral contest. The results of the March 2000
elections present a great opportunity as well as an enormous challenge for
the FMLN. In 1996, Nicaraguan voters gave the Right another chance at
fixing the country’s political and economic woes and endorsed the San-
dinistas as the main opposition. Four years later, the electorate punished
the Alemán government for its failure to deliver on its promises and sig-
nificantly strengthened the Sandinista party in the municipal elections.
In their struggle to transform current realities, Latin America’s female
leaders have begun to build important alliances. The organizing capabili-
ties acquired during the days of armed struggle and civil opposition to au-
thoritarian rule served women well in their efforts to assume a greater role
in the construction of more democratic societies. Female leaders have made
great strides in the building of a strong women’s movement. In other areas,
however, alliance building is still in its beginning phases. Female leaders
are increasingly aware that they need new strategies to defend their hard-
won gains in the struggle for gender equality and to take the fight to new
arenas. In particular, old alliances need to be reinforced and new ones built:
the women’s movement must join with militants of political parties; party
militants across the ideological spectrum must join together; the women’s
movement must find allies in other sectors of civil society; alliances must
be formed among women’s organizations throughout Central America; and
Central American women’s groups must join with women’s groups in South
America and find allies worldwide. The most significant effort, however,
needs to be directed toward establishing the missing link—an alliance be-
tween the sexes.
The new millennium poses a central challenge for female leaders in
Central America fighting for greater gender equality. They need to work
on building a new alliance that includes men. Only the joint efforts of both
sexes can lead to a successful transformation of society based on democrat-
ic governance and gender equality. This is obviously a long-term process.
The discussion of gender equality needs to be politicized differently—men
have to be brought into the dialogue, understanding that the concept of
gender includes them and is not a synonym for woman. At the same time
that men need to be reeducated, women have to modify exclusionary po-
sitions. Only a coming together of both sexes will permit the successful
mainstreaming of gender equality.
Notes
Preface & Acknowledgments

1. See the debate on the Rigoberta Menchú–David Stoll controversy in Latin Amer-
ican Perspectives 26, no. 6 (November 1999).
2. See for example, Gilbert, Sandinistas; Walker, Nicaragua in Revolution, Nicaragua:
The First Five Years, Reagan versus the Sandinistas, and Revolution and Counterrevolution
in Nicaragua; Harris and Vilas, eds., Nicaragua: A Revolution under Siege; Spalding, The
Political Economy of Revolutionary Nicaragua; Enríquez, Harvesting Change; Vanden and
Prevost, Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista Nicaragua; and Luciak, The Sandinista
Legacy.
3. Carver, Gender Is Not a Synonym for Women, 120.
4. Parvikko, “Conceptions of Gender Equality,” 48.
5. Agüero and Stark, Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America, v.
6. Lowenthal and Domínguez, “Introduction: Constructing Democratic Gover-
nance,” in Constructing Democratic Governance, edited by Domínguez and Lowenthal,
7– 8.
7. This point is illustrated in Chapters Four and Five, where I discuss the selection
process of the FMLN’s presidential candidates.
8. Huntington, The Third Wave.
9. Waylen, Gender in Third World Politics, 118.
10. Recent examples include: Domínguez and Lindenberg, Democratic Transitions in
Central America; Domínguez and Lowenthal, Constructing Democratic Governance;
Tulchin, The Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America; Linz and Stepan, Problems of
Democratic Transition and Consolidation; and Diamond et al., Consolidating the Third
Wave Democracies.
11. Diamond, “Introduction: In Search of Consolidation,” xiv.
12. Domínguez and Lindenberg, Democratic Transitions in Central America, 2.
13. Agüero and Stark, Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America, 9.
14. Ibid.
15. Navarro and Bourque, “Fault Lines of Democratic Governance,” 175.
16. Ibid., 176.
244 Notes to Pages xvii–4
17. Ibid., 182.

18. Arnson, ed., Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America.
19. Spalding, “From Low-Intensity Warfare to Low-Intensity Peace,” 20.
20. Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, 17–21.
nance,” in Constructing Democratic Governance, edited by Domínguez and Lowenthal, 3.
22. Vilas, Between Earthquakes and Volcanoes, 184.
23. Jonas, “Electoral Problems and the Democratic Project in Guatemala,” 25 – 44.
24. McCleary, “Guatemala’s Postwar Prospects,” 129.
nance,” in Constructing Democratic Governance, edited by Domínguez and Lowenthal, 6.
26. Angell, “Incorporating the Left into Democratic Politics,” 25.
27. Torres-Rivas, “Guatemala,” 55.
28. Ibid., 56.
29. Gramajo, “Political Transition in Guatemala,” 135.
30. Waylen, Gender in Third World Politics, 124 –26.
31. Inter-American Development Bank, Women in the Americas, 87.
32. Vilas, Between Earthquakes and Volcanos, 185.
33. Angell, “Incorporating the Left into Democratic Politics,” 24.
34. Interview with María Candelaria Navas, Blacksburg, Virginia, May 1, 1997.
Chapter One The Gender Composition of the Central

American Guerrilla Movements
1. Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America, 21.
2. Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 132.
3. Anderson, Che, 234.
4. Ibid., 275.
5. Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 132.
6. Ibid., 132.
7. Ibid., 133.
8. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 123. See also Mason, “Women’s Partici-
pation in Central American Revolutions,” 65, for references.
9. ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilización del personal del FMLN, 2–7.
10. First, the data provide a snapshot of those members of the FMLN forces who
chose to go through the official registration process at the time of the 1992 demobi-
lization. Although the great majority of the guerrilla membership was indeed registered,
the records are by no means complete. Not surprisingly, it is impossible to obtain accu-
rate figures on the number of people who were not officially demobilized. If the FMLN
leadership were to acknowledge that a substantial number of its members did not par-
ticipate in the official demobilization process, the former guerrillas would open them-
selves up to the charge of having violated the peace accords. For exactly this reason,
Notes to Pages 6–18 245
right-wing forces have had an obvious interest in exaggerating these figures. Apart from
the problem of FMLN personnel remaining outside of the process, there were also de-
ficiencies in the ONUSAL data of those who had registered. Following the closure of
the demobilization process in 1993, the records were purified in order to correct several
anomalies. Initially, FMLN members had little confidence in the registration process
and were reluctant to provide personal data, citing security reasons. There were cases
of combatants who were processed as políticos and vice versa, while others managed to
register twice under different names in order to receive another of the packages of tools
and food that every registered person was entitled to. According to ONUSAL, a total
of 588 FMLN militants never bothered to pick up their identification papers, which
eventually were declared invalid. Over time, however, the former combatants gained
confidence in the integrity of the process, and data collection became an easier task.
ONUSAL published the updated and revised final data in 1994.
11. ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilización del personal del FMLN, 6.
12. Telephone conversation with Gerson Martínez, September 24, 1995.
13. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 123; interview with Norma Guevara, San
Salvador, May 2, 1995.
14. Data in the Guatemalan records are not separated by sex. Age data are only
available for demobilized combatants and political cadres.
15. URNG, “Personal Incorporado,” 4.
16. For this observation I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer of this manuscript.
17. ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilización del personal del FMLN, 8.
18. Interview with Medardo González, San Salvador, December 12, 1995.
19. Fundación 16 de Enero, “Diagnóstico de la situación actual de la mujer ex-com-
batiente,” 10.
20. Vázquez et al., Mujeres-montaña, 23.
21. Ibid., 63.
22. Interview with Jackeline Noemi Rivera, San Salvador, February 5, 1996.
23. Vázquez et al., Mujeres-montaña, 16.
24. Ramírez-Horton, “The Role of Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution,” 152.
25. Chuchryk, “Women in the Revolution,” 143.
26. Vilas, The Sandinista Revolution, 108–9.
27. See Reif, “Women in Latin American Guerrilla Movements,” 158; Ramírez-
Horton, “The Role of Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution,” 152; and Collinson,
Women and Revolution in Nicaragua, 154. On the topic of the number of female com-
batants in the FSLN, I have benefited from discussions with Karen Kampwirth.
28. Interview with Mónica Baltodano, Managua, November 13, 1997.
29. Interview with Gladys Báez, Managua, June 9, 1998.
30. Ibid.
31. Interview with Dorotea Wilson, Managua, February 5, 1997.
32. Interview with Leticia Herrera, Managua, November 12, 1997.
246 Notes to Pages 18–26
33. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. FSLN, Programa histórico del FSLN, 32.
39. Ibid.
40. Interview with Azucena Ferrey, Managua, November 12, 1997.
41. According to Joaquín Lovo, vice-minister of government, the number of demo-
bilized fighters is inflated by about 5,000. It appears that several thousand poor peasants
who were not part of the Resistance joined the demobilization process in order to re-
ceive the benefits (food, building material, etc.) that were handed out to each processed
fighter.
42. Kampwirth, “Women in the Armed Struggles in Nicaragua,” 1.
43. Ibid., 1–2.
44. CIAV-OEA, “Cuadros estadísticos del proceso de desmovilización y repatriación
en Nicaragua.”
45. Spence et al., “Promise and Reality,” 11.
46. United Nations, Acuerdo sobre el definitivo cese al fuego.
47. Due to the close relations between the Guatemalan government and Taiwan,
China opposed the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the UN
Security Council. China withdrew its veto on January 20, 1998. Thus China’s position
delayed the starting day of the demobilization.
48. Interview with Araujo Lima, Esquintla, April 23, 1997.
49. These data are based on information provided by Lieutenant Colonel Carlos
Tanco, UN military observer group in Guatemala, November 21, 1997.
51. Interviews with Wilson Romero, Guatemala City, March 3, 1999, and Ricardo
Rosales, Guatemala City, March 4, 1999.
52. Interview with Ricardo Rosales, Guatemala City, March 4, 1999.
53. Data are based on information provided by Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Tanco.
54. United Nations and URNG officials were generally reluctant to discuss mem-
bership statistics. Unlike in El Salvador, there are also no official data indicating the
gender composition of the three groups making up the URNG combatants.
55. An anecdote will illustrate this point: In April 1997, I dined out with three
women active in the Guatemalan women’s movement. During the course of the evening
they “confessed” to each other (and the author) for the first time that all three of them
had been active in the URNG for several years. Although they had been close friends
for years, they had not considered it prudent to reveal their political work. The three
friends also maintained that no one in their family knew about their URNG member-
ship.
56. Since many URNG combatants were brought back from refugee camps in Mex-
ico, it is reasonable to assume that some of the women that were demobilized were not
actual combatants. This is probably also the case for a number of the male URNG mem-
bers.
57. These statements are from interviews conducted in 1997 and 1998.
58. Interview with Aura Marina Arriola, in Stoltz Chinchilla, Nuestras Utopias, 102.
59. Hurtado Paz y Paz, “Elementos de la historia del movimiento revolucionario
guatemalteco,” Africa América Latina, 12.
60. Yvon Le Bot, La guerra en tierras mayas, cited in Gutiérrez, “Quién quiso asaltar
el cielo?” 72.
61. Interview with “Comandante Lola” (Alba Estela Maldonado), Guatemala City,
November 20, 1997.
62. Yvon Le Bot, in Gutiérrez, “Quién quiso asaltar el cielo?” 72.
63. Interview with Silvia Solórzano, Guatemala City, March 3, 1999.
64. Interview with Comandante Lola, Guatemala City, November 20, 1997.
65. Ibid.
66. Yvon Le Bot, in Gutiérrez, “Quién quiso asaltar el cielo?” 72.
68. Interview with Captain Hernan, Frente Unitario, Finca Claudia, Esquintla,
April 23, 1997. See also McCleary, “Guatemala’s Postwar Prospects,” 139.
69. For background to this incident, see Spence et al., “Promise and Reality,” 19.
70. See Chapter Three for case studies elaborating this point.
71. For this point, as for several others, I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers
of this manuscript.
72. Interview with Ana Gertrudis Méndez, San Salvador, December 12, 1995.
73. Anderson, Che, 750. Anderson reports that the house is filled with “necroman-
tic ornaments” of Rodriguez’s career in the CIA, among them a “brassiere he confiscated
from a Salvadoran female comandante.” Nidia Díaz confirmed Anderson’s account in
conversation with the author.
Chapter Two Gender Equality and the Central American

Peace Accords
Epigraph: I encountered this quote at an exhibition at the Universidad Centroamericana in San
Salvador on occasion of the eleventh anniversary of the assassination of the Jesuits.
1. Huntington, The Third Wave.

2. Some writers employ the term Contras to refer to those groups that opposed the
Sandinistas militarily. Resistance, on the other hand, “refers to the formal organization
that most Contra troops, to a greater or lesser extent, were affiliated with at the time of
the 1990 election and the subsequent demobilization.” Spalding, “From Low-Intensity
Warfare to Low-Intensity Peace,” n. 3. Both terms have strong ideological connota-
tions. In order to avoid identification with either side, I use the two terms as synonyms.
3. Walker, ed., Nicaragua Without Illusions, 12.
4. Historical Clarification Commission, Guatemala.
5. Ibid. See also Spence et al., “Promise and Reality,” 4.
6. Broder, “Clinton Apologizes for U.S. Support of Guatemalan Rightists,” New York
Times, March 10, 1999.
7. See the review article by Gary Hoskin, “Democratization in Latin America,” for
a similar point of view.
8. Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, 17–21.
9. For a discussion of electoral versus “real” democracy, see Vanden and Prevost,
Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista Nicaragua, 129 –51; Vilas, Between Earthquakes
and Volcanos, 171–89; and Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, 13 –46.
11. Ibid., 20.
12. This section draws on the chronology of the negotiations between the Central
American governments and their opponents, as presented in Núñez, La guerra en
Nicaragua, 463–70; Child, The Central American Peace Accords; and various Guate-
malan sources.
13. Núñez, La guerra en Nicaragua, 467.
14. Ibid., 469.
15. Internal struggles were endemic within and between the Contra forces. The
Contras consisted of three major groups: the Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (Nicara-
guan Democratic Force, or FDN) led by former members of Somoza’s National Guard;
indigenous groups integrated into the Yapti Tasba Masraka nanih Aslatakanka, or the
Organization of the Nations of the Motherland; and the Alianza Revolucionaria Demo-
crática (Revolutionary Democratic Alliance) created by former Sandinista commander
Edén Pastora.
16. Child, The Central American Peace Accords, 90.
18. Interview with Sergio Caramagna, Managua, August 9, 1993. Caramagna, the
head of CIAV’s verification and follow-up program emphasized that the original man-
date of the commission covered all of Central America, with the United States pro-
viding funding for its activities. Subsequently, CIAV’s mandate was reduced to assist-
ing the Nicaraguan Contras and repatriated refugees. Almost 100,000 refugees were
attended by the commission.
19. CAHI, “Behind the Birth of the Recontras,” 21.
20. Rodríguez, “Serán una realidad los polos de desarrollo?” 30.
21. Interview with Agenor López, Managua, July 23, 1992.
22. Interview with Joaquín Lovo, Managua, July 20, 1992.
23. CRIES, Proceso de paz en El Salvador, 48.
24. Interview with Morena Herrera, San Salvador, April 24, 1996.
25. LeoGrande, “After the Battle of San Salvador,” 121.

26. CRIES, Proceso de paz en El Salvador, 48.
27. Child, The Central American Peace Accords, 86.
28. Ibid., 132– 35.
30. Gutiérrez, “Quién quiso asaltar el cielo?” 80.
33. Interviews with Lorena Peña, San Salvador, July 29, 1993, and May 4, 1995.
34. Interviews with Nidia Díaz, San Salvador, February 10 and March 18, 1997.
35. Interview with Ana Guadalupe Martínez, San Salvador, May 2, 1995.
36. Romero, “La reinserción de la mujer ex-combatiente,” 370 –71.
37. Interview with Nidia Díaz, San Salvador, March 9, 1994.
38. Interview with Lorena Peña, San Salvador, July 29, 1993.
39. Ibid., July 29, 1993, and April 25, 1996.
batiente.”
41. Seligson, “Thirty Years of Transformation in the Agrarian Structure of El Sal-
vador,” 2– 3.
42. Seligson, “Agrarian Inequality and the Theory of Peasant Rebellion,” 141.
43. Pelupessy, “Agrarian Reform in El Salvador,” 44; and Segundo Montes, El Agro
Salvadoreño (1973 –1980), 240 – 41.
44. Montes, El Agro Salvadoreño, 253 – 54.
45. Pelupessy, “Agrarian Reform in El Salvador,” 47.
46. Ibid., 48.
47. Spence et al., “The Salvadoran Peace Accords and Democratization,” 12.
48. FMLN, Acuerdos Hacia Una Nueva Nación, 84 – 85.
49. Vickers and Spence, “Endgame,” 22.
50. Interview with Antonio Tapia, San Salvador, July 28, 1993.
51. USAID officials insisted that funds for the purchase of a particular property
would only be authorized if all legal problems had been solved to its satisfaction.
52. The account of the Land Transfer Program is based on interviews with officials
from the government, the FMLN, ONUSAL, and USAID, conducted between August
1993 and May 1996.
53. After April 1995, the ONUSAL mission remained in El Salvador under the new
name MINUSAL and with greatly reduced staff. MINUSAL left in 1997, but UN offi-
cials continued to visit the country to observe the implementation of the accords.
54. La Prensa Gráfica, April 29, 1995, 37A.
55. Interview with Antonio Alvarez, San Salvador, July 28, 1993.
56. The low number of final beneficiaries was apparently due to demobilized soldiers’
lack of interest in going into farming.
57. Interview with Antonio Tapia, San Salvador, July 28, 1993.
58. Interview with Antonio Alvarez, San Salvador, February 6, 1996.
59. Saint-Germain, “Mujeres ’94,” 20 –22.
60. Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida, “Transferencia de tierras,” 19.
61. Interviews with Alvarez, San Salvador, February 6 and April 22, 1996.
62. Ibid.
63. Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida, “Transferencia de tierras,” 13 –16.
64. Saint-Germain, “Mujeres ’94,” 19.
65. Ibid., 22.
66. Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida, “Transferencia de tierras,” 19.
67. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 123.
68. Interview with Morena Herrera, San Salvador, April 24, 1996.
69. Ibid., March 17, 1997.
batiente,” 11.
71. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Conclusiones del encuentro nacional
de mujeres del FMLN, 21 de agosto 1993,” 1.
72. I am indebted to Margaret Leahy for this important observation.
batiente,” 10.
74. Stanfield, “Insecurity of Land Tenure in Nicaragua,” 20.
75. 1 manzana ⫽ 0.7 hectares ⫽ 1.75 acres.
76. CIERA, La Reforma Agraria en Nicaragua, 1979 –1989, 39.
77. Wheelock, La verdad sobre La Piñata, 26.
78. These figures are calculated based on data presented in Wheelock, La verdad so-
bre La Piñata, 111–12.
79. Stanfield, “Insecurity of Land Tenure in Nicaragua,” 13.
80. Wheelock, La verdad sobre La Piñata, 67.
81. Dye et al., “Contesting Everything, Winning Nothing,” 25.
82. Ibid.
83. Productores, “Violencia política o delincuencia en el campo,” 6.
85. Interview with Ariel Bucardo, Managua, July 7, 1992.
87. ATC, “Estabilidad laboral con libertad sindical,” 14.
88. CIPRES, “La inestabilidad política y su impacto socio-económico en el campo,” 7.
89. Interview with José Boanerges Matus, Managua, July 20, 1992.
90. Interview with Marta Heriberta Valle, Managua, July 10, 1992.
92. La Prensa, February 2, 1997.
93. This section is based on interviews with several participants in the National Di-
alogue. I particularly benefited from the account given by María Teresa Blandón, one
of the Dialogue’s coordinators in an interview in Managua on November 11, 1997.
94. Interview with Henry Ruiz, Managua, November 12, 1997.
95. Henry Ruiz did not renounce his membership in the FSLN; instead he mani-
fested his disapproval by refusing to attend meetings of the National Directorate.
96. Aguilar, “Un movimiento de mujeres embrionario.”
97. Interview with Luz Méndez, Guatemala City, April 4, 1997.
99. Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Programa Universitario de Investi-
gación en Estudios de Género, “Proyecto: Mujeres y Acuerdos de Paz.”
100. United Nations, “Acuerdo para el reasentamiento de las poblaciones desar-
raigadas por el enfrentamiento armado,” 1994, chap. 2, art. 2.
101. Ibid., chap. 3, art. 8.
102. United Nations, “Acuerdo sobre identidad y derechos de los pueblos indíge-
nas.” 1995, chap. 2, art. 1.
103. United Nations, “Acuerdo sobre fortalecimiento del poder civil y función del
ejército en una sociedad democrática.” 1996, art. 59.
104. Interview with Luz Méndez, Guatemala City, April 4, 1997.
105. United Nations, “Acuerdo sobre aspectos socioeconómicos y situación agraria”
1996, arts. 12–13.
106. Gobierno de Guatemala, Política nacional de promoción y desarrollo de las mujeres
guatemaltecas plan de equidad de oportunidades 1997–2001.
108. Holiday, “Guatemala’s Precarious Peace.”
109. URNG, “Personal Incorporado,” 2– 3.
111. World Bank, Guatemala: An Assessment of Poverty, 1–4, in Spence et al.,
“Promise and Reality,” 47.
113. Ibid., 5.
114. World Bank, Development 1997, table 5, in Spence et al., “Promise and Real-
ity,” 47.
116. “Demandas de las mujeres y acuerdos de paz,” La Cuerda, 1, no. 0 (March 8,
1998), 11.
117. Ibid.
118. URNG, “Cumplimiento de los acuerdos de paz: Período mayo-agosto,” 19.
120. Ibid., 11.
122. Ibid., 8.
123. Ibid., 54.

124. URNG, “Cumplimiento de los acuerdos de paz: Período mayo-agosto,” 29.
125. These interviews were conducted by the author and by a team of researchers in
August 1997 in Guatemala City and in two departments. They included both female
and male political cadres and ex-combatants. A total of twenty-eight people were in-
terviewed, seventeen in 1997 and eleven in 1998.
127. Interview with a regional coordinator of the peasant group CONIC.
128. Grupo Mega, “Evaluación del impacto global de los programas y proyectos re-
alizados, como parte del programa de incorporación de la URNG a la legalidad.”
129. Interview with Comandante Lola, Guatemala City, March 2, 1999.
130. Interview with Amanda Carrera, Guatemala City, March 3, 1999.
131. La Prensa Gráfica, May 19, 1999 (Internet edition).
133. Interview with Eduardo Stein, La Prensa Gráfica, May 24, 1999 (Internet edi-
tion).
134. See Chapter Three for an analysis of the reintegration of the FMLN’s rank and
file.
135. Interview with Francisco Jovel, San Salvador, May 5, 1995.
Chapter Three Voices from the Salvadoran Grass Roots

Epigraph: Interview with Arsenio Carrillo, San Esteban Catarina, August 17, 1996.
1. FMLN–Fundación 16 de Enero, “Diagnóstico de la situación actual de la mujer

ex-combatiente.”
2. Ibid., 1.
3. See Chapter Four for an analysis of the FMLN split.
4. This account is based on Spence and Vickers, “A Negotiated Revolution,” 2, and
Spence et al., “Chapúltepec,” 36– 37.
5. Spence et al., “Chapúltepec,” 37.
ex-combatiente,” 11.
7. Interview with Rosa Elia Argueta, Meanguera, February 11, 1996.
8. Ibid.
10. Interview with Antonio Tapia, San Salvador, March 8, 1994.
11. Interview with Arsenio Carrillo, San Esteban Catarina, August 17, 1996.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Interview with Concepción Márquez, Meanguera, February 11, 1996.

16. Ibid.
17. Ibid, 11.
18. United Nations, El Salvador, 29.
Chapter Four The Vanguard in Search of a New Identity

1. Vilas, Between Earthquakes and Volcanoes, 185.
2. Colburn, The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries, 14.
3. The PCS was dissolved in August 1995, as part of the process of unifying the
FMLN. Its membership reconstituted itself as the Communist faction within the
FMLN.
4. Interview with Schafik Hándal, San Salvador, February 10, 1996.
5. Interview with Francisco Jovel, San Salvador, March 10, 1994.
7. Ibid.
8. Interview with Gerson Martínez, San Salvador, April 28, 1995.
9. Interview with Francisco Jovel, San Salvador, March 10, 1994.
10. Ibid.
11. FMLN, Documentos Políticos, 41. The Council had sixty-six members. In antic-
ipation of the 1994 elections, the future coordinator of the FMLN’s parliamentary
bench and the head of the mayor’s council were also allocated seats.
12. See Chapter Six for a further explanation of the electoral process.
13. The Truth Commission, established under the peace accords to investigate
crimes committed during the war, found Villalobos responsible for the ERP policy of as-
sassinating mayors. See United Nations, El Salvador.
14. For an elaboration of the election see Chapter Six.
15. Vickers and Spence, “Elections,” 11.
16. This account is based on interviews with Eduardo Sancho, Ana Guadalupe
Martínez, Francisco Jovel, Norma Guevara, Eugenio Chicas, Gerson Martínez, and Sal-
vador Sánchez conducted during 1994 –95.
17. Interview with Salvador Sánchez, San Salvador, May 3, 1995.
18. Interview with Eugenio Chicas, San Salvador, May 5, 1995.
20. Interview with Eduardo Sancho, San Salvador, May 4, 1995.
21. Interview with Ana Guadalupe Martínez, San Salvador, May 2, 1995.
22. Interview with Francisco Jovel, San Salvador, May 5, 1995.
23. Interview with Norma Guevara, San Salvador, May 2, 1995.
24. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Con respecto a la situación actual del
FMLN.”
26. These rules were to be approved at the Third National Convention.

27. FMLN, Documentos Políticos, 51.
28. Ibid., 52.
29. Interview with Salvador Sánchez, May 3, 1995. See also Spence et al., “The Sal-
vadoran Peace Accords and Democratization,” 27.
31. Ibid., 25.
32. I had the privilege of being invited to observe this historic event.
33. Interview with Salvador Sánchez, San Salvador, April 29, 1996.
34. See articles 25 and 32 of “Estatutos del Frente Farabundo Martí para la Lib-
eración Nacional,” in FMLN, Documentos Políticos, 25, 29.
36. FMLN, “Estatutos del FMLN con reformas,” art. 82.
37. For an elaboration of the 1997 election, see Chapter Six.
39. Interview with Eduardo Sancho, San Salvador, April 24, 1996.
40. Spence, “Post War Transitions,” 20.
41. Interview with Facundo Guardado, San Salvador, June 4, 1998.
42. Ibid.
43. “Sobre el rumbo actual del FMLN,” May 1998 (internal FMLN document).
44. “Reglamento para la elección de candidatos y candidatas a la presidencia y vice-
presidencia de la republica,” Cambio, May 1998, 11.
45. This account is based on interviews with key protagonists, including Victoria
Marina de Avilés, Nidia Díaz, and Norma Guevara.
46. La Prensa Gráfica, August 17 and 18, 1998 (Internet edition).
47. There were reports that Arias did in fact obtain the required 518 votes. This
would have disqualified Silva automatically from the contest because of the require-
ment that a woman had to be on the ticket. Some observers charged that the FMLN
leadership manipulated the results to prevent Silva’s premature exit. Personally, I have
no reason to question the veracity of Norma Guevara.
48. Interview with Salvador Arias in El Diario de Hoy, August 17, 1998 (Internet
edition).
49. See Chapter Five for the implications of this selection process from a gender per-
spective.
50. Facundo Guaradado, quoted in El Diario de Hoy, March 16, 1999 (Internet edi-
tion).
51. CoLatino, May 10, 1999 (Internet edition, emphasis added).
52. Interview with Vilma Núñez, Managua, June 8, 1998.
53. See Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, for an analysis of the evolution of Sandinista
democracy.
54. Vanden and Prevost, Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista Nicaragua, 109.
55. Invernizzi et al., Sandinistas, 66.
57. Ibid., 109.
58. For this view by Moisés Hassan, a member of Nicaragua’s original governing
junta in 1979, see Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, 43.
59. Gilbert, Sandinistas, 49. Gilbert’s book was the best analysis of the FSLN pub-
lished during the 1980s.
61. Ibid.
62. See Chapter Five for a discussion of the implementation of the female quota.
63. Hoyt, The Many Faces of Sandinista Democracy, 153.
64. Prevost, “The FSLN,” 159.
65. Interview with Henry Ruíz, Managua, November 12, 1997.
66. Prevost, “The FSLN,” 156. The full text of the document is in Barricada Inter-
nacional (July 14, 1990).
67. Ibid., 159.
69. See Chapter Five for a discussion of these events.
71. Ibid., 120.
74. Ibid., 123.
76. See Chapter Six on electoral politics for a discussion of the Women’s Coalition.
77. Prevost, “The FSLN,” 156–57.
78. Ibid., 158.
79. Ibid., 160.
80. Hoyt, The Many Faces of Sandinista Democracy, 151.
81. Ibid., 160.
82. Ibid., 153.
83. Interview with Sergio Ramírez, Managua, January 31, 1996.
84. Prevost, “The FSLN,” 162.
85. Interview with Victor Hugo Tinoco, Managua, June 10, 1998.
86. Interview with Dora María Téllez, Managua, June 8, 1998.
87. See Chapter Five for an elaboration of the Zoilamérica controversy.
88. Zoilamérica Narváez Murillo, “Testimonio de Zoilamérica.” Zoilamérica dropped
“Ortega” from her name after she pressed charges against her stepfather.
90. Vilma Núñez, “En el 103 aniversario del nacimiento de Augusto C. Sandino,”
Managua, May 18, 1998 (emphasis added).
91. Estrella de Alba Treto, “En política, lo real es lo que no se dice . . . ,” 7 Días, 151
(May 27–June 3, 1998).
93. Orlando Núñez, Bayardo Arce, and René Núñez, “Congreso fue el inicio de cam-
bios,” 7 Días, 10–11.
94. Tomás Borge, quoted in La Prensa, May 24, 1998 (Internet edition).
95. See Chapter Five for a discussion of this issue.
97. Interview with Marta Heriberta Valle, Managua, June 9, 1998.
98. Interview with Gladys Báez, Managua, June 8, 1998.
99. Mónica Baltodano, quoted in La Prensa, May 24, 1998 (Internet edition).
100. Mónica Baltodano, quoted in Bolsa de Noticias, April 8, 1998.
103. Landau, The Guerrilla Wars of Central America, 160 –61.
104. Torres Rivas, Guatemala, izquierdas en transición, 72.
105. Stoltz Chinchilla, Nuestras Utopias, 104– 5.
106. Interview with Jorge Soto, Guatemala City, November 22, 1997.
107. Interview with Ricardo Ramírez, Guatemala City, November 22, 1997.
109. Ibid.
110. Interview with Ricardo Ramírez, Guatemala City, November 22, 1997.
111. Hurtado Paz y Paz, “Elementos de la historia del movimiento revolucionario
guatemalteco,” Africa América Latina 31: 15.
112. Ibid., 13.
113. Ibid., 15.
115. Interview with Ramiro Abreu, Havana, February 13, 1998.
117. Interview with Comandante Abel, Finca Claudia, Esquintla, April 23, 1997.
119. Interview with Captain Hernán, Finca Claudia, Esquintla, April 23, 1997.
120. Soto succeeded Ramírez following the president’s death on September 11,
1998.
121. Stoltz Chinchilla, Nuestras Utopias, 109.
122. Morales, “La izquierda en el entresiglo,” 60 – 61.
125. Interview with Wilson Romero, Guatemala City, March 3, 1999.
126. Ibid.
127. Ortega did not retire until February 1995.
128. Premo, “The Redirection of the Armed Forces,” 66, and O’Kane and Marín,
“El reverso de la medalla,” 22. Only with the Military Code, which became law in Sep-
tember 1994, did the executive branch gain greater authority over the military. Even
the new code, however, “did not empower the president to appoint the chief of the
armed forces directly. Instead, it limited the executive’s authority to reject the nominee
proposed by the Military Council” (ibid., 72).
131. Interview with Rodolfo Ampié, Managua, August 19, 1993.
132. Ibid.
133. Interview with Luis Angel López, Managua, August 11, 1993.
134. Nicaraguan Resistance Party, “Declaración de principios de la PRN,” 6.
135. Interview with Edén Pastora, Managua, August 18, 1993.
136. See Chapter Six on electoral politics for an analysis of the elections.
138. Ibid., 21.
139. Juan Ramón Medrano quoted in La Prensa Gráfica, December 13, 1999 (Inter-
net edition).
140. Interview with Tinoco quoted in Hoyt, The Many Faces of Sandinista Democ-
racy, 160.
141. Daniel Ortega quoted in La Prensa, December 10, 1999 (Internet edition).
Chapter Five Transforming the Party

Epigraph: URNG, “Propuesta a la sociedad. Cuatro objetivos, nueve cambios, cuatro prior-
idades.”
1. Randall, Gathering Rage, 37.

2. Ibid., 16.
3. Harris, Marxism, Socialism, and Democracy in Latin America, 188.
4. Stubbs, “Cuba,” 196, in Waylen, Gender in Third World Politics, 81.
5. Rodríguez Calderón, “Queda mucho por andar,” 29 – 30.
6. Randall, Gathering Rage, 152; Rodríguez Calderón, “Queda mucho por andar,” 30.
7. Granma, October 11, 1997.
8. Official figures of the Central Committee of the PCC, in Rodríguez Calderón,
“Queda mucho por andar,” 30.
9. FMLN, “Carta de principios y objetivos,” in Documentos Políticos, 19.
de mujeres del FMLN, 21 de Agosto, 1993.”
11. FPL–Comisión Nacional de la Mujer, “Informe de la Comisión Nacional de la
Mujer a la Secretaría de la Mujer FMLN.”
12. Ibid.
13. Montenegro, “Who was Going to Trust a Montenegro,” 286–311.
14. Stephen, Hear My Testimony, 206 –20.
15. Interview with Irma Amaya, San Salvador, April 23, 1996.
16. Urbina, “Building a Feminist Organization inside the Social Movement,” 26.
17. For a discussion of the impact of these fights on the March 1997 elections, see
Chapter Six.
18. Waylen, Gender in Third World Politics, 133– 34.
19. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Informe evaluativo del primer año de
trabajo de la Secretaría Nacional de las Mujeres del FMLN, Mayo 93 a Junio 94,” July
1994.
20. Ibid.
21. Interview with Lorena Peña, San Salvador, May 4, 1995.
22. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Informe evaluativo del primer año de
trabajo de la Secretaría Nacional de las Mujeres del FMLN, Mayo 93 a Junio 94” (em-
phasis added).
23. Interview with Norma Guevara, San Salvador, May 2, 1995.
24. This meeting was observed by the author on April 30, 1995.
25. At the time the five factions consisted of the FPL, the PRTC, the FAL, the Ten-
dencia Democrática (consisting of former members of the ERP), and the RN-fmlnista
(representing those RN members who chose to remain part of the FMLN).
26. Interview with Violeta Menjívar, San Salvador, May 3, 1995.
27. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Informe de los primeros 5 meses de
funcionamiento de la secretaría nacional de la mujer,” 2.
28. Interview with Ana Gertrudis Méndez, San Salvador, December 12, 1995.
29. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Informe de los primeros 5 meses de
funcionamiento de la secretaría nacional de la mujer,” 1.
Mujer a Secretaría de la Mujer FMLN.”
31. ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilización del personal del FMLN.
32. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Políticas de género iniciales.”
33. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Documento propuesta,” 3.
34. Molina, “Propuestas políticas y orientaciones de cambio en la situación de la mu-
jer,” in Propuestas Políticas y Demandas Sociales, vol. 3, edited by Manuel Antonio Gar-
retón; and Lois Hecht Oppenheim, “Democracy in Post-1990 Chile and the Political
Incorporation of Women,” 5.
35. Jones, “Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and the Election of Women.”
36. Htun, “Moving into Power,” 34, in Jones, “Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and
the Election of Women,” 5.
37. Interview with Francisco Jovel, San Salvador, June 1, 1998.
38. Interview with Nidia Díaz, San Salvador, May 3, 1995.
39. Spence et al., “Chapúltepec: Five Years Later,” 25.
40. Interview with Catalina Rodríguez de Merino, San Salvador, May 1, 1995.
41. Interview with Aída Herrera, San Salvador, May 5, 1995.

de mujeres del FMLN.”
43. See Chapter Three for a discussion of these issues.
44. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 123.
45. Subsequently Mirna Perla resigned in order to accept a judgeship. This reduced
the number of women on the commission to three.
46. Interview with Nidia Díaz, San Salvador, May 3, 1995.
48. The membership of the National Council was reduced from sixty-six in 1994 to
fifty in 1995. From then on, departmental representatives were an integral part of the
fifty-member Council. In addition to the fifty members elected by the convention, the
coordinator of the FMLN’s parliamentary bench and the coordinator of the Council of
Mayors were part of the National Council.
49. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Programa de fortalecimiento y desar-
rollo político de las mujeres desde el nivel de base” (emphasis added).
50. Interview with Eugenio Chicas, San Salvador, May 5, 1995.
Mujer a Secretaría de la Mujer FMLN.”
52. Interview with Salvador Sánchez, San Salvador, April 29, 1996.
53. Interviews with Nidia Diaz, San Salvador, April 26, 1996, and February 2, 1997.
54. Interview with Deysi Cheyne, San Salvador, March 8, 1999.
55. Interview with Victoria de Avilés, San Salvador, March 9, 1999.
56. Ibid.
57. Interview with Nidia Díaz, San Salvador, March 9, 1999.
58. Interview with Victoria de Avilés, San Salvador, March 9, 1999.
59. Interview with Ana Gertrudis Méndez, San Salvador, March 8, 1999.
60. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Informe evaluativo del trabajo de la
SNM (96 – 97)” (emphasis added).
61. Ibid. (emphasis added).
62. FSLN, Programa histórico del FSLN, 32.
64. See Chapter One for a discussion of women’s participation in the war.
65. Gorman, “The Role of the Revolutionary Armed Forces,” 124.
66. Ramírez-Horton, “The Role of Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution,” 156–57.
68. Pérez Alemán, Organización, Identidad y Cambio, 194 – 95.
69. Ibid., 195. See also Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, 161– 81, for an analysis of San-
dinista policies toward rural women.
70. See Molyneux, “Mobilization Without Emancipation,” 280– 302.
71. Criquillon, “The Nicaraguan Women’s Movement,” 227.
72. Randall, Sandino’s Daughters Revisited, xi.
73. Collinson, Women and Revolution in Nicaragua, 137.

76. Interview with Dorotea Wilson, February 5, 1997.
80. Molyneux, “Women,” 152.
81. See Luciak, The Sandinista Legacy, 164 – 66, for an elaboration of this point.
83. See Chapter Four for a discussion of these events.
86. Ibid.
88. Gilbert, Sandinistas, 53.
89. CENIDH, La política es aún un campo dominado por los hombres, 33.
93. Ibid., 37.
97. See the discussion in Chapter Six for an elaboration of the impact of the quota
on women’s participation in elections to public office.
99. Ibid.
100. FSLN, “El FSLN y la mujer en la revolución popular sandinista,” 148.
101. Chamorro, “La Mujer,” 132– 33.
103. Zoilamérica Narváez Murillo, “Testimonio de Zoilamérica,” Managua, May 22,
1998.
104. Ibid. (emphasis added).
108. Ibid., 39.
109. Interview with Mariela Aguilar, Guatemala City, November 19, 1997.
110. Interview with Nineth Montenegro, Guatemala City, April 24, 1997.
111. Interview with Manuela Alvarado, Guatemala City, April 24, 1997.
113. Interview with Manuela Alvarado, Guatemala City, November 19, 1997.
115. Stoltz Chinchilla, Nuestras Utopias, 11.
117. Interview with Wilson Romero, Guatemala City, March 3, 1999.
119. FAR, “Documento resoluciones sobre el trabajo de la mujer, Asamblea Na-
cional de Cuadros de las FAR.”
120. FAR, “La dimension de género en nuestra concepción revolucionaria,” 14.
121. Interviews with Luz Méndez, April 4 and November 20, 1997.
122. There has been heated discussion within the Central American women’s move-
ment over the issue of establishing a women’s secretariat within parties of the Left. In
the case of the FMLN, such a secretariat was established early on. While it had little
autonomy in its first years, it is starting to evolve into an effective advocate for women’s
rights within the party. In the case of the FSLN, a women’s secretariat was only estab-
lished recently at the May 1998 party congress.
123. Méndez, “El papel de las mujeres en la URNG,” 62.
124. Ibid.
125. Ibid., 61– 62.
126. Interview with Comandante Lola, November 20, 1997.
127. See Chapter Six for an explanation of the electoral system.
128. Interview with Fermina López, Guatemala City, November 22, 1997.
129. Interview with Silvia Solórzano, Guatemala City, March 3, 1999.
130. Ibid.
132. The UNAMG was actually a re-creation of a woman’s movement set up in
March 1980 by URNG militants.
133. Interview with Comandante Lola, March 2, 1999.
SNM (96 – 97),” 6.
135. Interview with Violeta Menjívar, San Salvador, February 6, 1997.
SNM (96 – 97),” 4.
137. Ibid.
138. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Documento propuesta,” 5.
Chapter Six Gender Equality and Recent Elections

Epigraph: When a woman enters politics the woman changes; but . . . when women enter pol-
itics, politics change.
My account of women’s efforts to put gender issues on the agendas of their political parties in
El Salvador and Nicaragua is based largely on interviews with Nidia Díaz, Deysi Cheyne,
Violeta Menjívar, Lorena Peña, Irma Amaya, and Sonia Cansino in El Salvador and Daisy
Zamora, Alba Palacios, Esmeralda Dávila, Azucena Ferrey, María Teresa Blandón, Marta
Valle, Benigna Mendiola, Mónica Baltodano, Dorotea Wilson, and Mónica Zalaquett in
Nicaragua.
1. Kampwirth, “Feminism, Anti-feminism, and Electoral Politics in Post-war

Nicaragua and El Salvador,” 1–2.
2. Saint-Germain, “Mujeres ’94,” 18.
3. Ibid., 19; and Kampwirth, “Feminism, Anti-feminism, and Electoral Politics in
Post-war Nicaragua and El Salvador.”
4. Interview with Lorena Peña, San Salvador, February 7, 1997.
5. See the discussion in Chapter Five.
6. See Saint-Germain, “Mujeres ’94,” for a discussion of the 1994 platform and the
organizational effort of the women’s movement.
7. The main organizations involved in the 1997 effort were the Movimiento de Mu-
jeres “Mélida Anaya Montes” (Mélida Anaya Montes Women’s Movement, or MAM),
the Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida (Women for Dignity and Life, or Las Dignas), the
Instituto de Investigación, Capacitación y Desarrollo de la Mujer (Institute for
Women’s Research, Training and Development, or IMU), the Movimiento Salvado-
reño de la Mujer (Salvadoran Women’s Movement, or MSM), and the Asociación de
Madres Demandantes (Association of Women Demanding Child Support). In addition,
a number of independent women joined the group for its regular Wednesday breakfast
meetings. For example, twenty-seven organizations were represented in a February 1997
workshop to finalize the electoral platform.
8. Interview with Deysi Cheyne, San Salvador, March 19, 1997.
9. Interview with María Teresa Blandon, Managua, February 4, 1997.
11. Coalición Nacional de Mujeres, Agenda Mínima, 3.
12. See Chavez Metoyer, “The Women’s Movement in the 1996 Nicaraguan Elec-
tions,” 14, for a discussion of the content of the Minimum Agenda.
13. Coalición Nacional de Mujeres, Agenda Mínima, 10.
14. Interview with María Teresa Blandon, Managua, February 4, 1997.
15. Ibid.
16. The Scandinavian countries were among the first to incorporate gender equal-
ity as a key objective in their aid programs. The Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (Sida) selected Nicaragua as a model country in which to imple-
ment an aid program emphasizing gender equality.
17. Interview with Mónica Zalaquett, Managua, February 4, 1997.
18. Chavez Metoyer, “The Women’s Movement in the 1996 Nicaraguan Elections,” 13.
19. The account of the candidate-selection process is based on interviews with Ni-
dia Díaz, Violeta Menjívar, Lorena Peña, Gerson Martínez, Irma Amaya, and Sonia
Cansino in El Salvador; and in Nicaragua, Daisy Zamora, Alba Palacios, Esmeralda

Dávila, María Teresa Blandón, Marta Valle, Benigna Mendiola, Mónica Baltodano,
Dorotea Wilson, and Orlando Núñez.
20. In both countries, candidates are elected from departmental lists compiled by
the parties, with the number of representatives of a particular department determined
by the size of its population. In addition, each party compiles a national list for twenty
seats that are allocated by the total number of votes a party has obtained.
21. Matland and Taylor, “Electoral System Effects on Women’s Representation,”
186.
22. Interview with Gerson Martínez, San Salvador, March 4, 1994.
23. Interview with Lorena Peña, San Salvador, February 6, 1997.
24. Interview with Violeta Menjívar, San Salvador, February 6, 1997.
25. For the 1984 and 1990 elections Nicaragua’s electoral districts consisted of re-
gions, whereas in 1996, the country was divided into departments.
26. In the 1984 and 1990 elections, Nicaragua elected its parliament from a national
list and lists in six regions and three electoral districts on the Atlantic coast. Five of the
six regions, with the exception of Managua, the capital, consisted of two departments.
In 1996, every department had its own list and the regions ceased to function as ad-
ministrative units. On election day, people voted in their respective departments for
the party of their choice. The number of votes a party received determined how many
of its departmental candidates were elected. The votes from all departments given to a
particular party were then added up. This vote total determined how many candidates
from a party’s national list were elected. El Salvador and Guatemala have the same sys-
tem.
28. Ibid.
29. Under proportional representation, the total number of votes cast for candidates
for parliament in a particular department are divided by the number of representatives
allocated to the department. This establishes the electoral quotient. A party’s total
number of departmental votes divided by this quotient determines the number of seats
a party wins. Because this result seldom comes out even, this procedure leaves residual
votes and seats that have to be allocated by the Supreme Electoral Council. At this
point, the Council’s decisions are open to manipulation, since there is no clearly es-
tablished procedure for allocating these seats.
30. See Chapter Four for a discussion of these events.
31. Interview with Gerson Martínez, San Salvador, April 28, 1995.
32. Washington Post, June 2, 1994, A25.
33. Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida, Las Mujeres, 21.
34. Spence et al., “El Salvador: Elections of the Century,” 7.
35. Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida, Las Mujeres, 22.
36. Ibid., 24.
37. The FMLN was victorious in forty-eight towns and gained five additional ones
as part of electoral alliances.
39. United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1995, 60–62.
40. La Prensa Gráfica, September 16, 1998 (Internet edition).
41. Editorial, Estudios Centroamericanos, 52 (March–April 1997), 183. In “El Sal-
vador’s Extraordinary Elections,” 5, Tommie Sue Montgomery has argued that the high
abstention figure is misleading. She deducts an estimated 300,000 Salvadorans living
abroad, the 300,000 dead persons still on the rolls, and 400,000 who never picked up
their voting cards from the electoral authority. She thereby gets an abstention rate of
44 percent, close to the one in 1994. See also FLACSO, El proceso electoral, 173. Con-
sidering, however, that more than 350,000 voters did not pick up their cards in 1994
(Spence, Dye, and Vickers, “El Salvador: Elections of the Century,” 7), and there is no
evidence suggesting any differences between 1994 and 1997 in the number of Salvado-
rans living abroad or showing up on the electoral register posthumously, the decline in
turnout appears to be real.
42. Amilcar Méndez quoted in La Prensa Libre, November 9, 1999 (Internet edi-
tion).
43. Gloria Salguero Gross quoted in La Prensa Gráfica, March 15, 2000, 6 –7.
44. Hipsher, “The Micromobilization of the Feminist Movement in Democratizing
El Salvador,” 11.
Conclusion
Epigraph: “Without women’s participation, democracy cannot go forward.” This election slo-
gan was coined in Chile. See Navarro and Bourque, “Fault Lines of Democratic Gover-
nance,” 190.
1. Htun, “El liderazgo de las mujeres en América Latina,” 1.

2. Apparently, Salvadoran President Flores had agreed in advance to sign the law.
3. This account is based on conversations with three key protagonists: Gloria
Salguero, Nidia Díaz, and Deysi Cheyne.
4. FMLN–Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer, “Programa de fortalecimiento y desar-
rollo político de las mujeres desde el nivel de base.”
5. UNDP, Human Development Report 1999.
6. Policía Nacional, Nicaragua 1997 (Managua, 1997).
7. Spence et al., “Chapúltepec: Five Years Later,” 16.
8. Interview with Eugenio Chicas, San Salvador, April 22, 1996.
9. In February 2000, Carlos Romero Alfaro was indicted for this crime.
10. Spence, “Democracy Weakened?” 19–20.
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Index
Abreu, Ramiro, 132 AMNLAE. See Asociación de Mujeres

Agüero, Felipe, xvi Nicaragüenses, Luisa Amanda Es-
Aguilar, Mariela, 182, 183 pinoza
Aguinada, Sonia, 201 Ampié, Rodolfo, 139 – 40
Ahuachapan (El Salvador), 205 Anaya, Herbert, 159
Alemán, Arnoldo, 53, 54, 62; and FSLN, Anaya Montes, Mélida, 14
119, 127, 143 – 44; and Partido Liberal Angel, Alan, xviii
Constitucionalista, 175, 199, 218, ANN. See Alianza Nueva Nación
224, 240 Arbenz, Jacobo, 183
Alianza Liberal (Liberal Alliance; Arce, Bayardo, 20
Nicaragua), xxi, 62, 199, 209, 218 ARENA. See Alianza Republicana Na-
Alianza Nueva Nación (New Nation Al- cionalista
liance; Guatemala; ANN), 135 – 36, Arévalo, Juan José, 183
220 –23 Argentina, 156, 157, 228 –29
Alianza Patriótica Nicaragüense Argüello Morales, Miriam, 210
(Nicaraguan Patriotic Alliance), 17 Argüeta, Rosa Elia, 76
Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Na- Arias, Salvador, 113 –14, 115
tional Republican Alliance; El Sal- Arias Plan, 35
vador; ARENA), xx; elections and, Armed Forces of Liberation. See Fuerzas
31, 101, 103, 116, 142; gender equal- Armadas de Liberación
ity and, 197, 207, 211–13, 215; as Arnson, Cynthia, xvii
governing party, 166, 224, 229; popu- Arriaga, Rafael, 222
lar views of, 89 – 93 Arzú, Alvaro, xxi, 33, 38
Alliance UNO ’96 (Nicaragua), 199 Asamblea de la Sociedad Civil (Assem-
Alvarado, Flor de María, 221 bly of Civil Society; Guatemala;
Alvarado, Manuela, 182 ASC), 38, 55 – 56
Alvarenga, Tula, 14 ASC. See Asamblea de la Sociedad Civil
Alvarez, Antonio, 45 Asociación Cívica de la Resistencia
Amaya, Irma, 117, 197 Nicaragüense (Civic Association of
AMES (El Salvador), 14 the Nicaraguan Resistance), 139 – 40
284 Index
Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses, Castillo, Fabio, 117

Luisa Amanda Espinoza (Association Castro, Raúl, 147
of Nicaraguan Women; AMNLAE), Catholic Church, 166
171, 198 Central American University (San Sal-
Assembly of Civil Society. See Asamblea vador), 68
de la Sociedad Civil Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 31
Association of Nicaraguan Women. See Centro Democrático Unido, 143
Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses, Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Hu-
Luisa Amanda Espinoza manos (Nicaraguan Human Rights
Asturias, Rodrigo, 132, 133 Center), 122
Auriola, Aura Marina, 27 César, Alfredo, 62, 138 – 39
Authentic Integral Development. See Chalatenango (El Salvador), 203, 205
Desarrollo Integral Auténtico Chamorro, Violeta Barrios de, xx, 35, 50,
Avilés, Victoria Marina de, 113 –15, 62, 138, 139; agrarian reform program
163 – 65, 166, 233 of, 51, 53; and Ortega, 123; and
Women’s Coalition, 198
Báez, Gladys, 17, 18 –20, 176, 207– 8 Chapúltepec peace accords (1992), xx,
Baltodano, Mónica, 19–20, 21, 129; and 32, 37
FSLN, 168, 172, 174, 175, 177–79, 209 Cheyne, Deysi, 197, 234
Berger, Oscar, 220 Chicas, Eugenio, 102, 161, 166, 211
Bermúdez, Enrique, 239 Child, Jack, 35
Blandón, María Teresa, 198 Chile, 156
Boaco-Chontales (Nicaragua), 207, 209, Chimaltenengo (Guatemala), 221
216 Chinandega (Nicaragua), 216
Borge, Tomás, 121, 127–28, 130, 180, Chiquimula (Guatemala), 222
236 Christian Democratic Party (El Sal-
Bourque, Susan C., xvi vador), 100, 109, 213, 229
Boutros-Gahli, Boutros, 93 Chuchryk, Patricia, 16
Bush, George H. W., 37 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 31
CIAV. See Comisión Internacional de
Calderon Sol, Armando, 101, 212 Apoyo y Verificación
Campbell, Lumberto, 121 Civic Association of the Nicaraguan Re-
candidate lists, 194 –210; in Argentina, sistance. See Asociación Cívica de la
228 –29; in El Salvador, 99 –100, 117, Resistencia Nicaragüense
200, 201–7, 213, 224, 228; in Clinton, William Jefferson, 31, 33
Guatemala, 221–22, 223; in Colburn, Forrest, 95
Nicaragua, 216 –17 Collinson, Helen, 169
Carpio, Ramiro de León, 38 Colom, Alvaro, 136
Carpio, Salvador Cayetano, 14 Colombia, 35
Carrión, Luis, 124, 127, 174 Comando Electoral de Mujeres
Carver, Terrell, xiii (Women’s Electoral Command; El
Castillo, Chema, 20 Salvador), 195 – 96
Index 285
Comisión de la Mujer (Women’s Com- Democratic Convergence. See Conver-

mission; Nicaragua), 177 gencia Democrática
Comisión Internacional de Apoyo y Democratic Federation. See Federación
Verificación (International Commis- Democrática
sion on Support and Verification; Democratic Left Unity. See Unidad de
Nicaragua; CIAV), 21–22, 35, 62, 140 Izquierda Democrática
Commission for Historical Clarification Democratic Nicaraguan Alliance, 209–
(Guatemala), 33 10
Communist Party, 3, 5, 7, 95 – 97; Cen- Democratic Party. See Partido Demócrata
tral Committee of, 24, 25; changes Democratic Revolutionary Movement
within, 99, 100, 101–2, 105; in Cuba, (El Salvador), 100, 210
106, 132, 133, 147–48; in El Salvador, democratization, 95–145; and citizen
95, 151, 153, 201; in Guatemala, 131, participation, xviii, xix, 240; in El Sal-
133. See also Fuerzas Armadas de Li- vador, 96–117, 142, 156, 227–28; and
beración gender, xv, xvi, 161, 227–41; in
Contadora group, 35 Guatemala, xviii, 130 –38, 227–28; of
Contras. See Resistencia Nicaragüense the Left, 236– 37; meaning of, xv, 34;
Convergencia Democrática (Democratic and neoliberalism, xiv, 110, 112; in
Convergence; El Salvador), 100, 143, Nicaragua, 117–30, 138 – 41, 144,
210 227–28; and peace accords, xvii, 38,
Córdova, María del Carmen, 160 102, 237– 38; third wave of, xv, 32
Costa Rica, 218 Desarrollo Integral Auténtico (Authen-
crime, increase in, 88, 239 –40 tic Integral Development; Guatemala;
Criquillon, Ana, 169 DIA), 135, 222
Cuba, 96, 130; Communist Party in, 106, de Soto, Alvaro, 62
132, 133, 147– 48; women in, 1–2, DIA. See Desarrollo Integral Auténtico
147, 218 Diálogo Nacional (National Dialogue;
Cuban Women’s Federation, 147 Nicaragua; 1997), 54– 55
Cunningham, Mirna, 124, 174 Diamond, Larry, xvi
Díaz, Nidia (María Marta Valladares), 9,
d’Aubuisson, Roberto, 4 14; in elections, 111, 163, 164 –65;
democracy: formal vs. substantive, xiv, and FMLN, 159, 162–65, 195, 201,
xviii, xxiii, 34, 64; future of, 33–34; 205– 6, 229; as leader, 9, 14, 30 –31,
globalization of, xv; internal, xv, xxii, 39, 64, 115, 145
94, 103, 111, 116, 118, 120 –23, 138, Dirección Revolucioniaria Unificada
142, 143, 176, 181; and liberal consti- (Unified Revolutionary Directorate; El
tutionalism, xvi; and reintegration, 61; Salvador; DRU), 48 – 49, 159
and sustainable development, xiii, xiv; doble militancia (participation in women’s
and women’s rights, xiv–xv, xvi, 149, movement and party), 188, 191, 196–
153 – 54, 155 97, 222, 231–32
Democratic Action Movement. See Domínguez, Jorge, xvi, xviii
Movimiento de Acción Democrática Duarte, José Napoléon, 30, 37, 39, 92
286 Index
economic conditions: and gender equal- and 1997 elections, 83, 108 –9, 142,
ity, 233 – 34, 239; and neoliberalism, 195– 97, 201– 3, 206, 213 –16, 219,
239, 240; and peace accords, 39– 45, 220, 223, 224, 231, 238; and 1999
49 – 54, 59 – 60, 73 –80, 238; and polit- elections, 31, 64, 109, 112–17, 142,
ical participation, 225 –26; and politi- 163, 232– 33; and 2000 elections, 223,
cal parties, 105 –6, 145; and reform, 224, 229, 235, 238, 240; factionalism
xv, xvii, 47– 48, 155; and rising expec- in, 235 –36; feminists in, 165 –66;
tations, 89 –94 gender equality in, 223, 232– 33, 234;
EGP. See Ejército Guerrillero de los Po- gender perspective in, xiii, xxi–xxii,
bres xxiii, 15; Land Transfer Program in,
Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guer- 39– 45, 64, 73, 74, 76, 78, 82, 83; leg-
rilla Army of the Poor; Guatemala; islative elections in, 210 –11, 213–16,
EGP), xi, 23 –25, 27, 130– 31, 133 – 223, 224; legislature of, 99; mayoral
34, 184 elections in, 213 –16; municipal elec-
Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo tions in, 206, 211–12; National Civil-
(Revolutionary Army of the People; El ian Police in, 88; National Council,
Salvador; ERP), 3, 77, 82; elections 206; national vs. local elections in,
and, 201, 210 –11, 215 –16; and 203 –4, 211–12, 215; number of casu-
FMLN, 67, 81, 96; gender composi- alties in, 33; peace accords in, xii, xx,
tion of, 4, 5, 7, 9; political conflicts of, 3, 32, 61, 62, 73, 89, 96, 133, 148,
98 –102 149, 162, 237– 38; peace process in,
elections, xiv; financing of, 195, 200; xxii, 34, 37, 39 –49, 61–63, 65, 238;
and gender equality, 194 –226; irregu- political parties in, 234– 35; political
larities in, 212, 218, 240; national vs. solutions in, 240; quotas in, 156 –61,
local, 203 –4, 206, 208, 209, 215, 217, 167, 173, 191, 229; reintegration pro-
218; results of, and gender, 210–16; grams in, 46 – 49, 64, 67, 94; repay-
rural vs. urban, 207; scandals in, 236. ment of loans in, 89, 91; and U.S., 3,
See also under particular countries 11; voter participation in, 212–13,
El Salvador, xi, xv, 226; army of, 68, 69, 219, 240; women’s movement in, 153,
70, 71, 72; coalition-building in, 222, 190, 197. See also Frente Farabundo
231– 32; crime in, 88, 90, 239; death Martí para la Liberación Nacional
squads in, 41, 69; democratization in, ERP. See Ejército Revolucionario del
96 –117, 142, 227–28; domestic vio- Pueblo
lence in, 85, 87, 88; economic projects Espacio de Mujeres (Women’s Space;
in, 47– 48, 76; election candidates in, Guatemala), 185
99–100, 112–17, 200, 201–7; election Espín, Vílma, 1, 147
irregularities in, 212; election of Espinosa, Luisa Amanda, 20, 171
women in, 228; elections and gender European Community, 73
in, 210 –16, 225 –26; and 1989 elec-
tions, 219; and 1994 elections, xx, 62, FAL. See Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación
96, 98, 100, 108, 142, 151, 153, 194 – FAR. See Fuerzas Armadas Revolu-
96, 201– 3, 206, 210–14, 216, 239; cionarias
Index 287
Farabundo Martí National Liberation 105, 107; and FSLN, 36 – 37; gender
Front. See Frente Farabundo Martí equality in, xxi–xxii, 146, 148– 67,
para la Liberación Nacional 189 – 93, 194– 97; gender issues and,
FDNG. See Frente Democrático Nueva 3–16, 23, 30– 31, 55, 65– 94, 146,
Guatemala 153, 154, 160; impact on neighboring
Federación Democrática (Democratic countries of, 131, 133; lack of finan-
Federation; Nicaragua), 17 cial resources of, 145; and land ques-
feminists, 147, 165 – 66, 169, 178– 81, tion, 41, 43, 45– 49; museum of, 91;
190, 198, 206; and female candidates, National Conventions of, 80, 82–83,
163 – 64, 199. See also women’s move- 103 –4, 107, 110, 116, 117, 155, 159,
ment 160, 162, 192; national conventions of
Ferrey, Azucena, 21, 62, 138 – 39, 198– women of, 153 – 54, 158; National
99 Council of, 4, 98, 100, 104, 107–11,
Flores, Francisco, 31 113, 117, 159– 63, 205; participation
FMLN. See Frente Farabundo Martí para in, 80–83, 90, 94, 157; Political Com-
la Liberación Nacional mission of, 97–100, 104, 107, 108,
Fondo Nacional para la Paz (National 111, 112, 116, 117, 153, 154, 159,
Fund for Peace; Guatemala; Fonapaz), 160, 162, 163; and political strategy,
136 200–213, 215–16, 218, 223 –26, 229,
Fonseca, Carlos, 20, 167 232– 33, 235–39; popular views of,
Fourth World Conference on Women 89 – 92; and post-combat politics, 62,
(Beijing; 1995), 56, 162 63 – 64, 67– 68, 95–117, 141– 43, 145;
FPL. See Fuerzas Populares de Lib- and PRTC, 96, 99 –102, 105, 165;
eración and quotas, 156 –61, 167, 173, 191;
France, 218 recruitment strategies of, 69, 70 –72,
Frente Democrático Nueva Guatemala 94; reform movement in, 112; and
(New Guatemala Democratic Front; RN, 96, 100–101; self-destruction of,
FDNG), 135 –36, 148, 181– 83, 221– 109, 112–17, 125; and socialism, 110,
22 112, 116, 117; Socio-economic Pro-
Frente Farabundo Martí para la Lib- posal of (1997), 155; subgroups of,
eración Nacional (Farabundo Martí 101–2, 105–7, 133, 142, 152; and
National Liberation Front; El Sal- URNG, 131, 186; women in, xxi, 3 –
vador; FMLN): comandancia general 5, 7, 13–14, 30– 31, 39 –40, 71–77,
(General Command) of, 97; commu- 146, 148, 149 –52; women leaders in,
nists in, 96, 105; conversion to politi- 14, 30, 162– 63; Women’s Secretariat
cal party of, 96, 104–7, 133, 141–43, of, 103, 152– 57, 161– 62, 165, 167,
159; decision-making structures of, 179, 191–92, 194 – 95, 201– 3, 230;
97– 98; demobilization of, xxi, 3, 4, Youth Commission of, 104. See also El
36, 37, 73, 99; democratization of, 96– Salvador
117, 156; development of, xx, 101–2, Frente Republicano Guatemalteco
117; and elections (1994), xx, 101, (Guatemalan Republican Front;
102– 3; and FPL, 68, 80, 81, 96, 99, FRG), xxi, 220–21
288 Index
Frente Sandinista de Liberación Na- Fuentes, Ydígoras, 183

cional (Sandinista National Libera- Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (Armed
tion Front; Nicaragua; FSLN), xx– Forces of Liberation; El Salvador;
xxii, 3; commanders in, 129, 140; and FAL), 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 96, 98
Contras, 34, 35; conversion to politi- Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (Revo-
cal party of, 117–20; and Democratic lutionary Armed Forces; Guatemala;
Left, 123; democratization of, 120– 30; FAR), 24, 25, 27, 130– 31, 133, 134,
in elections, 32, 35, 118, 120, 141, 184 –85
177; and FMLN, 36 –37; gender equal- Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (Popular
ity in, 146, 148, 167– 81, 189– 90, Forces of Liberation; El Salvador;
193, 197–200; gender relations in, FPL), 3, 5, 14, 82, 154, 156, 205–6;
18–19, 126, 146, 148, 168, 172–73; economic assets of, 105 –6; and
Group of 29 within, 123; Historic Pro- FMLN, 68, 80, 81, 96, 99, 105, 107;
gram of, 20, 167; and land reform, 40 – gender composition of, 7, 11, 14; po-
41, 49 – 51, 52–53, 55; and Liberal litical conflicts of, 98, 100, 101–2,
party, 144; National Congresses of, 109–10; strongholds of, 66; and
120 –21, 123, 125 –30, 143, 172, 173, women’s rights, 150
175, 179, 181; National Directorate
of, 17–18, 118–21, 124, 126–29, Galeano, Israel, 138
170 –72, 174, 176, 181; and Daniel Gálvez, Silvia, 188
Ortega, 119, 121–28, 130, 143–44; Garcia, Edgardo, 174
orthodoxy vs. reform in, 123 –25, 143, gender equality, xiii–xx; and ARENA,
155; political development of, 117– 197, 207, 211–13, 215; and distribu-
30, 138, 141, 143; political strategy of, tion of land, 45 –46; and economic
200 –210, 216 –18, 223, 224 –25, 228, conditions, 233–34, 239; and elec-
230, 232, 236, 240; and property issue, tions, 194 –226; in El Salvador, 223,
54 –55; quotas in, 173 –76, 177, 181; 232–33, 234; factors in struggle for,
split in, 124, 174, 178; Statute of Right 189 – 93; in FMLN, xxi–xxii, 146,
and Guarantees of Nicaraguans (1979), 148 –67, 189 – 93, 194– 97; formal vs.
168; and success of revolution, 2, 23, substantive, 225, 228, 230, 231, 239;
132, 170; women in, 16–21, 120 –23, in FSLN, 146, 148, 167–81, 189– 90,
170; and women’s rights, 167, 186; 193, 197–200; in Guatemala, 183– 85,
Women’s Secretariat in, 177–79. See 223, 233; in guerrilla groups, 11, 18;
also Nicaragua and international context, 56, 189,
Frente Sur (Southern Front; Nicaragua), 233– 34; within the Left, 146 –93,
36 231– 33; and men, 241; national vs.
Frente Unitario (Unified Front; Gua- local, 228; in Nicaragua, 223, 224 –26,
temala), 26 232, 234; political strategies for, 204 –
FRG. See Frente Republicano Guatemal- 5, 234; resistance to, 155, 158, 198,
teco 204, 231; after revolutions, 30, 49,
FSLN. See Frente Sandinista de Lib- 55 –57, 64, 128, 149, 155, 156; in
eración Nacional rural vs. urban areas, 225, 233; and so-
Index 289
cialist regimes, 147; vs. social justice, movement in, xxi, 23–29, 148, 184,
3–16; in URNG, 146, 148, 181–85, 234– 35; land tenure in, 59; number of
189 – 91, 193, 233, 235 casualties in, 33; peace accords in, xii,
gender relations, xxi, xxii, 3, 10 –13, 27; xxi, xxii, 23, 24, 33, 38, 55, 57, 133,
and coalition-building, 228–32, 240 – 144, 145, 184, 185, 188, 189, 220,
41; democratization of, 161, 227– 41; 221, 237; peace process in, 34, 38, 55 –
and domestic violence, 85, 87, 88; and 61, 62, 144, 190; political party system
double standard, 29 –30; in elections, in, xviii–xix; political solutions in,
122–23; postwar, 49, 79, 84 –85, 87– 240; quotas in, 186 – 87, 229, 233; ref-
88, 92, 148; and sexual harassment, erendum in (May 1999), 63; reunion
15 –16, 56, 161, 180; traditional, 28, of Central American presidents in, 35;
230; during the war, 83, 84, 86 U.S. apology to, 33; voter participa-
Germany, 218 tion in, 212, 220, 240; women in guer-
globalization, xv, 90 rilla movement in, xxi, 23 –29, 148;
Gobernabilidad (effective government), Women’s Forum in, 184; women’s
102 rights in, 55–57, 223. See also Unidad
Gonzáles, Carlos. See Rosales, Ricardo Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemal-
González, Medardo, 10 teca
Group for Mutual Support. See Grupo de Guatemalan National Revolutionary
Apoyo Mutuo Unity. See Unidad Revolucionaria Na-
Group of Friends of the peace process cional Guatemalteca
(Guatemala), 38 Guatemalan Republican Front. See
Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (Group for Mu- Frente Republicano Guatemalteco
tual Support; Guatemala), 182 Guatemalan Workers’ Party. See Partido
Guadalupe Martínez, Ana, 14, 39, 101, Guatemalteco del Trabajo
102, 109, 201 Guerrilla Army of the Poor. See Ejército
Guardado, Facundo, 1, 155, 163, 165, Guerrillero de los Pobres
205; on FMLN ticket, 31, 64, 109–12, guerrilla movements: first wave of
115–16, 142 (1956–70), 184; gender equality in,
Guatemala, xi; Arbenz government in, 11, 18; sexist attitudes in, 19, 149;
59, 183; candidate lists in, 221–22, transformation into political parties
223; coalition-building in, 222–23, of, xi, xii, 97–101, 227, 235; women’s
228, 233; Communist Party in, 131, participation in, xxi, 23–29, 148. See
133; crime in, 239; democratization also under individual countries and
in, xviii, 130 – 38, 227–28, 234 –35; groups
elections and gender equality in, 220 – Guerrilla Warfare (Che Guevara), 1
23; and 1995 elections, 182, 220, 221; Guevara, Che, 1–2, 17, 30
and 1999 elections, xxi, xxiii, 62, 135, Guevara, Norma, 7, 103, 113, 153, 158,
145, 182, 187, 220–22, 236, 240; fac- 201
tionalism in, 236; gender equality in, Guido, Ana Julia, 19
183– 85, 220 –23, 233; gender perspec- Guido, Lea, 168
tive in, xiii, xxiii, 183 –84; guerrilla Gutiérrez, Dagoberto, 110
290 Index
Gutiérrez, Edgar, 38 Jovel, Francisco, 64, 71, 96, 102, 110 –

Gutiérrez, Oniria, 2 11, 157
Halkjaer, Eivor, 200 Kampwirth, Karen, 22, 194

Hándal, Schafik: and Communist Party,
95 – 96, 97, 100, 105; and FMLN, land: allocation of, 39, 50, 64; beneficia-
110 –12, 145, 206, 234 ries of, 74 –78, 83, 93; and FMLN, 41,
Harris, Richard, 147 43, 45 – 49; and FSLN, 40 – 41, 49– 53,
health care, 71, 199 55; in Guatemala, 59; in Nicaragua,
Herrera, Aída, 158, 205, 213 43, 49–51; and women, 45–47, 93–94
Herrera, Leticia, 18, 174, 207– 8 Land Transfer Program (El Salvador),
Herrera, Morena, 15 –16, 37, 48– 49 39–45, 64, 73, 74 –76, 78, 82, 83
Holiday, David, 57, 63 Las Dignas. See Mujeres por la Dignidad
Honduras, 22–23, 67, 69 y la Vida
Human Development Report (UNDP; Le Bot, Yvonne, 27
1999), 231 the Left, xi–xxiii; candidates of, 100,
Hurtado, Carlos, 139 194, 200; Democratic, 123, 135; de-
Hurtado, Juan José, 27 mocratization of, 236 – 37; economic
problems of, 106; in El Salvador, 142;
Initiativa de Mujeres por la Igualdad en and gender equality, xx, 146– 93, 231–
la Participación Política (Women’s 33, 234; in Guatemala, 60, 135; prob-
Initiative for Equality in Political Par- lems of unity in, 102–3, 125; transfor-
ticipation; El Salvador), 196– 97 mation of, xii, 95, 235; and women,
Instituto de Investigación, Capacitación xxiii, 21, 29 –30, 146, 194. See also
y Desarrollo de la Mujer (Institute for particular parties and movements
Women’s Research, Training, and De- legislatures, 99; elections for, 210 –11,
velopment; El Salvador), 151 213–16, 217, 219, 221, 223, 224;
Instituto Nicaragüense de la Mujer women in, xiv, 218, 231. See also under
(Nicaraguan Women’s Institute), 224 particular countries
Inter-American Development Bank, xix Lenin, V. I., 118
International Commission on Support Liberal Alliance. See Alianza Liberal
and Verification. See Comisión Inter- Liberal Constitutionalist Party. See Par-
nacional de Apoyo y Verificación tido Liberal Constitucionalista
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 144 Liberal Independent Party (Nicaragua),
Iran-Contra scandal, 35 218
Ixcán incident (May 1998; Guatemala), Liberation Theology, 13
29 Lima, Araujo, 24
Lima, Turcios, 130
Japan, 218 Linares, Eduardo, 205
Jesuits, murder of, 91 Lindenberg, Marc, xvi
Jonas, Susanne, xviii Lola, Comandante. See Maldonado,
Jones, Mark, 156 –57 Alba Estela
Index 291
López, Fermina, 137, 187 Misión de Observadores de las Naciones

López, Luis Angel, 140 Unidas en El Salvador (United Na-
Lovo, Joaquín, 35 tions Observer Mission in El Salvador;
Lowenthal, Abraham, xviii ONUSAL), 3, 4 –10, 37, 42– 43, 66;
Luxemburg, Rosa, 95 and demobilization process, 74, 77–
78
machismo, culture of, 13, 39, 158, 161, Molyneux, Maxine, 184 –85
163, 169, 170, 178, 181 Montenegro, Nineth, 182, 221–22
Maldonado, Alba Estela (Comandante Montenegro, Sofía, 234
Lola), 27, 28, 55 – 56, 137, 183– 89 Montes, Segundo, 67– 68, 91
MAM. See Movimiento de Mujeres Montgomery, Tommie Sue, 3
“Mélida Anaya Montes” Montt, Ríos, 235, 240
Managua (Nicaragua), 207, 208, 209, Morazán (El Salvador), 215
216, 236 Movimiento de Acción Democrática
Márquez, Concepción, 68, 81 (Democratic Action Movement;
Marshall, Cornelia, 180 Nicaragua), 140 – 41
Martínez, Gerson (Orlando Quinteros), Movimiento de Mujeres “Mélida Anaya
6, 9, 107, 145, 204 Montes” (Mélida Anaya Montes
Marxism, 147 Women’s Movement; El Salvador;
Matus, José Boanerges, 52–53, 139 MAM), 150 – 51, 196– 97
McCleary, Rachel, xviii, 58 Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista
Meanguera (El Salvador), 66, 67–68, (Sandinista Reform Movement;
71–72, 76–77, 81– 82, 86– 87, 90–91 Nicaragua; MRS), 125, 172, 198,
Medellín (Colombia), 13 209–10
Medrano, Juan Ramón, 142 MRS. See Movimiento de Renovación
Mélida Anaya Montes Women’s Move- Sandinista
ment. See Movimiento de Mujeres Mujeres ’94 (Women ’94; El Salvador),
“Mélida Anaya Montes” 195
Méndez, Amilcar, 222 Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida
Méndez, Ana Gertrudis, 154– 55 (Women for Dignity and Life; El Sal-
Méndez, Luz, 55 – 56, 188 vador; Las Dignas), 48, 151, 196 – 97
Mendiola, Benigna, 174, 176
Menjívar, Violeta, 111, 154, 160, 162– National Fund for Peace. See Fondo Na-
63, 204, 224 cional para la Paz
Mexico, 14, 25, 32, 33, 35, 38, 71 National Opposition Union. See Unión
Mijango, Raúl, 110, 117 Nacional Opositora
MINUGUA. See United Nations Mis- National Reconciliation Alliance
sion for Human Rights Verification in (Guatemala), 221
Guatemala National Republican Alliance. See
Misión de Naciones Unidas en El Sal- Alianza Republicana Nacionalista
vador (United Nations Mission in El National Resistance (El Salvador). See
Salvador; MINUSAL), 43 Resistencia Nacional
292 Index
National Union of Guatemalan Women. peace accords in, 32, 62, 237; peace
See Unión Nacional de Mujeres process in, 34; piñata in, 50, 124; polit-
Guatemaltecas ical solutions in, 240; property issue
Navarrete, María Ofelia, 154, 159, 205 in, xxii, 49– 50; quotas in, 198, 208,
Navarro, Marysa, xvi 209, 217, 229; reintegration of guerril-
neoliberalism, xv, xx, 90; and democrati- las in, 49 – 55, 235; the Right in, 240;
zation, xiv, 110, 112; and economic Sandinista Assembly in, 118–19, 121,
conditions, 239, 240; and gender 123, 124, 128, 130, 170 –71, 173, 176,
equality, 234; and the Left, 237 177, 208; Sandinistas in, xii, xx, 2, 16,
Netherlands, 218 32, 96, 117– 30, 168; Supreme Elec-
New Guatemala Democratic Front. See tion Council of, 210, 217, 218; and
Frente Democrático Nueva U.S., 32–34, 35, 141; voter participa-
Guatemala tion in, 218–19, 240; women in, 197–
New Nation Alliance. See Alianza 200, 226; Women’s Day demonstra-
Nueva Nación tions in, 198, 199; women’s movement
Nicaragua: candidate lists in, 216–17; in, 150, 153, 171. See also Frente San-
coalition-building in, 122, 228; Con- dinista de Liberación Nacional; Re-
stitution of (1987), 168; cooperatives sistencia Nicaragüense
in, 51; Council of State in, 207; crime Nicaraguan Coalición de Mujeres
in, 239; demobilization in, 36; democ- (Women’s Coalition), 198 –200
ratization in, 117– 30, 138– 41, 144, Nicaraguan Patriotic Alliance. See
227–28; development areas (polos de Alianza Patriótica Nicaragüense
desarrollo) in, 36; election irregularities Nicaraguan Resistance. See Resistencia
in, 218, 240; elections and gender Nicaragüense
equality in, 216 –20, 224 –26; elec- Nicaraguan Resistance Party. See Partido
tions in, 197–200, 207–10; and 1980 Resistencia Nicaragüense
elections, 217; and 1984 elections, xi, Nicaraguan Unity Party, Workers, Peas-
119, 207, 208, 217; and 1990 elec- ants and Professionals, 209
tions, xx, 32, 35, 50, 61– 62, 120, 121, Nicaraguan Women’s Institute. See Insti-
125, 138, 139, 143, 169, 194, 198, tuto Nicaragüense de la Mujer
208, 217, 232; and 1994 elections, Noriega, Arnoldo, 135
176; and 1996 elections, 53, 62, 119, Núñez, René, 120
121, 122, 125, 140, 141, 177, 208, Núñez, Vilma, 121–23, 124, 126, 168,
217–19, 236, 240; and 2000 elections, 172–73, 179
236; factionalism in, 236; female in-
surrection in, 16 –23; gender equality OEA. See Organización de Estados
in, 223, 224 –26, 232, 234; gender per- Americanos
spective in, xiii, xxiii, 128; land tenure ONUSAL. See Misión de Observadores
in, 43, 49 – 51; Liberal Alliance in, 55; de las Naciones Unidas en El Salvador
municipal elections in, 209, 218; na- ORDEN (Right-wing para-military
tional vs. local elections in, 208, 209, group; El Salvador), 70
217, 218; number of casualties in, 33; Organización de Estados Americanos
Index 293
(Organization of American States; Centroamericanos (Revolutionary

OEA), 21–22 Party of Central American Workers;
Organización Revolucionaria del Pueblo El Salvador; PRTC), 3, 9, 68, 71, 82,
en Armas (Revolutionary Organization 154, 158, 205; and FMLN, 96, 99 –
of Armed Citizens; Guatemala; ORPA), 102, 105, 165; gender composition of,
24, 25, 26, 28, 130– 31, 133– 34 5, 7, 9
Organization of American States. See Partido Social Demócrata (Social Demo-
Organización de Estados Americanos cratic Party; El Salvador; PSD), 142–
ORPA. See Organización Revolucionaria 43
del Pueblo en Armas Party for National Advancement. See
Ortega, Daniel: allegations against, 175, Partido de Avanzada Nacional
179 – 81, 190, 236; and FSLN, 119, Pastora, Edén, 140– 41
121–28, 130, 143 –44 PD. See Partido Demócrata
Ortega, Humberto, 127, 138 peace accords: combatants’ view of, 4,
Ortega (Narváez) Murillo, Zoilamérica, 64, 91, 92, 93; and democratization,
125–26, 128, 144; allegations by, xvii, 38, 102, 237– 38; and economic
179 –81, 190 conditions, 39 –45, 49– 54, 59 – 60,
Otzoy, Aura, 221 73 – 80, 238; in El Salvador, xii, xx, 3,
32, 61, 62, 73, 89, 96, 133, 148, 149,
PAN. See Partido de Avanzada Nacional 162, 237–38; evolution of, 34 –38;
Panama, 35 gender dimension of, xiv, 93; in
Partido Alianza Popular Conservadora Guatemala, xii, xxi, xxii, 23, 24, 33,
(Nicaragua), 210 38, 55, 57, 133, 144, 145, 184, 185,
Partido de Avanzada Nacional (Party for 188, 189, 220, 221, 237; implementa-
National Advancement; Guatemala; tion of, 34, 93, 97; and UN, 24, 38,
PAN), 220 –21 93; and women, 39, 55, 63, 149, 195,
Partido Demócrata (Democratic Party; 238 – 39
El Salvador; PD), 81, 102, 109, 142, Pelupessy, Wim, 40
211, 215 Peña, Lorena, 39, 158, 166, 201, 206
Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo Peña, Mercedes, 155, 192
(Guatemalan Workers’ Party; PGT), Pérez Aléman, Paola, 169
24, 25 –26, 130 – 31, 133 –34 Perla, Mirna, 159
Partido Humanista (Chile), 156 PGT. See Partido Guatemalteco del Tra-
Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (Lib- bajo
eral Constitutionalist Party; piñata (appropriation of government re-
Nicaragua), 175, 218 sources), 50, 124
Partido Liberal Demócrata (El Salvador), political parties, xi, xiv; conversion of
215 revolutionary groups to, xi, xii, 96,
Partido Resistencia Nicaragüense 97–101, 104–7, 133, 141– 43, 159,
(Nicaraguan Resistance Party; PRN), 227, 235; and democratic consolida-
21, 140 – 41, 198 – 99 tion, xii, xv–xix, xxiii, 95; and eco-
Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores nomic conditions, 105 –6, 145; in El
294 Index
political parties (cont.) Resistencia Nacional (National Resis-

Salvador, 234 – 35; and gender equal- tance; El Salvador; RN), 3, 5, 7, 9,
ity, xix; in Guatemala, xviii–xix; im- 151, 154, 210–11; and FMLN, 96,
portance of, xviii; military organiza- 100–101
tions and, xiv, xv, xvii, 97–101, 191; Resistencia Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan
postrevolution, 62, 142; and women’s Resistance; Contras), 138 – 41; back-
issues, 195; and women’s movement, ground of, 23; disarming of (1990), xii,
146 – 47, 148, 149 – 52, 166, 190, 191, 21, 32, 34– 35, 36, 62; and property
231– 32; women’s participation in, rights, 50– 53, 55; reintegration of, 61,
199 –200, 228, 230. See also individual 62, 138 – 39, 140, 237; and U.S., 32,
parties 34, 35– 36, 141; women in, 22–23
Poncel, Rogelio, 68 Revolutionary Armed Forces. See Fuerzas
Popular Forces of Liberation. See Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias
Populares de Liberación Revolutionary Army of the People. See
Portillo, Alfonso, 63, 220 Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo
positive discrimination. See quotas Revolutionary Organization of Armed
PRN. See Partido Resistencia Nica- Citizens. See Organización Revolu-
ragüense cionaria del Pueblo en Armas
Proclama Sobre la Mujer (Pronouncement Revolutionary Party of Central Ameri-
about Women; FSLN Directorate; can Workers. See Partido Revolu-
1987), 178 cionario de Trabajadores Centroameri-
proportional representation, 200 –207. canos
See also candidate lists the Right, 198, 233, 240. See also neolib-
PRTC. See Partido Revolucionario de eralism; Resistencia Nicaragüense
Trabajadores Centroamericanos Ríos, Angela, 216 –17
PSD. See Partido Social Demócrata RN. See Resistencia Nacional
Rodríguez, Abraham, 100
Quinteros, Orlando. See Martínez, Ger- Rodríguez, Felix, 30– 31
son Rodríguez de Merino, Catalina, 158
quotas, 182, 186 – 87, 190, 191, 194– 95, Rogel, Ileana, 117, 206
200 –204; in El Salvador, 156– 61, Rosales, Ricardo (Carlos Gonzáles), 25,
167, 173, 191, 213, 229; and gender 132–33, 137, 234
equality, 225, 228 –30; in Guatemala, Ruiz, Henry, 55, 119 –20, 127
229, 233; in Nicaragua, 173–76, 177,
181, 198, 208, 209, 217, 229 Saint-Germain, Michelle, 46
Salguero Gross, Gloria, 207, 213, 224,
Ramírez, Ricardo, 131, 132 229, 233
Ramírez, Sergio, 109, 120, 123–25, 127, Samper, Jorge, 210, 217
131, 134 – 35, 143; and FSLN, 172, San Andrés pact, 142
178 –79, 209–10, 236 Sánchez, Celia, 1
Randall, Margaret, 147, 169 Sánchez, Mario, 132
religion, 13, 166 Sánchez, Salvador, 81; and FMLN, 82,
Index 295
100, 101, 105 –7, 110 –11, 112, 159, Soberanis, Ana Catalina, 221–22
162 Social Democratic Party. See Partido So-
Sancho, Eduardo, 100, 101, 102 cial Demócrata
Sandinista National Liberation Front. socialism, xix, 95, 147; and FMLN, 110,
See Frente Sandinista de Liberación 112, 116, 117; and FSLN, 123
Nacional Socialist International, 175
Sandinista party. See Frente Sandinista Socialist Party, 17
de Liberación Nacional Solís, María Esther, 176
Sandinista People’s Army (EPS), 138 Somoza, Anastasio, 32
Sandinista Reform Movement. See Somoza regime, xx, 23, 32, 140, 168
Movimiento de Renovación Sandin- Sosa, Yon, 130
ista Soto, Jorge, 131, 132, 134– 35, 136
San Esteban Catarina (El Salvador), 66, Soviet Union, 35, 36, 96, 133
68 – 69, 72–73, 77–80, 82– 83, 87– 88, Spain, 218
91–93 Spalding, Rose, xvii, 34
San José Las Flores (El Salvador), 66– Spence, Jack, 24, 57
67, 69 –71, 74 –76, 80– 81, 84–86, Stark, Jeffrey, xvi
89 – 90 Stein, Eduardo, 63
San Salvador (El Salvador), 203 –4, 206, Stubbert, Edna, 209
215, 235 Sweden, 200
Santa Ana (El Salvador), 203
Santa Rosa (Guatemala), 222 Téllez, Carlos Núñez, 208
San Vicente (El Salvador), 203, 205 –6 Téllez, Dora María, 18, 21; and FSLN,
Schedler, Andreas, xvi 120, 124, 125, 127, 129, 167–68,
Secretaría de Asuntos Políticos de la 170 –74, 179, 207–8, 210
Mujer (Secretariat for Women’s Politi- Tendencia Democrática (El Salvador),
cal Matters; Guatemala), 182, 185– 89 154
Secretariat of National Reconstruction tenedores (FMLN supporters), 76, 78
(El Salvador), 92– 93 Tijerino, Doris, 18, 20, 168, 174, 176,
Secretariat of Women’s Political Matters. 198– 99, 208
See Secretaría de Asuntos Políticos de Tinoco, Víctor Hugo, 125, 127– 30, 143
la Mujer Torres, Emilia, 176
Seligson, Mitchell, 39 Torres-Rivas, Edelberto, xviii–xix
Serrano, Jorge, 38 la trenza (“the braid”; alternating male
sexual abuse, 126, 128, 143, 144, 175, and female candidates on candidate
179 – 80 lists), 206, 209, 217
sexual harassment, 15 –16, 56, 161, 180 Tuyuc, Rosalina, 136, 182
sexual relations, 15, 28
Seychelles, 218 UNAMG. See Unión Nacional de Mu-
Silva, Hector, 108, 113 –14, 235 jeres Guatemaltecas
Similox, Vitalino, 136 Unid. See Unidad de Izquierda
Sobalvarro, Oscar, 138, 139 –40 Democrática
296 Index
Unidad de Izquierda Democrática (Dem- in Guatemala, 24; and peace accords,

ocratic Left Unity; Guatemala; Unid), 24, 38, 93; Security Council of, 24, 37;
135, 222 studies sponsored by, 39– 40, 66
Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional United Nations Mission for Human
Guatemalteca (Guatemalan National Rights Verification in Guatemala
Revolutionary Unity; URNG), xx– (MINUGUA), 24
xxiii, 3, 106; as authoritarian move- United Nations Observer Mission in El
ment, 135; comandancia general (Gen- Salvador. See Misión de Observadores
eral Command) of, 132, 133, 134; de las Naciones Unidas en El Salvador
conversion to political party of, 62– United States (U.S.): Agency for Inter-
63, 134, 136, 145, 190, 191; demobi- national Development (USAID), 41,
lization of (1997), 24–26, 38; and 140, 200; apology from, 33; and Con-
elections, 220 –23, 236; and FMLN, tras, 32, 34, 35– 36, 141; and Cuba,
131, 186; and formal vs. real party 106, 130; and demobilization, 73, 140;
structures, 137; formation of, 130– 31; and El Salvador, 3, 11, 31; and
gender equality in, 146, 148, 181– 85, Nicaragua, 32– 34; refugees in, 83;
189 – 91, 193, 233, 235; and gender women in, 218
issues, 9, 24 –29, 55– 57, 146; and UNO. See Unión Nacional Opositora
Guatemalan army, 132; National Con- URNG. See Unidad Revolucionaria Na-
gresses of, 187; National Council of, cional Guatemalteca
186; National Directorate of, 134; and USAID. See under United States
peace accords, 23, 38; and post-
conflict issues, 33, 38, 57–61; quotas Valladares, María Marta. See Díaz, Nidia
in, 186 – 87; reintegration of, 57–61, Valle, Marta Heriberta, 176
63, 145; structure of, 130–38; sub- Vázquez, Norma, 13
groups of, 133, 134, 137, 191; Véliz, Francisco, 239
Woman’s Secretariat of, 182, 185–89; Venezuela, 35
women in, xxi, 23 –29, 137, 145, 148, Vietnam War, 33
187; and women’s movement, 188– 89 Vilas, Carlos, xviii, 16
Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Villalobos, Joaquín, 67, 81– 82, 100, 102,
Ganaderos (National Union of Farm- 109, 236
ers and Ranchers; Nicaragua), 51 voter participation: in El Salvador, 212–
Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemalte- 13, 219, 240; in Guatemala, 212, 220,
cas (National Union of Guatemalan 240; in Nicaragua, 218–19, 240
Women; UNAMG), 188 – 89
Unión Nacional Opositora (National Waylen, Georgina, xix
Opposition Union; Nicaragua; UNO), Wheelock, Jaime, 50, 127
xx Wickham-Crowley, Timothy, 1
United Nations (UN): data provided by, Wilson, Dorotea, 17–18, 170, 171–72,
25 –26, 41–42; and demobilization 174, 175, 208– 9
process, 74, 77–78; in El Salvador, 3, women: as candidates for public office,
4 –10, 37, 42– 43, 43, 66, 74, 77–78; xiv, xix, 154, 155, 159, 160, 162–65,
Index 297
172–76, 186, 187, 194 –95, 197–200; 87, 88; and elections, 225; reproduc-
as combatants, xiii, xv, xxi, 2, 3, 7–10, tive health services, 199
16, 20, 21, 22– 30, 72–74, 78, 84, 86; women’s movement, xix, 27, 39, 58; and
in Cuba, 1–2, 147, 218; discrimina- abortion, 166; and autonomy, 150–52,
tion against, 39, 93, 155, 158, 180 – 153, 178, 188, 191; and coalition-
81, 198, 204, 231; and double stan- building, 228 –32, 240– 41; in El Sal-
dard, 29 – 30; education of, 91; and vador, 153, 190, 197, 229; and El Sal-
land, 45 – 47, 93– 94; as leaders, 5, 9, vador elections, 113, 163 –64, 196 –
14, 30 – 31, 39, 64, 115, 145, 159, 97; factionalism in, 223–24, 234,
162– 63, 204; and the Left, 146; in 235 – 37; in Guatemala, 182; interna-
legislatures, xiv, 218, 231; in military tional, 2, 14, 56; local, 85 – 86, 87; and
hierarchy, 12, 16, 28; as noncombat- men, 241; in Nicaragua, 171; and
ants, 6; and patriarchy, 66, 180; in po- Nicaragua elections, 122; and political
litical parties, 199 –200, 228, 230; po- parties, 146– 52, 166, 188, 190, 191,
litical smear campaigns against, 205; 196– 97, 222, 231– 32; workshops of,
in political structures, xii–xv, xix, 88
xxiii, 156, 157, 161– 67, 191; reinte- women’s rights: and democracy, xiv–xv,
gration of, 66, 71, 73 –74; in revolu- xvi, 149, 153 –54, 155; and FSLN,
tionary movements, xxi, 1, 23–29, 167, 186; in Guatemala, 55– 57, 223;
148, 226; special needs of, 15; and and peace accords, 39, 55, 63, 149,
voting, 46, 212–13. See also under par- 195, 238 – 39; political, 56, 61, 155,
ticular countries and organizations 168; promotion of, 92–93; and revolu-
Women, Fourth World Conference on tionary movements, 3, 13, 19, 20, 29.
(Beijing; 1995), 56, 162 See also gender equality
Women for Dignity and Life. See Mu- Women’s Space. See Espacio de Mujeres
jeres por la Dignidad y la Vida World Bank, 58, 239– 40
Women’s Commission. See Comisión de
la Mujer
Yapti Tasba Masraka nanih Aslatakanka
Women’s Day, 198, 199
(Organization of the Nations of the
Women’s Electoral Command. See Co-
Motherland; Nicaragua), 36
mando Electoral de Mujeres
Women’s Initiative for Equality in Politi-
cal Participation. See Initiativa de Mu- Zamora, Angela, 159
jeres por la Igualdad en la Partici- Zamora, Rubén, 100, 143, 210
pación Política Zelaya, Rosa Marina, 210
women’s issues: birth control, 15; child Zelaya Norte (Nicaragua), 208
support, 223; domestic violence, 85, Zona Rosa incident (El Salvador), 31

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After the Revolution

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1.1 Gender Composition of FMLN Membership by Demobilization

5.2 Gender Composition of the FSLN’s National Directorate,

in context. A wealth of excellent studies has been published which exam-

still developing. I seek to establish the extent to which the revolutionary

militants or as citizens. In their role as militants, women contribute to the

dition tend to equate democracy with liberal constitutionalism. This leads

transitions is premature. It is justiﬁed only if we focus on formal democracy.20

The participation of female militants in the emerging party structures is

lar, I want to express my gratitude to Tomas Jonsson from Lutherhjälpen

This material is protected by copyright and is used here with permission

AMNLAE Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses, Luisa Amanda

FMLN Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional

FPL Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (Popular Forces

FRG Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (Guatemalan

FSLN Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional

MAM Movimiento de Mujeres “Mélida Anaya Montes”

MINUSAL Misión de Naciones Unidas en El Salvador (United

MRS Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (Sandinista

OEA Organización de Estados Americanos (Organization

ONUSAL Misión de Observadores de las Naciones Unidas

ORPA Organización Revolucionaria del Pueblo en Armas

PAN Partido de Avanzada Nacional (Party for National

PD Partido Demócrata (Democratic Party, El Salvador)

PGT Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo (Guatemalan Labor

PRN Partido Resistencia Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan

PRTC Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores

PSD Partido Social Demócrata (Social Democratic Party,

RN Resistencia Nacional (National Resistance,

UNAMG Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas

URNG Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca

War is men’s business and as hard as women try,

In his comprehensive study of Latin American guerrilla movements, Tim-

The Central American guerrilla movements should be held to a high

Women in the FMLN: Social Justice versus Gender Equality

In El Salvador, the guerrillas opposed the hegemony of the United States

Table 1.1 Gender Composition of FMLN Membership by Demobilization Category

Table 1.2 Gender Composition of FMLN Groups

Source: ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilicación del personal del FMLN.

the ONUSAL data reveal that women made up from 27 to 34 percent of

Table 1.3 Gender Composition of Demobilized FMLN Members by FMLN Group

Source: ONUSAL, Proceso de desmovilicación del personal del FMLN.

Table 1.4 Age Distribution of FMLN Combatants

B: Distribution of Female Combatants by Group

derstanding of the social composition of guerrilla movements. It is obvious

isolation was conducive to the belief that they deserved to be mistreated

Those women who did manage to obtain a leadership position in the

common that FMLN militants who tried to introduce a gender perspective

The Female Insurrection in Nicaragua

The most widely reported estimates of female involvement in the San-

I am taking advantage of being a woman in order not to put forward the

In summary, women’s participation in the Sandinista guerrilla move-

Table 1.5 Number of Demobilized Nicaraguan Resistance Fighters

Source: CIAV-OEA, “Cuadros Estadísticos del Proceso de Desmovilización y Repatriación en Nicaragua.”

processed in nine different security zones established throughout the coun-

5 percent of the female partners. This raises the interesting question of

The Guatemalan Experience: Two Generations

Table 1.6 Composition of URNG Combatants

not prepared to endanger their lives by ofﬁcially registering as a member of

Table 1.7 Gender Composition of URNG by Demobilization Category, 1997