U.S. Backs El Salvador Death Squad Government Through 12-Year Civil War

Archbishop Oscar Romero is assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, marking a symbolic beginning of U.S. support for El Salvador’s death squad government during a brutal 12-year civil war. A single gunman fires directly into Romero’s heart from the chapel doorway, acting under orders from Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, a graduate of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas and notorious founder of El Salvador’s death squads. A 1993 UN investigation confirms D’Aubuisson ordered the assassination.

The Reagan administration dramatically escalates U.S. involvement, transforming what began as Carter-era support into nearly $1 billion in economic and military aid by 1984—averaging $1 million per day to El Salvador. This aid includes forming, training, funding, and arming military death squads that commit the vast majority of atrocities during the civil war. By May 1983, U.S. military officers work within the Salvadoran High Command, making strategic and tactical decisions while officially having no connection to paramilitary operations.

The UN Truth Commission later concludes that 85% of acts of violence against civilians were committed by agents of the state, paramilitary groups, and death squads—nearly all of which were indirectly funded and armed by the United States. Despite officially having no government connection, death squad members were almost always soldiers from the Armed Forces of El Salvador. An estimated 75,000 civilians are killed or forcibly disappeared during the twelve-year conflict.

The Reagan administration systematically covers up horrific human rights violations to maintain military aid. The day after the El Mozote massacre made front-page headlines, President Reagan officially certified that El Salvador was “making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights”—a certification required by law to continue aid. This cynical partnership demonstrates how Cold War anti-communist ideology was used to justify supporting a regime engaged in systematic extrajudicial killings of civilians.