People's Revolutionary Army

The People's Revolutionary Army (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, or ERP) was a leftist guerrilla organization active in El Salvador's 12-year civil war (1980–1992); it also played a leading role in the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

El Salvador had been ruled by a military dictatorship since 1929. The army, which served the interests of the 14-family oligarchy that controlled the Salvadoran economy, ran the country. Elections were held, but true changes in leadership came only through internal coups. In the late 1960s, however, resistance to the regime began to coalesce, and by 1972 the middle-class, centrist Christian Democratic Party appeared certain to win that year's presidential election. The army responded with widespread election fraud and exiled Jose Duarte, the Christian Democrat's leader. Many political dissidents, having lost faith in the electoral process, began to look for other methods of opposing the dictatorship.

The ERP was founded in late 1972 by leftist dissidents, many of them former students at the National University of El Salvador, a Marxist stronghold. The ERP was aligned with communists, but unlike other leftist groups it emphasized action over dogma. ERP leaders were far more concerned with overthrowing the dictatorship while the time was ripe than with the political character of the government that would replace it; they were also not opposed to working with El Salvador's moderate middle class. In 1975 the ERP came to widespread attention when its leadership assassinated Roque Dalton, a Salvadoran poet who had advocated a more strictly Marxist-Leninist, long-term political approach.

By the late 1970s, the ERP had established a base of operations in the eastern province of Morazán. It was also involved in terrorist activities in the capital, San Salvador, kidnapping businessmen and political leaders, orchestrating bombings, and attacking security forces. At the peak of civil unrest in 1979, leftist guerrillas formed an alliance to better pool their resources, calling the new group the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Of the five guerrilla groups involved, ERP was the second largest and believed [Page 477]by many to have the best-trained guerrillas. ERP's leader, Joaquin Villalobos, became one of the most prominent spokesmen for the FMLN.

In 1981, ERP guerrillas were an essential component of the FMLN's “Final Offensive,” an assault on the capital and security forces planned in accordance with the ERP's direct, action-oriented revolutionary vision. When the “Final Offensive” failed to inspire a mass uprising of the populace, the guerrillas withdrew to the countryside. A stalemate ensued until 1989, when another large-scale FALN offensive pushed the government into negotiations; a peace agreement was signed in January 1992. After the war, the ERP and particularly its flashy commander, Villalobos, emerged as a moderate, center-left political force, while the FMLN has become a potent force in El Salvador's government. In 2009, Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena, an FMLN member, was elected president.