The Civil War That Was Fought by Children: Understanding the Role of Child Combatants in El Salvador's Civil War, 1980-1992

Abstract

From 1980 to 1992, the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) fought each other in a civil conflict that devastated El Salvador, killing 75,000 people and leaving thousands more homeless or injured. Over 80 percent of the government's troops and over 20 percent of the FMLN's were under eighteen years of age; however, thus far, historians have missed the centrality of the role of children in this conflict. This article explores the legacy of both sides' reliance on child soldiers and examines the costs of child soldiering in terms of demobilization issues and postwar societal problems. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract

From 1980 to 1992, the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) fought each other in a civil conflict that devastated El Salvador, killing 75,000 people and leaving thousands more homeless or injured. Over 80 percent of the government's troops and over 20 percent of the FMLN's were under eighteen years of age; however, thus far, historians have missed the centrality of the role of children in this conflict. This article explores the legacy of both sides' reliance on child soldiers and examines the costs of child soldiering in terms of demobilization issues and postwar societal problems.

In 1981, Moreno, fifteen at the time, was walking home from a movie with his friend. Upon exiting the cinema, the two boys were stopped by a truck fidi of troops with guns. Before he realized what was happening, Moreno had been "enlisted" to serve in the Salvadoran army.1 Moreno's case was not unusual. Other boys had been picked up by the Fuerzas Armadas de El Salvador (the Salvadoran Armed Forces, or the FAES) while walking to school, running errands for their parents, or playing in the schoolyard. In rural towns, the periodic FAES recruitment drives terrorized the local populations. FAES troops even went to the primary schools to recruit chUdren. By 1985, attending school in many areas was too dangerous, and hundreds of schools were closed.2

ChUdren also fought for the leftist guerrUla organization, El Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or the FMLN). Giovanni, for example, joined the FMLN guerriUas at age fourteen, after his famUy was kiUed by a group of government soldiers. He wanted to do something to avenge the massacre of his family and had "ganas de matar" (felt excited to kiU) the soldiers.3 Toño, a seven-year-old from San Pedro, became an active FMLN combatant after watching a FAES soldier hack off his mother's wedding ring from her dead corpse.4 FamiUaI and economic-based pressures, as weU as forced recruitment, brought other chUdren to take up arms with the FMLN. Thus far, historians and political scientists have missed the centraUty of chUdren in this war. Over half of those who fought in El Salvador's civü war (from 1980 to 1992) were under eighteen years of age.5

This article examines the role of chUdren in the conflict, comparing the two sides' patterns of recruitment, processes of indoctrination and sociaUzation, and treatment of child soldiers. The Salvadoran case is unusual because both the state armed forces and the insurgent group depended on chUd soldiers. Documenting the different practices of the two forces provides variation that is important for an understanding of the range of circumstances in which state and nonstate groups use armed chUdren.

The Salvadoran case also presents an opportunity to study the costs of using children in war. Although both sides relied on chUd combatants to sustain the twelve-year struggle, their particular needs were ignored during demobiUzation. ConsequentiaUy, the experience of chUd soldiering adversely affected the economic performance and mental health of ex-combatants, ruining individual Uves and incurring larger societal costs. To avoid repeating mistakes made in El Salvador, a chÜd-conscious approach to peacemaking must be adopted in future conflicts that include the participation of chUdren.

This article draws from both primary and secondary literature, as weU as extensive interviews with thirty-eight ex-combatants from the FAES and the FMLN, most of whom were interviewed several times. Twenty-two of those ex-combatants were ex-chUd soldiers, seventeen years old or younger when they started fighting. Forty-two comprehensive interviews with Salvadoran civUians involved in the civü war complement the ex-combatant interviews, while sixteen interviews were conducted with relevant national and international experts.6 Six of those experts played a role in the 1992 peacemaking process.

Numerical figures alone underscore the vital role children played in the Salvadoran civil war. More than half of the combatants were younger than eighteen years of age: 80 percent of the government's troops and over 20 percent of the FMLN's.7 Of the 60,000 military personnel in the Salvadoran army, about 48,000, or 80 percent, were under eighteen years of age.8 As for the approximately 8,500-strong FMLN army, around 2,000 guerrillas were under eighteen years of age at any given time during the war, or a litde over 20 percent of the troops.9 There are no exact records of the total number of children who served in the war because of its long duration, the failure to register many children born during this time, and the fact that child combatants were largely left out of formal demobilization processes.10

Contextualizing Child Soldiering in El Salvador

Although El Salvador's civU war was a particularly egregious case of chUd soldiering, it corresponds with an international trend - and one much more common than the ümited attention it typicaUy receives would indicate. ChUdren have always served in wars, but only in recent decades have so many become both the targets and the perpetrators of violence.11 In Latin America alone, chUd soldiering has taken place in Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador.12 From 1986 to 1996 alone, more than 2 miUion chUdren died in conflicts, at a rate of over 500 a day. AdditionaUy, 6 miUion were disabled or seriously injured, 1 miUion orphaned, and over 10 million psychologicaUy traumatized.13 Today, an estimated 300,000 chUdren are currentiy fighting in wars or have been recendy demobUized. Less than half a century ago, that number was close to zero.14

Technological improvements in small arms that make children effective combatants, new and more brutal conflicts, and generational gaps caused by globalization and modernization help explain the increase in chUd soldiering. It is widely recognized that involving chUdren in armed conflict negatively affects their development and identity construction, as weU as their postwar educational and economic potential, and often engenders social isolation and a propensity for violence.15 Nonetheless, to date, few peace treaties have recognized the existence of chUd combatants or set provisions for their rehabUitation and reintegration into society.

Merely agreeing on what constitutes a "chUd soldier" has hindered efforts to stop the use of chUdren in war and the implementation of a chUd-conscious approach to peacemaking. A number of international treaties do attempt to prohibit child soldiering, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the ChUd with its additional 2000 protocol.16 Deciding on an internationaUy accepted transition point to adulthood was especiaUy difficult in rural societies like El Salvador's, for example, where children assume adult roles at ages much younger than eighteen. Currendy, international standards define a child soldier as "any person under eighteen years of age who forms part of an armed force in any capacity, and those accompanying such groups."17 This includes those who are forcibly recruited, as well as those who join voluntarily, and all child or adolescent participants regardless of function.

As previously mentioned, El Salvador's conflict was unusual for the widespread use of child soldiers by both nonstate and state actors in the same war. Sierra Leone and Colombia provide parallel cases (in which the rebels and the government's armed forces both used child soldiers). But, to date, there has been little scholarship comparing the use of child soldiers by two armies in the same war. There were also a significant number of girl soldiers who fought for the insurgency in El Salvador's civil war. While other examples do exist, like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, historically, child soldiers have tended to be male.18

Finally, the Salvadoran case is unique for the time period in which the war occurred. If, in recent decades, the international trend has been an increase in the quantity and frequency with which children appear in war, El Salvador's civil war (beginning in 1980) was one of the earliest examples. Thus, eighteen years after the peace accords, it also presents an opportunity to study the long-term implications of child soldiering.

Historiographical Context: Why Are the Children Missing?

Many aspects of the Salvadoran civil war have not yet been studied. Archival documentation that had been preserved was largely off-limits to researchers until the mid-1990s. Only in the last decade has there been any systematic use of such materials by historians.19 Furthermore, the police and other security forces left very few records of detentions, disappearances, or tortures. Those that did exist were destroyed to protect perpetrators during postwar investigations of human rights violations. The insurgency, for obvious reasons, also did not keep official records of its actions against the government troops.20 With the exception of some prominent leaders on both sides, the individual voices of combatants remain largely unrecorded. Oral interviews conducted for this paper constitute one of the first systematic attempts to document the memories of those who fought as children in the war.

Existing literature related to this article can be divided into two categories: the historiographical tradition on the Salvadoran civil war and research on child soldiering in general. Work written during the conflict often had the specific aim of promoting peace or the justness of one side's struggle, whUe postwar work has been directed at vilifying either the United States or the Salvadoran government. Some of the better and more recent analytical studies are those by Aldo Lauria-Santiago and Leigh Binford, EUzabeth Jean Wood, Hugh Byrne, andTommie Sue Montgomery.21 But none specificaUy address chUd soldiering. Historians have tended to focus on the role of peasants in the Salvadoran civil war, the economic factors behind the conflict, and the influence of the CathoUc Church. Brian J. Bosch and WiUiam Stanley have researched the Salvadoran army, but concentrate on mUitary officers and only vaguely aUude to the presence of chUd soldiers.22 As combatants under eighteen years of age were excluded from formal demobilization processes, they also do not appear in most works on the peace accords. Focusing solely on Salvadoran child soldiers, this paper fiUs a conspicuous gap in the Uterature.

Although there has been significant and growing research on chUd soldiering on the African continent, Colombia, and even Northern Ireland, chUd soldiering in El Salvador has been continuously overlooked. MeanwhUe, much of the current Uterature on the phenomenon presumes that there is a single model of integration of children into combat. Jon Lee Anderson was one of the first to compare guerriUa fighters transnationaUy, adopting a thematic approach, whUe Jo Boyden and Joanna de Berry, Rachel Brett and Irma Specht, Jimmie Briggs, P. W Singer, and Michael WesseUs have more recendy done so.23 UNICEF, the CoaUtion to Stop the Use of ChUd Soldiers, and other human rights organizations have added to the literature. But few have compared the practice of chUd soldiering between two armies in the same conflict - especiaUy not in a war in which the use of chUdren was so prominent.

Why has so little attention been paid to the Salvadoran chUdren who fought in the conflict that ravaged their country from 1980 to 1992? How has the age of more than half of the combatants been relatively ignored? Although it does not provide any answers to these questions, Jon Lee Anderson's 1992 book underlines the invisibility of chUd soldiers in an ironic discussion of the interviews he conducted with Salvadoran chUd guerrillas during the war. One day, he noticed two girls, Sandra and Sabina, looking at an issue of Time magazine.The magazine's cover story was on the "international phenomenon of chUd warriors." After reading the article, Sandra turned to her friend disgustedly, "They went aU over the world,

didn't they?" she asked. "So why didn't they come to El Salvador?"24 Why didn't "they" come to El Salvador? In the 1980s, the problem of chUd soldiering was not as widely recognized or as internationally condemned as it is today. But to reaUy understand why "they" didn't come to El Salvador, the geopolitical context of the civil war must also be taken into account. The real motivations behind the conflict were often obscured by the polarized Cold War environment in which it occurred. Much of the geopolitical "West" was ideologically predisposed to see the leftist guerriUas as a threat to global stabUity, rather than as desperate peasants seeking to fulfill their basic needs.25

When the civil war began in 1980, it was rooted in a history of repression by the landed classes and the army towards demands for poUtical, economic, and land rights by workers, peasants, and students. After the government responded to a 1932 peasant uprising by massacring 30,000 civilians (La Matanza), power was virtuaUy uncontested in the country, passing from one miUtary president to another, for nearly fifty years. The majority of the population worked in labor-repressive agriculture with scarce access to medical services or education. Overpopulation and the modernization of farming practices only increased landlessness and poverty in the decades prior to the civU war.26

By the 1960s and 70s, the dire economic conditions had given rise to armed opposition groups which began attacking the mUitary government. In response, the government turned to mass repression, electoral fraud, and death squads, targeting anyone suspected of opposition sympathies. By the end of the 1970s, the average death toU was thirty-eight civUians a day.27 When a 1972 electoral victory, won by a coalition of poUtical parties, was immediately overturned by the military, many democrats began to see revolution as their only option.28

But it was Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination by government agents eight years later that fueled the mass mobUization, soon transforming isolated conflicts into a civil war. In November 1980, five leftist armed opposition groups finaUy coordinated their efforts to form a united guerriUa front: the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (or the FMLN), named after the communist trade unionist Augustin Farabundo Marti, whose leadership of the peasant uprising in 1932 had resulted in his own death.29

The FMLN was composed of the students' and workers' Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Martí (Farabundo Martí Popular Liberation Forces [FPL]) and the peasants'Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (the Revolutionary Army of the People, or ERP); the Resistencia Nacional (the National Resistance, or RN); the Communist Party's Armed Forces of Liberation (FAL); and the Revolutionary Party of Central American workers (PRTC).30 In January 1981, two months after its formation, the FMLN launched its first mass attack.

When their "final offensive" of January 1981 faded, the insurgents withdrew to the countryside, seeking to mobiUze peasant support. Meanwhile, El Salvador's armed forces (the FAES) and the government death squads targeted the FMLN's civilian support base.31 The ensuing civd war was long and bloody. More than 75,000 people (or about 1 in 57) Salvadorans were kiUed during the twelve years of fighting. Thousands migrated, and thousands more were internaUy displaced.32

Both sides committed human rights violations. Between 1981 and 1983 alone, there were over 17,000 extrajudicial kilUngs.33 Yet there was a sharp asymmetry in the deployment of violence against civUians. Government forces were responsible for 95 percent of civUian deaths, the FMLN for only 5 percent - making the FMLN highly unusual among insurgency groups for its selective use of violence.34

Three years into the war, the FMLN had significantly extended its territorial control in the country, but further advances were halted by increased U.S. miUtary aid to the Salvadoran armed forces.35 Seeking to prevent the spread of communism in the region, the U.S. government chose to aUy itself with the FAES.36 From 10,000 soldiers in 1979, U.S. officials helped expand the Salvadoran army to 56,000 in 1987, providing the necessary arms.37

Salvadoran civUians were subject to the "join us or die" tactic of poUtical violence employed by both sides.38 Several election attempts occurred, but they were marred by paramUitary violence and FMLN protest.39 In November 1989, the FMLN launched an unprecedented offensive, capturing parts of San Salvador. The FAES retaliated by bombing the capital and increasing civilian repression.40 This 1989 offensive demonstrated to both the U.S. and Salvadoran governments that the FMLN was still militarily strong. By 1990, both sides realized that "neither could win by military victory."41

Meanwhile, more moderate economic elites whose income did not depend on the disciplining of agrarian labor had come to power in the country, and the end of the Cold War also empowered those more inclined to negotiation within both the FMLN and the government.42 Through mediation of the United Nations (UN), peace talks began in late 1989, continuing through 1991. A cease-fire was signed in New York on 31 December 1991, and a comprehensive peace accord (the Final Chapultepec Accord) was signed in Mexico City on 16 January 1992. 43 This accord called for a new constitution, the demobilization and regulation of the armed forces, and the creation of a civilian police force. The FAES alone was to be reduced by 50 percent within a two-year time period.44 As for the FMLN, the leftist insurgency soon became the second most important political party in the country.45

The Salvadoran civil war is distinct for both sides' dependency on child soldiers. Yet comparing recruitment practices, indoctrination methods, and the role of the child soldiers on each side suggests striking disparities in their use. Although the same kinds of children (homeless, orphaned, displaced, and economically impoverished) were likely to be recruited by both the FAES and the FMLN, the government troops relied more on forced recruitment, abduction, and coercive indoctrination methods (based on physical punishment) than the FMLN guerrillas. The FMLN took a greater protective role towards the children and indoctrinated them through normative motivators (based on the offer or withdrawal of psychological awards, like group acceptance or honor) and reinforced by familial relations. These discrepancies offer new insights into the structure and ultimate goals of each army.

But the children were also active participants in the struggle. Their fives must be analyzed through the lens of war. Many had no contrasting reality aside from the conflict's all-consuming violence. As a seemingly powerful military institution (organized and backed by the U.S. government), the Salvadoran military's reliance on child fighters may initially appear paradoxical. Widespread corruption, advancement of inexperienced leaders, and repeated coups, however, debiUtated the mUitary institution. If the chUdren were not physicaUy abducted, fear and the sense of having "no choice" compeUed them to join. WhUe chUdren regularly joined the FMLN guerriUas with a relative or friend, those who joined the FAES troops were more Ukely to do so alone - whether their enUstment was voluntary or forced. Those children who did join the FMLN individuaUy tended to do so for protection, compeUed by conflict-based pressures. Vengeance and "survivor's guUt" were potent impetuses to join.

Indoctrination, the act of imbuing a chUd with a soldier's worldview, is needed to provide a "sustained motivation," a continued aUegiance, despite die risks and rigors of the campaign, and a "combat motivation" or the wiU to fight.46 The Salvadoran mUitary utüized coercive motivators and adopted dehumanization techniques - presenting the guerrUlas as subversives and "communist monsters" who barbecued victims.47 In contrast, the FMLN guerrUlas were more conscientious about the welfare of the vulnerable young soldiers fighting for them. The FMLN's reUance on normative indoctrination methods was unusual, even among guerrUla armies.

By the mid-1980s, chUd soldiers fiUed active roles on both sides. But, at least initiaUy, the FAES chUd soldiers were more Ukely to be used for combat purposes, whUe the FMLN chUd soldiers tended to fiU out support roles. It was the use of chUdren by both sides that aUowed the war to continue for as long as it did.

Institutional Structure of the Two Armies

Each side's organization and institutional history determined its particular incorporation and use of young combatants. The FAES was governed through a strict hierarchal structure, bureaucratic in nature, at the top of which was the high command. The high command included the president (or the junta governing the country), the minister of defense and public security, the vice minister of defense and pubUc security, and the chief of the general staff. Under the high command were the Army, the Návy, the Air Force, and the PubUc Security Corps, which consisted of the National Guard, the National PoUce, the Treasury PoUce, and the Territorial Service. Command authority for field operations was divided geographicaUy by departments.48

HistoricaUy, FAES officers were lower middle-class in origin and trained at the prestigious Capitán General Barrios mUitary school. The select few that graduated from the school each year formed a tanda.m Members of each tanda class were tightly bound to one another and protected each other, often helping classmates with financial and legal problems.50

Large masses of uneducated peasant conscripts filled the ranks of the FAES. Article 113 of El Salvador's 1962 Constitution stated that all males from eighteen to thirty years of age could be called on to perform obligatory rnilitary service. During the war, emergency legislation lowered the age fimit to sixteen.51 But in practice, the middle and upper classes were not expected to offer their sons for service. Field units were generally composed of peasant privates led by middle-class officers. As part of their regular training, peasants were taught writing, arithmetic, and the idea "that they had a fatherland to which they owed loyalty."52

In contrast to the long institutional history of the Salvadoran military, the FMLN coalition was formed in 1980 for the express purpose of providing a central command structure for the insurgency against the Salvadoran government. It depended on active guerrilla units, militias, and popular neighborhood committees, all forming a tightly organized counter-intelligence network. Guerrilla fighters were organized geographically by squads under the command of larger platoons and were responsible for acts of armed insurrection and political crimes. The militias were made up of workers with minimal military training, while the most inexperienced peasants and poorer urban classes served on the popular neighborhood committees.53

Initially, the FMLN guerrillas did not encounter the popular support they were seeking. It was the brutal repression of civilians by the FAES and the very conditions of the war itself that illuminated the true character of the regime for many. Organizing campaigns to equip and train the peasants to fight in their own defense also boosted the FMLN's popularity.54 From several hundred actors in January 1981, the FMLN's ranks swelled to over 12,000 active guerrillas in 1984.55 This was the zenith, however; for most of the war the FMLN averaged around 8,000 troops. Taking control of areas in central, northern, and eastern El Salvador, the insurgency provided protection to displaced peasant populations.56

Why Children Joined

As previously mentioned, young soldiers were most often coerced into joining the FAES - either physically or through psychological tactics. They were more likely to join the FMLN voluntarily, although the realities of the war blurred the boundaries between choice and coercion. Those children most at risk for recruitment, by both sides, tended to be older, physically larger, economically impoverished, or orphans. Commanders rationalized their use of child soldiers, arguing that in many areas of the country, fourteen-year-olds were considered adults, and thus should be able to serve.57

As the Salvadoran government was fighting an unpopular war, the FAES particularly reUed on a chUd-based recruitment pool. Officers considered chUdren comparatively expendable and easier to indoctrinate, whUe its entrenched and pervasive paramUitary organization in the countryside ensured a large supply of young recruits.58 Although most FAES chUd soldiers were between ages thirteen and sixteen, there were some examples of forced recruitment of young boys from the age often.59

Forced recruitment tended to occur through abduction (kidnapping of individuals or smaU groups), press ganging (larger group roundups), or quota recruitment (setting conscription quotas that had to be fiUed by a particular town or geographical area). FAES veterans estimate that over 80 percent of new recruits during the war were under eighteen years of age and that most were conscripted through mass drives (press ganging) from schools, buses, and urban gathering places Uke movie theaters and soccer fields.60 In interviews for this paper, ex-FAES soldiers said that new recruits tended to be between thirteen and fifteen years of age.

Abduction was the first of the FAES's forced recruitment methods and could be used to target individuals or smaU groups. For example, in 1981, Carlos and his friend were walking on the street when a truck fidi of soldiers came by and picked them up. His friend was released several days later because he was too smaU and wore glasses, but Carlos was forced to begin training with the Fuerzas Aérea (the air force). He was fourteen at the time. Looking back on his recruitment, Carlos recaUed how he had never wanted to serve. "I did not share the ideology of the Air Force," he said. But if he had tried to escape, his family would have been kiUed.61

Efrain Antonio Fuentes Mojica was abducted and forced to join the mUitary just before his sixteenth birthday.62 Like Carlos, Efrain was afraid that if he did not go with the FAES, his famdy would be punished. He found out later that they were kiUed anyway.63 These are just two of the hundreds of examples of forced recruitment by the FAES, most of which remain unrecorded. Outside of the army, death squads and mUitary units Uke the Treasury PoUce also used chUd recruits. For example, thirteen-year-old Julio was seized on the street by armed men who took him to the Treasury PoUce headquarters. His case shows how even forced abduction could be mixed with positive inducements. When JuUo's family came to get him, he reportedly told them that he wanted to stay with the Treasury PoUce because they gave him food and money, which he did not have at home.64

When the FAES was particularly short on manpower, its troops employed the second forced conscription method - the type of mass recruitment known as press ganging.65 From 1983 to 1984, the armed forces lost 3,104 soldiers in combat. Including the wounded and captured, the number of casualties was 8,000. This created a dire need for new conscripts - especiaUy those they beUeved could be easÜy indoctrinated.66 Soldiers were able to round up large crowds of youth by raiding institutions like orphanages or schools. Young students were told that their patriotic duty was to defend their country. ChUdren were also recruited through press ganging at urban centers and bus stops. Those who tried to resist were ldUed.67 In rural areas, soldiers used farm trucks to coUect aU of the chUdren who looked like they might be old enough to serve.68

Many peasants had no identity cards documenting their date of birth, because the cards were lost in the fighting, or the births were never registered, or the cards were not issued. When such chUdren were swept up in the recruitment drives, they had no proof that they were under age.69 Wilbur remembered how important it was to have a "carnet de minoridad" (card for minors, meaning younger than sixteen), even within San Salvador, where he was Uving at the time. The card identified its holder as being too young for conscription. But the card was often not enough. As WUbur recalled, "I was lucky because I was skinny and short. Most of my friends were not." His brother was one of those forcibly recruited by the FAES.70 Shordy after his brother was recruited, Wilbur joined the thousands of other young Salvadoran males who fled the country to avoid recruitment. He left for the United States.

The final form of recruitment by the FAES was recruitment by quota. To more efficiently subjugate rural areas not controUed by the insurgency, the FAES co-opted local leaders to act as government agents.71 This occurred mainly in the southern and western parts of the country where the FMLN was not as strong. Assigned fixed conscription goals by the high command, FAES officers periodicaUy demanded that viUage leaders provide a certain number of youths to serve in the army. If a leader refused to comply, the entire vülage was punished. Fear of state violence prompted local officials to organize müitias and civU defense patrols in demonstration of their community's support for the FAES. ViUage boys were assigned weekly patrol duties, recruited to IdU suspected guerrUlas, and encouraged to formaUy enUst with the government's security forces.72 Although the Salvadoran mUitary preferred peasants in its ranks, the strength of the FMLN in some rural zones compeUed the FAES to recruit also in cities.73

While the war dragged on, the demand for troops escalated, and weekly duties became permanent positions. As a result of such brutal recruitment tactics, the number of active FAES soldiers climbed from around 12,000, in 1982, to over 45,000, in 1984.74 By the mid-1980s, however, under increased international pressure to improve its human rights record, the FAES redoubled propaganda efforts to encourage voluntary enlistment.75 ChUdren in the FAES who had not been forcibly conscripted tended to join to obtain protection or immediate economic rewards, or because they lacked other opportunities.

Salvadoran boys thought that if they joined the FAES, they would have a better chance of protecting themselves and their families. The young soldier known as Monterosa, for example, enlisted in the FAES after village leaders told him that failure to answer his draft notice would mark him and his family as "subversives," inviting government repression.76 Lower-income children, in particular, could not conceive of an escape from the violence. If they were not living in a zone controlled by the guerrillas in northern or eastern El Salvador, children were often ignorant of the strength of the guerrilla army and saw their best survival tactic as choosing the side most likely to win.77

Joining the FAES also offered distinct economic benefits to children. Government soldiers were more likely to have food than the civilian population, especially as the conflict heightened in intensity. Some ex-child soldiers said that they had joined the FAES looking for a paying job. During the war, finding employment was extremely difficult. The FAES soldier's salary was advertised as eighty colones, or around ten U.S. dollars a month.78 Most child soldiers never received this salary, but the government army provided basic necessities.79 To comprehend why boys would choose to fight for food or money alone, one must recall the dire economic conditions in which most were living.

Finally, Salvadoran youths joined the FAES because they lacked other opportunities. Government soldier Marcelo Cruz Cruz, who described himself in an interview with Stefan Ueltzen as of "extracción campesino" (peasant extraction), said that joining the armed forces was his only real means of advancing in society.80 Domingo Brogran, now an inspector for the National Civilian Police, also joined the FAES for lack of other opportunities, although his decision was made easier when his father was killed by the FMLN guerrillas.81 The closing of rural schools left campesino children without anything to do, also increasing the likelihood of voluntary enlistment.82

In contrast to the government's use of child soldiers, the FMLN's forced recruitment occurred only in the early years of war and in the most desperate regions; it also took a more benevolent form than that practiced by the FAES.83 Originally, the FMLN commanders believed that victory depended on the size of their army and concentrated all of then energy on finding more troops.84 Nevertheless, even in the early years, guerrilla units rarely employed abduction or press ganging Uke the FAES. Their most common forced recruitment method was a version of the quota method. Units set conscription quotas for particular geographical areas.

From 1980 to 1982, when they most needed fighters, some FMLN units forcibly recruited campesino, or peasant, chUdren from rural zones. They determined and fixed zones of expansion, where they beUeved that they would have the most success winning over campesinos. Nobody was considered neutral.85 In some cases, parents were asked to hand over their chUdren to serve in the FMLN. Insurgent leaders told them that their chUdren would be fighting to save the Salvadoran poor.86 As Leonel González, an ex-guerriUa, described it, "we would arrive to a viUage and take aU of the young, in many places they hid from us or ran - although many understood that our cause was just - in this sense, the recruitment methods we used put us against the viUages we were trying to Uberate."87

When practicing forced recruitment, the FMLN did prefer to use intermediary organizations to attract the young fighters. For example, in Las Vueltas, a guerriUacontroUed zone, the FMLN used a "kids unit" to help with recruitment. Jour naUst Jon Lee Anderson observed the guerriUa leaders Carmelo and Geronimo with this unit. As Anderson wrote at the time, "Like Pied Pipers, Carmelo and Geronimo lead their youthful charges back and forth through their own home vUlages. . . . Each new kid is Uke gold to the guerrUlas, adding to their strength."88 The idea was that using chUd combatants themselves to attract more children would soften the trauma of forced recruitment.

The FMLN's propaganda units also worked to persuade Salvadoran youth to join the insurgency. Some units ran secret letter-writing campaigns to demoraUze young FAES soldiers who had been conscripted from their hamlets in the expansion zone and were serving as government soldiers - urging them to desert and join the FMLN.89 Another essential propaganda mechanism was the guerriUaproduced Radio Venceremos, known as the "voice of the FMLN." Sometimes, the announcers on Radio Venceremos direcdy addressed the Salvadoran chUdren, encouraging them to join the guerrUlas.90 They saw the war as a fight over the future of the pueblo (the masses), a future represented by the chUdren. The FMLN also estabUshed La Comisión Nacional de Propaganda (the National Commission of Propaganda, or CONAPROP) to print rebeUious magazines Uke Prensa Obrera, El Rebelde, fuventud Rebelde, El Campesino Rebelde, and El Guerrillero, specifically created to target the secondary school students.91

Those chUd soldiers who joined the FMLN "voluntarily" did so because of a real desire to improve societal conditions, for famUial reasons, for revenge factors, and for protection. The first group, when interviewed after the war, said that they had joined the FMLN to stop being defenseless victims and to become "active participant[s] in a process they saw as transforming their country."92 Julio Cesar Marroquin Hernández, who as of late 2009 was running the FDR (Frente Democratico Revolucionario, a Salvadoran poUtical party), was integrated into the guerriUa units through his poUtical activism as a young student. He described how he volunteered with the union leaders and other leftist activists and led a radical student movement in his secondary school. In 1979, at fourteen years of age, JuUo decided to join the FMLN after he witnessed the violent murder of several of his classmates by FAES troops at a student raUy. Two years later, JuUo was controUing a military unit out of a base in San Vicente.93 Young boys were not the only ones to be incorporated into the FMLN through student activities: at sixteen years of age Maria Luisa Vigilia also became involved through her school and rose to a leadership position within a year.94 Her case highUghts the importance and power of female chUd soldiers for the FMLN.

But chUdren also joined the FMLN voluntarily without a developed poUtical consciousness. In El Salvador, chUdren as young as three to five years old entered the FMLN's camps with their famUies, or were brought up on the run as part of the FMLN's masas (masses).95 Often entire campesino famUies were incorporated into guerriUa units.96

In 1980, the campesinos Federico and Isabel committed themselves and aU twelve of their chUdren to the rebel cause. Their youngest was only eleven at the time. As Federico and Isabel explained it, they refused to continue Uving under a tyrannical government. Their children's future was what they were fighting for, so they decided that their chUdren should also participate in that fight.97 SimUarly, the FMLN guerriUa Sandra began fighting because both her parents were guerrUlas. Her father had always urged her to foUow the moral values of Che Guevara. "My parents were always with the [guerrUlas] ... so it was natural for me," Sandra recaUed. International observers noted that such chUdren thought of the revolution as their "birthright" or "destiny."98 Inside the camps, the FMLN leaders stressed that the revolution was for the chUdren - inspiring an intense personal investment in the war among many of the young soldiers.

As the war progressed, peasant famUies became increasingly weary of fleeing the government forces in the guindas (mass peasant exoduses). Looking to have some agency over their Uves, they joined the FMLN.99 For Leonardo Perez, who began fighting for the FMLN in his early teens, joining meant foUowing a natural trajectory. When the FAES destroyed his viUage, Leonardo's family and most of their neighbors were incorporated into the guerriUa units. According to Leonardo, he was incorporated in a "manera de voluntaria obligatoria" (an obUgated voluntary manner).100 Lucio AtUio Vázquez Díaz, or Chiyo, as he was known in the FMLN, began fighting for the guerrUlas at age nine. After the FAES kiUed Chiyo s mother, pregnant sister, and four older brothers, his father decided that the rest of the family would join the FMLN. His two remaining brothers, two sisters, he, and his father aU began serving. "They are not going to kiU us Uke dogs, they are going to IdU us fighting," Chiyo's father told his chUdren. Out of twelve people in his famUy, only four survived the conflict.101

Other chUdren who had witnessed the FAES massacre relatives or friends felt compeUed to join the FMLN guerrUlas because of the possibUity for revenge opportunities.102 Longing to avenge the murder of his family prompted Chico, a twelve-year-old from San José de las Flores, to become an active FMLN combatant. Chico hid in a tree while helicopters bombed his house and his family was massacred below him by the government forces. "They [FAES soldiers] just go around killing innocent people for no reason," Chico said. He joined the guerrillas because he believed that the men responsible for the murder of his family had to be punished. Fighting for the FMLN offered the best opportunity to do so.103 Similarly, José Osmín Delgado Guardado recalled coming home at age seven and finding his father's mangled corpse in his house in Chalatenango. When his mother and sister were murdered by government troops a couple of years later, Delgado Guardado enlisted with the FMLN.104

Whether collected at the time or years later, war accounts abound with parallel testimonies.105 A follow-up UNICEF survey on the Salvadoran civil war found that direct experiences of violence had compelled many FMLN child soldiers to ally themselves with the guerrillas. Almost 37 percent said that the worst violence they had experienced was the death of a family member(s) or friend at the hands of the government forces. In 1995 the report "Los Niños y Jóvenes ExCombatientes en su Proceso de Reinserción a la Vida Civil," based on "a survey on the mental health of 528 child ex-combatants of the FMLN," also found that many had joined the FMLN out of direct revenge motivations.106 It may seem hard to believe that a desire for revenge would push children into war, but the conflict created a polarized environment of hostility, and revenge had long been an accepted element in community relations, especially in poor peasant villages. The FMLN, however, did not encourage such personal motivations. Recognizing that revenge could undermine control, insurgent commanders tried to mold revenge desires into a more general aspiration for justice.107

The final central motivator for children joining the FMLN was their need for protection. In many areas, repression by government forces was the best recruiter for the insurgency.108 As the ex-FMLN child guerrilla Chiyo recalled, "fighting was the only way to survive."109 In the rural zonas en disputa (contested zones), in which there was a "duality of powers," government violence against civilians was particularly high.110 Young combatants interviewed after the war described their fear of the FAES. Some remembered seeing the babies of suspected guerriUas speared by bayonet and pubUc hangings of elderly women who were beheved to be FMLN sympathizers.111 According to Armando Martinez Nunez, the government repression against his town in Chalatenango was so bad that one had to join the guerriUas. The friends of Martinez Nunez who did not fight with the FMLN were either recruited by the FAES or kiUed. He joined the insurgency at age fourteen in the early 1980s.112 Many chUdren came to beUeve that since they were akeady classified as guerriUas by the FAES, they ought to formaUy join the FMLN and at least obtain the protection offered by the guerriUa army.113

Of the FMLN youth surveyed by UNICEF after the war, 91.7 percent said they joined voluntarily, compared to 46.7 percent of the FAES youth.114 Although the desire to change socio-political conditions, enUstment with relatives, revenge motivators, and the perceived need for protection were the most common reasons chUd soldiers cited for joining the FMLN, they were not the only ones. Poverty especiaUy increased vulnerabUity.115

This table, produced from the UNICEF survey, reveals the young ages at which many chUdren first began fighting and reflects the aforementioned differences in recruitment patterns between the FAES and the FMLN.

Teaching ChUdren How to Fight: Comparative Indoctrination of Young Recruits

Whether they were fighting for the government forces or for the insurgency, the deUberate conditioning and socialization of chUd combatants proved central. To survive, the chUdren had to accept their situation and submit to the group rules. Indoctrination was used to bind them to the group and commit them to participation in violence. The FAES was fighting to restore the government's power over the masses. Relying on coercive motivators, its leaders hoped to refashion a new subjugated generation controUed by fear of state violence. In contrast, the FMLN stressed the righteousness of its position and encouraged group soUdarity.

With no ideology beyond a distorted nationalism, and no goal beyond restoring the old order, there was Uttle the FAES could use to inspire the young combatants. Thus, the government forces developed a three-pronged approach. They dehumanized the enemy, glorified their own image, and demanded total obethence from their troops, queUing resistance with harsh physical punishment.

The first coercive motivator used to indoctrinate new troops was to vUify the FMLN, to present the guerrUlas as subversives, "communist monsters who Uved in caves, ate roots, and sometimes even barbecued their prisoners after torturing them." As Monterosa, only sixteen when he began fighting for the government, described it: "I kUled chUdren because I was told they were the subversive seeds that needed to be eUminated. And I kUled their mothers because I was told the campesino women were factories for more guerrUlas."117 Although the U.S. government adopted the Cold War dichotomy of communists versus anticommunists to justify its aUiance with the FAES, this discourse was not as common within El Salvador. The FAES chUd soldiers interviewed for this paper did not remember hearing their officers refer to the guerrUlas as communists. It was more common to hear that the guerrUlas were looking to take over the country, were monsters, and were destroying society.118

The documentary Tiempo de Audacia contains footage filmed in 1982 of a group of young FAES chUd soldiers training at a mUitary barracks. As they run, they are chanting:

The best fighters, the commandos, are preparing to go to the mountains to attack, to capture, to bring back guerrUlas. IfI catch you, I'U IdU you. And your blood I wül drink, and your flesh I wiU eat.119

In this chant, the guerrUlas are depicted as subhuman, the prey for the government soldiers to eat.

WhUe dehumanizing the guerrUlas, the FAES simultaneously promoted an image of its members as more mascuUne, stronger, and more patriotic - the second of its coercive motivators used to indoctrinate new troops. The solely male membership of the FAES (whUe the FMLN incorporated female combatants) facilitated the mascuUnization of the government troops in contrast with the feminization of the guerrUlas. WUbur, who was in his early teens during the war, described how the FAES's propaganda office, COPEFA (the permanent councU of the armed forces), used the state-sponsored television channel to run continuous footage of the "heroism" of the FAES soldiers. WUbur remembered watching GIJOE-like videos of muscled Salvadoran soldiers jumping with parachutes. Such videos were used to encourage youngsters to enUst and were especiaUy popular among the teenage girls.120

Finally, the FAES forced children to recognize their subjugation to the army as a means of indoctrination. Any deviation from total obethence was harshly punished.121 As part of the government's counterinsurgency strategy, chUd soldiers were often forced to commit acts of violence against the peasant populations from which they had come. In interviews for this paper, ex-FAES combatants described such acts. For example, shordy after his recruitment, Efrain Antonio Fuentes Mojica was integrated into the Atlacatl Battalion. At sixteen years of age, he was forced to participate in the infamous Mozote massacre in which government forces kUled over 500 unarmed peasants. According to Fuentes Mojica, his commanders would have kiUed him if he had not obeyed orders.122 Cresencio Fernandez Garcia, also from a poor campesino background Uke Fuentes Mojica, was forcibly conscripted by the FAES in his early teens and placed with the Arce BattaUon. A few months later, he had to participate in counterinsurgency operations against peasants Uving in the zone in which he had been raised.123 They are just two of many examples. For such children, participation in violence served to bind them more tighdy to the government forces.

New FAES recruits were supposed to receive an average of three to four months of training before their first operation, but this rarely occurred.124 The youngest fighters were also supposed to serve only in the army, but there were numerous reports of children serving as runners and as active combatants for the National Guard, National PoUce, and Treasury PoUce.125 If not in active combat, the FAES used chUdren as messengers and informers.126 As for training, the FAES's program for child soldiers differed Uttle from that given to adults.127 A typical day meant rising at 4:00 a.m., foUowed by hours of exercise and weapons training, and then an afternoon of classes and strategic training.128 Tb ensure that their sense of autonomy was broken and that they were separated from their previous Uves, chUd combatants were kept in secluded mUitary barracks under strict officer supervision. Commanders told human rights officials that such chUdren were orphans and only serving as "mascots" for the troops.129

Indoctrination and training of the FMLN chUd soldiers foUowed a very different course. Like the FAES, the FMLN also vUified its enemy to a certain extent. But, more importandy, its leaders stressed the moral righteousness of their struggle and emphasized group soUdarity. Young FMLN guerrUlas studied El Salvador's history of political repression, learning to recognize the inequalities that marked their daily fives. Past injustice and resistance presented a platform around which peasants could mobilize and form a unified political identity. Children were encouraged to see themselves as fighting a heroic struggle against an evil and repressive regime. But they also learned that a FAES soldier was an enemy only when he carried a gun.130

In contrast to the FAES s emphasis on total subjugation and excessive use of violence in training the young recruits, the FMLN's second main indoctrination method was to promote an environment of communal solidarity. For Irma Vasquez, an ex-FMLN child soldier, the solidarity she felt was the best part of her experience in the war. She described the FMLN as "family" and described finding a gender equality in the guerrilla camps that she had never previously encountered in society.131 Children in the FMLN learned to view their peers as brothers and sisters and to carry that relationship into combat operations. Such peer relationships were also crucial to their psychological and emotional wellbeing.132 Although the FAES publicly accused the guerrillas of using children as "cannon fodder," most of the ex-child soldiers interviewed described their experiences among the guerrillas positively. Older guerrillas made sure that the children were fed first and took particularly good care of the orphans.133

Whenever possible, the older guerrillas tried to give the children support roles at first. They filled positions like porter, cook, and sentry. In the Las Flores guerrilla camp, for example, young fighters did everything from preparing tortillas and coffee to putting together explosives and popular armaments.134 They also worked as backup personnel - as correos (runners) to carry messages between commanders.135 As the conflict heightened in intensity, the children who joined the FMLN were generally younger in age, and dieir tasks changed from support functions to active combat roles.136 Child combatants interviewed said that their fives as guerrillas were difficult and strictiy disciplined, but that their leaders were fair.137

Whenever possible, the FMLN offered escuelas de menores (schools for minors) to train the young soldiers. A typical day in such schools began with exercise at 4:45 a.m. and would continue with classes until 11:00 a.m. Students memorized the biographies of local heroes and the history of the revolutionary wars in Nicaragua and Cuba. The objective of such lessons was to teach them to recognize the social injustice that plagued El Salvador.138 As one former student recalled, "we learned how to defend ourselves from the enemy ... I thought I was too young to have enemies, but there, with the Frente, I learned that yes, I had enemies."139 After a brief lunch break, the students were released to practice the morning's lessons. Most of the schools were taught jointly by older combatants with mUitary training. By age twelve, the chUdren "graduated" from the schools and moved to active combat positions within the FMLN units.

Such a progressive schooUng system, however, was the ideal. Depending on avaUable resources, different guerriUa units adopted different versions of this system. In the school of ex-chUd soldier Chiyo, it was not a set age but an instructor's evaluation that determined if the student could begin active service.140 MeanwhUe, Santiago, another ex-chUd guerriUa, grew up in Morazán in the early 1980s, the most desperate period of the war for the region. Santiago left his minors' schools after a couple of months, at age ten, to begin serving as a runner in the war. By age eleven, he had his own firearm and was fighting as an active combatant.141 In areas in which schools for minors had not been estabUshed, chUdren began fighting without any formal training. For example, the young guerriUa JuUo Marroquin Hernández, stationed in Guazapa, learned nothing more than how to fire the rifle he had been given before entering active combat.142

As mentioned earlier, the number and importance of female child soldiers in El Salvador's civU war is a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Only 30 percent of the world's armed forces that employ chUd soldiers use girls.143 Within the FMLN's insurgency, approximately half of the guerrilla forces were women.144 As for the FAES, there is only one recorded battaUon of 160 women, formed voluntarily in 1983 in San Miguel, but soon disbanded. This battaUon did include some girls under the age of eighteen.145

In recorded interviews from the war, guerriUa commanders continuously emphasized the importance of women for the FMLN. In their praise for female commanders, they also acknowledged "las niñas revolucionarias" (the revolutionary girls) who provided backup support, managed the camps, and served in active combat.146 In addition to having many of the same reasons as boys, girls joined the guerrUlas to assert their equality and to escape domestic problems.147 ChUd soldiers interviewed for this paper recaUed that within the guerriUa camps, casual sex was commonplace and generaUy permitted by the FMLN commanders. Pregnancies barred females from active combat, but were accepted and often even celebrated. When a combatant became pregnant, she was sent home or to refugee camps in Honduras.148 Such supportive treatment of female chUd soldiers is also unusual. In most conflicts, girl combatants have been sexuaUy abused.149

Despite the support from their comrades, the culture of violence that developed in the FMLN camps dramaticaUy shaped the Uves of the child guerrUlas, just as it affected the FAES chUd soldiers. For example, Chiyo, who joined the FMLN at age nine, described his feeUngs of increduUty when handUng a real gun for the first time. He had played war games frequendy with his friends. InitiaUy, training to fight seemed Uke just another game.150 But as the war dragged on, children on both sides had to search harder and harder for memories of a Ufe outside of the conflict. The violence was aU-consuming, made more so by the strategy of total war waged by both sides.

Charles Clements, an American doctor who helped the FMLN in the war, recounted how he gave chUdren paper and crayon in one of the guerriUa camps, after they asked for drawing suppUes:

An hour or so later, back they came with their individual creations - not letters or numbers but drawings of surprising skiU. It was their subject that bothered me. Each chUd had recreated war scenes.

The pages were full of diving jets, burning houses, explosions, and broken human bodies. Each was also covered with pictures of flowers and of children playing - realistic interpretations of the two truths they all knew.151

This anecdote exemplifies the extent to which the war transformed the lives of Salvadoran children. Today, the future of El Salvador rests on the shoulders of a generation who grew up more familiar with the sounds of bombs and the sight of "broken human bodies" than with toys or books.

Could They Ever Return Home: Possibilities of Escape for Child Combatants

Despite clear differences in the conditions of life for Salvadoran child soldiers between the two armies, in both, children were bound to their group out of fear. For the FAES child soldiers, escape was difficult, if not impossible. If their escape attempts were unsuccessful, terrible punishment would follow - often torture or death. In one case, a young soldier who rejoined the FAES after his escape was flogged for hours in the public marketplace before he died.152 When officials from the United Nations Observer Mission (ONUSAL) came to El Salvador in July 1991, they found that a number of minors had been detained for desertion from the FAES and held under inhumane conditions. Most had been forcibly recruited and were attempting to escape and return home.153 Government child soldiers had been indoctrinated into thinking that the guerrillas were monsters. If they had any families or homes left, their families (and even their communities) would also be targeted by the FAES troops if the child deserted.154 Even if the FAES child soldier could secredy return to his community, he was likely to face ostracism and abuse by other community members who would blame him for his complicity in government atrocities or see him as a threat to the community's welfare.

There are reports of young government soldiers who were captured by the guerrillas and eventually decided to join the guerrilla forces. But this was not common. Most feared that joining the guerrilla army would automatically prompt government retaliation against family members.155 Whenever possible, the FMLN's prisoners of war were kept in the homes of families belonging to the Christian Base Communities movement, both to expose the prisoners to the communities' goals of social justice and political change, and to encourage them to transfer their loyalties.156

The FMLN child soldiers were also bound to the group out of fear. Once it was known that they had joined the guerrilla forces, they would be immediately targeted by the FAES if they ever left the protection of the FMLN. Marcelo Cruz Cruz, a former government soldier, described how the FAES troops were instructed to torture captured prisoners, both to uncover information and as a preventive measure - to send a message to aU those considering joining the leftist insurgency.157 While FMLN deserters often risked torture or death upon capture by the government forces, their fates might have been simüarly sealed were they to be discovered by their former guerriUa comrades. The FMLN's success depended on preserving the clandestine nature of their organization, and they most feared betrayal.158 The last factor diminishing the likeUhood of desertion by the FMLN child combatants was that the majority had nothing to return to, which was often one of the principal reasons that they had joined the guerriUa forces.

Peace: From Trauma to Tragedy for the ChUd Combatants

Official documents do not record what happened to Moreno and his friend. Moreno's brief interview with Charles Clements revealed the story of his abduction by the FAES that began this article. But after his interview, Moreno disappears from any of the pubUshed Uterature on the war. This same thing happened for most of the other chUd combatants whose brief appearances in such Uterature originally inspired this work. Those chUdren who managed to survive the Salvadoran civU war found that their biggest challenge stiU awaited them. It was learning to survive the peace.

After twelve years of bloody warfare, in which thousands of chUdren died, the two armies had exhausted their resources. The peace accords were the result of a strategic stalemate.159 With both sides open to negotiation, at the time, El Salvador was considered one of the United Nations' most successful peacemaking missions.160 But the peace accords faded to consider the specific needs of any of those who had served as children in the conflict. Both groups of chUd soldiers were ignored - those who had served only towards the end of the war and were stUl minors at its conclusion and those who had spent their adolescence fighting and were adults by 1992.

As for the first group, just prior to the initiation of demobiUzation and demUitarization, Creative Associates International (CREA), a consulting firm, found that 58 percent of those combatants stiU fighting in the war were between thirteen and sixteen years of age. A fuU 9 percent were under the age of twelve.161 Yet ONUSAL (the UN oversight committee) did not report the official demobilization of any such minors. Both armies attempted to demobiUze chUdren before the formal processes began to avoid negative international attention and to minimize the government's support obUgations.162

One former child soldier, interviewed several years later, summarized how he and his peers felt at this time: "We young people were not recognized in any way . . . This was the worst that could have happened to me and my comrades."163 UNICEF found that of the former child soldiers surveyed (from both sides), 62.1 percent were released from service before inclusion in the formal demobilization.This often inspired resentment: 86.3 percent felt that there should have been assistance specifically for minors. "We little ones, how [we]re we to make our fives?" another exchild soldier asked.164 Although minors on both sides were ignored, there were some differences between their demobilization and demilitarization experiences.

FAES child soldiers were held in military barracks in the weeks following the cease-fire. As the government denied their existence, they were excluded from demobilization negotiations. Officers refused to recognize underage soldiers or to award them the standard severance package that older fighters received. Just prior to the initiation of the formal demobilization processes, the minors were finally released and sent home, without any benefits and often without anything to return to. According to a UN follow-up survey, today there is "virtually no record" of children serving for the FAES in the war.165

As for the FMLN, combatants were concentrated into fifteen specific sites, and 20 percent of the total group, at periodic intervals, was designated to be gradually reintegrated into civilian life.166 Just like the FAES, most FMLN child combatants were demobilized before the formal processes, but ONUSAL did report finding FMLN combatants between the ages of eleven and fifteen left in the camps.167 According to UNICEF Official Maria Teresa Mejia, some of the demobilization programs for the FMLN guerrillas did not explicidy prohibit minors. But there were none developed specifically for those under eighteen at the end of the conflict.168 Several former FMLN guerriUas have said that the lack of special provisions for combatants under age sixteen was a conscious attempt to avoid acknowledging the participation of youth in the war for fear of international condemnation.169 If they were not expUcitly prohibited, very few minors were incorporated into such programs.170 The UN Children's Fund claims that 61 percent of the chUdren involved in the FMLN in 1992 were never integrated into demobilization programs.171

Julio Marroquin Hernández, a FMLN veteran, did not remember any FMLN combatants who were still minors in 1992 receiving anything from the accords.172 Nefarti Guardado Guardado, who was thirteen in 1992 and had begun fighting when he was seven years old in 1986, said that his commanders specifically told him that he had to leave the camp when formal demobilization began. They were worried that international organizations would cut aid if they found chUd soldiers. Before that point, Guardado Guardado had looked on the older guerriUas as his family, and he felt betrayed.173 In interviews for this paper, other former FMLN child combatants who were minors in 1992 reported similar sentiments. Of those child combatants surveyed in foUow-up UN investigations, 79.4 percent said they had felt discriminated against during the peace accords because of their age.174

Following initial demobilization under the National Reconstruction Plan, the Salvadoran government insisted that further programmatic support for excombatants be Umited to "citizens" - which meant those eighteen years old or older. Some programs were occasionaUy extended on paper to sixteen-year-old fighters, but no provisions were made for those under fifteen.175 Extending all programs to child combatants would have implied an official recognition on the part of the Salvadoran government and the international community that children had been prominent fighters in the war, as weU as a larger pool of beneficiaries and higher program costs.176

If the minors managed to bring anything home with them when they were released, they usually had no more than their weapons and the clothes on their backs. Due to the botched demobiUzation and their subsequent difficulties reintegrating into society, many former FMLN chUd soldiers said that "staying aUve" was the only positive experience that they took from their participation in the war. Most especiaUy resented the lack of assistance they received from their FMLN leaders after the conflict ended.177

But those who were minors in 1992 were not the only group of chUd soldiers left out of the peace accords. As the Salvadoran conflict lasted for twelve years, those who had begun fighting at eight, nine, or ten years of age in the early 1980s and survived, were over eighteen in 1992. However, the peacemaking process did not address the impact of the war's traumas on their development, their lack of skills and missed opportunities, and the psychological effects of the violence.

According to Juan Carlos Alvarado, a former FMLN combatant who began serving in 1981 at age seventeen, the biggest problem with the transition to peace was that there were no programs to help soldiers like himself who knew nothing other than how to fight in the war. Such ex-combatants were technically adults in 1992, but as they had spent their chUdhood and adolescence fighting, they knew very litle about civilian life. For example, when awarded pensions or forms of credit, they had no idea of how to manage the money.178

Meanwhile, postwar economic considerations and livelihood needs significantiy impeded attempts to acquUe an education or vocational training. Ex-combatants reported that they could not attend school during the formal school hours because they had to work. Others could not afford the school fees or uniforms, had difficulty getting the proper documentation, and felt shame and resentment about going to school with much younger children. As a former child soldier told the UNICEF surveyors in the early 1990s, "Now they give classes, but I won't go with those little boys."179 Finally, many education faculties were destroyed by the civU war, and there were severe shortages of teachers. Most of the few avaUable educational scholarships were not used, as former chUd soldiers had to prioritize making a living and could not attend classes.180

Finally, the psychological trauma that such combatants had accumulated from serving in the war was not addressed. Former Salvadoran chUd soldiers interviewed in foUow-up studies overwhelmingly suffered from some mental health problem. Without psychological support, ex-combatants had to contend with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental aUments on their own.181 They reported feeUng pessimistic about their future because of their lack of socioeconomic opportunities and the country's chronic poverty.182

In contrast to the findings of Christopher Blattman and Jeannie Annan in their work on child soldiers in Uganda, most Salvadoran child soldiers proved less resilient in the postwar period.183 Blattman and Annan found that in Uganda, child soldiering had a significant impact only on the recruit's skills and productivity after the war, hindering long-term economic performance, while it had less of an effect on social capital and the mental health of the veteran. Similarly, Neil Boothby, Jennifer Crawford, and Jason Halperin, and Susan Shepler have documented more positive postwar experiences among child soldiers in Mozambique and Sierra Leone than those recorded in El Salvador.184 Differences between such cases suggest that cultural factors may also play a role in the postwar experiences of former child soldiers.

Follow-up studies do suggest that former FMLN child soldiers were better able to mitigate the psychosocial impacts of the war than those of the FAES. This can be explained by the FMLN combatants' strong ideological identification with the conflict, feelings of solidarity that the movement engendered, and shared community experiences. In contrast, former FAES child soldiers reported that when they returned to their old fives after demobilization, their communities often "thought ill of them" because they had served the government. Nonetheless, most former FMLN combatants still felt abandoned in the 1990s, with the disappearance of a strong organization as goal-oriented and structured as the FMLN.185

There are no accurate records, but using the figure of 50,000 to 55,000 combatants who served in El Salvador's civil war as children, it is likely that at least 40,000 were still alive in 1992. This estimate is undeniably low, as over 100,000 combatants were demobilized in 1992, and according to the U.S. Department of State, throughout the war, over half of those fighting were under eighteen years of age.186 Out of a total country population of 5,047,925 in 1992, the number of 40,000 to 50,000 traumatized ex-child combatants may not seem huge.187 But the war experiences of these ex-combatants not only made an impact on the individual's personal development, but also affected the ex-combatant's family, friends, and Salvadoran society at large.

The first cost of child soldiering is its tendency to disable potentially productive social actors. In El Salvador, without formal programs, former child soldiers floundered in their attempts to return to civUian Ufe. There was no acknowledgment that their rights had been violated, and they had a harder time readjusting to civUian Ufe with a "short[er] time view on it, and used to someone else making decisions." In her paper for UCA/UNICEF on the demobUization and reintegration of the Salvadoran chUd soldiers, Beth Verhey argues that because war deprives chUd soldiers of the normal cultural and moral values usuaUy derived from their famUies and communities, they experience "a process of associalization."lss Special care must be taken to re-socialize them after a conflict has ended.

The young combatants left without jobs in 1992 could have been one of society's most productive classes, if they had been properly trained and reintegrated after the war. Instead, a foUow-up UNICEF survey in the mid-1990s found that only 49.5 percent of ex-chUd combatants in El Salvador were earning their own income, and that 85 percent of those were earning less than the minimum wage.189 Six years after the peace accords, 71 percent of aU former chUd soldiers said "nothing had helped them transition to civUian Ufe."190 In interviews for this paper, former chUd soldiers said that they were unable to support their famUies as they could not find employment - causing another generation of Salvadoran youth to grow up in conditions of poverty, societal exclusion, and economic frustration. For former FAES child soldier Efrain Fuentes Mojica, his generation was not the only one lost to the war. Without the necessary economic and emotional support, their chUdren had just as few opportunities as their parents.191

The second cost of child soldiering is psychological in character. In El Salvador, this cost helps explain the rise of social violence in the country after the peace accords. Adolescence is when the young construct their own identities, often against or in relation to those of the adults around them. For the Salvadoran chUdren who spent their developmental years fighting in the war, aU of the adults they saw were engaged in acts of violence. Personal identities were structured in a polarized manner, while the youth were conditioned to look for group identities to confirm their own.192 According to a 1998 survey by Instituto Universitario de Opinion Pública (IUDOP) and Save the ChUdren, one of the principal lessons taken by ex-Salvadoran child soldiers from the war was that "violence is an effective and rapid form of resolving conflicts and problems."193 When they found themselves unable to reintegrate successfully into civilian life, a significant number returned to the violence that they had learned during the war.194 In 1994, ONUSAL found that the child soldiers who served in the FMLN and the FAES, left without any real reintegration programs, tended to perpetuate the violence that they had learned during the war much more so than in their sister case of Nicaragua, where young soldiers were formally demobilized.195

Despite the high expectations set by the peace accords, there were more brutal deaths in the twelve years following the conflict than during. Instead of a civil war, El Salvador faced the growing problem of criminal bands, many of which included former child combatants. According to Edgar Huezo, Inspector General of the National Civilian Police, postwar violence initially took the form of kidnapping, assaults, robbery, and intra-family violence. A number of such crimes were committed by ex-combatants from both sides. Former combatants who had known each other in the war used such associations in postwar criminal activities. Noticing familiar names on the lists outside the courts or jails, they began forming criminal bands and later, gangs.196

A 1998 study by José Miguel Cruz and Nelson Portillo Peña also suggests that a significant number of ex-soldiers and guerrillas had difficulty finding employment and joined gangs with the weapons and combat skills they had acquired.197 Ex-guerrilla Oscar Mejia described how many of his peers were unable to find employment after the war due to social discrimination, their insufficient skills and education, and the general lack of opportunities. With families to support, they turned to violence as a survival technique.198

Having been trained in war, used to carrying arms, and conditioned to a military ethic, an ex-combatant was almost guaranteed a position of leadership in criminal bands or gangs. Most had also retained their weapons from the conflict. There were some attempts at weapons buy-back campaigns like the "Patriotic Movement against Crime" and the "Patriotic Movement Against Delinquency," in which guns were exchanged for vouchers to buy food and clothing, but they were largely ineffective.199 Those gang members who did not have direct experience in the war were taught by ex-combatants.200 Some ex-guerrillas had learned to make handmade weapons during the conflict and shared their knowledge.201 Similarly, the strategy of kidnapping and hijacking was learned from war experience in both armies.202

Thus, in 1992 when the United States began mass deportations of Salvadoran gang members (many of whom had originally migrated to escape the civU war), deportees found a receptive population awaiting them in El Salvador.203 Luis Ernesto Romero, a former member of the 18th Street gang in the United States, remembers finding ex-combatants in Salvadoran gangs in the early 1990s. Many Salvadorans had found protection and food during the war as combatants on either side, but after the war they were "left in a very bad situation. They joined the gangs to survive," Romero claimed.204

An interesting comparison can be made here between the Salvadoran case and that of Mozambique. Over a quarter of those who served in Mozambique's civil war were chUdren, and simUarly ignored during the peace accords. Both civil wars lasted for roughly the same period of time, Mozambique's from 1975 to 1992. But whereas the banditry that plagued Mozambique after the war has been openly attributed to the lack of formal demobilization programs for child soldiers, the similar situation in El Salvador is generaUy unacknowledged.205

The failures of the Salvadoran peace accords to successfully reintegrate former chUd combatants and provide them with vocational and educational training, or any real UveUhood opportunities, prompted a substantial number of ex-combatants to join gangs or to perpetuate violence in other forms. As such, the Salvadoran civU war illustrates the connection between the unsuccessful reintegration of young combatants and post-conflict social violence. To have been more effectively reintegrated into society, Salvadoran chUd soldiers would have needed specialized attention, broader educational and economic programs, and a more targeted approach to psychological care. The country's failing economy, a general normaUzation of violence during the twelve-year conflict, and the postwar security vacuum also compUcated the transition to peace.206

Salvadoran chUdren began the civU war as pawns in a desperate struggle between a violent government and its long-repressed civUian masses for control over their country's future. As the conflict heightened in intensity, chUdren were increasingly drawn into the vortex of violence. Without recognizing the central role of chUdren in El Salvador's civil war, it is impossible to comprehend the fuU impUcations of the war for the country, while mistakes made in the Salvadoran case are Ukely to be repeated in future conflicts.

Footnote

1. Charles Clements, M.D., Witness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1984), 166.

Footnote

2. Beth Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," UCA/UNICEF Executive Summary (Washington, 2000), 7, 9.

3. If the Mango Tree Could Speak A Documentary about Children and War in Central America, VHS, directed by Patricia Goudvis (Hohokus, N.J.: New Day Films, 1993).

4. Clements, Witness to War, 163.

5. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, El Salvador, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2004 (Washington: State Department, 2005).

Footnote

6. The author conducted these interviews between February 2007 and August 2008.

7. |Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, El Salvador, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2004.

8. P. W Singer, Children at War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 31; Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 8.

9. It is important to note that while the FMLN used fewer child soldiers overall, it used children of all ages, including those as young as six and seven. The FAES used more children but limited themselves to those no younger than thirteen years old, who looked like they could plausibly be above age sixteen.

10. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study."

Footnote

11. Singer, Children At War, 6.

12. Secretary General of die United Nations, Report to the Security Council, S/2000/101, 11 February 2000.

13. United Nations, Report of the Expert of the Secretary General Graça Machel, Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, Document A/51/306 Sc Add. L, 26 August 1996, http://www. unicef.org/graca.

14. Singer, Children At War, 30.

15. United Nations, Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, Document A/51/306 Sc Add. I, 26 August 1996.

16. During El Salvador's civil war, die Geneva Conventions and die Convention of the Rights of the Child, which set the age limit for child soldiers at age sixteen, were the only applicable legislation. Both state and nonstate actors then cannot be blamed for using sixteento eighteen-year-old fighters, but this paper was not written to condemn actors in a war that ended eighteen years ago. Meanwhile, most Salvadoran child soldiers did begin fighting at much younger than sixteen years of age.

Footnote

17. Singer, Children At War, 7.

18. Ibid., 32.

19. Aldo Lauria-Santiago and Leigh Binford, Landscapes of Struggle: Politics, Society and Community in E/ Salvador (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 50.

20. Elizabeth Jean Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 32.

Footnote

21. Lauria-Santiago and Binford, Landscapes:, Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador, Hugh Byrne, El Salvador's Civil War: A Study of Revolution (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishing, 1996); and Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Peace, 2nd ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995).

22. Brian J. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps and the Final Offensive of 1981 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1999); and William Stanley, The Protection Racket State: Elite Politics, Military Extortion and Civil War in El Salvador (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1996).

23. Jo Boyden and Joanna de Berry, eds., Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography, Armed Conflict and Displacement (New York Berghahn Books, 2004); Rachel Brett and Irma Specht, Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004); Jimmie Briggs, Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War (New York: Basic Books, 2005); Singer, Children at War, and Michael Wessells, Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006).

Footnote

24. Jon Lee Anderson, Guerrillas (New York: Times Books, 1992), 56.

25. Stanley, The Protection Racket State, 40.

26. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador, 24.

27. Fundación Fernando Velasco, El Salvador Al Filo de La Esperanza: Servicio Documental 17 (Quito: Fundación Fernando Velasco, 1982), 6.

28. Byrne, El Salvador's Civil War, 25.

29. Kay Read, "When is a Kid a Kid? Negotiating Children's Rights in El Salvador's Civil War," History of Religions 41, no. 4 (2002): 393.

Footnote

30. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 2nd ed., 132.

31. Oficina de Tutela Legal del Azobispado, Comisión Arquidiocesana de Justicia y Paz, Informe Mensual de la Oficina de Tutela Legal del Arzobispad (San Salvador: Informe N° 61, May 1987), la.

32. Stefan Ueltzan, Conservatorio con los Hijos del Siglo (San Salvador: Algier's Impresore, 1994), 137.

33. Óscar Martínez Péñate, comp., El Salvador: Los Acuerdos de Paz y el Informe de la Comisión déla Verdad(Sín Salvador: Editorial Nuevo Enfoque, 2007), 11-148.

34. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 2nd ed., 237.

35. William Deng, A Survey of Programs on the Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers (Tokyo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 2001).

36. Anderson, Guerrillas, 107.

37. Philip J. Williams and Knut Walter, Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador's Transition to Democracy (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), 149.

38. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps, 141.

39. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador, 28.

Footnote

40. Byrne, El Salvador's Civil War, 25.

41. UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL), "El Salvador, Background (Summary)," http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/comission/onusalbackr.html.

42. Denise Spencer, Demilitarization and Reintegration in Central America, Bonn International Centre for Conversation (BICC), Paper 8 (1997), 10.

43. Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and Elizabeth M. Cousens, eds., Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 389.

44. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps, 123.

45. Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars, 383.

Footnote

46. Singer, Children at War, 70.

47. Clements, Witness to War, 10.

48. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps, 18, 19, 14.

49. Mario Uclés Lungo, El Salvador in the Eighties: Counterinsurgency and Revolution (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1996), 70.

50. Williams and Walter, Militarization and Demilitarization, 137.

Footnote

51. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 7.

52. Williams and Walter, Militarization and Demi/itarization,15.

53. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 2nd ed., 151.

54. Marta Harnecker, Con la Mirada en Alto: Historia de las Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Farabundo Marita través de Sus Dirigentes (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1993), 164.

55. Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, 2nd ed., 169.

56. Tiempo de Audacia, DVD, Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (San Salvador: Producción Sistema Radio Venceremos, 1983).

Footnote

57. Wessells, Child Soldiers, 35.

58. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps, 26.

59. Americas Watch [now Human Rights Watch/ Americas], The Civilian Toll 1986-1987: Ninth Supplement to the Report on Human Rights in El Salvador (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1987), 111.

60. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 7-8.

61. Carlos Ortiz, interview by the author, 14 March 2007: "Yo no compartí la ideología de la fuerza aérea," translated by the author.

62. Adam Abelson, "The Fruits of War: Cultural Continuity and Localized Adaptation Among Transnational Salvadoran Youth Gangs" (Draft, Article submitted to International Migration Review, 2006), 17.

63. Efrain Antonio Fuentes Mojica, interview by the author, 10 January 2008.

Footnote

64. Americas Watch, The Civilian Toll 1986-1987, 62.

65. Wessells, Child Soldiers, 41.

66. José Ignacio López Vigil, Rebel Radio: The Story of El Salvador's Radio Venceremos, trans. Mark Fried (Willimantic, Conn.: Curbstone Press, 1994), 137.

67. Claudia Ricca, "Children in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES)," Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers - Forum on Armed Groups and the Involvement of Children in Armed conflict (Chateau de Bossey, Switzerland, 2006), 5 .

68. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers," 7-8.

69. llene Cohn and Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 24.

70. Wilbur Consalvi, interview by the author, 13 March 2007.

71. Wessells, Child Soldiers, Al.

Footnote

72. López Vigil, Rebel Radio, 56.

73. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps, 14.

74. Ibid., 138.

75. Beth Verhey, "Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegrating," World Bank Group Africa Region Working Paper Series, no. 23 (November 2001): 3.

Footnote

76. Clements, Witness to War, 166.

77. Stanley, The Protection Racket State, 1.

78. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 8.

79. Juan Pablo Bonilla, interview by the author, 10 January 2008.

80. Ueltzen, Conservatorio con los Hijos del Siglo, 219.

81. Domingo Brogran, interview by the author, 8 January 2008.

82. Brett and Specht, Young Soldiers, 42.

83. Ricca, "Children in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES)," 5.

84. Iosu Perales and Marta Harnecker, La Estrategìa de la Victoria: Entrevistas a los Comandantes de FMLN, Leonel González, Jesús Rojas y Ricardo Gutiérrez (San Salvador: Ediciones Farabundo Martí, 1989), 80.

Footnote

85. Ueltzen, Conservatorio con los Hijos del Siglo, 251.

86. Ricca, "Children in the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES)," 7.

87. Harnecker, Con la Mirada en Alto, 245: "Llegábamos a un poblado y sacábamos a los jóvenes; en muchos lugares se nos escondían o se corrían - aunque muchos entendían que nuestra causa era justa - De esta forma, los métodos que usamos en el reclutamiento se ponían en contradicción con los pueblos que buscamos liberar," translated by the author.

88. Anderson, Guerrillas, 212.

89. Ibid., 141.

90. Carlos Henrique Consalvi (Santiago), interview by the author, 15 December 2007.

Footnote

91. Harnecker, Con la Mirada en Alto, 178.

92. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 9.

93. Julio Cesar Marroquin Hernández, interview by the author, 14 March 2007.

Footnote

94. Maria Luisa Vigilia, interview by the author, 15 December 2007.

95. Anderson, Guerrillas, 209.

96. Carlos Henrique Consalvi (Santiago) interview, 6 December 2007.

97. Clements, Witness to War, 100.

98. Anderson, Guerrillas, 56, 207.

99. Julio Cesar Marroquin Hernández, interview by the author, 15 March 2007.

100. Leonardo Perez, interview by the author, 14 December 2007.

101. Lucio Afilio Vázquez Díaz (Chiyo), interview by the author, 16 March 2007: "No van a matarnos como perros, van a matarnos peleando," translated by the author.

Footnote

102. Ricca, "Children in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES),"6.

103. If the Mango Tree Could Speak.

104. José Osmín Delgado Guardado, interview by the author, 1 February 2008.

105. Informe Mensual de la Oficina de Tutela Legal del Arzobispad, 2 1 .

106. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 10, 9.

107. Vázquez Díaz (Chiyo) interview, 16 March 2007.

108. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador, 115.

109. Vazquez Díaz (Chiyo) interview, 16 March 2007: "A luchar era la única manera de sobrevivir," translated by the author.

110. Anderson, Guerrillas, 140.

Footnote

111. López Vigil, Rebel Radio, 79.

112. Armando Martinez Nunez, interview by the author, 26 February 2008.

113. Stanley, The Protection Racket State, 1.

114. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 9.

115. Brett and Specht, Young Soldiers, 14.

116. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 9.

Footnote

117. Clements, Witness to War, 10,218.

118. Ortiz interview, 14 March 2007.

119. Tiempo de Audacia.

120. Wilbur Consalvi interview, 13 March 2007.

Footnote

121. Ortiz interview, 14 March 2007.

122. Fuentes Mojica interview, 10 January 2008.

123. Cresencio Fernandez Garcia, interview by the author, 22 March 2008.

124. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 8.

125. Ricca, "Children in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES)," 5.

126. Cohn and Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict, 95.

127. Singer, Children at War, 81.

128. Ortiz interview, 14 March 2007.

129. Americas Watch, The Civilian Toll 1986-1987 , 62-65.

Footnote

130. La Decisión de Vencer, DVD, Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (1981; San Salvador: Proucción Sistema Radio Venceremos, 2005).

131. Irma E. D. Vasquez, interview by the author, 14 December 2007.

132. Boyden and Berry, Children and Youth on the Front Line, 12.

133. Vázquez Díaz (Chiyo) interview, 16 March 2007.

134. Anderson, Guerrillas, 61.

135. Read, "When is a Kid a Kid?" 392.

136. Cohn and Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict, 95.

137. Steffen W Schmidt, El Salvador: America's Next Vietnam? (Salisbury, N.C.: Documentary Publications, 1983), 186.

138. Cohn and Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict, 94.

Footnote

139. Interview by llene Cohn, in Cohn and Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict, 94-95.

140. Vazquez Diaz (Chiyo) interview, 16 March 2007.

141. Carlos Henrique Consalvi (Santiago) interview, 15 December 2007.

142. Marroquin Hernández interview, 15 March 2007.

Footnote

143. Data from Rädda Barnen, Childwar Database, http://www.rb.se.

144. Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador: Origins and Evolution, 1st ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982), 151.

145. Ricca, "Children in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES)," 5.

146. Harnecker, Con La Mirada en Alto, 87.

147. Brett and Specht, Young Soldiers, 96.

148. Vigilia interview, 15 December 2007.

149. Singer, Children At War,?,?,.

150. Vázquez Díaz (Chiyo) interview, 16 March 2007.

Footnote

151. Clements, Witness to War, 203.

152. Ibid., 167.

153. Cohn and Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict, 105.

154. Informe Mensual de la Oficina de Tutela Legal, xvi.

155. Perales and Harnecker, La Estrategia de Ia Victoria,136.

156. Clements, Witness to War, 184.

Footnote

157. Ueltzen, Conservatorio con los Hijos del Siglo, 239.

158. Informe Mensual de la Oficina de Tutela Legal, 42.

159. Stedman et sl.i Ending Civil Wars, 387.

160. Verhey, "Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegrating," 1.

161. Ibid., 16.

162. Naciones Unidas, Acuerdos de El Salvador en el Camino de la Paz (San Salvador: La Misión de Observadores de las Naciones Unidas en El Salvador [ONUSAL], 1992), 53.

Footnote

163. Verhey, "Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegrating," 8.

164. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 28, 35.

165. Verhey, "Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegrating," 12, 398, 19.

166. Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars, 389.

167. llene Cohn, "The Protection of Children in Peacemaking and Peacekeeping Processes," Harvard Human Rights Journal 12 (Spring 1999): 129-96.

Footnote

168. Maria Teresa Mejia, interview by the author, 21 February 2008.

169. Cohn, "The Protection of Children in Peacemaking and Peacekeeping Processes," 60.

170. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 20.

171. José Miguel Cruz and Nelson PortiUo Peña, Solidaridad y violencia en las pandiallas del gran San Salvador: Más allá de la vida loca (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1998).

172. Marroquin Hernández, 15 March 2007.

173. Nefarti Guardado Guardado, interview by the author, 22 February 2008.

174. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 35.

175. Ibid., 6.

176. Cohn, "The Protection of Children in Peacemaking and Peacekeeping Processes," 28.

Footnote

177. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 35.

178. Juan Carlos Alvarado, interview by the author, 26 February 2008.

179. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 39.

180. Verhey, "Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegrating," 19, 31.

181. Oscar Mejia, interview by the author, 12 December 2007.

182. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 30.

Footnote

183. Chris Blattman and Jeannie Annan,"The Consequences of Child Soldiering,"Working Paper 22, Households in Conflict Network August 2007, www.hicn.org.

184. Neil Boothby, Jennifer Crawford, and Jason Halperin, "Mozambique Child Soldier Life Outcome Study: Lessons Learned in Rehabilitation and Reintegration Efforts," Global Public Health 1 , no. 1 (February 2006): 87-107, see p. 90; Susan Shepler, "The Rites of the ChUd: Global Discourses of Youth and Reintegrating Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone," Journal of Human Rights,]ans 2005, 197-211.

185. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 37, 32.

186. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, El Salvador, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2004.

187. "V Censo de Población y IV de Vivienda, El Salvador 1992," Biblioteca Virtual en Población, Centro Centroamericano de Población, http://ccp.ucr.ac.cr/bvp/censos/zip/salva/ index.htm.

Footnote

188. Verhey, "The Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers: El Salvador Case Study," 16, 3.

189. Ibid., 19.

190. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan,^i Survey of Programs on the Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers (Japan, 1998), 3.

191. Fuentes Mojica interview, 10 January 2008.

192. Wim Savenije and María Antonieta Beltrán, Compitiendo en Bravuras: Violencia Estudiantil en el Area Metropolitana de San Salvador (San Salvador: FLACSO, 2005), 41.

193. Cruz and Portillo Peña, Solidaridad y Violencia, 85: "La violencia es una forma efectiva y rápida de resolver los conflictos y problemas," translated by the author.

Footnote

194. Verhey, "Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegrating," 8.

195. ONUSAL, Relaciones Civiles-Militares en el Nuevo Marco Internacional (San Salvador: ONUSAL Derechos Humanos, 1994), 98.

196. Edgar Huezo, interview by the author, 27 November 2007.

197. José Miguel Cruz and Nelson Portillo Peña, "Solidaridad y violencia: los jóvenes pandilleros en el Gran Sal Salvador," ECA (San Salvador: UCA, 1998), 695-710.

198. Mejia interview, 12 December 2007.

199. Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars, 165.

200. Edgardo Amaya, interview by the author, 30 November 2007.

201. Rodolfo Cardenal and Luis Armando González, eds., El Salvador: La Transición y Sus Problemas (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2007), 204.

202. Julio Martinez Hernández, interview by the author, 5 December 2007.

Footnote

203. Abelson, "The Fruits of War: Cultural Continuity and Localized Adaptation Among Transnational Salvadoran Youth Gangs," 37.

204. Luis Ernesto Romero, interview by the author, 18 December 2007.

205. Singer, Children at War, 185.

206. Wim Savenije and Chris Van Der Borgh, "Youth Gangs, Social Exclusion and the Transformation of Violence in El Salvador," in Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America, ed. Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt (London: Zed Books, 2004), 155.