Negotiating an end to El Salvador's civil war

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2019

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On December 31 1991 the two warring parties in El Salvador's brutal civil war agreed to end the fighting. Left-wing FMLN rebels pledged to disarm and demobilise all their fighters, in exchange for the US-backed government and military carrying out sweeping political and security reforms. The Salvadoran peace process was heralded as a major victory for UN diplomacy. Its top negotiator, the Peruvian Alvaro de Soto, tells Mike Lanchin about his role in the long road to peace in El Salvador.

Photo: Rebels celebrate the end of the war in El Salvador (Jason Bleibtreu/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Choosing what to
0:32.1	watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:36.5	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:41.5	telly we share what we've been watching.
0:43.7	Cladie Aide!
0:45.7	Loads of games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:48.2	Lovely.
0:49.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:51.2	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:54.7	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service,
1:09.6	first-hand stories of events that have shaped our world. I'm Mike Lanchin. Today we're going back to New
1:16.0	Year's Eve of 1991 when two bitter enemies in El Salvador finally agreed to end their 12-year civil war.
1:25.0	It was heralded as a major victory for the United Nations,
1:29.0	which oversaw the peace treaty between the Marxist rebels and the US-backed Salvadoran government.
1:35.2	I've been hearing from the UN diplomat who led the whole process.
	...

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