El Salvador's Decade of Terror : Human Rights Since the Assassination of Archbishop Romero (New ed)

The 1980 murder in El Salvador of Archbishop Romero was followed almost ten years later by the killing of six Jesuit priests.

These events bracketed a decade of enmity and civil war in El Salvador, where an armed insurgency attempted to overthrow the military-backed government. "El Salvador's Decade of Terror" is a detailed human rights accounting of this tumultuous period.

The authors show that despite the United States' policy of promoting human rights through support to the military, conditions in El Salvador have deteriorated.

In their view, the United States' rationale for supporting the Salvadorean government and military is "as weak now as at the dawn of US military involvement".

Documenting a wide range of violations by all sides in the conflict, the authors challenge the current administration's position that the human rights situation in El Salvador has steadily improved, and they call for American policy makers to reevaluate the role of the United States in El Salvador.

Americas Watch was established in 1981 to monitor and promote observance of internationally recognized human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is a division of Human Rights Watch.