Signing of the Peace Accords 2023: Date, History and Facts about El Salvador

After more than 12 years of suffering at the hands of the Salvadoran government and their opposition, the signing of these agreements brought a measure of peace to the country.

Signing of the Peace Accords 2023: The Signing of the Peace Accords is an annual commemorative event held on January 12 — the day the Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed in El Salvador in 1992, ending a decades-long Civil War. After more than 12 years of suffering at the hands of the Salvadoran government and their opposition, the signing of these agreements brought a measure of peace to the country. This resulted in an unofficial ceasefire that lasted for many years, allowing the country to rebuild and emerge from the ashes of war.

HISTORY OF SIGNING OF THE PEACE ACCORDS

Leftist and moderate Salvadorans had just overthrown their president, Carlos Humberto Romero, in 1979, after class-based and economic inequalities remained unaddressed and protests were met with severe retaliation from the government. Thus, El Salvador was plunged into a 12-year civil war that claimed between 70,000 and 80,000 lives and displaced over a million people.

Multiple left-wing military groups united to form the Farabundo Mart National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N. ), a prominent opposition group to the Salvadoran government, as a result of the government’s power vacuum. At the end of five years, the country was struggling under the burden of constant violence and conflict. Numerous efforts were made to establish peace and end the war, but they were only successful in 1991, nearly 11 years after the conflict began. A year later, the F.M.L.N., representatives of the Salvadoran government, and other political parties signed the truce, which was mediated by lvaro de Soto, a special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General. There was a newly appointed civilian police force, the F.M.L.N. was granted legal political status, and all warring parties were granted amnesty for wartime actions.

El Salvador has made progress since then in bringing the country back from the brink of destruction. Salvadorans have the strength and foundation of a hard-won peace process to guide them, despite having a long way to go.

5 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT EL SALVADOR AND SALVADORANS

El Salvador is the land of earthquakes: Due to its location and other vulnerability factors, the country is highly prone to earthquakes, and it has experienced more than 12 major earthquakes in the last century.

A monument to peace: The Cristo de La Paz Monument, also known as the Monument to Peace, is a 50-foot-tall sculpture composed of bullet casings, brass, and bronze that is intended to symbolise the peace accords.

The then-president Salvador Sánchez Cerén commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Signing of the Peace Accords by inaugurating the Monument to Peace and Reconciliation plaza, which contains signatures of those who signed the 1992 peace agreements, among other attractions.

90% of Salvadorans are of mixed Spanish and American Indian ancestry, and 9% of these claim Spanish ancestry.

According to the most recent statistics, more than three million Salvadorans reside in the United States and send money to their families in El Salvador.

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