The government of El Salvador fought a bloody civil war against the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( FMLN ) , an umbrella organization of leftist political opposition groups , and against leaders of agricultural cooperatives , labor leaders and others who advocated for land reform and better conditions for " campesinos " ( tenant farmers and other agrarian laborers ) that supported the FMLN . The Salvadoran army organized military death squads to terrorize the rural civil population to cease its support for the FMLN . Government forces killed more than 75,000 civilians during the war 1980 – 1992 . The U.S. government provided military training and weapons for the Salvadoran military . The Atlacatl Battalion , a counter-insurgency battalion , was organized in 1980 at the US Army School of the Americas and had a leading role in the " scorched earth " military policy against the FLMN and the rural villages that supported it . Atlacatl soldiers were equipped and directed by U.S. military advisers operating in El Salvador . The Atlacatl battalion also participated in the El Mozote massacre in December 1981 . By May 1983 , US officers took over positions in the top levels of the Salvadoran military , were making critical decisions and running the war . A US Congressional fact finding commission found that the Salvadoran military 's " drying up the ocean " policy of repression entailed eliminating " entire villages from the map , to isolate the guerrillas , and deny them any rural base off which they can feed . " The " drying up the ocean " or " scorched earth " strategy was based on tactics similar to those being employed by the junta 's counter-insurgency in neighboring Guatemala and were primarily derived and adapted from U.S. strategy during the Vietnam War and taught by American military advisors
El Mozote massacre
El Mozote massacre
United States involvement in regime change