Beyond Displacement: Campesinos, Refugees, and Collective Action in the Salvadoran Civil War (Critical Human Rights)

During the civil war that wracked El Salvador from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, the Salvadoran military tried to stamp out dissidence and insurgency through an aggressive campaign of crop-burning, kidnapping, rape, killing, torture, and gruesome bodily mutilations. Even as human rights violations drew world attention, repression and war displaced more than a quarter of El Salvador’s population, both inside the country and beyond its borders. __Beyond Displacement__ examines how the peasant campesinos of war-torn northern El Salvador responded to violence by taking to the hills. Molly Todd demonstrates that their flight was not hasty and chaotic, but was a deliberate strategy that grew out of a longer history of collective organization, mobilization, and self-defense. During the civil war that wracked El Salvador from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, the Salvadoran military tried to stamp out dissidence and insurgency through an aggressive campaign of crop-burning, kidnapping, rape, killing, torture, and gruesome bodily mutilations. Even as human rights violations drew world attention, repression and war displaced more than a quarter of El Salvador's population, both inside the country and beyond its borders. Beyond Displacement examines how the peasant campesinos of war-torn northern El Salvador responded to violence by taking to the hills. Molly Todd demonstrates that their flight was not hasty and chaotic, but was a deliberate strategy that grew out of a longer history of collective organization, mobilization, and self-defense. --From publisher's description Contents 9 List of Illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 12 List of Abbreviations 16 Introduction: A People without History 22 1. Remapping the Tierra Olvidada 34 2. Organizing Flight: The Guinda System 69 3. Internationalizing La Guinda 101 4. The Politics of Exile 131 5. Salvadorans to the Soul: Citizen Refugees and La Lucha 157 6. (Re)Writing National History from Exile 184 7. ¡Retorno! The Grassroots Repopulation Movement 209 Conclusion: Campesinos, Collective Organization, and Social Change 240 Notes 248 References 282 Index 296 Examines how the peasant campesinos of war-torn northern El Salvador responded to violence by taking to the hills. Molly Todd demonstrates that their flight was not hasty and chaotic, but was a deliberate strategy that grew out of a longer history of collective organisation, mobilization, and self-defense.