A dam about to burst: the reopening of the debate on the land problem in El Salvador (1959-1970).

Abstract

The 1960s were crucial for the reopening of the debate around the land problem in El Salvador. Since the indigenous peasant massacre of 1932, the military governments had erected a dam that prevented the demand for agrarian reform from emerging. After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, some sectors of Salvadoran society began to rediscuss the structure of property and/or land tenure, opening the first cracks in the dam. However, it was necessary to wait until the end of the decade for the government to abandon a repressive policy towards the claim - which even involved the banning of the third political force in 1967 - and to assume the need to open the debate. In this article we propose to historically reconstruct the genealogy of the demand for agrarian reform and the scenario that made possible the reopening of the Salvadoran chapter of the debate, which had a particular outcome after the beginning of the war with Honduras in 1969.