Low-Intensity Warfare, High-Intensity Death: The Demographic Impact of The Wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua

Abstract

How violent were the recent civil wars in El Salvador (1980–91) and Nicaragua (1975–90)? Throughout both wars, the estimates of war-related deaths are highly varied and the issue of combatant and non-combatant deaths served a critical political purpose in generating or mollifying support for government and insurgent forces. As the presentation and analysis of the available data on war-related deaths will show in this article, actual counts are highly contested from year to year, and variation in estimates hinge on controversial definitions of combatant versus non-combatant and other ambiguities within the politics of human rights measurement. Few studies have gone beyond the summaries of reported war-related deaths in attempting to disaggregate and specify the demographic impact of the wars. Using recent survey data from both Nicaragua and El Salvador, this study finds that ideology had a strong impact on who died in El Salvador although almost none in Nicaragua. In El Salvador the extreme left suffered a far higher proportion of casualties than those in the centre or right. No such pattern is uncovered in Nicaragua. The implications of these findings for postwar reconciliation are discussed.