1st Student's Major
World Languages and Cultures, Educational Studies: K-12 and Secondary Programs, History
1st Student's College
Humanities and Social Sciences
Students' Professional Biography
Abbey is an undergraduate student from Ramsey, Minnesota. She is majoring in History, Social Studies Teaching, and Spanish. After graduation, she will begin her teaching career at the secondary level. Abbey aspires to motivate her students to utilize history as an agent of change, learning from the past to advocate for social justice for all people.
Mentor's Name
Matthew Loayza
Mentor's Email Address
matthew.loayza@mnsu.edu
Mentor's Department
History
Mentor's College
Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract
This research explores the motivations behind the denial of the 1981 El Mozote Massacre in El Salvador. In this event, the US-backed Atlácatl battalion of the Salvadoran Army brutally killed over 500 Indigenous peoples in the department of Morazán. Despite multiple eyewitness accounts of the massacre, both the United States and Salvadoran governments repeatedly denied responsibility for the event.
This project is based on official US governmental documents from the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Department of State, and Congress. These documents illuminate conversations within the government concerning knowledge about the massacre, plans for continuing foreign aid, and further military actions. This information is supplemented by eyewitness accounts of the massacre and reports made by international human rights groups, which significantly differ from what is presented in the governmental documents.
Although few scholars have closely examined El Mozote, there is a significant body of scholarship that explores US Cold War foreign relations and the primacy of militarization in foreign policy decisions. Scholarship on Latin American human rights is scant, exploring general trends in rights violations across the continent. Most American research does not consider Spanish-language sources.
This investigation adds to foreign relations and human rights scholarship by presenting original, bilingual research on this insufficiently examined event. Research findings clarify the motivations of US Cold War foreign policy in El Salvador and highlight its overlooked effects on human rights. This project seeks to promote greater awareness of the El Mozote massacre, along with current human rights violations involving the US and El Salvador, to encourage support for the achievement of justice for the victims and their families.
Recommended Citation
Botko, A. (2025). The El Mozote Massacre of 1981: Central American human rights and United States Cold War policy. Journal of Undergraduate Research, 25(1), 24-50. https://doi.org/10.56816/2378-6949.1237
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Diplomatic History Commons, Latin American History Commons, United States History Commons