About

El Salvador Perspectives is a news and information site/blog focused on the Central American country of El Salvador. The primary focus is on news and politics, but you can also find articles here on culture, tourism, art, food and more.

The intended audience for El Salvador Perspectives are English-speakers who have some relationship with El Salvador. Whether you have friends and relatives in El Salvador, have a sister church, visited on a service trip, or are researching the country's continued emergence and healing from its civil war during the 1980's, there should be something on this site for you.

El Salvador Perspectives began in 2004 as "Tim's El Salvador Blog."  In the dozen years following, the site has developed a following in both the US and El Salvador and a community of people who share thoughts in comments, tweets, messages and elsewhere.

El Salvador Perspectives is the product of Tim Muth. Tim is a US trained lawyer who splits his time between El Salvador and Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the US. When he is not researching and writing articles for this site, Tim works on matters involving civil liberties and human rights. Tim actively tweets as a supplement to El Salvador Perspectives, and you can follow him on Twitter as @TimMuth.

Tim is married to Linda, who also writes frequently about El Salvador. You can find her blog at Linda's El Salvador Blog.

Comments

Trace said…
Hi Tim. As an ex-pat American "gringo" living in El Salvador, I really appreciate your blog. I came accross this story this morning and thought it might be interesting to you. http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2017/05/28/municipios-libres-de-violencia-en-el-pais-sin-necesidad-de-autodefensas
Hi Tim,
You probably don't know me, but our friend in common, Eloise Clawson, forwards your blog posts to me regularly, so I feel like I know you.

I have a small favor that I'm sure you could help out in a brief minute. I'm looking for the name of a fairly famous Salvadoran general who was killed by rebels in about 1984 or 5. He had been trying hard to shut down Radio Venceremos, so the rebels put together a fake transmitter with a bomb in it and allowed him to find it. Then when he and his men put it into a helicopter to take it back and show off his victory, they detonated the bomb.

I wanted to retell that story in something I'm writing, but somehow I can't find anything that reports it. I can't find it in my books and I can't find it in my Google searches, so obviously I'm doing something wrong. It was big news at the time, but I can't seem to locate it now.

Can you help me out? If you know of some articles about it that you could suggest, that would be great, but even just giving me the names and locations and date, would be enough for me to do a better search for it.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate it. And keep up the good work. I lived in El Salvador back in the late eighties and still travel there periodically (last year with Eloise and her church group), so I read your posts with great interest.

Best,

Stan
standuncan@post.harvard.edu
standuncan@gmail.com
Unknown said…
That happened in Morazán; go to http://museo.com.sv/en/ which is the archive MUPI in San Salvador, Museo de la Imagen y Palabra whose director was a witness to the event.
Unknown said…
Dear Stan,

I'm a follower of Tim's El Salvador Perspectives and just saw your question regarding the military officer who was after Radio Venceremos. Just in case you haven't yet gotten the information you seek, I wanted to let you know that it was Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa Barrios, commander of the infamous Atlacatl Battalion that committed the massacre of El Mozote in December 1981. The most exhaustive study of that massacre, the role of Colonel Monterrosa and his death in the helicopter that was exploded by a guerrllla bomb in October 1984 is to be found in Mark Danner's book The Massacre at El Mozote. Vintage Books, 1993/94. Jon Lee Anderson and Raymond Bonner have also written about Monterrosa and El Mozote. I hope this helps.
--Very best regards, Adele Negro, Executive Director, ECOPA: Intersections for Sustainable Living (www.ecopa.org)
Michael Howden said…
Tim,
I’ve been receiving your blogs on El Salvador for many years and appreciate them. I well remember your film series back in my Fair Trade efforts days. Your summary yesterday was especially helpful.
I am a member of a new Catholic group, CCMR, which Mark Peters, professor of Social Justice studies at the Sacred Heart Seminary in Hales Corners, has organized. I remember you as an ardent member of an ELCA parish. I wondered if the ELCA has developed policy or anything else related to the current immigration evils??
Thanks for your years of communicating, Mike Howden
Unknown said…
Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, commander of the Third Brigade
ernesto escoto said…
Tim,
Just learned of your blog after it was mentioned on last week's NYT's article about El Salvador elections https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/world/americas/el-salvador-election-bukele.html
I'm enjoying reading several of your posts and wanted to suggest a recent book about El Salvador for your list, What you heard is true: A memory of witness and resistance by Carolyn Forche.
Warmly,
e.r. escoto