<P> On 20 February 1977 Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, representing the National Conciliation Party (PCN), defeated the National Opposing Union in elections marred by blatant fraud and voter intimidation by government - sponsored paramilitary forces such as the feared ORDEN, which intimidated voters with machetes . The period between the election and the formal inauguration of President Romero on 1 July 1977 was characterized by massive protests from the popular movement, which were met by state repression . On 28 February 1977 a crowd of political demonstrators gathered in downtown San Salvador to protest the electoral fraud . Security forces arrived on the scene and opened fire, resulting in a massacre as they indiscriminately killed demonstrators and bystanders alike . Estimates of the number of civilians killed range between 200 and 1,500 . President Molina blamed the protests on "foreign Communists" and immediately exiled a number of top UNO party members from the country . </P> <P> Repression continued after the inauguration of President Romero, with his new government declaring a state - of - siege and suspending civil liberties . In the countryside the agrarian elite organized and funded paramilitary death squads, such as the infamous Regalado's Armed Forces (FAR) led by Hector Regalado . While the death squads were initially autonomous from the Salvadoran military and composed of civilians (the FAR, for example, had developed out of a Boy Scout troop), they were soon taken over by El Salvador's military intelligence service, ANSESAL, led by Maj . Roberto D'Aubuisson, and became a crucial part of the state's repressive apparatus, murdering thousands of union leaders, activists, students and teachers suspected of sympathizing with the left . The Socorro Jurídico Cristiano (Christian Legal Assistance, a legal aid office within the archbishop's office and El Salvador's leading human rights group at the time) documented the killings of 687 civilians by government forces in 1978 . In 1979 the number of documented killings increased to 1,796 . The repression prompted many in the Catholic Church to denounce the government, which responded by repressing the clergy . </P> <P> Historian M.A. Serpas posits the displacement and dispossession rates as a major factor . El Salvador is an agrarian society, with coffee fueling its economy, where "77% of the arable land belonged to . 01% of the population . Nearly 35% of the civilians in El Salvador were disfranchised from land ownership either through historical injustices, war or economic downturns in the commodities market . During this time frame, the country also experienced a growing population amidst major disruption in agrarian commerce and trade ." </P> <P> A threat to land change meant a challenge to a state where "marriages intertwined, making the wealthiest coffee processors and exporters (more so than the growers) also those with the highest ties in the military ." </P>

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