Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ARENA • 39leftists. On 28 March 1982 ARENA won a plurality of the seats in theConstituent Assembly elections, and its leader, Roberto D’Aubuisson(1944–1992), was elected president of that body. Due to ARENA’ssubstantial role both in shaping the Salvadoran polity and later inwinning the Salvadoran presidency, it cannot be accurately describedas being either a nonstate actor or a state-sponsored actor but ratherone engaged in state co-optation.With the intensification of leftist guerrilla attacks in the early1980s, right-wing death squad activity soared. In 1982 D’Aubuissonled a coalition of Salvadoran businessmen and rightist politicians informing the ARENA party, on whose ticket D’Aubuisson made anunsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1984. Many ARENA members,including D’Aubuisson, appear to have been directly involvedin death squad activity both before and after ARENA was formed.ARENA itself was believed to have been behind the assassinationsof political rivals both in the centrist Christian Democrat party andthe leftist Democratic Revolutionary Front.On 19 March 1989 ARENA candidate Alfredo Cristiani won theSalvadoran presidential election, which was preceded by an intensificationof death squad activity, rising from an average of 21 deathsper month in 1987 to 30 deaths per month in the first three months of1988. The rate then fell to 16 deaths per month following Cristiani’selection. During the early 1990s, ARENA largely desisted from terroristactivities, having achieved most of its political aims.On 3 September 2004, in Doe v. Rafael Saravia, U.S. District Courtjudge Oliver Wanger held retired Salvadoran Air Force Captain ÁlvaroRafael Saravia liable under the Alien Tort Claims Act for the 1980murder of Archbishop Ósar Romero and ordered him to pay $2.5 millionin compensatory damages and $7.5 million in punitive damagesto the plaintiff, a relative of Romero, who remained anonymous whilebeing represented by the San Francisco–based Center for Justice andAccountability. Saravia had been the chief of security for ARENAleader Roberto D’Aubuisson at the time of the assassination.ARENA has controlled El Salavador’s presidency continuouslysince the end of the Salvadoran conflict. On 21 March 2004 ARENAcandidate Tony Saca defeated the Farabundo Martí LiberationFront (FMLN) candidate Shafik Handal by a margin of 57.7 to 35.7percent, while in the 12 March 2006 national legislative elections,ARENA won 34 seats to the FMLN’s 32 seats, although the FMLNactually received about 4,500 more votes for the 84-seat assembly.