“The Health of the Pueblo Will Only Be Achieved with the Triumph of the Pueblo”: Debility, Disability, and Health in the FMLN

Disability was a battleground in Central America’s not-so Cold War. For four decades, Central Americans fought for hearts and minds—more than metaphors—vital organs whose vulnerability before mortars, torture, and extractive labor prompted what could be considered a corporeal Cold War. To better understand the importance of the body in a period usually framed in diplomatic and ideological terms, this paper discusses health discourses and practices of care among El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

Disability was not only an outcome of war, but also a reason why people took up arms. FMLN combatants and civilian and internationalist allies cited health concerns, like malnutrition, medical neglect, injury, and early death. They argued that the state impaired them through gradual debilitation and acute disablement. The booklet that gives this paper its title exemplifies this rhetorical move. Over time, the health discourses and practices of care promoted by the FMLN and its collaborators became legible as a proving ground for revolutionary ideals, which I term “guerrilla medicine.” Guerrilla medicine also required expertise in combat medicine, including amputation, antisepsis, emergency transportation, communications, and diplomacy. Counterrevolutionary forces responded by targeting guerrilla medicine on multiple fronts, from air strikes to U.S. Senate hearings to their own health programs.

This paper is based on oral histories, the journals and field manuals of Salvadoran and internationalist medics, and official FMLN publications. It comes from my current book project Guerrilla Medicine and Disability in Cold War Central America. This history is replete with combatants, medics, social workers, diplomats, nurses, internationalists, politicians, and torturers who all understood that the body was worth fighting for. It uncovers contradictions in projects of technocratic modernism, revolutionary uplift, and democratic restoration. It amplifies disabled people’s responses to these projects. It challenges how we calculate the costs of war and peace.