Refugees and Guerrilla Groups in Cold War Central America

The Central American conflicts of the 1980s triggered a host of refugee movements as people fled the violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. In addition to those who moved North, either to Mexico or the United States (US), many sought refuge within the region, particularly in Costa Rica and Honduras. Leaving one’s state did not, however, mean that one could leave a conflict behind, and many refugees remained embroiled in their home country’s conflict, albeit in new ways.

Drawing on both archival research and oral history interviews, this paper will examine how guerrilla groups – namely the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) in El Salvador and different Contra groups in Nicaragua – utilised refugees and refugee camps in their campaigns. For these groups, refugees and refugee camps served a variety of uses; as sources of supplies and new recruits, as places where family members could live, and as propaganda tools in the international arena. In addition to examining such utilisation, this paper will also highlight the ways in which refugees willingly partook in, or resisted, it.

The ideologies of the Contra groups and the FMLN were on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Additionally, while the United States and Honduras vigorously opposed the FMLN, they supported the Contra. By focusing on these very different guerrilla groups, this paper will therefore also draw attention to the similarities and differences in how refugees were utilised. Overall, while histories of exile in the Americas often point to how people chose to continue their political struggles from abroad, this paper will show how a continued involvement in the conflict of one’s home country was not always done by choice, especially for those without the means to leave the region.