| | by admin | | posted on 24th June 2025 in Power to Protest | | views 53 | |
British peace campaigners stood in solidarity with the people of Chile and El Salvador during the 1970s and 1980s, opposing dictatorship, repression, and the global arms trade in the name of peace and justice.
In the latter half of the 20th century, both Chile and El Salvador became flashpoints in the global struggle for peace, democracy, and human rights. Though separated by geography and circumstance, both countries suffered brutal repression — in Chile through the 1973 military coup and dictatorship of General Pinochet, and in El Salvador through a devastating civil war that began in 1979. In each case, British peace campaigners rallied in support of those resisting tyranny, seeing their struggles as part of a broader international battle against militarism and injustice.
While the details differed, the principles remained the same: opposition to foreign-backed regimes, a commitment to nonviolence, and solidarity with those working for justice from below. These campaigns were not isolated; they were threads woven into the wider fabric of the British peace movement.
When Chile’s democratic socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown on 11 September 1973, the event sent shockwaves around the world. Pinochet’s military junta launched a reign of terror — bombing the presidential palace, executing opponents, and institutionalising torture. The coup’s international backing, especially from the United States, exposed the deep hypocrisy of Cold War geopolitics. In Britain, outrage came swiftly.
The Chile Solidarity Campaign was formed and quickly gathered support from trade unions, churches, students, exiled Chileans and peace activists. The campaign became a model of broad coalition-building and moral clarity. It protested arms sales, exposed complicity, and stood as a vocal critic of the British government’s quiet support for Pinochet, particularly under Margaret Thatcher.
Cultural resistance also flourished. The music of the Nueva Canción movement, especially the legacy of Víctor Jara — poet, singer, and martyr — echoed through peace concerts and vigils. Songs like El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido became staples of protest across Britain. Chilean exiles often took part directly, speaking at events and becoming part of the growing peace culture.
Though the El Salvador solidarity movement never reached quite the same public profile in Britain as the Chile campaign, it often went deeper. The Salvadoran civil war (1979–1992) was complex, protracted, and devastating. Backed heavily by U.S. military aid, the Salvadoran regime and its death squads targeted peasant communities, trade unionists, teachers and clergy. The murder of Archbishop Óscar Romero in 1980, followed by the assassination of six Jesuit priests in 1989, shocked the world and stirred the conscience of many British campaigners.
Faith groups — especially Catholic and Quaker networks — played a major role. Many saw Romero as a modern-day prophet, and his witness led to a surge in Christian peace activism. Churches sent delegations, hosted Salvadoran refugees, and built long-term relationships with communities on the ground. “Twinning” between British towns and Salvadoran villages became a powerful expression of accompaniment and practical solidarity.
Though the El Salvador campaign lacked the same scale as Chile’s, it reflected a deepened commitment to peace through relationship, presence and persistence. Activists often remained engaged for years, even as media attention faded.
A key focus of both solidarity campaigns was challenging the role of foreign powers in sustaining repression. The United States played a central role by supplying arms, training, and economic aid to both Pinochet’s Chile and the Salvadoran government. Britain, too, though to a lesser extent, was complicit through arms sales, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic support.
British peace campaigners did not shy away from holding their own government to account. They exposed how military exports from the UK helped prop up regimes guilty of torture and mass violence. Through protests, reports, and public lobbying, activists demanded a foreign policy based on justice and human rights rather than Cold War realpolitik and profit. This opposition highlighted the global interconnectedness of militarism and the need for solidarity beyond borders.
Both the Chile and El Salvador solidarity campaigns highlighted how militarism and dictatorship impacted women in particular. In each country, state repression was not only political, but deeply gendered — involving sexual violence, the silencing of women’s voices, and the dismantling of grassroots feminist organising. Women were imprisoned, tortured, widowed and disappeared, yet they also emerged as leaders of resistance.
In Chile, women played a key role in the movement for truth and justice. The arpilleristas — women who stitched story quilts called arpilleras — used needle and thread to document life under dictatorship. These textiles, smuggled abroad, became visual testaments to pain, resilience and dignity. British campaigners often displayed and sold these works to raise awareness and funds, creating powerful cross-cultural solidarity.
In El Salvador, women not only suffered violence but led community resistance. From organising clandestine schools to running health brigades, women were often at the frontlines of survival. British solidarity groups listened to these voices and incorporated women’s rights into their campaigning. They drew attention to the use of rape as a weapon of war and the urgent need for gender justice as part of any peace settlement.
Peace, the campaigners argued, could not be built without equality. By centring women’s experiences, both solidarity movements helped shift the peace movement’s focus toward a more intersectional and inclusive understanding of justice.
Both campaigns marked a shift in how many in the British peace movement understood their purpose. No longer focused solely on nuclear weapons, groups like CND, War Resisters’ International, and the Peace Pledge Union came to see peace as a broader commitment — one that opposed repression abroad, exposed the arms trade, and stood in solidarity with victims of militarism.
In both Chile and El Salvador, Britain had sold weapons and provided diplomatic support to repressive regimes. Peace campaigners highlighted these uncomfortable truths, holding up the principle that peace must be built on justice, not just the absence of bombs.
Looking back, the solidarity campaigns with Chile and El Salvador represent two expressions of the same spirit. Chile’s campaign was larger and more visible, driven by a single catastrophic event. El Salvador’s was quieter but often more enduring, rooted in long-term accompaniment and community. Both helped shape a generation of activists who understood peace not as isolation, but as global connection.
The legacy continues today in solidarity with Palestine, in movements against arms exports, and in the spiritual thread that links protest to hope. The lesson, then and now, is clear: peace and justice cannot be separated, and the act of standing with those oppressed, whether in Santiago or San Salvador, is itself a form of resistance.