Ignacio Martín-Baró I.
From Dirty War to Psychological War: The Case of El Salvador
Ignacio Martín-Baró was a social psychologist, philosopher and Jesuit priest, whose work inspired the development of liberation psychology in Latin America.
He was killed by the Salvadorian Army in 1989.
In this article, he presents the case of El Salvador, analyzing the psychosocial impacts war has on the population. According to Martín-Baró, while both dirty and psychological war allow the achievement of the same objectives and produces similar psychosocial consequences in the population, psychological war aims at preserving the image of formal democracy, which at the time was necessary for the United States to safeguard public opinion support.
