Career

While still a student in May 1944 he was a part of the protests that brought down the 9 year old regime of then President General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. Other military regimes followed, and in 1945 he crossed the border into Guatemala to join the opposition in exile. His father then got him into the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States of America, even though he spoke no English at the time. In 1948, having worked washing plates and laundry in order to support himself through his studies, he graduated in engineering before returning to an El Salvador now in transition to democracy. He married (to Inés Durán, with whom he had 4 children), got a job in his father's construction firm, and at the same time began teaching.

In 1960 he became a founder member and Secretary General of the Christian Democrat Party (PDC), a party searching for the middle ground between the extreme right and the extreme left, but even in a formation called The United Democratic party (PUD) with other similar political parties they failed to gain a seat in that years' National Congress elections. After boycotting the 1962 presidential elections he became Mayor of San Salvador in March 1964 at the same time as the PDC gained 14 of the 52 seats in the National Congress, making it the largest party within the opposition. Supporting emergent sectors of the economy, and a redistribution of wealth within the restraints of a modern economy, he easily won the next 2 election for mayor in March 1966 and March 1968. After leaving office in 1970 he set up his own estate agency until standing in the February 20 1972 Presidential election under a political grouping called the United National Opposition (UNO). He lost by 10,000 votes to Arturo Armando Molina. On March 25 there was an attempted coup d'état, after which Duarte was imprisoned for conspiracy, where he was tortured including having 3 fingers of his left hand mutilated. He was condemned to death for high treason, but international pressure forced Molina to concede him exile, which he obtained in Venezuela. He obtained a job as an engineering advisor, became involved as a private investor in various construction projects. he was also given posts in the international Christian Democratic movement. In 1974 he returned to El Salvador where he was promptly arrested and returned to Venezuela.

Junta leader

On October 15 1979 a Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) took control of El Salvador in the midst of a full scale civil war. Duarte returned to El Salvador, and on March 3, 1980 he joined the Junta, also becoming Salvador's foreign minister. On December 22, 1980 he became the head of state and of the Junta. The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) responded by launching an all out attack on the government on January 10, 1981, which resulted in the regime receiving immediate military aid and advisors from the United States of America, and with the arrival of the new US government of Ronald Reagan Duarte became a symbol for anti-communist resistance in Central America. On March 28 elections were held to the National Congress in which Duarte's PDC party gained 24 of the 60 seats, putting them in opposition against the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party which gained 36 seats. On May 2 he handed over power to Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja, who had been chosen President by the National Congress. During his time at the head of the JRG he initiated land reform, nationalized certain industries such as sugar, and denounced human rights violations by the military and the FMLN alike. However members of the military and affiliated death squad paramilitaries continued to carry out atrocities against suspected guerrilla sympathizers during his rule at the head of JRG; the death squads even killed certain mayors who were members of Duarte's own Christian Democratic Party. For a man with reformist tendencies he was seen as relatively powerless, especially against the Vice President Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez Avendaño, who was considered the strong man of the JRG.

President

On March 25 1984 in new presidential elections Duarte as the PDC candidate came first with 43.4% of the vote, and in the second round on May 6 he won with 53.6% of the vote against Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) candidate Roberto D'Aubuisson. He became President on June 1. The elections were marred by violence between the FMLN and Salvadorean military at and near the polling stations. As D'Aubuisson and the ARENA party were widely alleged to have close links with death squads, the CIA used approximately $US2 million to support Duarte's candidacy.

Duarte was determined to end the civil war by "dialogue without arms" with the FMLN, and on October 15 1984 in La Palma, Chalatenango he met FMLN leaders face to face, which marked the beginning of the end of the civil war. His basic goal was to see the guerrillas disarm and then demobilize, so that their members could be be reincorporated into society. He argued that the issues that caused them to rise up in armed struggle either had been or were in the process of being resolved. The FMLN wanted the ARENA party banned from participating in the political life of the country, and the dialogue between the two sides was difficult. During 1985, Duarte tried to improve the record of the state by banning the Air Force from bombing civilian areas without presidential permission, creating an Investigative Commission to investigate political assassinations, and persecuting the right-wing death squads that were alleged to be embedded in the state security services. However, his government was steadily undermined by his inability to control the excesses from certain quarters within the state. On March 31 there were new elections to the Congress, in which the PDC gained a majority with 33 seats. ARENA losing control of the Congress made life easier for Duarte. On September 10 his daughter Inés was kidnapped by an FMLN guerrilla group. In spite of angering the military, on October 23 Duarte exchanged 22 political prisoners and 96 wounded guerrillas with the FMLN in exchange for his daughter and 28 army officers also in their power.

In 1986 his tax reform plans, bitterly opposed by ARENA, were judged unconstitutional. Then in August he participated in the historic Esquipulas II agreement with other leaders to lay the groundwork for a firm and lasting peace in Central America, outlining the demobilization of the guerrilla groups in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. On October 5 dialogue with the FMLN began again, and on October 28 Congress passed an amnesty law, just 2 days after Herbert Ernesto Anaya Sanabria, the president of the special United Nations Human Rights Commission for El Salvador, was assassinated in what was seen as a clear signal of the disapproval of the peace process in certain quarters who believed that the guerrillas were close to defeat, and thus should not be given political concessions. Duarte was increasingly seen as powerless not only between the two opposing forces of left and right but also in terms of the US anti-communist political influence in the region. With corruption scandals, an economy in tatters, rumors of a right-wing coup and a civil war that did not appear to have a solution the government became ineffective, unstable and unable to stop the indiscriminate violence and brutality. In the elections of March 20 1988 the PDC were soundly beaten by ARENA. In June he was taken as an emergencty to a military hospital in Washington, DC where he was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer and given between 6 months and a year to live, all of which became public knowledge. In spite of having to stay in the United States for surgery and chemotherapy he refused to resign as President, and he was able to hand power over democratically to Alfredo Cristiani in June 1989. He died in San Salvador on February 23, 1990.