Graphics of Resistance: El Salvador 1970–1992
Ramiro Ochoa, Salvadoran artist and propagandist
“This is something neither taught nor learned in classrooms, but rather in the struggle—out on the streets.”
Since 1821, many attempt to evoke within us feelings of patriotism and civic pride every September. We pass through our schools listening to and repeating the same version of our independence from Spain. Many do not even feel a need for study, reflection, or deeper discussion. Parades are the priority. September has become just another common celebration, like any other cultural or religious holiday. There is a complete academic omission of the social and cultural devastation that colonization meant for our peoples.
But it can also be said that September is an opportunity to reflect on our entire history—so full of battles, struggles, sacrifices, and ruptures—struggles that have dignified us and given us a distinct cultural identity as a resilient, rebellious people, forever in pursuit of freedom, justice, democracy, sovereignty, peace, and independence.
To discuss the graphics of resistance, it is necessary to place their emergence, development, and ongoing relevance into context. Here, we are striving to acknowledge not only our national Independence day but also other significant dates in our recent history. This includes the Indigenous uprisings of 1833 and the insurrection of 1932 to one of the most recent historical ruptures our country experienced: the Salvadoran Civil War—as many historians call it—which began and unfolded openly in 1980. (Its antecedents lay in the persistent electoral fraud perpetrated by successive military dictatorships and the political repression directed against social organizations and anyone demanding basic human rights: healthcare, housing, education, and dignified work.)
This war ended with a peace agreement between the civil-military dictatorship and the popular insurgency. These agreements were brokered by the United Nations and ratified by two successive legislative assemblies of our country in January 1992. Our society paid a price of more than 80,000 lives for those peace agreements. Thus, a period of conflict lasting over 20 years came to a close. That agreement paved the way for the democratization of our current society.
The other recent historic rupture is the one we are currently living. This break began with the rise to power of our current leader Nayib Bukele. Political persecution and repression have been re-established as methods to eliminate adversaries and suppress protests. Changes to our political constitution are being forced through in an authoritarian manner, without significant debate or any national consensus. Administrative corruption has taken on new forms and become standard practice. A lack of transparency regarding the use of state funds has become the norm in fiscal management. The country has incurred unprecedented levels of debt. As of last June, public debt had reached nearly $35 billion, with 28% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) going toward servicing it. Our country has been brazenly offered to the United States for the construction of prisons and the housing of inmates—a move that can only be characterized as a loss of national dignity and sovereignty.
All of the above constitutes a confluence of conditions that is mounting and is reflected in the worsening living standards of the most vulnerable. This latest historical rupture also warrants reflection by all Salvadorans. It is the recent past that is repeating itself, albeit in new forms and with new tactics.
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I would like to briefly review the struggle that unfolded during the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, we were confronting, first.y, a military dictatorship, which later evolved into a military-civilian one. These dictatorships received military, political, and economic support from the United States.
A significant element emerged within the context of this conflict: the struggle was not confined to the military arena but spanned many fronts and levels of our society. One of these fronts was information and propaganda. A component of this was what came to be known as “psychological warfare,” a part of the broader counterinsurgency effort. This strategy aimed to affect the morale, perception, and, above all, the behavior of insurgents and their sympathizers, and it was waged through all available media: primarily the press, television, and radio. It is worth noting that most of these outlets were owned by oligarchic families.
For its part, the Salvadoran insurgency also utilized every possible means to communicate, denounce, educate, organize, resist, and advance. The insurgency vied for the hearts and minds of all sectors of society by presenting arguments and proposals amplified through media outlets established during the struggle itself. These efforts were accompanied by cultural and artistic movements that created their own spaces.
All the organizations comprising the FMLN—the alliance that led the insurgency—developed their own media outlets. They all produced newspapers, magazines, and educational and organizational print materials. Visual communication was considered a fundamental part of this effort. One such organization was the ERP, which created a specialized structure for this purpose known as COMIN (International Information Command); operating under decentralized leadership, it maintained a presence in Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the United States, with many European and Latin American internationalists collaborating in its work.
Radio Venceremos was their primary radio-based communication tool, but they also produced television programs, films, magazines, newspapers, and books, while venturing into other artistic fields such as theater, music, and poster design. Within this framework, a small collective—led by Rafael Lemus (“Lito”), Chente (a peasant from Morazán), and Roland (a French internationalist)—demonstrated immense creativity in the production of posters. Many of the posters hanging on the walls of this gallery were created by them; some are originals, while others are reproductions. Screen printing was their preferred technique. Their posters feature high-contrast photographic images, dominated by the human figure and the text necessary to convey the message.
Another medium they used was offset printing, particularly for works produced in Mexico, where they had greater access to equipment and materials. Upon examining these posters, one discovers not only their visual forms but also the graphic imprint of the war’s defining characteristics: armed combatants; men, women, and youth called to insurrection; and protests against disappearances, violations of international conventions, and breaches of human and civil rights.
All of this constituted—and still constitutes—graphic art of resistance. Consider a small, double-letter-sized poster printed in black and red ink, featuring a peasant raising a *cuma* (a type of machete); it was created using a hand-cut stencil technique in which ink was applied with a knotted rag—a method known as *chuponeado*. It is a technique that allows any surface to serve as a canvas for reproducing the image.
This is something neither taught nor learned in classrooms, but rather in the struggle—out on the streets.
One poster demands labor rights in the context of May Day—International Workers’ Day—serving as a clear symbol of rebellion and resistance. Others revive imagery from the last century. One, for example, features a black-and-white depiction of a woman holding a child: an image conveying protection while simultaneously crying out “resistance!” This image is a linocut by the Mexican artist Andrea Gómez, created in 1957. It was utilized by the San Francisco-based workshop “La Raza Graphics,” which ceased operations in 1995. It is also worth noting that a nearly identical image appears—rendered in color using the screen-printing technique—on a textless poster showing a young girl embracing a female fighter. Both images speak to the viewer, inviting a dialogue.
The poster demanding the release of political prisoners—created by the February 28th Popular Leagues—was something I first saw on the walls of the Mercado Modelo in San Salvador. That poster had been plastered all over downtown San Salvador. People would ask for the names of the individuals in the photos.
Resistance graphics serve specific purposes: many are not created with artistic or aesthetic pretensions, nor to decorate living rooms. Generally, they are the images that accompany workers’ struggles. Yet, there are others that hint at a quest for cultural identity, all united by the same spirit of rebellion.
It is worth noting that many more artists participated in creating these works using various media—oils, acrylics, pencil drawings, murals, and prints on wood, seeds, or fabric—demonstrating how our artisan people use their imagination to survive and resist.
Today, the struggle for the hearts and minds of peoples has taken on unimaginable forms of communication. The characteristics of these many communicative and artistic expressions have shifted. What was once called “psychological warfare” is now known as “media warfare.” Without dwelling too long on the details, I would simply like to sketch out the big picture as some of us see it: the rise of digital technologies has rendered paper and ink nearly obsolete; images are now primarily reproduced on small screens, with usage becoming addictive and widespread, reaching every sector of society at incredible speed. The result is paradoxical: it is a media war without borders or limits, one that anyone can wage from anywhere in the world; every transmitted image vies for our attention, memory, and emotions, with the ultimate goal of shaping collective behavior.
The more insults, lies, and threats are fabricated and disseminated by specialized centers orchestrating this war, the deeper the struggle becomes over the plunder of natural resources and social rights across all of Latin America. The U.S. empire neither rests nor sleeps, nor does it hesitate to use its full economic, military, and political might to ensure its own survival. Meanwhile, our peoples remain mired in poverty, despair, and subordination. Thanks to this “democratized” digital manipulation, many people are beginning to lose the ability to distinguish reality from the artificial, or to differentiate between those who present themselves as paragons of superior, humanist democratic values and those of us who resist their impositions. Resistance today carries a far more complex meaning; it is no longer a matter of withstanding visible, violent military aggression—as was the case with the Conquest and colonization. Today, it means resisting neo-colonial policies, lies, economic blockades, and interventionist threats, as well as the manufactured narratives that pave the way for further plunder, conflict, and war, and the continued erosion of our right to a dignified and just life.
The seeds of new forms of struggle—of information, education, organization, and resistance—lie within the resistance struggles of the past. For graphic creators, incorporating all the positive elements revealed by these graphics on digital walls presents a challenge: hard work, creativity, passion, humility, resilience, collectivism, solidarity, and unity. These are the qualities that will enable us to preserve the diversity of colors, hues, shadows, lines, letters, figures, and textures that have always defined our peoples.
It is up to all of us to shoulder these challenges responsibly. Between 1970 and 1992, a group of bold artists in our country—part of the communications collective known as COMIN—showed us the way, demonstrating that such efforts are both possible and effective. More than 500 posters and graphic creations represented their humble contribution to the resistance struggle. They showed us that popular resistance art is exactly that: it springs from the people, draws its inspiration from them, is nourished by them, and ultimately belongs to everyone.
Someday, our country will have professional public libraries where thousands of documents—testaments to our history of resistance—can be archived without any fear of their destruction.
18st Casa de Cultura Chicago, Il. /Sept 2026
