Poderes Populares Locales: an experience of community organization without political recognition?

Abstract

The Poderes Populares Locales (PPLs) emerge as a figure under which the non-combatant civilian population was organised during El Salvador's past armed conflict (1980-1992). Specifically, PPLs emerged in areas where the civil war had its main combat scenario between the Salvadoran Armed Forces and the FMLN guerrillas. Existing literature attributes three reasons for their existence to them: self-protection among the civilian population, community organisation in the absence of Salvadoran state representatives, and self-management of the most basic needs (water, education, health and food) to survive human existence. Despite its importance, there has been little reflection on the power structure that existed within the PPL and, after the conflict, on the direction taken by this organisation. In view of this, an important question arises: were the PPLs a form of communal democracy during the past armed conflict in El Salvador which, in political terms, has not been recognised? What role did the PPLs play in the community sphere after the end of the war and the signing of the peace agreement?