Beginning in the late 1970s, liberation theology, Marxism, and American Cold War politics collided in El Salvador culminating in a civil war that lasted over a decade and which ultimately produced democratic political institutions that persist into the 21st century. Despite anti-Church bias from the government and media in the United States and El Salvador, religious actors fought for human rights and the implementation of democratic institutions throughout the conflict. The Salvadoran civil war, which occurred in the context of the Cold War, was one of the bloodiest and longest events in the history of Latin America after the Guatemalan civil war. The conflict lasted from 1979 to 1992, leaving around 75,000 people dead and the country in ashes. The conflict began after the fraudulent elections of Coronel Arturo Armando Molina (1972), who focused his mandate on the repression of communist political parties that wanted to work for social reform. This aroused the anger of popular sectors, who began organizing groups and demonstrations to demand fair elections and the improvement of social conditions. The government responded to their demands with savage violence, focusing mainly on the oppression of the peasants because they were the ones who supported the left-wing revolutionary forces. These actions further alienated the Salvadoran population and caused many people in the Catholic Church to begin denouncing the government's actions. Thus, with the onset of the civil war, the church began to radicalize and denounce the government's actions. One of his most fervent supporters was Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who during his brief period as Archbishop of San Salvador manifested his...... middle of paper ......t years of war that began after 1980, and it ended in 1992 with the Peace Treaty of Chapultepec, Mexico. This treaty did not bring the desired peace and progress to El Salvador. Instead, the struggle continued in an unarmed political opposition mode. The revolutionary forces have become a political party representing workers' rights. The right-wing party, originally founded by D'aubuisson, remained in power until the 2009 elections. El Salvador's popular sectors still face the extreme poverty and oppression caused by big business. The Church continues its work with the poor but in a more limited and conservative way. 30 years after Romero's death, the Salvadoran Church remembers him as the hero of the oppressed and the voice of those who have no voice and cry that the Church has no longer been the same after the death of its main leader.