Latin American Engagement, 1979-2014

Extent:

15.5 Linear Feet (28 boxes)

Scope and content:

The bulk of this series consists of materials related to Vickers' work as a researcher, analyst, and observer of Central American conflicts and democratic transitions, with emphasis on the period from 1984 to the early 1990s, when Vickers routinely traveled to the region. Subseries dedicated to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua share commonalities in material type and arrangement, though differ substantially in scale. The El Salvador subseries is by far the most extensive, encompassing research files on US involvement in the Salvadoran Civil War, records from election observation missions, publications and records from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), dossiers on the Salvadoran peace negotiations, research files on post-war corruption and politically motivated violence, and policy reports. The Guatemala subseries includes official documents, news clippings, correspondence, notes, and reports concerning peace accords, corruption, military abuses, and organized crime, while the Nicaragua subseries contains materials related to the administration and outcomes of multiple elections, including raw data, official documents, news clippings, and analysis.

The El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua subseries further include sets of color photographic slides and recorded interviews on audio cassette, collected by Vickers from 1986 to 1992, as well as partial transcripts of some interviews from El Salvador and Nicaragua. Interviewees include the leaders of opposing political parties and factions engaged in armed conflict as well as human rights advocates based in the relevant countries. In limited cases, recordings capture political speeches rather than conversations. Slides tend to focus on rural and urban sites of political activity and displacement as well as on interviewees and collaborators. Field notes related to these materials are also present in the series.

Additional subseries include materials related to Vickers' broader engagement with human rights, civil society, and US foreign policy in Latin America. These include proceedings of conferences on human rights and US military strategy in Colombia in the late 1990s and early 2000s along with related correspondence, policy reports, and research files; military doctrine and conference proceedings related to US intervention in Central America and broader Latin American foreign policy; a set of policy-oriented publications; photographic materials collected in Honduras and Cuba; and a small amount of material connected to Chile's 1988 referendum on Augusto Pinochet.

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