Alfredo Cristiani Burkard born on November 22, 1947 in San Salvador in El Salvador, was President of El Salvador between 1 June 1989 and 1 June 1994.

Career

Born into a rich coffee producing family and educated at religious schools in El Salvador, and then graduated in Administrative Sciences at the University of Georgetown in Washington DC in the United States of America. He returned to El Salvador to work in the family business, which included pharmaceuticals and cotton. He also married Margarita LLach, with whom he has 3 children. He remained outside politics until the beginning of the eighties when the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) left wing guerrilla and their campesino followers began occupying farms as the civil war became more widespread drew him to get involved with the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) right wing party founded by military intelligence officer Roberto D'Aubuisson. In March 1985 D'Aubuisson resigned after the ARENA suffered a defeat in the congressional elections, and Cristiani took over as leader of the party. In the local and Congress elections of March 1988 ARENA won 80% of the local votes and 31 of the 60 seats in the Congress.

President

In May the ARENA chose him rather than D'Aubuisson to be their presidential candidate and on March 18, 1989 he won the election in the first round, gaining 53.8% of the vote. This result brough with it pessimism about the possibility of concluding the peace negotiations with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Yet on September 13 1989 the government did begin negotiations with the FMLN, that began in Mexico and then moved to Costa Rica. On November 11 these talks received a setback when the FMLN launched an attack on the capital, San Salvador, in which hundreds of people died. The army immediately intensified their war against the guerrillas, and 4 days later 6 Jesuit priests and their 2 servants were murdered in the University of Central America , including the Basque Rector Ignacio Ellacuría Beascoechea , a prominent Liberation theologist and part of the talks with the FMLN. This crime created an international uproar which Cristiani tried to calm down by promising to bring those responsible to justice. A special commission was set up and in January 1990 4 officers, 3 Non-commissioned officers and 2 soldiers were arrested.