José Eduardo Sancho Castañeda (born 6 March 1947), better known by his nom de guerre Fermán Cienfuegos, was the leader of the

Salvadoran Salvadorans (Spanish: ''Salvadoreños''), also known as Salvadorians (alternate spelling: Salvadoreans), are citizens of El Salvador, a country in Central America. Most Salvadorans live in El Salvador, although there is also a significant Salvad ...

organization National Resistance Armed Forces (FARN), which was a part of National Resistance (RN).

Biography

José Eduardo Sancho Castañeda was born on 6 March 1947 in San José, Costa Rica. His parents were Guillermo Sancho Colombari and Liliam Castañeda Saldívar. His parents met in El Salvador in 1942 when Sancho Colombari went to the country to study medicine. Sancho Castañeda attended the

Central American University José Simeón Cañas Central American University ( es, Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas"), also known as UCA El Salvador, is a private university with nonprofit purposes in San Salvador, El Salvador, run by the Society of Je ...

. Sancho Castañeda was influenced by leftists in Costa Rica, including Manuel Mora Valverde, the leader of the People's Vanguard Party whom he considered to be a close friend. There, he also began to read texts written by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

. He opposed the

Football War The Football War ( es, La guerra del fútbol; colloquial: Soccer War), also known as the Hundred Hours' War or 100 Hour War, was a brief military conflict fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. Existing tensions between the two countr ...

fought between the governments of El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. The RN was founded in 1975 as a split from the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) after an internal struggle within the ERP resulted in the assassination of a group of ERP leaders including famed Salvadoran poet

Roque Dalton Roque is an American variant of croquet played on a hard, smooth surface. Popular in the first quarter of the 20th century and billed "the Game of the Century" by its enthusiasts, it was an Olympic sport in the 1904 Summer Games, replacing cr ...

who advocated that the ERP should not have such a largely militarist focus and should do more organizing among the masses. In 1980, the RN was one of the five revolutionary Marxist organizations that formed the

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) is a left-wing political party in El Salvador. The FMLN was formed as an umbrella group on 10 October 1980, from five leftist gu ...

(FMLN) that fought an armed struggle against the Salvadoran government. As the leader of the RN, Cienfuegos was one of the leaders of the final offensive of 1981 and was one of the signatories of the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cienfuegos, Ferman Salvadoran communists People of the Salvadoran Civil War 1947 births Living people