Carmichael, who had led DIA's investigation of Montes, named Montes as being directly responsible for the death of Green Beret SGT Gregory A. Fronius who was killed at El Paraíso, El Salvador, on March 31, 1987 during the FMLN attack.
During the 1980s, the department was the stronghold of the Farabundo Martí Popular Forces of Liberation (FPL), one of the two largest groups in the Frente Farabundo Martí Para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN).
Costa Rica also hosted several rounds of negotiations between the Salvadoran Government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), aiding El Salvador's efforts to emerge from civil war and culminating in that country's 1994 free and fair elections.
At the same time, he acted as political adviser to the leader of the FMLN, Salvador Cayetano Carpio, whilst in his spare time was active in the university at Sorbonne.
Agustín Farabundo Martí Rodríguez, for whom the FMLN or Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front was named, was born in Teotepeque on May 5, 1893.