Leonel Gómez Vides

Leonel Eugenio Gómez Vides (December 31, 1940 – November 25, 2009) was a Salvadoran political activist.

Born into a wealthy family, Gómez worked on land reform issues on behalf of the poor. Following an assassination attempt in 1981, Gómez lived in exile in the United States for a number of years. While in exile, Gómez developed close relationships with American political figures such as Joe Moakley and Bill Walker. He returned to El Salvador in 1989 and helped broker the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords that ended the country's civil war. Gómez died in 2009 of a heart attack.

Early life Gómez was born on December 31, 1940, in Santa Ana, El Salvador. He grew up in the coffee-farming region around the city, in a well-off family he once described as being descended from "conquistadors, priests, and pirates". The family plantation, Gómez recalled, "covered about 100 city blocks". As a teenager, Gómez attended several secondary schools and the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, but returned to El Salvador before graduating to take over the family's plantation after his father died.

A good marksman, Gómez at one point served as the coach of the Salvadoran army Olympic rifle team. His deeds in the 1969 Football War against Honduras earned him lasting respect from some military officers. Author Thomas Anderson described Gómez as "the real organizer of the land-reform movement".

As fighting worsened, Gómez battled corruption within ISTA and organized a June 1980 strike to press the issue. Gómez was viewed with suspicion by elements of both the left and right, as his political loyalties were hard to pin down, but nevertheless retained some trust from members in all factions. Fermán Cienfuegos, a guerilla leader, recalled that the FMLN affectionately nicknamed Gómez El Gordo. Gómez narrowly avoided being murdered himself, as he was also supposed to attend the dinner at which Viera was killed, but had not received his invitation in time. He was arrested and accused of secretly being the communist guerrilla Comandante Santiago (whose real identity was actually Carlos Consalvi). Working as an activist, Gómez was unable to persuade the US government to end its support for the authoritarian Salvadoran regime. However, he became known as an expert on the Salvadoran military. Gómez helped arrange public attention and pressure on the Salvadoran government with his extensive network of contacts in Washington, D.C. For instance, Gómez testified before the US Senate Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs on March 11, 1981:In conclusion, I ask you: Is this the kind of government you want to support? I ask you to think about the corruption, the bloodshed, the killings that have been perpetuated by the Salvadoran army time after time... What more do you need to know? How long will you have to wait until the American people rise up and tell you what everyone already knows?— Leonel Gómez, 1981 While in exile, Gómez developed close relationships with politicians such as Senator Pat Leahy, Congressman Joe Moakley, and future Representative Jim McGovern, then working as an aide to Moakley. Moakley and Gómez first met shortly after the American invasion of Panama; Gómez was initially skeptical about the sincerity of a fresh American effort to end the fighting in El Salvador.

Later life In later years, Gómez became an analyst and commentator on organized crime in El Salvador. He also continued with labor organizing work, and raised charitable funds for libraries, orphanages, and campesinos in El Salvador.

Gómez died of heart failure in a hospital in San Salvador on November 25, 2009. At his death, McGovern commented: "It's amazing to me that Leonel died of natural causes and wasn't murdered, given the hornet's nests he stirred up time and time again". Forché expressed a similar sentiment in her 2019 memoir What You Have Heard Is True, which centers on her friendship with Gómez. In 2019, Gómez was remembered by his brother-in-law as someone "accused of being a communist by the right and a CIA agent by the communists".