Carlos Humberto Romero

General Carlos Humberto Romero Mena (b. February 29, 1924 in Chalatenango) was the President of El Salvador from 1977 until 1979, when he was deposed with a reformist coup d'état by dissident, politically-liberal and -moderate military officers and civilians. President-General Romero's rule was military dictatorship in the style of his predecessors. In the late 1970s, political unrest increased, because of El Salvador's severe socioe-conomic inequalities unaddressed by his government, so, leftist guerrillas began attacking military targets, and civil opponents of the régime asked the President Romero's government for reform. In response, government death squads tortured and assassinated people "identified" as "subversives", generally operating above the law.

The "coup d'état" that deposed President-General Humberto Romero was preamble to El Salvador's twelve-year civil war. Romero was a member of the National Conciliation Party. The civil war was launched with the death squad assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero, during mass, in March of 1980, because he was the foremost critic of the Salvadoran government's abuse of its own people.