An FMLN Victory Two Decades In The Making

The New York Times reports:

El Salvador’s F.M.L.N., the leftist party of the country’s former guerrillas, won the presidential election Sunday after a bruising election campaign, marking a turning point after two decades of rule by the right.

Mauricio Funes, a former television reporter, declared himself the winner before F.M.L.N. campaign workers chanting “yes, we could” at the Sheraton Hotel as supporters on the street waved flags and honked car horns in celebration. ...

Two hours later, Mr. Funes’s conservative opponent, Rodrigo Ávila, conceded defeat. ... His party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance, known as Arena, had won the presidency four times since 1989.

The victory marked the culmination of nearly two decades of political efforts by the F.M.L.N., the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, to defeat Arena, which was on the opposite side during this nation’s 12-year civil war through the 1980s.

In the conflict, tens of thousands died as Marxist F.M.L.N. guerrillas fought the American-backed military and right-wing death squads. Arena had argued for a free hand in defeating the guerrillas. To this day, the party anthem vows that the nation will be “the tomb where the Reds meet their end.”

Please notice the last paragraph, which is in some was has important historically as the FMLN victory. The adjective "American-backed" modifies "military," and it also appears to modify "right-wing death squads." That's been a bone of contention for more than 20 years, but this construction is correct.