Carlos Meléndez

Carlos Meléndez

Carlos Meléndez (born February 1, 1861 San Salvador , ( El Salvador ); † October 8, 1919 , California ) was President of El Salvador from 1913 to 1914 and from 1915 to 1918. He was a brother of Jorge Meléndez and brother-in-law of Alfonso Quiñónez Molina. Carlos Meléndez was the founder of the Meléndez-Quinonez dynasty. The members of this landowning family provided the presidents from 1913 to 1927.

Meléndez was found after the murder of President Dr. Manuel Enrique Araujo and the resignation of his deputy Onofre Durán on February 9, 1913 appointed President of the legislature as interim president. On August 29, 1914, he transferred the presidency to his vice-president Alfonso Quiñónez Molina in order to face the presidential election. He was elected and took office on March 1, 1915. On December 21, 1918, he resigned for health reasons. In his first term, in June 1913, he set up a nationwide police force called the Cuerpo de Seguridad General . He kept his country out of World War I. In 1915 Meléndez sued the Central American Court of Justice against the Bryan Chamorro Treaty , in which he saw the sovereignty of El Salvador over areas in the Gulf of Fonseca violated. The court agreed and sentenced the government of Nicaragua on August 5, 1914 to refrain from implementing the treaty.

During his second term of office, the disaster of the eruption of the Volcán de San Salvador fell on June 7, 1917. About 1,050 people were killed. Around 9,000 houses were totally destroyed, only 200 remained undestroyed. At 6:55 p.m., 7:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. on Corpus Christi 1917 three major earthquakes struck El Salvador, and destroyed San Salvador and u a. the localities of Apopa, Nejapa, Quezaltepeque, San Juan Opico, Santa Tecla, Aremenia, San Julián, Sacocoy, Tepecoy, Ateos, Caluco and San Vicente. The strength was then assessed with deflections on the Richter scale of 6.7 and 5.4 and an intensity of VIII on the Mercalli scale . A new ash cone was created, which was christened Los Chintos and the crater lake laguna del Boquerón evaporated.

On health grounds, Meléndez resigned before the end of his four-year term and went to the United States for treatment, where he died. In 1917, Alfonso Quiñónez Molina, who became Carlos Meléndez's brother-in-law, organized the Ligas Rojas and with these contributed to the preservation of the family dynasty.

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1. ^ University of California, San Diego Elections and Events 1902–1932 http://dodgson.ucsd.edu/las/elsal/1902-1932.html ( Memento of May 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Manuel Enrique Araujo Alfonso Quiñónez Molina	President of El Salvador 1913–1914 1915–1918	Alfonso Quiñónez Molina Jorge Meléndez