Much like Kennedy's cynical Alliance for Progress, Washington's land reform program in Salvador exasperated the gap between the tiny elite sector and the rest of the country. An Oxfam study of the program that began in 1980 concluded that "the majority of the rural population — landless and poorest — are excluded from any potential benefits under the present land reform." Peasants in cooperatives believe "that they have simply changed patronos, that the agrarian reform does not represent a substantial change in their lives." Key Salvadoran officials regard its major component as a "misguided and US imposed initiative." The land reform program "aggravates the most serious agrarian problems of El Salvador," the authors said. Oxfam also noted that "The regions most directly affected by Decree 207 coincide almost identically with the areas of greatest repression against peasants by government security forces."
