El Salvador said yesterday that it would pay pensions to some 25,000 former members of paramilitary groups that backed the armed forces during the 1970s and ‘80s, but they were not included in the 1992 peace accord that ended the war and granted benefits, including parcels of land and bank credits to both government soldiers and guerrillas. In August, a group of former paramilitaries staged a series of protests to demand compensation for their work alongside the army. The protests included a hunger strike by 25 of the former paramilitaries outside the offices of President Armando Calderón Sol. Yesterday, the Salvadoran president said he would grant the pensions based on a decree issued in 1980 by the country’s then-ruling junta, but it was not immediately clear if the pensions would satisfy the former paramilitaries, who have also demanded land, housing, fertilizers and credits.