(Third World Books) Michael McClintock - The American Connection, Volume One - State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador. 1-Zed Books (1985)

4
Michael McClintock
The American
Connection
Volume One
State Terror and Popular
Resistance in El Salvador
□ EXAM I NAT-CN COPY
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The American
Connection
Volume I:
State Terror and Popular
Resistance in El Salvador
Michael McClintock
2?7 CniJ FG: ST.

TORONTO,. ONT. M5T 1 R4
C.ANADA
{4!g) 59/-0328
Zed Books Ltd.

The American Connection. Vol /; State Terror and Popular
Resistance in El Salvador was first published by Zed Books
Ltd., 57 Caledonian Road, London N1 9BU, in 1985.
Copyright © Michael McClintock

Copyedited by Anna Gourlay
Typeset by Folio Photosetting, Bristol
Proofread by Tony Berrett
Cover design by Magenta Designs
Printed by The Pitman Press, Bath
All rights reserved
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
McClintock, Michael
The Amcriean Connection.
Vol. 1. State terror and popular resistance
in El Salvador.
1. Central America— Politics and government
2. United States — Politics and government
1945- 3. LInited States — Foreign relations
— Central America
I. Title
972.8’()52 FI436
ISBN 0-86232-240-5
ISBN 0-86232-241-3 Pbk
US Distributor
Biblio Distribution Center,
81 Adams Drive, Totowa, New Jersey 07512.
A Companion Volume on Guatemala

Michael McClintock has written a companion volume to this
book called The American Connection. Vol. IT. State Terror
and Popular Resistance in Guatemala (Zed Books, 1985)
Contents
INTRODUCTION vii
PART 1: THE US AND THE DOCTRINE OE

COUNTER-INSURGENCY 1
1. Prelude to Counter-Insurgency 3
American Freedom and the Communist Threat 6
US Military Assistance 9
2. Launching “Special Warfare”: the Kennedy Era 12
Counter-Insurgency’s New Face 15
US Army Special Forces 18
Role of the Mobile Training Teams 22
US Military Doctrine in the 1960s: Vietnam 24
3. The New Battlefields 28
The Enemy is Within 29
Alliance for Progress 32
Counter-Guerrillas: The Local Paramilitary 33
4. “Meeting Terror with Terror”: a Policy of Failure 39
Institutionalized Brutality 41
Vietnam: Rural Pacification and the “Phoenix” Programme 44
Counter-Terror and the Winning of Hearts and Minds 49
5. The Role of Intelligence and the CIA’s Public Safety Programme 54
Police Assistance: The Agencies Involved 57
Substance of Intelligence Assistance 63
Public Safety Program’s Demise: Proposed Alternatives 70
Notes to Part 1 72
PART 2: LAND, LABOUR AND SECURITY: 1820s-1960s 87

6. The Politics ofLand and Labour 89
The Police: Role and Function 92
“A Revolution in Our Agriculture”: Coffee Cultivation 94
Creation ofthe National Guard 97
7. Buying Time Against Revolution 99
Massacre: 1932 99
Coupd’Etat and Agrarian Revolt 193
TheMatanza 112
8. Controlling the Population: An Agrarian Police State 117

The Civic Guard 117
The Security Network’s Strong Arm 120
The National Police 121
9. Coup and Counter-Coup: Reform and Reaction 127

The Military V. The Paramilitary 127
Military Revolt: President Martinez Resigns 129
Half a Step Forward, Two Steps Back 130
The “Major’s Coup”: 1948 and After 132
The New Military Role 133
President Lemus: A “harsh and dictatorial man” 135
Coup: 1960 — Counter-Coup: 1961 136
Notes to Part 2 137
PART 3: COUNTER-INSURGENCY EMERGES 147
10. From Reform to Repression: 1961-71 149

War With Honduras: Land Crisis in El Salvador 154
Political Reform — With Reservations 157
Foreclosed Political Process: Escalation of Terror 165
11. State Terror: 1972-77 171

Agrarian Reform and Persecution of the Church 176
Electoral Fraud and Repression: 1974-77 181
US Human Rights Policy: Spotlight on El Salvador 187
General Romero: State Terror and Social Mobilization 192
12. The New Security System: US Model 196

Counter-Organization for Counter-Insurgency: ORDEN 204
The Military’s New Role 209
A Security System for the 1980s 214
Notes to Part 3 223
PART 4: COUNTER-INSURGENCY AND CIVIL WAR 243
13. Military Coup: October 1979 — And After 245

Strikes, Demonstrations and Machine-guns 254
The Counter-coup 257
Agrarian Reform 266
Neutralizing Majano and the Reformists 272
US Aid and Six Dead Americans 275
14. Elections and Civil War 286
Counter-Terror Escalates 298
Reform Abandoned 213
“Operation Wellbeing” 32q
15. US Military Assistance: Indirect to Direct Intervention 326

After the Coup: Partners in Counter-Insurgency 329
Human Rights, Internal Defence and Development 337
Paramilitary Expansion 34q
The Mercenary Element 342
US Military Advisers and Political Signals 346
US Assistance and Intelligence 349
Notes to Part 4 333
Select Bibliography 373

Index
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
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Introduction
At 23,000 ieet the view through the scratched plexiglass of Central

America s whistle-stop airlines is a geographical extravaganza, a
process ot smoking volcanoes and crater lakes, misty mountains
shrouded in tropical vegetation, silver arcs of lowland rivers and the
long, thin line ot Pacific beaches. The evidence of human activity below
is no less dramatic. Villages perched on mountain tops, linked by ridge¬
line trails; the striped squares of agro-industry on the coast and, in the
coffee lands, geometrical rows and rectangles of gleaming coffee bushes
stand out a dark, richer green. At dusk, after the harvest season, long
lines of fire flicker across the landscape as stubble fields are burnt
In this volcanic dream landscape an explosion of state terror erupted
in the 1960s. “Death-Squad” assassinations, routine “disappearance”
and murder of political prisoners, and mass executions in the
countryside were justified as means to deter subversion and crush
insurgency. The killing took new forms and reached unprecedented
levels; formed part of counter-insurgency programmes launched
successively by Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, and claimed
tens of thousands of lives by the mid-1970s. Since spring 1979, when this
study was begun, over 100,000 Salvadoreans and Guatemalans have
been assassinated or put to death by the forces of their governments.
Thousands of others have died in combat, as passive resistance to the
flood of state terror graduated to armed resistance and open civil
war.
A new human dimension has now been added to Central America's
exotic geography; an association in the popular imagination of the
mountains, the volcanoes, the lakes and the rivers with the recent
history of repression and resistance. Since 1981 El Salvador’s Sumpul
and Lempa rivers along the Honduran border are remembered for the
days they ran red with the blood of machine-gunned would-be refugees,
when clergymen reported the bodies of murdered infants caught in
fishermen's nets. Guatemala's Lake Atitlan. its most beautiful and once
most visited crater lake, is now remembered for the army occupation of
the Indian communities on its shores, and the execution or “dis¬
appearance” of many of their people (including the parish priest). Lake
Atitlan, like El Salvador’s Lake Ilopango, is now also better known for
vii
The American Connection
the bloated corpses that regularly bob to the surface than for its native
handicrafts. And no one swims any more at a beach near El Salvador s
port of La Libertad. now known as the beach of the headless corpses.
There are also the volcanoes, like Nicaragua's Volcdn deMasaya, where
the Somozas disposed of their enemies, or the slopes of the crater of
Guatemala’s Volcan de Agua near the capital, where deposits of the
bodies of victims of army “death-squads” are periodically found.
In El Salvador, the great volcanoes with their densely forested slopes,
gouged by deep ravines, are a symbol of resistance, not terror. The
Volcdn de Santa Ana, the Volcdn San Vincente, the Volcdn de San Miguel
serve as bastions of the guerrilla opposition forces.
At a more intimate level of human geography. Central America's
towns and villages are replete with landmarks of repression and
resistance. In Nicaragua’s small cities, still marked by the destruction
wrought by aerial bombardment in the last days of the National Guard,
and themselves monuments to resistance, walls, park benches, and even
trees in every neighbourhood are painted with the names of the local
heroes who died there. In San Salvador, neighbourhoods like Ea
Fortaleza, a precarious huddle of shanties below the edge of a ravine,
slashing through a rather fashionable neighbourhood, became known
in the 1970s for having provided more than their share of victims of
“disappearance” or execution, and more than their share of those
resisting repression. In Guatemala, the landmarks include the “clan¬
destine cemeteries” in the ravines and sand pits in the outskirts of the
capital.
The personification of political conflict in the features of the land
itself, from the volcano redoubts of the guerrillas to the walls where
firing squads made neighbourhood martyrs is a function both of the
dramatic nature of the repression and the small scale of Central
America itself
Flying from north to south from Guatemala City, San Salvador is half
an hour away; Managua, Nicaragua 20 minutes more down the coast
and out over the Gulf of Fonseca; and then on to San Jose de Costa Rica,
some 30 minutes more. Tegucigalpa, in the interior of Honduras, is off
the Pacific coast flight path, but can be reached by air within about 30
minutes from all but the Costa Rican capital. The volcanoes and
volcanic lakes serve as the topographic milestones of the region. A
cluster of 10,000 to 12,000 foot peaks loom over Guatemala City; to the
south-east the crossing into El Salvador is marked by the Volcdn de
Santa Ana and the crater lake of Coatepeque.
The scale of El Salvador is particularly intimate. From the air above
the coast, one can see at a glance most of the country from the Volcdn de
Santa Ana to Nicaragua’s Volcdn Cosagiiina on its promontory in the
Gulf ot Fonseca, and right across into Honduras, as nowhere is El
Salvador much more than 45 miles wide.
Central America’s five states range from tiny El Salvador, whose 4.5
viii
Introduction
million people crowd into a mere 21,000 square kilometres (precisely the
size of the state of Israel, without the occupied territories) to the largest,
Nicaragua, with 130,000 square kilometres and just 3 million people.
Guatemala is of medium rank, with 7 million people and an area of
109,000 square kilometres.
While small, the region is not quite as small as the outsider might
think. Together the five parts of what was once the state of Central
America extends over 423,000 square kilometres, more than twice the
territory of an earlier conflict state, the short-lived Republic of Vietnam,
and larger than Vietnam reunited.
This study deals in depth only with El Salvador (Vol. 1) and

Guatemala (Vol. 2). Both have experienced new forms of state terror and
counter-insurgency since the late 1960s and face insurgency, civil war,
and the intervention of the United States in the 1980s. Those countries
and most of Central America, have a long history of repression and
resistance, insurgency and civil conflict: state terror was part of this
experience. The pattern of state terror which emerged in the 1960s,
however, appeared from the beginning to be a departure from the past. It
began abruptly; it was defended strictly on ideological and strategic, not
legal grounds; it was administered both by conventional military and
police services and by new paramilitary forces; it claimed victims in the
tens of thousands; and it was closely associated with the United States’
first concerted military and police assistance programmes in the region.
The pattern was first seen in Guatemala, where the killings began in
large numbers in the third quarter of 1966. It later emerged in El
Salvador and Nicaragua, to be eliminated in the latter only after a civil
war. the overthrow of the government, and the disbanding of the
military/police/paramilitary apparatus of the old regime. A more
limited pattern of state terror but including the “disappearance” and
murder of some political prisoners, has taken shape in Honduras only
in the mid-1980s. In one Central American state only, Costa Rica, has
state terror on the new model yet to make an appearance.
With the advance of the terror of the state the mid-1960s saw a parallel
mobilization of popular resistance to authoritarian governments
throughout the region. As governments adopted new measures for
counter-insurgency insurgency grew apace. As the scale of state terror
grew, non-violent challengers of authoritarian regimes — the political
parties, trade unions, peasant leagues, and even the grass-roots
organizations of the Roman Catholic Church — were transformed
progressively into proponents of armed insurrection, and their members
into active insurgents. With prolonged state terror, responsible govern¬
ments lost whatever legitimacy they might originally have had; they
came to stand neither for the popular will, nor for law. nor for order.
This study was originally conceived as a means to explain how, and
why, state terror burst on the Central American scene in its present
IX
The American Connection
form. Did it in fact represent a significant departure from the past; were
the “death-squads” or paramilitary groups innovations? Was the terror
the reaction of desperate regimes to active insurgency? Was the
explosion of terror in fact a matter of calculated military strategy or
doctrine? And finally, how did the terror reflect traditional conflicts in
the societies concerned, and traditional means of resolving these
conflicts?
The problem, then, was first to document how the governments
concerned traditionally dealt with problems of internal security.
Conventional histories rarely deal with the intimate details of how
governments uphold the status quo, and maintain themselves in power.
Political scientists tend to concentrate on a higher threshold of political
phenomena, analysing military coups and changes of government, but
largely disregarding the paramilitary and political police institutions in
the background, unless marked by colourful personalities such as El
Salvador’s Major Roberto D’Aubuisson. And even then the focus is on
the personality, not the institutions, or their written or unwritten
doctrine. There is a blind spot centred on the institutional structures
and strategies by which governments control their own populations: the
military in its internal security function, the civil police, the intelligence
or political police agencies, and the other assorted paramilitary
organizations at the service of the state.
The present study is built around an outline of the development of the
security systems of El Salvador and Guatemala, highlighting the
influence of the United States and other foreign powers in different
periods. These systems were taken to include military, police, and
paramilitary institutions from their beginnings, and their relation to
changing social, economic, and political trends in each country taken
into account.
The major emphasis is on developments in the 1960s and afterwards,
and the role of United States security assistance programmes and
military doctrine to the present. United States civil and military security
assistance, and above all the United States doctrine of counter¬
insurgency provide the common denominator in the way counter¬
insurgency warfare has been waged in the two countries.
After 1960, counter-insurgency doctrine and US security assistance
induced changes both in the strategies and structures of the regions’
security systems which influenced events to the present. At the core of
the doctrine were concepts of “counter-terror” — a legitimation of state
terror to combat insurgent terror— and of “counter-organization” — the
creation by allied armies of civilian, paramilitary irregular forces to
mimic guerrilla organization and tactics. Perhaps most importantly, in
the Central American context, US counter-insurgency doctrine was
seen as a green light from the leader of the “Free World” to state terror, to
legitimize, and lift the stigma of barbarism from practices which seemed
throwbacks to earlier times.
X
Iniwduction
While the present regional dilemma must be largely attributed to the

United States doctrine of counter-insurgency and its programmes of
security assistance since 1960. recent US inOuence is not the whole stoi7.
Central America's current plight cannot be disassociated from those
historical factors unique to each country. In both Guatemala and El
Salvador the new counter-insurgency doctrine was to be applied in a
bitter centuries-old contlict between a small elite and a peasant
majority. The background of repression and resistance, of Indian revolt,
and of massacre, accounts in no small way for the particularly deadly
manner of implementation of the new counter-insurgency programmes
introduced in the 196()s.
XI
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Part 1: The United States
and the Doctrine of
Counter-Insurgency
f.
t
1. Prelude to
Counter-Insurgency
When not characterized by overt military intervention or long-term

occupation. United States intervention in the security affairs of its
neighbours before World War II was relatively insignificant In 1933,
after more than two decades of intervention when the Marines left
Nicaragua, the entire security system had been remade in their image.
But significantly, no elaborate measures were taken to prop up the
Somoza regime (once installed) or the contemporary regimes of
General Jorge Ubico (President of Guatemala. 1931-44) or of General
Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (President of El Salvador for the
same period) in the years leading up to World War II.' No major
counter-insurgency assistance programme then existed, or was necessary
- until the revolts that deposed both Ubico and Martinez; even then the
United States took no particular measures to keep them in power.
World War II brought a serious concern overall for internal security
in Latin America. Policy makers in the US encouraged the Latin
American allies to follow the US lead in suppressing Nazi sympathizers
and agents, and Communists who might “take advantage” of the
troubled times. One approach, largely legalistic, entailed the adoption
of uniform regional standards of counter-subversive, anti-totalitarian
legislation, and the negotiation of individual military assistance pacts
with most of the region's governments.
Before entering the war, the United States orchestrated Pan-
American Union efforts to suppress subversion in the Americas with
“maintenance of neutrality” as the express objective.^ The first meeting
of foreign Ministers of the American Republics (Panama, October
1939) resolved that to this end “police and judicial measures” should be
considered in “preventing or repressing unlawful activities ... in favor
of a foreign belligerent State .. The second foreign Ministers' meet¬
ing (Havana, 1940) elaborated the need to co-ordinate internal
defence:
Experience... demonstrated the need to organize in the most effective

manner possible the defense of society and of the institutions of each
State... Such defense must be undertaken by the authorities of each
3
The United States and the Doctrine of Counter-Insurgency
State, but its efficacy depends to a large extent upon a common orienta¬
tion, as uniform as possible.''
By 1941 legislation in all Central American States was consistent

with the desires of the Foreign Ministers’ meeting (and those of the
United States) banning “totalitarian doctrines” and their promoters and
propagandists. They established sanctions in law, newly defining
crimes in ideological terms, but punished along traditional lines, with
large fines and lengthy imprisonment for offenders. Representative of
the trend was the Nicaraguan Law of 25 June 1941, “Against the Pro¬
paganda of Communist Doctrines”, banning “Propaganda of doctrines
of political and social systems contrary to the constitutional principles
of the State... the Communist doctrine, the Nazi and Fascist sys¬
tems .. Ironically, three Central American dictators. Ubico, Martinez
and Somoza were themselves suspected of Fascist sympathies.
In June 1941 military intelligence warned Washington that there “are
some pro-Nazi's in Ubi'co’s government”, but tempered this by noting
that “There is no trace of Socialism or Communism”, and that Ubico,
himself “is very friendly toward the United States”.^
Martinez, the President of El Salvador, was however, considerably
more than just “Pro-Nazi at heart”; until late 1941 solid military and
commercial relations linked El Salvador with both Italy and Germany,
the main purchasers of its coffee. By 1936 the major destinations for
overseas training of Salvadorean army officers were Germany and Italy,
and pro-Axis officers held most key posts in government. Wehrmacht
officer Colonel Eberhardt Bohnsted was appointed Director of the
Salvadorean Military Academy in 1938. The Italians tended to be the
main arms suppliers; in March 1938 a contract was signed with Italy to
exchange $200,000 worth of coffee for four Caproni fighter planes and
spares, and in October 1938 six Caproni bombers, three Fiat light tanks,
and a group of technicians arrived in San Salvador.^
The links were also ideological. The New York Times reported in June
1940 that Martinez had declared it a “national crime” to express sym¬
pathy for the allied cause, and that as police held back angry spectators
300 Salvadorean “Black Shirts” had marched in San Salvador when
Italy declared war. The official reversal of the pro-Axis position in
October 1940 was motivated less by Martinez’s disillusionment with
totalitarianism than by the sudden isolation of El Salvador from its Axis
trade partners and arms suppliers and, perhaps, by direct pressures
from the United States.® American military intelligence did not take his
conversion wholly at face value, however, and nearly a year later repor¬
ted that Martinez “has retained in office Colonel Juan F. Merino, chief
of the National Police, presidential aspirant, and leader of the Pro-Nazi
officer group”, “tending to substantiate the accusation that the Presi¬
dent is secretly pro-Nazi”.’
Despite concern about Nazis in submarines and minor sales of
4
Prelude to Counter-Insurgency
strategic materials. Central America’s more immediate concern was

“reds under the beds” that could conceivably cause trouble when the
United States could least afford diversion from its larger war effort.As
for the military aspect during the war years, in addition to the assign¬
ment ot officers to the Directorship of the military academies in
Guatemala and El Salvador, the United States armed forces installed
permanent military missions, initiated a regular supply of military
equipment through the Lend-Lease programme and pre-empted any
links to the region’s military^ by foreign powers."
The Inter-American Defense Board, with representatives of Latin
American, and the US armies, was first established as a war-time inter¬
army co-ordinating body, and made permanent in 1945. The 1947
Interamerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance strengthened the
regional armies’ co-operation agreements by ensuring “mutual assis¬
tance’ in case of attack. United States military policy toward the region,
however, was not especially innovative in so fâr as it affected internal
security. The Joint Chiefs of Staff statement in 1945 on “Military Objec¬
tives in Latin America” identifies these as essentially traditional
interests, including co-operation in the defence of the hemisphere
(against external attack); maintenance of regional peace; assurance of
“an uninterrupted flow of strategic materials”; access to military bases
in Latin America for US forces; and standardization of equipment,
training and doctrine with United States models.'^ By 1953, as the Cold
War hotted up. the policy changed to include “internal stability” and the
“reduction and elimination of Communist and anti-US subversion” as
American concerns in the region, but the United States’ armed forces
took no major military initiatives toward these ends, apart from covert
assistance lent to the CIA for such efforts as the overthrow of the Arbenz
regime in Guatemala in 1954.
The relative reluctance of the US military to enter the internal
security field in Latin America may in part be explained by a lack of
urgency. In the 1940s and 1950s arms sales to both Nicaragua and El
Salvador were sometimes even blocked where they appeared to be
intended largely for police-type military operations. One example, in
1943, was the Salvadorean militaity attache to Washington’s attempt to
purchase 1,000 US military surplus Reising sub-machine guns for the
Salvadorean National Guard. The State Department noted that it was
“a rather considerable order of an article which has played a sinister
role in Central America”; the Ambassador to El Salvador noted the sub¬
machine guns “may be desired for the repression of civil disorders”;
Lieutenant-General George H. Brett, Commanding General in the Pan¬
ama Canal Zone, declared himself “emphatically” against compliance
with the request, and it was refused on the grounds that the arms would
be used for a purpose not “consonant with our basic political policies or
agreeable to the American taxpayer”;'^ tantamount to the “on human
rights grounds” argument of the 1970s.
5
Similarly, even war-time military assistance to the Ubico regime in

Guatemala through the Lend-Lease programme was a sore point with
the United States military, not merely because it might be used to
slaughter Guatemalans - much of the material consisted of obsolete
heavy weapons, from mortars to howitzers - but because Ubi'co had
demanded an enormous quantity of material without payment (this was
a secret at the time) in return for the loan of facilities for United States
air bases. From the tone of the military intelligence reports for the
period it seems that the United States military despised Ubico and his
army, and were thus especially irritated by being forced to comply with
the Lend-Lease deal;
With an octogenarian, illiterate Secretary of War and a preponderance of

hopeless incompetents on its active list of 67 general officers, the
Guatemalan Army, whose highest tactical unit is the company, is glibly
planning the allocation of three million dollars worth of military
equipment..
Clearly, in 1943 there was no plan to turn the Guatemalan army into
effective soldiers, much less effective counter-insurgents.
American Freedom and the Communist Threat
At the Ninth International Conference of American States in Bogota in

1948, almost total diversion of attention from the Nazi to the Com¬
munist threat was ratified by Resolution XXXII of the “Final Act”
of the Conference;
That by its anti-democratic nature and its interventionist tendency, the

political activity of international communism or any totalitarian doctrine
is incompatible with the concept of American freedom.
The “Final Act” also declared that the States represented at the con¬
ference would take the necessary measures
to eradicate and prevent activities ... tending to overthrow their institu¬

tions by violence, to foment disorder in their domestic political life, or to
disturb... the free and sovereign right of their peoples to govern
themselves..
Measures introduced in the wake of this “Final Act”, which, until the
1960s, served to some degree as the hemisphere’s anti-Communist char¬
ter, still tended to be legalistic, and to offer traditional sanctions for
internal security offenders; the principal innovation was the co¬
ordinated effort to build a homogeneous, international legal framework
6
to oppose subversion throughout the hemisphere. A compendium of

existing and proposed measures to this effect was published in 1953 by
the Pan American Union, its stated objective being to provide member
states with the means to oppose “the acts of persons who are animated
by the desire to destroy the democratic institutions of the American
states so as to open the way to the aggression of communist
imperialism.”'^
It outlines security measures “for the protection of human rights and
American democratic institutions”, with special emphasis on recent
legislation in the United States as a model. Measures were recommen¬
ded to control the international movements of potential subversives; to
outlaw potentially subversive organizations; to restrict the rights of
citizenship of members of suspect organizations (including the right to
hold government employment); to prevent the infiltration of “legitimate”
organizations by subversives; and to halt subversive propaganda.'^
The citizens' freedom of movement was to be restricted in order to
prevent “subversives" from carrying on consultations, receiving train¬
ing, or imparting state secrets abroad. International co-operation was
required to halt foreign propagandists, and governments were recom¬
mended to:
... use the necessary means to prevent the inhabitants of their territories ...
from taking part in meeetings, crossing the frontiers or embarking in their
territories on travel for the purpose of spreading propaganda ..
The control of propaganda required the control of the news media,

both printed and broadcast, and of “public displays... teaching
activities, or any other means of communication ...”
It must be bom in mind that subversive propaganda being an intellectual

element par excellence in the perpetration of‘acts of political aggression'...
when its agents are nationals, such conduct acquires the essential charac¬
teristics of an act of treason.”
The report also equates with treason the participation in labour

organizations of persons linked to “subversive” organizations, as “the
economy of a country is one of the supports of its internal security” and
so there is a “need to arrest the infiltration of communism in these
organizations, through the adoption of adequate and efficacious
measures. “
On the basis of these few illustrations, it is justifiable to conclude that
the multilateral initiatives of the United States in the late 1940s and the
1950s contributed considerably to the creation or reinforcement of an
attitude towards internal security which identified all manifestations of
opposition to the status quo as “Communisf’ and, therefore, treasonable.
Nonetheless, the legislation of the 1940s and 1950s did little to change
7
the nature of the actions taken against “subversives in Guatemala and

El Salvador where harsh measures - arbitran- imprisonment, torture
and exile - had been the norm for many years; it did. however, put the
crushing of dissent in an ideological trame. detined in a self-consciously
uniform legal structure for the Western hemisphere. To some extent the
self-righteous and legalistic character ot these Cold War security
developments persisted into the 1960s. when a new trend towards extra-
legal measures was introduced.
Multilateral resolutions and treaties set the tone lor future counter¬
insurgency doctrine by promoting the strengthening ot political police
operations to enforce the new restrictions. Equally important was the
gradual development of close institutional links betw'een the United
States’ military forces and those of the region. The Inter-American
Defense Board provided a multilateral war-time framework through
which the United States could deal with its regional counterparts.
Bilateral relations were compacted in 1944 and 1945 in a series of
“Staff Conferences” at which top level United States militaiy’ officials
met with the general staffs of most of the Latin .American armies. The
US Department of State played a minor role at these conferences,
although they would provide the basis for the post-war escalation of US
military involvement and assistance in the region."’ This escalation
became policy during 1947. after acrimonious exchanges between
Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Secretaiy of War Robert P. Pat¬
terson, and Secretary of the Na\y Forrestal. Acheson vigorously
opposed legislation to dramatically increase provision of US equipment
and weaponry on the grounds that it would promote militarism, drain
economic resources, and promote instabiliy in the Americas, with
potentially disastrous consequences for US interests." Secretary of War
Patterson's response to earlier expressions of States' resistance in a
memorandum to Acheson on 27 March 1947 was a classic exposition of
early Cold War thinking:
... I feel very strongly that this legislation is a preventive measure of the
highest importance. It is designed to prevent the very type of crisis which
has arisen in Turkey and Greece where we are now' desperately attempt¬
ing to lock the stable door while the horse is almost in process of being
stolen. In Latin America, we must lock the stable door before the danger
ever arises. Prevention is relatively cheap; crises are exorbitantly expen¬
sive in money, in time, and often in blood.’’
Patterson’s vision of the means to lock the stable w as to pull the Latin
American military fully into the American orbit, and imbue them with
the same ideals held by the US militaiy.
... the provision of United States equipment is the keystone since United
States methods of training and organization must inevitably follow its
8
adoption along with the far-reaching concomitant benefits of permanent

United States military missions and the continued flow of Latin
American officers through our service schools. Thus will our ideals and
ways of life be nurtured in Latin America, to the eventual exclusion of
totalitarianism and other foreign ideologies. Thus only can we maintain
the security of our southern flank ...
Department of State's resistance persisted for a time, but faced pro¬

gressively more potent arguments from Patterson: a memorandum to
Acheson dated 17 April 1947 noted pointedly XYiai Communists opposed
military assistance;
One of the chief objectives of communistic propaganda in the Latin

American states is to prevent the extension of military assistance by the
United States to those states. It would seem that we are playing into the
hands of the Communists if by our own decision we disable ourselves
from the tender of military assistance.'^
Secretary of State George Marshall ultimately supported the War

Department, ushering in a period in which United States military mis¬
sions expanded throughout the Americas, transfers of conventional
warfare equipment proliferated (much of it World War II surplus), and
which saw an infrastructure set up for major training programmes for
Latin American military personnel by the United States.^^ The growing
presence and influence of the United States military in the region after
1947 welded the close institutional contact between armies that was the
prerequisite for the new kind of intervention of the 1960s.
US Military Assistance
By the mid-1950s “Mutual Defense Assistance Agreements” linked the

US army with the armies of every Latin American country except Argen¬
tina and Mexico, and the United States held a near monopoly on the
provision of military equipment and supplies to the region.^’ By 1953 the
terms of reference of the military assistance programme to Latin
America had changed to include, along with “Hemisphere Defense”
(anti-submarine warfare, etc.) a new role in the “Reduction and
Elimination of Communist or anti-United States Subversion”, and a
strategic goal of “internal stability” in the countries aided. Until the
1960s, however, the US Congress specifically prohibited United States
military assistance in the region for internal security purposes; these
were, of course, ill-defined.
The bilateral and multilateral links that developed between the
armies of the United States and Latin America after the outbreak of
World War II became the structural foundation for the US’s intensive
9
regional role in the 1960s, when the implementation of counter¬

insurgency doctrine in the Americas, including the use of United States
advisers, proceeded on the basis of this previous institutional ground¬
work.
From 1961 a “Conference of American Armies” was held almost
every year on US initiative, bringing together the top officers of virtually
every Latin American army.^^ From 1961 to 1967 the conferences were
largely organized and run by the counter-insurgency oriented United
States military. One American army officer, an expert specializing in
Latin American affairs, described them as a “powerful element” in the
creation of an integrated security orientation in the region, perhaps
more important than the Inter-American Defense Board, since they
“permitted direct person to person contact at the highest levels of
each service”.^^
For Central America and Panama a special regional organization
was formed to link national armies with each other and the United
States. In 1962 the charter of the Organization of Central American
States, ODECA, part of the Organization of American States, was
revised to provide for a Central American Defense Council of the
Ministers of Defense of Central America. A treaty establishing CON-
DECA {Consejo de Defensa Centroamericana) was signed in 1963, an
organization that began to function in 1964 with the opening of a per¬
manent office for the co-ordination of CONDECA activities, the Com¬
mon Permanente of CONDECA, or COPECONDECA.
The United States military developed “intelligence sharing arrange¬
ments; communications nets for control; periodic field exercizes to test
the [Inter-American Security] System, and frequent meetings of the
highest military authorities .. throughout the hemisphere. In Cen¬
tral America these were largely under the auspices of CONDECA and
in close co-ordination with the United States Southern Command at the
Panama Canal Zone. There were joint military maneouvres at least
until shortly before the fall of the Somoza regime, with the US acting
both as adviser and participant. CONDECA heads of state and military
chiefs continue to maintain close, personal contact on regional security
matters. One of CONDECA’s innovations, to be treated in more detail
later in this study, concerns communications, particularly the “Central
America and Panama Telecommunications Security Network”, which
links together the principal intelligence agencies^' of each country, and
the US Southern Command in Panama.
By 1960 the military in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador
shared a uniformly extreme position toward the threat of subversion,
and a common willingness to follow the United States’ lead in Cold War
activities. Guatemala was then accommodating the secret training
camps for the Bay of Pigs invasion forces; Nicaragua would provide
their jumping-off point. El Salvador’s military establishment was,
perhaps, the most steeped in overt anti-Communism owing to its
10
experience of aborted “revolution” in 1932. The military magazines of

the three countries, particularly those of El Salvador,presented a pic¬
ture of Communist demons waiting to seize the throats of the unwary,
and of the local military establishments' tireless dedication to rooting-
out Communists. The “Communist” threat, however, was met much
before World War II, producing scores of political prisoners and exiles,
much torture and intimidation, and traditional political police opera¬
tions. The military institutions were not yet involved in large-scale
specialized counter-insurgency activities. Even in Nicaragua, where
there were no civil police bodies, the National Guard carried out politi¬
cal police functions along the lines of the traditional secret police of
the region.
To radically alter the traditional response to “subversion” and lead to
the mass murder by governments which characterized the later 1960s,
1970s and now, the 1980s, it required the Cuban Revolution and the
innovations President John F. Kennedy catalysed in the United States’
armed forces and introduced to Latin America. The innovations can be
attributed primarily to the development of a new military doctrine for
counter-insurgency.
11
2. Launching “Special
Warfare”:
the Kennedy Era
From reliance on potential, massive, nuclear retaliation as the core of

US military deterrence. President Kennedy turned towards an aggressive,
small action, brush-fire war policy to supplement the nuclear threat Within
this framework, military theoreticians developed organizational and
operational techniques facilitating the materialization of political war¬
fare concepts into concrete actions extending well beyond the sporadic,
secret adventures of American intelligence agencies early in the Cold War.
Prior to the Kennedy administration, the military was apparently
reluctant to become whole-heartedly engaged in the dirty-tricks-dirty-
work operations that had characterized the secret, irregular warfare in
South-east Asia, Latin America and Africa, and more than willing to
leave them to the patriots and mercenaries of the glamorous, yet not
quite legitimate “intelligence” community.^"*
The major military heritage of the Kennedy administration (although
overshadowed at the time by the nuclear showdown over Soviet missiles
in Cuba) was the incorporation of “ special warfare” capabilities and
doctrine into the mainstream of the United States forces, and the
aggressive export of this doctrine. A military assistance programme for
Latin America resulted, which, combined with the security assistance
programmes of other US agencies, possibly played a greater part in the
region than any other aspect of American foreign policy throughout the
1960s and the 1970s. Indisputably, it irrecoverably changed the security
systems and the political destinies of Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Guatemala.
The change was based on a new assessment of threats to the United
States and its allies, sparked-off by the Cuban revolution and
Khruschev’s declaration in January 1961 that the Soviet Union would
actively support “wars of liberation” throughout the world. President
Kennedy felt a new approach was necessary in the rough-and-tumble of
the Cold War world; that battles were being lost by default; and that only
given the will and necessary technology could the “enemy” within the
Free World be identified, pinned down and destroyed. The insidious
and dirty tactics attributed to this enemy could be countered on equal
terms simply by inverting them. Passive reliance on the bomb, the
12
Launching "Special Warfare": the Kennedy Era
multifarious projects of the CIA and the independent anti-subversive

initiatives of threatened, friendly governments were not enough to pre¬
vent another Cuba. Pre-existing programmes for the assistance of
foreign armies and security agencies were redirected and fortified, with
internal security functions becoming the raison d'etre of military institu¬
tions receiving assistance.
The United States military s part was to develop its capacity to res¬
pond to the new, threatening challenges with new doctrine, organizational
resources, and techniques, all oriented toward the menace of insurgen¬
cy, and to prepare to impart these and provide pertinent hardware to
friendly security services (both military and paramilitary) in threatened
countries.
Kennedy's intensive, personal campaign for a change of policy was
publicly launched by his 1961 speech to Congress on foreign aid in
which he summed up both the threat from the enemy and a proposed
vast offensive against "subversion" in the free world.
The free world's security can be endangered not only by nuclear attack but
also by being slowly nibbled away at the periphery, by forces of subver¬
sion, infiltration, intimidation, indirect or non-overt aggression, internal
revolution, lunatic blackmail, guerrilla warfare or a series of limited
wars.
The Presidenfs personal interest in counter-insurgency theory, his

reading of texts on guerrilla warfare, and his demands for immediate
action on the problem are described in all the histories of the Kennedy
administration. In Washington the Presidenfs enthusiasm was infec¬
tious, and “counter-insurgency" became a factor in every aspect of
foreign policy during his administration. It also strongly coloured the
foreign policy of subsequent administrations to the present.
As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General L.L. Lemnitzer,
put it in 1962:
What the president had in mind was nothing less than a dynamic national
strategy: an action program designed to defeat the Communist without
recourse to the hazard or the terror of nuclear war; one designed to defeat
subversion where it had already erupted, and, even more important, to
prevent its taking initial root..
The aspects of the bold new strategy which concern us here are those
related to the improvement of governmental powers of coercion. The
much vaunted Alliance for Progress, the little sister of the counter¬
insurgency programme, intended to stop revolution through economic
development, had little impact on either economic or any other
development in Nicaragua, Salvador and Guatemala, or, indeed, in the
region as a whole.
13
In the words of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in mid-1961,

the Alliance for Progress could function only if governments could
count on effective forces “to cope with subversion, prevent terrorism,
and deal with outbreaks of violence before they reach unmanageable
proportions.”^'’ On the other hand, Mr Pat Holt, a chief staff member for
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, later described the foreign
policy of the period not as dominated by the grand plan of the Alliance,
but as “a policy of stop-gap measures to shore up existing governments,
both democratic and dictatorial, provided they are reasonably friendly to
the United States.”^' Counter-Insurgency was the stop-gap par
excellence.
Linking development to internal defence, making it dependent on
enhanced security, placed it at a disadvantage from the start; it also
added little to the argument of the days of the Great White Fleet when
the American interventions in Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican
Republic were justified as attempts to put their finances in order and to
establish the means of creating social peace so that they could
“develop”.^^
The new counter-insurgency orientation was still crystallizing when
the March 1961 invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs ended in failure. A
presidential committee to investigate the affair evolved into a perma¬
nent co-ordinating committee for matters related to Third World
insurgencies. Created by National Security Action Memorandum 124,
of January 1962, the “Special Group (Counterinsurgency)” was to serve
as a co-ordinating committee linking the President, the CIA, the
Departments of State and Defense and other agencies. Its purpose was
described in the memorandum (termed its charter) that initiated it as
“To assure the use of US resources with maximum effectiveness in pre¬
venting and resisting subversive insurgency in friendly countries ...””
The Special Group would co-ordinate the response of all govern¬
ment departments to “subversive insurgency” considered a “new and
dangerous form of politico-military” conflict, and would order approp¬
riate changes in the :
organization, training, equipment and doctrine of the US Armed Forces

and in the political, economic, intelligence, and military aid programs
conducted abroad by State, Defense, AID, USIA and CIA.'“
The Special Group was made “speciaf’ and distinguished from its
predecessors both by the degree of presidential interest in its activities -
Attorney General Robert Kennedy was an active participant - and by its
scope for initiating actions as established by its “charter”.'*' Appoint¬
ment of General Maxwell Taylor to chair the Special Group, as
“Military Representative” of the President, ensured that the mainstream
military establishment would not take a back seat to the intelligence
establishment in the counter-insurgency field.*^
14
Launching Special Warfare ": the Kennedy Era
Previous presidential committees dealing with the problems of

insurgency had concentrated on the supervision (read, rubber-stamp
approval) of covert operations by American intelligence agencies.
Called at different times the “40” Committee, the “54-12” Group, or the
303 Committee, they traditionally included the President’s National
Security Advisor, a Deputy Secretary of State, a representative of the
military and, as Chairman, the Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, who prepared their agendas.'’^ The “Special Group” may have
continued to serve the same purpose as well as the new and more crea¬
tive objectives outlined in its charter. The appointment of General
Taylor as Chairman was probably a comment on CIA inadequacies in
the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Rather than limiting the traditional covert operations of the
intelligence agencies, the main result of Special Group recommenda¬
tions and of regearing the American military for counter-insurgency
was that actions formerly the exclusive province of the covert operators
of the “intelligence community” became part of the mainstream doc¬
trine and operational programme of the regular US military forces, the
foreign policy establishment, and the foreign assistance agencies
(notably the Agency for International Development AID).
Counter-Insurgency’s New Face
A “for information” cable (classified as secret) to all American

diplomatic posts, issued jointly by the Departments of State and Defen¬
se, AID, and the United States Information Agency described Special
Group's establishment and outlined what the Group required of US
missions in order to accomplish its security objectives.'”
“Internal defense” was defined to include consideration of all aspects
of the target society, as well as an assessment of all “available US resour¬
ces” within the country, including, for example, “US Corps of Engineers
capabilities. Peace Corps, Ford Foundation-type operations. Special
Forces augmentation teams, Ex-Im Bank” and others.'^^ As for the assis¬
ted government:
An adequate internal defense requires the effective mobilization of a

government’s political, military and psychological resources cast both
strategically and tactically. The sine qua non of a successful and lasting
solution is effective political action.'*^
While the Special Group recommended a holistic approach to the

problem of insurgency, the US missions’ immediate objective in pro¬
blem countries was to develop “adequate internal defense forces”.'*^
The new doctrine outlined two lines of defense against insurgency: 1)
development, “to eliminate causes of discontent or to immunize the
15
population from appeals to conspiracy and violence”, and 2) coercion,

“the development of effective police and/or military capabilities to
maintain internal security”.'**
The classified documents with action instructions to US agencies to
prepare for counter-insurgency were considerably more candid about
priorities - security first, development later - than was the public face of
policy. Economic and social change to eliminate the causes was des¬
cribed as an unrealistic goal in the short term without correcting “basic
social, political and economic injustices”. Practical security measures
could, however, be taken almost immediately to “reduce both the effec¬
tiveness of insurgent and subversive operations and communist appeals
to the population for the instigation or support of violence.”'*^
If, to “eliminate causes of discontent”, major change was necessary,
but such change, being “long-term in character”, was not for the
moment a viable alternative for US policy, the secondary objective (or
line of defence, could be pursued by short range, more expedient,
means. The immediately possible would have to suffice and this could be
accomplished through the boosting of police and military capabilities.
While the need for reform and development is continually referred to
throughout the United States’ published counter-insurgency doctrine it
was a stillborn concept, compromised and restricted at its very incep-
tion“ by so-called realism and expediency in confidential policy state¬
ments, and had little practical application beyond the field of public
relations.
Although the Special Group, as a presidential body, held authority
over all aspects of US policy vis-d-vis counter-insurgency, it was given
special “cognizance” - somewhat more than a watching brief - over
countries of particular concern. By mid-1962 this special category
included Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, as well the
South-east Asian countries.^* One year later an assessment of the Spe¬
cial Group’s role recommended that the Americas as a whole be placed
under its supervision, with a mandate to monitor intelligence activities,
labour and student programmes, “psychological warfare, economic
development. Food for Peace, political action, etc.”:“
[The Americas] encompass 50% of those countries assigned to the Group

by the President. It represents a very large proportion of the trouble spots
in the underdeveloped areas ... To the extent that Cl (Counter-Insurgency)
programs are effective, the Communists will concentrate on gaining
power through other means. It is not necessary to describe these means.
They are sufficiently well known ... the Group would serve as an anti-
Communist strategy board to identify those countries threatened by Com¬
munism, to review departmental programs, and as necessary to stimulate
new and expanded ones to ensure that the US presents a co-ordinated
response of sufficient strength and diversity to assist friendly countries in
overcoming the,Communist threat.^^
16
Although the Special Group did not, in tact, take on all of the Americas
as its province, its standard-setting counter-insurgency doctrine set its
mark on much of the region.
An illustration of the impetus given by the Special Group to enhance
security systems in the region within the context of a nominally holistic
approach, was the development of a system oVlnternal defense plans".
On the Group’s initiative. US diplomatic missions in trouble-spots (and
incipient trouble-spots) were to draft assessments of particular security
threats and potential remedies, using available domestic and US resour¬
ces; the documents were to include input from all the agencies represen¬
ted in the respective missions.
Internal Defense Plans were requested for countries where subver¬
sion and insurgency were in progress or believed to be imminent,
Guatemala and El Salvador were among the Latin American countries
privileged with such plans, whereas it was not considered that
Nicaragua, in the 1960s, faced any significant internal security threat
that lay beyond the capacity of its National Guard to control.^'’ In pre¬
paring plans, heads of mission were instructed to:
briefly summarize the military, police, intelligence, and psychological

aspects of internal defense as well as socio-economic and political
measures which comprise a well-rounded IDP and should be consistent
with over-all US objectives and regional and country policy guidelines...
Do not discuss with host or third country government representatives
until instructed.^^
Plans were to include a statement of the countries vulnerabilities (where

subversion could strike deep), an interpretation of US policy objectives
in the country, and an outline of remedial and prophylactic measures to
be taken in the “Political. Socio-economic, Security (including Intell¬
igence) and Psychological information categories’’.^^
A Guatemalan Internal Defence Plan (IDP) sent to Washington, by
Ambassador John O. Bell in September 1962, included most of the ele¬
ments of the new security focus;
... the primary objective of the US in Guatemala is the prevention of the

accession to power of Communists in Guatemala... In my view, the
danger of insurgency in the sense of open armed action by guerrillas
against the Government is not of great immediacy in this country ... On
the other hand, the danger of other forms of subversion, forms which pro¬
vide a base from which insurgency can develop, is real and present. .
The plan skirted around several ideas for “socio-economic reform’’,

including better education (but noting that this might make the
educated “all the more aware of the hopelessness of their status ... and
more susceptible to communist agitation’’) and land reform through an
17
increased land tax (“although it is perhaps unlikely to be passed by

Congress”). It did, however, suggest immediate measure to enhance the
security of the country, including improvement of the capacity of civil
police to control riots, civil disturbances, and future guerrilla opera¬
tions; joint operational plans for the military and law enforcement
bodies and continued military assistance “with counterguerrilla train¬
ing at all levels”. The latter was to be a high priority, and the report
praised the contribution already made by “counter-guerrilla instruction
given to Guatemalan officers by a United States mobile team”. A final
security concern was that as “there is at present no intelligence system
worthy of the name operated by the GOG [Government of Guatemala]”,
the development of a professional intelligence organization was of the
utmost importance and long term “in-country advisory assistance” on
intelligence matters urgently advised.^*
The guidelines for drafting internal defence plans reflected the Spe¬
cial Group’s overall approach to insurgency; the tasks requested of the
missions on the ground reflected the global initiatives set in motion at
the same time. Plans to develop local level military and security forces
into efficient counter-insurgents were matched by accelerated training
of military and other government personnel in counter-insurgency
matters in the United States, and the accelerated preparation of new
military and police assistance programmes. A global survey was made
of “free-world” security problems, and of the existing police and
military deterrence capacity in problem countries. National Security
Action Memorandum (NSAM) 162, of June 1962, ordered “The
Development of US and Indigenous Police, Paramilitary and Military
Resources” - a large order for the United States.
To this end major changes were required within the US's military
and security establishment itself An aggressive civil police assistance
role was assigned to the AID by the establishment of a Division of
Public Safety in November 1962, which took over from the low level
police assistance programme of the former International Co-operation
Administration (AID’S predecessor).^^
The new military counter-insurgency doctrine - which was to become
gospel for the armies and security forces of Central America - is of most
concern here. That, and the reorganization of the United States military
for the purpose of imparting this doctrine abroad, has most bearing on
the changing patterns of security enforcement - and repression - in
Guatemala and El Salvador and will be outlined at length.
US Army Special Forces
In January 1961 President Kennedy called on the armed forces to add

“still another military dimension” to the “national arsenal” of the
United States; a counter-insurgency programme. Within 18 months
18
considerable activity within the United States military establishment

boosted its capacity to carry out counter-insurgency operations both
directly - through its own forces - and indirectly - through enhanced
training capacity for foreign forces.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of the armed services appointed
co-ordinators for counter-insurgency affairs; the Army appointed a spe¬
cial assistant to the Chief of Staff on Special Warfare Activities, respons¬
ible for advising on “special warfare and cold war activities”.^ The
President also mandated the Army and the CIA to open special
“Research and Development” programmes devoted to counter-insurgency.
Regearing included first of all a rationalization of existing American
doctrine on political warfare; an amalgam of the American experience
of behind-the-lines commando actions, and earlier involvement in
guerrilla warfare - from the war against guerrillas in the Philippines at
the turn of the century, through the pursuit of Sandino in Nicaragua in
the 1920s and 1930s, to the war against the Huks in the Philippines in the
1950s. The new counter-insurgency doctrine’s designers also took
advantage of British Army tacticians’ knowledge and absorbed the
experience of other colonial wars.^' The substance of the new doctrine,
as it was applied, is the subject of later chapters.
Organizational initiatives can be roughly divided into efforts to train
US armed forces in counter-insurgency; the creation within them of spe¬
cial units with a particular expertise in special warfare (counter¬
insurgency); the training of foreign forces; and the development of
multilateral relations with Latin American armies through regional
organizations and conferences.
In mid-1962 an 18 month progress report to the President informed
of the creation of nine special counter-insurgency courses for officers,
with 2,099 graduates. Over 510,000 enlisted men had completed counter¬
insurgency courses “beyond basic level... from training in guerrilla
warfare, psychological warfare, underwater demolitions and air rescue
operations to language training, military assistance training, and civil
affairs”. “Field exercises addressed specifically to counter-insurgency”
were now “obligatory throughout the armed forces”.“
While the crash programme of counter-insurgency training soon set¬
tled into a routine, it illustrated the level of the military’s institutional
concern for preparedness in the area, and dominated the period of the
1960s which, as we shall see later, was to determine the course of events
in Central America. Specialized counter-insurgency units in the US
armed forces maintained the strong counter-insurgency momentum
and were a principle vehicle for its export to Latin America - and
the world.
The training courses were especially directed toward training officers
and enlisted men of counterpart (Latin American, etc.) armies, whose
home territories were considered potential trouble spots. From 1
January 1961 to July 1962 the US Army reported it had trained 14,000
19
foreign students in counter-insurgency at US military schools and

installations. In addition “Several hundred thousand others” had
received training in their own countries from US mobile, counter¬
insurgency oriented, training teams”. The Mobile Training Teams
(MTTs) provided in-the-field instruction, and in some cases par¬
ticipated in actual combat. They reached the largest number of local
military personnel in problem countries and provided them with
detailed operational training.
A total of 79 such teams, numbering 1512 US military men, are presently

[1962] deployed in 19 different countries, threatened by insurgency situa¬
tions. Of these teams 50 are in Southeast Asia and 20 in Latin America.
The specialties represented by the mobile teams cover the total spectrum
of counter-insurgency actions ..
By 1967 MTTs dispatched from Fort Gulick, the Canal Zone

regional headquarters of the US Army Special Forces, had carried out
more than 600 missions to Latin America.^ The MTT’s (composed
primarily of US Army Special Forces) particular role in Latin America
will be dealt with below.
In 1961 the US Army special unit for unconventional warfare (the
Special Forces, later the Green Berets) numbered less than 1,000: by July
1962 3,800; by 1963 5,600. In 1962 an Air Force Special Air War Center
was established at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as a counterpart to
the special Army facilities for counter-insurgency. The Marine Corps
also integrated counter-insurgency training at all levels.
Creation of special units for “prosecuting the counter-insurgency
war” was given urgent priority. Within 18 months special warfare units
in the three armed forces comprised 7,500 men. They were:
special forces units comprised of selected and highly skilled volunteers,

trained and targeted on specific threatened areas; psychological warfare
units; sea-air-land unconventional warfare teams ..
As the foremost counter-insurgent forces in the US military, the

activities and operational doctrine of the Army Special Forces merit
special attention, as they represent a distillation of the overall military
doctrine of counter-insurgency in action. Responsibility for developing
counter-insurgency doctrine and organization of training was assigned
by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Army Special Warfare Center at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, in 1960. Since its foundation in 1956,^^ through
its Special Warfare School, the Center had trained officers from all the
services and a few Latin American army officers, in counter-insurgency
operations.
The Special Forces became the major vehicle for on-the-ground
counter-insurgency assistance to Latin American armies through the
20
Launching Special Warfare the Kennedy Era
device of the MTT, which enabled units of from 12 to 36 Special Forces

personnel to move rapidly into and out of crisis areas and provide a low-
profile combat advisory force that would easily elude the scrutiny of the
international press and of the American public.
According to several former US military officers, an important factor
facilitating concealment of the MTTs in the 1960s, was that the
diplomatic rules binding US forces required an American warship
entering port in, say, Guatemala, to communicate immediately with the
US Ambassador to Guatemala, but such reports were not required from
forces arriving by air. A Special Forces contingent flown in from the
Panama Canal Zone, therefore, was not formally required to contact the
Embassy, thus the local US diplomats could plead ignorance of
American in-the-lield operations (either advisory or active combat).®*
Since MTT operations were part of a co-ordinated US policy toward
each country where they were active there is no reason to assume (in
spite of such official disclaimers as above) that these operations went on
entirely without the knowledge of US Ambassadors; probably there was
prior agreement along general lines, though the details may have con¬
veniently been undisclosed.
The distinction between the MTTs advisory and direct action role in
Latin America, as in Vietnam, may have been largely academic, as will
be seen with regard to El Salvador and Guatemala. While Special For¬
ces units detailed directly from the Special Forces Groups based at the
Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg were rotated through Latin
America on a regular basis, a Latin America “Special Action Force” was
built around the 8th Special Forces Group based at Fort Gulick in the
Panama Canal Zone.
This 1,000 man unit was specifically earmarked for special warfare tasks
in Latin America and provided the bulk ofthe numerous Mobile Training
Teams (MTTs) which would travel to each of the Latin nations to provide
training to supplement that of the resident Military Group or that pro¬
vided in military schools in the US or the canal zone. The most famous of
these MTTs was the one sent to Bolivia in early 1967 to train the Bolivian
Ranger unit that eliminated Che Guevara’s guerrilla movement.
Other related Special Action Force units stationed in the Canal Zone
included the Army’s 3rd Civil Affairs Detachment and the Air Force’s Air
Commando Squadron. Both of these units ... sent numerous MTTs to
Latin America in this period (1961-1967).®'^
The link-up with the Air Commando Squadron, equipped with the
kind of “propeller and early subsonic-jet air craft that dominated the
air-order-of-battle of most developing nations”,™ gave Special Forces
units the mobility which, in earlier interventions in Guatemala (1954)
and the Bay of Pigs (1961) had, at least nominally, depended on CIA air¬
craft resources. Whether unmarked aircraft on secret missions belong to
21
the US Air Force or the CIA is of interest only in so far as it illustrates the
regular armed forces moves to take on an increasingly large part of the
dirty warfare and covert action role formerly left to the CIA.
Co-ordination of Special Forces-Air Commando forces was facilitated
by a reorganization of the former US military’s “Caribbean Command”
as “SOUTHCOM”, a unified command centre for the Army, Navy and
Airforce, with considerable room for initiative as the “US regional head¬
quarters for Latin America”.^'
The Special Forces’ role in Guatemala and El Salvador will be des¬
cribed in greater detail in the context of overall security assistance to
those countries. In general terms, in Latin America as elsewhere, they
concentrated on creating paramilitary bodies to support the regular
security services with irregular operations, sometimes described as
“guerrilla” actions in support of the state. In 1963 the Secretary of the
Army (US) informed a congressional committee of the basic 12 man
Special Forces personnel units’ potential to raise “guerrilla” forces to
fight subversion:
... a detachment of such American forces consisting of ten enlisted per¬

sonnel and two officers can effectively organize, control, and assist in the
operations of a foreign guerrilla force of more than one thousand
72
men.
A late 1960s official history of the US Marine Corps gave the follow¬
ing description of the Special Forces, stressing their primary role to be
the organization of irregular “indigenous” counter-insurgent forces:
The US Army Special Forces (the “Green Berets”) are military personnel
with training in basic and specialized military skills, organized into small
multipurpose detachments, whose mission is to train, organize, supply,
direct, and control indigenous forces in guerrilla warfare and counter¬
insurgency operations and to conduct unconventional warfare opera¬
tions. Special Forces detachments by themselves have little combat
capability.’^
Role of the Mobile Training Teams
As we shall see, though not in themselves important as combat units, the

MTTs in-and-out-again role in organizing paramilitary counter¬
guerrilla forces - in some cases “death squads” - was a primary factor in
Central American developments.
The theory of counter-guerrilla organization - including the use of
irregular paramilitary forces to oppose guerrillas - and the techniques
of “counter-terrorism” will be discussed in the chapters on the sub¬
stance of counter-insurgency doctrine. Sufficient here to cite some
22
examples of the Special Forces role in building counter-insurgency

structures and systems in target countries.
As early as 1962 at least one Special Forces MTT had carried out
training in the field in Guatemala, where guerrilla activities led by for¬
mer Guatemalan army officers were launched in February 1962.^''Docu-
ments revealing the objectives, activities and recommendations of the
first Special Forces MTT sent to Guatemala have not yet been
uncovered, but we do know the details of a visit by a similar team to
Colombia,^^ where there were comparable problems of guerrilla
insurgency at about the same time. This high-level Special Forces
team's recommendations to the Colombian Army and the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff covered most aspects of counter-insurgency action later
recommended, and implemented, in Guatemala and El Salvador.
In early 1962, at the invitation of the Colombian government, US
Special Forces MTT, headed by General William Yarborough, Com¬
mander of the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, visited Colombia.
The Team met the Minister of Defense and had full access to civil and
military bodies involved in counter-insurgency, including the civil
political police {Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, (DAS)).
Recommendations called for new organizational forms - “prototype
anti-guerrilla organizations" - and a new range of techniques, including
“terrorism" against “known Communist proponents”. The most radical
proposal, and most representative of the new school of counter¬
insurgency, appeared in a separate, special “Secret Supplement" to the
main body of the Classified report. There, General Yarborough’s pres¬
cription for Colombia was the organization of secret paramilitary
groups to carry out violent covert actions against the domestic opposi¬
tion; his recommendation amounts to a formula for setting up the
“death squads" that have been a major element of counter-insurgency
in Latin America since the 1960s:’*
It is the considered opinion of the survey team that a concerted country

team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel
for clandestine training... This should be done with a view toward
development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event
the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This Struc¬
ture should be used to... as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage
and/or terrorist activities against known Communist proponents.
Ideally, the General added, such covert actions should be launched

immediately if feasible: “If we have such an apparatus in Colombia it
should be employed now before communist proponents become too
strong to combat.”
United States-supported state terrorism could thus be launched “in
the event the ... security system deteriorates further” or as a pre¬
emptive measure to make sure it did not, and destroy the opposition
23
before it became active.

General Yarborough was not “out of line” with the rest of the US
security establishment in recommending covert terrorist tactics against
“Communist proponents”, and the 1962 report was not an aberration.
United States’ counter-insurgency experts’ direct involvement in the
development of paramilitary forces and in promoting the use of terror
tactics in Guatemala and El Salvador is outlined elsewhere.
US Military Doctrine in the 1960s: Vietnam
Declassified documents on Special Forces activities in ’Vietnam provide

complementary evidence that both the organization of secret paramilitary
groups and their deployment in assassination operations was in accord
with mainstream military doctrine in the 1960s.
A 1965 secret army report, describes the fundamental role of the Spe¬
cial Forces in Vietnam - the organization of paramilitary forces - in
terms almost identical to those used in General Yarborough’s proposal
for Colombia. Whereas in Colombia irregular forces were to be set up to
“execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against
known Communist proponents”, the Special Forces in action in Viet¬
nam in 1965 worked to organize indigenous “guerrilla-style” forces,
deployed in “ambushing, raiding, sabotaging and committing acts of
terrorism against known VC (Viet Cong) personnel.”^^
Eater in the same report these operations are defined as “to include
assassination”. According to this report the objectives of the Special
Forces in Vietnam were, firstly, “To provide planning and operational
advice and assistance, material support, and training for selected
indigenous military and paramilitary forces”; and, secondly, to assist in
“performing border control/surveillance and internal guerrilla roles”:
In Vietnam, US Army Special Forces (USASF) personnel have been

primarily committed to providing training, operational advice, and assis¬
tance to indigenous paramilitary forces ... Specifically, Special Forces
have been involved with primitive tribes in distant and remote areas, peo¬
ple in rural areas, and minority ethnic and religious groups.^*
The sequence followed in “counter-guerrilla” operations began with

the recruitment and training of a local “Strike Force” and the establish¬
ment of an intelligence network, and went on to “guerrilla type” opera¬
tions, in which the “counter-guerrilla Strike Force” would be turned
loose to clear out “the enemy” and their sympathizers. Operations were
to include assassinations: “[Irregular forces are to] conduct operations
to dislodge VC-controlled officials to include assassination.”™
The first phase - “preparation” - could combine measures to prepare
“counter-terror” units with attempts to win “hearts and minds”;
24
Establish CIDG [Civilian Irregular Defense Group] Camp with a joint

USASF/VNSF operations center; Recruit and train local personnel for
Strike Force; Establish intelligence nets and train agents; Establish frien¬
dly rapport with local population . .
After “preparation", “clearing” operations came into play, utilizing pat¬

rols. ambushes, population control (monitoring and restricting the
movement of the population and food and medical supplies, etc.), and
the initiation of counter-terror operations.
Deny the VC the capability to function in the assigned area of operations

by staying on the offensive; Identify and destroy the VC infrastructure
among the local population . .
The sequence culminates in a “holding” phase.

A major problem for Special Forces in Vietnam was the language
barrier. Special Forces units could not “directly organize paramilitary
units on a face-to-face basis” but were forced to work indirectly through
Vietnamese government forces and depend on secondary information
in matters of “operational intelligence or psychological warfare”.*^ In
Latin America. Spanish-speaking Special Forces units permitted a
much more direct relationship with local intelligence and paramilitary
organizations.
The largest and most visible paramilitary organizations set up in
Vietnam by the United States after 1960 were the “Civil Guards” - later
renamed “Regional Forces” - and the “Self-Defense Corps” - later
termed the “Popular Forces”. Already by July 1962 the growth of the two
forces was the subject of boasting by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff:
... we support a force of 68,000 Vietnamese Civil Guardsmen, training

them in 6 centers in a formal 12-weeks training program ... Likewise we
are training a Vietnamese Self Defense Corps of 79,000 ... As of 1 July
over 31.000 Self Defense Corps men had been trained.^^
These forces were initially envisioned to perform relatively static local

defence duties:
The paramilitary forces available for providing security in the hamlets

were the Civil Guard (GC), a regional type force ultimately controlled by
Diem from Saigon but under the operational control of the province
chief, and the Self-Defense Corps (SDC), part-time soldiers controlled by
the village and district chiefs who performed guard duty in the villages
and hamlets.*"’
Civilian Irregular Defence Groups

A considerably more covert organization raised by the Special Forces
and the CIA in Vietnam, for active counter-guerrilla operations, was
25
the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) system, organized,

according to a Special Forces report, to provide local security for their
own hamlet or village”, and “as search and destroy units, trail watchers
and border surveillance patrols Established in 1961, and rapidly
raised to level of about 20,000 - later augmented by unknown numbers
of personnel assigned to the shadowy “Delta Project” - the CIDG forces
were the pre-eminent counter-guerrilla/counter-terror organization in
the early years of the war.“
Officially, the CIDG was not under Special Forces administration -it
was “not a part of the Military Assistance Program” - although Special
Forces were detailed “to staff training and operational bases of CIDG
from the beginning”.®^ But although technically under CIA control,
even CIA Director William Colby, in a top-secret policy paper in 1964,
described it as “The Special Forces CIDG Program”.*® Some paramilitary
groups raised largely from ethnic and religious minorities (such as the
famous Montagnards and Nung guards) as an “in-country counter¬
guerrilla force” were included in the CIDG programme.*^ The CIDG,
moreover, was only one of the paramilitary forces receiving CIA assis¬
tance in 1962, according to a Joint Chiefs of Staff report:
... in company with the Central Intelligence Agency, the US military is

engaged in training [in 1962] some 9 [other] paramilitary forces. Youth
groups, armed villagers, trail watchers, civic action teams and tribesmen
in the highland plateau of Vietnam, aggregating about 17,000 people.'^
After 1965 the CIDG system was gradually merged with the Regional
and Popular Forces; these in turn, expanded significantly, and were
simultaneously called upon to take an increasingly active and
aggressive role in the counter-guerrilla tasks of Vietnam's rural pacifica¬
tion programme. A 1982 study of US defence analyst Richard H. Shultz
outlines their place in the campaign to root out the “Viet Cong” infra¬
structure in the 1969-72 period:
The Regional Forces (RF) were concerned with ‘enemy provincial and
local units’, and additionally were to assist ‘in neutralizing the VCI [Viet
Cong Infrastructure], interdicting enemy LOCs [Lines of Communica¬
tion], and protecting local resources.' The Popular Forces (PF) were res¬
ponsible for local enemy guerrillas. The PF was also to participate in local
VCI neutralization.®'
The influence of the paramilitary systems on the course of the Vietnam

war, while seemingly not yet the object of serious study within or without
the US military establishment, was surely significant if only on account
of the enormous size of the paramilitary forces. In 1964 Regional Forces
grew to 196,000 - nearly matching the regular army’s 250,000 men -
growing to 301,000 in 1972 (when the army totalled 570,000). The
26
Launching Special Warfare”: the Kennedy Era
Popular Forces grew from 168,000 in 1964 to 219,000 in 1972.''^

Available evidrace indicates that these irregular, paramilitary forces
were the principal executors of the “acts of terrorism against known VC
personnel that US Army Special Forces taught as part of their counter¬
insurgency brief in the 1960s. But their role went largely unremarked
outside Vietnam during and after the war, only touched upon in the
tlood ot memoirs and recriminations published in the aftermath of the
war. Operation Phoenix”, calling on the paramilitaiy resources built
up in the early 1960s to “root out the infrastructure of the Viet Cong” - in
essence a programme of assassination and murder - is perhaps the best
known application of special warfare through unconventional forces”,
and the high point of counter-terror in the counter-insurgency prac¬
tice in Vietnam.
27
3. The New Battlefields
The changing perception of the security threats to the United States in

the 196()s shifted emphasis from conventional battlefields to permanent
undeclared ideological war, in the universities, factories, homes and
fields of "friendly" nations, technically at peace but considered to be
threatened by foreign and domestic subversion. The United States
defence establishment's response to these perceived threats required the
development of new military techniques and an increased reliance on
the armed forces of countries supposedly in common cause with the US.
Not that the armies of friendly countries were to be no more than
proxies in a global battle: the policy makers saw the situation as one in
which the US would provide the assistance necessary' for its allies to
defend themselves against the common enemy. The new element
identified the common enemy as almost exclusively internal', the
subversive and the insurgent. Consequently, the previous close
collaboration of Central American and United States armies was
systematized, intensified and reoriented quite specifically toward
crushing insurgency.
For the field of action — the home front — new organizational
systems were developed and innovations in technique designed and
implemented. The "home" involved was. of course, someone else's;
United States policy makers could be confident that the new form of
contlict would not extend beyond the boundaries of the circumscribed
and distant territories in which it was to be fought. Counter-insurgency
doctrine provided orientation on where the battle was to be fought, how
the friendly governments' forces should be organized and deployed (in
specialized units and irregular, paramilitary formations), and suggested
a range of techniques available for application (the tactics of total war
adapted to the family feud). Conventional militai'y formations and
conventional tactics were simply inappropriate for taking warfare into
people's homes, neighbourhoods, offices, factories and fields. Counter¬
insurgency doctrine also provided motivation and justification for
harsh action: the enemy was considered to use every dirty trick in the
book and would kill the counter-insurgent if the counter-insurgent did
not kill him first.
28
The New Battlefields
The new assessment of threats to the United States and possible

remedies or deterrents held that the "Communists'” had sueeessfully
subveited friendly regimes beeause their opponents were naive or
reluctant to use force to crush incipient revolution/” The Communists
were seen to operate through a system of “political warfare”, and a US
doctrine ot political warlare was a logical response in the escalation of
mihtai7 one-upmanship.
Political warlare is a sustained effort by a government or political group to

seize, preserve, or extend power, against a defined ideological enemy,
thiough all acts short ot a shooting war by regular military forces, but not
excluding the threat ot such a war ... It embraces diverse forms of
coeicion and violence including strikes and riot.s, economic sanctions,
subsidies toi guerrilla or proxy wartare and, when necessary, kidnapping
or assassination ot enemy elites.'^'*
Political wartaie, toimerly theoretically exclusive to Communists,

became a viable concept for the "Free World” and shaped an aggressive
foreign policy ot limited warfare, counter-insurgency and “counter¬
revolutionary' oftensives in countries subverted to communism”.*^''
The Enemy is Within
In the 1960s, the 1950s Cold War climate, warmed up by the Cuban
revolution and the Vietnam war, induced blueprints for counter¬
insurgent action in friendly countries, at every level. This was seen as a
matter of self-defence tor these eountries; the enemy was already in their
parlour.
Within each target countiy the doctrine and programmes of
counter-insurgency internalized the global stalemate/conflict with the
Soviet Union. It also tended to align the United States with the local
military establishments and with the “haves” against the 'have-not.s’:
perhaps inevitably as long as the “have-nots” were seen both as
vulnerable to subversion and indispensable to its success; without their
support subversion could not succeed.
An Inter-American Defense College graduation speech by US
Assistant Secretary of State Alexis Johnson in 1966 succinctly summed
up the new attitude:
It is no longer possible to make a division between the activities related to

the waging of war and diplomatic activities . . . We have proven . . . that
although the threat of a general war still weighs upon us, that the most
immediate danger is of limited militai7 action.s, frequently of a subversive
character, in which . . . one must weigh concrete military measures in
terms of their political impact, and viceversa.'”
29
In practical or operational terms, placing local subversion in the

context of permanent global war stimulated the development of those
marginal areas of traditional military doctrine which could be adapted
to serve a domestic police function and play a role in incipient or active
civil conflict. A minor part of the military repertoire, built upon the
experience of World War II and its aftermath, concerned behind-the-
lines operations in a conventional, total war, and the potential for
assisting civilian resistance fighters to counter conventional occupiers
or invaders of their countries. In 1944, for example, the US Army and the
Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA) began to assist Ho
Chi Minh's resistance fighters to oust the Japanese from northern
Vietnam.'^
The post-war period saw the “anything goes" philosophy of military,
commando-type, support for the resistance movements in Nazi- and
Japanese-occupied territories transformed into its mirror image. Those
same techniques then used against an occupying force were inverted, to
defend friendly governments from outbreaks of insurgency and. indeed,
to pre-empt them by crushing all opposition. The use of violence,
uninhibited by legalistic criteria, was not excluded, and sometimes took
the form of reprisals or generalized terrorism against the population at
large, as if the established government were an occupying force.
A 1966 US \xxx\y Military Review article reproduced in the Guatemalan
Revista Militar described “counter-terror" first in World War II terms: “...
if a bridge is blown up, detain all of the villagers of the area and execute
a few hostages".'^'^ But a more sophisticated approach was needed in the
context of the fight against insurgency in the 1960s. More selective acts
of “counter-terror" were recommended, and counter-guerrilla forces,
raised from among the villagers themselves, would be organized to carry
them out.'*’**
The basic tenet of counter-insurgency doctrine is the identification of
Communism as the threat and the enemy as its agents. There are,
however, problems in its application. Is the shooting of a policeman in a
grocery store an ordinary law enforcement problem or insurgency? Is
membership of a peasant trade union “subversive" if such trade unions
are illegal (as in El Salvador)? After the Cuban revolution US military
doctrine tended toward the broadest possible definition of subversion,
lumping together any and all opposition to the status quo as either
incipient or actual insurgency. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962
defined insurgency as a condition of “illegal opposition to an existing
governmenf' that could range from passive resistance, illegal strike
action or demonstrations, to large-scale guerrilla operations, but fell
short of civil war.'"' Next to overt guerrilla warfare, the principal
instances of insurgency were “urban political demonstrations, riots and
strikes", and responsibility for insurgency was placed squarely on
independent political opposition groups, student demonstrators,
university communities, and labour organizations.
30
Training foreign military forces, both inside and outside the United
States, was the principal vehicle by which the counter-insurgency
orientahon was instilled in Latin America. The basic message of
indoctrination was negative: the enemy is the Communist, insidious
and omnipresent, unyielding and pernicious, powertul and perverted.
An enemy that could be resisted only by annihilating him. The message
was taken home by trainees, and propagated by doctrinal material from
US military publications (notably the Mihtaty Review) regularly
reproduced in publications ot Latin American armies.
In 1973. the army olficer heading Argentina's National Security
Council, described the US military s major role in Latin America after
1960, as an effort to reorient hemispheric defence to combat “inter¬
national communism and its internal allies” and, induce armies to
"preserve internal order and to put down subversion”. US military
doctrine co-ordinated perceptions, “especially by defining‘the enemy’
and how to combat him"."'-'*
The meaning ot this “coordination of perceptions” in practice is clearly
illustrated in some early field exercises of the Central American Defense
Board (CONDECA), considered “indispensable" to combat “the constant
communist threat to Central American peace”."’^ CONDECA’s regional
war game in 1966. Operacion Centroamericana, played out on the north
coast ot Honduras, involved an elaborate scenario. A general strike of
peasants and workers had culminated in “mass assaults by armed
civilians on the garrisons” and the capture of several ports by the
insurgents. The insurrection began with the “sabotage of the industrial
zones, consecutive strikes and stoppages, and street demonstrations”.
Such activities were seen as the first steps in a full-fledged revolution,
threatening the whole region, that had to be countered by the co-ordinated
deployment ofCONDECA forces, including air. sea and land forces from
four neighbouring countries, including Panama."’^
The counter-insurgency orientation that found every trade union,
political group or peasant organization a threat equal to that of an
armed guerrilla group, motivated concomitant acts of violent repression
against these groups - a policy that has tended to backfire. In both
Guatemala and El Salvador, and of course in Nicaragua, the
generalized violence of the state provoked by such a broad definition of
insurgency has, when applied to large sectors of the society, tended to
convince potential victims that they have nothing to lose by taking up
arms and joining the guerrillas. The strikes, stoppages and street
demonstrations that sparked-off the Nicaraguan and Salvadorean
revolutions were followed by massive, violent insurrection on\y after the
ranks of lawful, non-violent organizations were decimated by massacres
and government-controlled death squads.
Political organizations, trade unions, peasant leagues, and. in
Nicaragua, professional and commercial associations, were thus
goaded by their respective governments into giving total support to
31
insurrectionary forces. The preconceptions regarding the innately

subversive nature of these organizations tended to be self-fulfilling.
Tht orientation of counter-insurgency towards no-holds-barred internal
seeurity operations, carried out by irregular forces using irregular
techniques, was the most important legacy of US security assistance to
Central America, bringing with it a proliferation of state terrorism and, in
some cases, a popular reaction which turned into revolution. This
orientation not only dominated the curriculum of every US military
training programme in and out of the United States, but coloured every
grant of war material, as well as guiding American foreign policy.
The impact on El Salvador of, say, a grant of a helicopter gunship can
be assessed only from the viewpoint of counter-insurgency doctrine and its
peculiarly pernicious orientation. This alone explains what motivates the
gun crew in the helicopter to fire on a labour demonstratioa strafe a uni¬
versity. push a bound and gagged political prisoner out of the door, or fire on
a herdsman and his cattle — as was reported by an American passenger
visiting the Lempa River bridge in El Salvador in November 1981.
Alliance for Progress
A final element of the new counter-insurgency orientation reflected the

broader aims of US foreign policy; “insurgency" would also be fought
through accelerated development — for example through the Alliance
for Progress — and not solely through repression. As an integral part of
overall US foreign policy, the military too, incorporated development
into their counter-insurgency programme, in the form of “civic action"
operations whereby military forces could integrate a “developmenf'
function into their counter-insurgency role, improve their image, and
justify the expansion of the military role in political life. Armies could
be seen to do more than exercise a monopoly on violence; they could
serve as public administrators, build roads, schools, and water-works.
A US Army Special Warfare Glossary defined “civic action" as
Any action performed by military forces of a country utilizing military

manpower and skills . . . which is designed to improve the economic or
social betterment of that country. Civic action programs can enhance the
stature of indigenous military forces and improve their relationship with
the population. Thus, such programs can be a major contributing factor
to the elimination of insurgency.'*'®
Erom the United States military bureaucracy's point of view civic action
also provided a way to increase funds for military assistance pro¬
grammes by obtaining them from other US agencies: a 1965 defence
department study reported that 35% of the military civic action
programme in Latin America was funded by AID.'"*'
32
Since the 1960s. several excellent, exhaustive and critieal studies of

US assistance to Latin Ameriean armies for their civic action
programmes have been published;'"’ the United States Armed Forces
have, themselves, also published quantities of material on the theory
and techniques for implementing civic action programmes. Here, civic
action receives only cursory treatment as it has been a relatively
unimportant element within the counter-insurgency programme in
Central America, performing a primarily public relations function, and
a poor one too. If that sounds cynical, we can only point out that the
Civic ActiAn programme in Guatemala is still headed by the chief of the
Army Office of Public Relations, and that, in the field, the policy fails to
win over the population, who are — with good reason — mortally afraid
of the army.
The inbuilt duplicity of the civic action programme is such that, on
occasion, even the delivery of patently lethal weaponry and equipment
to Guatemala by the US has been placed in that context; see. for
instance, US Ambassador John Gordon Mein's speech in Guatemala
on the delivery of three helicopter gunships. five armoured cars, four
jeeps and two trucks in 1967;
The UH-1 H helicopters have a velocity of 135 miles per hour, a capacity of
2,600 pounds cargo and can be armed with machineguns and rocket
launchers, with armor on sides and bottom. They will be of great utility in
rescue operations and in other tasks in community assistance.'"
Who was fooling whom? Perhaps the United States public and its
representatives in Congress were the main targets of the public relations
factor in civic action. As the Alliance for Progress, granted the best of
good will, still served primarily to provide a public relations smoke¬
screen for the blood and thunder counter-insurgency offensive then
launched in Latin America, civic action provided a cosmetic veneer for
military doctrine, and the real work of dirty warfare in Latin
America.
Counter-Guerrillas: The Local Paramilitary
Just as the range of tactics available to the insurgent were uncritically

adopted as the basis of counter-insurgent tactics, an effort was made to
imitate the organization of insurgency by creating special counter¬
guerrilla forces. The US Army Special Forces, trained to serve as
“counter-guerrillas" themselves, rarely saw action, but were generally
employed in organizing others to serve in irregular forces mimicking
guerrilla organizations. The doctrine of counter-insurgency strongly
emphasized the need both for regular armed forces' units with irregular
warfare skills, and for irregular forces, often made up of civilians with a
33
military background to operate in their local areas.

In June 1961 the US Secretary of Defense was requested to evaluate
“requirements in the field of conventional warfare and paramilitary
operations”.
A first step would be to inventory the paramilitary assets we have in the

United States Armed Forces |and| consider various areas in the world
where the implementation of our policy may require indigenous
paramilitary forces."-^
Technically, paramilitary forces were defined as anything “distinct

from the regular armed forces of any country but resembling them in
organization, equipment, training, or mission"."'^ In practice, parti¬
cularly when referring to the specialized counter-insurgent units of
regular armies (the US Special Forces, the Guatemalan A^fl/6/7c5(Kekchi
word meaning warriors), the Salvadorean Special Forces, the Nicaraguan
forces of the Basic Infantry Training School (Escuela de Entrenamiento
Basko de Infanteria), the term sometimes inAxcdikdi a type of action rather
than a form of organization; in this sense “paramilitary" meant the
activities of specialists in unconventional warfare. It could also refer to
specific “military-like” organizations outside the conventional armed
forces: militia-type bodies of military reserve men or veterans; semi¬
military forces such as fac comisionados militares of Guatemala (on the
military payroll, but working only part-time for the army); or local
forces of any kind raised as auxiliaries in counter-insurgency (local
spies, guides to regular army forces, local army representatives, or
assassination squads).
Local forces could be raised from minorities, such as the Montagnards
or the Catholics in Vietnam, and the Meo tribesmen in Laos and
Cambodia, or from among the rural elites and their employees in
Guatemala or El Salvador.''-^ While the logistic and intelligence
advantage of anti-guerrilla forces operating in their home areas was one
factor in favour of such organization, a second was provided by the
strong motivation — mercenary, religious, ethnic, or ideological — of
the individual members of these forces to willingly join the counter¬
insurgency fray. In South-east Asia, Catholics could be counted on to
fight Buddhists (let alone Comm.unists) on religious grounds alone;
Montagnards to continue their ancestral tribal warfare against the
ethnic Vietnamese. In FI Salvador the paramilitary forces of the
government's organization ORDEN were heavily indoctrinated to fear
Communism as a threat to their lives, livelihood, and religion. A
mercenary element was added in that membership in ORDEN was
necessary in order to hold many government jobs, such as garbage
collector or road mender, or receive any other form of political
patronage. In Guatemala, the landowning elites, after the threat of land
reform in the 1950s, were already highly motivated both ideologically
34
and economically to find Communists under every coffee bush and kill
them on the spot, and awaited only the organizational initiative of the
army to integrate themselves and their employees into the counter¬
insurgency crusade.
Paramilitary irregulars, being drawn from the local population itself
are generally more familiar with the local scene than are conventional
forces, and thus capable of more effective local operations. But also, as a
US Army study notes “paramilitary forces are primarily political. Their
function is to provide visible and effective demonstrations of the power
of the state.”"'"
Paramilitary groups tend to reflect the interests and prejudices of the
ruling political and economic powers. In the case of Vietnam, for
instance, the doctrine called for the basic “civilian counter-terrorist
organization" — in contrast to the special strike forces of minority
tribesmen — to be:
created from the young elite which exists everywhere: those who have a
stake in the community because they have a family, own a house or a piece
of land, are ambitious to get ahead in business, profession or politics.'"
Setting up this kind of organization was the object:
... first priority after the military have cleared an area is to bring about the
selection of an able man for that area, who will in turn go about creating a
basically civilian counter-terrorist organization . .
The “young elites” mobilized in local forces were to go through the area
“with a fine toothed comb” and root out local subversives, and to have
full support of “military, paramilitary and governmental persons.”"*^
By giving such political and economic tViXtsdefacto coercive powers,
amounting to extra-legal authority to commit acts of “counter-terrorism”,
the organizers of such groups added a very volatile ingredient to the
existing social and economic structure. It was, of course, logical that
counter-insurgents should turn to the “elites” for allies in Vietnam
(apart from the use of mercenary tribal peoples), and in Central
America; it was. after all, their interests that were at stake. With minor
variations, this is what happened in the development of the paramilitaiy
systems of Guatemala and El Salvador.
Many examples of “counter-organization” may be drawn from the
colonial experiences of the French, notably in Indo-China and Algeria,
and the British in Malaya and elsewhere. The strategic hamlet idea was
developed by the British in Malaya, encouraging the ethnic Malays in
the hamlets to collaborate in “self-defence” operations, a strategy made
possible because many insurgents were ethnic Chinese. The French
raised “self-defence” units to oppose the Viet Minh in Indo-China but
were relatively - and in the long run - entirely, unsuccessful, even
35
though religious groups, notably the Catholics, “went to the extent of

raising their own private armies",'^*’ which survived long enough to
become US allies after the partition of Vietnam. French “counter¬
guerrilla” forces in Algeria, though indigenous, were not locally based
but highly mobile, and operated in lightly populated areas, sometimes
being led by former insurgents.
Students of counter-insurgency have emphasized that if these para¬
military organizations are left to fight semi-independently, under
charismatic leaders, there is a tendency for them to backfire on their
organizers. In May 1958, for example, only 300 men remained loyal to the
French when the 3,300 strong “South Algerian Commandos” revolted
against them.'-' One counter-insurgency text by a US Army officer uses
the Algerian experience to illustrate the fickleness of counter-guerrilla
forces when given too much independence, and, as a basis for one of the
guiding principles of “counter-organization”; “A cardinal rule is that
close military and political supervision must be maintained.”'-- This is of
particular significance in the case of the present paramilitary systems of
Guatemala and El Salvador. Historically, the respective military
institutions in both these countries had bad experiences with armed
civilian organizations and, therefore, reinforced their internal institu¬
tional controls on the new irregular paramilitary forces.
This factor of loyalty and consistency is most generally cited in the
context of institutional military controls over a paramilitary network,
but is also a factor guiding recruitment. Economic elites are appropriate
for recruitment both because they have an inbuilt motivation to oppose
insurgents — who threaten their privileged status — and from the
army’s point of view, they are less likely to defect or turn against the
security system. A 1966 US Army Handbook of Counterinsurgency
Guidelines sees the elites, for this reason, as the best bet for local
recruitment as counter-guerrillas: “Use of [elites] as the force in ’hostile’
area would encourage a sense of self-defense (with a low incidence of
defections among patrols).”'--^ As the same source notes, however,
members of counter-guerrilla or “self-defense” corps who are not highly
motivated can be kept in line by other means: “Government will
support families to show appreciation. If self-defense corps individual
defects, family suffers the consecûence.”'-"'
In practice, we know that former members of Guatemalan assassi¬
nation squads have a high mortality rate. As the identity of individuals
involved in paramilitary operations as auxiliaries to the regular security
services is not always readily apparent to the observer, the murders of
those who stray go generally unremarked. Occasionally, however, there
are cases in Guatemala in which civilians reported abducted and
murdered by police or military squads are said by the press to have
pi'eviously served as undercover agents {confidenciales) of the same
forces.'-*’
In any security system incorporating an irregular counter-guerrilla
36
organization the primary defence against it “back-firing" by defection

or dereliction ot duty is to integrate its command structure into that of
the regular mditary-police apparatus. A prime example of this
arrangement existed in Greece after World War II. The Greek National
Guard Defence Battalions or Tagmata Ethnofylackha Amyns (the TEA
battalions) organized with the assistance of US and British intelligence
bodies, had most of the characteristics of such widely distant counter¬
guerrilla paramilitary corps as the Civil Guard and Self Defence Corps
in Vietnam and ORDEN in El Salvador.
The TEA Battalions were formed during the Greek Civil War to
oppose the Communist partisans who had fought the Nazis during the
occupation ot Greece. Organized on a territorial basis in every village,
particularly along the northern frontiers, TEA units were normally run
by reserve Army officers, and the TEA organization “had its own chain
of command into Athens where its headquarters is headed by a retired
general In practice its administration was closely integrated into the
military reserve system and linked to the command structure of the
Army, with serving Army officers assigned to TEA units “at battalion
and company level". In the event of emergency “the local battalions
pass under control of the various army division commanders."'-^
Neither the political role of the Greek paramilitary network nor its
internal security function was disguised:
A significant element of the TEA training is political - as part of the Greek

Army s “enlightenmenC campaign . . . the Greeks look upon the TEA
organization as an important means of influence, commitment, and
control of the population . . . TEA units also effectively carry out their
operational duties. The men rotate guard duty at night. They patrol,
especially along the frontier. Intelligence is collected. Eaced with such
armed, trained and determined nucleuses among the people, the
revolutionaries know they can no longer recruit and terrorize as they once
did.'28
The TEA units were composed exclusively of local men who had
completed their military service (there is universal conscription in
Greece) and been screened as potential TEA recruits as a normal part of
the routine of military service. In Greece, as elsewhere, patronage was
one means of compensation for service in such an organization:
. . . screening, plus the local reputation of each man. militates against

Communist infiltration. The men serve on a part-time basis while
maintaining their civilian occupations as farmers, shop keepers, clerks,
mechanics and so forth. They receive no pay: however. TEA members do
get priority in the occasional distribution of aid, international gifts, boots,
and other equipment.'-'^
37
On almost every point, the Salvadorean ORDEN — and atter 1979 its
successor, the Civil Defense organization — parallels the TEA system.
After vetting for political views, recruits were systematically selected
from among conscript soldiers returning to their villages. ORDEN had
brigades in every hamlet and village; it carried out a regular patrolling
system, including all-night road-blocks; actively collected intelligence
on subversion; and, while maintaining a nominally separate identity,
was administered from the Casa Presidencial (or presidential palace)
through the military reserve system and local army or National Guard
command posts.
Both the Greek TEA and the Salvadorean ORDEN ideally illustrate
the concept of counter-organization for counter-insurgency.
A final element of the doctrine of counter-insurgency, inseparable in
practice from the organization and orientation of counter-insurgent
forces, is the body xnnovSiXtVQ techniques and guidelines developed for
the pursuit of counter-insurgency operations. A concept of “counter-
terror". incorporating various forms of terrorism at the service of the
state is our principal concern in this area and will be discussed in the
next chapter.
38
4. “Meeting Terror With
Terror”: a Policy of
Failure
The willingness ot the counter-insurgent to mimic insurgent organiza¬

tion and guerrilla technique (or purportedly guerrilla technique) was a
basic component in the strategy aimed at locating and physically
eliminating the insurgent, the sympathizer and the suspect. Insurgent
terrorism would be met by counter-insurgent terrorism.
The routine practice of terrorism — or counter-terrorism — at the
service ot the state came to dominate the application of counter¬
insurgency doctrine in Central America. In practice, the reformist
components of counter-insurgency theory were largely cosmetic. Great
importance was given to the ground level application of both counter¬
organization and counter-terror which, including selective assassi¬
nation on a large scale, was considered expedient and legitimate. It was
justified both on the grounds that it was employed by the guerrillas, and
on the quasi-moral grounds that it was a short-term tactic designed to
end a confiict as rapidly as possible. In the long run it was expected to
save lives.
Counter-insurgent terrorism in practice, however, proved not to be
short term, and neither a simple nor particularly low cost answer to
insurgency. Easy to start, it was difficult to stop and impossible to
moderate; even a minimum of terrorism tended to escalate. In
Guatemala, massive counter-terror was introduced in 1966 to crush
insurgency once and for all. Today counter-terror by the state still
dominates the political system, has claimed some 50,000 lives, and
utterly failed to crush insurgency, now stronger than ever before.
Voices of dissent on both moral and practical or strategic grounds
were raised from the beginning. As early as 1962 US scholar Chalmers
A. Johnson wrote that “counter-terror” theory was based on an
erroneous premise — that guerrillas achieve support through acts of
terrorism — and stated that theorists cannot produce “a single case in
which the principle of counter-terrorization has been effective in
ending a guerrilla war. In fact, such counter-measures can easily be
shown to have quite the opposite result":
An emphasis upon guerrilla terrorization of an allegedly passive
39
population leads directly to policy failures.lt is supposed that successful

counter-guerrilla operations involve the use of specially trained com¬
mandos who are, in effect, authorized to counter-terrorize the same
population.
Nevertheless, in the early 1960s. a deluge of official and semi-official,

public and classified papers appeared in US military and foreign affairs
circles, promoting the virtues of “counter-terror” in defeating insurgency.
At about the same time Johnson was writing, an advocate of counter¬
terror insisted that the counter-insurgent “must be prepared to meet
terror with terror” in order “to forestall casualties and prevent the
demoralization of his forces. . Terrorism was described as the
“most powerful tool at the disposal of the guerrilla leader" and thus a
necessary tool of the anti-guerrilla. The expression “meet terror with
terror” appears repeatedly in counter-insurgency literature after 1960,
both in doctrinal policy papers and in commentary on current affairs.
Colonel John Webber, head of the United States military mission to
Guatemala in 1967, took credit in a Time magazine interview for having
introduced a system of “counter terror", explaining that, “The Com¬
munists are using everything they have, including terror. And it must be
met."'-^^
French army counter-insurgency doctrine, drawing on the experience
of colonial wars in Indo-China and Algeria, promoted a nearly identical
attitude; that harsh measures normally “alien to a civilized power” are
justified because insurgent violence and terror is ended sooner, thereby
saving lives. The immediate tactical advantage of a policy in which all
limitations to potential action were lifted, appealed as a practical way of
preventing casualties, eliminating risks vis-a-vis suspects, and getting
immediate results by interrogations under torture, summary executions,
burning the homes of suspects, and be damned the long range political
implications:
... don't come back at me with words like justice and charity ... you can
talk about that in Paris. . . But once you’re here, raising problems of
conscience — and presuming the innocence of possible murderers — is a
luxury that costs dear, that costs men . . . our men.'-^^
Another non-United States example was described by Chalmers

Johnson when outlining two distinct counter-insurgency policies
implemented by the Japanese during their World War II occupation of
China. In the South a Vichy style Chinese proxy government was set up
to administer “Model Peace Zones” and maintain agricultural produc¬
tion as its priority. According to Johnson, relatively benevolent rule
there provoked little resistance, and Communist party leaders were
isolated and driven out. In the North, however, the poor agricultural
land offered little incentive to the Japanese for careful exploitation, and
40
"Meeting Terror with Terror ": a Policy of Failure
the population was forced to submit with none of the subtlety used in the
South. Where guerrilla resistance occurred the Japanese ordered the
physical destruction of all life and property ; a policy which sounds
comparable to the present El Salvador’s government policy in poor
rural areas, where a guerrilla presence is countered by burning entire
villages and the wholesale execution of suspects by the security
forces.'-'*'’
Chalmers Johnson points out that in the Japanese occupation of
China the increase ot guerrilla activity in the North proceeded apace
throughout the Japanese occupation — with the resultant establishment
of a Communist stronghold there in the civil war — in part as a direct
result ot the policy of counter-insurgent terrorism, or counter-terror: “...
one can conclude . .. that anti-guerrilla terrorism will more than likely
spread the mass mobilization upon which guerrilla movements
thrive."'-^5
One of the principal arguments of this book is that prolonged state
terrorism in Central America, as elsewhere, provokes and sustains mass
resistance.
Institutionalized Brutality
The institutionalization of counter-terror within Central American

security systems came after its theoretical formulation in United States
and regional counter-insurgency doctrine in the 1960s, and largely
coincided with the reform and development programmes promoted by
the US through the Alliance for Progress. The doctrine, effectively
backed by the US's prestige, power, moral authority and material
assistance, promoted the use of "uncivilized" methods quite contrary to
the laws of American nations and of the international agreements to
which they subscribed.
United States counter-insurgency doctrine, as adopted uncritically
throughout most of Latin America, rationalized, sanitized, mechanized
and institutionalized what had been traditionally deplored as barbaric
and shameful: torture and murder by the state. This new orientation
was superimposed upon — and brutality accentuated by — the reality
that, in the Americas, the ideals of national and international law had
frequently been honoured only in the breach: that torture and
government killings were already a part of the region’s experience. In
the past, however, these excesses had always been deplored as
uncivilized, as the aberrations of individual despots. The purport of the
new doctrine, coming from the country which presented itself as the
leader of the “Free World”, was that the excesses of the security forces —
police and military — were to be considered legitimate in the new
international context. The doctrine tended to make a virtue of terror, in
so far as it was anti-Communist, counter-insurgent terror.
41
In those countries with incipient or active insurgent movements,

counter-insurgency doctrine once introduced, quickly took root.
Prescribed organizational changes in local security systems for the
implementation of the policy, contributed to a permanent orientation
toward counter-insurgency. The new organization and the orientation
became institutionalized.
By the mid-1960s counter-terror was a firmly established “technique”
within the counter-insurgent arsenal. We know that already in 1962
high-level United States military teams were advising Latin America
armies to organize counter-terror strike forces where guerrilla activity
existed. A declassified report from 1962 cites General William
Yarborough’s recommendations that the Colombian military form
irregular civil/military groups to practise “terrorism” against “known
Communist proponents”.
In practice, counter-terror presented problems of scale. Could
security services anywhere be expected to use “just a little” terrorism?
Would not even a little terrorism, to the population whose hearts and
minds were to be won, make the most lasting impression of all the
techniques in the counter-insurgent repertoire?
The matter of scale is addressed in an almost off-hand manner in a
1966 US Army counter-insurgency handbook which outlined a scenario
in an imaginary Latin American republic called “Centralia”: a
composite of characteristics of several Central American countries. The
majority of the population were Spanish speaking mestizos, (people of
mixed ancestry); the Indian population spoke Kekchi (a Guatemalan
indigenous language); the coastal areas were populated by black,
English speaking Creoles (as in Belize, Honduras and Nicaragua). The
handbook outlined “solutions” to the problem of insurgency in
“Centralia” as provided by some 20 counter-insurgency experts and
called upon Area Commanders in the field to design comparable
programmes.
Counter-terror was one “technique” available to the commander for
his programme, its use was, however, to be limited; “You may not
employ mass counter-terror, as opposed to selective counter-terror,
against the civilian population, i.e., genocide is not an alternative.”'^^
The distinction between“selective” and “mass” counter-terror was, of
course, a matter of opinion. Does selective, become mass counter-terror
when a certain threshold of deaths has been reached, say 10,20, 50% of
the population? Or could a sliding scale be established for different
social sectors, such as peasants, teachers, etc.? The handbook did not, of
course, consider the moral implications of counter-terror, or its long¬
term effects.
Much counter-insurgency literature focuses on the presumed effective¬
ness of counter-terror and counter-organization (particularly the use of
irregular forces) in achieving the actual liquidation of the insurgents.
But there is another aspect — the “public image” factor — with
42
considerable bearing on how counter-terror has been implemented and

sustained within modern security systems. The French in Algeria, as the
United States in Vietnam, went to great pains to prevent reports of
torture, assassination and other terrorist tactics used by their forces (and
their allies) from reaching the public at home. But the slow accumu¬
lation of those reports that managed to reach the metropolitan countries
eventually soured domestic public opinion toward waging counter-
insurgent warfare. It is, therefore, obvious that manipulation of the news
media by governments engaged in modern counter-insurgency was
already a prerequisite in the 1960s, since the public in those countries
has not yet accepted counter-terror methods as legitimate. The
Algerians, the Vietnamese, and now the Salvadoreans, with first hand
experience of counter-terror neither were nor are deluded by infor¬
mation campaigns intended to obscure its nature or provenance.
As the blockage or distortion of information has been integral to the
counter-insurgency package, so the creation of secret, nominally
unofficial anti-guerrilla forces has assisted governments to avoid
accountability for counter-terror operations. This unique organizational
characteristic also provided means for disguising the source of counter¬
terror, particularly in the arena of international public opinion. The
existence of irregular groups built within or around the military could
be denied, or acknowledged but said to have no official ties and be out of
control, or to carry out only civic functions. Abuses could be attributed
to phantom, or independent groups, or their occurrence wholly denied.
This has been the modern experience of Central America, but it too has
historical precendents.
American military intelligence reports after the departure of the
Marines from Nicaragua in 1933 stressed the usefulness of the National
Guard’s civilian auxiliaries as forces that were noX accountable for their
actions, even though they went beyond the law on behalf of the
government. The irregulars were:
probably a more efficient combat force against bandits [than the

Marines] ... unhampered by thoughts of court martial and congressional
investigation if they retaliate using the bandit’s own, rather uncivilized
methods.'^*
No one in Nicaragua believed that atrocities committed by “auxi¬

liaries” were not actually the work of the government but, since in post-
Marine Corps Nicaragua domestic public opinion was virtually stifled
by the National Guard, the duplicity may have helped obscure the
realities of Nicaragua vis-a-vis foreign opinion.
The growing awareness that irregular forces, not immediately
identifiable as government forces, could assist governments evade
accountability for acts of terrorism, opened up new areas of action in
the counter-insurgency scenario. One of the most bizarre, outlined
43
in the US army handbook quoted above, involves the deployment of

forces to impersonate guerrillas while committing acts of terrorism
against the population. The purpose being to excite public opinion
against the guerrillas and justify further counter-insurgency
measures:
Create a pseudo-insurgent force. . . Select 20 of the best-trained Spanish

speaking men, use polygraph as aid; copy insurgent uniform. . . Using
[the] pseudo-insurgent force, the government generates incidents among
the population. These incidents are used to indicate to the people the need
for protection of the villages. . . [this] gives the government a pretext to
move in and claim that population control is necessary to 1) protect the
people, and 2) ‘stamp out’ the insurgents.*^^
Grotesque as they may seem, these text-book techniques have been

implemented in Guatemala, and probably in El Salvador. In Guatemala
a recent case of this particular brand of “counter-terrorism” involves the
highland Indian areas of the North, particularly in the department of El
Quiche, where terrorist actions both by uniformed and plain-clothes
Army forces have been attributed to guerrillas and cited publicly as the
justification for permanent population control measures.
In common practice, however, counter-terror in most of its manifes¬
tations has been used as a direct means to destroy the real or imagined
subversive. Refinements in the application of counter-terror — for
example its use to incite the population against the guerrillas — are
ultimately subordinated to this primary purpose. Usually counter-terror
is merely a means enabling a government to break all the rules and kill
its suspected enemies; and, as part of the counter-insurgency package, it
has proved occasionally effective to that end: in the short term.
The lengths to which counter-terror has been taken in modern
counter-insurgency practice, leaving aside for the moment Central
America, can be usefully illustrated by turning once again to the
Vietnam experience.
Vietnam: Rural Pacification and the “Phoenix” Programme
While US-backed “counter-terror” may be said to have arrived in

Vietnam as early as 1954,''^* not until much later, after covert CIA forces
were supplemented with regular Army military advisers, was a structure
for the use of counter-terror on a large scale built and put into action. In
spring 1961, President Kennedy secretly ordered 500 military advisers to
Vietnam; 400 were Special Forces personnel specialized in the formation
and training of the irregular counter-guerrilla forces which would
subsequently be used to carry out counter-terror.'^^ proliferation of
such irregular forces by mid-1962 has already been referred to.
44
“Meeting Terror with Terror": a Policy of Failure
The primary objective of Special Forces units in Vietnam was the

formation of “indigenous, guerrilla-style” forces through which to
exercise counter-terror. The 1965 document quoted above described the
targets of terrorism as “known VC (Viet Cong) personnel”; it did not
detail specific actions, or set guidelines for identifying them. As has
been noted, terrorism was specified as a viable technique to be aimed
not only at “VC personnel” but at persons under their influence, and “to
include assassination”.
Other sources have described such terrorist operations, again
implicating the Army Special Forces, but under the operational
direction of the CIA and its “Special Operations Division” (SOD):
SOD operators and agency contractees ran the Counter-Terror teams

which employed similar methods to oppose the Vietcong’s terror tactics of
kidnapping, torture, and murder.''*^
A pacification programme formally entitled “Counter-Terror” or

“CT' was reportedly established in Vietnam in 1965 by William Colby,
then Chief of the Far East Division of Clandestine Services of the CIA,
based in Washington, D.C.''^ Just as the role of civilian irregulars was to
some extent a requisite for, but overshadowed by, conventional military
operations, “Counter-Terror” was initially a nearly invisible component
of the civilian irregular programme. Before 1967 it was apparently never
even agreed upon with the Vietnamese allies:
[Counter-Terror] was a unilateral American program, never recognized

by the South Vietnamese government. CIA representatives recruited,
organized, supplied, and directly paid CT teams, whose function was to
use Viet Cong techniques of terror — assassination, abuses, kidnappings
and intimidation — against the Viet Cong leadership.'"^^
In 1967 “counter-terror” was institutionalized, and concealed within

a new programme designed to co-ordinate all aspects of pacification,
particularly in the countryside. Euphemistically called “Rural Develop-
menf’, it was run by an agency called Civil Operations and Rural
Development Support, CORDS, which, according to one specialist who
worked closely with it, had “primarily counterterrorist functions”.*"^
Frank Snepp described CORDS in the context of the move of the CIA
from intelligence-gathering into such fields as “the recruiting and
training of counter-terrorist teams”.'"^^ “Rural Developmenf’ was
conceived and set up by Robert Komer, a former White House CIA
adviser, as a:
coordinated approach to ‘rooting ouf the Viet Cong political apparatus

[through counterterrorism] and ‘rooting in’ the government [through
various public works projects in the countryside].''**^
45
Pacification in the hamlets was to be carried out entirely by special

teams trained for the task; their first objective was always the “rooting
out of the Viet Cong infrastructure”, using the same ruthless means they
held were used by the NLF:
None of these teams had any spectacular success, but they were
nonetheless bathed in a certain Special Forces mystique, the principle
behind which was that the Americans could win the war if they imitated
the enemy tactics.’'^*
The problem, apparently, was that the Rural Development teams had
little to offer to satisfy village grievances — they could hardly eliminate
corrupt but loyal local government officials.'^®
The first stage of operations, “rooting out” an essentially invisible
guerrilla infrastructure, and the technique of terrorism (“counter¬
terrorism”) is hardly conducive to winning friends. This aspect of rural
development and pacification is the least documented in declassified
documents; apparently no major internal study on its possible role in
wrecking the rural pacification schemes has been produced: none, at
least that is declassified. Scattered references to counter-terror must be
fitted together from official and semi-official sources.
In the critical literature on the CIA, we find that “Counter-Terror”
teams set up by the CIA in 1965 were renamed in 1966 when “the agency
became wary of adverse publicity surrounding the use of the word
‘terror The specialist “CT’ teams were subsequently called
“Provincial Reconnaissance Units” (PRUs) and in 1967 integrated into
the “Rural Development” programme. After 1967, PRU counter-terror
teams functioned as the strike force of the “Phoenix” programme that
dominated “Rural Development” under William Colby’s direction.*^^
At its peak this programme’s counter-terror teams included up to 30,000
specially trained agents,government terrorists supervised by US
personnel. “Phoenix”, the culmination of the counter-terror pro¬
gramme in Vietnam is the operation to which the systems of regular
assassinations in Guatemala, and more recently in El Salvador, are
most often compared.
The United States public first learned of “Phoenix” in 1971 from a
private report on US congressional hearings by the House Foreign
Operations and Government Information Subcommittee, leaked to and
summarized by the press, which raised “serious moral considerations
[regarding the advisability] of US support for a program that has
allegedly included torture, murder and inhumane treatment of South
Vietnamese civilians”. The official figure given in the report was 20,587
killed from 1968 through May 1971.The report pointed out that “it
was possible that many of the more than 20,000 suspected Vietcong
killed under the program known as Phoenix were actually innocent
civilians who were victims of faulty intelligence.”
46
“Meeting Terror with Terror”: a Policy of Failure
In the 1971 hearings William Colby gave the following rather

antiseptic description of “Phoenix”:
The Phoenix program includes an intelligence program to identify the

members of the VCI, an operational program to apprehend them, a legal
program to restrain them and a detention program to confine them.*^^
Colby insisted that “Phoenix” was “not a program of assassination”, yet

provided the figure of 20,587 suspects killed;*-*’^ the South Vietnamese
government credited “Phoenix” with 40,994 “kills”.The true number
of civilians assassinated or executed under the auspices of “Phoenix” will
never be known, no more than the true toll of the counter-insurgency
policies launched at about the same time in Guatemala. Despite Mr
Colby's disclaimer, on the basis of the evidence, we cannot doubt, that
the objective of the programme, the rooting out of the “Viet Cong
Infrastructure”, was pursued largely through assassination, very often of
innocents.
In 1969 the United States set a goal for the Phoenix program to
“neutralize” twenty thousand NLF agents during the year, and at the end
of the year Government of Vietnam authorities reported 19,534 agents
“neutralized”. The figure was unsettling in that there had been no
corresponding decline in American estimates of NLF agents at large.
Who. then, were the 19,534 people, and what had become of them?'^*
United States personnel who testified in the 1971 hearings said that to
“neutralize” meant to murder, either at the moment of detention, or after
interrogation.*^^
The 1971 hearings were chilling not only for the deaths attributed to
the “Phoenix” programme, but for the information given on the
organizational complexity of the programme, particularly the adminis¬
trative isolation of its supervisors, responsible for the designation of
targets for arrest and/or murder, and, in any case, nearly certain death,
from the PRU gunmen themselves. Compiling lists was described as an
almost mechanical, clerical procedure, an academic exercise.
Three entries in a dossier, three denunciations from whatever source,
automatically placed the suspect on widely distributed lists as a person
to be sought for immediate detention and interrogation, with no right to
trial:
If a person has three such references in his dossier, whether verified or not,
he or she is targetted as ‘VCI cadre’ [VCI was jargon for “Viet Cong
Infrastructure”] or‘VCI suspect’ and his/her name is added to the ‘blacklist’
[or “greenlist”] carried by all military and police units in South Vietnam.
Once on the blacklist a person is liable to immediate arrest interrogation
and detention without right to trial or other judicial safeguards.'^
47
The “Phoenix” programme introduced mechanistic criteria for the

targetting of suspects, and administrative procedures using computers,'^'
quotas, and indirect impersonal supervision by CIA officials who never
entered the villages in which they were targetting suspects.
Two principal methods were used in the field to execute the decisions
made by central supervisors who compiled the lists of suspects to be
detained or “neutralized”: a) Counter-terror teams would be deployed
to the countryside to grab a previously located suspect, usually at night,
and often summarily execute him on the spot,'^^ or b) “cordon and
search” operations would be used to locate and detain suspects in their
village or hamlet.
. . . the National Police with the Regional Forces or the Popular Forces
cordon off a village and send everybody in that village through a single-
file line where they are looked at and examined and searched by the
National Police and are checked against the‘blacklisf or'greenlisf and if
they are identified as . . . having a dossier in existence, they are arrested
and sent to the province interrogation centre.'^^
This procedure is almost identical to that described in 1962 by

Philippine Army counter-insurgency specialist Lieutenant-Colonel
Luis A. Villarreal, who had had combat experience against the Huk
rebellion in the 1950s:
Screening points were set up periodically in each community, and all

persons were screened against the (intelligence) files... After the screening
the civil affairs unit held a rally, with short educational talks on
citizenship, democracy, the role of the army in antiguerrilla warfare, and
communism.*^
Whether many villagers in either the Philippines or Vietnam could

appreciate lectures, or be convinced by instructive films on democracy
after experiencing a “cordon and search” operation in which their close
relatives or neighbours had been dragged off, is questionable. In
Vietnam, where over 20,000 were "killed in such operations, we can
presume that an atmosphere of terror surrounded them.
In Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s, villages are also
surrounded by army troops on market days — when the maximum
population is present — with single-file screening against “black lists”,
with an impersonal, blind implacability perhaps more terrifying even
than in Vietnam or the Philippines. And the Guatemalan and
Salvadorean military have tended to dispense with the lectures and
films.
In essence, the “Phoenix” programme in Vietnam, and the analogous
systems of counter-terror in Central America, rendered large portions of
the population vulnerable to arbitrary, inescapable terrorism supported
48
"Meeting Terror with Terror": a Policy of Failure
by all the power of the state. Local officials, both civil and military, with
the powers of “Phoenix” or similar programmes at their disposal, can
use them to eliminate personal enemies, extort payment for protection,
or simply arbitrarily pick out “suspects” to fill a quota.
Counter-Terror and the Winning of Hearts and Minds
Ironically, the state terror tactics that dominated counter-insurgency

operations in Vietnam and many Latin American states in the 1960s
and 1970s were implemented along with programmes to “win over” the
population, aimed at pulling local support from under the guerrillas. In
Vietnam, these programmes — vocational schools, clinics, and so on —
were considerably more grandiose and expensive than those in Central
America, and are evidence that contemporary counter-insurgency
textbooks’ insistence on “development”, as well as repression, was not
simply a screen. There was, of course, the problem of relative resources
— most of these were invested in patently military or police operations
— and relative impact — a 500 pound bomb made a bigger impact on a
hamlet than a new school; new shoes for the children has less impact
than the “disappearance” and murder of their fathers.
In any case, counter-terror, as a policy, conflicted with an essential
counter-insurgency maxim that in the final analysis, the population
must be won over. Just as the supervisors of “Phoenix”, in their air-
conditioned offices in the capital, could never be sure that a “Phoenix”
agent was not lining up an old enemy for targetting, the policy makers
failed to take into account the human factor involved in opening the
floodgates to official terrorism. This was compounded by secrecy —
integral to terrorism, official or otherwise. The policy makers con¬
ceivably wanted no details, only statistics, hard and dispassionate, to be
labelled as convenience dictated. If “Phoenix” planners were informed
that 20,587 “Viet Cong” were “neutralized”, that is killed, they may have
concluded that counter-terror had been effective. It would have been
inconvenient to ask if the victims were really NLF supporters, if their
assassinations stirred others to join the NLF, and if localized
government terrorism was not destroying government authority in the
villages by arbitrary abuse of government power, and disintegrating any
residual respect for the law on the part of the authorities themselves.
In official discussions on counter-terror as part of counter-insurgency
doctrine, emphasis has generally been laid on the necessity that it be
both highly selective, and short in duration. It has been considered
expedient as offering a quick solution to insurgency by liquidating chief
insurgents. In practice, however, counter-terror in US military doctrine
was built upon a widening definition of insurgency that, by the mid-
1960s,could categorize as an insurgent almost any person in active,
passive, or even potential opposition to a given government. This
49
conceptual expansion complicated the element of selectivity. Even

more problematic, where counter-terror did not bring about a quick
solution, the tendency was to determine its targets less selectively, and
broaden the scale of counter-terror. It could then become a permanent
feature of the security system.
Even given a narrow conceptual guideline for identifying targets for
counter-terrorist attacks, say limiting these to the authentic gun-toting
guerrillas, the counter-terror theorist must face the problem shared by
all counter-insurgents: how to locate and grab that particular indi¬
vidual. Where counter-terror operations are entirely covert and
disavowed by their government sponsors — as in Guatemala — the
problem is just as daunting as in overt counter-insurgency of the
Vietnam type. The only advantage of secrecy is governments’ easier
evasion of accountability. The Vietnamese government, isolated from
world public opinion by communication barriers of language and
policy, actually legalized the operations of the “Phoenix” programme; in
Central America, terrorist government policies have been entirely
clandestine, although facilitated by certain aspects of the law. In both
cases operational policy glossed over the distinction between the
authentic guerrilla or revolutionary and the ordinary citizen.
The [Phoenix] program in effect eliminated the cumbersome category of

‘civilian’; it gave the GVN [Government of Vietnam] and initially the
American troops as well, license and justification for the arrest torture, or
killing of anyone in the country, whether or not the person was carrying a
gun. And many officials took advantage of that license.'^^
This generalization of the enemy, and the accompanying sanctions,

would make more sense if the “win the hearts and minds” component of
counter-insurgency doctrine were wholly a sham; perhaps to the
military and intelligence agencies thdii executed policy it was. For a more
acceptable explanation we might reconsider the problem posed by the
difficulty of distinguishing the guerrilla from other human beings.
Presumably a military occupation force would find it quite baffling to
try singling out guerrillas moving within a relatively homogeneous
population: their task would be simpler if the population were divided
into mutually antagonistic ethnic, religious or linguistic groups, of
which only one group supported the rebels. This, however, is rarely the
case.
On the other hand, a government based upon a small elite economic
group, or an unrepresentative political clique, confronted by domestic
insurgency, might face similar difficulties in identifying its enemies.
Where the population can generally be divided into a small group of
“haves”, and a very large one of “have nots” (or of “ins” and “outs”)’^ the
potential insurgents might be found throughout most of the population,
making identification of the true guerrilla especially difficult.
50
“Meeting Terror with Terror": a Policy of Failure
In Guatemala and El Salvador (and in Somoza's Nicaragua)

traditional social and economic divisions have been so extreme that the
people have always been divided into “ins ' and “outs’’ in the minds of
those wielding economic and political power. In Guatemala the “outs’’
have always been set apart by poverty, but now these traditional “outs” —
the poor, the Indians, the peasants and slum dwellers — are allied through
political movements with a growing sector of the Guatemalan middle
class, the clergy, intellectuals and organized labour. This is the sea in
which the guerrilla fish now moves. The same is true of El Salvador where
the “outs” are also largely made up of rural peasants and urban poor, with
political allies in middle income groups analogous to those of Guatemala.
A parallel process took place in Nicaragua where, in the wake of the 1972
earthquake, the Somoza clique's massive profiteering accelerated a
process of alienation and marginalization of all but the Somoza family's
immediate economic circle. By 1978 the “outs” included many of the
traditional elite families of Nicaragua, and the anti-Somoza rich, as well
as the poor, were hit by government terrorism; torture, assassination and
summary executions.
In all three of these Central American countries terror tactics intended
to destroy guerrilla movements led to indiscriminate attacks on anyone
considered to be a member of a troublesome social group; rural school
teachers, sociologists, trade unionists, Roman Catholic catechists, or the
unfortunate residents of isolated rural areas where guerrilla groups were
known to operate.
Thus, in 1980, nearly 200 members of El Salvador's National Education
Association. ANDES, mostly members of local chapters, were hunted
[ down, dragged from their homes and murdered, or machine-gunned in
I their classrooms.
Since ANDES as a whole was labelled a “leftist” organization, and
leftist organizations were considered as supporters of insurgency, being a
I member in the only national teachers' organization in the country was
I tantamount to bearing arms in open revolution. Schoolteachers who saw
1 so many of their colleagues equated with guerrillas and killed were given a
: particularly strong incentive to join the guerrillas.
In Guatemala there are numerous similar examples; in 1980, in two
' separate daylight raids, authorities first arrested 27 leaders of the Central
Nacional de Trabajadores, the major national trade union federation, in
j their downtown office, then 17 others who were meeting at a church
;; conference centre. Authorities refused all requests for information on
■i their fate and it is generally assumed they were murdered. To be a trade
unionist is to be an insurgent is to be the target for murder by the state. In
Nicaragua, in the final year of fighting, to be young was to be an insurgent
to be put against a wall and killed. After the rebellion of cities such as
Esteli and Leon, the National Guard went systematically from door to
" door in some neighbourhoods, removing and shooting boys and young
men between the approximate ages of 12 and 30.
51
The steady expansion of the group liable for targetting as presumed

insurgents is, of course, an indicator that previous counter-insurgency
policies have not been successful, or, indeed, that they have rebounded
and fed the fires of insurrection. An excellent example happened under
the Somoza regime. After 1974, the government fought the Frente
Sandinista with massive arrests, killings in the university community,
and scorched earth depopulation operations in the rural north-east of
the country where the guerrillas had their initial strongholds. In 1974
the targets were peasants in isolated areas, students, and others believed
to have direct contact with the insurgents. By 1978 the scope of the target
had expanded to include leaders of the local Chambers of Commerce.
Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, and officials of the local Red
Cross: all were associated with insurgency and subject to state terrorism.
Finally, in September 1978, the major cities were largely destroyed by
bombing and in July 1979 the government fell.
In Guatemala, El Salvador and pre-revolutionary Nicaragua only the
“ins ’ — quite a small group — have been relatively immune to state
terrorism. The vast and expanding sea of “outs”, within which the
guerrillas hide and gain their strength, is wholly vulnerable to counter¬
terror. State terror tactics in Guatemala and El Salvador, and in the last
year of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, have taken on an almost
random, mass-oriented form. The net result has been to drive the mass
of the “out” groups to actively join the insurgency: they have had no
alternative. Only the rich could emigrate.
Part of the classic doctrine of counter-insurgency urges the protection
of innocent civilians both from the “depredations” of the guerrillas and
the reaction of the state. However, in the case of a mass-based
insurgency, seconded by the vast majority of the population, the
perception of the “innocent civilian” becomes obscured. In 1978, in El
Salvador, a series of full-page advertisements paid for by private
enterprise, declared that, “You are either With us or Against us”, and
prophesied death and destruction for those Salvadoreans who did not
take up the sword with them to fight “Communism”. When so pressed, a
society becomes wholly polarized. A point can be reached when the
guerrillas no longer move through a medium of passive sympathizers,
but, as in 'Vietnam, in Nicaragua, and now El Salvador and Guatemala,
a substantial part of the population actively joins the insurgency. Where
does this leave counter-insurgency theory?
If the guerrillas cannot be distinguished, much less isolated from the
people, then counter-insurgency takes on the characteristics of
conventional warfare, with the ‘enemy’ the people as a whole. This was
the point reached in September 1978 in Nicaragua, where the counter¬
insurgency war became indisputably the “conventional” war of a
private army against an entire people; there is no other explanation for
the near destruction of Nicaragua’s major cities with artillery, 500
pound bombs and rockets. The individualized acts of counter-terror of
52
previous years were translated into proportionately greater acts of terror

intended to punish and intimidate entire towns and cities.
All counter-insurgency doctrine begs the question of the political
motivation of insurgency, its justification, and its scope; furthermore, it
is assumed that any insurgency, given appropriate technique, can be
satisfactorily quelled. The dilemma of the counter-insurgent facing an
insurgency truly supported by an entire people is described in Michael
Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars as both a practical and a moral
problem:
... what if the guerrillas can not be isolated from the people? What if the
levee en masse is a reality and not merely a piece of propaganda?
Characteristically, the military handbooks neither pose nor answer such
questions. There is. however, a moral argument to be made if this point is
reached: the anti-guerrilla war can then no longer be fought: and not just
because, from a strategic point of view, it can no longer be won. It cannot
be fought because it is no longer an anti-guerrilla but an anti-social war, a
war against an entire people, in which no distinctions would be possible
in the actual fighting. . . But this is the limiting feature of guerrilla
war. .
This problem is probably very much in the minds of United States

policy makers dealing with El Salvador, and would explain the effort by
these officials to claim that the Salvadorean insurgency is not supported
by the population (giving, for example, official assessments of general
strike action as "unsuccessfuf’); that foreign (other than US) inter¬
vention is a major factor in El Salvador (suggesting that the insurgency
did not originate with the Salvadorean people); and that a large
proportion of the population has been “won over” to the US-backed
government through “moderate” reforms. The only answer necessary is
to point out the governmenf s actions against the general public that
supposedly supports it: the villages bombed and burned, the mass
killings, and the terrorism that has claimed the lives of some 50,000
Salvadoreans who never saw “combat” but were killed while helpless in
the hands of the security forces.^^^ This is not a reaction one would
expect to an insurgency lacking popular support, but would appear to
verge on the edge of Walzer’s “anti-social” war: no longer a war against
insurgents, but a war against all of the “outs”, who are most of the
people.
53
5. The Role of Intelligence
and the CIA’s Public
Safety Programme
The United States military assistance programme dominated the

counter-insurgency effort with its doctrine, funding and large con¬
tingents of personnel, but after 1960. much of the expertise and
material assistance was provided by US civilian agencies. The CIA and
AID in particular appear to have been the principal providers of
intelligence assistance, both to civil and military forces. The influence
of these agencies on the security assistance programmes in El Salvador
and Guatemala had its greatest impact on the respective intelligence
systems, through the creation of national intelligence centres to co¬
ordinate and control information gathering and operations of all the
disparate parts of the security systems.
The desire to strengthen internal security systems in the wake of the
Cuban revolution resulted in a consolidated programme of police
assistance under the direction of AID's Office of Public Safety. The
emergence of Public Safety as a semi-autonomous agency was one
outcome of President Kennedy's instruction to AID to review its
support of “local police forces for internal security and counter¬
insurgency purposes” in order to ensure these programmes would not
be “neglected" within the overall foreign assistance programme.'^*^ In
1962 an Ad Hoc Inter-Departmental Committee on Police Assistance
was appointed to prepare a study of existing internal security
assistance programmes and propose a course for the future. The
Committee included one representative from each of the departments
of Defense and Justice. AID. and the CIA. and was chaired by Byron
Engle, identified in the committee's final report as the representative
for the CIA. (Mr Engle subsequently served as the Director of the
Office of Public Safety from November 1962. when it became semi-
autonomous from AID. until April 1973. shortly before it was phased
out. He ritually denied he or the programme had any links with the CIA
throughout his tenure of office.)'^*^
The policy study produced by the Committee established a
framework for a co-ordinated US effort to improve the capabilities
54
The Role of Intelligence . . .
of civil police and paramilitary forces abroad through “training,

technical assistance, and equipment". The stated objectives were
twofold: to assist friendly governments “to enforce the law and maintain
public order", and to “counter Communist inspired or exploited
subversion and insurgency".'^' The latter objective is given considerably
more weight in the summary of the reporfs findings:
The police forces of the Free World comprise an important source of

power for combating indirect aggression. Through a properly organized,
directed, coordinated and integrated police assistance activity, it is
possible to focus the immense latent resources of these forces against a
common enemy which employs indirect aggression to attain its goals . ..
Properly organized, directed and fully supported by the responsible
agencie.s, the police assistance program can become an effective
instrumentality [sic) in accomplishing US security objectives.'^-
The Committee concluded that police assistance objectives should be

met by centralizing all programmes under the Office of Public Safety,
improving training systems (by expanding overseas Public Safety
advisory staff and establishing the International Police Academy),
improving the provision of material assistance, and establishing “a
central body of knowledge of tactics and techniques [and to] translate
this knowledge into doctrine".'
The report also stressed the primary role of police intelligence
agencies in counter-insurgency:
These forces when properly trained, equipped and directed can be

important instruments for combating the spread of Communist-inspired
insurgency. Their investigative mechanisms are responsible for detecting
and identifying individuals and organizations engaged in subversive
insurgency in its incipient state . . .
Theoretical writing on counter-insurgency, in the 1960s, and earlier,

invariably emphasized the particular advantages of police over military
bodies in establishing and operating intelligence systems. Sir Robert
Thompson, for example, drew upon his experience with the Malayan
“Emergency" (and the British concept of the civil police) when he stated
that the “special branch" (the pre-existing political branch of the civil
police) was the logical organization within which to concentrate
intelligence resources:“The police force is a state organization reaching
out into every corner of the country and will have had long experience of
close contact with the population.Or, in the words of another
counter-insurgency specialist, “the police intelligence system adapted to
rooting out the non-political criminal can easily turn its attention to the
political criminal."'^-'^ The United States government counter¬
insurgency establishment shared this perception. In a 1965 speech at
55
Public Safety’s International Police Academy (IPA), General Maxwell

Taylor. President Kennedy’s chief military adviser and counter¬
insurgency expert, called explicitly for strong police intelligence
organizations as a requisite for counter-insurgency;
The outstanding lesson is that we should never let another Vietnam-type

situation arise again ... We have learned the need for a strong police force
and a strong police intelligence organization to assist in identifying early
the symptoms of an incipient subversive situation.
The advisability of strengthening police intelligence organizations

across the board, however, posed some ethical questions. The distinc¬
tion between a professional police intelligence organization and a
classic political police is. at best. hazy, and whether the first assumes the
characteristics of the second may ultimately depend upon the previous
existence of a strong law enforcement system and a healthy civil police
tradition — before any counter-insurgency brief for police intelligence
is introduced. When police intelligence agencies become so oppressive
that they can fairly be called political, or secret police, they become what
author Milton Lipson. in United Nations World (February 1948) called
the “antithesis” of “legal or ordinary police” forces.'^^ The political
police, in contrast, he described as the instrument of
terror, the world's fastest growing business . . . maintained by authori¬

tarian regimes to safeguard themselves, to perpetuate themselves in
power.
They are superimposed on society, their function being not the

enforcement of the law. but the protection of a minority system of
government: not suppression of crime but suppression of opposition.
Lipson. of course, was writing when the atrocities of the Gestapo and the
death camps were still fresh in the mind of the public, and when news of
Stalin’s purges was trickling out to the West; in the same year the United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed.
According to civil-military relations expert Morris Janowitz of the
University of Chicago, “political police” have certain generic functions:
[They] engage in surveillance, intimidation and direct coercion, physical

control and detention, and the endless variety of manipulative devices
that centuries of human exploitation have developed.*^'^
Political police activities were already part of the history of El

Salvador and Guatemala; but in the course of the 1960s the traditional
political police forces underwent radical expansion and change. They
continued to engage in “surveillance, intimidation and direct coercion”
56
but assisted by United States programmes operated more systemati¬

cally and in concert with all other areas of the security system. The
special role to be played by updated and rationalized intelligence
organizations in a situation ot actual or incipient insurgency was
summarized by General William Westmoreland in his 1%8 speech to
the 8th Conference of American Armies:
In what wc call conventional warlarc. the intelligence agencies of one

nation operate in complete isolation troin the intelligence agencies of
their allies. In most countries the intelligence agencies ol government
services even isolate themselves Irom each other. In an insurgency
situation this method of handling intelligence will not work. Here more
than ever, intelligence collection must be timely, responsible, and
detailed. And particularly important is the requirement that at each level
of government particularly within the police forces — efforts and
resources must be pooled to meet the common need. Intelligence must not
be viewed as an end in itself; it must be used as a means to an end. By this I
mean that the finest intelligence available is worthless until it is
coordinated, evaluated, and put into the hands of the user — the
commander — the man who can do something about it.'^**
The creation of central agencies at the highest level to co-ordinate

intelligence collection, evaluation and operations was essential to the
new counter-insurgency model. The new intelligence bodies were to co¬
ordinate the intelligence activities of all civil and military agencies, and
to subordinate all branches of the security systems to a political police
function. In Guatemala and El Salvador these administrative inno¬
vations placed all facets of the intelligence function under the direction
of presidential intelligence agencies which became inter-agency
command centres directing all parts of the security systems. After 1962,
the development of sophisticated intelligence systems fell primarily to
the Office of Public Safety, and to the CIA.
Police Assistance: The Agencies Involved
The CIA’s close relation to the Public Safety Program, from Public
Safety’s Director to its field advisers and the International Police
Academy, was a permanent subject of speculation during the Pro¬
gramme’s lifetime, and. in 1974, largely contributed to the eventual
suspension of all police assistance abroad by the US Congress. The
extent of formal CIA participation in the police advisory effort was
outlined in the 1962 Ad Hoc Committee report quoted above:
The CIA provides personnel, training, equipment, and intelligence and

logistical support to the interagency (police assistance) programs, and
57
direct assistance to police where this must be done covertly... The Agency
has personnel integrated in AID police programs in ten ofthe27 countries
in which AID has programs and is spending some $2 million annually in
these and other countries in activities which further the police assistance
aspect of US Basic National Security Policy Objectives.'^'
CIA headquarters maintained a special department for matters

concerning police assistance, from provision of support to advisory staff
in the field to liaison “with other US Government agencies on police
matters [and] with foreign police executives and police professional
associations under appropriate cover.Close contact was maintained
by CIA headquarters both with its own personnel in Public Safety, and
with the Chief Public Safety advisers in the field:
The Agency renders intelligence support to the police programs by

providing the Chief Advisors with timely intelligence information
concerning matters which may affect program implementation. CIA
provides the latest information on developments in Sino-Soviet strategy
and techniques to its personnel in the AID police programs who are
working as advisors in the counter-intelligence, counter-espionage,
counterguerrilla, and other countersubversive fields . . . CIA's logistical
facilities in the United States and abroad are sometimes used to facilitate
the emergency procurement and delivery of material in situations where
normal US Government procedures are a handicap to immediate
action.'"-^
This enumeration of the wide range of “countersubversive fields” on

which Public Safety/CIA personnel were advising, to some extent
defines just which parts of Public Safety's advisory programme were
staffed by the CIA. In any case, traffic consultants, experts in police
administration, and many other authentic police scientists — who had
little to do with the overtly political aspects of the programme, or the
CIA — were also involved in the programme. A reading of Public
Safety's reports from Central America gives the impression that most of
the work, and most of the advisers had dealt with conventional and
unexciting aspects of law enforcement, apparently trying, in good faith,
to create a professional system for law enforcement. The work of
members of advisory teams dealing with intelligence, however,
effectively hijacked the programme and redirected it towards less
conventional objectives.
The CIA's police assistance operations, as defined in the 1962 Ad Hoc
Committee's report, were not necessarily limited to the use of Public
Safety cover; whether or not Public Safety had a programme, “The CIA
maintained a covert relationship with most of the police and internal
security services of the Free World, which in a few instances may
involve the provision of advice, training and equipment.”"''* In most of
58
The Role of Intelligence. . .
these relationships, however, the major concern was the development of

friendly countries’ domestic intelligence apparatus, or in CIA parlance
investigative mechanisms . Assisting the creation of intelligence
counterparts in second countries could, ol course, be seen as a measure
to ensure eflective counter-insurgency measures, with the fringe benefit
of placing the CIA in a privileged position to share in information
gathered, and to diplomatically steer the intelligence apparatus toward
its own objectives.
A principal role ot the CIA after 1960 was training foreign police
personnel, in either the United States, their own, or third countries. In
1962 it was acknowledged in contidential documents that
CIA conducts covert police training in the United States, host countries,
and third countries... Selected AID participants are given this training in
the United States. CIA has provided training annually for approximately
150 foreign police in the United States. 100 in third countries, and 1,200 in
host countries.'*^-''
Training at that time included "anti-Communist operations, sur¬

veillance. interrogation, handling of informants, and . . . other
techniques and skills necessary in effective investigation.”'*^^ Evidence
that the CIA also trained foreign security personnel in terrorism
techniques came to the attention of Congress and the public in 1973,
when information became available on students brought to the United
States to attend the International Police Academy being trained in the
making and use of explosive devices at a secret camp in Texas.
Disarmingly called the"Technical Investigations Course”, its substance
became known after an inquiry by Senator James Abourezk forced the
AID to release the information in September 1973.'*^^ In a letter dated 25
September 1973, AID acknowledged the existence of the course, which
involved fourweeks of lectures and seminars at the International Police
Academy and four weeks of “practical exercises” at the Border Patrol
Academy at Los Fresnos, Texas; the course began in 1969 and was
staffed with CIA instructors:
Prior to establishing the first course in 1969. and not having the needed
skills within its own staff. OPS attempted without success to obtain
instructors from the Department of Defense with expertise in demons¬
trating the construction, use and counter measures against homemade
bombs and explosive devices used by criminal terrorist.s. Subsequently,
the Central Intelligence Agency agreed to provide guest lecturers for this
portion of the training program.'*^**
AID said the course was expressly designed to instruct students in

making terrorist devices from easily obtained materials:
59
The thrust of the instruction at the Border Patrol Academy introduces

trainees to commercially available materials and home laboratory
techniques likely to be used by criminal terrorists in the manufacture of
explosive and incendiaries so that the trainee will be able to identify them
and take preventive action to protect lives and property upon his return to
his country. Different types of explosive devices and “booby-traps and
their construction and use by terrorists are demonstrated. This entails
practical experience with both manufactured and improvised devices.'*^*^
AID might have attempted to justify the CIA training programme as

designed to teach students to deactivate or to dispose of terrorist devices,
or stressed its strictly forensic element but on the contrary, it noted that
the course was not designed to train bomb disposal technicians;
The Technical Investigation Course is the only course offered by the

Office of Public Safety where attention is directed to the investigation of
criminal manufacture and use of explosive devices. A police bomb
investigator must be thoroughly familiar with the components and effects
of explosive devices used by terrorists. The course is not designed to. nor
does it prepare the student to be a bomb or explosive disposal technician,
but rather to enhance his investigative skills.'*^*'
A course outline attached to the AID letter to Senator Abourezk

elaborated on the practical skills taught including work with “Terrorist
Devices; Fabrication and Functioning of Devices; Improvised Triggering
Devices; and Incendiaries'"; lecture/demonstrations were also provided
on “Assassination Weapons: A discussion of various weapons which
may be used by the assassin".
A more dramatic, or literary account of the Texas “bomb schooF,
based largely on interviews, appeared in A.J. 'Lo.ngguXh'sHidden Terrors
(1978) and was fairly consistent with AID’S view on the technical aspect
of training, but places it in the context of practical exercises in political
warfare, fighting terror with terror;
The students were called guerrillas, and they were told, this is what
guerrillas do... The students were required to sign oaths of secrecy, and to
live at the camp, under permanent guard, in tents on the isolated Texas
plain. Their course began with a review of various explosives, including
D-3 and C-4 plastic bombs, and a scientific analysis ofTNT. The students
were instructed in fuses — how to light them, how to time them . . .'‘^-
Training in the use of terrorist devices, according to Langguth was

eminently practical:
... the students had to race the clock, setting a charge against a gas tank or
a telephone pole in a specified number of minutes. . . Finally, the thirty
60
The Role of hi telligence . . .
students of the eoiirse. all from Central and South America, were given a
major assignment: blow up a convoy oftrucks; hit a gas depot surrounded
by booby traps; interrupt enemy communications by slipping past
sentinels and knocking over telephone poles . ,
Although the CIA participated in major training programmes for

foreign security personnel within the United States, declassified
documents from the late 1960s suggest its principal training and
advisory role was performed to a large extent within the foreign
intelligence and police agencies overseas. Documentation from the
Public Safety Program on the advisory programme in Guatemala and
El Salvador confirms that, on paper. CIA advisers/operators were
integrated into the Public Safety teams although they spent most of their
time working directly with the respective intelligence and political
police agencies. The degree of autonomy accorded the CIA’s people left
Public Safety' advisers on “legitimate” law enforcement projects
somewhat disgruntled. A 1967 survey of the Public Safety Program in
Central America, already cited, pointed out that the ’nvestigations
advisers" assigned to the Public Safety teams worked from the CIA
office and spent virtually all their time with the intelligence agencies, to
the neglect of Public Safety's own. more conventional work.'*^'^ This,
according to the author of the report, former Ambassador to Venezuela
C. Allan Stewart, left unsatisfied a serious need for “real” criminal
investigations advisers. The Chief Public Safety Advisers in both
Guatemala and El Salvador are quoted as having expressed concern
that “investigations advisers” had made no effort to assist with
conventional law enforcement problems, or even to co-operate with
their ostensible superiors and colleagues. Ambassador Stewart himself
was perturbed when “investigations adviser” Daniel Smith, an OPS
employee, would not even meet the OPS evaluaters. and the Chief
Adviser complained that sometimes he did not see the adviser for weeks
at a time.'*^-’’ The “investigations adviser” was included in the formal
complement of Public Safety advisers, but was “nonexistent as far as
relating his activities to the Public Safety Program is concerned”'*^^
(perhaps to the credit of the Public Safety Program). According to
Ambassador Stewart's report, the “investigations adviser” in El
Salvador worked solely with the political sectors of the security system,
including the secret 15-man Presidential Security Service (“It was
learned that the investigations advisor works with the Security Service,
the intelligence units of the National Police and National Guard, and
the Immigration Service, all of which receive assistance under the
Public Safety Program”).
In 1967. the situation in Guatemala was similar, although the
particular “investigations advisor", Dave Wright did meet the evaluation
mission from the Office of Public Safety. As in El Salvador, he worked
exclusively with top intelligence/political police agencies — (“He works
61
with the intelligence unit of the National Police . . . but spends the
majority of his time with the Security Service which coordinates
intelligence activities of the National Police and Army’.)'*^^
The Guatemala Security Service was a direct counterpart of the
Salvadorean Presidential Security Service; both began operation in
1964, and linked police and military intelligence networks at the
presidential level. In both countries, after 1964, the presidential agencies
were the central co-ordinators of civil and military intelligence
networks, and the nerve centre for the counter-insurgency programme.
These agencies are discussed in detail later; there is some evidence,
however that a principal objective of security assistance in the
intelligence area throughout Latin America was the creation of similar
agencies. The 1967 survey report quoted above, for example, describes
the assistance given by “CAS" — an acronym used for the CIA — to help
the Costa Ricans create their own “Security Agency", which Ambassador
Stewart described as “well housed and self-sufficient . . . This unit is
almost autonomous in operation and is trained to be a quick action
group".Like its counterparts in El Salvador and Guatemala, the
Costa Rican “Security Agency" controlled a central communications
nexus linking all national intelligence agencies, and provided permanent
contact with top intelligence agencies throughout the region, and with
US agencies based in the Panama Canal Zone:
While I was in San Jose TDY Communications Advisor... was assisting

the Costa Ricans in installing the Security Communications Operations
Center in new quarters. All communications networks are combined in
one building and in event of an emergency there is space to install a joint
operations center. Thanks to AID/PS. Costa Rica has a nation-wide radio
network . . . The Central American network is also housed in the
communications center, operates around the clock, and is extensively
used . .
Not to belabour the CIA’s role in security assistance, it should be

emphasized that each of the US agencies with overseas security
concerns contributed in some way to police training programmes, and
had a counter-insurgency brief Even the Eederal Bureau of Investi¬
gation (FBI) had some involvement in training foreign security
personnel, although this was largely limited to advising AID on
technical aspects of law enforcement, on curriculum, and the distri¬
bution of FBI publications to foreign police bodies. The presence of FBI
officials abroad was, according to declassified documents, limited
strictly to activities “in connection with FBI internal US responsi¬
bilities”; a limitation that appears to have been respected.-*^' In the 1962
Ad Hoc Committee report, the FBI's overseas role is described as
“foreign liaison”:
62
The Role of Intelligence. . .
The FBI has rendered considerable technical and training assistance to

foreign police incidental to discharging its foreign liaison responsibilities.
It maintains personnel abroad in connection with FBI internal US
responsibilities. FBI representatives located in 11 major foreign capitals...
maintain contact with police and security agencies in these countries and
in approximately 35 adjacent countries. As attaches of the embassies
where assigned, they maintain cooperative relationships with the Country
Team; they exchange law enforcement information with foreign officers;
participate in police training programs of foreign countries|etc.| . .
In the 1960s the formal delegation of responsibilities for major areas

of United States security assistance was defined as follows;
State: Formulation of policy, general coordination and review of country

programs; d/D; Assistance to conventional police forces including those
having constabulary/paramilitary umts: Defense: Assistance to police and
security elements in military forces including military counterintelligence
unit.s, and Special Forces; CIA: Covert assistance to the intelligence and
investigative units of police and security forces.-"-^
Perhaps most of interest in this breakdown is the distinction of those

aspects of the Department of Defense's assistance programme con¬
sidered to fall outside conventional military assistance; assistance
dealing with counter-intelligence and Special Forces. While the CIA
has reportedly placed personnel under both Public Safety and military
mission cover for its advisory and intelligence work, evidence exists that
the Department of Defense has performed its role in the programme for
police and security assistance by placing its personnel under civilian
cover. The 1966 classified US Army “Counterinsurgency Bluebook"
reports on the army's collaboration with the police assistance pro¬
gramme: "the US Army has supported the Public Safety Program
throughout the world with the loan of US Army Police Corps Officers as
police technical advisors".-'*^ In 1965, a total of 10 army officers were “on
loan to the Office of Public Safety/AID", and. as Public Safety advisers,
were based in Guatemala. Honduras, Brazil, Ecuador, the Philippines
and Indonesia.-*’-'’
Substance of Intelligence Assistance
Intelligence was the vital area for effective implementation of all aspects
of counter-insurgency organization, and that in which military and
non-military security assistance appears to have been most closely
intermeshed. US Assistant Secretary of State Covey T. Oliver, in an
appearance in the 1969 congressional hearings, attributed utmost
priority to the “upgrading of Latin America s intelligence forces , and
63
said that this was “a major area of technical assistance on our part .
Upgrading was, according to Mr Oliver, supported by “grant assistance
of equipmenf'.-*’^
The same hearing,s, called to review Latin America security assistance
programmes, heard testimony from distinguished civilian experts on
the importance of boosting the intelligence capabilities of friendly
security services:
. . . the strengthening of intelligence services is based on the obvious fact

that few Latin American police or military establishments are effective in
collecting and evaluating crude data. Intelligence, as used here, includes
police files on common criminals and subversives.-*’^
The same witness, a civilian academic, added one cautionary note:
Professionalization will not. in and by itself, prevent use of intelligence to

repress legitimate or loyal opposition. It needs to be combined with
intensive training on the role of the police in a democracy.-***
This point however, was not pursued in the 1969 hearings.
Communications and Intelligence

Intelligence for counter-insurgency required systems for information
gathering and analysis, and for covert or overt action upon such
information. One precondition for sophisticated intelligence systems
was the development of communications capabilities adequate for co¬
ordination and control of all parts of the security systems. In the
congressional statement cited above. Secretary Oliver in 1969 described
intelligence as a matter both of detection and communications:
... we are discussing both the detection capability of civilian and other
counterintelligence police forces... as well as communications between
units involved in meeting guerrilla attack. We are helping, we are working
hard in this area.-**'*
Sophisticated systems of data collection, processing and analysis,

requisites for the intelligence “detection” (or interdiction) role, could be
built only if good communications facilities existed. Public Safety
Program spokesmen themselves, when praising the achievements of the
programme, stressed its success in setting up communications systems,
often from virtually nothing. In the 1973 congressional hearings, a
spokesman described the programme’s achievements in the Dominican
Republic, where “for the first time a police telecommunication network
was developed”; in Brazil, where a “technical telecommunications
center” was set up to serve the Federal Police (created on Public Safety
advice); and in Ecuador, where “a telecommunications network has
64
been set up in Quito and another is planned in Guayaquil". In Colombia

"telecommunications networks have been initiated to provide nation¬
wide police coverage"; in Uruguay, "a police telecommunications
network and interagency emergency network have been established”;
and in Jamaica a "country-wide telecommunications network was
installed".-"*
Intelligence networks are basically systems devised to collect and to
communicate information to central agencies (or individuals). At the
turn of the century, the development of the telegraph networks in
Guatemala and El Salvador did much to tighten the control of the
caudillos of the day. extending their eyes and ears to the farthest reaches
of the countryside. One of the most eloquent analogies for an
intelligence net appeared in Guatemalan Nobel laureate Miguel Angel
Asturias' El Sefwr Presidente, modelled on a tyrant contemporary with
the introduction of the telegraph. The president's omnipresent spy
network is described as a web similar to the wires of a telegraph,
communicating to him all that passed even "in the most secret hearts of
the citizens";
... a monstrous forest separated El Senor Presidente from his enemies, a

forest of trees with ears that at the least echo revolved as if stirred by a
hurricane... A network of invisible wires, more invisible than the wires of
a telegraph communicated each leaf to El Senor Presidente. alert to all
that passed in the most secret hearts of the citizens.-"
The "invisible wires" of modern telecommunications would, in the 1960s,

reinforce the invisible networks of the traditional political police.
The communications assistance provided by the US was designed to
tie all elements of the security system into a central command structure,
centralize the collection of information, and facilitate rapid, controlled
deployment of forces to act upon it. In Guatemala and El Salvador,
communications assistance is one of the most easily measurable
achievements of the Public Safety Program. Communication within
both security systems, extremely primitive in the early 1960s, was by
1964 rapidly brought to a level of some sophistication. In each country,
communications systems within separate security forces were to be
linked into central communications/intelligence agencies.
Public Safety Program reports on Guatemala in 1960 described the
police communications system as "virtually non-existent", but in 1963
the programme took credit for having provided the commodities and
training to set up nationwide radio networks within the National and
the Treasury Police, with base stations at the Casa Presidencial and
National Police Headquarters.-’- In 1964, a central communications
centre was established under the control of the presidential security
service.
A 1956 survey of El Salvador's National Police, produced by the US
65
International Cooperation Administration (ICA). found the polices

communication with its provincial detachments was still through the
public telegraph offices, and concluded dryly that “communications
practices were inadequate"r'-^ By 1967, the various permanent detach¬
ments of the National Police, National Guard, and the Immigration
Police (called at the time the “political police” by opposition groups)
were linked up with their respective headquarters, and with a
communications centre in the National Police headquarters.-''^
Communications were also of particular importance to the control
and efficient use of networks of paramilitary civilian irregulars
developed in Guatemala and El Salvador. It was the paramilitary
apparatus of ORDEN in El Salvador, and the military commissioner
system in Guatemala, that provided the “eyes and ears" of the security
systems at the grass roots level. Systems channelling information from
the rural areas were a major objective of the US security assistance
programmes and of the military establishments in the region.-'^ A 1970
article, published in El Salvador's General Staff College's review by
Salvadorean General Carlos Guzman Aguilar (on “Communist Sub¬
version and Guerrilla Action") deals explicitly with the use of such
paramilitary “counter-guerrilla" organizations as ORDEN as an
intelligence resource.-'^ General Guzman stresses the need to co¬
ordinate intelligence collection through such networks from the highest
level:
To develop an information service at a national level, the General Staff of

the Armed Forces must elaborate plans and programs for the preparation
of personnel to carry out specified missions ... it will be necessary for
agencies to penetrate the governmental dependencies and recruit agents
for intelligence networks at the level of villages ... It must be stated
beforehand what agency or office of the Government will be the general
coordinator, and what levels and grade of coordination will be carried
out, indicating the responsibility for coordination of every intelligence
*>17
agency^*'
Information gathered at the local level was to be collated by local or

regional collection centres and channelled directly to the Army General
Staff:
The system that can be employed is the system of information collection

centers. Under this system an agency, established permanently in the
area, functions as a center for the collection and dissemination of
intelligence . . . One form of this system would be the establishment of
information collection centers with each Local Commandancy in each
area of responsibility. The centers could be operated by Officers with the
rank of sub-Lieutenant, Sergeant or Sub-sergeant with the necessary
training for fulfilment of duties.-'^
66
Government "guerrillas" within the paramilitary network could

themselves be directed to act on the basis of centralized information, or
vice versa;
The information obtained by these centers in collaboration with the

military canton patrol and civilian personnel would be disseminated to
guerrilla units operating in the district . . . The guerrillas can provide
information, including the identification of targets and the evaluation of
damage ... to conventional Military Commanders.-''^
In the 1960s. the development of intelligence networks based on

paramilitary organization became a principal achievement of the
military, in both El Salvador and Guatemala, blow these networks were
run — in general much as General Guzman suggests — is outlined in
later chapters.
The intelligence function in Central America was also influenced by
regional intelligence co-operation and communications. In 1964, an
agreement was made between the United States and each of the Central
American countries to set up a “Central America and Panama Security
Telecommunications Network", intended “to permit police and security
agencies of Central American countries to communicate directly with
one another information on identity, movements, activities and plans of
subversives and criminals.”--'* In operation by October 1964, the
network operated through a radio-teletype system, with each station
under the control of the countries’ top security/intelligence agencies —
“Each of these countries owns, operates and maintains its respective
station equipment under the control of the major security group in that
country. In Guatemala, the Centro Regionalde Telecomunicaciones under
the Casa Presidencial controls and operates the station".--'
Erom its inception, monitoring the control of the Central America
communications network appears to have been in the hands of the US
military, although it was set up under the auspices of the Public Safety
Program. US Army Latin-Americanist. Lieutenant-Colonel John
Childs, has stated that the network was parallel to the military
communications networks linking the armies of the region, all of which
have “a net control station in the Canal Zone”.--- Childs adds that It is
hard to avoid the impression that these communications nets came
under US aegis since their net control stations function as adjuncts to
US military communications facilities in the Canal Zone.”--^
The Central American security network required an agreement that
some secrets would be shared between the region’s top intelligence
agencies, and with the parent station in the Canal Zone. The distinction
between the civilian and military assistance provided for regional
telecommunications appears to have been tenuous. The Commander of
the US armed forces’ Southern Command — SOUTHCOM — in the
67
Canal Zone told the US Congress in 1966 that military communications

assistance in the region was designed to mesh with civilian security
assistance in order to ensure “effective national and regional military
command and control systems for support of counterinsurgency
operations”.22t
Information Gathering, Detection, and Targetting

A principal facet of the intelligence function depends on the collection
(or extraction) of data, and the identification, location and observation
of organizations and individuals. Means of detection may range from
torture to sophisticated data processing techniques, including the
electronic collection, storage, analysis and retrieval of data.
Security assistance for counter-insurgency was built upon traditional
police investigative skills, with a view to enhancing detection capability.
Just what, or who was to be detected was defined in accordance with
threat perceptions underlying counter-insurgency doctrine.
An appendix to the 1962 report of the Ad Hoc Inter-agency
Committee on Police Assistance states that:
CIA financed and directed police assistance programs... which had overt
as well as covert aspects and which sought to develop investigative
mechanisms capable of detecting subversive individuals and organi¬
zations, collecting and collating information relative to their activities
and neutralizing their efforts.^^^
In the same report a section on “The AID Public Safety Program”,

implied that the CIA also actively .collaborated in the task of detecting
“subversives”, and possibly in actions to neutralize them once detected;
“A limited number of CIA personnel are integrated into the AID
program for assistance to investigative units combating subversion.”^^^
The thin line between advisory and operational assistance is
particularly blurred in the intelligence field. Intelligence advisers could,
without leaving their offices, assess individual cases and suggest a
course of action, which in practice would target people for extra-legal
detention, torture and/or assassination. Any list of “subversives” (true or
false) could at some time lead to irremediable, violent action against
those included. “Operational” assistance might be limited to partici¬
pation in the investigative tasks by which “subversives” were identified
and lists of names drawn up. The actual detention — or elimination —
of the individuals so targetted would not require foreign assistance.
Public Safety/CIA assistance in setting up systems for detection/
targetting of “subversives” is more easily documented than any direct
involvement in the targetting of specific individuals. A Public Safety
Program spokesman told the US Congress in 1973 that almost every
assistance programme in Latin America had improved “administrative
and management skills” related to the detection capacity of the security
68
systems.^-^ Among the programme's stated achievements were those

related to the “identification of subversives" in Brazil; the improvement
in the “records and identifications system” in Jamaica, and “significant
improvement... in the police ability to identify and apprehend urban
terrorists” in Uruguay.--^
Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of Public Safety's or CIA's direct
involvement in developing and operating a detection/targetting system
is exemplified in the “Phoenix” programme in Vietnam, already
discussed. In the case of “Phoenix”, a sophisticated data processing
system was developed for the compilation of “black lists” and “green
lists” of suspected Vietnamese insurgents and sympathizers.229 Military
analyst Michael Klare has assessed information received by Congress¬
man Les Aspin from the US General Accounting Office in June 1973
relating directly to the computerization of the “Phoenix” intelligence
apparatus, and has described its link-up with a central telecom¬
munications facility at the level of the Prime Minister.^ô This is
seemingly a direct parallel with Guatemala's presidential intelligence
agency, based in the “Regional Telecommunications Center”. The
General Accounting Office — according to Klare — reported that after
the closure of the Public Safety Program by congressional action, the
Department of Defense had contracted a Los Angeles based corpora¬
tion to complete the police assistance programme's development of the
Vietnamese Prime Minister's internal security computer centre with
“the introduction of automatic data processing to plan, direct, control,
and evaluate developments, and nationwide police operations.''^^'
aid's police assistance programme is also on the record as having
provided data processing equipment and technique to some of Latin
America's most repressive regimes. Computer Decisions magazine
(February 1977) described the provision of computer equipment to
Chile, financed through the AID agricultural assistance budget, but
found to have been destined for an address on Santiago's Calle
Belgrano identified as the communications centre of the presidential
security agency Direccion de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) (National
Intelligence Directorate) and its successor agency, the Central Nacional
de Informaciones (CNI) (National Information Centre), Chile's most
feared secret police.^^^
Former CIA agent Philip Agee, maintains that CIA stations in each
Latin American country run their own systems to compile lists of leftists
considered “most dangerous”, lists which, on occasion, could be
provided to their counterparts for action; this was identified as the CIA's
LYNX list which:
is a list of about 100 communists and other activists of the extreme left
whom the station considers most dangerous. The LYNX list is a
requirement for all Western Hemisphere stations, to be maintained in
case a local government in time of crisis should ask (or be asked by the US
69
government) for assistance in the emergency preventive detention of

dangerous persons.^^^
Agee claims the CIA data base for compiling such lists in Ecuador,
where he was stationed, was enormous, drawing upon the Ministry of
Government's identity card records, providing full name, date and
place of birth, names of parents, occupation, address and photograph of
“practically any Ecuadorean’’-^^"*
Agee’s account appears wholly plausible. If anything, Agee appears to
understate the scope of US intelligence capabilities in compiling data
on “suspect” persons. From the experience of Guatemala and El
Salvador (let alone South-east Asia) it would appear that US agencies
maintained detailed records of membership in everything from
clandestine political groups to legal, but leftist trade unions or
professional associations. The lethal use of such information is, of
course, a development that awaits only a change in the security forces'
criteria for action; and a decision to act. Identification as a “Communist
proponent” or subversive on a CIA L'VNX list or a Phoenix “green list”
or in a security system’s central data bank could, of course, be entirely
arbitrary, and there was no appeal against inclusion. In any case, the
crucial factor transforming a collection of names into a “hit list” is the
decision on action to be taken against those listed. This could range
from blacklisting for employment purposes (or exclusion from public
office) to detention, interrogation and murder.
Public Safety Program’s Demise: Proposed Alternatives
In autumn 1973, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, alarmed by

the findings of its investigation into the Public Safety Program’s lesser
known aspects, and motivated by the changing tide of public opinion,
recommended the suspension of foreign police assistance. The Foreign
Assistance Act of 1973, Section 112, as amended in December 1973,
banned AID’s overseas training of foreign police personnel, but not
instruction within the United States. The Public Safety Program was
ordered to phase out its operations and withdraw all Public Safety
advisers by 30 June 1974.^35
Whether or not Congress really believed the charges that the Public
Safety Program taught torture or was involved in other aspects of police
terrorism, there is no doubt of its conviction that the charges were widely
believed both in the countries assisted and in the United States, and that
it was best to cut losses by discarding the programme altogether. Section
660 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, “Prohibiting Police Training”
(30 December 1974) withdrew Public Safety’s support
On and after July 1, 1975, none of the funds made available to carry out
70
this Act. and none of the local currencies generated under this Act, shall
be used to provide training or advice, or provide any financial support, for
police, prisons, or other law enforcement forces for any foreign
government or any program of internal intelligence or surveillance on
behalf of any foreign government within the United States or abroad.^^^
But there were several loopholes, particularly in the intelligence field.

The original amendment put before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee by Senator Abourezk differed from the final text of Section
660 in that it stated that “None of the funds made available to carry out
this or any other Act... shall be used..for security assistance. CIA took
immediate issue with the draft and. CIA Director William E. Colby, in a
letter, on 31 July 1974, to Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman J. William Fulbright,^^^ concludes that “the amendment
would curtail various CIA activities abroad which are in support of
approved national intelligence objectives. We therefore recommend
that it not be adopted.”
In making his case, Colby outlined the range of CIA activities within
the field of security assistance, and pointed out its problems with the
draft amendment:
Senator Abourezk’s amendment considerably expands the restriction on

US support to police and related programs that was enacted last year...
The 1973 restrictions apply only to activities funded under the Foreign
Assistance Act whereas Senator Abourezk’s amendment would extend
the restriction to specified activities funded under any law. Another
important aspect... is that it applies restrictions not just to involvement
with foreign police services and related programs as the 1973 law did but
also to “internal security forces of any foreign government or any program
of internal intelligence”.
The Committee deleted “or any other Act” from the draft, but retained
the broad interpretation of those security agencies not to be assisted.
Colby had maintained that “limited and specialized training” or
intelligence and security services abroad was an essential quid pro quo
by which CIA obtained its own objectives, a practice not to be lightly
abandoned:
The amendment would appear to restrict activities now undertaken by the

CIA under the National Security Act of 1947 for the purpose of obtaining
foreign intelligence information from cooperative foreign security and
intelligence services, some of which are within national police forces. In
addition, in many areas of the world the protection of US personnel,
installations, and security interests depends heavily on the effectiveness
and support of foreign internal security services, as does effective action to
counterterrorist activities and narcotics traffic. An essential ingredient of
71
many CIA relationships with foreign security and intelligence services is

some limited and specialized training and other support, as well as the
exchange of information and advice. If the Agency were restricted in these
activities, our ability to perform our assigned intelligence mission would
he severely curtailed.
In its final form, the Act permitted the Drug Enforcement Adminis¬
tration (DEA) and the EBI to continue dealing with foreign police
bodies in pursuing their particular law enforcement mandates, and
leaving the CIA with its powers intact.^^^ it only remained to find an
alternative for the defunct Public Safety Program capable of continuing
indispensable police assistance, and within which the CIA could
continue to deploy its own security assistance specialists.
Alternatives to the Public Safety Program were discussed in a 1973
Brookings Institution report commissioned by Public Safety. A section
on “Alternative Administrative Arrangements” by which the substance
of Public Safety’s work could be continued, despite impending closure,
discussed the advantages and disadvantages of placing police assis¬
tance within the Military Assistance Program, using the logistic and
administrative resources of the Defense Department, or developing the
assistance capacity of other agencies to take on Public Safety's tasks.
Two proposals for which few disadvantages were seen were: 1) to hive
off training activities to a private, non-profit corporation (“Theoreti¬
cally it could take over the existing personnel and facilities of OPS [and]
receive funds from the United States government and other sources if
they were available.”), and 2) to transfer the programme to the
supervision of the Justice DepartmenU^^
Notes to Part One
Chapter 1
1. See below.
2. Cited in Resolution III, ‘Coordination of police and judicial measures for the
defense of society and institutions of each American state', adopted by the second
meeting of consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Reproduced in Pan
American Union, Department of International Law, Strengthening of Internal
Security, Washington, D.C. (1953), Appendix 6, p. 97.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. 'Ley del 25 de junio de 1941. Contra propaganda de doctrinas comunistas'. decreto 119
del Congreso de la Republica de Nicaragua, Reproduced in Reglamento de la Policia
(Managua: Talleres de la Nacion), (1951)
6. ‘G-2 Report’,‘General Conditions, Guatemala’, 20 June 1941 (record group 165, file
2357, National Archive, Washington, D.C,).
7. Robert Varney Elam, “Appeal to arms, the army and politics in El Salvador, 1931-
1964", PhD dissertation. University of New Mexico, (1968) pp. 48-9, citing State
Department files, National Archive, 816.00, No. 1797 Frazer to Department. 22
October 1941. Elam’s is the best study to date using primary sources to produce a
72
Notes for Part One
comprehensive description and analysis of the military role in Salvadorean

politics.
8. New York Times. 15 June 1940 pp. 49-50, cited in ibid. The Salvadorean War
Ministry s 1938 annual report included reference to four scholarships from Italy;
one recipient was Captain Oscar Osorio, invited to attend the Superior War
Institute of Torino; in 1950 Osorio became President of El Salvador for a six year
term. Memoria de Guerra. Marina v Aviacion (1938).
9. G-2 Report, 20 May 1941, Military Attache A. Marsh,
10. Anastasio Somoza Garcia of Nicaragua, the third principal dictator of Central
America in the 1930s and 1940s. cannot be excluded from a discussion of regional
strongmen's affinity to totalitarianism and dubious value as US allies. Somoza
Garcia captured the Presidency and assumed military and political control with
the forced resignation of President Juan Sacasa (6 June 1936) after a putsch
launched on 29 May, combining National Guard and civilian Camisas Azules
(‘Blue Shirts' modelled on Mussolini's Squadras d'accione). Like Martinez and
Ubico he was considered neither a particular menace to, nor a particularly
trustworthy 'friend' of the Allied cause. A secret FBI inquiry (FBI Director J, Edgar
Floover's private letter. I May 1941 to Assistant Secretary of State Berle, included
with G-2 Report: ‘General Conditions, Nicaragua' 1 May 1941; Record Group 165,
file 2657) reporting his commercial dealings with Japan, surprised the Department
of State, but this apparently reflected Somoza's greedy opportunism rather than
ideological conviction. See also G-2 Report, Alex. A. Cohen, No. 3476,29 May 1936;
G-2 Report No. 2487. 5 June 1936; and Richard Millet, Guardians of the Dynasty.
Mary knoll, NY: Orbis Books (1977), a comprehensive study of the National Guard
with reference to the "Blue Shirts" role in the putsch.
11. "By the end of World War II the United States in effect had a monopoly on
[military'] missions'. ... 'to acquire the friendship and good will, to train for
hemispheric defense, to encourage standardization on US weapons and equip¬
ment, training and doctrine, and to block entry of foreign missions." (Ft.-Col. John
Childs. “The Inter-American Military System", PhD dissertation. American
University, (1978). p. 185).
12. Ibid. p.238.citingJointChiefsofStaffI233/2,31 January 1945,“MilitaryObjectives
in Latin America" Record Group 218. National Archive.
13. Foreign Relations of the United States. (1943) Volume VI. pp. 308-312.
14. G-2 Report. “Guatemala, Situation of the Military", Lt.-Col. J. H. Marsh, Military
Attache, 24 June 1941.
15. Foreign Relations of the United States. (1948) Vol. IX, p. 193.
16. Pan American Union, op. cit. Strengthening of Internal Security.
17. Ibid. pp. 76-8. The United States McCarran Act (The Internal Security Act of 1950)
is cited as a model (p. 395) in that it "requires the registration of communist
organizations, prohibits the issuance of passports to subversive elements and
contains, . . . numerous provisions intended to counteract the activities of world
communism." The Chilean “Law for the Permanent Defense of Democracy" of the
same period, cited in the Pan American Union document, deprived political rights
to citizens 'opposed to the democratic order", denying them the right to vote, hold
public office or public employment. Throughout the Americas in the 1950s new
measures legalized imprisonment for what in 1980 would be considered reasons of
conscience.
18. Ibid. p. 76.
19. Ibid. pp. 79-80.
20. Before the 1960s “age of counterinsurgency" almost continuous clashes existed
between the Department of State and the US military vis-a-vis Latin America policy.
Childs (op. cit, p. 243) outlines the Department of State's inter-departmental battle to
have a diplomatic corps member present during “Staff Conversations — a demand
grudgingly acceded to after five months of haggling.
The State Department also opposed the American military's independent
73
"foreign policy" activities in Latin America. State Department memo, 21

November 1944, "Certain Activities of War Department and Army Officers in the
Other American Republics”, SWNCC Box 139, National Archive, Record Group
353, cited in Childs, op. cit., p. 143.
21. Childs, op. cit., pp. 331, 336.
22. Memorandum. Acheson to Pattenson and Forrestal. 17 April 1947. reproduced in
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1947) Vol. 8, p. 106.
23. Memorandum, Patterson to Acheson, 27 March 1947, in Foreign Relations . . . p.
108.
24. Ibid.
25. Memorandum. Patterson to Acheson. 17 April . 'm Foreign Relations ... ciU
p. no.
26. For text of "Policy with Respect to Transfers or Sales of Arms, Ammunition, and
Implements of War to the Republics of the Western Hemisphere". 22 August 1947,
see Foreign Relations... pp. 120-1. The policy defines criteria for transfers to include
considerations of each country"s defence requirements, to carry out its inter¬
national obligations, and whether the transfer "is determined to be reasonable and
necessary [for] a country to maintain internal order in the reasonable and
legitimate exercize of constituted authority.”
For an overview of post-war changes in assistance policy, see especially Edwin
Lieuwen./4mjs and Politics in Latin America (New York: Praeger. for the Council on
Foreign Relations (1960).
27. Childs, op. cit.. p. 400.
28. Ibid. Childs, p. 216 notes, after 1967 resentment of US domination of the armies'
conferences, and US policy that Latin American armies should focus exclusively
on internal security, met with discord and opposition from representatives of larger
military institutions in the region, particularly Brazil and Argentina, then
developing their own “doctrines of national security” integrating counter¬
insurgency doctrine into a larger framework.
29. Ibid. p. 385.
30. Ibid.
31. See Chapter 5.
Chapter 2
32. Military magazines reviewed from the period included the Guatemalan army’s
Ejercito. and Revista Militar de Guatemala, and El Salvador’s Revista de la Escuela de
Comando y Estado Mayor "Manuel Enrique Araujo".
33. Writers on the CIA have notedthat the military regularly "loaned” personnel to the
ClA”s Special Operations Division (SOD). See 'Victor Marchetti and John Marks,
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. (New York: Dell, 1974), p. 123.
34 William F. Barber and C. Neale Ronning, Internal Security and Military Power:
Counterinsurgency and Civic Action in Latin America. (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State
University Press, 1963), p. 142.
35. General L.L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 17 July 1962, “Memo for the
Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs”, enclosing “A
Summary of US military Counterinsurgency accomplishments since 1 January
1961”. Carrollton Press Declassified Documents Reference System, retrospective
through 1976.
36. US Congress, Senate “International Development and Security”, Part 1, Com¬
mittee on Foreign Relations, 87th Congress, 1st Session, Washington D.C., p. 598.
37. US Congress, Senate, Hearings of the Subcommittee on American Republics
Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 28 February 1968, Survey of the
Alliance for Progress, p. 415.
38. A January 1961 Policy Planning Staff paper presented the first major policy
formulation of internal security strategy in Latin America integrating proposals for
a revised military assistance programme for internal defence with one of
74
Notes for Part One
development, to be promoted by counterpart armies: “A New Concept for

Hemispheric Defense and Development” is seen by US military historians as the
basis for the doctrine of "internal defense and development” around which
subsequent counter-insurgency theory accumulated. See, for example, Childs op.
cit. pp. 372-3.
39. National Security Action Memorandum 124 "Establishment of the Special Group
(Counter-Insurgency)”. 2 January 1962. Carrollton Press Declassified Document
Reference System (9000 (1974).
40. Carrollton Press (900C) (1974). In 1966 (by National Security Action Memoran¬
dum 341. 2 March 1966) the President assigned "The Direction. Coordination
and Supervision of Interdepartmental Activities Overseas” to the Secretary of
State, replacing the Special Group with the "Senior Interdepartmental Group” to
assist the Secretary of Slate. Underthe Nixon administration the Special Group's
previous role largely devolved on the National Security Council, and particularly
on the National Security Advisor to the President. Emphasis here on Special
Group's role is based on the significance of developments under its supervisory
and catalysing aegis that in effect irrevocably established the norms for counter¬
insurgency doctrine and activities in the 1960s.
41. In April 1962 Robert W. Komer. White House CIA adviser, encouraged the
President's continued support for the Group, noting it: “had already performed a
real service in the pushing, prodding and coordinating so essential to getting and
keeping counterinsurgency activity underway.” Memorandum, R.W. Komer to
McGeorge Bundy, 10 April 1962: Carrollton Press (901A) (1976).
42. General Taylor resigned as Army Chief of Staff under President Eisenhower
"because he thought that the new doctrines of counterinsurgency were being
slighted”; he was appointed Ambassador to Vietnam in June 1964. Richard J.
Barnet. Intervention and Revolution. New York: Mentor, (1972) pp. 244, 252.
43. See, for example, Marchetti and Marks, op. cit. pp. 308-9.
44. Department of State Cable, 6 July 1962; for information to all diplomatic posts;
for action to: Caracas. Guatemala, Phnom Penh, Quito, Rangoon, Teheran,
Yaounde; a joint State/Defense/AID/USIA message. From Freedom of Infor¬
mation Act request, declassified 1979.
45. Department of State Cable, 6 July 1962.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid. Concern with "police and/or military capabilities” was considered a quite
separate "line of defense" from "development". Police and military assistance
was to be promoted strictly for its control function, but justified in congressional
hearings, in assistance programmes' documents as 1) a means to encourage
military and police institutions to contribute to development through civic
action; 2) a means to "professionalize” and thus theoretically reduce the police
and military's political involvement; and 3) by establishing civil police concepts
and withdrawing the military from police roles, assistance would eliminate one
cause of the population's discontent. These rationales were used to justify
assistance (plus the larger need for law and order) but whether their defenders
believed them is open to speculation.
50. Department of State Cable, 6 July 1962.
51. Ibid.
52. Memorandum. 16 January 1963. to Attorney General from Thomas W, Davis at
the request of Mr Dungan; "Subject: Future role of the special Group (Cl)”.
Carrollton Press (902A) (1976)). A Memorandum from Mr Davis Jr. to McGeorge
75
Bundy, the President's special adviser on national security. 12 January 1963

(Carrollton Press, (9010 (I976-). expressed the same view that if insurgency is
thwarted “Communists will concentrate on gaining power through other
means", means "sufficiently well known" ("other means" might include
elections).
53. Carrollton Press (9()2A) (1976).
54. Barber and Ronning. op. cit., p. 41 noted that only Nicaragua and Paraguay
continued to be governed "by old style military strongmen ... Both have developed
efficient systems for dealing with the symptoms of insurgency. Secret police, a
controlled press, and the arrest or exile of labor, student and party leaders have kept
potential insurgents under control ".
55. Op. cit. Department of State cable, 6 July 1962.
56. Ibid.
57. American Embassy. Guatemala airgram to SecState: “Subject: Internal Defense
Plan-Guatemala". 15 September 1962. Freedom of Information Act request
declassified 1979.
58. Ibid.
59. National Security Action Memorandum 177, August 1962; AID had overall
responsibility for co-ordinating police advisory and assistance programmes after
1962; see Chapter 5 for a detailed discussion of police assistance programmes as
they related to counter-insurgency.
60. Joint Chiefs of Staff, introduced by General L.L. Lemnitzer, "A Summary of US
Military Counterinsurgency accomplishments since 1 January 1961". 17 July 1962;
citing Kennedy directive from National Security Action Memorandum 162, June
1962.
61. Such as Sir Robert Thompson, architect of counter-insurgency campaigns in
Malaya, who was hired as a consultant. Counter-insurgency was not foreign to
military thinking at the time; Childs, op. cit. p. 372. notes there had long been “an
identifiable body of strictly military tactics and techniques with which to face the
guerrilla".
62. Op. cit.. General L.L. Lemnitzer, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 17 July 1962. Sources
detailing the diverse military training establishments, their curriculum, and
nature of their student body, include Barber and Ronning. op. cit.. and more
recently, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) reports.
Emphasis here is on doctrine and training made operational; consequently more
attention is given to that element of training conducted in the target countries
themselves.
63. Op. cit. General L.L. Lemnitzer, Joint Chiefs of Staff. 17 July 1962.
64. Marchetti and Marks, op. cit. p 136.
65. Barber and Ronning, op. cit. pp. 142-4.
66. Op. cit.. General L.L. Lemnitzer, Joint Chiefs of Staff. 17 July 1962.
67. Barber and Ronning, op. cit. pp. 149-50.
68. Talks with former US representatives to the Inter-American Defense Board. 1979,
69. Childs, op. cit. p, 408.
70. Major John S. Pustay, US Air Force (1965) Counterinsurgency Warfare. New York:
Free Press (1965), pp 169-70.
71. Childs, op. cit. p. 408.
72. Pustay. op. cit. p, 169, citing US Congress, House Committee on Appropriations.
87th Congress. Hearings, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1963.
Washington; US Government Printing Office, p. 344.
73. James A. Donovan The US Marine Corps. New York: Praeger (1967) p. 138.
74. Military posts and United Fruit Co. offices were attacked on 6 February 1962 by
forces led by Lt. Luis Turcios, Lt. Yon Sosa, and Luis Trejo Esquivel; the revolt was
crushed, but strikes and student demonstrations in the capital in support of the
guerrillas continued.
76
Notes for Part One
75. Report to Joint Chiefs of Stall: Subject: Visit to Colombia, South America, by a
Team from Special Warfare Center. Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Special Warfare
Mobile Training Team MTT); Secret supplement Colombia survey report, 26
February 1962; signed: Gen. William Yarborough. Carrollton Press (I54D)
(1976).
76. Special Forces report on Colombia quoted above, secret supplement. The report
also speculates that “CAS" (the acronym for the CIA in classiFied reports,
according to Pentagon Papers) had already organized and deployed such an
apparatus: "3. (S) 11 we have such an apparatus in Colombia il should be employed
now before communist proponents become too strong to combat. The team has
reason to suspect that the Rurales operating in the Llanos are CAS directed . . . ”.
77. Department of the Army. Army Concept Team, Vietnam, “Employment of a
Special Forces Group". 20 April 1966. Carrollton Press ((R)204B)
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid.
83. General L.L. Lemnitzer. Joint Chiefs of Staff. 17 July 1962.
84. James W. Dunn. “Province Advisers in Vietnam. 1962-1965". in Richard A. Hunt
and Richard H. Shultz. Jr., (eds.) Lessons from An Unconventional War: Reassessing
US Strategies for Future Conflicts. New York: Pergamon Press (1982).
The military's control system for the semi-military or paramilitary Civil Guard
and Self Defense Corps overlapped military control of provincial and local
government. Frances Fitzgerald, in Fire in the Lake. New York, Vintage (1973) p.
163, writes that by 1962 village chiefs were appointed by the military, and “installed
in most... villages and military officers assigned to almost all... crucial territorial
posts of province and district chief. . . “security” and “control" system was then
complete. The village chiefs reported to the military district and province chiefs, the
province chiefs to the three (later four) corps commanders, and the corps
commanders to the presidential palace". Local “self-defense" forces, and local
government itself could then slot neatly into the hierarchical military command
structure.
85. Carrollton Press ((R)209B); Marchetti and Marks also note the role of the Special
Forces, but focus on the CIA's role with all Vietnam's paramilitary groups. Thus
“the CIA supported and financed . . . roughly 45,000 Civilian Irregular Defense
Guards (CIDGs). local guerrilla troops who fought under the operational direction
of the US Army's Special Forces.” Marchetti and Marks, op. cit. pp. 132-3.
86. Carrollton Press ((R)209B).
87. Ibid.
88. “Colby Draft". “The Situation"; II May 1964, typescript copied to “Forrestal in
Saigon. Secretary of Defense MacNamara. General Taylor. DCM. DCM Nes.
General Stillwell". From L.B. Johnson Presidential Library, National Security
file.
89. Ibid.
90. General L.L. Lemnitzer, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 17 July 1962, op. cit.
91. Richard H. Shultz, Jr. “The Vietnamization-Pacification Strategy of 1969-1972: A
Quantitative and Qualitative Reassessment", p. 56, in Hunt and Shultz, op. cit.,
citing “The Area Security Concept", August 1970. a study of the Pacification
Studies Group, part of the US Military Assistance Command. Vietnam and the
Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; CORDS.
92. Ibid., p. 99. citing Southeast Asia Statistical Summary. Office of the Secretary of
Defense (Comptroller, 13 February 1973, Table 3),
77
Chapter 3
93. Frank R. Barnett, "A Proposal for Political Warfare", A////ra;y Review (US Army),
March 1961, p. 3.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. See Part 2 for quotations from speeches and articles along these lines.
97. Revista Militar de Guatemala, April-June 1966; unless otherwise noted, all
quotations from original Spanish translated by the author.
98. Richard J. Barnet, Intervention and Revolution. New York: Mentor (1972) p. 214.
The irony of the reversal of tactics of resistance movements to crush such
movements has been much remarked, particularly in the context of the CIA; see
Marchetti and Marks, op. cit., p. 127.
99. "El Patron de la Guerra de Guerrillas", Gen. Michael Calvert. Revista Militar de
Guatemala, October-December 1966.
100. Ibid.
101. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, D.C., Dictionary of US Military Terms for Joint
Usage, 1 February 1962, p. 114; quoted in "A History of Patterns and Techniques for
Insurgency Conflicts in Post-1900 Latin America", ARPA project no. 4860
(Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense, 15 January
1964).
102. Ibid., p. viii. The ambiguity and leeway for abuse of new definitions of insurgency
did not go unremarked even in the 1960s; see Barber and Ronning, op. cit.. p.
44.
103. Marcha, 7 December 1973, reproducing Col. Hector Ballesteros' address to the
Tenth Conference of American Armies in September 1973, quoted in Estrategia
(Argentine military review) No. 24. 1973.
104. Revista Militar de Guatemala, October-September 1966, “Informacion sobre el
Consejo de Defensa Centroamericana". Col. Del Estado Major, (DEM) Jorge H.
Hernandez Mendez.
105. Ibid., "Operacion Centroamerica”, Capitan Cesar Elvir Sierra, Ejercito de
Honduras.
106. Ibid,
107. Civic action perse was not a new concept. US experience had included opening up
the American west, involving the massacre of indigenous peoples there, and the
setting up of transport and communications infrastructure. The US Army Corps of
Engineers became a major instrument of public works projects in the US such as
building dams in the Tennessee Valley. There is a considerable body of literature
on military role expansion since the 1960s relating to the concept of civic
action.
108. Carrollton Press ((R)204B), p. 4. citing special Warfare Glossary. US Army Special
Warfare School. 20 January 1964.
109. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for National Security Affairs, “US
Policies toward Latin American Military forces", 25 Eebruary 1965; L.B. Johnson
Presidential Library, National Security File, Latin America, Vol. Ill, 1/65-6/65.
including comments on the paper by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department
of State.
110. Barber and Ronning, op. cit., is perhaps the best.
111. Revista Militar de Guatemala, October-December 1967, speech on 9 November 1967.
Ambassador Mein was murdered the following year.
112. McGeorge Bundy. Memorandum to Secretary of Defense, “Subject; Evaluation of
Paramilitary Requirements". 28 June 1961, National Security Action Memo¬
randum No. 56. declassified 1975. Carrollton Press (1976).
113. Ibid. Within the United States “paramilitary assets" included units specializing in
training and assistance of foreign forces, and US forces prepared for direct
involvement in irregular warfare (paramilitary operations); these, in practice, were
often the same forces. The report of the “inventory" of these assets is apparently still
78
Notes for Part One
classified, but presumably it repeated virtually the same outline of specialist units
as those already cited as "special warfare" units.
114. "US Policies toward Latin American Military Forces”. 25 February 1965.(Defense
Department Study), p. 44. in the L.B. Johnson Presidential Library, National
Security File, Latin America, Vol. Ill, 1/65-6/65; quoting Joint Chiefs of Staff
publication No. 1. 1 December 1964.
115. Some political repercussions on the creation of militia-type bodies in Central
America are discussed further below.
Recruitment ot ethnic minorities as special counter-guerrilla forces in Indo-
China is well documented; Miskito and Sumo Indian involvement in US-backed
organizations engaged in guerrilla warfare against the present Nicaraguan
government recalls the fate of the Meo and the Montagnards. Military doctrine,
developed in the 1960s from the Vietnam experience, emphasized the mobilization
of ethnic minorities as counter-guerrilla auxiliaries to US forces or allies. See a 1967
study by US Marine Lt. Col. Howard J. Johnston. "The Tribal Soldier; A Study of
the Manipulation of Ethnic Minorities", inNaval War College Review. Vol. 19, No. 5.
January 1967. The doctrine is summarized in War on theMind: The Military Uses and
Abuses of Psychology, by Peter Watson, Penguin Books. Harmondsworth, (1980) pp.
270-1.
116. "US Policies toward Latin America Military Forces", op. cit.
117. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Combined GVN-US Effort to Intensify Pacification Efforts
in Critical Provinces", 19 June 1964 (SECRET); Carrollton Press (90A) (1979).
118. Ibid. The "counter-terrorist" organization is to be created at the "precinct" level: "A
"precinct” is the smallest practicable political subdivision, just above the block or
the apartment house in numbers of people. Selected military, paramilitary and
governmental persons must support this organization. It will be created from
among the young elite which exists everywhere . . .”.
119. Ibid. See also US Army Handbook of Counterinsurgency Guidelines for Area
Commanders: An Analysis of Criteria. January 1966 (Headquarters, Department of
the Army Pamphlet No. 550-100).
120. Lt. Col. John J. McCuen. US Army, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War: The
Strategy of Counterinsurgency. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books (1967), p. 110.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid., p. 224.
123. Handbook of Counterinsurgency Guidelines for Area Commanders, op. cit.. p. 251.
124. Ibid.
125. See Volume 11. Guatemala.
126. McCuen. op. cit., p. 111.
127. Ibid., p. 112.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid.
Chapter 4
103. Chalmers A. Johnson. "Guerrilla Conflict”, in World Politics. July 1962, pp. 650-
51.
131. Ibid., quoting Virgil Ney, "Guerrilla War and Modern Strategy", in Orbis. Vol. II,
Spring. 1958. pp. 75-6.
132. Time magazine, 28 January 1968, as cited in NACLA, Guatemala, op. cit.
133. Jean Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Lieutenant in Algeria. Alfred A. Knopf, New York,
1957; quoted in McCuen. op. cit.
134. Chalmers Johnson, op. cit., pp. 351-2.
135. Ibid. For a theoretical examination of the phenomenon see E. V. Walter’s landmark
study. Terror and Resistance. A Study of Political Violence. Oxford University Press.
Oxford (1969).
136. US Army Handbook of Counterinsurgency Guidelines for Area Commanders, op. cit.
137. Ibid. Douglas Pike, head of the Psychological Warfare Section of the US military
79
mission in South Vietnam during much of the 1960s provided a working definition
of "terror” as: "the systematic use of death, pain, fear and anxiety among the
population (either civilian or military) for the deliberate purpose of coercing,
manipulating, intimidating, punishing or simply frightening the helpless into
submission”. Douglas Pike, "The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror", 1970, quoted in
Frances Fitzgerald, op. cit,, p.505.
138. G-2 Report. Military Attache A.R. Harris. 24 April 1934, Record Group 165,
National Archive. Washington. D.C.
139. US Army Handbook of Counterinsurgency Guidelines ... op. ciL (1966), Appendix C.
140. See Volume II.
141. For reference to early Vietnam experiences of what was then another aspect of
“psychological warfare” see Pentagon Papers, Document 15. In the 1960s, the
concept of "psychological warfare” of the 1950s, was broken down into
components, among them forms of “counter-terror”. President Eisenhower
himself, was unhappy with the former term as imprecise, and maintained it could
mean almost anything: Memorandum for the Secretary of State, from President
D.D.E.. 24 October 1953. Carrollton Press (1975). “Psychological Warfare” was,
however, the catchword for the prosecution of the Cold War in the 1950s, apart
from the battlefields of Korea and intermittent large scale covert actions (that, for
example, overturned threatening regimes in Guatemala and Iran in 1954). A
special committee set up by President Eisenhower in late 1952. chaired by Bill
Jackson, was to provide a policy for the conduct of psychological warfare in the
Cold War. According to a “Top Secret” memorandum to President Eisenhower, it
was to prepare: “An analysis of all Psychological Warfare presently conducted by
this country; an appraisal of Russia”s cold war efforts; conclusions and
recommendations as to how we should prosecute the cold war, assuming
Psychological Warfare is not a freak of one or more Departments of the
Government, but a considered policy of the entire Government to win World War
III without having to fight it.” Memorandum. CD Jackson to General Eisenhower,
17 December 1952, “Psychological and/or Political Warfare”, from Carrollton
Press, ((R)219F).
142. Pentagon Papers, New York Times, New York, 1971.
143. Marchetti and Marks, op. cit., p. 123. For a summary ofpacification” initiatives of
this kind undertaken before 1969 see Director of Central Intelligence/United States
Intelligence Board, “Special National Intelligence Estimate”. No. 14-69, "The
Pacification Effort in Vietnam", 16 January 1969; in Carrollton Press (355B)
(1979).
144. Marchetti and Marks, op. cit., p. 236.
145. Ibid., quoting Wayne Cooper, former Foreign Service officer, adviser to the South
Vietnamese internal security programmes for 18 months. Virtually the only
references to Vietnam “counter-terror”, apart from the few official documents
available, appear in writings exposing CIA activities; reference to US Army
participation in such operations is fleeting. As even a cursory review of declassified
documents from the Army Special Forces experience in Vietnam, in the context of
a search for parallels with Central America, turned up quite solid information on
US Army involvement in counter-terror, scholars should be encouraged to
complete the puzzle through more intensive research into counter-terror in
Vietnam. William Colby in the “Colby Draft”, op. cit., refers to casualty figures for
“CT’ (counter-terror) teams.
146. CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate, “The Pacification Effort in Vietnam”.
16 January 1969. Carrollton Press (355B) (1979).
147. See Snepp, op. cit. p. 10; a similar description is given in Eitzgerald op cit p
412. ■’
148. Snepp, op. cit., p. 11.
149. Fitzgerald, op. cit, p. 412.
80
Notes for Part One
150. Ibid., pp. 411-12.

151. Marchetti and Marks, op. cit., p. 236. See also Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept
the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA, New York, Pocket Books (1981), p. 228.
152. Powers, op. cit., p. 231; ... in March 1968 Colby returned to Saigon |he had been
Station chief there between 1959 and 1962 according to Powers] as Komer's deputy
at CORDS. Later that year he replaced him ". This is obliquely confirmed in
"Special National Security Estimate", No. 14-69. op, cit,, p. 5. on the "Small
American-sponsored guerrilla eflort, now called Provincial Reconnaissance
Units,"
153. Frank Snepp, op. cit.. p. 577.
154. Ne\\' York Times, 3 October 1971. "House Panel Criticized",
155. Michael Klare. "Operation Phoenix and the Failure of Pacification in Vietnam",
Liberation, May 1973, p. 22. quoting US Congress, Hearings on "US Assistance
Programs in Vietnam”, 1971, pp. 122-3.
156. Ibid.
157. Marchetti and Marks, op. cit.. p. 237.
158. Fitzgerald, op. cit., p. 548.
159. Klare, op. cit.. p. 23, quoting Hearings on US Assistance Programs in Vietnam,
1971. p. 321. See also Thomas Powers, op. cit., pp. 230-1: "The idea was to identify
the VCl... [then] send Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs) or police teams to
get the men or women singled out. This sometimes involved straightforward arrest
in the cities, more often a paramilitary raid into NLF-controlled or contested
hamlets in the countryside. Ideally, "neutralization" meant capture, so that each
link in the chain might lead to others, but in practice death was the usual result,
sometimes in the course of a firefight as a PRU team [shot] its way into an enemy
camp at... dawn, and sometimes through assassination .,. Vietnamese veterans of
the Phoenix program tell of creeping into a man’s house in the night and shooting
him with silenced pistols as he lay asleep . . .
". . . Komer established quotas for the Phoenix units in South Vietnam’s 242
districts, with the inevitable inflationary results. One was indiscriminate killing
during hit-and-run raids, with every dead body arbitrarily labelled "VCI" after the
fact."
Power’s account of Phoenix operations is echoed by the mass killings, including
virtual exterminations of villages, in the Indian highlands of Guatemala in the
1980s, where the Indian population as a whole was considered “lost" to the
guerrillas.
160. Klare, op. cit.. quoting Hearings on US Assistance Programs in Vietnam. 1971. p.
331.
161. CORDS drew upon the computerized "Hamlet Evaluation System" (HES) and the
"Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation Program" (ICEX); the latter was a
system for data collection on the “Vietcong Infrastructure". See Powers, op. cit., pp.
228-9 and Fitzgerald, op. cit.. p. 453.
162. Klare. op. cit., p. 22, quoting Hearings on US Assistance Programs in Vietnam,
1971. p. 34.
163. Ibid., p. 22, quoting Rep. Jerome Waldie who investigated Phoenix in 1971, from
Hearings on US Assistance Programs in Vietnam, op. cit., p, 34.
164. Major John B. Bellinger. Jr., US Army. "Civilian Role in Anti-Guerrilla Warfare",
Military Review, September 1961.
165. Fitzgerald, op. cit. p. 550.
166. Michael Walzer.Tui/ and Unjust Wars, a Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations,
Harper, New York (1977) p. 186.
167. Ibid., p. 187. Reporter Allan Nairn writing in theAew York Times on mass counter¬
insurgent killings in Guatemala (“Guatemala Can’t Take Two Roads". 20 July
1982) pointed out the inherent contradiction in United States’ demands that the
Guatemalans respect foreign sensibilities on human rights, while simultaneously
demanding the guerrillas be crushed, whatever their level of support.
81
168. See Chapter 5. for reference to US assistance in targetting for counter-terror.
Chapter 5
169. US Department of State, “Interdepartmental Technical Subcommittee on Police
Advisory Assistance Programs". Report of the Interdepartmental Subcommittee on
Police Advisory Assistance Programs. 11 June 1962 (Freedom of Information Act
Request, declassified 2 April 1981). p. 2, citing National Security Action
Memorandum (NSAM) 132, 19 February 1962. The same report summarizes the
background of US police assistance programmes, attributing the policy in force at
the beginningof the Kennedy administration to "NSC [National Security Council]
Action 1290-d and ... presently set forth in Paragraphs 25 and 39 ofNSC 5906/1 ...
designed to strengthen internal security forces of the Free World as a means of
combating infiltration and subversion." As noted, reorganization and rationali¬
zation of the programme was impelled in the 1960s by key NSAMs 56 (28 June
1961) ordering "the evaluation of paramilitary requirements" for “counterinsur¬
gency". and 114 (22 November 1961) which assigned the Department of State
primary responsibility, in collaboration with the Secretary of Defense and the
Director of the CIA to make “a continuing review of US support for friendly police
and armed forces and their training in riot control, counter subversion, counter
insurgency and related operations."
170. Ibid.. Interdepartmental Subcommittee, pp. 2-3, and Attachment A, Memo¬
randum, 2 May 1962 to U. Alexis Johnson. Deputy Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs, from Byron Engle, Subject, “Suggested Terms of Reference for
Technical Subcommittee". NSAM 132, 19 February 1962. ordered the review of
AID police operations, and NSAM 146, 20 April 1962. ordered the creation of the
inter-departmental subcommittee. Appointments to the "Technical Subcom¬
mittee" reported in the 2 May 1962 memorandum were as follows:
“The following individuals have been appointed to the Technical Subcommittee;
Lt. Col. David Dingeman (Defense); Mr H. Lynn Edwards (Justice); Mr Byron
Engle, Chairman (CIA); Mr. Edward Kennelly (AID)"
171. Ibid., p. 4.
172. Ibid,, p. 63.
173. Ibid., p. 55, Section 12, Eindings and Recommendations.
174. David Epstein. “The Police Role in Counterinsurgency Efforts", Journal of
Criminal Law, Criminology and Political Science. Vol. 54, 1968.
175. Ibid., p. 149.
176. Cited in Nancy Stein, “Policing the Empire", The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove: An
Analysis of the US Police. Berkeley. California, Center for Research on Criminal
Justice, (1977).
177. Milton Lipson, “Terror; The World"s Fastest Growing Business", United Nations
World. February 1948.
178. Ibid.
179. Morris Janowitz, Military Institutions and Coercion in Developing Nations. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press (1977), p. 29.
180. “Address of General William Westmoreland to the 8th Conference of American
Armies", Rio de Janeiro, 25 September 1968, cited in NACLA Newsletter, Vol. 11,
No. 6, p. 10.
181. Interdepartmental Subcommittee on Police Advisory Assistance Programs
(hereafter Interdepartmental Subcommittee, 1962), op. cit, “Central Intelligence
Agency participation in police advisory programs", pp. 16-7.
182. Ibid., p. 7.
183. Ibid., p. 16. “Counter subversion", the overall term applied to various fields of CIA
action in the police advisory and assistance programme was defined in
Department of Defense Field Manual 31-16, p. 18 as; “that part of counter¬
intelligence aimed at destroying the effectiveness of subversive activity by means of
detection, identification, exploitation, penetration, manipulation, deception, and
82
Notes for Part One
repression of individuals, groups or organizations that carry out or are capable of

carrying out such activities. Cited in Americas Watch/American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU). Report on Human Rights in El Salvador. Second Supplement, 20
January 1983, p. 88. Apparently, most clandestine, or e.xtra-legal governmental
action against opposition groups or individual dissidents, fell within the definition
of “counter subversion".
184. Ibid.
185. Ibid., p. 17.
186. Ibid.
187. Letter, 12 September 1973, Senator James Abourezk to Lauren J. Goin, then
Director of the Office ot Public Safety; and letter in response from AID official
Matthew J. Harvey, 25 September 1973 (photocopies).
188. Letter. 25 September 1973. Matthew J. Harvey to Senator Abourezk.
189. Ibid.
190. Ibid.
191 . Course outline for "Course No. 6" (photocopy).
192. A.J. Langguth. Hidden Terrors. New York: Pantheon (1978), p. 243.
193. Ibid.
194. Office of Public Safety, "Report on Visit to Central America and Panama to Study
AID Public Safety Programs". Ambassador C. Allan Stewart (ret.). Declassified 4
April 1980. through a Freedom of Information Act request by the author, pp. 5 and
23.
195. Ibid., p. 5.
196. Ibid., p. 23.
197. Ibid., p. 5.
198. Ibid.
199. Ibid., p. 12.
200. Ibid. The same source describes the security system in Costa Rica in terms that
might shock those who know only that the country “has no army". "Costa Rica has
a hodge-podge of law enforcement agencies, some4.500 people being supervised by
ten distinct agencies under five ministries. Costa Rica boasts of no army but its
1.700 man Guardia Civil is a military-type organization that has been trained over
the past 26 years by a US Military Mission. It is the backbone of the security forces
in Costa Rica."
201. Interdepartmental Subcommittee, 1962, op. cit., p. 19.
202. Ibid.
203. Ibid., p. 3; the situation in 1962 was outlined:
"Currently. AID has 38 programs, six . . . concern the training of participants or
provision of equipment only; DOD has six programs. CIA has no overt police
assistance programs. In general CIA endeavors to develop the investigative
techniques, and AID the capabilities of the police to deal with the militant aspects
of subversion and insurgency".
204. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Office of the Special Assistant for Counter-Insurgency and
Special Activities. MJCS 331-66. 15 November 1966, Counterinsurgency Bluebook
Fiscal Year 1966, p. 256. Carrollton Press Declassified Documents Reference
System ((R)242D).
205. Ibid.
206. Subcommittee on America Republics Affairs of the Committee on Foreign
Relations, US Senate, 91st Congress, 1st Session. Survey of the Alliance for Progress,
Compilation of Studies and Hearings. 1969, Statement of Covey T. Oliver, who at the
time was also “Coordinator" of the Alliance for Progress. Equipment provided was
not described.
207. Ibid., Testimony of David D. Burke. Associate Professor of History, University of
Indiana, p. 495.
208. Ibid.
209. Ibid., Statement of Covey T. Oliver.
83
210. "Accomplishments of US Public-Safety Programs in Latin America , Journal of

Inter-American Economic Affairs. Vol. XXVI, Spring 1973, No. 4, pp. 83-90,
reproducing extracts from "Hearings on Foreign Assistance Fiscal Year 1973,
Subcommittee on Appropriations, US Senate’, pp. 413-30 and Hearings on
Foreign Assistance Fiscal Year 1973, Subcommittee on Appropriations, House,
Part IF, pp, 789-826,
211. Miguel Angel Asturias, El Sehor Presidente. Edicion Universidad de San Carlos,
Guatemala (1967), p. 54 (translated by the author),
212. Office of Public Safety, Chief Public Safety Advisor(Guatemala) David Laughlin,
27 April 1960 and OPS, USAID Mission/Guatemala, D,L. Crisostomo, Chief
Public Safety Advisor, 6 December 1963.
213. International Cooperation Administration, Report on the National Police of El
Salvador. November 1956.
214. OPS. Ambassador C. Allan Stewart, op. cit.. p. 24.
215. See ibid., and below.
216. General DEM Carlos Guzman Aguilar, "Ea Subversion Comunista y las Acciones
Guerrilleras". Revista de la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor "Manuel Enrique
Araujo". July-December 1970.
217. Ibid., p. 17. Here General Guzman also recommends the use of the intelligence
collection network as a resource in the conduct of “psychological warfare
operations" using Civic Action programmes and propaganda; “psychological
operations" are to be carried out “in support of our regular and guerrilla forces";
“The organs of information such as the press, radio and television are propitious
means for dissemination of programs prepared in order to develop a patriotic spirit
within the national civil population ... to win converts to our cause as well as to
justify any warlike attitude on our part, and any position taken by our Government
in order to preserve our national sovereignty before the rest of the world."
218. Ibid.
219. Ibid., p. 16.
220. Office of Public Safety. Termination Phase-Out Study: Public Safety Project
Guatemala. July 1974, p. 81. OPS. Ambassador C. Allan Stewart, op. cit., (p. 8)
reported in 1967 that each station in the net was manned on a 24 hour basis, and
linked into “the local police, border patrol, customs and military systems,"
221. OPS. Termination Phase-Out Study: Public Safety Project Guatemala, op. cit., p.
81.
222. Lt. Col. John Childs, “The Inter-American Military System”. PhD Dissertation,
American University (1976) p. 403.
223. Ibid.
224. Ibid., citing General Porter, Commander SOUTHCOM, in hearings before the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1966. Gen. Porter also noted that
“communications equipment provided through the military assistance program is
compatible so that it will function in a regional system."
225. Interdepartmental Subcommittee, 1962, op. cit., p. 16. The stated CIA objective to
"develop investigative mechanisms capable of detecting subversive individuals
and organizations ..." (1962) is similar to a 1967 memorandum to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee outlining objectives of the Public Safety Program:
“Individual Public Safety programs... are focused in general on developing within
the civil security forces a balance of(l) a capability for regular police operations,
with (2) an investigative capability for detecting criminal and/or subversive
individuals and organizations and neutralizing their activities ranging from
demonstrations, disorders, or riots through small-scale guerrilla operations. This
requires a carefully integrated effort between the investigative element and the
regular police, paramilitary or military force, operating separately or in conjunc¬
tion with each other."
Agency for International Development, Office of Public Safety. 1 February 1967,
"AID Assistance to Civil Security Forces"; “The balance of this paper is excerpted
84
Notes for Part One
from recent testimony before a Senate Committee by former Administrator Bell

describing the AID Public Safety Program".
226. Ibid., p. 10.
227 Journal of Inter-American Economic Affairs. Spring 1973. No. 4 pp 83-90
228. Ibid.
229. Michael Klare, "Phoenix Reborn: US Continues Support for Thieu's Police",
typescript, 1973. Klare produced some of the most detailed writing on Phoenix, and
documented the perpetuation of the programme after the Paris peace accords of
January 1973, after its official disbanding.
230. Ibid.
231. Ibid.
232. Laurie Nadel and Hech Weiner, "Would you sell a computer to Hitler?", Computer
Decisions. February 1977, pp. 22-5.
233. Philip Agee. Inside the Company: CIA Diary’. New York: Bantam (1978) p. 114. Agee
refers to his experience in the CIA office in Ecuador in 1960.
234. Ibid.
235. A principal factor in congressional decisions first to limit, and finally to abolish
police training and assistance programmes was the evidence that the Public Safety
Program had taught or encouraged torture, and that its personnel were (rightly or
wrongly) identified with "police terrorism" in the countries assisted. Research by
aides of Senator James Abourezk in 1974 centred on the International Police
Academy in Washington. D.C., where they examined a selection of the papers
prepared by trainees and found many that openly justified the use of torture. Jack
Anderson, syndicated columnist, summarized findings of his own inquiries in
"The Torture Graduates" New York Post. 3 August 1974.
236. Public Law 93-559.
237. Letter. William E. Colby to William J. Fulbright. 31 July 1974 (photocopy).
238. The CIA was also provided with an escape clause: "Sec. 662. Limitation on
Intelligence Activities. - (a) No funds appropriated under the authority of this or
any other Act may be expended by or on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency
for operations in foreign countries, other than activities intended solely for
obtaining necessary intelligence, unless and until the President finds that each
such operation is important to the national security of the United States and
reports, in a timely fashion, a description and scope of such operation to the
appropriate committees of the Congress, including the committee on Foreign
Relations of the United States Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the
United States House of Representatives."
239. Brookings Institution (Ernest W. Lefever). US Public Safety Assistance: An
Assessment, December 1973, pp. 137-44.
85
\
Part 2: Land, Labour and
Security: 1820s
to 1960s
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6: The Politics of Land
and Labour
For more than a century after its independence from Spain, in 1821, the
United States' influence on El Salvador was minimal. Legend has it that
in 1822, as the militia of the former colonial province of San Salvador
fought off occupation troops from Agustin Iturbide’s newly founded
Mexican Empire, the gentry appealed to the US to accept San Salvador
as a new state. Subsequent events overwhelmed this appeal, if indeed it
had ever formally been made. Iturbide was overthrown and executed
and the Empire dissolved, with only one province of the former Cap¬
taincy General of Guatemala — Chiapas — opting to join the Mexicans.
Under the leadership of Salvadoreans, a constitutional assembly rep¬
resenting Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa
Rica, which met in Guatemala City in June 1823, founded the United
Provinces of Central America. Manuel Jose Arce — leader of San
Salvador's abortive 1814 revolt against Spain - was elected president,
but the union endured only until 1838.
The collapse of the United Provinces was a symptom of the irrecon¬
cilable differences between the Liberal and the Conservative factions
into which the elite classes of Central America, and most of Latin
America, had divided by the time of independence. Liberals stood for
radical change in the structure of the economy, in the relation of the
Church to the State, and, in Central America, for the concept of the
federated provinces. The Conservatives sought to keep things much as
they were a century before: to preserve the traditional systems of
agricultural production and land ownership, maintain inviolate the
Church's privileges and generally to maintain the role or structure of
government as near as possible to that of colonial days.'
In 1838, the United Provinces collapsed with the defeat of the great
Liberal leader. General Francisco Morazan, by Guatemalan Rafael
Carrera, an illiterate of Indian descent and military genius backed by
the Church, the great estate owners, and others threatened by the ‘mod¬
ern' ideas of 19th Century Liberalism. A champion of Conservatism, he
took periodic military action to keep hand-picked Conservatives in the
presidency of each of the other new states of the region throughout his
27 years in power until his death in 1865.
89
Land, Labour and Security: 1820s to 1960s
The concern here is not with the formal structures of Central

American governments, or the influence of the United States, the
French Revolution or other factors on the formulation of constitutions,
but with the development of organized police and militaiy bodies to
maintain public order and internal security. The exigencies of inter¬
state warfare in the 19th Centuiy significantly influenced how military
institutions developed, but the greater influence on both military and
police development was wrought by the necessities of internal order;
these, in turn, were dictated largely by the division of land and the
changing requirements for agricultural labour.
Rafael Carrera’s long reign effectively froze most military institu¬
tions in the hybrid form which had emerged as, without preparation,
colonial militias of each region's cities stepped into the roles of armies
of independent states. In this regard El Salvador’s problems were less
serious than Nicaragua’s, where the city militias’ of Granada and Leon
clashed for a long period, and the new country effectively had two com¬
peting armies throughout most of the century. The development of
national armies in the region was based on ad hoc adaptations of the
city-based militias, in some states retaining the legislation of the 18th
Century, although departing from the colonial laws’ exclusion oiIndian
troops.’ Officers remained almost exclusively cno//o5 - Central American-
born citizens of Spanish parentage — but turned to the use of press-
ganged Indian conscripts for occasional expeditionary forces against
neighbouring states.
As in the colonial period, a principal function of the militias and
incipient armies was to be available at short notice to put down the
regular Indian rebellions throughout the region,^ and to provide a
mechanism to forcibly overcome Indian communities’ reluctance to
comply with tax, labour, and other obligations required of them by the
state. The militia or military forces were the means whereby Indian
communities could be threatened with reprisals, through exemplary
violence, for the trangressions of their individual members.
The structure of local government, inherited from the Spanish at
independence, played a major role in how central government could
deal with Indian communities, and how the communities themselves
could be entrusted with the performance of basic police functions:
obligations to maintain order, health and safety, and decorum. From
the first years of independence these police functions were defined to
include the obligation to ensure members of each Indian community
provided the labour required by neighbouring private farms.
• . Centuiy, when a series a Liberal governments
introduced radical changes in the very landscape of El Salvador and
much of the rest of Central America, the cities and towns, and the small
Indian communities, were governed in accord with essentially democ¬
ratic systems inherited from the mid-16th Century, when the laws
governing the Spanish colonies of the Americas were reformed to
90
The Politics of Land and Labour
introduce a model of municipal government based on the Spanish

cabildo. The intention was to restore responsibility for local affairs in
Indian communities to traditional Indian leadership, and to “eliminate
the worst of the abuses perpetrated... against the Indians”."
Also inherited from colonial legislation, and, indeed, a relic of pre¬
colonial indigenous settlement patterns, was a system whereby the
agricultural lands of Indian communities were held in common; a land
tenure system that conflicted with Liberal ideology. Efforts by Liberal
governments to eliminate corporate landholdings (and to redistribute
them to agricultural entrepreneurs in private estates) were a primary
cause of 19th Century Indian revolts, and at times joined the com-
munites in common cause with the region’s largest corporate land-
owner; the Church. Alienation of Indian lands remained the major factor
in the revolutionary impulses of the Salvadorean peasantry in the 20th
Century; containing these impulses became the primary function of
government.
In El Salvador the triumph of the Liberals in the late 19th Century
was followed by the creation of a secular state, and the fragmentation of
much of the Church's property; but the Church endured without the
extremes of anti-clericalism experienced elsewhere under Liberal rule,
and subsequently turned away from its defence of the rights of the
Indian communities. For the people of El Salvador, the limitations on
the Church's powers were less significant than the systematic breaking
up of the Indian communities, by confiscating and redistributing
their communal lands to non-Indian entrepreneurs. In El Salvador
this process advanced perhaps more rapidly than elsewhere in the
Americas, and transformed the nature of society more closely to the pres¬
criptions of Liberal ideology, with the land almost wholly turned over to
the cultivation of agricultural products for export.
During 1825, General Manuel Jose Arce was temporarily assisted in
training his militia by two French army officers; but not until the arrival
of a French Military Mission under the presidency of Gerardo Barrios
(1858-63) was El Salvador's army separated from its militia roots and
reorganized systematically as a national army on the European model;
this progress was encouraged by the foundation of a military academy
in 1869.'
The development of police systems beyond the strictly local patterns
of colonial society paralleled the evolution of urban elite-based militias
toward institutions concerned with national defence against foreign
enemies. Police structures developed late in the century were intended
to take over much of the internal security function hitherto performed
by the militias or the army.' The police would, moreover, be required to
contain the enormous unrest provoked by Liberal measures to deprive
the Indian population of their land.’
91
The Police: Role and Function
Police legislation in early post-colonial El Salvador dealt primarily with

Indian communities’ authorities’ duties to ensure that community
obligations to the state were fulfilled. The police function was defined to
include matters of public safety and, for example, keeping the streets
clean and walls whitewashed. A primary obligation of community
government, spelled out in a law of 29 April 1825 which remained in
force for most of the century, was the detection and punishment of
vagrancy.^ Vagrancy was defined broadly, and the implementation of
the vagrancy law was a principal means to ensure a labour supply for the
plantations or estates surrounding the communities. The 1825 statute
declared that members of Indian communities lacking visible means of
support were to be detained and sentenced as vagrants, and “dis¬
tributed” to the local “hacienda and farm owners”. The hacienda
owners in turn were obliged to report to local officials if the former
vagrants were satisfactory workers; if they were not they could be
punished as recidivists in vagrancy. The alcaldes,, or mayors of the com¬
munities were also required under the law to compile a list of all the day
labourers — jornaleros — of their communities, and to ensure on their
own responsibility that “each Monday, they leave to work on the
haciendas”.
The mayor and the town council of the Indian communities were
also personally responsible under the law to provide the labour
necessary to the local haciendas, whether or not any vagrants were on
hand. As the leaders of their community, these officials were required to
provide “the assistance of the numbers of people requested for labour”.
Unless the community could prove that the labourers needed were not
available, it could be made collectively liable for any loss incurred by the
hacienda owners, although this particular provision may not have been
enforced. To prove that no labour was available the law provided for town
leaders to list all local day labourers and their place of employment
One can only speculate on the capability of the almost entirely illiterate
Indian communities to produce such an account. “Vagranf' women
were required to work as servants in houses that requested their services.
The first code of “Police Regulations” was issued in a law of 12 May
1843, collating previous legislation, including the 1825 police and
vagrancy law. The principal executor of the police function remained
the local authorities of towns and communities. After 1843, a new ele¬
ment in local government and law enforcement was the appointment in
each community of special constables (Alcaldes de Policia) under the
mayors’ authority. For primarily Indian towns (pueblos de indigenas) a
separate post was created which was hierarchically subordinated to the
(elecUd) mayor, but exercised the principal police function in the com¬
munity. Called Corregidores, they were to be appointed directly by the
provincial governor. They carried the same symbol of authority as did
92
the mayor, a ceremonial cane or bastdn, and were to act as inter¬

mediaries between the hacienda owners employing day labourers and
the communities which provided them. Payment was no longer to be
made to individual labourers, but to the Corregidor, or, where none was
appointed, the mayor himself. In either case the intermediary was
entitled to a “gratification" based on a percentage of the total. This new
post forced a wedge into the traditional autonomy of local government
and opened an avenue whereby hacienda owners could buy off local
community officials. In 1854, for misdemeanour offences, a body of
police regulations approximating a penal code became law; to be enfor¬
ced by local government it focused on maintaining a peasant/master
social order. Its first chapter dealt with vagrancy, its sixth and seventh
with punishments for workers whose obligations to their employers
were not fulfilled. The punishment for farm workers who failed to arrive
at work, was from 15 to 30 strokes of the rod, plus paying the cost of their
capture. Hacienda owners were to inform authorities of a runaway
farmworker within 48 hours. Runaway wet-nurses “will be pursued and
forced to provide milk to the children in their charge” or, should their
employers no longer want their services, face 20 days' imprisonment.
Vagrants were to build and repair roads. Other chapters of the regula¬
tions concerned gambling, illegal alcohol-making, begging and carry¬
ing prohibited weapons.
Despite the violence that horsemen sent from the capital could wreak
on uncooperative community leaders, these efforts to regiment the
labour force proved quite inadequate. The weakness was met by a new
set of laws intended to bridge the gap between local law enforcement
resources and the crisis-oriented deployment of militias or Army troops
by the central authorities.
In 1855 a new set of regulations was issued to organize the first effort
at a non-local “Rural Police” forcef roving inspectors who were to pat¬
rol the highways and the countryside, supervise the transport of
prisoners, protect travellers and pursue highwaymen. They could also
request military escorts from the local Army commandants, and were
empowered to call on hacienda owners for assistance in the pursuit of
bandits or rebels, along the lines of the sheriffs posse of the American
Old West. The inspector could fine those who refused such assistance,
although, presumably the non-Indian elites, haeienda owners and
townsmen alike, would have co-operated in defending their own
interests. These rural police inspectors were also empowered to act as
magistrates, and could penalize those minor offences codified in the
police regulations with fines, or jail sentences of up to 30 days. An
important difference between the new plan and earlier proposals was
that it provided for costs to be covered by central governmenfs
budget.'" , . • u f
Despite these early efforts to extend the state s authority by means of
a national police network covering the rural areas, only after radical
93
Land. Labour and Security: 1820s to 1960s
changes in the land tenure system in the 1870s and 1880s was a really
effective national police system developed. The new rural police legisla¬
tion and organization which resulted was, as before, primarily oriented
to controlling rural labour.
“A Revolution in Our Agriculture”: Coffee Cultivation
A major change took place in El Salvador with the introduction of cof¬

fee culture; suitable only in the highlands, where the traditional Indian
communities were concentrated, requiring several years capital out¬
flow before the first crop was harvested, and a large, permanent, labour
supply. The arrival of coffee not only provided a strong incentive to
drive the Indians off their communally held lands, but eventually
resulted in a wholly new settlement pattern, a new relation between
labourer and private farm owner, and an improved security system to
regulate the transition from traditional society, and the smooth
functioning of the new society.
Private landowners' unplanned yet continual encroachment on the
Indian communal lands after about 1850 was judged inadequate by pro¬
ponents of a rapid transition to export agriculture. Advocates of state
intervention to force the transfer of lands to those prepared to invest in a
cash crop economy argued that the system of communal lands impeded
progress and encouraged the peasantry's laziness: peasants could pro¬
vide their own basic needs from community lands and, therefore, had to
be forced to work on the private estates."
Legislation introduced between 1879 and 1881 first regulated the use
of ejido communal lands, and then abolished them, organizing their
transfer to private ownership. “We are witnessing a true revolution in
our agriculture,'' trumpeted an editorial in the Diario Oficial of 11
December 1879. “In all the Republic we are enclosing and dividing land
for the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, agave, rubber and other valuable
crops.''" It was, indeed, a revolution, but wholly at the expense of the
peasantry, who lost most of their land in the process and were forced to
become plantation workers. Private investors, upon guaranteeing to
divert former community lands to cash crops, received title to the lands,
and were then authorized to evict the former residents, as squatters, and
could call on the army to assist them. The takeover was fiercely resisted;
there were frequent disturbances and, occasionally, judges responsible
for adjudicating formerly communal lands to private owners were cap¬
tured by the aggrieved communities and their hands cut off."
Initially, legislation for the reallocation of community lands was to
be implemented by local government, but it was clear from the outset
that to force the transfers, direct intervention of central authority was
necessary, at first in the form of the army. In 1888, however, the gap bet¬
ween the army and the local authorities was bridged by legislation
94
tailored strictly to the needs of the coffee growers of Western El

Salvador, where unrest was threatening the early success of the coffee
industry. A Legislative Decree, in force from March 1888,'^' authorized
the formation of a rural mounted police corps for the Western depart¬
ments of Ahuachapan, Sonsonate and Santa Ana, and its preamble
referred to the national importance of the agricultural enterprises of the
region, the growth of crime there, and the need to protect coffee produc¬
tion. The law stated that the new force would be financed exclusively
from a tax on coffee exports from the districts where the units were
based. In 1900, legislation extended this “security tax” to exports from
other plantation districts to which rural police units had been
dispatched.'^
These rural police were to patrol all settlements not under effective
control of a local municipal government, an increasingly large propor¬
tion of the coffee lands, as communities literally disappeared as the land
- their traditional means of livelihood - was absorbed into private
estates. The police were to protect the private estates and,
prevent the firing of fields, the clearance of timber and undergrowth from
the banks of the rivers, unauthorized hunting and fowling... the settle¬
ment. clearing, and burning of any land belonging to private estates.'^
There was to be no subsistence outside of the plantation system.

In 1887, local city police organizations, departing from the law enfor¬
cement tradition of watchmen and part-time constables, were established
in the prosperous cities of the coffee growing areas, Santa Ana, Son¬
sonate and Ahuachapan, their charters approved by the central govern¬
ment. In San Salvador itself a permanent professional police corps of
100 men and 18 officers and administrators had been set up since
1883."
Provisions to force the peasantry to work on the private farms and
estates were, on paper, similar to those laid down in the police legisla¬
tion regarding “vagrancy” and labour obligations enacted soon after
independence; they differed in that they were now enforceable by the
new rural police which could override local government, or hold it
accountable for non-compliance. The Army, of course, could always be
called in when things got out of hand.
Another innovation was the appointment in each village of,
‘agricultural judges’... [who] were to keep lists of all day labourers (jor-
naleros), arrange for the capture of those who left an estate before fulfilling
their obligations, and visit private estates regularly to check the need
for workers”.'*
Propertyless labourers or those without permanent paid employment

were required each week to produce a receipt from a farm owner as
95
proof to the local police, inspector or mayor, that they had not been
idle.
Increasingly deprived of their lands, seeing themselves reduced to
regimented day labourers, the existing communities began to disin¬
tegrate. In a measure designed to ensure the permanent labour supply
necessary to coffee culture, without depending for support on the fragile
structure of local government, the new coffee barons began to require
labourers to live in entirely new settlements within the large estates.
These settlements, still to be seen strung out along internal estate road¬
ways, fell outside the scope of legislation governing population centres
and local government, and administration was entirely the respons¬
ibility of the landowner. The traditional practice, whereby farmworkers
had their own patch on the large estates to grow subsistence crops, was
abandoned, in part because coffee lands were too valuable, but also
because their labour was required all year round. Denying the workers
any recourse to subsistence farming (food was supplied by the adminis¬
trators) and maintaining the option of expelling recalcitrant workers
from the settlements, placed the labour force entirely at the owners'
mercy.
As provisions intended to force the peasantry to work on the private
estates were, in substance, new forms of the old vagrancy and labour
laws, so legislation dissolving and redistributing the communal lands was
to some extent mere legalization of a process already well underway.
David Browning, in his study El Salvador: Landscape and Society, des¬
cribes the whittling away of the community lands of just one village,
Juayua, in the department of Sonsonate, initially surrounded by exten¬
sive and fertile communal lands. By 1858 three large plantations had
been established on its outskirts; by 1877 the village was renamed “El
Progreso” because of the prosperity of its surrounding coffee planta¬
tions. By 1879 official reports stated that the Indians of Juayua no longer
held sufficient lands for their traditional subsistence crops. In 1881,
when the holding of community lands was abolished, little was left to
surrender. “The ultimate reaction of the villagers to this situation was
demonstrated when, in 1932, Juayua became the headquarters of the
largest peasant uprising Central America has experienced.”*’ The
expropiation of their lands and the regimentation of their labour left lit¬
tle alternative when the coffee economy crashed in the World Depres¬
sion of the early 1930s, taking away their only means of subsistence,
leaving them with nothing to eat.
By 1912 the process of accumulation of the land alienated from the
Indian communities had largely been completed, and the famous “14
families”, still said to dominate El Salvador, had established their
domains. There was no longer enough land attached to communities to
permit widespread subsistance farming, and, especially in the heavily
populated western area, farmworkers either worked for the planters,
starved or emigrated. Thereafter, the police function was directed away
96
from forcing workers, through vagrancy laws and labour levies, to pro¬
vide labour for the planters, and toward the new problems of public
order and political control that emerged with the disappearance of com¬
munity structures and the self-policing role of the local communities
with them.
Creation of the National Guard

In 1912, the evolution of a specialized rural police system culminated
with the creation of a National Guard, modelled roughly on the Spanish
Civil Guard and organized by Spanish Civil Guard officers. Captains
Juan F. Velutini and Alfonso Martin Garrido. The National Guard was
placed under the operational control of the Ministry of Government
and Development, and at the time considered a progressive alternative
to the involvement of the army in rural law enforcement functions.^”
From the beginning the National Guard was a rural force, charged with
enforcing new legislation intended to deal with political or trade union
organization among the rural workers or, more precisely, to stop it. The
uprooted population presented a much more complex public order pro¬
blem than did the earlier, traditional society: to meet it a ban on trade
union organization among agricultural workers imposed by the 1907
Agrarian Code (Ley Agraria) was enforced by the National Guard.
While the Guard’s main duty was to enforce political control on the
rural population, it was also to continue enforcement of more petty pro¬
visions which had been part of agrarian legislation for many years. Pro¬
tecting coffee and fruit plantations was a priority: Guardsmen were
admonished not to permit fruit gatherers to work without the owner’s
or his administrator’s written permission; and to arrest strangers on
sight if found gathering firewood, picking berries, or otherwise harvest¬
ing fruit without written authorization; the Guard would also take on
the former municipal task of keeping records of names and descriptions
of employees and dependants of the plantations."'
While the National Guard was a major contribution to the
Salvadorean security system, there was also a parallel improvement of
the urban police system, which was integrated with a national network
comparable to the Guard.
Already in 1905 an executive decree had ordered the transfer of part
of San Salvador’s police force to San Miguel, the second city of the
Republic, with central government funding; the San Salvador police
were already a nationally supported body. By the end of 1906 the full
time police forces of the other major cities were linked administratively
to the San Salvador police, to create the nucleus of a national police
corps. This was regularized in 1912, when Spanish army captain
Alfonso Martin Garrido was appointed commander of all the perma¬
nent civil police organizations, and supervised the setting-up of a train¬
ing programme. At the same time, a parallel political investigations
97
branch of the national police was initiated, to be controlled by the Presi¬

dent and the Ministry of Government, under the direction of Juan F.
Velutini (who subsequently developed the National Guard). The Cen¬
tral Security Corps {Cuerpo de Seguridad Central de la Republica) was a
prototype for the political police organizations which were to follow.^^
President Manuel E. Araujo (1911-13) is generally credited with
having established the basis of a professional law enforcement system,
and sought to relieve the army of its police function; he is also
credited with reforms to the army itself which have permanently
influenced the security system. Today, Salvadorean army writers date to
Araujo's short presidency the introduction of elements conducive to
greater professionalization in the army, including the creation of a
General Staff - again on the advice of Spanish officers; the creation of
an army educational corps to give troops minimal education; the
reorganization of the army hierarchy along present-day lines; and the
organization of a workable army reserve system (that, as one source puts
it, could be “mobilized within 72 hours’’).^^ The reserve system entailed
conscript soldiers, on completing their active service, remaining on
reserve duty for a period to take part in neighbourhood patrols (patrullas
de barrio, patrullas cantonales) under the command of the local army or
National Guard post.^'^ The army, then, was not relieved of local law
enforcement as President Araujo may have hoped.
The test of the new rural security apparatus came years later, in 1932,
with the overthrow of another President Araujo - Arturo Araujo - and
the outbreak of widespread agrarian revolts.
98
7: Buying Time Against
Revolution
Massacre: 1932
The development of an elaborate security system, the recent explosive

escalation of state terror, and violent revolution in El Salvador today,
would be inexplicable without reference to events that rocked El
Salvador in 1932. In January that year Indian peasants in western El
Salvador revolted; the revolt was crushed within 48 hours. In the follow¬
ing days 30,000 of a population then of less than one million Salva¬
doreans were massacred. Since then, the civilian elites of El Salvador
have ceded the direction of government to the army, whose prirnary
objective has been to ensure that the opportunity for peasant majorities
to rise up in a greater and less easily crushed revolt never occurs. Given
the national obsession with the possibility of vengeful peasant hordes
marching on the towns and into the villas of the rich, the development
and strengthening of the security system remained a major area of
initiative under each military government since 1932.
Today's security system is a pastiche of elements of the elaborate sys¬
tem developed in the wake of the 1932 revolt and modern organization
and techniques introduced in the 1960s. Examination of the organiza¬
tion and operation of this system since 1932 reveals considerably more
of the nature of political power and authority, of privilege and oppres¬
sion in El Salvador, than a reading of the various constitutions in force
during the period, or analysing the political platforms published by the
succession of official parties through which the military have ruled.
Salvadoreans of all social classes consider 1932 as a year of almost mys¬
tical significance. For the rich, the revolt that triggered the massacre is
the main topic; had the godless (Communist) savages (Indians) not
been crushed, the country would have been over-run and civilization
itself destroyed. Among the poor, the killing grounds of 1932 are still
pointed out, and the fear, the hatred, still remain, burned into the minds
of each successive generation.
In the 1970s Salvadorean elites began to look on 1932 as a model res¬
ponse to the threat of rebellion - and, indeed, placed paid advertise¬
ments in leading newspapers warning that a similar remedy remained a
99
Land Labour and Security: 1820s to 1960s
possibility should “subversives” continue their activities - but in the

immediate aftermath of the massacre, revulsion, guilt and, perhaps, fear
of revenge contributed to an effort to erase the events from Salvadorean
history. Those involved in the killing preferred that nothing remained
on paper. The archives of daily newspapers removed all material from
the year 1932. Government archives were purged of all documents
which might be incriminating and historians have found that
Salvadorean civil or military authorities hold almost no records on the
events of 1932, and have been informed that all were destroyed at the
end of the Martinez regime.
Whatever the motive for this destruction, Salvadorean elite groups
have never shown, other than by their reticence, that the massacre was
considered anything less than wholly justified. Only in the 1970s,
however, did such bodies as FARO, the Eastern Salvador Landowners’
Association, and the organizations of Salvadorean coffee growers,
openly refer to the massacre as having achieved 50 years of “stability”
and, implicitly, as a viable model for a repeat performance which would
ensure “peace” for a further similar period. Indisputably, the events of
1932 were instrumental in guaranteeing 50 years of privilege for the
privileged; but to hope that killing even a million Salvadoreans today
would have the same result enters the realm of fantasy. With
Salvadorean landowners’ organizations’ current tossing around of
figures such as “250,000” or “half a million” killings as the level the
army s backers are willing to go to wipe out “Communism” from El
Salvador, 1932’s relevance for the present becomes all too clear.
Miguel Marmol, the union organizer and left-wing leader who sur¬
vived a 1932 firing squad, summed up the effect of that year on modern
El Salvador, as that of a spectre haunting the nation and influencing the
very nature of the people:
Since that accursed year, all of us have become other people, and I believe
that El Salvador has become another country. El Salvador is today above
all a creature of that barbarity... The style of the rulers may have
changed but the basic way of thinking that still governs us is that of the
perpetrators of the massacre of 1932.^^
While the Salvadorean records of the 1932 massacre are slim, there is
considerable material produced by American and British officials in
the country at the time, in military intelligence reports sent to the US
and in the reports filed by Canadian Naval Commander'V.G. Brodeur,
who toured the country at the time.
Major A.J. Harris, United States military attache to Central America,
warned, in a report of 22 December 1931,^*' that social conditions in El
Salvador were explosive; the concentration of wealth in the hands of the
few made the country “ripe for communism”:
100
Buying Time Against Revolution
1 learned that roughly 90 percent of the wealth of the nation is held by

about Vi of 1 percent of the population. Thirty or forty families own nearly
everything in the country. They live in almost regal style ... The rest of the
population has practically nothing.
1 imagine the situation in El Salvador today is very much like France
was before its revolution, Russia was before its revolution and like Mexico
before its revolution.
Major Harris concluded his report predicting that revolution might be

delayed “for several years, ten or even twenty”, but that when it comes it
will be a bloody one”.
According to its date stamp, this seemingly prophetic report reached
the Department of State on 20 January 1932, the very day a state of siege
was declared after the first sporadic outbreaks of revolt. Salvadoreans
generally consider the events of the following days to have been the
“revolution”, long predicted not only by Major Harris but by the Salva¬
dorean military itself After the revolt had been “put down”, the Major
even apologized, in his report of 28 January, that he had failed to indicate
in his report just how ripe the country had been for revolution.
But were the localized, agrarian uprisings of 1932 the social revolu¬
tion Major Harris had predicted? The scale was hardly proportionate
with the Russian. French or Mexican revolutions. The revolts were not
only short-lived, but limited to the western third of the country, and the
rebels were apparently responsible for somewhat less than 100 deaths
among civilians and members of the security forces combating them.
The 1932 affair is outstanding not as an agrarian revolt, but because
of events after the uprisings ended, when some 30,000 peasants, trade
unionists and opposition members were exterminated, most of whom
had seemingly little or nothing to do with the revolts. In the process
every vestige of labour or independent political organization was
In a sense Major Harris' national social revolution never happened.

The sporadic revolts of January 1932 (and December 1931) differed little
from the earlier traditional, localized Indian peasant revolts in the sarne
area. But in 1932 the scattered uprisings in the countryside and the
failed plans of urban political activists served as a pretext to eliminate
the potential for a more serious attempt at revolution in an uncertain
future. The very bloody revolution, foreseen by Major Harris, is only
now taking shape in the 1980s.
The British Consul in San Salvador, A.J. Rodgers made remarks
similar to Major Harris’ in a report of 7 January 1932 criticizing t e
conspicuous wealth of the landowners and the miserab e and
politically dangerous - condition of their workers. With the fall of coffee
prices on the world market, planters had adopted “the unwise course of
reducing the wages of their labourers” (from 75 to 25 centavos a day),
wages which were “already low enough”, and even reduced the
101
traditional food ration of tortillas and beans.
Much discontent was caused on certain plantations when the workers’

food was reduced and their pay diminished. It is in districts where the
most unpopular planters have their estates that there is the most
unrest.
In the aftermath of the 1932 revolt and massacre Canadian Naval

Commander V.G. Brodeur attributed the “revolution" to injustice, pure
and simple;
In conclusion, my personal opinion is that the revolution was entirely due

to lack of consideration for the Indians. There are only two classes in
Salvador, i.e., the very rich and the Indians. The very rich are very few and
it is noticeable that these left the country the minute the trouble star¬
ted... From observation, it is very doubtful if the Indians who took part
in the revolution knew what bolshevism meant. To them it meant an
organization to release them from slavery.^*
Commander Brodeur's assessment of the nature — and causes — of the

1932 revolt could well describe the revolutionary situation of the 1980s:
one need only substitute for “Indians” “the poor". The rich, in 1932, left
for Europe; in the 1980s, for Miami.
The 1980s revolution and the revolts of 1932 and before have been a
response to pressures on the land, to the imprisonment or murder of
local non-violent leaders, and to the lack of alternative means whereby
El Salvador’s peasant farmers could hope for some assurance of their
families physical survival. While the violence with which the security
services are at present confronting pressures for change suggests a direct
throwback to the 1932 massacre, it differs in many ways; not least in the
involvement of foreign advisers.
The 1932 events were followed by 40 years of tinkering with the
security system in order to avoid the repetition of the exemplary
violence epitomized in the 30,000 dead. The refinement of a system of
stricter control of the rural population began immediately after the kill¬
ings ended in 1932, and continued throughout the 14-year regime of
General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, building upon the pre¬
vious rural security forces to create a system rendering massive violence
largely unnecessary. The system held until the middle 1970s when mass
killings once again became the order of the day.
In January 1932, Major Harris reported the massacre in terms
familiar to those following present events in El Salvador; bodies lining
the road to the airport, piles of multilated bodies of “Communists”
executed and left as “examples”. Photographs of slaughtered “Com¬
munists” sent by Major Harris with his reports were described in one of
his accounts as evidence that “the government is doing its best to
102
exterminate communism from the land”.’'^ In a comparable report, in

August 1981, the international press reported the discovery outside San
Salvador, of the heads of 85 Salvadoreans described by police spokes¬
men as “guerrillas”.
Major Harris described the immediate effect of the 1932 massacre in
suitably apocalyptic terms:
All work is paralyzed on the farms. Half the servants have fled. Commerce
is ruined. Nobody dares trust anybody else. The whole situation is really
terrible and the future looks very dark.'^*'
How the revolt and massacre came to pass and the aftermath of the
dark days of 1932 are of the utmost relevance to subsequent develop¬
ments in the security system and the political life of El Salvador.
Coup d’Etat and Agrarian Revolt
After what was arguably El Salvador’s only democratic presidential

election, Arturo Araujo began his term as President in March 1931. His
overthrow in a military coup on 2 December 1931 ushered in Eatin
America's longest uninterrupted military dictatorship. During Araujo’s
ten months in office, economic crisis leading to a series of revolts set the
stage for a nationwide massacre and placed the nation’s destiny entirely
in the hands of its security system.
That even this one election occurred as it did, and that Arturo Araujo
was permitted to take office was in part due to the quirks of his
immediate predecessor in the presidency — Don Pio Romero Bosque
(1927-31) - and of his sole supporter in the army high command.
General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (General Martinez) whose
support probably owed more to political foresight and personal ambi¬
tion than to any democratic vocation.
Since the assassination of Manuel Enrique Araujo (1911-13) nearly
20 years earlier, the presidency had been passed from Carlos Melendez
(1913-18), to his brother, Jorge Melendez (1919-23), to Carlos Melendez’
brother-in-law (Vice-President to both of them) Dr Alfonso Quinonez
Molina: the nearest to a family dynasty El Salvador has had. Although
civilian's, the three men ruled by force, the security system turned to their
own advantage. American military intelligence commented in 1927 that
Dr Quinonez “practically entered office over machine-gun fire”.^' The
period was also the peak of the coffee boom, with coffee exports leaping
in value from $7,372,000 in 1915 to $22,741,000 in 1928, and with the land
dedicated to coffee culture doubling between 1918 and 1928.^^ A national
infrastructure of highways, port facilities and a telegraph system,
was built, funded by new sources of revenue stemming ultimately from
the coffee economy. A new headquarters for the national police, with a
103
police communications centre tied into the telegraph system was also
constructed. The improved communications network enabled central
government, for the first time, to exercise some control over all aspects of
national and local affairs.^^
Following carefully orchestrated elections in 1927 the presidency
passed from Dr Quinonez to his relative by marriage and former Minis¬
ter of War, Don Pio Romero Bosque.
Once in the presidential chair, however. President Romero Bosque,
veered from the pattern of his erstwhile dynastic partners, and began to
fulfil his election promise to relax political control. The nearly perma¬
nent state of siege was lifted, press censorship ended, the national
university was granted autonomy, and an amnesty granted to political
prisoners and exiles of the past six adminstrations.^"* More surprisingly,
Romero Bosque three open the 1931 elections to all candidates, refusing
to express a personal preference, or, more importantly, to act behind the
scenes to favour any candidate. As a result the victor of this first and last
democratic contest was a candidate quite at odds with the economic
elites of the day.
The 1931 elections came not only at a time of economic crisis, but
after a decade of labour and political organization wholly at variance
with the country’s almost feudal social structure. The Melendez
Quinonez period had seen the beginning of active labour organization
in El Salvador, and the first big strikes; the railway workers’ in 1921,
tailors’ in 1920, shoemakers’ in 1921, and numerous partial strikes by
groups of craftsmen. The craftsmen and manual workers employed in
the urban service sector formed the nucleus of a labour movement, and
by 1924, according to one of the early trade union organizers, “... the
trade unions gathered into a single organization the craftsmen and
workers of the various kinds of production and services, called the
'Union of Various Trades’ {'Sindicato de Oficios Varios)."^\
In 1924 the trade unions joined forces in a national federation linked
to the newly formed Central American Workers Federation {Con-
federacion Obrera Centroamericana (COCA)). By 1930 the Salvadorean
branch {Federacion Regional de Trabajadores de El Salvador (FRTS))
had some 1,500 members, mostly among shoemakers, carpenters and
bakers in the departments of San Salvador, Santa Ana and La
Libertad”."**
Labour organization was paralleled by the growth of a small Com¬
munist Party, in existence by 1925, and of the Socorro Rojo Internacional
(International Red Aid).^’ Thomas Anderson describes Communist
Party activity in El Salvador as having taken off in the spring of 1930,
when Mexican leader Jorge Fernandez Anaya travelled throughout the
country hitting especially the western zone and concentrating on the
farm workers”.-’*^
The Communist Party and the Salvadorean Labour Federation
(FRTS) did not converge until 1930 when the former moved to expand
104
its membership among working people in the countryside. After

January 1930, FRTS and the Communist Party made a combined effort to
organize in rural areas. By April 1930 FRTS had collected some 50,000
signatures demanding legislation to “guarantee farm contracts and
set a minimum pay for agricultural workers”.^'' On Labour Day, 1 May
1930, thousands of newly organized workers and peasants marched
through the streets of San Salvador; one source claimed the marchers
totalled 80,000.""
Don Arturo Araujo declared his candidacy for the 1931 presidential
elections in July 1930 and campaigned on a populist platform promis¬
ing social reforms. In 1919, he had unsuccessfully run for the presidency
against Jorge Melendez, his candidacy strongly opposed by the govern¬
ment in power and by those who feared his appeal to the peasantry and
the working people. US military intelligence reported strong support for
Araujo by “the labor unions and the laboring people” and the major
effort of the authorities to “discourage his campaign”:
All of the leaders of the Araujo party who attempted to organize clubs or
carry on his campaign were quietly taken to the various prisons
throughout the country and it is reported that they number nearly five
hundred..
US military intelligence also reported fears that an organization of

peasants created by the Melendez-Quinonez clique to intimidate
opposition groups, known as the “Red League” {Liga Roja) might get out
of control and turn on their masters:
... the plantation of Arturo Araujo is carefully surrounded and guarded

by National Guards as it is feared [the Red League] might rally to him as a
leader. All communications with his plantation have been severed, both
telegraph and telephone communication having been denied him two
weeks preceding the election ... the first day of the election was as far as I
can ascertain free ..
In 1931 Araujo’s candidacy was seen with great hope by the people at
the bottom, supported by a sector of the urban professional classes, and
rejected by the great landowners. US military intelligence gave a
relatively objective view in December 1930 and a virulently critical view
in January 1931:
Araujo, the candidate of the common people, is enormously popular in

the Western departments. His enemies declare that he is wholly unreli¬
able, and is furthermore a communist."^
Araujo is nothing but a labour agitator and admitted anarchist... It is

certain that the State Department would have constant and serious dif¬
ficulties with a man of the type of Araujo.""
105
Arturo Araujo was sworn in as President on 1 March 1931 after a

campaign based largely on promises - perhaps impossible to fulfil - to
improve the lot of the peasants and working people. When he took
power the national economy was in serious trouble owing to the world
depression. Coffee, virtually the sole export crop, was worthless, the
1929-30 crop left to rot in the fields.'’^ By the end of 1931 there was little
work on the plantations; those still employed were reportedly paid only
15 centavos, two tortillas and a ration of beans for their day’s work, in
contrast to the 50 to 75 centavos paid in the past.'^ The peasantry and the
urban working class, organized in national labour and political
organizations, were striking for better treatmenC^ The pressures
became too much for Araujo. Outbreaks of political protest and
localized rebellion, reported within weeks of his inauguration, were put
down in the traditional way. “President Araujo is handling affairs in
Salvador much more firmly than had been expected”, reported the US
military attache in April 1931. “In most of the difficulties which have
arisen he has relied on the Vice President, General Maximillian [sic]
Martinez .. “On May 17th there were serious disturbances in Son-
sonate... caused by Communist agitators. The Police and Military
handled the situation with considerable severity.”'*’
Martinez, who, on top of the vice-presidency, had wangled for him¬
self the post of Minister of War, commanded the army and security for¬
ces, and was apparently given a free hand by Araujo, who trusted him. It
was perhaps an indication of Araujo’s political naivete to have agreed to
appoint General Martinez Vice-President (his constitutional successor
should he be obliged to step down) as well as his Minister of War com¬
manding those very forces capable of forcing him to do so.
While the decisive factor in Araujo’s overthrow in December 1931
may have been the coffee growers’ concern over his sympathy with the
rebellious peasants, another oft-repeated explanation lays the coup at
the door of issues affecting the military itself In February 1931, officers
of the Circulo Militar (the prestigious officers’ club) requested Araujo to
revise military pay procedures: payment at the beginning of each mon¬
th, rather than daily, and equal pay regardless of the province in which
personnel were stationed. Araujo not only failed to accede, but in
August 1931, sharply reduced the military budget. Possibly the last straw
was that officers received no payment from September to November
1931; on 2 December the army revolted.^®
But although military pay issues were a real concern, the timing of
the coup suggests it was a pre-emptive strike against an old, but now bet¬
ter organized and more threatening enemy: the Indian peasants.
Municipal elections were scheduled for 15 December, to be followed
shortly by legislative elections. Local government was deemed very
important by the peasants, who believed that if they could elect their
own municipal officials changes would really begin. In the coffee¬
growing areas the Labour candidates, including many put up by the
106
Communist Party, threatened to sweep the field.

Reinforcing the threat of a left-wing victory in the elections were con¬
tinual mass meetings on the farms and street demonstrations in the
cities, leading to clashes with the security forces and revealing a poten¬
tial tor greater violence in the near future. Long before the 2 December
coup the peasantry was virtually up in arms, held in check only by the
promise of municipal elections. Late in 1931 in Ahuachapan, for exam¬
ple, contingents of up to 900 peasants frequently marched on the local
garrison with the idea of forcing it to “render accounts for the arbit-
rarities of the military authorities"; local left-wing election candidates
talked them out of attacking it.*"
A final factor which helped to provoke a coup was a longstanding
plan to organize — in the words of Communist Party leader Miguel Mar-
mol — “a great national strike of the coffee workers, planned to achieve
substantial salary increases, but that could be turned toward political
ends related to an event like the elections.”^- From a coffee planter’s
letter to US military intelligence we know the authorities were aware of
the planned strike two months before the 1931-32 harvest:
In the Report... 1 sent from Sonsonate, a meeting of peasants and coun¬

try people was described held on Sunday 15 August at Rio deCeniza (Son¬
sonate) ... for the purpose of listening to a letter... from San Salvador
signed by Miguel Angel Marmol... [in which] Sr. Marmol had recom¬
mended the procedure that has been followed [public meetings and
demonstrations] on all of the plantations during this harvest with the
intent of filling the Republic with unrest. All of this information ... was
placed in the hands of Don Salvador Lopez Rochas, then Director
General of the Police ... ^’
By 2 December 1931, Martinez, backed by the coffee growers, had

multifarious reasons to wish to oust Araujo in order to deal with the
impending crisis on the land on his own terms. The advantage still lay
with the security forces, but it threatened to be temporary.
As has happened repeatedly since then in El Salvador, the coup was
nominally led by a group of young officers, none above the rank
of colonel. The operation successfully completed, command was prom¬
ptly turned over to General Martinez, who, as Vice-President, could
claim the presidency when Araujo fled the country.^'' Within a year, all
the young officers involved in planning the coup had been ousted and
an old guard, loyal to Martinez, ensconced in their positions. As
US military intelligence put it, Martinez “managed to side-track all of
the young irresponsible element which overthrew Araujo. That Mar¬
tinez had planned it all along seems likely, but he vigorously denied
this.
One of the first measures Martinez took was to postpone the 15
December municipal elections to 3 January. In a measure that in retrospect
107
appears to have been designed to encourage Communist Party suppor¬

ters to reveal themselves, Martinez declared the elections would be open
to all parties, but that in order to vote
one had to be registered in the books kept by each municipio, where one
inscribed his name and that of his party. Allowing the Communist party
to register presented the government with a list of its adherents. When the
time came for rounding up communists, the election registers would serve
as a handy guide.^*
Most sources confirm that Martinez spent his first weeks in office
preparing “the repressive machinery of the state, police, guardia, army,
judges, state of siege, etc.’’^^ as a means, first, to immobilize the left and
deny it any chance of success in the municipal elections, and then to
finally crush it and the threatening peasantry. Miguel Marmol claims
that friendly army officers warned him that Martinez intended first to
deal with the problem of the elections, and then, as a purely military
operation, “to physically eliminate” the supporters of the left.^*
On 2 January 1932, Martinez again suspended municipal elections -
this time indefinitely. This precipitated scattered revolts in the coffee¬
growing areas of the west where the peasantry was most organized and
restless. Within weeks the departments of Sonsonate and Ahuachapan
(except for their capital cities) and the Indian towns of Nahuizalo, Son-
zacate, Izalco, Juayua, Apaneca, Concepcion de Ataco and Jujutla, were
up in arms.^’
In Ahuachapan peasants responded to the elections’ postponement
by launching a general strike in several areas of the department and
attacking National Guard posts on coffee plantations; sporadic out¬
breaks also occurred in Sonsonate. In the town of Santa Rita, district of
Turin, some 400 men invaded plantations and attacked the Atuquizaya
guard detachment, wounding a sergeant and killing one guardsman.
Guardsmen from Ahuachapan and Santa Ana were called to the scene
and routed the peasants, killing “a number of agitators, including
Miguel Angel Zelaya and Indalecio Ramirez, leading Reds of the dis¬
trict. On 10 January at least 30 striking farm workers were killed on
plantations near Turin and the town of Ahuachapan.'’' The most serious
incident occurred at a mass meeting on 7 January on the “La Mon-
tanita plantation in the department of Ahuachapan, where a strike
was in progress. The owners called in the National Guard which, after
an exchange of threats, fired into the crowd, wounding many strikers,
including women and children, and killing peasant leader Alberto
Gualan. The strikers then turned on the small detachment, over¬
powered it. and killed 14 guardsmen. Miguel Marmol describes this
bloodletting as marking the beginning of generalized reprisal against
the peasants of the region.*"^
108
The same day. Communist Party leaders, who had called for the
general strike on the coffee plantations, requested a meeting with Presi¬
dent Marti'nez.^^ The next day (8 January) representatives of the central
committee ofthe party were received by the Minister of War and the pre¬
sident's personal secretary. The delegation raised the “La Montanita”
affair but was told the Minister knew nothing. An attempt to offer to
pacify the workers in exchange for an end to the repression just getting
under way received an unequivocal response; the Minister was not
authorized to make any agreements and there would be no com¬
promises. The last thing Martinez desired then was a truce with the
peasantry - which, in any case, the Communist Party could hardly have
arranged. According to Thomas Anderson, one observer at the meeting
quoted a delegate as warning the Minister that “The peasants will win
with their machetes", to which the Minister replied “You have
machetes; we have machine guns."”
A risible note to the organized left's last doomed effort to call off both
the peasants' uprising and the government's repression is Marmol’s
image of Martinez, who had avoided the meeting by claiming a “severe
toothache", peeking coyly into the meeting room, a handkerchief tied
around his jaw.*'
According to Miguel Marmol (whose account of other aspects of the
events leading to the 1932 uprising rings true and is confirmed by other
sources) not until the night after that meeting in the palace did the Com¬
munist Party's Central Committee decide to call for a nationwide
revolt.** By this time the peasants of Ahuachapan and Sonsonate were
already engaged in sporadic uprisings, and facing ferocious reprisals;
preparations for trouble had also been made by the landowners them¬
selves and, of course, by the military and security forces: “For the most
part, the finca owners had perceived the rising danger and come to the
capital where as it turned out they were entirely safe;"*’ “[In San
Salvador] the Army had installed machine gun nests in all of the high
places of the city, rooftops, monuments, barracks, etc.”**
It seems everyone was aware that a great uprising was brewing,
agrarian and Communist in one, but there is no indication that anyone
tried to halt it.
On 13 January British Consul Rodgers (rather unrealistically) repor¬
ted that:
Communist revolution could still be avoided if the planters would com¬

bine to provide their workers with reasonably healthy and comfortable
living conditions together with pay not lower than what they have been
accustomed to.*'’
But the planters were doing quite otherwise, and there is some evidence,
again from Rodgers' report, that they preferred to fuel the flames and let
the uprisings run their course. Rodgers reports that on one plantation in
109
the area of unrest, where 1,500 labourers were employed, “no wages had
been paid for about eleven weeks”, bringing the workers to the brink
of starvation.
Outbreaks of insurrection were already rippling through the coffee
lands on the night of 8 January, when the Communist Party belatedly
called for a revolt. Initially the date set was 16 January, but on the 14th it
was decided to postpone the insurrection until the 19th on what now
appear to have been rather foolish grounds: Communist hero
Farabundo Marti argued that more time was needed to convince certain
officers and troops to join the revolt. Shortly before zero hour it was
again postponed - to 22 January.^" If the authorities themselves had not
forced the issue the “Communist Revolution” might have simply
petered out in a series of spasmodic, localized revolts along the lines of
traditional Indian uprisings. Thanks to the repeated delays and Martinez
well-developed spy network, the authorities probably knew more about
the revolutionary plans than did most of the revolutionaries; and cer¬
tainly more than the peasants on the coffee plantations sharpening their
machetes.
The Communist Party plan disintegrated when top leaders Farabundo
Marti, Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata were arrested on 19 January
(and all shot on 3 February).^' Supporters in the military abortively, and
fruitlessly, revolted on 19 January, jumping the gun because of the cap¬
ture of Marti and the others. The incident did, however, serve as an
excuse to declare a State of Siege oh 20 January in the western depart¬
ments and the department of San Salvador.
Despite false starts and postponements the call to arms reached
much of the Salvadorean countryside and by the night of 22 January the
west was in open revolt. Initially, considerable ferocity, if little military
precision marked the fighting. The revolutionaries achieved major
significance in only a small group of towns within a radius of about 25
miles from a point roughly half way between the cities of Sonsonate,
Ahuachapan and Tacuba. The city of Tacuba was captured and held by
the rebels for somewhat more than one day. In Ahuachapan the
departmental military headquarters was besieged, but never captured.
In Sonsonate several public buildings were briefly captured but the city
remained firmly under the control of the local garrisons. Machetes were
no match for machine-guns and human wave tactics failed to breach
stout garrison walls. In smaller, predominantly Indian towns, there was
transitory success: plantation workers captured Izalco and Nahuizalco
and held them for three days and nights, and were driven out only by
aerial bombardment and machine-gun fire. Smaller towns briefly cap¬
tured included most of those where clashes had been reported between
striking coffee workers and National Guardsmen in the week after the
cancelled 3 January elections: Turin, Sonzacate, Salcoatitlan, Colon
and San Julian.^^
The actual pattern of the uprisings and the rebels’ actions confirmed
110
Commander Brodeur’s opinion that the injustices on the coffee planta¬

tions - not international Communist plotting - had provoked the affair.
In most towns and villages affected only the town halls had been des¬
troyed or ransacked ‘‘and no other damage caused except in residences
of rich plantation owners who had already fled.”’^ The looting of planta¬
tion houses was selective and the churches left untouched:
The residence of a rich planter... Francisco Alfaro-Duran (near Izalco)

was left intact though properties on either side were completely destroyed,
especially ... priceless old furniture and paintings, this was accounted [to
be because Alfaro-Duran] treated his hands in a far more generous
way.
It was also and especially observed that in the buildings damaged the
holy pictures were left absolutely intact though everything around them
was cut to pieces ... the churches ... were not touched at any time. [These
facts] tend to prove that the insurrection, though of a bloody nature, was
not communistic.’^'
It is perhaps also pertinent to note that in Juayiia. the town where

most Indian rebels’ atrocities were reported in some contemporary, pro-
government accounts, the British Consul’s report describe the leader of
the uprising there, Indian cacique Francisco Sanchez, as having exer¬
cised considerable restraint, and rigid control of his forces. But the
accounts of the same Francisco Sanchez by Joaqui'h Mendez and Jorge
Schlesinger,” depict him as a blood-thirsty, slightly deranged “villain”.
Consul Rodgers reports that, “One of his first orders was that all the
liquor in the bars should be poured out onto the ground, thereby pre¬
venting the intoxication of his followers.” Some gruesome killings did
occur during the capture of the town - any killing by machete is
gruesome - but it is apparent the Indians did not run riot, looting
and raping.’^
Once the uprisings in the coffee lands began the government forces’
basic strategy was to go from town to town ousting rebel forces from
each in turn. Thanks to machine-gun strafing by aircraft, occasional
aerial bombardments and the systematic concentration of military
force on one town at a time, the rebels never held out more than a few
hours, perhaps because, even at the height of the uprising, they were
armed almost exclusively with machetes.
On 25 January the Executive was able to report defeat of the “Com¬
munists” of Izalco, Nahuizalco, Salcoatitlan, and Juayua, quelling of
outbreaks in the department of La Libertad., and the dispersal of rebels
in Ahuachapan {Diario Oficial, 25 January 1932) and, on 26 January, that
the last of the Ahuachapan rebels had been crushed and the west was
under “the absolute control of the Government” (Diario Oficial, 26
January 1932).
Ill
The Matanza
While the December 1931 and January 1932 revolts departed little from
the traditional pattern of Indian uprisings, the extent and brutality of
subsequent reprisals far exceeded the “punishment” of burning villages
sometimes meted out in response to 19th Century revolts. Apart from
marking an end to Indian culture in El Salvador, the massacre virtually
depopulated the villages that provided labour for coffee plantations.”
Browning, in his study, El Salvador, Landscape and Society, cites a
government memorandum from theDiario Oficial of24 December 1932,
instructing governors of the eastern departments to organize the dis¬
patch of workers to the west where, in the first coffee harvest after the
massacre, they were badly needed in the plantations around Sonsonate,
Ahuachapan and Santa Ana.^*
The repression of 1932 was the most total and all-encompassing in
the coffee-growing areas of the west where the uprisings were concen¬
trated. Accounts from the period describe a barbarity that would seem
fantastic if they were not from sources as widely diverse as Colonel
Gregorio Bustamante Maceo in \\\sHistoria Militar deEl SalvadorJ'^ anti-
Communist journalist Joaquin Mendez, or participants in the revolt
such as Miguel Marmol.
... the machine-guns began to sow panic and death in the regions of
Juayiia, Izalco, Nahuizalco, Colon. Santa Tecla, the volcanoes of Santa
Ana, and all of the towns on the river from Jiquilisco to Acajutla, there
were towns that were wiped from the face of the earth.**”
... moving into the peasant section of the town (of Tacuba], they flushed
out the surviving rebels by the simple expedient of setting fire to their huts
and shooting them as they came out. It is said that a large number of those
killed by the troops were women and children .. .**'
... all of the hamlets in the highlands of the Department of Ahuachapan,

absolutely all of them, were levelled by machine-gun fire. They didn’t
even ask questions or take prisoners, fire and lead was their only argu¬
ment. If the houses were of straw they would fire first and then go in to see
if there were people inside.**"
In Juayua anyone wearing Indian dress was considered a Communist

and shot. According to British Consul A.J. Rodgers, the government
forces
have shot probably at least three hundred people, who doubtless included
many innocent persons. On one plantation a group of twenty-two men
were shot down without enquiry although there were among them several
old and faithful employees.**^
He adds that the back of the church where executions by firing squad took
112
place was so perforated as to lead to the collapse of the wall. And accord¬
ing to Bustamante:
... in Juayua, they ordered all of the honourable men who were not com¬
munists to present themselves at the Muncipal building, to give them a
safe conduct, and when the plaza was replete with men, women and
children, they blocked the streets leading out of the plaza and machine-
gunned the innocent multitude, not even the poor dogs who always
faithfully follow their Indian masters escaped.**"'
Izalco and the surrounding area was a particular target. Anderson describes
the round-up of suspects and the subsequent killings as follows:
As most of the rebels, e.xcept the leaders, were difficult to identify, arbitrary
classifications were set up. All those ... carrying machetes were guilty. All
those of a strongly Indian cast of features, or who dressed in a scruffy,
campesino costume, were considered guilty... Tied by the thumbs to
those before and behind them, in the customary Salvadorean manner,
groups of fifty were led to the back wall of the church of Asuncion in
Izalco and against that massive wall were cut down by firing squads."*’
Commander Brodeur's account is equally chilling:
On Monday the 25th January, the troops on the Western Front attacked
the village ofYzalco, which was known as a hotbed of disaffected Indians.
The village is divided roughly into two parts; one contains about 5.000
natives, the other about 10,000 Indians. These latter were attacked and
about 1.200 killed, and one of the leaders of the Communist Indians was
captured and hanged to the nearest tree.“
This was the Indian leader Feliciano Ama and. according to Miguel
Marmol, the school children were taken to witness his execution so they
wouldn't forget what happens to communists who dare to rise against
their employers and the established authorities."^
Colonel Julio C. Calderon, who conducted the drumhead court at the
barracks in Ahuachapan. in a statement cited by Anderson, claimed to
have presided over the sentencing, and presumably execution, of 250
"Communists"."" Other sources suggest many more died there, with or
without the formality of a military trial. It was there that soldiers balked
and refused to continue shooting prisoners. According to Miguel Marmol:
From the barracks at Ahuachapan a stream of blood flowed, as if it were

water, or the urine of horses. [Later] a lieutenant who was in service there
would recall, crying, that the peasants who were being shot in groups in the
patio would sing "Corazdn Santo. Tit Reinaras" ("Sacred Heart. You will
Reign", a Catholic hymn) and that in the pools of blood he and the soldiers in
113
the firing squad had seen, clear as can be. the image of Christ and had
refused to go on killing and protested to their superiors. The protest was
made in such adamant terms that the Commander of the garrison ordered
a temporary halt to the massacre. [That is how] Modesto Ramirez was
saved..
Marmol’s description of the National Guard’s typical sweeps

through the countryside is strongly reminiscent of contemporary
accounts of counter-insurgency sweeps through the departments of
Chalatenango, Morazan and Cuscatlan in the 1980s:
... on arriving at any little peasant ranch they would machine-gun it.
Afterward the survivors, if any. were lined up outside the house. The males
over 10 or 12 were shot, with or without prior torture, with or without
interrogation ... When there were no survivors, they would put the
cadavers in the fork of a tree, or on a stake, and hang signs on them warn¬
ing that this was the fate that awaited all communists ... or else that it was
a family which had been raped and murdered by the communists.*^”
While the round-ups and mass executions in the western regions

amounted to a generalized massacre of the Indian population, in the
cities, where no mass revolts took place, killings were guided by both the
racial and social criteria of the west - where to be an Indian was to be a
Communist - and by the identification of specific individuals known or
suspected of left-wing sympathies. These included supporters of both
the Communist Party, and former President Araujo and his Labour
Party,’' as well as members of the national trade union organization
(FRTS). Since voters registering for the presidential elections of 1931
and the municipal elections for 1932 had been required to state their
party preference the authorities had lists of tens of thousands of Labour
and Communist Party supporters. In the cities, the National Police are
generally reported to have systematically hunted down and killed them.
Colonel Bustamante in his military history of El Salvador gives the
following succinct description: “Every night trucks went full of victims
from the Direction General de Polici'a to the banks of the Rio Acelhuate
where the victims were shot out of hand and buried anonymously in
great ditches.”’’
Sometimes the killings in the cities were entirely arbitrary. Several
accounts tell the story of a group of about 100 anti-Communist
craftsmen who presented themselves at the garrison in San Salvador to
offer their services as volunteers. They were invited in and then shot
dead in the courtyard of the barracks.
The 1932 uprising played on two very potent fears of the Salvadorean
elites: the fear of Indian hordes running amok in a race war orguerra de
castas: and the fear of International Communism, organized, resourceful.
114
godless, unscrupulous and quite capable of leading Indian hordes into

upper-class bedrooms to rape wives and daughters and slit throats. The
ancestral fear of the Indian majorities who hewed their wood, drew their
water, served their tables, picked their coffee and had periodic uprisings
became part of a “great fear” when superimposed on the ideological
threat of Communism. Material published in 1932 illustrates the depth
of feeling behind this great fear:
The Indian has been, is and will be the enemy of the ladino ... there was
not an Indian who was not afflicted with the devastating com¬
munism ... We committed a grave error in making them citizens.^^
We'd like to see this race of the plague to be exterminated ... The govern¬
ment must use a strong hand. They did it right in North America, having
done with them by shooting them in the first place before they could
impede the progress of the nation. They killed the Indians because they
will never be pacified. Here we are, treating them like part of the family,
and see the result! They have fierce instincts!^''
All Indians became suspected Communists, although all Communists

were not necessarily Indians, and so, in the rural areas of the west where
the uprisings had occurred any Indian was suspect, and suspects were
shot without second thoughts.
1932 is generally considered as the year when El Salvador ceased to
have a distinct “Indian” population; the uprising was limited almost
exclusively to the primarily Indian areas of the coffee highlands, and
those wearing Indian clothing or speaking Indian languages were sys¬
tematically detained and shot. Social scientist Alistair White writes that
in the aftermath of the massacre surviving Indians were moved “to dis¬
card their traditional dress and outer signs of Indian identification” and
even to cease to teach their native languages to their children. An
approximation of genocide, the 1932 massacre did not wholly exter¬
minate the Indian people of El Salvador, but did so to the extent that vir¬
tually no Indian culture or identity remained. In the 1980s most of the
population are considered campesinos, not Indians.
Only a week after 22 January, when General Jose Tomas Calderon
had led a punitive column of National Guard and army troops to Son-
sonate to quell the rebellion in the west, he was able to assure the captains
of four gunboats anchored off Acajutla (two US and two Canadian des¬
troyers that the Communists “had been totally beaten and dispersed” and
would be “entirely exterminated”.®^ He had earlier estimated the “Com¬
munists” to number between 70,000 and 80,000;®^ on 29 January he
reported that “already 4,800 of them have been killed”. Commander
Brodeur went ashore to pay his respects to the General, and “to veri¬
fy... in a general way” the report of 4,800 killings. On shore he was
enthusiastically embraced by General Calderon, invited to lunch in
115
Sonsonate the next day, and to “witness a few executions”. The com¬
manding officers of the Canadian ships Skeena and Vancouver accom¬
panied General Calderon and an aide to Sonsonate. and “given an
exceedingly good lunch ... They were shown five Indians who were
about to be shot, but did not witness the actual execution as this was
thought to be inadvisable ..Commander Brodeur found his hosts
“very well educated men, with a great sense of humour and very interest¬
ing to talk to.” He also observed that “they seemed to consider all lives,
including their own, as of little importance.”’’
On 31 January the gunboat officers were invited to play golf in San
Salvador, and a party of 50 men from the ships were taken to tour a sugar
plantation several miles inland. The “Communist Revolt” of 1932 was
well and truly over.
116
8. Controlling the
Population: An Agrarian
Police State
The Civic Guard
The Martinez regime began to reorient the security system to meet the
threat of a major agrarian uprising even before the first outbreaks of
revolt in January 1932. In a measure reminiscent of the times when elite
groups manned civilian militias. Martinez and his staff organized
civilian elites into ‘Civic Guards' for self defence and to assist the regular
security forces against the Indian rebels. In December 1931. there were
reports that the non-Indians of the towns in the Western, coffee¬
growing areas were being advised to form “Civic Guard'’units and to
organize themselves along military lines.^*
The outbreak of revolt precipitated the arming of “c/v/cos” throughout
the West. In San Salvador itself, according to US military intelligence.
General Martinez “armed all the citizens and foreigners that he could
trust”, and these “better elements of the population stood squarely
behind him and lent every assistance.”^^ The New York Times (26
January 1932) noted in particular the role of the civicos in San
Salvador:
Groups of upper class citizens of the capital were armed by the military to
patrol the capital. On the suggestion of a prominent banker, these citizens
were given carte blanche to shoot any “Communist” on sight. After the
suffocation of the movement and normalization of the situation, other
Departments have achieved the formation of groups analogous to those
mentioned . .
Commander Brodeur also remarked that the civicos had provided the
capital's chief protection when the majority of National Guard troops
had marched to the West under General Calderon, but noted that they
were “not exactly ‘the flower of Salvadorian aristocracy’ ” as some had
maintained.*®'
Only after the revolt was over were efforts — widely supported — led
by General Jose Tomas Calderon made to create a permanent “Civic
Guard”, on a model developed from European experiences, particularly
the contemporary Fascist movement in Italy. An editorial in San
117
Salvador s leading daily,La Prensa Grafica urged the “honourable men”

of each community to organize:
into militias patterned after the Italian Fascio, the Spanish armed corps
(somatenes), or the patriotic youth groups oiAction Frances for the defense
at any time of our families and homes against the deadly and ferocious
attacks of the gangs of villains that fill the ranks of the Red Army that
hopes to drown in blood the free and generous nation left to us by our
ancestors."^-
On his return from the campaign in the West, General Calderon

plunged into the organization of a “National Patriotic League ,
intended, according to G-2 reports, “to combat the communistic
activities in El Salvador, and to better organize the manhood ot the
country".'0-^ jhe League’s statutes, drafted by General Calderon,
declared its purpose:
to keep alive the good will which has been opportunely and spontaneously
demonstrated in the case of the recent uprising, in which the savagery of
the communists intended the total overthrow of the republic, and the
destruction of the family, the home, religion, property, our laws and
institutions.'®'*
The League was also to be a fund-raising organization, with a monthly

membership fee (thus eliminating the poor), and collection boxes —
marked “For the Patria" — set up in public places.
The League was eventually organized under a different name, the
Asociacion Civica Salvadorena (Salvadorean Civic Association) although
the statutes remained virtually unchanged from the original draft.
Membership required written application, approval by vote of the
board of the local branch committee, and payment of a monthly
membership fee; on paper there were to be 2,094 local committees, each
to include a unit of the “Civic Guard”, which was to serve as an auxiliary
to the security forces.'®^
In practice the “Civic Association” remained a largely paper
organization; the elimination of the threat of Indian risings removed
the one motivation that sons of planters and the urban monied classes
might have had to contribute time and money as General Calderon had
envisaged and in the Association’s statutes. The conditions of member¬
ship, ensuring the exclusion of the poor, the illiterate, and the non-elites
in general, prevented the creation of a mass organization on the Italian
model, and reduced the Civic Association to a rich man’s club.
Although like the Liga Roja, an ancestor of ORDEN {Organizacion
Democratica Nacionalista) (National Democratic Organization) the
paramilitary organization formed in the 1960s, the Civic Association
(and the Civic Guards) differed both in concept and composition, at
118
Controlling the Population . . .
base a political club of the elite groups themselves; in contrast to

ORDEN’s future, permanent and effective role as a to some extent
mass-based auxiliary subordinate to the security forces, with regular
paramilitary and intelligence duties.
While of diminishing importance by the end of 1932, the Civic
Guards were a key component of the security system during January
1932 — primarily beause the regular, conscript-based army played little
part in putting down the rebellion. By mid-January fear of disaffection
in the ranks, and indeed, in the office corps, had largely incapacitated
the army. On 16 January, after plans to revolt were uncovered, officers
moved to disarm, arrest and shoot many of the troopers of the Sixth
Regiment of Machinegunners in San Salvador. Miguel Marmol
recounts the detention and shooting by firing squad of an entire
company of the First Cavalry Regiment in San Salvador at about the
same time, and similar executions within the garrisons of the Air Force
and the First Infantry Regiment. According to Commander Brodeur's
report the army officers at Sonsonate, “fearing that a large number of
their men were affected and might possibly turn against them, would
not allow the soldiers to have their rifles or leave the Barracks, and
themselves drove off the Communists . . .”
Subsequently, the US legation reported estimates that nearly half the
(about 4,500) soldiers then in the regular army were “dismissed” in
January 1932.**^^ The US military attache stated that “Communists were
discovered spreading propaganda in the army and these were imme¬
diately executed”.'®^ No concrete figure for the number of those shot has
been put forward.
According to Brodeur, the soldiers, “conscripted from the working
class of Indians”, were treated very shabbily, and the army’s condition
in general “was, in fact, deplorable . . . when some troops were sent to
Acajutla, it was observed that a collection of money was made from the
local inhabitants in order to purchase food for the troops who had come
to protect them.”'*’* Brodeur mentions the figure of US $125,000 raised
for this purpose “by the wealthy middle-class plantation owners”.
General Martinez took advantage of the enthusiasm of the moment
and made several appeals for patriotic contributions. Even before the
massive uprisings began, on 21 January he set up a “Council on Public
Order” which included representatives of the country’s five leading
families to co-ordinate efforts to provide funding for the security
measures planned and, particularly, to pay the troops. Within five days,
the private fund-raisers had collected 400,000 colones (C) — over
$100,000 — for the campaign against “the Indians”. As Commander
Brodeur noted wryly, “Just how much of this sum eventually found its
way into the soldiers’ pockets is a doubtful point.”"*’
By the time the rebellion took place the Civic Guards had grown to
considerable numbers and. in the Western cities of Santa Ana, Sonsonate
and Ahuachapan. were heavily subscribed by the sons of landowners.
119
shopkeepers, and, as Anderson puts it, included members from ^

class that had something to lose by the success of the rebellion . In
Ahuachapan, fears that most of the Army's garrison of 200 men were
unreliable led the commander to call in Civic Guard volunteers, having
expelled from the garrison or locked in their barracks troopers whose
loyalty was uncertain, “those who remained were chiefly the members
of the regimental band ”.”^ Most of the Civic Guardsmen, however,
appear to have seen action only in the slaughter that followed the rebels
defeat Colonel Bustamante’s account of the massacre attributes to the
Civic Guardsmen a viciousness unusual even for that time and calls them
“perverse”. This opinion is confirmed in Miguel Marmol s account when
he accuses the Civic Guards of committing innumerable acts of
“murder, theft rape, torture, etc.” against the humbler classes and using
their position to vent personal hatreds."^
The Security Network’s Strong Arm
If the ranks of the army were thinned by dissaffection, or immobilized

by suspicions of their loyalty, the National Guard — formed in 1912
during the regime of the first president Araujo' — served as a brutally
efficient means of repressing the uprisings of 1932. Numbering
somewhere between 800 and 1,000, composed entirely of volunteers who
had served in the regular army. National Guard troops were recruited
for two year renewable periods. That they were an elite force in
comparison with the regular army is indicated by the pay differential;
Guardsmen were paid around three times the army's base rate of 50
centavos."^ Commander Brodeur described the National Guard in
relatively enthusiastic terms as:
... [consisting] ofa body of men from the better class of Indians and native
Salvadorians; . . . well trained, better armed than the ordinary troops,
absolutely fearless and good soldiers. They always accompany the Army,
in the proportion of one National Guard to every ten soldiers. They form
the backbone of the standing army, and without them matters would have
been far more serious."^
In April 1932 General Martinez moved to strengthen his control over

the whole security network. On 12 April he removed Colonel Osmin
Aguirre Salinas — suspected of plotting against him — from the post of
Director General of Police, replacing him with General Armando
Llanos, until then head of the National Guard and “entirely loyal” to
Martinez. On 13 April Llanos was replaced as head of the National
Guard by Colonel Fidel Cristino Garay, “a staunch friend and
supporter of General Martinez”. On the 15th Martinez:
120
removed from several important military posts, notably the command of

the Zapote Fort which dominates the capital, members of the young
element in the Army who have been suspected of disloyalty and replaced
them with older and more dependable officers who were not connected
with the coup d'etat of December 2nd.'’^
The pattern of the young officer's coup, followed by conservative purge

or counter-coup, was to be regularly repeated.
Whether or not the officers Martinez removed from positions of
power were “disloyal” or alarmed him “by their threatening attitude”, as
the US intelligence report then put it, the result was, that from April 1932
he was in complete control of the Army, the Police and the National
Guard. It was 1944, 12 years later, before the next young officers' coup
attempt.
After the mass executions of January and February ended, Martinez
increased his vigilance, enacting new measures and resurrecting old
ones to keep the peasants and labourers under rigid control. US
Legation reports during the following months express some surprise
that nothing was done to attack the underlying causes of the January
rebellion by improving the lot of the peasants, yet observe that
everything is under control and “the socalled communism is practically
nonexistent at the present time”, suggesting, furthermore, that “The de
facto regime is undoubtedly keeping up the fear of communism for
political reasons in order to make it appear that General Martinez is
indispensable and cannot step aside at the present time.”"^
The National Police
The National Police was the third major element in the national
security system, meshing with the rural network of the National Guard
and the regional commands of the regular army. In 1932 comprising
about 1,200 officers and men, over half ot them were stationed
permanently in the capital. Like the National Guard, it was an elite force in
comparison with the regular army. After April 1932, under the
command of Chilean General Llanos — who had been responsible for
developing the National Guard into a highly efficient apparatus"*^ —
the National Police received military training reportedly considerably
more exacting than that provided by the army, while, like the National
Guard, receiving considerably higher pay.'^°
The National Police and the National Guard were to be the principal
instruments to implement new security measures after January 1932.
One of the first decrees, approved by the executive 21 July 1932,
amended the Penal Code to include penalties:
... for a person who, ‘through himself, or in the name of another, makes
121
propaganda, in the country or in the cities, publicly or privately, by

writing, printing, speeches, or in any manner, of anarchistic doctrines or
those contrary to the political, social or economic order.’ Penalties are
also set up for persons taking part in meetings concerned with any of the
above objects, or who may be found to have on their persons papers or any
other articles destined for the use of the propaganda referred to.
A law passed by the Legislative Assembly on 26 July 1932, effective

from 30 September, required registration, within the next two months, of
every individual over 18 years of age.'^^ This would be the basis for more
sophisticated registers of both the urban and rural population,*^^ the
control of movements between towns, and the issuing of mandatory
identity cards. Regular systems of rural patrols supplemented the
already efficient Police and National Guardsmen in order to ensure the
implementation of these measures in the cities and remote areas of the
countryside.
The Registration Law of July 26 established an 18 point registration
form for all inhabitants of each municipality, including details of
occupation, place of residence, whether literate or illiterate, height,
finger prints and photograph. Registry officials in each municipality
issued identity cards, complete with photograph (to be provided by the
applicant), to be carried at all times by everyone over 18, and presented
on demand, on pain of imprisonment, at the request of any public
-official.'-'^ The identity cards, the cedulas de vecindad were required for
every official act; registry of a marriage, birth or death, voting, or
ownership of property. Well-to-do citizens, who, under the terms of an
executive decree of 14 July 1932 had donated more than 100 colones to a
“Patriotic Subscription of National Cooperation” were exempt from the
provisions of the identity card law. In exchange for the donation, these
citizens received a “Patriotic Social Defense Certificate’’ that served as
their identity card for conventional purposes, and also endowed the
bearer with certain special rights. The US military intelligence report on
the decree noted that it effectively “establishes a privileged class”, being
limited to persons able to raise 100 colones (somewhat more than a farm
worker’s monthly income) who, moreover, had been determined not to
“entertain communistic ideas”.Again, citing US military intelligence,
the Certificate served "as a passport both within and without the
Republic without any additional charges [giving] holders the right to
address all petitions on ordinary (i.e. not stamped) paper. In case of
traffic or minor offenses, it grants immunity of arrest.”'-^
The identity papers system dovetailed neatly with the new measures
to control travel within the country, with check points at the entrances of
towns to check travellers’ and local peasants’ papers. Travel between
towns required identity cards and special permission in the form of an
internal passport. As the US Military Attache put it, the government
“suffers from a ‘safety’ complex . . . carried out to the extent of being
122
bothersome to native and foreigner alike.”'’^ Some months previously,

the Assistant Military Attache had observed that the new measures;
would seem to indicate that El Salvador is reverting to medieval times

when a traveler needed a passport to travel from one city to another [...] if
in practice these regulations function as well as they look on paper, they
should prove a most effective means of holding communistic tendencies
among the laboring elements in check.'^**
That the measures were, in fact, effectively enforced is corroborated

by Miguel Marmol who, having fled the 1932 massacre returned from
Guatemala in 1934, set up a shoe-making workshop, and began pulling
together the remnants of the Communist Party, until he was caught in
the security net in November 1934. Marmol describes his difficulty in
evading check points outside the city of San Miguel, and the line of
peasants waiting to have their papers examined by the police. He also
refers to one of the first activities organized by his circle; a protest against
the requirement to provide photographs for identity cards on the
grounds that it was too expensive for the farm workers (besides being
inconvenient for Marmofs political activities).
The use to which photographs were put in the new security system was
also illustrated by the hunt for Marmol himself; 700 copies of his
photograph were distributed among National Guardsmen, local army
commanders, bus drivers and rural patrols, when it was learned he was
back in the country. He was arrested less than a year after his
clandestine return.
Although the National Police and the National Guard played the
biggest part in implementing the new forms of population control,
assisted in a minor way by the Civic Guards, a new and important
element was added with the reactivation of the rural “canton patrols”
(originated by President Manuel Araujo in 1912)‘3o drawing upon the
army reserve in the rural areas. These patrols had operated in times of
crisis during the Melendez Quinonez period but by 1932 they (and the
reserves) were described as “a highly theoretical paper organization
On 16 September 1932 a decree issuing new “Regulations for the Service
of Military District and Cantonment Commanders” formalized a
system of roving night watches in the rural districts to co-operate with
the National Guard under the administration of the local military
commanders. The canton patrols’ specialized intelligence and active
functions were spelled out in detail in the Regulations;
Art. 7. (0 maintain strict surveillance over all suspicious characters who

are not making an honest living ... in case of their not carrying
"identification card”, capture them as characters suspected of harboring
ideas or tendencies preached by organizations of anarchistic, communistic
or bolshevic character . . .
123
Art. 7. (g) Capture individuals who. notwithstanding the fact that they carry
identification card . . . indulge in the propagation of disorderly ideas or
who endeavor to hold meetings to incite disorder . .
After 1932 the canton patrols primarily comprised soldiers who had
concluded their term of service in the regular conscript army, although
men doing their year's term of “military service” and whose only duty
was to “march" on Sundays were also incorporated into the patrols.
Although relatively unimportant by the end of the Martinez regime, the
canton patrols remained a component of the security system which
could be activated during a crisis. Their potential to serve as the final
piece in an apparatus for total control of the countryside was recognized
very early in US military intelligence reports;
It is the opinion of this office that they are directly aimed at establishing a
still closer method of military control throughout the entire country
which will even embrace the smallest hamlet. That is to say, place the
entire country under control of the military without the necessity of
martial law.'^"^
That security measures against “subversives” after the 1932 revolt were
actually enforced is suggested by statistics on crime published by the
Ministry of Government of El Salvador in the 1930s and relevant
comments in US military intelligence files.'^^ According to the US
military Attache, the 1932 statistics for the National Police indicated that
they “were quite busy” during the year, having reported the arrest of
“645 Communists” and 1,655 others detained “on the order of the
authorities”, said by Major Harris to be a euphemism for political
prisoners (a euphemism which continued in use up to the 1960s). There
were also 1,032 detentions of “suspicious characters”. Overall statistics
through November 1932 showed 34,627 arrests (excluding those made
by National Guard and Army forces) almost half for “drunkenness”
and 3,542 for “vagrancy”.In 1933 charges arising from the new
population control measures included 1,126 arrests for not having travel
permits and 89 for having no identity cards.
Even bearing in mind that statistics are notoriously susceptible to
invention, distortion and misinterpretation these ring true. The
proportion of arrests for drunkenness, for example, is similar to those
published under the Ubico regime in Guatemala for the same period.
That any statistics at all were compiled and published in a glossy,
illustrated police magazine, with technical articles and advertisements,
illustrates the degree of seriousness which the Martinez military regime,
and the elite civilian groups backing it, regarded internal security and
law enforcement.
The legislation that epitomized the orientation of the security system
in post-1932 El Salvador already existed. This was the Agrarian Code
124
{Ley Agraria) first decreed on 11 April 1907 and not revised until 28
August 1941, by Decree No. 60. The Agrarian Code relates the security
system to a specific economic and social framework, and freezes the
peasant into his subservient social niche by spelling out the relationship
of the rich and poor to the land and instructing the National Guard and
other security forces to preserve this relationship.'-"**^ The 1941 Decree
No. 60 did not change the basic content of the Agrarian Code, but
tended rather to regulate its more rigorous enforcement.
The Agrarian Code's most striking characteristic is its predication of
an “us" and “them” society of rich and poor — almost lord and peasant
— with no attempt at disguise. The agricultural workers, the peasants,
are the object of agrarian police regulations, and the hacienda owners
the beneficiaries.
In the Code’s explicit instructions to the National Guard, peasants
(therein generally termed jomaleros, meaning agricultural workers paid
by the day or Jornada) are described as virtually synonymous with
criminals; jornalero becomes almost interchangeable with reo, or
criminal. Guardsmen are instructed to capture any person “on the first
request of any hacienda or farm owner ”. On the haciendas they were to
“gather all information, news and instructions convenient for the
efficient persecution of agricultural and other workers and evil-doers in
general." They had jurisdiction throughout the country for “the
persecution of day labourers or workers who have broken the
agreements with the farm owners, and in the persecution of evildoers of
all kinds." Guardsmen were to “keep a notebook that will contain the
name and employment of the day labourers, workers and criminals they
capture . .
The Code also details the obligation of the labourers to labour. The
obligations of landowners to their resident labourers were set out almost
as an afterthought and were more or less what would be expected in a
slave-holding society of the 19th Century: they were to be provided with
a dwelling place “or the materials to build one”, with “healthy and
sufficient food”; and paid on the basis of daily labour each week.*''"
The principal requirement set down by law for the peasantry was that
they engage in wage labour on the private farms. The National
Guard:
Will require the inhabitants of the countryside that pertain to the class of
agricultural workers (jornalero.^) the presentation of their papers that give
evidence of their working on some farm or property.''*'
Those without such proof were to be found — and obliged to accept

employment on private farms or at public works . Article 73 states that
those without work are liable to arrest; “No vagrant can make the excuse
of not having found work to do, and they will be punished according to
the law.”''*^
125
The Agrarian Code, a cornerstone of Martinez’ security system,

provided the framework within which the security services operated,
with little modification, through to the 1980s. It prohibited the peasantry
from forming labour organizations, and confirmed the powers of the
landowners to set conditions for labourers on their property at their own
discretion. The organisation of security forces was designed deliberately
to keep the peasantry under tight control, at the service of the large estate
owners, in a special, virtually criminal class without rights or protection
under the law. The Agrarian Code, and the Martinez security apparatus,
were the foundation of the tacit agreement by which the agrarian
aristocracy yielded the reins of government to the military, confident
that their position of privilege was ensured.
By 1944, when Martinez was overthrown, the basic components of
today’s security system were in place — the National Police, the
National Guard, and the Army were organized for an internal security
and law enforcement function much as they would be in the 1960s. In
the decade after Martinez’ departure, however, young army officers
were to challenge the correctness of the army’s involvement in policing,
and fight what by 1944 had become the dominance of the National
Police and National Guard over the army itself The subordination of
the army to the security forces was a major factor in the overthrow of
Martinez, and may again be a factor in the 1980s.
126
9. Coup and Counter-Coup:
Reform and Reaction
Tensions and rivalries within the security system ultimately posed the
greatest single threat to Martinez' long reign as President. In February
1932 he had removed Colonel Osmin Aguirre y Salinas from the
powerful position of police director; one of the most senior and able
army officers, Aguirre could well have supplanted Martinez. In 1934, the
Minister of Government, responsible for police and internal security —
General Salvador Castaneda Castro — was dismissed when, purportedly,
a plot against Martinez had been revealed. Both Aguirre and Castaneda
remained on the active army list, but without command of the key
security services. Subsequently, by biding their time until other
disgruntled officers ousted Martinez, both succeeded to the presidency,
and then ruled on his model.
Miguel Marmol, in Roque Dalton's account, mentions several failed
coup attempts in the 1930s; by General Antonio Claramount, backed by
Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, in 1935; also in 1935, a Lieutenant
Banos Ramirez led a brief revolt and was shot by firing squad; and the
nextyear Colonel Ascencio Menendez, Minister ofWar, was summarily
exiled to France for “conspiracy".''*^
The Military v. The Paramilitary

In the latter years of his presidency, Martinez' grasp of power appeared
increasingly to be held despite the army (which was hamstrung by
budget cuts, and ambitious, capable officers being posted overseas or to
the security services) and by building up the National Police, along with
its political police division, and the National Guard. US military
intelligence reported rumblings within the officers' corp over neglect of
the army — a permanent feature after 1937. The army had not become
Martinez' praetorian guard, but to a large extent the paramilitary
security servicesand, after 1937, took a proportionally bigger slice o
the budgetary pie than did the regular army.'"*'* A January 1940 US
government report noted the regular army s dismay that both the
National Police and the newly formed Air Force received larger budgets
127
than the army, while new equipment usually went to the National
Guard.''*-'’
In addition to disquiet over the division of resources within the
security system, the police and the National Guard under Martinez
tended to develop their own institutional identity and esprit de corp.
Security services were headed by serving army officers, but a split
developed between officers who made their careers in the paramilitary
services and those who pursued a more conventional military career. An
indication of the security services proud esprit de corp, and of the
resources they were allocated, can be seen in the magazines published
monthly by both the police and the National Guard at this time.'"^
Concern for the army’s unity and integrity, vis-a-vis the military-security
force split, was intensified by the division of responsibilities for security
matters between the Ministry of War and the Minister of Government;
the latter being responsible for controlling policing and matters of
internal security.
A further, clearly institutional concern of part of the army’s officer
corps was that the pattern of promotions among army officers appeared
to favour those serving in the security forces over those in the more
prosaic occupations of the conventional army.
The dominant position of the security services in the late 1930s may,
in part, have been attributable to the long service of one of Martinez’
most trusted and capable officers — General Jose Tomas Calderon — at
the helm of the Ministry of Government and Agriculture, and so in
command of internal security. In 1937 Calderon was the highest ranking
officer of the Salvadorean army; a Division General, outranking even
Brigadier-General Martinez. As Minister of Government he held the
key post for controlling the rural population, and was responsible in his
term for the reissue of a revised Agrarian Code, the Ley Agraria of 28
August 1941, which elaborated on the meticulous regimentation of rural
life and guidelines for law enforcement established in the 1907'
Code.
The major role of Calderon’s Ministry was regulation of the state’s
internal political affairs, including appointments of municipal and
departmental political authorities, and running the National Police. In
the latter capacity. General Calderon, and his Director of National
Police, Colonel Fidel Cristino Garay, were known to run perhaps the
most efficient secret police apparatus in Central America. In one of the
earliest references to the now common phenomenon of the “disappear¬
ance” of political prisoners, the iVcw York Times of 5 September 1937,
reported that “Malcontents had a way of simply ‘disappearing’, and
every available jail in San Salvador was kept full.”''*^
Martinez had consolidated his political support in August 1934 by
forming an official party — the Partido Pro-Patria (Pro-Patria Party) —
which included on its “Supreme Directorate" representatives of most of the
countries leading families.'^* This was the only party to participate in
128
Coup and Counter-Coup. . .
the March 1935 elections, with General Martinez as the only candidate.
The fact of having held elections, however, sufficed to win Martinez the
long delayed recognition by the United States and other states bound by
the 1923 Treaty of Peace and Amity, which had blocked recognition of
governments seizing power by force. In 1939 Martinez was again
“elected”, under the terms of a new constitution, for a six year term.
Military Revolt: President Martinez Resigns
By 1941, when it began to appear that Martinez had begun manoeuvring

to ensure yet another term in the presidency, both military and civilian
sectors began to organize in opposition to the regime. In early 1943 the
clandestine Accion Democratica Salvadorena was formed by middle-
sector civilians — largely San Salvador professionals — and dis¬
contented army officers; plotting against the regime took on new
vigour.
Perhaps the last straw in antagonizing the army’s officer corps prior
to the 1944 revolt was \\\q Pro-Patria Party's creation, in September 1941,
of its own party militia, organized along the lines of the paramilitary
forces of the German and Italian Fascist parties — even parading with
arms and in black shirts. The Italian model was well known to the partly
Italian-trained officer corps, as was the danger represented by the
existence of armed political groups independent of army control.
Already in 1937 US military intelligence reported its concern that
General Calderon, as Minister of Government and godfather to thePra-
Patria party was attempting to revive the “Civic Association as a form of
Fascist party militia. According to G-2, Calderon wished to resurrect
this “child of his conception”, in order to resist the country’s growing
opposition to Pro-Patria's “fascist tendencies’’.'^'^
In September 1941, black-shirted Pra-Pnma militia members took to
the streets of San Salvador, particularly irritating to the British and
United States Embassies, and, according to US consular reports,
considered by the military to represent a challenge to its prerogatives
quite unrelated to any ideological considerations ( the fact that this
civilian militia remained small and poorly armed did not keep it from
being a concern for all the military services”).'^'’
In January 1944 a constituent assembly, comprised entirely of Pra-
Patria designates, was called to revise the constitution of 1939 in order to
appoint Martinez to another term in the presidency. The assembly duly
voted to extend his term for another five years, with the next elections to
take place in 1950. This brought the grievances of middle-class civilian
groups and idealistic officers into sharp focus, and, on 2 April
precipitated a military revolt.
The revolt was crushed within a day. The combined forces of the
National Police and the National Guard garrisons in the capital proved
129
more than sufficient to the task, to some extent bearing out the fears
that the army had become subordinate to the security forces. A 22-
truck convoy of army troops supporting the revolt heading for San
Salvador from Santa Ana was ambushed by forces under police
director General Fidel Cristino Garay, killing 53 and wounding
134.
In the aftermath of the revolt there were mass arrests of disaffected
officers and suspected civilian sympathizers. Then Martinez made
what may have been his crucial error; he ordered the execution of the
ten army officers charged as leaders of the revolt, a measure almost
unheard of in Latin American military tradition, and which
completed the process of alienation already far advanced in the army.
Following courts martial, the ten, including General Alfonso
Marroquin, Colonel Tito Calvo and Major Julio Sosa were shot by
firing squad on 10 April; civilian Victor Marin was shot on 11 April
and an army captain and a lieutenant on 24 April. Forty-three others
were sentenced to death, some/n absentia. The executions, carried out
in public in San Salvador, outraged the officer corps and the public
and precipitated a general strike by students, bank employees,
professionals and others, bringing the capital to a standstill, in
demand of Martinez' resignation.'^'
On 8 May Martinez responded to the public clamour, and a visit from
the US ambassador, by announcing his resignation. General Andres
Menendez. the First Designate to the presidency became interim
president. A period then followed in which various factions within the
military haggled over the position of president. One writer explained
that as a result of the losses incurred in the democratic sector of the
officers corps in crushing the April rebellion, no faction was a strong
advocate of democracy and civilian involvement in government: “The
failure of the April 2 rebellion had the effect of cleansing from the
military all officers who might have shown a willingness to accept
civilian government."'^- This purging of the idealists, as a reaction to a
reformist coup, was another characteristic to be regularly repeated in
the future.
Half a Step Forward, Two Steps Back
General Menendez ran El Salvador for approximately five months.

According to Thomas Anderson, he was not entirely averse to a
progressive opening of the country to democratic freedoms, and allowed
the opposition groups that had emerged in the course of Martinez'
overthrow “to flourish", to the extent of permitting the left-wing labour
Union Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT) to grow to some 50,000 members
by October 1944, a phenomenon “watched with growing alarm" by the
military.'-''^ As in the period before Martinez' December 1931 coup.
130
opposition and labour groups that had formerly led a largely

clandestine existence emerged publicly to be counted; and they were.
Doing the counting was Martinez' police director during the 1932
massacre, Colonel Osmin Aguirre y Salinas, appointed police supremo
by General Menendez, his old colleague from the 1930s.
On 20 October Jorge Ubico’s proxy in Guatemala, General Federico
Ponce Vaides, was overthrown in a young officers’ coup which
completed the destruction of the Ubico regime; all of Central America
celebrated. On the night of 21 October thousands filled San Salvador’s
Plaza de la Libertad to celebrate the Guatemalan victory. Simul¬
taneously, Colonel Osmin Guirre, with the apparent foreknowledge and
consent of General Menendez, toppled the government, and launched
the new regime with a massacre of the demonstrators in the Plaza de la
Libertad. The victims were largely supporters of the UNT and the
middle-class Partido Union Democrdtica (PUD) which had grown
around Dr Arturo Romero, a mild-mannered progressive who had
become the symbol of the April revolt, having cemented progressive
middle sectors to those military groups unhappy at the prospect of five
more years of General Martinez’ eccentricities.
Colonel Osmin Aguirre y Salinas declared himself provisional
president and immediately launched what has been described as a
“reign of terror” against labour organizations — particularly the Union
Nacionalde Trabajadores — the short-lived civilian political parties, and
the student radicals who had supported the military move to oust
Martinez.
Aguirre, described by Thomas Anderson as the “personification of
the coffee-grower interests” effectively turned back the clock to the
darker years of Martinez’ regime. He did, however, arrange elections in
1945 and yielded up the presidency to his hand-picked successor,
another figure from the Martinez regime. General Salvador Castaneda
Castro, who, “continued the purge begun by the provisional govern¬
ment, driving most of the radicals out of the country for good”.’^^ After a
brief glimpse of power the young military reformists were again out in
the cold.
General Casten,eda’s most telling contribution to the evolution of the
security system was in response to one of the regular army s institutional
grievances. The Ministry of War was given authority over all the security
services, thus removing police powers from the hitherto all-powerful
Ministry of Government. Henceforth less opportunity would exist for
inter-ministerial manoeuvring enabling independent-minded police
directors, or Ministers of Government to override the regular military
hierarchy, which controlled the Ministry of War. The opportunity for an
astute president to play off the security forces against the regular army
— a technique Martinez had developed in his latter years of power
would also be reduced. Civilian militias too, vanished with the fall of the
Martinez regime, not to return until new concepts of counter-insurgency
131
and paramilitary organization — albeit of a wholly different model

again became fashionable, in the 1960s.
Despite some liberalization under the Castaneda regime, it was at
bottom, like that of Aguirre y Salinas, an extension of Martinez long
stewardship on behalf of the coffee barons. When General Castaneda
gave signs of wishing to replicate Martinez' tenure in office, young army
officers moved decisively to prevent it. In a military coup on 14
December 1948 — known now in Salvadorean army tradition as the
‘Revolution of 1948’ — the liberal, modern military impulses that had
driven the officers involved in the failed April 1944 coup once more
came to the fore.
The “Majors’ Coup”: 1948 and After
The 1948 "Revolution", a young officers movement dominated by

Majors, is sometimes called the ‘Majors' Coup'. It was, seemingly, the
first coup in which a collegiate military movement took power with no
wise old fox directing events, as had Martinez in December 1931, and
Menendez and Aguirre in May 1944. Certain groups of army officers —
distinguished by the years in which each graduated from the military
academy, known as their promocion or tanda — tended to emerge in
leadership positions in the wake of the coup, but no single officer
appears to have been the predominant driving force, or beneficiary of
the ‘Majors' Coup'. Their first move on attaining power was the forced
retirement of all officers above the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, leaving
the field largely clear for the Majors to control events. The highest
ranking officer involved in the coup was Lieutenant-Colonel Manuel de
Jesus Cordova.
The young officers created a Revolutionary Council of Government
comprising three officers and two civilians, the latter selected by the
army from the university community. The Revolutionary Council
declared a principal intent of the young officers’ movement was to
restore the tarnished honour of the army by supporting urgent social
reforms, moving it away from direct involvement in politics, and
promising democratic elections in early 1950. In its 14 months in power
the Council abrogated all Constitutional provisions judged “incom¬
patible with the historical moment’’ and ruled openly as a de facto,
military government. Moderate social reforms (such as the introduction
of a limited social security system) were implemented. Middle-class
civilian professionals — who, in the 1960s would have been called
‘technocrats' — were brought into the Cabinet for the first time since
1931, with all except the Minister of Defense young civilians. The army
also moved to curb the National Guard and National Police, and to
move away from the Martinez regimes’ inclination to force the army
into the position of a glorified police force.
132
The protagonists of the 1948 coup saw it as the army’s redemption, and
the beginning of a newly constructive phase in its history. In this sense, the
motivations and ideals of its supporters in the officers' corp were
comparable to those underlying the October 1944 coup in Guatemala; the
Salvadorean officers, like their Guatemalan brother officers, were hardly
revolutionaries, but basically desired similar reforms, and a more
respectable place for the army in society. In Guatemala the enthusiasm
for real reform within the military persisted for almost ten years, but in El
Salvador, the ideals of the 1948 movement hardly outlasted the 14 months
of the Revolutionary Council. A modicum of real reform was introduced,
however, and spelt a change in the army's own perception of its role in
society. The significance of the 1948 coup can be exemplified in a passage
from a speech, in 1951, by Colonel Jose Maria Lemus (then Minister of
Defense, and to become president in 1956) in which the heritage of 1948 is
interpreted as having been the army's acceptance of a new institutional,
corporate identity, and destiny, in some unspecified way responding
directly to “the popular wilf';
To lead the revolution of 1948, the army had to cast aside the pressure of the
political climate and identify itself with the popular will, to form a new
mentality, in order to respond to the imperative of the world democratic
movement.. The army exists... not to enthrone tyrannies... but to observe
the sacred institutional postulates of enforcing the law and safeguarding
national sovereignty. The army is the force that represents the will of the
people... It is an institution with conscience... the principal bastion for the
defense of the popular rights for which it fought so valiantly in the
revolution.'-''^
Colonel Lemus. for demagogic reasons, was perhaps overstating or

distorting what he actually thought of the 1948 events and the army’s
subsequent and future role. Nonetheless, after 1948, both military
rhetoric and the substance of military rule changed qualitatively. A new
breed of officer, still conservative and fiercely anti-communist, was in
control, which saw the army’s role as the political guide of the nation; a
role that could not be left to the free interpretation of individual officers
who attained the presidency. After 1948, army officers continued in
control of the presidency, but henceforth were not to enjoy the luxury of
governing wholly without considering the views of their fellow officers
— or would do so at their peril; nor would they claim a second term of
office. The institutional army would subsequently rotate the presidency
among its top officers; those at the top would never wield the power held
by a Martinez or an Osmin Aguirre in the old order of dictatorship.
The New Military Role
Colonel Oscar Osorio, one of the original members of the Revolutionary
133
Council, resigned in October 1949 to found, with the blessing of the new
military hierarchy, a new ‘official’ party, the Revolutionary Party of
Democratic Unity {Partido Revolucionario de Unijlcacion Democratica
(PRUD)). President Osorio — who won the 1950 elections unopposed —is
generally credited with having developed the model for institutional
military rule that lasted until October 1979, characterized by backing from
an official party, a modicum of reform, and a readiness to resort to old-
fashioned repression in times of stress. Osorio’s six year term was carried
out under the provisions of the new constitution of 1950, the first post-
Martinez constitution, which embodied many of the principles of the 1948
young officers’ movement. The principles of the 1950 constitution and the
practices of the post-1950 military governments reflected a considerable
rearrangement in the relationship of the military to the agrarian
aristocracy; the military emerged from the 1948 coup considerably less of
a subservient watch-dog of the traditional elites than previously. After
1948 the military would claim a direct role in virtually all aspects of
government while broadening the concept of the role of government to
permit a hitherto unthinkable kind of state intervention in the economy.
(Although it was another kind of state intervention to implement the 19th
Century expropriation and redistribution of community lands, to the
profit of the then incipient coffee barons, that formed the basis of the
economy in the first place.)
Some economic, and social reforms were pushed through by the post-
1948 military governments despite elite opposition, but these were
modest and rarely placed military governments in open conflict with
traditional elites. If it seemed necessary, future military governments
tended to renege, replacing overly moderate or reformist officers in
power by more traditional rulers. Primarily, however, the military
retained its role as a form of stewardship on behalf of the traditional
elites, and only secondly ruled on behalf of the nation.
The Osorio regime's reformist rhetoric, and an inclination toward state
intervention in the economy, left the government’s basic orientation
toward matters of security unchanged. Reds were continually found
under beds (particularly in the trade unions) in the early 1950s and arrest
and exile were frequent A state of siege was declared in March 1951 in
order to “abort a subversive plot’’, and again in September 1952, when a
campaign was unleashed to clean the Communists from the National
University and the trade unions.'-'’^ The Ministry' of the Interior's
(formerly the Ministry of Government) 1953 annual report described the
“momentary disruption of public order” in September 1952;
... the Executive Power was obliged to denounce the actions carried out in
the Republic by the clandestine Communist Party which, not satisfied
with its intensive campaign of indoctrination among workers and
intellectuals, resorted to the preparation of a plan of riot and sabotage ...
seriously threatening our Democratic Institutions.
134
The evidence of this plan cited in the Ministry's report was that the
Communist Party had “taken over trade union leadership”.
The September 1952 red scare precipitated the decree of the Law for
the Defense of the Democratic and Constitutional Order (on 27
November 1952), providing drastic punishment for a broad range of
crimes related to “communist and anarchist doctrines.”'^®
President Lemus: A “harsh and dictatorial man”
Osorio’s Minister of Defense. Colonel Jose Maria Lemus. was chosen as

the official candidate in 1956 and took office for a six year term with a
purported 93% of the vote; an absurd figure even considering the
absence of any serious opposition candidate. Colonel Lemus rapidly
gained a reputation as what Thomas Anderson described as a “harsh
and dictatorial man” who was to be remembered particularly for his
penchant for “political persecution”.'^'
Lemus had begun on a moderating note, derogating Osorio’s Law for
the Defense of the Democratic and Constitutional Order, inviting exiles
to return, and lifting the total ban on trade union activity in urban areas
— although strikes remained prohibited. The reason Lemus’ liberalizing
tendencies ended is said to have been the sharp reduction in the price,
and volume of sales of Salvadorean coffee to the United States between
1958 and 1960, and subsequent economic and social disruption in El
Salvador : “By 1959 conditions had reached the point where Lemus was
trying to cut production, wages were being sharply reduced, unemploy¬
ment rocketing and credit virtually unobtainable.”'^^ jhe economic
crisis rippling down from the United States recession came, furthermore,
at a time when urban labour organization, and middle-class political
organizations provided a means whereby dissatisfaction could be
expressed with Lemus’ internal policies. The triumph of the Cuban
revolution in 1959 sparked celebratory demonstrations in San Salvador;
that the next country to experience revolution could be El Salvador was
a source of anxiety to Lemus and the army.
Lemus was particularly worried by the Communist Party-backed
Confederacion General de Trabajadores de El Salvador (CGTS), founded in
1958 and rapidly gaining membership. This re-emergence of the
Communist Party, combined with the unrest and anxiety then sweeping
the Americas as a result of the Cuban revolution, prompted Lemus to
resort to old-fashioned repression. Student, not labour demonstrations
finally brought the Lemus government crisis to a head. On 17 August 1960
a student demonstration in San Salvador, protesting against government
policies, was attacked by security forces who carried out a wave of arrests
of university administrators as well as students; the National University
was occupied by troops and a state of siege declared.'^^ This repression in
turn prompted greater protests, and greater repression.
135
By October 1960 a large sector of the middle classes, organized

labour, students and the University community, and the left in general,
had been provoked to openly oppose the Lemus regime and called for
its overthrow. The right too, fearful that Lemus clumsy handling of the
rapidly mobilizing opposition indicated an incapacity to maintain
order and the status quo, encouraged support for a similar remedy.
Within the military, a consensus rapidly formed among the young
officers that Lemus was dragging the army into disrepute, and betraying
the principles of the 1948 officers’ movement On the military right even
Colonel Oscar Osorio had become disgusted with his successor, and
other senior officers were concerned that Lemus’ blind repression was
creating a truly revolutionary situation.'^
Coup: 1960 — Counter-Coup: 1961
On 26 October 1960 senior and junior officers, each group for its own
reasons, co-operated in the peaceful overthrow of Lemus; he was
arrested and sent out of the country; a civil-military junta was
established to rule in his place. In the course of ihtcoup d’etat, the young,
reformist officers again came to the fore. They were to dominate the junta
— comprising three of their number and three liberal, civilian
university figures — and take steps and make promises that very soon
frightened the right and alienated a large part of the officers’ corps.
Guatemalan social scientist Mario Monteforte Toledo, has attributed
the army’s decision to oust Lemus to the fact that officers were “very
much aware of the limits to which the public would accept the use and
abuse of authority”, and that Lemus had gone too far.'^^ A communique
issued by the new junta declared that the army had acted because
Lemus had “governed outside the law, trampled on the constitution and
the rights of citizens, committed illegal acts, and created a climate of
general discontenf’.'^^
From the first day following the midnight arrest of Lemus the
popularity of the new junta was unparalleled. The first public
appearance of the six junta members was cheered by a crowd of some
80,000. Salvadorean military affairs authority Robert Elam has
concluded that, in the wake of the coup, “military prestige had never
been higher”. An immediate step of the new government was to release
all the previous regime’s political prisoners; including a group of 55
students, professionals and trade unionists released within hours of the
fall of Lemus. In its rhetoric the junta largely echoed the reformist
promises of the 1948 movement. Their promise that truly free elections
would be held in 1962 was, however, apparently seen by senior officers
as a threat, and has been cited as a principal motivation for the counter¬
coup that followed less than three months after the reformists took
office.
The counter-coup was widely expected shortly after the installation of
136
Notes to Part 2
the October junta. Measures to open political participation to middle-

class based political parties, and to permit trade union organization
were only partly responsible for the opposition the junta provoked from
the right. This opposition and that of a growing sector of the officers'
corps found sustenance in the United States’ barely veiled hostility
toward the new government. A 30 November 1960 Acw York Times article
noted that the US had not recognized the new government because “the
State Department was not satisfied about the political orientation of the
junta, particularly of its civilian members." The State Department,
according to the same article believed “that the civilian members of the
junta and most of the Cabinet were anti-United States, pro-Castro and
possibly pro-communist.”
On 25 January 1961 the reformist junta fell to a well co-ordinated
military coup. The cycle of reformist coup and reactive counter-coup
continued. The next successful reformist coup, again a movement of
young officers, took place in October 1979; it too, led to a junta
government lasting less than three months.
Notes to Part 2
Chapter 6
1. Kalman H. Silvert./l Study in Government: Guatemala, Middle America. Research
Institute Publication No. 21, Tulane University, New Orleans (1954) provides a
good summary.
2. For an excellent analysis of the militia system before independence see Lyle N.
MacAlister. Nie "Fuero Militar" in New Spain, 1764-1800, University of Florida Press.
Gainesville, Florida, 1957. For up to and beyond independence see Raoul Gerard,
"Heraldia. banderas y uniformes de la Captitania General de Guatemala en los siglos
16. 17. 18 y 19". in Anales de la Sociedad de Geograria e Historia de Guatemala, Ano
24. Tomo 24. No. 3-4. (September December 1949) pp. 226-42.
3. For an excellent survey of Indian revolts in Central America see Severo Martinez
Pelaez, "Los Motines de Indios en el Periodo Colonial Guatemalteco", in Estudios
Sociales Centroamericanos (March-August 1973). Indian communities in El
Salvador, particularly in the West, were not hesitant to revolt against injustice, but
tended to revolt in isolation in a pattern of spontaneous flare-ups ignited by, for
example, the arbitrary arrest or killing of local leaders, demands for labour or taxes
beyond the community’s capabilities, or abuses by local officials. That such revolts
were restricted to small regions, or even to a single village, and were often merely
symbolic shows of resistance, made them easy for the well armed elites to quell.
Official punishment might be imprisonment of community leaders only, or
executions and firing of villages.
4. The Indian communities' essentially democratic .system ol government at the time
of Independence was a reform introduced by the Spanish crown in the mid-16th
Century, modelled on the Spanish cabildo, the basis of municipal government at
the time. Sefe Rolando H. Ebel, "Political Modernization in Three Guatemalan
Indian Communities", in Richard Adams, (ed) Political Change in Guatemalan
Indian Communities, Middle America Research Institute, Publication No. 21, New
Orleans (1957) p. 144. In the same study Ebel provides a detailed description of the
development and evolution of local government structure.
137
5 Howard I. Blutstein et al. Area Handbook for El Salvador. Washington, D.C.: US

Government Printing Office (1971) pp. 194-5. See also Gregorio Bustamante.
Historia Militar de El Salvador. San Salvador (1951).
6. In this El Salvador eventually turned to Spain for a model, and developed a semi¬
military, or paramilitary police body imitating the Spanish Civil Guard, which,
founded in 1844, had, in contemporary accounts, been designed to relieve the
military of non-military public order responsibilities. See Enciclopedia Hispano-
americana. Madrid, 1880.
7. Robert Varney Elam. “Appeal to Arms, the army and politics in El Salvador. 1931-
1964''. PhD dissertation. University of New Mexico (1968) p. 7. For the most
comprehensive account of El Salvador s changing agricultural economy see David
Browning. El Salvador: Landscape and Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1971).
8. For legislation see Isidro Menendez, Recopilacion de las Leyes de El Salvador.
Guatemala, 1855; reprinted Guatemala; Imprenta Nacional (1956). All transla¬
tions of Spanish texts are by the author unless otherwise indicated.
9. An earlier effort to create non-local rural police institutions was apparently
through a decree of 24 February 1848 (“Gmc se nombren Inspectores de Policia y se
persiga a los delincuentes") establishing a post of Police Inspector with powers to
rove the countryside to make arrests, pursuing "the thieves and wrongdoers that
infest the towns and countryside". This was to provide an alternative to calling out
the militia for law enforcement problems beyond the powers of community law,
but the law provided for no means of financing the new posts, and the rural police
institution only became effective much later. (For text of decree, see Isidro
Menendez, Reco/7/7ac/o« de las Leyes. San Salvador (1855); the decree of 24 February
1848 is labelled “Ley 3".
10. Ibid.
11. Browning, op cit., p. 180.
12. Ibid., p. 189.
13. Ibid., p. 272; Browning cites the Diario Oficial. 2 January 1880, as reporting this
practice during the disturbances of 1898.
14. Diario Oficial. 27 March 1888. Browning (op cit, p. 118) attributes the creation of the
rural police “to the social unrest in western regions caused by land redistribution
and the damage being done to coffee plantations by those who had been
dispossessed by them".
15. Diario Oficial. 19 March 1900.
16. Browning, op cit p. 218 citing D/an'o Oficial 12 May 1895.
17. P. Angel, “Some Historical Information about the National Police" (of El Salvador),
(undated) manuscript Office of Public Safety, AID Reference Centre, p. 6.
18. Browning, op cit p. 117 citing Diano Oficial 17 March 1881.
19. Ibid, pp. 206-7
20. See Reglamento Organico de la Guardia Nacional. 1912. The Guard was to deal
exclusively with the police function under the Ministry of Government and
Development but its “organization, personnel, duties, discipline and materiaf to
be administered by the Ministry of War! During President Araujo’s administration
(Araujo created the Guard) it had apparently been intended to make the force quite
distinct from the army; in the Memoria de Guerro y Marina (the Ministry of War's
annual report) for 1913, the force was praised partly for easing the financial burden
on the army to maintain rural garrisons by reducing the call for it to serve as a rural
police force. After Araujo's murder in 1913, the National Guard’s charter was
changed by a presidential decree(20 August 1914) amend'mgXheLey Organicadela
Guardia Nacional to declare it “an integral part of the army, on active service".
Araujo’s moves to bring law and order to El Salvador were generally praised.
Communist leader, Miguel Marmol was an unexpected supporter of the National
Guard in its early days. See Roque OaXton. Miguel Marmol. Costa Rica (1972) p. 60.
Miguel Marmol. written in the first person, is based on long interviews and
appears to accurately reflect Marmol’s own words.
138
Notes to Part 2
2\. Reglatnento Organico de la Guardia Nacional. article 278; the Guard was also
responsible for licensing private hacienda guards ("Guardasparticulares o jurados")
who were authorized to bear arms; 20 articles of the Reglamento detail this
procedure. The Ley Agraria was decreed on 11 April 1907.
22. P. Angel, "Some Historical Information..." pp. 11-13. c'\X\ng Decreto ejecutivo(s) 23
June 1905. and 17 June 1913.
Chapter 7
23. Major Oscar Nelson Bolanos. Revista de la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor, El
Salvador, No. 17, 1970(January-June). “El Presidente Martin Dr. Manuel Enrique
Araujo". See also Blutstein, et al. op cit, pp. 194-5. Chilean officers established El
Salvador's staff college, the Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor, and provided its
directors until 1957. Chilean officers still serve as instructors in Salvadorean army
establishments, as is occasionally revealed in the news media. Chilean army
Lieutenant-Colonel Arturo Ureta Sire was decorated for his work since 1978 as a
Professor of Geopolitics, Centro de Estudios de la Fuerza Armada de El Salvador.
Diario Oficial. 3 May 1979.
24. Bolanos. op cit. President Araujo seems to be one historical figure in El Salvador
about whom nothing bad is ever said. He was murdered in 1913 while sitting in his
usual chair, unguarded, listening to the weekly Sunday concert in the central plaza.
His death was described as "by the hand of providence as it were” by an official of
the US legation attacking Araujo's criticisms of US intervention in Nicaragua. See
4 March 1913 letterto Department of State from Legation official William Heinke.
Legation files, file 714. National Archive Record Group 59, Washington D.C.
25. Miguel Marmol. in Roque Dalton, Miguel Mdrmol. San Jose de Costa Rica;
EDUCA (1972) p. 343. Citations are made on the premise IhaXMiguel Mdrmol is an
accurate record of Marmol’s own oral history of his life and times.
26. G-2 Report, 22 December 1931; "Degree of Economic Development" (file 2657-p-
434. report No. 14). began as follows; "About 400 BC Plato observed that when all
the wealth of a country is gathered into the hands of a few individuals there will
soon be a revolution in that country, and that the wealth will in that way become
more evenly distributed. About the first thing that one observes [in] San Salvador is
the number of expensive automobiles... There seems to be nothing but Packards
and Pierce Arrows... [and] nothing between these high priced cars and the ox cart
with its bare footed attendant. There is practically no middle class between the very
rich and the very poor." See also citation of Patria. 17 December 1929 in Everett
Alan Wilson, "The Crisis of National Integration in El Salvadour 1919-35”. PhD
thesis. Stanford University (1970) p. 189.
27. Dermot Keogh, in "The Politics of Hunger, Peasant Revolt and Massacre in El
Salvador” (1932), manuscript University of Cork, quotes this cable from Mr Rodgers
to Sir John Simon. 7 January 1932 (Foreign Office, Series FO 371, London). Professor
Keogh is the only scholar to have drawn on British and Canadian archive material
concerning the events of 1932; these include detailed reports from the Commander of
the Canadian naval force that stood off Acajutla during the conflict and toured the
plantation districts, and of the British Consul in San Salvador.
28. Manuscript memorandum. March 1932, of Commander V. G. Brodeur of the
Canadian naval ship Skeena. from Public Archives of Canada (Ottawa), Record
Group 25, henceforth "Brodeur Report" supplied to the author by Professor
Keogh,
29. G-2 Report, Major A. J. Harris, 28 January 1932; Harris' report of 4 February 1932
also mentions the intelligence function of Pan American flyers at the time: One of
the Pan American flyers told me that on the morning of January 27th. five days
after the revolution had broken out, that he had counted 27 bodies laying along the
side of the road between San Salvador and the flying field of Ilopango which is
about 8 miles from the city”. G-2 Reports frequently cited Pan-American flyers as
sources in the 1930s.
139
Land. Labour and Security: 1820.S to 1960s
30. Ibid.
31. G-2 Report. 26 July 1927. file 2657-p. No. 277.
32. Thomas P. Anderson. El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932. Lincoln.
University of Nebraska Press (1971) p. 8; this remains the most authoritative and
comprehensive account of this period of El Salvadors history.
33. Robert Varney Elam. "Appeal to Arms: the Army and Politics in El Salvador. 1931-
1964", PhD dissertation. University of New Mexico (1968) p. 12.
34. Ibid.
3.3. Dalton, op cit. p. 99.
36. Anderson, op cit. p. 27.
37. Ibid., pp. 25-6; SRI was based in New York and described as the “Red Cross of
Communism" according to one of its leaflets cited by Anderson (p. 26). Its purpose
was; "to defend all the workers . . . persecuted by imperialism, capitalist
governments, and all other agencies of oppression . . . proportioning its legal aid
and material and moral support to those workers and their families by ... agitation
and publicity and organized demonstrations.” Anderson notes the leader and
principal organizer of the SRI in El Salvador. Agustin Earabundo Marti, was also a
principal leader of the Communist Party, but "the majority of members in the
organization were probably not communists". The Communist Party appears to
have remained a small, rather elite group, while the SRI had an authentic mass
base: several commentators on the 1932 massacre remarked that many Indians
executed had "SRI" tattooed on their wrists.
38. Ibid., p. 24.
39. Ibid., p. 27. Many “signatures" were probably simply the “marks'Vthumbprints of
illiterate peasants; but the evidence is that the support for the petition was
genuine.
40. Anderson, op cit. pp. 25.27. President Pio Romero Bosque moved to brake the run¬
away organizing of the FRTS only after the peasants became involved; by then the
economic pressures of the depression and intensive organizing in the first months
of 1930 meant that it was too late.
41. G-2 Report. 4 January 1919. No. 395.
43. G-2 Report. No. 987. 4 December 1930.
45. Everett Alan Wilson, op cit. p. 9; harvest time in El Salvador generally begins in late
November or December. Wilson provides the following figures for the percentage
of foreign exchange earned from coffee exports: 1980. 56%; 1920.69%; 1931.96% (p.
187).
46. Anderson, op cit. p. 54
47. La Prensa. 11 November 1931. in Anderson, op cit. p. 54. For the history of peasant
and labour organization leading up to 1932. see Anderson’s Matanza', a more
detailed description from a different political aspect is to be found in Aristides
Augusto Larin. "Elistoria del Movimiento Sindical en El Salvador". Universidad.
July-August 1971. San Salvador.
48. G-2 Report. 30 April 1930.
49. G-2 Report. 25 May 1931. No. 2657. In Dalton, op cit. p. 247. Miguel Marmol reports
there were 10 to 12 dead in Sonsonate.
50. Anderson, op cit. pp. 55-6.
51. Miguel Marmol described the resistance within the Communist Party (which had
abstained in the presidential elections) to participate in the local elections; Marmol
himself held that it was the general public, who insisted that, having been permitted
to elect Araujo, they could now elect their own local government. Dalton, op cit. p.
247. Marmol told Dalton that the Communists' main intention had been to
organize a national farmworkers' strike for salary demands, and only after violent
discussion at an October 1931 central committee meeting had they agreed to
140
Notes to Part 2
participate in the elections. As a compromise and to have something to fall back on

if there were problems with the elections, they agreed to prepare both for elections
and a national strike.
52. Ibid., p. 249.
53. Military Intelligence files, attachment to letter from William Renwick, representa¬
tive of Chatham Phoenix National Bank and Trust Co., 8 January 1932; received by
the US Military Attache, 9 January 1932.
54. Anderson, op cit, p, 31; General Martinez was technically under arrest for one day
before the call came from the Military Directorate of 12 junior officers for him to
lead the new government. He did not hesitate to accept but later denied any
knowledge of the coup plan.
55. G-2 Report, A. R. Harris, No. 1948, 24 February 1923.
56. Anderson, op cit, p. 88. Jorge Schlesinger, in Revolucidn Comunista, Guatemala
(1946) p. 4. notes that Martinez "expressly authorized communi.st propaganda and
recognized the Communist Party as a political association"; he suggests no
Machiavellian motivation for this, only that Martinez was trying to make his
government more popular.
57. Anderson, op cit, p. 85, citing Abel Cuenca, Democracia Cafetalera. p. 32,
58. Dalton, op cit, p. 253.
59. Diario Oficial. 2 de enero de 1932, Tomo 1 \2,Decreto ejecutivo delprimero deenero de
1932. in force on publication. No explanation is given in the decree. When the
Communist Party subsequently claimed victory in the Sonsonate city elections, the
results were thrown out. Anderson, op cit, p. 89.
60. Anderson, op cit p. 88. Anderson fails to stress that these first outbreaks occured
precisely in those areas where elections had been viewed with great expectation,
only to have this opportunity of peaceful change whisked away. He writes
that elections were suspended "in several towns in the western part ol the
country", but affords little significance to the fact that the early outbreaks took
place before any plans for a national uprising. The violence that broke out between
2 and 10 January seems to have been a spontaneous response to concrete
provocations; the disappointed expectations over the twice suspended elections. It
thus seems gratuitous to refer to those killed in the reprisal at Ahuachapan as
"agitators” and “leading Reds”.
61. Ibid., p. 91. citing National Archive Record Group 59. McCafferty to State
Department, 20 January 1932.
63. Dalton, op cit, p. 265. The decision to seek an audience with Martinez was taken at
Marmol's suggestion. Marmol was one of the few Communist Party leaders of the
time who could not be described as a middle- (or upper-) class intellectual. His
descriptions of central committee meetings are punctuated by wry references to the
revolution by numbers or textbook approach of some of his fellow comrades.
When he proposed an audience with Martinez “all the comrades groaned and
made faces at me", but Farabundo Marti “held a book in French.. . and read from
it, and said ‘there, he's right', translating the pertinent paragraph”.
64. Dalton, op cit, p. 267. The Spanish original is more eloquent; “s/ bien el ejercito tenia
muchosfusilespara disparar, los trabajadoressalvadorenos tenian muchos machetes que
desafdar".
65.
66. Dalton, op cit, p. 268; Marmol placed the meetingon the night of7 January. The same
text places the “La Montanita" events on the 7th and the meeting at the palace on
the 8th. apparently Marmol was confusing his dates.
67. Legation file, MacCafferty, No. 57G, 5 February 1932.
68. Dalton, op cit p. 262.
69. Rodgers to Sir John Simon. 13 January 1932, in Keogh, op cit P- 11-
70. Dalton, op cit P- 272. j . .
71. Ibid., p. 332. Marmol himself was captured four days later, and shot m a collective
141
mass execution, but lived to tell about it. He crawled out from among the bodies,
borrowed a dead comrade's hat, and escaped to Guatemala.
72. This account is taken primarily from Anderson’s Matonza. pp. 123-7, plus some
details from US military intelligence reports, and Dalton's Miguel Mdrmol. The
sources are complementary, there is no important discrepancy between them.
Throughout the uprising surprisingly few people were killed by the rebels, despite the
tales that spread at the time and quickly became part of the 1932 legend. Thomas P.
Anderson researched the civilian deaths (including those of local policemen) at
the hands of the rebels through interviews and documentary sources, and reports
the largest figure he could confirm was 21, adding that he might have missed eight
or ten cases, “but certainly the total number of those who fell to the machetes and
guns of the rebels could not have been more than thirty-five”. After interviewing the
former chief of police and others Anderson found that no more than 10 National
Policemen died in the uprising, while five members of the Customs Police were
killed in Sonsonate. The official list of National Guardsmen killed in the uprising
included only ten names. Anderson concludes that no more than 20 to 40 regular
soldiers were killed. According to his account, all told, the rebels were responsible
for some 100 deaths. See ahoMemoria de Guerra Marina y Aviacion (Annual report
of the Ministry of War of El Salvador) (1932) p. 12. which identifies the National
Guard dead as Sub-lieutenant Cristobal Machado, one sergeant, one corporal and
seven guardsmen.
73. Brodeur, quoted in Keogh, op cit, p. 24.
74. Ibid.
75. Alfredo Schlesinger, a Guatemalan journalist commissioned by the Martinez
government to write a pro-government account of the events of 1932. was entrusted
with most of the government’s documentation indicating the Communist Party’s
involvement. The story is that Schlesinger absconded with the documents when
Martinez reneged on his promise of payment; Schlesinger’s book. La verdad sobre el
comunismo (1932) was published in Guatemala. His son’s study, drawing on the
same material is generally better known: Jorge Schlesinger, Revolucion comunista:
Guatemala en peligro? Guatemala (1946); it shows surprising insight into the social
and economic roots of the revolt. Joaquin Mendez, apparently the only journalist
to travel with the troops at the time of the massacre, wrote a detailed account in Los
sucesos comunistas en El Salvador, San Salvador (1932). Schlesinger’s and Mendez’s
accounts are written from a markedly anti-communist point of view; and not
always factually reliable.
76. Rodgers, 12 February 1932, in Keogh, op cit, p. 22. Anderson cites a letter from a
citizen of Juaytia to La Prensa.l February 1932, denying there were any rapes in the
town.
77. Anderson, in Matanza (pp. 130-7) discusses the range of estimated numbers given
for the massacre by various sources; Keogh in The Politics of Hunger. . . provides
several new sources and suggests that the 30,000 figure may be an under¬
estimate.
78. David Browning. El Salvador. Landscape and Society. Oxford. Clarendon Press
(1971) p. 273.
79. Bustamante’s//wtona militar de El Salvador, largely a conventional account of 19th
Century battles, in a short description of the atrocities in 1932 gives the only
account ever to appear with governmental sanction. The edition referred to in the
text is that published by the national printing office (Imprenta Nacional) in 1951 by
order of the Minister of Interior; largely a reprint of the original 1935 edition, but
including material apparently eliminated from the 1935 edition, which made no
mention of 1932; the new material was perhaps slipped in without prior approval.
This could explain the difficulty scholars how have in locating the 1951
edition.
80. Bustamante, op cit p. 106.
81. Anderson, op cit p. 127.
142
Notes to Part 2

83. Rodgers to Sir John Simon, 12 February 1932. in Keogh, op cit, pp. 21-2.
84. Bustamante, op cit, p. 106.
85. Anderson, op cit, p. 131.
86. “Brodeur Report", p. 7.
89. Dalton, op cit, p. 345. Modesto Ramirez was spared at Ahuachapan and lived to be
interviewed by Jorge Schlesinger for his Revolucidn Comunista, Guatemala en
peligro? He was virtually the only Communist Party peasant leader captured but
not killed.
90. Dalton, op cit p. 347.
91. The claim that the "Communist" revolt was used as a pretext to annihilate Araujo's
supporters has been widely reported. The G-2 Report from Costa Rica, 30 June 1933.
notes that many hold against Martinez that “under the guise of communism he
ordered the execution of hundreds of people whose sole offense was that they were
Araujo sympathizers." The author of the report did not accept this as wholly
justified, nevertheless Araujo's electoral support was based almost entirely in the
same areas where the uprisings occurred, the so-called "Communists" of the area
having earlier been “Laboristas" who saw in Araujo their great hope. Even Jorge
Schlesinger. generally sympathetic to the massacre as a necessary evil, reported
that the militaiy took advantage of the uprisings to simultaneously "liquidate ex¬
president Ing. Arturo Araujo's party." Schlesinger, op cit, p. 4.
92. Bustamante, op cit p. 106.
93. La Prensa. San Salvador, 4 February 1932, in Anderson, op cit p. 17.
94. From an interview with a ladino (Central American term for mestizos: mixed
European and indigenous race) survivor, in Mendez, op cit. p. 105; and Anderson,
op cit. p. 17.
95. "General Resume of Proceedings of HMC Ships whilst at Acajutla, Republic of
San Salvador. January 23rd-31st 1932", p. 8. General Calderon made his presence
at the quay known through a telegram to the three ships captains which was to echo
round the world the phrase “four thousand, eight hundred Bolsheviks have already
been liquidated". After international press reports drawing upon the cable decried
the "massacres" in El Salvador, Calderon, no doubt at the insistence of Martinez,
hastened to claim that by "liquidated" he had not meant "killed" but that the
Communists had been "taken to task", or "apprehended". Calderon's clumsy
efforts to explain his statement were uncritically accepted in the pro-government
book by Joaquin Mendez. Sucesos Comunistas, pp. 16-17. Canadian naval officers
detailed reports indicate Calderon meant just what he appeared to mean by the
term “liquidate"; Commander Brodeur was told when he met Calderon that 4,800
had been killed. An English translation of the actual cable reads; “The Chief of
Operations on the western front of the Republic of El Salvador, General of
Division Don J. T. Calderon, presents his compliments and greetings in the name
of the government and General Martinez, and his own to Admiral Smith of the US
Rochester. Commander V. G. Brodeur, HMCS5A:ee«a and Lieutenant Commander
Hart HMCS Vancouver and has the pleasure in advising them that peace has been
re-established in El Salvador, that the Communist offensive has been totally
beaten and dispersed and will be entirely exterminated. Four thousand, eight
hundred Bolsheviks have already been liquidated."
96. Keogh, op cit
97. "General Resume of Proceedings of HMC Ships. . op cit For biographical
details of General Calderon see; Revista del Ateneo de El Salvador, January-June
1924, No. 92, pp. 1877-1880; the review Universidad, No. 1,1926, June-July 1926; US
G-2 report Military Attache, Panama, Report No. 3936,20 July 1937; Keogh, op cit
pp. 22-3.
143
Chapter 8
98 Anderson, op cit, p. 123, reports that by December units were being formed in
Ahuachapan and Santa Ana, and that Colonel Jose Asencio Menendez was one of
the officers sent to Santa Ana shortly before the outbreak to meet with coffee growers
“in an attempt to organize them".
99. File 2657-P-432, No. 38, 28 January 1932, A. R. Harris.
100. Elam, op cit, p. 42.
101. In Keogh, op cit: "The President had instituted 21.00 Curfew in thecity, and no one
was allowed on the streets after that time. About 500 volunteers had been raised
from the younger members of the middle-class landowners (not exactly ‘the flower
of the aristocracy' as reported in the Press), and these formed the chief protection
for San Salvador... Sporadic rifle-fire during the night of the delegations' stay in
San Salvador was attributed to the 'civicos' having 'target practice at stray cats',
although curfew breakers were shot on sight."
102. Elam, op cit, p. 42.
103. G-2 Report. 27 January 1932. The statutes are reproduced in G-2 Report. 24
February 1932.
104. Statutes of the Civic Association were published in the official record, the Diario
OficiaLll June 1932. Regulations ofthe association were published in Diario Oficial.
26 August 1935.
105. Diario OJicial. 27 June 1932.
106 Legation files, 15 March 1932. See also Keogh, op cit, p. 13, citing a 22 January 1932
cable from British Consul Rodgers reporting a government survey that found
about half the army's troops “are communisf'!
107. G-2 Report No. 38, 25 January 1932.
108. “Brodeur Reporf', p. 1, in Keogh, op ciL
109. Diario Oficial. 22 June 1932, p. 186; and Wilson, op cit, p. 230.
110. “Brodeur Report”, in Keogh, op cit.
112. Ibid., p. 114.
113. Bustamante, op cit; Dalton, op cit, p. 342.
114. See above. "The Politics of Land and Labour".
116. “Brodeur Report", in Keogh, op cit.
117. G-2 Report No. 1046. 18 May 1932. on events from 1 to 30 April 1932.
118. G-2 Report No. 118G, 20 June 1932.
119. G-2 Report No. 104G. 18 May 1932, for appointment and G-2 Report 38, 28
January 1932 for praise of General Llanos.
120. G-2 Report No. 2069, 9 June 1933, Alex A, Cohen, Clerk in charge of office; G-2
Report No, 3013. 6 September 1932.
121. G-2 Report No. 1715, 11 August 1932, M.A. from Costa Rica, “Public Order and
Safety: Government Decrees Personal Identification Card for all Inhabitants";
rosters were to be kept by “mayors and secretaries of municipalities".
122. G-2 Report No. 1715, 11 August 1932.
123. Ibid.
124. Ibid. Salvadorean author Alberto Pena Kampy described the benefits of the
certificates, also known as “Cedulas Patrioticas". as twofold. “They identified the
bearer as an honest trustworthy person ... and on acquiring it they were given the
right to carry a conventional defensive weapon within or without the towns.” The
same author notes the “surprising success" of the venture in finding subscribers, as
an initiative “that came opportunely to somewhat relieve the calamitous and
desperate situation that had come upon the Nation." [El General Martinez: Un
patriarcal presidente dictador. Editorial ipografia Ramirez, San Salvador. 1972 p
59.)
125. G-2 Report, 24 February 1933.
126. G-2 Report No. 1715, 11 August 1932, A. R. Harris.
144
Notes to Part 2
127. G-2 Report 28 September 1932, Assistant Military Attache Alex A. Cohen.
128. Dalton, op cit pp. 372 and 395-6.
129. See above, “The Politics of Land and Labour”.
130. G-2 Report No. 2038, 7 April 1924.
131. G-2 Report No. 1788, 28 September 1932.
132. Ibid. The report includes a translated text of the “Regulations for the Service of
Military District and Cantonment Commanders in the Republic”.
133. G-2 Report 28 September 1932.
134. G-2 Report No. 1991,23 March 1933, Major A. R. Harris, and “Cuadro Estadistico
de Arrestados por la Policia". in Boletin Oficial de la Policia. February 1932.
135. G-2 Report No. 1991, 23 March 1933,
136. Boletin Oficial de la Policia, March 1934. pp. 26-7.
137. Ley Agraria, Decreto No. 60, Asamblea Nacional Legislativa, 26 August 1941.
138. Ibid, see articles 76,78,79; Article 76 requires "la eficazpersecucion de losjomaleros u
operarios-quebradores. y en general de todos los malhechores .
139. Ibid.. Article 204.
142. Ibid.
Chapter 9
143. Roque Dalton, op cit. citing Marmot pp. 484-5.
144. Elam, op cit p. 39, citing DfDs. 816.248/58, No. 4868, J, S. Pate to Department 19
January 1940.
145. Ibid.
146. The Boletin Oficial de la Policia. Organo mensual de la Direccion Nacional del Cuerpo
began publication in July 1932; the Revista de la Guardia Nacional de El Salvador
began publication shortly after the foundation of the Guard in 1912.
147. Cited in Elam, op cit p. 55.
148. Ibid., p. 52.
149. G-2 Report 20 June 1937, “Militarized Societies: Internal Regulations of the
Salvadorean Civic As.sociation and Civic Guard".
150. Elam, op cit p. 60 citing Frazer to Department 20 October 1941.
151. Alberto Pena Kampy. op cit p. 162.
152. Elam, op cit pp. 63-4, Not all those shot were reformists: Colonel Tito Tomas
Calvo. one of the officers shot was widely known for his direction of the massacre at
Izalco in 1932. Calvo excited the San Salvador public's sympathies perhaps more
than any of the others as he had sought asylum in the United States Embassy prior
to his arrest but was forcibly expelled and handed over to the National Guard, a
measure which generated much anti-US sentiment when Calvo was summarily
executed with the others.
153. Anderson, op cit p. 152.
154. Ibid., pp. 152-3.
156. Jose Maria Lemu'^. Mensajes y discursos (Ministerio de Cultura. 1958).

157. Memoria del Ministerio del Interior. 1950-51 (San Salvador).
158. Memoria en el Ramo del Interior. 1952-53 (San Salvador).
159. Ibid.
160. Ibid.
161. Anderson, op cit pp. 153-4.
162. Dunkerley. op cit.
163. Ibid.
165. Matio Monteforte Toledo. Centro America: Suhdesarrollo y Dependencia. Mexico

UNAM (1972).
166. Ibid.
145
Part 3: Counter-Insurgency
Emerges
t I
I
10. From Reform to
Repression: 1961-71
El Salvador's entry into the 1960s was marked by the overthrow of a

short-lived government bent on a major programme of reforms. After
several months of street demonstrations protesting against the regimes’
repressive policies, the reformists had come to power in October 1960
(in a virtual preview of the young officers’ coup of 15 October 1979) by
removing Lieutenant-Colonel Jose Maria Lemus from the Presidency.
The January 1961 coup took place after the announcement of sweeping
plans to end arbitrary arrests, torture and killings by the security forces,
and introduce major social — and political — reforms, the coup was
achieved after a brief show of force at the cost of some 100 lives.
Julio Adalberto Rivera assumed the leadership of a new militaiy junta
which promptly declared its intention to retain power only until it could
organize elections. In April 1962, in well organized elections, Rivera —
the only candidate — was elected president.
The military junta received the immediate and full support of the
United States government. US Embassy cables stressed the strong anti¬
communist stance of the new junta and of the armed forces and, in
keeping with theories of the Alliance for Progress period, rationalized
acceptance of yet another military government as good for
development:
Total forces available for internal security number approximately 8,000...

They are behind the present government, are strongly anti-Communist,
and constitute major force for stability and orderly political and
economic development.'
The cables further characterized the new junta as both “pro-US” and
likely to bring about the kind of moderate social reforms first promised
by the “reformist ” (but not pro-US) junta it had overthrown.
political, economic and social conditions, lend themselves to

exploitation by extremist elements. The anti-Communist pro-US Civil-
Military Directorate now in power has embarked on a program of social
and economic reforms. . ?
149
Counter-Insurgency Emerges
On the one hand such a programme of reforms had undeniable

potential for defusing some of the more explosive political contradic¬
tions of the country — particularly those originating from the pressures
exerted on the system by the growing middle classes and even of
ameliorating the most exploitably appalling social and economic
conditions. On the other hand, those major changes that did take place
under the successive military regimes of the 1960s were more directly
concerned with reinforcing the internal security system than ameliora¬
ting poor social conditions. These changes, and the econornic and
political developments that did go forward in the same period coincided
with, and partly triggered the political awakening and mobilization of
new sectors of the population which successive regimes were to prove
powerless to halt or to control. The characteristic innovations of
counter-insurgency doctrine — widespread networks of paramilitary
auxiliaries, efficient communications and centralized intelligence
agencies — proved incapable of preventing political mobilization, and
may have promoted the very insurgency they were designed to
pre-empt
The military governments of the 1960s encouraged significant
changes in the economic and political spheres which appeared, in all
good faith, designed to improve the lot of the Salvadorean people. They
were also intended to undercut the Communist threat while legitimizing
the harsh, authoritarian aspect of military rule on which the war against
subversion most heavily relied. The economic emphasis was primarily
on the expansion of light industry and agro-industry, with economic
diversification promoted that the theoretically, would result in more
wealth trickling down to benefit the people as a whole. There would also
be limited political reform which for the first time since the 1920s, would
permit the formation of true opposition political parties, relevant in
particular to the middle classes that had provided the push to oust
Lemus in 1960, and which were the only major uncontained political
force in the country at the time. The peasantry was to remain isolated at
the margin of political participation.^
As the programme of political reform and economic development
unfolded, other political changes went largely unperceived by the
military governments. Among them a major element was the develop¬
ment within the Roman Catholic Church of a doctrine of social justice,
ratified by the Second Vatican Council. The clergy, not the Cubans were
decisive in the late 1960s organization of the peasants into self-help
associations, the foremnners of the mass organizations of the 1970s.
Also unforseen was full-scale war with Honduras in 1969, after several
years of tension and border skirmishes; a conflict intimately related to
the skewed distribution of El Salvador’s land.
The Rivera government’s economic programme was described
glowingly in a non-confidential AID report as emphasizing private
enterprise:
150
From Reform to Repression: 1961-71
Under his policy of‘national conciliation’, based on the thesis that only a
healthy, private enterprise economy can provide the economic basis for
social reforms to which his government is committed. President Rivera
has had considerable success in persuading the entrepreneurial classes,
both domestic and foreign, to make investments in productive enterprise.
Indicative of the restoration of confidence in this country's economic and
political stability is the fact that the GNP increased by 8.2% during
calendar year 1962.'^
The entrepreneurial energies thus stimulated were channelled within

the regional framework provided by the newly organized Central
American Common Market, bom of agreements within the Organization
of Central American States, a regional body of the OAS. The “Central
American Economic Integration” treaty, signed in December 1960,
largely eliminated tariffs on goods moving within the region, to the
considerable benefit of El Salvador’s light industry.^ At the same time
the Central American Common Market countries signed an agreement
establishing the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, an
institution strongly supported by AID,^ its stated purpose being “to
extend credits to projects promoting integration and balanced develop¬
ment in Central America.”^
Domestic legislation to encourage industrial development created the
Instituto Salvadoreno de Fomento Industrial (INSAFI), which was to
channel credits to burgeoning industry. There was also a revised 1961
Law for Industrial Promotion offering tax exemptions and freedom
from import duties for capital goods and raw materials intended to
attract foreign investment and domestic support for new industries.*
By 1969 industrial production had doubled (amounting to some 20%
of the Gross Domestic Product) with the new industrial activities
including cement production, processing plants for coffee and vegetable
oil, and textiles (textile production increased 300%).^ Just how much of
the benefits went to the ordinary Salvadoreans is questionable: the new
industries were largely in the hands of the same few families that
traditionally dominated Salvadorean agriculture, in partnership with
foreign corporations, or were wholly owned by foreign investors taking
advantage of cheap labour and generous tax exemptions.'® While in
1966 the labour force working in manufacturing was estimated at 13.5%
of the total, roughly 60% of the population remained dependent on
labour on the land for their livelihood."
aid’s 1964 programme outline included just one paragraph on the
“ordinary Salvadorean”, that is, the poor:
Always conscious of the needs of the poor people, the government has enacted
various measures that benefit them, including a labor code and a law
regulating the prices of pharmaceuticals. The government has also promised
to undertake agrarian reform and to establish minimum wage rates.'^
151
As for the labour code, it changed little. Only a fraction of the

Salvadorean work force was organized into trade unions in the 1960s
and the new labour code presented complex barriers to further
organization or the pursuit of grievances by those organized.'^
Conditions legitimizing a strike or stoppage were such as to ensure that
as late as the mid 1970s no industrial strike had conformed. In a
September 1962 modification of the Penal Code, concerning “Anarchic
Activities or Activities Contrary to Democracy”, unauthorized strike
action or incitement to strike was made punishable with from three to
five years imprisonment by placing it in the category of anarchic
activities”.''* While these measures effectively blocked strike actions by
urban workers organized in trade unions the labour law prohibited
agricultural workers to organize themselves.'^
What was done for the rural workers in the effervescent 1960s?
Promises of agrarian reform had been made since the 1930s. Even
General Martinez made some basic reform gestures and Browning
notes that in the 1950s the Osorio regime introduced “the concept of the
'social function of property’ ”, although the phrase was never clearly
defined.'^ Subsequent regimes tended to support, in theory, the ideal of
the “small rural property” — in contrast to the reality of the minifundio
or minuscule subsistence plot and enormous estates with nothing
between — yet none of these regimes openly challenged the political
and economic power of the large commercial farms by trying to
implement their ideal of the family farm.'^
The Rivera government is credited with distributing small plots of
land — most already nationally owned — to some 3,500 petitioners by
the end of his presidency in 1967.'^ In the 1960s, however, no land
expropriations were made and a proposal for large-scale agrarian
reform was not seriously advanced until the 1970s. The minor
improvements in the lot of the poor heralded in the 1963 AID report
were, in the main, carried out: “... minimum wage laws were enacted;
paid Sundays off were decreed; rents on tenements were reduced. .
Yet Anderson writes that even these reforms “backfired” to the
detriment of the rural poor:
Since the coup of 1961 a minimum wage law has been put into effect, but all
that this has meant for the coffee workers is that the landholders pay slightly
more and no longer give the customary two free meals of tortillas and beans
each day. Thus the worker’s total wages have declined.^-^
It was a major change in agricultural production that made the

greatest impact on the lives of a broad sector of the rural poor in the
1960s, a change brought about by that very entrepreneurial spirit
encouraged by AID. In 1960, a paved coastal highway opened up
lowland areas stretching along most of El Salvador’s Pacific coast —
traditionally dedicated to cattle ranching and subsistence farming by
152
colonos (peasants receiving the use of a parcel of land in exchange for

estate labour) — to commercial farming. This, combined with high
international cotton prices, produced a rapid conversion of much of this
coastal region to capital-intensive export-agriculture.^^ Land dedicated
to cotton — the principal crop in this agricultural expansion — grew
from 106.300 acres in 1960 to 302,100 in 1965 (about the same acreage as
for coffee). Falling cotton prices and rising cost of insecticides and
fertilizers led to subsequent declines in the total cotton-growing acreage,
but there was no return to the earlier pattern of colono farming: the
coastal plain was to remain an area of industrialized export
agriculture.^'^
Development of the coastal plain denied to the peasantry virtually the
only available escape (short of emigration to Honduras) to those forced
from their home areas to seek land to clear and work for subsistence.
Those who traditionally had lived and farmed in the region were ousted
from their land, with little prospect of employment on the new estates.
Unlike the mass expulsions of peasants from their lands in the 1880s to
make way for coffee cultivation, which required year-round intensive
labour, this second major change in the land tenure system introduced a
largely mechanized form of agriculture, creating an impoverished and
dispossessed rural population:
As the operation of a cotton plantation, apart from picking the fibre, is

generally fully mechanized, the labour requirement is for a small semi¬
skilled resident work-force. The practice of allowing a colono to use a piece
of land on the estate in part exchange for his labour was discontinued, and
the tenant-farming of subsistence crops decreased as the value of land
increased and the area of unused land diminished. Leases to peasant
cultivators were not renewed and squatters were evicted. The majority of
these dispossessed and landless families are unable either to continue their
accustomed subsistence cultivation or to become cotton growers... for most,
the only opportunity to earn a meagre income is during the short cotton¬
picking season. Those that remain in the area are obliged to settle where
they can and form scattered groups of straw huts or caseros?^
According to David Browning, the leading expert on El Salvador’s

agricultural development, “in commercial terms” the development of
cotton-growing on the coastal plain was a resounding success, with
cotton accounting for 24% of the country's total exports in 1964, but the
social cost of this transformation was disastrous:
... as with coffee farming, in social terms the price paid for this commercial
achievement has been high. The large, mechanized monocultural plantation
has replaced the hacienda, with its associated cattle ranching and tenant
farming, and has disrupted the traditional pattern of small-scale cultivation
of food crops. A minority of the coastal population is able to work as resident
153
labourers on the new plantations; the majority is obliged to settle where it

can, to seek whatever form of precarious living it can find, and has become a
poor and dispossessed section of the community.^^
Furthermore, closely paralleling the 19th Century situation, \vhen in

order to ensure an abundant supply of workers for coffee cultivation
vagrancy laws were enforced, the floating population of landless
agricultural labourers in the 1960s and 1970s was seen, not as a social
problem to be resolved, but as an economic advantage to be
exploited:
... the seasonal nature of the labour requirements of the cotton

plantations has caused the problems of these people to be neglected; it is
considered that any attempt to provide them with a permanent
occupation or income must necessarily reduce the numbers of workers
available during the short and critical picking season.^^
A recent study on “Agribusiness in the Americas” cited El Salvador as

among the most dramatic example of what is described as a continent¬
wide trend: the expulsion of resident agricultural workers (colonos) from
“once-traditional estates” to make way for agro-industrial enterprise. El
Salvador’s three-fold expansion of cotton production is partly attributed
to the takeover of “land once used by colonos to grow subsistence
crops”. According to the same source, land farmed by colonos decreased
by 77% between 1961 and 1971 while the total number of plots they
farmed fell by 70%.28
The expulsion of the colono combined with pressure on the land
through the natural growth of the population produced tensions
resembling those which led to the crisis of 1932 and which had
incubated since the 1880s. In the 1960s, as before, a reorganization of
the security system was required to ensure containment of rural despair
and active resistance. But the abrupt worsening of the rural peoples’ lot
in the 1960s coincided with a liberalization of political control in the
urban areas and a rebirth of labour and political organizing in the
countryside itself, with the peasantry finding an unexpected ally in a
changed Roman Catholic Church.
War With Honduras: Land Crisis in El Salvador
The most dramatic evidence of El Salvador’s land tenure crisis, a crisis

that forced hundreds of thousands of landless peasants to seek a
livelihood elsewhere in Central America, was the war with Honduras in
the summer of 1969. For over a decade Salvadorean peasants had been
streaming across the border into the sparsely populated hills of
Honduras, which served as a catchment for the rural dispossessed, a
154
kind of poor man's lebensraum. Peasants fleeing El Salvador left behind

a population density of over 380 persons per square mile, with land
ownership concentrated in the hands of a few hundred families;
Honduras in contrast had a density of 57 persons per square mile and
vast expanses in which immigrants could lose themselves and cultivate
a patch of land as squatters.-^ By 1969 some 300,000 Salvadorean
campesinos were living in Honduras, most of them illegally.
In June 1969 anti-Salvadorean riots were sparked off in the
Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa in the course of El Salvador-
Honduras play-offs in the qualifying rounds for the Soccer World Cup
matches. In the aftermath over 10,000 Salvadoreans were forcibly
expelled or fled back to El Salvador. On 14 July, Salvadorean troops
invaded Honduras, capturing several towns. They remained until late
July, when OAS mediators and United States pressure successfully
encouraged their withdrawal.^** In the course of the conflict the
Salvadorean air force bombed Santa Rosa de Copan and Tegucigalpa’s
Toncontin Airport. Honduras retaliated with air strikes on Ilopango
airport and El Salvador's major oil storage installations at the port of
Acajutla. There were between 3.000 and 4,000 military and civilian
casualties and at least 500 dead.^' Salvadorean authorities called it the
“Human Rights War", claiming it had been fought in defence of the
rights of Salvadoreans in Honduras.^^ Although neither side can be said
to have won. President Sanchez Hernandez, who directed military
operations in the field, claimed a substantial victory on his return.
Honduras, however, was no longer willing to receive landless Salva¬
dorean peasants and so ease what was to become El Salvador’s major
political problem; and something had to be done to deal with the
estimated 100.000 peasant refugees driven back into El Salvador from
Honduras.
It was the consequences of the 1969 war, coupled with the recent
legitimation of the theology of liberation at the Latin American
Conference of Bishops held at Medellin, Colombia, in September 1968,
that prompted El Salvador’s Roman Catholic hierarchy to take an
unprecedented stand in defence of the peasantry, and make a first plea
for a moderate land reform. In a pastoral letter, the six bishops of the
Salvadorean Episcopal Conference called on large landowners to
support a more equitable distribution of the land and declared that the
diocese of San Vicente had donated church-owned land for an initial
private agrarian reform project The bishops limited their proposal to
the suggestion that landowners voluntarily sell some of their land to the
campesinos working it and sell their unused land to the landless.^^ The
implications of even this mild pursuit of agrarian reform by the Church
were enormous, however, since it was a first significant expression of the
new post-concilium social doctrine of the Church.
Even before the war with Honduras, Catholic groups had been
working with the peasants in self-help community development
155
projects and encouraging community and labour organization as an

effective means for the rural population to improve their lot. As early as
1965, long before the Medellin conference of Bishops, the church s
“Caritas” clubs and the growing Christian Democratic Party had
supported training courses for local community leaders which initially,
were backed by US AID.^^ The first “Communal Unions”, which were
community associations rather than trade unions, were set up in early
1968 with backing both from the Roman Catholic Church and AID. By
mid 1968 there were 20 “Communal Unions” with a membership of
some 4,000 rural small-holders (not agricultural labourers) which
merged to form the Union Comunal Salvadorena (UCS). As model
“Alliance for Progress” projects they were, for a time, backed by the
church, by AID (through the American Institute for Free Labour
Development, AIFLD), and even by the Salvadorean government, and
support for them was boosted in the aftermath of the Honduran
war.^^
The negative impact of the Honduran-Salvadoran war of 1969 convinced

some members of the military and oligarchy that it was in their best
interest to carry out these rural training programs as “life insurance”. On
March 3, 1970, AIFLD signed a contract with US AID for $136,000 and
entered into an agreement with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare...
to train Salvadorean campesino leaders.^^
Further AID grants for the UCS, through AIFLD, were approved in
April 1971 ($53,800); June 1971 ($113,979); and May 1972 ($135,000) and
the UCS continued to receive extensive US government funds
throughout the \910s?^ Although the UCS was a state supported
organization its legal status — until the late 1970s — was merely that of a
mutual-help society of small landholders.^* In any case its benefits were
not available to the majority of peasants: the landless or nearly
landless.
The mid 1960s opening {ox official programmes of rural organization,
limited to small-holders and backed by the US AID, was paralleled by
the first steps toward organization taken by peasants at the bottom of
the economic ladder. The first organization to rise independently was
the Federacion Campesina Cristiana de El Salvador or FECCAS
(Christian Peasant Federation of El Salvador) which brought together
agricultural day-labourers, subsistence farmers and others, with the
support of both the church and Christian Democratic Party activists.
Created in the late 1960s, FECCAS drew upon the pastoral work of El
Salvador’s clergy and the initiative of the rural people themselves. The
role of the clergy is perhaps best illustrated by quoting the testimony of
one of El Salvador’s priests in the United States congressional hearings
on El Salvador in 1977:
156
My work, like that of many of my fellow priests, has had as its goal to present
the vision of Christian faith through questioning the real situation in which
the people, especially the peasants, live without either land or work ... the
most pressing problem in El Salvador is the problem of land distribution. In
the face of this situation we have struggled to make possible agrarian reform...
To make agrarian reform a reality, we have organized at both the local and
the national levels, courses of information on agrarian reform . . . and we
have come to see the need of peasant organizations.
I personally founded a school of agriculture where, besides teaching
agricultural techniques, we informed the students about agrarian reform
and how to organize themselves to achieve its ends.^^
Such unauthorized incitement to organization (the organization of

agricultural labourers was illegal) was not carried out without interfer¬
ence. The priest who gave the above testimony, P. Jose Inocencio Alas,
described this interference in his own case as having included his
repeated arrest and torture, the burning of the parish house, a near fatal
bombing, and a steady flow of death threats."*®
Although every effort was made to prevent rural organization among
the day labourers and sharecroppers — short of the killing of the priests
that was to begin in 1977 — a groundswell of support for Christian-
based peasant groups moved through the countryside, boosted by the
increased pressures on the land after the war against Honduras. In
addition to FECCAS, the early and middle 1970s saw the emergence of
other independent organizations of peasant labourers: the Association
of Salvadorean Farm Workers and Peasants (ATACES), linked to the
Salvadorean Communist Party; the Revolutionary Peasant Movement
(MRC) and the Union of Agricultural Workers (UTC). In 1975 the UTC
merged with FECCAS in what was to become the Federation of
Agricultural Workers (FTC), both also members of the Popular
Revolutionary Block (BPR), a coalition of labour, student and slum-
dweller organizations set up in 1975.
While the growth of agro-industry and the expulsion of campesinos
from the land, the reduced real wage of the agricultural day labourer,
and the Honduran war all combined to significantly worsen the
peasant’s lot in the 1960s, the advance of peasant organization offered
an alternative to an otherwise bleak and desperate future, and means
whereby to press for change.
Political Reform — With Reservations
If, ironically, the peasants were the victims of developments associated

with the “Alliance for Progress” in the 1960s, the middle sectors were, for
a time, the beneficiaries of some real reforms. In its immediate
aftermath, however, it seemed that the January 1961 coup would turn
157
back the clock, entirely rejecting the reform programme of the short¬
lived civil-military junta of October 1960.
In 1961 a constituent assembly comprised entirely of representatives
of the “official” party, the Party of National Conciliation, drafted a new
constitution, and as already noted, in April 1962 Lieutenant Colonel
Rivera, unopposed, was elected to the presidency for a five year term.
The new constitution differed little from the old and it appeared that in
the future political participation outside the official party would be as
limited as it had been in the past. In 1963, however, a major reform went
through, providing for proportional representation in the legislature,
and combined with new tolerance for the organizational activities of the
moderate, largely middle-class, opposition parties. The elections for
municipal and legislative posts in 1964 were an unprecedented success
for these new parties, particularly the Christian Democrats.'*' Control of
24 of the 52 seats in the legislature passed to the opposition in 1964, a
remarkable development considering that no members of opposition
parties had sat in the legislature since 1931.'*^ The political opening
continued throughout the decade, with opposition parties winning 25 of
the 52 legislative seats in 1968 and 21 in 1970. While in 1970 opposition
parties won in only five of the 260 municipalities (in contrast to the 80
won in 1968) the Christian Democrats, for the second time, obtained the
key post of mayor of San Salvador for their leader, Jose Napoleon
Duarte.'*^
The extent of political reform, however, stopped short of jeopardizing
the military’s control of the presidency in the 1960s and, no doubt, if the
opposition had seriously threatened to do so it would have been
outlawed. Though Colonel Fidel Sanchez Hernandez’ election to the
presidency in 1967 was not uncontested — the first since 1931 with more
than one candidate — the Party of National Conciliation, according to
the official figure, still won 57% of a vote strongly contested by Christian
Democrat candidates and the Party of Renovating Action (PAR) (the
oldest post-Martinez party, formed in 1944 from civilian groups that
had called for his ousting). Immediately after the election the PAR was
declared illegal, on the grounds that its platform had supported
principles “contrary to the Constitution”. According to a PAR
spokesman the “principle” involved was support for agrarian
reform.'*'*
The government option to veto a party’s registration on ideological
grounds was one of the very clear limits laid down from the beginning.
Under the terms of the 1962 law on “Anarchic Activities Contrary to
Democracy” political organizations guilty of “anti-democratic”
doctrines were subject to banning. Interpretation of what precisely was
“anti-democratic” was, of course, a prerogative of the government'*^
While the ideological strictures defining the legitimacy and legality of
political parties, and their sometimes arbitrary application, set limits of
one kind on the political process, the greatest barriers imposed followed
158
From Refonn to Repression: 1961-71
both social and geographical criteria. Even “appioved" opposition

parties were denied access to rural labourers. The political opening did
not. in truth, extend much beyond the limits of the major towns. Alistair
White, in his 1973 study, attributed the rural population’s isolation from
the opposition parties to their total vulnerability to reprisals assumed to
be forthcoming, however little they stepped out of line, thus limiting
liberalization to the capital and the larger towns.
In rural areas... a totally different standard applies, with what is virtually

a separate legal code (the Ley Agraria) and a separate militarized police
force (the Guardia Nacional as opposed to the urban Policia Nacional),
harshly to enforce it. Any person who shows himself discontented with
rates of pay. whether on a private estate or in a government work group —
building roads, tor instance — is liable to be immediately dismissed from
his job and likely to be refused employment by any other employer in the
neighborhood, since he will be considered a ‘subversive’. Co-operation
exists between the landowners and the Guardia Nacional in the
identification and intimidation of ‘subversives’.'*^
Recruitment of activists and organizers from the rural populace itself

was virtually impossible; the rural security apparatus was explicitly
geared to prevent it. For a time, however, until the mid 1970s. middle-
class party leaders working out of the capital enjoyed some immunity
from the physical danger facing provincial party members engaged in
open political activity.
Even the PDC (Christian Democratic Party) finds it difficult to persuade

local supporters in many parts of the country to undertake any form of
propaganda work, for fear of losing their jobs or being arrested, and the
fear is clearly well grounded. It is easier for party representatives to travel
from the capital to gain supporters, since they do not fear for their jobs
and their connections in the capital are likely to ensure their safety from
arbitrary arrest and especially from the torture and even police murder
which are widely thought to await those agitators who do not have such
connections. Those with middle-class status are undoubtedly treated with
greater latitude and consideration, quite apart from connections.'*^
In 1963 the US AID described the Salvadorean government’s “main

political problem” just before the 1964 elections as “the continuing opposi¬
tion of many of the liberal intellectuals, professional people, university
professors and students.” These groups, it said, “in which extremist elements
have considerable influence”, were unfairly sceptical of the impending
electoral reforms and claimed the government would rig elections through
its control of the peasantry. AID’s rejoinder to the sceptics was a bald
statement that the peasantry as a whole would support the government, as it
always had, and that talk of control was merely sour grapes;
159
The government... has publicly promised that the election will be free and
fair. The left-wing intellectuals know that the government will receive, as it
did in 1961, the overwhelming support of the peasants. Their real — but
unvoiced — complaint is that the vote of a poor unschooled campesino
should carry the same weight as that of a prosperous, educated lawyer.'^*^
Alistair White gives both a long and a short answer to the question
“Why is the rural vote overwhelmingly in favour of the official party” in
Salvadorean elections. His short answer is that “in regions where
educational levels are low, elections are won by the people who organize
them, even if ballotting is secret and there is no recourse to direct
fraud.His long answer requires consideration of more complex
concepts:
What political scientists call ‘political socialization': the general environ¬

ment of information and ideas by which the uneducated and most of
those with only a little education are surrounded; the prohibition of any
form of unionization or left-wing proselytization in the country-side; and
the mixture of paternalism and intimidation at election time.^®
Until the late 1960s the peasantry was largely insulated from the
political affairs of the nation, encapsulated in the virtually closed world
of large estates and peasant communities which existed to serve them,
but in the mid 1960s the new, middle-class parties, particularly the
Christian Democrats, began to penetrate the peasants’ isolation.
Previously, peasant participation in voting had attained a certain ritual
quality. The official party of the moment (the Purt/r/o pro-Patria, 1932-44,
XhtPartido Revolucionario de Unificacion Democrdtica, 1949-60, and the
Partido de Concdiacidn NacionaU the present ruling party, formed in
1961) was the only option in the countryside and peasants simply went
through the motions of voting. (In the 1961 voting for a Constituent
Assembly, for instance, all the candidates were PCN.)-'^'
Even after part of the rural population became aware that parties
other than the PCN existed, the opposition faced a double handicap. All
the powers and resources of the state were ranged in support of the
PCN,
The official party has more funds than other parties could hope to have for
giving away footballs to villages, or more obviously, vests by the thousands
marked with the blue sign of the PCN. Such gifts do buy votes ^2
and into actively the PCN’s challengers by means of beatings,

temporary arrest of activists, poll-watchers or even candidates, as well as
more subtle intimidation of voters at the polls:
When the campesino arrives at the polling booth, he finds persons of
160
authority there, and very likely soldiers or guardias standing around ... the
ballot boxes are made of transparent plastic. As the ballot papers are thin
and the voter marks the party symbol with a thick black cross, another
person can stand on the opposite side of the box from the voter, watch his
ballot paper come down through the slit into the transparent box, and see
through the thin, once-folded paper which party he has voted for.^^
According to White the use of the transparent boxes was “justified" by

authorities on the grounds that it made ballot stuffing more difficult.
Other means of inducing support for the PCN included the trans¬
formation of Ministry of Health clinics at election time into “PCN health
clinics, conspicuously marked with the party insignia” and the use of state
resources to collect signatures on the party’s membership rolls:
A party activist, not paid but hoping for a job through his oficialista
connections, is instructed to visit each dwelling in his area and enter its
adult inhabitants as members of the party in a little book, telling them
when they have to go and vote, and giving them a ticket for a free meal
afterwards.-'’*’
The tidy packaging of the peasant vote began to break down by 1970,
not so much due to the overt campaigning efforts of the political
opposition as to the inroads of church teachings encouraging peasant
self-help through organization and participation in the political
process. The information barrier was the first to be broken. Peasants
learned that there was more to the world than the local estate and their
daily tasks or tareas and that the government need not be merely a static
presence to be passively endured.
The political system reached a critical juncture with the 1972
presidential elections. Middle-class parties joined in backing a single
slate of candidates, and the peasantry as a whole was no longer a “safe”
constituency of the official party. The government had to choose
between continuing the process of political opening up, perhaps even
accepting the replacement of an army officer with a civilian in the
presidency, or beginning to reverse the process.
The 1969 war with Honduras marked an interlude in which the
Salvadorean opposition parties momentarily threw their support behind
the government: a calculated sop to the war fever of the moment much
criticized by some sectors of the left. The return of the Salvadorean settlers
from Honduras and the elimination of El Salvador’s access to Honduran
lebensraum drew attention to the land crisis and alerted the military to the
danger facing the system from the rural areas, but not to the urgency of
agrarian reform. The Sanchez Hernandez government and its party, the
PCN, attempted to defuse the situation by offering several reformist
measures which raised expectations but ultimately failed to produce any
significant change in the status quo.
161
In the 1970 campaign for the legislature the PCN — and the
government — promised significant changes in the economic sphere
based on showcase reform bills on banking and irrigation, and even a
new Labour Code which would eliminate certain restrictive provisions
regarding collective bargaining which made strikes virtually impossible.
A much vaunted Law of Drainage and Irrigation {Ley de Avenamiento
y Riego) was billed in the electoral campaign as a serious effort to correct
some of the inequities of the land tenure system. As noted in an article
published in Estudios Centroamericanos (the magazine of the Jesuit-run
Universidad Centroamericana) the draft did contain some provisions for
“the limitation of the extension of private property in irrigated
districts”,a first real threat to private property.
The concerted opposition of the growers and cattle ranchers
associations indicated just how seriously the threat was taken. The
proposed irrigation law posed no real threat to existing landholdings,
but to sectors of the agrarian elite it represented the thin end of the
wedge of government controls over agriculture, and this was sufficient
to provoke their breakaway from support for the PCN and the founding
of a party even further to the right: the Frente Unido Democrdtico
Independiente (FUDI) (United Democratic Independent Front). This
party served primarily as the vehicle of former National Guard and
ORDEN chief. General Jose Alberto Medrano.56
This violent rejection of the proposed law indicated the degree of
resistance to any kind of reform by the great families, rather than a
reflection of the law’s real potential for change. According to one
author, it was “designed to improve irrigation and yields on the lands of
small and medium owners”,5^ and considered by the Sanchez
Hernandez regime only on the insistence of the United States and the
Christian Democrats. Yet interference with traditional water rights, and
provisions for the expropriation (with abundant compensation) of
access routes for drainage and irrigation purposes (a principle of
eminent domain) challenged the great landowners’ unrestricted control
too seriously to permit passage of the Law. The landowners’ association
and FUDfs campaign against the law previewed campaigns to stop
future agrarian reforms.
While the discontent and disillusionment generated by the failure of
the proposed reforms were strongest in the middle sectors represented
by the Christian Democrats, peasant and urban labour organizations
were more disgusted by Sanchez Hernandez unkept pledges to improve
the lot of the labourer. Promises of more equitable treatment for
organized labour, and an indication that agricultural workers might be
allowed to organize under a new Labour Code, made during the 1967
presidential election period, were unfulfilled.
The [Labour Code] in force had proved deficient and led the unions to a
series of strikes at the end of the presidential period of Col. Julio Adalberto
162
Rivera [1962-1967], The workers felt defrauded when by mid-1971 they

became aware that the approval of the new code was deliberately moving
forward very slowly and that pressures from the organizations of business
owners were readily accepted. The only section that was approved was
that referring to individual labor contracts, while the section correspond¬
ing to the right of collective contracts was postponed indefinitely. The
problem of peasant labor organization was also left to one side. These
developments caused an understandable discontent in the workers'
centers and among those small groups of conscious peasants. The
government by failing to adopt a positive decision [concerning agricultural
workers], encouraged a suspicion among the labourers and peasants that
there was an intent to keep the peasantry in a state of oppression, and
marginalized from the social and political process.^^
Government’s refusal to recognize thedefacto peasant organizations

already proliferating in the countryside, and the growing demand for
real economic and political reforms, led to the radicalization of further
sectors of organized labour and, by 1970 provoked the first breaking
away from the Christian Democratic Party and the stolid, though
clandestine. Communist Party, of the young militants who were to form
the nucleus of subsequent guerrilla movements.^^ (The first guerrilla
activity was reported in 1971.)
Radicalization of the labour movement was also evident in one of the
oldest organized sectors, that of the teachers. Salvadorean school¬
teachers had been in the forefront of organized groups demanding
social reform since their national strike in 1968 when they protested not
only at their own meagre salaries but the poor facilities, poor teaching
materials and, all in all poor education available to their charges. From
then on teachers, particularly rural school-teachers, with the clergy
inspired by the new liberation theology, gave the peasants a window on
developments outside their own community and provided the main
means for their concientizacion (consciousness raising) and, in some
cases, their organization. Consequently the teachers, and, later, the
clergy, became a main target of government violence. The 1968 teachers’
strike was notable as one of the first cases in which the paramilitary
organization ORDEN intervened, attacking and killing strikers and
their supporters. When the national teachers’ union struck nationwide
in July 1971 they received widespread support in both town and
countryside and were met with an even wider campaign of violence and
a more systematic deployment of ORDEN goon-squads assisting the
police and National Guard forces at local level. The strike also found
unprecedented support from other organizations and the population at
large, and culminated in massive street demonstrations in San Salvador
with middle classes, peasants, students and urban poor joining in
support of the teachers and taking the opportunity to express their
opposition to an increasingly unpopular regime. Some of the
163
demonstrations in July and August 1971 culminated in stone-throwing

attacks on public buildings — a foretaste of the street demonstrations to
come in 1977 and after.
One most significant aspect of the disturbances associated with the
1971 teachers’ strike was how the urban poor, and particularly the
people of San Salvador’s proliferating shanty towns, mobilized and
took to the streets, as much to protest against a callous government as in
support of the teachers’ special demands. The expansion of commercial
agriculture on the coastal plain in the 1960s, the inexorable population
growth throughout the country and the closing of the Honduran escape
valve by the 1969 war, generated a permanent flood of peasant
immigrants seeking gainful occupation in the cities. The expansion of
tight industry in the 1960s could absorb only a tiny fraction of the
displaced peasants and the majority barely managed to survive on their
wits and grit by hawking everything from chewing gum to kleenex
tissues and the myriad innovative means by which rock bottom urban
poor throughout Latin America spin a meagre income virtually out of
thin air.
According to one source, during the greatest period of industrial
expansion, 1960-69, the Salvadorean industrial force grew from 21,268
to 50,278 workers.^®
Unlike most Latin American countries, however, the relatively small
sector of the working class employed in industry failed to develop into
an elite set apart from the rest of the urban working class, or even the
peasants. El Salvador has possibly been unique in the way, in the early
1970s, industrial workers — usually organized by industry, and often by
individual factory — coalesced to form mass political organizations with
other sectors of the urban poor, newly arrived migrants from the country
and peasant organizations. The 1971 teachers’ strike was just one
occasion which brought these sectors together in a community of
interests which cohered into a new form of political organization.
The new mass organizations springing up in the Salvadorean
countryside and shantytowns throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s
fell largely outside the framework of traditional labour unions and
political parties. Peasant unions sprang up in large part from the
stimulus of the church and remained legal only as mutual interest
associations, and not as traditional trade unions oriented towards
collective bargaining or other labour related activities. The small
independent unions were in competition with the government’s CGS or
General Federation of Unions^' which faithfully supported the
government and was not known to have carried out strikes or other
expressions of union militancy. The major opposition to the CGS was
the Communist Party backed CGTS (Confederacidn General de
Trabajadores Salvadorenos) and the FUSS {Federacion Unitaria Sindical
Salvadorea), a federation which united railway, soft-drink, beer and
water workers and allied itself with the CGTS in 1965.“
164
The 1971 teachers' strike marked a point at which the government

could not fail to recognize the burgeoning strength of non-traditional
opposition organizations (less the teachers than their supporters who
poured out into the streets). This was met by the government’s extra-
legal violence, both from members of ORDEN and from the regular
security forces.
The old system of control which combined promises of reform with
ever-present repression broke down just as political concessions to the
middle classes were withdrawn. Already in 1970 steps were taken to
change the legislation on elections and disenfranchise the clientele of
the middle-class, moderate reformist parties. The revised law altered the
composition of the Central Electoral Commission {Consejo Central de
Elecciones) which ran elections and determined results, ensuring its
control by the PCN for future elections.^^ The law also revised the terms
under which new parties could be registered or coalitions formed and
placed new restrictions on campaigning. The new provisions established
heavy fines for public meetings or demonstrations held without express
permission from the government.^ Altogether the changes in electoral
legislation were sufficient to ensure the results of future elections would
be satisfactory to the ruling party; results that at a pinch could be
changed.
Foreclosed Political Process: Escalation of Terror
The 20 February 1972 presidential elections brought political passions

to a boil, provoked junior officers to attempt a coup, and marked the end
of the military’s decade-long experiment in cautious but steady opening
up of the political arena to selected opposition parties. It was in the wake
of these elections and the failed coup that the full potential of El
Salvador’s elaborate apparatus for counter-insurgency was gradually
revealed.
The 1972 elections marked a significant change in the electoral
strategy of the lawful opposition parties which responded to the 1971
electoral law’s imposition of constraints by creating a coalition party
— the Union Nacional Opositora (UNO) — which fielded a single slate of
candidates drawn from the member parties. Though UNO was formed
by the Christian Democrats, the social-democraticMov/m/cntoAado«a/
Revolucionario and the Union Democrdtica Nacionalista (to some extent a
front party for the proscribed Partido Comunista Salvadoreno), the
Christian Democrats set the terms for the coalition, insisting that their
leader Jose Napoleon Duarte, be the president-al candidate, with MNR
leader Guillermo Ungo in the vice-presidential slot.
The presidential elections, and the elections for the legislature and
municipal government on 12 March, followed a period of electioneering
marred by a massive government campaign to label UNO — and the
165
Christian Democrats and Duarte in particular — as “Communists” and

“terrorists”, and by violence against UNO candidates and campaigners.
Full page advertisements appeared in the major newspapers with
slogans such as “UNO — Communism; Communism — Terrorism”, or
“UNO = Public Enemy Number One” (the acronym UNO means one
in Spanish).'’^
The shrill tone of the government’s campaign attacks, the far-right
backers of the PCN and the further right FUDI on the united front
opposition was influenced by the previous year's events which had
raised anti-Communist passions to new heights, even among these
passionate anti-Communists.
Some sectors of the landholding elite — notably the supporters of
FUDI — were already dismayed by Sanchez Hernandez’ end of term
flirtation with reformism. Full-fledged anti-Communist hysteria was to
crystallize in the course of 1971. In February the murder of Ernesto
Regalado-Duenas — the first attack on a member of El Salvador’s
ruling families — was interpreted as evidence that guerrilla warfare had
finally begun. Later, in July, the teachers’ union, ANDES, triggered
nation-wide demonstrations with a strike similar to that in 1968, proving
that supporters of its cause represented an increasingly coherent and
powerful political force on the left. Both events introduced a trend
toward increasing governmental violence which was to continue in a
rising curve throughout the 1970s.
Industrialist Ernesto Regalado Duenas was a scion of two of the
country’s most powerful landowning families, the Regalados and the
Duenas. In the 1960s the two families had expanded into finance,
gaining controlling interests in the powerful Banco de Comercio; and
into industry, acquiring important interests in the light manufacturing
sector that took-off in the course of the decade; besides developing new
cotton and sugar estates on the coast.^^ Regalado Duenas himself, one of
the up and coming young men of El Salvador’s agrarian elite, was best
known for his effective management of industrial investment, and
considered representative of the entrepreneurs who welcomed the
modernizing economic policies of Sanchez Hernandez’ government;
policies of limited state intervention in the economic and social sphere
considered anathema by the traditional landowning families.
Regalado Duenas was kidnapped on 11 February 1971 and his body
found on 19 February. A ransom was offered but never collected and no
group claimed responsibility for the action. The government wasted no
time, however, in attributing the killing to “groups of the extreme left”.
President Sanchez, in a speech on 24 February, denounced as
responsible “those organized groups that imitate everything evil,
without the least love of country^ those groups of the extreme left and
their shameless allies” and promised “The noble effort of the Security
Forces will be strengthened.”^^
Where responsibility for the Duenas killing lay was in question from
166
the Start, despite President Sanchez’ protestations. In March, the

prestigious London-based Latin America Weekly Report reported the
then widely held opinion that he was killed not by some unknown left-
wing group but by a faction within the President’s own National
Conciliation Party;
Although no direct link has been established between the PCN and the
unknown kidnappers, it is widely believed in San Salvador that the murder
was a desperate attempt by the right-wing of the party to arouse the country
to the dangers of left-wing terrorism and to stampede the party into
choosing a hardline candidate — preferably General Alberto Medrano,
former head of the National Guard and until recently the government’s
strong man. The accusation that the Left was responsible lacked credibility
even among those who would have liked to believe it. Observers argue that a
left-wing group would have claimed responsibility for such an action as a
victory, and would anyway have collected the ransom money.^^
That the kidnapping and murder were the work of the far right,
specifically of agents of the landed elites who had most vigorously
resisted the reformist irrigation law and had close links to General Jose
Alberto Medrano, was suggested by circumstances implicating General
Medrano himself
On the night the kidnapping took place a police detective engaged in
the dragnet put out for Regalado Duenas and his kidnappers
challenged General Medrano in San Salvador’s fashionable Colonia
Escalon and was shot dead on the spot. General Medrano briefly went
into hiding and then surrendered to a National Guard garrison. In his
formal statement after arrest Medrano reportedly indicated some
knowledge of the case, although later he denied any recollection of this
aspect of his statement.In the aftermath of the kidnapping several
other leading rightists were also detained, notably a member of the
Salaverria family, one of the traditional landowning families of the
department of Ahuachapan; but only Medrano was kept in custody,
charged with the murder of the police detective.
First denying the charge, then changing his plea to homicide in self-
defence, Medrano was acquitted in June 1971 and immediately left the
country for the United States, where he remained for several months.™
In July the recently formed FUDI, backed by the landed families of
Ahuachapan, applied for legal recognition. It stood for resistance both to
the agrarian reformist tendencies represented by Sanchez’ irrigation
law, and against the official party’s increasing solicitude for the interests
of the landed families which had diversified into finance and industrial
development, and required new degrees of state intervention in
investment, planning and international marketing.^' When Medrano
returned from the United States in October 1971 he was acclaimed
FUDI’s leader and presidential candidate for 1972.™
167
The most convincing evidence that Regalado Duehas was killed by

agents or ex-agents of the security forces and not by some new left-wing
group, which has to date remained anonymous, may have been the
modus operandi of the crime itself According to some accounts
Regalado Duenas’ body was found tied to a chair, with a cord binding
his thumbs together behind his back in the method of restraint
characteristic of the Salvadorean security forces. He had been tortured,
his finger-nails torn out, his fingertips mutilated, and his eyes destroyed
before being shot twice in the head. These practices are entirely
consistent with those of the Salvadorean political police.
Whoever the real culprits were, the kidnapping and subsequent
killing of Regalado Duenas was used to raise the political temperature
with a Red scare and justify a hard-line crack-down on the left which
sent even the establishment reformists into the political wilderness.
In May 1971 the government publicized the purported unravelling of
a plot involving the national university (long considered a hot-bed of
Communists) and the Christian Democratic Party (the government
party's main political contender) in Regalado Duenas murder. The
crime was attributed to an ambiguous political group — called simply
El Grupo (The Group) — organized by disgruntled members of the
Christian Democratic Youth at the university. The members oiEl Grupo
who were detained were eventually acquitted and released, but the
furore over the supposed conspiracy served to deflect continuing
suspicions of right-wing involvement. The government, and political
groupings and parties of the right, presented the murder as evidence
that, after long preparation, guerrilla warfare had begun in El Salvador
and that previously tolerated organizations of the left should be seen in
a new light and dealt with accordingly. Identification of the united
opposition party UNO with the guerrilla threat was a constant theme of
right-wing electoral propaganda.^^
The actual election proved one of the best documented examples of
electoral fraud to emerge in recent Latin America history.^"* Evidence
was produced of a wide range of measures to interfere with the actual
voting process, including the issuing of extra identity papers to PCN
voters; the destruction of ballots marked in favour of UNO; ballot boxes
open at the back (making the votes cast visible); the expulsion of
observers from the opposition, etc. Despite these efforts UNO appears to
have won the election by a shade less than 10,000 votes.^^
On 25 Eebruary the Central Election Board refuted UNO’s claims of
electoral fraud and announced Molina’s victory by 9,844 votes. In the
uproar that followed, with Duarte threatening a general strike if the
election results were not anulled. President Sanchez hastened the
legislature’s ratification of the official results, and designation of
Colonel Molina as president elect. The threatened general strike never
materialized.
If the presidential election was a blow to the hopes of the united
168
opposition, the local and legislative elections on 12 March were a coup

de grace. The final results gave the official PCN 242 of the 261 mayoral
posts, allowing UNO only 18, and seats in the legislature for UNO’s
member parties fell from their peak of 21 in 1968 (19 for the Christian
Democrats and 2 for the MNR) to eight2^
At 1:30 am on Saturday 25 March, army officers of El Zapote and San
Carlos forts in San Salvador launched a coup against the Sanchez
Hernandez government. Led by Colonel Benjamin Mejia, com¬
mander of El Zapote, who promptly named himself president of a three
man revolutionary junta, the rebels rapidly dominated army installa¬
tions in the capital, including the military academy and the headquarters
of the general staff (but not the general staff), and the critical national
communications centre ANTEL across from the National Palace. They
also made a successful raid on the president's house, where they
captured the president himself, and the chief of his general staff
(Colonel Carlos Humberto Romero, a future president).^^
In spite of these successes the rebels failed to capture or neutralize the
army’s high command; a failure which enabled a co-ordinated counter¬
offensive to be directed by Defense Minister General Eidel Torres,
Colonel Luis Alonso Reyes, commander of the fort of San Carlos, and
Colonel Vicente Sanchez Hernandez, brother of the president and chief
of ANTEL. With the leadership still at large expected support for the
coup by provinciaf garrisons was nipped in the bud. Loyal forces,
including all the Air Eorce, were mobilized against the San Salvador
garrisons; loyal aircraft began limited bombing raids on rebel
strongholds as early as 9 or even 5 am on Saturday.^*
The critical factor in this, as in most other 20th Century Salvadorean
coups, was the support given the regime by the security forces, notably
the National Guard and the National Police. Both the National Guard
and the National Police headquarters in San Salvador successfully
resisted prolonged attacks by rebel army units, and it was largely the
provincial National Guard forces who, with the National Police, proved
decisive in counter-attacking the rebel garrisons on Saturday afternoon.
Loyalist troops brought in from provincial garrisons were placed under
General Azmitia. head of the National Police.™ Coup-leader Colonel
Mejia was subsequently quoted in the capital’s press as stating that “the
only ones who were not with us were the Chiefs of the Security Lorces, in
fear that too many things would be brought out into the open’’ (if the
rebels were successful).^®
By 5 pm that Saturday, the coup was over. National Guard forces
from the North and East of the country together with National Police
and provincial army units had sealed off El Zapote and San Carlos
with San Carlos surrendering shortly afterwards. At about the same
time National Guard troops took the ANTEL building by assault.
Between 4:15 pm and 5:00 pm Colonel Mejia surrendered at El
Zapote. Some 100 people died in the fighting, including several
169
civilians killed in the cross-fire and in bombing raids.*'

What then was the coup attempt all about? The proclamation issued
by the rebel triumvirate on the morning of the coup, its first and last
pronouncement, presented it as an attempt to defend constitutional
order, and declared the Sanchez Hernandez regime to be a cover for the
rule of . .a clique of traitors to the nation and enemies of the people..
It would seem, on the face of it, that the electoral fraud of the previous
month had precipitated the coup, although there were probably other
factors involved.*^ There was never any indication, however, that the
coup leaders intended to offer redress to the losing party in the elections
by handing Duarte the presidency, although he seems to have thought
this a possibility.
Jose Napoleon Duarte and the other leaders of UNO seem to have
been as surprised as anyone by the coup and, indeed, the coup’s
participants denied that civilians had been even remotely involved. But
once the coup was in progress, they did call on Duarte for support and,
apparently without consulting other leading UNO members, Duarte
rashly complied; shortly after noon on the Saturday he surprised radio
listeners with a broadcast calling on the people's whole-hearted support
for the coup. He also called on the National Guard to lay down their
arms.*5 When, some hours later, the rising came to a halt, Duarte was
just one of many civilians who raced for foreign embassies in search of
asylum.
Duarte, however, reached only the private residence of the Venezuelan
Embassy’s First Secretary, where security men tracked him down,
dragged him out of a rear bedroom, and administered a systematic
beating in the presence of First Secretary Gonzalo Espina and his small
children.*^ The uproar raised by the Venezuelan Ambassador, who
rapidly mobilized the diplomatic community and threatened to break
diplomatic relations if Duarte was not freed (Venezuela then had a
Christian Democratic president) probably saved him from prolonged
detention or worse, and discouraged Sanchez Hernandez from carrying
out his original intention of executing captured rebel leaders. Duarte
himself was put on a plane to Guatemala on 28 March and became an
exile in Caracas, until 1980.*^
The failed coup, as had the kidnapping and murder of Regalado
Duenas, became the pretext for a new escalation of repression. A
foretaste of the day to day official violence of the later 1970s was seen in
the weeks immediately following the 25 March coup attempt. Martial
Law was declared on the afternoon of the 25th — in force only until 10
April — and widespread killings carried out as security forces enforced
a curfew, shooting violators on sight in the major cities..** On 3 April
constitutional guarantees were formally suspended by the legislature
and remained so until 3 June 1972.
On 1 July 1972 Colonel Arturo Armando Molina was sworn in as
president for a five year term.
170
11. State Terror: 1972-77
Molina set the tone of his government on 14 July 1972, two weeks after
his inauguration, by ordering troops into the National University,
which he denounced as a hot-bed of subversion; 800 members of the
university community were arrested. Dr Rafael Menjivar, the rector,
and 14 others (teachers, students and administrators) were put on an
airplane, in chains, and flown to Nicaragua. The University was shut
down for over a year.*^
The move against the University did not satisfy the far right which called
for a campaign of “sanitation” to eliminate “Communists” in public life
and even pressed for the expulsion of Mary knoll and Jesuit priests, already
seen as subversives."^’ The scene was being set for the “death-squad” killings
which began in the last years of Molina’s regime.
With middle-class opposition parties hamstrung, and the University
closed, as a forum for political expression, violent opposition groups
might have been expected to become more active. Already on 2 March
1972 an unidentified armed group attacked and killed two National
Guardsmen on patrol in San Salvador, and made off with their
weapons. No group claimed responsibility but apparently they were
authentic “guerrillas”.'” In September 1972 the National Guard post in
Pandinales was attacked by 11 guerrillas, several of whom were killed.'’-
Shortly afterwards the Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion Farabundo Marti
(FPL) (Popular Liberation Forces Farabundo Marti) announced their
existence and claimed credit for the Pandinales operation.^^ A series of
bombings followed and, in early 1973, police posts and multinational
firms were attacked. By the end of 1973 both the FPL and the fledgling
Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP (People’s Revolutionary Army)
were engaging in sporadic bombings and armed attacks.
In February 1973, after a series of bombings at the Salvadorean
International Trade Fair, the Pan American Airways office and the San
Salvador Coca-Cola plant. Defense Minister Carlos Humberto Romero
announced the discovery of a terrorist plan “directed by the Salvadorean
Communist Party, and by sympathizers with that movement, and
affiliates of other parties”,'’'* the latter a transparent allusion to the
Christian Democrats. In the dragnet that followed most of the hundred
171
or so people arrested were not guerrillas, but leading members of the

Christian Democratic Party and trade union leaders. Twenty-two of the
prisoners, blindfolded, with their thumbs bound behind their backs,
were flown out of the country, this time to Guatemala.^^
Undeterred, in mid-March the guerrillas attacked a National Guard
post in Cuscatancingo, killing at least one Guardsman and, in San
Salvador, a policeman who stopped a guerrilla’s car loaded with
propaganda.In late April bombs destroyed the office of the Vice-
Minister of Labour and the IBM headquarters in San Salvador.*^^ In
August the ERP killed a bank guard in what was apparently the
guerrilla’s first bank raid — and left a communique announcing its
existence.*^^
Throughout the rest of the Molina period this sporadic guerrilla
activity continued to feature in Salvadorean political life. But although
the guerrillas actions helped reinforce the repressive trend already
apparent towards the end of the Sanchez Hernandez regime, they were
little more than an embarrassment to the military establishment until
after 1977. The government move against the guerrillas gradually
brought into full operation the paramilitary and intelligence apparatus
built up since the early 1960s. The traditional style of repression —
prolonged imprisonment and exile — was gradually transformed, until,
by 1977, “disappearance” and extra-judicial executions became the
accepted way of dealing with the opposition. This gradual transformation
was punctuated by dramatic incidents of governmental violence, and
innovations both in the style of execution and the choice of victims,
drawn from ever widening sectors of society. Neither the middle classes,
prominent professionals nor even the clergy were to be exempted when,
in 1977, the killings began in earnest — ten years after Guatemala’s first
“counter-terror” campaign was launched in Zacapa.
In Molina’s first year of office, scattered press reports appeared of
peasants arrested by the various police bodies and subsequently found
dead in unexplained circumstances. On 18 November 1972, for
example. La Prensa Grdfica reported the finding of campesino Jose
Vasquez Perez’ headless body in the hamlet of Copinolito, Santa Ana,
after his arrest the previous week by three men “who identified
themselves as members of the Treasury Police”. In May 1974 National
Guard troops raided the village of Chinamequita, killed several
villagers and took others away who were never seen again.^^
Generally cited as the turning point in rural repression was the
incident on 29 November 1974 when some 60 National Guard and
ORDEN members attacked the hamlet of La Cayetana in San Vicente
department, where most families were affiliated to the peasant union
EECCAS. Six peasant farmers were shot dead on the spot and 13 others
detained, “disappeared”, and presumed dead. The operation took place
in the context of a land dispute between villagers and a neighbouring
estate owner.'**^
172
State Terror: 1972-77
Opposition calls in the legislature for an inquiry into the incident

were ruled out of order. A Catholic priest led a march of some 10,000
peasants to protest against the massacre before the Casa Presidencial.""
This was one of the first instances of the new, independent peasant
organizations (FECCAS and UTC) calling their members out on to the
streets of San Salvador to demand justice. The massacre of La Cayetana
was one incident that became a rallying cry for peasant organizations
and opposition groups in the 1970s.
On 21 June 1975, at the hamlet ofTres Calles in Usulutan department,
members of the National Guard and of ORDEN went to community
leader Jose Alberto Astorga's house. He and three sons were shot dead
and a fourth was injured but survived. Government forces then
detained and shot peasant Santos Morales and his two sons.''’^
La Cayetana and Tres Calles, interpreted as the government's
declaration of war against the peasant organizations, stimulated them
to greater militancy. Independent peasant unions merged with other
non-establishment organizations, representing different social sectors,
into a broad political opposition movement fuelled as much by the
sheer brutality of repression as by a specific political vision. In July 1975
the bloody crushing of a student demonstration provided another
landmark in repression, and further mobilized opposition to the
government.
On 30 July 1975 some 2,000 university and secondary school students
demonstrated in San Salvador in protest at the breaking up of a student
demonstration, the previous week in Santa Ana, against government
expenditure to host the Miss Universe Contest. The San Salvador
demonstrators were cut off by troops and armoured cars on a high
bridge over a sunken roadway, on their way from the university’s main
campus to the city centre. The security forces opened fire with automatic
weapons, killing at least 37 students on the spot and taking off in
National Guard ambulances an unknown number of those wounded
who were never seen alive again.'®^ Compounding the horrors for the
families of the dead and “disappeared”, the government refused to
acknowledge the deaths; their bodies were never found, the “dis¬
appeared” never accounted for.
The particular significance of the 30 July 1975 massacre was that the
students, many from middle-class families, had received the same
summary and ruthless treatment as that meted out to the peasantry.
Despite government efforts to deny the massacre had ever occurred the
killings provoked a much greater sense of outrage among large sectors
of the capital’s population than had earlier massacres of relatively far
away peasant farmers. The Roman Catholic church hierarchy con¬
demned the killings, and a demonstration of some 50,000 protesters
marched through San Salvador on 1 August in tribute to the dead and
defiance of the govern me nt."^’^
The massacre of students clearly indicated that conditions in El
173
Salvador had, indeed, changed, and that new means of response were
necessary for effective opposition to the government. For five days after
the incident a group of student leaders, teachers, trade unionists and
representatives of other urban and rural mass organizations occupied
San Salvador's cathedral demanding that the whereabouts of the
“disappeared” students of 30 July be established. Their appeal failed,'®^
but their joint protest helped weld the disparate organizations into a
broad front of unconventional opposition to the regime.
The first of what would be known as the “popular” or mass
organizations had been formed in San Salvador more than a year
before, in June 1974, under the name of Frente de Accion Popular
Unificada, FAPU (United Front of Popular Action). FAPU was a loose
coalition uniting the teachers’ union, ANDES; the two nation-wide
peasant unions, FECCAS and UTC (a smaller organization based in
San Vicente province formed some months before); and the main
federations of urban trade unions FUSS and FENASTRAS.'®^ In 1975
both FECCAS and ANDES withdrew from EAPU, reducing it to a
primarily urban organization based on FUSS and FENASTRAS.
Shortly after the 30 July massacre the second major popular
organization was born. The Bloque Popular Revolucionario 30 de Julio (30
July Popular Revolutionary Block) joined the peasant FECCAS and
UTC, the teachers’ ANDES, organizations of newly radicalized
university and secondary school students, and a new organization in the
shantytowns in and around San Salvador, the Union de Pobladores de
Tugurios, UPT (Union of Slum Dwellers). As the new opposition
consolidated the Molina regime intensified its actions against the
increasingly radicalized peasant unions in the countryside, and turned
to a new approach for disposing of trouble-makers in the urban
areas.
On 26 September 1975 FUSS Secretary General Rafael Aguinada
Carranza, who had been elected to the legislature in 1974 as a candidate
of the National Democratic Union, was riddled by machine-gun fire in
broad daylight, in downtown San Salvador, from two or more vehicles
as he drove through the city with another UDN legislator who escaped
alive.'®’ Aguinada’s murder was the first to be attributed to a mysterious,
anti-Communist, Guatemalan-style death-squad.
Aguinada and other UDN leaders, trade unionists, journalists,
priests, and others were declared to have been “sentenced to death” by
FALANGE, an acronym for Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Anti-
comunista (Anti-Communist Liberation Armed Forces), in a communique
distributed to the press on 2 August (two days after Molina told a press
conference of yet another Communist plot). Molina reported the
detection of infiltrators in several opposition parties, student organiza¬
tions and trade union federations and declared the student demon¬
strations of 25 and 30 July had been instigated by professional agitators
of the Communist Party.*®*
174
State Terror; 1972-77
The FALANGE communique took much the same line as Molina,

holding the Communist Party responsible for infiltrating almost every
non-government group, for the recent demonstrations, and for the
continuing guerrilla violence. It warned the nation’s teachers that “The
Communist leaders of ANDES are already sentenced to death” and, in
keeping with Molina’s later record of persecution of the church,
FALANGE made special reference to Archbishop Luis Chavez y
Gonzalez ("Monsignor, what side are you on? Are you a priest or a
politician? Do you defend Communism. . ?”)Tw
At the time, public opinion on the provenance of the communique
was divided. Local speculation linked FALANGE variously to rightist
elements in the military, to powerful handholding families, and even to
multinational corporate interests.Ostensibly a clandestine organiza¬
tion of the far right FALANGE was probably a creature of the top
security agency, ANSESAL and may have existed only as a unit of
ANSESAL’s specialized forces. On the other hand special funding was
widely believed to have been made available to ANSESAL for special
assassination squads operating under its wing by the principal
associations of Salvadorean landowners.'*'
Calling for a return to the methods of the late General Maximiliano
Hernandez Martinez “who stopped the Communists in their tracks”
with the 1932 massacre, the FALANGE communique warned of the
imminent liquidation not only of Communists, but of those who
collaborated or had dealings with them;
FALANGE is an organization that will begin to function from today... We

have lists, addresses. We know the places the cowardly communist leaders
can be found... from this moment they are sentenced to death— We will
also bring to justice all of those who collaborate with them, be they
journalists, communist priests, congressmen, sell-out lawyers, communists
who are in government through the stupidity of those who govern, and even
those military men who contemporize with them."^
Like the communiques of Guatemala’s numerous apocryphal “death

squads”, prepared by the army and security services, the FALANGE
text emphasized the threat of insurgency to security personnel
themselves, with particular attention to recent killing of policemen:
The security corps and the armed forces should collaborate, killing every
communist that falls in their hands, because they run the risk themselves of
being eliminated. If not, look at the case of the policeman vilely murdered in
cold blood on 1 August, remember all of your companions murdered, like
those of the Bloom hospital, those of Santa Ana, those of San Miguel, those
of the Planes de Renderos, Santiago Diaz Rivas, etc."^
Clearly the writers of the text had both a particular concern with and a
175
detailed knowledge of the losses suffered by the security services in the

previous months, as well as lists of names and addresses of proposed
targets.
Most striking for comparative purposes, not only with Guatemalan
death-squad communiques but with the Salvadorean military s own
doctrinal writing on irregular forces and counter-insurgency tactics, was
FALANGE's classic exposition of the rationale of “counter-terror” in
counter-insurgency. Communists were beyond the law and could be
dealt with only by using lawless tactics:
we will have the advantage of acting outside the law like the Communists.
This is the only way to destroy the Communist beast We will support the
security forces by killing the judges, the law clerks or the cormpt lawyers that
want to prosecute them for the deaths of communists or useful fools.... The
people must understand that this organization will act outside the limits of
the law for the good of the population itself, and for its freedom. .
In the weeks following the revelation of FALANGE’s supposed

existence a number of “disappearances” and murders were credited to
it, among others that of Feliciano Sanchez, head of the Furniture
Workers’ Union, a FENASTRAS affiliate. Sanchez, detained on 14
November, was found dead some days later, his body mutilated by
torture."^
Similar assassinations coincided with a surge of bomb attacks on the
offices of opposition parties, left-wing trade unions and, on 26
September (like in Guatemala in 1966, when the “death-squads”
took off) the offices of a small daily newspaper critical of government
policies — La CrdnicadelPueblo — were machine-gunned and damaged
by bombing."^ In November, bombs exploded at the offices of the
Christian Democratic party, the National Democratic Union party, and
the FUSS labour federation. The Christian Democrats issued a
communique blaming the government for the attacks.''^
The selective assassination of leaders of labour and political
organizations and attacks on non-violent peasant organizations and
peaceful urban demonstrations continued uninterrupted to the end of
the Molina regime.
Agrarian Reform and Persecution of the Church
Towards the end of Sanchez Hernandez’ regime, a press statement by

Enrique Alvarez Cordova, the Minister of Agriculture was the first
indication that significant agrarian reform was being considered for El
Salvador. A member of a great landed family himself, Alvarez Cordova
told the press that an extensive study of the agrarian situation,
completed during the previous two years, would provide the basis for
176
legislation in the coming government. Alvarez Cordova continued as

Minister of Agriculture under the Molina government, and was largely
responsible for an agrarian reform bill published in mid-1976, but
amended beyond all recognition in subsequent months."* Alvarez
Cordova returned to prominence after the 1979 coup, again to serve as
Minister of Agriculture, and again to see an agrarian reform project in
which he believed betrayed by the military (at the time of his arrest and
summary execution in November 1980 he had served as the president of
the combined opposition front for about eight months).
Molina's first step towards agrarian reform was the creation of the
Salvadorean Institute of Agrarian Transformation in June 1975. In July
1976 Molina presented the “Agrarian Transformation’’ bill to the
legislature, providing for an area of cattle ranches and cotton
plantations in the departments of San Miguel and Usulutan, to be
designated a “transformation’’ zone. In its original form the law
provided for government purchase of the land at market value and its
distribution to small-holding peasants. The 150,000 hectares marked
out for distribution might have provided holdings for some 12,000
peasant families."'^ Although the law was forced through, the ensuing
massive campaign to block its implementation proved successful. In
October 1976 President Molina agreed to fundamental changes in the
law which, in fact meant there would be no agrarian reform; land would
be neither compulsorily purchased nor expropriated.
The campaign to reverse or emasculate the agrarian transformation
law forced new alignments between top army officers and the agrarian
elites, leaving Colonel Molina’s proposed reform without high-
ranking military backers. Nomination of the next PCN presidential
candidate would to some extent depend upon the performance of the
eligible members of the high command vis-a-vis the agrarian reform.
Already in June 1976 five top colonels were publicly discussed as
possible candidates.'2° Two were to be dropped for their presumed
loyalty to Molina’s reform proposals. The remaining three were:
Colonels, Carlos Humberto Romero, Minister of Defense; Jose
Guillermo Garcia, President of ANTEL (a top intelligence post); and
Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, President of the state finance
corporation INSAFI (Instituto Salvadoreno de Firtanciamiento Industrial)
and ex-president of ANTEL.'-' Neither Garcia nor Vides
Casanova, who were to rise to power after the October 1979 coup,
jeopardized their careers by pressing for agrarian reform under Molina.
Romero, second only to Molina in the military hierarchy, opted openly
for the counter-reformists and assured himself nomination as next
president.'22
The months of acrid conflict and debate over the proposed agrarian
reform in 1976 brought to the fore the latent hostility of the agrarian
elites — and of the security services’ directors’ towards the progressive
clergy. While the clergy had previously expressed support for agrarian
177
reform in general terms, the Molina government's initiatives found

some sectors of the church ready to champion very specific reform
measures. Temporarily, the clergy’s pro-reform advocacy was in line
with governmental policy; but with the capitulation of Molina s
government they were left as visible, and vulnerable advocates of reform
without allies in positions of power.
In July 1977 US congressional hearings on “Religious Persecution in
El Salvador” ex-American Ambassador Ignacio E. Lozano Jr., placed
the beginnings of the “persecution of the church’! with the 1976
confrontation over the agrarian reform law:
On the one hand, we had young, socially conscious priests seeking on

behalf of the campesinos a better way of life and a bigger slice of the
economic pie brought on by booming coffee and cotton prices, and on the
other hand the landowners, seeking to protect their own economic
interests and reluctant to share their bonanza with their workers. . .
During this period of great social unrest, numerous right wing groups,
including FARO, mounted a shrill campaign in the Salvadorean press
against the Catholic Church. . . this campaign of vilification apparently
had the tacit approval of the government, which in its turn was mounting
a campaign of harassment and intimidation of Salvadorean priests, and
the expulsion of foreign priests, including Americans.'^^
After October 1976, abandoning all pretence of reform for the rural
sector, the military government turned its attention to brutally putting
down the mobilization of the peasantry the agrarian reform had been
intended to appease. The clergy who actively defended the peasants'
right to organize themselves were seen as one of the main obstacles to
maintaining the status quo.
Violence against church sectors involved in the defence of agrarian
reform and peasant organizations began in October 1976 with six
bombing attacks on the campus of the Jesuit-run Universidad
Centroamericana. The authorities attributed the last of these attacks to a
previously unheard-of “death-squad”, the “White Warriors Union”
[Union Guerrero Blanca. UGB). FALANGE was not heard of again, but
attacks on church property and the assassination of clergymen and lay
workers that followed in 1977 although usually carried out by
uniformed members of the regular security services, were regularly
blamed on the UGB.
Moves against the church coincided with a series of incidents
involving peasant organizations in strikes and protests of unpre¬
cedented militancy. In the forefront was the peasant union FECCAS,
closely associated with the clergy, and part of the Popular Revolutionary
Block. On 14 November 1976, in four provincial capitals simultaneously,
FECCAS-BPR demonstrated against changes in the agrarian law and
repression in the countryside. In Quetzaltepeque several demonstrators
178
were dragged off to police cells when the demonstration was broken up.
To prevent their possible “disappearance” the carnpesinos stormed the
municipal building and freed them, at the cost of one dead and several
wounded among their number. On 29 November peasant labourers
protesting against low wages on the “La Paz” plantation in Tecoluca
clashed with the landowner's guards, killing one of them. On 5
December, in perhaps the most significant incident landowner
Eduardo “Guayo” Orellana, proprietor of the Hacienda Colima in the
district of Aguilares, was killed in still unknown circumstances during a
demonstration by tenant farmers protesting against their imminent
expulsion from the land.'^**
Both the government and landowners’ associations blamed the rash
of peasant direct action on the clergy whom they maintained had
organized and advised them. Among the first targets of the ensuing
wave of arrests, torture and assassination in 1977 were parish priests and
lay religious workers (including former priests) working in Tecoluca,
Quetzaltepeque and Aguilares, all areas in which peasant mobilization
had occurred.'^^
While bombings of church buildings and priests’ houses, and later,
murders of clergymen, were routinely ascribed by the government to the
phantom “White Warriors Union” most actions against the church were
carried out quite openly by the uniformed security services. Foreign
priests and former priests were among the first arrested and expelled;
some were tortured. On 1 February Father Guillermo Denaux, a
Belgian working in the slum areas of San Salvador, was arrested by the
national Guard, blindfolded and shackled to a metal bed frame during
a 20 hour interrogation.'^^
Foreign priests received death threats and suffered harsh interrogations
before being expelled, but the worst treatment was reserved for
Salvadorean clergymen or church workers who could not so easily be got
rid of Father Rafael Barahona, diocesan parish priest of Tecoluca, was
detained on 21 February, systematically tortured by the National Guard
for two days, and lived to be released with a fractured skull. His ordeal was
described in the course of US Congressional hearings in July 1977:
He was handcuffed, placed faced down and received numerous kicks to the
head, side and legs from noon until 10 p.m. At 10 p.m. he was stripped and
placed on an iron cot. For nine hours electric shocks were applied to his feet
and his hands as he was doused with ice water. From 7 a.m. the next
morning until 2 p.m. he remained handcuffed hand and foot to the iron cot
and every fifteen minutes received two blows to the chest with a wooden
club.*^^
Despite severe injuries, and threats that he would be killed if he did not
leave the country. Father Barahona returned to his parish church of
Tecoluca. On 11 March his brother Manuel was ambushed and shot
179
dead in what was apparently an attempt to assassinate Father

Barahona, whose car he was driving.’^* The following day, Jesuit priest
Rutilio Grande was ambushed and killed, together with two parishioners,
on his way from the town of Aguilares to the parish church of El Paisnal
where he was to celebrate mass.'^^ Father Grande had been singled out
as a “Communist” priest since the late 1976 anti-church campaign, and
in January 1977 the Aguilares parish house had been damaged by a fire¬
bomb. His sermon in Quetzaltepeque on 13 February, and distribution
of a mimeographed analysis of the persecution of the church probably
sealed his fate.
Father Rutilio Grande’s murder provoked an unexpected response
from the church establishment, and stimulated the still predominantly
conservative hierarchy to come out boldly and positively as the nation’s
main advocates of human rights, a position previously adopted by only
the minority within the clergy which Rutilio Grande came to symbolize.
On 22 February, just three weeks before the murder of Father Rutilio
Grande, 75 year old Archbishop Chavez y Gonzalez was replaced by
Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero. On 5 March, at the Salvadorean
Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Romero, previously considered a
conservative, issued a strong pastoral letter condemning the torture,
killings and “disappearances” taking place throughout the country,
decrying the expulsion of priests, and protesting at a slander campaign
by ANEP and FARO against former Archbishop Chavez y Gonzalez.'-’"
Rutilio Grande’s murder prompted Archbishop Romero to lead the
church in unprecedented action: he demanded of President Molina an
investigation of the crime and announced that he would take no part in
official ceremonies until those responsible were brought to account. (On 1
July he refused to attend the inauguration of Molina's successor.)
On 14 March, despite a state of siege banning all gatherings, the
Archbishop led a massive procession through the streets of San
Salvador to a memorial service for Father Grande; similar processions
took place in Aguilares and El Paisnal. All Catholic schools were closed
for three days, the church issued daily press releases, and YSAX, the
church radio station, broadcast continuous programmes on human
rights. Perhaps the most lasting memorial to Rutilio Grande was
Archbishop Romero’s creation of a permanent office for monitoring
human rights, to be known later as the Socorro Juridico (Legal Aid),
which would provide day by day documentation of the arrests, torture,
murders and “disappearances” in the coming years.
On Sunday 20 March all Catholic churches in the country were
closed except the San Salvador cathedral. An estimated 100,000 people
gathered in the plaza in front of the Cathedral as Archbishop Romero
celebrated mass. The church’s radio station transmitted his sermon
simultaneously throughout the country. For the next three years, until
his assassination. Monsignor Romero’s weekly broadcast sermon was a
major factor in the nation’s spiritual and political life.
Although the church had made it clear that it would resist coercion.
180
the government’s purge of progessive clergy and lay workers in the

countryside continued uninterrupted after Father Rutilio Grande’s
murder. The lay religious who worked with suspect clergy, particularly
catechists to whom much of the religious instruction was delegated in
the countryside, took the brunt of the repression. Many were detained
and tortured, and warned to abandon their church work; others were
simply killed.
Electoral Fraud and Repression: 1974-77
In the March 1974 municipal and legislative elections the trend to

squeeze the middle-class opposition parties out of the running
continued, with a considerably expanded use of the security services,
and in particular the rural forces of ORDEN, to ensure victory for the
PCN candidates. According to the official count, the UNO coalition
won 15 legislative seats against 36 for the PCN and one for the far-right
landowners’ FUDI. UNO spokesmen claimed the true victors in the
elections were the government’s paramilitary irregulars:
... the paramilitary forces that now govern with the complacent complicity
of the security forces are really the ones that have imposed their will. Canton
patrols, local authorities. ORDEN members, all of them armed, dislodged
the poll watchers and proceeded to carry out their own elections. The
expression of the will of the people has been reduced to an operation in
which ballots are marked in a closed room.*^'
In the lead up to the 1976 municipal and legislative elections the

omnipresence of ORDEN strong-arm squads and the regime’s
“death-squads” played a major role in excluding the respectable, legal
opposition from electoral politics. The 1978 Inter-American Com¬
mission on Human Rights report on El Salvador details numerous
cases in which prospective opposition candidates were frightened out
of running for office or prevented from even registering candidates in
many areas. With party officials frequently ejected from registry
offices, or candidacies withdrawn under threats of violence, the
opposition coalition UNO ultimately withdrew from the 1976
election. This proved an embarrassment to the regime, but was hardly
unexpected. The military government must have weighed the benefits
of retaining a gentlemen’s agreement with the moderate opposition
parties and their continued minority share in local government posts
and legislative seats, and concluded that a change in the rules of the
game was necessarily in order. The realization that the 1960s situation
could not be maintained without some real move towards redistri¬
bution of the country’s agrarian wealth, may have influenced the
decision.
181
The stirring of the peasant movements and the offensive against

peasant organizations and the clergy identified with them formed the
backdrop to the 1977 presidential elections. The parties of the UNO
coalition decided to take part, but rather than present one of their
leaders as a presidential candidate, nominated a retired army colonel,
Ernesto Claramount Rozeville, who had distinguished himself in the
Honduran war, had diplomatic experience, and was considered
relatively progressive.'^^ If, by nominating a respected military man,
they hoped to prevent victory being snatched from their grasp as in 1972
they were mistaken.
As in 1976. the pre-election period was dominated by the governing
PCN's vicious campaigning centred on the Communist proclivities of
the Christian Democrats, with the anti-agrarian reform campaign
serving as a springboard from which to begin the attack. The death of
Roberto Poma, a wealthy industrialist kidnapped by ERP guerrillas on
27 January, only weeks before the presidential elections, intensified the
already acute pre-election tension and polarization. It was widely
rumoured at the time that Poma had been kidnapped and murdered by
a right-wing organization as a provocation, but the kidnappers’ demand
for the release of two ERP members — Ana Guadalupe Martinez and
Rodolfo Mariano Jimenez Vega — held in secret cells for more than six
months with authorities denying their arrest, confirmed that the
kidnappers were ERP guerrillas. They secured the release of their two
imprisoned members, at the insistence of the Poma family, but Roberto
Poma died as a result of wounds received during his abduction.'^"' On 9
February the kidnappers issued a communique reporting the death of
Poma and the location of his body. Martinez and Jimenez Vega had
already been flown to Algeria: had they not been rescued, they would
probably have been murdered in custody; no other prisoners who
“disappeared” for more than a few days have surfaced alive since the
1950s. This incident, however, served to inflame substantial sectors of
public opinion against “the left” in general.
Apparently to pre-empt a repeat of the 1972 progressive officers’
revolt, some 200 officers were summarily “retired” in mid-January, and
a press campaign of character assassination was directed against
several officers who had dared express their support for Claramount’s
candidacy. At the same time the popular organizations called for a
boycott of the election and by end of December 1976, had already
initiated a series of political demonstrations in the capital and strike
action in industrial enterprises in San Salvador.
On 20 February Salvadoreans voted. In the process more than 80% of
the UNO’s poll-watchers were either physically ejected from the polls,
arrested or kidnapped before voting began, or received beatings and
death threats. Only 920 of the 3,540 ballot boxes used were opened for
counting in the presence of UNO observers.
Although the government announced victory on 21 February the
182
official verdict was held for five days. Only then did the election board
declare General Carlos Humberto Romero the winner by 812,281 votes
to 394,661.135
The UNO coalition was even better prepared to document fraud than
it had been in 1972, having ensured the presence of international
observers during the voting, and monitored short-wave radio com¬
munications between polling stations in which adulteration of the vote,
arrest of poll watchers, and mobilization of ORDEN thugs were
discussed. An UNO document submitted to US congressional hearings
in March 1977 outlined details of six hours of tapes which included
instructions from the ORDEN co-ordinator. Colonel Benedicto
Rodriguez, call signal “Angel 1”, transmitted from ORDEN head¬
quarters in the Presidential House.'^^ Orders to local ORDEN
commanders included calls for reinforcement of security services in
specific municipalities; instructions for ORDEN to deal with local
authorities that were not “collaborating"; and orders to intimidate or
physically remove UNO observers.
Despite evidence of intimidation, ballot-stuffing, and imaginative
counting, the 920 ballot boxes opened in the presence of UNO
representatives suggest that UNO may actually have won the election:
Claramount had 157,574 of the votes from these boxes, to Romero's
120.972.'3^
As in 1972 UNO did not accept defeat philosophically. Colonel
Claramount himself led a demonstration of some 40,000 UNO
supporters to San Salvador’s central Plaza Libertad on 21 February,
protesting against electoral fraud and declaring that he would stay in
the Plaza until the electoral results were anulled. With numbers at times
rising to some 60,000, the demonstration continued for a week. On 28
February, at 1 am, the government forces attacked the several thousand
demonstrators who intended to remain during the night. As in the
student massacre of July 1975 the object was not dispersal but
bloodshed. Army, National Guard, Treasury, Immigration and Customs
Police units sealed off all but one exit. Colonel Claramount, who later
described the massacre in an open letter, called for the approximately
4,000 demonstrators to gather around him near the church of El Rosario
and sing the national anthem. As they did so the troops surrounding the
Plaza began to fire and Claramount urged the crowd to seek shelter
inside the church. “Meanwhile bursts of machine-gun fire were heard
again and wounded people continued to fall.”'^*
An American churchman who testified in the March concessional
hearings described the single street left open out of the Plaza as a ‘gauntlet
lined with troops and police who beat and slashed at demonstrators forced
to pass between them. One group of some 500 forced through this
“gauntlet” was loaded on to National Guard trucks and taken to National
Guard headquarters. Another group was taken to a place surrounded by
high walls near the railway terminal where many were shot:
183
... in a scene of great confusion they were released in groups of five, only to
be shot down by other troops farther up the road. We have two
eyewitnesses who saw at least 15 persons shot in this manner. One second
hand informant claims a relative working at Rosales Hospital counted
over 100 dead and many wounded brought in before dawn.’^^
The same source cites a lawyer who was detained after escaping from
Plaza Libertad and taken by car to the headquarters of the Treasury
Police (Policia de Hacienda)-.
On the way he saw many bodies on the side of the road. At one point they
passed three teenagers who were walking on the side of the road. The
Hacienda policeman who was travelling in the car with him pulled out his
pistol and shot all three of them at almost point-blank range.'"*®
The last of the demonstrators who had taken refuge inside the church were
evacuated under Red Cross escort, after Colonel Claramount had agreed
to terms with a three man delegation of top army officers.'"*' By 5 am the
Plaza Libertad had been cleared of all but the dead, and fire-hydrants were
opened to sluice away the blood.''*^ The killing continued when fresh
demonstrators, unaware of the previous nighf s massacre, again converged
on Plaza Libertad, and security services launched indiscriminate attacks
on the crowds in the streets, firing on them with automatic weapons.
Altogether witnesses estimated more than two hundred dead and
described the use of army trucks to remove the bodies:
Five Americans saw a government truck with ten to fifteen bodies pass
under their apartment balcony on Ninth Street. Other eye witnesses
reported seeing three large Army trucks with an estimated 40-50 bodies
each leaving the downtown area.'"*"*
The official government admission was that four persons were killed
in the early morning of 28 February. When a reporter at the press
conference said he had photographs of five separate bodies, the
government spokesman changed the number to five.'"*^
The 28 February 1977 bloodbath brought to an end the first
Salvadorean experiment in broader political representation which
extended to moderate middle-class parties.'"*^ If electoral fraud had not
sufficed, the massacre in Plaza Libertad and subsequent wave of
killings clearly indicated the governmenfs unwillingness to continue
the charade. The top leaders of UNO were exiled and their followers
became liable to arrest, torture, and — in the countryside — annihila¬
tion. The main thrust of the wave of repression after the elections was at
the peasant organizations, and the murder of priests and lay religious
teachers, perceived as the peasants’ organizers and advisers, became the
main objective.
184
On 17 May 1977 some 2,000 National Guard and army troops moved
into the township of Aguilares to evict striking tenant farmers and arrest
or kill local leaders and activists. On 18 May troops with armoured cars
and riot tanks sealed off the town of Aguilares and carried out house-to-
house searches; at least 50 people are reported to have been shot on the
spot as troops moved in. One, the sacristan of the parish church, was
machine-gunned as he rang the church hells to gather the people.
Several hundreds were detained, beaten and loaded on army trucks.
They were never seen again. Possession of photographs of Aguilares’
martyred priest. Father Rutilio Grande — distributed in their thousands
by the church — was taken as evidence of subversion and motive for
arrest, torture, killing or "disappearance". Father Grande’s three Jesuit
colleagues were detained, systematically beaten, then expelled to
Guatemala, and accused in a government communique of "a long
history of subversive activities in the area through the peasant
organizations FECCAS and UTC”. The Aguilares district remained
under military occupation for over a month, and movements throughout
the area were strictly controlled.’"*^
On 20 May Archbishop Romero issued a bulletin condemning the
beatings and expulsion of priests and declared the church found
President Molina’s expression of condolence for Rutilio Grande’s
murder inconsistent “with the government’s orders to security forces to
attack priests who had worked closely with Father Grande.’’’"**
Arrests, torture and expulsions of clergy continued, and a public
campaign against the church, and peasant organizations, produced,
almost daily, articles, communiques and paid advertisements openly
sponsored by landowners’ organizations or government agencies. At
the same time death threats went out in the name of the UGB “death
squad” against Salvadorean priests who remained in the country
despite prior intimidation; but the church did not submit. When
Suchitoto parish priests Higinio and Inocencio Alas (previously
detained and tortured) received convincing death threats and left the
country on 25 May, former Archbishop Chavez y Gonzalez expressed
his solidarity by asking to be assigned as parish priest in Suchitoto to
replace them.’"*^
On 21 June 1977 a communique in the name of the UGB “death-
squad” attracted world attention and brought on an unprecedented
scrutiny of human rights violations in El Salvador. In “War Order No.
6”, a flysheet sent to Salvadorean newspapers and clergymen, the UGB
declared that:
All Jesuits without exception must leave the country forever within 30
days of this date ... the immediate and systematic execution of all Jesuits
who remain in the country will proceed until we have finished with all of
them.
185
The authors of the flysheet reserved the right to begin operations before
the 30 days were up, but established the deadline for departure or death
as 20 July 1977.'5o
The immediate effect of this ultimatum was that the Jesuits closed
ranks and refused to move. In this they received the support of the
Vatican and of the diplomatic representatives of the Western countries
in El Salvador. Jesuit Provincial for Central America, the Salvadorean
Cesar Jerez, declared that: “The Jesuits will stay in El Salvador. The
members of our order will not leave El Salvador unless they are expelled
or physically eliminated.”'^' Later, the head of the Jesuit order Pedro
Arrupe, stated that: “[Jesuit] priests will not leave El Salvador because
they are with the people. .. It could be that they are martyred, but the
Jesuits will not leave that country.”'^^ The deadline came and went
without incident, perhaps because US congressional hearings on
“Religious Persecution in El Salvador” were scheduled to begin the
following day.
The newly elected government responded to the sudden attention
from abroad by avoiding spectacular acts of repression in the cities for
several months, although military operations against organized
peasants continued in rural areas.'^^
With the political parties no longer seen as an alternative, the urban
trade unions, and the organized peasants showed a new militancy and
channelled their energies through the popular organizations. Strike
action in the cities, and land invasions, sit-ins and demonstrations in
rural areas began from the first days of General Romero’s regime. The
ranks of FAPU and BPR swelled, stimulating the formation of a third
popular organization, the 28th of February Popular Leagues (LP-28),
named in commemoration of the post-election massacre. To com¬
memorate the 1975 student massacre. Revolutionary Block (BPR) held
its first street demonstration on 30 July, and marched unmolested
through the capital. By 15 November the BPR held at least 10 more
demonstrations, in San Salvador, Santa Ana, Aguilares and San
Martin, calling for the release of political prisoners, an end to
repression, and to commemorate past political killings, or to support
local labour claims.'^'* From mid-August to November a rash of strikes
in San Salvador were backed by the BPR and FAPU. In October, as the
coffee harvest approached, those peasant unions affiliated to the mass
organizations launched nationwide campaigns for a fair minimum
wage for agricultural workers.'^^ In November, the peasant unions’
campaign for a rise in the rural minimum wage culminated in a two-
day sit-in in the Ministry of Labour, backed by an enormous crowd of
peasants gathered outside; the occupation ended without bloodshed
when the government agreed to talk with union leaders.'^^
In the countryside, however, no such restraint was shown or
concessions made. Military occupations, involving combined army.
National Guard and ORDEN forces, repeated the May experience of
186
the Aguilares district in several areas of Chalatenango, Morazan, San

Vicente and Cabanas departments. Reports of detentions, “disappear¬
ances , and killings followed these operations. On several occasions
small landowners’ harvests were destroyed or crops stolen by members
of the security forces or ORDEN. Sometimes security forces went into
the peasant communities, grabbed suspects pointed out by ORDEN,
took them away and killed them. By 1978, however, guerrilla forces were
coming to the assistance of rural communities attacked by government
forces, as. for instance, in San Pedro Perulapan in Holy Week 1978,
when the FPL killed five ORDEN members after the beheading of one
FECCAS leader and the “disappearance” of others.'^*
Guerrilla actions steadily increased after the February 1977 electoral
fraud and ensuing massacre. During the first months of General
Romero’s rule the guerrillas carried out a series of high profile
operations against leading figures from the financial and industrial
classes and. on 12 July, settled a very old score by killing one of the
perpetrators of the 1932 massacre, 82 year old ex-National Police chief
(1932) Osmin Aguirre y Salinas. Other guerrilla actions resulted in the
killing of two local army commanders in Chalatenango on 29 July, and
on 16 September, the murder of Dr Carlos Alfaro Castillo, a wealthy
landowner chosen to replace the exiled Dr Menjivar as Rector of the
National University.General Romero’s counter-violence claimed its
victims primarily from the quite visible membership of the popular
organizations, leaving the guerrillas themselves untouched. Guerrilla
activity continued to increase:
In the first two weeks of November the FPL killed six policemen, attacked
the US Embassy, destroyed the San Miguel plant of the Bayer pharma¬
ceutical company and blew up an electricity plant; the ERP planted at least
40 bombs on San Salvador and destroyed PCN offices in three towns; RN
made its presence known with four spectacular kidnappings early in
December, capturing Japanese, Dutch and British businessmen, netting an
immediate SI million from Philips alone. .
Yet not the guerrillas, but the mass organizations capable of putting
50,000 to 100,000 people on the streets posed the greatest threat to
Romero’s regime. By 1979 the BPR, FAPU and LP-28 were backing
industrial strikes with mass street demonstrations and fighting for the
release of arrested leaders by occupying embassies, government
ministries, and public buildings.
US Human Rights Policy: Spotlight on El Salvador
General Romero’s relative restraint in the first months of his presidency

was not unrelated to the United States’ infant human rights policy
187
launched with President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in January 1977,

just as El Salvador was entering one of its bloodiest phases. The
international attention focused on the electoral fraud and the persecu¬
tion of the church ensured that El Salvador would feature prominently
in the spotlight of the new American human rights advocates, even
though, according to Ambassador Lozano, “The United States really
has no vital interest in the country.”'^'
The state of human rights in El Salvador had already caused friction
between the American Embassy and the Salvadorean government in
1976, under Molina, when several American citizens were arrested, ill
treated and one “disappeared” or, was probably murdered.
The case of Black American Ronald James Richardson, and his
arrest and “disappearance” in September 1976 is particularly
revealing of the convolutions of US human rights policy.'^ It is
notable for having stimulated the first threat of economic sanctions of
the period, due to the extraordinary pressure exerted on the US
government by Ambassador Lozano, who forced the issue by taking
the story to the newspapers.
Richardson, whose reasons for being in El Salvador remain a matter
for speculation, was arrested in September 1976. The American
Embassy had reason to believe that he was not subsequently deported
as the government claimed — but that he had been killed while in the
Salvadorean security forces’ custody, some time after his arrest.
Ambassador Lozano took the case very seriously and made every effort
to force the Salvadorean government into a bona fide clarification of
Richardson’s fate. He did not. however, get the wholehearted co¬
operation of the US government.
In the July 1977 hearings of the Fraser Committee, Lozano, then no
longer ambassador to El Salvador, was questioned about his efforts on
human rights:
Mr. Fraser. For those actions that you took or proposed to take, in relation
to human rights and related issues in El Salvador, what kind of support
did you get out of Washington?
Mr. Lozano. Well, Mr. Chairman, little to none. . . We operated pretty
much on our own in this area. The most important case to us involved the
disappearance of an American citizen while in the custody of Salvadorean
authorities, and we felt that we had a great difficulty in getting
Washington to focus on this particular case which we considered to be of
extreme seriousness. I feel that it did not get the attention it deserved here
until after we went public on it down there. .
Once the Richardson story broke in the press. Ambassador Lozano

was able to push the matter further . . . but it still took a good deal of
effort. A3 May 1977 cable from Lozano to the State Department was still
protesting at Washington’s failure to act on the Richardson case:
188
State-Terror: 1972-77
I deeply believe that if the USG [United States government] cannot

convey the points it has tried to communicate in such a clear and absolute
case of the violation of a US citizen’s ultimate human right, his life, then it
had better withdraw from its announced pursuit of the improvement of
human rights throughout the world.'^
The immediate response to Lozano’s strong words was authorization to

raise the ante in his dealings with President Molina on the Richardson
case by informing him that the fate of a planned $90 million Inter
American Development loan for a hydroelectric project depended upon
a positive response on the Richardson case.
In his cable Lozano had also demanded a strong letter from either
Carter or Vance be delivered to Molina by a suitably high-level
emissary. In a 21 May memorandum to Secretary of State Vance (and
special adviser Philip Habib) the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, Terence A Todman, reported Lozano's ’’strong
recommendation” that a letter go from the Secretary of State to Molina,
with a draft attached for signature. Todman’s opinion was that the letter
would be particularly effective as a follow-up to threats of economic
sanctions tendered shortly before, both by Lozano and himself in a visit
to El Salvador the previous week, and added:
Several factors, including the shakiness of his internal support, make us

believe he [Molina] will try to avoid a confrontation with us. A demarche
two weeks ago to induce El Salvador to avoid confrontation with the IDE
by postponing its request for a $90 million loan was successful.'^^
On 24 May, Vance sent the requested letter, expressing his hope that
the findings of the inquiry on the Richardson case would soon be
available, and that the two governments would shortly resume their
“traditional cooperative relations within a spirit of common dedication
to shared principles of individual human rights.”'^
After Lozano’s public criticism of Washington’s feeble support for his
human rights efforts in the Fraser hearings Todman defended the State
Department’s role:
The Richardson case is one which has overshadowed our bilateral

relations with El Salvador during the past eight months. In the
Richardson case, there was disagreement between Ambassador Lozano
and ARA [American Republics Area] over the most effective tactics vis-a-
vis the Government of El Salvador.
He pointed out the positive action taken — such as the threatened

withdrawal of support for the $90 million IDE loan, and his own trip to
El Salvador. Additionally, that the US had “reduced our Military Group
in El Salvador to impress the Government with our dissatisfaction”
189
(something the US government had planned to do anyway) and

“presented several protest notes to the Salvadoreans regarding consular
access to and treatment of detained Americans.”'^* Todman also noted
other human rights concerns in El Salvador;
... charges of substantial fraud in its presidential election, allegations of

brutality by its military against dissidents, a four month state of siege
suspending certain constitutional rights, a marked increase in both
rightist and leftist terrorism, and a growing estrangement between Church
and State.*^^
Although the fact that all the measures enumerated by Todman were
taken after Ambassador Lozano had given the story to the press should
be noted, this does not detract from their importance.
The Molina government’s response to US pressures was minimal; the
Attorney General was assigned responsibility to investigate and report
on the Richardson case; the report was not available until Molina left
office. When it was it added nothing, only reiterating El Salvador’s
governmenfs previous stance.
Molina had already responded to US concern about human rights in
April 1977 by “renouncing’’ US military assistance, a relatively
unimportant gesture, since the level of assistance was low and the
continued presence of US military group advisers would not be
affected.'™
Two emissaries from the Carter government, with specific human
rights concerns, visited General Romero in the early days of his
presidency. By then the Richardson case had been eclipsed by the death
threat against the Jesuits. A July visit by Arellano, of the Bureau of Inter-
American Affairs, was followed on 2 August by a two hour meeting
between President Romero and Carter’s Assistant Secretary of State
for Humanitarian Affairs Patricia Derian, in which Romero reportedly
stated that in El Salvador “human rights are respected’’.'^'
The Department of State saw in the change of government an
opportunity to wipe the slate clean and drop talk of sanctions. By late
July, Terence Todman informed Secretary of State Vance that he
believed outstanding human rights questions were nearing resolution;
Romero has instructed his military to improve their conduct and is trying
to improve relations with the Church. He is protecting the Jesuits, has
denounced both rightist and leftist violence, and has reportedly ordered a
forthcoming report on the Richardson case.'^^
The promised report was duly handed over the US Embassy on 27

July, but failed to clarify the fate of Richardson. It concluded that
Richardson had been deported, that no crime had been committed
against him and that they considered the matter closed.'™ The only
190
concession was to apologize for what was maintained had not

happened and say it would not happen again:
I ask you to accept our apologies for this incident and to be assured that
the new government is taking all possible measures and precautions to
avoid situations which might affect the good relations which traditionally
have existed between our peoples and governments. .
The US government also appeared to have decided to call it a day on

the Richardson case. On 29 July. Deputy Assistant Secretary Arellano
told congressional hearings on “Religious Persecution in El Salvador”
(the Fraser Hearings) that the Salvadorean Attorney General's report
on the case had been received, and suggested it was entirely satisfactory.
Although information from former members of the Salvadorean
security services became available in 1978, confirming Ambassador
Lozano’s well-founded suspicions of foul play, nothing more was heard
of the Richardson case in public hearings or the press. Declassified
cables detailing Richardson's torture and murder (by ANSESAL, the
Presidential intelligence agency) were released to the author in 1982.
By mid-1977, the State Department’s career establishment (excluding
such Carter political appointees as Patricia Derian, who fought
untiringly for a hard-hitting human rights policy) was struggling to
smooth relations with Latin American countries which had clashed
with the Carter administration over human rights issues. In the
Salvadorean case a main argument for a fresh start was that a new
regime was in place, and above all that foreign relations policies had to
be realistic;
We would like to be constmctive in our approach. The advent of a new

regime in that country may present us with new opportunities for coopera¬
tion. .. However, we must bear in mind that the complexities of engendering
meaningful change in society are immense. As Deputy Secretary of State
Warren Christopher has said: ‘If we are to do justice to our goals, we must
act always with concern to achieve practical results’.'^^
Just one month after the congressional hearings on religious

persecution in El Salvador General Romero was invited to Washington
with most of the other heads of state of the region to witness the signing
of the Panama Canal treaty. After a meeting with him President Carter
declared, on 7 September, that the United States had observed “great
progress in the last two months” in El Salvador’s human rights
situation.”^ No doubt he had. There was, in fact, a lull or truce in El
Salvador, at least in the cities, where demonstrations were taking place
without being fired on and the Jesuits overstayed their “death-squad”
deadline without being collectively eliminated. While in Washington
Romero earned further US praise for inviting the Inter American
191
Commission on Human Rights of the OAS to visit El Salvador;'^^ a

decision he was to rue later.
The US appears to have made no effort to encourage General Romero
to disown his predecessor’s rejection of US military assistance; but there
were other channels for such assistance — the economic sanctions
discussed above never materialized. In September the Salvadoreans
were advised to resubmit the Inter-American Development Bank loan
request they had withdrawn earlier in the year, and on 3 November the
lADB announced it had approved the $90 million loan as requested.'^*
At the same time the US AID budget for El Salvador was raised from
$5.5 million in grants and loans for FY (Einancial Year) 1977 to $11.26
million for FY 1978. The large AID staff present in El Salvador — 29
American personnel — remained.'^^
General Romero: State Terror and Social Mobilization
General Romero, from his background, could have been expected to be

amenable to co-operation with the United States, particularly its
military representatives. Throughout his military career he had worked
closely with the US military group in El Salvador, and had been abroad
for training or participation in conferences of Latin American army
officers organized by the United States. His first overseas training was a
three month “Counter-insurgency Course” at the US Army School of
the Americas in the Canal Zone (January to March 1962).'*'’ In 1966, he
served as Salvadorean delegate to both the VII Conference of American
Armies and the II Conference of CONDECA; in 1973 he was elected
president of CONDECA.'*' Before becoming Minister of Defense and
Public Security in 1972 his most important posts had included those of
Chief Military Aide to President Sanchez Hernandez, Chief of
Personnel of the Armed Forces General Staff, and Deputy Commander
of the key First Infantry Regiment in San Salvador.'*^
As an intelligence officer in the 1960s, he had worked with both the
US MilGroup (Military Group) and Public Safety advisers on the
restructuring of El Salvador’s intelligence apparatus; in 1967, he
attended the VI Conference of Intelligence Officers of the Americas.
General Romero’s speciality in the 1960s had been counter-insurgency
in general and intelligence in particular, but as Minister of Defense and
Public Security after July 1972 he was responsible for all police,
paramilitary and military activities under Molina (including the
increased deployment of ORDEN) and was the key link between the
Molina government and the Public Safety advisory team (until 1974),
and the US MilGroup.'*^
In his last months as Minister of Defense, and before his nomination
as the PCN presidential candidate in September 1977, Romero was
invited for an extensive visit to the United States, including calls on the
192
Department of State, the Pentagon, and the Inter-American Defense

Board and College at Fort McNair.'*'* His close ties to the US military
establishment remained after he became president; when he com¬
municated with the American Embassy on the Richardson case he did
so via the Defense Attache.'*^
By November 1977, the noticeable hiatus in the more visible aspects of
repression in El Salvador during the first months of the Romero regime,
was over. Once the immediate threat of economic sanctions was lifted
Romero moved with increasing brutality to crush the rising tide of
organized opposition.
The first Catholic priest to run foul of the security services since the
UGB death-squad threat against the Jesuits, Father Miguel Ventura,
was detained and severely tortured by the National Guard on the day El
Salvador’s loan was ratified by the Inter-American Development Bank:
3 November 1977.'*^ This occurred in what by then was a typical
combined security forces operation against the town of Osicala, in the
department of San Miguel, a stronghold of the FECCAS peasant union.
National Guard troops burst into the church during mass and arrested
Father Ventura, who was subsequently strung up by his wrists and
beaten. He was released shortly afterwards but three of his “catechists”
were beaten and dragged off, and never seen again.'*^
In December 1977 Archbishop Romero and the Bishop of Santiago
de Maria issued a joint statement describing the situation:
We are passing through the blackest period of our history. It is a truly

painful reality: the disappearance of persons, murders, military encircle¬
ment of communities, arrests, expulsions. The victims pertain to all of the
social classes but the greatest number of victims are from among the
poorest and most oppressed.'**
This was not an exaggerated picture. From November 1977, when the
harvest period coincided with co-ordinated demonstrations demanding
higher wages for agricultural workers, the security services stepped up
their operations in rural areas. Villages were occupied by troops while
house to house searches were carried out and residents screened against
lists or forced to file past hooded informants. Those identified as local
leaders were dragged off and executed without trial. As often as not their
bodies were later found, multilated or showing marks qf torture. A wave
of strikes in San Salvador and demonstrations there and in provincial
cities were countered by the selective assassination of union leaders and
raids on the shanty town membership of the urban popular
organizations.
On 25 November 1977, the Romero government enacted a Draconian
Law for the Defense and Guarantee of Public Order, aimed at legalizing
the violent repression of opposition groups. Amnesty International said
that it seemed:
193
... specifically designed to restrict the actions of trade unions, the political
opposition, and human rights monitors, including members of the clergy
who report human rights problems or advise members of the peasant
trade unions.'*^
The law was severely criticized by Amnesty International, the Inter-

American Commission on Human Rights, the International Commis¬
sion of Jurists, and in 1979 even the US State Department described it as
“severely abridging civil liberties”. Indeed, the law took account of
human rights only by making it a crime to denounce, or report human
rights violations either inside or outside the country.'^®
With this Public Order law established the “counter-terror” process
already begun, gained momentum. By the end of 1978 torture, killings
and “disappearances” were common. Most victims were still found
among the peasantry, but a steadily increasing number of students,
teachers, trade unionists and local organizers for the Christian
Democratic and other opposition parties fell victim to night raids and
execution. Clergymen also continued to pay a high price for their support
of organized peasants, workers and slum dwellers. On 28 November
1978, some 150 National Police arrested Father Ernesto Barrera, known
as “the workers’ priest”, in his home, along with two trade unionists. All
three were tortured and shot.'^' In a similar incident National Guard,
Police and Army troops raided a religious retreat centre in San Salvador
as 40 teenage participants were sleeping. They dragged off Father
Octavio Ortiz Luna, head of the centre, and killed him with submachine-
gun fire. Four boys, between 12 and 15 years old, who came to his aid
were also murdered. The next day the authorities informed the press that
the deaths had occurred after the priest had fired on passing troops and
that the “retreat centre” was a guerrilla training camp; Father Barrera
and the two trade unionists, too, were accused of being guerrillas, and
reported officially to have died in a “shoot-out”.''^-
Detailed accounts of individual cases indicate that by early 1979
killing had become routine whenever a detainee (with very few
exceptions arrested without legal formalities) fell within certain broad
categories, such as trade unionist member of a peasant organization,
party organizer, or catechist
By October 1979 Romero's human rights record was as bloody as any
contemporary ruler had achieved in a comparable time-span. It was not
however, his human rights record that brought about his overthrow, but
his loss of control over the opposition, in spite, or because of the violent
repression wielded against it His option for unlimited slaughter had not
only provoked an outcry from international human rights organizations,
including a remarkably frank and revealing report from the OAS Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights, but also massive opposition
within the country where, undeterred by the killings and torture,
hundreds of thousands were mobilized in demonstrations.
194
A typical scenario from Romero’s last year in office found a large

crowd of demonstrators supporting a March 1979 brewery workers’
strike, attacked by helicopters sent in to strafe them, killing seven; in
May 1979 a demonstration in front of San Salvador’s Cathedral broken
up by police gunfire, killing 23; crowds outside the Venezuelan
Embassy, supporting a sit-in demanding the release of political
prisoners, fired on by police, killing 14.
The new grass-roots organizations were not simply bent on ousting a
particular general, but determined to end a status quo traditionally
defended by the military. They wanted real change and nothing less;
neither, as they soon proved, would they be fooled by substitutes.
195
12. The New Security
System: US Model
The 1972 presidential elections marked the beginning of the end of the
political system's opening up to the participation of new social sectors. It
also marked a change in the traditional pattern of political control and
repression and the beginning of new forms of opposition to military
hegemony; the first faltering strikes of newly organized guerrilla groups
and the germination of mass popular organizations outside the pre¬
vious tradition of political parties and trade unions. The latter were to
seek political objectives through the direct action of strikes and
demonstrations and would grow to enormous proportions.
Several years were to elapse before El Salvador experienced the
massive governmental violence characteristic of “counter-terror” in
Guatemala, but the counter-insurgency apparatus responsible for state
terrorism in the 1980s was already largely complete by 1972.
In the 1960s, as in Guatemala, an unprecedented paramilitary
organization had been superimposed on the traditional security system,
vastly expanding the security services' numerical strength and extend¬
ing the security system's intelligence collection and operations capability
at the local level. It was a classic exercise in "counter-organization” for
counter-insurgency: the creation of security structures imitating the per¬
ceived structures of guerrilla organizations, and paralleled by other
radical innovations. The intelligence system was reorganized to take
advantage of new intelligence assets provided by “counter-organization”,
to co-ordinate and control the new paramilitary recruits and ensure
their loyalty.
This regearing of the Salvadorean security system was carried out at
the prompting of the United States, with the assistance of US security
advisers and in accordance with a model provided by the United States.
Minor US military and police assistance programmes were already
operating in El Salvador by the late 1950s, but not until 1960 were the
first explicit plans for new counter-insurgency programmes recorded,
and only in 1961 did they begin to be implemented.
In response to the massive street demonstrations in summer 1960,
and other indications of the Lemus regime's loss of control of public
order, the US Embassy, in a cable on 26 July 1960, requested the State
196
The New Security System: US Model
Department to urgently consider raising the level of assistance to

Salvadorean security services.''^’ As a result a two man team, headed by
chief of the Latin American branch of the Public Safety Division of the
International Co-operation Administration (ICA) Herbert O. Hardin,
visited San Salvador to carry out "an over-all internal security survey”.
Hardin's final report on 24 August 1960. proposing increased assistance,
summarized “The Problem”:
the growing threat to internal security as a result of infiltration of the

country's borders by subversive persons; the smuggling of subversive
materials, firearms, and commercial contraband into the country; the
growing seriousness and frequency of civil disturbances (one of which is
in progress as this memorandum is being written); and the incidence of
ordinary crime in the country.'*^'’
While the security situation was not yet regarded as “critical” the report
concluded that "now is the time to lend attention, before the point of
acute danger is reached”.
Unlike disparaging comments in ICA specialists' reports on
Guatemala around the same time, in assessing El Salvador's existing
security system, Hardin's report concluded that “the internal security
forces in El Salvador, by Eatin American standards have excellent basic
potential for development into very efficient organizations'':'^^ The report
described the National Guard as “the most important internal security
organization in the country” and probably unequalled in the Americas:
While it is organized and disciplined along military lines, it renders to the
civilian population in the rural areas, by means of comprehensive foot
patrol coverage, the most complete and beneficial civil police services ever
observed by us in Latin America ... much of the stability in the country
is probably owable to the services of the National Guard.’’’*
Despite massive population growth in the previous decades, and the

advance in organizing opposition groups and parties, the countryside
seemingly remained wholly under control of the Guard, as in the 1930s,
like a large orderly plantation. This did not last, but appears to have
been an accurate assessment at the time. Recommendations accompanying
the report were designed to meet the possibility of rural organization
and opposition becoming a threat in the future.
The Hardin report's outline and assessment of the rest of the security
system - excluding the army - indicates little or no structural change
since the fall of the Martinez regime in 1944, except the post-1944 exclusion
of any form of civilian militia or autonomous paramilitary organization.
Urban police services remained the province of the National Police, its
force of 800 men distributed between Central Headquarters in San
Salvador and 20 provincial headquarters in the larger towns and the
cities. The assessment ratifies the findings of a 1956 ICA survey on the
semi-military nature of the police:
197
it possesses numerous military characteristics beyond those normally

found in police departments. This is evidenced in the training program
which consists of military and police subjects in equal parts. The person¬
nel consists primarily of ex-military men.'^'^
The senior officer corps then, as now, consisted of active duty army
officers; lower ranks, generally selected from among former servicemen
of “proven aptitude”, were described as excellent police personnel: “The
average policemen are young, personable and intelligent”*^ again in
contrast to Guatemala at the same period.
The 500 men of the Policia de Hacienda or Treasury Police were respon¬
sible for carrying out “some border control work, and to suppress traf¬
ficking in contraband, including that produced internally”;^”' they were
particularly concerned with suppressing illegal alcohol production.
Two more national police forces rounded out the security system and
dealt with matters related to customs procedures and to immigration. In
1960, the 379 Customs Police (Policia deAduana), were primarily respon¬
sible for inspecting “all freight and baggage entering and leaving the
country to ensure that proper tariff levies had been made”."”^ The
Immigration Police (Policia de Inmigracidn). the smallest of the
specialized forces, was, in 1960, the only wholly plain-clothes security
force organized along civilian lines, although its officers, too, were drawn
from the military."® Its main responsibilities were “processing persons
for entry and exit through established ports, and control of aliens in
the country”."®
The Hardin report recommended an urgent programme of security
assistance and proposed that contingency funds be tapped “in view of
the need for immediate action”."® The proposed programme was to
include reinforcing and reorientating El Salvador’s existing Public
Safety Program, adding a generalist Chief Adviser, a Training Adviser
and an Investigations Adviser “qualified in general criminal investiga¬
tions, security investigations, contraband investigations, and records
operations”;"® also, an increase in the training of local personnel in the
United States and third countries; and extensive commodity grants."®
Finally, the Hardin report extolled the Salvadorean governmenfs
receptivity to United States assistance, and emphasized the danger of El
Salvador becoming a target of subversion:
We believe that nowhere in Latin America could the US make a more
worthwhile investment in the form of internal security assistance. The
potential of the recipient organizations, coupled with their objectives, is
such that maximum use will be made of all assistance offered... the
internal security situation in El Salvador may soon develop into one of
extreme urgency.
On 7 September 1960, the US Embassy cabled the Department of

State requesting immediate implementation of the proposed assistance
198
programme in response to the escalating street demonstrations and dis¬

order then pressing the Lemus regime and provoking increasingly
harsh and ineffective repressive measures:
While it can be argued, of course, that the supplying of equipment which

might be used against Salvadorean citizens as during last week’s disorders
will subject us to criticism, this is clearly far more bearable than permit¬
ting a constitutionally based and democratically oriented government
demonstrably friendly to us to be subverted and overthrown if means are
at our disposal to help prevent it."'”
It was, however, too late to save the Lemus regime, but implementation
of an expanded security assistance programme was delayed only until
January 1961.
The lesson of Lemus' overthrow and the ensuing short-lived refor¬
mist regime stimulated the rapid implementation of the Hardin pro¬
posals and prompted an increase in the assistance to the regular
military establishment.
In the wake of the January 1961 coup a US Embassy “threat assess¬
ment” outlined three interlocking concerns: 1) that “hard-core Com¬
munists" and “sympathizers” were still in El Salvador; 2) the potential
for exiled junta leaders to carry out subversive plans from outside El
Salvador; and 3) the need to contain “Sino-Soviet controlled Cuba”. In
each of these three areas the perception of the security threat facing El
Salvador in 1961 is reflected in United States security assistance policy
in the 1980s.
The geopolitical circumstances of the October 1960 coup and 1961
counter-coup in El Salvador were determining factors in the surge of
security assistance that followed. Cuban revolutionary subversion was
blamed for Lemus' overthrow and for the civil-military junta experi¬
ment, and labelled as the major threat of the future:
.. . in the face ofthe continuing threat to the stability ofthe area posed by a
Sino-Soviet controlled Cuba, El Salvador’s current capability to ensure its
internal security requires strengthening on an urgent basis ... Under¬
ground propaganda and other types of subversive anti-government
activities continue to be carried out and reports of clandestine movements
of personnel and arms across El Salvador’s frontiers and coastline con¬
tinue to be received.”^"*
In fact, it was some 15 years later before El Salvador faced a serious

threat of subversion; in 1961, the idea of Cubans landing arms on El
Salvador's Pacific beaches was ludicrous. The real problem, of course,
was the threat that a “Sino-Soviet controlled Cuba” would serve as a
model or catalyst to encourage the spread of insurgency in the region -
as did the US itself at the time of the American revolution.
199
One solution offered was to seal off El Salvador from the contagious
Cuban example, including the efforts of Castroite Salvadoreans by
then in exile. Classified US Embassy reports after the January 1961
coup stressed the urgency of neutralizing the threat still presented by
participants in the earlier reformist junta government to stir things up
from abroad. The same cables characterized the earlier junta govern¬
ment as a triumph of “infiltration” by subversive forces into the highest
levels of government. Under their direction, “a Castro/Commuaist
takeover... loomed large”.*" Even exile did not eliminate the threat:
... reports indicate that exiled Castro/Communist elements are main¬

taining contact with one another outside of the country, and with ele¬
ments inside El Salvador... Thus, while temporarily neutralized, within
El Salvador. Castro/Communist elements continue to present a real
threat to the political stability of the country ... If. as appears likely, a part
or all of the some 125 individuals now expelled from the country are per¬
mitted to return, they will reunite with the 500 hard-core Communists and
the 5-6.000 active Communist sympathizers .. .*'*
Apart from the dangers posed by Cubans and exiles, the perceived
threat centred on “hard-core Communists” and “active sympathizers”
still in the country, as well as members of some labour federations who
were automatically considered to be Communists:
Threat stems from existence of some 500 hard-core Communists with 5 to
6,000 active Castro/Communist sympathizers including 2,800 laborers
from Communist-dominated Confederation Salvadorean Workers and
leaders provided by elements former junta government.*'^
These forces have potential for: terrorism and sabotage, demonstrations,

strikes and mob violence which if protracted might turn into successful
general strike and, internal revolution.^''*
The assumed inevitability of strikes and demonstrations - normally

acceptable means of protest - culminating in insurgency and revolution,
with mob violence, sabotage and terrorism, is of particular interest here.
The US Embassy’s “threat assessments” in early 1961 implied that El
Salvador was perilously close to succumbing to Castro-Communism
and that powerful medicine was necessary to arrest the process. The
overthrow of the civil-military reformist government in the January
counter-coup was only the beginning.
Lemus' overthrow in October 1960 tended to confirm the August 1960
Hardin report’s assessment of the security system. The United States
moved rapidly to ensure subsequent military governments would not
face the mass oposition, demonstrations, strikes and divided military
that precipitated Lemus’ overthrow. The United States Embassy team's
first step in San Salvador was ratification of the assistance proposals
made in August 1960, plus some further recommendations and urging
200
the package be assigned “Priority

The requested up-grading of the Public Safety Program was being
implemented within months, with the arrival of an Investigations
Adviser and a series of short-term specialists on temporary assignment
(TDY = Temporary Duty). By 1964 there were five full-time Public
Safety advisers (Chief, Immigration. Investigations. Training, and
Records Advisers). The pace of training Salvadoreans outside El
Salvador also accelerated, peaking in the three years from 1963 to 1966
with an average of 40 Salvadoreans each year attending the Inter-
American Police Academy in the Canal Zone, its successor, the Inter¬
national Police Academy in Washington, and other training centres
outside El Salvador."'*’
The Hardin report's proposals for commodities grants were imple¬
mented between 1961 and 1963, when more than half the total disburse¬
ment of commodities in the life of the Public Safety Program were
released with over a half million dollars-worth of arms and equipment
turned over to the National Police and National Guard."'^ As the Har¬
din report recommended, commodities grants in this period were
largely concentrated on transport (30 sedans, 41 jeeps) and communica¬
tions equipment (115 mobile radios, 6 base stations). Grants, not pro¬
grammed before the January 1961 coup, for the 1961-63 period included
the provision of 2,008 carbines with 425,000 rounds of ammunition."'®
US militaiy' assistance focused on implementing organizational
changes rather than on delivering commodities. As in its proposals for
the Public Safety Program, the US Embassy’s May 1961 “Recommenda¬
tions for an Assistance Program to the Public Security Forces of El
Salvador" advised the concentration of military assistance funds in the
development of the military forces’ communications and intelligence
capability.-'^ El Salvador’s military and law-enforcement apparatus’
relatively high competence, combined with virtual non-existence of
organized opposition (let alone insurgency) after the restoration of
traditional military rule in 1961, reduced the need for security assistance
to a level that could be met by small specialist advisory teams; needs
could be satisfied by the Public Safety Program and the military mis¬
sion. without large and costly grants of hardware.
In the area of communications, military assistance was to create a
“Signal Support Company’’ comprising a headquarters section and 17-
man teams based in each of the 16 regional garrisons to provide com¬
munications services for field operations."^”
More noteworthy was US military assistance’s special focus, after
1961. on developing the Salvadorean military intelligence system. The
embassy reported that “The present government is extremely interested
in reorganizing its intelligence machinery and some months ago
requested US assistance in accomplishing this .. and recommended
the immediate detailing of a “mobile intelligence training team, which
could be attached to the US Army Mission in a TDY status’’.""^ Assignment
201
of a permanent intelligence adviser to the military mission was to be

considered “after the mobile team has completed its mission .
While documents revealing the precise nature of subsequent US
Army intelligence assistance (prior to the escalation of US intervention
in El Salvador after 1979) remain classified, advances in the intelligence
field attributable to Public Safety advisers are well documented.
Declassified documentation indicates that Public Safety’s intelligence
(or “investigations”) advisers worked closely with both the military and
civilian components of the intelligence apparatus - a distinction largely
academic in El Salvador. As noted earlier, these advisers worked indepen¬
dently of the rest of the Public Safety Program personnel stationed in
El Salvador, were responsible to “another agency” - neither the ICA nor
AID - and worked from the “CAS ” (CIA) office in San Salvador.
Whatever their parent agency, they appear to have master-minded the
building of today’s intelligence apparatus practically from scratch.
Already in 1960, Public Safety’s classified proposals for security assis¬
tance to El Salvador called for a major adjustment in the security system
in order to create a modern intelligence and command structure. The for¬
mation of a top-level counter-insurgency group directly responsible to the
President was considered the first priority; its task was the centralization
and co-ordination of internal security policy planning and operations.
It is our belief that GOES [Government of El Salvador] can effect the best
co-ordination of its various internal security forces through the over-all
guidance of an internal security board composed of members of minis¬
terial or sub-ministerial level from the following ministries; Defense.
Hacienda, Interior. Justice. A representative of the President should also
sit on the board. The board should, subject to Presidential approval, for¬
mulate national internal security policy, and review and recommend to
the President on internal security co-ordinating operational plans ..
Such a planning and co-ordinating body, created in 1961, was required

to ensure the pursuit of counter-insurgency as an integrated effort by all
ministries and security agencies and to guarantee that the enhanced
security capabilities remained under the Presidenf s firm control.
Consolidation of the command structure for counter-insurgency was
a logical corollary to parallel proposals for reorganizing and up-grading
the nation’s intelligence apparatus. These called for the development of
the National Guard’s “information section” into the core of a more effec¬
tive intelligence apparatus, with specialized functions devolved to other
agencies but it tied into the Guard’s information nexus. The 1960 Hardin
report, describing the National Guard as “the most importanf’ security
force, recommended that it be given assistance to develop its existing
intelligence system into a high-level agency reporting to the nation’s top
security officers. As the core of the Guard’s information network Public
Safety was to assist in the creation of
a highly specialized intelligence unit capable of collecting, assembly.
202
evaluating, interpreting and disemination to proper authorities the wealth of

information made available through basic guard operations.'^^
The Immigration Police was also to be accorded a new, intensive

intelligence role known as “the political police” by oppositionists in the
1970s. US assistance in the 1960s was programmed with the object of;
improving its investigative and records operations to enable rapid iden¬
tification and exclusion of undesirable aliens, and more effective control
over all foreign nationals in the country.”*
From 21 men in 1961, by 1974 there were 350 plain-clothes Immigration

Police.”’
By 1963 the Public Safety Program provided training in “investiga¬
tions" to "all major security forces”; US advisers were imparting skills
for “identifying criminal or subversive activities” and providing “daily
advice and guidance in operational procedures and techniques”.”* In
addition to an Investigations Adviser, a specialist in security records
systems w as to be appointed to finalize development of a “centralized
records system ... [to be] located at the National Police but [to] serve all
GOES police/security forces”.’^'’
In 1963, recruitment was also in progress for an “immigration”
adviser (who began work in early 1964), to respond to “the present
hemispheric emphasis on tighter and more uniform controls on travel,
contraband and illegal arms traffic”."”
Under Public Safety guidance, El Salvador’s immigration control
function was linked to the domestic intelligence apparatus, and served
the key role of maintaining records of Salvadoreans and others outside
the country who were considered threats to internal security: monitor¬
ing and controlling the entry and exit of suspects,and keeping watch on
foreigners within the country from the moment they entered it.
The immigration adviser was also to have regional responsibility for
the development and operation of a common system enabling each
Central American country to check “the illegal entry of aliens and sub¬
versives”."^' Advisory assistance in immigration control was com¬
plemented by regional communications links between top security/
intelligence agencies in each Central American country and with the US
Canal Zone facilities. This network, established by 1964, strongly em¬
phasized the control of movement between the Central American countries.
More prosaic assistance in the field of communications after 1961
provided the essential infrastructure for the efficient functioning of the
intelligence apparatus as a whole and the more specialized immigration
and records areas. By September 1963 an AID report was able to state
that “PSD [Public Safety Division] has provided GOES internal
security forces with a modern police communications network and
stressed the necessity of further extensive communications assistance
“since an adequate communications system plays an important role in
203
civil disorders and emergencies, as well as normal everyday law enforce¬

ment activities ..
The changes were important. By 1967, instead of communicating by
public telegraph, permanent detachments of the National Police,
National Guard, and Immigration Police each maintained countrywide
radio networks connected to a central security network based at the
National Police building and linked into the regional Central America
and Panama Telecommunications Security Network.^^’
United States security assistance in investigations, immigration and
communications contributed towards building an intelligence apparatus
fully responsive to the prescriptions of counter-insurgency doctrine.
This, in turn, complemented the second major innovation in the
Salvadorean security system of the 1960s: the organization of a vast net¬
work of paramilitary irregulars feeding information into the intelligence
apparatus, providing manpower for counter-insurgency's dirty work,
and serving as a back-up army of irregular auxiliaries to be activated for
large-scale security operations whenever the need arose. This was the
Democratic Nationalist Organization {Organizacion Nacionalista Demo-
crdtica) whose Spanish acronym, ORDEN, means ORDER. Develop¬
ment of today's intelligence system and setting up ORDEN were part of
a single process.
Counter-Organization for Counter-Insurgency: ORDEN

In January 1961, one of Colonel Julio A. Rivera's military junta's first
appointments restored Colonel Jose Alberto Medrano to a position of
power. Medrano had been under a shadow since 1954 when he was
transferred from the Department of Criminal Investigations of the
National Police after a series of public scandals over the wholesale mur¬
der of hundreds of jailed common criminals. In January 1961 he was
given command of the key Eirst Infantry Regiment of the Salvadorean
army, quartered at the capital's main army base, the Cuartel San Carlos ,
and an additional mandate to set up and run a top-level presidential
security agency, which was to formulate intelligence policy, co-ordinate
all intelligence operations and pool information gathered by the dif¬
ferent intelligence agencies.
This elite body, reporting directly to the President and the general staff,
was developed between 1961 and 1964. Known simply as the “Security
Service'' (Servicio de Seguridad) in the early 1960s, and with a small
staff, which, in 1967 still numbered only 15 men,'^'* it co-ordinated and
drew on the intelligence resources of each separate security service and
of the army itself Apparently the Servicio de Seguridad did not run
independent investigations or carry out operations directly but relied
for such special tasks primarily upon an expanded and upgraded
National Guard intelligence unit. Not engaged in the day to day work of
intelligence gathering or operations, it was the equivalent of Guatemala's
204
The New Securin’ System: US Model
Agenda de Seguridad, set up by the Peralta Azurdia government in the

same period.
In the absence of any serious threat from opposition groups. theiSer-
vicio de Seguridad's main achievement under Medrano was the building
of ORDEN. a nation-wide paramilitary network of informants.
ORDEN extended the intelligence services’ reach to grass-roots level,
first for intelligence gathering and later to perform the irregular opera¬
tions of dirty warfare.
Members of ORDEN were recruited from the pool traditionally
tapped by Salvador's security forces; the military reserves. At the age of
18. young Salvadorean men could be called up for a period of active
military duty, followed by one year of army reserve service in their
original communities.■’’’ Most 18-year-olds, however, were required to
ser\'e for only a year in the reserves, their duties limited to weekend drill¬
ing. elementary military instruction, listening to patriotic lectures, and
participating in periodic patrols (usually on Sundays or holidays) under
the canton patrol system. On return to their communities, soldiers could
be co-opted into ORDEN: the weekly drills, instruction, and patrol ser¬
vice. provided ample opportunity for political indoctrination and vet¬
ting of reservists who could then be selected for recruitment into
ORDEN.
In practice the development of this paramilitary network required
the active co-operation of the army’s local commanders, who served as
co-ordinators of the military reserve system. These officers, working
closely with (army officer) commanders of National Guard detach¬
ments throughout the rural areas were the key organizational link bet¬
ween Medrano’s Servicio de Seguridad and the ORDEN recruits at the
local level.
By 1964 the Servicio de Seguridad was fully established as the co¬
ordinating centre of the Salvadorean intelligence system and provided
the link-up with other Central American presidential intelligence agen¬
cies and the regional Telecommunications Security Network. It had
developed into the core of an expanding intelligence system linking the
political intelligence sections of the National Police and National
Guard {Secciones de Investigaciones Especiales) and the then largely
politically oriented Immigration Bureau.*" By that time, too, X\\q Servicio
de Seguridad had incorporated thousands of army reservists throughout
the country into a grass-roots intelligence service. Medrano’s Security
Service, renamed Salvadorean InXdWgtncc Agency {Agenda deInteligen-
da de El Salvador) continued to draw largely on existing command
structures of the Army and the National Guard in operating the net¬
work, but only his 15-man staff and the Presidency had full access to the
intelligence resources.*^’
the investigations adviser works in the CAS office and does not keep
the ChiefPublicSafetyAdviser aware of [his] activities ... CAS is lending
205
aid to an intelligence unit of 15 persons headed by Colonel Medrano

directly responsible to the Presidential Palace. Colonel Medrano claims
to have a 30,000 man military reservist informant network that channels
intelligence to his group."^*
Development of the presidential security agency, of ORDEN, of the

special investigations divisions of the National Police and National
Guard, and of the Immigration Police, was assisted by US agencies
under cover of the Public Safety Program.
Public Safety's Investigations Adviser in El Salvador, like his counter¬
part in Guatemala, was engaged primarily with “intelligence units".
He worked “with the Security Service, the intelligence units of the
National Police and National Guard and Immigration Service".^''"
By 1967 the name ORDEN (the acronym for Organizacion Democ-
rdtica Nacionalista) was in the public domain in El Salvador and the
Security Service's formerly covert “informant network" had become a
political organization with a public face and an ideology. Its stated
political mission was to promote an ill-defined patriotism and a
message of anti-Communism. Its previous security functions underlay
an overt political role as support group for the military government's
Party of National Conciliation.^'*'
With the inauguration of. President Eidel Sanchez Hernandez in
1967, Colonel Jose Alberto Medrano exchanged his army command for
the Directorship of the National Guard, arguably the most powerful
command within the security system. He retained his intelligence post,
however, and worked closely with the new President to strengthen both
ORDEN and the institutional intelligence apparatus. Under the
Sanchez administration ORDEN evolved from a covert intelligence¬
gathering network into an overt political organization charged with dis¬
semination of “the democratic ideology" and maintenance of public
order. ORDEN was given full respectability in 1967 when President
Sanchez Hernandez himself became its “Supreme Chief', with the post
becoming a permanent prerogative of the head of state, although Med¬
rano continued to run the network as “Executive Director".
By this time ORDEN had already proved its worth in the field of elec¬
toral politics; a role seemingly appreciated by President Sanchez, when,
in the 1967 Presidential elections, it provided goon squads to disrupt
opposition parties' political meetings. The first recorded occasion of
ORDEN's activity in the electoral process was in the run-up to the elec¬
tions when, on 18 December 1966, ORDEN members attacked the
printing shop of the Partido Accion Renovadora, the leading opposition
party, destroying presses which had just produced leaflets calling for
agrarian reform.
In late 1967 President Sanchez and Colonel Medrano appealed
directly to the nation's estate owners to support an expanded ORDEN
as a means of guaranteeing their own interests. In a fund-raising speech
206
to a landowners' association. President Sanchez encouraged support

for ORDEN as an essential element of the “war against Communism".
The creation of the organization was described as “consistent with El
Salvador's own historical experience", and with “the experience of
numerous countries of the free world that have had to defend them¬
selves from falling into the hands of Communism''.-'*- According to Presi¬
dent Sanchez Hernandez. South Vietnam, the Philippines, Guatemala
and other countries had already been assisted to successfully create
“organizations like ORDEN” and: “Our free world allies that help us
preserve democracy in the nation are willing to assist also in the con¬
crete case of ORDEN”.-'*' Colonel Medrano was no less eloquent and
boasted of ORDEN as a means: “... to disseminate the democratic
ideology to the peasants and workers of the countryside, to make a
barrier to the attempts of the Communists to provoke subversion among
the rural populace.”-'*'*
Like President Sanchez Hernandez. Medrano described ORDEN as
a model counter-guerrilla organization of civilian irregulars:
ORDEN puts at the disposal of the Salvadorean State and the most res¬
ponsible sectors of this country a civilian army that can be armed in 24
hours, that will defend the democratic system, and that could easily reach
150.000 men.--*-'
As, after 1967. ORDEN grew and became more visible it expanded its
role, working openly with the army and National Guard on “civic
action” projects and maintaining a high profile in the governments
high-impact community development projects, such as building new
classrooms or repairing a bridge. But with less fanfare ORDEN was also
increasingly involved in spying, at the community level, for the security
services and helping out with their dirty jobs. In 1968, when Sanchez
Hernandez government was shaken by a nationwide ANDES (national
teachers' union) strike, ORDEN forces were deployed alongside regular
security units, and in covert operations which presaged the later “death-
squad''actions carried out by ORDEN in the 1970s. Many striking teachers
were attacked and beaten and at least two of their leaders, Saul Santiago
Contreras and Filberto Martinez Carranza “disappeared” after being
grabbed by ORDEN thugs, their almost unrecognizably mutilated
bodies found much later.-'**’
By 1970 ORDEN's organizational development was largely com¬
plete. It could mobilize between 50 and 100,000 members for a wide
range of tasks.-'*^ Supervision and deployment were effected mainly
through the far-reaching network of National Guard s rural command
posts in co-ordination with the army zone commanders. National
Guard commanders, themselves part of the army's command structure,
worked closely with the army's military reserve and recruitment
apparatus to screen potential ORDEN members. Army reserves
207
continued to provide men for the traditional canton patrols, while com¬
pletion of this year of duty led directly to vetting for local ORDEN mem¬
bership. In time, ORDEN would replace the canton patrols and
ORDEN units would undertake regular patrolling duties in their
local areas.
ORDEN’s main recruiting mechanism was provided by the army
reserve system but most of its training was provided by the National
Guard after 1967, when Colonel Medrano took over as head of the
National Guard. But in regard to ORDEN, any strict distinction of the
army's and National Guard’s role would be largely artificial. ORDEN
was created by orders from the army high command and co-ordinated
in each department and each military zone by the respective army com¬
mander. In so far as ORDEN was concerned, the National Guard, as in
its other tasks, functioned as an adjunct of the army, commanded by
army officers subordinate to the army high command. The National
Guard's close linkage to ORDEN probably owes less to the fact that
Medrano was its chief for three years while building up ORDEN, than
to the advantages offered by its network of scattered commands in the
rural areas which served as a mainstay of ORDEN’s own infra¬
structure.
In January 1970 Medrano, ORDEN’s founder and director, was
removed from his posts as Director of the National Guard and Execu¬
tive Director of ORDEN. This was partly in response to his personal
success in the 1969 “football” war with Honduras, where he served
creditably as commander of the National Guard’s “Expeditionary
Eorce” in the brief but bloody conflict in which the Guard, not the army,
proved the most effective in battle. On his return he was received as a
national hero and promoted to General. His forced retirement in 1970
reflected the army high command’s unease at Medrano’s great personal
popularity as well as his private political activities backed by the more
reactionary coffee elites. His continued control of both the Guard and
ORDEN would have concentrated too much power in the hands of a
clearly ambitious officer.
Medrano’s removal from power marked ORDEN’s institutional
coming of age, its administration no longer requiring the presence of a
single chief with a strong personality. ORDEN, by that time, provided a
key mechanism of political control in the rural areas: “Its purpose is
anti-revolutionary activity of various kinds, particularly training,
imparted by the Guardia Nacional, for counter-guerrilla operations.”^"*
Authorities, in 1970, still maintained it was an independent organiza¬
tion. Defence Minister Colonel Fidel Torres, in January 1970, ack¬
nowledged military direction of ORDEN explaining, however, that
“there is an obligation to educate and orient the rural population which
is constantly threatened by the preachings of Communist subversion”‘"‘^
and, that ORDEN was “not at all official”. In fact, ORDEN had no formal
legal status then or afterward, although by late 1970 Defence Minister
208
Torres altered his position slightly and described ORDEN as “semi¬

official"; "... a group for the democratic indoctrination of citizens,
especially in the rural areas, whose head is (ex-officio) the President of
the Republic."'-'"
The Military’s New Role
The introduction of US counter-insurgency doctrine was followed, in

the mid-1960s, by a major shift in the Salvadorean military's perception
of its own role in society and its view of the civilians' place in the security
system. In the 1940s and 1950s army officers had been taught to resent
and resist civilian encroachment on the prerogatives of the institutional
armed forces. Internationally accepted concepts of military pro¬
fessionalism - taught, among others, by US army instructors at the
Salvadorean military academy - always emphasized the exclusive
nature of military institutions, their dedication to specialized and
limited tasks. Traditional military doctrine stressed that sharing
military functions, or expanding the military's role in society, were
threats to its unity and institutional integrity.
The introduction of numerous loosely organized, loosely disciplined
civilian auxiliaries, as demanded by the post-1960s counter-insurgency
doctrine, conflicted with previous classic, military doctrine, and - if not
always reflected in practice - ideals. The concept of “counter-terror"
also posed doctrinal problems to an institution that, traditionally, had
delegated its dirty work to the political police, a body separate from the
regular security forces.
After 1960, however, military doctrine encouraged both an expansion
of the military role to include tasks previously regarded as non-military,
and sharing the traditional military role with semi-autonomous, heavily
politicized paramilitary organizations. The concept of civilian irregular
forces as the conventional military forces' shadow counterparts implies
a key doctrinal shift from the traditional military ideal, no less in El
Salvador than in countries with more developed military institutions. El
Salvador's unfavourable historical experience with 19th Century
civilian militias, and the short-lived L/goRoyo (Red League) of the 1920s,
augmented the Salvadorean military's awareness of the danger of
armed civilian organizations getting out of control and making a bid for
power.
After 1961. however. Salvadorean army officers, like their Guatemalan
counterparts, were encouraged to overcome their distrust of organiza¬
tions of civilian irregulars. Since 1941, US military doctrine had served
as the foundation of Salvadorean military doctrine; it now changed
abruptly, calling for departure from the traditional military ideal
wherever insurgency threatened. Military and civilian advisers pro¬
vided by the Public Safety Program and the US military mission, the
209
steady post-1960 stream of “TDY” advisers, and the Army Mobile

Training Teams (MTTs) persistently encouraged the abandonment of
traditional concepts of military professionalism and gave on-the-spot
advice on changing military structures and functions to suit the impera¬
tives of the new counter-insurgency doctrine.
As in Guatemala, the new orientation was reflected in the local
military journals of the 1960s where articles by Salvadorean officers
faithfully reflected the changed US doctrine and, occasionally, adapted
it to local conditions in El Salvador. Articles from US army magazines,
and other US military doctrinal material were also reproduced.
Salvadorean officers' articles reveal that they interpreted the new
counter-insurgency doctrine as rationalizing insurgency as an external
threat to national sovereignty, to be equated with an occupying force,
thus justifying counter-terror and the organization of “counter¬
guerrilla" forces for irregular warfare as a valid professional response.
“Counter-guerrilla" organizations are frequently compared to the
Spanish partisans harrying the Napoleonic troops occupying Spain in
the early 19th Century, or Russian militias pursuing Napeleon's army in
the retreat from Moscow. In both cases irregular forces were used
against a foreign invader. Such comparisons implicitly equated local
insurrectionary forces with an invading army, making the use of nor¬
mally unacceptable tactics morally acceptable. Salvadorean officers
welcomed the provision of US doctrine calling for the co-operation of
irregular forces with regular military and security forces to fight subver¬
sion in their own country, and wrote of how this could be applied to El
Salvador. As subversion was defined as foreign intervention. US doc¬
trine prescribed that it could legitimately be fought by organizing civil
defence or commando groups, using guerrilla tactics historically
employed by resistance movements to fight armies of occupation.
The organization of counter-insurgent irregular forces was built
upon El Salvador's own historical experience of using militia-like
organizations to suppress repeated outbreaks of rebellion by the Indian
peasants, and to buttress the security establishmenf s preservation of the
landowning elites' interests. The military establishment justified setting
up new paramilitary organizations as prudent preparation for potential
subversion within El Salvador. Pre-emptive measures to deal with
limited subversion before it became a real threat were justified on the
same grounds. Unlike the unsavoury operations of the traditional secret
police, the new, extra-legal methods of “counter-insurgency" warfare
were - sometimes - quite openly justified, as a valid contribution to the
global fight against International Communism.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the Salvadorean Army Staff
College's Revista de la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor ‘Manuel Enri¬
que Araujo” published articles which illustrate the sequential develop¬
ment of Salvadorean military doctrine.
In “Irregular Warfare in the Central American Context" (January
210
1964).“^' Major Gustavo Atilio Hernandez points out that inter-

American treaties place the five Central American countries under
obligation to assist each other in the face of outside aggression, and
states that, given the absence of powerful military establishments, only
guerrilla tactics by the five countries, even combined, could repel
aggression; “One must think of a way to carry out an effective campaign,
of short duration, with few troops: this can only be done through the
method employed by Guerrilla Forces." He concluded that:
.. . the best way to repel an aggression against Central America would be

the system of irregular warfare or Guerrilla Warfare, even if the system
employed by the aggressor should be Guerrilla Warfare.
In another article, in April 1963‘^" Major Manuel Alfonso Rodriguez,

later Chief of Staff of the armed forces outlines three types of “guerrilla
organizations" to be used as a means of combining the government, the
armed forces and the civilian population in the fight against “a foreign
foe", and points out that any of the three “can act on its own initiative, or
in close collaboration with the regular forces”. The three types he des¬
cribes can: 1) arise spontaneously; 2) be sponsored by “chiefs or citizens
of great influence and with the personal means to recruit; or 3) be
organized as “commando”s. “on the basis of army units”.
In Major Rodriguez' opinion, such “guerrillas”, organized on behalf
of the government and under the supervision of the armed forces had
the advantage over regular forces because;
.. . regular warfare is the procedure in which the contenders submit to

law's. In contrast, irregular warfare is not subject to laws: anything is poss¬
ible. Moreover, guerrilla warfare is a primitive form of war. man's natural
manner of combat, with all means and methods available to him.
In “Guerrillas and Counter Guerrillas” (August 1964), Major

Roberto Monge,"^’ after reiterating previous arguments in favour of
“guerrilla” warfare'm support of regular security services, stressed that a
“counter-guerrilla” force should be organized long before conflict
arises, preferably employed as a means to ensure conflict never does arise.
He emphasized that every element of “counter-guerrilla” organization,
including provision of arms and equipment, must be planned in
advance at General Staff level. In confronting the problem classically
posed by irregular forces: their tendency to spin out of control unless
subjected to close army supervision and discipline. Major Monge
echoed Major (later Colonel) Rodriguez' concern, expressed in a 1963
article, in which he strongly advocated the presence of regular army per¬
sonnel in the irregular organizations, and the need for providing an
ideological common denominator for prospective members as some
211
guarantee of their loyalty and discipline. In El Salvador ORDEN s close

links to the army reserve system achieved this aim. A further guarantee
of loyalty was the development of ORDEN not only as a paramilitary
but also as a para-political organization which, working in conjunction
with the ruling Party of National Conciliation, offered an aggressive
and starkly simple anti-Communist platform.
In his 1963 article Major Rodriguez set out these essential elements,
later to be embodied in ORDEN’s organization;’-'’
The guerrilla force organized with regular members of the Army produces
the best results. The basis of the guerrilla is the “man"; not just anyone,
rather those that fill the following requisites:
- That they have ideological training and good morale;
- That they know the territory in which they work in detail;
- That they are patriotic.
In the same article he stressed that to ensure close co-ordination with

regular security services units the “guerrilla” command must be cen¬
tralized, and recommended especially, that if it is impossible to man the
force with army personnel, “to put at their head a [military] pro-
fessional”.’-'^-
Later, in a 1966 article,--^'’ Rodriguez (by then a Colonel) expanded
the blue-print, while keeping the basic premise that “subversive”
guerrillas are by definition Communist, and Communist guerrillas are
by definition proxies of foreign powers:
The communist guerrillas can be defeated, if action is taken rapidly and

aggressively ... The [counter-guerrilla] should cut off the guerrillas from
popular support and win the active support of the civil population. The
guerrillas should be cut off from the support of the power that foments
them and serves as their source of supply. Anti-guerrilla forces, specially
trained, utilizing qualified local men. are much more economical in cost,
number and results than large forces using conventional methods.
The advantage of counter-guerrilla forces, which can use uncon¬

ventional methods and are economically and strategically preferable to
regular forces was again stressed, as was their usefulness as “... a
complete and efficient information network, operating under central¬
ized direction.” The same article considered the desirability of provid¬
ing incentives and discretionary powers within carefully circum¬
scribed limits to the “counter-guerrilla” forces - a feature of both
ORDEN and the Guatemalan paramilitary system. Members of
auxiliary forces:
Should be granted adequate incentives to support the government and

oppose the guerrillas... Local units [supporting] the government
212
should be given the means and carry the responsibility for combatting the
guerrillas in their areas.
Salvadorean military writing on counter-insurgency also emphasizes

that aspects of counter-insurgent organization and tactics potentially
damaging to the armed forces’ reputation must be concealed from the
public. Although the prescribed counter-insurgency methods are
explicitly recognized as enabling military institutions, by disguising
their personnel and concealing their actions, to carry out disreputable
and “unmilitary” actions, the public relations factor is recognized; the
authors stress that the use of “guerrilla” tactics either by the regular
army or the forces it controls, must be so carried out that responsibility -
particularly for operations involving counter-terror - can be denied.
In the same article Major Monge recognizes the problem posed to the
institutional army should it be too clearly identified with the organiza¬
tion of a “guerrilla force”:
.. . it is ... important that the army itself should not openly appear to be
an instructor of guerrillas, because demagogues would take advantage of
this to ascribe distorted ends to the army.
While not suggesting the army opt out of training “guerrillas” he recom¬
mends such training be presented “as if it were normal combat instruc¬
tion”. He also notes that sophisticated propaganda and counter¬
propaganda supporting the “counter-guerrilla” operations, and aimed
at winning popular support and destroying the adversary's morale is
essential. Propaganda and counter-propaganda should follow the same
principles;
It is important to win the confidence of the population giving at least at

first information that does not stray from the truth, and when false, to see
that it cannot be disproved... [Counter-propaganda] is developed in
order to neutralize adversary subversive propaganda; it is directed
especially to control the ideas, emotions and conduct of the population
which the guerrilla is seeking to influence.
As public perceptions of guerrilla and counter-guerrilla operations are,

owing to their very nature, changeable, both propaganda and counter¬
propaganda are of prime significance Major Monge also observes that
rapid and secret actions - by “subversive” guerrillas or government-
supported “counter-guerrillas” - create uncertainty and terror: “... these
are all actions that suddenly strike directly at the adversary ... and then
those that carry them out immediately disappear, creating a kind of
phantom presence.” This is, of course, a valid description of either
guerrilla action or government-backed “death squad” or counter-terror
units engaging in “sabotage, espionage, ambushes, arson, harrassment.
213
demolition”. There is, however, an important difference: guerrillas

generally are not concerned to disguise or deny their responsibility.
Quite the reverse, their propaganda value lies precisely in the fact that
they have succeeded in carrying out their actions despite all odds to the
contrary, thus demonstrating their power and popular support. The
“phantom” quality of the guerrilla strike lies in its total unpredictability
- the next one could come any time, in any place. For the governmental
“counter-guerrilla” operation the “phantom” quality is twofold; to
unpredictability is added an element of accountability. Generally,
armies prefer not to tarnish their prestige by public acknowledgement
that they sponsor and train terrorists (irrespective of whether they
regard them as legitimate “counter-guerrillas”); neither are they willing to
be held accountable for their civilian auxiliary forces’ (counter¬
guerrillas) terrorist actions. Extra-legal security operations must,
therefore, be attributed to “phantoms” (i.e. “death-squads”), or else
totally denied to have happened at all (i.e., prisoners “disappear”;
although even when the action is loudly denounced, the perpetrators are
neither identified nor punished, or. in extreme cases, the actions are
attributed to the guerrillas themselves.
Major Monge, though acutely aware of the dangers to the institutional
army posed by adopting guerrilla tactics to fight “foreign-backed” sub¬
version, nevertheless concludes in favour not only of setting up a
counter-guerrilla organization parallel to the army but also of the use of
guerrilla tactics by the regular army forces;
The same factors considered in regular warfare should be considered in

the case of the counter-guerrilla, but giving more importance to the factors
of the nature of the enemy and of the terrain ... Referring to forces, it must
be said that even when the army has much greater resources, these can
come to be neutralized if the regular forces do not adopt the same pro¬
cedures used by the guerrillas."'’^
A Security System for the 1980s
In January 1980 El Salvador’s security system faithfully reflected 20

years of United States security assistance under the precepts of counter¬
insurgency doctrine. Officers of the 9.000 man regular army, air force
and miniscule navy, also controlled the traditional security forces, a vast
body of armed irregulars, and a sophisticated intelligence apparatus
responding directly to the army high command. Through the military
junta and the Minister of Defense they also maintained effective control
over most other areas of government.
Advisory and material assistance under the Public Safety Program
between 1957 and 1974 improved the technical capability of the con¬
ventional police services, and developed intelligence systems within each
214
conventional force as well as in specialized agencies. No major changes

were introduced in the basic police structure, and personnel in the three
main forces remained close to their 1960s numbers: the National Guard
and National Police each at about 2,000 men, the Treasury Police at
about 700.^^* By 1980, the National Guard had grown to only about 2,500
and the Treasury Police to over 1,000."-'^
The Public Safety Program's 1974 report on its achievements in El
Salvador found that the “major objectives" of the programme set out in
the initial surveys of the security system had been accomplished.
It is felt that military and civil security forces have the capability to pre¬
serve law and order and to counter foreseeable threats. Extremist ele¬
ments in El Salvador retain capability to initiate limited attacks against
public order but are not expected to seriously intimidate [sic] the political
stability of this country nor to severely tax the forces resources.^**
Public Safety's “Phase-Out” report claimed the programme had con¬

tributed to “remarkable progress in the National Police”, particularly in
the fields of communications, records, and “investigations”: “The inves¬
tigations division was reorganized”; “scientific laboratory and iden¬
tification sections were established”; “A central police records bureau
was established"; “A case control system was instituted in the Investiga¬
tions Division”.^^'
Specialized National Police units created under Public Safety
guidance included two 50-man rapid response “riot controf' units based
in the capital, and similar “equipped and trained” units based in San
Miguel and Santa Ana. According to the same report, under “Anti¬
terrorist Activities”, Public Safety had assisted in the formation of a
National Police “bomb-handling” squad responsible both for “inves¬
tigating terrorist activities” and for “providing training” to other agen-
cies."“ Public Safety had provided training in “bomb-handling”
through International Police Academy courses in bomb manufacture at
Los Fresnos, Texas, at a Demolition Courses in the Canal Zone (nine
trainees), and in a course entitled “Bomb Handling and Disposal” (eight
trainees) and “Terrorist Activities Investigations” (five trainees).’^^
In the 1970s, most of the non-political “investigations” or detective
work within the security system was performed by the National Police,
although they retained both a Criminal Investigations and a Special
Investigations section. Political investigations and operations became
mainly the province of other agencies. Headed by an army colonel, with
a graduate of Public Safety's International Police Academy as second in
command, in 1974, the National Police Investigations Division was
declared to have “all the necessary elements for good investigation' and
to be “quite effective”. A central crime laboratory and efficient criminal
records section run by the National Police, with central name and
fingerprint, ^'modus operandi' (MO), and photograph files, was at the
215
disposal of each security force.

Public Safety Assistance to the Treasury Police - later denounced as
the most brutal of the security services^^"^ — primarily involved training
and advice; Public Safety itself prepared a Treasury Police training text¬
book ... which contains rules, regulations, laws and operational
procedures..
The Customs Police (Policia deAduana), whose numbers grew from
250 in 1967 to 527 in 1974,^^’ was aided by training its officers both in the
United States and in El Salvador, with course including “Specialized
training in the area of detection and investigation of narcotics offen¬
ses .. The expansion of the Customs Police, and its transtormation
with the Immigration Police into what Salvadorean oppositions called
“the political police” began in 1972 under Public Safety’s auspices:
Until recently. Customs personnel were utilized mainly for port and
warehouse security. In July 1972, a former AID participant was named
Director and since that time has worked diligently to improve the Cus¬
toms services.“^^
The plain-clothes Immigration Police, a smaller body - 21 men in

1961, 350 in 1974 - shared the functions of borderguard and political
police. Responsible for “the control, entry and exit of persons”. Public
Safety reported a significant improvement in this service after 1972
under a director who had “completed a study of the immigration ser¬
vices in the United States”. Aided by the special attention of a Public
Safety Immigration Adviser, advice and commodities needed to
institute a “civilian records system” and “an alien control system” were
provided. These systems facilitated immediate information retrieval on
suspect foreigners, and in later years were used to maintain surveillance
on foreign citizens (including US nationals) who, because of their work
as missionaries, journalists, or other activities considered undesirable,
might be wanted for arrest, interrogation, and in some cases, torture
or murder.
Many reforms have been instituted in Immigration in the past two years
... Effectiveness has improved also... in a recent suspected narcotics
case involving two foreigners. Immigration was able to provide informa¬
tion on dates and means of entry and exit in a matter of minutes. In cases
involving foreigners entering and leaving the country. Immigration can
provide information readily.^™
Extensive Public Safety assistance to the National Guard began as

early as 1963, concentrating on “training, records, communications,
investigations, riot control, and police services”. In its last year the pro¬
gramme created a National Guard School “to include modern police
subjects and techniques provided by IPA trained instructors.”"’'
216
While the National Police Investigations Section and its involve¬

ment in political police functions was apparently down-graded - to the
benefit of its conventional criminal investigations work - the National
Guard's Special Investigations Section (SIE) received a considerable
boost in the early 1970s. After 1973 it was significantly expanded with
Public Safety Assistance:
Until 1973, its investigations were handled by personnel detailed from its
ranks. This CY [Calendar Year] it was authorized 34 slots and is now
headed by a graduate of the OPS senior officers course. About half of this
unit's personnel attended a 234 hour criminal investigations course pre¬
pared by Public Safety late in 1973. Although the section is considered as
'Intelligence', it investigates common as well as political crimes... It also
has good records, both criminal and dassified.^’^
By the mid-1970s National Guard SIE officers were visibly key figures
in the Salvadorean intelligence community, and worked closely with
the intelligence section of the army general staff headquarters and the
presidential security agency: the apex of the intelligence hierarchy. In
1978 an Inter-American Commission of Human Rights delegation visit¬
ing the National Guard’s headquarters discovered secret cells, a
purpose-built interrogation room provided with a one way mirror and
equipment for applying electric shocks, all of which they subsequently
described in their report.^’^ Their discovery confirmed previous denun¬
ciations of long-term unacknowledged detention, torture and murder of
political prisoners.^’^
Security agencies engaged in intelligence or political police functions
aided by Public Safety’s “Investigation Adviser’’, included the presi¬
dential “Salvadorean Intelligence Agency, the Immigration Bureau,
and the Special Investigations of the National Police and National
Guard".'” The 1974 “Phase Ouf’ study notes that the facilities for “the
investigation of crimes”, and political investigations in each of the five
security agencies the programme assisted overlapped to some extent;
although one agency, not named, is described as responsible for politi¬
cal investigations only. Co-operation between the agencies was a major
objective of Public Safety:
Although one agency is charged solely with political investigations and

reports directly to the President, the National Guard, National Police
nevertheless conduct the same type of investigations. Recent joint train¬
ing, utilizing instructors from all agencies, has resulted in adequate co¬
operation in these matters.^”
This top presidential security agency, known successively as the

“Security Service’’ and the “National Intelligence Service’’ (SNI) had. on
the advice of US Public Safety advisers, been set up in the immediate
217
aftermath of the 1961 coup and throughout the 1960s was directed by
Colonel, later General, Jose Alberto Medrano, who also directed the
development of ORDEN. The SNI linked the Special Investigations
sections of each security service, and gathered in the intelligence collec¬
ted through the farflung ORDEN network.
Despite General Medrano's removal from power in 1971, his imprint
on the system remained significant in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly
through proteges who served with him in the National Guard and the
presidential intelligence agency. A group of army lieutenants who served
under Medrano both in the Guard and the 1969 Expeditionary Force,
including then Lieutenant Roberto D'Aubuisson, were to hold key
posts in the intelligence system in the 1970s.^” When General Medrano
was deposed Lieutenants D’Aubuisson and Jose Antonio Castillo were
considered so close to him that they were given a short-term assignment
to the Military Attache s office in Nicaragua, safely out of harm’s way.
General Medrano came to some accommodation with the army high
command, however, and is credited with winning for D’Aubuisson and
Castillo plum assignments to attend the Public Safety Program’s Inter¬
national Police Academy in Washington, D.C.^^* Both returned to serve
as top intelligence officers: Castillo as head of the National Guard’s
SIE, D’Aubisson as intelligence officer first in the National Guard, then
in the Army General Staff, and finally, near the top of the presidential
security agency, as deputy director oiAgencia Nacional deSeguridad deEl
Salvador (ANSESAL) (Salvadorean National Security Agency).^’’
Despite a degree of continuity in personnel from the late 1960s,
significant innovations, introduced into the intelligence apparatus after
Medrano’s removal in 1971, were designed in part to institutionalize
intelligence functions hitherto subject to overly personal control by
individual intelligence supremos. The intelligence system also required
greater sophistication to meet the technical requirements of a moder¬
nizing security system. To this end it matched the organizational
development of the security services, including the paramilitary net¬
works, by enlarging its capacity to handle an increased flow of grass¬
roots intelligence data, and by means of centralized communications
facilities for co-ordinating and controlling the system’s diverse sectors.
Expansion of the network of paramilitary irregulars and more frequent
deployment of paramilitary personnel on special operations required
new capabilities for efficient recruitment, screening and control. The
mass membership of ORDEN alone required a vastly extended
counter-intelligence facility in order to ensure the loyalty and discipline
of armed men outside the regular uniformed services.
In 1970, the National Intelligence Service (SNI) serving the President
and the army general staff, with offices in the Presidential Palace com¬
plex, was at the centre of the security system. Although at one time it
reportedly had interrogation cells in the presidential compounds’s gar¬
ages^**" this core intelligence unit functioned primarily as a high-level
218
The New' Security’ System: US Model
clearing-house for intelligence collected by subordinate agencies, and as

a policy-making rather than an operations or interrogation centre.
Under the Molina government the SNI became ANSESAL, although
still referred to as “the Security Service”. It retained offices in the pre¬
sidential compound, but also had operations offices, and conducted
interrogations in the “special” sections of the National Guard and
Immigration Bureau. Under Molina, ANSESAL served as an operational
command centre, and took control of the organization and deployment
of ORDEN; it also organized the first “death-squads”^^' - a function that
continued into the 1980s.
Serving as the co-ordinator and senior partner for the other security
services' intelligence divisions, ANSESAL, under Molina and up to the
1980s, did not itself acquire a large contingent of personnel for covert
intelligence collection and operations. Each director of the Special
Investigations Service of the National Guard, Customs, Immigration
and Treasury Police was responsible to his own director and to the
director of ANSESAL.
Above all. ANSESAL was the nerve centre of the combined
intelligence networks of the security system, and in particular the co¬
ordinator of intelligence flowing in from the tens of thousands of
ORDEN members; as a December 1983 report described it:
ANSESAL was formed of the heads of the military services and internal
security forces and answered directly to the president From its offices in
the Presidential Palace, it functioned as the brain of a vast state security
apparatus that reached into every town and neighborhood in the coun¬
try. By conservative estimate, at least one Salvadoran out of every 50 was
an informant for the agency. In addition to gathering intelligence,
ANSESAL was used to carry out death-squad activities ... according to
Salvadoran and US officials.^®^
While serving as the regime’s intelligence command post, apparently

ANSESAL also co-ordinated counter-intelligence work with the
intelligence division of the army general staff, and had access to general
staff records of active duty army and security personnel, as well as those
with past service. A division of ANSESAL seems to have been responsible
for vetting and monitoring ORDEN membership, a key counter¬
intelligence task, as well as co-ordinating information gathered through the
ORDEN network, and deployment of ORDEN personnel on security
tasks. Although managing to retain such secrecy on its activities that little
has ever been written about it, several sources, including former govern¬
ment officials, suggest ANSESAL was particular involved in surveillance
of former security personnel, and, with the general staff, vetting potential
recruits for further special security service. The records of regular army
conscripts and volunteers are, on termination of service, reviewed by the
army general staff vis-a-vis their suitability for incorporation into the
219
police services (most National Guard and police personnel are rec¬
ruited directly from army service) for recruitment into ORDEN on
return to their home areas, or recruitment into special operations groups
directed by the intelligence agencies. ANSESAL could tap these general
staff records systems in order to keep the ORDEN network regularly
replenished with reliable personnel, and under control.By the late
1970s it could draw on an enormous manpower pool of of former
service-men for reincorporation into government service, or to provide
contract services to a select group of private employers. Large landow¬
ners and others of the Salvadorean elite have traditionally contracted
private bodyguards and security personnel through the National
Guard, which, since the 1930s made men no longer on the active list
available to private employers who paid their salaries. Unemployed ex¬
guardsmen, part of the Guards’ unpaid reserve, were glad to get a
paycheck, and big landowners happy to have trained security personnel
at their disposal."®*' In the 1970s too, ANSESAL apparently built upon
and rationalized this practice, providing a central service enabling
politically safe private persons to contract former National Guard and
other security services personnel as plantation guards, bodyguards, or
for other tasks consistent with government policy. The requirement for
these contracted employees to maintain contact and report their
activities to ANSESAL ensured that body's continued effective control
over them.-®^
ANSESAL, and through it the army general staff and the President,
controlled vast manpower resources auxiliary to regular military or
security forces, which could be covertly deployed for counter-insurgency
warfare.
ANSESAL's headquarters were still in the presidential complex at
the time of the October 1979 coup, operating behind the screen of the
President's CentroNacionaldeInformacion (CNI) (National Information
Centre). In a separate building in the same complex were ORDEN’s
administrative offices, said to employ more than 40 staff at the time of
the coup.^®^
ANSESAL, like the Guatemalan Presidential security agency, is at
the centre of a communications network tied in to the Central American
telecommunications networks operated from the US military’s Southern
Command in the Panama Canal Zone. ANSESAL is supported by two
major communications centres in the capital. The Centro de Instruccion
de Telecomunicaciones de las Fuerzas Armadas, (CITFA) (Armed Forces
Centre for Instruction in Telecommunications) at the El Zapote Fort,
linked to the Casa Presidencial by a tunnel, provides the Presidency with
principal communications facilities.^®^ A second centre, providing data
processing and communications services, including phone tapping
facilities, is ANTEL {Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones).
the National Telecommunications Agency. This Agency, based in a
large building behind the National Palace in downtown San Salvador,
runs the nation’s telephone and telegraph service and controls all
220
The New Securin’ System: US Model
broadcasting. ANTEL acquired a major security function under the

Sanchez Hernandez regime, under the directorship of the president’s
brother Colonel Vicente Sanchez Hernandez."'^* By 1971 it reportedly
housed sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment and within its
large conventional establishment concealed much of the intelligence
system’s high technology. As noted, most of the top army officers in
positions of power after the October 1979 coup had served as ANTEL
chiefs, a top intelligence post.^*'^
The significance of ANTEL (and CITFA) to the intelligence function
should not be underestimated, but the key agency through which the
President and the army general staff maintained control of the
intelligence apparatus, and ORDEN, was ANSESAL. To the military
governments of the 1970s, ANSESAL and ORDEN were indispensable
and, consequently, were kept under close Presidential control. Threatened
with the dissolution of both at the time of the October 1979 coup, the
army general staff moved to conceal ANSESAL, and reorganize
ORDEN to permit the minimum of disruption. According to recent
reports. ANSESAL’s - and ORDEN’s - offices and records were
transferred to the army general staff headquarters on the very day of the
coup. Although ANSESAL chief Colonel Roberto Eulalio Santibanez,
reportedly supervised the transfer, direction of ANSESAL from the
army general staff was to have fallen to its previous second chief. Major
Roberto D’Aubuisson. The appointment was kept secret from the
civilians brought into the October junta, and from the reformist officers
who had demanded that officers responsible for intelligence work
under Romero be cashiered.
The reformers had officially abolished ORDEN, the old informant net¬
work. But ... military officers suspicious of the young reformers secretly
re-established - and expanded - much of the old intelligence system into a
grass-roots intelligence network that fed names of suspected subversives
to military and paramilitary death squads. Four days after the coup,
D’Aubuisson said in an interview, he was assigned by members of the
high command to help reorganize ANSESAL inside a military com¬
pound under the chief of staffs office - out of reach of civilians in the
new junta.^’”
The secret reassignment of D’Aubuisson to ANSESAL was confirmed

by junta member Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez and then-Deputy
Defense Minister (and later Treasury Police head) Colonel Nicolas
Carranza.^^' The reorganized ANSESAL was set up as part of the
general staff s “Section 5’’, (Civic Affairs’’).
‘We found ourselves obliged to close ANSESAL and open another’

Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, a conservative member of the new
government, said in an interview. So we called D Aubuisson, sent him
221
over there, to avoid that the information the old ANSESAL files should be
taken out of there’. Gutierrez, who has since come to oppose D’Aubuisson,
said the move was necessary to keep the files out of the hands of leftist
infiltrators in the new government.
A new version of the intelligence agency was re-established in Depart¬
ment 5, the “Civic Affairs” section of the army general staff, military sour¬
ces said. The little-known agency is in charge of jobs ranging from
image-building tasks, like road construction, to covert actions. Extreme
rightists have dominated the department, according to US and Salvadoran
sources.^^^
222
Notes to Part 3
Chapter 10
1. US Embassy Cable 8 May 1961, released through Freedom of Information

Act.
2. US Embassy cable 19 May 1961, released through Freedom of Information
Act.
3. The exclusion of the new political parties from the countryside by
physically preventing their contact with the peasantry is discussed
further below.
4. Agency for International Development (AID) “Transmittal Statement,
FY 1964-1965 Program Submission", prepared 17 September 1963, p.
TS 6.
5. Howard I.. Blutstein,/Irea Handbook for El Salvador, op. cit., p.l88.
6. NACLA's 1974 study, Guatemala, includes a chapter on the Central
American Common Market (“Master-minding the Mini-Market") detail¬
ing the operation of the Central American Bank for Economic Integra¬
tion. and concludes that AID controlled rather than supported it.
7. Blutstein, op.ciL, p. 188.
8. INSAFI provided capital outlay up to 60% for new industrial projects,
with 25 year repayment periods. Blutstein, op. cit, p. 148.
9. Blutstein, op. cit. p. 159.
10. A further element was the impact of Salvadorean industrial expansion on
regional trade relations; favouring El Salvador - seen as an unequal dis¬
tribution of the Common Market’s benefits - was just one factor souring
Honduran-Salvadorean relations before 1969.
11. Blutstein, op. cit, p. 165. In the 1960s top army officers also moved to take
a share of the economic largesse, much as under the military government
of 1963-66 Guatemalan army officers began to join the economic elite as
corporate board members and part owners of lucrative new industries.
The process continued in the 1970s with Colonel Arturo Armando
Molina (president 1972-77) becoming a top shareholder in the enterprise
- Cemento Maya. President Sanchez Hernandez (1967-72) was finan¬
cially involved in coastal cotton farms being developed in the 1960s.
12. AID, “Transmittal statement..." op. cit, p. 6.
13. Blutstein, op. cit, p. 100, writing in 1970, reports an estimated 40,000
union members, or about 7% of the labour force in some sense
“organized".
14. Fegislative Decree 145, published in the Diario Oficial No. 173, 21
223
September 1962. The decree changes the name to Title III, chapter II, con¬
cerning "Rebelidn, Sedicidn y Espionaje", to append “y Actividades Anar-
quicas o Contrarias a la Democracia" “Anarchic Activities or those
Contrary to Democracy”. Article 139 concerns ^'quienes promuevan.
organicen. mantengan o estimulen paros o huelgas. . . en violacidn de las dis-
posiciones legales que las rigen...” (“those who promote, organize, sustain
or stimulate stoppages or strikes ... in violation of the legal dispositions
in force . . .").
15. Blutstein. op. ciL, p. 100, notes the limitation labour laws put on overall organ¬
ization in the country: “The law ... limits labor unions to non agricultural
labor; this significantly inhibits the growth of the labor movement.. .”
16. Summarized by Thomas P. Kndcrson, Matanza: El Salvador’s Communist
Revolt of1932. op. cit., pp. 148-50. Browning, op.cit., pp. 271-2 deals with the
issue at greater length, Martinez created a special fund in July 1932, the
Eondo de Mejoramiento Social to provide cheap housing, and develop
“general industrialization, and a program of land redistribution”, to be
administered by Vne Junta Nacional de la Defensa Social, between 1932 and
1950, the Eondo reportedly purchased 26 haciendas, comprising 86,754
acres, distributing 73,655 acres to small holders (Browning, op. cit., p. 275).
Browning also cites several sources to the effect that most of the land was
promptly resold or otherwise abandoned (for example when rents could
not be paid). Anderson cites Alejandro Dagoberto Marroquin: “that the
land usually went to the dictator's personal friends, or to members of his
Partido Pro-Patria” (Anderson, op. cit., p. 150); the latter observation
is perhaps germane to the highly suspect progress of the 1980 agrarian
reform.
17. Browning, op. cit., p. 296.
18. Ibid. The author adds that “the failure of past official programs to achieve
such a rearrangement of tenure systems ... [does] not inspire confidence
in the success of future attempts to implement it.”
19. Blutstein, op. cit., p. 21.
20. Ibid., p. 153.
21. Ibid., p. 21; Blutstein also reported that'Tood allowances for farmworkers
were increased”. In fact they were discontinued.
22. Anderson, op. cit, p. 155.
23. Browning, op. cit, p. 234, describes the transformation of the largely fores¬
ted coast to a vast mechanized farm. With agro-industry, furthermore, the
traditional production of food crops in the area fell by the wayside; see
ibid., p. 235. Statistics (in a footnote) show that 1950-63 coastal cotton fibre
production rose from-5,565 to 71,441 metric tons - a 1,283% increase -
maize production rose only from 130,307 to 153,246 tons, and beans
dropped from 16,471 to 14,447 metric tons.
24. Browning op. cit., p 277, documents every aspect of El Salvador’s
agricultural history, and compares the late development of the litoral in
the late 1950s and 1960s to the rapid introduction of coffee culture in the
highlands in the 1800s, with similar social costs. Until 1930 “The pattern
of land use and settlement remained unchanged from that of previous
centuries: most of the land remained under ownership of large cattle
haciendas or remained as public land, upon which settlement by tenants,
colonos, and squatters was allowed or tolerated”. Browning, op. ciL, p. 229.
224
Notes to Part 3
25. Ibid, p. 236.

26. Ibid, p. 239.
27. Ibid
28. Roger Burbach and Patricia F\ynn. Agribusiness in the Americas, NACLA,
Monthly Review Press. New York and London, 1980, p. 143: “To accom¬
plish this expansion the landowners carried out a massive expulsion of
colono families ... Today many of these dispossessed peasants live in the
makeshift mud and straw huts scattered along the dusty roads and barren
mountainsides of the Salvadorean countryside." A 3/4 reduction in land
farmed by colonos (77%) does not necessarily mean three out of four
colono families were ejected, but population growth possibly resulted in a
proportion of colono families forced to seek a livelihood elsewhere even if
a nucleus remained on a private estate. Significantly, however, while the
1932 revolt flared throughout the highland coffee-growing area, where
conditions rapidly deteriorated (estate workers were put out on the street)
the 1980s revolution seemingly has its greatest strong points not in the
densely populated coffee lands, but in the more arid, sharecropping coun¬
try of the northern departments on the Honduran border and in the
vicinity of the coastal towns and cities.
29. NACLA, Guatemala, p. 98. describes Honduras wide open spaces as “an
escape valve" for the Salvadorean unemployed. Population density
figures are for 1969.
30. Ibid., p. 98.
31. Blutstein, op. cit, pp. 22-3.
32. Salvadorean immigrants were maltreated, and some killed in the lead-up
to the war. Anderson, op. cit., p. 156. writes that Honduran President
Colonel Lopez Arellano deliberately chose to encourage an “anti-
Salvadorean" campaign to take people’s minds off other Honduran pro¬
blems. but that the campaign went too far.
33. New York Times. 31 August 1969: Juan de Om's, “Salvador Clergy call for
Reform”. The bishops placed their call for redistribution of the land in the
context of national security and the Honduran war: “El Salvador cannot
present its struggle [with Honduras] as being in defense of human rights
while ... citizens in our own territory ... [suffer] hunger and malnutrition,
without the necessary support to lead decent lives.” Juan de Ora's noted
that the appeal for land donations was directed particularly at absentee
landlords, “many of whom belong to traditional land-owning families,
but are now managers of El Salvador's recently established industries.
34. The courses were perhaps more about the insidious dangers of Communism
in the countryside than active labour organization. The history of AID's
involvement in peasant training schemes is outlined in an unpublished
paper by Carolyn Forche and Philip Wheaton, “The History and Motiva¬
tions of US Involvement in the Agrarian Reform Process in El Salvador.
1970 to 1980". aid's principal instrument was the American Institute for
Free Labour Development, working as an AID contractor. Burbach and
Flynn, op. cit., p. 214, describe AIFED as a body “funded by AID, suppor¬
ted by the AFE-CIO and US corporations, and often used by the CIA to
undercut genuine progressive unionism in Fatin America". In rural El
Salvador, however, there were at the time no rural unions to undercut or
take over.
225
35. Forche and Wheaton, op. cit., pp. 6, 7: “The technical help ... came from
the government’s Agricultural Extension Program, food was provided by
CARITAS, and funding from US AID.”
36. Ibid., p. 6.
37. Ibid., pp. 6-10.
38. Latin America Bureau, El Salvador under General Romero. London, April
1979, p. 229.
39. “Religious Persecution in El Salvador", Hearings before the Subcommittee
on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations
of the House of Representatives, 95 th Congress,! st Session, 21 and 29 July,
1977, pp. 6-9, testimony of Rev. Jose Inocencio Alas, priest of the diocese of
San Salvador, El Salvador.
40. Ibid., p. 7.
41. Blutstein, op. cit., p. 104.
42. Ibid., p. 102. 15 seats had gone to the Christian Democrats.
43. Blutstein, op. cit., pp. 103-4. Statistics on election results given by Blutstein
and White vary slightly. White summarizes them as follows: “(In elections
of 8 March 1970) the PCN won 34 of the 52 seats in the Legislative
Assembly, compared with 32 in 1966 and only 27 in 1968; and won control
of all but seven of the 261 municipalities; these seven went to the PDC,
compared to the 80 which the Christian Democrats had won in 1968. The
only cause for opposition rejoicing was the PDC’s retention of control
over the municipality of San Salvador." Alistair White El Salvador. Ernest
Benn Ltd, London, 1973, p. 195.
44. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of
Human Rights in El Salvador. 17 November 1973, p. 149, citing a com¬
plaint by a Salvadorean “political representative ". Blutstein, op. cit., p.
102 writes only that the PAR was declared illegal “allegedly for dis¬
seminating Communist ideologies”.
45. Decree No. 145, Diario Oficial No. 173, 21 September 1962. The prede¬
cessor of Decree No. 145 was the 1952 Ley de Defensa del Orden Democrdtico y
Constitucional. derogated early in the Lemus government, in the mid-1950s.
46. White, op. cit., p. 208.
47. Ibid., p. 208.
48. AID “Transmittal Statement..." op. cit, p. 8.
49. White, op. cit, p. 205-6.
50. Ibid.
51. Martinez’ Pro-Patria Party, while a precursor of the two subsequent “offi¬
cial" parties, differed in essence in that it remained basically apersonalista
party, dedicated to maintaining the rule of one person, rather than any part¬
icular institution. (For the PRUD and the PCN, the military institution).
Pro-Patria was generically closer to Xh^Partido Democrdtico Nacionalista of
the Melendez-Quinonez family in the 1920s. Alistair White, op. cit, p. 193
sketched the PCN as follows: “The Partido de Conciliacion Nacional
( PCN) is the vehicle through which the continuity of the regime is translated
into the terms of formal democracy... the PCN is the successor to the
Partido Revolucionario de Unificacion Democratica (PRUD) of Osorio
and Lemus, and inherited not only the forms of organization but a good
many of the personnel."
52. White, op. cit
226
Notes to Part 3
53. Ibid, p. 209.

54. Ibid.
55. Estudios Centroamericanos. Ano XXV, No. 265-266, October-November
1970, pp. 529-31, cited in Juan Hernandez Pico et al., El Salvador, Afio
Politico 1971-1972, p. 12 and note.
56. James Dunkerly, The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador,
London: Junction Books (1982) p. 84, reports Medrano's dismissal was for
“ ‘disciplinary reasons' - the planning of a coup as a result of discontent
with Sanchez Hernandez' irrigation law." Medrano's brief arrest in February
1971 (ibid. p. 85) followed his killing of a policeman, apparently in the
course of a vendetta in which he supported the Salaverria family against
the Regalado family. He admitted the charge but pleaded self-defence.
57. Ibid, p. 64.
58. Hernandez Pico et al, op. cit., pp. 11-12.
59. See Dunkerly, op. cit., ch. 6, “The Rise of the Left" for a detailed discussion
of ihQ Partido Comunista Salvadoreho's ideological history; also ibid, p. 91.
60. Ibid., pp. 55-6.
61. Ibid., p. 58; notes the CGS was set up by Lemus in 1958 and subsequently
funded by the American Institute for Free Labour Development
(AIFLD), and affiliated to the US controlled Organizacion Regional
Interamericana de Trabajadores (ORIT).
62. Ibid., p. 59. Dunkerly also outlines the progressive decline of CGS's role,
from controlling 42% of organized workers in 1971 to 19% in 1976.
63. Hernandez Pico, et. al, op. cit., pp. 11-12.
64. Ibid., pp. 13-15, provides an excellent summary of the changes in the elec¬
toral law; in footnote 6 the authors add the texts of key articles of the law
which remained unchanged in 1971, but provided the basis for exclusion
of parties or candidates considered unacceptable.
65. Hernandez Pico, et. al., op. cit., p. 187.
66. Ernesto Regalado Duenas was known for his “modern” ideas for manag¬
ing industrial investment, but the Regalado extended family is probably
the nation's largest landowner and coffee producer. In the 1970-71 season
Regalado family holdings' coffee production totalled 85,000 quintales
(the 46 kilograms units in which coffee is bagged). The Guirola family (72,107
quintales), was next in rank that year, followed by Llach and Schonenberg
family Hill-Llach family, and the Duenas family, Dunkerly, op. cit, pp. 241-2,
“Appendix Two: The Landed Oligarchy”, reproducing a table of leading
families in order of their coffee, cotton and sugar production in 1970-71.
67. From Discursos del Sr. Presidente de la Republica General Eidel Sanchez Her¬
nandez, julio 1, 1967 - enero 3, 1972, San Salvador,1973, speech of 24 Feb¬
ruary 1971, “Mensaje al pueblo salvadoreno reafirmando el proposito de
combatir el terrorismo y mantener la tranquilidad del pais.” ("Message to
the Salvadorean people reaffirming the intention to combat terrorism and
maintain order in the country”.)
68. Latin America Weekly Report, March 1971.
69. Stephen Webre, Jose Napoleon Duarte and the Christian Democratic Party in
Salvadorean Politics 1960-1972, Louisiana State University Press: London
(1979) p. 162, citingD/'ano de Hoy, 16 February 1971. Webre also notes that
“Months later, when suspicion had shifted to the leftists, Medrano denied
under oath any recollection of this aspect of his statement” {cximgPrensa
111
Grafica (San Salvador) 17 September 1971.

70. Ibid., p. 161 and El Grdfico (Guatemala) 3 November 1971.
71. Webre, op. cit., pp. 159-60. For a detailed discussion of the political plat¬
forms and economic concerns of the various parties in 1971-1972 see
Hernandez-Pico et al, op. cit., part II, "'Aspectos ideoldgicosy socioecondmicos
de los programas electorates de los partidos contendientes".
72. Webre, op. cit, p. 161. Even before the Regalado Duenas kidnapping
Medrano was in line for exile, being detailed to a Salvadorean Consulate
in the US (San Francisco) immediately after his 2 December 1970 dis¬
missal from the National Guard command, to take up his US post in Feb¬
ruary 1971.
73. Hernandez Pico et al., op. cit, pp. 15-16.
74. Ibid., pp. 23-107, for extensive details of the electoral process of 1972.
75. Ibid., gives convincing evidence to this effect. In the event Napoleon
Duarte gave a press conference on 21 February claiming victory by about
10,000 votes, based on final returns at the departmental level reported by
UNO observers.
76. Ibid., pp. 104-5.
77. Ibid., p. 112. Chapter 4, "El golpe de estado del 25 de marzo de 1972", is the
best source on the coup and its aftermath.
78. Ibid., p. 113. There has been considerable speculation as to the pro¬
venance of the aircraft that bombed key points in San Salvador in the
course of the rebellion. Discussing the possibility of Guatemalan aircraft,
or other aircraft provided through the services of CONDECA Hernandez
Pico et al, op. ciL, pp.l 11-36, discount charges of foreign intervention in the
affair.
79. Ibid., p. 114.
80. Ibid., citing £■/ Diario de Hoy, 26 March 1972, edicion Extra.
81. Ibid., pp. 118-9.
82. Ibid., p. 131.
83. See, for example, detailed discussion in ibid., pp. 131-3, "Causas del
Golpe".
85. Ibid., pp. 126-9; and Webre, p. 176.
86. Webre, op. cit., p. 178.
87. Ibid.
88. Hernandez Pico et al. op. cit., pp. 136-48.
Chapter 11
89. From the testimony of Dr Fabio Castillo in US Congress, Hearings on
“Human Rights in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador: Implications
for US Policy", June 1976. p. 40, and Webre. op. cit., p. 185.
90. Webre. op. cit., p. 186.
91. Prensa Grafica, 2 March. 1972; Webre. op. cit., p. 174, writes that police trac¬
ked the assailants to the National University and blamed the attack on
“red terrorists".
92. Prensa Grafica. 9 September 1972.
93. Dunkerley, op. cit., p. 91, for FPL emergence.
94. Diario de Hoy. Prensa Grafica, 14 February 1973, cited in Panorama
Resumen Centroamericana de Noticias (Guatemala), February 1973. p. 7.
95. Prensa Grafica. cited ininforpress Centroamerica, February 1973, p. 7. Later,
228
Notes to Part 3
exile of this kind would gradually be superseded by extrajudicial

execution.
96. Prensa Grafica, 27 and 31 March 1973, cited in Panorama, March 1973.
97. £//mpurczu/(Guatemala), 25 April 1973 and Prensa Grafica, 30 April 1973,
cited in Panorama, April, 1973.
98. La Prensa (Nicaragua), 25 August 1973, cited in Panorama, August
1973.
99. Higinio Alas, El Salvador. Por que la insurreccionl, Secretariado Per-
manente de la Comision de Derechos Humanos en Centroamerica, San
Jose de Costa Rica, 1982, p. 62.
100. Ibid., and Fabio Castillo’s testimony in the US Congress, Hearings on
“Human Rights in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador...” op.
cit., p. 41.
101. Webre, op. cit., p. 188.
102. Higinio Alaz, op. cit, p. 62 and testimony of Fabio Castillo, op. cit,
103. See Webre, op. cit, p. 189 and Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in El Salvador, 1978, pp. 51-5.
The Commission’s report included a testimony describing the calculated
brutality of the attack; “Those in front wanted to turn around, but the
armoured units had cut them off because the units had crossed over the
bridge; ... the place became a trap ... as the demonstrators were turning
around, the rifle and machine-gun fire began ... The objective of those
responsible for the crime was not to disperse the demonstration ... The
repressors were in a kneeling position ... as if they were facing a target in
shooting practice. But they were not just bullets. The boys and girls who in
their desperate flight wanted to jump over the walls ... received slashes
on the head and other parts of the body; parts of the body were dismem¬
bered ... The streets at the intersection and in front of the main entrance
to the [hospital] were wet with blood. Not even the heavy rainfalls that
followed have managed to erase them entirely."
104. Webre, op. cit., p. 189.
105. See, for example, Webre, op. ciL, p. 190. The government never publicly
established the whereabouts of the “disappeared” or accepted respon¬
sibility for their arrests, or their removal from the scene in the security ser¬
vices’ ambulances. Some bodies of students who died of their wounds (or
were killed) after being taken away were returned to their families on the
condition that this was not made public, and burials took place outside
the capital. The reported intermediary for these agreements was
Archbishop Chavez y Gonzalez, head of the Salvadorean church and, by
early 1975, an increasingly outspoken champion of human rights.
106. Dunkerley, op. cit., p. 99, notes that the coalition into FAPU followed a
process in which the clandestine Salvadorean Communist Party (PCS)
had been in temporary alliance with the urban union federations, and
been rejected by them.
107. See, for example, Latin America Bureau, Violence andEraud in El Salvador,
(London), July 1977, p. 11.
108. Panorama, August 1975, p. 9.
109. The text of the communique was published by most Salvadorean dailies;
see La Prensa Grdfica, 8 August 1975.
110. Webre, op. cit., p. 191.
229
111. See Part 4.

112. La Prensa Grafica, 8 August 1975.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid.
115. Latin America Bureau, op. cit., p. 13. Webre, op. cit., p. 191, suggests the
numbers of political killings in the second half of 1975 were quite high,
although suggesting that left and right killings were in some way balanced.
See Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation
of Human Rights in El Salvador, op. cit., pp. 152-3 for details of FALANGE
threats to candidates in the 1976 municipal and legislative elections.
116. Prensa Libre (Guatemala), 26 September 1975, in Panorama, September
1975, p. 18.
117. Prensa Libre (Guatemala), 5 November 1975, in Panorama, November
1975, p. 17.
118. Prensa Grdfica (San Salvador) 5 June 1972, in Panorama, June 1972.
119. See Webre, op. cit., p. 193, for a summary of the proposal, andPanorama,
July 1976, citing Diario de Hoy, 26 July 1976, which gives the Christian
Democratic Party’s brief contemporary assessment of the law.
120. El Diario de Hoy, 22 June 1976, in Panorama, June 1976.
121. Colonel Vides Casanova was appointed Director Suplente (deputy) of
ANTEL for the Ministry of Interior on 20 June 1974, and made Director
Proprietario (titular director) for the Ministry of Interior on 27 September
1974, until his appointment as a director of INSAFI in April 1975, as rep¬
resentative of the President, and, subsequently as INSAFI’s president.
Colonel Garda was appointed president of ANTEL, on 12 March 1974.
122. Webre. op. cit., citing Central America Report, 31 January 1977.
123. US Congress, Hearings on “Religious Persecution in El Salvador”, July
1977, p. 12. The Universidad Simeon Canas was a target in part because of
its publication, Estudios Centroamericanos, which in September-October
1976, for example, published a detailed analysis of the agrarian reform
legislation, and was seen to take a strong position in favour of meaningful
reform. In the July 1977 US Congressional hearings on "Religious Per¬
secution in El Salvador" Ignacio Lozano, Jr.. American Ambassador to El
Salvador from August 1976 to June 1977, placed the beginnings of the
“persecution of the church" with the acrimonious debate on agrarian
transformation in 1976: “the landowners, [were] seeking to protect their
own economic interests and reluctant to share their bonanza with their
workersf... ] numerous right wing groups, mounted a shrill campaign in
the Salvadoran press against the Catholic Church, accusing its priests of
contributing to and openly supporting [unrest], if not actually creating it
by preaching revolution and subversion from their pulpits. This campaign
of vilification apparently had the tacit approval of the government which in
its turn was mounting a campaign of harrassment and intimidation of
Salvadoran priests, and the expulsion of foreign priests, including Americans.”
Lozano's testimony recalls comments by American observers immedia¬
tely prior to El Salvador's 1932 agrarian revolt US military attache Major
A.R. Harris in a dispatch of 22 December 1931 (report No. 4,000b)
warned that plantation owners were the principal allies of agitators
who wish to “stir up the people against the present system”. “[The
agitators] are aided to a large extent by the reactionary ideas of prac-
230
Notes to Part 3
cally all the large landowners, who do not want to let any of their
land go. so that a middle class will be developed. Their arguments usually
come down to this: ‘if we sell our land to these mozos (servants) we will
have nobody to pick our coffee for us. The best thing for everybody is to
keep things as they are’."
124. See Latin America Bureau, op. cit. p. 20. for chronology of incidents; for
the point of view of the most virulent right-wing landowners associations,
the Frente Agrario Regional Oriental (FARO). (Eastern Region Agrarian
Front) see US Congress. Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections
in El Salvador: Implications for US Foreign Policy”, March 1977. The
record includes as appendix 8 (pp. 86-7) a statement from FARO of 18
March 1977: “Everybody knows it, and FARO published it. that the
Jesuits have organized and exercise demagogic control of FECCAS and
UTC; that those organizations committed acts of violence in Quezaltepe-
que where a humble market vendor was killed; that members of those
organizations started the disturbance at Hacienda Colima which
ultimately led to the death of outstanding citizen Guayo Orellana; that
leaders of those organizations carried out acts of violence that ended in
killings in the Tecoluca parish area; and that those organizations together
with other organizations also under the demagogic control of the Com¬
munists ... rioted in the streets of San Salvador shouting “Death” and
slogans threatening violence and bloodshed”.
125. Latin America Bureau, op. cit, see also Hearings on “Religious Persecu¬
tion ...”, op. cit
126. Latin America Bureau, op. cit, pp. 20-23.
127. Hearings on “Religious Persecution ...”, op. cit, p. 63, statement ofJohnJ.
McAward, Associate Director, International Programs, Unitarian Univer-
salist Service Committee.
128. Ibid.
129. Excellent descriptions of the incident and its repercussions^ are to be
found in both Hearings on “Religious Persecution ...” op. cit, and Latin
America Bureau, op. cit
130. Latin America Bureau, op. cit, p. 22.
131. Panorama, March 1974, p. 11, citing La Prensa Grdfica. 13 March 1974.
132. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation
... op. cit, pp. 152-153.
133. The coalition's vice-presidential candidate was Christian Democrat Jose
Antonio Morales Erlich, formerly the mayor of San Salvador.
134. Eor details of the two “disappearance” cases see Inter-American Commis¬
sion on Human Rights, Report op. cit For a far more extensive treatment
of secret captivity, and of the Poma kidnapping from the guerrillas’ point
of view, see Ana Guadalupe Martinez Las Cdrceles Clandestinas de El
Salvador: Libertad por el Secuestro de un Oligarca, 1978 (no publisher or
place of publication given).
135. Details of the election and events in its aftermath are included in the
record of Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections ...” op. cit
136. Some of the tapes were played at the March 1977 congressional hearings
on “The Recent Presidential Elections ...”; Appendix 1 to the record of the
Hearings (pp. 69.71) includes a statement from UNO describing the com¬
munications system and an elaborate system for co-ordinating local
231
ballot stuffing.
137. Webre. op. cit.. p. 197, citing Central America Report, 28 February 1977.
138. Letter, 14 March 1977: Colonel Ernesto Claramount R. to UNO leaders;
included in Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections ... , op. cit.,
pp. 55-6.
139. US Congress, Hearings on “Religious Persecution in El Salvador”, op. cit.,
statement of John J. McAward, on p. 57.
140 Ibid.
141. They were Colonel Jose Napoleon Agreda, Commander of the 1st Army
Brigade, Colonel Jose Antonio Agreda, Director of the National Police,
and Colonel Jose Eduardo Iraheta, Commander of the 1st Artillery
Brigade. Colonel Claramount would be accompanied on his flight to exile
in Costa Rica by Lt. Col. Roberto Santibanez. publicly known as the
chief of the Immigration Service and Police, but also then head of the pre¬
sidential security agency ANSESAL.
142. US Congress, Hearings on “Religious Persecution in El Salvador”, op. cit.,
p. 58.
143. Ibid. US church investigators described the killings as indiscriminate and
widespread: “Security forces fired on the demonstrators at point-blank
range with heavy calibre machine-guns ... A young American couple was
almost shot while shopping for bread four blocks from the cordon area.
Three persons were shot in the street within five yards of them”.
144. Ibid.
145. Ibid.
146. The Christian Democratic Party’s September 1977 national convention,
agreed a six point platform, stating: “as the government has closed the
electoral process, the PDC decides that ... it will not participate in the
electoral process to elect parliamentarians in March next year”. Point one
declared the party’s determination “to struggle with the people to achieve
a democratic opening” ... as a response to “the political program of a fas¬
cist nature that the present regime pursues.” See Panorama, September
1977, citing La Prensa Grdfica, 15 September 1977.
147. Latin America Bureau, op. cit, p. 24. Also detained, blindfolded,
handcuffed and beaten was Salvadorean priest Victor Guevara from
Chalatenango.
148. Ibid., ciXmgBoletin del Arzobispado de San Salvador, No. 16, 20 May 1977.
149. The threatening letter consisted of cut-out letters from advertisements
spelling “Mene Mene Tekel Phares" (a biblical warning of imminent death)
on a black sheet of photocopy paper with the white silhouette of a hand on
it.
150. Eor full text see US Congress, Hearings on “Religious Persecution in El
Salvador”, op. cit. Appendix No. 3.
151. Latin America Bureau, op. cit, p. 26.
152. The head of the Jesuit order, Pedro Arrupe, made his declaration to the
press in the course of a meeting of Latin American Provincials in RJo de
Janeiro (see Panorama, August 1977, citing La Tarde (Guatemala), 9
August 1977).
153. In late 1977 military occupations of rural municipalities involving com¬
bined army. National Guard and ORDEN forces repeated the Aguilares
experience in several areas of Chalatenango, Morazan. San Vicente and
232
Notes to Part 3
Cabanas departments. Large contingents of the security forces surroun¬

ded villages and carried out house to house searches during periods of
from one to three days. Reports of detentions and “disappearances”, and
execution style shootings followed these operations (See Latin America
Bureau, El Salvador Under President Romero, London, 1979, p. 43).
155. Ibid., p. 39.
156. Including FECCAS and UTC. and the clandestine Communist Party-backed
ATACES, the Asociacion de Trabajadores Campesinos Salvadorenos
(Association of Salvadorean Peasant Workers).
157. Dunkerley, op. cit., p. 115.
158. Ibid., p. 116.
159. Latin America Bureau, El Salvador Under General Romero, op. cit., pp. 46-
47.
160. Dunkerley, op. cit., p. 117.
161. US Congress, Hearings on "Religious Persecution in El Salvador”, op. cit,
p. 17.
162. See Volume II for further discussion of the basis of the human rights
policy and the reaction of Latin American governments (“Human Rights
and Security Assistance”).
163. US Congress, Hearings on “Religious Persecution in El Salvador”, op. cit,
p. 17. Mr Lozano's frank statements to the Fraser Committee also earned
him the kind of frank comment that then Congressman Edward Koch,
later Mayor of New York, was well known for:
“Mr Koch. It intrigues me, Mr Ambassador, how did a nice, humane,
conscientious guy like you become an Ambassador?
Mr Lozano. Appointed by President Ford, you mean?
Mr Koch. Exactly.
Mr Lozano. We all make our mistakes.”
164. Cable, American Embassy San Salvador to Sec. State Washington. 3 May
1977. “For Todman from the Ambassador”, classified as “Secret”
declassified on 6 March 1982 through a Freedom of Information Act
request by the author.
165. Department of State Action Memorandum, 21 May 1977, declassified on
16 March 1982 through a Freedom of Information Act request by the
author.
166. Letter, 24 May 1977: His Excellency Colonel Arturo Armando Molina,
from Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, declassified on 16 March 1982
through a Freedom of Information Act request by the author. Vance was
blunt in this letter, informing Molina that the US government had con¬
cluded “that [Richardson) met with an untimely death in El Salvador
evidently while in the custody of Salvadoran authorities”, and stressed its
rejection of the story that Richardson had been deported; “Allegations that
Richardson was deported from El Salvador - allegations that are con¬
tradictory as to date, place and manner of supposed deportation - have
not dispelled our conclusion that he was killed in El Salvador.
167. Department of State Briefing Memorandum, 25 July 1977, To: The Sec¬
retary. Through: Mr. Habib, From: ARA - Terence A. Todman, USG
Policy and Actions on Human Rights Issues with El Salvador , Classified
Secret. Declassified, with portions deleted, on 16 March 1982, through a
Freedom of Information Act request by the author.
233
168. Ibid.
169. Ibid.
170. See Volume II, (“Human Rights and Security Assistance”). Molina pre¬
viously responded to US congressional hearings on the March presiden¬
tial elections, and to the publication in April that year of the Department
of State’s annual report on human rights in countries receiving foreign
assistance, by joining Guatemala, Argentina and Brazil in renouncing
US military assistance extended under conditions it considered abusive to
national sovereignty (Uruguay and Chile had already had their aid sus¬
pended). As the level of military assistance granted to the Salvadoreans in
1977 was low, and the continued presence of the military group advisers
would not be affected by the “renunciation”, the gesture was relatively
unimportant. Threat of economic sanctions was far more serious both for
Molina and his successor.
171. Memorandum: Todman to Habib and Vance, 25 July 1977, op. cit., andLa
Prensa Grdfica, (San Salvador), 3 August 1977, for quote on reaction.
172. Memorandum: Todman to Habib and Vance op. ciL
173. Department of State telegram, “Subject: Richardson Case”, “FM AMEM-
BASSY SAN SALVADOR TO SECSTATE”, 28 July 1977, including the
translation of a note from the Salvadorean Minister of Foreign Relations,
summarizing findings of the Attorney General’s report and presenting the
Government of El Salvador’s apologies. The full Spanish text of the Attor¬
ney General’s report (a three page text with few details) is included in a
Department of State telegram of 29 July: “Subject: Richardson Case; FM
AMEMBASSY SAN SALVADOR TO SECSTATE”. Both telegrams were
declassified on 9 November 1982 through a Freedom of Information Act
request by the author.
174. Department of State telegram. 29 July 1977, op. cit.
175. US Congress, Hearings, “Religious persecution ...”, p. 35. testimony of
Richard G. Arellano, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs.
176. Ibid., p. 98.
177. Ibid., citing letter: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Rela¬
tions Douglas Bennet to Senator Kennedy, 21 October 1977, noting
“encouraging steps” taken by Romero on human rights, including “not
reimposing the State of Siege, protective action for Jesuits, and an invitation
to the OAS Inter American Commission on Human Rights to visit El
Salvador”. The formal invitation was by diplomatic note of 14 September
1977, see Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the
Situation of Human Rights in El Salvador, 1978, for the result of the visit
178. Latin America Bureau, El Salvador under General Romero, op. cit. p. 57.
179. US Congress, Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections ...” op. cit,
p. 4, and Hearings on “Human Rights Conditions in Selected Countries
and the US Response”, 1978, p. 99.
180. US Congress, Hearings on “The Recent Presidential...”, op. cit, p. 92,
response of Department of State to questions submitted by Subcommittee
chairman Fraser.
181. Latin America Bureau. Violence andEraud ... op. cit, p. 32, citing Depart¬
ment of Public Relations, Presidential House. El Salvador 1974-1975,
San Salvador.
234
Notes to Part 3
182. Ibid.
183. Colonel Romero’s more conventional military duties were performed
with less elan; he was widely blamed, as chief army supply officer, when in
1969 advancing army and National Guard troops were brought to an
abrupt halt some distance inside Honduras when munitions and other
supplies were exhausted at the front. The contrast between the war records
of Colonel Romero, who remained safely behind the lines in 1969, and
Colonel Claramount, who led a force into Honduras, was made much of
in military circles prior to the 1977 elections. President Sanchez Hernan¬
dez, however, never wavered in his staunch support for Romero.
184. The two week trip was arranged by the US government’s International
Visitor Program, see US Congress, Hearings on “The Recent Presidential
Elections ...”, p. 92.
185. Romero remained close to the US military representatives in his country
after he became President. When Romero informed the US government
to expect a prompt .response on the Richardson case he did so via the
Defence Attache: “President Romero told DATT over weekend that an
official reply on Richardson case would be forthcoming by next
Thursday” (Memorandum: Todman to Habib and Vance, 25 July 1977,
op. cit.).
186. Panorama, November 1977, citing £/ Grafico, 18 November 1977.
187. Amnesty International Report 1978, p. 121.
188. Higinio Alas, El Salvador: Por Que la Insurreccion. op. cit., p.72.
190. For an exhaustive study of the Public Order Law, see Latin America
Bureau. El Salvador under General Romero, op. cit., the law was actually
derogated in February 1979 (as inapplicable) in the final phase of
violence and terror under Romero.
191. Higinio Alas, op. cit., p. 198.
192. Ibid., pp. 199-200, dind Amnesty International Report 1979, p. 62.
Chapter 12
193. Embassy Despatch 21, 26 July 1960, to the International Co-operation
Administration (later to become AID), and the Department of State.
194. Ambassador Thorsten V. Kalijarvi described it as “an objective and well-
balanced appraisal of the needs of the security forces here and a well-
reasoned estimate of the type and quantity of equipment that can be
utilized”. (Foreign Service Despatch No. 62,7 September 1960, American
Embassy, San Salvador to Department of State. Declassified through
Freedom of Information Act request, June 1980.)
195. Ibid., enclosure 1: Memorandum, 24 August 1960, to Thorsten V. Kalijarvi.
Ambassador, Through: Colonel Miller, D/USOM, From: Herbert O. Har¬
din. Chief Latin American Branch PSD/ICA/W; David Laughlin, Chief
Public Safety Adviser, Central America and Caribbean Area. USOM/
Honduras, Subject: Internal Security in El Salvador.
196. Ibid.
197. Ibid.
198. Ibid.
199. International Co-operation Administration, Report on the National
Police of the Republic of El Salvador, November 1956; declassified on 31
235
October 1958.
200. Ibid. The police establishment’s sophistication should not, however, be
overestimated; in 1956, certain police methods were still of a traditionally
primitive nature and provoked special comment in the ICA report: which
describes the “sweat-boxes” in use at the National Police headquarters:
"Special disciplinary facilities of the jail consist of six sweat boxes which
force the prisoner to remain in an upright position. These boxes are con¬
structed of heavy planks, and air is admitted through holes bored in the
box." Not to belabour the issue of Salvadorean brutality it should be noted
that similiar "sweat boxes" were in use in some big-city detention centres
in the United States at least until the 1930s.
201. Hardin Report, op. cit. Memorandum, 24 August 1960 (ICA), p. 3.
202. Ibid., p. 4. The Hardin report also noted that, despite its military organiza¬
tion. “it has limited value as an internal security force" (p. 4.).
203. Ibid., p. 3.
204. Ibid.
205. Ibid., p. 7: “First year (FY 61) programming is too late for routine con¬
gressional presentation process, therefore, in view of the need for
immediate action, special request should be made for SA funds. For sub¬
sequent years, routine program process should be followed".
206. Ibid., p. 5.
207. Ibid., pp. 5,6. The first year program was to be budgetted at $105,000; the
second at $54,000. Principal costs were to be dedicated to grants of45 jeeps
($90,000) and communications equipment, including 56 mobile trans¬
ceivers and 5 Base transceivers ($30,300).
208. Ibid., p. 8.
209. Embassy Despatch No. 62, 7 September 1960, to State, op. cit.
210. Cable US Embassy. 19 May 1961. “Assessment of Threat” by the
"Washington Internal Security Assessment and Programming Team”,
present May 5-9, 1961", op. cit.
211. Ibid.
212. Ibid.
213. US Embassy, Cable to Department of State, “Analysis of threats to inter¬
nal security”. No. 698, 8 May 1961 (FOI Act request).
214. Ibid.
215. Department of State. Despatch No. 400, US Embassy to State. 19 May
1961. Donald P. Downs, Counselor, for the Ambassador. Secret, released
through Freedom of Information Act request by the author.
216. Termination Phase Out Report, op. cit., pp. 11-12.
217. Ibid., p. 11.
218. Ibid., Attachment C. “Commodity Recap for El Salvador".
219. A further recommendation was for MAP support for the provision of two
coastal patrol craft, and development of a maintenance and repair facility
to deal with "automotive, small arms, artillery, communications equip¬
ment, and optical instrument maintenance." considered a necessity “If
any material aid offered to the Salvadorean Armed Forces, including the
Public Security Forces, is to retain its effectiveness for a period approach¬
ing normal life expectancy ..." (pp. 4-5).
220. Ibid. “... this Signal Support Company will provide each Salvadoran
garrison and the army .. . with a mobile, flexible system of communica-
236
Notes to Part 3
tions between the garrisons and the field in both radio and wire. .. Per¬
sonnel to operate and maintain the proposed communication equipment
can be obtained, with little more training, from the current Salvadoran
Armed Forces ..
221. Department of State, Despatch No. 44, US Embassy to State. 19 May 1961,
op. cit., pp. 5-6.
222. Ibid., pp. 5-6. The same source noted at the time that a mobile intelligence
training team had been programmed for El Salvador for some time, but
that “it was subsequently cancelled each time due primarily to lack of pro¬
per co-ordination at the Washington level (see Embassy Telegram 552 of
March 9, 1961)".
223. Ibid.
224. Hardin report, op. cit., p. 4.
225. Ibid., p. 2.
226. Ibid., p. 3.
227. Termination Phase Out Report op. cit. In 1967 the Stewart Report indi¬
cates its force level was 87.
228. Agency for International Development, Transmittal Statement: FY 1964-
1965 Program Submission, El Salvador (17 September 1963), Section
E-1.
229. Ibid.
230. Ibid.
231. Ibid.
232. Ibid.
233. Stewart Report, op. cit.
234. Ibid., op. cit.. p. 24.
235. As in Guatemala, primarily, the rural poor were subject to military ser¬
vice; corruption ensured that the sons of the rural elites could buy exemp¬
tions from either conscription or alternative reserve service.
236. In contrast to their Secciones de Investigaciones Criminales, (SIC) Criminal
Investigation Sections.
237. Stewart Report, op. cit. p. 24,
238. Ibid. Stewart notes some concern that while Colonel Medrano’s "30,000
man military reservist informant network” channelled information to his
group, “information received did not become directly available to the
National Police or the Guard” (p. 24), and recommended “an attempt be
made to make available to all agencies the intelligence collected by
Colonel Medrano's group” (p. 25).
239. Ibid., pp. 4, 5.
240. Ibid., p. 5.
241. Ibid.
242. ORDEN has certain historic antecedents. In the 1920s the Melendez-
Quinonez regimes official party,Partido DemocrdticoNacionalista, organized
strong-arm supporters in the so-called “Liga Roja”, or “Red League ;
largely composed of peasant farm-workers provided by large estate
owners, and paid to disrupt oppositionist public meetings; they were also
brought from the countryside and given free meals to attend rallies for the
official party’s candidates.
243. Text of 1967 speeches of President Sanchez and Colonel Jose Alberto
Medrano to landowners’ association, mimeograph, undated.
237
244. Ibid.
245. From Estudios Centroamericanos, San Salvador, January-February 1972,
pp. 279-80.
246. Text of 1967 speeches of Sanchez and Medrano, op. cit.
247. Testimony of Fabio Castillo in US Congress, Hearings on “The Situation
of Human Rights in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador”, op. cit.
248. Alistair White, El Salvador, op. cit., p. 207 footnote. White estimated that
ORDEN’s strength was “between, 50,000 and 100,000 in all probability”,
other sources put the figure at 80,000.
249. Ibid.
250. Ibid., citing Stephan L. Rozman, “The Socialization of Military Rule in El
Salvador”, University of Nebraska, mimeograph, 1974, p. 24.
251. Ibid., quoting El Mundo, 18 December 1970.
252. Major Gustavo Atilio Hernandez, “Guerra Irregular en el ambiente cen-
troamericano”. Revista de la Escuela de Comandoy Estado Mayor, January-
March 1964, pp. 25-30.
253. Major Manuel Alfonso Rodriguez, “iSera Efectiva la Defensa Movil Ante
la Guerrilla?”, Revista de la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor, April-
June 1963. pp. 30-38. The author notes that existing Salvadorean army
doctrine on counter-insurgency was defined in a two voiumo Manual de
Contra-insurrreccion, FAT 1-1 and FAT 1-2; these documents have not yet
come to light.
254. Major Roberto Monge, “Guerrillas y Contra-Guerrillas”, Revista de la
Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor, August 1964.
255. Rodriguez, op. cit. Major Mofige makes the same allusion to guerrilla
activity in conjunction with regular warfare against foreign aggression as
his colleagues. Defining guerrilla warfare, the author declares; “Guerrilla
[warfare] is an efficient procedure ... even though they [guerrilla forces]
have their origin in remote times, they should be considered a new for¬
ce... The results guerrillas obtained during the last world war in Greece,
Italy, Russia, the Balkans, Arabia, China and other European and Asiatic
countries, have been so favourable that many military thinkers have put
their attention to this new tactical procedure ...”.
256. See note 253.
257. Major Alfonso Rodriguez, “La Guerrilla y la Contra-guerrilla en la
Guerra Revolucionaria”,7?evwra de la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor,
no, 10, January-March 1966.
258. Office of Public Safety. Termination Phase-Out Study, Public Safety Project
El Salvador, May 1974, pp. 3-6. This was a report assessing the Public
Safety Program's work in El Salvador from its inception, prior to its
closure in late 1974.
259. Institute for Policy Studies, Resource, “Background Information on the
Security Forces in El Salvador and US Military Assistance”, prepared by
Cynthia Arnson, Washington, D.C.
260. Office of Public Safety, Termination Phase-Out Study, op. cit, p. 2.
261. Ibid., pp. 11-13. The National Police School was used almost exclusively
for recruit training; the basic training course’s duration was initially six
months, extended to 11 months at the time of the 1974 Phase-Out Study.
Evidence that the police training establishment would retain close links
with the US was provided in ongoing plans for English to be taught there:
238
Notes to Part 3
“Included in the new curriculum, at the request of the National Police, is

English language instruction provided by professors of the US/El
Salvador Bi-National Center. The school graduates about 90 recruits
per year."
262. Ibid., p. 27.
263. Ibid.
264. Ibid., p. 8.
265. US Congress. Hearings on "The Situation in El Salvador”, 1981: former
Ambassador White, for example, singled out the Treasury Police, and
particularly their commander, from 1979 to 1981, Colonel Moran, as the
most bloodthirsty of security personnel; of Moran he said (p. 175) “He is a
particularly regrettable example of a person who consciously uses troops
to torture and kill people".
266. Office of Public Safety. Termination Phase-Out Study, op. cit., pp. 13-
14.
267. Ibid., p. 14.
268. Stewart Report, op. cit.
269. Office of Public Safety. Termination Phase-Out Study, op. cit, p. 6.
270. Ibid., p. 7.
271. Ibid., p. 5.
272. Ibid., p. 27 for list of courses.
273. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of
Human Rights in El Salvador, op. cit, pp. 69-70.
274. Ibid. All the cells were empty; the commission's delegates found,
scratched on the door of one cell measuring 1 by 1 metres, the intitials of
several people who had “disappeared” after detention, including those of
Lil Milagro Ramirez Huezo, detained in November 1976 and never
seen again.
275. Stewart Report, op. cit
276. Termination Phase-Out Study, op. cit, p. 10.
211. Government publications commemorating the Expeditionâry Forces list
Lt D’Aubuisson and Lt Castillo as having served under Medrano; both
served as National Guard intelligence officers in the early 1970s; a third
lieutenant serving under Medrano, Juan Bautista Garay, was reported to
head the Custom’s Police “Special Investigations” section (SIE) under the
Molina government (Lt Garay was described as a “communications”
specialist in accounts of the 1969 war.) See for example La Guardia
Nacional en Campaha, published in 1970 by the Ministry of Defense of El
Salvador, p. 44, which notes that Lt Roberto D’Aubuisson commanded
the 4th National Guard company.
278. One account of D’Aubuisson and Castillo’s relation with Medrano comes
from ERP guerrilla leader Ana Guadalupe Martinez’ book on her long
months of secret captivity in the National Guard, in which she cites frequent
conversations with both Castillo and D’Aubuisson (A.G. Martinez, Las
Carceles Claudestinas de El Salvador, op. cit.pp. 234-6, 282-8). Her account
should not be considered objective, but intended to contribute to her
organization’s effort to overthrow the Romero regime, but much checks
favourably against other sources of information. In particular, her
accounts of interrogation sessions with Lt. Castillo and, on one occasion
(July 1976) with then Captain D’Aubuisson from the intelligence service
239
ANSESAL, rings true. Both are presented as rather decent chaps, trying to
win her confidence by small kindnesses, leaving the brutal part of the
interrogation process to others. D’Aubuisson is credited, for example,
with having had her brought down from the Guard s secret fourth floor
cells on New Year's Eve 1976, when he was celebrating the New Year and
promotion to Major, with Lt. Castillo and other Guard officers, and giving
her a transistor radio as a gift - much treasured by the fourth floor
prisoners in subsequent weeks. D'Aubuisson is also credited with having
sent out for special celebratory tamales for the “special" prisoners. Both
officers are named in official lists of International Police Academy
graduates.
279. See for example Time, 5 April 1982, “A Einal Orgy of Insults , citing Chris-
tain Democratic Party campaign attacks on D'Aubuisson, in which
“They reminded Salvadoreans that D'Aubuisson once confessed to hav¬
ing headed ANSESAL, the notorious Salvadorean political police, and
charged that the ARENA leader had transformed the agency into 'an
executioner and torturer". In fact ANSESAL's director under Romero was
Colonel Roberto Santibanez, Major D'Aubuisson the deputy director.
280. Interviews by the author, 1979.
281. ANSESAL was run by the Presidential General Staff, a parallel military
staff to the Army General Staff There is little in print describing
ANSESAL's scope of operation; this section is based in part on a series of
interviews in the course of 1979.
282. Craig Pyes, “Right Built Itself in Mirror Image of Left for Civil War", in
iht Albuquerque Journal, 18 December 1983.
283. The division of responsibilities between ANSESAL and the army general
staff headquarters, which maintained its own records and vetting system,
remains obscure. In the Guatemalan case, described in Volume II, the
army staff performs the key vetting/counter-intelligence role.
284. Reference to this arrangement is made in the War Ministry's annual
reports in the 1930s; e.g., the \93)% Memoria de Guerra, Marina y Aviacion,
reports the following, partly explaining how control in the countryside was
maintained with a relatively low active force level of the National Guard:
“Certain persons and private enterprises also requested the services of the
National Guard, to maintain order on their properties, guaranteeing to
pay the extent of the salaries of the agents, in the form established in the
Regulation of the body. These services, given prior authorization of the
Ministry, are provided without affecting the regular personnel, as Reserve
Guards are called for them; and in this manner the requests were satis¬
fied". No statistics are available on the numbers of reserve Guardsmen
employed in this fashion then or in more recent years. Similar arrange¬
ments remain in effect in Guatemala, where members of the Policia
Militar Ambulante not on active duty are detailed to serve private
employers who pay their salaries.
285. Licences for personnel to be employed by private security agencies repor¬
tedly also required clearance from - or registration with - ANSESAL.
286. Statement by Junta member Guillermo Ungo after the “dissolution" of
ORDEN was decreed, API 9 November 1979.
287. In the purging of young officers supporting Colonel Adolfo Majano’s
reformist politics a principal objective was to overcome Majano's control
240
Notes to Part 3
of El Zapote and the military communications centre; this was achieved

in October 1980. According Xo Latin America Regional Reports (24 October
1980) “One of Majano’s leading supporters. Colonel Julio Agushn Tru¬
jillo, commander of the armed forces’ communications centre at the
Zapote barracks in San Salvador, had been earmarked to become military
attache in Caracas". Although Colonel Trujillo held on for a matter of
weeks he was eventually deposed.
288. Interviews, 1979. See also Hernandez Pico et al, op. cit., for the role of
ANTEL in the 1972 coup.
289. See Part 4.
290. Laurie Becklund, “Death Squads: Deadly ‘Other War’ ’’, in Los Angeles
Times. 18 December 1983.
291. In 1982, Colonel Nicolas Carranza, Vice-Minister of Defence in the first
year after the October coup, was described as one’ of the particularly bru¬
tal officers whose removal from power was demanded by the Christian
Democrats in December 1981 as a condition for collaboration in the
military government: “A representative example of Christian Democratic
impotence is that, in disregard for an agreement made when the Christian
Democrats joined the junta, the armed forces retained in high posts two
officers with especially brutal reputations. Colonel Francisco Moran con¬
tinued as head of the Treasury Police, a post he still holds. Colonel
Nicholas Carranza, though replaced as Vice-Minister of Defense, was
named head of the national telecommunications agency, ANTEL; if any¬
thing, this reassignment increased his power, in that ANTEL functions as
the nation’s effective intelligence center.” From Americas Watch/
American Civil Liberties Union. Report on Human Rights in El Salvador.
1 July 1982, pp. 146-7. See also Daily Telegraph (London), 23 March
1984: “Colonel Nicolas Carranza ... has been in the pay of the CIA since
the late 1970s, it was reported yesterday in New York. American officials
familiar with CIA activities in El Salvador were quoted as saying the
colonel had received more than $90,000 (£63,000) from the spy agency
over the past five or six years. The Aw York Times reported that Colonel
Carranza was recruited while he was Deputy Minister of Defence to pro¬
vide information on power struggles within the Salvadorean military, and
on political and military developments."
292. Laurie Becklund. op. cit.. 18 December 1983.
241
Part 4: Counter-Insurgency
and Civil War
13. Military Coup: October
1979 — And After
Preparations to remove General Romero from the presidency without

waiting for the 1982 elections probably began in the course of the serious
strikes and widespread disorder in March through May 1979. Although
influenced by the contemporary disintegration of the Somoza regime
the Salvadorean officer corps had considerable previous experience in
deposing the President of the day when the continuity of military rule
was threatened by protests at misgovernment. To the Salvadoreans the
demonstrations and strikes of early 1979 recalled the long last summer
of the Lemus regime. In spring 1960 anti-Lemus demonstrators were
elated with what was then the unique example of the victorious Cuban
revolution, but mobilized against the regime for their own reasons.
Protests had continued despite (or because of) bloody repression until,
when matters threatened to get out of hand, the army itself moved in
October 1960 to oust Lemus. Then, as in 1979, a controlled transition on
the army's own terms was a logical response to the breakdown of public
order, and a discredited President’s inflexibility and incapacity to
restore order.
In 1979, international factors — the new influence of human rights
considerations on foreign relations, and the Nicaraguan revolution —
helped to ensure that General Romero’s replacement was carried out
with the full approval of the United States. In Nicaragua. Somoza had.
in a sense, become “The State" and no serious option existed for
maintaining the status quo without Somoza. The Salvadorean military,
in contrast had a tradition of replacing officers serving as Presidents
whenever they deemed it expedient. The US’s influence in El Salvador
would be most decisive not in how General Romero was removed, but in
what replaced him.
Some planning for Romero s removal appears to have been in
progress within the US foreign policy establishment even before the
May 1979 troubles and panic as events in Nicaragua slipped wholly
beyond United States power to influence them. Frank A. Devine, the US
Ambassador to El Salvador at the time, has written that in March 1979.
in San Jose, Costa Rica, a crisis-management meeting of US
ambassadors to Central America and top officials of the State
245
Counter-Insurgency and Civil War
Department and other agencies was held to discuss both the handling of
the Nicaraguan revolution and its repercussions on the balance of
power in the region. El Salvador was on the agenda as Xhcother Central
American state facing imminent collapse.' Twice, in the months prior
to Romero s overthrow. State Department officials Viron Vaky and
William Bowdler- paid unpublicized visits to San Salvador and
brusquely urged Romero to resign.' To US poliey makers the way to save
El Salvador from the fate of Nicaragua was to pour in security
assistance, after General Romero's replacement by a less unsavoury
government To the Salvadorean officers Romero had become a liability
because his international reputation for human rights violations
preeluded security assistance and he was dragging the military into
disrepute. The determining faetor in his removal, however, was that he
was losing the war against subversion.
By late September most of El Salvador knew a coup was brewing. In a
speech to the US House of Representatives on 11 September — rapidly
disseminated in San Salvador by the US Information Agency
Assistant Secretary of State for Latin Ameriean Affairs "Viron Vaky
ealled for a strategy more responsive to the demands for change in
Central America and characterized El Salvador as the most likely
Central American country to collapse under the pressure of these
demands.''
Vaky's speech was widely interpreted in El Salvador as a warning to
the Salvadorean military to put their house in order. Three days later US
Presidential press spokesman Hodding Carter acknowledged to the
press that on their visits to El Salvador Vaky and Bowdler had urged
Romero to resign.'' As it became elear that he had to go, there was a
process of internalconsultation and alliance-building within the armed
forees which would determine the future course of the military
government. One faetion was identified with senior army officers whose
eareers had been spent largely as eommanders of the seeurity services
and who were considered perhaps further to the right than Romero
himself In the months leading up to the coup these officers were in the
minority; the dominant faction, composed of middle and senior
officers, clustered around a group of colonels with impeccable service
records who combined experience in intelligence work with successive
administrative positions as top executives in semi-autonomous state
agencies, including the Salvadorean Coffee Board {Compahia Salvadoreha
del Cafe) and the Industrial Finance Institute {Instituto Salvadoreno de
Finanzas (INSAFI)). These officers, largely unknown to the public,
while not further left than Romero, were not popularly associated with
his regime's excesses.
Within the cluster of officers plotting to oust Romero was an
intermediate group of three officers who had been promoted full
colonels in December 1977: Colonels Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova,
Jose Guillermo Garcia and Nicolas Carranza.^ All three belonged to
246
Military Coup: October 1979 — And After
the same graduating class at the military academy, the basis for the
army's tanda or clique system. They allied themselves with senior
officers from oXhtrtandas, notably Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, who
shared their conviction that to preempt a successful revolution Romero
had to go. These four officers had all served as top executives of ANTEL
{Administracion NacionaldeTelecomunicaciones) between 1974 and 1977,^
and represented a position of “realistic” conservatism.
There was also a large group of junior officers who not only shared
the general concern among the plotters that General Romero was losing
control of public order and bringing the military into disrepute, but also
wanted more than a change of faces in the Presidency. This group, who
formed the loose Military Youth Movement, wanted more innovative
solutions to the crisis of public order than an increase in state-generated
bloodshed, and demanded a programme of fairly radical reforms be
introduced by the next military government. Their spokesmen, who
emerged in the intra-military negotiations leading to the coup, were
Colonel Adolfo Majano, then director of the military academy, and
Colonel Rene Guerra y Guerra.
In the last weeks of September the Garcia-Carranza-Vides Casanova-
Gutierrez group of conservative army colonels came to an accom¬
modation with the young officers’ movement, and final arrangements
were made to ensure a smooth transition after General Romero’s
departure. A factor uniting the officer corps and speeding up their
decision to oust Romero sooner rather than later was the creation, on 20
September, of a new coalition of opposition groups. This appeared to be
an effective alliance of both the traditional, lawful, opposition parties,
and important sectors of the non-party opposition represented by the
popular organizations. Calling itself the Popular Forum {Foro Popular)
the new body included 14 organizations, including three political
parties (the Christian Democrats, the MNR and the UDN); the largest
trade union federation (FENASTRAS) (itself the largest affiliate of the
FAPU); the Ligas Populares; and several trade union groupings. The
Popular Revolutionary Block was not included, but the Foro Popular
may have seemed uncomfortably reminiscent of the alliance of
disparate middle-class and labour organizations that preceded the fall
of the Femus regime in 1960; even more disconcerting was the similarity
to the much more recent coalescence of cross-class opposition to the
Somoza regime, precipitated by the January 1978 assassination of
opposition leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. In Nicaragua, Somoza’s
heavy-handed handling of the crisis had united business and labour
organizations, traditional middle-class political parties, and the armed
opposition FSFN, into an unbeatable alliance bent on extirpating the
Somoza dynasty. In El Salvador, at least in 1979, the opposition faced a
much more flexible power structure than had Nicaragua, where refusal
to give an inch brought about Somoza’s downfall, despite his strict
obedience to counter-insurgency textbooks. El Salvador’s military
247
institution had no Somoza-father figure whose personal authority or

sheer, crude power could enable him to retain control of the
administration in spite of his obvious incapacity to maintain public
order.
On 11 October General Romero, unaccompanied by fanfare, and
ostensibly for reasons of health, paid a flying visit to the United States.
Whom he met there remains a matter of conjecture; he returned the next
day. On 14 October his family flew to the US. That same night reports
that a coup had taken place or was in process circulated both in San
Salvador and in the international press.^ The following morning, 15
October, rebel officers were reported to control every military garrison,
without a shot having been fired. Unlike previous coups, even the
commanders of the security services had failed to organize resistance on
the President’s behalf General Romero remained in the Presidential
Mansion until late that afternoon, consulting with heads of the main
garrisons by telephone, and, eventually, with the top army officers
backing the coup who were gathered in the cuartel San Carlos in San
Salvador. He formally capitulated at this point, agreeing to go quietly on
condition that he and loyal officers, including some holding major
posts in his government, were guaranteed their security. Collected by
helicopter at about 4:30 pm at the Presidential Mansion General
Romero and his most important supporters were flown to the airport to
board a Guatemalan government aircraft which flew them out of the
country.^
Almost before Romero had crossed the frontier, a series of decrees
and accords (acuerdos) were issued from the Presidential Mansion by a
new “Revolutionary Government Junta”, comprising Colonels Majano
and Gutierrez, the rebel officers’ spokesmen. Decree No. 1 simply
declared that it had removed from office President Romero, his ministers,
members of the legislature and the Supreme Court and others, and had
assumed legislative and executive powers. The new junta then issued
“Accord No. 1” of 15 October 1979 to appoint (“making use of its
constitutional powers”) Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia as Minister of
Defense and Public Security (Colonel later General Garcia, was the
conservative officer who dominated the military establishment a/rJ the
government for the next four years.)
One source, quoting inside sources, describes a bargaining process
which purportedly took place within the military before Romero’s
overthrow. According to these sources a US official served as arbiter in
the negotiation, and expressed a clear preference for making Colonels
Garcia and Gutierrez the mainstay of the new order; also that the young
officers’ movement “unanimously” chose Colonel Majano to serve on
the junta, with Colonel Guerra y Guerra as their second choice — a
choice not favoured by the US.'°
From the first day of the coup the diverging political philosophies
that had precipitated it — represented by the young officers headed by
248
Military' Coup: October 1979 — And After
Colonels Majano and Guerra y Guerra, and the seeurity system's old
guard. Colonels Garcia and Gutierrez — were retlected in the eviction,
by gunfire, of striking trade-unionists from factory sit-ins, and the new
junta s statements. From the first, there were two strikingly different "15
October proclamations by the junta purporting to explain the reasons
for General Romero's overthrow and outlining the new regime's
orientation. Only the second broadcast at 2:40 am on 16 October, was
subsequently published, under the title "Proclamation of the Armed
Forces". This second proclamation, reHecting the Majanista faction's
views, as well as US pressures in favour of a reformist orientation,
became the new governmenfs official platform.
The first proclamation, soon consigned to the dustbin, read over the
radio in the late afternoon on 15 October, was couched in terms
indistinguishable from other proclamations issued after traditional
coups. The coup was justified by Romero's loss of control over the
countiy. its state of "anarchy", and failure to obstruct the actions of
"extremists":
In view of the anarchic situation in the country, as a consequence of

activities directed hy extremist elements, which the present government
has proved incapable to resolve... Permitting a recurrence to violence as a
means to resolve the political problems of the country, precipitating a
possible confrontation of the armed forces with their people;.. the Armed
Forces of El Salvador, reacting to the general clamor and in an eminently
institutional function, depose the present government of the Republic in
order to restore constitutional order."
Promises in this version of the "proclamation" were minimal and

conventional; the Armed Forces would “establish the bases and
environment appropriate for the establishment of a real and dynamic
democracy" and create conditions for "free elections in which the will of
all Salvadoreans will be reflected". A warning was issued to
"extremists":
Citizens, the Armed Forces will lead the destinies of the nation ... lor a
prudent period... We make a call to the extremist forces of right and left,
that they cease their violent attitude, because in the future, they will be
able to participate peacefully in the democratic process of the country,
respecting the will of the majority, which, we will reiterate, will be
enforced by the Armed Forces.'-
The second proclamation, however, introduces the human rights

issue, which it refers to as a motivation for the eoup, and outlines a
programme of action including many of the Popular Forum s demands,
as well as longstanding demands by the opposition parties MNR. UDN
and the Christian Democratic Party. Some observers suspected that
249
leading civilian reformists, sounded out as potential civilian members

of the post-coup government, had either drafted this second proclama¬
tion themselves or insisted on its more radical provisions being
included as the price of their co-operation and participation in the new
regime.'^ In the event Colonels Majano and Gutierrez s proclamation
on 16 October made no reference to Romeros incompetence in
crushing disorder, but stressed primarily his violation of human rights.
Citing their "right to insurrection” the armed forces presented a series of
reasons to justify their overthrow of the government;
1) It has violated the human rights of the conglomerate.

2) It has fomented and tolerated the corruption of the Public Admini.s-
tration and of Justice.
3) It has created a true social and economic disaster.
4) It has brought into profound disrepute the nation and the noble
institution of the armed forces.''^
In the second proclamation, the analysis of the roots of El Salvador s

problems is surprisingly in accord with Roman Catholic social
doctrines consistently disseminated at the time by the Jesuit-run
Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) “Simeon Canas". whose rector.
Dr Roman Mayorga. would be one of the three civilians to briefly join
Colonels Majano and Gutierrez in a “Civilian-Military Junta":
. . . the problems previously mentioned are the product of antiquated

economic, social and political structures that have traditionally prevailed
in the country, those which do not offer the majority of the inhabitants the
minimum conditions necessary fortheirfull realization as human beings.
LS
Structural changes responding to these traditional inequalities were

to be considered after the country's “chaotic political and social
situation” had been stabilized. At the same time emergency measures
were promised:
to create a climate of tranquillity and to establish the bases on which to

sustain the profound transformation of the economic, social and political
structures of the country.'^
In direct response to the Popular Forum's demands, promises were

made to dissolve ORDEN. to guarantee respect for human rights, to
declare an amnesty for political prisoners and exiles and to “create firm
bases from which to initiate a process of agrarian reform”.
On 17 October the army announced the incorporation of three
civilians into the junta. UCA rector Roman Mayorga was described as
the junta's liberal civilian technocrat; the Popular Forum selected
Guillermo Ungo, MNR leader and a UCA professor, as its representative.
250
over the Christian Democrats' proposal of Antonio Morales Erlich. The

third civilian was Antonio Andino. considered the representative of the
entrepreneurial private sector.
Investigative journalist Carolyn Forche, in a June 1980 article for The
Nation, noted that Andino's appointment to the junta placed four
individuals closely associated with ANTEL in top positions in the new
government:
With the naming of Andino, a pattern emerged, possibly providing a clue

to the rationale for American support of Garcia and Gutierrez. Both had
been associated with Antel, El Salvador's telephone and telegraph
company. Garcia had been its former president, Gutierrez had been a
manager. Col. Nicolas Carranza, Garcia's second-in-command [as
Deputy Defense Minister] had been a technical manager. Andino was
associated with an electrical installations firm, Conelca, a subsidiary of
Phelps-Dodge Corporation. Conelca was the major supplier of cable to
Antel.'^
The Cabinet appointments, on 22 October, represented a wide political

spectrum. The Christian Democrats were represented by Hector Dada
as Foreign Minister, Ruben Zamora (today a key figure in the
Salvadorean opposition and regularly described as a “guerrilla
spokesman'') as Minister of the Presidency, and three others in
ministerial posts. The Social Democrats (MNR) won four ministries.
Unprecedented appointments were those of nominees of the UDN, the
Salvadorean Communist Party's thinly disguised front.
Much criticized by the right — these were authentic “card-carrying"
Communists — the UDN's agreement to join the government was
criticized with similar vehemence by some of its own members, and by
others further to the left as lending credibility to a military government
bent primarily on more efficient repression.
Most of the civilians appointed to the new Cabinet resigned en masse
in the first days of January 1980. But why did men of the moral stature of
Mayorga, Ungo, Zamora or Dada agree to join the government at all?
And why did they remain as long as they did? In El Salvador's most
recent experience of reformist coups, those of October 1961 and March
1972, idealistic young officers had pursued similar stated aims to those
proclaimed in October 1979, and won the support of liberal-left civilian
sectors. In both cases, however, the reformist initiatives were vigorously
opposed not only by the old guard of the armed forces and the civilian
elites, but by the United States. If, instead of encouraging its overthrow,
the US had supported the abortive impulses of social and political
reform of the October 1960 “Civil-Military Directorate", some reform
might possibly have come of it. In the aftermath of the October 1979
coup, liberal and leftist civilians allowed themselves to be persuaded
into joining the government, believing that young* officers with similar
251
inclinations to those who took power after Lemus’ fall in October 1960,
and who sought to defend the democratic process in 1972, had gained
ascendancy in the newly formed government. If the dominant force
within the armed forces really was the large group of “Movement of
Military Youth” officers represented by such middle-ranking officers as
Colonel Adolfo Majano, there was some hope that the new government
would honour its proclaimed “revolutionary” aims. Not until mid-
December did the military conservatives, headed by Defense Minister
Garcia, finally marginalize the young officers loyal to reformist
principles and to Colonel Majano.
If the eager reformism of the young officers appeared authentic, a
supporting factor, suggesting that the new military government would
actually keep its initial promises, was the public posture of the United
States. The October 1960 military reformists who likewise invited
leading liberal and leftist academics and politicians to join the
government had faced the undisguised opposition of the United States,
and were soon brought down by a counter-coup. Since 1978, however,
leaders of El Salvador's legal opposition parties had been encouraged
by the Carter government’s vocal condemnation of the Romero regime’s
human rights record, and its calls for significant political-economic
reforms presented as an urgent necessity to stave off revolution. In the
months before the October coup, Vaky and Bowdler.'^ on their flying
visits, had directly transmitted to opposition party leaders the notion
that once Romero was out of the way, the US would support the
moderate opposition parties’ platform. Civilian leaders thus joined the
government in the belief that a dominant sector of the armed forces was
sincerely committed to a serious reform programme, and ihat Carter’s
administration would support such a programme.
Despite the escalation of government violence against labour and
political opposition groups immediately after the coup (the security
services killed more Salvadoreans in the first month of the “reformist”
regime than in the first nine months of 1979) the liberal and left-wing
civilians stayed in government for ten long weeks, until the beginning of
1980, watching from the sidelines as a power struggle was played out
within the military. Periodically, concessions won by the Majanista
reformist faction were served up to the civilians, and. for a time, seemed
to justify their support for the junta. On 29 October, the junta created a
special commission to investigate the practice of torture, and the
situation of political prisoners and an estimated 300 “disappeared”
persons. The commission was given full authority to demand access to
detention facilities, and security services’ assistance in its activities and
requested to report on its findings within 60 days.'*^ Despite the
obstruction (not assistance) offered by the security services the
commission carried out its task admirably. It subsequently reported the
discovery of 67 unidentified bodies and of 25 bodies it had identified as
those of “disappeared” prisoners. In its final report, presented on 3
252
January 1980, the members of the commission also presented their

resignations, citing the new government's failure to act upon their
recommendations and naming individual officers it had recommended
prosecuted for criminal offences against political prisoners. The
commission also reported that it had found none of those reported
“disappeared” alive, but had “proof of the capture of many of them, by
various public security forces, or, in several cases, of their detention in
the barracks of the same forces.. Noting that “We have found a great
quantity of cadavers, among which those that have been identified
correspond to disappeared persons. . the commission concluded
that the outstanding “disappeared" of the Romero regime should be
considered to have died in security forces’ custody.
Initially interpreted as a concession to one of the leff s more pressing
demands and an indication of the new regime's good faith, the security
forces’ lack of collaboration, the special commission’s failure to locate
any living political prisoners and the military’s refusal to take action
against the officers reported responsible for torturing and murdering
the prisoners, rebounded upon the military. On 3 January the
commission’s letter of resignation protested that to continue their
investigations or present further recommendations was futile without
the co-operation of the military.
A second concession granted by the new government was to accede to
the demand that ORDEN be dissolved; this coincided with a
recommendation made in the 1978 report by the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights.
Although ORDEN’s dissolution took place on paper only, the decree
was. at the time, thought a major triumph for the civilians in the new
government. Decree No. 12 of 6 November, after all, had declared
ORDEN “dissolved” and henceforward acts done in its name
“illegal”.-- Civil and military authorities using ORDEN to perform their
duties would be considered guilty of “abuse of authority”. Perhaps most
promising was the revocation of ORDEN members photo-ID cards,
which extended a wide range of privileges to the bearer:
The identification cards issued by ORDEN are declared without value,

and their use prohibited in the carrying out of any act. Civil and military
authorities are obliged to confiscate such documents from any person
that seeks to make use of them.^^
In spite of Decree 12 ORDEN was not dissolved, although some

gestures were made in that direction. Furniture and archives were
removed from its offices in the Casa Presidencial compound and.
according to Guillermo Ungo, 40 ORDEN staff members were taken off
the Casa Presidencial payroll.But meanwhile ORDEN remained intact
and operational under the control of the Defense Ministry and
ANSESAL. Within a year its local security groups would re-emerge as
253
Civil Defense Groups. At the same time their role changed from that of
electoral guarantors for the official party and passive informants on
local affairs to that of active service guides and gunmen in the counter¬
insurgency offensive launched in early 1980.
Both the toothless inquiry into the security services’ past torture and
murder and the ineffective decree “dissolving” ORDEN provoked
instead of assuaged anti-junta passions, but some economic measures
in November and December 1979 bought the junta a little more time. In
November decrees lowered the prices of certain basic foods — maize,
beans, rice and eggs — by about 40% by setting official maximum prices
and providing for temporary closure of establishments found to be
overcharging.^'^ On 15 November a minimum wage was set for
agricultural workers in the cotton and sugar harvests.^^ An even more
encouraging apparent commitment to real reform was Decree 43 of 7
December, which froze all sales or transfers of agricultural properties of
more than 100 hectares, a measure described as preparatory to the
implementation of an agrarian reform.-^ Intended to prevent a hurried
subdivision of large properties into small holdings registered under
different names, less likely to be affected by a reform aimed at only the
largest units of land, the measure was an essential precondition for even
the meagre agrarian reform measures later introduced. Minister of
Agriculture Enrique Alvarez (later head of the opposition to the
military government, and detained and put to death) praised Decree 43
in a lengthy televised speech on 11 December. Dr Alvarez said that the
decree would affect about 2,000 rural property owners whose land
covered over 800,000 manzanas (1.7 acres), almost half the arable land of
El Salvador.-^
While junta members Ungo and Mayorga succeeded in pushing
through these reformist measures the security forces continued to
systematically kill suspected members and sympathizers of the popular
organizations and other groups that had opposed Romero’s regime. A
rising curve of deaths from 15 October through the end of the year
rendered the junta’s proclamations and reformist decrees essentially
meaningless, except as cosmetic devices to retain uncritical foreign
support for the regime. The institutional violence also signalled to the
popular organizations — the main target of repression — that there
could be no common ground between them and the “new” military
regime, whether or not it included civilians.
Strikes, Demonstrations and Machine-guns
Erom the beginning the three largest opposition groups, the Popular
Revolutionary Block {Bloque Popular Revolucionario (BPR)), the trade-
union based FAPU and the Popular Leagues {Ligas Populares 28 de
Febrero (LP-28)) refused to collaborate with the new regime. Although
254
FAPU’s largest affiliate, the trade union federation FENASTRAS, was a

member of the Popular Forum and participted in selecting its
representatives to participate in the new government, FAPU and the
Bloque Popular as such did not participate in the Forum, preferring to
bide their time before either expressing support or launching organized
opposition to the junta. The Bloque did not immediately declare itself in
opposition, but its trade union affiliates continued industrial action in
San Salvador manufacturing plant that had been under way since the
previous March, with workers occupying the Lido, Arco Engineering,
Apex, Sherwin Williams, Diana and other factories. Had the military
ever intended to seek a rapprochement with the popular organizations
(and in retrospect it appears they did not) the National Guard
operations on 16 October, dislodging strikers from every occupied
factory, might have ensured its failure. The Guard killed at least 18
strikers in the process and arrested 78, many of them later badly
tortured.^* As factory workers were fired on troops moved in the
countryside to evict peasants conducting sit-ins in rural properties.
Within a week of the so-called reformist coup which raised so many
expectations at least 100 strikers and demonstrators were reported shot
dead in cold blood by the security forces.^^
While the Bloque and EAPU reserved their decision during those first
days of the new regime, the People’s Revolutionary Army {Ejercito
Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP)), the guerrilla organization most closely
associated with LP-28, responded to the coup with abortive attempts to
take over slum areas in the cities of Mejicanos, Soyapango and San
Marcos, and Cuscatancingo, attempts suppressed by troops at the cost
of some 50 lives.^° The three popular organizations responded to the
rash of killings in the first week of the new regime with a series of mass
demonstrations demanding an end to the violence and the release of
political prisoners. The Bloque also occupied the Ministries of Labour
and Economy for several days, suffering four deaths when the Labour
Ministry was strafed with machine-gun fire on 26 October. Mass street
demonstrations were the characteristic gesture of opposition to the new
regime in the weeks after the coup, although, by December 1979, the
shooting down of unarmed demonstrators brought disillusionment. In
a typical incident EAPU organized a funeral procession for two slain
militants on 22 October; this in turn was attacked, and six more killed.
The greatest single death toll was on 29 October when a demonstration
organized by the LP-28, but including supporters from all the
opposition groups, was attacked and up to 70 marchers killed.^' LP-28
militants dragged the bodies of 21 of their own people away from the
carnage and sought sanctuary in the Church of El Rosario, where they
spent the night. The next day the central cemeteiy of San Salvador was
found to be surrounded by troops; the planned funeral march to bury
the dead was called off and the dead buried in the atrium of the church.^^
On 31 October the Bloque led a demonstration of tens of thousands
255
through the streets of the capital. It, too, was attacked, with a death toll of
up to 29P At the end of the first two weeks in power the new regime had
presided over the murder of more than 100 strikers and demonstrators
in San Salvador alone. The lesson appeared to be that since the coup,
supporters of the popular organizations, and even of less radical
member organizations of the Popular Forum, could be shot down
openly in the streets or fall victim to more selective assassination in their
homes or workplaces.
Despite the slaughter, the popular organizations continued to carry
out sit-ins in churches and plazas throughout the capital. The church of
El Rosario remained occupied by the Popular Leagues, that of El
Calvario by FAPU, the Cathedral by the Bloque, the Plaza Morazan by
UDN supporters, and the Plaza Libertad by the Committee of Mothers
of Political Prisoners.^"^ The Bloque also held out in its occupation of the
Ministries of Labour and Economy, with newly appointed ministers
and some leading coffee growers held hostage to their demands until 7
November. They withdrew, offering a 30-day “truce" when the junta
made some economic concessions, including an agreement to lower
basic food prices, not to raise the price of urban transport, and to
dissolve ORDEN.^^
In the countryside, November marked the beginning of the coffee
harvest and a new round of protests and repression. The junta decree
declaring a minimum wage for coffee harvesters should have relaxed
tensions to some degree, but landowners’ almost universal non-
compliance provoked instead widespread sit-ins in demand of the full
guaranteed wage.-^^ Repression of peasant protests in mid-December in
many parts of the countryside indicated clearly that nothing had
changed in the rural areas, just as the machine-gunning of demonstrators
and strikers had rendered talk of reform meaningless in the cities.
A sit-in in a coffee plantation near the eastern city of Berlin, in support
of a demand for the statutory minimum wage and daily food ration, was
attacked with gunfire in combined army. National Guard and
ORDEN-backed operations in which at least 15 peasants were shot
dead, 20 dragged off and “disappeared”, and dozens wounded.^^ The
same day combined forces attacked protesters at a coffee plantation
near Opico where workers were making the same demands; the death of
eight of the protesters was acknowledged by the authorities.^® In a third
incident, on 18 December, troops backed by armoured cars and
helicopters attacked a group of about 1.500 protesters on the coffee
plantation “El Porvenir", some 25 kilometres north of San Salvador,
killing at least 100.^'^
A wave of attacks on urban trade unionists rounded out the picture.
Sit-ins were terminated by gunfire at the national printing office (11
December), the Minerva textile factory (15 December), a slaughter¬
house north of San Salvador (18 December), the electrical supply
factory CONELCA (19 December) and the soft-drink bottling plant
256
“Tropical” (19 December). Towards the end of December the bodies of

trade unionists detained in earlier police actions began to appear in the
capital's streets and vacant lots. Those of two leaders of trade union
federations FUSS and CUTS, arrested at the FUSS office in Santa Ana
on 17 December, were found, badly mutilated, on the 19th. The body of
CONELCA union leader Raid Martinez, detained on 19 December, was
found on the 24th together with that of Manuel Marroquin, leader of a
union of workers of the Goltree Liebes coffee export company who had
been detained on 23 December. Both bodies, naked and covered with
burns, were found in plastic bags, some 20 kilometres from San
Salvador. Many more were found dead, or “disappeared” for ever in the
same period.'**’
By the end of December 1979 there was little to distinguish the human
rights record of the junta from the practices of Romero's regime. If
anything, the new government seemed even more determined to smash
the popular organizations, the radical trade unions, and the peasant
organizations than had General Romero.
The Counter-coup
On 7 December, civilian ministers and top officials first formally

expressed their dismay at the governmenf s failure to take positive steps
to implement promised reforms in the economic field or halt the on¬
going massacre of opposition groups. But if, initially, the new
government had been willing to make concessions — at least on paper
— the climate was changing as the balance of power shifted among the
real rulers: the representatives of the armed forces. The consolidation of
control by the Minister of Defense and the army high command was
initially held back not by the civilian members of the junta, armed only
with their moral authority, but by the young officers of the Military
Youth Movement, and their leader. Colonel Majano. The Permanent
Council of the Armed Forces {Consejo Permanente de las Fuerzas
Armadas (COPEFA)), created in mid-November as a “democratic”
body representing the various units of the armed forces, underwent a
gradual purge of the young reformist officers who desired real struc¬
tural changes, instead of bullets, to pacify the opposition. On 18
December the 100 or so officers of COPEFA met the army high
command in the military academy; when the meeting adjourned the
COPEFA leadership had been shuffled: out with the reformists, in with
the officers loyal to Defense Minister Garcia and the rest of the old
guard.
As Estudios Centroamericanos described the event in its “monthly
chronicle”:
The counter-coup was consumated on 18 December. . . COPEFA was
257
restructured, with men loyal to the new command, and the revolutionary
initiative was over.^'
This restoration of the old guard was described to Carolyn Forche by

a member of the Military Youth Movement as the natural restoration of
institutional order in the wake of the coup:
Once the coup was accomplished, there was a regression to institutional

order within the military, Garcia was in charge and still is.
‘What happened to COPEFA?', I asked him.
‘Colonel Marenco is head of that now. He is Chele Medrano s'^- nephew
and protege. He reorganized COPEFA in a few months. Eighty percent of
its membership changed, all ofthem loyal to Garcia. He added that'Garcia
is not one of us. What you hear about the repression is true, and it comes
from Garcia's group.''*^
With its own ranks again under control the high command could deal
more confidently with its nervous civilian partners. There would be no
more concessions. Rather than being summoned by the civil-military
junta, the army command took to summoning the junta Finally, after
secret talks with the Christian Democrats:
On the 26th [of December} the High Command again summoned the
Junta and the Cabinet, and some top officials, in a show of arbitrary
power, and threw in the face of the civilians the statement that they were
only there because the military had put them there, and because they
needed them [the military]. That was the detonator, as the civilians were
not disposed to ... be exploited in a plan of military dictatorship and
repression.'*^*
In the following days the majority of the civilian ministers and top
officials met and drafted a manifesto addressed to COPEFA. Dated 28
December, this was an ultimatum, and demanded a response by 30
December. The main grievance was betrayal of the principles stated in
the armed forces “proclafnation” of 16 October, which had motivated
civilians to participate in the government in the first place. The betrayal
was attributed to a rapid displacement of reformist officers from the line
of command, a measure of the inability of civilians in the government to
exercise the least control over the army high command’s decisions:
The present high command of the Armed Forces is not the command with
which an agreement was originally made to implement a new political
program. The heads of the Ministry of Defense and some of the
Commanders of Military offices are in practice exercizing Military
Command over the heads of the Junta and counter to the proposals
originated by the Military Youth Movement. This shift of power has
258
meant the political process has gone to the right; an organic, political
and military strengthening of the oligarchic forces ... a political
strengthening of the civil and military positions that identify as the
fundamental enemy of the process the popular organizations and
explicitly postulate a strategic alliance with the economic and political
right of the nation, forgetting that it was precisely these right wing
interests that have led the country into crisis. .
The problem was seen to reside in the Defense Ministry's overriding

power and the isolation of the junta — or, at least, its civilian members
— from command or even consultation on the functions of the army
and the security services. The solution proposed by the civilians was
that COPEFA, still nominally a representative body of army officers,
become the intermediary between the junta (and the Cabinet) and the
rest of the armed forces, over the head of the Ministry of Defense. If
COPEFA had not already been purged of young officers this tactic
might have worked. What the civilian members of the junta were
demanding was straightforward, and an indispensable prerequisite for
real change; that the junta be given power over the armed forces and
that the armed forces officially recognize it; in fact they demanded a
proclamation to that effect — a demand that, as the Garcia faction had
already succeeded in getting rid of the young opposition within the
armed forces, and held every card, had little chance of success. Further
calls by junta members for COPEFA to take steps to stop “the
intervention of the public forces in the current labour and union
conflicts" had no more chance of being taken seriously. By the time the
manifesto was issued. COPEFA was no longer a forum of young or
middle-rank progressive officers. COPEFA’s written response not only
refused to take steps to change the existing situation but refused to
recognize the premises on which the demands were founded. It stated
that the only channel of communication with the armed forces was the
Ministry of Defense. Furthermore, by means of a reference to the 16
October “proclamation”, COPEFA made a barely veiled threat against
those unhappy with the way the army was running the country:
... we invited participation in the process of democratization and the

change of economic and social structures without distinction. Neverthe¬
less. the minority extremist organizations, ultra-rightists and ultra-leftists
refused to participate and [now] obstruct the process, and should be
considered counter-revolutionaries. It is the obligation of the people and
their Armed Forces to defend their conquests and prevent the destruction
of the republic and, furthermore, of the armed institutions.'^^
On 2 January, five civilian ministers and junior ministers, including

Salvador Samayoa, Minister of Education, and Enrique Alvarez
Cordova, Minister of Agriculture, presented their resignations. Both
259
subsequently became leaders of the unified opposition. On 3 January,

24 more civilian ministers, senior officials and Supreme Court
magistrates, including junta members Guillermo Ungo and Roman
Mayorga Quiros, also resigned. In the following days they were joined by
Mario Andino, although for different reasons. The representative of
private enterprise presented his resignation in tacit recognition of a
change of government, in order “to give the Armed Forces complete
liberty in restructuring a new governmenf’.
Private chats with the Christian Democrats, previously referred to,
now bore fruit. With somewhat indecent haste the Christian Democrats
presented themselves to the military as civilian replacements. Already,
on 31 December, three days after COPEFA’s response to the ultimatum
of the 28th, the Christian Democrats issued their own manifesto. In
substance this was a programme of reforms which differed little from
those already promised in the young officers' 16 October proclamation.
No mention was made of practical measures needed to implement the
reform, nor of effective means to stop the security forces' on-going war of
extermination against the non-guerrilla popular opposition.
By 9 January the military regime had accepted Christian Democrats
Hector Dada and Antonio Morales Erlich as members of the junta.
They were joined by a third civilian, a political nonentity. Dr Ramon
Avalos.
Archbishop Romero, who had not lost his interest in politics, in his
weekly sermon that Sunday expressed surprise that the army had so
willingly accepted the Christian Democrats' reform platform in spite of
having obstructed the implementation of a totally similar platform by the
previous government. No innocent, he said:
I hope this is not just a matter ofwords... Ifit is true that the new Junta and
the Armed Forces are disposed to confront the oligarchy, and distribute
the wealth and the land more equitably, actions will prove iC^
Hector Dada remained on the junta for only a few weeks, resigning on
3 March after the murder of Christian Democratic colleague Mario
Zamora, who. for as brief a period, had served as Attorney General of
this second junta. Mario Zamora had been labelled in a television
appearance by former intelligence chief Roberto D'Aubuisson as a
collaborator of the EPL guerrillas; three days later plain-clothes men
crashed into his house during a party, grabbed him at gunpoint and shot
him dead in his own bathroom."^^ Hector Dada and his fellow Christian
Democrats had no doubt that the killers acted with the knowledge and
acquiescence, or under direct orders, from the Ministry of Defense.
They realized other Christian Democrats could be next on the death list.
In his resignation statement Dada expressed dismay at the acceleration
of killings by the security services, and doubted there was any reason to
expect that the army would initiate the negotiations with the popular
260
organizations, which had been part of the deal with the Christian
Democrats, justifying their entry into the government Hector Dada,
who had been head of the party during the lengthy exile of Napoleon
Duarte thereupon declared that those leaders of the party who
continued to collaborate with the military regime did so in defiance of
the wishes of the party's membership, and explicitly declared them
renegades, trahors and outcasts:
. . . the Christian Democratic leaders Jose Napoleon Duarte, Antonio

Morales Erlich and Adolfo Rey Prendes are alone and isolated, the
Christian Democratic rank and file are retiring from the governmenD'^
On 10 March, six Christian Democrats resigned not only from the

government, but from the party. Among them were Dr Roberto Lara
Velado, know n as the founder of the party. Hector Dada, and Ruben
Zamora Rivas. They took much of the party's membership with them,
founding a breakaway party led by Dada and Zamora; the Popular
Social Christian Movement (MPSC). The puzzling decision of Jose
Napoleon Duarte, former leader of the Christian Democrats (who had
been defeated in fraudulent presidential elections and lived in exile for
many years, perhaps losing touch with events within the country) to join
the third junta, and the founding of a breakaway party by Dada and
Zamora, marked the end of the Christian Democratic Party as a mass
movement in El Salvador.
One of the main arguments of opponents of collaboration with the
October 1979 junta was that, in the long history of so-called “reformist"
coups led by young officers, all, in the end, had failed to deliver on their
promises, and/or been ousted as effective governments. This latest coup,
moreover, looked suspiciously like a pre-emptive coup, intended to save
the old order just as it was about to be overthrown from below, by the
mass movements themselves. The repression of the mass organizations
that immediately followed the coup tends to confirm this interpretation;
it also forced the opposition to face the new military government as a
united front.
On 11 January 1980 the three major popular organizations —• Bloque
Popular. FAPU and LP-28 — and some member organizations of the
Foro Popular came together in a meeting held at the National University
to form the Coordinadora Revolucionaria deMasas (CRM) (Revolutionary
Coordinator of the Masses). In a sermon that week Archbishop Romero
described the creation of the new coalition as:
... the first step to unity between the popular organizations... a National
Coordinator that is inviting the participation of all the progressive forces
of the nation. It makes me happy that they wish finally to break with
sectarian and partisan interests. .
261
The CRM's first public act was a mass demonstration, called for 22
January, to demand a halt to repression. Attracting between 200 and
300,000 marchers, it took place against determined opposition from the
security forces and sectors of the agrarian elite backing the newly
createcl Broad National Front (Frente Amplio Nacional (FAN)). In a
mass media campaign Major D’Aubuisson was particularly strident in
exhorting the far right to assist the security services in halting the
demonstration.^' The contribution made by plantation owners to the
march’s disruption was the provision of crop dusters which flew along
the route of the miles long procession dousing marchers with DDT. The
light aircraft then refuelled, courtesy of the Salvadorean Air Force, at
Ilopango airport. Not until the mass of demonstrators had nearly filled
the cathedral square in front of the National Palace was the march fired
upon. Snipers in the windows of the National Palace and on the
rooftops of ANTEL and other government buildings began firing at
about 1 pm. At least 21 demonstrators were killed and 120 seriously
wounded.-'’^ These killings, like those attributed to “death squads”, were
said by the authorities to have been perpetrated by “outraged private
citizens” and described as a response to violence by demonstrators
themselves.
After the 22 January march the CRM renounced mass demonstra¬
tions by unarmed sympathizers as a means of political expression. The
CRM's next major action was a 24-hour general strike on 17 March. This
too was met with indiscriminate killing of the strikers and a warning by
the junta that those who supported the opposition were taking sides in a
war. Although broadly supported throughout the country the strike laid
supporters open to retaliatory violence; 54 people were killed in San
Salvador alone.
The Coordinadora proved that it had the allegiance of the workers, but
was still unable to protect them adequately; 54 people were killed in San
Salvador on the day of the stoppage. The scale of military operations in
the city was as great as if there had been an insurrection. Dr. Avalos, the
junta’s medical 'independent', warned that 'activists must be willing to
vanquish or die. just as in any other type of war'.^-^
It is hard to understand why the mass opposition groups took so long

to realize the military had declared war upon them immediately after
the October coup. The strikes and demonstrations which had been used
to force Martinez and Lemus from office in 1944 and 1960 were no
longer relevant. The very success of these tactics in Nicaragua helped
ensure their failure in El Salvador. The assassination of Archbishop
Oscar Arnulfo Romero, more than any other single act of repression
against unarmed opposition, was, however, necessary to force the
people of El Salvador to understand that the terms of confrontation had
changed, that civil war had been declared against them and they must
262
indeed be prepared to “vanquish or die”.

Archbishop Romero’s assassination eliminated the most eloquent
voice in support of a middle way. calling for compromise between
polarized camps, and removed the backbone of the Roman Catholic
church as an institutional defender of human rights in El Salvador. It
also removed an important critic of the armed forces who appealed to
the conscience of its members and therefore posed a real threat to its
discipline and hierarchy.
While Archbishop Romero's attempted disruption of Salvadorean
efforts to attract American security assistance was no minor
consideration, potentially, the much greater problem for the high
command was his appeal, in broadcast sermons, to the members of the
armed forces to disobey orders when ordered to torture and kill; and,
too, reminding the lower ranks that, after all, they shared the same social
background as most of their victims. In a 20 January sermon the
Archbishop read out a letter he had received from a group of soldiers,
listing the lower ranks' grievances and asking him to make it public and
support their requests. The letter was devoted partly to bread and butter
issues: better food; that the officers stop abusing them with blows and
insults; higher pay than the current equivalent of US $8-12 monthly; and
higher life insurance. More telling were protests concerning what their
officers ordered them to do:
They should not send us to repress the population; they should explain
why they send us to fight; the Armed Forces are made up of us troopers, of
chiefs and of officers, and it is only the chiefs and officers that are
responsible for all of the oppression against the people.^^
Finally the letter called on “the workers, peasants and students and all of
the union and popular organizations" to support the soldiers’ demands,
offering in return to take responsibility: “.. .to create an army that protects
and defends the interests of the people and not of the rich. .
On 23 March, in the last of his Sunday broadcast sermons, the
Archbishop returned to the subject:
I wish to make an appeal of a very special kind to the men of the army, and
concretely, to the lower ranks in the National Guard, the Police, in the
barracks. . . In the face of an order to kill given by a man. the law of God
must prevail which says: Do not Kill. No soldier is obliged to obey an order
against the law of God.... It is past time that you restore your consciences
and that you obey your consciences and not an order to sin.^^
The Archbishop continued, with one last challenge to the Army high
command:
Christians have no fear of combat; they know how to fight but they prefer
263
the language of peace. Nonetheless, when a dictatorship gravely attacks

human rights, the common welfare of the nation; when it becomes
insupportable and all channels of dialogue, understanding and rationality
are closed, when this occurs, the Church speaks of the legitimate right to
insurrectional violence.-^*^
Archbishop Romero was going beyond anything he had previously

said to the nation, and may well have done so on that particular Sunday
because he believed it would be his last opportunity. There is
considerable reason to believe he had been warned of an imminent
assassination attempt, urged to flee to another country, urged to end his
Sunday broadcasts and save his life. In previous sermons he had spoken
of fear, of death, of martyrdom; in his last 23 March, sermon, he speaks of
his own death in a manner which seems to reflect more than a mere
presentiment; it is, in fact a testament:
I have been threatened with death frequently. I should say. that as a

Christian I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I
will rise again in the Salvadorean people. 1 say this without the least pride.
With the greatest humility. As a pastor I am obliged by divine mandate to
give my life for those I love, who are all of the Salvadoreans, even for those
that come to murder me. Should they come to fulfd their threats, from this
moment I offer to God my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El
Salvador... A bishop will die, but the Church of God, that is the people,
will never perish... I know that my hour approaches and I foresee that my
mission will not end, but will begin. I wish to stay on the earth until the
end of the world, to stand by all men, fighting with them for their
liberation. I cannot rejoice and cannot rest until all men are liberated.
When history ends, and the liberation is total, then I will repose with all of
those chosen to do so and 1 will enjoy forever the happiness of God.^^
He had not long to wait for martyrdom. He was shot dead with a
single .22 calibre bullet through the heart, at 6 pm on Monday 24 March,
as he was celebrating a memorial mass in a hospital chapel. A single
plain-clothes gunman stood in the back of the dimly lit chapel and fired
the bullet from a rifle equipped with a “Starlight” night vision telescopic
sight. Four days later nearly 100,000 mourners, including dozens of
foreign bishops and high church dignataries, gathered in the cathedral
square for his funeral serv'ice. True to form, Salvadorean troops fired
into the crowd killing at least 40. The slaughter was witnessed by clergy
and assorted press men from around the world. Government press
releases, denying troops had been in the area, were refuted in interviews
with witnesses and by a joint communique signed by bishops and
clergymen from many countries, stating emphatically that the crowd of
mourners had been fired on (as earlier, on 22 January) by machine-guns
from the second floor of the National Palace.^"
264
In the immediate aftermath of the Archbishop's bloody funeral,

organized opposition to the military regime reached the final stages of
unification. On 1 April leaders of the Popular Social Christian
Movement — founded by Christian Democrat ex-cabinet members
Ruben Zamora and Hector Dada — joined forces with the social-
democrat MNR and several independent labour organizations, and
constituent organizations of the Coordinadora to form the Democratic
Revolutionary Front (Frente Detnocrdtico Revolucionario (FDR)).^'
Members of this new broad Front elected as their president former
Minister of Agriculture Enrique Alvarez Cordova, and adopted the
Coordinadora's compromise platform relatively intact, a platform
designed to ensure support and membership from all sectors of the
opposition.
The unification in the FDR of the political parties, labour federations
and mass popular movements was paralleled by a rapprochement
between the various guerrilla organizations. Representatives of the
various guerrilla groups met on 22 May and founded a unified
“political-military command", the Unified Political and Military
Revolutionary Command (Direccion Revolucionaria Utiijicada Politico-
Militar (DR\J-PM))f- In December 1980 a further step was taken with
the creation of a single guerrilla organization, the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front {Frente de Liberacion Nacional Farabundo
Marti (FMLN)). The FMLN, which added to the previous DRU-PM
members the small Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers
{Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC)),
would operate as a single force, under the direction of a unified
command — still called the DRU — comprising 15 members, three
from each member organization. A general staff was to be appointed
and four military zones established, each with its own revolutionary
“front”. From the beginning, the member organizations declared their
intention to have close relations with the FDR.
The reaction to the repeated massacres of protesters and, finally, the
murder of a beloved Archbishop were not, therefore, spontaneous
uprisings by the people, too easily stamped out. If the Coordinadora
(predecessor of the FDR) had not yet been organized at the time of
Archbishop Romero’s murder, the popular organizations on their own
might have indulged in sporadic riots or uprisings, to be crushed — as
the church warned might easily happen — one at a time, and the
opportunity used to wipe out the popular organizations. The Coordina¬
dora played its most important political role by publicly dissuading
them from launching a popular insurrection before it could have any
chance of succeeding.
If the opposition had good reason to bide its time, the government, on
the other hand, kept on its chosen course of responding to protest by
eliminating the protesters, waging war against the population. By the
end of May 1980 church sources reported 1,844 civilian deaths.
265
In the next two months, June and July, there were 2,756 more, bringing
the total to 4,600.^“^ By the end of the year some 10,000 had died at the
hands of government forces.^^ In the next year, 1981, Socorro Juridico
logged 12,501 more deaths, 2,644 of them in January alone.*’^
Any hesitation felt within the ranks of the civilian-based Frente
Democratico about supporting armed insurrection evaporated in the
course of 1980's long summer of bloodshed and, if that had not sufficed,
it would certainly have come to an abrupt end with the murder towards
the end of the year of six of its principal leaders. On 22 November 1980
some 180 uniformed army and police troops surrounded the Jesuit
“Externado San Jose”, a private high school in San Salvador, at the
same time that squads of plain-clothes men raided an FDR meeting and
brought out Enrique Alvarez Cordova, the FDR’s president Juan
Chacon, a top leader of the Bloque Popular, and leaders of FAPU, UDN
and MNR. Their bodies were found the next day slashed by machetes
and riddled with gunshot wounds. The government issued its routine
disclaimers, attributing the murders to “death squads”.
Agrarian Reform
The original junta's civilian members were forced out by the end of
January 1980 but the reformist officers took longer to dislodge. Purging
the young reformists within the military, and the ousting of Majano, their
leader, was precipitated by the March 1980 launching of an agrarian
reform, and violent resistance to it by the Salvadorean agrarian elites
and their spokesmen in the armed forces. This reform was to be the
centre-piece of the US development plan for El Salvador, a positive side
to the counter-insurgency strategy. Successful resistance, however,
proved that US counter-insurgency aid would continue whether or not
prescribed reforms were implemented, even when US AID personnel
there to promote the reforms were themselves murdered.
On 6 March 1980, the junta decreed an Agrarian Reform which, on
paper, went far beyond any proposed by previous governments,
although based largely on studies carried out by the Salvadorean
Ministry of Agriculture early in the 1970s. Decree 153 provided, in
“Phase I” for the expropriation of a large proportion of any landed
estate of 500 or more hectares, with compensation to be paid through a
complex combination of agrarian bonds and cash payments; this phase
affected mainly the landholdings devoted to cattle ranching and the
recently established cotton and sugar plantations of the coastal areas.
An estimated 250 properties fell into this category, which comprised
about 15% of the farm land in the country“Phase 11” affected
landholdings of 150-500 hectares — in El Salvador this meant coffee
plantations — and hit directly at the most powerful and reactionary of
the Salvadorean elites. That, initially, at least part of the government
266
meant business was underlined by pre-emptive legislation in December

1979 (announced by Minister of Agriculture Enrique Alvarez Cordova)
forbidding transfer of ownership of properties in these categories,
preventing landowners subdividing their holdings by quick sales or
gifts to friends and relatives. Alvarez Cordova, who, had as Agriculture
Minister under Sanchez Hernandez and Molina, worked out abortive
land reform legislation resigned with other civilians in January 1980,
and re-emerged as president of the combined opposition front; on 22
November 1980. he was arrested and murdered.
The third and most controversial “phase” of the agrarian reform, not
included in the original. 6 March. Decree 153, was introduced on 28
April, in Decree 207. which provided for tenant farmers to gain title to
the plots they worked. Phase 111. a carbon copy of the Vietnam “land-to-
the-tiller" programme, equally surprised the Salvadorean government’s
own agrarian experts and the landed elites, having apparently been
dictated by the Carter administration’s aid director for the junta’s
rubber-stamp legislation. The uncomfortable Vietnam parallel was
underlined by the presence of Roy Prosterman, architect of the
Vietnamese land reform and chief consultant for the Salvadorean
version, even though he admittedly had no special knowledge of Latin
America.^^
Both Salvadorean and US experts agree that the programme was
more or less forced on the government without warning, and with
insufficient preparation. Simon and Stephens, in their study of the
Salvadorean land reform, quote a Salvadorean Ministry of Agriculture
official as denying that Decree 207 was “the third stage” of the planned
agrarian reform. It was, rather, “completely unplanned for and
unexpected. It was totally improvised”.™ A US AID memorandum
quoted by the same source confirms this:
Phase III presents the most confusing aspect of the reform program, and it
could prove especially troublesome for the US because it was decreed
without advance discussion, except in very limited government circles,
and. we are told, it is considered by key Salvadorean officials as a
misguided and US imposed initiative.^'
The worried officials’ misgivings were justified. Phase III would never
be implemented and, in the context of an all-powerful security
establishment more strongly influenced by the local elites than hesitant
and ambiguous US reform policy, was doomed from the start.™ “Phase
III” did. however, serve a political purpose in the US itself; by appearing
to promise that US aid and patronage would bring El Salvador out of
the dark ages, it indirectly justified continued military aid to help its
government vanquish “foreign-backed insurgency . An undated AID
memorandum from mid-1980, after registering local Salvadorean land
reform officials’ resentment of “Phase III” (“because it was designed
267
virtually in its entirety by Americans and slipped into legislation

without their being consulted. . . ”) added that:
Many believe it is a 'symbolic and cosmetic measure which was

proposed because it would look good to certain American politicians and
not necessarily because it would be beneficial or significant in the
Salvadorean context.^-^
Even the far right in the United States, which had denounced the
reform programme's imposition on the Salvadoreans as misguided,
soon acknowledged it would not seriously affect the productive land of
the nation. On 15 October 1980, the right-wing United States Heritage
Foundation issued a secret “Backgrounder” to its select subscribers,
calming their fears that the Salvadorean agrarian elites were about to be
dispossessed and informing them that the reform process raised, in
practice, “no serious economic risk ” but was primarily designed for its
“high political impact”.^'*
Unlike Phase I — which required the formation of co-operatives —
and Phase II, which was wholly inapplicable without the revolutionary
overthrow of the coffee barons. Phase III was predicated on a
straightforward presumption that creating a class of peasant small¬
holders on marginal agricultural land would provide a barrier against
guerrilla recruitment, since the new landholders would have a stake in
the regime which had given them the land. The programme's Vietnam
antecedent was frankly recognized in an 8 August memorandum by
Jonathan Silverstone, of AID'S Program and Planning Coordination
Committee: “It is based on Asian precedents — including US supported
programs in Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. .
Silverstone also cites Prosterman, and his associate Mary Kemple, as
urging the programme's acceptance as a last chance to save El Salvador
from a take over by the far left.^^ The programme's failure in Vietnam
was completely ignored, and Prosterman is given as an authority for
regarding it as ideally applicable to El Salvador:
If it has come in time, and if the violence can be brought under control, the
El Salvador land reform could be a textbook demonstration of the
viability and importance of the 'New Directions' language of the US
Foreign Assistance Act.^^
Post-mortem studies have pointed out that in many ways the “land-
to-the-tiller” programme was completely inappropriate to El Salvador:
the tenants' small plots could not be planted year after year without the
soil deteriorating or, alternatively, requiring escalating investment in
fertilizers and machinery to keep it productive. In El Salvador tenants
did not usually lease the same plot for two consecutive years, yet the
“Phase III" legislation required beneficiaries to cultivate the same plot
268
for 30 years, or lose title to it3*^ Factors prompting this measure were,
however, mainly political. In Vietnam, Prosterman had maintained that
the key to the war was to win over the approximately seven million
people dependent on tenant farming (from a rural population ob about
11 million). As in El Salvador, families could be evicted at will, and paid
rent even if crops failed. Only the Vietnamese National Liberation
Front (NLF) offered to change the system; “The Vietcong promised
land, and when they took over an area they fulfilled the promise.”^^
When army forces succeeded in ejecting the Vietcong from an area, it
was immediately restored to the old landlords; this further alienated the
peasantry:
... negative land reform drove tens of thousands of peasants into the arms
of the NLF, the landlords riding in with the ARVN jeeps after the
American innocents had cleared and 'secured' the village... Clearly, the
experience of being 'saved from the Communists’ meant something
different to them than it meant to us.*^
The universal solution proposed by Prosterman was quite simple:

“Land to the Tiller" would give peasants the land the guerrillas offered
them, turn them into small landholders, and cut off their support for the
guerrillas. The flaw in the theory was to imagine that the Salvadorean
agrarian elites would part with their holdings under any circumstances.
After all, they were fighting a counter-insurgency war precisely to avoid
turning over their property to the peasant hordes; to hand it over without
a fight was unthinkable.
In practice, the “land-to-the-tiller" programme did have an impact in
El Salvador, though not that predicted and anticipated by Professor
Prosterman. Decree 207 made no provision for the programme’s
implementation, and no legislation to this effect appeared for over a
year.*' Meanwhile, the law’s threat to landowners renting to tenant
farmers or sharecroppers prompted them to expel thousands of
peasants from their meagre plots. In December 1981, the AIFLD-
supported Union Comunal Salvadorena (UCS), whose members were to
have been Decree 207’s main beneficiaries, published a report stating
that over 25,000 peasant families that would have benefited from the law
had been illegally evicted: “before the Spring planting in 1981 ... tens of
thousands of additional families have reason to fear another wave of
evictions before Spring 1982.”*^ The UCS report also detailed the arniy
and police forces’ killings and “disappearances” of hundreds of UCS
members, promoters and employees.*^ . . th ir ♦u
Violent reaction to agrarian reform did not wait for Phase III. It the
first reformist decree on 6 March 1980, shocked the agrarian elites, they
were infuriated on 7 March, when army troops moved to take over some
30 coastal estates affected by Phase I. Owners moved rapidly to
slaughter livestock and remove farm machinery. Much of the marketable
269
meat and portable machinery was taken across the border into
Guatemala where many landowners had further agricultural
properties.*'^
Some of the 238 estates threatened by Phase I were, in fact, occupied
by the security forces in March and April, and the full-time workers
ordered to organize co-operatives. Those co-operatives which survived
were frequently directed by former administrative employees of the
previous owners, often members of ORDEN, and not peasant
labourers.*^ In other cases, as instructed, agricultural workers elected
leaders to head the co-operatives, and these were promptly shot. A land
reform official describes the procedure:
... troops came and told the workers the land was theirs now. They could
elect their own leaders and run the co-ops. The peasants couldn’t believe
their ears, but held elections that very night. The next morning the troops
came back and I watched as they shot every one of the elected
leaders.*^
By May 1982, when further expropriations were declared illegal.

Phase I of the agrarian reform had officially benefited 25,000 peasant
families, but only seven of the over 200 co-operatives set up had received
titles to the land, and their future was shaky.*^ In any case the estates
were run much as they had been under private ownership: often with the
same administrators.** A return to the original owners, despite millions
paid in compensation from US AID funds, would involve only
redirecting the estates' profits from the agrarian reform agency to the
former owners.*^
In practice, the agrarian reform laws not only failed to achieve any
real and lasting change in the country's economic structure, but. owing
to the state of seige imposed on 6 March 1980 (when Phases I and II were
decreed) provoked and screened mass killings of peasants in areas
likely to be affected and in those where independent peasant
organizations were strong. The church-backed Socorro Juridico registered
a dramatic leap in the number of reported killings of non-combatants,
from 234 in February to 487 in March 1980. The toll rose to over 1,000 for
the month of June, and by the end of the year had reached a cumulative
total of over 10,000.^°
As early as the end of March 1980 several key agrarian reform
officials resigned in protest at the bloodbath accompanying the reform.
In a resignation statement, Under-Secretary of Agriculture Jorge
Villacorta, a prime mover in drafting and promoting the agrarian
reform law, expressed his disillusion:
... from the first moment that the implementation of the agrarian reform
began, what we saw was a sharp increase in official violence against the
very peasants who were the supposed 'beneficiaries’ of the process ... to
270
cite one case, five directors and two presidents of the new peasant
management organizations were killed.'^'
Villacorta s resignation was followed a month later by a mass strike of

the technical staff of the government’s Institute of Agrarian Trans¬
formation (ISTA), the agency responsible for implementing the reform;
the cause of the strike was stated as the escalation of governmental
violence against the peasants.^- Local Salvadoreans most concerned
with planning, implementing and making a success of agrarian reform,
the agrarian experts, were deeply troubled in its very first stages by the
way events were moving, and in the first weeks after the original decree
were unwilling to collaborate with it any longer.
Other reformist Salvadoreans in high positions, such as Napoleon
Duarte, exhibited much more patience. In an April 1981 interview,
Duarte, then President of the (third) junta, acknowledged the problems
in the programme, but still defended the process: “Duarte said it was
never meant to be an 'overnight' success, and the dispossession of the
old oligarchy would now take up to 30 years.’’^^
El Salvador's agrarian reform finally became extinct after the March
1982 election of a Constituent Assembly, little more than two years after
its inception. On the initiative of Major Roberto D’Aubuisson,
President of the Assembly, the conservative majority voted in Decree 3
(26 April 1982), revoking previous legislation that had permitted
expropriation of agricultural land. Decree 6 (18 May 1982) dealing more
precisely with measures providing for transfer of land to tenants,
effectively abolished the “land-to-the-tiller” programme.
Scrapping the Agrarian Reform Programme so strongly backed by
the US government did not, however, seriously affect US policy towards
El Salvador. Ambassador Dean Elinton rushed to Washington after
Decree 6 was enacted:
to try to counteract the actions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

which had voted to eliminate the increase in military appropriations for
El Salvador this year if the Salvadorean government ‘modifies, alters,
suspends or terminates any provision of the land reform program in a
manner detrimental to the rights of the beneficiaries
Ambassador Hinton, like Ambassador White, his predecessor, one of

the land reform legislation’s most enthusiastic supporters, was forced
after Decree 6 to minimize its significance. Neither abolition of its pet
land reform, massive human rights violation, nor even the murder of its
own citizens, could be permitted to seriously affect US military
assistance.
271
Neutralizing Majano and the Reformists
Between March and May 1980, the showdown between the reformist
officers — or such as remained after the 18 December purge of
COPEFA — and the agrarian elites and their army backers took shape.
It began with a mass publicity campaign, a repetition of the campaign
to halt Colonel Molina's 1976 reform project.'^^ It also involved buying
off numerous young officers with the unlimited funds available to the
agrarian elites, and a confrontation in which Colonel Majano, forced to
move against the military establishment’s far right, found himself
without support and the tables turned against him.
When the escalation of the anti-reform campaign reached the extent
of wide circulation in army barracks of a video-taped message from
Major D'Aubuisson, calling for the removal of Majano and the
Christian Democrats from the junta as “Communists”, Majano decided
to move. On 7 May 1980, after receiving a tip of a meeting at the Finca
“San Fuis” (an estate near the capital) to be held by conspirators
plotting to overthrow the government. Colonel Majano, with a group of
men loyal to him, raided the estate and arrested the participants,
including three majors, four captains, five lieutenants and 12 civilians.
One of the prisoners was Major Roberto D’Aubuisson. Documents
confiscated from the participants, including those D’Aubuisson
reportedly tried to eat upon capture, included an expense notebook kept
by Captain Alvaro Rafael Saravia, also taken prisoner, which apparently
incriminated Major D’Aubuisson. Major Roberto Mauricio Staben and
others in the murder of Archbishop Romero. A year later, after his
dismissal by the Reagan administration. US Ambassador Robert White
described the documents, copied to him by Colonel Majano, as
“evidence that is compelling, if not 100% conclusive, that D’Aubuisson
and his group are responsible for the murder of Archbishop
Romero”.*^^
The active duty army officers detained with D’Aubuisson, to
Majano’s subsequent regret, were not freelance conspirators, but
included leaders of the special intelligence group, ANSESAF, acting on
the authority of junta members Colonel Abdul Guierrez and Colonel
Garcia, the Minister of Defense. Four years later. Deputy Minister of
Defense Colonel Carranza, told an interviewer he was proud to have
helped D’Aubuisson and ANSESAF at the time, and that he himself
had authorized D’Aubuisson’s video-tape “media campaign” against
Majano, after clearing it with Colonel Garcia.^^
When Colonel Majano raided the Finca “San Fuis” meeting on 7
May, he was perhaps unaware of how high in the military establishment
support for Major D’Aubuisson, ANSESAF, and the counter-reform
video campaign went. The confiscated documents revealed this to some
extent, giving names of officers who liaised between the special
operations group and each major army garrison and security agency.
272
and who supported the political line of the right-wing FAN, as

expressed by Major D'Aubuisson. In retrospect, it seems that Colonel
Majano acted on his own without fully appreciating the power and
influence of those he and his supporters were challenging. If he thought
evidence that D Aubuisson and his group were plotting his removal
from the junta, or engaged in such activities as murdering the
Archbishop, would lead to prosecutions, or that army officers involved
would be cashiered, he was mistaken.
Rumours ot coups and noisy protest by FAN’s civilian supporters
disrupted San Salvador tor a week after Colonel Majano’s precipitate
action, while the serious business of counting heads went on within the
military establishment. Colonel Majano’s call for prisoners arrested at
theFinca San Luis to be prosecuted for endangering state security was
almost immediately turned on its head: the majority of the officers with
a voice opted to oust Majano and demand D’Aubuisson's freedom.
On 14 May Major D'Aubuisson and the others were released
unconditionally. The active-duty intelligence officers returned to their
posts and their involvement in the Archbishop's murder was not
mentioned until the following year, when the US Ambassador made
public documents captured on 7 May, that had been copied to him.
On the day of the releases, junta member Colonel Gutierrez, and the
Minister and Vice-Minister of Defense, Colonels Garcia and Carranza,
stripped Colonel Majano of his command over the armed forces
(formerly exercised jointly by the two military junta members). The only
junta member to be included in the new line of command was Colonel
Gutierrez. Majano was not formally dropped from the junta, but
permitted to remain in name only.^* One source described Majano’s
ousting as a "mini-coup" which placed complete control of the
government in the hands of Colonels Garcia, Carranza and Gutierrez
"with the collaboration of the three civilians ... to add an air of
respectability’’.^^ From 14 May 1980 until his forced resignation from
the junta, and arrest and exile in November, Colonel Majano and his
supporters were politically dead.
Also on 14 May 1980, Colonel Gutierrez held a press conference to
announce a major reversal in the agrarian reform process: “Phase H”.
which had threatened the coffee elites, was to be indefinitely suspended;
“Phase I ” expropriations were to be brought to an immediate halt. By
July 1980 at least 68 of the more valuable properties expropriated in
March and April under “Phase I", including those with coffee
processing plants, had been returned to their owners. Further ad hoc
exemptions for Phase I property owners followed.'®®
The reversal of the reform programme continued, and a new line of
more concerted repression, facilitated by the return of most officers
dropped from the active list at the time of the October 1979 coup. Within
two years some 40 of these top officers (all identified with escalating
repression under Romero) had been brought back and integrated into
273
the command structure.'*" Among them was General Romero s

information chief and former head of ANTEL, Colonel Rafael Flores
Lima who, in January 1981, became chief of staff and third man in the
army's hierarchy.
According to some sources Majano had retained his seat on the junta
only at the demand of the US Embassy. This is a reasonable claim, as
Ambassador Robert White himself had been vilified by the Salvadorean
right for his insistent support of major reforms, in which Majano had
been a key ally. Conversely, the winding down of the agrarian reform
announced on 14 May was accepted with hardly a murmur from the US
government, although Ambassador White did protest bitterly against
the release of D'Aubuisson and his colleagues.
By September, however, the US Embassy's main objective appears to
have been a unified officer corps, capable of conducting the counter¬
insurgency war; considerations of internal reform, or even of external
appearances, had become secondary, and the Salvadorean military
knew it. At that point the US opted to support Colonels Garcia and
Gutierrez in their move to complete the neutralization of Majano’s
reformist supporters within the officer corps. This was accomplished by
the September “Order of Battle", the periodic list of military appoint¬
ments, transfers, promotions and demotions issued by Garcia and
Gutierrez, in which Majano's supporters were stripped of every post of
significance, including all those entailing command of troops. The
young officers were given administrative postings, sent off for extended
tours of foreign study or training, or assigned posts in obscure
diplomatic missions. Some young officers surrendered their principles
after bribery; others were assassinated.'*'^ Majano did not capitulate
without a struggle, but he was without the necessary support;
If (the) appointments were accepted, complete control of the military

apparatus would fall into the hands of the hardliners. The dissidents
replied by demanding the removal of Garcia and Carranza and
negotiations with the FDR. Majano set up his own general staff in the
Zapote barracks and a coup looked highly likely. Within the junta
Morales Erlich and Avalos backed Majano but Duarte sided with the
Garcia camp and toUred the barracks with Gutierrez urging ‘unity'. The
US Embassy, now skilled at arbitrating between these factions, found
against Majano, whom it considered incompetent and potentially
dangerous.'**^
The “Order of Battle" thus went through. For most of his last months as
a nominal junta member Colonel Majano was travelling outside the
country.
The battle — to reform or not — appears to have been lost at the Finca
“San Luis", the previous May. This had reflected both internal
Salvadorean army divisions and the US foreign assistance establishment's
274
own internal conflict the military and intelligence agencies versus the
economic reformers — over how hard the Salvadorean military
government should be pushed towards acceptance of US-backed
reform programmes. To some extent the US could exert pressure on the
old guard led by Garcia and Gutierrez to institute some minor
economic reforms on the grounds that such programmes (at least those,
like Phase III. devised by US agencies) were an integral part of the
overall counter-insurgency package; essential both to calm local
revoludonary passion and for international public relations. More
extensive reform programmes, implying major upheavals of the status
quo — above all the agrarian reform — could, in diluted form, be
pushed through only so long as it was made clear that US military,
economic and political support would cease if such reforms were
publicly jettisoned. In the prime of the Carter administration, pressure
proved sufficient to force through the framework of an agrarian reform
and a reform of the national banking system, and above all to instil the
political necessity of including presentable civilians in the “revolu¬
tionary" government. But even then, the US’s principal concern was the
conduct of the counter-insurgency war.
US Aid and Six Dead Americans
The election of Ronald Reagan to the US Presidency in November 1980

signalled the Salvadorean government that compliance with the more
bitterly resented parts of the reform programmes — those devised by
Salvadorean agrarian reform experts — could be safely ignored. Under
the Reagan administration little threat of sanctions for non-compliance
with reformist legislation would exist, much less for non-compliance
with international human rights standards. Even the torture or murder
of US citizens would, in the final analysis, have no concrete effect on the
real level of US assistance.
Shortly after Reagan's election in December 1980 and January 1981,
two group murders of American citizens tested the resolve of the US
government to influence its Salvadorean allies actions. The murders
were carried out in the dog days of the Carter administration, by a
Salvadorean military establishment euphoric over Reagan s election.
Local priests regarded by the military as subsersive or agents of
subversion had long been liable to be murdered. Ten priests had been
killed between February 1977 and March 1980 when the eleventh.
Archbishop Romero, was shot in the heart. American clergy had
remained untouched, despite many actively supporting programmes
centred on concepts of social justice openly condemned as subversive
by the military. Some, including American Maryknoll nuns Maura
I Clarke and Ita Ford, who worked with refugees in Chalatenango parish,
had received death threats. In November 1980 Ita Ford told an
275
interviewer that the Chalatenango army commander Colonel Ricardo

Pena Arbaiza had himself made veiled threats, telling her that the
Church is indirectly subversive because it’s on the side of the
weak”.''’"’
On the night of 2 December 1980, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke returned
from a conference in Nicaragua and were met at the international airport
by Ursuline nun Dorothy Kazel and lay worker Jean Donovan, both from
the diocese of Cleveland, Ohio, then working in the parish of La Libertad.
The four had intended to proceed from the airport and spend the night at
La Libertad, the city nearest the new airport; the two Maryknollers
intended to travel to Chalatenango the next morning.
The Maryknoll nuns had been expected to arrive, with two others, on
an earlier flight. Their friends had gone to the airport to meet that flight
and returned to La Libertad with the two who had arrived. On the way
they were stopped at a National Guard roadblock and identity check
but neither harrassed nor harmed. They returned to the airport to collect
Ita Ford and Maura Clarke from the 6:30 pm flight from Managua. Both
cleared immigration control without hindrance, but Immigration
Police information systems made data on their identities immediately
available to airport security personnel. Possibly their names had
previously been put on the airport “look ouf’ list. Subsequent events
suggest arrangements had been made to prevent their return to
Chalatenango considerably before their return from Nicaragua.
The four women drove toward La Libertad in a white Toyota van and
were stopped at a National Guard roadblock not far from the airport.
They were detained, taken to an isolated spot off the main highway near
Santiago Nonualco where some were raped and all four shot dead.
Local people found the bodies the next day and reported their find to the
local justice-of-the-peace on whose instructions the four bodies were
immediately buried in a common grave. Despite the foreign appearance
of the women, local authorities said later they did not report the
discovery of the bodiesJustice-of-the-Peace Juan Santos Ceron
subsequently explained that he frequently authorized burial of un¬
identified bodies found in and around Santiago Nonualco “under
the direction of various armed forces” and that “he was personally
asked to authorize such burials two to three times a week”.'*^^ All identity
papers had been removed from the bodies.
The US governmenf s reaction was twofold. Ambassador White was
furiously angry, and demanded an investigation and suspension of US
economic and military aid — the last time the Salvadoreans would be
the object of pressure of this kind. In Washington the reaction was less
vehement; the Department of State press release of 5 December
declared the US governmenfs “shock and dismay” at the killings, and
concern at “reports of involvement of the Salvadorean security forces”,
and announced only that economic and military assistance would be
put “on hold”.'**^
276
Washington’s main concern seems to have been damage control.

Immediate steps were taken to deal with US public outrage —
jeopardizing US policy toward El Salvador — at the murder of the
missionaries. The four churchwomen’s murder, on the very day of the
funeral ofvictims of another widely publicized multiple murder, that of
six leaders of the Salvadorean opposition, confirmed the Salvadorean
governmenf s growing reputation for savagery. To counter demands to
restrict aid to El Salvador s government, just as guerrillas were mounting
an offensive, Washington ensured first, that the Salvadorean govern¬
ment announced an inquiry into the killing of the American church-
women, and. second, supported (or orchestrated) a high.profile shuffle
in the Salvadorean junta's composition.
) On 7 December. William Bowdler, former Assistant Secretary of State
William Rogers, and State Department Latin Americanist Luigi
Einaudi. were dispatched to El Salvador, ostensibly on a three-day
“fact-finding” mission on the killings and to impress upon the junta the
urgency of an immediate inquiry into the incident.'®* On 14 December,
a reorganization of the military junta was announced: ex-presidential
candidate and graduate of Notre Dame, Napoleon Duarte, a civilian,
would henceforth be addressed as “Presidenf’. and Colonel Gutierrez
Vice-President. A little noticed by-product was the final disappearance
from the junta of Colonel Majano. On 17 December, the Carter
administration responded to Duarte's elevation, which placed a
civilian, and a Christian Democrat, at the head of the government and.
citing progress in the investigation of the missionaries’ murder, lifted
the “hold" on economic aid. It had been frozen for exactly two
weeks.
! The appointment of Duarte served admirably to distract media
I attention from the murder of US citizens and was read as a sign of a
j democratic change of heart in the military government of El Salvador.
; In practice it served to cover the final purging of the reformist officers
j from positions of influence. On 12 December, two days before Duarte’s
! elevation to the Presidency, the army high command announced
t Colonel Majano’s definitive removal from the junta, after a poll of the
officer corps in which they had voted 300 to 4 in favour of his removal.'®®
' Presumably Majano’s supporters among the 800 or so active duty
i' officers were encouraged not to vote, or simply not counted. Majano
promptly went into hiding, to be subsequently arrested and exiled to
Mexico. His ouster cleared the way for the 14 December refurbishing of
li the junta’s image by the appointment of a civilian president and a
military vice-president. A simultaneous reshuffle ot the Cabinet,
leaving only Defense Minister Colonel Garcia still in place, consoli-
Ii dated the government’s rightward lurch. Vice-President Colonel
I Gutierrez, not President Duarte, was to be, as before. Commander in
I Chief of the Armed Eorces.
Ambassador White made no move to save Majano at the time - quite
277
I
conceivably his removal was a precondition for the military s appoint¬

ment of a civilian president. In late January, after his dismissal by the
incoming Reagan administration, ex-Ambassador White defended
Majano, ascribing his downfall, and that of the reformist officers he
represented, to their efforts “to bring about an end to the repression” He
attributed the rightward moves of the junta in late 1980 to “encourage¬
ment” from the incoming Reagan administration.
To pressure the Salvadorean government into investigating the
missionaries’ murder. Ambassador White was threatening to withhold
aid, the US military assistance establishment and the State Department
bureaucracy were preparing for an inrush of military advisers, planned
to go ahead even before Carter was scheduled to leave the White House.
In 9 April 1981 Congressional hearings. Ambassador White declared
that the US and Salvadorean military had pressed both him and Duarte
into approving — against their better judgement — sending military
advisers to El Salvador. Senator Pell, questioning, referred to a letter
signed by President Duarte asking for assistance and advisers:
Ambassador White: What is the date of that letter, sir?

Senator Pell: February 20.
White: And what date did we put in the military advisers?
Pell: I think we put them in during December or January.
White: I think there is your answer.'"
Ex-Ambassador White then sought to explain the difference of opinion

as a matter of divided loyalties within the US establishment itself:
During the latter days of the Carter administration, there was a clear
initiative on the part of the Pentagon to push on El Salvador military
advisers and military’ equipment. There was a lot of direct contact between
high officials in the Pentagon and high officials of the Salvadorean
military. On occasion, high officials of the Salvadorean military would
know about decisions before I would.'
With the Pentagon and the Salvadorean military establishment in

league little could be realistically expected from any official inquiry into
the murder of the nuns. Ex-Ambassador White probably realized he
was fighting a losing battle the minute he started making his own
unofficial inquiries into the case:
Regarding the investigation. Senator, it was taken for granted when I

spoke with President Duarte, it was taken for granted when I spoke with
the leaders of the defense establishment, the military establishment, that
the security forces were guilty of the murder of the American churchwomen.
That was never really a question."-^
278
Virtually the only official investigation in the year after the

churchwomen's murder was that by the US government itself, and
included sending an FBI officer to lift fingerprints from the burnt out
wreck of the church van. Subsequently, at the demand of the US
Embassy, six National Guardsmen on airport detail at the time of the
murders were arrested on 9 May 1981. Two of them were confirmed as
victims of mistaken identity and released in December."^
After Ambassador White’s departure, the US Embassy in El Salvador
was in the difficult position of publicly guaranteeing that the inquiry
into the four women's murder was making some tangible progress —
mainly because the US Congress demanded such progress as a
condition for aid — and simultaneously suppressing evidence that
responsibility rested with anyone higher than the National Guardsmen
already singled out as scapegoats. The Department of State’s periodic
“formal statements’’ certifying the progress of the inquiry, only
underlined the US governmenfs commitment to continued military
aid.
In July 1982 the Department of State certified “substantial progress in
the case’’ and estimated a trial would take place later that year. In
November 1982 a Department of State spokesman declared that “no
evidence has come to light which would give credibility to allegations of
higher involvement’’. In January 1983 the Department of State certified
that “since the July certification, there have been significant develop¬
ments in the investigation and prosecution of the case of the four
American churchwomen.’’"^ Despite such claims, however, the US
government has refused the victims’ families access to documentation
of EBl and other investigations into the case."^ The eventual conviction
of the four Guardsmen, in mid-1984, still begged the question of higher
involvement. It seems that by calling the US human rights bluff, with the
murder of the four missionaries in December 1980, the Salvadorean
military government had placed its ally in the position of covering up
1 the murder of its own citizens.
On 4 January, a second murder, which was eventually traced to top
army intelligence officers, shook public opinion and created new
problems for the US Embassy: gunmen assassinated Michael Hammer
; and Mark Pearlman, American Institute for Eree Labour Development
I (AIELD) advisers, and Rodolfo Viera, head of the Salvadorean Institute
1 for Agrarian Transformation (ISTA) and the US-backed UCS small
I farmers’ union, in a restaurant of the Hotel Sheraton in San Salvador.
1 Since radical oppositionists saw AIELD as a front for unsavoury US
I government agencies (land reform adviser Roy Prosterman was
t technically an AIELD employee) the action might easily have been
i attributed to the left: yet, from the first, there were compelling reasons to
1' believe that the murders were ordered by the fanatic right, lashing out
>1 against top exponents of land reform.
! As in the case of the murder of the four missionaries. Hammer’s
279
Pearlman’s and Viera’s murders were investigated primarily by the US

government — not by El Salvador’s. These second murders, however,
received relatively little publicity, although the US Congress would
henceforth demand clarification of both the missionaries and the
advisers’ murders.
The AIFLD murders prompted less uproar partly because, initially,
there was less evidence that the Salvadorean army (that is, the
government) had any hand in them; after all the two American advisers
were in El Salvador only to help with the reform side of the army’s
counter-insurgency programme. A second factor in reducing public
reaction was AIFLD’s decision to keep relatively quiet about the killings
while pursuing its own investigation, a decision apparently shared by
Mike Hammer and Mark Pearlman’s families, who maintained a
discreet silence. A final factor was doubt as to precisely who was the
main target: there was some reason to believe that the two Americans
were killed only because they happened to be with Rodolfo Viera at the
wrong time. Viera had been receiving death threats ever since the UCS,
of which he was a leader, had gradually become more radicalized
during 1980, due to many of its grassroots organizers being murdered by
the security services. Viera also had close links with the then exiled
Colonel Majano. Leonel Gomez, Viera’s second in command at ISTA,
had no doubts as to the motive for the three murders, and afterwards
sought political asylum in the United States. His subsequent testimony,
in which he described hiding in a trash can as an army patrol searched
for him, leaves little doubt that the order to kill top level agrarian reform
officials had come not from far right factions acting alone or in league
with landowning elites, but had originated at the highest level of the
security forces. The “radical” phase of the military government born
with the October 1979 coup was incontrovertibly over.
That the Sheraton Hotel murders had, from the beginning, inten¬
tionally included the AIFLD advisers, demonstrating the military
rulers' utter contempt for the UCS, the ISTA and the American-backed
reform programmes, is to some degree supported by the circumstances
leading up to the two Americans’ meeting with Viera. Hammer had
responded to a call for help from Viera, who had been receiving death
threats and was now seriously worried that Majano’s ousting had put
him in real danger. Hammer had flown from Washington to give Viera
his support on the day they met at the Sheraton. AIFLD made a full
account available to the press more than a year after the murders:
At Christmas 1980, Mr. Viera voiced concern to Americans about

pressures on him to quit his government job because of bitter political
opposition. He expressed his anxieties to his close friend, Mr. Hammer,
an expert on agrarian affairs. Mr. Hammer, seeking to assure Mr. Viera
that the Salvadorean official had the full support of the AFL-CIO even if
he decided to quit his job and join the labor movement, left Washington
280
on the morning of Jan. 3 for San Salvador. Because of threats against him,
he registered in different names in two separate rooms at the
Sheraton.”^
In the case of the churchwomen’s murders evidence quickly emerged

that responsibility went high in the military hierarchy. In the case of the
agrarian experts, however, initial investigations, carried out under
pressure from the US government, incriminated wealthy civilians,
Roberto Sol Meza and Hans Christ, allegedly seen pointing out the
victims to plain-clothes gunmen. Both businessmen were detained for
investigation in April 1981; Hans Christ was arrested in Miami and
held pending extradition."*^ The focus on the involvement of “private
enterprise" in the murders temporarily distracted attention from the
fact that the plain-clothes gunmen were active duty National Guardsmen,
acting on orders from their immediate superiors, active duty intelligence
officers who provided the arms, and apparently instructions, to murder
Viera, Hammer and Pearlman.
It was more than a year after the murders that the whole story
emerged, when the initially discreet AIFLD, in reaction to the
Salvadorean authorities’ refusal to prosecute those involved in the
murders, revealed the results of its own investigation. In March 1982,
after it became apparent that neither Sol Meza nor Hans Christ would
be made to answer for involvement in the murders, and that steps to
prosecute the two National Guard corporals identified as the actual
assassins were grinding to a halt, the American press published leaked
information on AIFLD's own investigations, and described the winding
down of the inquiries in El Salvador.'^'’
At the time the AIFLD revealed nothing more. Not until late in 1982,
when the Salvadorean court handling the case ordered the dismissal of
charges against army officers implicated in the murders, did the AFL-
CIO release details of the case to the news media. Apart from Roberto
Sol Meza and Hans Christ there were three other suspects — active duty
army officers serving in intelligence posts in the National Guard. Two
of them. Lieutenant Rodolfo Isidro Lopez Sibrian and Captain
Eduardo Ernesto Alfonso Avila Avila, had been implicated in the
murder of Archbishop Romero in March 1980, and had figured
prominently in the Finca “San Luis” documents confiscated by Colonel
Majano in his 7 May 1980 raid. On that occasion, both had been briefly
arrested, and subsequently returned to active service as National
Guard intelligence officers. The third officer implicated was Major
Mario Deni's Moran, identified by opposition sources as head of the
National Guard’s intelligence division (S-2).'^’
Lopez Sibrian had been confined to barracks some time after the
agrarian expert murders, but Avila Avila was sent out of harm s way as
military attache to Costa Rica, a key post from which he subsequently
monitored the movements of Salvadorean exiles and dabbled in covert
281
action. In late 1982 he was finally expelled by the Costa Rican

authorities for “placing a bomb outside a hotel in Puerto Limon
intended to kill a Cuban diplomat”.'^^
In mid-October 1982 Time magazine published the following account
of Lopez Sibrian and Avila’s involvement in the murder of Viera.
Hammer and Pearlman;
According to the investigation jointly conducted by the AFL-CIO and the

Salvadorean government the killers were Jose Dimas Valle Acevedo, 35,
and Santiago Gomez Gonzalez, 32, ex-corporals in the Salvadorean
National Guard. They were apprehended, subjected to lie detector tests,
confessed and were formally charged. Both were at the Sheraton Hotel on
the night of Jan. 3, 1981, serving as plainclothes body-guards for police
officers visiting the hotel. One of the officers was Lieut. Rodolfo Isidro
Lopez Sibrian. . . The two men said in their confessions that Lopez
Sibrian told them ‘Look, inside the hotel is Viera and two other fair¬
skinned men. You are going to kill them.’ Soon after. Lopez Sibrian
handed Gomez Gonzalez a 9mm Ingram submachine gun. Meanwhile,
another officer. Captain Eduardo Avila, slapped a 45 cal. submachine
gun equipped with a silencer in Valle Acevedo’s hands. .
Time described the actual shooting as a classic death-squad killing:
The killers walked up to the three men and opened fire. Viera was gunned
down as he reached toward his waist, apparently for a pistol. Pearlman
was shot as he rose from the table. Hammer died slumped against a
locked exit door. The two gunmen darted out of the dining room, ran
through the lobby and out of the hotel. In a country where at least 30,000
unsolved murders have taken place in the past three years, no one moved
to stop them.'^**
Immediate pressure exerted by the US Embassy forced the Salvadorean

military to go through the motions of an investigation with intent to
prosecute, and accede to US demands that the FBI be given access to
suspects and witnesses. According to the New York Times the two FBI
polygraph experts who flew to San Salvador found “deception in
principal areas” on the part of Lieutenant Lopez and Captain Avila’s
testimony.'25 The co-operation of the Salvadorean government, although
it helped neutralize American outrage over the murders just as the
Reagan administration was escalating military assistance, was in
practice severely limited.'^^
Despite — or on account of— the evidence of high level involvement
in the murders, there was no serious investigation of the crimes, no
concerted effort to prosecute or dismiss from active service the army
intelligence officers implicated. By the time of the AIFLD advisers’
murders, the most resolute sectors of the military right were firmly
282
esconced in top command positions. By 1983 their dominance was

reinforced by the election of Major Roberto D’Aubuisson as President
of a Constituent Assembly which would be responsible for drafting a
new constitution. In October 1982 Time remarked that American
officials were “upset” not only because charges against Lopez Sibrian
had been dropped, and never even brought against Avila Avila, but
because of:
The public support that Avila and Lopez Sibrian have received from
Roberto D'Aubuisson, the right wing former army officer who became
president of El Salvador's constituent assembly this year... [D’Aubuisson
had called the accused officers] my colleagues and my friends, I am
honoured to be their friend. 1 know they are good soldiers.'^^
D'Aubuisson's emergence as the President of the Constituent

Assembly was the culmination of a long process. After May 1980 his star
had continued to rise. In July 1980 he was feted on Capitol Hill by the
American Legion and the private right-wing American Security
Council, a group including former army officers and US intelligence
officials. The meeting was arranged and carried out in spite of a formal
prohibition — obtained through pressure by then Ambassador White
who, more than once, described D’Aubuisson as “a pathological killer”
— banning him from entering the country. Subsequently Major
D’Aubuisson had the assistance of the army’s high command in
organizing a far-right political party, Republicana Nacionalista
(National Republican Alliance (ARENA)), to counterbalance and
dominate the much weakened Christian Democrats. In coalition with
the moribund PCN, ARENA gained a majority in the March 1982
elections, with D’Aubuisson becoming President of a Constituent
Assembly in which his allies held most of the seats. This final outcome
was probably predictable from the beginning. A Washington Post
reporter, shortly after the May 8-14 1980 confrontation between
D’Aubuisson’s and Majano’s groups, asked a US Embassy source
whether he thought D’Aubuisson would be forced into exile, and
recorded the reply: “If you ask me, I think he’s probably off somewhere
having drinks with the high command.”'^*
The murder of Viera and the AIFLD advisers was the last major action
against personnel working on behalf of the US government (in this case
financed by AID) that could be directly laid to the Salvadorean military.
But these killings, like the murder of the four missionaries, marked the
end of the military government’s acquiescence to US-backed reform
policies or human rights requirements. They were, in practice, an unambi¬
guous statement that the Salvadoreans welcomed American advice and
assistance in fighting the insurgents, but would make their own decisions
regarding the utility of reforms in their counter-insurgency war. The
military had risked reprisal, but emerged with all-round success.
283
The Maryknoll order withdrew its people from El Salvador after

December 1980; foreign clergy could no longer carry out their pastoral
mission in the country with any semblance of security. When, with
permission from church authorities, the Maryknoll sisters decided to
return some two years later, death threats were renewed. No Maryknoll
sisters were after that sent to El Salvador to risk the fate of their
murdered colleagues. After the murder of Viera and the AIFLD advisers
whom he had called on for support, and the US government’s failure to
pursue the matter with the only effective weapon at its disposal —
withdrawal of military aid — the Salvadorean military was confident
that it could follow through with the progressive dismantling of reforms
already effected, and that the US would not put its threat of sanctions
into effect.
The AIFLD murders, of course, could never be acknowledged or
openly justified by the military high command, but were publicly
deplored and attributed to renegade killers perhaps seeking to
destabilize the Duarte government and bring the armed forces into
disrepute. Not long after these murders, however, there was an
unprecedented legitimation of death-squad killings by the military
establishment itself, when the Press Council of the Armed Forces
(COPREFA) published what was widely interpreted as a “death list” of
138 people. The same list had circulated a year earlier and was then
attributed to the death squads; even the random order of the names was
unchanged.'^^ COPREFA’s death list was followed the next day by a
second COPREFA list attacking the foreign press, and naming
reporters in disfavour with the military — an ominous threat in view of
previously “unsolved” murders of foreign pressmen.The foreign
press challenged Duarte over both COPREFA lists; he is quoted as
saying he was not consulted about their publication, and that he took
issue with some of the names having been included on the list.’^'
The COPREFA “death list” was published just as preparations for
elections to the Constituent Assembly began. Former Ambassador
Robert White cited the COPREFA list in congressional hearings as
evidence of the somewhat fantastic quality of the notion that fair
elections could be held under existing conditions in El Salvador, when
potential opposition candidates were publicly named in a “death list”
issued by the army in a military regime:
... it would take a great act of faith at this point on the part of the left
realistically to consider participation in any electoral process when the
military has published its hit list.'^^
The earlier COPREFA “death-list”, in the same random order, in the

name of seven supposedly autonomous “death-squads”, had been
published on 11 May 1980, four days after the arrest of D’Aubuisson and
top intelligence officers by troops loyal to Colonel Majano. Although
284
seen as a gesture of support for Major D'Aubuisson, it was then

impossible to link it directly to the armed forces. In later publishing of
the self-same list, COPREFA made no effort to disguise its true
paternity by attribution to phantom “death-squads”; the armed forces
as an institution now undertook responsibility for the “death list” and
its consequences. With the reformist officers led by Colonel Majano out
of the picture, no longer was any significant faction in the military
hierarchy willing to oppose either the selective counter-terror epitomized
by “death-squad” murders of opposition leaders and other “subversives”,
or the mass counter-terror, through mass killings, in the countryside
and in the streets.
285
14. Elections and
Civil War
Publicity on the guerrilla opposition’s launching of a major offensive in

mid-January 1981, and US government claims to have evidence of
Cuban and Nicaraguan support for the insurgents, effectively pushed
the unsolved question of the murdered Americans out of the news and
spelled the beginning of a major escalation of US military aid to El
Salvador. A 14 January 1981 Department of State press release declared
that:
Leftist guerrillas over the past weekend have . . . demonstrated that they
are better armed and constitute a military threat. Captured weapons and
documents confirmed that the guerrillas have received a substantial
supply of arms from abroad.'^^
On 16 January a Presidential order was made for a $5 million

emergency airlift of military material and advisers to El Salvador,
President Carter's foreign policy establishment’s last convulsive effort
to evade responsibility for having been “too soft’’ in dealing with the
Salvadorean rebels. Four days before the inauguration of Ronald
Reagan, the measure acquired an air of panic, as if Carter’s people
feared that the January guerrilla offensive would quickly topple the
government, leaving them accused of “losing’’ another trusted ally.
Ambassador White, shortly afterward fired by Reagan for his overly
convincing posture as a reform and human rights champion, called for
the emergency aid on the grounds that the guerrillas were receiving
massive external support for their “final offensive’’. As described in
congressional hearings the following March, White “raised an alarm
over a reported landing of external forces that would assist the guerrillas
... but nothing appears to have come of that threat.’’’^'* He explained to
congressmen who had subsequently become “ increasingly skeptical of
the reality of that ‘invasion’ ’’ that the charges were based on reports to
him of the discovery of five wooden boats on the shore of the Gulf of
Fonseca, “made from wood found only in Nicaragua and Costa Rica”.
None of the reputed “invaders” were ever captured.'-^-'’
While himself sceptical of the basis for the “invasion” scare. White
286
Elections and Civil War
did not recant on his support for the rush of aid to the Salvadorean
regime in Carter's final days in office, although he did draw the line at
sending in military advisers. The spring 1981 congressional hearings
were informed that White still believed the revolutionaries were
receiving arms via Nicaragua, and that emergency assistance was
thereby justified.'-^^
Emergency military assistance dispatched in those last days of the
Carter administration, for the first time included overtly “lethal”
weaponry, including M-16 rifles, ammunition and grenade launchers,
the lease of six armoured “Huey" helicopters, accompanied by
technicians to operate them, and teams of military advisers.'^^ The State
Department justified the assistance as vital to deter foreign
aggression;
... we must support the Salvadorean government in its struggle against

left-wing terrorism supported covertly with arms, ammunition, training,
and political and military advice by Cuba and other communist
nations.’-^*
To the Salvadorean high command, of course, the last minute largesse

from the Carter administration represented a total capitulation by US
human rights champions to questions of military expedience. The lack
of resolution that had hobbled the Carter human rights policy from the
start contributed to its eventual disintegration in the final days of the
administration.
The FMLN launched its first countryside offensive on 10 January,
with considerable forewarning to the military. Wrongly dubbed a “final
offensive ”, it proved, nonetheless, a convincing show of strength. Major
military operations continued for about a week, with the Santa Ana
garrison falling to the rebels when junior officers led a mutiny and went
over to the guerrillas with over 100 troops.'^^ No permanent gains were
made in the offensive but government forces were, for the first time, hit
with co-ordinated military assaults and suffered heavy casualties. It was
a far cry from the sporadic guerrilla operations of 1980, but a logical
progression after the Coordinadora’s two day general strike at the end of
June prompted junta chief Colonel Gutierrez to declare If the left want
war they can have it”, (as reported hy Latin America which called
the “illegal” strike 90% successful”).'^ The same source suggested that
the immense death toll then hitting the unarmed opposition made civil
war inevitable: “With the death toll now about 20 a day, according to
official estimates and 80 a day unofficially, open civil war does seem to
be fast approaching.”'^' Under such conditions, that the guerrillas held
off their offensive for so long can be seen as a show of rather admirable
restraint; and careful planning.
From mid-January 1981 El Salvador’s political life was dominated by
the ongoing civil war, and the US’s increasingly open intervention.
287
Although President Carter took responsibility for the first infusion of US

weaponry and military advisers into the Salvadorean conflict. President
Reagan rapidly moved to expand US involvement in the war. President
Carter’s provision of $5 million in emergency funds in January was
boosted in March with a further supplementary allocation of $20 million
for material, advisory assistance and training, and again with $18 million
in June 1981 as emergency “Economic Support Funds”. The nature of the
assistance provided is outlined in a later chapter.
The Reagan administration’s El Salvador offensive in 1981, and its
efforts to justify massive infusions of aid there were backed by an
elaborate opinion-making campaign launched in February 1981. The
most ambitious, and contentious presentation of the new administra¬
tion’s views on El Salvador was made in the form of a glossy “White
Paper” issued weeks after President Reagan took office. Entitled
“Communist Support of the Salvadoran Insurgency” the report cited
captured guerrilla documents and intelligence information as
presenting;
definitive evidence of the clandestine military support given by the Soviet

Union, Cuba, and their Communist allies to Marxist-Leninist guerrillas
now fighting to overthrow the established government of El Salvador.’"*^
The report was circulated with a package of glossaries, translations and

photographs, and photocopies of the captured documents upon which
the White Paper’s conclusions were said to be based. The press’s analysis
of the documents, however, soon discredited many of those con¬
clusions.''^^ The White Paper declared that Communist states had
promised “800 tons” of arms to the guerrillas and delivered “200 tons” by
January 1981, but the documents referred only to some four tons
brought in — from Honduras. One independent analysis of the
documents in March 1981 concluded that:
None of the documents ... indicate anything but groups of Salvadorans

organizing their own revolution. If the Soviet Union and Cuba were
pulling the strings behind the guerrilla movement . . . evidence of such
control is not to be found in any of the captured documents.'"^
Despite some scepticism, the White Paper affirmations were

uncritically accepted by much of the American news media, the public,
and the congress in the months following its publication and energetic
promotion. Not until the Wall Street Journal published a major story on
the White Paper, based in part on interviews with State Department
personnel responsible for its preparation, were its bases effectively
challenged. Entitled “Tarnished Report? Apparent Errors Cloud US
‘White Paper’ on Reds in El Salvador”, reporter Jonathan Kwitny’s
article described the paper as having served the Reagan administration
288
“as the launching pad for its anti-Soviet foreign policy”, despite serious
errors and guesswork revealed by its principal author;
... it is surprising ... to hear Jon D. Glassman, who is given the major
credit for its existence, describe parts of it as ‘misleading’ and ‘over¬
embellished.’ In a three-hour interview... policy planner Glassman freely
acknowledged that there were ‘mistakes and guessing’ by the government’s
intelligence analysts who translated and explained the guerrilla docu¬
ments. . . Several of the most important documents, it’s obvious, were
attributed to guerrilla leaders who didn’t write them. . . Statistics of
armament shipments into El Salvador, supposedly drawn directly from
the documents, were extrapolated, Mr. Glassman concedes. And in
questionable ways, it seems.'"*-^
Tht Journal article also demolished the White Paper’s assertions that the
documents confirm the guerrillas' close relations with the Nicaraguans,
the Soviets, and even Yasser Arafat; it noted that the documents released
include only complaints about the Soviet Union’s reluctance to assist
the Salvadoreans, oblique references to arms warehoused in “Lagos”
(interpreted as Nicaragua) and a reference to Arafat’s attendance at the
1980 Nicaraguan celebration of the anniversary of Somoza’s ouster.
This reference was made in unsigned “Document G” “in the context of
much complaining that a delegation of Salvadoran leftists was cold-
shouldered and otherwise insulted on a visit to Nicaragua for the
anniversary celebration...” The White Paper, in contrast, reported that
Arafat had met Salvadorean leaders and promised “military equipment,
including arms and aircraft”.
The Journal also casts aspersions on the authenticity of some of the
documents, although it concluded that part of the collection was
undoubtedly among those discovered in a raid in November 1980 on an
art gallery in San Salvador owned by Communist Party leader Shafik
Handal’s brother, architect Jorge Antonio Handal. The documents were
reportedly discovered in a hollow wall; architect Handal was arrested at
the same time and “disappeared”. His body has never been found.
Neither the White Paper nor \hQ Journal refer to Handal’s arrest or his
fate.
Former Ambassador White is cited by Kwitny in the Journal as
confirming doubts as to the solidity of both the White Paper and the
documents on which it is purportedly based, most ofwhich were already
available for analysis while he was still Ambassador: “The only thing
that ever made me think that these documents were genuine was that
they prove so little ”, he says. “He concedes that he is a great sceptic when
it comes to captured documents. .
Kwitny concluded that the White Paper was prepared to promote a
particular foreordained policy of the Reagan administration, and that
in this it was enormously successful, whatever its factual failings:
289
Bearing copies of the report. State Department emissaries visited the

principal capitals of Western Europe and elicited statements of support
from most of them. Domestically, too, the White Paper, said to be based
on 19 captured guerrilla documents, was accepted as fact by most of the
nation’s press, and there were numerous follow-up stories quoting
administration spokesmen on their plans for countering the allegedly
growing military power of the Salvadoran guerrillas. Within days, the
National Security Council announced it had approved plans to provide
the tiny country with $25 million of additional military aid and $40
million of economic assistance.''*^
The Wall Street Journal effectively debunked some of the more

outrageous assertions of the White Paper, but by mid-1981 the US
military build-up in El Salvador was underway and not to be stopped.
Indeed, the White paper was produced after the build-up was firmly
launched, and intended to guarantee its acceptance.''**
The White Paper was followed by a series of foreign policy extra¬
vaganzas designed to further impress upon the American public the
Reagan administration's view that the civil war in El Salvador represented
nothing less than a Soviet land grab aimed ultimately at American’s soft
underbelly, with Nicaragua as its tool. They included a press show of 36
declassified aerial photographs exhibited in March in a State Department
auditorium by John Hughes, Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, and Bobby Inman, Deputy Director of the CLA*'*^
The March 1983 presentation was a replay of the 1961 Cuban missile
crisis when photographs of the construction of missile emplacements
were shown. In the Nicaraguan case there were no Soviet missiles to
point to but such features as a “Soviet-style obstacle course’’ and
construction at Puerto Cabezas of an airport designed to accommodate
fighter aircraft. Nicaraguan government spokesmen subsequently
informed the press that plans for extending the airport had been drawn
up in 1976 with AID funding under the Somoza government. (This in
turn was a preview of the November 1983 invasion of Grenada, largely
justified by the construction of an airport the US proclaimed had
military purposes, but actually being constructed for tourism, by British
contractors.)
Later that month, the State Department presented to a televised press
conference, a young Nicaraguan — Orlando Tardencilla — captured in
El Salvador, who had allegedly confessed to having been trained in
Ethiopia and Cuba. Once in the company of the press, however,
Tardencilla said his confession had been made under torture, and that
he had been coerced into agreeing to repeat the story in Washington:
... an official in the US Embassy told me that they needed to demonstrate

the presence of Cubans in El Salvador. They gave me an option: I could
come here, or face certain death.
290
Time magazine, in an article subtitled ‘The US bungles its evidence of

foreign subversion in El Salvador”, described the propaganda offensive
as “a curious series of public presentations” presided over by “the prime
proponent of the Administration’s us-vs-them world view. Secretary of
State Alexander Haig". Time also compared this campaign to that on the
Cuban missile crisis 20 years before, adding that;
The purpose of the blitz was to convince skeptics of the correctness of the
Administration's approach to the critical problems of El Salvador and its
neighbors namely, that the struggles in Central America are not simply
indigenous revolts but rather are crucial battlegrounds in a broad East-
West confrontation.'^'
Unlike the public relations offensive of 1961 Haig’s efforts were seen as
unconvincing, with many showpiece elements badly bungled; notably
the Orlando Tardencilla “confession” and the White Paper itself Time
described the February 1981 White Paper as based on evidence that was
“sloppily presented and exaggerated in some cases, opening the
Administration to charges of fraud”.'^-
Despite the flaws in the Reagan administration’s campaign to make
El Salvador (and Nicaragua) the centre of the East-West conflict the
foreign policy “selling” campaign was sufficiently successful to ensure
that no concerted effort could be mounted in the US congress against
the escalation of the US military presence there. All that could be
attempted was to slow it down. Campaigning on the insurgents’ alleged
foreign support coincided with a major publicity effort to portray
planned political developments in El Salvador as evidence of the
benefits of the present regime, and the US assistance programme.
Departing from the Carter administration’s vigorous promotion of
socio-economic reforms as the solution to El Salvador s problems, the
Reagan administration retained an emphasis on plans for demo¬
cratization”.
The show-piece of the Reagan administration’s “democratization”
programme was to be the election of a Constituent Assembly in March
1982, empowered to appoint an interim President, pending Presidential
elections, and to draft a new constitution. The credibility of the United
States’ commitment to political reform rested largely on the person
selected to serve as provisional president of the republic prior to the 1982
elections, Napoleon Duarte. Duarte, appointed to his office by the
military, was to enjoy the trappings of office without its powers, but
would be endlessly cited by the Reagan administration as a legitimator
of the regime throughout his period as President.
Duarte’s tolerably decent past and supposed good intentions failed to
have the least impact on the ongoing counter-terror campaign, apart
from distracting public attention. From the time he joined the civil/
military junta in March 1980, to his departure from the Presidency in
291
March 1982, Salvadorean church human rights monitors estimated

some 25.000 Salvadorean civilians were killed out of combat. In
Duarte’s one full year as “President”, 1981, at least 13,500 fellow citizens
were, according to these records, put to death by government forces.
Duarte did, however, prove a superb civilian figurehead for the military
regime, by providing a basis on which to characterize the regime as
democratic — or “almost” democratic — and so distract attention from
the bloodbath.
In this Duarte proved a valuable asset to the US policy makers frantic
to show that the Salvadorean government they wished to fund and arm
was doing its best to move towards reform and democracy. Although the
death toll of the military counter-terror campaign could not be wholly
concealed. Duarte's previous role as leader of a liberal reformist party
enabled the Department of State to argue that without him things could
be much worse. This argument to some extent backfired after the 1982
elections, which he lost.
In the months before the elections two new parties of the extreme right
made their appearance: the Democratic Action Party (Accion Demo-
crdtica (AD)), and the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Alianza
Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA)), headed by the ubiquituous Major
D’Aubuisson.
The AD, nominally promoted by certain business sectors, appears to
have been largely a paper-party designed by the military to lend more
credibility to the elections by expanding the nominal range of
participants: not coincidentally, the name chosen was the same as that
of Venezuela's Social Democratic Party. ARENA, backed by the
military establishment, was the real force on the right. Its leader.
D'Aubuisson, campaigned vigorously on a “counter-insurgency”
platform, promising to "exterminate” the guerrillas within three months
of the setting up of the new constituent assembly. Not content to attack
the armed opposition. ARENA spokesmen also accused the Christian
Democrats of being camouflaged Communists and promised to try
them for treason, on election.
The heart of ARENA'S platform was a pledge to give the army its head
in the fight against the guerrillas, without concern about human rights
or cosmetic reforms:
"Napalm is indispensable.' explained . . . campaign spokesman Willi

Aleman— The armed forces would be freed of human rights restrictions
on their activities. . . "We don't believe the army needs controlling,' said
Mario Redael. the secretary of M. D'Aubuisson's party ... "Civilians will
be killed, war has always been that way. When the Germans bombed
London they didn't tell civilians to get out of the way first, did
they?'
Although the Department of State depicted D'Aubuisson as virtually
292
a renegade officer, an image generally refiected in the international

press, his party was given extensive logistic support by the armed forces,
support it shared only with the former official Party of National
Conciliation (PCN).
Convincing evidence that ARENA and D'Aubuisson enjoyed the
army high command's blessing was the support of the regional militaiy
commanders who, in the past, had been responsible for mobilizing the
military reseiwists and ORDEN members behind the PCN. In
provincial areas ARENA rallies were generally composed over¬
whelmingly of the former military personnel who comprise the bulk of
ORDEN and military reserves alike. Much was made of Major
D’Aubuisson’s personal charisma and organization skill, but there were
quite clearly other factors:
Though it has formally existed only six weeks, [Major D'Aubuisson'sj

party appears to have out-organized the other seven in the race.. . It has
entered candidates for every available post, and Mr. D'Aubuisson.
escorted by truckloads of heavily armed bodyguards, is the only
contestant campaigning in areas his principal opponents, the Christian
Democrats, say they are afraid to appear in.
A clue to the success emerged in conversations with groups of men
wearing sombreros in the shade of the leafy square of Santa Rosa de Lima...
where Mr. D'Aubuisson campaigned Sunday. All said they were supporting
his party and all said they had once served in the military. . .
[Christian Democratic leader Juliol Rey Prendes said the Christian
Democrats had formally complained that the militaiy commanders in
various towns around the country were actively aiding the Nationalist
Republican.s.'-'''*
Apart from the fact that the PCN and ARENA were openly backed by
the army, the inability of the real opposition to participate made the
elections largely a sham. The names of iheFrenteDemocratico's leaders,
the only real opposition, had been published in COPREEA's death
lists,'"" and in November 1980. the last time some of them had appeared
and held a meeting in San Salvador, they had been detained and
murdered. Even had they dared to contest the elections, the military had
already vetoed their participation “because it is not a political party but
the democratic facade of the guerrillas".'"'^’ Colonel Majano, on a visit to
Washington in December 1981. described the election plan as
"madness" and attacked Napoleon Duarte for going along with it.
calling him “the military's ally, who covers up human rights violations".'"^
The EDR and EMLN jointly stated their own support for honest
elections, but concluded that the proposed electoral exercise was
futile:
Our Fronts consider elections a valid and necessary instrument of
293
expression of the people's will whenever eonditions and atmosphere

exists that allow the people to freely express their will. In El Salvador
today we do not have sueh conditions to carry out the electoral process,
inasmuch as the regime's repressive apparatus, which assassinates
political and labor leaders and activists remains untouched.'-'’^
While the only real opposition was totally excluded from the contest
the sole reformist party to participate in the elections, the Christian
Democrats, was, like the others, constrained to campaign on a basic
“support the army" platform; to do otherwise would have been too
dangerous. One US newspaper described the elections as “fundamen¬
tally non-democratic", given the threat of assassination of even
moderate oppositionists, and noted that: “no candidate has campaigned
on a platform of control of the military, the major obstacle to a political
settlement in El Salvador; none could have, and lived."'-'’'^
Despite the lack of alternatives offered to the voters a fair turn-out on
election day was guaranteed by the Salvadorean law which makes
failure to vote a punishable offence; more seriously, not voting would
clearly be interpreted as an expression of opposition to the government.
Advertising before the election stressed the legal liability of non-voters
and described procedures whereby compliance with the law would be
checked. The election was held without an electoral register, with voters
identifying themselves only by their national identity cards;'^'* govern¬
ment announcements warned that voters’ identity cards would be
stamped at the polls as evidence they had voted. This was strong
encouragement indeed; during the previous two years failure to produce
an identity card had frequently been punished by summary execution
and it was widely assumed that to present a card after the elections
without the stamp proving the holder had voted could have similar
consequences. Prospective abstainers were also informed that to avoid
electoral fraud each voter's hand would be marked with indelible ink at
the polls. Although the ink apparently was not indelible, fear that failure
to acquire the mark would jeopardize their safety induced many to
vote.'^- British Parliamentary Human Rights Group member Lord
Chitnis was one observer of the process who commented on this
intimidating procedure in his subsequent report. Marking identity
cards and voters' hands with “indelible” ink:
inevitably imposed considerable psychological pressure on people to

vote. Even a well-off middle-class Salvadorean, with moderate left-wing
sympathies, told me he felt it would be prudent for him to vote.'^"'
There were also other means of intimidation. Each polling station

was surrounded by security forces — ostensibly to prevent attacks by
guerrillas intent on disrupting the elections —, and ARENA poll
watchers, equipped with walkie-talkie radio sets, closely monitored the
294
process.'^"* Irregularities in the voting were identified by Georgetown

Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Robert Leiken in
testimony to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
In a number ot polling places they ran out of pens; the voters stayed in
line; they handed in their unmarked ballots. There is suspicion that they
were tilled in by election ollicials. A large number of ballots were
annulled... Why was it that the indelible ink used to prevent people from
voting repeatedly turned out not to be indelible? And why were 25().0()()
cedillas lidentification cards] issued in San Salvador in the weeks before
the elections? How could so many people have been without their identity
cards when not to have one meant certain death? (Only guerrillas have no
identity cards, it is assumed at police and army barricades).'^*'
While irregularities occurred in the voting the returns suffered from too
great a regularity:
. . .there is suspicion among experienced Salvadoran election observers

that there may be a concerted inflation in the numbers of those who voted.
As the results were being announced they pointed to the odd uniformity in
the portion of votes attributed to the different parties irrespective of
geographic location. .
The election results reported about 1.4 million valid votes out of an
indeterminate electorate, nearly twice the 700,000 plus votes cast in the
1972 elections, the last for which accurate statistics are available.'^^ The
Jesuit-run Universidad Centroamericana published its assessment of
the vote describing the final count as "impossibly high" and maintained
that the real total of votes cast was between 600.000 and 800,000.'^^
The most suspect returns came from the departments where the
guerrillas were strongest, in some parts of which virtually no votes at all
were cast. By midday, 29 March, for example, when one-third of the total
votes had already been tabulated, no votes had been recorded in
Cabanas and Chalatenango, both FMLN strongholds; several days
later, however, the final results reported a massive turnout there.'^*^
The final count gave the Christian Democrats 41% of the votes and
24 out of 60 assembly seats, but failed to beat the ARENA-PCN block.
When the time came to vote for the Constituent Assembly President,
and then a provisional President, the Christian Democrats were badly
outvoted, facing the combined opposition of the four other parties to
win seats in the assembly (ARENA: 19; PCN: 14; AD: 2; and PPS
(Partido Popular Socialista): 1).
The immediate response of the United States, which had openly
backed Duarte and the Christian Democrats in the campaign period,
was a switch from criticism of the fanatical qualities of ARENA and the
radical right to moderate praise:
295
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State F.verett Briggs told the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on April 1 that ARFNA contained ‘some very
liberal and some moderate people'. Ambassador Dean Hinton was
quoted as saying of D'Aubuisson: ‘There are people who say he's been
dangerous, but he s been a political leader and I think he s behaved very
well.' Within days of the elections. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas
Fnders said that D'Aubuisson. barred from entering the United States
since May 1980. would be allowed to enter and meet with US
policymakers in the future.'^'
This rehabilitation of Major D'Aubuisson. the man who had

probably orchestrated the death of Archbishop Romero and whom ex-
Ambassador White had more than once called a“pathological killer”.
was essential to save the US policy makers' face when the elections they
made so much of ousted Duarte from the Presidency and put
D'Aubuisson at the head of the Constituent Assembly. On 22 April
D'Aubuisson was duly elected President of the Constituent Assembly
and thus gained control of what was arguably the most powerful
position outside the army high command. The largely symbolic
provisional presidency went to the relatively unknown Alvaro Magana,
described as "a banker with close ties to the military".In practice.
D'Aubuisson and Magana apparently got on quite well together (in
spite of Magana having been called a "Communist” and “little Jew” in
ARENA leaflets before the elections) as. indeed, did all the parties of the
right, to the discomfiture of the Christian Democrats who. within days
of the assembly's first sitting, saw their moderate reformist initiatives
reversed.'^’* In the government which emerged, the key Cabinet posts of
Agriculture, Foreign Commerce and Economics went to ARENA;
General Jose Garcia, of course, remained in command of the army as
Minister of Defense, and the Christian Democrats were offered the
minor Ministries of Labour and Education (largely inactive since 1980)
and the Foreign Ministry. Despite the reversal of their steps toward
reform during their uneasy alliance with the military, the Christian
Democratic followers of Duarte chose to maintain some semblance of
power, and Fidel Chavez Mena agreed to stay on as Foreign Minister,
responsible for defending policies and practices which were anathema
to his party's ideology and political platform.
Despite the humiliation of Duarte and the Christian Democrats, the
US. which had hoped they would emerge in a stronger position, was
obliged to lay emphasis on the fact that elections had been held at all
and to extol the new regime's "moderation”. In fact Major D'Aubuisson's
stated views on how to deal with the guerrillas — no negotiations and no
quarter — differed little from the US position; although the Major's
unfavourable image in the US media did constitute a problem. But all
could be arranged.
As newspaper columnist Mary McGrory put it, the Reagan
296
administration was "beguiled by his anti-communist fanaticism" and

"learning to love the charismatic killer in the elevator boots..adding
that:
Eltorts are now being made to change his image. The firm of McCann-
Erickson. which handled his campaign, is probably engaged for the
public relations aspect ot d'Aubuisson's forthcoming visit here... During
his visit, he will be heavily chaperoned and instructed to speak only from
official texts.'^-''
The exclusion of the major opposition groups, the irregularities in the

voting, the questionable count, and the army's wholehearted support for
ARENA and the rump of the PCN. reduced the 28 March 1982 elections
to a costly exercise to ratify the course of the military government. The
major impact of the elections was felt outside the country, where they
were used to justify US aid; the high turnout reported in the official
statistics was taken as a rejection of the Frente, and. of course, a show of
support for the regime. Liberal US congressmen's threats to cut off aid if
the elections led to a worsening of the repression were sloughed off; aid
“will continue in any case" was Ambassador Hinton's reaction to
criticism of the election results.'^^ The elections had served their real
purpose admirably; to still, for a time, congressional misgivings about
sending aid to a barbaric regime. The opposition's failure to obstruct the
elections was. moreover, taken as a sign of their weakness, although
both the FDR and the FMLN had gone on record as promising they
would not attempt to disrupt the election process itself'^^ President
Reagan's 8 June 1982 speech on the elections to the British Parliament
was a model of disinformation; “On election day the people of El
Salvador, an unprecedented (1.5 million] of them, braved ambush and
gunfire, trudging miles to vote for freedom."'^^
It was not the first time facts were massaged in order to present the
opposition as lacking popular support. The guerrillas' first "final
offensive", and the general strike of July 1981 were both characterized
by United States apologists as total failures in the same way:
... the left launched a 'final offensive' to bring down the government. An
estimated 6.()()() guerrillas, armed by the whole gamut of East-Bloc and
Soviet-aligned Third World countries, fought major battles in Chala-
tenango. Morazan. La Union and Santa Ana... Calls for a general strike
went unheeded ... lack of support for the so-called final offensive ... led
[the guerrillas] to change tactics. For the first time, the opposition called
for a negotiated settlement to the conflict.'^*^
The offensive had. in fact been moderately successful, if not final,

and the strike was indeed heeded by the vast majority of the urban
population; its only failure was that it was not an insurrection; and there
297
Coiinfer-Insurgencv and Civil War
was no apparent change in the opposition s position on negotiations.

What had changed was the nature of the propaganda war. The United
States’ media offensive scored a success in portraying the opposition as
a minority force, minimizing their popular support and representing
the offensive and strike action's failure to overthrow the government as
a sign the US was supporting a popular regime. The campaign also
served to destroy all chance of negotiations (interested Senators
“rounded up only 14 co-sponsors for a bill that would mandate
negotiations as a condition for further US military or financial
aid").'^"
The denial of even a modicum of popular support for the opposition
repeatedly proved successful in garnering temporary political support
for intervention, but led ultimately to policy failures. The tendency to
interpret the results of government coercion as proof of popular support
for that government (the defeat of a general offensive, or crushing of a
general strike), like so many other aspects of the Salvadorean conflict,
has a direct parallel in the US experience in Vietnam. In the 196()s the
turnout for the 1967 Vietnamese elections, and the failure of the Tet
offensive to achieve total victory were cited as proof that the NLF simply
had no support. A 16 January 1969 CIA "National Intelligence
Estimate" described the population's failure to rise en masse during the
Tet offensive, and having turned out to vote in 1967, as proof of support
for the government:
there are . . . some general indicators of progress in this phase of

pacification. First, there was an impressive turnout of voters in the
national elections of 1967; even allowing for some coercion and
dishonesty, this suggests that a large part of the rural population is at least
partially responsive (to the Government of Vietnam]. Second, the rural
and urban masses conspicuously failed to rise up and support the VC
during the Tet offensive.’*^'
Although a top secret intelligence analysis prepared for top policy

makers only, the "National Intelligence Estimate" might well have been
prepared by the US Information Agency for a press release. It told the
policy makers what they wanted to hear, and decisions were taken on
the basis of wishful thinking.
Counter-Terror Escalates
The massive inlJux of military equipment and supplies, training,

advisory and technical support provided by the United States to El
Salvador after the October 1979 coup was programmed explicitly for the
implementation of a counter-insurgency doctrine virtually unchanged
from the 1960s. The new military resources were thrown into a counter-
298
insurgency offensive whieh began in the first months of 1980; its main
feature was a massive escalation of counter-terror assassinations and
executions directed against the insurgents' supposed collaborators and
sympathizers. Confrontation with the insurgents themselves was a
lesser concern. Killings of non-combatants believed to be the insurgents'
base of support far surpassed the number of combatants' deaths in the
civil war.
Initially, the exeeution of counter-terror after October 1979 differed
little from that under the Romero government; the difference was
essentially one of scale. More demonstrators were shot by rooftop
snipers, more trade union and political party activists were dragged
from their homes and murdered, more known leaders of church and
peasant organizations were the targets of selective assassination or
detention and summarv' execution. Detentions and killings proliferated
throughout the country during 1980. Selective night raids by small units
accounted for scores of“death-squad" killings each week in towns and
cities, while rural counter-insurgency sweeps designed to clear the
guerrillas from rural areas resulted in thousands of deaths. The
escalation of the killing, by the regular army — in addition to the police
services — necessitated some change in the army officers' own
conception of their military role. The counter-insurgency war after
October 1979 was to require the conversion of all the Salvadorean
army's commanding officers to the single-minded execution of a policy
of mass counter-terror.
Before 1979 the army was the executor of government violence
through its institutional control of the Presidency and the Ministry of
Defense and Public Security, as well as the appointment of active duty
army officers to command the paramilitary corps. The “death-squad"
killings, breaking up demonstrations, and the sporadic rural security
operations of the 1970s were, however, generally delegated to the
security services and ORDEN irregulars, and not to regular army units.
In the aftermath of the 1977 elections, this pattern began to change, but
changed decisively and comprehensively only after the purge of
"progressive" army officers in early 1980. By the end of 1980, regional
army garrisons' personnel were no longer kept away from police
operations, but served in much the same capacity in “counter-terror
operations as did the paramilitary police and irregular forces. Regular
army units were deployed as assassination squads and were integrated
with police and irregular forces for certain counter-insurgency operations
— a development not altogether welcomed by young army officers most
closely associated with the reform proposals made at the time of the
October 1979 coup.
Ex-Salvadorean army Captain Juan Erancisco Emilio Mena Sandoval
a supporter of the 1979 coup, has testified that the growth of involvement
by units of the regular army in mass killings of non-combatants
reflected a policy change of the army high command after Januaiy 1980.
299
He attributed the new policy largely to Defense Minister Colonel Garcia

and his National Guard Director Colonel Vides Casanova, both of
whom, he maintained, were the real power behind the junta, and
engineered the progressive neutralization of Colonel Majano and his
followers. The new development, initiated in the first months of 1980,
was the direct deployment of the army in the escalation of counter¬
terror, coinciding with the purge of, or measures to compromise, reformist
officers. Young, inexperienced officers were obliged to participate in
atrocities, to bloody their hands to ensure that none could subsequently
claim innocence and accuse others of misconduct, and "if the tactic of
corrupting the young officers failed, they and their families would be
threatened".
Captain Mena Sandoval, who defected to the guerrillas in January
1981, dated the change in policy at the Second Infantry Battalion based
in Santa Ana to the replacement of its "Majanista" (reformist)
commander in early 1980 by old-guard Colonel Servio Tulio Figueroa:-
With the agreement of Col. Figueroa, the forces of the Second Battalion
were to work directly with the security forces in the Santa Ana area, and
with them they began the wave of killings in cold blood that were to
corrupt the Second Battalion... The troops from the Battalion began to go
on midnight or dawn patrols around the middle of last year (1980). and
each time would drag defenseless people from their houses. The bodies of
the victims would always appear on the street the next day... The number
of verified killings passed one thousand, and sometimes there were so
many bodies that we had to order them thrown out in other areas to avoid
a scandal. Sometimes up to forty or fifty killings were carried out each
night.'*'*-^
In 1979, the Second Battalion had been a stronghold of the Military

Youth Movement but was progressively corrupted as all officers and
men were obliged to participate in the murders. Captain Mena
Sandoval quotes Colonel Figueroa as saying "I am myself more than
compromised and anointed. And so we must all be anointed."'''^'*
Mena Sandoval was not the only insider to denounce army participa¬
tion in death-squad murders. In April 1981 Salvadorean army officer and
doctor Captain Ricardo Alejandro Fiallos testified before the US
Congress that he was forced to leave El Salvador in December 1980:
after having received anonymous death threats for criticizing high military
command and the directors of the security forces for their lack of
professionalism and for their role in perpetrating atrocities against the
civilian population.'*^''
Captain Fiallos. who subsequently sought asylum in the United States,

further asserted that:
300
It is a grievous error to believe that the forces of the extreme right, of the so-
called "Death Squads", operate independent of the security forces. The
simple truth of the matter is that "Los Escuadrones de la Miicrte" are made up
of members of the security forces, and acts of terrorism credited to these
squads such as political assassinations, kidnappings, and indiscriminate
murder are. in fact, planned by high-ranking militai^ ofilcers and carried
out by members of the security forces. 1 do not make this statement lightly,
but with full knowledge of the role which the high militaiy command and
the directors of the security forces have played in the murder of countless
numbers of innocent people in my country. .
Former AIFLD associate Leonel Gomez, chief adviser to Rodolfo

Viera, gave a more schematic account of the army high command's
responsibiliw for the "death squad" killings, whether committed by units
of the regular army and paramilitary police or by irregular civilian forces
directed by the army. Gomez, who fled El Salvador alter Viera's
assa.ssination in January 1981, testifying before the House of Representa¬
tives Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs in March 1981, ridiculed
the "myth . . . propagated by your State Department, [that there] is a
difference between the army, which is good, and the security forces, which
are bad".'^^ Gomez affirmed that a well unified officer corps directed the
security serv ices in a considered, co-ordinated policy of extermination;
The primary institution of the armed forces is the officer corps: five hundred
men. most all ofwhom attended the same military school. In many cases an
officer will be rotated from one serv ice to another. The tactors that bind
officers together from different services, especially the tandas. are greater
than those which separate them. In summai7. there is an integrated officer
corps. If its leadership Imly wanted to eliminate substantially the abuses
now occurring it could. But remember, it doesn't The army is bent on a war
to exterminate all possible challenges to its power.'^^
Most significantly, the point is made that the army itself as an

institution, was responsible for the vast majority of the killings in El
Salvador, and not the police, or renegade civilians.
In each military region, the army commander is responsible tor the

activ ities of the army. Through the chain ofcommand and the informal ties,
he knows which forces are doing what and which soldiers are a part ol
formal or informal death squads... The vast majority ot killings are made in
sweeps in the countryside by the armed forces engaging in indiscriminate
killings or by death squads that operate under the formal or intormal
direction of the regional or local army commanders. Let me be clear. 1 am
talking about the majority of the army officers now in charge. There are
some, especially younger officers, who are revolted and shocked at what is
tioing on. . . The problem is not the oligarchy. . . Noi is the problem the
301
so-called security forces or the death squads; both trace back to and are
commanded by the army.'*^*^
Leonel Gomez' testimony concludes with a warning that the army s

reliance on terror was progressively eroding popular support, even
among its natural allies:
The killings by the army have traumatized the Salvadorean people. One is
very cautious about rising up against the government when one has seen
bodies of people sawed in half, bodies placed alive in battery acid or
bodies with every bone broken. I saw all those things last year. And I know
who did it. and so do the Salvadorean people. So now we will wait and just
try to survive, but we will remember. That is why the army must eventually
lose.'*^’'
Before and after the October 1979 coup, statistics on non-combatant

civilians reported killed by government security forces — military and
paramilitary — were published on a weekly or monthly basis, by the
Legal Aid office of the Archbishopric of San Salvador (Socorro Juridico)
and the independent Commission of Human Rights of El Salvador
(Comision de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador (CDHES)).'*^'
JKs, Socorro Juridico’s and CDHES’s findings do not radically differ it
is sufficient to cite Socorro Juridico's statistics to illustrate the change
over time in El Salvador’s programme of political murder. Socorro
Juridico documented 1.030 cases of non-combatant civilians murdered
in 1979 as a result of political repression, either shot down in the street
while demonstrating, in the countryside in army raids on their villages,
or killed after detention by government forces. In the course of 1980 the
figure rose to 8.062 non-combatant civilians killed on government
authority. In 1981 the figure jumped to 13.353.''^- The real total of such
deaths may have been as much as twice those reported: deaths in the
countryside generally went uncounted, and relatives of "death-squad"
victims in town and countiy often preferred silence to the risk of
drawing assassins to their own doors.
A study of the methodology of human rights reporting in El Salvador,
prepared by the US-backed America's Watch, concluded that Socorro
Juridico's figures “tended to be conservative because its standards of
confirmation were stricf'; deaths and "disappearances" of civilians
were registered only where they could be sufficiently documented as
"not combat-related".''^^ Similarly, reports of massacres of large
numbers of people were not accepted at face value; evidence was
required on individual cases, possibly leading to a considerable under¬
reporting of the death toll in isolated areas. An example was the possible
killing of over 1.000 peasants during a counter-insurgency sweep in the
area of El Mozote in the department of Morazan in December 1981.
reported in Socorro Juridico's bulletin with the qualification that the
302
office lacked “sufficient evidence to compile an accurate body count,

(and) did not include the estimated deaths in its tabulations".''*'' In
contrast to the Socorro Juridico's scholarly reporting standards the US
Embassy, according to the America's Watch study, was found to have
made only superficial efforts to collect information on human rights
problems and. more seriously, to have been guilty of consistent
distortion in failing to attribute individual killings to the security
forces.''*''
The quantum leap in summary e.xecutions of non-combatants from
1,030 in 1979 to 8.062 in 1980 was followed by a further leap in the death
toll to 2.644 in the single month of January 1981.''*^ Socorro Juridico
noted that a new pattern of killings began after 12 January 1981. when
martial law and a curfew were declared (to the maintained until 15
October 1981). A total of 2.173 individuals was reported killed during
curfew hours over a six month period; many were taken from their
homes in the dead of night by uniformed security personnel and later
found killed. At least 400 other people detained by security personnel
during curfew hours were never seen again, and were registered as
"disappeared".
Salvadorean human rights monitors also recorded a significant
increase in the number of unidentifiable bodies found after January
1981. Faces were disfigured by acid, or obliterated by automatic weapon
fire or machete cuts; or bodies were headless. A major increase in
decapitations was reported in Socorro Juridico registering 379
cases between June and August in which a guillotine-like instrument
had apparently been used.''*^ In the same period, the press reported that
machinery in a Santa Ana meat-packing plant had been used on scores
of headless bodies found in and around the city. The beheadings were
seemingly intended both to sow terror and to prevent identification of
the victims.''*'' Monthly totals of counter-terror killings remained high
throughout 1981. although the figures indicated lulls in the killings at
regular six-monthly intervals. These six month periods coincided with a
US government human rights reporting calendar; the US congress
required the President to provide a bi-annual “certification" that
progress was being made in human rights observance as a condition for
further aid. And so President Reagan swore ritually, every six months,
that progress was being made in “bringing under control" the
Salvadorean “death squads"; and indeed there was a decrease observed
by Socorro Juridico from 934 non-combatants killed in June to 546 in
July, and from 820 in November to 395 in December 1981.''*'* In this first
full year of sharply increased military aid to El Salvador, with US
military advisers on the ground, the death toll was conservatively
estimated at 13.353 non-combatant civilians killed by Salvadorean
government forces.
In 1982. Socorro Juridico received reports of fewer killings of non-
combatants; 5.976. Its successor as the Archbishopric’s official monitoring
303
office, Tutela Legal (Legal Assistance), reported information on 5,399 for

the year. A pattern similar to 198rs, in relation to the US human rights
certification timetable, can again be discerned, suggesting a capacity to
rein in the counter-terror programme when political expediency so
demanded.-'"’ Although the reported death toll was lower than the
previous year, the actual number of deaths may well have increased as
the focus of counter-terror operations shifted from urban centres to
isolated rural areas. There it was more difficult, or impossible for San
Salvador-based human rights monitors to verify individual deaths.-'”
Witnesses or suiwivors of the 1982 and 1983 rural counter-insurgency
sweeps, confirm that counter-terror’s relatively selective nature in the
cities (with many victims targetted because of their past trade union,
political party, church or other “subversive activity) has. in rural
counter-insurgency operations, yielded to the wholesale massacre of
entire communities in areas where the residents are presumed to
support the guerrillas.
Despite the limitations under which human rights monitoring
laboured, Socorro Juridico and Tutela Legal registered over 40.000
individual killings of non-combatant civilians between October 1979
and mid-1983; this figure does not include those who "disappeared", the
immense majority of whom can be presumed dead. Reported murders
for the first two months of 1983 averaged almost 500; January 430;
February 537.-''-
The Archbishopric's Tutela Legal also collected reports on killings
attributed to the guerrillas, providing figures of some interest in
assessing the responsibility for mass murder in El Salvador's small
society. Between May 1982, when Tutela Legal began recording guerrilla
killings out of combat, and December of the same year, the office had
obtained information on 40 such cases.-”-^
The overall pattern of repression in El Salvador, and the application of
mass counter-terror in particular, is neither chaotic nor uncontrolled.
After October 1979, as in the 1970s, many victims were openly members
of legal trade union, professional, religious, political or other above¬
board organizations. Eor example, the leadership of the teachers' union.
ANDES, was publicly elected, its membership known, and Ministry of
Education — as well as Ministry of Labour — data on local union
committee members could easily provide an index to potential “death-
squad" targets. As of23 June 1982 ANDES had documented the“death-
squad” murder of 258 of its members in the previous four years,
the abduction of 67 (58 of whom remain “disappeared") and stated that
6,000 of its members had received death threats.-''” Understandably,
many former ANDES activists have gone into hiding, and many have
joined the guerrillas, arguably their only option to avoid slaughter.
Other hard hit sectors, equally open, were members of trade unions
perceived as “subversive" because of their 1970s corporate membership
in such mass organizations as theBloque Popular, and religious activists
304
involved in selt-help classes in urban slum areas and other progressive

church programmes. These and others classified as “subversives” —
lawyers, journalists, political party leaders or organizers, peasant
leaders — could be spotted by collating lists from various ministries and
police and military intelligence Hies.
A very large proportion, perhaps the vast majority, of the victims of
mass counter-terror in El Salvador, have been peasant farmers or farm
workers. Killings began with the more or less selective elimination of the
leaders or activists ot the rural organizations long regarded with dismay
by the 1960s and 1970s military governments.
Counter-terror operations launched in early 1980. later expanded
progressively from selective assassination to include the population of
entire villages, or even whole zones previously held by the guerrillas,
where the people were collectively labelled as guerrilla collaborators. Of
the 13,353 civilians murdered and accounted for in Socorro Juridico's
register for 1981, 6,106 were identified as peasants-"-^ although, as
already noted, deaths in the countryside are considerably under¬
reported.
The strategy of killing suspected guerrilla sympathizers was reported
not only by anti-government sources and human rights organizations,
but by Salvadorean civilians and others who supported the programme.
A report based on an interview with a former US Marine employed as a
"mercenary" in El Salvador described the killings as the “essential
strategy” of the war:
.. . there is a striking difference between news reports of the El Salvador

war and what actually takes place in the field.
The difference is the target of attack. The army is not killing communist
guerrillas, despite what is reported', he said. 'It is murdering the civilians
who side with them'.
'It's a beautiful technique’, Lawrence Bailey said. ‘By terrorizing
civilians, the army is crushing the rebellion without the need to directly
confront the guerrillas', he said.
Bailey contends that the massacres of civilians are not scattered human
rights abuses in an otherwise traditional war.
'Attacking the civilians is the game plan', he said. From the talks he has
had with others in his political camp in El Salvador, and from what he has
seen in the field, the strategy is clear. 'Kill the sympathizers, and you win
the war'. .
Later in the same interview the former marine contended that:
... 'human rights' talk clouds the issue. The murders are not a peripheral
matter to be cleaned up while the war continues, but rather, the essential
strategy.
305
He also maintains the strategy is extremely successful: . . because of

this policy. El Salvador is one war the communists are bound to
lose!"-*’^
Some of the most eloquent examples of the move from selective
assassination to massacre have occurred in the context of the mass
population movements along the Honduran border. In this area would-
be refugees fleeing from counter-insurgency sweeps have been mown
down by helicopter gunships and ground troops while attempting to
cross the Sumpul and Lempa rivers. The lirst major massacre of this
nature to come to light (others may have gone unreported in this heavily
militarized area) took place on the Sumpul river, near the Salvadorean
hamlet of La Arada. on 14 May 1980 when several thousand refugees,
mostly women and small children, sought to cross the river into
Honduras. Turned back by Honduran army gunfire hundreds were
slaughtered on the river banks and in mid-stream by massed gunfire
from Salvadorean troops and at least two helicopters. This massacre
was reported by the clergy of the Honduran parish of Santa Rosa de
Copan whose Bishop issued a statement denouncing the killing of at
least 600 defenceless Salvadoreans in the incident:
At least 600 unhuried corpses were prey for dogs and buzzards for several
days. Others were lost in the waters of the river. A Honduran fisherman
found the bodies of five little children in his fish trap.-*'^
There was a similar incident on the Lempa river on 18 March 1981

when from 4-8.000 Salvadoreans (mostly women and children) fleeing
the department of Cabanas were caught between Honduran and
Salvadorean troops. At least 189 were confirmed as "disappeared";
many others were confirmed dead.
According to eyewitness testimony by survivors, doctors, priests, and

relief personnel present at the scene, the Salvadorean Air Force dropped
bombs and helicopters [and] strafed them as the army fired mortars and
machine-gun rounds.-***^
In a second Sumpul river massacre on 31 May 1982 during an army

“clearance” sweep through the department of Chalatenango. some 2.000
refugees were attacked near Los Amates. Several hundred were
reportedly killed by gunfire from troops and helicopter gunships.-'®
Another massacre or series of massacres occurred during major
“clearance" operations in the last four months of 1981, in the
departments of Cabanas and Morazan. Authorities claimed to have
killed 132 guerrillas in one operation which lasted from 20 to 29 October
1981, near the south-eastern bank of the Lempa river. Their version was
flatly contradicted by detailed reports from witnesses of the operation
and by human rights monitors:
306
Socorro Jundico documentation shows that this operation resulted in the

murder of forty-four minors, the capture and murder of ten family groups,
and the murder of thirty-three women. A total of 147 noncombatants were
either killed by the security forces or taken away by them. People in the
area saw corpses floating down the river after the operation, a
phenomenon that the armed forces e.xplained by claiming that‘a number
of terrorists crossing the river in boats had been sunk. . . According to
testimony given to Socorro Juridico, |the operation] involved members of
the elite Atlacatl Battalion trained by US personnel in El Salvador.-"
Some ot the most widely reported massacres of non-combatant

civilians occurred on the Honduran border, where survivors and
witnesses could subsequently give first person accounts from Honduras.
Others took place in the course of “clearance" operations — described
as sweeps, “cleansing" campaigns, or “cleanups" — in guerrilla
strongholds in the country. In these operations the victims were not only
residents caught fleeing but peasants who chose to remain in their
villages because they thought they had nothing to fear from the
government forces. The intention was no longer to admonish the
population by picking off the rural leaders, but to “clear"' the area of an
untrustworthy population by wholesale killings, and by driving the
survivors into internal refugee camps where they could virtually be held
prisoner. The evidence on clearance operations in some areas suggested
an intent to kill as many inhabitants as possible in targetted villages,
and to kill entire families, so that children did not grow up to avenge
their parents.
A delegation of three US congressmen that visited El Salvador told a
congressional committee in February 1981 that Salvadorean army
officers had informed them that clearance operations responded to the
guerrillas' own tactics:
‘The subversives like to say they are the fish and the people are the ocean.
What we have done in the north is to dry up the ocean so we can catch the
fish easily'. According to the delegates' testimony, however, the army is
"drying up the ocean' by endeavoring'to eliminate entire villages from the
map. . .
Precisely these tactics were used in a series of clearanee operations, in

Cabanas and Morazan departments, in the seeond half of 1981,
undertaken by departmental commanders in collaboration with the
first Salvadorean army battalion to be created from scratch by US
funding and training, the Atlacatl Battalion. In Cabanas department
major operations in August and November were directed by newly
appointed departmental commander Lieutenant-Colonel Sigfrido
Ochoa, who would subsequently be praised by US military mission
chief Colonel Wagglestein as the most suecessful regional eommander
307
Counter-Insurgency and Civil iVar
and a model counter-insurgent. A description ot a clearance operation

in the department of Cabanas in November 1981 was provided in
testimony to the US congress by an American graduate student
Philippe Bourgeois — who was caught up in the sweep and fled for 14
days with local villagers before reaching Honduras.-'-^ The offensive
began on 11 November, when some 1.200 troops reportedly spear¬
headed by the Atlacatl Battalion moved into the area with air support
from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The accounts of Phillipe
Bourgeois and other witnesses suggest that the objective of the operation
was to liquidate the population of the ten villages in the area:
... for the next fourteen days. I fled with the local population as we were
subjected to aerial bombardment, artillery fire, helicopter strafing, and
attack by Salvadoran foot soldiers. In retrospect it appears as if the
Salvadoran government troops had wanted to annihilate all living
creatures (human and animal) within the confines of the 30 square mile
area.-'"*
In a press statement published on 20 November Defense Minister

General Garcia described the operation as one of the most successful of
the war. and claimed 152 guerrillas had been killed. There were
no prisoners.-'-'^
A similar clearance operation in the department of Morazan. from 8
to 21 December 1981, involved some 3,000 troops of both army and other
security forces, including paramilitary irregulars. The main strike force
was, once again, the US trained Atlacatl Battalion. Survivors' accounts
indicated the death of over 1.000 civilians in nine hamlets in the
northern part of the department; Los Toriles. La Joya. Manguera. Cerro
Pando. Mozote. La Capilla. Lajitas. Soledad and Arambala.-'^
Initial information described only the destruction of El Mozote and the
annihilation of its inhabitants, with the Washington Post (January 1982)
quoting a lone survivor. 38 year old Rufina Amaya, who described the
systematic, dispassionate murder of El Mozote's residents. The New
York Times ran a similar account reporting people from neighbouring
villages' discovery of piles of as many as 40 corpses in El Mozote.
children with their throats cut. machine-gunned and burned, and
pregnant women with their stomachs slashed open.-''
According to Rufina Amaya the troops arrived on 11 December about
5:00 am. rounded up the villagers from their homes, and methodically
killed them. Some of the bodies were burned;
The men were locked in the church, the women and children in a house.
At noon, the men were blindfolded and killed in the town's center. .Among
them was Amaya's husband, who was nearly blind. In the early afternoon
the young women were taken to the hills nearby, where they were raped,
then killed and burned. The old women were taken next and shot. Of the
308
killings Amaya told a North American reporter The soldiers had no fury.
They just observed the lieutenant's orders. |A Lieutenant Ortega, whom
she identified from a previous military sweep through the area.) They
were cold. From her hiding place, Amaya heard soldiers discuss choking
the children to death; suhsec]uently she heard the children calling for
help, but no shots. Among the children murdered were three of Amaya's,
all under ten years of age.-'*^
Some time later, after guerrilla forces had retaken the area it was
revealed that massacres took place not only at El Mozote, but also in
eight other neighbouring villages.-''^ By March 1982 Socorro Juridico had
sutticient evidence to estimate the total number of dead in the area as
over 1,000. Survivors had compiled a list of more than 700 bodies and
reported many so badly disfigured that they could not be identified:
among those identified many were members of Protestant evangelical
sects “who believed that their neutrality and religion protected them".--"
Socorro Juridico observêd that most of the dead were elderly, or women
and children, and that of 217 bodies whose identities the office had
confirmed 97 were children under 14 years of age.--'
The American Embassy sent two staff members to “investigate" the
reports of the Morazan massacres; although the investigation was
limited to an overflight of the area at some 2,000 feet, more than a month
after the reported massacres, this was sufficient for Assistant Secretary
of State Thomas Enders to testify that evidence of a massacre had not
been found.--- US congressmen who investigated the reports in early
1982. however, found the evidence available fully convincing; Repre¬
sentative Thomas Harkin told a congressional hearing of his conviction
after visiting El Salvador:
I have no doubt that a massacre of some scale did occur in El Mozote in

December 1981. I also have no doubt that elements of the Atlacatl
Brigade, a rapid deployment unit with an earlier reputation for paying
more attention to human rights, were involved in the massacre.---^
A similar operation — lasting ten days — was carried out in

Chalatenango department at the end of May and beginning of June
1982. It was described as a successful “cleanup” operation by its
commander, who claimed that 135 guerrillas had been killed, while,
conversely. FMLN spokesmen claimed up to 600 civilians had been
massacred during the operation.--'' The apparent massacre is of
particular relevance because, once more, it was carried out by the
Atlacatl Battalion, this time in collaboration with two other US trained
battalions, one of them recently returned from training in Eort Bragg; it
was described as an exercise in US counter-insurgency tactics;--'' and
Atlacatl's commander. Lieutenant-Colonel Domingo Monterrosa. did
not deny civilians had been killed but in a press briefing, justified those
309
deaths. He informed the press that 12 guerrilla camps had been

destroyed, although the “vast majority” of the estimated 800 guerrillas
had probably escaped the area into Honduras “or Joined refugees
remaining in El Salvador after hiding their rifles".-'^ With regard to
civilian deaths, he stated:
It is natural that in these subversive redoubts the armed men are not there
alone, that is to say ... they need their "masses" — women, old people, or
children, including the children who are messengers, or the wives, and
they are all mixed up with the subversives themselves, with the armed
ones... if s natural that there were a series of people killed, some without
weapons, including some women, and I understand some children, in the
crossfire between them and us.--^
This version of how women and children were killed - “in the crossfire”
— did not accord with the survivors' testimonies, nor with the findings
of those who examined the bodies. The US State Department, however,
supported Colonel Monterrosa's disclaimer and went so far as to blame
the guerrillas for their inefficiency in failing to get civilians out of the
area before they were attacked:
The commander of the Atlacatl Battalion stated to members of the US

press that some noncombatant civilians occasionally die during combat
operations. The Embassy agrees with this statement. All too frequently
guerrillas, who routinely travel with civilian sympathizers and who
usually have advance warning of impending military operations, do not
take adequate measures to remove their noncombatant civilians to secure
'>'>X
areas.—''
In any case the massacres did not harm Colonel Monterrosa's

reputation as an effective counter-insurgent commander. Over a year
later, in November 1983. he was still in command of the Atlacatl
Battalion and once again called upon to explain its involvement in the
deaths of some 100 civilians during another “cleanup” operation.
Acknowledging that civilians had. in fact, been killed (after foreign
correspondents had confirmed massacres on visiting the area in
question), he responded to allegations that his men had murdered
children by suggesting that the dead children were guerrillas:
Once you have seen several 12-year-olds in action, you can no longer
dismiss the possibility that any 12-year-old may be a guerrilla.--'^
While Colonel Monterrosa did not openly admit that civilians were
murdered, his statements tend to confirm that civilians, including
children, found in guerrilla-dominated areas are considered part of the
guerrillas' “masses” which must be eliminated in order to dry up the sea
310
in which the guerrilla fish swim. Similarly, groups ofinternal or external

refugees are presumed to conceal insurgents — thus the raids on refugee
camps and the frequently expressed suspicion that the refugees are not
bona fide refugees, but guerrillas.
The highest death toll has been reported from rural areas undergoing
clearance operations, but arbitrary detentions followed by summary
executions are continually reported throughout the country. These
killings have been carried out by regular army troops working out of
local garrisons, by paramilitary police forces, and by civilian irregulars
based in their home communities.
In one well documented case of urban “counter-terror" which took
place under the noses of the international press on 31 January 1983, only
days after the Reagan administration had certified there had been
progress in respect for human rights in El Salvador, the army killed 17
men and three women in the suburb of San Antonio Abad. The official
story was that the deaths had occurred in an armed clash; even
President Duarte claimed they had occurred in a “battle". Evidence
readily available to the news media made nonsense of the government’s
account and supported neighbours’ claims that the victims had been
dragged from their homes and killed in cold blood.
... A diplomat who studied the bodies found that 17 of them had been shot
in the head at point-blank range, and that three of them showed signs of
torture. Many were in their nightclothes or partially dressed, as if
awakened from sleep. The people died, in twos and threes, in scattered
locations around the fringe of the neighborhood, not in one place.--^*’
On 2 March 1982 congressman Thomas Markin’s testimony to the

House Inter-American Affairs committee, reporting on the findings of a
bipartisan congressional delegation to El Salvador that had investi¬
gated the massacre, added fresh evidence gathered by the US Embassy
itself:
The embassy sent an investigator to the morgue. He saw seventeen bodies.

Most of these people had been shot in the back of the head and the
investigator reported that some had powder burns clearly around each
bullet hole, indicating the people had been shot at very close range... the
evidence in this case is overwhelming. The first Brigade of the Salvadoran
army carried out a massacre of unarmed people in San Antonio
Abad.-^'
The Salvadorean people themselves never doubted that such massacres

were government policy, they were only surprised that they would carry
one out when the capital was teeming with foreign correspondents, and
make such a clumsy effort to cover it up:
311
'I can't understand how people who are fairly intelligent can do things with
such lack of finesse,' a San Salvador intellectual said, referring to the army
leadership. 'Their policy is to go out and annihilate civilians who help the
guerrillas. Thafs what they do. And then they always say there was a fight It
doesn't matter that the people were killed in their underwear.'-'*-
The Salvadorean military’s indifference to what people think about

their tactics placed the job of public relations largely with the United
States. The US government was well prepared for such a responsibility.
A “Dissent Paper on El Salvador and Central America”, allegedly
prepared by professionals within the US foreign policy establishment
who disagreed with Central America policy, was published anonymously
in November 1980, and described two categories of calculated public
relations activities related to US policy on Central America under
Carter.--'’-^ “Improving and protecting the international legitimacy and
prestige of the regime" was a principal objective, to be pursued by;
• Encouraging Salvadorean recruitment of moderate, reformist per¬

sonnel for diplomatic representation.
• Providing logistical support and orientation through US embassies
and missions.
• Actively encouraging increased diplomatic support from sympathetic
Latin American and other allied governments.
• Discouraging resolutions and other diplomatic initiatives critical of
current government or possibly contributing to the legitimation of
opposition forces.
• Activating mechanisms to disrupt opposition efforts to obtain
international support and legitimacy and to limit the impact of such
efforts.
• Creating favorable conditions for other countries' involvement in
support for US initiatives in the OAS and the UN in relation to the
situation in Central America.
• Closely monitoring and feeding US and world media coverage of the
region and publicizing widely US confidence in and support for
current process in El Salvador.^-^"*
While the monitoring and “feeding” of US and international news

media was one part of the campaign to establish the “legitimacy” of the
Salvadorean regime (and of US policy on El Salvador), a second line of
action was aimed specifically at convincing US public opinion and
lining up congress behind established policy. This objective was to be
achieved “through liaison and press relations efforts that emphasize”:
• A moderate and reformist image of the current government.

• US support for extensive but moderate reforms in the region as a
means to contain extremist and communist expansion.
312
• Linkages between opposition guerrilla groups in El Salvador and

Guatemala with Cuba.
• Discrediting centrist spokesmen of opposition as puppets of hardline
guerrilla leaders.
• Caretul monitoring ot US press coverage of developments in El
Salvador to avoid Nicaraguan style publicity for opposition
insurgents.
• Arranging regular closed session briefings for congressional com¬
mittees and key MC's [members of Congress] concerned with the
issue--
The Dissent Paper discusses specific ways in which media coverage was
infiuenced by Salvadorean and US authorities during 1980:
Infiuential US journalists have been banned from the country by threats

on their lives. Salvadorean government restrictions on visiting reporters
have kept a tight lid on many critical events in the past six months.
Informal signals to foreign desk editors during the electoral campaign
discouraged their interest in the region.--^^
The authors of the Dissent paper conclude that the effort to keep the
lid on public opinion regarding El Salvador, has, by and large been
successful. They make specific reference to the US policy of attributing
government violence to “extremists” out of their control;
. . . our efforts to emphasize the differences between the situation in El

Salvador today and the one prevailing in Nicaragua before July 1979 have
had an impact on public perceptions. Media coverage of El Salvador has
been responsive to official government policies: greater emphasis on US
interests in the region, continuous reference to Cuban involvement
understatement of the 'human rights' dimension, effective use of the
‘extremists of the right and the left’ formula. Therefore, the current
domestic environment is generally supportive of current policy as
articulated for public consumption.-^^
Reform Abandoned
The extinction of the agrarian reform was followed, in early 1983. by a

clash between middle-ranking regional troop commanders and Defense
Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia. Garcia's main antagonist was Colonel
Sigfrido Ochoa, in command of the operations in the department of
Cabanas.
Sigfrido Ochoa's close relations with ARENA party leader Major
Roberto D'Aubuisson and others representing the uncompromising far
right within the military, was one factor in the high command's attempt
313
in January 1983 to remove him by posting him as Military Attache to

Uruguay. This decision brought conflicts to a head between Defense
Minister Garcia and field commanders whose prestige with the US
military mission had outstripped their place in the military hierarchy,
such as Colonel Ochoa, a 40-year old officer praised by both the civdian
right and the US Military Group.-^
Backed by other field commanders, Ochoa refused to surrender his
command of the Sesuntepecjue garrison and instead demanded
Garcia’s resignation, claiming that he was corrupt and inept The
alignment of support for the two positions was unequal and General
Garcia, due to complete 30 years service in February, the mandatory
retirement period for army officers, showed no signs of going quietly.
The Central America newsletter This Week reported:
a large majority of the military districts and commanders sided with

Garcia... [Ochoa had the support] of the Air Force, led by his friend Col.
Rafael Bustillo, and the 1st Infantry Battalion commanded by another
hardliner. Col Adolfo Blandon. National Guard commander Col. Carlos
Vides Casanova, a man who shares Ochoa’s conservative views but not
his loner activism, tried, along with Blandon. Bustillo, and the chiefs of
the US-trained battalions, to mediate between the rebellious colonel and
Garcia, but the effort failed.-""’
The efforts at conciliation succeeded in so far as Colonel Ochoa was not

sent to Uruguay, and General Garcia was not forced to resign on the
spot. But the showdown was only postponed. On 13 April 1983, Air
Force commander Colonel Bustillo issued an ultimatum calling for
Garcia’s resignation within the week — this time with widespread
backing from the military high command and, apparently, the US.
Garcia duly resigned on 18 April and was replaced by General Carlos
Eugenio Vides Casanova.
American news commentators attributed the clash between field
officers and Defense Minister largely to differences over tactics. By the
end of 1982, unnamed US military advisers were frequently quoted as
having said that Garcia blocked their efforts to rationalize the
paramilitary defence forces and use "the guerrillas’ own tactics” by
sending out small, mobile patrols. In the words of the former head of the
military training group. Colonel John D. Wagglestein: “Youve got to
get your troops out into the bush looking for the gee’s [guerrillas], and
when you find’em, you’ve got to be able to pile on.”-"*'
General Garcia was depicted as a military bureaucrat with little
knowledge of appropriate counter-insurgency tactics, in contrast to
Colonel Ochoa and other younger officers. But there was a political
difference too between Garcia and the officers who sought to replace
him, including his eventual successor, 44-year old General Vides
Casanova. Garcia had been quite aware of the political necessity, if only
314
for international public relations purposes, of keeping the reform

programme extant while carrying out wholesale counter-unsurgency
campaign slaughter; the reform of the banking system and show-case
agrarian legislation — implemented or not — were quite acceptable to
Garcia as a means to an end, and, furthermore, were officially pushed
by the regime s US backers. Garcia was doubtless taken by surprise
when the tide turned against him and US influence favoured opponents
of reform who were also showcase proponents of the recommended
rriilitary tactics of counter-insurgency. That General Garcia was ousted
from his seemingly unshakeable position as Minister of Defense, was a
sign that the military's readiness to temper repression with reform was a
thing of the past and that external pressure from the United States was
insufficient to make even an appearance of reformism necessary to
retain the active support of the US. More to the point the military was
receiving mixed signals from the US; the Department of State,
concerned at the US congress' reaction urged some modicum of reform
be sustained, while the military mission backed the ascendancy of the
army's no compromise “counter-terror" experts in the Salvadorean
hierarchy.
Bustillos and Ochoa are representatives of ultra-right sectors in the

Salvadoran military thought to be aligned with Roberto D'Aubuisson ...
Garcia, the only cabinet minister to have held his post since the October
1979 coup ... has given lip service support to social reforms. Despite this,
the Reagan administration's increasing concern over the deteriorating
military situation in El Salvador in the past few months has led it to
withdraw its support for Garcia... The ‘new officer breed' represented by
Ochoa and Bustillos accept US recommendations for a vigorous
counterinsurgency campaign of the type employed by the US in Vietnam
(or by Gen. Efrai'n Rios Montt in neighboring Guatemala). This includes
the deployment of small combat units and continual military presence in
potential zones of combaL-'*-
When, in the second half of 1981, troops and paramilitary forces

under Colonel Ochoa's command were credited with clearing Cabanas
of major guerrilla forces, his reputation began to build up.'"*-^ As part of
the strategy, large areas were depopulated as suspect villagers were
killed, or fled towards San Salvador, or north across the border into
Honduras. Ochoa's troops first received international publicity when in
November 1981, during a major sweep operation they were observed
crossing into Honduras to drag suspects from refugee camps there. One
such raid, on the refugee camp of La Virtud, coincided with a visit by
celebrity-turned-activist Bianca dagger and US congressional aides who
intervened to stop the return of at least one refugee to probable death in
El Salvador.By mid-1982 members of the US military mission were
describing Ochoa in glowing terms to the press:
315
An intense 4()-year old professional soldier with sharp mestizo features

and yellow-brown eyes, Ochoa is pointed to by US advisers as their kind
of commander. . . Ochoa is one of the few who whole-heartedly has
adopted and adapted the classic counterinsurgency tactics on which
Washington is pinning its hopes for affordable military victories in El
Salvador.-'*-'’
In July 1982, the Washington Post described Colonel Ochoa as one of a

core of troop commanders who, with then chief of staff Colonel Rafael
Flores Lima, are “clearly favoured by the US Embassy”. Said to be
partisans of “small unit tactics, strongly advocated by the US’, these
officers were reportedly assisted in their advancement by the US
advisory mission and credited with something like professionalism:
“The idea is to make the army a neutral, stabilizing force interested
more in fighting effectively than political plotting."-'**’
Colonel Ochoa's background, however, hardly fitted the classic ideal
of the professional army officer implied by the US military mission,
although it did, according to the Washington Post, include attendance at
counter-insurgency courses given by Israeli trainers in 1976 and studies
in “political warfare" in Taiwan.-'*^ Like many other top Salvadorean
officers Ochoa's career included a stint of counter-insurgency dirty
work in a paramilitary police service — the notorious Treasury Police,
well-known for its ruthless political policing operations and described
by ex-Ambassador Robert White as “the worst offenders”.-'***
According to former army captain Francisco Emilio Mena Sandoval,
who went over to the opposition in 1981, then-Major Ochoa had
commanded the Treasury Police in Soyapango under the Romero
regime, and had ordered the systematic murder of political prisoners
and the shooting of the parish sacristan there on 16 October 1979.-'*'*
This seems borne out by the business newsletter This Week, reporting
Major Ochoa as one of the officers “fired" by Colonels Majano and
Gutierrez, on human rights grounds, immediately after the October
1979 coup. Ochoa’s reputation, according to the same source, was
acquired as a chief of the Treasury Police, in which post he was
“frequently accused of repressive acts”.--'’**
Ochoa was also distinguished as one of the regional commanders
best known for actively obstructing implementation of even limited
economic reform programmes. In early 1983. the American Institute for
Free Labor Development cited the Cabanas department as the prime
example of an area where “the philosophy and character of the local
military commander" strongly influenced the progress of agrarian
reform, and in which a commander “may have been quite successful in
his pursuit of the war. but in the area of land reform support he might be
a dismal failure”.-'’' AIFLD’s assessment provides a case in point of the
relative weight given by the US military mission to the military and
reform components of counter-insurgency strategy.
316
By mid-1982 Colonel Ochoa had been wholly rehabilitated in the

American press:
Lt. Col. Sigfredo Ochoa, an ambitious officer from the class of 1963-1964
who has been credited with clearing out rebel concentrations in Cabanas
province and who is often pointed out by US officials as the most
successful regional commander, once had a reputation as a rightisC"'-
The same Washington Post article describes Ochoa, Flores Lima and
others as a group “relatively free of corruption, who have not been
tainted by connections with rightist death squads".
Ochoa's high reputation with the US military mission was due, not so
much to his being free from corruption and untainted by death-squad
connections but to what was seen as his successful application of
counter-insurgency doctrine in Cabanas. A basic component of his
operation there, to which Ochoa himself attributed much of his success,
was the paramilitary network of “Civil Defense" groups in the area, in
strict accordance with US counter-insurgency doctrine. These para¬
military units reported regularly to a regional intelligence/command
centre, and operated at the local level under the direction and control of
the regional headquarters. According to Colonel Ochoa these units
were far from being the disorganized and impulsive free-lance
paramilitary forces often described when authorities sought to disclaim
accountability for their more violent actions. A Washington Post article
of June 1982 reports on an interview with Ochoa and describes his
campaign as highly organized:
He likes to give chalk talks on his techniques in a special map room at his
headquarters in the departmental capital of Sesuntepeque. Vast topo¬
graphic charts, an aerial photo and a kaleidoscopic array of arrows and
diagrams lay out operations and occupations in his corner of the
The role of the Civil Defense forces is stressed and their tight
organization revealed:
A major element in his formula for success, one generally not mentioned
by American advocates of the new tactics, is the most notorious adjunct of
the Army, the collection of local paramilitary informers and militias
called the Civil Defense... As cantonal patrols, as ‘military escorts', as the
now-disbanded group called ORDEN and currently as Civil Defense
units, they keep an eye on potential or imagined troublemakers and in
many areas they simply eliminate them.
Gesturing to a map polka-dotted with scores of green circles showing
armed paramilitary groups. Ochoa says. Sometimes they commit
abuses, but they are punished.'... Then he went on to his main point. All
317
these send us information,' he said, ‘such as where the guerrillas camp,

where they move, how, what is their modus operandi, do they have foreign
advisers and other intelligence necessary to exterminate insurgents.' As a
result of the information he received from the Civil Defense, Ochoa
staged three major operations in August and November.--'’^
The reticence of the US military advisers who praised Colonel Ochoa

as a model counter-insurgent officer with respect to the role of the “Civil
Defense" apparatus has significant historical precedents. In Vietnam,
the rote of the paramilitary forces raised to wage irregular warfare
remained largely unknown outside specialist circles. In El Salvador
itself, despite the fact that US civil and military assistance programmes
helped to set up ORDEN, security assistance officials, as late as 1977,
claimed to have no knowledge of its existence.^^^
American support for an expanded “Civil Defense” network in the
1980s was entirely in line with the 1960s counter-insurgency doctrine
already adopted and applied by the Salvadorean military. El Salvador’s
paramilitary network, the nominally disbanded ORDEN and its
various successors, were, like Guatemala's, already in place before the
United States backed the large scale counter-insurgency programmes of
the 1980s. Counter-insurgency theory expounded in Salvadorean
military magazines, as has been noted, incorporates the basic tenets of
US doctrine and adapts it to the particular circumstances of El
Salvador.
The US doctrinal concepts of “counter-organization" and “counter-
terror” (see Part 1) are adopted intact as the building blocks of the
Salvadorean counter-insurgency efforts. Articles published in Salva¬
dorean military magazines particularly emphasize the use of“guerrilla-
style organizations (counter-guerrillas)” which mimic the forms and
techniques of subversive guerrilla organizations. A basic tenet is that
conventional military organizations and methods cannot defeat
insurgency;
... the traditional army, even when provided with very well trained troops
and abundant war materiel, cannot defeat a small band of enemies (cases
of Vietnam, Cuba, Cyprus, Philippines, etc.), whose leaders and men
have received a rudimentary military training.--'’^
Victory over insurgent forces is seen as dependent on using the same

tactics and organization as the guerrillas themselves:
If we wish to confront the guerrillas successfully and defeat them in a

short period of time, we must study their methods, their potential, and
draw conclusions in planning our own attack. .
The organization of a network of governmental “guerrillas” (counter-
318
guerrillas) is seen as legitimate and necessary to pre-empt insurgency. In

"peace” time these paramilitary forces are to devote themselves
primarily to intelligence gathering:
.. . the mission of guerrilla forces is to support conventional and regular

military operations. In our situation, given the circumstances for the use
of guerrilla forces, it is useful to have established in peace time an
information service in accord with future needs.--*'*^
In a more critical phase, after guerrilla warfare had broken out,

paramilitary "guerrillas” were to work closely with regional data
collection and command centres. Information would be moved from
regional centres through conventional military intelligence channels
"and eventually to the General Staff of the Armed Forces”Action
could be taken against newly identified targets either by conventional
forces or local "guerrilla” forces activated by the regional centres:
The guerrillas can provide information (including the identification of

targets and the evaluation of damage) ... to conventional Military
Commanders... The information obtained by (regional intelligence and
command] centers in collaboration with the military canton patrol and
civilian personnel would be disseminated to guerrilla units operating in
the district.-^*
In accordance with US counter-insurgency doctrine the insurgent

forces' strength is that they are hidden away and supported by the mass
of the people, the "fish in the sea” analogy. Remedies for "drying up the
sea” prescribed by Salvadorean military doctrine are surprisingly
straightforward, relying above all on "annihilation” of the guerrilla
supporters and not on winning them over:
We have noted that for the operation of the guerrilla the resolute support
of the people is indispensable. This indicates that wherever a guerrilla is
found operating with success, there are still some among the people
cooperating with them and providing information. What, then, must be
done? You must annihilate this source of support and their sources of
information. How? By putting into action a counter-guerrilla organiza¬
tion among the same population.^^'
Most of the organizational and tactical elements prescribed by US

counter-insurgency doctrine and echoed in the Salvadorean military
establishments’ publications are clearly are clearly identifiable in accounts
of counter-insurgency organization and operations under Colonel
Ochoa’s command in the sparsely populated department of Cabanas.
Ochoa’s implementation of counter-insurgency doctrine made the case
of Cabanas a natural candidate to be held up as a model counter-
319
insurgency operation by the head of the US military mission and other

United States military advisers.
“Operation Wellbeing”
By early 1983, US commitment to encouraging the large scale structural

reforms initiated in 1980 had been superseded by more modest Internal
Defense and Development proposals (IDAD) in which geographically-
limited, high profile projects incorporating civic action programmes and
population control were designed as part of an integrated counter¬
insurgency operation. Social and economic reforms that would upset the
country's elites or disrupt the export economy were virtually forgotten.
After the March 1982 elections and the subsequent thwarting of
reform legislation the US made no major effort to have the reforms
revived, despite congressional requirements for the United States
President to certify that the Salvadoreans were “making continued
progress in implementing essential economic and political reforms,
including the land reform program” as a condition for continuing aid.-^^
The view of hardliners in the Salvadorean military, that economic and
social reforms — and human_rights considerations — were an obstacle
to the real business of rooting out and annihilating the guerrillas, was, to
a large extent, shared by the US military mission and high ranking
officials in the US defence department. In February 1983, Nestor
Sanchez, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, testified on the
Defense Department's position that:
... We believe that by acting as the guarantor of the political, economic,

and social reforms, the High Command of the armed forces has been
distracted from the principal task of fighting the guerrillas. In essence, the
progress in implementing democratic reforms has been at the expense of
the active pursuit of the war.-^^
The Salvadorean military's indifference to the human rights concerns

of their American patrons had long been evident. In February 1982,
Latin America newsletter observed that in cases such as the murder of the
four missionaries the high command had been prepared to make “only
minimal concessions to US public opinion on human rights issues” and
described a meeting of Defense Minister General Jose Guillermo
Garcia with US congressmen who brought up human rights issues
ended “with the General telling his visito-rs to 'get the hell out of my
office' The same source cited rising young officer Colonel Adolfo
Blandon's (commander of the Second Infantry Brigade at Santa Ana)
views of human rights concerns as obstacles, and asserting “that the
army was having difficulty in its counter-insurgency campaigns only
because it had to 'respect the civilian population'
320
From early 1983 US strategy abandoned the emphasis on major

schemes for reform and focused on increasing the degree to which US
military advisers, and material assistance, could influence the conduct
of the war. A more active pursuit of the war by commanders responsive
to US direction was what policy makers felt would defeat the
insurgency.
General Garcia's replacement by National Guard commander Vides
Casanova, at the insistence of Colonels Ochoa, Bustillo and other
young officers favoured by the US military mission, illustrated this
changed emphasis. ANewsweek report cited US officials who maintained
that Garcia, as a military commander, was simply inadequate:
'I give him a A-plus for pushing reforms and keeping this place together.'
said one senior Western official in San Salvador, 'But it was time for
someone else to come in and win the war.'-^^
In spring 1983 a model, geographically-limited counter-insurgency

programme incorporating civic action and new measures for population
control (a faithful copy of Vietnam's “Civil Operations and Rural
Development Support", CORDS, programme) was launched in the
agro-industrial departments of San Vicente and Usulutan. The initial
objective was to clear the guerrillas from the area and so halt the
disruption of cotton and sugar production:
In a first phase of the counterinsurgency operation, government troops

would sweep through the area and destroy guerrilla strongholds. In a
second phase the army would build up local ‘civil defense' forces
(currently numbering about 2,000 in the two provinces) and involve
municipal officials in a variety of economic aid and civic action projects
— providing refugee relief, building wells, schools, etc. The pacification
plan envisions placing US advisers from the Agency for International
Development in the field to coordinate economic assistance in conjunction
with a newly-formed Salvadoran National Commission for Regional
Restoration.-^^
This regional pacification plan was an innovation only in so far as the

first phase required committing major manpower resources to clearing
the region and destroying the enemy; once cleared, an increased
reliance on an expanded and strengthened paramilitary Civil Defense
Groups network to assist in holding the area; and, finally, it included the
well-digging, school-building trappings of civic action which make a
good showing in the press. All a classic application of US counter¬
insurgency doctrine already put in practice in Vietnam. In spite of this, a
major Newsweek report described it as a critical new initiative;
The operation still has no code name, but the planning for it is nearly
321
complete. Sometime during the next few months, 10,000 or more

government troops will attack rebel strongholds in the east-central
breadbasket of El Salvador. The first phase of the operation will be a
classic ‘search and destroy' mission, aiming at defeating the guerrillas or
driving them away. Then civic-action teams from several government
ministries will launch an ambitious ‘pacification program. With the
help of civilian US advisers, they will rebuild homes, roads and bridges,
start redistributing land to the peasants and furnish the region with
electricity, water, schools and medical facilities. Finally, local militia
units and specially trained Army battalions will be deployed to provide
lasting security, ‘This strategy is a turning point in the war.’ says a military
man who has been in on the planning. ‘We will win or lose on this
operation'
Newsweek reported that the plan had been under development for
almost two years in Washington and at the US Embassy, although the
Salvadoreans had not become involved until May 1982, being taken
into the US planners' confidence rather late in the day. With the
agrarian reform by then largely a dead letter, the economic objective of
the pacification plan boiled down to a plan to keep the big farms
producing.
The parallel with Vietnam, specifically, the CORDS programme of
1967-72, was drawn from the first. Surprisingly this was not simply an
extrapolation by the media but a connection made by official sources in
El Salvador. The Los Angeles Times quoted a US military source as
noting that “CORDS is probably the best analogy I can think of,
although this plan has their own [Salvadoreans'] conceptions in it”-^*^
In a later article reporter William Tuohy stressed the potential of the
new plan to bring new American advisers — military or civilian — to El
Salvador and recalled that CORDS had employed nominally civilian
advisers for its paramilitary activities, including the administration of
the Phoenix assassination programme:
Some American reporters got hold of the story before the US Embassy
was ready to announce its role in the plan and again the specter of
Vietnam appeared. Comparisons were made with the Civil Operations
and Revolutionary Development Support in Vietnam, the civic action
plan that involved hundreds of American advisers, civilian and military,
at the provincial and district level. The Vietnam plan sometimes drew only
a hazy line between civilian advisers and paramilitary action: it included
the Phoenix program of assassinating Viet Cong.
It was suggested by some here that the nature of the Salvadoran plan
would lead to the increased use of firepower in the villages, with the
soldiers simply being unlikely to differentiate between guerrillas and
peasants.
It was also suggested that the plan would involve an increased
322
commitment of civilian US trainers who would be closer to the

fighting.-™
Given the Reagan administration's notable lack of support for earlier

reform programmes, the same article expressed scepticism regarding
the “development" or “reform" component of the pacification plan and
suggested the new proposal represented, at base, a strategic commitment
by the US to a protracted, bloody war of attrition:
■Reagan seems to be giving this government an open-ended commitment,

no matter w'hat he says about supporting land reform and human rights.'
said a leading Salvadorean social scientist, who did not want to be
identified... Tm afraid this new pacification plan will simply mean that
the army will revert to low-risk tactics — bomb, shell and pursue a
scorched-earth policy — and that the cost in bloodshed will be
substantial,'-^'
Most US media accounts of the San Vicente proposals were, however,

uncritical, and described CORDS as having been an effective means to
an end in Vietnam. That US security assistance spokesmen themselves
openly equated the plan with CORDS in itself confirmed that CORDS
(andPhoenix) had been fully rehabilitated since congressional hearings
uncovered its assassination programme in the \970s. Newsweek, for one,
stressed the productive co-ordination of civic action and rural
paramilitary organizations by CORDS, and implied that even Phoenix,
while distasteful, had been ultimately a success in the pacification
process:
The mission is modeled, loosely, on a program that was conducted in

Vietnam under the name of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Develop¬
ment Support (CORDS). That campaign built roads and schools, handed
out "miracle rice" to the farmers and supervised half a million local
militiamen: it also coordinated the ruthless Phoenix program, which more
or less exterminated the Viet Cong underground. Today. CORDS is
generally considered a success; when South Vietnam fell, it was to the
regular-Army divisions of North Vietnam, not to the Viet-Cong guerillas.
Some of the US officials who now are planning the operation in El Salvador
have studied the CORDS program, and they are hoping for similar results
in the quite different but hauntingly familiar, setting of El Salvador.-™
While CORDS in general and Phoenix in particular have, in the past

been described as successful, their principal defenders have been
former intelligence officers closely involved in their organization and
direction. William Colby, for example, defended CORDS and Phoenix
in 1975 in almost the same terms as d\d Newsweek in its March 1983
article on its Salvadorean counterpart:
323
Colby never accepted the criticism of some that Phoenix failed. Quite the
contrary. The North Vietnamese won the war in a conventional military
campaign. Colby said after the collapse of Saigon in April 1975, because
they had lost the war in the countryside,.-^-^
This assessment is, however, challenged by top defence analysts in the

US military establishment itself Analysts in the office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense during the war found that Phoenix, in particular,
had failed to significantly damage the insurgents' infrastructure, and
the Defense Departmenf s Southeast Asia Analysis Reports' statistics
confirm this. In a 1982 study, defence analyst Richard H. Shultz. Jr.,
cites Defense Department statistics and assessments suggesting that
Phoenix was a dismal failure:
All through the 1968-1972 period, assessments of Phung Hoang

[Phoenix] were not very positive. For example, an analysis of 1969
neutralizations concluded that these not only had ‘little impact on the
strength of the infrastructure . . . but the estimated VCI [Viet-Cong
Infrastructure] strength increased'. A 1971 report noted that ‘Phung
Hoang has changed very little ... no one seems to be able to improve
if.^74
Defense Department records for 1968, moreover, register 13,000 to

14,000 “neutralizations" (arrests and killings) of Vietnamese in 1968 but
disclose that only 5,200 were considered part of the “Viet-Cong
Infrastructure" and that of these, “less than 1% ... held positions of top
leadership" in the VCI.-^-‘' Shultz' conclusion is that the statistics and
records “... strongly indicate that the infrastructure remained intact and
in place despite the tremendous allocation of allied resources and effort
to pacify the countryside."-^^
Ks Phoenix had failed to “neutralize" the “Viet-Cong Infrastructure",
claims that the other aspects of CORDS served to win over the rural
population to the South Vietnamese government have been debunked
in recent studies based on the computer tapes of the elaborate “Hamlet
Evaluation System" set up by CORDS (“a fully automated procedure
for quantitative evaluation of Vietnamization-Pacification at the
hamlet level").-^^ One conclusion of defence analysts is that the
evaluation system's data base was faulty and gave wildly optimistic
assessments of the progress in “pacification" — which CORDS
directors accepted uncritically; areas designed under “control" of the
government were, in many cases, under no more than temporary, fragile
occupation.
In sum. at the time of the US withdrawal, the enemy troops and

infrastructure were intact and in place in a number of provinces. The
Easter offensive dealt a serious blow to pacification in 1972. demonstrating
324
conclusively that the war was far from over in the countryside. . . What
impact did this process have on the events of 1975? Certainly it shows the
flaws in the argument that the US strategy of 1969-1972 was successful
and only a powerful strike from the north, in conjunction with tactical
GVN errors, caused collapse. A more accurate explanation would
attribute the swiftness of the collapse to the failure of pacification to wrest
control of the countryside from the VC and consolidate its influence
among the population.-^^
Defence analysts have still to publish their findings on the role the
terrorism of Operation Phoenix and CORDS played in driving the rural
population to side with the insurgency, perhaps the critical factor in the
counter-insurgency equation.
“Operation Wellbeing" was formally launched in the department of
San Vicente in June 1983. and accordingto press reports was assigned 17
US military advisers and large numbers of US civilian instructors and
technicians from US government agencies.-’*^ Four thousand Salva¬
dorean army troops were assigned to the operation and. following
clearance operations, several thousand peasant farmers — largely
members of ORDEN, according to some sources — were brought in to
work the hitherto abandoned plantations.-*^” The “pacification” plan
was co-ordinated for the army general staff through its “civic affairs"
section, from which the top intelligence agency. ANSESAL. administers
an assassination programme considerably more lethal even than
Operation Phoenix — but, ultimately, as unsuccessful.
325
15. US Military Assistance:
Indirect to Direct
Intervention
United States military assistance to El Salvador before the October 1979

coup included the provision of material, training, counsel and doctrine,
and was decisive in transforming the traditional system of 1961 to a
security system designed explicitly for counter-insurgency in the 1980s.
The influence of US military assistance cannot accurately be gauged by
the dollar cost of the Military Assistance Program (MAP), which,
despite the presence of large numbers of United States army and air
force advisers in El Salvador throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, was
extremely modest. MAP costs from 1950 through 1979 were only $7.4
million,^*' far less than comparable figures for any neighbouring
Central American republics, except Costa Rica (Guatemala, during the
same period, received almost $28 million; Honduras, nearly $9
million).^*^
Despite the low budget an extensive training programme for officers,
technical personnel and troops was provided under MAP and the
International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). The
extent of the training and advisory program inside El Salvador, by
members of the Military Group itself, was to some extent concealed by
the Defense Department’s accounting techniques. Personnel costs for
the Military Group came neither from the MAP budget nor the Foreign
Assistance Act, but from the Defense Department’s general budget;
consequently, the quantities of trainers in the Military Groups (or
MilGroups) did not receive the scrutiny given to other aspects of the
military assistance programme. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
William Lang described the arrangement when asked in 1969 congres¬
sional hearings to elaborate on the budget request for $21.4 million for
military assistance in Latin America in 1970, and provisions for
between 500 and 700 personnel in the military advisory groups;
Q. Mr. [Wayne] Morse: Does the support for those 700 people constitute
part of the $21.4 million you are talking about. . .?
A. Mr, Lang: No: the support for the MilGroups is provided from two
sources: The countries themselves pay for certain costs of the MilGroups,
and the US service budgets support other direct costs of the military
326
Indirect to Direct Intervention
groups. This under a special congressional authorization that goes back

to the 1920s.’**^
The MilGroup personnel costs were, in fact half again the full budget
congress had been requested to approve for 1970 military assistance;
excluding special costs incurred in the aftermath of the US occupation
of the Dominican Republic, the US contributed $7.7 million towards
Military Groups in Latin America that year, with only $23,700 of the
sum provided from MAP funds.^*"* No figures were provided for the
costs incurred by host countries, which generally provided transport
and headquarters facilities.
In 1970, El Salvador had a Military Group of 16 US military
personnel and three civilians providing a permanent advisory and
training service to the Salvadorean military. The relatively low figure of
$595,000 for military assistance to El Salvador in 1970 ($336,000 of it for
commodities) in no way reflects either the level of cost or influence
represented by the Military Group itself
The MilGroups' importance was disguised both by their independent
financing and exclusion from military assistance budgets and the
understatement of their functions. In 1976 congressional hearings, the
Defense Department said only small MilGroups were based in Central
America (“15 US military personnel in Guatemala, 10 in El Salvador
and 15 in Nicaragua”), and suggested they were really little more than
glorified clerks (“They are there to implement the remainder of the grant
program; that is the shipments, the invoices and deliveries to the units,
to assist them in getting their request in to Washington for the credit
program. . .”).^*^
But by providing a permanent presence in the midst of the
Salvadorean high command itself, the MilGroup could impart training
and advice directly, without local or US interference. In the 1970s,
several US Ambassadors complained that the MilGroup and Defense
Attaches’ functioned almost as a parallel embassy, and, indeed,
regularly sidestepped the Ambassador in dealings with the military
governments — a problem long recognized by the Department of State.
In 1977 congressional hearings ex-Ambassador Lozano complained
vigorously of MilGroup diplomacy:
[the problem] was getting the Salvadoran government which, of course, is

military, to face up to the fact that when it wanted to deal with the United
States it had to deal with the Embassy, with the civilian people in the
Embassy, and they much preferred dealing with the military group. They
feel more comfortable.^*^
In a second intervention, Lozano described both the close contact

between MilGroups and their clients and the former's tendency to share
the perceptions, and identify with the interests, of the latter, “as one of
327
Counter-Insurgency and Civil fVar
the dangers of having a military group in the first place”. He then

pointed out the “problem” of having “our military group . . .
headquartered in [El Salvador’s] military headquarters rather than in
the Embassy” (“That is where they work 8 hours a day. .
In the first years after the 1961 coup the permanent advisory
personnel were regularly supplemented with short stay Mobile Training
Teams (MTTs) with their own special training duties. Former US
Ambassador to El Salvador (1961-64) Murat Williams has described
the 1961 coup as the “watershed” of US military assistance to the
country, after which aid included “a heavy military component” and the
expanded military mission “even had a few Green Berets”.^**
In March 1969 the MilGroup numbered 19 US personnel and three
foreign contract staff; in accord with a general trend to reduce the size of
the military mission, it was reduced to 16 Americans in 1970, 10 by
1977 289 Throughout this period the MilGroup continued to be based in
the Salvadorean Army’s General Staff Headquarters. Its duties

included “airborne, paratroop, and counterinsurgency training”.^^®
Provision of military material was not a major part of the assistance
programme after 1964, but significant grants of material were made,
credits provided for arms purchases under the Foreign Military Sales
(FMS) Program, and licenses for arms purchases issued under the
Commercial Sales Program. Agreements for purchases on credit under
the FMS Program totalled $3.47 million from 1955 to 1979; licensed
commercial sales totalled $2.01 million. By 1977, however, El Salvador’s
police and military forces were using equipment provided by a wide
range of suppliers. On request, the Department of State provided March
1977 congressional hearings with a breakdown of US equipment used in
El Salvador, and affirmed that approximately 70% of the total small
arms in use there were non-US produced:
The standard weapon of the individual army soldier is the Belgium-made

G-3 ride. The US M-1 Garand rifle is primarily for the interior guard of
installations and training. The standard weapon of the National Police is
the .38 Smith and Wesson. US-made revolver, and US M-1 carbine. The
standard weapon of the National Guard is the G-3 rifle and the
machete.^^^
The army’s heavier weapons (recoilless rifles, .30 and .50 calibre
machine-guns, mortars and rocket launchers) were still US-supplied. The
National Police was reported to hold 200 M-1 rifles and 2,372.38 calibre
revolvers; the National Guard 1,795 M-1 carbines and 30 M-1 rifles.
Not detailed in the hearings were the commercial sales. Of these
perhaps the most significant, if only for symbolic reasons, were sales
from the years 1975 through 1978 of somewhat over 20 million rifle,
revolver and submachine-gun cartridges, averaging five million
annually (more than a bullet a piece for each of the nearly five million
328
Salvadorean people). Weapons sold in relatively small quantities under

licence included shotguns, rides, revolvers and submachine-guns.-'^-
While US commodities sales were not insignificant, El Salvador’s
major purchases after 1974 included aircraft from Israel, France and
Brazil. Under a 1975 contract, Israel sold El Salvador 18 refurbished
French fighter bombers and trainers. France provided more jet trainers
and riot tanks; by 1979 Israel had sold El Salvador 25 Arava STOF
aircraft, and six Fouga Magister trainers. These and 12 Brazilian
EMBRAER EMB-11 patrol aircraft, acquired in the same period, were
designed explicitly for counter-insurgency warfare. In the same period
Israel also sold at least 200 Uzi submachine-guns, the army death
squads' favourite weapon, and 200 80mm rocket launchers.-'’-'* The
United States’ last provision of aircraft, until 1980, was three C-47
transports (in 1974) and the work-horses of counter-insurgency warfare
from Guatemala to Vietnam, 4 Bell Uh-IH helicopters, delivered in
1976.
By mid-1977, when President Molina pre-empted an expected US
decision to cut off military aid by “renouncing” it, El Salvador had
largely completed refurbishing its land and air forces with the best
equipment available in the world for counter-insurgency. Israel and
Brazil continued to be major suppliers and some programmed US
equipment transfers and training continued after the “renunciation” of
aid. Previously authorized training and transfers worth $1.04 million
went ahead in 1978 and in 1979, before the October coup.^^'*
While only a fraction of previous levels of US military aid continued
after 1977, US assistance programmes’cco«om/c aid to El Salvador rose
from $6.8 million in 1977, when military aid ostensibly ended, to $10.9
million in 1978. Aid from international governmental financial bodies
strongly influenced by the US more than quadrupled,^^^ rising from
$23.6 million in 1977 to $101.9 million in 1978, with the bulk of funds
disbursed from the Inter-American Development Bank and the Inter-
American Bank for Rural Development.-'’^ As the Salvadoreans’ major
arms purchases from Israel and Brazil were in the years 1977 through
1979, it seems that the budgetary slack the major cash influx provided in
1978 more than compensated for the suspension of the relatively low
credit facility the US previously provided for arms purchases. After all,
the same military establishment that purchased arms ran the state
agencies that received and utilized the economic credits.
After the Coup: Partners in Counter-Insurgency
The mass of weaponry and supplies, and the training and advisory
assistance provided by the United States after the October 1979 coup
accord with a framework of counter-insurgency doctrine little changed
from the 1960s, although it had been renamed the doctrine of Internal
Defense and Development (IDAD). Over the previous two decades the
329
US assistance programme had been largely responsible for the

expansion and technical reinforcement of a security system designed
and adapted for counter-insurgency. Despite the novel component of
reform promoted by the United States and part of the October junta, US
military assistance from day one of the new regime was tailored for one
purpose; putting down a burgeoning insurgency.
Renewed assistance began with a six-man Mobile Training Team
(MTT) flown in on 12 November 1979, their duties officially limited to
training in riot control. They were accompanied by $205,000 worth of
equipment (including bullet-proof vests) which ended the 20-month
embargo on US military aid.^*^’ At the same time $300,000 was made
available for training Salvadorean officers overseas, or in-country
training by additional MTTs.^^^ Until 1981, security assistance provided
by the Carter administration was restricted to what was described as
“non-lethal” items, and excluded weapons or ammunition, a distinction
that, in a letter to President Carter, Archbishop Romero suggested was
largely academic in the Salvadorean context. (“[Assistance will] only be
strengthening those who oppress the people, even if it is providing tear
gas and protective jackets. This will mean more confident repression of
the people.’y^^
The lethal uses of “non-lethal" assistance (such as bullet-proof vests or
helicopters) became abundantly clear in accounts of counter-terror
operations in the subsequent years.
Thirty heavily armed men wearing army combat vests, but masked with
hoods lettered ‘death squad' came to my village and seized and killed a
number of peasants. They went then to the neighboring village of Santa
Helena, seized Romilia Hernandez, aged 21, raped and then decapitated
her. Her relatives buried her head: the rest of her body was burned by her
murderers. The head had been left in front of her relatives' house. The
members of the ‘death squad' were evacuated that day by a Salvadorean
army helicopter.^^
In February 1980, reports reached the press of plans to deploy three

12-man MTTs for specialized training in communications, logistics,
and intelligence. As the term “advisers” was reminiscent of Vietnam, the
State Department spokesmen sought to distinguish the teams as
“trainers”, and justified them as crucial to ensure a “clean anti¬
subversive war”. Only with massive US training, they said, could El
Salvador’s military be weaned away from a “traditional” habit of
dealing with dissent by naked violence.^*^' Criticism of the MTT plan, in
the United States, temporarily delayed their departure;^*^^ at least four
MTTs were, however, present for month-long stints in summer and
autumn 1980. A crash training programme for Salvadorean officers in
the Canal Zone began shortly after the October coup, using IMET
funds.
330
Declassified documents confirm that from the beginning of fiscal

year 1980 (October 1979) until 24 May 1981 “the United States trained
327 Salvadorean officers”^*’-' in the secret programme. The Canal Zone
training caused embarrassment and irritation to Panamanian President
Aristides Royo, who denounced it as unethical, and intended “to repress
a country The first detailed description of the programme was made
in the “Dissent Paper on El Salvador and Central America”, the 29 page
document circulated throughout official circles in Washington in 1980,
and apparently the work of experts within the US foreign policy
establishment who disagreed with US policy on Central America. The
“Dissent Paper” said the Panama programme was “the largest ever
sponsored by the US for any Latin American country in a single year'U*’-*’
and that other countries were also training Salvadoreans in co¬
operation with the United States:
The most solid bloc of support for the current government and its counter¬
insurgency efforts comes from the southern cone military regimes.
Among these Argentina, Chile and Uruguay provide training advisors on
intelligence, urban and rural counter-insurgency, and logistics. Argentina
has become the second largest trainer of Salvadorean officers after the
US.^06
In April 1980, the Carter administration made its first move to provide
large quantities of equipment to the Salvadorean military, winning
congressional approval to “reprogramme” $5.7 million of the military
assistance budget already allocated to other countries, for the provision
of transport, communications equipment and such “non-lethal”
devices as night-vision scopes.^*^^ The administration also requested $5
million in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) credits and $498,000 for IMET
grants for 1981. Training was justified as a means to “expose officers to
US military doctrine and practice as well as provide them training in
internal security”.^®*
Despite the announcement of a “hold” on economic and military aid
pending clarification of “reports of the involvement of the Salvadorean
security forces” in the murders of the three American nuns and a lay
worker on 2 December 1980, there was no significant interruption in aid.
Training by advisory teams inside El Salvador continued without a
break, as did programmes in the Canal Zone. The only substantive effect
of the “hold” was to delay some shipments of commodities.
On 17 December, the hold on economic aid to El Salvador was lifted,
on the grounds that significant progress had been made in investigating
the murders (an inquiry had been promised). On 14 January the full
gamut of military aid was reinstated, this time justified by the FMLN’s
countrywide offensive. A Presidential order of 16 Januaiy sped an
emergency airlift of arms, equipment and military advisers to El
Salvador; in fact military advisers had been moving into El Salvador
331
since the first days of the month in anticipation of the offensive. Unlike
MTT personnel, who were officially limited to training activities,the
advisers sent in January were to be closely involved in the planning and
implementation of counter-insurgency operations. Declassified docu¬
ments cited by New York-based Americas' Watch confirm that an
Operational and Planning Assistance Team (OPAT) arrived in El
Salvador on 7 January, before the ban was lifted, its mission described
as advising “how to protect the harvest against guerrillas’’.^'^ These
advisers were followed shortly afterwards by 14 trainers and technicians
accompanying the six UH-1H helicopter gunships rushed to El Salvador
(on lease) on the basis of President Carter’s emergency aid order. By the
day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration 19 military advisers — in addition
to the enlarged Military Group and Marine guard contingent — were
stationed in El Salvador.^"
The Carter administration’s dispatch of operations advisers, gunships,
and weapons in its last weeks in office set the stage for the larger
projection of power to come with President Reagan in the White House.
Despite misgivings on human rights, and a gradual progression from
training and non-lethal commodities grants to the full panoply of lethal
hardware and military advisers, there was an air of inevitability to the
build-up of US security assistance to El Salvador after the October 1979
coup. Not until Reagan took office did the US military presence escalate
sharply, but Reagan’s policy was not essentially different from Carter’s
in the wake of the Nicaraguan revolution’s victory in July 1979. The
Carter administration itself may have quietly “drawn the line in the
sand” at El Salvador considerably before Reagan and Haig did so with
such fanfare in the first months of 1981. In November 1980 the “Dissent
Paper” outlined areas of support extended to the Salvadorean regime in
the 1979-80 period and described the actions undertaken as reflecting a
policy of “No More Nicaraguas”. The paper gives no classified
information on the funds allocated to this policy although it concludes
that the measures undertaken required “an allocation of bureaucratic
and financial resources exceeding those made to any other hemispheric
crisis since 1965 [when the Dominican Republic was invaded”.^'- The
“Dissent Paper” also maintains that such an allocation of resources
could have been made only after decisions at the very top:
The Carter administration came to the conclusion that the collapse of the
current civilian-military coalition government in El Salvador and its replace¬
ment by a left wing regime would constitute a threat to our strategic interests in
the Caribbean basin. Policy makers also agreed that the US still has a chance
of preventing such developments through the provision of overt and covert
political, military, economic, technical, diplomatic and public relations
assistance to the current regime. However, if this effort failed to stabilize the
local situation, the US would let it be known that it is prepared to and will use
military force in conjunction with others, or, if necessary, unilaterally.^'^
332
The “Dissent Paper” authors emphatically opposed the policy of a military

solution in Central America and warned that it is based on faulty data and
bureaucratic considerations within the foreign establishment;
We consider these activities and the policies they imply to be dangerously

misguided. Current policy, as we interpret it, is based on inaccurate
intelligence, and on the suppression within various bureaucracies of verified
contradicting information. The options and recommendations on which
policy decisions were made have been based on irresponsibly self-serving
evaluations and analyses of intelligence reports available within the agencies.
Critiques and dissenting views were systematically ignored. Underlying these
apparent bureaucratic maladjustments one finds a fundamental lack of
understanding of general conditions and trends in Central America and the
Caribbean.-^''*
The “Dissent Paper” presents a picture of a foreign affairs bureaucracy

with vision limited by its own institutional interests, prerogatives, and
political blinkers. The President, whoever he may be, remains insulated
from reality by bureaucratic hermeticism, self-interest, and inertia. In the
long or the short run, the outcome is policy failure. The “Dissent Paper”,
of course, is not the first to sketch such a vision of the foreign policy
establishment.
In February 1981, the Reagan/Haig media blitz on the “Cuban/
Nicaraguan Threat” prepared the ground for the announcement, on 5
March, that $20 million in emergency military assistance would be provided
to El Salvador, under Section 506 of the Foreign Assistance Act (also used by
President Carter for the $5 million emergency aid in January 1981). This
authorizes the President to provide foreign countries with military material,
services and training, in aggregate value not exceeding a total of $50 million
in any fiscal year, once he has certified that an unforeseen emergency
exists which requires immediate military assistance and that this
emergency cannot be dealt with under any other law.'^’*’ In March 1981, a
further $5 million was allocated by “reprogramming” FMS credits, and in
June another $18 million of emergency Economic Support Funds was
“reprogrammed".-^'^
The March 1981 assistance grant provided for quantities of ammunition,
weapons, communications equipment and aircraft, including 9,000 M-16
rifles, 59 M60 machine-guns, five helicopter gunships, 500-lb bombs,
grenade launchers, mortars and fragmentation grenades.^'^ A $66 million
assistance budget — $23 million for security assistance, $40 million for
related economic assistance — approved by congress for fiscal year 1982
provided for accelerated training and commodity transfers to the expanding
Salvadorean military. Grants under the Military Assistance Prograrn were
to total $8.5 million, IMET grants were budgetted at $1 million; and FMS
credits were raised from $10 million in 1981 to $16.5 million in 1982, marked
for the acquisition of a wide range of military hardware. $40 million were
allotted as Economic Support Funds (ESF).^'^
333
In early 1982, the President authorized further grants under Section

506, justified as responding to one of the guerrillas’ most successful
operations in the course of the civil war: the destruction, in a 27 January
raid on the Ilopango airport, of six UH-1H helicopters, a jet trainer, five
transports and six fighter planes.^'^ Within a matter ofweeks $55 million
in emergency aid was released, dwarfing the $23 million military
assistance approved by Congress through the regular foreign assistance
channels. Of the new funds, $25 million were earmarked to compensate
for the airport raid, and, in fact, enabled the US to radically upgrade this
force:
To replace six “Huey” helicopters, twelve were provided within a few

weeks of the raid. In addition the package contained eight counter¬
insurgency jet fighters (Cessna A-37B ‘Dragonfly’) and four forward aid
control spotter planes (Cessna 0-2A ‘Skymaster’) that would significantly
add to the governmenfs air assault capability, as well as four transport
planes especially suited to counterinsurgency conditions.^^*’
Subsequently, an additional $1,054 million was “reprogrammed” for

IMET to see out financial year (FY) 1982.^^'
The use of Section 506 of the Foreign Assistance Act to bypass
congressional supervision and approval procedures continued in 1983,
with congressionally approved funds of $26.3 million in military aid
representing only a small proportion of total funds released under
executive discretionary powers. There is evidence that a pre-programmed
allocation of funds under Section 506 or Section 614 was a base-line for
administration aid planners, even before going to Congress with
conventional appropriation requests. In mid-February 1983, the
administration went to Congress seeking to double approved funds.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger inadvertently remarked to the
House Foreign Affairs Committee that “one way or another” the
administration intended to get its $60 million in assistance for El
Salvador ^22 _ extraordinary affront to congressional sensibilities.
In March, however, the ante went even higher when the administration
advised Congress that its supplementary military aid request to top up
1983 disbursements would be at $110 million and not $60 million.
Where the money was to come from would depend very much on the
degree of congressional resistance to a complex amalgam of supple¬
mental appropriations, reprogrammings, and, if necessary, appropria¬
tions from executive contingency funds under Sections 506 and
614.323
The proposed application of the $110 million illustrated the overall
direction of the US aid and advisory effort after 1979. It was largely
destined for the same categories of application as security assistance in
the 1960s, when the security system was reoriented and restructured to
deal with incipient insurgency, but scaled massively upward to deal
334
with the shift to open civil war. Of the $110 million $15 million was
allocated to ammunition and ordnance, $17 million for ground and sea
transport, and $3 million for weaponry. Almost half, $45.5 million, was
intended to provide training for between 5,000 and 8,000 soldiers and
1,500 officers and cadets; $24.5 million was earmarked for 10 UH-IH
helicopters.^^'^
In mid-March 1981, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
held hearings on “The Situation in El Salvador", Under-Secretary of
State Walter Stoessel stressed the “limited” nature of US involvement
there:
El Salvador is not another Vietnam. Our objectives are limited: to help the
government with its problems of training, equipment repair and
maintenance, mobility, and resupply. . . [To do so required] a small
number of personnel on temporary duty to help train the Salvadoran
army and navy. .
More detailed breakdowns of each group of advisers’ tasks were cited

in press reports read into the record of the 1981 congressional hearings
on “The Situation in El Salvador”. Five men with “administrative
duties” within the Military Group were said also to be responsible for
liaison with the Salvadorean military “as well as gathering military
intelligence”A group of ten advisers, some present since autumn
1980 — “to work out a plan for protecting agricultural production” —
were to work on planning specific “offensive operations’.
Three five-man teams responsible for training rapid response troops
turned out to be Special Forces advisers. Brought up from Fort Gulick
in the Canal Zone, where some 300 Salvadorean non-commissioned
officers and officers were then training, these Special Forces teams were
to be “in closest contact with fighting troops” and to work
to train a new rapid reaction unit being organized near the town of San
Andres south of the capital... a force of 1,000 or more men who can use
the US helicopters to move quickly and effectively against concentrations
of guerrillas.
This was the Atlacatl Rapid Response Battalion (See Chapter 10).
General Ernest Graves of the Defense Assistance Agency subsequently
confirmed that most members of these advisory teams were selected
from Special Forces units because of their qualifications” and that their
purpose “is to train this reaction force. .
Specialists in counter-insurgency warfare, these five-men teams were
responsible for virtually all aspects of basic training for the new Atlacatl
Rapid Response Battalion in “patrolling, air mobile operations,
individual soldier skills, and counter-guerrilla operations”.328 According
to another source, training in tactical infantiy operations was followed
335
by training in “patrolling, ambushes, airmobile operations, medical

subjects and demolitions”.^‘'^ In 1981, Special Forces units also trained
“Salvadorean cadres to operate a National Training Center”.^^*’
Further major training activities continued in 1982, with 25 advisers
responsible for training of the second “rapid reaction” battalion, the
“Jose Ramon Belloso” Battalion. This was the first unit to be sent to
receive part of its training in the United States. Sixty officers and
sergeants received a month's training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in
January 1982, and in mid-February were joined by 1,000 troops for
another four months’ training.^^' This was after five five-men teams had
provided initial training to the troops in El Salvador before they were off
to Fort Bragg, including “M-16 markmanship, first aid, combat
intelligence and communications”.^^^ By the end of 1982 a third “rapid
reaction” force, the “Atonal” battalion, had completed its training.^^^
The first three US trained battalions numbered together some 3,600
men, and were subsequently characterized by the US military mission
as the army's “crack” counter-insurgency forces. Although the US
Department of Defense denied having trained other full battalions,
press sources reported a ceremony on 12 October 1982, in the city of San
Miguel, in which troops of the reportedly US-trained “Cuscatlan”
battalion were sworn in, and ,another ceremony later that month in
which provisional President Alvaro Magana presided over the swearing-
in of 700 new recruits for the “new Jaguar” battalion.^^^
Adverse US public reaction to the Fort Bragg training of the “Jose
Ramon Belloso Battalion in 1982 may have led to the abandonment of
further plans for training whole battalions in the United States, but the
creation of major training facilities on Honduran soil soon provided an
alternative, lower-profile solution. In July 1983 the newsletter Latin
America described “the large training centres set up by the United States
12 km outside the Honduran city of Trujillo, on the coast”, and the
arrival of the first Salvadorean troops for training:
The first contingent of the 1,000 strong “Manuel Jose Arce” Battalion of
the Salvadorean army has already arrived for the intensive two-to-five
month training programme conducted by Special Forces instructors from
Fort Bragg North Carolina. The 125 instructors under Lt. Col. John Mirus
have a grueling task ahead: they are expected to groom six battalions of
Salvadoreans between now and December.^^^
Doubling the army’s combat troops, within one year, with training
carried out almost entirely by US advisers, was paralleled by a crash¬
training programme for an expanded officer corps. In 1980, some 300
Salvadorean officers were trained in the Panama Canal zone and,
although rio figures are available on numbers of officers trained by US
advisers within El Salvador, the introduction of a large military adviser
contingent was followed by in-country training on a large scale.
336
Programmes to accelerate officer training included the development of

a one-year curriculum at the military academy of El Salvador, launched
early in 1982. The academy had traditionally followed a two year
cycle.^^^ Training of officer candidates at continental US bases began in
1982, when the entire student body of the military academy received a
one month course in January and February at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Completion of the Fort Benning course reportedly topped off the
training of 600 officer candidates; when commissioned they would
double the size of the officer corps.^-^^
United States military and economic assistance was essential to
finance the enormous increase in size of the Salvadorean armed forces
after October 1979, and to train new officers and soldiers. The army,
which stood at some 7,000 men in 1979, rose to 9,000 by July 1981 and,
according to Pentagon sources, more than doubled its forces, to 19,000,
by June 1982.-^-^* By March 1983 the army comprised 22,400 men, backed
by the 11,000 men of the paramilitary National Guard, Treasury Police,
and National Police,^-^^ and irregular forces estimated to number 50,000
or more armed men within the Civil Defense/ORDEN network.
Projected army strength for 1984 is in the area of 30,000 men.^"^**
Expansion of the regular army and civilian irregular forces responded
in part to the military convention whereby guerrilla forces can best be
vanquished by fielding overwhelmingly larger governmental forces, but
also to the battlefield successes of the opposition forces. To some extent
the Salvadorean armed forces were obliged to expand if only to
compensate for an immense casualty and desertion rate. In 1982 alone,
according to Salvadorean defence spokesmen, the armed,forces lost
1,073 men killed in action and 2,584 wounded.^'*' Further losses have
been incurred by the capture (often simply surrender) of large numbers
of government soldiers by the guerrillas, sometimes including complete
garrisons, and a high desertion rate.^'^^
Human Rights, Internal Defence and Development
The death toll of non-combatant civilians increased massively after the

United States introduced large-scale military assistance programmes in
1980, and mass killings of civilians continued, year after year, as the US
progressively trained virtually all Salvadorean officers, and by mid-1983,
Ure than half of the army’s regular forces. The training programmes
were, however, the object of a consistent public relations effort on the US
govemmenf s part claiming that US training would have a civilizing
influence on the massacre-prone Salvadoreans and teach them to mend
their ways. At the same time, proponents of this training stressed that it
would enable the trainees to rapidly crush insurgency - seemingly
unaware of any contradiction between the emphasis on immediate short¬
term military results and the human rights focus.
337
A main argument favouring massive US training of Salvadorean

troops and officers, largely accepted at face value by the news media,
was that the army indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in El Salvador
was not a matter of policy, but merely a question of individual excesses
by over-zealous officers or by undisciplined officers and men out of the
control of their superiors. Professional training by the United States, it
was maintained, would instill that sense of discipline which
according to this version — the Salvadorean army was lacking.
Training, however, was imparted by members of the US Army Special
Forces, specialists in organizing and training irregular forces for
irregular warfare; perhaps not the best teachers to impart either
traditional concepts of military discipline, or to excite a great deal of
enthusiasm for the rules and restrictions of conventional warfare.
Despite the Special Forces' background, a considerable publicity
effort was made to characterize US training programmes for Salva¬
doreans has heavily human rights-oriented. Already in October 1980 the
head of the US Southern Command. General Wallace Nutting,
described the training as designed to enhance technical and profes¬
sional skills and including a course entitled “Human Rights Aspects in
Internal Defense and Development"; which he maintained was
intended to teach: “How to be nice to people while you force them to do
what you want them to do. How to assert force without being brutal.”-'''*-^
He elaborated when speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
in August 1982:
Our training emphasizes a leadership focus on human rights and

professional responsibility. We continually stress matters of military and
citizenship importance to include the treatment of captured combatants
and protection of non-combatants in countering guerrilla warfare. In this
connection, about 11% of the cadet program of instruction at Fort
Benningand about 18% of the infantry battalion program of instruction at
Fort Bragg were devoted to internal defense and development [IDAD]
matters and discipline.-^"”
General Nutting was. perhaps wrongly, implying that professional

discipline and IDAD would enhance respect for human rights, or were
even necessarily compatible. IDAD is the current, polite, term for
counter-insurgency doctrine; and. in practice, counter-insurgency may
clash considerably with respect for human rights. In any case, a report
by the US-based human rights monitoring organization, Americas’
Watch and the American Civil Fiberties Union (ACFU) which
examines the course outlines from Forts Bragg and Benning, obtained
through the Freedom of Information Act. suggests that General Nutting
was somewhat exaggerating the emphasis given human rights in the
training programme. The documents indicate that “during their entire
4-month stay at Fort Bragg" students received only two hour lectures
338
Indirect to Direct Inten'ention
entitled “Develop and Maintain Popular Support" in which students

were to “discuss methods to develop and maintain popular support and
undermine guerrilla propaganda”; two hours of instruction on “Care
and Control of Indiginous [sic] Personnel”, which covered “care and
control of civilians to include health and welfare, refugee control, and
treatment of indiginous [sic] personnel”, and a one hour and 50 minute
lecture on “Law of Land Warfare/Geneva Convention”.^'**’
Perhaps the most widely repeated defence of US training as useful to
stop the Salvadorean killing of prisoners refers to their intelligence
value (as a rationale for not killing them on the spot). In a 1983 interview
with the US army commander at Fort Gulick's School of the Americas
in the Canal Zone. Colonel Nicholas Andreacchio.
stressed that 'some sort of human rights training' was now included in
every course even if it was just a question of teaching NCOs that it was
more valuable in intelligence terms to keep prisoners alive than to kill
them.'*'*^
The argument does not. however, suggest that all prisoners should be
formally remanded in custody, or imply that all prisoners have an equal
intelligence value: children killed as a preventive measure, so that they
could not grow up into guerrillas, or women making tortillas to feed
guerrilla forces, have little to offer under interrogation that cannot be
wrung from them in the brief period before they are killed in the field. In
El Salvador, captive oppositionists have generally been interrogated
immediately after capture, in local police posts or in the field, and no
premium has been set on the prisoner surviving interrogation or living
long after. Very important prisoners may be sent to regional interro¬
gation centres at one of the five regional military command posts, for
more prolonged interrogation, but as a rule they are not accounted for as
acknowledged prisoners and never come out alive. In practice. US
advisers' stress on the intelligence value of prisoners may only ensure
that field interrogations are more thorough and cruel before summary
execution removes once and for all the threat of further resistance by the
prisoner. In the final analysis. United States military training and
advice can be best assessed through the behaviour of the forces trained
and advised.
The training in humanitarian behaviour, supposedly imparted m US
courses for Salvadorean troops and officers, is hardly reflected in practice,
in their treatment either of civilians or of captured combatants who may,
in fact, be potential holders of hard intelligence data. While the mam
concern of human rights monitors has been the killings of non-combatant
civilians, and statistics on assassinations and massacres by government
forces are limited to that type of murder, Salvadorean military and
paramilitary forces have also routinely put to death members of the
armed opposition who are captured or wounded in combat.
339
The generalized policy and practice of torturing and murdering

prisoners in El Salvador exemplifies an area in which Salvadorean
army discipline demands that its members contravene and disregard the
rules of war; it does not necessarily mean that the officers or other ranks
are ignorant of these rules. To resist superior orders would, however,
place the recalcitments themselves at risk; counter-insurgency doctrine
instills in the officer corps the conviction that counter-terror's ends
justify the means, and that in counter-insurgency situations the rules of
war do not apply. There is little evidence that United States training in
irregular warfare teaches otherwise.
Paramilitary Expansion
By mid-1983 US-assisted reorganization and training of El Salvador's

armed forces had achieved a major expansion of the armed forces' total
manpower and the setting up of smaller, highly manoeuvrable units, as
well as the expansion and training of paramilitary forces, now called
“Civil Defense" forces. In August 1983 press reports said;
US military aid is pouring in. Plans are to increase the 24.000-man armed
forces to 30.000 and the Pentagon is asking for an increase in the US
advisory contingent from 55 to 125. A further 10.000 people are being
trained in para-military civil defence.-^"**^
During 1980. the former pariahs of ORDEN underwent a metamor¬

phosis and emerged in 1981 with the new Civil Defense nomenclature.
US advisers described the Civil Defense Forces as a form of self-defence
militia, which, in theory, would be charged with holding territory that
had been cleared by the mainforce army units. Rapid response army
units would provide support to militia forces when under attack.-^’^'^
The most explicit recognition of the irregular Civil Defense/ORDEN
forces' role in the conflict, and of their place in current US counter¬
insurgency doctrine, was made in February 1983 when US military
spokesmen outlined to the press a pilot pacification plan to be launched
later that year in the departments of San Vicente and Usulutan.
Operacion Bienestar (Operation Wellbeing), a counter-insurgency
plan openly modelled on the CORDS programme in South Vietnam,
was to be the first phase of a "National Campaign Plan”. Official
briefings on Operation Wellbeing included a direct endorsement by US
military spokesmen ofthe organization of paramilitary networks as part
of a US-designed strategy.-^*’'’ The military mission was already on record
as having praised those regional commanders most noted for having
integrated the paramilitary irregulars of the ORDEN/civil patrols
network into the counter-insurgency operations of the regular army and
security forces, and for making these irregulars the centre of programmes
340
designed “to win greater civilian involvement in counterinsurgency

programs".-^' And the military mission had openly advocated the use of
“the guerrillas' own tactics and organization" to win the war;
[The US advisers) argue that the army should adopt a more active and
permanent presence in guerrilla-controlled areas, be more tlexible.
operate in smaller units, and make greater use of the guerrilla’s own
tactics of surprise. They have also urged the army to integrate more fully
into local communities, and work in closer coordination with local right-
wing paramilitaries.-^-''-
US spokesmen were reticent about the paramilitary networks before

Operation Wellbeing was announced, but the civilian irregulars had
been a visible partner of the Salvadorean armed forces from the new
regime’s first clay in October 1979. Although ORDEN was formally
dissolved by the incoming junta, it was rationalized and rehabilitated in
1980, and its units renamed “Civil Defense” patrols, committees or
groups. The local political organization centred on ORDEN remained
intact, but went on a war footing; where the guerrillas were active the
political trappings transferred from ORDEN to Civil Defense were
discarded, leaving it strictly military functions.
It is in the rehabilitation of ORDEN that US influence appears to
have been important. ORDEN emerged as “Civil Defense" just about at
the same time Guatemala’s paramilitary network (previously concealed,
and never dignified with the name or status of a separate organization)
was transformed into a “Civil Defense” system. In neighbouring
Honduras, which has no tradition of paramilitary organization, army-
sponsored “Civil Defense” groups were created soon after the US army
moved in as if to stay, with 125 advisers in 1981, and some 5,000 ground
troops in 1983.-’-“^-^ The term Civil Defense, suggesting local yeomen
defending kith and kin, was introduced in the countries just as the US
commitments in the region reached unprecedented levels. In the case of
Honduras it applied to a paramilitary network created from scratch. In
El Salvador and Guatemala, Civil Defense was a convenient term for
existing paramilitary networks in serious need of a new image.
It is inconceivable that the large military advisory contingent in El
Salvador, and the possibly still larger covert advisory contingent, were
uninvolved with the Civil Defense forces, but the few official US
government references to this network, before Operation Wellbeing,
deliberately downplay this relationship. This may be due to legislative
restrictions on assistance to police or paramilitary security services.
Furthermore, US government human rights reports generally blame
any admitted human rights abuses on the Salvadorean police services
— with which the US is nominally not involved — and not on the
regular army; until 1982 a similar attitude was taken regarding the Civil
Defense forces. In 1980 and 1981, the US Embassy, using the
341
amorphous status of ORDEN and its successor as a basis, attributed

atrocities against civilians to radical right-wingers outside the control of
the government.
Some US officials here insist that the violence by the right is committed by
lower-level extremists in the security forces or by ORDEN, a right-wing
paramilitary force, originally sponsored by the government but officially
disbanded 18 months ago. Many peasants insist it still operates
throughout the country. . . One businessman, who said he had received
death threats from the right as well as the left, scoffed at the suggestion
that the government could not stop the random killing. ‘Are you kidding?
he asked rhetorically, ‘ "ORDEN" IS the government'.-'’^''
While peasants, businessmen and the US military mission were well

aware of the key place of civilian irregulars in the counter-insurgency
campaign, this role was not acknowledged in official US pronounce¬
ments until 1983. Some declassified documents confirm, however, that
the diplomats were aware of the system. A US Embassy cable of 15
January 1982 states that:
... the scope of the present struggle and the inadequacy of security force
resources has led to the creation of the 'patrulleros', armed civilians who
ostensibly form part of the state's security net. They have, however,
become a law unto themselves in many areas... Patrulleros, nonetheless,
form part of the official security structure here.-'-*’-^
Official US recognition of the Civil Defense forces’ role in Operation

Wellbeing apparently opened the way for direct overt training of civilian
irregular forces for “paramilitary civil defense", as announced in August
1983. The final change in the status of the ORDEN/Civil Defense forces
may be their formal designation as a militia within the terms of
Salvadorean law, and its formal incorporation as an auxiliary force to the
army. In such a case it could be the recipient of more open and plentiful US
assistance otherwise blocked by its present ambiguous status. Here again
there would be a Vietnam precedent: parallel structures. Civilian Irregular
Defense Groups (later Regional Defense Forces) and Self-Defense Corps
(later Popular Forces) were both part of the army of South Vietnam and
under military command and discipline.-^-'’^ Although from the first
ORDEN, and later its successors, were set up by the armed forces of El
Salvador and commanded by army officers, these links have not always
been formalized. After Operation Wellbeing the situation may change.
The Mercenary Element
The post-1979 expansion of the Civil Defense/ORDEN network coincided
342
Indirect to Direct Inten’ention
with the recruitment of civilian irregular forces to work directly with the
regional and central intelligence and command centres. These forces could
to some extent be distinguished from others because they were not local
people based in their home areas, they had not necessarily been involved in
the structure of ORDEN prior to the 1979 coup, and they included gunmen
imported from other countries. Though there was a mercenary element in
the recruitment of Civil Defense patrol members — including both cash
payments and other incentives — the gunmen attached on a long-term
basis to the special units of the security services included mercenaries in
the more classic sense of the hired killer or “soldier of fortune”.
The most credible reports on the involvement of foreign forces refer to
large numbers of former Nicaraguan National Guardsmen, as well as
some Guatemalan security personnel on detached service, under contract
to the Salvadorean forces. Former Salvadorean army doctor Captain
Ricardo Fiallos, now in exile, testified in an April 1981 US congressional
hearing on his contact with former Nicaraguan guardsmen:
during the time which I worked in the military hospital, I personally

treated various ex-members of the Nicaraguan National Guard who were
working with the Salvadorean security forces. Furthermore I viewed the
medical records of at least 30 of these individuals who had been injured
while collaborating with the security forces.^^^
There was, of course, some precedent of cross-border co-operation

between El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua in the final years of the
Somoza regime. Many Nicaraguans identified men in National Guard
uniforms in the final year of the revolution as Guatemalan or Salvadorean
by the way they spoke — there are some differences in vocabulary
— or by the fact that they paid for purchases with Guatemalan bank
notes.-^-*^*^ Shortly before the fall of Somoza. Guatemalan newspapers ran
press statements attributed to the “Secret Anticommunist Army a
government “death squad — announcing the presence of five anti¬
communist commandos of 20 men each fighting in Nicaragua at the side
of the National Guard in defense of the Somoza government”.^ Similarly,
in the first year of the Salvadorean conflict, Guatemalan security personnel
were reportedly “loaned to their counterparts, and there was frequent
cross-border travel of top officers between Guatemala City and San
Salvador. Although generally not publicized, some secret flights could not
be concealed; in April 1980. for example, a secret flight by Salvadorean
Chief of Staff General Gilberto Balmore Escamilla was revealed when the
plane crashed near Guatemala City, killing him and top aides Major
Fernando Salazar Mena and Captain Freddy Roberto Ascencio.'^
The United States appears to have covertly promoted and collaborated
in regional co-operation through the interchange of paramilitary forces.
The November 1980 “Dissent Paper” identified as a US policy objective the
deployment of paramilitary (irregular) forces and cross-border
343
co-operation between Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

(“Strengthening counterinsurgency capabilities ol armed forces [through]
establishing and/or improving communication and cooperation among
armed forces and paramilitary organizations in Guatemala, El
Salvador and Honduras”.
The same document refers to irregular forces, including “mercenaries
(a term left undefined), organized in late 1979 and 1980 to assist
Salvadorean security forces. Presumably this force was a project
sanctioned by both the United States and the Guatemalan military:
A paramilitary strike force made up of former members of the

Nicaraguan National Guard, anti-Castro Cubans, Guatemalan military
personnel and mercenaries has been formed in the past year. Spokesmen
for this contingent have expressed their intention to intervene in El
Salvador ‘when the situation requires if. . . It should be noted that US
intelligence has kept informed of the plans and capabilities of the
paramilitary strike force in Guatemala. US intelligence has been in
contact with Nicaraguan exile groups in Guatemala and Miami and it is
aware of their relationship with Cuban exile terrorist groups operating in
the US... their mobility and their links with the US — it seems reasonable
to assume — could not be maintained without the tacit consent (or
practical incompetence) of at least four agencies: INS, CIA, FBI and US
Customs.-^^-
The claims in the “Dissent Paper” gained some substantiation when,

in Eebruary and March 1982, the Washington Post published extensive
verbatim extracts from National Security Council records regarding a
$19 million budget allocation for a Reagan Administration “covert
action” plan suspiciously similar to that described in the “Dissent
Paper” as underway in 1980.-^^-^ The Washington Post reported President
Reagan's approval, in November 1981, of a plan to raise both local and
United States irregular or “paramilitary” forces for “paramilitary and
political operations and intelligence gathering” in Central America,
Although generally considered in the context of terrorist measures to
destabilize the present Nicaraguan government, the leaked texts refer
explicitly to a wider field of action,-^^ The paramilitary aspect of the
government plan required the “formation and training of action teams
to collect intelligence and engage in paramilitary and political
operations in Nicaragua and elsewhere”.
There is some evidence of the presence of US mercenaries in El
Salvador — that is, contract irregular warfare specialists not officially
part of the US armed forces. Opposition sources claimed that five
American “mercenaries” were killed in combat in August 1980 in the
departments of Cabanas and Morazan, and that on 17 December 1980 a
US ex-police sergeant and adviser on investigation techniques was
killed.^^^ In an extensive article in his home-town newspaper, ex-Marine
344
Lawrence Bailey described the involvement ot American and European

“mercenaries" in security duties, including killings, in El Salvador;
Bailey says he is part of a team ot 40 American mercenaries, a small

contingent among hundreds of mercenaries Irom around the world
present in El Salvador... He is paid $1,600 a month to smuggle guns into
the country, guard plantations against takeover by the rebels, and kill it
necessary to protect the interest ot El Salvador s landholding class, he
said. Elis group of mercenaries works tor wealthy Salvadoran tamilies
living in Miami, he said. The tamilies left El Salvador when the current
hostilities began in 1979 but they continue to control events at home,
Bailey said . . . the Miamians are using the mercenaries to aid the
government in crushing support for the guerrillas, Bailey said. ‘We're a
third force,' he said.-'^^
The article also contains his account of having accompanied a

helicopter-borne special task force on a rural operation planned from
the beginning as a massacre:
... he and two other mercenaries piled into a helicopter gunship with the
soldiers and headed to a small village north of San Salvador. The soldiers
had a list — names of civilians who had been listening to communist
propaganda or supporting the guerrillas, he said. As the mercenary
watched, some of the suspected sympathizers were dragged out of their
huts already dead. Others were herded together outside. The soldiers
made them kneel down, then shot them point blank in the backs of their
necks, he said. ‘Shot them in the village square, by the way, not the jungle.
Shot them where everyone could see them. Something about a show of
force.' More than 30 died in the massacre, the mercenary said. Afterwards,
the soldiers went home and got drunk, he said.-^^*^
While the role of former or “on loan" members of LIS and other armed
forces in “contract" work cannot be discounted as an element of the
present Salvadorean security system, more importance should be
accorded to training and organization of paramilitary forces by US
Army Special Forces advisers, although little documentary evidence
has become available on this. In the Vietnam war. as noted earlier,
classified documentation on the Special Forces described their primary
task as providing “training, operational advice and assistance to
indigenous paramilitary forces" they had previously “organized,
trained and equipped".'^'^ Despite the precedents ol the Vietnam
experience and the indisputable importance of paramilitary irregulars
to the current Salvadorean conBict. further research is required to
determine the real extent of US assistance to this sector of the security
system.
345
US Military Advisers and Political Signals
The number of military and civilian advisers in El Salvador is, of

course, an important indicator of the level of United States commitment
to a military solution of the current conflict. The acknowledged figure of
54-56 advisers is, moreover, a large show of force for this small country.
The Reagan administration’s deployment of the large advisory
contingent early in 1981 also had an important symbolic impact,
coming, as it did, after a year in which some 10,000 non-combatant
civilians had been selectively murdered by army and security services.
Former agrarian reform official Leonel Gomez told a congressional
hearing that sending advisers moved the United States from indirect to
direct involvement in the army’s policy of terrorism:
Your Administration has in effect said that it agrees that the army has the
right to destroy all those organizations and people who want the army to
share power. It signals that it does not matter that the army must kill the
civilian supporters to get to the guerrillas.-^^”
Former Ambassador White expressed similar sentiments, pointedly

accusing the Pentagon of carrying on its own bilateral relations with the
Salvadorean military and sending all the wrong signals.
The official proscription of a combat role for US military advisers’in
El Salvador is one of the fundamental arguments by which the US
government dilutes its own responsibility for the actions of Salvadorean
forces. When Flouse Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Clement J.
Zablocki asked the Department of State in October 1982 whether the
Salvadorean military has “ceased its summary executions of prisoners
taken in combatsituations, and if so, what evidence exists of this change
of practice”, he was told that the restrictions on the activities of advisers
were such as to keep them even from knowing what was going on in the
counter-insurgency war:
The War Powers Act enjoins US military personnel attached to the

Embassy from observing, first hand, the activities of the Salvadorean
Armed Forces during military operations. Therefore, the Embassy must
rely on information provided to us by the armed forces and also press
releases that list the numbers of prisoners taken in combat.-^^'
The Department of State did add brightly that some change might be
occurring, since the army reported 22 prisoners taken in August, and three
more in September, against a previous record of virtually no prisoners
living through interrogation. (This contrasts with the FMFN’s credible
announcement in January 1984 that 1,778 members of government forces
had been taken prisoner in 1983. most ofwhom have now been turned over
the International Committee of the Red Cross.p^-
346
Indirect to Direct Inten’entiort
Despite the ban. American newsmen have repeatedly found US

advisers in the field breaking these rules; on several occasions advisers
appeared on television in the act of doing so. In February 1982. the US
Cable News Network filmed three advisers — one a Lieutenant-Colonel
— carrying M-16 rifles and other equipment in a combat zone. In the
resulting panic the Embassy stated that the three had been “repairing a
bridge", and not in combat. The Lieutenant-Colonel was, however,
recalled to the US and the two other advisers were reprimanded for
breaking regulations by cariying offensive weapons. A second filmed
incident, broadcast on 23 June 1982. raised further public and
congressional doubts on the role ot the US advisers:
... CBS News that day filmed two US trainers in a combat area some forty
miles southeast of San Salvador, and interviewed Salvadoran soldiers
who stated that the ten US trainers in the area had participated in combat.
According to CBS and the New York Times, soldiers reported that the
Americans had fired 81-millimeter mortars at nearby guerrilla positions.
US officials have denied this allegation.-’^-'
The combat area referred to was a border area where massacres of

civilians and of refugees trying to cross the Lempa River have been
reported. According to the Washington Post's account;
CBS said one its crew saw 'at least two American advisers wearing
combat fatigues at the Lempa River camp in an area of persistent fighting.
'The minute they spotted our camera they disappeared into the farmhouse
they were using for a barracks. CBS said. According to Salvadoran
soldiers at a guard post directly across the river, there are 10 Americans
based at the camp, and they are taking part in combat operations, fighting
side by side with Salvadoran forces.' the network said.'^''
According to the same source the State Department said it would ask the
Embassy to look into the charges.
In addition to the CBS Lempa River expose, other evidence has
revealed US advisers' close involvement in the organization of joint
Honduran and Salvadorean operations in border areas, and in the
interdiction of refugee movements out of El Salvador. A July 1982
Americas Watch/ACLU report noted the progressive militarization of
the Honduran/Salvadorean border between November 1981 and May
1982, coinciding with an increase in US military personnel on the
ground there;
The apparent purpose is the creation of a zone without international

observers and organizations, from which operations may be launched
against the insurgents in northern Salvadoran provinces.-
347
The rush of US army advisers to Honduras — from four only in 1981 to

at least 100 in 1982 — also led to reports of their direct involvement in
the harassment of refugees in camps in southern Honduras, in which
refugees and relief workers have been killed outright or “disappeared",
or turned over to Salvadorean authorities by Honduran military
personnel:
In August 1981. a team led by Captain Michael Sheehan, based at Santa

Rosa de Copan. was seen in La Virtud camp by numerous international
and Honduran volunteers. In an interview with theA'cu' York Times that
month. Sheenan said that the National Security Council had approved a
Green Beret presence in Honduras to support the military effort against
Salvadoran guerrillas. Discussing refugees. Sheehan said: They have no
human right.s.'-’^^
The presence of some advisers in combat zones has been revealed

only after they have been wounded. Sergeant Jay T. Stanley, a US army
Special Forces adviser, was wounded while on board a Salvadorean
helicopter in a combat zone, as was another US adviser, at about the
same time, in the same area. As a consequence "two warrant officers and
one master sergeant were relieved of their duties”.-^^^ Evidence suggests
that the exceptions to the norm are not cases in which US advisers break
the rules on combat, but those in which they are caught doing so.
Clearly, the advisory mission is anxious to get the advisers out of the
barracks and into the field. In March 1983. Newsweek reported the
decentralization of the advisory contingent:
Soon some advisers may be moved out of San Salvador, not to battlefields
but to local brigades where they can promote aggressive patrolling and
other small-unit tactics. 'You can't beat guerrillas by marching battalions
up the white lines on the road in the middle of the day.' insisted an official
in Washington. 'Unless we can get some of our guys out of the capital and
into the regional headquarters where the decisions are made, we can't
make any headway.''^*'*
In the provincial headquarters advisers are largely out of range of the

press, apparently the principal obstacle to them assuming a larger,
operational role, despite the much publicized legal restrictions on their
function.
At present, the combat role of US military advisers does not appear to
be a major factor in the Salvadorean civil war, although this may
change in the near future. The current programme for training aircraft
pilots, bombardiers and gunners may already serve to conceal US air-
warfare specialists' direct participation in operations (while accom¬
panying trainees). But it is the potential for an expanded use of airpower
in the war that may entail further, large-scale, direct involvement of US
348
personnel. US combat services can most readily be hidden when

involving aircraft, particularly when landing facilities in neighbouring
Guatemala and Honduras can be used. Michael Klare. at the
Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, has written of the
potential escalation of the US role in the region, and cited a
congressional source as saying that the US would probably take “direct
military action” through air rather than ground support if the
Salvadorean army appeared near to collapse.-^^'^
The use of air power to bomb the Salvadoreans into submission
might well provoke a final general uprising and the victory of the
revolutionaries, just as, arguably, it did in Nicaragua, when President
Somoza, in desperation, turned to aerial bombardment and rocket
attacks on Nicaraguan cities in September 1978. Large-scale bombings
would, in any case, further prove the moral bankrupcy of the present
regime and of the United States' foreign policy.
US Assistance and Intelligence
Major military advisory resources were committed to the Salvadorean

intelligence apparatus from early in 1981, and possibly considerably
before. Declassified information confirms the presence of intelligence
advisory teams after 2 March 1981, when the Reagan administration
acknowledged the need to “train Salvadoran personnel in communica¬
tions, intelligence, logistics, and in other professional skills designed to
improve their capabilities to interdict infiltration and to respond to
terrorist attacks”.^*0 By mid-March this included a contingent of six
advisers to augment the Military Group itself, with the collection of
military intelligence as part of its responsibilities, and a group of five
forming an Operational and Planning Assistance Team (OPAT) to
work with the five regional military commands in the planning and
improvement of intelligence, communications, and logistics, and to
serve as a liaison between regional and national commands.
Intelligence work may also have been part of the task of a second five-
man OPAT, based at army general staff headquarters in San Salvador,
“to work with senior Army commanders ... to establish communica¬
tions links and coordination between army units in the five military
districts.”^^^ According to press reports, this latter OPAT organized a
“war room " to provide central co-ordination for the Salvadoran army,
national guard, national police, and rural police , and instructed the
Salvadoreans “how to gather reports of guerrilla activity, evaluate them
and coordinate military responses”.^*^^
In the second half of 1981, this same OPAT performed a variety ol
functions: completing the establishment of a functioning war room^^
(or “Combined Operations Center”), a “Joint Communications Center
and a “National Logistics Center , as well as carrying out an
349
Intelligence Survey for the establishment of a Tactical Intelligence

Schoor.'^*^-^ A four man “Operations Planning Assistance Augmentation
Team” worked in rotation in the five Brigade headquarters on regional
communications, operations and logistic centres. Another five-man
OPAT team worked simultaneously in the five zones “assisting in the
integration of operations' intelligence functions and “to extend
command and control communications nets from Brigade to Battalion
level. .
United States military intelligence training was institutionalized in
September 1981. when a three-man “Technical Intelligence Team" was
sent “to establish a tactical intelligence school for the Salvadoran
Army, including basic intelligence processing and analysing, interro¬
gation. counter-intelligence, and refugee handling”.-^^^ A four-man
“Technical Intelligence School Team” subsequently helped run the
school, working “to assist the Salvadoran armed forces in the day-to-day
operation of the tactical intelligence school.
While some information has been declassified regarding the military
advisers officially detailed to advise in the intelligence field, information
on other advisory and operational intelligence assistance is largely
undocumented. Press reports in March 1983 estimated intensive work
by the CIA. to develop its Central American resources after the outbreak
of full-scale civil war in January 1981. had cost an estimated $50 million,
and stated that CIA sources said there are “at least 150 agents” operating
in El Salvador.^*^* For its part. Time, in March 1982. reported the
beginning of a CIA build-up under the Carter administration:
During the Carter Administration, the CIA began beefing up its network
of agents in Central America and shifted its focus from tracking Soviet
infiltration efforts to reporting on local politics... In El Salvador, the CIA
station chief was quite close to the right-wing security forces, which
clouded his judgement; he was replaced in 1980. but Reagan Administra¬
tion officials complain that they inherited a network that had poor
contacts with the leftist guerrillas. Nonetheless, a senior CIA official
insists: ‘We are building up our assets, and, while not the best, our
resources are pretty good now'.... The quality of information has greatly
improved over the past few months. Yet even when the information is gilt-
edged, Washington is not always eager to listen if the details do not mesh
with policy.-^**^
While US press reports emphasize the CIA's role in acquiring

intelligence for United States policy makers, without reference to CIA
work in assisting Salvadorean intelligence officers, the latter may well
represent the greatest investment in agency resources.
Intelligence assistance by military advisory staff and officials of US
intelligence agencies may be complemented by other assistance
programmes not overtly security related. In particular, projects related
350
Indirect to Direct Inten'ention
to population control measures, by facilitating registration and census

programmes or the implementation of the universal identity card
system, have added to the data base and operational capability of the
Salvadorean intelligence system. A programme already suggested as
having an underlying intelligence function, which on the surface seems
laudable, is a system for voter registration to be introduced lor the
planned 1984 Presidential elections.
A projected expenditure of up to $8 million was announced by
Reagan Administration officials in May 1983 as the United States
government’s contribution to the 1984 elections, including a major voter
registration drive, and the creation of “a central registry that would use
computers to maintain an accurate roll of voters”.-^*^*’ Although the
election programme is to be handled by the AID — “the fund will be
distributed as development assistance aid" —the application of a
computerized population registry- to intelligence purposes is only to be
expected. Information on the election proposals was published in some
press reports in the context of simultaneous confirmation of initiatives
by the CIA to improve its data collection as a means to support the
electoral process:
At an additional, undisclosed cost, administration officials said Wednes¬

day. the Central Intelligence Agency plans to intensify its collection of
intelligence information about the guerrillas to help the Salvadoran
military to block any efforts to disrupt the voting.
The administration decided to make the investment, according to
officials, in hopes that the elections could become a turning point in the
Salvadorean civil war.^'^-
Data processing assistance to create a comprehensive electoral

register is only one area in which “development aid can be turned to
population control and intelligence purposes without ringing congres¬
sional alarm bells. For example, if the Salvadorean intelligence
apparatus has access to the data base of the US-funded agrarian reform
programmes — as it must be expected to — logically, it would use
whatever capabilities it provided in its everyday work of rooting out
suspected leftists. A printout of leaders of registered peasant organiza
tions and co-operatives, agrarian reform beneficiaries or claimants, is
just one way these systems might be applied to targetting candidates for
“neutralization”. The electoral registry proposals could be considerably
more useful to the intelligence system, particularly if they incorporated
data from the universal identity card system already in force. Given the
background of mass assassination and summary execution of suspect
population sectors — defined by their union membership, the village
they live in, etc. — any projects involving the development of a new data
base on particular population sectors must be looked at with suspicion
as a potential tool in a programme of murder.
351
Information on US assistance to the Salvadorean intelligence

apparatus, the nerve centre of the army high command, and the heart of
its “counter-terror” political murder programme, has emerged only
gradually since 1979. Most assistance that has come to light breaks
down into relatively technical categories; provision of a better
population control system, or deployment of US army intelligence or
operations advisory teams to impart specific skills. Evidence of a higher
level of involvement in, or responsibility for, the formulation of El
Salvador's policy of political murder has been more elusive, the major
proven link between the US and Salvadorean “counter-terror” the
substance of US counter-insurgency doctrine itself Only recently has
evidence emerged that the US government may have exercised direct
control over the top Salvadorean army officers who controlled the
country after October 1979, and who led the armed forces to adopt the
option of mass “counter-terror” as the main thrust of its counter¬
insurgency programme.
In March 1984 a source first described only as a former high-ranking
Salvadorean officer revealed to members of the US congress and the
press that the US government — through the CIA — paid a retainer to.
and effectively employed, top military figures in the post-October 1979
governments. Identified by Newsweek as former ANSESAL chief
Colonel Roberto Eulalio Santibahez,^'^^ the source maintained that top
members of the army high command, notably Defense Minister
Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia (1979-83), Deputy Defense Minister
Colonel Nicolas Carranza (later ANTEE chief and head of the Treasury
Police), National Guard chief Colonel Eugenio Vides Casanova (1979-
83) (now a general and Minister of Defense) and intelligence officer
Major Roberto D'Aubuisson had been personally responsible for the
development and administration of El Salvador’s “death-squad”
assassination programme.^'^'^ In a striking parallel with Guatemala's
presidential security agency, where the army high command supervised
targetting of subjects for elimination. Colonel Santibanez described the
direct participation of the army’s commanders “in selecting death
squad victims”, and Vides Casanova's added role in covering up the
executions of four American missionaries in 1980:
Defense Minister Eugenio Vides Casanova is personally directing a

cover-up in the slayings of four American churchwomen in 1980, and his
cousin, a colonel, ordered the murders. 'National Guardsmen at the
airport spotted the women,’ he said, 'and they radioed for instructions_
The word came down to eliminate them. It came from Colonel Oscar
Edgardo Casanova, who was in charge in that zone.'^*^^
Details on the precise relationship between the US government and

the army’s leaders after October 1979 are provided by Colonel
Santibanez only in one case. He maintained that Colonel Nicolas
352
Notes to Part 4
Carranza “was on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency”, and

had “received more than $90,000 a year from the CIA” tor the past five to
six years.-^'^^
Such revelations by defectors or retired security officials must always be
considered with healthy scepticism. Santibahez was, himself deeply
involved in the dirty-work of counter-insurgency as chief of ANSESAL,
and his motives for revealing his erstwhile colleagues’ American
connection are questionable. The claims themselves, however, ring true,
and if confirmed, would mean a whole new level of involvement and
complicity, of the US government in El Salvador's agony of state terror.
Notes to Part 4
Chapter 13
1. Devine. Frank. El Salvador: Embassy Under Attack (Vantage: New York. 1981)
p. 120.
2. Ibid.. Devine insists that rumours that Vaky and Bowdler had asked Gen. Romero
to resign were incorrect. Latin America Weekly (2 November 1979. Bowdler. the
Trouble-shooting Bureaucrat") discusses William Bowdler's background.
3. Dunkerley. The Long War. p. 129. cites Presidential press spokesman Hodding
Carter as later confirming that Vaky and Bowdler had urged Gen. Romero s
resignation.
4. Fernando Flores Pinel. "El Golpe de Estado en El Salvador: Un Camino hacia la
Democratizacion". in Estudios Centroamericanos. October-November 1979. p. 891.
Flores Pinel gives as his source the Agencia de Comunicacion Internacional.
Embajada de Estados Unidos. San Salvador bulletin, September 1979, pp. 26-7.
5. Dunkerley, op. cit.. p. 129.
6. See Panorama Centroamericano. December 1977; Roberto Eulalio Santibanez. a
member of the same tanda or graduating class of the military academy, and
Romero's chief of ANSESAL. as well as Roberto Escobar Garcia and four others,
were promoted at the same time.
7 For a chart outlining appointments of army officers to Salvadorean government
autonomous agencies, including ANTEL. from July 1972 to November 1978, see
Carlos Andino Martinez. "El Estamento Militar en El Salvador , in Estudios
Centroamericanos. July-August 1979. Col. Garcia served as Director Presidente of
ANTEL from March 1974 and was replaced in July 1977 by Col. Juan Antonio
Martinez Varela. Cols. Vides Casanova and Carranza served as ANTEL deputy
directors representing the Ministry of Interior for much of the same period.
Carolyn Forche, "Anatomy of Counterrevolution: The Road to Reaction in El
Salvador", in The Nation. 14 June 1980, reports that Col. Gutierrez has served as
manager of ANTEL. t •
8 For the chronology of Gen. Romero's Bights and reports of the coup see Tomas
Guerra. El Salvador: Octubre Sangriento (Centro Victor Sanabna: San Jose. Costa
Rica. 1981). p. 13. , • t- , j-
9 Ibid pp 13-14 The "Crdnica del Mes" (Monthly Chronicle) in Estudios
Centroamericanos. October-November 1979. p. 1005. reports the co-ordinated actiori
of about 400 young officers as the mechanism by which Gen. Romero was ousted
"without a shot being fired" and that all loyalist garrison commanders were
detained as they came in" on the morning of the 15th. It seems unlikely, however,
that any garrison commander could have been caught by surprise that morning
and unaware that Romero would promptly join his family outside the country.
353
10. Carolyn ForchC The Nation, 14 June 1980.

11. Cited from full text in Tomas Guerra, op. cit.. p. 16. In its documents section Estudios
Centroamericanos. December 1979, provides the text of the later proclamation
alone.
12. Ibid.
13. London-based Latin America Weekly Report (2 November 1979) notes that Roman
Mayorga. Rector of the Jesuit-run Central American University, a member of the
junta from 22 October, had drafted “the junta's radical statements released so
far”.
14. Tomas Guerra, op. cit.
15. Ibid.
16. Carolyn Forche. op. cit.
17. Dunkerley, op. cit., pp. 138-9: “The new government led by the junta... contained five
soldiers, four members of the aperturista sector of the landed bourgeoisie, six figures
close to UCA [the Central American University], and ten members proposed by the
Foro Popular with a further five suggested by it and accepted by the other
groups."
18. See Latin America Political Report, 31 August 1979. p. 269, on Vaky's July visit; on that
occasion he spoke only with the Christian Democrats.
19. For full text of Decree No. 9, 26 October see Estudios Centroamericanos, 19 December
1979, pp. 1109-10.
20. Cited in Amnesty International Report: 1980, pp. 136-7.
21. Ibid., p. 137
22. For full text of Decree No. 12 see Estudios Centroamericanos, December 1979, pp. 1110-
11.
23. Ibid. See Part 1 for discussion of the 1930s CMulas Patridticas (identity cards giving the
bearer certain legally defined privileges). ORDEN identity cards were issued not only
to a small elite econoriiic group, but to non-elites, members of a politically defined
organization under military discipline, and provided informal privileges, e.g.. access to
patronage posts, or to better treatment upon arrest by the regular security services.
24. See documents section in Estudios Centroamericanos, December 1979, pp. 1111-13.
Accord No. 1 of 13 November fixes prices for basic commodities; Decree No. 14 of 6
November provides for closures. See also Higinio Alas, El Salvador, iPor que la
insurreccion?. (published by the Comision para la defensa de los Derechos Humanos
en Centroamerica. in San Jose de Costa Rica, 1982), p. 91.
25. Estudios Centroamericanos, December 1979. p. 1113.
26. Ibid., pp. 1114-15.
27. Ibid., pp. 1116-18.
28. Amnesty International Report: 1980, p. 132.
29. Ibid., p. 133.
30. Dunkerley. op. cit., p. 140; according to Dunkerley, popular organizations’ association
with the different guerrilla groups generally allied the ERP with the Ligas, the FPL
with theBloque Popular, and theResistencia Nacional (which broke away from the ERP
in 1975) with FAPU. Tomas Guerra, op. cit.. pp. 27-8, reports an ERP comminique of
20 October declaring a “recess" in its “insurrectionary activities", a measure they
described as “giving the junta a chance"; actually the ERP apparently called a retreat
to lick its wounds, as their launching of the insurrection had been a severe failure. See
Estudios Centroamericanos, October-November 1979. for a selection of communiques
issued by the popular organizations in October 1979 (Documents section), and for in-
depth analysis of the popular organizations' role in the period.
31. Alas, El Salvador iPor que la insurreccion?, p. 217 and Eugenio C. Anaya. “Cronica del
Mes", in Estudios Centroamericanos, October-November 1979, p. 1007.
32. Alas, op. cit., p. 217.
33. Ibid., also Dunkerley. op. cit., p. 141.
34. Amnesty International, “Update on El Salvador", 29 December 1979; by mid-
November the popular organizations had abandoned their vigils in churches and the
mothers' committee had abandoned the Plaza Libertad.
354
Notes to Part 4
35. Ibid.
36. Alas. op. cit., p. 90.
37. Comision de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador, unpublished typescript; report on
human rights violations, 15 October to 31 December 1979,
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Estudios Centroamericanos. December 1979, p. 1089.
42. Gen. Medrano was ORDEN’s founder.
43. Carolyn Forche, op. cit.
44. Estudios Centroamericanos. December 1979. p. 1089.
45. For full te.xt see Estudios Centroamericanos. January-February 1980, p. 117.
46. Ibid., p. 119
47. Alas, op, cit., p. 223.
48. WOFA, "Fact Sheet on Roberto D'Aubuisson", 19 May 1982.
49. Alas. op. cit.. pp. 230-1.
50. Ibid., p. 223.
51. Dunkerley. op. cit.. p. 145.
52. Alas. op. cit., p. 226. Archbishop Romero, analysing the events the following
Sunday, concluded that the demonstrators had remained peaceful, despite the
attack with insecticide, until Tired upon by National Guardsmen from the National
Palace; some demonstrators then sought to defend their fellows with pistols and
subsequently participated in “acts of repudiation" including damage to private
property. Such rioting as did occur broke out after the demonstration was
dissolved, much as in the aftermath of the 28 February 1977 massacre following the
presidential elections, believed fraudulent.
53. Dunkerley. op. cit.. p. 156. citing The Guardian (Fondon). 20 March 1980.
54. In a 18 February letter to Carter. Archbishop Romero charged that the escalation of
government violence in the first weeks of 1980 was directly linked to the provision
of military assistance and called on Carter to stop additional military aid on
Christian grounds. See Alas. op. cit.. pp. 228-9 for the text; see also WOFA. “Fatin
America Update". March-April 1980.
55. See Alas. op. cit.. pp. 224-5 for the text of the sermon, and pp. 225-7 for the text of the
letter.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., pp. 236-3 for text.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Statement of 30 March 1980. published in Eco Catolico. 13 April 1980.
61. Alas. op. cit.. pp. 141-4 includes a list of the member organizations.
62. Ibid., pp. 144-5; the representatives were Salvador Cayetano Carpio of the FPL;
Joaquin Villalobos of the Partido Revolucionario Salvadoreho and the Ejercito
Revolucionario del Pueblo (PRS. ERP); Ernesto Jovel of the Resistencia Nacional
(RN) and Shafick Flandel of the Partido Comunista Salvadoreho (PCS).
64. Alas. op. cit.. pp. 261 and 266.
65. American Civil Liberties Union and Americas Watch.Report Human Rights in El
Salvador. January 1982. p. 76, note 2, citing Socorro Juridico, 4 June 1981,
66. Ibid., pp. 279-80.
67. Lawrence R. Simon andJamesC. Stephens. Jr.,f/Ro/vat/or, LandReform, I980-8L
OXFAM/America (Boston), 1982, p. 5. . ■ r
68. Ibid., p. 7. "Compensation of Phase I estates is to be paid solely in agranan reform
bonds, of 20, 25 and 30 year maturity. Former proprietors will be allowed to keep
landholdings up to the legal ceiling — 100 to 150 hectares depending on the class of
land."
355
69. Ibid., p. 17.

70. Ibid., p. 21.
71. Ibid., p. 17. citing US AID. 8 August 1980 Memorandum.
72. See ibid.. Chapter 6. for an extensive critique of the “Land to the Tiller"
programme.
73. Ibid., p. 18. citing Norman Chaplin. “Difficulties with the Implementation of
Decree 207 (“Land to the Tiller") in El Salvador's Agrarian Reform Program". AID.
Washington (nd).
74. Entitled "US Policy and the Marxist Threat to Central America", prepared by C.
DiGiovanni. Jr., the 15 October 1980 US Eleritage Foundation “Backgrounder"
notes that despite widespread publicity on the expropriation of some large farms in
"Phase I", the bulk of the nation's cash crops was concentrated in holdings of
between 100 and 500 hectares, covered by "Phase II". which would probably never
be implemented. These farms were said to produce some 92% of El Salvador's
coffee. The “backgrounder" concluded that the agrarian reform would probably
leave the country's coffee economy unaltered, and in any case, the 1980 harvest
would be unaffected.
DiGiovanni notes that even if "Phase III" were implemented, it would involve
only land oU'marginal crop productivity" and the proposal to sell off land worked
by sharecroppers (with government subsidies) was supported by many large farm
owners whose land might be affected.
75. Simon and Stephens, op. cit., p. 18, citing Jonathan Silverstone. US Government
Memorandum, Weeklv Report, 8 August 1980.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., pp. 17-18. citing Prosterman. “Land Reform as Foreign Aid", in Foreign
PoUcv. Spring, 1972.
80. Ibid.’
81. Ibid., p. 21: “Though US AID/El Salvador optimistically reported that the junta on
July 11, 1980 ordered the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to proceed quickly
with implementation, nothing has been accomplished to date... In effect, virtually
nothing has been altered since April 28. 1980"; on p. 43 the same source notes that
by early June 1982 only 103 definitive titles had been issued “to former tillers".
82. Ibid., pp. 38-9.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid., pp. 10-11. The authors note estimates that up to 40"4i of farm machinery in
affected estates was removed in the first month after the reform act. but suggest
about 25% as the appropriate figure. An AID source is cited as reporting on one
estate where “the owner arrived and slipped his best farm machinery across the
Guatemalan border, to another of his farms". The El Salvador Men’s Gazette of 5
May 1980 is cited as reporting that over 30% of the country's cattle had been
slaughtered since the reform.
85. Amnesty International Report 1980. p. 135.
86. Dunkerley. op. cit.. p. 155, citing NACLA “Revolution Brews".
87. Simon and Stephens, op. cit.. pp. 30 and 42.
88. An AID Report of June 1980 (Agrarian Reform Organization. Annex IIA; A Social
Analysis) noted that agrarian reform officials had sought “to make as few
modifications as possible in the administrative and labor structure of the hacienda
enterprise," in order to maintain production and “preserve continuity in the farm
operation". “They have tried to retain as many of the former management and
service employees as possible. The colonos are being dispatched on labor
assignments around the farms more or less as had been done in the past. The same
hacienda hierarchy, the same rules and restrictions, and the same system of
salaries (for employees) and daily wages (for colonos) have been kept in place with
few modifications. All this is |was| wise, and indeed necessary, to preserve
356
Notes to Part 4
continuity in the farm operation. . (Cited in American Civil Liberties Union/

Americas Watch. Report on Human Rights in El Salvador. January 1982, p. 43).
89. Computing the total AID contribution to the agrarian reform process involves
assessing assistance under different budget lines, from Food for Peace to grants for
"Public Sector Employment". A December 1981 AID Report, "Agrarian Reform in
El Salvador", prepared by consultants Checchi and Co., reported AID support for
the agrarian reform at $9.9 million in grants and loans in FY 1980; $50.7 million in
FY 1981 and a projected $51.8 million for FY 1982 (cited in Simon and Stephens,
op. cit.. p. 36). The same source (p. 37) cites an AID audit of ISTA's handling of
agrarian reform funds, and found large sums had been paid under the category
"security", with payments made to the military by the new co-operatives "in
exchange for not repressing them". "The auditors found that roughly one third of a
$21,000,000 fund for peasant cooperatives 'had been improperly spent or was
unaccounted for'".
90. For monthly death tolls, see Dunkerley. op. cit.. p. 155.
91. Simon and Stephens, op. cit., p. 11.
92. Ibid,
93. US congressional hearings on "The Situation in El Salvador". 1981. pp. 98-9. citing
Washington Star. William McWhirter. "Duarte discouraged. . .". 8 April 1981.
94. Simon and Stephens, op. cit., p. 41.
95. See Part 3.
96. Hearings on "The Situation in El Salvador", op. cit., p. 117.
97. Laurie Becklund in the Los Angeles Times, 18 December 1983, "Death Squads:
Deadly 'Other War' ".
98. Latin America Weekly Report. 16 May 1980.
99. Latin America Regional Reports. 24 October 1980.
100. Simon and Stephens, op. cit.. p. 10.
101. Latin America Regional Reports. 30 April 1982.
102. Ibid. Set 3\so Noticias de el Salvador. No. S. 1981 (London), quoting Captain Juan
Francisco Mena Sandoval's statement on Radio Venceremos describing the
purging of his fellow reformist officers, saying some were obliged to accept
scholarships to study abroad "that is what was done with Major Lemus. Major
Samayoa. Captain Roman Barrera. Major Alfaro. Captain Castillo Cienfuegos
and many others ... [or bribed] like Captain Carranza, Captain Poso. Captain
Vega Valencia, Major Carrillo and Lt. Villacorta. [Others were forced to flee into
exile] such as Lt. Vladimir Cruz and Captain Alejandro Fiallos ... after repeated
threats and the machinegunning of their homes and their vehicles. When all else
failed the honest members of the army were murdered, as happened with Captain
Amilcar . . . who was murdered by the direct order of Col. Carlos Lopez Nuila,
presently the Director of the National Police". In January 1981 Captain Mena
Sandoval himself led a revolt at Santa Ana's Second Infantry Battalion
headquarters and defected to the insurgents with his men.
104. Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights (New York). Justice in El
Salvador: A Case Study. 1 February 1983.
105. Ibid., p. 8.
106. Ibid., p. 9.
107 American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., p. 192. The same source
reports that the "hold" "did not affect the activities of US military personnel in El
Salvador at that time ... or the training of Salvadoran officers underway in the
United States and in Panama; it meant essententially that unspent portions of EY
1981 aid would not be committed".
108. Hearings on “The Situation in El Salvador". 1981, see “Notes on meeting with
Secretary Muskie on December 22 1980", p. 205.
109. Dunkerley. op. cit.. p, 173. Dunkerley notes that Ralael Mentjivar had predicted
this meta morphorphosis of the junta as early as November 1979.
357
110. Hearings on "The Situation in El Salvador", op. cit.. p. 188.

111. Ibid., p. 162.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid., pp. 183-4,
114. A detailed, well documented record of the investigation and non-investigation of
the case has already been referred to, published by Lawyers Committee for
International Human Rights on 1 February 1983, New York, as Justice in El
Salvador: A Case Study.
115. Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, op. cit., pp. 26 and 29, citing a
letter dated 22 November 1982 from L. Craig Johnstone, Director of the Office of
Central American Affairs of the Department of State to Michael Posner of the
Lawyers Committee, and Department of State "Report on the Situation in El
Salvador” of 21 January 1983.
116. Ibid., p. 41. The Lawyers Committee has been informed by the FBI in response to a
suit under the Freedom of Information Act that as of March 1982 it had 180
documents, comprising about 600 pages which are relevant to the case, but which
have not been made available.
117. AIFLD was created under AFL-CIO official sponsorship, but with assistance of
AID. the State Department. W. R. Grace, ITT, Exxon. Shell. Kennecott, Anaconda,
IBM and other multinational corporations (see Simon and Stephens, op. cit.. p. 22).
Simon and Stephens add that "It has had dubious connections with repressive
governments in Chile, Brazil. Uruguay and has built company unions for such
operations as United Brands and Standard Fruit in Central America". The
American periodical Dollars and Sense (March 1981) notes that AIFLD's official
objective was to aid “in the development of free, democratic trade union structures
in Latin America... In practice, that means working to counter the efforts of radical
or socialist unions — a function wholeheartedly supported by the representatives
of major multinational corporations who make up half of the AIFLD's board of
directors. Since 1962, some 300,000 Latin Americans have been trained at AIFLD
centers. Graduates are well versed in subjects such as “Recognition and Analysis of
Extremist Propaganda” while topics such as collective bargaining receive less
attention. Up until 1967 the CIA channeled funds into AIFLD through fictitious
foundations. Today major funding comes from the State Department's Agency for
International Development (AID)”.
118. New York Times Service. International Herald Tribune. 8 October 1982. Bernard
Weinraub, “Details emerging after Salvador soldiers confess in deaths of AFL-CIO
aides”.
119. Latin America Regional Reports. 1 May 1981, and Time. 18 October 1982. According
to Time. Christ, who had fled to Miami, was picked up by FBI agents three months
after the murders. “He was held for five months in a federal prison in Miami, then
released on bail while his lawyers fought extradition to El Salvador. A US judge
ordered charges dropped last June on grounds of improper arrest procedures by the
FBI... no formal extradition proceedings have been reopened by the Salvadoran
government at this time.”
120. See quotation from Boston Globe. 17 March 1982. in WOLA,"Fact Sheet on Roberto
D'Aubuisson”. 19 May 1982.
121. Radio 'Venceremos on 6 June 1981 (Foreign Broadcasting Information Service. 8
June 1981) named Major Moran as one of the principal National Guard officers
responsible for “assassinations”; Pacific News Service cited Jorge Pinto, former
editor of Salvadorean opposition newspaper El Independiente. as naming Major
Mario Denis Moran (as well as 'Victor Hugo Valencia, former chief of political
investigations of the National Police, and Lt. Oscar Serrato. aide to former
National Guard Intelligence chief Roberto D’Aubuisson) as key figures in a special
operations group known as "Los Torogoces" based in National Guard headquarters
in San Salvador under its then-Director Col. Vides Casanova. (Reprinted in El
Salvador Report (London). July-August 1982. p. 2).
358
Notes to Part 4
122. Latin America Weekly Report {London). 8 October 1982. A slightly different version
was given in the Albuquerque Journal. 19 May 198.L where Captain Avila's
expulsion is attributed to "an August 1982 car bombing in which five people were
injured. The allegetl target of the bombing was a Cuban American whom Avila
believed was supplying arms to the Salvadoran guerrilla.s". Captain Avila was not
the only suspected murderer sent out of the country as military attache. Captain
Victor Hugo Vega Valencia brielly arrested in May 1980 and implicated not only in
the murder of Archbishop Romero, but also in the November 1980 murder of top
opposition leaders in El Salvador, was sent to Mexico as military attache in late
1980 (see Uno mas uno (Mexico City), l.î October 1981. "Vincuhulo el agregado
militar salvadoreho en McAico al asesinato tie Arnulfo Romero".
123. Time. 18 October 1982.
124. Ibid.
125. New York Times Sendee. International Herald Tribune. 8 October 1982. Bernard
Weinraub. "Details emerging. . .”.
126. Time. 18 October 1982; "| Lt.| Lopez Sibrian. w ho denied being at the Sheraton that
night was put in a line-up to be viewed by witnesses of the incident. However, before
appearing he was allowed to dye his red hair black, cut it and shave". Lopez
Sibrian. to some extent the scapegoat in the case, was described by official sources
to the press as an eccentric individualist and notorious hothead., "known for his
(laming red hair, fiery temperand anti-Communist view.s". and likely to act without
superior orders.
ri rj
7. Time. 18 October 1982.

8. Christopher Dickey. "Salvadoran Military Deeply Split", in the Washington Post. I
July 1980.
129. American Ci\ il Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit.. pp. 136-7. The May 1980
list characterized those named as "traitor Communist.s" subject to "physical
elimination". The March 1981 version described those named as "bandits and
terrorist criminals". "Cuban, pro-soviet extremists" and "psychopaths". The same-
source points out that among those named are "members of the first and second
Juntas, the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, e.x-president ol the Central Bank and
other former officials.
130. Ibid., p. 124. refers to the 3 April 1981 COPREFA communique as announcing
"drastic measures" against foreign Journalists who continue to "distort the image of
the Salvadoran Government and people".
131. William MeWhirter. "Duarte discouraged as old grievances resurface in El
Salvador". Washington 5wr. 8 April 1981. cited in Hearings on "The Situation in El
Salvador", op. cit.. pp. 98-9.
132. Hearings on "The Situation in El Salvador", op. cit., pp. 107-8.
Chapter 14
133. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch. January 1982. op, cit.. p. 192.
134. Hearings on "The Situation on El Salvador", op, cit,. p. 101. quoting Senator
Charles Percy. Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
135. Ibid., p. 101.
136. Ibid,, p. 102: "It would obviously have been idle for us to be supporting a
government and withholding military equipment from them at a time that some ol
the semi-outlaw nations of the world, such as Libya and Ethiopia and Vietnam are
supplying important resources to the guerrillas, and Nicaragua is actively
permitting its territory to he utilized for the transfer of goods,
137. See, for example. American Civil Eiberties Union/Americas Watch. January 1982,
op. cit.. p. 192.
138. Ibid.
139. Dunkerley.op. cit.. p. 176.
140. Latin America Weekly Report. 4 July 1980. citing a 24 June broadcast. The same
source notes claims that the strike was successful were backed by Archbishop
359
Arturo Rivera y Damas “who said in a radio interview that the movement had been
generalized and the people supported the strike".
141. Ibid.
142. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, January 1982, op. cit., p. 192.
143. See, for example, John Dinges, Pacific News Service, "Critical Look at Salvador
White Paper", in Oakland Tribune, 17 March 1981.
144. Ibid.
145. Jonathan Kwitny, “Tarnished Report? Apparent Errors Cloud US‘White Paper'on
Reds in El Salvador", Wall Street Journal. 8 June 1981.
146. Ibid.
147. Ibid.
148. It served the same role as had another document of the same genre in 1954. to justify
the invasion of Guatemala and the overthrow of its elected government.
149. Time. 22 March 1982, “A lot of show, but no tell; the US bungles its evidence of
foreign subversion in El Salvador".
150. Time. 22 March 1982.
151. Ibid.
152. Ibid.
153. New York Times, 19 February 1982, “Pathological Killer gains in El Salvador", by
Warren Hoge.
154. Ibid. Sr. Reyes Prendes, like Duarte, a former Mayor of San Salvador, was also
quoted as declaring that “he and many of his friends and associates would leave the
country if Mr. D'Aubuisson ended up in power". Another source is cited as
suggesting that some leftists will vote for D'Aubuisson in order to provoke
resistance: “They know that where you have 3.000 guerrillas today, you'll have
300,000 if D'Aubuisson gets into office".
155. See notes 129 and 130.
156. Statement by Col. Jaime Abdul Gutierrez in June 1981, quoted in American Civil
Liberties Union/Americas Watch, Report on Human Rights in El Salvador. 20 July
1982 Supplement, p. 154, citing Foreign Broadcast Information Service, 4 June
1981.
157. Ibid., citing New York Times. 9 December 1981. “Salvadorean Exile Derides
Elections".
158. Ibid., p. 156.
159. Ibid. Kenneth Sharpe and Morris BIachman,A//awi7/eraW,28 March 1982, cited in
“Analysis: The Elections Everybody lost" in Mesoamerica (Costa Rica). Vol. 1, No.
4, April 1982.
160. These are at present termed "Cedulas de Jdentidad Personal". All Salvadorean
citizens over 18 are required at all times to carry these small passport wallet-size
credentials bearing their photograph, signature and thumbprints. Obtained from
the municipal authorities, much the same categories of personal information are
required for registration as in 1932: records are retained in municipal registration
offices for consultation by the security services. The equivalent 1930s “Cedula de
Vecindad" (Residenfs card) became the “Cedula de Identidad Personal" (Personal
Identity Card) under 1959 legislation with mandatory renewal every six years (see
Decreto No. 2971, Ley de Cedula de Identidad Personal. 27 November 1959, in Diario
Oficial, 2 December 1959). The most recent mandatory re-registration and reissue of
cards was under the Romero regime, with new cards required as of 28 February
1979 (See “Leyendo el Diario Oficial", p. 174. in Estudios Centroamericanos, March
1979).
161. See. for example, American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, January 1982,
op. cit., pp. 62-4 which include photographs of the arrest of Manuel Alfredo
Velasquez Toledo, a 22 year old student, on 3 October 1980 “because he had no
identification papers"; despite having shown the photographs of his arrest by
helmeted and uniformed National Guardsmen to then National Guard chief Col.
Vides Casanova, his body was found with others in Apopa on 10 October with a
360
Notes to Part 4
bullet in the head. The photographs appeared in the newspaper Hoy on

5 October.
162. See ibid., July 1982 Supplement, pp, 158-62; one source cited is Lord Chitnis of the
British Parliamentary Human Rights Group who carried out an independent
observation mission of the elections.
163. Ibid., p. 161. citing Lord Chitnis, "The Election in El Salvador in March 1982.
Report for the Parliamentary Human Rights Group".
164. Ibid., p. 162. citing Lord Chitnis.
165. Ibid., pp. 165-6.
166. Ibid.
167. For 1982 election results see Estudios Centroamericanos. April 1982, “Resultados
Electorales por Departamento"; the total given is 1,348,729 valid votes, with 130,603
disqualified votes. For 1972 see Juan Hernandez-Pico et al., op. cit.. \nAfio Politico
1972. chap. 2.
168. See Estudios Centroamericanos, April 1982, "Resultados Electorales por
Departamento".
169. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, July 1982 Supplement, op. cit., p.
175.
170. Provided 'm Mesoamerica. N'prW 1982.
171. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., July 1982 Supplement, p,
170. In any case the ban on entry in the US had not been enforced; in July 1980
D'Aubuisson quite openly entered the country and held a press conference in
Washington hosted by the American Legion and the American Security Council.
He then left the country without problem.
172. As cited, for example, in ibid., p. 174.
173. Ibid., p. 169. citing the Washington Post. 30 April 1982.
174. Ibid., p. 168: "almost immediately the assembly abrogated the decree which had
permitted the junta's agrarian and other economic reforms”.
175. Mary McGrory, "Learning to Love the Mean Little Major in El Salvador", in
Washington Post, 27 April 1982.
176. Ibid.
177. The FMLN/FDR placed itself on the record before 28 March, stating it would not
attempt to disrupt the election process; some attacks on polling stations were,
however, reported.
178. Joan Didion. Salvador. (Chatto and Windus/Hogarth Press, London, 1983),
p. 28.
179. R. Bruce McColm. El Salvador: Peaceful Revolution or Armed Struggle. (Freedom
House. New York. 1982). pp. 18 and 43.
180. Mary McGrory, "Learning to Love the . . .", the Washington Post, 27 April 1982.
181. Central Intelligence Agency, "Special National Intelligence Estimate: The
Pacification Effort in Vietnam". 16 January 1969, p. 40, reproduced by Carrollton
Press (1979). 355B.
182. Noticias de El Salvador. No. 5. 1981, London,
183. Ibid.
184. Ibid.
185. Reproduced in Amnesty International. AI INDEX: AMR 29/73/82. September
1982. "Assigning Responsibility for Human Rights Abuses: El Salvador s Military
and Security Units". ■ - • u
186. Ibid. Captain Fiallos's sources of information are worthy of attention: “During the
period in which I worked as a doctor in the military hospital I treated numerous
members of the security forces. In inquiring as to the cause of their injuries, which
is a normal medical procedure in the hospital, various individuals told me as other
doctors that they had been injured in the act of‘eliminating civilians. For example,
on one occasion, a member of the Treasury Police, in civilian dress, was brought to
the hospital with a fractured tibia. I asked him how he had been injured and he told
me that he and another member of his unit had received orders to eliminate a
361
woman school teacher in the town of Aguascalientes whom he had been told was a
subversive. In the act of pursuing the school teacher in her car, the motorcycle
driven by this man and his associate struck the rear of the automobile and
overturned, causing his injury. However, the other man was not hurt in the accident
and murdered the school teacher before she could get out of her car. Afterwards, he
brought his companion to the hospital for treatment.”
187. Typescript, "Prepared statement of Leonel Gomez", 11 March 1981.
188. Ibid.
189. Ibid.
190. Ibid. Leonel Gomez himself may have narrowly escaped becoming a death-squad
victim; in his testimony he recounts his experience after the murder of Rodolfo
Viera and AIFLD advisers Hammer and Pearlman. Gomez was arrested on 14
January, ten days after the murders, at the Presidential Palace by an army captain
acting on the direct orders of a junta member, presumably Col. Gutierrez. Taken
for an eight-hour interrogation session at Treasury Police headquarters he was
released that evening upon signing a document declaring that he had been released
unharmed. On the night of the 14th some 60 army troops travelling in two trucks
surrounded and searched his house; Gomez watched the search from a hiding-
place (apparently a large garbage bin) and subsequently managed to escape and
seek asylum in the US. Gomez fled El Salvador just as summary executions
reached unprecedented levels, with 2,664 killings of non-combatant civilians
registered by Socorro Juridico in the month of January 1981.
191. Although the "disappearance" or murder of most of the principal employees of the
CDHES in 1980 and 1981 reduced their capability to maintain a fairly comprehen¬
sive register of human rights ahuse. Socorro Juridico continued to do so even after its
patron. Archbishop Romero, was murdered in March 1980. In May 1982
Archbishop Rivera y Damas reestablished the Salvadorean Justice and Peace
Commission, and within it a human rights office designed to continue Socorro
Juridico's work and, in addition, to monitor political violence by opposition groups.
Called the"Tutela Legal" (Office of Legal Protection), it replaced Socorro Juridico as
the Archbishopric’s main human rights office. Socorro Juridico changed its name to
Socorro Juridico Christiano and moved to offices in the Jesuit High School
Externado San Jose in San Salvador. Both organizations continued to function, with
the Archbishop stating in the church newspaper Onentoddn that he “by no means
disavowed” the work of Socorro Juridico. All three human rights monitoring offices
— Tutela Legal. Socorro Juridico/Socorro Juridico Crisriano. and CDHES — came to
very similar conclusions on the scale and nature of non-combatant killings in
1982.
192. Socorro Juridico figures cited in Americas Watch, U.S. Reporting on Human Rights in
El Salvador: Methodology at Odds With Knowledge. New York, June 1982, p. 33.
Socorro Juridico'^ working methods and procedures are discussed at length in a
memorandum of 27 April 1982 by Heather Foote of the Washington Office on
Latin America, entitled "Documentation on the Human Rights Situation in El
Salvador: The Archdiocese Legal Aid Office”. The full memorandum is in the
report "Review of State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 1981”, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International
Organizations of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives,
97th Congress, Second Session, 28 April 1982 (Washington, US Government
Printing Office, 1982), pp. 119-27.
193. Americas Watch, U.S. Reporting. . ., op. cit, p. 16.
194. Ibid., pp.16-17.
195. Ibid.
196. Ibid., p. 34.
197. Ibid.
199. A chart of Socorro Juridico's statistics for 1981 is included in American Civil
Liberties Union/Americas' Watch. January 1982. op. cit.. p. 279.
362
Notes to Part 4
200. From an average of 582 governmental assassinations recorded for each of the first
four months of the year cases dropped to 375 in May, 355 in June and 201 in July,
rebounding to 508 in August, after the certification. Similarly, killings registered
dropped to 372 in December. A comparative chart oiTutela Legal, Socorro Juridico
and Human Rights Commission statistics for 1982 is in Americas Watch/ACLU,
op. cit., January 1983, p. 16. Tutela Legal's are given as those oiSocorro Juridico for
the months prior to its establishment as a separate entity. The same source (p. 18)
notes the striking pattern of increases and abatements in killings over 1982 — "rises
during the middle of a certification period and sharp drop-offs as certification
approaches".
201. Ibid., p. 19.
202. Americas Watch, Human Rights in Central America: A Report on El Salvador,
Guatemala Honduras and Nicaragua. April 1983, p. 4.
203. Ibid., p. 9.
204. Cited in American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, July 1982,
p. 120.
205. Americas Watch, U.S. Reporting. . ., op. cit, p. 34.
206. Susan Ornstein. “El Salvador: A Mercenary's View", in Fort Myers' News Press. 23
October 1983.
207. Ibid.
208. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, January 1982, p. 177.
209. Ibid., p. 178. Witnesses told an Amnesty International delegation present in
Honduras shortly after the massacre that the death toll was relatively low because
of the presence of foreign relief workers there. Amnesty International quoted one
foreign witness who described the role of US military helicopters in the slaughter:
"The helicopter came very low one time — almost touching the tree tops; we could
see the face of the man at the machine-gun. There is no way he couldn’t have seen
that he was firing at women and children." {See Amnesty International Report 1982.
p. 134.)
210. El Salvador Human Rights Committee. Report (London), September/October
1982.
211. Ibid.
212. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit.. January 1982, p. 201,
citing testimony of Representatives Gerry Studds, Barbara Mikulski and Robert
Edgar to US Congress House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, in Hearings
on Foreign Assistance and Related Programs Appropriations for 1982, 97th
Congress, 1st session, 25 February 1981, p. 29.
213. Testimony of 23 February 1982, cited in American Civil Liberties Union/Americas
Watch, op. cit., July 1982, pp. 26-7.
214. Ibid. According to eye-witness Philip Bourgois, most casualties were elderly,
infirm, and women burdened by children.
215. Ibid., citing Diario Las Americas. 20 November 1981.
216. Ibid., p. 27.
217. Ibid., pp. 28-9, citing the New York Times. 27 January 1982, "Major Massacre is
reported in Salvadoran Village", and the Washington Post. 27 January 1982.
"Salvadoran Peasants Describe Mass Killing .
218. Ibid., p. 29.
219. Dial Torgersen. “In El Salvador, ‘Substantial Control and US Supplied
Helicopters . \n International Herald Tribune. 11 February 1982.
220. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., July 1982 Supplement,
pp. 27-8 and 29a.
221. Ibid.
222. Ibid., p. 30. citing testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 8 February
1982.
223. Ibid., p. 219. , ,
224. Christopher Dickey. "US Tactics Fail to Prevent Salvadoran Civilian Deaths . the
Washington Post. 10 June 1982.
363
225. Ibid.
226. Ibid.
221. Ibid.
228. Americas Watch/ACLU Report on Human Rights in El Salvador, 20 January. 1983,
Second Supplement, Appendix D, p, 108 (US Department of State Memorandum
to Americas Watch, 30 November 1982).
229. Paul Ellman. "Long gone ... the last of the summer optimism", in The Guardian
(London), 22 November 1983.
230. Dial Torgerson. op. cit., (InternationalHerald Tribune, 11 February 1982). Torgerson
was killed with reporter Richard Cross on a road near the Nicaraguan border,
apparently after driving over a land mine, in June 1983.
231. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch. July 1982, Supplement, p. 73, op.
cit.
232. Dial Torgerson, 11 February 1982. op. cit.
233. “Dissent paper on El Salvador and Central America", DOS 11/6/80, To: Dissent
Channel From: ESCATF/D Re.: DM-ESCA no. 80-3. In the “Statement of
Purpose" of the paper’s introduction, dated 6 November 1980. the authors warn
that the incoming Reagan administration's first crisis "may well be in El Salvador"
and that “should President Reagan choose to use military force in El Salvador,
historians will be able to show that the setting for such actions had been prepared
in the last year of the Carter Administration. There may still be time to change
course during the transition period”. The paper outlines recent policy toward
Central America and proposes a “non-military, negotiated solution" to the crisis in
the region. Although Carter administration spokesmen denied the paper
originated in the “Dissent Channel", the information provided in the document is
accurate, the analysis seems an authentic expression of inside views of the foreign
policy establishment, and the proposals made are couched in the appropriate
bureaucratic language. The introduction maintains that "The views articulated in
this paper are shared in private by current and former analysts and officals at NSC.
DOS. DOD and CIA. Employees from other agencies active in El Salvador and
Central America — but normally excluded from policy debates — also contributed
to these notes."
234. “Dissent Paper", op. cit, pp. 6-7.
235. Ibid., p. 8.
236. Ibid., p. 5.
237. Ibid., p. 19.
238. Latin America Regional Reports, 19 January 1983, "Ochoa Mutiny: bring me the
Head of Guillermo Garcia".
239. This Week, 17 January 1983. “Garcia still in charge, but for how long?".
240. Ibid.
241. William Tuohy for Los Angeles Times Service, in International Herald Tribune, 23
March 1983.
242. Deborah Mutnick, “General Garcia Finally Gets the Boot", in The Guardian (New
York), 27 April 1983.
243. The Washington Post, 21 June 1982. for example, reports that Ochoa “methodically
cleaned out Cabanas. . . mountainous terrain within six months after he took it
over on August 17." Later assessments of his achievement however, attributed it
more to the peculiar conditions in Cabanas. Latin America Regional Reports, 18
February 1983 (“Where now for the Army?") noted that Ochoa’s tactics did not in
themselves result in success: “Colonel Ochoa was often praised by the head of the
US military group. Colonel Wagglestein. But Ochoa was operating in a department
where the guerrilla forces and popular organizations were weak, and where right-
wing paramilitaries have traditionally been strong. Elsewhere Colonel Ochoa
would not have had the same impact on the guerrilla organization, which has
become increasingly smooth and efficient.”
244. The Washington Post, 21 June 1982. reports that Col. Ochoa denies his troops had
364
Notes to Part 4
carried out the raid on La Virtud camp, and said “He was not responsible ... for
what troops from other commands might have done".
245. Ibid.
246. Christopher Dickey, "El Salvador's Young Colonels Shun Politics: They are
Becoming a Force forChange Favored by the US", Washington Post Service, in the
International Herald Tribune. 8 July 1982.
247. The Washington Post, 21 June 198T
248. White was referring to a recent massacre by the Treasury Police and the US's
failure to support factions in the military opposed to continued atrocities: “They
cannot do it unless we apply diplomatic pressures on them to improve. Unfortunately,
we have done the opposite, with the result that we have 23 poor people dead and
horribly mutilated by the worst offenders, the Treasury Police." Cited in US
Congress, Hearings on “The Situation in El Salvador", op. cit., p. 103.
249. Testimony of Capt. Mena Sandoval, reproduced in Noticias de El Salvador
(Fondon), No. 5. 1981. Mena Sandoval states that the sacristan was murdered on
Ochoa's direct order, and that he had also “ordered the death of all those who were
taken prisoner." This is consistent with the actions of the Treasury Police in other
areas in this period and with accounts of the incidents at Soyapango.
250. This Week, Central America and Panama. “New Order gets under way ", 22 October
1979.
251. American Institute for Free Labor Development, Statement of William C. Doherty,
Jr.. Executive Director, before the Foreign Relations Committee of the United
States Senate, February 2, 1983, Washington, D.C., p. 12.
252. Christopher Dickey, op. cit.
253. The Washington Post. 21 June 1982.
254. Ibid.
255. In US Congressional Hearings held in March 1977 congressman Donald Fraser
questioned Mr Richard 'Violette, director of Security Assistance operations of the
Department of Defense with regard to ORDEN:
“Mr. Fraser: I have one last question. Mr. Violette, do you know what ORDEN is in
El Salvador?
Mr. Violette: I am afraid I do not. In what context is it used?
Mr. Fraser: It is described, apparently, as a paramilitary force organized by the
Ministry of Defense to operate in rural areas.
Mr. Violette: I am sorry; 1 don't.
Mr. Fraser: You are not familiar with that?
Mr. Violette: No. sir.
(See US Congress Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections in El Salvador",
p. 18. See above for reference to US backing for the establishment of ORDEN.)
256. General Carlos Guzman Aguilar. “La Subversion Comunista y las Acciones
Guerrilleras" in Revista de la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor Enrique Araujo".
July-December 1970.
257. Ibid.
258. Ibid.
259. Ibid.
260. Ibid.
261. Ibid.
262. For a resume of the terms of the legislation on certification of progress on human
rights see American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., July 1982
Supplement, pp. 207-8.
263. Institute for Policy Studies, Resource. Update No. 8, pp. 2-3. citing Testimony, 2
February 1983.
264. Latin America Weekly Report. 26 February 1982, “The Intervention Plan
Unfolds".
265. Ibid.
266. Newsweek. 2 May 1983.
365
267. Institute for Policy Studies,/Jesowrce, Update No. 8, p. 8, citing the Washington Post,
II March 1983, Ihe Los Angeles Times, 13 March 1983, and New.sweek, 21 March
1983.
268. Newsweek, “A Plan to Win in El Salvador". 21 March 1983.
269. Institute for Policy Sudies, Resource, Update 8, p. 9, citing Los Angeles Times, 3
March 1983.
270. William Tuohy, "US Role in El Salvador Recalls Vietnam — but there are
Differences loo", Los Angeles Times Service/Intemational Herald Tribune, 23 March
1983.
271. Ibid.
272. Newsweek, "A Plan to Win in El Salvador", 21 March 1983.
273. Thomas Powers, op. cit, p. 232.
274. Richard H. Shultz, Jr., "The Vietnamization — Pacification Strategy of 1969-1972;
A Quantitative Reassessment", p. 104. in Richard H, Shultz, Jr. and Richard A.
Hunt (eds). Lessors'/row an Unconventional War: Reassessing US. Strategies for Future
Conflicts. (Pergamon Policy Studies, Pergamon Press, New York, 1982).
275. Ibid., citing Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Systems Analysis), OASD-
SA), South-East Asia (SEA) Analysis Reports. 317, pp. 66-75, and OASD-SA,
“Phoenix". SEA Analysis Reports. June-July 1971, p. 2.
276. Ibid.
277. Ibid., p. 58.
278. Ibid., pp. 108-9. Shultz cites, among other sources, Thomas Thayer. “The
Communist forces... were getting stronger and stronger. They moved their logistics
support into areas of South Vietnam; they now controlled and protected it... they
built roads, bridges and pipelines, and they introduced several thousand more
troops. By the end of 1974 they were in the strongest position they had had since at
least 1964". (Thayer in “Howto Analyse a War Without Fronts".) Shultz also takes
issue with the position taken by such former American officials as Henry Kissinger,
who maintained that the defeat of the 1972 offensive was a result of the success of
pacification, the winning of the war in the countryside and even that it was this
“victory" that “forced" the North Vietnamese to the conference table. Shultz notes
that while the US did not pour in ground troops to meet the 1972 offensive, it
radically escalated the use of American air power to support the South Vietnamese,
increasing the number of US sorties flown against North Vietnam, e.g.. 24,0(X) in
1971. 106,000 in 1972,
Shultz' conclusions are in part supported by Douglas S. Blaufarb, in “The
Sources of US Frustration in Vietnam" {Lessons from an Unconventional War. op.
cit., p. 153). Blaufarb, a former adviser to the National Security Council, counter¬
insurgency expert and former CIA official, takes issue with Shultz' contention that
pacification in the countryside failed completely, or that it was decisive in the
government's eventual defeat, but concludes that “Nevertheless, the total picture in
1972 by no means supports the official claims that were made at the time, and Dr.
Shultz is correct in saying that pacification and Vietnamization in 1972 were a long
way from achieving the control of the population along with its willing support that
were its long-range objective."
Another contribution (“American Culture and American Aims: The Case of
Vietnam") in the same anthology (p. 182), by Col. Donald Vought (retired),
criticizes the US military's failure ever to fully appreciate the strategy and
techniques of pacification, in contrast to its experience in applying conventional
warfare methods in Vietnam. According to Vought, "We lost the war in the range of
conflict which fell below conventional unit operations, i.e., pacification".
279. See, for example, ra/s Week. 15 August 1983, “Testing Time in San Vicente". During
1983 US military personnel rose far beyond the Reagan administration's self-
imposed limit, a development obscured by a quiet change in nomenclature. The
limit of 55 US military advisers was superseded by no longer considering officers
assigned permanently to the Military Group as “advisers", even when they worked
directly with the Salvadorean military. Lydia Chavez, in New York Times Service,
366
Notes to Part 4
International Herald Tribune, 28 February 1984, “Level of US personnel in Salvador

has Risen Substantially in Last Year”, confirms a total of97 US military personnel,
comprising those assigned to the Military Group (71) and the defence attache s
staff (26, up from 6 a year earlier). This figure excludes 23 medics, the Embassy
marine guard, and 5 “so-called military communicators" at the Embassy. The
defence attache s staff included two helicopter crews. Full figures on civilian staff
directly associated with the San Vicente/Usulutan programme have not been
revealed.
280. This Week, 15 August 1983, “Testing Time in San Vicente".
Chapter 15
281. Cynthia Arnson, Institute for Policy Studies, Resource, “Background Information
on the Security Forces in El Salvador and US Military Assistance”. 1980. citing US
Department of Defense, Defense Security Assistance Agency, Foreign Military Sales
and Military Assistance Facts, Washington D.C., 1979.
282. US Congress Hearings on “Human Rights in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El
Salvador: Implications for U.S. Policy”, 1976, p. \ S5,andNACLA, US Military and
Police Operations in the Third World, 1970, p. 15, citing US Department of Defense,
Military Assistance Facts, 1969. pp. 16-17.
283. US Congress. Hearings on “New Directions for the 1970's; Toward a Strategy of
Inter-American Development", 1969, p. 506.
284. Ibid.
285. US Congress, Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections...” op. cit.. 1976. p. 7.
testimony of Richard Violette.
286. US Congress. Hearings on “Religious Persecution in El Salvador”, 1977, p. 23.
287. Ibid., p. 24.
288. Arnon Hader, op. cit., citing the Washington Post, 15 March, 1978.
289. US Congress, Hearings on “New Directions...”, op. cit, p. 506; US Department of
Defense Press Release, August 1971, cited in NACLA, The US Military Apparatus,
1972, p. 42; and US Congress, Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections...”,
op. cit, p. 4.
290. Blutstein et al., op. cit., p. 208.
291. US Congress, Hearings on “The Recent Presidential Elections. . .”, op. cit, p. 9.
292. Cynthia Arnson, op. cit, p. 13, citing US Department of State, Report Required by
Section 657 of the Foreign Assistance Act FY 75, 76, 77, 78. Cartridges were
provided in the following quantities; FY 1975, 6,363, 500; FY 1976, 6, 150,040; FY
“7T' (a period of transition to a new financial accounting year at end 1976-
beginning 1977), 2,131,000; FY 1977, 5,393,000.
293. Ibid., p. 12.
294. Ibid., p. 8. . .
295. US Department of State “Country Reports”. 1980, p. 321. US economic assistance
in 1979 totalled $10.6 million ($6.9 million for AID), while international financial
agencies authorized $60 million.
296. Ibid., p. 321.
297. Cynthia Arnson. op. cit, p. 8.
298. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, January 1982,
299. The Archbishop wrote to President Carter on 4 November 1979. On 29 February

1980 the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Martin Ennals, wrote the
Department of State, stating its conclusion that all security forces in El Salvador
“are in varying degrees implicated in abuses — including torture and summary
executions”, and that further military assistance “might encourage further
violation of human rights”. Both texts are cited in American Civil Liberties Union/
Americas Watch, op. cit, January 1982, pp. 189-90.
300 Amnesty International, Political Killings by Governments, 1983, p. 17.
367
301. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit. January 1982, p. 189; and
WOLA. Update, Latin America, March/April 1980.
302. WOLA, Update. Latin America. March/April 1980. WOLA’s Update cites a 14
February 1980 Washington Post article by Karen de Young and an Institute for
Policy Studies Report on El Salvador as upsetting plans for the quiet deployment of
the three teams.
303. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., January 1982, p. 191.
304. Ibid.
305. “Dissent Paper", op. cit.. p. 16. The "Dissent Paper" also warns that an increase in
US involvement in the region would make Panama critically important, and
describes the US position there as "precarious" as long as General Torrijos remains
in control of the armed forces. General Torrijos was killed in a plane crash in 198?.
According to the authors. General Torrijos "is described in our character profiles
as ‘volatile, unpredictable... a populist demagogue [with] a visceral anti-American
bias ... and a penchant for the bottle" ". Reference was also made to the logistical
role of the Panama Canal Zone facilities: “The Latin American press has carried
accusations that DOD (Department of Defense) may be using our facilities in
Panama for stockpiling military supplies intended to play a key role in an eventual
logistical supply air-lift to Salvadorean armed forces. We have obtained some
evidence supporting these allegations". Panama was also reported to have
“improved ties with the FDR/DRU coalition moderates".
306. Ibid., p. 18. The "Dissent Paper", on p. 17, also identified Ecuador, and specifically
its President, Jaime Roldos. as a problem vis-a-vis US policy on El Salvador: "Since
May, President Roldos’ position on El Salvador has shifted further in favor of
recognition of the FDR.” Roldos, too, died in a plane crash within the year.
307. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit. January 1982, p. 190.
308. Ibid.
309. Ibid., p. 195. The authors remark that MTTpersonnel "are considered different
from military advisers in that MTT's do not accompany foreign troops on military
operations, and are not supposed to help plan, coordinate or otherwise advise
foreign military personnel in the performance of defensive or offensive combat
operations". Adherence to these official distinctions between the roles of different
military units within the security assistance programme cannot however, be
assumed.
310. Ibid., p. 196.
311. Ibid.
312. “Dissent Paper", op. cit, pp. 8-9.
313. Ibid.
314. Ibid.
315. See American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, January 1982, pp.
218-9 for a detailed discussion of this legislation and its application to El Salvador.
Section 614 of the Foreign Assistance Act according to the same source, also
provides for emergency assistance: “Under 614 the President may furnish up to
$250 million in any type of security assistance to a country without regard to
Sections 502B. 660 or any other provision of the Foreign Assistance or Arms Export
Control Acts"; see also Institute for Policy Studies. Resource. Update No. 8. op. cit.,
p. 11; the same source notes that Section 614 had been invoked virtually unnoticed
“at least four times for El Salvador and Nicaragua in the last three years".
316. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., January 1982, p. 190.
317. Ibid., pp. 194 and 203.
318. Ibid., p. 205; the same source notes that ESF funds can be released “without
congressional review to address emergencies" and can be used for purposes not
including weapons purchases or training that “enhance a nation’s security", such
as road or bridge building. This form of aid was formerly called “Security
Supporting Assistance".
368
Notes to Part 4
319. Ibid., July 1982. p. 206.

320. Ibid., pp. 206-7.
321. Institute for Policy Studies, Resource. Update No. 7. November 1982, p. 13.
322. Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Update on Latin America, March/
April 1983, p. 1.
323. See ibid., p. 8; the same source outlines proposed economic assistance to El
Salvador and other countries in the region adding up to $168 million, with $67.1
million earmarked for El Salvador.
324. Institute for Policy Studies, Resource. Update 8, op. cit., p. 9.
325. US Congress, Hearings on "The Situation in El Salvador”, op. cit.. p. 6.
326. Quotations here are from US Congress, Hearings on "The Situation in El
Salvador", op. cit., pp. 80-81, quoting Christopher Dickey, Washington Post. 18
March 1981.
327. Testimony of General Graves, in ibid., p. 82.
328. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., January 1982, p. 197. A
breakdown of US advisory activities in the second half of 1981, declassified by the
Defense Security Assistance Agency, reported the training of army units by one
five-man unit in "basic infantry operations at the National Training Center" while
two five-man groups worked in regional garrisons "to train new units of the 1200-
man Quick-Reaction Battalion" (in Institute for Policy Studies. Reiowrce, Update
No. 7. pp. 6-11).
329. Institute for Policy Studies, Resource. Update No. 7, pp. 6-11.
330. Ibid.
331. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, July 1982, p. 213.
332. Ibid.
333. Institute for Policy Studies. Resource. Update No. 7, op. cit, p. 9.
334. Ibid., p. 15.
335. Latin America Regional Report, 15 July 1983.
336. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, July 1982, p. 213. For an
outline of the two-year curriculum see Carlos Andino Martinez, El Estamento
Militar en El Salvador", £5fw£7ios Centroamericanos. July-August 1979. p. 619.
337. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, July 1982, p. 214,
Training at US bases was not in itself an innovation; until the interruption of major
training programmes in 1977, the Plan de Estudios (Curriculum) of the Escuela
Militar Capitdn General Gerardo Barrios provided for the fifth of the eight-term
course of study to be dedicated to training at the Canal Zone School of the
Americas; the four courses taken there included ' Sub-courses in Parachuting,
Irregular Warfare, Marksmanship, and General Studies. (See Carlos Andino
Martinez, op. cit). . , , ,no-. a
338. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., July 1982, pp. 213-4.
citing State Department sources and a Pentagon spokesman.
339. Newsweek, 14 March 1983, Reagan Sounds the Alarm .
340. Jonathan Steele, "In a US model, let Nicaragua be Yugoslavia". The Guardian
(London). 22 August 1983. mic
341. Department of State. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1982. (US
Government Printing Qffice. Washington D.C.. February 1983), p, 492.
342. Captured soldiers have been turned over to the International Committee of the Red
Cross on a regular basis; some sources maintain that prisoners returned to their
units by the Red Cross are as a rule dismissed from the army as bad for morale. The
good treatment of prisoners by the FMLN forces, and their release through Red
Cross channels is seen as a major factor in inducing the surrender of regional
garrisons, and the high desertion rate.
American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., January 1982, p. 191
343.
citing the Washington Post. 9 Qctober 1980. Such assertions were reported
uncritically in the news media, as in Time. 16 March 198 . Tê training of
Salvadoran troops by the US began in early 1980 at Fort Gulick in Panama, where
369
the School of the Americas specializes in teaching antiguerrilla warfare. At the

urging of the Carter Administration, school officials designed a special curriculum
for the Salvadorans. Formally titled ‘Aspects of Human Rights in Internal Defense
and Development', the three-week course offers basic training in how to search and
take a prisoner, with special emphasis on protecting the prisoner’s rights. Some 250
Salvadorans took the course last year, and another 150 are expected to graduate this
year. One recent visitor to a session of the course listened as an instructor asked his
Salvadoran NCO ‘Even if we think that the person whose house we are going to
search is a guerrilla, do we still have to establish a friendly atmosphere when we
question him?' The instructor's rhetorical reply, 'Absolutely'."
344. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., January 1982 Supple¬
ment, p. 85, citing Nutting Testimony, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 3
August 1982. See also ibid., p. 87, for Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights
Elliott Abrams' statement to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "Respect
for human rights and proper conduct toward the civilian population has been a
principal part of our training of Salvadoran military personnel".
345. Ibid., pp. 86-7.
346. Paul Ellman. “The School that Trains Democrats and Dictators", in The Guardian,
17 May 1983.
347 See for instance This Week, 12 July 1982. “Peace Feelers in El Salvador", “The
International Red Cross had considered leaving El Salvador because of the army's
apparent policy of liquidating captured rebels while in custody. Since that time, an
army high command directive advised infantry units to take prisoners, and some
are actually believed to be in custody." Or Congressman Tom Harkin's testimony
of2 March 1982, on the findings of a congressional delegation to El Salvador. “We
asked the high command about reports which were substantiated by the State
Department that the Army of El Salvador, except in rare cases, does not take
prisoners. The Subminister of Defense, Colonel Castillo, denied this and instead
charged that the guerrillas kill their wounded so that they cannot be interrogated.
There is... no question that this is a lie. The Army of El Salvador does as a matter of
routine shoot the enemy wounded and execute the captured." (Quoted in American
Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit. July 1982, p. 220).
348. Jonathan Steele, “In a US model, let Nicaragua be Yugoslavia", The Guardian
(London), 22 August 1983.
349. See, for example, “A plan to win in El Salvador". TVewsweeit. 21 March 1983; and
Latin America Regional Reports, 25 March 1983, “Reagan’s New War Plan Finds
Few Takers".
350. See sources in ibid.
351. LatinAmerica Weekly Report, 14January 1982, quoting Gen. Jose Guillermo Garcia,
then Minister of Defense, on “civilian involvement". See above, for reference to
“Operation Well-Being" and the tactics of regional commanders.
352. Latin America Regional Reports, 19 January 1983, “Ochoa Mutiny: Bring me the
Head of Guillermo Garcia”.
353. For a comprehensive overview of US involvement in Honduras, see Institute for
Policy Studies, Resource, Update No. 9, “Background Information on US Security
Assistance and Military Operations in Honduras", prepared by Leslie Parks with
Jonathan Marshall and Michael T. Klare, 30 May 1984.
354. A1 Kamen, “Brutal Murders Routine — Who Kills Salvadoran Civilians?”, reproduced
in US Congress, Hearings on “The Situation in El Salvador”, op. cit, p. 114.
355. The key words are “the inadequacy of security force resources", an inadequacy
irregular forces are repeatedly called upon to remedy by swelling available
manpower and performing counter-terrorist actions not appropriate to the regular
uniformed forces. The quote is from US Embassy airgram from San Salvador to
Department of State, “Subject: A Statistical Framework for Understanding
Violence in El Salvador”, 15 January 1982, p. 7, cited in Americas Watch,
“Methodology. . .”, op. cit., p. 28.
370
Notes to Part 4
356. See Part I.

357. Captain Ricardo Fiallos, statement, April 1981 (typescript).
358. Sometimes a difference as slight as that between the words auto or carro for
automobile, but quite enough to place a foreign national.
359. Excelsior (Mexico City), 12 July 1979,
360. The Guardian (London), 12 April 1980.
361. “Dissent Paper", op. cit., p. 9.
362. Ibid., pp. 12-13.
363. Don Oberdorfer and Patrick E. Tyler, “Reagan said to approve action to stem
Central American Unrest", Washington Post Serv'icejnternational Herald Tribune,
15 February 1982 and Patrick E. Tyler and Bob Woodward, "US is said to approve
anti-Nicaragua actions". International Herald Tribune. 11 March 1982.
364. The plan reportedly called for “support and conduct of political and paramilitary
operations against the Cuban presence and Cuban-Sandinista support structure in
Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America". While budgetted at $19 million, the
proposal emphasized that the programme "should not be confined to that funding
level". (See Tyler and Woodward, op. cit.. International Herald Tribune. 11 March
1982).
365. Ibid. According to the same source, while the CIA was to "work primarily with non-
Americans in covert operations", some cases would justify “unilateral paramilitary
action — possibly using US personnel — against special Cuban targets".
366. Arnon Elader. The United States and El Salvador, op. cit.. pp. 26-7; Elader cited the
FDR on the August 1980 deaths, and on 1 January 1981, the Washington Post states
that “at least five US citizens, ostensibly mercenaries working for rightist forces,
have been reported killed in the fighting". Hader cites the Washington Post. 19
December 1980, for the killing of the US ex-police sergeant.
367. Susan Ornstein, “El Salvador: A Mercenary's View", Eort Myers News-Press, 23
October 1983.
368. Ibid.
369. Army concept team in Vietnam, Office of Joint Research and Test Activity, US
Army. “Employment of a Special Eorces Group , 25 April 1966, Carrollton Press
Declassified Documents Series ((R) 204B), p. 26.
370. Testimony of Leonel Gomez, op. cit.
371. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit.. January 1983, Second
Supplement, Appendix D. p. 100.
372. Ibid., and. press reports. Januaiy 1984.
373. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., July 1982, pp. 215-6,
citing the Aew York Times. 24 June 1982.
374. “US Advisers Lighting in El Salvador, CBS Says", AP., the Washington Post. 24 June
1982. for reference to the Lempa River massacres.
375. American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit., July 1982, p. 228.
376. Ibid., p. 229. citing the/Vew York Times. “Green Berets Step Up Honduras Role , 9
August 1981; see also Rusty Davenport. "Monitor Salvador's Border" in thcNew
York Times. 23 December 1981: "During November 1981, a month of mounting
repression of refugees and reliefworkers. Green Berets were in La Virtud [Refugee
Camp). These personnel training border patrol units cannot have been unaware
of the brutal conduct of Honduran soldiers." It should be pointed out that
Honduras is a country which, at that time, had no insurgent movement, despite
which the presence of the Green Berets was important, and, furtherrnore,
prominent in the border areas, “in particular since the July-August 1981 decision
to relocate refugees to the interior". (See the New York Times. Green Berets Step
Up. . .". op. cit.) .T’.
377 Institute for Policy Studies, Rcwwrce, Update No. 8, op. cit., p. 12. The same source
notes that initial official US government reports on Sergeant Stanley's wounding
maintained that he had not broken the rules governing trainers conduct.
378. Newsweek. 14 March 1983.
371
379. Latin America Regional Reports, 6 May 1983, “El Salvador: Washington Looks to the
Skies”.
380. US Department of State, Statement on Assistance to El Salvador, 2 March 1981,
cited in American Civil Liberties Union/Americas Watch, op. cit, January 1982,
p. 196.
381. Ibid.
382. Ibid., p. 197.
383. Ibid., p. 198, citing The Baltimore Sun. 3 February 1981.
384. Institute for Policy Studies, Resource, Update No. 7. p. 6.
385. Ibid., pp. 6-7.
386. Ibid., pp. 7-8.
387. Ibid., p. 11.
388. This Week. 28 March 1983, citing Philip Taubman, the New York Times; the
emphasis ofTaubman's article, however, was that the Salvadoreans have not been
responsive to CIA direction and advice.
389. Time. 22 March 1982; “Judging Spies and Eyes”.
390. Philip Taubman, “US Reportedly Plans to Underwrite Cost of Salvadoran Vote”.
New York Times Service, International Herald Tribune. 27 May 1983.
391. Ibid.
392. Ibid.
393. “Congress Talks Back”, Newsweek. 2 April 1984.
394. See Stephen Kinzer, “Ex-Officer in Salvador Links Top Officials to Death
Squads”. New York Times Service. International Herald Tribune. 5 March 1984.
395. Ibid.
396. Op. cix., Newsweek, 2 April 1984.
372
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375
Index
Abbreviations used in this Index
AD Accion Democratica (Democratic Action Party)

AID Agency for International Development
AIFLD American Institute for Free Labor Development
ANDES Asociacion Nacional de Educadores Salvadorenos (National Association
of Salvadorean Educators)
ANEP Asociacion Nacional de la Empresa Privada (National Association of
Salvadorean Enterprise)
ANSESAL Agenda Nacional de Seguridad de El Salvador (National Security
Agency of El Salvador)
ANTEL Agenda Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (National Telecommunications
Agency)
ARENA Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (National Republican Alliance)
ATACES Asociacion de Trabajadores y Campesinos de El Salvador (Association
of Salvadorean Farm Workers and Peasants)
BPR Bloque Popular Revolucionario (Popular Revolutionary Bloc)
CDHES Comision de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador (Commission of Human
Rights in El Salvador)
CGTS Confederacion General de Trabajadores de El Salvador (General
Confederation of Salvadorean Workers)
CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Groups
CITFA Centro de Instruccion en Telecomunicaciones de la Fuerza Armada
(Armed Forces Centre for Instruction in Telecommunications)
CNI Centro Nacional de Informacwn (National Information Centre)
CNT Central Nacional de Trabajadores (National Workers Central) (Guatemala)
CONDECA Consejo de Defensa Centroamericana (Central American Defense
Council)
COPEFA Consejo Permanente de la Fuerzas Armadas (Permanent Council of the
Armed Forces)
COPREFA Consejo de Prensa de las Fuerzas Armadas (Press Council of the
Armed Forces)
CORDS Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
CRM Coordinadora Revolucionariade de Masas (Revolutionary Co-ordinator
of the Masses)
DINA National Intelligence Directorate
DRU-PM DirecciSn Revolucionaria Unijicada PolitCco-Militar (Unified Political-
Military Revolutionary Command)
El Sal. El Salvador
ERP Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo (People’s Revolutionary Army)
376
Index
FAN Frente Amplio Nacional (Broad National Front)

FAPU Frente de Accion Popular Unificada (United Front of Popular Action)
FARO Frente Agraria Region Oriental (Eastern Regional Landowners’ Front)
FBI(US) US Federal Bureau of Investigation
FDR Frente Democratico Revolucionario (Democratic Revolutionary Front)
FECCAS Federacion de Campesinos Cristianos de El Salvador (Christian Peasant
Federation of El Salvador)
FENESTRAS Federacion Nacional Sindical de Trabajadores Salvadorenos (National
Trade Union Federation of Salvadorean Workers)
FMLN Farabundo Marti Frente de Liberacion Nacional (Farabundo Marti'
National Liberation Front)
FMS Foreign Military Sales Program
FPL Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion ‘Farabundo Marti’ (Popular Liberation
Forces Farabundo Marti)
FRTS Federacion Regional de Trabajadores de El Salvador (Salvadorean
Labour Federation)
FSLN Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (Sandinista National
Liberation Front)
FUDI Frente Unido Democratico Independiente (United Democratic Indepen¬
dent Front)
FUSS Federacion de Unidad Sindical Salvadoreno (Salvadorean Federation
of Trade Union Unity)
Guat. Guatemala
ID AD Internal Defense and Development
IDB Inter-American Development Bank
IMET International Military Education and Training Program
INSAFI Institute Salvadoreno de Fomento Industrial (Salvadorean Institute of
Industrial Finance)
ISTA Institute Salvadoreno de Transformacion Agraria (Salvadorean Institute
for Agrarian Transformation)
LP-28 Ligas Populares 28 de Febrero (28th of February Popular Leagues)
MNR Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Move¬
ment)
MPSC Movimiento Popular Social Cristiano (Popular Social Christian Move¬
ment)
MRC Movimiento Revolucionario Campesino (Revolutionary Peasant Move¬
ment)
MTT(s) US Army Mobile Training Team(s)
NSAM National Security Action Memorandum
PCN Partido de Conciliacion Nacional (Party of National Conciliation)
PRTC Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos
(Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers)
PRU(s) Provincial Reconnaissance Units
PRUD Partido de Unificacion Democratica (Revolutionary Party of Democratic
Unity)
PUD Partido de Union Democratica (Party of Democratic Unity)
RN Resistencia Nacional (National Resistance)
SIE Seccion de Investigaciones Especiales (Special Investigations Section)
SNI National Intelligence Service
ucs Union Comunal Salvadoreno (Salvadorean Communal Union)
UDN Union Democratica Nacionalista (National Democratic Union)
UGB Union Guerrera Blanca (White Warriors’ Union)
UNO Union Nacional Opositora (National Opposition Union)
UNT Union Nacional de Trabajadores (National Union of Workers)
UPT Union de Pobladores de Tugurios (Union of Slum-Dwellers)
USIA US Information Agency
UTC Union de Trabajadores del Campo (Union of Agricultural Workers)
377
Abourezk, Senator James 59-61, 71 Araujo, Manuel E. 98, 103

Acheson, Dean 8-9 Arce, Gen. Manuel Jose 89, 91
AD 129, 292, 295 Arellano, Richard G. 190-1
AFL-CIO 281 ARENA 283, 292-3, 295-7, 313;&
Agee, Philip 69-70 ORDEN 293
Agenda de Seguridad (Guat.) 204-5; Argentina 31, 331
(Costa Rica) 62 army reserve (El Sal.), role of 205, 208
Agrarian Code 97, 124-6, 128, 159 Arrupe, SJ, Fr. Pedro 186
agrarian reform: in El Sal.: 152, 254, assassination: US army documents on 24,
266-73; Cabanas province 316; and 27, 43-7 See also counter-insurgency
sales freeze 254; Heritage Foundation doctrine, US; & counter-terror concept
268; & church, persecution of 176-81; ATACES 157
Vietnam model 267-9; & White Atlacatl Rapid Response Battalion 307-10,
Warriors Union 178-9; 335
in Guat.: & US assessment of 17-8 Avalos, Dr Ramon 260, 262, 273
See also AID Avila Avila, Capt. Eduardo Ernesto 281-3
Aguilares 179-80, 185-7 Azmi’tia, Gen. 169
Aguirre y Salinas, Col. Osmin 120, 127,
Bailey, Lawrence 305-6, 344-5
131-2, 187
Barahona, Fr. Rafael 179
Ahuachapan, peasant revolts 1931-2
Barrera, Fr. Ernesto 194
107-8, 110-4; image of Christ, & firing
Barrios, Gerardo 91
squad 113-4
Bay of Pigs 10, 14, 21
AID 15, 18, 54, 59-60, 63, 70, 151-2,
berufsverbot, employment restrictions in
156-60, 192, 203, 283; & agrarian
Pan-American Union proposals 7;
reform 267-8; & Operation Wellbeing
intelligence application 70; & US
321; & security assistance 63 See also
McCarran Act 7n
Public Safety Program
Blandon, Col. Adolfo 314, 320
Air Commando Squadron, US Air Force
“Bomb School”, See Border Patrol Academy,
21
US
Air Force of El Sal. 169, 262
Border Patrol Academy, US 59-61; &
air power, & US combat role 348-9
Salvadoreans at 215
Alas, Fr. Higinio 185
Bowdler, William 246, 252, 272
Alas, Fr. Inocendo 156-7, 185
BPR 157, 178-9, 186-7, 254-6, 266, 304
Alliance for Progress 13, 32-3, 149, 156-7
Brazil: arms trade with El Sal. 329;
Alvarez Cordova, Enrique 176-7, 254,
Public Safety Program 63-4
266-7
Brodeur, Cdr. V.G. 100, 102, 110-1, 113,
Amaya, Rufina 308-9
115-6
American Civil Liberties Union 347, 388-9
Browning, David 96, 153
AIFLD 156, 269, 279-84, 301, 316
Bustamante Maceo, Col. Gregorio 112, 120
Americas Watch Committee 302-3, 332,
Bustillos, Col. Rafael 314-5, 321
338-9, 347
Amnesty International 193-4 Cabanas province: agrarian reform 316;
Anderson, Thomas 109, 113, 120, 130-1, clearance operations 306-8
152 Calderon, Gen. Jose Tomas 115-8, 128-9
ANDES 163-6, 174-5, 207, 304 Calvo, Col. Tito 130
Andino, Antonio 251, 260 canton patrols: & army reservists 124;
ANEP 180 & ORDEN 205-8; origin 98; reactiva¬
ANSESAL 175, 191, 218-22; counter¬ tion 123; regulations 123-4; & US
intelligence role 219-20; & Operation intelligence 124
Phoenix 325; secret reorganization Caritas Clubs 156
(1980) 221-2, 253, 272-5, 352-3 Carranza, Col. Nicolas: & ANSESAL
ANTEL 169, 177, 220-1, 247, 251, 274 221-2, 246-51, 272-4, 352-3; & CIA
Anti-Communist Army, Secret 343 221n, 352-3
Araujo, Arturo 98, 103, 105-7, 114; US Carrera, Gen. Rafael 89-90
intelligence on 105
378
Index
Carter, Jimmy: arms airlift 286-8, 331-3; Civic Affairs Intelligence Center, Section
human rights policy 187-92, 287, Five 221-2
329-33;& military advisers 278, 286-8, Civil Defense patrols 254, 317-8, 321-3,
331-2, 335; & military security assist¬ 325;& ORDEN 325, 340-3
ance 275, 278, 286, 312, 329-33, 350; Civic Guard(s): El Sal. 117-20, 123;
& “non-lethal” assistance 330-1 Vietnam 25 See also Regional Forces
Casanova, Col. Oscar Eduardo 352 civil war: & insurgency 30, 287
Castaneda Castro, Gen. Salvador 127 Civil-Military Directorate 136-7, 149
CAS, as acronym for CIA 23n, 202, 205 CIDG, Vietnam 24-6, 342
See also CIA Claramount Rozeville, Col. Ernesto 182-4
CDHES 302 Clarke, Sr. Maura 275-81, 284
Cedulas de vecindad See identity card clergy: attacks on 91, 157, 176-81, 185-7,
systems 192-5, 304-5; & human rights 173,
censorship & US media 288-91, 297-8, 176-81, 185-7
312-3 CNI 220
Central America and Panama Security CNT51
Telecommunications Network 67, 204 coffee culture: & communications infra¬
Central American Bank for Economic structure 103;& cotton culture 152-4;
Integration 151 & Indian lands, expropriation 94-7;
Central American Common Market 151 labour requirements 95-8; police
Central American University Simeon Caiias development 95-8
178, 250,295 Colby, William E. 26, 46-7, 71-2, 323-4
Central American Workers Federation 104 Colombia 16, 23-4, 42
Central Electoral Commission 165, 168 colonos: defined 153;dispossession of 153
Central Security Corps, El Sal. 97 See also Committee of Mothers of Political Prisoners
political police, El Sal. 256
Centro Regional de Telecomunicaciones Communism: anti-communist legislation
(Guat.) See Regional Telecommunica¬ 121-2, 135, 152, 158, 193-4; Central
tions Centre American perception 10-11; fear of
“Centralia” 42, 44 99, 102, 114-5, 200; & political war¬
CGTS 135 fare 29
Chalatenango 306-9 Communist Party (El Sal.) 104-5, 108-9,
Chavez y Gonzalez, Archbishop Luis 175, 114, 134-5, 157, 163, 171
180, 185 “Communist Revolution” See peasant
Chile 121-2, 331 revolts (El Sal.) 1931-32
China 40-1 community policing 92-3
Christian Democratic Party 156, 158-60, CONDECA 10, 31-2, 192
162-3, 165-6, 168-70, 176, 194, CONELCA company 251, 257
247-51, 258-60, 272, 292-6; schism Confederation of Salvadorean Workers 200
261,277 Conference of Intelligence Officers'of the
church, evangelical 309 See also Roman Americas 192
Catholic Conference of American Armies 10, 192
CIA: as CAS 23n, 202, 205; & Costa Rica conservatism 89-91
62; covert actions 13-15; in Ecuador Constituent Assembly 283-4
70;&E1 Sal. 61-2, 202-3, 221n, 290, COPEFA 257, 260, 272
350-3;& Guat. 61-2; & international COPREFA 284-5, 293
terrorists 344; National Intelligence CORDS 27,45-50, 321-5
Estimate 298; & Public Safety Program Costa Rica: & CIA 62; & Salvadorean
54-72, 202-3; & security assistance role terrorism 281-2; Security Agency 62;
57-63, 71-2; Special Operations US Ambassadors’ meeting 245-6; US
Division 45; & US Army Special military assistance costs 326
Forces 25-6; & US security assistance cotton culture 152-4, 321-2
54-72 Council on Public Order 119
CITE A 220 counter-guerrilla organization, see counter¬
Civic Action 32-3, 207; & Operation organization concept
Wellbeing 320-5; in Vietnam 49, 322-3 counter-insurgency doctrine: British 135;
379
El Sal.: counter-organization concept (Customs Police 198; intelligence role 219;

66-7, 209-14, 318-9; counter-propa¬ US assistance 216
ganda 213-4; counter-terror 209-10,
Dada, Hector 251, 260-1, 265
212-4, 318-9; paramilitary organiza¬
D’Aubuisson, Roberto 218, 221-2; &
tion 66-7, 209-14, 318-9; psychological
assassination of Archbishop Romero
warfare 66n;& US doctrine 209-10,
272-3; & COPREFA 284-5; & “death
317-9;& rural intelligence networks
squads” 260, 262, 272-4, 352; election
66-7; & traditional military profession¬
to Constituent Assembly 283, 291-7;
alism 209-10; French 35-6; Guat. 210;
& Finca San Luis 272-3; & napalm 292;
US: assassination in 24, 27, 45; counter¬
role in ANSESAL 218, 221 ;&
organization concept 23-7, 33-8, 66-7,
ANSESAL reorganization 221-2, 272;
210; defining the enemy 28-32, 50-3;
visit to Capitol Hill 283
& development 13, 16-17, 32-3, 49
“death squads” 317; ANSESAL & targetting
See also Civic Action; elites 34-6, 50-3;
for 221-2, 352; defined 301; army’s
& ethnic minorities 24, 26, 34;genocide
direction 229-302; & accountability,
42; global conflict 29-30; & human
evasion of 22-3, 49-50, 313-4; & “non-
rights 37-40; pohtical warfare concepts
lethal” security assistance 330; organi¬
29; & language 25; & military profession¬
zation 218-9; & resistance, precipitation
alism 209-10; operational phases 24-5,
31-2; in Salvadorean army doctrine
322; scope 28; terrorism as technique
213-4
23-4, 27, 30, 29-53
“death lists” 70, 284-5 See also counter¬
counter-intelligence 58
terror; targetting
counter-organization concept: El Sal.
Defense Assistance Agency, US 335
army’s doctrine 66-7, 209-14, 318-9;
Defense Attaches, US 327
implementation, El Sal. 204-22, 317-22,
325, 337, 340-3; intelligence function demonstrations: in counter-insurgency
doctrine 30-1, 194-201, 262, 287; in
66-7, 212, 218-20, 317-8; in Nicaragua
El Sal. 131, 173-4, 183-4, 194-201,
43; & MTTs 22-3; & US Army Special
Forces 22-7, 33; in US counter-insur¬ 262, 264, 287; & political change 131,
gency doctrine 23-7, 33-8, 66-7, 210 135-7, 173-4, 183-4, 254-7, 260, 262,
counter-terror concept: Chalmers Johnson, 264-5
& Col. John Webber on 39-41; in El Sal. Denaux, Fr. Guillermo 179-80
175-6, 212-14, 305-6, 317-19; French Department of State, US 187-94; & human
experience 40;in Guat. 44; Japanese rights 279, 303-4, 341-2; & Salvadorean
experience 40-1; targetting 45-53, army no-prisoner policy 346
66-70, 318-19; in US counter-insurgency Department of Defense, US, police assist¬
doctrine 22-3, 30, 32, 39-53; account¬ ance role 63
ability, evasion of 43-4, 49-50; & Derian, Patricia 190-1
Colombia 23-4, 42; concept, defined Devine, Frank A. 245-6
30/discussed 39-53; formula for DINA (Chile) 69
“death-squads” 22-3; & genocide 42; dirty warfare See Special Warfare
& guerrillas, impersonation of 44; “disappearances”, El Sal., & July 1975
& Vietnam 24, 27, 35, 43-50, 69, massacre 173-4; Investigating Commis¬
322-5; World War II experience 30 sion 252-4 ■, & New York Times 1937
coups d’etat, El Sal. 1931: 103, 106-7, 121; 128; US citizens 190-1
1944: 121, 129-30; 1948: 132-4; 1960: Dissent Paper 331-4; on US censorship
149, 199-200, 245, 251-2; 1961: 149, role in El Sal. 313; on US mercenaries
199;1972: 169-72; 1979: 149, 221, 343-4; on US public relations & state
245-50 terror 312-3
CRM: foundation 261-2;general strike Dominican Republic 327; Public Safety
(1980) 262,287 Program 64
Cuba(n): Revolution, influence of 11, Donovan,Jean 276-81, 284
199-200, 245;& US allegations 286-91, DRU-PM 265
312-3; exile groups, & US intelligence Drug Enforcement Administration, US
344 71-2
Cuscatlan Battalion 336 Duarte, Jose' Napoleon 158, 165-6, 170,
260, 271, 274, 277-8, 291-3, 296
380
Index
economic reform, US proposals: in El Sal.; Ford Foundation 15

& Alliance for Progress 149-53; & Foreign Assistance Act, US 333-4; &
Carter administration 252, 266-71; police assistance 70-1
& military solutions 275, 314-5, 320-1, FMS 328, 331,333
332-4; in Guat.: 17-8 Foro Popular (Popular Forum) 247, 250,
Economic Support Funds Program (ESF) 255-6
333 Fort Benning 337-8
Ecuador: & CIA 70; Public Safety Program Fort Bragg 20, 336, 338
63-4; & Special Group (Cl) 16 Fort Gulick 335, 339
educational reform, Guat.: & US view of FPL 171, 260, 297
17 Fraser, Donald 188, 191
El Rosario Church 255-6 Freedom of Information Act 338
El Zapote Fort 121, 169, 220 freedom of movement, restrictions: in
elections, El Sal.: Constituent Assembly, El Sal.; internal passports, 122-3;
1982: 283-4, 291-8, 320; coercion by US 7, 203-4
293-5; fraud 293-5; exclusion of FRTS 104-5, 114
opposition 293-4, 297;FDR-FMLN FSLN 247
position 293-4. Municipal and legisla¬ FUDI 162, 166-7, 181
tive: 1932: 106-S-,1964: 158;7972: FUSS 174, 176, 257
168-9;1974: 181;i976: 181.
Garay, Gen. Fidel Cristino 120, 128, 130
Presidential: 1931: 104-6;7967: 209;
Garci'a, Col. Jose Guillermo 247-52, 258
7972; 161, 165, 168-9, 196;& coup
272-5, 277, 296, 300, 308, 313,
(1972) 170;fraud 168;7977: 177,
& ANTEL 177, 247; & “death-squads”
181-6; fraud 182-3, 190/protests &
352; as Minister of Defense 248-51,
mass executions 183-7/US congressional
262; ousted 313-15; & October 1979
hearings 183-4; 7 952: 245
coup 246-51 ;& reformists 272-5, 277
Enders, Thomas 296, 309
Geneva Conventions 339-50
ERP 171-2, 182, 255
genocide, as mass counter-terror 42;
Estudios Centroamericanos 162, 257
& 1932 massacre 112, 114-5
Extemado San Jose'; massacre, FDR
Gomez, Leonel 280, 301-2, 346
leaders 266
Gomez Gonzalez, Santiago 282
FA LANGE (El Sal.) 174-6, 178 5ee also Grande, Fr. Rutilio, SJ, 180-1, 185
“death squads” Graves, Gen. Ernest 335
FAN 262, 272-3 Greece 8, 37-8
FAPU 174, 186-7, 247, 254-6, 266 Green Berets See US Army Special Forces
FARO 100, 178-80 Grenada 290
Fascism, European: & Central American Guatemala: counter-terror targetting 51;
leaders 4-5; & El Sal.: black-shirt “death-squads” 175-6; MTT, 1962 23;
mihtia 128-9; & Civic Guard & Nicara¬ paramilitary organization 318, 341,
gua, “Blue Shirts” 5n 345; Salvadorean elites in 270; &
FBI(US) 62-3, 72, 279, 282, 344 Special Group (Cl) 16-17; & US: air
FDR 265, 274, 297 power 349; military assistance 326;
FECCAS 156-7, 172-4, 178-9, 185-7, Zacapa campaign 111 See also intelli¬
193 gence systems; Guat.
FENESTRAS 174, 176, 255 Guerra y Guerra, Col. Rene 247, 249
Fiallos, Capt. Ricardo Alejandro 300-1, guerrilla movement 163, 171-2, 182,
343 187, 286-91, 293-4, 297-8; army
Figueroa, Col. Servio Tulio 300 perception of “masses” & 310-11
Finca San Luis incident 272-4, 281 See also under name of each group
Flores Lima, Col. Rafael 274, 316 guerrillas, impersonation of 44
FMLN: foundation 265, 295, 297-8; Gutierrez, Col. Jaime Abdul 247-51,
general strike (1981) 297-8; offensive 272-5, 277, 287, 316; & ANSESAL
(1981) 286-7, 309, 331; prisoners of 221-2; & ANTEL 247, 251; & coup
1979 247-51, 316; & reformists 272-5,
346
Forche', Carolyn 251, 258 277; on strike action as war 287
Ford, Sr. Ita 275-81, 284 Guzman Aguilar, Gen. Carlos 66-7
381
Haig, Alexander 291, 332-3 30-1, 51, 200

Hamlet Evaluation System 324-5 Intelligence: communications & 64-9;
Hammer, Michael 279-84 covert operations 59-61, 67, 68-70;
Hardin, Herbert O. 197-200, 202-3 data collection and processing 64,
Harkin, Thomas 309, 311 68-70; & US congressional hearings
Hernandez, Maj. Gustavo AtiUo 211 64; detection function 64, 68-70;
Hinton, Dean 271, 296-7 paramilitary organization & 66-7, 210,
Honduras: migration to 153-5, 164; 318-9; police role 54-7; & US Military
miUtarization, border area 347-8; raid, Groups 335, 349; screening for
refugee camps 315; refugees seen as population control 48; sharing 10, 67;
guerrillas 310, 314, 348; Sumpul targetting 47-9, 67-70; & voter
River massacre 306; US air power registration lists 108, 144, 351 See also
349; US military assistance & Civil individual intelligence & security agency
Defense groups 341; US training of Intelligence system, El Sal.: data bases
Salvadoreans 336; US military advisers 218-33, 351-2; military control 218-22;
348; & war with El Sal. 150, 154-5, paramilitary organization & 204-8, 212,
161, 164, 182, 208, 218; in White 218-20, 317-20; Presidential agencies
Paper 288 57,61, 204-6, 217-22; screening 48,
House Foreign Affairs Committee 334, 205, 218; US assistance 57, 61-2,
346 201-2, 215-8, 221n, 349-53
House Subcommittee on Inter-American Intelligence system, Guat.: Presidential
Affairs 301 agencies 57, 61-2, 67, 69; screening
human rights, El Sal.: & US military assist¬ procedures 48; US assistance 18, 61-2,
ance/7 94J 511970s 187-9311980s 57-70; & Internal Defense Plan 17-8
329-33, 337-40; & 1979 junta 249-50; Intelligence system, US: covert action:
& military reformists 252-4; prohibition pre-1960 12/as military function 15;
on reporting 194; & Romero’s over¬ US presidential supervisory committees
throw 187-95; & US/citizens 187-92, 15 See also CIA; US Army Special
276-7, 331/foreign poUcy 5, 187-93, Forces
287, 329-33/Intemal Defense & Inter-American Bank for Rural Develop¬
Development doctrine 337-40/ ment, & US human rights policy 329
suspension of Public Safety Program Inter-American Commission on Human
70-3 Rights 181, 191-3, 253; discovers
secret cells 217
IDAD 320, 329, 337-8 See also counter¬
Inter-American Defense Board 5, 10, 193
insurgency doctrine, US
Inter-American Defense College 29, 193
IDB & US human rights policy 189,
Inter-American Police Academy 201
192-3, 329
Internal Defense, defined 15
identity card systems, El Sal. 122-3, 351
Internal Defense Plans 15, 17-8
Ilopango airport raid 34
Internal Security Board, El Sal. 202
IMET 326, 330-1, 333-4
International Commission of Jurists 194
Immigration Police: & Public Safety
International Committee of the Red Cross
Program 198; intelligence function
346
61, 203, 217, 219; “look out” list
International Cooperation Administration
276; US assistance 61, 203-4, 216-7
18, 66; National Police, survey of (El
Indians, El Sal.: & caste war 112, 114-5;
Sal.) 197-8
communal land/tenure 91/expropria¬
International Police Academy 55-6, 59-61,
tion 94-7; communism, fear of 114-5;
201, 215; torture training allegations
& genocide 112-3, 115; revolts 90n,
70n; Sal. graduates 215-6, 218
99-103, 108-16 See also peasant
International Red Aid 104
revolts
irregular forces, see counter-organization
INSAFI 151, 177, 246
concept; paramilitary organization
Institute for Policy Studies 349
irregular warfare 33-4; in Sal. army doctrine
insurgency: in US doctrine 14, 30; &
211 See also counter-insurgency
demonstrations 30-1, 194-301, 262,
doctrine
287; as foreign intervention 210, 212;
Israel: arms trade 329;officer training
levee en masse 52-3; as strike action
316
382
Index
LYNX Lists 69-70

ISTA 177, 271, 279-80
Italian army, assistance 4 Magana, Alvaro 296
Majano, Col. Adolfo 247-50, 257, 272-4,
Jamaica, Public Safety Program 65
280, 283, 293,300,316;& Finca San
Japan: as counter-insurgency model 30;
Luis 272-3; dropped from Junta 277
kidnapping 187
Majors’ Coup 132-4
Jesuit Order 171, 178, 180-1; death
Marines, US 305, 344
threats to 185-7, 191, 193
Marmol, Miguel 107-9, 112, 119, 120,
Jimenez Vega, Rodolfo 182, 217
123,127
Johnson, Chalmers A. 39-41
Marti", Farabundo 110
Kaibiles 34 Martinez, Ana Guadalupe 182, 217
Kazel, Sr. Dorothy 276-81,284 Martinez, Gen. Maximiliano Hernandez
Kennedy, John F. 12-15 3-4, 103, 106-8, 117-30, 175; Axis
Komer, Robert W. 45-6 links 4; agrarian reform gestures 152;
Kwitny, Jonathan 288-90 black-shirt militia 4, 129; Civic Guard
117-20; relations with army 127;
La Cayetana, massacre 172-3 failed coup 129-30; fund raising 119;
labour: & agricultural workers 152, 162-3; as Minister of War 103, 106-7; &
controlling, rural 92-4, 95-8, 124-6; Pro-Patria Party 128-9; resignation 130;
code, El Sal. 152, 162; levies 92-4; & 1930s’ security system 108, 117-30;
minimum wage 254; organization 7, US military intelligence on 4, 117-8,
104-5; self-help associations 150, 156, 121-4, 129
165 See also names of labour Maryknoll Order 171, 275-81, 284
organizations Massacre, 1932: 99-103, 108-16, as
Labour Party, El Sal. 114 genocide 114-6, British Consul on 101,
land tenure, El Sal.: communal/corporate 109, 111-2, Canadian Naval officer on
systems 91; state intervention 94-7 100, 102, 111, 113, 115-6, as caste war
land-to-the-tiller programme 267-9 112, 114-5, execution of suspect
Langguth, A. 60-1 troops 119-20, Gen. Jose' Tomas
Latin America, foreign ministers’ meetings Calderon on 115-6, Miguel Marmol on
3-4 100, 112-4, as model for 1980s 99-100,
Latin American Conference of Bishops, preparations for 108-10, at San
Medellin 1968 155-6 Salvador Cathedral 195
law: Mayorga Quiros, Roman 250, 260
Defense of the Democratic and Medrano, Gen. Jose Alberto 162, 167,
Constitutional Order 135; Defense and 204-8, 218, 258
Guarantee of Public Order and Security Mena Sandoval, Capt. Juan Francisco
193-4; Drainage and Irrigation 162; 299-300
Industrial Promotion 151; Land Me'ndez, Joaqui'n 111-2
Warfare 339-40 Melendez, Jorge 103-6
Lempa River massacres 32, 306-7; & US Mene'ndez, Gen. Andres 130-2
combat advisers 347 Menendez, Col. Ascencio 127
Lemus, Col. Jose Maria 133-7, 149-50, Menjivar, Dr Rafael 171
196-9, 200, 245, 252, 262 Meo 34
liberalism 89-91 mercenaries 305-6, 342-5
liberation theology 150, 154-6, 161, 163 Merino, Col. Juan F., US military intelli¬
Llanos, Gen. Armando 120-1 gence on 4
local government: alcaldes labour obliga¬ military, El Sal.: aircraft 329, 332-5,
tions 92-3; elections & 1931-2 peasant 348-9; rejection of civilian militias
revolt 106-8; colonial 90-\\conegi- 129, 131-2, 197, 209; budgets 120,
dores in 92-3; identity card systems 127-8; canton patrol system 98;
122-3; Indian communities 92; law casualty figures 337; desertions 337;
enforcement role 91, 92;municipio force levels 127, 214, 337, 340;
as basis 90-4 General Staff 98, 220-2, 319;
Lopez Sibrian, Lt. Rodolfo Isidro 281-3 institutional interests & coups 103,
Lozano, Ignacio E. 178, 188-92, 327-8 106-7, 129-30, 1324, 136, 248-50,
LP-28 186, 247, 254-6
383
257-9, 272-4; nationalization 91-8; National Campaign Plan (El Sal.) 340
officers in security services 198; National Guard, El Sal.: 97-8, 108, 120-6,
origins 90-1; police function 299-302; 159, 163, 167, 169-70, 172-3, 179,
prestige factor in coups 136; 183, 193, 255; & army 120, 127-8;
professionalism, concepts 91, 209-10; canton patrols 123; Department of
purges 121, 182, 257-9, 272-5, 277; Special Investigations 205-6, 217, 219;
rehabilitations 273-4; reserve system force levels 1932 120; function 97;
98; rivalry with security services 120, murder of US citizens 276, 284, 352;
127-33, 169-70;& state terror 217-22, & ORDEN command structure 207;
299-302, 2>S2\tanda system 132, & private employers 220; Public Safety
246-7, 300; training establishments Program assessment 197, 215-17;
4-5, 91, 210, 220, 257; US military secret cells 217; small arms 328;
intelligence assesses 127-8; & US torture equipment 217; US assistance
military programmes 201-2, 209-10, 197, 201-9, 215-8; & war with Honduras
278, 286-8, 326-51 See also US 208, 218
Military Assistance Program, El Sal.; National Guard (Nicaragua) 343
coups d’etat; counter-insurgency National Police, El Sal. 93-4, 97-8, 114,
doctrine, El Sal. 121-6, 130, 163, 169, 183, 194, 328;
military academy (El Sal.) 3, 5, 91, 247, Department of Criminal Investigations
257 204, 215-7; Department of Special
military missions, El Sal.: French 91; Investigations 205-6, 215-7; & 1932
German 4; US 5, 189-90, 192, 314 massacre 114; role in 1944 revolt 130;
military professionalism, models 91, 209 US assistance 201, 203-6, 215-7
Military Youth Movement, El Sal. 247, National Security Council (US) 290, 344,
252, 258-9 348
militias, El Sal.: 90, 93, 129, 131-2, 197, National Training Centre (Sal. Army) 336
209, 342; & army, pre-1960s 129, National University of El Sal. 168, 171;
131-2, 197, 209; & Civil Defense massacre at 173-4, 135-6
patrols 322, 340-2; & civilian irregular Nicaragua: anti-Communist legislation 4;
forces 342; & Operation Wellbeing & Bay of Pigs 10; civilian irregulars
322, 340-3 see also counter-organization, (1930s) 43; Marines (US) 3, 43;
El Sal.;ORDEN revolution 31-2, 51-2, 245-8, 262; &
MNR 247-51, 265 US Military Group 327; & Puerto
Molina, Col. Arturo Armando 168, 170-90, Cabezas airport 290/support for
192, 219, 267, 272; & US human terrorism 344
rights policy 187-91 NSAM:Wo. 124 14;7Vo. 162 \%\No. 341
Monge, Maj. Roberto 211-4 14n;Wo. 56 34n, 54n;Wo. 132 54n;
Montagnards 26 No. 114 54n;Wo. 146 54n
Monterrosa, Lt.-Col. Domingo 309-11
Ochoa, Lt.-Col. Sigfrido 307, 313-19
Morales Erlich, Antonio 260-1, 274
official parties (El Sal.) 134-5, 158, 160-5
Moran, Maj. Denis 281-3
Oliver, Covey T. 63-4
Morazan Department, clearance operations
Operacion Bienestar para San Vicente, See
306-9
Operation Wellbeing
Morse, Wayne 326-7
Mozote massacre 302-3, 308-9 Operation Phoenix 27, 44-50, 69; assessed
323-5
MPSC, founding of 261, 265
MRC 157 Operation Wellbeing 320-3; & agro-industrial
MTTs, US military: in Colombia 23-4, 42; production 322; & US advisory levels
322-3, 325
counter-organization role 20-4; in El
ORDEN 34, 38, 66-7, 172-3, 181, 183,
Sal. 201-2, 210, 328, 330-2; in Guat.
186-7, 192, 204-9, 218-21, 250, 253-4,
18, 23; in Eatin America 20-4; regula¬
tions 21 256, 293, 299, 317-8, 337; & agrarian
Mutual Defense Assistance Agreements reform 270; & ARENA 293; & civic
(US) 9 action 207; & Civil Defense groups
317-8, 325, 337, 340-5; as counter¬
narcotics, US police assistance 72, 216 organization 212; as “death-squad”
384
Index
207; dissolution, ostensible 250, 253-4; insurgency doctrine

ideology & political organization 206-7; popular organizations (El Sal.): origins
recruitment 205-8; & Red League & 172-4;& elections 182, 186-7, 193-5,
Civic Guard 118-9; staffing 253 200; October 1979 coup 247, 254-7,
Organization of American States (OAS) 10, 261-6 See also separate organizations
151,312 population control 350-1
Osorio, Col. Oscar 133-5, 152 prisoners-of-war (El Sal.) statistics 346
Pro-Patria Party 128-9, 160; black-shirt
Pan-American Union 3-4, 6-7 militia 128-9; US intelhgence on 129
Panama 330-1, 336-7 Prosterman, Roy 267-9, 279
paramilitary organizations: accountability, PRTC 265
evasion of 43-4; army’s attitude to PRUs46-7
129-32; bases for 34-6; & Civil Defense PRUD 134, 160
patrols 317-9, 321-2; discretionary psychological warfare 44n, 66n
powers 212-3; & elites 117-20, 123; in Public Safety Program: 18, 54-72, 197-8,
El Sal. 317-9, 321-2, 340-5/military 201-4, 209-18; & AID 18, 54-60, 63,
control 36-7, 66/motivation 34-8, 70; CIA, role 57-63, 71-2; FBI, role
212-3; screening 37/state terror, as 62-3; human rights 70-2; US army
executors of 27; US: & Army Special advisers, role 63;in El Sal: 197-8,
Forces 22-7, 33/assessment of assets 201-4, 209-10, 214-8; communications
34/training 54-5 in Vietnam 7, 24, assistance 201-4; intelligence assistance
318-9 322-5 192, 203-6; bomb manufacture training
PCN 131,’ 158, 160-5, 167-70, 177, 181-3, 59-61, 215; security system survey
187, 192, 206, 283, 293,295 (1960): 197-200, 202-3/7974 214-7
Pearlman, Mark 279-84 PUD 131
peasants (El Sal.): coffee culture 94-7;
cotton culture 152-4; labour organiza¬ Reagan, Ronald 275, 278, 282, 286, 288,
tions 162-4; self-help associations 150, 297, 303, 332-4
156, 165; subsistence farming 94-7; Red League (Liga Roja) 105, 118, 207n,
wage levels 101-2, 106 209
peasant revolts (El Sal.) 90-1, 101-3; of refugees: in Honduras 310, 314-5, 348;
1931-2 99-116 5ee also massacre of massacre of 306-9, 347
1932 Regalado Duehas, Ernesto 166-8, 170
Plaza Libertad 131, 183-4 Regional Telecommunications Centre
Police Assistance, Ad Hoc Interdepart¬ (Guat.) 67, 69
mental Committee on 54-8, 62-3 Revolution of 1948 1324
police: community concept 92-3;economic Revolutionary Junta of Government,
structures & development 94-8; October 1979 proclamations 248-50
intelligence function 55-7, 63-9; role Rey Prendes, Adolfo 261, 293
in counter-insurgency 54-7, 63-9; in Richardson, Ronald James 188-91
El Sal.: 90-8, 121-8, 197-8, 201-4; Rios Montt, Gen. Efrain 315
& alienation of Indian lands 91, 94-7; Rivera, Col. Julio Adalberto 149-52, 158,
army domination 198; arrests, statis¬ 162-3, 204
tics 124; function: at independence RN 187
90/in 19th century 92-3; 19th century: Rodriguez, Col. Benedicto 183
urban 95, 97-8/rural 95 See also: Rodgers, Consul A.J., on revolt, Juayua
Public Safety Program; vagrancy laws; lll-3;on impending revolts 109-10
& separate police institutions Rodriguez, Maj. Manuel Alfonso on
political pohce: defined 56-7; in El Sal. counter-organization 211-2
97, 128, 168, 203 See also : separate Rogers, WiUiam 277
intelhgence agencies Roman Catholic Church: & social justice
political prisoners, El Sal.: amnesty 136/ 150, 154-6, 161-3, 176-81, 250;
demand for 250; Investigating Com¬ persecution of 91, 180, 275-84, 304-5;
mission 252-3; secret cells 182, 217 US churchwomen, murder of 275-9,
political warfare: defined 12, 29;Taiwan¬ 284,320,352
ese trainine 316 See also counter¬ Romero, Carlos Humberto, chief of general
385
staff lb9; Minister of Defense 171, 345, 348; & “guerrilla” forces 22;
177;overthrow 245-50, 252, 257, human rights training 337-40; & Latin
273-4, 316; as president 183, 186=95; American Special Action Force 21-2; &
& US human rights policy 190-3; mercenaries 337-40; & state terrorism
US training of 192 23-7; Vietnam, role in 24
Romero, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo, Special Group, Counter-Insurgency (US):
assassination 262-4, 272-3, 281, 296; Internal Defense Plans & 15-18; &
funeral, massacre at 260, 264-5; letter Latin America, assessment of 16-7;
to Carter 330; on persecution of the origin & charter 14; predecessors 15;
church 180, 185, 193; soldiers sermon special “cognizance” 16
263-4 Special Warfare 12
Romero Bosque, Pio 103-4 Special Warfare School, US Army 20
state terror: agent of social mobilization
Salaverria family 167 31-2, 40-1, 192-5, 245, 254-7, 287;
Salazar Mena, Maj. Fernando 343 & authoritarian regimes 56;in El Sal.:
Salvadorean Civic Association 118 accountability, evasion of 22-3, 43-4,
Salvadorean Coffee Board 246 49-50, 213-4, 313;army’s role 299-302;
Salvadorean Episcopal Conference 155 escalation (1978) 194-5; interrogation
Salvadorean Intelligence Agency 205-6, 217 33940; & mercenaries 342-5; &
Samayoa, Salvador 259-60 military discipline 300, 304; policy
San Antonio Abad massacre 311-12 299-300, 305-6; & social mobilization
San Carlos Fort 204, 248 164, 192-5; targetting: guerrilla
San Miguel, Department of: agrarian “masses” 310-11/for political murder
reform proposals 1976 111 275-84, 304-13, 351-3/US citizens
San Vicente, pacification plan 321-5 275-84; US public relations role 279,
See also Operation Wellbeing
301, 312-3; victims: mutilation 103,
Sanchez, Hernirdez, Col. Fidel 155, 158, 203/occupational breakdown 305
162, 166-70, 172, 192, 206, 221, 267 See also counter-insurgency doctrine,
Santibahez, Col. Roberto Eulalio 221; on US;& counter-terror, concept
CIA role in ANSESAL 352-3; on Stewart, C. Allan 61-2
“death-squad” victims selection 352 strategic hamlets 35
School of the Americas, US Army 192, 339
strikes: defined as “war” 262, 287;
Security Service: El Sal. 204-6, 219;Guat. repression of 254-7, 287, 297-8
62
subsistence farming 94-7
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
subversion: in counter-insurgency doctrine
271, 295-6, 335, 338
30-1; as foreign intervention 210; in
Shultz, Richard H. Jr. 26, 324
Pan-American Union report 7
SIE 205-6, 215-7, 219 See also National
Sumpul River, massacres 306
Guard, National Police
SNI (El Sal.) 217-9 Tactical Intelligence School, El Sal. 350
Socorro Juridico (Legal Aid): foundation Taiwan, training in 316
180; government killings, statistics tanda system 132, 246-7, 300
266, 270, 292, 3024, 307 Tardencillas, Orlando 290-1
social mobilization & state terror 49-53, Taylor, Gen. Maxwell 14, 56
164, 192-5 teachers’ strikes (El Sal.) 1968 163, 207;
Somoza Debayle, Anastasio 245, 247-8, 1971 165-6
289-90, 343 Technical Investigations Course, Public
Somoza Garcia, Anastasio 4; Blue Shirts Safety Program 59-61; Sal. participation
militia 5n; trade with Japan 5n in 215
Sonsonate: army disaffection in 1932 Third Civil Affairs Detachment, US Army
massacre 119; elections, suspension of 21
108; revolt 110-4 “threat assessment”, El Sal. 199-200
Soviet Union, & El Sal., US allegations Todman, Terence A. 189-90
288-90 Torres, Col. Fidel 208-9
Special Forces, US Army: counter-terror, torture (El Sal.): electric shock equipment
concept 23-4, 27; in El Sal. 328, 335-40, 217; & execution, as adjunct 339;
Index
investigating commission (1979) 252-4; USIA 246

& National Guard interrogation room US military: counter-insurgency units
182, 217; & political murder 339-40; 19-22 (See also Special Forces, US
& US police assistance programmes, Army); & covert action 10, 14-5;
suspension 70-1 See also state terror, Military Missions, growth of 9; para¬
El Sal. military resources, development 18-9;
totalitarianism, doctrines, measures to political & irregular warfare, doctrine
ban 3-4, 6-9 18-9; training, foreign military 19-22
trade unions (El Sal.) political role 1944 US military advisers; & combat 346-9; in
\30-J960 135-1 \ 19 7 7-79 1 86-7, 193, El Sal.: in combat zones 346-8; &
194-5, 200 See also popular organiza¬ Carter’s actions 286-8, 331-2, 335;
tions force levels 286-8, 332, 346; in
Treasury Police; assessed by Public Safety Honduras 348; initial proposals 278;
Program 198, 215-6 ;& human rights Operation Wellbeing 322-3, 325;
184,216,316 Reagan, augmentation by 288, 332,
Treaty of Peace and Amity 1923 129 335-7, 346; support, for officers 313-
Tres Calles, massacre 173 20
Tutela Legal 302-4 US military assistance programmes for
Latin America: budgets 326-7; redirec¬
Ubico, Gen. Jorge 3-4, 124, 127, 131 tion 13-5, 21-2; terms of reference 9
UCS 156 US Military Assistance Program (MAP)
UDN 165, 176, 247-51, 256, 266 (El Sal.): 189-90, 192, 201-2, 209-10,
UGB 178-81, 185-7, 193 326-53; aircraft 329, 332-5, 348-9;
unconventional warfare 34 See also allocations, March 1981 288; budgets
counter-insurgency doctrine 326-9, 334; commodities 327-35,
Ungo, Guillermo 165, 253, 260 348-9; emergency airlift January
Union of Various Trades (El Sal.) 104 1981 286-8; & human rights policy
United Nations 312 187-92, 287, 329-33, 337-40; intelli¬
US Caribbean Command See US Southern gence 201-2, 349-53; “non -lethal”
Command 330-2; opinion forming campaign,
US Army Special Warfare Center, Fort 1981 288-91, 298; propaganda 298;
Bragg 20 slain US churchwomen 276-7, 331;
US churchwomen, detention & murder training 201-2, 326-42 See also US
276-81, 284,331 military advisers, El Sal.
US economic assistance (El Sal.) 329, 333 US Military Group (El Sal.): 189-90, 192,
US foreign policy: & Alliance for Pro¬ 314; intelligence role 335, 349; &
gress 13, 32-3; counter-insurgency military hosts 327-8
doctrine 12-72; & military/security Latin America: concealed budget 326-7
assistance 1945-60 9-11; military US Southern Command 22, 67-8, 338
intervention pre-World War II 14; UNO 165-6, 168-70, 181-8
Mutual Defense Assistance Agree¬
UNT 174
ments 9; Nicaraguan revolution, Ursuline Order 276-81, 284
influence 245-6; objectives in Latin Uruguay 314, 331; Public Safety Program
America pre-1950 3-5; & Pan-American 65
Union 3, 6-7;& President Kennedy Usulutan, Department of: agrarian reform
11-15; anti-subversion measures, proposals (1976) 177; pacification plan
1945-60 5-16; War & State Depart¬ 321-5
ments’ conflict 8-9 UTC 157, 172-3, 185-7
on El Sal.: Alliance for Progress 149-
59; Church, persecution of 178, 187-95; vagrancy laws 92-3, 95, 124; in Agrarian
contradictions 275, 314-5, 320-1, Code 125-6
332-3-, coups: 1960 136-7/7967 149-50/ Vaky, Viron 246, 252
1979 252; human rights 187-95,245-6, Vance, Cyrus, US Secretary of State: &
252, 287, 329-33, 33740; political/ Richardson case 189;& US human
economic reforms 252, 267-9, 273-5, rights policy (El Sal.) 188-92
283, 291, 320-1 ;& state terror 312-3 Velutini, Capt. Juan F. 97-8
387
/
Venezuela 170, 292; & Special Group 16

Vides Casanova, Col. Carlos Eugenio:
Minister of Defense 314, 321; &
“death-squads” 352; Director of
National Guard 246-7, 300, 314;
ex-president, ANTED 177
Viera, Rodolfo 279-84, 301
Vietnam: 329-30, 335, 340, 342; CORDS
& Phoenix programmes 322-5; US
propaganda: & elections (1967)
298/ & Tet offensive 298
Villacorta, Jorge 270-1
voter registration system (El Sal.) 351
Wagglestein, Col. John D. 307, 314

War Powers Act, US 346
Webber, Col. John 40
Weinberger, Caspar 334
Westmoreland, Gen. William 57
White, Alastair 159-61
White Paper (US) (El Sal.) 288-9
White, Robert 271-4, 216-9, 283-4, 286,
289, 296, 316, 346
World War II & Central America 3
Wright, Dave 61-2
Yarborough, Gen. William, Commander,

Special Warfare Center 23-4, 42
Zamora, Mario, assassination 260

Zamora, Ruben 251, 260-1, 265
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY • HUMAN RIGHTS
THE AMERICAN CONNECTION

Volume One: State Terror and Popular Resistance
In El Salvador
MICHAEL McCLINTOCK
These two volumes draw extensively on previously restricted United

States government documents to reveal the part played by the U.S. in
initiating counter-insurgency and new strategies of state terror in Central
America. With the Reagan Administration's determination to continue
financing and supporting the war in El Salvador as well as its
destabilization of Nicaragua, Michael McClintock's work is essential for
understanding these interventions.
Focusing in particularon El Salvador and Guatemala, the authortraces
the history of these countries' brutal state security apparatuses from
theirorigins in Spanish colonialtimes, through their continual
suppression ofthe peasant rebellions provoked by their highly distorted
class structures and landownership patterns. He demonstrates, with
impeccable documentation, howthe U.S.'s preferenceforsupporting the
status quo as a bulwark against what it perceives as a Communist threat,
and its consequent refusal to tolerate social reform, have not only
accelerated these conflicts and converted the civilian population into the
enemy, but inextricably have enmeshed the U.S. itself in more and more
directways.
The relevance of Michael McClintock's analysis of U.S. support and
military and intelligence assistance for repressive and reactionary
regimes goes well beyond Central America, and extends to all those
areas ofthe Third World where the U.S. has chosen to defend its
interests in ways that ultimately excite violent popular opposition and
carry a heavy cost in terms ofthe violation of human rights.
The author, Michael McClintock, is a seniorstaff member of Amnesty

International's Research Division, and has spent several years on this
investigation.
ISBN Hb 086232240 5
Pb 086232 241 3

(Third World Books) Michael McClintock - The American Connection, Volume One - State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador. 1-Zed Books (1985)

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A Companion Volume on Guatemala

PART 1: THE US AND THE DOCTRINE OE

PART 2: LAND, LABOUR AND SECURITY: 1820s-1960s 87

8. Controlling the Population: An Agrarian Police State 117

9. Coup and Counter-Coup: Reform and Reaction 127

Notes to Part 2 137

PART 3: COUNTER-INSURGENCY EMERGES 147

10. From Reform to Repression: 1961-71 149

11. State Terror: 1972-77 171

12. The New Security System: US Model 196

Notes to Part 3 223

PART 4: COUNTER-INSURGENCY AND CIVIL WAR 243

13. Military Coup: October 1979 — And After 245

15. US Military Assistance: Indirect to Direct Intervention 326

Select Bibliography 373

At 23,000 ieet the view through the scratched plexiglass of Central

This study deals in depth only with El Salvador (Vol. 1) and

While the present regional dilemma must be largely attributed to the

When not characterized by overt military intervention or long-term

Experience... demonstrated the need to organize in the most effective

By 1941 legislation in all Central American States was consistent

strategic materials. Central America’s more immediate concern was

Similarly, even war-time military assistance to the Ubico regime in

With an octogenarian, illiterate Secretary of War and a preponderance of

American Freedom and the Communist Threat

At the Ninth International Conference of American States in Bogota in

That by its anti-democratic nature and its interventionist tendency, the

to eradicate and prevent activities ... tending to overthrow their institu¬

to oppose subversion throughout the hemisphere. A compendium of

The control of propaganda required the control of the news media,

It must be bom in mind that subversive propaganda being an intellectual

The report also equates with treason the participation in labour

the nature of the actions taken against “subversives in Guatemala and

adoption along with the far-reaching concomitant benefits of permanent

Department of State's resistance persisted for a time, but faced pro¬

One of the chief objectives of communistic propaganda in the Latin

Secretary of State George Marshall ultimately supported the War

By the mid-1950s “Mutual Defense Assistance Agreements” linked the

regional role in the 1960s, when the implementation of counter¬

experience of aborted “revolution” in 1932. The military magazines of

From reliance on potential, massive, nuclear retaliation as the core of

multifarious projects of the CIA and the independent anti-subversive

The Presidenfs personal interest in counter-insurgency theory, his

In the words of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in mid-1961,

organization, training, equipment and doctrine of the US Armed Forces

Previous presidential committees dealing with the problems of

Counter-Insurgency’s New Face

A “for information” cable (classified as secret) to all American

An adequate internal defense requires the effective mobilization of a

While the Special Group recommended a holistic approach to the

population from appeals to conspiracy and violence”, and 2) coercion,

[The Americas] encompass 50% of those countries assigned to the Group

briefly summarize the military, police, intelligence, and psychological

Plans were to include a statement of the countries vulnerabilities (where

... the primary objective of the US in Guatemala is the prevention of the

The plan skirted around several ideas for “socio-economic reform’’,