El Salvador- U.S. Ups the Ante
Armstrong, Robert
In the face of a widespread offensive by the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), the U.S. government has moved decisively to increase its military and economic aid to...
...women...
...Col...
...On the eastern front, revolutionary forces were able to hold key cities and towns in both Morazsn and Usulatsn provinces...
...military advisors in the country, 10% of the officers of the Salvadorean Army are North Americans...
...But when the smoke had settled, it became clear that there was nothing new under the sun...
...The FMLN reported holding the towns of Victoria and Sensuntepeque on the north-central front, as well as fighting the air force on the central front...
...The junta's Christmas bag was a big one: Carter's $5 million in combat equipment for the Salvadoreans included M-16 rifles and ammunition, grenade launchers and four Huey helicopters...
...In the meantime the door-to-door machine-gun retributions against the civilian population increased...
...decision to increase its military presence in El Salvador has been unfolding slowly since early last September...
...diplomats were attempting to initiate talks with them...
...His presence in the junta was important to the maintenance of the government's reformist facade...
...A study released by a group of intellectuals at one of the country's universities disclosed more than 10,000 deaths in 1980 alone...
...Abdul Gutierrez as vice president and commander-inchief of the Armed Forces...
...Pentagon sources say the total number desired is 270...
...Santa Claus in Khaki As the military-Christian Democratic junta scrambled to remain in power, it turned to a willing U.S...
...Significant military advances were made, most notably, the coordination of military forces in the countryside...
...The first was the premature description of the offensive itself as the "final offensive," a term that led to confusion within El Salvador and some "greatly exaggerated" obituaries for the guerilla in the exterior...
...It is generally conceded that there is a higher degree of unity among the diverse guerrilla groups than at any previous time in their ten-year history, yet the leaders themselves have stated that the first phase of the general offensive was plagued by problems in communication and coordination between the five parties...
...NACLA Report 34update*update update update hold large areas in the north and west of the country...
...Directly on the heels of this, four U.S...
...The hallmark of the junta's "liberal" program, an agrarian reform, failed to win either domestic or international support (see "Agrarian Reform: Hope Turns to Terror," this issue...
...At that time, a shake-up in the ruling militaryChristian Democratic junta stripped the ineffectual but reformminded Col...
...Thus, the January shake-up spoke more to the State Department's need to give the junta a liberal face than to any real desire to moderate the most repressive aspects of the government...
...One night in January more that 90 people were killed in the township of Santa Ana, 25 of them women and a considerable number of them doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals...
...As repression increased, all pretense of reform evaporated...
...military advisors to augment the 23 who are already in El Salvador...
...support for the militaryChristian Democratic rulers of that strife-torn country: * On January 18, Carter authorized an emergency grant of $5 million in combat equipment for the Salvadorean military and the resumption of $5 million of "nonlethal" military aid suspended in December 1980 following the murder in El Salvador of four North American religious women by government security forces...
...It named Jose Napole6n Duarte, the demagogic leader of the shattered Christian Democratic Party, as president of the junta, and Col...
...Although the aid was already in the pipeline, it demonstrated the new administration's determination to support the increasingly shaky regime...
...Although the FMLN/FDR offensive proved that the insurrectionary forces were capable of a coordinated, widespread attack, troops loyal to the government were able to thwart their attempt to call a general strike in San Salvador by abducting and murdering many of the strike leaders...
...Just when needed, "secret" documents magically appeared ("captured from the insurgents by Salvadorean security forces" and "considered authentic by United States intelligence agencies") JanlFeb 1981 which claim that the FMLN is being equipped by the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and Cuba...
...The Junta in Crisis The U.S...
...More serious still was the increasing number of U.S...
...Jos6 Guillermo Garcia and Col...
...Yet the U.S...
...Patently absurd stories of a mysterious Nicaraguan invasionary force landing in El Salvador are repeated verbatim by the State Department in order to apply pressure on the Nicaraguan government and to create a climate of opinion which will justify U.S.-supported intervention in the region...
...women-three nuns and a lay missionary-were raped and murdered by the junta's security forces...
...In his first week in office, President Reagan approved the granting of $64 million in aid to El Salvador...
...In early February, Secretary of State Alexander Haig replaced Robert E. White as Ambassador to El Salvador with Frederic L. Chapin, a career diplomat who, while at the Pentagon, had been involved in preparing a large military aid program for that country...
...The government found it necessary to embark on a massive propaganda and public relations campaign, setting up photo sessions for troops doling out emergency foodstuffs and attacking piles of war debris with regulation bulldozers...
...Whether El Salvador becomes "another Vietnam" depends fundamentally on the strength of the FMLN and the FDR and on the breadth of their internal and international support...
...The FMLN was able to capture key cities in the provinces of Santa Ana, AhuachapAn and Sonsonate...
...The U.S...
...Eduardo Vides Casnova-widely regarded as the principal architects of the repression-continued at their posts as minister of defense and commander of the National Guard, respectively...
...government has already written the first chapters of a new Pentagon Papers...
...government for support...
...The Prospects In all, President Reagan and Secretary of State Haig seem eager to apply their "get-toughwith-the-Soviets" policy in Central America...
...According to Guillermo Ungo, president of the FDR, with 68 U.S...
...Other problems included poor planning in the announcement of the general strike, which gave the government's repressive forces advance notice to prepare their programs of harassment and retaliation, as well as a near paralysis in the communications systems between the FMLN and the outside world...
...During the last weeks of the Carter Administration and the first of Reagan's new government, there was a decisive escalation of U.S...
...Even the staunchest supporters of the U.S.-backed reform blanched when two North Americans working with it through the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) were inadvertantly identified by the U.S...
...Will a Tonkin Gulf incident be far behind...
...Thus, he was given control of all telephone, telegraph and telex communications within and outside the country...
...military intervention in a Latin American country since the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic...
...The legal aid office of the Archdiocese of San Salvador provided documentary evidence of security force involvement in more than 7,000 murders that year...
...with his ouster, this carefully constructed image began to erode rapidly...
...JanlFeb 1981 At the same time, a Newsweek report noted that the Defense Department is strongly pushing to send an additional 55 U.S...
...But whatever the final results, it is clear that the U.S...
...Venezuela and Costa Rica appear to favor OAS involvement...
...military advisors which first Carter and then Reagan committed to the Salvadorean government...
...Re-organization Without Results The crisis reached its climax in late November when six leaders of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) were arrested, tortured and murdered by security forces at a moment when U.S...
...There is every indication that the U.S...
...With U.S...
...fact-finding" team sent down shortly after seemed more concerned with forcing cosmetic changes on the junta than in investigating murders...
...What stood nakedly in its place was a situation which many human rights organizations have called the worst case of systematic human rights abuse in Latin America...
...Rumors circulate in Washington of an indirect intervention into El Salvador by an OAS "peace-keeping" force, while El Salvador's conservative neighbors amass their troops along the Salvadorean border...
...military assistance to El Salvador, junta president Duarte coyly noted, "If Santa Claus wishes to give us something, of course we will not say no...
...The muchloathed National Guard suddenly disappeared off the streets-or at least swapped uniforms with members of other, less offensive, branches of the military...
...Yet, on the whole, the leadership of the FMLN was not displeased with the outcome of the December-January phase of the offensive...
...government has moved decisively to increase its military and economic aid to El Salvador...
...With the death of the four religious women, the Carter Administration halted its $5 million military aid program ostensibly until responsibility for the deaths could be established...
...Guatemala and Honduras are poised to strike in the event of a successful FMLN/FDR offensive...
...Adolfo Majano of his command of the Salvadorean armed forces...
...The FMLN has called for a tactical retreat of its forces, to prepare for a second stage of the insurrection, but they continue to Young members of guerrilla training camp receive instructions...
...will not only support the junta in El Salvador, but also escalate its level of involvement...
...Regarding U.S...
...But it was on the western front, an area where the FMLN/FDR organizing work has generally been weak, that the insurrectionary forces reported some of their most surprising successes...
...Nicol~s Carranza, Garcia's righthand man, received a symbolic demotion, but was put in charge of ANTEL, the country's communications authority...
...prodding, the junta implemented some changes it had 33update update update update been contemplating since early 1980...
...Indeed, as soon as the changes were announced, Carter resumed military aid to the government, even though his own ambassador in the country charged that "there is no reason to believe that the Government of El Salvador is conducting a serious investigation [of the deaths of the four U.S...
...The Insurrection Early on the morning of January 11, clandestine "Radio Liberaci6n" broadcast General Order No...
...1 of the FMLN: "The time has come to begin the decisive military and insurrectional battles for the seizure of power by the people and for the establishment of the democratic revolutionary government...
...Col...
...Squads from various groups that had never worked together before completed successful missions, and the morale of the government forces was found to be low...
...According to former Ambassador White and Duarte, they knew the invaders came from Nicaragua because the wood of their boats was not found in El Salvador...
...In all, the stage is set for the gravest U.S...
...Majano, on the other hand, was removed from his post and ordered to assume a diplomatic position in Spain...
...press tended to hail the new government as a major step toward civilian, centrist politics...
...The FMLN opened its long-awaited "general offensive" with attacks on four fronts...
...He refused, denounced the junta and urged his fellow military officers to remove it "by whatever means necessary...
...Solicitor General as "under cover" agents after they were gunned down by a rightist death squad...
...It was here, too, that important defections in the Salvadorean Army occurred...
Vol. 15 • January 1981 • No. 1
