EL SALVADOR: BEHIND THE LINES WITH THE REBELS
SMYTH, FRANK
EL SALVADOR Behind the Lines with the Rebels BY FRANK SMYTH With an old straw hat, a soiled yellow shirt, ragged pants, and sandals, my weathered-skinned guide could easily have passed for the...
...This information is often dated and incomplete...
...In October, a group identifying itself as Manuel Jos...
...On one trail between the villages of San Jose Las Flores and Guarjila, hundreds of FMLN leaflets were strewn in the path of the oncoming troops...
...policy in El Salvador: If human-rights abuses are to be kept within "acceptable levels," the rebels cannot be defeated...
...In El Salvador's eastern provinces, eight mayors have been executed by the rebels since April...
...In one village, residents discuss methods of payment for supplies at the modest dental clinic they have built...
...And, unlike FMLN guerrillas who rely on their local infrastructure for supplies, the army patrols depend on helicopter drops for extra food and ammunition...
...In the words of the young Jesuit, "the struggle of the guerrillas is the struggle of the poor...
...He is one of many medical volunteers who have joined the FMLN...
...The drastic military options under consideration reflect the success the guerrillas have had in building civilian support in such areas as eastern Chalatenango...
...The army helps us," says one peasant...
...The equipment is not optimal," he says...
...In the last year, the rebels have taken to placing car bombs in front of movie theaters and restaurants in the wealthier sections of San Salvador...
...The drawings included figures of dead soldiers...
...During Ponce's speech, the lieutenant paces up and down in front of the peasants...
...But complications arise...
...In eastern Chalatenango, for example, the air force used saturation bombing through 1985 to drive out civilians...
...The rebels once relied partly on forced conscription, but even U.S...
...It's more like Vietnam—a prolonged war...
...The method is similar to that developed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and adopted by Christian "base communities" of the Catholic Church...
...Similarly, the army suffers from poor intelligence...
...Tough, competent, highly motivated," is how U.S...
...But none were hit...
...Local residents agree...
...We heard the staccato of machine guns as an army helicopter fired at suspected rebel targets...
...The guerrillas encourage peasants to organize themselves...
...In one case, I traveled with a physician to the home of a young woman who had a severely distended belly...
...You have to fight for the people," she says...
...Esta bien, no hay enemigo" ("It's O.K., there's no sign of the enemy...
...another a recent FMLN attack on a National Guard post in San Salvador...
...Civilians must pass an army checkpoint to enter or depart...
...Support for the army lasts only as long as the flow of free provisions continues...
...Most Salvadorans seem to favor neither the government nor the FMLN, preferring to wait and see which side is likely to determine their future...
...Liberals in Congress" will never go along with such a strategy, he complains...
...Rather than engage the superior force, the rebels pulled back...
...Contrary to official U.S...
...Like most Salvadoran peasants in eastern Chalatenango province, he is intensely aware of the conflict at hand...
...The FMLN, by contrast, builds its support from the bottom up...
...Rebel doctors sewed his severed tendons back together...
...Two miles from the advancing Atlacatl, I traveled with a six-member FMLN patrol...
...Each carries an M-16 rifle...
...Behind the troops, several hundred peasants stand in formation...
...But in the past, the army has found it hard to deliver...
...The rebels assassinate people for committing rape, he said, for using a gun against the people as in a personal dispute, and for providing information to the enemy...
...One depicted a rebel ambush...
...EL SALVADOR Behind the Lines with the Rebels BY FRANK SMYTH With an old straw hat, a soiled yellow shirt, ragged pants, and sandals, my weathered-skinned guide could easily have passed for the ignorant peasant he often claims to be...
...They represent the second generation of fighters for the FMLN...
...But the rebels do not seem to be limiting their violence to these selected targets...
...Some of the peasants say they have received food and basic supplies from the army...
...Rather than put the leg in a conventional cast, the doctors use split bamboo and plaster wrap to keep them in place...
...About ten metal rods, used to immobilize the bone, remain protruding from the patient's thigh after the wound is closed...
...Using Catholic Church figures, for instance, the comparison of noncombatant killings by the army versus such killings by the rebels is well over ten-to-one since the beginning of the war, though in recent months it has dropped closer to two-to-one...
...pronouncements, the Salvadoran government is not winning the war...
...A fence surrounds each camp, and an army watch-tower dominates it...
...Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, a leading deputy of ARENA, complains that U.S...
...This is what awaits you...
...An A-37 gunship buzzes the parade ground as army troops stand at attention in full battle gear...
...The ultraconservative ARENA party enjoys considerable support not only among the upper classes but also among segments of the lower class and peasantry outside FMLN zones...
...And in 1986, the army forcibly relocated residents on Guazapa volcano near San Salvador...
...The alternative would be for the United States to recognize that the FMLN represents a legitimate political-military force, and to urge the Salvadoran government to negotiate...
...nacious guerrilla [movement] in the world...
...If the Tutela report is true, it marks an ominous shift in guerrilla tactics...
...He has been crippled for the past year, waiting for this operation...
...They are participating in the ceremony, they say, because they hope to receive more...
...The killers identified themselves as members of the army's First Brigade...
...F.S...
...officials now admit that this practice has been abandoned...
...Comparing the Salvadoran rebels to insurgent movements in the Philippines and Afghanistan, a top military analyst described the FMLN to me as "the most teFrank Smyth is writing a book about U.S...
...The ceremony is part of a U.S.-inspired effort to win "hearts and minds...
...Large battalions such as the Atlacatl are able to move through rebel-held terrain, but they rarely find any guerrillas...
...During my trip in Chalatenango, a rebel tried to explain to me why they kill civilians...
...embassy in San Salvador describes them as having grown "more committed and more effective" with experience...
...Arce Commandos detonated two such car bombs outside a shopping center and a fast-food restaurant...
...During my week-long tour with the rebels in Chalatenango, the Atlacatl battalion was on patrol...
...They see the armed and the unarmed struggle as two sides of the same coin...
...How is the way ahead...
...He says the Salvadoran government must separate the guerrillas from the population if it is to win the war...
...But more than 6,000 have returned to Chalatenango over the past seventeen months...
...involvement in the war began, the Salvadoran government has enjoyed a huge technological advantage over the rebels...
...The FMLN is still not strong enough to take power, but the guerrillas and their civilian supporters are convinced time is on their side...
...official...
...But according to Tutela Legal, El Salvador's Roman Catholic human-rights office, the massacre was carried out by FMLN guerrillas posing as army soldiers...
...But there are still many things we need...
...It is based on "strategic hamlets" and "development poles" currently in use in Guatemala...
...He wants the army to pursue a strategy of "total war...
...They hope that by building better relations with the population, Ponce will be able to turn the war around...
...Short of forced detainment of the peasantry or outright genocide—two options under consideration in El Salvador—the government will never wean committed civilian supporters away from the FMLN...
...military advisers and officials are also present...
...Since U.S...
...But that seems more luck than intent...
...Apig scrounges the ground for food, while children play in the dirt...
...This underscores divisions within the rebel alliance, even after nine years of struggle...
...They were marked by a series of crude sketches...
...The worst thing is not the conditions as you see it," says the chief surgeon, "but that we have to move all the time...
...The villagers hold placards indicating which town they come from...
...They speak to each other for about fifteen minutes and then they rejoin the larger group, introducing the partner and relaying key facts about his or her life to the others present...
...A shy teen-age girl says she is being trained as a radio operator at a secret mountain location...
...One bomb next to a movie theater exploded while patrons were inside...
...But the strategy being considered now is more comprehensive...
...Peasants in the area were almost as knowledgeable as guerrilla patrols about the battalion's movements through the zone...
...In this hospital with no walls and a dirt floor, the operation is expected to last two hours...
...The doctor has been with the rebels for more than seven years...
...In a guerrilla war, it is usually the rebels who must move under cover...
...His left upper thigh is grossly disfigured...
...and rebel officials, the key to the rebels' success is the support of the local population in areas they control...
...The enemigo is the U.S.-trained Atla-catl battalion of the Salvadoran army...
...The guerrillas range in age from fourteen to twenty-one...
...FMLN guerrillas in Chalatenango, for example, do not have a policy of assassinating mayors...
...The next day, the patient is put into hiding...
...In another meeting, they discuss which fields to plant and how to cope with a shortage of seeds...
...Most military engagements are carried out on rebel terms, and the vast majority of army casualties come from guerrilla ambushes or mines...
...policy in El Salvador to be published by Westview Press...
...A bullet from an automatic rifle of the type used by the National Guard had pierced his leg...
...To some extent, the Salvadoran government has tried this before...
...During my week-long trip with the guerrillas, they moved with ease and sophistication even as the Atlacatl battalion approached...
...Nonetheless, human-rights abuses by the government here have consistently outstripped those by the rebels...
...Then the group takes up issues of basic needs and problems...
...The operation is almost canceled when doctors receive word by radio that elite army troops are on the move nearby...
...As a result, the level of community organization is greatly enhanced, and peasants learn to take control of their lives...
...El Salvador could resort to such tactics, said the U.S...
...They prefer the tactic of forcibly detaining civilians who sympathize with the rebels...
...These are de facto prison camps...
...According to U.S...
...The Salvadoran rebels have endured nine years of U.S.-backed counterinsur-gency...
...Peasants in these communities do not merely sympathize with the guerrillas...
...With his back turned to the podium, he orders the peasants to stay in line and tells them when to cheer...
...Without proper equipment except for such items as liquid anesthesia, it takes more than five...
...Since President Jos...
...But unlike Guatemala, El Salvador receives almost $1.5 million a day from the United States...
...Communicating with other guerrillas by radio, the rebel patrol knew the exact location of the Atlacatl...
...A nude eighteen-year-old male lies on an old plank table...
...Land in the area is now cultivated collectively after having been seized from absentee owners...
...But according to U.S...
...This isn't like Nicaragua, where [the guerrillas] won quickly," says Israel, a former peasant who joined the guerrillas in 1979...
...Human rights would not be a concern...
...In another case, a child cut his wrist with a machete...
...The Salvadoran government considers rebel medical facilities to be legitimate military targets...
...A few weeks after the incident, rebel leaders promised to investigate the case and said that if FMLN members were involved, the perpetrators would be punished...
...Some of the residents are former refugees who escaped army repression by fleeing to neighboring Honduras earlier in the war...
...Once the army passed by, they reas-sumed their positions...
...read the caption below the sketch...
...A mobile unit, the five-member medical team is constantly avoiding helicopters and army patrols...
...The surgeon uses a carpenter's drill to make holes for metal rods in the patient's leg...
...By the end of my week-long trip, I had found a better appreciation of the FMLN's popular support in eastern Chalatenango...
...Rebel commanders say such tactics are designed to make the upper classes share the burden of the war...
...he asks a passerby...
...The Atlacatl battalion traveled through a number of refugee communities...
...By evening, the doctors say it is safe...
...The majority of the people there want the guerrillas, not the armed forces," says foot soldier Julio Ernesto Cabrera...
...Thus the central dilemma of U.S...
...Representing ninety-eight rural villages, they have been invited to a ceremony at the army's Third Brigade in San Miguel...
...The patient has a multiple-fractured femur bone...
...The FMLN also provides health care for civilians living in guerrilla zones...
...In October, four peasants in Apopa, about seven miles north of San Salvador, were dragged from their homes and killed at point-blank range...
...El Salvador needs a population strategy," says a U.S...
...As the sun casts shadows across the mountains of eastern Chalatenango, a small column of guerrillas climbs the rocky path into town...
...The FMLN has demonstrated an ability to strike major military targets, and the guerrillas are capable of draining the government with constant small-scale attacks...
...But he is far more sophisticated than he appears...
...Guerrilla doctors are preparing to perform surgery...
...They have emerged as one of the most formidable guerrilla movements in the world...
...The guerrillas are attracting new volunteers...
...Government planes flew overhead, even as FMLN fighters, their M-16s slung over their shoulders, danced to La Bamba with their girlfriends from town...
...Its reports are used by such organizations as Americas Watch and are considered to be the most reliable in the country...
...Summary execution of locally elected village mayors is another deplorable tactic...
...M The Rebels* Dirty Hands Certain guerrilla tactics are reprehensible...
...As I look on with a crowd of children and armed guerrillas, the doctor uses the camping knife to remove a large piece of femur...
...The one outside the fast-food restaurant went off during regular evening hours...
...Many say they have had relatives killed by the army...
...embassy spokesmen continue publicly to advocate small army patrols and civic-action projects, but hardline U.S...
...Congress take this view, but in El Salvador, the pendulum has swung much further to the Right...
...official who has advised other Central American governments in counterinsurgency operations...
...A nationwide civic-action program that began two years ago has failed...
...In a communique on Radio Ven-ceremos, the rebels' clandestine station, the FMLN indirectly endorsed the action...
...Tutela has consistently reported abuse by government troops against civilians...
...In one small town, the locally elected town council sponsored a dance...
...officials are no longer convinced...
...Napoleon Duarte and his Christian Democratic Party have not managed to beat the rebels, the ARENA candidate Alfredo Cristiani is expected to win El Salvador's presidential election next month...
...The transport of food and other necessities is strictly monitored...
...guerrillas active in the eastern provinces do...
...Reaching into a mess cup of boiled water, he removes a Swiss Army knife with its saw blade exposed...
...In addition to his medical equipment, he carries an M-16 rifle...
...But here, the army's Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols are mostly a threat during the rainy season, when the foliage is thicker...
...military advisers, the point has been reached when additional U.S assistance will produce decreasing marginal gains...
...During my trip, I observed two such "dynamic exercises"—one led by "popular" teachers, the other by a young Jesuit priest...
...Ochoa says the nine-year civil war could be terminated in less than a year if the army were given a free hand to attack the civilian populations in FMLN zones...
...The patrols can't count on information from local residents, so they depend upon aerial reconnaissance and other technology to gather intelligence...
...Official U.S...
...policy in El Salvador has "no will to win...
...The doctor drained two liters of abdominal fluid...
...Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce, newly appointed armed forces chief of staff, is the main speaker...
...The civilian/military liaison for the U.S...
...At one point, an army lieutenant directs the entire group to march past the podium for review...
...military officers describe the Salvadoran guerrillas of the Far-abundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN...
...A small but growing number of members of the U.S...
...In each of these cases, no one was seriously injured...
...If the army finds him like this," says one of the doctors, "they'll kill him or take him away...
...Behind them, wet clothes hang on a line strung between a wooden awning and a tree...
...Medicine and medical instruments must be carried on the doctors' and nurses' backs...
...Participants in these exercises are matched in pairs...
Vol. 53 • February 1989 • No. 2
