Training them to help themselves

Press, 3 August 1983, Page 20

Training them to help themselves

From “The Economist,” London

Americans in Washington often know what the Salvadorean guerrillas are doing literally as they do it, but it may take hours for the Salvadorean army to be in a position to do anything in reply. By then it may be too late.

The American fact-finding is done, partly, by specially-equipped Hercules transport aircraft which, several times each week, take off from Panama and head for Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. They hunt down the anti-Govern-ment guerrillas in El Salvador by means of a forward-looking infrared sensor which produces a tele-vision-quality picture by sensing heat emissions. They also pick up the guerrillas’ radio transmissions.

The pictures and the radio messages are sent automatically to a satellite terminal and from there down to a “fusion centre” at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, just outside Washington, where they are analysed and put together. The system is impressive but its usefulnesss, so far, has been limited. The loose organisation of the Salvadorean army, and its poor communications, mean that it takes a long time for the high command in San Salvador to figure out whether the troops picked up by the sensors are its own or guerrillas. A new system of command and control is slowly being created. More helicopters and better communications equipment are essential if the American-gathered information is to be used efficiently, but these things cost money. Not all that much, though. The amount of American aid that El Salvador has received over the past nine months is about half of what the United States spent each day dur-

ing the Vietnam War. The Salvadorean army’s performance is improving. The “national campaign” — large clearance operations by the army followed by groups of civilians to restore government services — got under way in San Vicente and Usulutan provinces six weeks ago and is having some success. Last month the Atlacatl battalion, one of the first to be trained by the United States and probably the best unit in the army, started another operation about 20 miles north of San Salvador, in an area long dominated by guerrillas. The army has tripled in size in two years but is still a two-year conscript force. Only a few months after a battalion has been trained by the Americans, many of its members will have been discharged. So far four battalions have been trained, partly in the United States and partly in El Salvador. A fifth is about to start its training at the new Regional Training Centre near Puerto Castillo in north-west Honduras, where training can be carried out by American special forces at about a third the cost of doing it in the United States. The 55-man limit on American advisers in El Salvador restricts the amount of training that can be done there — and it is probably just as well not to have large numbers of American soldiers stomping around the Salvadorean countryside. American training is the best investment that the United States can make in El Salvador (and the United States has the advantages of many Spanish speakers in its forces). It imparts at least the germ of the idea of a professional, nonpolitical army; the importance of

the non-commissioned officer, the desirability of not shooting prisoners; and the idea that the army is fighting for more than the enrichment of the local landlord or the traditional fringe benefits of rape and pillage. El Savlador’s new minister of defence, General Vides Casanova, is well aware that unless the army improves its record in these things it will lose such American aid as it gets, and will therefore almost certainly lose the war. The long-term goal is to train seven big battalions and some 50 smaller, 350-man ones. The big battalions would be controlled by the central army staff and dispatched quickly to trouble spots; the small battalions would be assigned to provincial commanders.

One advantage of this system is that it would get much of the army’s power out of the hands of the 14 provincial commanders. A little over a year ago each of these local warlords had a battalion, or a private army, of his own. Theoretically, it should be possible to win the war by cutting off the guerrillas’ supplies which have been coming in virtually unhindered from Cuba and other parts of the communist world through Nicaragua and Honduras. From the practical point of view, however, the guerrillas have a lot of material already stockpiled, and they make do with very little. Even if their future supplies could be cut, and this is certain to be a long and expensive process, it would still not solve El Salvador’s problems. Nevertheless, despite the lessons of Vietnam, the Americans are concentrating on stopping supplies. They have used the argument of the arms route as justification for the C.l.A.’s not-at-all-clandestine support of the guerrilla forces operating out of Honduras against the Sandinist Government in Nicaragua.

This justification never held water. It was an excuse to avoid admitting that the American ad- , ministration was in fact doing what was prohibited by law: providing aid to armed men trying to overthrow Nicaragua’s Government.

Such money as the American Congress will provide is better spent on improving and training of the Salvadorean and Honduran armed forces. Given enough help, El Salvador has a good chance of beating its guerrillas. And a strong Honduras is probably essential to the stability of the region, whatever happens. Many of the guerrillas’ supplies come from Nicaragua through Honduras and many of their men use Honduran territory as a safe haven. An improved Honduran army could help shut the country’s border with El Salvador to this traffic if the long-standing border dispute between the two countries could be settled. Honduras would be even more

vital to the United States if the worst should happen and El Salvador fell to its communist guerrilas. Honduras would then come under immense pressure. Now. rather than later, is the time to strengthen its armed forces. Honduras’s main need is for better equipment and training. This would cost money, but not a lot. A once-and-for-all investment of around $3OO million, plus perhaps $5O million a year from then on, could turn the Honduran forces into a first-class defensive organisation, and lessen the chances that American combat troops may one day be needed in central America. The Americans have contingency plans to put large numbers of ground and air forces into Honduras if El Salvador falls. These plans will be tested this autumn in a joint exercise with the Hondurans. The unthinkable has to be thought — but might be avoided if El Salvador and Honduras were more generously helped to defend themselves.