El Salvador THE ARMED FORCES
Mission and Organization
Figure 9. Armed Forces Chain of Command, 1988
Under Articles 211 and 212 of the 1983 Constitution, the
army's missions and those of the armed forces in general are to
defend the national territory and sovereignty; to maintain the
public peace, tranquillity, and security; and to support
democracy. Article 212 describes the armed forces more
specifically as a fundamental institution for national security,
of a permanent character, essentially apolitical, obedient to
established civilian authority, and nondeliberative. It also
charges the military with enforcing the no-reelection provision
for the country's president, guaranteeing freedom of suffrage,
ensuring respect for human rights, and collaborating with the
agencies of the executive branch in promoting national
development. In effect, the 1983 Constitution sought to change
dramatically the political role of the military. Whereas military
officers routinely served as president of the republic under the
old constitutions, the 1983 Constitution does not permit any
active-duty military officer to be president. Military personnel
must resign from the service three years before the next
presidential inauguration date in order to be eligible to run for
that office.
Both the military organic law and Article 157 of the
Constitution name the president as commander in chief of the
armed forces, consisting of the army, air force, navy, and active
reserve
(see
fig. 9). Article 168 empowers the president to
organize and maintain the armed forces and confer military ranks
in accordance with the law. The minister of defense and public
security is in the chain of command and performs the president's
command functions on a day-to-day basis. A deputy minister of
defense and public security fulfills the purely administrative
role assigned to the Ministry of Defense and Public Security. The
EMC chief is the senior serving officer and also army commander
and has operational control over the navy and air force chiefs.
The vice minister of defense and public security oversees the
Public Security Forces Joint Staff of the three security forces:
the GN, PN, and the Treasury Police (Policia de Hacienda--PH),
which together included some 12,600 personnel among their ranks
in 1988. The regular armed forces (army, air force, and navy)
totaled about 47,000 active members in 1988.
Colonel Juan Orlando Zepeda stated in a published interview
in 1987 that the Salvadoran armed forces had two national-level
intelligence organizations: the National Directorate of
Intelligence (Direccion Nacional de Inteligencia--DNI) under the
Ministry of Defense and Public Security; and the EMC's C-2, which
Colonel Zepeda headed. Although the DNI was charged with
providing strategic, political, and national intelligence, the
demands of the war and a lack of training compelled it to develop
mainly military operational intelligence at the strategic and
tactical levels, duplicating the C-2's principal mission. The C-2
also used intelligence reports from agencies at the brigade and
military unit levels.
Data as of November 1988
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