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El Salvador FOREIGN SECURITY ASSISTANCE
The United States provided some basic equipment and training
to the public security forces. Between 1957 and 1974, the United
States, under the auspices of the Public Safety Program of the
Agency for International Development (AID), improved the law
enforcement investigations, communications, and intelligence
capabilities of the police services, including the GN. The US$2.1
million program assisted in the formation of two fifty-member,
rapid-reaction, riot-control units based at the national police
headquarters in the capital and similar units in national police
quarters in San Miguel and Santa Ana. Program advisers also
reorganized the Police Academy and implemented various measures
to improve police antiterrorist capabilities. The GN's Special
Investigations Section (Servicio de Investigaciones Especiales--
SIE) received considerable United States assistance in the early
1970s. The Public Safety Program also aided in expanding and
training personnel of the Customs Police, which grew from 250
members in 1967 to 527 in 1974. Until 1981 the Carter
administration limited United States security assistance to El
Salvador to "nonlethal" items, such as bullet-proof vests, in an
unsuccessful attempt to force the Salvadoran security forces to
improve their human rights practices.
In late 1985, the Reagan administration, alarmed by several
significant terrorist incidents in El Salvador, including the
slaying of five Marine guards attached to the United States
embassy, notified Congress that three United States military
advisers in El Salvador would begin training 420 members of the
PH, PN, and GN in antiterrorism techniques. The administration
also intended to equip these forces with rifles, ammunition,
patrol vehicles, and communications gear. The Foreign Assistance
Act of 1974 prohibited the United States from providing financial
support, training, or advice for the law enforcement forces of
any foreign country. The United States Congress, however, passed
an amendment to the act waiving the general police aid
prohibition for El Salvador and Honduras for FY 1986 and FY 1987,
contingent on biannual presidential certification of significant
progress in reducing human rights violations in those countries.
Under the waiver, the United States provided US$3.1 million in
police training to El Salvador in FY 1986 and another US$14
million in FY 1987 through both the Antiterrorism Assistance Act
and the Administration of Justice Program.
United States efforts to aid the counterterrorist capability
of the Salvadoran armed forces included the formation in 1985 of
a hostage-rescue unit called the Special Antiterrorist Command
(Comando Especial Anti-Terrorista--CEAT). Although under the
direct command of the army chief of staff, the CEAT reportedly
consisted of PH members. Under the United States Law Enforcement
Counterterrorism Assistance Program, El Salvador received several
million dollars in police assistance. As a result of funding
cutbacks, only three trainers were working with the public
security forces on a national level in mid-1988. That year, the
security forces also organized the Joint Intelligence Operations
Center (Centro de Operaciones Conjuntos de Inteligencia--COCI),
with a mission to collect, integrate, and analyze intelligence
relating to terrorist activities in the San Salvador metropolitan
area.
Data as of November 1988
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