El Paraiso and
the War in El Salvador

From 1980–1993, the government of El Salvador, with U.S. assistance, waged a national counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign against guerrilla forces of the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberación Nacional). That COIN campaign was one of the few successful efforts in recent history. U.S. Army SOF, performing FID (Foreign Internal Defense) missions in support of the U.S. Military Group (USMILGP) El Salvador, played a significant role. However, it was the Salvadoran national strategy, not the military strategy, that brought an end to the insurgency. Nobody “won” the war. The losers were the victims of the fighting. The thirteen-year insurgent war was ended by negotiation. Concessions were made by both sides to end the fighting, to bring peace to the country, and to do so without reprisals to either side.

The purpose of this article is to show what it took to begin transforming a small, poorly trained conventional military and security force into an effective armed force capable of waging a successful COIN war. The transformation did not happen in one, two, or three years as some have hoped could be done in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Salvadoran military had to be tripled in size, trained, and equipped to fight ever-growing guerrilla forces that were supplied by Cuba and Nicaragua. And, the FMLN kept changing its strategy and tactics.

In the midst of this evolving war, the 4th Brigade base (fortified camp) at El Paraiso in the Department of Chalatenango was attacked in 1981 and 1983.1 The progress that was being made in other areas had little impact on Salvadoran static defense strategy. But, when assessed in conjunction with the total Salvadoran military “ramp-up” to fight a COIN war, the “acceptability” of the attacks on El Paraiso will help ARSOF soldiers understand and appreciate the dynamics associated with evolving military campaigns that are being prosecuted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, and the Philippines, with or without national strategies.

1 The FMLN guerrillas had major successes against El Paraiso in 1983 and 1987, had partial success in 1988, were beaten back in 1988, and repulsed twice in 1989.

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In 1980, El Salvador, one of the most densely populated (nearly six million people) and smallest countries in the world (the size of Massachusetts), had 10,000 armed forces to protect national interests and 7,000 paramilitary police and internal security forces to maintain law and order. The army (about 9,000 on paper) was organized into four infantry brigades, an artillery battalion, and a light armored battalion.2 All units and headquarters were small by American standards. The politically-aligned Salvadoran officer corps had been split when conservative senior officers engineered a presidential coup in October 1979. However, this did not alter their conventional war mindset that posed Honduras as an external threat and discounted the growing internal insurgency. Fortunately, the Salvadoran insurgent groups operated independently from 1970–1979.3 Their lack of unity prevented effective action.

2 The Military Balance, 1981–1982 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1982), 82.

3 Courtney E. Prisk, ed. The Comandante Speaks: Memoirs of an El Salvadoran Guerrilla Leader (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 28.

On 10 October 1980, the FMLN front was formed at the behest of the Cubans. Its Central Command, with representatives from the five major organizations, was a coordinating body. The front, composed of some 10,000 guerrillas in late 1980, was not an organic, unified force. It was a confederation of insurgent organizations, each having its own dogma, fighting element, and controlling separate areas (see sidebar).

“The Cubans became the managers, and Nicaragua the warehouse and bridge of solidarity. Nicaragua, the Cubans decided, would be the base of operations for political, diplomatic, and logistic affairs. The Sandinistas would arrange the shipment of arms and munitions to the FMLN and decide how they would be divided among the insurgent organizations that had joined the front,” explained Napoleón Romero Garcia (Comandante Miguel Castellanos) in 1985.4

4 Javier Rojas-P, Conversaciones con El Comandante Miguel Castellanos (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Andante, 1986) in Prisk, The Comandante Speaks, 25.

Two of the main guerrilla supply routes from Honduras into El Salvador were through the bolsones (pockets) areas in northern Chalatenango and Morazán. The bolsones were disputed, demilitarized areas along the southern border of Honduras that dated to the 1969 war between the two countries. In addition to housing numerous refugee camps, the bolsones became focos (centers) for Salvadoran guerrilla training base and supply distribution points. The campesinos in the refugee camps proved willing recruits. These overland routes were augmented by sea and air delivery sites.5

5 Colonel John D. Waghelstein, “El Salvador: Observations and Experiences in Counterinsurgency,” Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Study Project, 1 January 1985, 21.

With a conventional war mentality (defense against Honduran retaliation for its 1969 incursion), the Estado Mayor (General Staff) moved the 4th Brigade into the Chalatenango Department. A second, large fixed base blocking a primary Honduran invasion route would reinforce the DM-1 (Destacamento Militar Uno) district cuartel in Chalatenango (city), in the midst of the FPL foco. That conventional war mindset made the 4th Brigade at El Paraiso a very convenient guerrilla target. To the east, in the Department of Morazán, the DM-4 cuartel at San Francisco de Gotera was located near the border, along another access corridor in an ERP foco.6

6 Based on the success of the Honduran Air Force during the 1969 war, the surrounding high ground provided excellent anti-aircraft (AA) defense positions to protect the base against flat strafing approaches. Major General James Parker, e-mail to Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 30 March 2007, copy, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.

The 3rd Brigade base, positioned near San Miguel, the second-largest city in the country, had been located there for similar reasons. The proximity of these Salvadoran military bases and cuartels near FMLN epicenters made them very lucrative political, military, and psychological targets. Despite their locations astride two major FMLN supply routes, they did little to hinder guerrilla logisticians in the early years of the war.

Before 1981, the FMLN insurgent elements had been regarded as internal threats by the military-dominated governments of El Salvador. Law and order problems were the responsibility of the paramilitary Guardia Nacional in the countryside, Polícia Nacional (national police) in the cities, the customs/border police (Polícia de Hacienda), and intelligence security forces, that cooperated with “death squads,” much like they did in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, all three Salvadoran police elements numbered only 3,000 personnel.7 Political unrest, evinced by demonstrations, insurgency, and terrorist acts, was traditionally brutally repressed, as it was in most Latin American countries, by security forces. Rightist “death squads” augmented official efforts to eliminate internal threats.8 The Salvadoran Army, focused on external security, placed its forces to defend the country.

7 Domestic order was the mission of the security forces—the Polícia Nacional (National Police) in the cities and the Guardia Nacional(National Guard). The National Police were responsible for urban security while the National Guard, a paramilitary constabulary force, had rural security. Brian J. Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps and the Final Offensive of 1981 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1999), 17. The Treasury Police (Polícia de Hacienda), responsible for border security as part of its customs function, was a third security element. In 1980, the combined strength of all three forces was about 5,000.

8 William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 37.

The 4th Brigade base, one of the newest and most modern in the Army, was a sprawling facility that covered a square kilometer. Flat land for easy, fast construction had determined its specific location, not defensible terrain. It occupied a saddle between Loma (steep hillock) El Espinal to the north and Loma Lisa to the south and adjacent to the Truncal del Norte highway (San Salvador through Chalatenango into Honduras), two hundred meters to its south. The small town of El Paraiso was about a kilometer and a half (by road) to the northeast. A long-extinct volcano, El Guayabo, was less than two kilometers to the northwest, and a major inlet of Cerron Grande (a lake and dam for hydroelectric power) was about a kilometer to the southeast (see map insert). Effective fire could be placed on the interior of the camp from several of the lomas that surrounded it.9

9 Lieutenant Colonel Simeon G. Trombitas, undated monograph, “Duty as an Operations, Plans, and Training Team Chief in El Salvador, 1989 to 1990,” USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.

The 4th Brigade, numbering about 1,200 men in 1980, consisted of three understrength infantry battalions of poorly trained conscripts. Brigade commanders were responsible for the protection of infrastructure—dams, bridges, electric power generators, radio-relay sites, and other key governmental installations—against guerrilla attacks. Thus, 60–80 percent of the 4th Brigade soldiers routinely manned static defense sites (from squad to company size) outside the base.10 That was the situation when the newly formed FMLN thought it was possible to overthrow the Salvadoran government.

10 James S. Corum, “The Air War in El Salvador,” Air Power Journal (Summer 1998), 30.

Emboldened by the Sandinista victory against U.S.-supported Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Nicaragua in 1979, President Jimmy Carter’s suspension of military aid to El Salvador after “security forces” killed four American church women in December 1980 reinforced their commitment. The “final offensive” was based on five assumptions:

1. That carefully organized strikes would lead to popular uprisings in cities and towns;
2. That 3,000 fighters would win decisive victories against Chalatenango, Morazán, and La Paz cuarteles and bases;
3. That some Salvadoran units would mutiny, surrender their bases or cuarteles, and align with the insurgents;
4. That the Military Junta-led government was so unstable that a major offensive would cause its popular repudiation; and
5. That the “lame duck” Carter administration would do nothing.11

11 Prisk, The Comandante Speaks, 29.

About 5:00 p.m. on 10 January 1981, the FMLN launched attacks against forty-three military and police sites throughout the country. The size and breadth of the offensive was greater and its gravity more serious than the disruption of the coffee harvest anticipated by Salvadoran military and security forces.12 Captain Juan Francisco Mena Sandoval led a mutiny in the 2nd Brigade, killed Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Baltazar Valdés, set the Santa Ana base afire, and took 150 soldiers to join the ERP. That was totally unexpected and fear wracked the officer corps until the FMLN assaults sputtered out on 18 January.13

12 Colonel (Retired) Orlando Rodriguez, telephone interview with Cecil Bailey, Annapolis, MD, 21 August 2003, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC; William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 45.

13 Bosch, The Salvadoran Officer Corps and the Final Offensive of 1981, 83–85; El Conflicto en El Salvador, Documento de La Prensa Gráfica (San Salvador, 1992), 34.

“There was no surprise,” recounted Comandante Miguel Castellanos. His attack on the Zacatecoluca garrison failed, as did another against the guard post at Fecoluca. “Our lack of communications was a serious weakness, as was the absence of artillery support. The people did not rise up, nor was there a general strike.”14 The attacks were not controlled nor coordinated. The separate attack forces had to rely on Radio Liberación, focused on trumpeting propaganda from Managua, for news and direction. The FMLN Central Command in Nicaragua had no sense of reality (situational awareness). It was obvious to the guerrilla combatants that, separately, they were not capable of taking a base or cuartel.15

14 Prisk, The Comandante Speaks, 30, 31.

15 Prisk, The Comandante Speaks, 31.

The 4th Brigade at El Paraiso and DM-1 at Chalatenango withstood the assaults, but the 1981 offensive was the first time that the Salvadoran government had really been pressured by the insurgent groups. The threat was sufficient to prompt President Carter, accused of “losing” Nicaragua to the Communists (Sandinistas), to reinstate military assistance and add $5.9 million in lethal aid.16 However, after withstanding the offensive, Salvadoran military leaders were left with a false impression of their operational capability to combat the guerrillas. The renewed U.S. aid further bolstered confidence, encouraged a return of government support to “death squads,” promulgated lax security in the field, and justified the dispatch of Special Forces mobile training teams (MTTs).

16 Cynthia J. Arnson, Crossroads: Congress, the President, and Central America (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press), 51.

In March 1981, with President Ronald Reagan in charge, Special Forces MTTs began arriving in El Salvador to train and equip the 9,000-man Salvadoran army to counter the FMLN insurgency—to fight a COIN war. Numbers were kept small to satisfy Congressional concerns that El Salvador would not become another Vietnam-like quagmire. These MTTs from Panama were expected to quickly convert a poorly trained and ill-equipped conventional army into a COIN force capable of defeating an estimated guerrilla force of 4,000, a prospect that The New York Times had judged that government forces “had no hope” of doing.17

17 Arnson, Crossroads, 65. This was based on a Pentagon assessment that the Salvadoran Armed Forces were so poorly trained and equipped that they had “no hope” of defeating the insurgency; Richard Halloran, “Military Aspects of Crisis Are Underlined by Haig and a Pentagon Study,” The New York Times, 21 February 1981.

However, in three years, forty Special Forces MTTs managed to convert that conventional army into a COIN force capable of combating the insurgents.18 But, it was not done easily, and most often without the support of senior Salvadoran commanders. “With no training nor experience in counterinsurgency warfare, the Salvadoran officers ‘did what they thought that they knew how to do,’ whether it was the right thing against guerrillas or not. A battalion movement to contact was a single column (line) of some 700 soldiers,” recalled SF Captain William R. “Bobby” Nealson.19 Lieutenant colonels “commanded” these offensive operations from the base tactical operations center (TOC) with the AN/PRC-77 radio (seven–ten kilometer range) powered by 110-volt electricity.20 “Maps were scarcer than radio batteries. Artillery forward observers were not attached to brigades and the infantry captains and majors leading in the field did not know how to call for supporting fire,” remembered SF Major Cecil Bailey.21 Colonel Reyes Mena, the 4th Brigade commander, objected to the Estado Mayor directive on MTTs, and gave little support to CPT Nealson’s attempt to conduct unit training. The 4th Brigade officers “didn’t see the need for us. They [felt that they] were perfectly capable of training their own units,” said Nealson.22 Fortunately, more support was provided at national level by a U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) team.

18 Arnson, Crossroads, 65.

19 Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) William R. Nealson, interview with Colonel (Retired) Cecil Bailey, Annapolis, MD, 15 May 2003, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.

20 The AN/PRC-77 Radio Set is a manpack, portable VHF FM combat-net radio transceiver used to provide short-range, two-way radiotelephone voice communication in common usage throughout the world. Its planning range was seven to ten kilometers line-of-sight. Originally U.S.-manufactured, several countries have produced it. The Salvador military and police forces had U.S. and Israeli-made models. Nealson interview 15 May 2003; “AN/PRC-77 Portable Transceiver,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/PRC-77_Portable_Transceiver

21 The officers at El Paraiso were not interested in supporting maneuver forces with artillery. They were content to limit its use to harassing fire. The reason for not attaching forward observer teams was that the artillery battalion at San Juan Opico could not spare the manpower. Colonel (Retired) Cecil Bailey was at El Paraiso when this occurred.

22 Nealson interview, 15 May 2003.

Brigadier General Frederick F. Woerner, 193rd Infantry Brigade commander in Panama, and six officers were sent to evaluate the Salvadoran capabilities to wage a COIN war in the spring of 1981 and to recommend a military strategy. The Woerner Report (“Report of the El Salvador Military Strategy Assistance Team”), as it became known, recommended tripling the size of the Salvadoran Army combat forces and reorienting Salvadoran doctrine and tactics to fight a COIN war. Ten additional infantry battalions would increase the ground force to twenty-five battalions. Eight of these would mirror existing Salvadoran battalions while two were organized as quick reaction battalions, like the Atlacatl Battalion being trained by SF MTTs (March–August 1981). Better command and control and improved communications, intelligence, and logistics capabilities were also recommended. Specific materiel and equipment packages to arm, equip, and rapidly transport these new units contained everything from combat boots to UH-1M Huey helicopter gunships. Training was to focus on small unit offensive operations.23

23 Corum, “The Air War in El Salvador,” 30–31.

To support rapid force expansion, the Estado Mayor agreed to send some 500 officer candidates to the United States to be trained as small unit leaders to fill the new units. The Estado Mayor had to recruit, train, and field four new battalions before March 1982, the date for national elections.24 Increased military aid was contingent on the Salvadoran military protecting, but not interfering with, the elections.25 Knowing the limitations of developing a military strategy without a national strategy, General Woerner had to make assumptions—the appropriate national objectives for an emerging democracy—and make his military strategy recommendations consistent with them. He had little choice. His mission was to develop a strategy in two months.26

24 The Woerner Report, iii, iv, and General (R) Frederick Woerner, interview with LTC Kalev Sepp, Boston, MA, 7 May 1998, hereafter Woerner interview and date.

25 Woerner interview, 7 May 1998.

26 Woerner interview, 7 May 1998.

While the Woerner Report concentrated on “hard” elements of combat capabilities and left the “soft” elements vital to a successful counterinsurgency effort—psychological operations and civil affairs—for later, the plan satisfied President Reagan’s desire to militarily prevent an insurgent takeover in El Salvador.27 That decision was timely because the FMLN, flush with arms and supplies from Nicaragua to equip and train its growing numbers of fighters, had decided to change tactics. “Hit and run” attacks on lightly-protected infrastructure targets enabled new recruits to be trained and the effects would destroy popular confidence in the government. Their major objective was to physically obstruct the Constituent Assembly elections in 1982. That Assembly was to draft a new constitution establishing democratic government in 1984.28 A first “line in the sand” had been drawn for both sides. Fortunately, a Military Group commander with COIN experience in Latin America was assigned to the country team of Ambassador Deane R. Hinton in March 1982.

27 Woerner interview, 7 May 1998.

28 Prisk, The Comandante Speaks, 36.

Special Forces Colonel John D. Waghelstein, a veteran of the 8th SF Group (SFG) in Panama in the 1960s, had served in the Dominican Republic and Bolivia. COL Waghelstein would direct the Salvadoran military expansion, training, and help formulate a national campaign plan. It was to be done with fifty-five U.S. military trainers in country as mandated by Congress. “The number ‘55’ had been chipped in stone . . . the result of a mélange of Vietnam syndrome, Liberal Democrat opposition to our Central American policy in Congress, the ESAF’s [El Salvadoran Armed Forces] lousy human rights record, and the tenuousness of our long-term commitment,” said Waghelstein.29 Ingenuity and innovation became key to mission accomplishment.

29 Waghelstein, “Ruminations of a Pachyderm or What I Learned in the Counter-Insurgency Business,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 5:3 (Winter 1994), 364.

Alternate ways had to be found to train the new battalions. To become more effective and reduce risk to civilians, the Salvadoran Air Force formed a reconnaissance company, the Compania de Patrulla Reconacimiento de Alcance Largo (PRAL) of volunteers to be trained by 3/7th SFG personnel in Panama from July through September 1982. The Air Force’s airborne company was expanded to a battalion several months later.30 In late 1982, a Venezuelan MTT organized and trained three 350-man Cazador (Hunter) battalions (similar to those trained by the 8th SFG in the 1960s) in a compressed six-week program.31 The Cazadores were to be lightly armed, lightly equipped mobile battalions of veteran soldiers that could deploy with little notice. Some Salvadoran commanders liked these light battalions because they were easier to support, field, and control than their traditional 600–700-man infantry battalions. They could also be trained and fielded in six-weeks versus the six-months required for immediate reaction battalions [(BIRI) Batallón de Infantería Reacción Inmediata]. They were assigned to the brigades, whereas the Estado Mayor controlled the BIRIs. The Salvadoran Cazadores, however, like most Salvador battalions, were comprised of conscripts with some basic infantry training.32 While more Cazador battalions were activated than any other type to satisfy U.S. aid quotas, they proved no match for the well-armed and equipped 600-man battalions being fielded by the FMLN in northern Morazán and Chalatenango in late 1982.33 Stateside training of Salvadoran battalions proved extremely expensive.

30 Waghelstein interview, 22 October 2003; Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Richard R. Perez, telephone interview with Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 8 February 2007, Tampa, FL, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC; Command Sergeant Major (Retired) Henry Ramirez, telephone interview with Cecil Bailey, 18 November 2003, Annapolis, MD, USASOC History Office Classified Files; Master Sergeant (Retired) Allen B. Hazlewood, e-mail to Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 28 March 2007, copy, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.

31 Colonel Joseph S. Stringham, interview with Colonel Charles A. Carlton, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 29 May 1985, U.S. Army War College/U.S. Army Military History Institute Oral History Program, Carlisle Barracks, PA, transcription, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC; John D. Waghelstein, telephone interview with Cecil Bailey, Annapolis, MD, 23 October 2003, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC. The Venezuelans trained three Cazador battalions in the western departments of Santa Ana and Ahuachapan. The Venezuelans were pleased to help the Salvadorans, at U.S. urging, as a gesture of thanks for the assistance provided to them during their fight against insurgency in the 1960s when the 8th SF Group trained their Cazadorbattalions.

32 Colonel Jeffrey Nelson, e-mail to Cecil Bailey, 24 January 2004, copy, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.

33 Colonel Joseph S. Stringham observed that, “It was good concept for the Orinoco River Valley, Venezuela, vintage 1962, against that threat, on that terrain, and in that type of vegetation. This concept was not completely translatable to the Central American conflict, vintage 1983.” The Orinoco River Valley is very compartmented, mountainous, and heavily vegetated with few roads. Terrain in El Salvador was somewhat similar along the Salvadoran border with Honduras, but was less rugged in the rest of the country. It was more developed with road and highway networks. Stringham interview, 29 May 1985.

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