INSURGENCY IN EL SALVADOR: REBELS WITH A CAUSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00287R001200010001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 21, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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i Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D. C.20505
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
21 March 1984
Insurgency in El Salvador: Rebels with A Cause
Summary
The insurgency movement of El Salvador has throughout its
history struggled against the ever present problem of internal
strife. Personal rivalries among the individual leaders of the
five guerrilla groups and intense resentment of authority of any
kind--a quality central to the rebel personality--have generated
serious divisiveness in the movement; but common goals, common 25X1
political beliefs, common friends, common enemies, and common
personal backgrounds have helped hold them together. 25X1
Since cohesiveness in El Salvador's insurgency movement
tends to wax or wane with the ability of its leaders to focus
their oppositional tendencies upon external targets rather than
upon one another, the behavior of the primary external target--
currently the government of El Salvador-- plays a significant
role in the process. The results of the upcoming elections thus
will have important effects on the internal workings of the
insurgency groups: a clear victory for a right-wing government
headed by Roberto D'Auhuisson unwilling to acknowledge
differences within the insurgent movement would go a long way
toward eliminating those differences. Conversely, the insurgents
would have more difficulty closing ranks against a moderate
government flexible enough to recognize and exploit their
differences.
This memorandum was prepared h_y I I Political
Psychology Division, Office of Global Issues. It has been
coordinated with the Directorate of operations. Comments and
questions may be addressed to the Chief of the Division
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Military victory for the insurgents--resulting in the
collapse of the government of El Salvador--would provide the most
serious test of all of the ability of the rebel leaders to hang
together. Having devoted their lives to rebelling against the
establishment, they would find it very difficult to become the
establishment--to become a positive rather than a negative force.
In such circumstances, their personal differences would probably
intensify, and it would not he surprising to see some of the
charismatic revolutionaries drop by the wayside, with the more
disciplined party professionals such as can be found in the
Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES) and the new leadership of
the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL) ready to replace them.
However, still oppositional by nature, and having eliminated
their current enemy, the new leaders of El salvador would
probably direct their energies against a new external focus--the
United States--seeking to blame the US for El Salvador's pro ems
and attempting to unify the population. 25X1
Common Origins and Common Reliefs
Almost without exception the leaders of the various groups
have a common socioeconomiy background. They are of middle and
upper middle-class origin. Nearly all of them attended the
University of El Salvador; most of them at the same time, in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. Characteristically they were active
during their student days in political movements and their
current political beliefs tend to coincide on most major
points.
the philosophical proposition that the end justifies the means.
This principle has been applied to the execution of members of
the opposition, of bystanders and even comrades--perhaps
especially comrades.
Common Friends and Common Enemies
The external factors tending to unite the small groups into
a unified whole are likewise compelling. The insurgency groups
have the same supporters, the same enemies, and a common
operational goal. Their supporters would like nothing better
than a closer union among the various groups. For example, the
insurgents finally agreed in 1980 to the formation of the FMLN
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Finally all of them seem to share a belief in
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(The Farahundo Marti National Liberation Front)-- an umbrella
organization that provides the structure for unified action--only
at the insistence of the Cubans. Their enemies promote union by
their opposition. The operational goal of bringing down the
government of Fl Salvador is shared by all- the insurgency
groups.
Who's In Charge?
For the most part, cohesion within the insurgent movement is
obstructed by the personal ambition of the small group leaders.
In discussing their diffferences, these leaders talk of
procedural disputes; the overt agenda of disagreements tends to
focus on strategic issues concerning the conduct of the
revolution. But the covert agenda of "who is going to be in
charge" is always operative and always a major issue. We believe
that each of the group leaders--and many of their subordinates--
considers himself uniquely qualified to control the movement and
ultimately to control the destiny of El Salvador. We doubt that
this sort of tension will he resolved by existing group
processes. 25X1
You Can't Take the Rebel Out of Rebellion or
Rebellion Out of the Rebel
El Salvador's insurgent leaders are not only rebellious in
their politics, but also in their personalities. They did not
emerge full-blown from behind corporate desk or even a highly
disciplined political organization--with the exception of Shafik
Jorge Handal, leader of the PCES--to lead an insurrection against
the government. Most of them probably rebelled against their
middle-class parents' discipline and values and most participated
in organized rebellion in the University. They rebelled and
continue to rebel against the established government of El
Salvador and most of them, despite their Marxist/Leninist
convictions, have rebelled against the restraints imposed by the
Communist party of El Salvador as well as the party leadership in
Cuba and Moscow. Because rebellion is an integral part of the
insurgent leaders' personal identities, they are unwilling to
step aside and let others take charge.
In the decade of the 170s, the trend of the movement was
toward disunity, but it was also a period of rapid growth. From
various combinations of dissident members of the PCES, student
activists, religious dissidents, campesino and labor groups, five
separate armed groups came into being. Today these five groups,
the FPL (Popular Liberation Forces), the ERP (Peoples
Revolutionary Army), the FARN (The Armed Forces of National
Resistence), the PRTC (Central American Workers Revolutionary
Party) and the FAL (Armed Forces of Liberation), collectively
under the direction of the FMLN (Farahundo Marti National
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Liberation Front) form the body of armed opposition to the
government of El Salvador.
Carpio and the FPL
In 1970, one of the party's early heroes, the late Salvador
Cayetano Carpio started the divisive trend by leaving the party
Carpio was of sufficient stature in the party to establish 25X1
both a precedent and a model for future defectors. Leaving
groups with which he disagreed was a pattern throughout his
life. What is surprising is that it took so long for the rebel
dynamic to begin to he acted out within the ranks of the party
itself. Carpio's motivation for leaving the party was clear. He
had been Secretary General of the party from 1964 to 1969 when he
was unseated by Shafik Jorge Handal. Carpio left the party
because he had lost control and because he believed that his
tactics and his leadership were critical to the success of the
revolution. As a youth he had removed himself from a Catholic
seminary, presumably out of disagreement with church policy, and
he had been a labor activist when he joined the party in the
'40s. (S NF NC OC)
The guerrilla group that he formed, the FPL, the Popular
Liberation Forces, was, until 1983, the most radical and the
largest of the guerrilla groups. True to its heritage, however,
the FPL, itself eventually became plagued with divisiveness and
Vil.l.alohos and the ERP
In 1972 some youthful members of the party left to join
young Christian Democratic Party dissidents, religious activists,
and student revolutionaries to form the ERP, the People's
Revolutionary Army. Precisely how the leadership evolved in the
early years is unknown, but by 1974, the present leader, Joaquin
Villalohos Hueso, had become a member of the Executive
Directorate and in 1977 he was elected commander in chief of the
military forces and Secretary General of the party
organization. Like most of the other guerrilla leadership,
Vil.lalohos attended the University of E1 Salvador in the early
1970s and was involved in radical student activities. He was a
student of economics. Publicly, Villalohos has advocated
terrorism to achieve political goals. He established himself
very early as a skilled battlefield tactician with a
sophisticated knowledge of weaponry. More recently he has
focused his attention upon the acquisition of power in the
overall movement, and he is generally considered today to he the
most powerful figure in the movement. ERP troops constitute
about 35 percent of the total insurgent armed forces.
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FARN, the Armed Forces of National Resistance, was spawned
by a split within the ERP in 1975, a split that was probably not
simply coincidental with Villalobos' rise to power.
The present leader of FARN, Ferman Cienfuegos, has been
described as one of the insurgency moderates, successfully
maintaining a dual Marxist/Ch.ristian identity.
He broke with the ERP in 1975 after Dalton's
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Castillo and the PRTC
The PRTC, the Central American Revolutionary Workers Party,
was formed by Fabio Castillo Figueroa in Costa Rica in 1976.
Structurally the Salvadoran branch forms part of a regional
organization with Trotskyite leanings, wedded to the concept of a
regional revolution involving, as the name implies, the whole of
During the ferment of the mid-60s he served as
rector of the University of El Salvador, contributing
actively to
the unrest by bringing radicals into the administrati
on. He also
made several attempts to bring Soviet professors into
the
university but those efforts were blocked by the Salvadoran
government. Though numerically weak--they provide only 9 percent
of the guerrilla troops--the PRTC is considered an implacable foe
of the United States and unpredictably radical.
Finally in 1979, the PCES, encouraged by the success of the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua and concerned by the prospect of missing
out on a similar revolutionary opportunity in El Salvador,
spawned its own guerrilla organization, the FAL, the Armed Forces
of Liberation. The man who had replaced Carpio as party
secretary, Shafik Handal, in a reversal of his opposition to a
violent revolution, established his authority over the FAL while
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maintaining leadership of the PCES.
and the PLO as well as other communist countries.
A Delicate Balance - Resistance to Change
As with any organization with a history, the guerrilla
groups, operating collectively since 1980 under the umbrella of
the FMLN, have developed mechanisms for the maintenance of the
status quo. For example, when a guerrilla leader appears to he
surrendering too much of the small group autonomy to the larger
system, he is disciplined by his small group comrades. When on
the other hand he tries to chart a course completely independent
of the larger group, particularly if he does this in a way to
raise the spectre of serious discord, he is disciplined by the
larger group. It can he inferred from the mortalities within the
leadership of the insurgency that a mechanism of choice in
preserving the status quo is execution.
Jovel Tries His Wings
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We believe this mechanism was operative in the death of
Ernesto Jovel, the leader of FARN. The movement of the FARN away
from the larger group (they withdrew from the FMLN in 1980) was
reversed by Jovel's "accidental" death. According to a press
account, it was first announced by the FARN that Jovel's death
was the result of a traffic accident in San Salvador; it was
later attributed to his aircraft having fallen into the sea. (It
was said that one engine stopped and the other fell off and the
plane plunged into the sea.) The later announcement was
accompanied, gratuitously, by a denial of disunity in the
organization. To the surprise of no one, the new commander of
the FARN led it back into the folds of the FMLN.
Dalton Rebels
In another instance, Joaquin Villalobos, commander of the
FRP and probably the most powerful figure in the insurgency
movement today, found it necessary to execute Pogue Dalton in the
interest of group cohesion. Dalton was an uncomDromisin
idealist and a critic of the leadership.
Carpio Resists Closer Unity
A similar but more complicated dynamic has been unfolding in
the FPL. About a year ago Cayetano Carpio found himself faced 25X1
with serious dissension in his own organization.
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Smouldering Resentments
Now, a year later, half of the original FPL membership,
still adhering to Carpio's hardline philosophy of no negotiations
and military victory, however prolonged the war, are operating
separately as the MOR (Revolutionary Workers Group). The FMLN
has not recognized the legitimacy of this faction, desite its
considerable popular support. Still another faction loyal to
Carpio's beliefs has remained in the FPL working to change the
leadership from within. 25X1
Negotiations, Soviet Style
A recent meeting between Ambassador Stone and
representatives of the insurgency movement provided some direct
insight into their dynamics. Those attending the conference as
representatives of the movement were Guillermo Ungo and Reuben
Zamora of the FDR, Orlando Aguinada, the PCES representative to
the FDR, and Jose Mario Lopez Alvarenga, the PRTC
represent at ive.
The key man was Aguinada. Conspicuously in charge,
obviously enjoying the proceedings, Aguinada in his personal and
negotiating style appeared to the American observers to come
straight out of the Soviet hook of instructions. This is in
keeping with his personal allegiance to the PCES, the most
orthodox Communist group. lingo, the designated leader of the
group, was allowed to present his opening statement, a set piece,
and then pushed aside. In his turn, Zamora attempted to convey a
sense of his own importance and Lopez, clearly a sick man, said
little. Rut none of them left any doubt as to the fact of
Aauinada's leadership. 25X1
From lingo's behavior during the conference, American
observers inferred a recognition on his part that he had no place
in the ultimate scheme of things in Fl Salvador. On the other
hand, Zamora's behavior in trying to upstage lingo in the eyes of
the Americans and to curry favor with Aguinada indicated that he
is still hopeful for his political future. Lopez, the PRTC
representative, was seriously ill
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In summary, the composition of the insurgency representation
at the meeting was stereotypical: the politically impotent but
internationally known and respected patriot up front; a still
respected but more flexible colleague close behind him, pushing;
the physically broken revolutionary hero presumably representing
the colorful and gifted. amateurs who were carefully kept at their
posts in the field; and the disciplined party hack at the helm.
Out look
If ARENA (National Republican Alliance) wins the elections
and takes the expected hardline stand against negotiations, what
had been Carpio's philosophy of no negotiations with the
government under any circumstances could be immediately
transformed into established insurgency philosophy without so
much as a hint of acknowledgment that anything had changed. By
definition, then MOR would no longer be a deviant group and group
cohesiveness would be improved. On the other hand, the election
of a less authoritarian government would tend to diminish their
capacity for collective opposition, freeing up more of their
energy for internal strife. 25X1
We believe the internal struggle for power will reach
unprecedented heights if and when the insurgents attain their
ostensible goal of overthrowing the Salvadoran Government. Some
of the charismatic leaders will have to choose between losing
their share of control or their lives, with a resultant thinning
of their ranks. But even when overt competition for leadership
is resolved, the survivor or survivors will still face the
serious problem of shifting from an oppositional to a positive
mode of behavior, a transition the rebel. is characterologically
ill-equipped to make. We believe they will consequently rely
more and more upon disciplined Party professionals from the PCES
and the new leadership of the FPL to run the government.
Consistent with their life-long pattern of opposition, the
revolutionary leadership, in our judgment, will continue to
direct their attention against an external focus, and, having
vanquished the current government in El Salvador, in all
likelihood the United States will become the major target.
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SUBJECT: Insurgency in El Salvador: Rebels With A Cause
OGI/PPD,
(22 Mar 84)
Distribution:
1 - Peter Askin State
1 - OIA, Pentagon
1 - Colonel Jim Connally, Pentagon
1 - Anthony W. Gray, Jr., Pentagon
1 - Dr. Constantine Mengas, NSC
1 - David Smith, State
1 - CPAS/ISS
1 - D/OG I , DD/OGI
1 - OGI/PG/Ch
8 - OGI/PG
1 -
1 -
1 -
1 - C/LA/CATF
1 -
1 -
D/ALA
NIO-at-Large
C/LA Division
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