SALVADORAN DEFECTOR AIDS LOYALIST INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201560033-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: May 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

'' Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-
Y
ARTICLE APPEAR
ON Pr
Salvadoran
defector
aids loyalist
intelligence
By Tom Diaz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A top Marxist rebel commander
in El Salvador defected to the gov-
ernment last month and is giving
intelligence officers valuable infor-
mation about rebel operations, sev-
eral informed U.S. government
sources said yesterday.
"I understand his information
looks quite useful," one source said.
Napoleon Romero, a former stu-
dent leader, fought for the rebel Peo-
ples Forces of Liberation army
under the name of "Comandante
Miguel Castellanos." He was orig-
inally reported to have been cap-
tured by Salvadoran army troops
April 11.
However, he later told a press con-
ference in El Salvador that he had
turned himself in to the government
because he had lost faith in violence
as a means of solving the country's
problems.
Mr. Romero's defection and
cooperation mark the second seri-
ous intelligence setback for the
rebel forces within a month. A Sal-
vadoran army unit also captured
another top rebel commander on
April 18, along with boxloads of
rebel military and political plans.
However, that commander, Nidia
Diaz, has refused to cooperate with
interrogators, according to sources.
"She's not being very helpful at
all," one source said. "She is
described as having'all the charm of
a trapped rat"'
Another source said that the gov-
ernment has Miss Diaz under round-
the-clock watch because authorities
fear that she will attempt suicide.
Miss Diaz, a leader of the
Revolutionary Party of Central
American Workers, another Salva-
doran rebel group, was one of the
representatives to peace talks with
the government last October.
WASHINGTON TIMES
21 May 1985
"They [the Salvadorans] not only
have the defector, but they have cap-
tured several top leaders, and they
have lots of documents with infor-
mation about the guerrillas' oper-
ational plans," one senior
administration official said.
He added that the information
about the rebels' plans and oper-
ations "should be coming out soon,"
but declined to discuss the matter in
any further detail, saying it was up
to the government of El Salvador to
release the information.
But the official said the Salva-
doran government is winning its war
against the Marxist rebels.
"The insurgency is waning, it's
being defeated," the official said.
"They the rebels) don't have the
support they used to have "
Mr. Romero told a press confer-
ence in San Salvador last month that
strife within the People's Liberation
Forces resulted in the murder of one
high official by another.
It is believed that the United
States government may be holding
back on releasing information it
knows that he has provided for sev-
eral reasons, among them not want-
ing to let rebel forces know how
much is known about their plans and
operations, deference to the Salva-
doran government, and a desire not
to "hype" the defection.
Even though Miss Diaz is refusing
to cooperate, Salvadoran troops
bagged a windfall cache of doc-
uments when she was captured.
Salvadoran President Jose Napo-
leon Duarte described the
circumstances of her capture at a
press conference in San Salvador
earlier this month, the details of
which were not reported in the
United States.
He said a government helicopter
was flying a training mission, using
new infrared surveillance
equipment. Such equipment can
pick up images from fires and other
sources of heat, such as engines.
President Duarte said the troops
in the helicopter "saw the fire and
two wounded persons," then discov-
ered one of the two was a woman,
Miss Diaz.
"Perhaps the thing that worries
them I the rebels I most is the amount
of information we found with her," he
said. "She had boxes full of all their
general, military and political plans
when we found her.
"They were apparently
transferring their center of oper-
ations and were carrying boxes and
knapsacks full of all kinds of doc-
uments," he said. "These documents
are now being studied from the mili-
tary and political standpoint to
evaluate them and see what their
contents are."
The rebel forces at first hailed
both Mr. Romero and Miss Diaz as
having "fallen in the struggle
against the dictatorship," and denied
that Mr. Romero had defected. The
clandestine rebel Radio Farabundo
Marti issued a communique April 25
demanding a "halt to the pressures"
it alleged the government was exert-
ing against 'Mr. Romero and Miss
Diaz, and warning that it held Pres-
ident Duarte "responsible for the life
and safety of our companeros."
But a few weeks later, on May 6,
rebel forces called local news media
in San Salvador and announced Mr.
Romero's "dismissal," describing
him as a "traitor" who "betrayed the
guerrillas."
I Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201560033-5