U.S. TRAINING SALVADORAN FORCES LINKED WITH DEATH SQUADS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404170002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 9, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404170002-5
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
9 April 198
U.S. TRAINING SALVADORAN FORCES LINKED WITH DEATH SQUADS
WASHINGTON
The U.S. government has been training Salvadoran security forces linked with
the death squads blamed for killing thousands of dissidents in in El Salvador,
The Progressive reported Monday.
The Progressive, a magazine of investigative reporting published in Madison,
Wis., said U.S. involvement with the Salvadoran security services started during
the early 1960s under the late President John F. Kennedy and included training
in torture methods.
The magazine said the Central Intelligence Agency has supplied
Salvadoran security forces with the names and whereabouts of political
dissidents, some of whom later were assassinated by the death squads.
It said U.S. activities in El Salvador violate the Foreign Assistance Act of
1974 that bars U.S. aid to foreign police forces.
"Early in the 1960s, during the Kennedy administration, agents of the U.S.
government in El Salvador set up two official security organizations that killed
thousands of peasants and suspected leftists over the next 15 years," the
magazine said in an article written by Allan Nairn, a free-lance journalist who
specializes in Central America.
"These organizations, guided by American operatives, developed into the
paramilitary apparatus that came to be known as the Salvadoran death squads,
The Progressive said.
It said that over the past 20 years, the State Department, the CIA and U.S.
armed forces:
-Established ORDEN, Salvador's intelligence network described by the human
rights group Amnesty international as a movement designed to "use clandestine
terror against government opponents;''
-Organized ANSESAL, the presidential intelligence service that gathered files
on Salvadoran dissidents;
-Enlisted Gen. Jose Alberto Medrano, founder of ORDEN, as a CIA agent;
-Trained members of El Salvador's Treasury Police, a wing of the security
forces, ''in methods of physical and psychological -torture;
-Worked closely with Roberto d'Aubuisson, the rightwing presidential
candidate often linked to the death squads.
The magazine said its article was based on a four=month investigation 'of U.S.
involvement in El Salvador that included interviews with current and 'former
Salvadoran and American officials.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404170002-5