Salvadoran Civil War - Alleged External Support For The FMLN

Alleged External Support For The FMLN

What we are watching is a four-phased operation of which phase one has already been completed — the seizure of Nicaragua, next is El Salvador, to be followed by Honduras and Guatemala. It's clear and explicit. I wouldn't call it necessarily a domino theory. I would call it a priority target list — a hit list, if you will — for the ultimate takeover of Central America.

— --Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Mar 19, 1981

In 1980, Cuba and Nicaragua allegedly helped unify the Salvadoran rebel groups and gave them a base in Nicaraguan territory. The Soviet bloc allegedly supplied enough weapons to arm several battalions. Also in 1981, the governments of Mexico and France recognized the FMLN as a "representative political force" in El Salvador. In 1983, it was reported that an FMLN broadcast boasted of Cuban and Nicaraguan backing and an FMLN commander stated that the war was directed by Cuba and that nearly all of his weapons came from Nicaragua. In 1985, the Sandinistas reportedly offered to stop military aid to forces in El Salvador in return for an end to the Contra insurgency.

In 1986, the International Court of Justice ruled that there was no credible evidence proving the Reagan administration's allegations of Nicaraguan arms flow to the FMLN, despite U.S. surveillance of the country being a "high priority". The New York Times reported a similar conclusion in 1988.

On Feb. 24, 1981, the State Department published a report entitled "Communist Interference in El Salvador" which they claimed was based on 19 captured guerrilla documents. The State Department's White Paper purported to provide evidence demonstrating that the Soviet Union acting through Cuba took over the Salvadoran rebellion and was carrying out a covert operation to install a puppet government.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed the chief author of the white paper, John D. Glassman, who admitted that parts of it were possibly "misleading" and "over-embellished." The Journal discovered that several key documents attributed to guerrilla leaders were obvious forgeries and that it's unknown who wrote them. Statistics of armaments shipments to the guerrillas were extrapolated from the documents, and "in questionable ways." Much of the white paper's information couldn't be found in the captured documents. The Journal concluded that "a close reading of the white paper indicates...that its authors probably were making a determined effort to create a 'selling' document, no matter how slim the background material."

The Washington Post investigation found that many of the documents refuted the white paper's contention of Soviet-Cuban arms supply to the guerrillas. Several reports indicated the guerrillas were short of weapons and were desperately looking for ways to arm themselves. In one of the documents, a U.S. government official noted that the rebels had only 626 weapons for more than 9000 men. The administration omitted this document from the collection released to the press with the white paper. Under the headline, "White Paper or Blank Paper?," the Los Angeles Times said the documents did not show a Soviet-Cuban master plan to take over America's bakyard. A senior Carter administration official who had access to all the intelligence traffic said the FMLN got most of their weapons on the international black market, mostly from Miami Florida.

"The three most important guerrilla groups in El Salvador all have anti-Soviet origins suspicions of the Soviet Union— and even of Cuba," observes Robert Leiken, a scholar of the Latin American left. According to the State Department commissioned Jacobsen Report on "Soviet Attitudes Towards Aid to and Contacts with Central American Revolutionaries": "The FMLN's 1983 choice of Villalobos as over-all leader was telling. Villalobos' past relations with Soviet allies have been bitter and stormy. He epitomizes the 'ultra-leftist' problem that Moscow identifies as the single most serious impediment to greater Soviet influence." Professor Carl Jacobsen, the author of the report, also reviewed the administrations white paper for 1985, observing that it "embodies and epitomizes all the problems that plagued its precursors." Jacobsen informed the Congressional subcommittee that the rebels were getting all of their weapons from the Salvadoran military. On the issue of arms to the Salvadoran rebels from Nicaragua, the report concluded, "(U.S.) intelligence officials claim that they can 'hear a toilet flush in Managua,' yet they have not been able or free to produce a captured van or a downed airplane (loaded with arms)."

In October 1983 CBS's Gary Shepard interviewed FMLN guerrillas on a highway and observed that they were armed with mostly American-made weapons taken from government forces and that "there was no evidence of aid from the Communist bloc." One guerrilla boasted, "President Reagan, by sending military aid to the Salvadoran army, is in effect supplying the rebel side as well — and he said he hopes the aid will continue." Charles Clements, an American doctor who lived and worked in one of the FMLN zones, said that besides one rusty Chinese RPG II grenade launcher, he only saw the guerrillas armed with Western made weapons. Raul Hercules, one of the Christian leaders of the guerrillas was insulted by the claim that the rebellion was not a legitimate homegrown revolution: "This is an authentic revolution, as yours was. We know what we're fighting for. You norteamericanos will not control our country, and neither will the Soviets. If we must fight to victory, we will. It is only a matter of time."

"It may have been the most intense national security information campaign since President Kennedy went public with graphic documentation of the Cuban missile threat 20 years ago," Time Magazine observes. "The purpose of the blitz was to convince skeptics of the correctness of the Administration's approach to the critical problems of El Salvador and its neighbors — namely, that the struggles in Central America are not simply indigenous revolts but rather are crucial battlegrounds in a broad East-West confrontation. Their case is as yet unproven, and indeed — by the very nature of these conflicts — may never be." Id= BepFlaco= On the other hand, the weapons captured to the guerrilla forces tell an entirely different story, supporting the administration thesis. A significant proportion of the weapons of american origin that were seized from guerrilla forces had serial numbers that showed that they had been sent originally to the South Vietnamese Army and captured by North Vietnam during the Indochina War.It was also the case,that during the failed guerrilla offensive of 1989, the Salvadoran Army captured many weapons of Soviet and East German origin.Never before the communist guerrilla forces had so many weapons that could be traced without a doubt to the eastern Bloc. All of the above strongly suggest that Cuba and the Soviet Union were involved in the Salvadoran conflict.Template:Weapons of the Salvadoran Civil War. Wikipedia