Salvadoran Army Chief Unveils Plan for Winning War This Year

El Salvador’s army chief of staff said the armed forces began implementing a new military plan Wednesday that could crush leftist guerrillas and end the country’s civil war this year.

Gen. Adolfo Blandon said the plan involves psychological operations, refined military maneuvers, civic action projects and the formation of specially equipped and trained small units for night strikes against the rebels.

“The joint chiefs of staff believes that if this plan is followed, 1985 could be the year when the war in this country ends,” Blandon told Reuters news agency in his first interview since being promoted to general on Monday.

He did not provide specific details but said the special counter-insurgency night patrols backed by the air force and psychological operations form the backbone of the plan.

Blandon said special U.S. military trainers have been working with the Salvadoran army over the last eight months to develop its psychological operations department but that only Salvadorans will train the special units.

Since El Salvador’s political, social and economic problems flared into civil war five years ago, the U.S-backed army has embarked on several plans to defeat the guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, with limited results.

During the summer of 1982, the army implemented a U.S.-authored counterinsurgency plan aimed at “winning the hearts and minds” of the civilian populace in areas of conflict by coordinating military operations with civic action programs.

Western military observers here said the hearts-and-minds program has been plagued by corruption and military inefficiency, although during the past year and a half, the army has improved its performance in the field.

Meanwhile, the Salvadoran rebels accused President Jose Napoleon Duarte of failing to keep his promise to eliminate rightist death squads and charged that they have killed an estimated 670 civilians since he took office June 1.

In a communique about the civil war during 1984, the Salvadoran rebel news agency said that the death squads, in all, killed almost 2,000 civilians last year.