Salvadoran Army Travels to Rebel-Infested Areas : Colonel Hits the Hustings Before Today’s Vote

The army was in town and the guerrillas were hiding in the hills. Col. Sigifredo Ochoa’s jeep came rumbling up the dusty mountain road and stopped at the plaza. The colonel greeted troops, chatted with local leaders, and checked to make sure that several cardboard ballot boxes were in safe keeping.

Salvadorans vote in nationwide elections today for mayors and national legislators, and Ochoa, commander of the army brigade in Chalatenango province, came to San Francisco to emphasize army support for the democratic exercise.

But his visit was also was part of increased efforts by the Salvadoran army to assert its local presence and win the support of local residents in towns frequented by leftist guerrillas.

Mobilized for today’s elections, army detachments moved into all but a few of Chalatenango’s 33 municipalities. Normally, most of these places have no troops.

In the army’s absence, the mountain-based guerrillas come and go at will, asserting their own presence, trying to win support and buying supplies.

That is what Ochoa wants to stop but it isn’t easy. His troops are spread thinly over the big and rugged province, a longtime guerrilla haven.

Until recently, Ochoa was trying to get civilian militias organized in Chalatenango. He now says he has given up on the militia program, known as civil defense.

“I don’t believe in that civil defense thing,” he said in an interview. “Here in Chalatenango it doesn’t work.”

He said that townspeople resist forming defense units because they fear that if they are armed, they would become targets for attack.

Juan Rodriguez, a farmer who lives in San Francisco Morazan, said authorities tried to start a militia group here late last year “but the people didn’t pay any attention to them.”

“They are afraid to take up arms,” said Rodriguez, 38. “When you have weapons, they come after you.”

Until two years ago, San Francisco had a volunteer unit organized under a previous militia program. The group was dissolved after guerrillas attacked the town four times.

Ochoa said that recent efforts to form civil defense groups have been successful in only two Chalatenango towns, La Palma and nearby San Ignacio. A batallion of army troops stationed at La Palma is available to support the militias in case of attack.

Nationwide, the U.S.-backed efforts to organize militias continue. In the last year, about 150 Salvadoran militia instructors have been trained by U.S. Army personnel, a foreign military observer said, and the number of towns with militias has increased from about 20 to 47 in the last six months.

Instead of local militias, Ochoa said, he has begun organizing civic committees in Chalatenango’s communities. These committees will work closely with province civil authorities and with military officials on community development projects aimed at winning popular support, he said.

At the same time, small and mobile army units will dig in permanently around the province, frequently visiting towns and scouring the hills for guerrillas.

Ochoa often visits the towns of Chalatenango himself. The same day that he came to San Francisco Morazan, he stopped in half a dozen other communities.

At one of them, he encountered an army loudspeaker truck that was to help provide a pro-army, anti-guerrilla pep talk in the plaza.

“Instead of giving people weapons in a town, I prefer to form an ideological barrier against subversion,” the colonel said.

A taped message blared out, “We continue to fight and sacrifice our lives so that you may live in peace.” It urged residents to turn in “terrorists and bad neighbors who help them.”

As a small crowd gathered in the plaza, soldiers handed out candy and leaflets. The latter offered rewards as high as $1,300 to guerrillas who give up their weapons or radio equipment.

“Combatant, come to the nearest barracks,” the leaflet said. “Turn in your weapon. The armed forces will protect you.”

While the tape was playing for the third time, a young man and an old man daubed whitewash over a hand-painted guerrilla slogan on the front wall of the town hall.

“Salvadoran people, in the face of foreign aggression and intervention, let us prepare to defend the fatherland,” the red letters said.

In another town that Ochoa visited later, guerrillas had burned the town hall a few days earlier as a gesture of disdain for today’s elections. And Saturday, in another part of Chalatenango, a guerrilla Claymore mine exploded under a civilian pickup truck, killing six people.

The colonel got back in his jeep and headed down the road. Another jeep followed, and both carried a half-dozen soldiers armed with M-16 automatic rifles.

Wearing a floppy brimmed fatigue hat and a vest packed with ammunition magazines, Ochoa carried a weapon with a collapsible stock.

In a remote valley between two towns, his jeep stopped and a burst of gunfire rang out. Minutes later, Ochoa explained that he had fired warning shots over the heads of two men who seemed to be running away.

But they turned out to be ranch hands, not guerrillas, and the colonel was soon on his way to the next town.