Salvador Rebels Return to Early Hit-Run Tactics

The leftist guerrillas of El Salvador, pursued by increasingly large and well-armed government forces, appear to be changing tactics and returning to a style of warfare they had abandoned as slow and ineffective.

The guerrillas--there are five separate factions allied in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front--have broken up their relatively large concentrations and reorganized them as smaller, more maneuverable fighting teams.

Instead of taking on the army in large-scale engagements, they are now concentrating on ambushes, along with attacks on city halls and civilian officials around the country. More frequent use of terrorism has not been ruled out, although most assassinations are being attributed not to main-line insurgents but to renegades operating outside of the front’s control.

Trying to Expand

Several guerrilla groups say they are also trying to expand their following by means of stepped-up political activity.

The goal is clearly to sap the government’s will to continue the war and to discourage the United States from continuing its financial support of the government.

It all adds up to an important shift in rebel tactics in the civil war, which has lasted more than five years. As recently as last spring, rebel leaders said their main effort would consist of “decisive strikes” against the army. Now they talk of a war of attrition.

Joaquin Villalobos, commander of the Popular Revolutionary Army, one of the largest factions, said in a recent radio broadcast: “We can say that we have entered upon a war of attrition. We are in no hurry. We can take all the time that is necessary.”

‘Strategic Defeats’

Villalobos was once the leading proponent of the “decisive strike” strategy. As the guerrillas then saw it, a series of “strategic defeats” for the government would touch off a popular uprising and bring down the government. To that end, Villalobos built an almost conventional military force armed with rifles and artillery and equipped with radios.

Other rebel leaders preferred a traditional guerrilla approach, using small numbers of fighting men in limited engagements, but Villalobos considered this too slow, and he prevailed over the others.

But in the last 18 months or so, the decisive strike has gone out of style. Since the end of 1983, when guerrillas carried out a devastating assault on 4th Brigade headquarters at El Paraiso, such large-scale operations have become rare.

The most recent attack involving substantial numbers of rebels took place not long ago at Santa Cruz Loma, 25 miles southeast of San Salvador. Several hundred guerrillas overran the village and killed at least 20 people, among them women and children. The guerrillas’ target was apparently a local civil defense unit, but only seven of the men killed were members. The throats of several of the victims were slashed.

Campaign of Harassment

For the most part, guerrilla action is now limited to blowing up telephone lines, threatening traffic on main highways, menacing harvests and putting the torch to city halls.

In a series of interviews in El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua, rebel leaders and foot soldiers talked about the reasons for the change in tactics. In part, they said, they are responding to improvements in the Salvadoran army. The army has more than tripled in size in the last two years, while the United States has provided it with millions of dollars in arms and ammunition, including artillery, helicopters and slow-flying gunships.

The army, though still cautious, has sent several aggressive and highly mobile hunter battalions into the field, and they have thrown the guerrillas off balance.

“The war has changed; we have to change, too,” Salvador Samayoa, a representative of the Popular Liberation Forces, the second of the rebels’ two largest factions, said the other day. “This is merely a new stage.”

Emerging Tactics

In the combat zones, other rationales for the changing tactics emerged.

“We need time to build up our forces,” said a guerrilla named Oscar, who commands a small unit patrolling the nearly abandoned town of Tejutepeque.

A guerrilla named Guayo in Morazan province, a rebel stronghold, said: “We had big armies operating in small areas. Now we prefer small units operating in big areas in anticipation of American intervention.”

The creation of regular rebel brigades, on the pattern of the Salvadoran army, created several problems for the guerrillas:

--Supplying such formations, which numbered as many as 400 fighters, put a considerable burden on the already impoverished peasant communities. Also, there have been reports of abuses on the part of fighters in the larger units.

--Masses of troops, spotted by U.S. reconnaissance planes flying out of Honduras, were particularly vulnerable to air attack.

--Large-scale engagements used up great quantities of ammunition. Miguel Castellanos, a former rebel commander held for a month by the Salvadoran police, said recently that irregular ammunition supplies from Nicaragua made it more difficult to mount major assaults.

Rebels Optimistic

Despite reports of their declining effectiveness, the rebels insist that the outlook is bright. They say their troops are moving into new areas and that they are wearing down the government forces with ambushes.

“We have to ask ourselves if the army can stand three or four years of this kind of war,” Villalobos said in the radio broadcast.

Rebel leaders also say that their ranks are growing, though widespread reports of forced recruitments tend to cast doubt on the picture they paint of young Salvadorans marching freely into the mountains to sign on.

Rebel recruits who have talked with reporters usually say they went over to the guerrillas because of some form of abuse by the armed forces.

Enrique, a young guerrilla in Tejutepeque who has spent nine months in the mountains, said he joined after being picked up by soldiers and held for 10 weeks on suspicion of being a rebel sympathizer. He said he was beaten and that his abductors planned to kill him.

“I knew they were going to execute me because they stopped giving me food,” he said.

Enrique said he escaped and joined a group of guerrillas he came upon.

Rebel Estimates Vary

Estimates of rebel strength vary widely. Castellanos said the Farabundo Marti Front numbers only 5,000. Salvadoran officers put the number at 7,000 and U.S. officials have given estimates as high as 15,000.

The rebels appear to be divided and in some disarray in this time of tactical change. For instance, there is wide disagreement over the wisdom of kidnaping mayors as a means of weakening the Salvadoran government. Sixteen mayors have been kidnaped; one has been killed and three have recently been released, the Salvadoran army says.

This tactic was worked out by Villalobos’ Popular Revolutionary Army. Spokesmen for the Popular Liberation Forces refuse to endorse it. Guillermo Ungo, leader of the Farabundo Marti Front’s political branch, refuses to comment on it.

There is no indication that the change in tactics has been accompanied by any change in leadership. In the past, however, power struggles have accompanied tactical changes. In 1983, followers of Salvador Cayetano Carpio, then the leader of the Popular Liberation Forces, killed a rival, Melida Anaya Montes, because she followed the Villalobos line. Carpio later killed himself.

Ironically, it is Carpio’s approach to the war that is back in fashion. Except for the label, Villalobos’ war of attrition is Carpio’s “prolonged popular war.”