Armor for All

And a memorial truce

When a dozen gunmen sprayed automatic weapons fire into the U.S. embassy in San Salvador last week and launched a rocket-propelled grenade that hit the third-floor conference room, staffers ran for safety with practiced speed. No wonder. It was the fourth attack on the building in the past month. Once again, no one was injured; once again, the raiders got away, despite return fire from the Salvadoran security guard and a lone U.S. Marine on the roof. The conference room, newly repaired after a previous RPG attack, had its ceiling demolished and its windows blown out. The ambassador's office next door still had sheets of protective blanketing over the windows since an attack two weeks ago left bullet holes in the glass.

TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich happened to be at the embassy at the time of the raid and reported that the staff responded with relative calm. But the attacks have taken a toll: the vulnerable ambassador's office is no longer used, and staffers now hold meetings in an interior auditorium.

At a press conference the day after the latest attack, Charge d'Affaires Frederic Chapin confirmed that the embassy is "taking action appropriate to increasing security," but noted the difficulty of stopping an RPG. "It is designed to go through tanks, and we don't have any of them here, unfortunately." Chapin also declared that the U.S. "is not going to be intimidated" in its policy of broad support for El Salvador's civilian-military junta. In Washington, an Administration request for $5 million in additional military aid received final approval in a close vote by a House subcommittee. Meanwhile, American opposition to such aid took the form of large rallies last week in several U.S. cities.

A leftist guerrilla group took credit for the embassy strike. "Operation Oscar Arnulfo Romero," it announced, had been mounted to honor the memory of the Archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated a year ago by a presumed right-wing terrorist. The embassy assault followed a 24-hour truce, also called by the guerrillas to commemorate the prelate's death. The cease-fire was generally observed by government forces, but not by El Salvador's right-wing death squads. The morning after the truce, the bodies of 38 victims were found in and around the capital. It was not even a record for a single day: the death toll from political violence now runs at about 170 a week, considerably below the weekly totals for December and January of 235 or more.

Salvadorans' efforts to protect themselves from such violence are taking exceptional forms, with good reason. One of the country's thriving businesses is an armored-car factory, housed in a large brick building in suburban San Salvador. The wealthy bring their cars, pickup trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles there to have them turned into bulletproof "war wagons." Average cost for the work: $25,000. One of the proprietors, an engineer with a degree from Michigan Technological University, said proudly, "We armor a car here for half of what it costs in the U.S. And we have never lost a customer." "A client can have any extras he wishes," his partner added, "gun ports in front and rear so you can put up a fight, or special armored tires from the U.S. at $500 each. We don't need to advertise, it's all by word of mouth." Pointing to a British-made Range Rover, he explained that two people died in it last month in an ambush. "Now the survivors are having it armored." qed

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