The Death of a Thousand Cuts

By George Russell

The guerrillas are stronger, and the army weaker, than appeared

"I think we are now observing a stalemate. And in that kind of war, if you are not winning, you are losing."

So says Lieut. General Wallace H. Nutting, commander in chief of the Panama-based U.S. Southern Command, in reference to beleaguered El Salvador. Nutting has reason for his surprisingly frank--and gloomy-- assessment. Yet another offensive by an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 leftist guerrillas has been under way in the Central American republic for several weeks. The insurgents are more than holding their own: they are inflicting heavy casualties on El Salvador's undertrained 10,000-man army and simultaneously dealing painful blows to the nation's economy. In the process, they are forcing U.S. military instructors and diplomats in El Salvador to face up to some hard realities of the war and the quality of the Salvadoran forces fighting it.

The fact that the struggle will be much tougher than previously imagined was brutally underlined last month. For the first time, units of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front captured a small Salvadoran National Guard garrison, that of the isolated northeastern town of Perquin (pop. 3,700). The guerrillas held the town for seven days; all the while their clandestine radio station, Radio Venceremos, spread news of the feat across the country. The insurgents finally retreated after the Salvadoran army moved reinforcements into the area and bombed the town. According to guerrilla accounts, their casualties were light--only one killed--while the armed forces, which did not reveal their true losses, sent 23 wounded to local hospitals. Over the first six months of this year, El Salvador's armed forces have admitted to 1,300 casualties, including 350 killed, a grim annual attrition rate of 12% for the 22,000 men serving in the army, the National Guard and other security forces.

In the midst of the Perquin assault, the guerrillas launched dozens of pinprick attacks throughout the surrounding Morazan department. The deliberate hit-and-run tactics made it difficult for the army to bring up reinforcements, thus prolonging the insurgents' hold on Perquin. More seriously, they have been carrying out a carefully planned campaign of sabotage against bridges and the power system. Up to 75% of the country has been without electricity at one time or another; the eastern third of El Salvador has been almost completely darkened since mid-July. Last week, as Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia held a press conference to announce that "we have absolute control over the country," the lights went out once again, and Garcia had to wait five minutes before emergency generators could restore power for television cameras.

The sabotage campaign is having a perceptible impact on national morale and a crippling effect on El Salvador's already depressed economy. One business enterprise in three is affected by the power cuts; the shrimp fishing and fish canning industries have been brought to a virtual standstill. Economic growth so far this year has declined by 5%. Says a U.S. military observer: "The Salvadoran army is not going to lose the country militarily. But economically, if the guerrillas keep chewing up the country, I don't know." Says another foreign analyst: "The kind of war that's being waged here is the death of a thousand cuts."

The 40 or so U.S. military instructors currently serving in El Salvador are having their own problems. They have discovered that military intelligence is poor and that El Salvador's army desperately lacks officers and noncoms. A typical infantry company may contain one officer, a corporal or two, and 100 men. El Salvador's air force has too few pilots, and guerrilla ground fire has become so accurate that seven of its ten U.S.-made UH-1H helicopters are in repair hangars at any given time. (Four additional helicopters were sent by Washington last week.) El Salvador's civilian-military government, headed by President Jose Napoleon Duarte, has done little to rally the population, which lives in constant fear of right-wing and left-wing terror, to the regime's cause. The Defense Ministry began releasing military casualty figures only after strenuous arguments by Deane Hinton, the outspoken U.S. ambassador, that it was in its interest to do so. Said Hinton to the Salvadorans: "Get out there and tell the truth. What have you got to lose?"

One worry is that the government may lose its monopoly claim to legitimacy in the Salvadoran political process. Late last week France and Mexico declared that they were ready to recognize the guerrillas as a "representative political force," a pronouncement that could, Duarte complained, "sharpen our conflict." Nevertheless, Hinton and State Department experts remain convinced that the Salvadoran government can win the war. One U.S. military recommendation is to provide more American instructors. Secretary of State Alexander Haig has noted that Soviet arms shipments to Cuba have increased sharply this year, to 40,000 tons, almost double last year's volume, and that "substantial amounts" are presumably transshipped to El Salvador. Haig said last week that "a whole array of political, economic and security-related measures" is being considered to enforce a cutoff in the arms traffic, but that would be difficult to bring off. Says Hinton: "The war is serious now." Hardly anyone, least of all the embattled Salvadoran military, will deny that.

--By George Russell. Reported by James Willwerth/San Salvador

With reporting by James Willwerth/San Salvador

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