Country Snapshot

Population: 6,470,379 (July 2003 est.) Size, comparable to U.S.: slightly smaller than Massachusetts Per Capita GDP, not adjusted for PPP (year): $2,189 (2002) Income, wealthiest 10% / poorest 10%: 56.4/1.2 (1998) Population earning less than $2 a day: 45% Ranking, Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index: 59 out of 133 Defense Expenditure as a percentage of GDP: .8% (2001) Size of armed forces: 17,000 (2001) U.S. military personnel present: 22 (2003)

El Salvador receives only a small fraction of the U.S. security assistance that it was granted during the 1980s, when it was the hemisphere's leading destination for U.S. military aid. While the U.S. relationship with the Salvadoran armed forces is still close, funding levels for military programs and numbers of trainees continue to decrease.

Though El Salvador remains Central America’s largest recipient of training funds through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, one-half to two-thirds of these funds pay for Expanded IMET courses in such topics as defense management, civil-military relations, and military justice. Honduras, not El Salvador, is now Central America’s chief recipient of regular IMET funding.

Both the State Department’s 2000 Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, which promises that IMET in El Salvador “will contribute to improving civil-military relations,” and the more detailed 1999 presentation cited below emphasize the Expanded IMET aspect of the program.¹

Our strategy for fostering military respect for elected civilian leadership will be supported by IMET programs designed to educate senior civilian and military leaders on defense policy-making and civil-military cooperation issues. Programs will demonstrate the efficacy and wisdom of civilian oversight of military institutions in democracies. The IMET and E-IMET programs will also focus on professional military education and effective defense resource management for a drastically downsized Salvadoran military (62,000 to 17,000 since the end of the war), while instilling at every level of instruction the paramount need to respect human rights. IMET funding will also provide assistance to the ESAF [El Salvador Armed Forces] in its continuing transition from a counter-insurgency force to one focused on territorial defense, disaster relief, and transnational law enforcement.²

Between 1996 and 1998 El Salvador’s share of the student body fell sharply at both the U.S. Army School of the Americas and the U.S. Air Force Inter-American Air Forces Academy, from 6 percent to 1.3 percent at the SOA and from 13.5 percent to 1.8 percent at the IAAFA.³

El Salvador hosts several training deployments each year from U.S. Special Forces participating in the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program. Recent training topics include foreign internal defense, maritime operations, patrolling, raid/ambush, close quarters battle, room/building clearing, and humanitarian demining.⁴

Salvadoran troops participate frequently in the U.S. Southern Command’s regular series of training exercises, among them, Fuerzas Aliadas Chile, Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarian and Fuerzas Aliadas Peacekeeping (which El Salvador hosted in 1997).⁵ The “New Horizons” Humanitarian and Civic Assistance (HCA) exercise carried out construction projects and medical services in El Salvador from January through May 1998, and returned in 1999 to carry out post-Hurricane Mitch reconstruction projects. El Salvador hosted “Joint Task Force Aguila,” the temporary Southern Command unit that managed U.S. military reconstruction efforts during the first few months after the hurricane struck.

A press release from Joint Task Force Bravo, the Southcom component based at Palmerola Air Base in Honduras, describes “Operation Western Skies,” a small-scale, week-long airborne disaster-relief exercise carried out at San Salvador's Ilopango Air Base in 1998. Paratroopers from four unnamed countries “jumped into a simulated disaster relief zone, established security, communications and a forward operations center.”⁶

The United States also works with El Salvador’s recently-created Civilian National Police (PNC) on narcotics control and institution-building programs. While El Salvador is not a priority country for counternarcotics efforts, the State Department’s International Narcotics Control (INC) program carries out “train the trainer” programs for the PNC Anti-Narcotics Division (DAN) and occasionally provides funds to shore up local anti-drug law enforcement programs.⁷ The Defense Department uses its “Section 1004” authority to provide a few hundred thousands of dollars in counter-drug assistance each year.

The Justice Department’s International Criminal Investigations Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) plans to spend $1.5 million on assistance to the PNC in 2000. According to a U.S. Embassy San Salvador press release, “in El Salvador the ICITAP mission is to help the ANSP (National Public Security Academy) and the PNC to develop more experience in police techniques and procedures, efficiency in their administration and operations, and self-confidence.”⁸

El Salvador buys more weapons and equipment through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program than any of its Central American neighbors, and is frequently the largest Central American recipient of Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) licenses. Recent purchases include patrol craft, spare parts, weapons and ammunition.⁹

Sources:

¹ United States, Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000, (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 887.

² United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington: March 1998): 427.

³ U.S. Army School of the Americas, June 1997 <http://www.benning.army.mil/usarsa/main.htm>.

United States, Department of the Army, Certifications and Report on the U.S. Army School of the Americas, Washington: January 1998 <http://www.benning.army.mil/usarsa/certif/content.htm>.

United States Army School of the Americas, Yearly List of Students Trained at SOA, 1997.

United States, Department of Defense, Department of State, Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest in Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report to Congress (Washington: March 1999).

United States, Inter-American Air Forces Academy, Office of the Registrar, e-mail communication with the authors, March 24, 1998.

⁴ United States, Defense Department, State Department, "Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report To Congress," Washington, March 1999: 4, 17.

United States, Defense Department, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces for the Period Ending September 30, 1998," Washington, April 1, 1999.

⁵ United States Southern Command, J34, Exercise Program Quick-View, (U.S. Southern Command: October 13, 1998).

⁶ Master Sgt. Patrick Corcoran, “Operation Western Skies,” Iguana Online (Honduras: JTF Bravo, 1998) <http://www.ussouthcom.com/southcom/jtfbravo/Iguana%20On-Line/news17.htm>.

⁷ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, (Washington: Department of State: February 1999): <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/camex98.html>.

⁸ U.S. Embassy San Salvador, “Embajadora EE.UU. Entrega Equipo a ANSP,” Press Release, February 3, 1999 <http://www.usinfo.org.sv/usis020399.htm>.

⁹ United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, Foreign Military Assistance Act Report To Congress, Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington: September 1997).

United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Assistance Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: August 1998).

United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: July 1999).

United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 97 (Washington: August 1998): 1.

United States, Department of State, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 98 (Washington: July 1999): 29.