El Salvador Perspectives

The last of El Salvador's troops in Iraq supporting the US coalition returned Saturday : SAN SALVADOR (AFP) — The last 200 Salvadoran soldiers deployed to Iraq as part of former US president George W. Bush's "coalition of the willing" returned home Saturday, ending that country's five-and-a-half-year commitment. Soldiers from the Cuscatlan battalion arrived at the Comalapa air force base southeast of San Salvador and waved Salvadoran and Iraqi flags as they boarded trucks bound for the capital. The trucks first stopped at a statue of Jesus Christ, at the entrance to the city, where a military bishop held a thanksgiving mass. "It was an enormous experience ... working shoulder to shoulder with other countries toward one objective: stability and peace in Iraq," battalion commander Cesar Acosta told AFP. Five Salvadoran soldiers were killed and 20 wounded during their time in Iraq. Stationed in Al Kut, on the Tigris River near the Iranian border, the Salvad...

President Tony Saca announced yesterday that the country's troops in Iraq will be withdrawn after the end of the year: SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- President Tony Saca announced Tuesday he will withdraw Salvadoran troops from Iraq after Dec. 31, pulling out the only remaining soldiers from Latin America. Five of El Salvador's soldiers have been killed and more than 20 have been wounded since the country deployed troops there in 2003. It currently has 200 soldiers based near the southeastern Shiite city of Kut. "We have fulfilled our mission with Iraq," Saca told reporters Tuesday in San Salvador.... In the five years that Salvadoran soldiers have been in Iraq, they have completed 350 health, education and infrastructure projects that benefited an estimated 7 million Iraqis. "As president of this country and as the commanding officer of its armed forces, we should be happy with our participation in Iraq," Saca said. "We have helped rebuild a large part ...

Bowing to popular opposition at home may be more important than currying favor with Washington: SAN SALVADOR, Feb 5 ( Reuters ) - El Salvador, the only Latin American country which still has troops in Iraq, is prepared topull out most of its 280 soldiers there amid growing opposition at home to the U.S.-led war. "I believe the time is coming to pull out almost all of our troops," President Tony Saca said on Tuesday. Saca was seeing off the 10th contingent of Salvadoran soldiers to serve in Iraq, but said that the next batch of troops could be reduced to a handful. "I cannot talk of an 11th contingent," Saca said. In August, El Salvador cut the size of its six-month contingents to Iraq to 280 soldiers from a previous level of 380. Saca, who is one of U.S. President George W. Bush's closest allies in Latin America, flew to Washington later on Tuesday. He is scheduled to hold talks with Bush on Thursday. Polls have show that more than half of Salvadorans are oppos...

The Miami Herald ran a lengthy story this weekend about the Salvadoran troops in Iraq. El Salvador has been sending troops on 6 months rotations to the war-torn country since 2003 as a part of the US coalition. Here is an excerpt from the article: ''We maintain a contingent of soldiers in Iraq . . . as support against terrorism, believing that this will help improve the world, and besides, believing that when you begin a job, you must finish it,'' said Saca, a member of the right-of-center ARENA party. Thomas Shannon, Washington's top Latin America diplomat, said the U.S. government is grateful for the Salvadoran deployments.''It's an important show of political support in the Americas . . . especially from a country with whom we've had a long-term partnership,'' he told The Miami Herald. ``The Salvadorans are doing important work in Iraq in terms of reconstruction and in some basic security.'' The Salvadoran soldiers receive ext...

There is an article in today's New York Times which looks at the reasons that El Salvador continues to maintain a contingent of almost 400 of its soldiers on the ground in Iraq: Officially, Mr. Saca’s government says the deployment of what is called the Cuscatlán Battalion is a way to thank the world for its assistance in helping stop the civil war here a decade and a half ago. Salvadoran officials say their country is an active part of the United Nations and believe in the world body’s effort to rebuild Iraq. They stress the humanitarian dimension to their soldiers’ work there, like building roads, health clinics and schools, while acknowledging the dangers that have resulted in the deaths of five soldiers and the wounding of about two dozen more. They proudly note that El Salvador’s army, once linked to right-wing death squads, has been purged of its bad elements and is now one of the most respected institutions in the country. But those arguments have not been enough to sway l...

Outgoing US Ambassador to Iraq, Douglas Barclay, travelled to Iraq on Christmas Eve to thank the 340 Salvadoran soldiers there for their service. Although public opinion polls show that as many as 80% of Salvadorans opppose the presence of their troops in Iraq, Tony Saca has recently approved commiting troops for another 12 months in that region. Salvadoran soldiers have worked on reconstruction projects in Iraq, and five Salvadoran soldiers have died during the conflict.

El Salvador continues to by the only country in the Americas supporting the US with troops in Iraq. Today a third Salvadoran soldier died in Iraq, the victim of an improvised explosive device exploded by insurgents. Tony Saca also gave indications today that he will continue to have troops in Iraq, sending another rotation of soldiers to southeast Asia in August.

El Salvador is the only country in Latin America with troops supporting the US intervention in Iraq. Two Salvadoran soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and one of them is then son of Herminia Ramos of Guayamango. I've described her story before on this blog. Now the Los Angeles Times has published an article describing her efforts protesting the Iraq war: The only thing Herminia Ramos wanted from the army was her son's pension — exactly $200 a month. She figured she deserved the money now, seeing how he gave his life wearing an army uniform, fighting in a war halfway around the world in Iraq. The Salvadoran army said no. Ramos said she felt abandoned. Left with her thoughts in her sparse cinderblock home, and five other children to support, she quickly came to a conclusion: No other parent should have to feel this way. She signed her name to a letter demanding that El Salvador remove its troops from Iraq. Then she personally delivered it to the national legislature and the ...

The government of El Salvador is perhaps the most loyal ally of the US in Latin America, and the US is rewarding such loyalty with military aid. An article at TomPaine.com highlights just how much military aid the country is receiving: El Salvador tops the list of recipients [in Latin America] of U.S. military aid, with almost $23 million in [Foreign Military Financing] since 2002. Surprising? Not in light of U.S. foreign policy. El Salvador is one of the Bush administration's few remaining allies with troops in Iraq, and six Salvadoran Special Forces soldiers have been awarded the Bronze Star. Washington has also sought to draw a parallel between El Salvador's transition to democracy and Iraq's rocky progress toward that goal. While in San Salvador last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld praised the country's progress, saying "The sweep of human history is for freedom. We've seen it in [El Salvador], we've seen it in Afghanistan and I believe we...

The AP has an interview of a Salvadoran soldier who just returned from Iraq. The story emphasizes humanitarian work being done by the Salvadoran troops: It was dangerous at times, as servicemen fired their guns in the air to warn against possible attacks. But for at least one Salvadoran soldier - whose countrymen are the only Latin American soldiers left in Iraq - the six months he spent helping to build schools, drinking-water systems and clinics in Iraq were worth the time away from his family. In an interview with The Associated Press upon returning home, Lt. Jose Rivera recalled how the Iraqi people would offer the soldiers tea and call them friends. The children would greet them with hugs.

On August 10, the US announced that it will give $45 million over the next 5 years for a program supporting basic health and education. According to press reports , El Salvador's foreing minister stated that the funds would support 100,000 students and 3000 teachers, primarily in rural areas. At the signing ceremony for agreement, the US ambassador thanked El Salvador for its commitment to continue the presence of 380 troops in Iraq. Isn't that called a payoff?

As the US House was voting to approve CAFTA, the Salvadoran National Assembly voted to keep troops in Iraq for at least another year. Young men from El Salvador will continue to risk their lives in a war zone where the only national interest of El Salvador is currying favor with the US government.

The San Francisco Chronicle runs a heart-wrenching story about the mother and family of Natividad de Jesús Méndez Ramos, the first Salvadoran soldier to die in combat in Iraq. The death of her son, the loss of his soldier's income, and the lack of any compensation from the Salvadoran or US government has deepened their poverty. Here is an excerpt: Even though Saddam Hussein never posed a threat to Central America, and the national security of the United States is a concern only to those Salvadorians lucky enough to survive the harrowing migratory journey to "El Norte," 35 local boys [from Ahuachapan Province] have fought side-by-side with the American armed forces near Najaf, north of Baghdad. The war in Iraq has given them a chance to see the outside world and people far from the dusty streets of their home villages. Many have returned with the spoils of war from the deserts of the Middle East, along with eye- popping stories. But one, Natividad de Jesús Méndez Ramos,...

Tony Saca stated today that he was committed to keeping a contingent of Salvadoran troops in Iraq, working on humanitarian tasks. He stated that threats of terrorist attacks would not deter El Salvador from this mission. Reuters reports, however, that Saca is asking the US to provide stepped up assistance in combating possible terrorist attacks following the London bombing.

El Salvador is well known for being a US ally who closely follows the foreign policy lead of Washington, including the participation of Salvadoran troops in the war in Iraq. The US rewards such an ally. For the past several weeks, US troops have been working with their Salvadoran counterparts in the country building schools and medical clinics. According to the US Army News Service , The New Horizons Exercise in El Salvador will provide two new schools and three clinics in areas of San Vicente that were hit by earthquakes.... Joint Task Force 'Para Los Ninos' is conducting New Horizons in Santa Clara, El Salvador. The New Horizons program started in the mid-1980s with the primary objective of providing joint readiness training for U.S. military engineering and medical units. The program brings together U.S. military units with their host-nation counterparts to build military-to-military cooperation while fostering goodwill between the U.S. and its neighbors. The conserv...

El Salvador has 338 soldiers in Iraq. But an equal number of Salvadorans, have been recruited by private US contractors, to work in Iraq as well, usually at much lower wages than are paid to their US counterparts. USA Today reports: A police sergeant here, speaking on condition of anonymity, says there have been more than 800 requests in the past three months by policemen [in El Salvador] asking to leave in order to accept jobs with two different contracting firms, mostly with Triple Canopy. He says 32 people have been given permission by the department and maybe 10 more, he says, have gone without permission. Pay depends on the recruit's experience and the job to be performed, but can also be determined by his country of origin. While some firms offer U.S. and European recruits up to $700 a day, companies like Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., reportedly pay Latin Americans and others from less developed countries $1,200 to $5,000 a month. Uniforms, housing, transportation, fo...

The nomination of John Negroponte to be the first National Intelligence chief in the United States received generally favorable reaction in the US press, but many voices in Latin America voiced dismay. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan administration, at the height of American military aid to fight left-wing insurgencies and support of the Contras in Nicaragua. La Prensa Grafica in San Salvador, certainly not known as an anti-US paper, wrote this about Negroponte: Hated in Latin America John Negroponte has been linked to military coups, violators of human rights and death squads in the terrible days of the armed conflicts in various Central American nations two decades ago..... The Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) criticized the nomination of John Negroponte.... "What a barbarity!" said the coordinator of COFADEH, Bertha Oliva. On September 7, 2001, before the "war on terror" and the invasion of Iraq...

El Salvador agreed on Thursday to send its fourth contingent of troops to Iraq in support of US efforts there. Salvadoran troops have suffered 13 casualties in Iraq, with 12 injured and one dead. The Prensa Latina reports that a CID-Gallup poll shows that 60% of Salvadorans oppose sending the troops. The FMLN has always opposed the Iraq war.

Reuters reports today that the United States has asked El Salvador to continue to have troops in Iraq after the current contingent of the Cuscatlan Battalion rotates home in February. The report indicates that U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Bantz Craddock informed reporters of this request during his visit to the Ilopango military base in El Salvador. In addition, George Bush called Tony Saca on February 2 to thank him for his support in Iraq.

The Newsweek article which asserted the Pentagon was considering a "Salvador Option" for use of special units in Iraq touched off a number of re-examinations of the US armed forces role in El Salvador during the civil war. David Holiday provides much thoughtful analysis and quotes from Dean Brackley at the UCA, among others, at this link .