EL SALVADOR:

The Civilian Police Component of

Peace Operations

Background

The Situation Precipitating Intervention

In December 1989 the Government of El Salvador and its opponent, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrilla organization, independently approached the Secretary-General to request that the United Nations provide its good offices in support of a peace settlement. This initiative by both parties was a good omen for what became one of the most successful peacemaking efforts by the United Nations in cases of internal conflict. It led to 2 years of U.N.-mediated negotiations and eventually a peace accord signed on January 16, 1992. The United Nations verified the accords by means of a multidisciplinary observer mission that included human rights, military, civilian police, and electoral components.

The decision to invite the United Nations to assist came out of a conflict that was “ripe for resolution.”¹ Sporadic guerrilla fighting had begun in the late 1970s and had escalated into a full-blown civil war beginning in January 1981. By 1989, after 10 years of warfare, a politico-military stalemate had developed. The Salvadoran military was far superior in numbers and firepower but had proven unable to eradicate the guerrillas, who enjoyed strong popular support in certain areas, diffuse support throughout the country, a de facto sanctuary in border areas disputed by El Salvador and Honduras, and a strong network of international financial, logistical, and political support. The FMLN had focused its military efforts on economic sabotage and had sufficient weapons, ammunition, and support to continue in this mode for years.

In November 1989 the FMLN attacked and held portions of the capital city for over a week. After being driven out of poor neighborhoods that they had initially occupied, part of the rebel force infiltrated wealthy neighborhoods where the military was reluctant to use its air power. For the newly elected government of Alfredo Cristiani, representing the business-oriented National Republican Alliance (ARENA) party, the ability of the FMLN to bring the war to the capital city confirmed that 10 years of counterinsurgency campaigns had failed to suppress the rebels. Cristiani and moderate sectors of ARENA considered ongoing war and economic sabotage unacceptable.

The political stature of the Salvadoran military was sufficiently weakened by the offensive that they were no longer in a position to veto civilian-led peace initiatives, as they had during the preceding administration of Christian Democrat José Napoleón Duarte. During the offensive, military personnel had murdered six internationally known Jesuit priests and two witnesses at the University of Central America. This action damaged the Salvadoran military’s reputation in the U.S. Congress and therefore weakened prospects for ongoing military assistance from the United States.

For the FMLN, the offensive proved that they lacked the urban support needed for popular insurrection. With military victory out of the question, they faced a war of attrition and sabotage. The changing international climate meant that their long-term prospects for international support were declining and that they needed to negotiate while they were still strong.

Negotiations got under way in early 1990 with the United Nations serving as intermediary. Early in the process, the two sides agreed that the United Nations would verify whatever agreements were eventually reached. As the talks proceeded, the United Nations assumed an increasingly important role as mediator, helping in a number of cases to formulate proposals, to the point of drafting the language of several of the most important accords. In multiple rounds of negotiation from April 1990 through early January 1992, the two sides produced agreements on extensive verification powers for the United Nations; human rights guarantees; constitutional reforms including measures to depoliticize and professionalize the judiciary; a Truth Commission to investigate past acts of violence; an “ad hoc” commission that would identify officers to be purged from the military; constitutional reforms limiting the role of the armed forces; creation of a new civilian police force; formation of a domestic Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ) to verify the accords; separation of forces and demobilization of selected military units and of the entire FMLN guerrilla force; distribution of land and other social benefits to demobilized guerrillas, FMLN supporters, and demobilized government soldiers; legalization of the FMLN as a political party; and broad guidelines for a national reconstruction program that would foster national reconciliation and rapid economic recovery.

Status of the Public Security Apparatus

The heart of the peace accords was reform of state institutions, and by far the most important element was wholesale transformation of the nation’s public security system. The Army, which had been extensively involved in domestic policing (and in politics), was constitutionally banned from any security function other than national defense, except in cases of national emergency when all other means had been exhausted. The military-controlled public security forces, which included the National Guard, the Treasury Police, and the National Police, were to be demobilized, with their members absorbed into the army (or, in practice, discharged). Rural paramilitary civil defense patrols were also to be disarmed and disbanded. The old constabulary forces were to be replaced by a new civilian police force trained in a pro-democratic and human rights-oriented doctrine at a new civilian police academy. A majority of personnel would come from sources other than the Salvadoran Army or the FMLN. During the transition, one of the old security forces, the National Police (PN), was to remain on duty, while a new National Civilian Police (PNC) was to be trained, organized, and deployed.

The centrality of these reforms reflected the importance of the flawed public security forces in contributing to the conflict in the first place. Military officers had governed the country from 1932 to 1979, with the cooperation of members of the economic elite. Military rule had begun under a personalistic dictator who reined from 1932 until 1944. In 1948, midranking officers had established a more institutionalized form of military governance with corporatist pretensions. This regime survived, with variations, until its collapse in 1979 on the eve of the civil war. Institutional military rule was not always heavily repressive: in the early years it was accompanied by a modicum of democratic political competition and responsiveness to popular demands. But beginning in the 1970s, the system became increasingly rigid, blatant in its use of electoral fraud, and violently repressive.

The most repressive elements of the regime were the three security forces, the National Guard, the Treasury Police, and the National Police, as well as a number of special intelligence units set up within the military. These forces functioned as political police, suppressing dissent while defending elite interests against labor and peasant organizers and other “subversive” influences. At the local level, the relationship between security forces and major landowners was overtly mercenary, with National Guard units housed, fed, and paid bonuses by large-scale commercial farms. The massacre of some 25,000 peasants and workers in 1932 by the National Guard was a landmark for both supporters and opponents of the regime. The security forces periodically carried out crackdowns after that time and turned to extremely murderous conduct during the 1970s and early 1980s. As the military regime deteriorated, all three security forces responded to growing popular opposition to military rule and the emergence of guerrilla organizations by torturing and murdering increasing numbers of citizens. Elements of these same forces also became extensively involved in kidnapping and other crimes for profit.

The brutality of the security forces was a crucial contributing factor in the expansion of support for guerrilla organizations and the eventual outbreak of civil war. While the security apparatus did succeed in infiltrating and imposing great casualties on the guerrilla organizations, thousands of civilians who were merely involved in protest activities were also murdered. The brutality, corruption, and politicization of the security regime created a climate of political exclusion, frustration, and violence that became highly conducive to civil war. More specifically, the growing intensity of represssion by the security forces during the late 1970s and early 1980s, combined with its often indiscriminate targeting, gave thousands of Salvadorans incentives to take arms against the government for self-defense and revenge.²

The military withdrew formally from political power following elections in 1982 that brought a new constituent assembly and a provisional president to power. Subsequent elections in 1984 and 1985 helped consolidate this transition to elected civilian rule. But the military remained a powerful and insubordinate actor capable of vetoing the actions of civilian presidents. After an extremely violent period, 1980 through 1983, the military gradually improved its human rights record during the latter half of the 1980s. The security forces were moved into a Vice-Ministry of Defense for Public Security and underwent a gradual purge and reform that dampened their propensity for violence against civilians. Despite these improvements, the security forces and the military as a whole remained politicized, violently repressive, and unaccountable through the end of the war.

Profound reform of this system was a sine qua non for achieving peace. In the peace negotiations that got under way in 1990 with U.N. observation and mediation, the FMLN main demands related to reform of the military and accountability for past abuses. Although the FMLN had proclaimed throughout the war that it was fighting for radical socioeconomic reforms, it set these issues aside almost completely during the negotiations, turning to them only in the final months, once the military and public security issues had been largely resolved. Throughout much of the negotiations, the FMLN demanded that government forces be disbanded, or that FMLN combat units be incorporated into the armed forces. Both positions were completely unacceptable to the Government. In the September 1991 round of negotiations in New York, the FMLN abandoned these demands in exchange for an agreement that would create a professional, pro-democratic, civilian police force and allow former FMLN combatants to make up as much as twenty percent of the initial cadre. Basic resolution of the military and police issues allowed the talks to proceed rapidly after the New York round, with final agreements reached on the balance of the agenda in just over 3 months.

The Mandate

Unlike other recent U.N. missions, the U.N. Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) did not initially face a situation of chaos or collapse of government function, and the mission had only a very limited direct role in maintenance of public order. A serious public security gap developed, however, as a result of postwar social stresses, demobilization of ex-combatants, and the weak transitional public security system. ONUSAL adapted to this problem as it emerged, assisting the existing police forces, engaging in de facto police work in various parts of the country, and providing on-the-job training for the PNC as it began to deploy.³ ONUSAL also took various steps to prevent the political ramifications of the crime wave from disrupting the peace process, such as pressuring the Government to move ahead with demobilization of the PN. Notwithstanding the effective measures it did take, the U.N. role in public security was deficient in some regards, because of unrealistic planning, personnel shortages, and poor coordination within the mission and with other international actors.

The CIVPOL mandate of ONUSAL derived from a section of the accords relating to the “transitional regime” for public security:

This mandate was quite vague. Nothing in the accords spells out exactly what it should mean for ONUSAL police specialists to “accompany” the National Police, or what tasks the U.N. police should carry out to ensure a “smooth transition.” The political understanding behind this phrase was that the U.N. police were to ensure that the National Police did not engage in politically-motivated abusive practices. After reforms in the late 1980s, the National Police had become less repressive in its every day activities. Nonetheless, the PN had a history of operating one of the most active death squads in the country in the early 1980s, and FMLN leaders remained deeply distrustful of the old police.⁵ ONUSAL supervision would help ensure that the PN did not operate in ways that might jeopardize the ability of the FMLN to demobilize its troops safely and begin to function as a legal political party.

Peace Mission Organization

The U.N. peace operations role began with the establishment of a preliminary human rights observer mission, which began work in July 1991, before the cease-fire, verifying compliance with a human rights accord signed in July 1990 in San José, Costa Rica. The U.N. Observer Mission in El Salvador, ONUSAL, expanded once the cease-fire was signed to include military and police divisions. At its peak, it included 317 military observers (of 372 authorized) and 314 police observers (of 631 authorized). These elements were later supplemented by the Electoral Division, which oversaw voter registration, campaigning, and the implementation of elections in March and April of 1994.

The Military Division was responsible for verifying the separation of forces, the demobilization and disarmament of guerrillas, and the demobilization of selected army and security forces units. It operated from January 1992 until early 1993, after which a smaller military contingent stayed on to monitor revisions to military doctrine and education. The Police Division was given the task of assisting in the transition from the old, military-controlled system of policing to a new civilian public security regime. The ONUSAL Police Division’s specific duties were to cooperate “in ensuring a smooth transition and assisting police officials,” and “accompanying officers and members of the National Police in the performance of their duties.”⁶

Size and Composition of the Police Division

To carry out these tasks, the Police Division of ONUSAL was programmed to have 631 police observers, nearly twice the peak authorized size of the Military Division (372 observers). The rationale for this substantial force was that while government and guerrilla military forces would be confined to a relatively small number of bases and concentration points, ONUSAL would need to deploy police monitors at all levels of the National Police throughout the country, while also deploying in areas where the “special regime” would apply during the transition. Supervision of the National Police would involve establishing a U.N. presence in the National Police central and regional headquarters and “other decisionmaking and operational levels. Such coverage would extend to as many fixed National Police installations as considered necessary in both urban and rural areas.”⁷ ONUSAL police would also engage in mobile monitoring, accompanying PN patrols and carrying out random checks of their activities.

The ONUSAL Police Division operated at less than half its authorized strength. Its numbers peaked at 314 and often hovered around 270. The main constraint on the size of the division was the limited number of countries that were willing and able to send contingents, and the rejection by one or another of the Salvadoran parties of certain potential contributing countries, such as Argentina. Spain, Mexico, Chile, France, and Italy provided the largest contingents; the United States did not contribute personnel to the CIVPOL mission.⁸ Most of the police arrived with adequate language skills, although some Italians spoke poor Spanish.⁹ The nations that did provide contingents did so promptly. Recruitment and selection were accomplished in about 3 months, and the Police Division began its deployment in a timely fashion in March 1992. The selection process was weighted toward police agents from the patrol ranks because the emphasis was on verification and field work. Donor countries selected the personnel, based on criteria provided by the United Nations.

Salaries of CIVPOLs were paid by the sending countries, while the U.N. paid the daily allowances. A few countries, including Spain, France, and Italy, paid their own daily housing and other compensation in addition to U.N. allowances, a situation that created strong individual incentives for such CIVPOL officials to lobby to remain in the mission beyond their initial tours. These incentives may have had a positive side effect: most countries assigned police to ONUSAL for relatively short periods, resulting in some loss of efficiency as CIVPOL officers were recalled around the time they had gained a working knowledge of the Salvadoran context. Efforts by some officers and national contingents to prolong stays thus helped retain personnel with more experience in El Salvador, although those who pushed hardest to stay were not always the most apt for mission work.¹⁰

In general, the professional qualifications of the police officers sent to El Salvador were adequate for the “accompaniment” role originally envisioned.¹¹ It proved difficult, however, to assign duties and establish a command hierarchy. Different police forces had different ranking systems. Even those that used the same nominal categories promoted officers at very different rates. Although the division attempted to assign responsibilities according to preparation and experience, these were not always easy to ascertain. Frictions developed when officers with lower nominal ranks were given authority over officers with “superior” ranks but less experience or training. Some police were reluctant to accept orders from police from other national delegations. Within headquarters, this could be managed to some extent by giving different national delegations different portfolios—for example, Italians took charge of personnel and Spaniards ran operations. This was not always feasible, however, and compromises made to accommodate these sensitivities sometimes produced sub-optimal use of personnel.

Equipment was rarely a problem for the ONUSAL Police Division. At the time of deployment, U.N. equipment reserves were good, and vehicles, radios, computers, and other necessities were available from U.N. stores, from the recently terminated the United Nations Observer Group in Central America (ONUCA) mission and from missions in Cambodia and Haiti. As a result, the division had adequate numbers of four-wheel drive vehicles, and the mission as a whole had an effective nationwide radio network.

Relations with Salvadoran Public Security Forces

The shortage of personnel did have an adverse effect on the ability of the Police Division to do its job effectively, largely because it limited the division’s ability to monitor activities of the National Police. While CIVPOL supervision of the PN was sufficient to prevent wholesale politically motivated repression or intimidation, it did not prevent the PN from committing significant numbers of human rights violations and outright criminal activity. Reports by the Human Rights Division of ONUSAL showed that the PN continued to commit numerous violations of individual’s rights, mainly through excessive use of force and disregard for legal process. Thus while the Police Division was adequate to the task of preventing political bias of the PN from disrupting the peace process, it was not sufficient to motivate the PN to maintain public order adequately during the transition. One result of this public security gap was a tendency for Salvadorans to approach ONUSAL, rather than the PN, to report crimes or other problems.

Cooperation within ONUSAL

The Police Division’s responsibility to accompany the PN should naturally have implied close coordination with the Human Rights Division of ONUSAL in the identification and investigation of possible abuses involving the police, military, or politically motivated groups. Indeed, a number of CIVPOLs were assigned to the Human Rights Division as investigators. Too often, however, the police and human rights divisions worked separately and even at cross purposes.¹² The Human Rights Division did not always have access to information possessed by the Police Division. In the worst of cases, the two divisions conducted separate investigations of the same incidents and reached different conclusions.¹³

Part of the problem was that the Police Division had a separate chain of command during the first 2 years of the full, multidivision mission. U.N. police around the country reported to their division director in San Salvador rather than to ONUSAL regional or subregional offices. This created coordination problems and sometimes considerable frustration and resentment on the part of regional and subregional coordinators (who were generally from the Human Rights Division), who were responsible for the overall work of the mission in a given region but lacked control over the police personnel there. Even at ONUSAL headquarters, officials in other divisions complained that the director of the Police Division treated information collected by U.N. police as a proprietary resource.¹⁴ Moreover, Police Division headquarters sometimes failed to use information from the Human Rights Division to press the National Police to dismiss agents who were responsible for repeated human rights violations. Human rights officials in regional offices found themselves having to explain to Salvadoran citizens who had brought complaints forward why known abusers in the PN remained on the job.¹⁵

The mission was restructured in April 1994 so that police officials were integrated into regional and subregional offices and made responsible to regional coordinators.¹⁶ This improved coordination. However, female ONUSAL officials found that police officers under their authority were sometimes insubordinate and uncooperative.

Part of the explanation for limited collaboration between the human rights and police divisions can be traced to different professional formations. Few members of either division had ever collaborated in joint police/civilian efforts. The Human Rights Division was heavily populated with Latin American human rights attorneys who had had few positive experiences with police institutions in their home countries. The two groups began with mutual suspicions: in some offices, they managed to work out their differences over time. In others, problems worsened. Distrust on the part of Human Rights Division observers was reinforced by their observation that sometimes U.N. police defended, or failed to rigorously investigate, the Salvadoran National Police. When U.N. police and human rights staff worked together toward common goals, they could be highly effective, as in the case of the investigation into the murder of FMLN leader Francisco Velis, in which UNCIVPOL played a key role in locating a witness and persuading her to cooperate in the investigation.

Coordination between the police and military divisions was generally more effective but was also less important. The tasks of the two divisions did not overlap significantly, except insofar as the Military Division, which had a strong presence in many areas of the countryside, was able to pass on reports of crimes to the Police Division. Aside from such reporting, the Military Division did not involve itself extensively in public security roles. Given its lack of armament, there were no provisions to assist the CIVPOL, nor was there any significant logistical interdependence between the two divisions.

According to U.N. officials, some coordination problems could have been ameliorated by stronger steps by the early chiefs of mission to impose a clear, common set of goals for police, human rights, and military operations. However, this would have required a very active management role from mission leadership that was already heavily taxed by constant, complex political negotiations with the Salvadoran parties. The U.N. Special Representative was involved in constant bilateral and trilateral meetings with the Salvadoran parties, as well as extensive meetings with other international agencies, leaving little time to devote to engendering unity of purpose within the mission. In retrospect internal coordination would have been best served by avoiding institutionalized divisions within the mission in the first place.

The Mission

Phases of the Operation

ONUSAL began human rights verification in July 1991, the Military and Police Divisions deployed following the cease-fire in February 1992, and an Electoral Division operated from late 1993 through the March and April 1994 elections. ONUSAL ended in April 1995, replaced by a small follow-on mission, U.N. Mission in El Salvador, or MINUSAL, which continued to verify remaining aspects of the accords. MINUSAL was in turn replaced by a small monitoring office, the U.N. Verification Office (ONUV), which closed at the end of 1996.

The Enforcement Gap

The accords required the Government to dismantle most of the old security forces; to maintain a fraction of the old system temporarily to keep order until a new civilian police force could be formed; and to train, organize, and deploy a completely new police force, all in fewer than 2 years. This necessarily entailed a temporary but drastic weakening of the public security apparatus. The elimination of the National Guard and Treasury Police abruptly cut available security personnel from 14,000 to about 6,000. Combined with the demobilization of half the Government’s Army and all the rebel forces (which had informally policed zones under its de facto control), the end of the war reduced the overall forces of vigilance from roughly 75,000 to around 6,000.¹⁷

Wholesale transformation of public security forces, essential as it was, proved difficult to carry out and brought with it new public security problems that challenged the capacity of both domestic and international institutions. From 1992 through 1995, El Salvador saw a dramatic increase in crime, which quickly became the primary concern of the majority of Salvadorans. Of particular concern was the rapid expansion of organized crime, ranging from heavily armed rural gangs that robbed and terrorized communities and highway travelers, to highly sophisticated kidnapping and car theft rings. Such organizations were not new to El Salvador, nor was support from and participation by elements of the old security forces and the military a novelty.¹⁸ However, the scope of the problem appeared to expand dramatically with the end of the conflict, fed by the demobilization of tens of thousands of former soldiers, policemen, and guerrilla combatants into a context of inadequate employment opportunities and support services and easy availability of military weapons. The demobilization of a large portion of the public security forces during the transition created a permissive context in which it was relatively easy for criminal organizations to operate.

The generalized climate of violence in the country after 1993 also created uncertainty regarding how much of this was politically motivated. After years of internecine violence, Salvadorans tended to assume that many killings after the cease-fire took effect were politically motivated, especially when the victims were former combatants, political activists, or labor leaders. Investigations by ONUSAL found relatively few cases that were clearly political, but it failed to effectively publicize these exculpatory findings, leaving much of the public to assume that widespread political violence continued.

In addition to taking over the responsibilities previously handled by three different security forces, the National Police faced a number of institutional constraints. Although the Vice-Ministry of Defense for Public Security had significant numbers of trucks and portable radios, many supplied by the United States, most were retained by the military. The National Police was left with only a few aging police cruisers, an insufficient number of trucks, and very few radios. These equipment shortages greatly reduced the mobility and responsiveness of the roughly 6,000 PN agents. ONUSAL’s Police Division helped compensate for this gap by using its communications network and vehicles to help the PN react more effectively to traffic accidents and reports of crimes. Without U.N. help, the National Police would probably have been completely overwhelmed.

Although crime-fighting was not an explicit aspect of ONUSAL’s mandate, its broader responsibility to ensure a “smooth transition” required that it assist wherever it could in controlling crime. Furthermore, many ONUSAL police engaged in de facto police work, investigating crimes and dealing with various public order problems. UNCIVPOL lacked arrest authority and depended on the Salvadoran police to request judicial actions and make arrests. Activities varied across different ONUSAL offices and depended on individual proclivities. In a number of instances, ONUSAL police greatly exceeded their nominal mandate, accepting complaints from citizens, carrying out investigations, questioning witnesses, locating suspects, and effectively commanding newly trained PNC personnel on the job. As one U.N. official put it, “In many parts of the country, ONUSAL police were the police.”¹⁹ Another U.N. official remarked that the involvement of CIVPOL in investigations was not really surprising; as professionals accustomed to taking an active role, their accompaniment and verification functions in El Salvador left them bored and restless.²⁰ CIVPOL investigative work was never formally authorized, except in human rights cases, and it is unlikely the Government would have agreed to such an intrusive role. The de facto involvement of some CIVPOLs in active police work at the local level, however, although uncoordinated and inconsistent across different parts of the country, helped to fill this temporary law enforcement gap and does not appear to have produced negative consequences.

ONUSAL police were unarmed, and there were no arrangements for support from the Military Division, which was also unarmed. This limited the policing roles UNCIVPOLs could take on in El Salvador’s heavily armed and violent environment; however, most agreed that the decision to be unarmed was a wise one. ONUSAL police were not targeted by any organized group and therefore had no need to defend themselves. CIVPOLs in the field necessarily acted cautiously in situations in which they might have come under fire, such as Salvadoran police operations against criminals known to be armed or demonstrations that turned violent. This enforced caution may have prevented casualties. Given their small numbers, ONUSAL police, even if armed, would not have made a significant additional contribution to fighting violent crime. One of their more important roles was to mediate the dozens of potentially volatile confrontations that occurred between police and various groups of citizen demonstrators, such as former combatants dissatisfied with government benefits packages, and organized labor, peasant groups, and FMLN supporters protesting land issues. In these situations, the moral authority and neutrality of ONUSAL police were enhanced by the fact that they were unarmed. If mediation failed and violence broke out, ONUSAL police withdrew. Having armament in such situations would not have furthered the CIVPOL mission and might well have jeopardized it if ONUSAL police had resorted to force.²¹ When they carried out de facto police work or engaged in on-the-job training with new PNC police, their ability to function effectively without being armed helped de-emphasize the use of physical force and highlight effective human relations, use of information, and mediation.

The inconsistent involvement of CIVPOL in direct police work was symptomatic of a general lack of uniformity, direction, and clarity regarding how they were to go about their job. Because the mandate of the Police Division was so vague, it was particularly important to have clear guidelines regarding how they should go about gathering and using information and how this work should be integrated with other aspects of the mission. Neither the Chief of Mission’s office nor Police Division leadership provided the required guidance: as a result the Police Division was not used to fullest effect to manage the public security crisis and its various political ramifications.²² Throughout the transition to the PNC, there were serious problems in organization, operation, and conduct of the PN involving human rights abuses, inefficiency, low morale, corruption, and outright criminality. The Police Division constituted a significant resource for gathering intelligence on patterns of crime, yet this information was not exploited to allow ONUSAL to analyze the nature of the crime problem effectively and to identify and seek remedies to problems within the PN.²³ Nor was information on police misconduct comprehensive enough for the United Nations to use it consistently in its public reporting.

The lack of a coherent criminological data base contributed to a failure by ONUSAL leadership to acknowledge the severity of the crime problem and to anticipate its likely political consequences. ONUSAL human rights reports in late 1992 and early 1993, relying on crimes reported in the media, argued that homicide rates were essentially stagnant during 1992, following major increases during the final years of the war. From this, ONUSAL concluded that much of the public concern about crime was a result of postwar psychology and the media’s spectacularized (though factually accurate) reporting of crime, which seemed designed to heighten public anxiety.²⁴

Yet evidence from other sources does show a public security crisis underway already in 1992 and 1993, centered on an extremely high incidence of armed robbery and on the apparent randomness of homicides associated with these robberies. A February 1993 survey by the Central American University’s Public Opinion Institute (Instituto Universitario de Opinión Publica, IUDOP) showed that 73.2 percent of the those surveyed considered crime the main problem of the country, 88.6 percent thought crime had increased, and 68.1 percent were afraid of being assaulted in their own homes. According to the same poll, 76 percent of crime victims did not notify the police. Most significantly, 34 percent of respondents from urban areas said they or an immediate family member had been robbed in the past 4 months, clearly an extraordinarily high rate.²⁵ Public fear was stoked by the fact that crimes, mainly armed robbery, increasingly involved the use of military weapons, including M-16 and AK-47 rifles, and grenades. The lethal weaponry, combined with the callousness of criminals, many of whom appear to have been former combatants inured to violence, led to what ONUSAL acknowledged was “a trend toward fatalities for relatively trivial causes or reasons.”²⁶

Indeed, crime statistics for 1994 through 1996 show El Salvador with the highest homicide rate in Latin America, exceeding that even of Colombia, long notorious for its high murder rate. According to government statistics, 7,673 people were murdered in El Salvador in 1994, a rate of 138.2 per 100,000 persons, compared to 85 per 100,000 persons in Colombia. Among countries with reasonably reliable crime statistics, only South Africa reports a higher rate. Some observers estimate that criminal gangs have as many as 12,000 armed members, greater than the size of the FMLN guerrilla army during the war.²⁷

The prevalence of military weapons in civilian hands reflected the laxness of controls by both sides. ONUSAL’s Military Division was responsible for collecting and overseeing the destruction of FMLN weapons. The FMLN lied to the United Nations regarding its weapons inventory, retaining major caches of arms in El Salvador and neighboring countries. Many of these weapons were finally turned over and destroyed after an apparently accidental explosion at an FMLN weapons cache in Nicaragua in May 1993 exposed the extent of the FMLN deception. The discovery was so politically damaging to the FMLN, coming less than a year before the 1994 elections, that it led to a more thorough process of disarmament than would otherwise have taken place.²⁸ In the long run this probably helped reduce availability of military weapons in subsequent years.²⁹ On the government side, the Ministry of Defense did a very poor job of maintaining control over its own weapons. Large numbers of the military’s own M-16 rifles had been distributed to relatives of military personnel, family friends, civilian officials, business people, and bodyguards of military personnel and wealthy civilians. Neither the military’s own weapons nor arms captured from the FMLN during the war were properly inventoried.³⁰ Under the peace accords, the legislature was to pass laws restricting the weapons that could be possessed by civilians, and the Ministry of Defense was required to collect all “military use” weapons in private hands. These provisions were never effectively implemented, and PNC officials complained in interviews in 1994 that the Ministry of Defense continued to distribute military weapons, unlawfully, to former soldiers and other associates of the military.³¹ Under the Salvadoran constitution, the Ministry of Defense retains ultimate authority to regulate the possession of arms, although the PNC has enforcement authority. The problem of weapons in private hands was compounded by the fact that it was not uncommon for uniformed soldiers to commit crimes, particularly armed robbery, in areas outside the capital city, using their duty weapons.³²

The Special Regime for Ex-Conflict Zones

A “special regime” in former conflict zones was necessary because the FMLN and their supporters distrusted the National Police and were not willing to allow that force to establish a presence in their areas of political and military strength. Details of the special regime were to be determined by the director of the PNC. Unfortunately, the first PNC director, José María Monterrey, was not appointed until July 1992, 6 months after the beginning of the cease-fire. In the interim there was a public security vacuum in the former conflict zones. As residents expressed alarm about the lack of any public security force, the FMLN deployed armed patrols to police these areas. This was, of course, a violation of their agreement to concentrate their forces in specific areas, as required to ensure positive separation of government and guerrilla forces.³³ While these patrols did not lead to any clashes with Government forces, they did result in protests from the Government.

In October 1992, a special regime was put into place with the deployment of “Auxiliary Transitory Police” (PAT) units, made up of cadets from the new civilian police academy commanded by ONUSAL police officials. The PAT units did not have full police powers: they could not investigate crimes and could make arrests only in cases of in fraganti delito. They were required to notify judicial authorities of crimes they became aware of, and ONUSAL was to assist in arranging for National Police investigations of such cases. Thus the PAT role was mainly one of crime prevention and maintenance of public order, and ONUSAL’s role therein did not encroach on sovereignty.³⁴ PAT units were generally considered successful in providing rudimentary public security, and the young PAT cadets were well accepted by the population. This was crucial because it helped set the stage for favorable public response to the new PNC as it deployed in former conflict zones. PAT cadets also received useful on-the-job training from experienced foreign police officers.³⁵

Institution Building and the New Police Force

The exit strategy of the U.N. mission was to oversee a simultaneous process of democratization, social reintegration of former guerrillas, and institutional reforms to the state that would create conditions for lasting peace. A central piece of this process was the formation of a new National Civilian Police. The United Nations was deeply involved in the conception, design, and fielding of the PNC, in conjunction with other international players. A special U.N. mission visited El Salvador in October 1991 and wrote detailed recommendations regarding the makeup, design and doctrine of the new force, as well as initial drafts of enabling legislation for the PNC and the civilian police academy— Academia Nacional de Seguridad Pública (ANSP). These recommendations, though modified somewhat in response to input from the Salvadoran protagonists as well as other international experts, formed the core of the institutional design, doctrine, and legal framework for the ANSP and PNC.³⁶ A revised version of the Organic Law for the PNC was annexed to the final peace accords and ratified by the Legislative Assembly early in 1992.

The peace accords gave ONUSAL overall responsibility for verifying the formation of the ANSP and PNC. The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) was responsible for soliciting and coordinating international technical and financial contributions to the project. Initial plans for formation of the ANSP were drawn up by a technical team made up of Spanish, U.S., and Salvadoran police specialists. Once the ANSP was established, a Principal Technical Advisor (ATP) was appointed, nominally directing instructors and advisors from Spain, the the United States, Chile, Norway, and Sweden. Of these national contingents, Spain, Norway and Sweden coordinated their assistance through the UNDP, while U.S. and Chilean contingents served under bilateral agreements.

ONUSAL’s role at the ANSP was limited. Liaison with the international technical team was maintained via weekly meetings between ATP and the ONUSAL Chief of Mission. This did not always provide an adequate flow of information between ONUSAL, which was monitoring performance of PNC personnel in the field, and the international trainers at the ANSP.³⁷ Initially, technical assistance to the PNC itself took two forms: high-level advising by the U.S. ICITAP program, and an on-the-job field training program carried out by ONUSAL police observers. Subsequently, UNDP developed a number of technical assistance projects for the PNC, and Spain provided assistance under the rubric of the European Union.

Even this level of international support was not considered sufficient as far as the Salvadoran Government was concerned. Salvadoran officials claimed they had been assured during negotiations that the international community would bear all costs associated with transforming the public security system. In fact, international support for police projects was markedly weaker than for other aspects of post-conflict reconstruction and reform. While the international community funded 26 percent of overall reconstruction activities for 1993, it financed only 12 percent of anticipated public security related development expenses in 1993 and 9 percent for 1994.³⁸

Despite repeated international requests by the U.N. Secretary- General, additional funds were slow in coming. There are several explanations for this. First, police aid is not generally a popular form of assistance, especially to police institutions in countries with a history of human rights violations. Relatively few donor countries have programs in place to provide such assistance. The Salvadoran Government contributed to this poor response by manifesting what appeared to be a weak commitment to carrying out the PNC project. It initially failed to allocate even the most rudimentary start-up costs for the new academy. It did not require the military to hand over any of several possible appropriate sites. When the military finally did cede a small facility (the police technical school in Santa Tecla), it first stripped the building of anything of value that could be removed, increasing the costs of preparing the site. The Government failed to allocate funds for renovation of the facility or for uniforms, food, shoes, and other basic necessities of police academy cadets. Norway came forward with funds to be quickly disbursed to get the ANSP going, but other donors may have been dissuaded by this lack of commitment.³⁹ Furthermore, the Salvadoran Government was inexplicably slow in preparing requests for international assistance and estimates of what funding it would need. One U.N. official remarked that he thought these delays were deliberate efforts to sabotage the creation of the new police.⁴⁰

Because of funding and other obstacles and an unrealistic time table, the ANSP opened 3 months late but thereafter achieved an impressive record of producing graduating classes of new police agents in a timely fashion. The ANSP had a curriculum developed by the international technical team in conformance with the doctrine and legal framework set out in the accords. Instruction was provided mainly by international faculty from the United States, Chile, Spain, Norway, and Sweden. The first double-size class of 600 PNC agents entered the academy in August 1992 and graduated in February 1993. Subsequent classes of approximately 300 graduated monthly thereafter. The goal set out in the accords was to train 5,700 basic police agents and 240 officers in 2 years.

The first PNC delegations were deployed to departments in the north where much of the fighting had taken place during the war. They also replaced the PAT units in former conflict zones covered by the special regime. The new PNC delegations were led by provisional commanders who had been trained in an accelerated course at a police academy in Puerto Rico.⁴¹ ONUSAL police observers conducted on-the-job training and the Human Rights Division provided legal training and assistance in development of procedures. The initial deployments were highly successful, despite serious organizational shortcomings, severe shortages of even the most basic equipment and facilities, and a lack of national-level leadership and coordination. This reflected the dedication of the PNC agents and officers themselves, as well as the strong support they received from a hopeful public.

The balance of PNC deployment proceeded department by department through late 1994, when takeover of public security duties was completed nationwide. The deployment process was phased to allow the PNC to build experience in relatively quiet rural communities before taking on urban areas and portions of the western part of the country where organized crime was stronger. Beginning in 1994, the PNC developed specialized units dealing with financial crimes, borders and customs, arms and explosives, protection of VIPs, environmental protection, and motor vehicles. According to guidelines set out in the accords (which reflected the views of U.N. police planners), the PNC would be able to carry out these diverse functions, nationwide, with a force of 5,940 agents and officers. This force size proved seriously deficient, and the government committed itself to ongoing expansion of the PNC with an eventual target of 20,000.

Threats to Police Reform

Salvadoran actors had many reasons to delay or resist the formation of the new police and to attempt to influence its formation in ways that were inconsistent with the doctrinal and legal guidelines laid out in the peace accords. Many members of the ruling party and the administration initially distrusted the untried new institution. Members of the business and national security elite were concerned the FMLN might gain control of the new force by packing it with political cadre who were not registered with ONUSAL as former combatants, thereby circumventing their quota of 20 percent of the force.⁴² The military remained concerned that the FMLN might not really abandon armed struggle, a view that was not entirely groundless in view of the FMLN’s retention of major weapons caches. A minority of the military leadership resented the institution’s loss of its role in public security.⁴³ These political considerations combined with the postwar crime problem to produce a series of decisions by the Cristiani administration to preserve more of the old security system until the new system had been adequately tested.

One of the Government’s first responsibilities was to demobilize the National Guard and Treasury Police. Rather than doing so, it merely renamed these units as Border Guards and military police, respectively, with legislation that failed to definitively end their public security roles. This was subsequently corrected but only after intense pressure from the United Nations. The Government transferred hundreds of members of the Treasury Police, National Guard, and an elite Army battalion into the National Police, sometimes keeping entire companies intact and merely changing their uniforms.⁴⁴ The Government also continued to operate the old National Police academy and train new agents, raising questions about whether it ever intended to demobilize the old police force. In 1993 the Government began deploying military units in quasi-public security roles, patrolling the highways and assisting in protection of the coffee harvest. These measures, which apparently enjoyed popular support, were nonetheless viewed by the FMLN and its supporters as potentially threatening and not carried out in accordance with constitutional requirements that the Executive declare a public emergency and notify the legislature of exceptional military deployments.

While the Government seemed to move slowly on demobilization of the old public security structure, the PNC faced budgetary starvation. As the PNC began to take over policing of more and more areas of the country, the budget of the PN continued to be larger relative to its size than that of the new force, notwithstanding PNC need to equip itself from scratch.⁴⁵ The PNC was forced to function without needed vehicles, radios, uniforms, and investigative equipment. PNC salaries were kept at a level lower than originally planned, a fact that made recruitment of qualified people more difficult and increased the risk of corruption.

The United States and the United Nations applied consistent pressure on the Government to prepare a plan for demobilizing the PN and stick to it. This yielded some progress toward demobilizing the PN during 1994, but ultimately it required a change of presidential administrations, and an embarrassing incident apparently involving criminal activity by PN forces, to turn the tide decisively against the old system. Incoming President Armando Calderón Sol ordered an accelerated demobilization of the PN following a widely televised armored car robbery allegedly carried out by uniformed PN agents. With the PN on the way out, and crime continuing to grow, the Calderón administration and the Legislative Assembly committed increasing resources to the PNC, whose budget expanded dramatically in 1995 and 1996. The main equipment shortages were subsequently resolved, and the budget was also sufficient to enable the PNC to continue to expand, passing the 14,000 mark by 1997.

Recruitment efforts were generally successful, and the PNC was not forced to lower its formal standards in order to maintain its growth rate. Basic recruits were initially required to have a 9^th grade education. This was subsequently raised to 12^th grade after it became clear that educational deficiencies among some of the first graduates of the academy were interfering with their ability to learn the penal code and adopt correct procedures. Roughly 7 percent of the new force is female, a significant innovation in comparison with the old security forces. In the long run, it may prove difficult for the PNC to continue to expand while maintaining quality. PNC members have made considerable sacrifices, accepting salaries lower than originally expected and facing a staggering casualty rate of roughly 1 percent since 1993.

More important in the long run than the Government’s slowness to commit financial resources and resistance to dismantling the PN were numerous internal threats to civilian control, accountability, and respect for human rights. As with measures to extend the life of the old institutions, these actions stemmed from the political and sometimes parochial interests of domestic actors. In late December 1992, the Government and the FMLN agreed, against the recommendations of the United Nations, to transfer into the PNC two law enforcement units made up largely of military personnel—the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and the Executive Anti-Narcotics Unit (UEA). These units would form the core of the Division of Criminal Investigations (DIC) and the Anti-Narcotics Division (DAN), respectively, of the PNC. The FMLN apparently took this position because they were concerned that the Government might otherwise form a completely separate investigative service outside the PNC, an arrangement permitted by the constitution but at odds with the organic law of the PNC. The deal did at least require that members of these two groups be screened and given a short training course at the ANSP.

Neither the screening nor even the minimal training requirements were fully implemented, and some enlisted men in the two units, who lacked requisite education and training for leadership roles in the civilian police, were made officers upon entering the PNC. By late 1993, a number of ex-UEA officers had assumed command positions outside their area of specialization, bypassing the academy training and educational requirements for PNC officers entering through regular channels. They quickly became a corrosive, self-aggrandizing influence within the new force. Ex-UEA agents and officers emerged as the most frequent violators of human rights within the PNC. The ex-SIU members of the Criminal Investigations Division performed poorly, and some were implicated in criminal activities, including the murder of a prominent FMLN leader, Francisco Velis.

ONUSAL responded to this deteriorating situation by adopting an increasingly firm position in 1994 that ex-UEA officers could work only within the PNC Anti-Narcotraffic Division and that all ex-UEA and ex-SIU personnel would have to attend a full course of training at the academy. When the Government finally agreed to these requirements in late 1994, most members of both groups went on strike and eventually resigned from the force.

This entire episode might have been avoided had ONUSAL and major bilateral donors, such as ICITAP, opposed the integration of these units. However, ONUSAL found it difficult to oppose something that both parties had agreed to, and the United States had invested heavily in training and developing both units and therefore had reason to believe they would function professionally. The UEA, in particular, had a reputation as one of the few successful antidrug units in Latin America and had demonstrated independence from the military hierarchy by arresting military officers.

Another threat to the PNC was the appointment of a former Army captain, Oscar Pena Durán, as Sub-Director for Operations in August 1993. Pena had directed the UEA and had the confidence of President Cristiani and of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In part because the PNC director at the time was a businessman with no police experience, Pena managed to amass de facto control over the PNC. He placed loyalists from the UEA in key command positions throughout the PNC, severed the PNC’s relationship with ONUSAL, and replaced ONUSAL field training advisors with UEA agents. Pena was actively hostile to the human rights doctrine taught at the ANSP and advised his agents to disregard that orientation. These measures promptly led to a deterioration in the human rights performance of the PNC, which for the first time was reported to have used torture. Pena also undermined the apolitical character of the new force by encouraging former military and PN officers within the PNC to monitor the activities of former FMLN members in the police. Pena was eventually forced out in April 1994 by a combination of international diplomatic pressure and effective use of aid conditionality by the U.S. Embassy, which held up delivery by ICITAP of essential equipment for the police until Pena was gone.

With Pena’s departure, it became possible once again for ONUSAL to provide on-the-job training for PNC agents. By this time the PNC was much larger, however, and the ONUSAL Police Division was in the process of drawing down. It was not possible, therefore, to go back to the kind of individual hands-on field training program of 1993, although ONUSAL did provide some technical assistance on legal and procedural matters.⁴⁶

ONUSAL and its successor mission, MINUSAL, continued to play an important role from mid-1994 onward as a result of a pair of agreements with the Salvadoran Government to carry out detailed analyses of the conduct of the PNC and to make recommendations.⁴⁷ This more intrusive role—which went well beyond what was called for in the peace accords—helped focus international attention on how the PNC was developing and increased the ability of the United Nations to influence specific decisions, such as the question of retraining ex-UEA and ex-SIU personnel. The second of these U.N. assessments was followed by an ambitious 5-year plan known as Plan 2000, drawn up by U.S., Spanish, Chilean, and Salvadoran advisors. The plan encompassed hundreds of institutional, structural, legal, and doctrinal issues. It set out a timetable for completion of important measures and included recommended changes to the organic law of the PNC, as well as formation of a National Council on Public Security to be made up of prominent civilian opinion leaders with strong pro-democracy credentials who would advise the president on law enforcement policy.

The timing of these evaluations, after the 1994 elections when U.N. leverage could be expected to be diminishing, points to the importance of cooperation between the United Nations and bilateral donors. By May 1994, ONUSAL and ICITAP were making greater efforts to coordinate their positions and ICITAP’s use of aid conditionality. This reinforced incentives for domestic actors to cooperate with the U.N. agenda for the PNC. President Cristiani wanted to leave office with a clean bill of health from the international community. With the elections finished and ARENA’s hegemonic political position well established, Cristiani no longer needed to worry about offending ARENA’s more conservative and nationalistic constituents by making concessions on public security. Moreover, incoming President Calderón Sol needed to refurbish his somewhat negative international reputation and therefore had incentives to make concessions to U.N. concerns about the police.

Other measures by government officials were potentially harmful to the development of the PNC. The Ministry of Defense was extremely uncooperative in providing ONUSAL with records to identify whether applicants to the PNC had been in the military and, if they had, the nature of their past performance. The Ministry of Public Security, the State Intelligence Agency (Organo de Inteligencia del Estado—OIE), and the PNC all operated irregular investigations groups. For example, the ministry had a special kidnappings investigation team made up of individuals who had not been trained at the ANSP and who operated outside the PNC structure. Besides raising serious problems of accountability and coordination, they lacked legal status and could therefore contribute nothing to legal arrests and prosecutions. This has since been shut down. Its extensive files were temporarily held by the OIE until being transferred to the PNC. The PNC itself has had special intelligence and investigations groups operating outside proper channels. Although these organizations at least had legal standing as police, they had the potential to disrupt orderly and accountable investigations by the Division of Criminal Investigations (DIC). The tendency to form special groups has undermined international donor efforts to help institutionalize the PNC and has reduced donor confidence in the project.

It is a credit to the United Nations and bilateral donors that these problems have not derailed the PNC. Although international pressures could not prevent unfortunate measures from being adopted in the first place, in most cases the combination of diplomatic pressure, private and public criticism, and aid conditionality have led domestic actors to reverse damaging policies, or at least to moderate them. Much of the international community’s success with respect to the PNC is attributable to coordination among the mission and donors. There is concern, however, that with the departure of ONUV in 1997 and the failure of some donors to communicate effectively to others what they are doing, coordination and cooperation among international donors and the United Nations may suffer. The UNDP is taking positive steps to promote donor cooperation, but the departure of the last of the peace verification missions necessarily reduces the stature of the United Nations and may limit its ability to wield diplomatic pressure—with both the government and donors—on public security questions.

Institution Building and the Judicial System

El Salvador’s judicial system was deeply flawed prior to the conflict and deteriorated further during the war. Provisions of the accords and subsequent reform initiatives have only partially remedied these problems. In contrast to the very detailed language on the police and military, the accords are quite vague on judicial reform. This oversight was an understandable consequence of the negotiation process and the priorities of Salvadoran actors, but it resulted in an imbalance between the highly reformed police system and a resistant and often ineffective judiciary.⁴⁸

Among the main flaws were partisan selection of Supreme Court justices, highly centralized control of the entire court system by the Supreme Court, extremely low levels of professional qualifications among judges, and a generally ineffective and politicized prosecutor’s office. The accords provided for a somewhat less partisan procedure for selecting justices and raised the training standards for judges. Few of these measures could be implemented during the term of the sitting Supreme Court, however, whose president, Mauricio Gutiérrez Castro, was openly contemptuous of the peace accords and the United Nations.

Accusations of corruption within the court system led to repeated calls for a purge of judges between 1994 and 1996. A gradual purge began in 1995 after Gutiérrez’s term in office ended and a new president had been installed. The courts refused to publicly acknowledge rampant corruption, however, despite accusations by the Minister of Public Security and bluntly worded statements by U.N. chief of mission Enrique Ter Horst. The Attorney General’s office also remains grossly understaffed and ill equipped.

During the first 2 ? years of the mission, ONUSAL carried out only a few seminars for judges, with little apparent effect. Only after the election of a new Supreme Court in 1994 that was more receptive to reform and cooperation with the United Nations was it possible for ONUSAL to begin a more substantial program of assistance to judicial institutions. By the time ONUSAL had access to work with the courts, however, the mission was already downsizing and lacked the personnel to carry out extensive technical assistance. ONUSAL was criticized for not cooperating more closely with AID, which already had considerable experience in judicial reform in El Salvador.⁴⁹ More recently, AID and UNDP have been coordinating more effectively in this area. The United States and other international donors have put in place thorough training programs for developing new judges and prosecutors. A judicial training school was supported by UNDP and AID and implementation of essential legal reforms was closely monitored by both U.S. and international donor agencies.

The poor performance of the judiciary was an obstacle both to police reform and to effective management of the crime problem. Particular tensions arose as the PNC deployed to new areas and began pressuring judges to issue judicial orders promptly. PNC officers complained that judges too often let suspects off on technicalities and voiced suspicions that some were corrupt. They anticipated that frustrations with the judicial system would contribute to vigilantism on the part of police, a phenomenon that did in fact become visible in 1995 with the emergence of the “Black Shadow” vigilante organization in which PNC officers and agents were alleged to have participated.⁵⁰

The police are an auxiliary of the justice system, and its performance in this area has been mixed at best. ONUSAL evaluations revealed that the PNC failed to carry out an extraordinarily large number of judicial orders, including arrest warrants. Moreover, a high percentage of PNC arrests involved individuals who were supposedly caught in the act, yet records reveal the police had not witnessed the vast majority of these crimes and merely made arrests on the basis of witness statements. Most human rights violations committed by the PNC appear to result from poor knowledge of law and procedures, despite efforts by the ANSP to reinforce these elements of training.

The state of the prison system was, and remains, deplorable, and the problems are in large part a result of the extremely slow and inconsistent functioning of the judiciary. A high percentage of prisoners has not been tried, and many have not even been formally charged. Bail is not generally available except for the wealthy, with the result that many wrongly accused individuals languish for months in squalid conditions without effective recourse. The prison population has grown dramatically as a result of increased crime and arrests, combined with the inability of the judicial system to keep pace with, or sometimes even to keep track of, the accused. Resulting overcrowding has made the prisons increasingly inhumane and volatile. These conditions led to a number of violent revolts and other incidents in the prisons. Recently, the Inter-American Development Bank has agreed to provide funds to the Ministry of Justice for improvements in this area, but it is unlikely that the prison crisis can be resolved until the judicial system develops the ability to indict and try prisoners in a timely fashion.

Conclusions

Success of the Mission

The Salvadoran peace process required establishment of a climate in which state institutions no longer preyed on the population, in which police did not use political affiliations and beliefs as grounds for persecuting citizens, and in which there was at least some progress toward the rule of law. Given the history of Salvadoran public security forces, achieving these conditions entailed wholesale transformation of the public security system, a process that required time and extensive financial, technical, and material resources. The experience of El Salvador suggests that such extensive reform of the public security system, even if ultimately successful, can be fraught with hazards. The demobilization of existing security forces, inadequate interim security forces, an undermanned and sometimes uncoordinated U.N. police monitoring effort, and inadequate attention to “social reinsertion” of former combatants combined to create conditions for a major crime wave. Public outcry about the crime situation fed politically expedient measures by the Government that had the potential to undermine the extent of reform and the institutional consolidation of the PNC.

Despite the crime problems, the peace process appears to be largely consolidated, producing a transition to democratic rule and significant reform of state institutions. Elections were held in 1994 and 1997 that produced significant representation for the FMLN party. FMLN members won a significant minority position within the legislature in 1994 and nearly matched ARENA in the legislative race in 1997. The FMLN also won the mayoral office in the capital city in 1997.

These political successes for the left have not resulted in any significant backlash of electoral violence, notwithstanding isolated incidents of violence that appeared politically motivated. Despite delays, the PNC did take over full control of all public security functions in 1994 and subsequently has received adequate budget support for its continually expanding force, which exceeded 15,000 by late 1997. In 1995, the Government responded to public pressures by issuing a temporary emergency police law that expanded police search and arrest powers. This measure was only marginally effective and raised serious questions about potential violations of constitutional protections and due process. In mid-1997, public insecurity, lack of confidence in the police and the judicial system, and public support for elements of the old order remain among the most difficult issues facing the nascent Salvadoran democracy.

The main role of the CIVPOL division was to prevent the PN from acting in an openly politicized and abusive manner during the peace process and to assist in maintaining public safety in former conflict zones. It carried out these functions successfully. Its general mandate to ensure a “smooth transition” implied a broader role for the United Nations in helping to diagnose and solve public security problems as they arose, as well as assisting the new PNC in its development. Although the United Nations may not have been totally successful in this capacity, the fielding of an entirely new police force was a remarkable achievement that has brought closure to a brutal era. The remaining challenges are of a different sort—the consolidation of El Salvador’s nascent institutions of democracy and public safety.

Lessons