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Salvadoran Naval Infantry

The marine company has no amphibious warfare, riverine operations, or special operations capabilities. The Salvadoran Naval Infantry Infantry Company is part of a nonexistent Marine battalion that is currently staffed only by an executive officer. There are no other Marine companies in the battalion. The army formed its first Marine unit (Marine Commando Company) in 1982. In 1985, with the assistance of the U.S. advisors, a Marine battalion was formed. The battalion was subsequently deactivated following the signing of the peace accords in 1992. During the 1980-1992 Conflict, Salvadoran Marines conducted combat operations in the coastal area of El Salvador, in the area south of Usulutan, and near Jiquilisco Bay and Jaltepeque inlet. The army formed the new Marine Infantry Company in February 2000.

The wartime mission of the Salvadoran Marines is to conduct combat operations on the coast. Secondary missions include search and rescue operations, humanitarian assistance, environmental protection, and counter-drug operations. The Marine Infantry Company is based at the Punta Roca Naval Station, La Union. The marine company is composed of a 5-man headquarter element, and three 31-man rifle platoons, as well as one weapons platoon. Each rifle platoon is composed of three 10-man squads and commanded by a second lieutenant platoon leader (an NCO currently commands one platoon). The headquarter element includes the Commander, medic, messenger, and radio operator. A marine sniper armed with an M-14 rifle is assigned to each squad.

The Marine Infantry Company has approximately 90 personnel as of 2014, although it was authorized 5 officers and 140 enlisted personnel. The average marine was 25 years old with a 6th-9th grade education. The marines live in open bay barracks on Punta Roca Naval Facility in La Union.

Salvadoran Marines received their basic training in Punta Roca Naval Facility. The current members of the Marine Infantry Company have at least 18 months of military experience. The marines conduct daily training and field exercises and spend 1 week per month in the field and 1 week per 4-month period on the rifle range.

El Salvador Marines wear locally produced woodland pattern camouflage uniforms with the shirt tucked into the trousers and U.S. Marine- or U.S. Army-style patrol caps. Those marines who can, buy and wear U.S. style battle dress uniforms.

Boats and Craft include Navy LCM-8 landing craft; 40-foot patrol boats and 17/20-foot civilian fishing craft. Salvadoran enlisted Marines carry M16A1 rifles and the officers carry CAR-15 carbines and Browning high-power pistols. Marine units use PRC-77 FM radios. The headquarters element uses RF-3090 radios. The units have no encryption capability or handheld radios.

The role and strength of some of the World's smaller military forces can be difficult to determine. Wiki reports that "The El Salvador Navy included two 600-man Marine Infantry Battalions (Batallon de Infanteria de Marina — BIM), and a 300 man Naval Commando Force." The IISS Military Balance reports that El Salvador's Naval Infantry has 90 troops, and the 2007 Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World reports that "Republic of El Salvador Fuerza Naval De El Salvador [FNES] Personnel: About 700 total, including 90 naval infantry."

The role of the navy is coastal patrol, the protection of the El Salvador's territorial waters and its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), coastal life-saving and the provision and maintenance of navigational aids. The navy remains very much a coast guard type force with very limited operational potential, although, it does lift lightly equipped troops of the Naval Commando Company.

Prior to the the civil war in the 1980s, the traditional mission of the Salvadoran Navy was preventing illegal fishing and controlling shrimp shipping. By the beginning of the 1980s, however, lack of spare parts had beached all but three of the navy’s ten patrol boats, and the total of coast guard-type personnel was about two hundred. The principal base and training center of La Marina Nacional, the National Navy, was located in the far eastern department of La Unión along the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, a 27-mile wide body of water which separates El Salvador and Nicaragua along the Pacific coast.

With the civil war heating up, substantial increases in U.S. military assistance included the retraining and retooling of the Navy for counter-insurgency operations. The initial training was conducted by a contingent of U.S. Navy Seals who arrived in La Unión in early 1981. The U.S. also provided six piraña speedboats, essentially souped-up Boston Whaler-type craft outfitted with mounted M-60 machine guns and radar. (Jane’s Intelligence Review, 1 November 1992; Life, March 1983)

The Navy's first combat-ready unit during the war was the Batallón de Fuerzas Especiales / Comandos Navales, Special Forces Battalion/Naval Commandos. It was trained in large part by the Seals and by late 1982 had more than 100 commandos divided into the Piraña and the Barracuda companies. Ten-year-old German G-3 rifles were replaced by mint-condition U.S. M-16s. The U.S. also provided grenade launchers, machine guns, anti-tank rockets and mortars. Members of this battalion would receive further training by U.S. Army Special Forces in Panama and by 1987 its size had increased to a full complement of about 450 men. (International Defense Review, 1 March 1991; Defense & Foreign Affairs, August-September 1986; Life, March 1983)

Beginning in the early 1980s the Salvadoran Navy had two principal missions: intercepting arms shipments coming in by water through the Gulf of Fonseca or by sea from Nicaragua to the FMLN guerrillas; and mounting amphibious attacks and small-unit ambushes on FMLN positions and conducting reconnaissance along the eastern coast of the country, particularly against guerrilla strongholds in the marshy southern portions and Jiquilisco Bay areas of Usulután department about 40-50 miles up the coast from La Unión. A secondary mission was to maintain small installations and guard the commercial port of Acajutla in Sonsonate department, the commercial port of La Libertad in La Libertad department, and the fishing port of El Triunfo in Jiquilisco Bay. (Life, March 1983; Defense & Foreign Affairs, August-September 1986; International Defense Review, 1 March 1991)

The Naval Commandos utilized the piraña boats to patrol the Gulf of Fonseca to interdict arms shipments, and to provide insertion, extraction and fire support during counter-insurgency operations along the coast. According to press reports, between 1982 and 1986 there were a number of combat engagements involving FMLN guerrillas and Salvadoran naval forces that either were on solo missions or were operating as part of some larger counter-insurgency operation usually involving aerial bombing and indiscriminate military attacks designed to terrorize civilians. (Defense & Foreign Affairs, August-September 1986; Associated Press, 7 May 1982; United Press International, 26 April 1984; United Press International, 15 June 1984)

Although the few press reports available and the El Rescate database do not single out the Special Forces Battalion/Naval Commandos or either its Piraña or Barracuda company for human rights violations, the database does list a number of violations by the Navy between 1982 and 1985 when that battalion was the only naval unit involved in counter-insurgency. Moreover, in early March 1983, Life magazine quoted one of the U.S. Navy Seals on the difficulties in training the Salvadoran Naval Commandos: "I’m trying to show them the value of taking prisoners alive. You know how they interrogate? First they chop off the fingers, then the hands..." (Life, March 1983)

That is consistent with the subsequent admission to journalist Mark Danner by Gen. Adolfo Blandón, the Salvadoran armed forces chief of staff during much of the 1980s, that until 1983 it was military policy not to take prisoners, and with human rights reports which reveal that torture by the armed forces was routine both before and after 1983. (Danner, 1994; AI, 1981; AI, 1983, AI, 1987)

A second Navy combat unit, the "12 Octubre" Batallón de Infantería Marina (BIM), October 12th Naval Infantry Batallion, was formed in 1985 and was made up of at least four companies of about 100 men each. The BIM is specifically cited for human rights violations a number of times in the El Rescate database.

There also were allegations that the Salvadoran Navy was involved in supporting the Nicaraguan Contra insurgents who were fighting against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. In one news report in March 1986, for example, Sandinista officials alleged that a Captain Melchor Palacios of the Salvadoran Navy was among a number of Salvadoran armed forces officers involved in training Nicaraguan Contras in the use of explosives to commit sabotage in Nicaragua. (Inter Press Service, 25 March 1986)