Organización Democrática Nacionalista

ORDEN, or Organización Democrática Nacionalista (National Democratic Organization) was a Salvadoran paramilitary organization founded under the military rule of Julio Adalberto Rivera, headed by José Alberto Medrano, and supported initially by the Green Berets. ORDEN was accused of human rights violations by Amnesty International and helped control the 1972 elections, in which reform-minded José Napoleón Duarte lost to Arturo Armando Molina (of Rivera's party, the Party of National Conciliation (PCN)) due to fraud.

ORDEN was founded in 1961 and officially disbanded in 1979. It was originally founded to monitor the rural population for signs of left-wing organisation, and it was the intelligence-gathering instrument of the Salvadoran armed forces (FAES) while also acting in anti-insurgent operations and helping in military recruitment. Its structure was composed of senior military officers directly responsible to the president, and it functioned as the brain of a security network that spanned the entire country, providing information and ordering the operation of death teams. In 1965, all of El Salvador's military, paramilitary, and other forces were united under one system of information: ASENSAL, or Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña (National Security Agency of El Salvador). A 1983 report said that one in five people in El Salvador were informers for ASENSAL.

After 1967, its existence and function was made public and it served to strengthen the base of support for the PCN, which won all the elections between 1962 and 1969. The importance of ORDEN lay in its being an organization composed of peasants and farmers responsible for repressing their own class. In 1967, the paramilitary organization mobilized over 100,000 people. After the election of Fidel Sánchez Hernández, also in 1967, the president took control of ORDEN.

See also

• Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PACs, or Civilian Self Defense Patrols): Guatemala
• Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia): Colombia

References

External links

• History Commons Democratic Nationalist Organization (ORDEN). Accessed November 25, 2008.
• El Salvador; History: Military dictatorships Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Accessed November 25, 2008.