Nobody here but us roadbuilders: the Pentagon keeps busy in El Salvador.

The question is how an army maintains its budget, its image, and maybe its power, when the enemy is gone.

The U.S. Defense Department's answer is joint military exercises described as "Humanitarian and civic action Missions," where the two armies make like Boy Scouts and build schools, wells, latrines, and other apparently good works. They call it "nation building." In Latin America, the title of the program is "Fuertes Caminos," or Strong Roads, although they don't do roads anymore.

But El Salvador just came off a twelve-year civil war and the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas signed the peace accords only because a key point was getting the military out of civil society. Critics in the United States and El Salvador, both within the establishment and among progressive forces, believe these feel-good projects violate the peace agreement and undermine El Salvador's fragile road to democracy. Some call the exercises illegal and complain that they improperly influenced El Salvador's spring elections.

"The peace accords defined a very narrow role for the Salvadoran military: defend the country's borders," says Geoff Thale, director of the National Agenda for Peace in El Salvador. "The peace accords redefined their role: to stay out of politics, to stay out of internal affairs, and to be under civilian control. This is a hard role for the Salvadoran military to accept. What the military needs to learn is that it has to take direction from civilians. Any other encouragement by the United States harms this process."

Sending U.S. troops to build schools and roads sounds innocuous to people in the United States, but in countries afflicted by violent conflict and human-rights abuses, these military-led projects have a negative impact. Responding to a new Fuertes Caminos exercise in war-torn Guatemala, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu asked President Clinton to keep the soldiers home: "While they say the troops are in Guatemala for social projects, like road construction, their presence is perceived as support for the repressive policies of the Guatemalan army."

The U.S. troops, driving trucks so big that some roads were damaged, rumbled into eighteen Salvadoran communities starting in August 1993. The Pentagon says the exercises are rebuilding a country destroyed by war. The two provinces selected had seen some combat, but not in the project areas. The soldiers stopped in San Luis Talpa, not far from the main airport, to build a three-classroom addition to the small town's school and drill two wells in outlying areas.

Fredi Arnoldo Castillo is the subdirector of this public grade school. Local people had some concern at first about the arrival of the soldiers, he said, but then they warmed up to the idea of troops constructing things for nonmilitary purposes. It took only one month to erect the building.

Castillo likes the new structure--painted bright blue and white, opening onto a plaza, and decorated with a large metal plaque honoring the two militaries--except for one thing. The school administration had wanted to use the new classrooms for kindergarten and first grade. Only one classroom was being used in March 1994, however, because the school doesn't have the money to hire enough teachers. Funds for public education are scarce in a country where the average rural person attends school for only three years.

Castillo also mentioned proudly that his school had been a polling place in the March 20 election. What he didn't mention was who won. ARENA, the party of the death squads, swept the municipal elections in San Luis Talpa and every other community where U.S. troops had shown the flag. ARENA won just under half the votes for president and National Assembly in March, but as the strongest party it finished first in 207 of the 262 municipalities and will completely control these local councils under the winner-take-all system.

"The Fuertes Caminos projects were mostly in communities organized by ARENA," said a development specialist who works in the area and must remain anonymous. "It became clear to people that this was one more patronage goodie provided by the party in power in return for support. Most bridges and other public works are decided on this basis in E1 Salvador.

"People liked getting the goodies, but not in this way," she added. "They said that if the United States really wanted to help, it would send the money and maybe equipment or trainers, and let the people here desperate for work do the construction themselves. They were especially irritated by the uniforms."

The Fuertes Caminos exercise was not a major factor in the elections but neither was it an example of U.S. neutrality or leveling the proverbial playing field. Since these humanitarian projects are, at least officially, at the invitation of the host country, other communities with hopes for a new school or well had an incentive to vote for ARENA. The soldiers arrived as the election campaign was gearing up and the FMLN leaders made clear that, if they won, the U.S. troops would not be invited back. But the FMLN finished second and the U.S. troops returned from May through August 1994.

Those men in uniforms from the armed forces of both countries have reputations on a par with junkyard dogs to many Salvadorans. The U.N.-appointed Truth Commission reported last year that the Salvadoran armed forces were responsible for human-rights abuses and death squads that killed tens of thousands of people during the 1980-1992 war. The United States trained and funded that army, and "advisers" sometimes went along on missions. Documents released last December show that the U.S. Army was training death squads.

The salvadoran army, at the urging of its U.S. trainers, started civic-action projects in 1983 as part of the general counterinsurgency strategy. The U.S. Congress later restricted the use of Agency for International Development (AID) funds for army rural service projects because of fear it would undercut the development of the civilian government. The Truth Commission found that the Salvadoran Armed Forces used the planning meetings and work in communities to find out who didn't like them and eliminate these dissenters.

Even with the war over, it is still dangerous to speak publicly against the military. A recent U.N. report found that the armed forces continue human-rights abuses and that death squads keep on operating out of the army. Around a hundred people have been assassinated since the peace accord signing, says Mike Zielinski, political director for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of E1 Salvador (CISPES). Many of the dead were FMLN leaders, candidates, or campaign workers.

As the U.S. troops arrived in 1993, the FMLN reminded Salvadorans what can happen when the military grabs too much power. "The repression carried out by the armed forces was one of the things that triggered the armed conflict in the country," declared FMLN official Milton Mendez over Radio Farabundo Marti. He denounced Fuertes Caminos as "U.S. troops to invade Salvadoran territory" and "a political symbol for the Salvadoran armed forces and the ARENA Party since by [bringing U.S. troops] they show that they have won the war and continue to control society." A few former guerrillas have been so disappointed with the implementation of the peace accords that they talk of taking up arms again.

Criticism from the former guerrillas might be expected, but both Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas and the head of E1 Salvador's supreme court, an ARENA leader, have also said that the exercises are unconstitutional.

The constitution was revised, after the peace accords were signed in 1992, to keep the armed forces of E1 Salvador out of domestic affairs. Furthermore, the constitution guarantees the sovereignty of the nation, and several right-wing nationalists felt the presence of foreign troops violated that provision.

With all this opposition, the U.S. troops received a noisy and unfriendly reception in 1993. People lined the streets with signs saying YANKEE GO HOME and SOLDIERS WITH AIDS GET OUT OF HERE. Graffiti with such slogans were still visible around the capital of San Salvador in March 1994. Even Salvadorans who like the United States were alarmed by reports of how much venereal disease soldiers had brought to neighboring Honduras on exercises like Fuertes Caminos.

But it's still hard to buck the military, so the National Assembly gave nearly unanimous approval to Fuertes Caminos. The FMLN, after initial protests, moved on to election work and struggles over the implementation of other sections of the peace accords. Then local recipients got excited about the freebies, just as the U.S. policy-makers had hoped.

"Fuertes Caminos was tremendously effective in E1 Salvador," said John Hamilton, director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Central American Affairs. "It was not an intimidating presence. Fears turned out to be groundless after the projects got started. The United States felt that once the various parties saw the projects, concern would die down."

This upbeat assessment reflects the Pentagon's public-relations line, but some officials of the State Department and AID are quietly opposed to Fuertes Caminos. "The Department of Defense is pushing the civic-action programs but none of the Latin American ambassadors are wild with enthusiasm," says Geoff Thale. "The State Department would rather have the money and do the projects through AID. AID thinks Fuertes Caminos is a bad idea. AID wants to project itself as neutral and the U.S. military exercises give AID development projects a bad name."

Peace groups in the United States opposed the military exercises in Central America less quietly, from the early 1980s up through the recent start-ups of Fuertes Caminos in Guatemala and E1 Salvador. CISPES and other Central America organizations held several rallies around the country and pressured Congress, says Mike Zielinski, but few in Congress are willing to oppose the 1990s form of U.S. intervention in Central America.

Peace activists believe the United States has a responsibility to help repair the damages caused by the 1980s wars in Central America. They acknowledge that some of the Fuertes Caminos projects are worthwhile, but they would rather see the money go through nonmilitary channels, preferably through nongovernmental organizations. "The programs are good, but they should be carried out by civilian institutions," says Joy Olson, who heads the Central America Working Group, a Washington-based coalition of peace organizations. "Doing them through civic action blurs what should be a line between the military and civic institutions in a democratic society."

The Department of Defense has created a massive public-relations machine to persuade these skeptics that humanitarian projects in Central America are the greatest thing since the Peace Corps. Civic action was always aimed at winning hearts and minds in both the United States and its host countries.

In 1993, the Defense Department described Fuertes Caminos as "establishing the conditions that inspire stable democratic institutions," "nation building," and "promoting the human rights of their citizens." Certain values were to be transmitted to the host army: "By sheer numbers, the U.S. engineers deployed annually to almost every country in the region and working hand-in-hand with the militaries there have many opportunities to impart the principles on which our military is founded--discipline, integrity, dedication, and, most important, subordination to a civilian elected head of state."

The Pentagon summary's final sentence explains why U.S. civic action programs are spreading around the globe: "Such innovation in an era of limited resources is obligatory--it provides a model ... as we face the complex security requirements of our new world under the restrictions of decreasing budgets."

The "innovation" of sending National Guard and Reserve troops on "training missions" made a great leap forward in Honduras a decade ago. Involving these "citizen soldiers" from all over the United States helped build acceptance or even enthusiasm for sending troops into the Central American war zone. Some units collected clothing or school supplies for their new friends in Central America. The Department of Defense took hundreds of local reporters along when the soldiers worked on construction and medical projects.

And it's hard for the participants or recipients of civic action not to focus on the benevolent aspect. "My superiors said we were going down there kind of like the Peace Corps," says John Schroeder, a member of a Wisconsin Reserves Engineer Battalion that went on a nonmilitary construction mission in Belize this year. A priest working in the area of Honduras served by Fuertes Caminos said it looked like "a big Boy Scout exercise."

Although this "good cop" Defense Department says it is teaching host country armies about subordination to civilian leaders, the Pentagon's relations with U.S. elected officials are something like a horse that goes where it wants regardless of how the reins are pulled. Low-intensity conflict broke out with Congress and many governors--who nominally control their state's National Guard--as the military conceived more innovative ways to get into Central American wars.

Sending the part-time soldiers to build military projects in Honduras circumvented congressional limits on military assistance, military construction, and troop deployment to that strategic country in the 1980s. "Training exercises" left behind equipment that ended up in contra hands during a period when Congress had prohibited aid to the Nicaraguan rebels.

Congress tried to restrict military spending in Central America, but one of the innovations of Fuertes Caminos and similar exercises was the accounting concept of claiming that it was impossible to determine the full cost because the programs were so complicated. Even today, "it would take two or three years to pay all the bills and figure the costs," says Lieutenant Colonel John Fory, a mediarelations officer for the national Army Reserve office at the Pentagon.

Congress now requires the Defense Department to report expenses on Fuertes Caminos-type projects. Sending some 4,000 soldiers to E1 Salvador, mostly for two weeks at a time, cost $949,681 for fiscal year 1993, according to the Pentagon. But the Pentagon counts only the costs of supplies used on the project, such as materials to build a school. The troops need training anyway and would have transportation, lodging, and similar expenses regardless of whether the exercise was in Central America or Camp Swampee, by Pentagon logic.

Perhaps impressed with the public-relations value of civic action programs in Latin America, the Pentagon has initiated more uniformed do-gooder projects in the United States.

A recent full-page color ad in USA Today is headlined: OUR SERVICE TO COUNTRY BEGINS IN OUR COMMUNITIES. According to this National Guard promotion, "You'll also find us in the community developing projects aimed at keeping young Americans off the street and helping them put their lives on track." It lists programs such as the Youth Conservation Corps.

Building a good image is more important than ever to the U.S. military. The Department of Defense is under tremendous pressure to downsize and use its resources more efficiently. And as U.S. military aid is cut, the Pentagon seeks to maintain proper contact and support for its brother militaries around the world. The "model" is to use weekend warriors, on "training missions," to maintain military-to-military relations while building something useful or improving soldiers' images.

The Salvadoran armed forces felt beleaguered in mid-1993, what with the Truth Commission Report, forced resignations of many top officers, the troop level chopped in half, the new constitutional restrictions, and deep cuts in U.S. military aid. The military was in serious danger of losing its position as the dominant institution of E1 Salvador. But the Pentagon rode to the rescue on Fuertes Caminos. Defense Minister Humberto Corado crowed that "the U.S. Government's trust in President Cristiani's government is evident once again."

U.S. military power projection in Central America looks more and more like simply a way to maintain control and protect U.S. economic interests. Maybe it always was. Pentagon strategy has changed remarkably little despite the end of the Cold War and a new Administration.

Critics claim that civic action programs have become a means to manipulate public opinion, public funds, and civilian governments in the United States, E1 Salvador, and a growing number of other countries. Although no Fuertes Caminos exercise is now scheduled for E1 Salvador next year, the list is not finalized until sometime in the fall.

E1 Salvador needs aid for development and reconstruction. And the United States has a role to play there in seeing that the peace accords it helped negotiate are implemented. But if E1 Salvador is to have a shot at becoming a modern democratic nation, civilians in the United States will need to find a way to stop the Pentagon from helping the Salvadoran military get out of the barracks.

E1 Salvador desperately needs to demilitarize its society. And we could use a little more demilitarization in this country as well.