Please find attached a section of Barriers to Reform: A Profile of El Salvador's Military Leaders, a 1990 report that provides detailed biographical information on General Rene Emilio Ponce. The other attachments contain additional and/or corroborating information on General Ponce. In addition to the attachments, a March 1994 report states that "soon after stepping down as Minister of Defense ... General Ponce was appointed to the board of directors of ANTEL (National Telecommunications Administration) (Spence et al., 16). More recent references to other activities of the former general could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Spence, Jack et al. March 1994. A Negotiated Revolution? A Two year Progress Report on the Salvadoran Peace Accords. Cambridge, Mass.: Hemisphere Initiatives.

Agence France Presse (AFP). 5 July 1993. "Former Members of Salvadoran Military Command Threatened: Reports." (NEXIS)

Armed Forces & Society [Chicago]. Summer 1991. Vol. 17, No. 4. Martin C. Needler. "El Salvador: The Military and Politics," pp. 580, 582.

Is There a Transition to Democracy in El Salvador? 1992. Edited by Joseph S. Tulchin and Gary Bland. Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 126-7, 174, 201-2.

Latin American Regional Reports: Caribbean & Central America [London]. 27 January 1994. "Truth a Victim of the 1980s 'Dirty War': Documents Show Washington Kept Tabs on 'Death Squads'." (NEXIS)

The Reuters Library Report. 1 July 1993. BC Cycle. Kieran Murray. "Salvador Army Chiefs Surrender Power as Purge Ends." (NEXIS)

United States Congress Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus, Washington, DC. 21 May 1990. Barriers to Reform: A Profile of El Salvador's Military Leaders, pp. 13-15.