Document #1275032
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
The information in this paragraph was
provided by the El Salvador desk of the World Headquarters of the
Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn, United States by telephone on 23
April 1990: their Church has an active branch office and
congregation in El Salvador, and permanent communication between
this and the Headquarters exists. The World Headquarters has no
reports of mistreatment of Jehovah's Witnesses or obstacles to the
practice of their religion. However, a few members have been killed
in crossfires. There are no problems reported with young members
either, as Jehovah's Witnesses are considered neutral by both
guerrillas and the armed forces and therefore "left alone".
Regarding military conscription, no problems have been reported
within the Church, although young men are likely to be apprehended
for duty without prior notice or religion distinctions.
Other recent information on the situation
of Jehovah's Witnesses in particular could not be found among the
sources currently available to the IRBDC.
Regarding possible exemption from military
service in El Salvador, the following paragraphs belong to the most
recent response to an information request on the subject of
exemptions to military service, dated 28 February 1990 (Information
Request SLV4269). The listed attachments should be available at
your regional Documentation Centre, but can be faxed to you
immediately if they cannot be found among its Information Request
files.
For additional information other than that
already available at your regional Documentation Centre, please
find attached a copy of a 1984 article with specific references to
students and exemptions to military service in El Salvador:
"Salvador presses hundreds into military", from The New York
Times, 30 January 1984, p. 6A. Also attached, please find a
copy of "El Salvador's Army: A Force Unto Itself", in The New
York Times Magazine, 10 December 1989, pp. 47, 95 and 97.
Finally, the latest report currently available to the IRBDC on the
Salvadorean military (World Defence Almanac 1989-1990 [Bonn:
Mönch Publishing Group, January 1990], p. 53) indicates only
that military service in El Salvador is selective and lasts for 24
months. According to the Embassy of El Salvador in Ottawa, as
stated by telephone on 28 April 1990, El Salvador "does not have a
[conscription] system as would be understood in Canada or the
United States", adding that no details were available at the
moment.
What follows is a section of the response
to Information Request No. 2745 dealing with the subject.
According to information from The
Civilian Toll, (Washington: Americas Watch, August 1987), pp.
108-111, and Conscientious Objection to Military Service,
(United Nations, 1985), p. 23, El Salvador has a compulsory
military service, with no provisions for conscientious objection.
Conscientious Objection to Military Service, p. 31, states
Salvadorean law allows exemptions to military service based on
family or health reasons; page 28 indicates that objectors may be
imprisoned and treated as deserters. According to The Civilian
Toll and a New York Times article ("Salvador Army fills
ranks by force", 21 April 1989, p. A3), forced recruitment is
practised, reportedly most frequently among lower-income men of
draft age (18-30 years) or younger, although exemption from
military service reportedly can be bought. Both sources report a
draft system in which no prior notice is given to the conscripts;
rather, young men are rounded up when leaving movie theatres or
while riding on buses, etc. According to The Civilian Toll,
pp. 108-111, military commanders claim this system reduces the
possibility of infiltration by guerrilla members or
collaborators.