El Salvador Election Dredges Bitter Past

[uhhuh]

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - The two major candidates in Sunday's presidential election are dredging up El Salvador's bloody past as they face off in what has become a nasty campaign to lead the Central American nation.

The two major candidates - Tony Saca of the conservative National Republican Alliance, ARENA, and Schafik Handal of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front - represent the main sides of the civil war that ended only 12 years ago.

Handal's foes portray him as a communist kidnapper drenched in violence, a man who will prompt the U.S. government to halt money sent home by Salvadorans in the United States.

The Handal campaign, meanwhile, depicts Saca as a corrupt front man for the right-wing death squads of the civil war era.
(snip)

More Here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3882708,00.html

[jamesinca]

1. That sounds like the name calling going on here

Our civil war ended in 1865, so El Salvador has based on the U.S. model just about 120 more years of this type of political name calling.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. I heard a report on Pacifica Radio about how the

right wingers are running tear jerker ads about poor old ladies who won't get remittances from their children working in the U.S. if the leftist candidate wins.

Of course, the Bushies (especially the Otto Reich/Eliot Abrams crowd) are just mean enough that they MIGHT ban remittances to El Salvador.

[eablair3]

3. thanks. -- will be interesting to see the outcome

Interesting article.

I guess I'd like to see Handal win. Enough of these right-wingers.

Lydia, .. where on Pacifica Radio did you hear that? Do you know if it's archived? I heard one segment on Flashpoints I think yesterday about El Salvador's election. Is that the one you heard?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. I don't know--it was on the car radio

and I didn't hear the beginning or the end of the program, just the middle, due to the shortness of the trip.