Student Protesters Set Bonfire at American Embassy in San Salvador

About 1,000 students protesting the abduction of a university staff union leader burned a bonfire of old automobile tires at the gate of the American Embassy here Thursday.

The students blamed President Jose Napoleon Duarte’s government and his U.S. backers for the seizure of Jorge Salvador Ubua, secretary of the Coordinating Committee of University Workers, and for other acts of repression.

U.S. Marines on the balcony of the main embassy building raised their rifles when one of the tires exploded with a bang. The students had moved away by the time Salvadoran riot police approached.

The students, most of whom were masked, also threw paint bombs at embassy personnel photographing them from one of the watchtowers on the thick compound wall, already daubed with graffiti from other anti-U.S. demonstrations.

The demonstrators at the embassy later linked up with union protesters in a march to the National Assembly building to demand Ubua’s release.

Ubua was seized by five gunmen and bundled into a pickup truck as he was walking to work Tuesday. The security forces deny having had any connection with the kidnaping.

The demonstrators also accused the government of using harassment and repression against a strike by hospital workers.

One banner read, “Duarte, you will not comply with the Esquipulas II accord with arrests and repression.”

Esquipulas II is a name sometimes given to a peace plan for Central America signed by Duarte and the presidents of four other Central American nations in Guatemala City on Aug. 7.