Communist Wing Blamed in Salvador Political Killings : Guerrillas of Party’s Armed Unit Acted Independently of Main Rebel Body, Sources Say

The armed wing of the Salvadoran Communist Party, acting independently of its allies in the country’s Marxist guerrilla movement, is responsible for a recent wave of political assassinations and attacks, including the murder of the country’s attorney general, sources close to the guerrillas say.

However, urban commando units of the Armed Liberation Forces, as the party’s armed wing is called, did not kill Jose Antonio Rodriguez Porth, one of President Alfredo Cristiani’s closest advisers two weeks ago, the sources say, and neither did any other rebel group.

Attorney General’s Slaying

These sources, as well as non-American diplomats, say that the Armed Liberation Forces led by Schafik Jorge Handal, one of the five commanders of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, murdered the nation’s right-wing attorney general, Roberto Garcia Alvarado, last April.

A week before that, the FAL, as Handal’s group is known by its Spanish initials, tried to assassinate Vice President Francisco Merino by blowing up his house, the sources said.

All of this, as well as earlier killings that the FAL had taken responsibility for--of Francisco Peccorini, a Salvadoran-American dual citizen who was trying to rid the National University of leftist influence, and Miguel Castellano, a guerrilla defector--were carried out independently of and sometimes against the wishes of the other rebel commanders, the sources said.

Some diplomats say that Handal, who advocates an intensive urban war in order to spark a mass uprising, is in the middle of a power struggle with the other FMLN leaders, who support tactics more acceptable to international public opinion.

Operating on Its Own

The sources close to the guerrillas, however--and foreign intelligence experts--say that no such power struggle is under way. Those who know the FMLN say that the FAL has always operated on its own in San Salvador, without being required to obtain permission for its actions.

The intelligence experts say this is true but add that the differences between Handal and the other commanders reflect confusion over how to react to the failure of the FMLN to advance its cause over the last year.

They say this uncertainty was the focus of a recent meeting of the FMLN commanders in Managua, Nicaragua, to analyze the state of the nine-year-old civil war.

There was agreement, the intelligence reports said, that the effort to overthrow the government was stagnating and that the rebels were losing public support both here and abroad at least in part because of the FAL tactics. However, the intelligence experts said, there was no consensus on any serious change in approach and that all signs point to continuation of the bombings, strikes and attacks that have marked the past.

A Guerrilla Handbook

Whether or not any of this is evidence of an internal guerrilla power struggle, the FMLN leadership, stunned by the negative public reaction, particularly abroad, that followed the killings of Peccorini and Garcia Alvarado, issued a handbook on how to conduct urban commando operations; it recommends against such political assassinations.

However, the sources close to the guerrillas say that no specific agreement was reached to prohibit civilian political killings.

However, in the wake of the widely held assumptions that the FMLN killed Rodriguez Porth, a 73-year-old doctrinaire right-wing ideologue, and the resulting international condemnation, the sources say they expect another meeting will be called to seek ways to offset assumptions that the FMLN is guilty of all political killings.

Although admitting that confusion and disagreement over tactics exists between Handal and his colleagues, and while acknowledging the FAL role in the other assassinations, the sources insist that the FMLN denials of the Rodriguez Porth killing are correct.

No Evidence Found

They say that an exhaustive investigation by guerrilla leaders found no evidence that the FAL nor any other FMLN group or individual killed the presidential chief of staff and two employees.

And while the U.S. Embassy, the Salvadoran government and foreign diplomats all accuse the FMLN of the Rodriguez Porth murders, they offer no tangible evidence other than the atmosphere created by past guerrilla terrorist acts and a public vow by rebels leaders to make the country “ungovernable.”

Equally unsupported by facts is the theory advanced by FMLN supporters that Rodriguez Porth’s killing was the work of right-wing death squads aiming to give the government a reason for a repressive anti-leftist reaction.