12 Seized Demanding Ouster of Salvador Consul General

Twelve protesters demanding the ouster of El Salvador’s new consul general in Los Angeles were arrested Monday after they refused a police order to clear the Salvadoran consulate’s lobby.

The 12 were among an estimated 100 demonstrators who descended on the consulate just west of Civic Center to protest the naming of Jose Mauricio Angulo--on his first day on the job--as El Salvador’s representative.

Powerful Relative

Angulo is the brother-in-law of Roberto D’Aubuisson, the founder of that country’s powerful Arena party, who has been reportedly linked to right-wing death squads.

“We resent his coming here,” said Blase Bonpane, one of the arrested protesters, as he and others waited to see Angulo in the consulate’s outer lobby.

Angulo initially agreed to see Bonpane as a representative of the protesters, but he ordered Bonpane to leave when the demonstrator invited a news crew from a Spanish-language television station to record the conversation. The crew had just completed an interview with Angulo.

Bonpane and others stayed in the consulate’s lobby for 90 minutes--chanting “Stop the death squads! Stop the war! U.S. out of El Salvador!”--before helmeted Los Angeles police officers arrested them for refusing to leave.

The 12 were booked for investigation of resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer, authorities said.

While the protest continued in the lobby, little work was apparently getting done elsewhere in the consulate. Visa applicants, some of whom had arrived as early as 5 a.m., were told no work could be accomplished on their requests as long as the protest continued.

Outside the consulate, about 90 protesters marched along W. Beverly Boulevard, chanting slogans and carrying crucifixes that they said represented death-squad victims. They shouted and cheered as the arrested demonstrators were escorted to a police bus. The protest ended shortly afterward.

Spurns Reporters

Although he had talked earlier with reporters from Spanish-language TV stations, Angulo repeatedly refused to talk with other reporters at the consulate.

Over the years, the Salvadoran consulate has been the scene of many demonstrations by those critical of the United States’ role in Central America and the continued existence of death squads there. Just two weeks ago, two people were arrested at the consulate during a protest over the detention by Salvadoran government forces of two labor leaders in that country.