Salvador Rights Group Seizes Costa Rican Embassy

Thirty Salvadorans stormed the Costa Rican Embassy and seized about 40 hostages Thursday to protest what they called the repressive policies of Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani’s rightist government.

“We are here to denounce human rights violations and so that the Costa Rican government pressures Cristiani to end the repression against the people,” a spokeswoman for the activists said in an interview.

Special National Police units quickly surrounded the Central American Building, but no violence was reported. The embassy is on the third floor.

Costa Rican Ambassador Jesus Manuel Fernandez, Consul General Humberto Murillo and First Secretary Rene Aldama were among the hostages. Most of the others seized were people visiting the embassy on business.

Reports conflicted on whether the activists were armed.

The spokeswoman said they had no weapons. Embassy officials said they were armed.

“It is very sad that there are people who believe that violence can be the good instrument to get what they want,” Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias Sanchez said when he was informed of the embassy takeover in El Salvador.

Arias, winner of the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for devising a Central American peace plan, spoke at a news conference in San Jose, Calif., where he was visiting.

The activists’ spokeswoman, who refused to give her name, said her group belongs to the Federation of Committees of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners, Disappeared and Assassinated People of El Salvador.