Fed Up With Rebel Attacks, Salvadoran President Warns
President Alfredo Cristiani said a spate of new rebel attacks could derail peace talks, but the rebels contend the attacks are intended to pressure Cristiani into returning to the negotiating table.
Fighting broke out in half of El Salvador’s 14 provinces on Tuesday, with a series of rebel strikes leaving at least 27 people dead and 141 wounded, officials at the scene said. Hospital sources put the toll at 27 dead and 165 people wounded.
No fresh fighting was reported Wednesday.
Spokesmen for the army and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) said they expect more fighting in coming days.
Government and rebel representatives have held five rounds of talks since May. Negotiations were to resume Nov. 4 in Mexico but bogged down over bitterly differing positions on the future role of the armed forces.
“It is time to say enough to the FMLN. . . . This cannot be called military action, since most of those affected are civilians,” Cristiani said in a radio-TV speech late Tuesday. “It’s a new terrorist offensive.”
“The only thing these actions do is endanger the negotiating process, since violence engenders violence and will not provide the flexible and rational conditions needed to end the bloodshed,” he added.
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