US Accused of Interfering in El Salvadoran Elections

When Tony Saca, a former sports commentator, faced the marxist ex-guerilla commander Schafik Handal in El Salvador's recent presidential election, the US took sides. White House special assistant Otto Reich held a press conference at the headquarter's of Saca's ARENA, a right-wing nationalist party, warning local reporters of the potential consequences if Handal won. Reich suggested that Salvadoran immigrants with temporary status could be deported in the event of a Handal victory. In an earlier visit to El Salvador, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega asked Salvadorans to "consider what kind of a relationship they want a new administration to have with ." Noriega met with all presidential candidates except Handal.


(In a strange twist, both Saca and Handal were born to Palestinian parents who came to El Salvador from Bethlehem.)


ARENA's principle campaign issue was the status of remittance payments from Salvadorans living in the US; campaign ads claimed that these could be compromised if the popular Marxist party was elected. More than a quarter of El Salvador's 6.5 million citizens live and work in the US, and remittance payments account for more than 16 per cent of the nations's economy.


"The elections were basically clean," said Jen Pierce, who worked as observer during the elections, "the main concerns are about all the manipulations and interventions that occurred in the campaign, related to media control, US intervention, fear mongering, vote buying, and partisanship."

http://dominionpaper.ca/international_news/2004/04/06/us_accused.html