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WE'RE CANUASSING ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT.... 22 AFTERNOON SIR.
goOD YOUR SUPPORT ON SUNDAY?
CAN WE RELY ON:
tionary programme of Marxism, they will become an The revolution will spread invincible force.
throughout the region. The revolution will spread throughout the region, imposing its iron logic across the artificial frontiers set up by the oligarchy and imperialism in order to subjugate and enslave the peoples. Fighting under the banner of the Socialist Federation of Central America, the revolution will have profound repercussions in the whole of Latin America, preparing the way for the overthrow of the military-police dictatorships of the southern half of the continent and inrevolutionary process under the itiating a new hegemony of the proletariat, whose sacred objective is the total uprooting of the humiliating lordship of imperialism by means of the establshment of the Socialist United States of Latin America as the first step towards the socialist world federation.
POSTSCRIPT Instead of bolstering Duarte and the Christian Democrats, the 28 March elections for a constituent assembly in El Salvador have strengthened of the right. The historical the parties background to recent events, and the key issues of Marxist strategy and tactics, are dealth with in Pedro Montalve's article. This postscript deals with the subsequent elections and their immediate outcome.
to provide on Duarte Reagan was relying "reformist" respectability for the "democratic".
defence of the country's rotten ruling class. Without a democratic facade, Reagan cannot be sure of maintaining congressional support for continued military and economic aid to the El Salvador regime. However, while Reagan claimed the elections as a success, because 75% voted in spite of the boycott called by the opposition parties and guerrilla forces, the result is far from favourable as far as his policies are concerned. The election has given the four-party rightalanttandonan wing alliance, dominated by Major Bob d'Aubuisson and his new Arena Party, 36 seats in the 60 seat assembly, leaving Duarte's right-wing Christian Democrats only 24.
The recently formed Arena Party is the direct representatives of the country's ruling oligarch, which is based on the "fourteen families." Incensed by even Duarte's mild reforms, and disillusioned with their old party, the PCN (Partido de Conciliacion National) the oligarchy, many members of which live in luxurious exile in Miami, have heavily financed the Arena Party. The Arena is dominated by d'Aubuisson, who has close personal ties with the oligarchy and bloody connections with the right-wing death squads. He was Once the workers and poor peasants of Central America are organised and armed with the revolutionary programme of Marxism, they will become an invincible force formerly head of military intelligence, and even a former US Ambassador described him as pathological killer".
Having pushed for the elections, Reagan's administration, when faced with the result, has had to exert new pressure to prevent the Arena Party from appointing an ultra-right government. Army leaders, anxious to secure continued US support, have also hacked a moderate figurehead. Alvaro Nagana has therefore
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been pushed forward as head of the government. He is an economist, a banker, and, more to the point, comes from one of the "fourteen families". But he also has support from some of the Christian Democrats, while his appointment has dismayed the hard right. Nevertheless, d'Aubuisson, as President of the Constituent Assembly, still remains the real power in the new government.
The question is, how did the right wing alliance manage to achieve its victory in the elections? Most EEC countries refuse to send observers. Thatcher, however, sent two observers, as a token of support for Reagan's policy.
On 7 May they published their report, saying that in organising the elections the armed forces "behaved in a commendable fashion". They say they found no evidence of fiddling or ballot rigging, but their report displays an almost incredible failure to assess the real conditions under which the elections were held. It is only in one or two passing comments and footnotes that they point to highly significant facts, which in themselves call into question the validity of the elections.
Many were excluded from voting: for a start, the estimated 50,000 dead as a result of action by the death squads, the army, and the ultra-right National Guard. Sixty per cent of the population are under 18-and excluded from voting. On top of this, many women in country areas do not have ID cards, and therefore cannot vote. The British observers report does, it is true, mention that it is illegal not to vote. ID cards are stamped as proof of voting and as a precaution against double voting.
The observers, however, fail to link this to the high turn-out. Other reports show that many people were afraid that failure to vote could result in severe retribution, not an unimportant fact in a country where the security forces habitually mete out instant "justice" on the street.
23 Undoubtedly, many people also feared that there could be checks on the way they had actually cast their votes. The elections clearly took place in an atmosphere of intimidation and terror, a reign of violence upheld by the National Guard and the death squads-known by everyone to be in the hands of the oligarchy and known to favour d'Aubuisson's victory. Apart from the intimidation, the right-wing parties also gained from Duarte's bankruptcy. His backing by Washington, "Yanqui imperialism", was far from being an advantage. His partial reforms had infuriated the oligarchy, but the resulting inflation and economic chaos has began to ruin the petit-bourgeois layers, the very people on whom the Christian Democrats depended for support.
D'Aubuisson's rallies brough out the frenzied petitbourgeois, with the chanting being led by the sons and daughters of the propertied and business classes. Some workers, however, may also swayed by d'Aubuisson's demogogic promise of more or less instant "peace and work".
Major Bob D'Aubuisson, leader of the oligarchy's Arena party and the ultra-right alliance, addresses a meeting during the campaign.
March election D'Aubuisson's victory and defeat of Duarte has upset Reagan's plans.
The failure of the boycott called by the FDR (Frante Democratica Revolucionaria, a group of former Christian and social democrats) as well as the FMLF guerrilla front, despite the continuation of the war in many parts of the country, underlines the inability of the guerrillas to organise and mobilise the working class and rural proletariat for political action. The "success" of the elections will solve nothing. After opening the kennel door, US imperialism has to face the fact that it has unleashed a mad dog in the form of d'Aubussion and his Arena allies. What the more intelligent representatives of US imperialism feared is now in danger of coming about.
The uninhibited defence of the oligarchy's wealth and power by d'Aubuisson's forces, with the intensification of brutal repression, will not save El Salvador's ruling class-on the contrary, it can only speed the rot.
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