RIP: Salvadoran Communist Leader is Dead

[communist fanatic]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060125/ap_on_...wN5bnN1YmNhdA-- (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060125/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/obit_salvadoran_rebel;_ylt=Aid7.mKH1dYSjNKkfW3zvAS 3IxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--)

[Sankara1983]

I mourn one of the last great Cold War revolutionaries.

Requiescat in pace.

[EneME]

My family and I are mourning his death. Really sad that he's passed, but the Salvadoran ppl are fortunate to have had his presence for a lifetime unlike the thousands who never had a chance to live a full life. He is a prime example of living a lifetime of struggle and devotion to the revolutionary fight. If anyone on the board gets the chance to be in the presence of a lifetime combatant/revolutionary, it is an incredible experience. Although Shafik is gone, and the many who lost their lives during the war, we must remember that it is the ideologies that must maintain alive. Hasta..

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/6338/r5722268450xv.jpg

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

He had my support until he turned into a bourgeois reformist. I could really care less that he's dead now, he had nothing else of value to offer anyone but the bourgeoisie.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Could elaborate? Why did he become a bourgeois reformist? What made him change?

[fernando]

Why is everybody who doesnt shove "alien" communist doctrines down the troats of local populations with a gun immediatly a bourgeoise puppet?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

He was, as you probably know, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador from the late 50's to the early 90's.

In the 70's and 80's he was a guerrilla leader that helped bring 5 organizations together to form the FMLN.

After the Chapultepec Accords, the FMLN was converted into a bourgeois political party, and Handal frequently ran for public office (and claimed the age of revolution was over!!).

He was elected to a few posts, and ran for president a few times, including in 04.

[fernando]

how was he a bourgeoise party? did he turn to capitalism? or are his methods no longer ramming a gun in everybody's faces?

[EneME]

After 12 years of Civil War with: 75,000 deaths, many exiled, and tons of civilians immigrating out of the country; the FMLN signed a peace treaty to end the war. CDL doesn't agree with the treaty or the fact that the FMLN is now a political party. Maybe he believes that the poor and scarcly armed FMLN should have kept on fighting the millions of dollars worth of training, napalm, intelligence, arms, helicopters, tanks, and vehicles that were given to the government from the US on a daily basis. I'm not sure. I don't agree with the fact that they are using the "FMLN" name for politics now because of the strong stigma the name gets for either being militant at one time or for now being a political party. All I am sure of is that the US and the government would have stopped at NOTHING to stop the revolution to be successful, even if it meant genocide...

CDL, have you seen "voces inocentes"? out of curiosity..

[Sankara1983]

It's clear that he had wide public support, because his funeral was one of the largest gatherings in Salvadoran history.