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REGION FOLLOWS SPANISH LEAD--AT ITS PERIL?

Article Excerpt
Spain's President Jose Maria Aznar arrived in El Salvador on July 8, on a four-pronged mission. He needed simultaneously to express gratitude for Central America's contribution to the international troop presence in Iraq while ensuring that wavering governments would actually deliver the soldiers, school isthmus presidents on the benefits of a free- trade agreement with Europe, establish credibility for himself as go-between in the Latin America--Europe relationship, and open a new front in his ongoing war of words with Cuban President Fidel Castro.

This last prong also serves to support El Salvador's President Francisco Flores in the latter's electoral battles. Flores' right-wing Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) is trailing the leftist Faribundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) as presidential elections draw near.

Schafik Handal, likely FMLN presidential candidate (see NotiCen, 2003-06-05), had told union representatives that his party would copy the Cuban model in areas of nutrition, health, education, and social security. Schafik also told his listeners he would invite Castro to his inauguration, so mud slung at Castro splatters Schafik.

The gauntlet apparently fell at Aznar's feet when Castro led a demonstration past the Spanish Embassy in Havana in June, protesting Spain's promotion...

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