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MOURNING ON THE LEFT; SHAFIK HANDAL DEAD, BUT STILL A PROBLEM FOR EL SALVADOR'S GOVERNMENT.

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[Editor's Note: This article corrects acronym for Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional to FMLN. It was previously sent out as FSLN].

Shafik Handal is dead. The 75-year-old leader of El Salvador's opposition Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) suffered cardiac arrest in the airport upon returning home from the inauguration of President Evo Morales in Bolivia. Flown immediately by helicopter to a San Salvador hospital, he was pronounced dead within 30 minutes after attempts at resuscitation failed.

Handal was head of the Partido Comunista Salvadoreno (PCS) in El Salvador from 1972 until it merged in 1980 with four other leftist groups to form the FMLN, then not a political party but a revolutionary armed force that waged war against a string of right-wing military and military-influenced governments backed by US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Handal led the communist faction of the coalition until it became a political party in 1992, when a peace accord was reached. Handal was one of the signers.

The FMLN has never held the presidency of El Salvador, but has, nevertheless, in its often-chaotic history, held important posts and has always been a powerful opposition. Handal ran for president in 2004 and lost badly to 39-year-old businessman and radio personality Antonio Saca (seeNotiCen,...

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