FMLN calls for solidarity

By Bill Mason

BRISBANE — At its 5th national convention in San Salvador last December, El Salvador's revolutionary opposition party, the FMLN, launched a "political offensive to win the hearts and minds of the people".

According to Ricardo Martinez, an El Salvadoran migrant in Australia, the FMLN is mobilising support in the lead-up to the 1999 general elections, based on discussions in all local communities.

Addressing a meeting sponsored by Australian Aid for El Salvador on January 17, Martinez said that support for the FMLN is growing as corruption grows inside the ruling right-wing ARENA party and as the economic devastation ARENA's policies are causing becomes clearer.

The former divisions within the FMLN have been largely overcome, he reported.

In its new platform, the FMLN describes itself as "democratic, pluralist, revolutionary and socialist". In a bid to strengthen the unity of the movement, El Salvadorans living overseas can now become full members of the party, with voting rights.

Rafael Pacheco, spokesperson for Australian Aid for El Salvador in Brisbane, reported on the growing unity within the solidarity movement in Australia in support of the FMLN.

The meeting responded warmly to Ovideo Orellana, a refugee from the revolutionary URNG movement in Guatemala, who is returning with his companion Nyeta Orellana to assist the developing progressive movement in that war-torn country.

The previous evening, the Orellanas attended a moving farewell, sponsored by the Communist Party of Australia, to thank them for their extensive solidarity work during their many years in Australia.

From GLW issue 303