[News] Schafik Hándal dies after heart attack in El Salvador

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Schafik Hándal dies after heart attack in El Salvador

CISPES update
January 25, 2006

Longtime FMLN leader Schafik Hándal died 
yesterday in El Salvador.  Hándal was returning 
from Bolivia where he attended the inauguration 
of Bolivian President Evo Morales; as he was 
walking through the Comalapa Airport in El 
Salvador he collapsed from an apparent heart 
attack and was treated by paramedics before being 
taken to the Hospital de la Mujer by 
helicopter.  There, he was pronounced dead at 
around 5:00 in the afternoon.  Schafik Hándal was 75 years old.

The FMLN held a press conference to announce the 
tragic death of the party's historic leader, and 
called for three days of mourning in his 
honor.  Members of the FMLN and the Salvadoran 
social movement immediately began congregating 
outside the hospital and at the party's 
headquarters in San Salvador.  The praise for 
Hándal and his role in the 12-year war against 
the US-backed Salvadoran military regime began 
pouring in.  Said Guadalupe Erazo, a leader of 
the Popular Social Bloc (BPS), "just as we 
continue struggling in the example of Schafik, he 
will continue living in the hearts of Salvadorans."

Schafik Hándal first became active in 1944 during 
the famous strike of "brazos caidos" which lead 
to the fall of the dictator Maximiliano Hernández 
Martínez.  He later became leader of the 
Salvadoran Communist Party, and spent many years 
in exile before returning to El Salvador to help 
lead the rise of the FMLN and guide the armed 
struggle that ultimately fended off death squads, 
the right-wing military regime, and significant 
US intervention to produce the 1992 Peace 
Accords.  Hándal was one of the signers of the 
accords, and he helped lead the FMLN's transition 
from guerrilla force to leftist political party 
as a member of the party's political commission 
and as a deputy in the National Assembly.

CISPES has worked with Hándal over the years, 
most recently when he was the guest of honor at 
our 10th National Convention in San Francisco in 
2003.  We stood by his valiant campaign for the 
presidency in 2004, thwarted by ARENA's dirty 
campaign and political intervention by the Bush 
Administration.  CISPES members also joined 
Hándal and the FMLN at the celebration of the 
25th anniversary of the party last October.

Said FMLN general coordinator Milton Mendez, who 
was with Hándal at the airport when he collapsed, 
"He was a man who was constantly struggling for 
change - Schafik gave himself completely to the 
Salvadoran people."*  He will be remembered as a 
consummate internationalist, a tough and resolute 
leader, committed for all his life to the 
revolutionary struggle in El Salvador, and to 
building a united left throughout Latin America 
and the rest of the world.  Schafik Hándal, Presente!

*"Él fue un hombre que vivió en constante lucha, 
Schafik siempre entregó su trabajo al pueblo salvadoreño."


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