FMLN front is coordinating phone calls into State Department; Propaganda campaign seeks State to issue neutrality declaration

A US front group for the FMLN is rallying supporters to flood the State Department with phone calls to echo the former guerrillas' demand for American "neutrality" concerning the March 15 elections.

The front group, founded in 1980 by Farid Handal, the brother of the late Salvadoran Communist Party chief and FMLN commander Schafik Handal, is known as CISPES.

CISPES has just sent out an "action alert" to flood the State Department's El Salvador desk and the American Embassy in San Salvador with phone calls, urging people to recite a scripted message.

"Take Action! Call the State Department to demand an immediate public declaration of US neutrality toward the Salvadoran election!" the CISPES website says. CISPES urges FMLN supporters to call the El Salvador/Nicaragua desk at State at 202-647-1510, and to call Chargé d'Affaires Robert Blau at the US Embassy in San Salvador at 011-503-2501-2999.

The CISPES phone script goes as follows:

"CALL SCRIPT: 'I am calling to urge Secretary Clinton to immediately make a public statement declaring that the United States will respect the results of Sunday's presidential election in El Salvador and seek a positive relationship with whoever is elected.'

"'On Wednesday, Members of Congress publicly threatened to revoke the immigration status of Salvadorans living here in the U.S. and outlaw the remittances they send back to their families. These threats have been extensively covered by the media in El Salvador. Without a statement by the State Department refuting these threats, the integrity and fairness of the Salvadoran election will be severely compromised.'"

CISPES has instructed FMLN supporters to call Blau at the American Embassy after calling the El Salvador desk at the State Department in Washington. The call script is as follows:

"CALL SCRIPT: 'I am calling from the United States to ask that the Embassy publicly declare that the U.S. government will respect the results of Sunday's election, and that the threats made by Members of Congress this week about immigration status and remittances are false.'"

The FMLN front group is upset by calls from Republican Members of Congress who are concerned that an FMLN government, with its terrorist sympathies, would force the US to invoke anti-terrorism legislation and clamp down on remittances to El Salvador. The lawmakers have been friendly to El Salvador's democratic development for decades, even when CISPES was supporting the FMLN's guerrilla and terrorist war against Salvadoran society.