FMLN candidate asks voters not to be violent

FMLN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes has made an unusual appeal to exhort his countrymen not to become violent during Sunday's election.

Funes made the statement in a report distributed by the Cuban propaganda agency Prensa Latina.

The statement comes as the FMLN faces the possibility of winning the presidency without resorting to violence. The FMLN is allied with street gangs, known as maras, which act as the party's local enforcers (click here for video).

The FMLN and the Cuban regime are accusing conservative ARENA party activists of isolated acts of harassment. Funes warned his supporters not to respond to what he called "provocations."

Max Manwaring, an El Salvador expert at the US Army's Strategic Studies Institute and a noted authority on the FMLN, reported in 2005 that the more sophisticated Central American gangs were becoming politically active in order to defend and expand their territories and illegal operations.

FMLN killing of US soldier remembered

Veterans of the fight to bring democracy to El Salvador are recalling the upcoming anniversary of the FMLN's targeted killing of SGT Gregory Fronius in 1987.

Fronius, with the 7th Special Forces Group, was training the Salvadoran military when the FMLN overran a base in El Paraiso, killing about 70. Fronius was the sole American among them. The FMLN reportedly carried out the attack for the express purpose of killing a US soldier for its propaganda value. FMLN guerrillas booby trapped Fronius' body.

The attack took place on March 31, 1987.

The FMLN carried out the killing with the help of intelligence provided by Ana Belen Montes, a Cuban penetration agent in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Montes visited the El Paraiso camp during an official visit a few weeks before the attack.

Author Scott W. Carmichael, in his book True Believer (Naval Institute Press, 2007), says that the Cuban spy directly assisted the FMLN in killing Fronius. Montes was convicted of espionage in 2002.