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.

FMLN front group organizes election observers

"More than 60 members of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) have arrived in El Salvador as accredited international observers for the March 15 presidential election. These observers, some of whom have been in El Salvador monitoring the campaign for more than three months, are available for interviews starting immediately, as well as on election day on Sunday and throughout the week following the election. CISPES will maintain an Election Day Blog with first-hand observers' reports and other news from around El Salvador, including preliminary election results as they are available, at http://cispes.org/09electionsblog/."

This statement is from the CISPES website. CISPES is an FMLN front organization founded in 1980 to support a communist guerrilla victory in El Salvador. In 2008 the US alleged that CISPES was serving illegally as a "foreign agent" of the FMLN.

Pro-FMLN congressman calls for US neutrality

A congressman who sympathizes with the FMLN has issued a statement signed with 32 of his colleagues calling for "neutrality" in the Salvadoran elections.

The FMLN's main American front group, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), is publicizing the effort.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) led the campaign, sending the letter to President Barack Obama. The letter, according to CISPES, rejected previous US "intervention" in El Salvador - a reference to President Reagan's successful efforts to battle the FMLN into military defeat in the 1980s. (In the video, Grijalva mis-names his own country in Spanish, calling it the "United States of North America.")

According to its website, CISPES has been working since February to get congressmen to sign the letter demanding "neutrality," in a bid to prevent Washington from using its influence to persuade Salvadorans not to vote for the FMLN.

Speaking in Spanish on a CISPES video, Rep. Grijalva calls on the US not to intervene in the elections, and expresses solidarity with the radical regimes of Bolivia and Venezuela.