Demonstrators die in blaze of police gunfire

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 8

Demonstrators die in blaze of police gunfire

NZPA San Salvador The Salvadorean police fired on peasants and workers demonstrating in front of San Salvador’s cathedral, and Red Cross sources reported yesterday that 18 demonstrators had been killed and at least 37 wounded. The crowd of about 300 was demonstrating its support of anti-Government Leftists occupying the cathedral and two embassies and holding six hostages. “We took 37 people out of the cathedral with wounds, most of them in critical condition,” said a Red Cross worker.

“There were 11 persons dead inside the building and seven dead on the steps outside.” He said the Red Cross also evacuated 10 bystanders from the church who were trapped inside by the shooting. The Government had authorised the Red Cross to remove the wounded and any who wanted to leave, the source said. But he reported that 30 to 40 members of the Popular Revolutionary Bloc who have been occupying the cathedral since Friday and about 150 other members of the organisation who took refuge inside to escape the shooting had said they would stay until their demands were met.

A Presidential press spokesman said militants holding the metropolitan cathedral in downtown San Salvador had fired first and three policemen had been critically wounded. He gave no other casualty figures.

However, one of the wounded, a woman who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, interviewed at a Red Cross centre where she was evacuated, said it was a lie that the Bloc members inside the church were armed and had shot at the police. “This is absolutely false,” she said.

The witness said that many of the refugees were accepting at nightfall a Government offer to be evacuated by the Red Cross from inside the cathedral.

After the shooting, the national police cordoned off the 17-block downtown area which consists mostly of businesses and office buildings, cut off telephones and cleared it of everyone but local residents.

A Red Cross spokesman confirmed that there had been a snoot-out at 7.40 p.m. between the police and unidentified gunmen in the western part of the city. But he said he had no report of casualties.

The spokesman also confirmed reports that an angry crowd had burned a city bus at nightfall near the University of El Salvador.

Matchete and gun-wielding members of the Popular Revolutionary Bloc have been holding the French and Costa Rican Embassies in El Salvador since Friday.

The Costa Rican Ambassador and his four captive staff members escaped from their embassy on Tuesday while their captors were eating dinner. Gunmen are still occupying the Costa Rican Embassy and holding five hostages at the French Embassy.