El Salvador’s Left denies U.S. charges

Press, 27 February 1981, Page 12

El Salvador’s Left denies U.S. charges

By

HUGH O’SHAUGHNESSY

in London

A spokesman for El Salvador’s Left-wing guerrillas has angrily denied charges by the Reagan Administration that his movement is a puppet of either Moscow or Havana. “Our arms don’t come from the Soviet Union or Cuba as a rule,” said Mr Hector Oqueli, the Social Democratic “Foreign Minister” who visited London this month for talks with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. “We buy them on the dollar black market with ransom money we raise from kidnapping, or we receive them from Arab sources.” His visit to London, the last call on a round of Western European capitals, has come at a moment when Washington appears to be increasingly at odds with its Western allies over Central America, where Left and Right are locked in bloody

strife. “During the Sandisista campaign to overthrow General Somoza in the late 19705, Central America became a big centre for United States arms black marketeers. We have continued to buy from them,” said Mr Oqueli. Mr Oqueli, the diplomatic spokesman of the Democratic Revolutionary Front of El Salvador, is based in Mexico City. He formerly worked in St John’s Wood, London, at the headquarters of the Socialist International, headed by the former German Chancellor, Mr Willy Brandt. Algeria. Libya, the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Iraq are known to figure prominently among the Arab suppliers of arms to the Salvadorian insurgents. The Left is supported by the Arabs because the Right in Central America has traditionally supported Israel.

The Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua backed Israel in the United Nations from the birth of the State, and in return the Israelis supplied the late General Anastasia Somoza with arms right up to his overthrow by the Sandinista insurgents in 1979. Relations between the Rightwing junta in power in El Salvador and Israel are also close, and conservative military Government in neighbouring Guatemala is seen by Israel as a particularly useful ally following the discovery of oil there. Guatemala, where the Right has been waging a murderous underground war with Leftwingers, could become a major energy source for the beleagured Israelis cut off from Middle Eastern oil. The Reagan Administration’s new policy of boosting aid to the El Salvador junta and cutting supplies and aid to the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua is facing increasing

criticism in Western Europe. The State Department called in the Swedish Ambassador in Washington last week to protest against Stockholm’s support for Salvadorian insurgents. This is the first such protest since the Swedes backed the Left against Washington in the Vietnam war.

In West Germany, 8480,000 has been collected in a public campaign to buy arms for the Salvadorian guerrillas. The French are, as usual,, unwilling to follow any United States foreign policy initiative, and even Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s Government in Britain is not as enthusiastic about the Central American Right as the Reagan Administration would like it to be.

United States policy towards Nicaragua is also being questioned in Western Europe. In November, the Socialist International set up a committee for the defence of the Nicaraguan revolu-

tion. The committee, whose members include Mr Willy Brandt, the Austrian Chancellor, Dr Bruno Kreisky, and the Spanish and French Socialist leaders, Mr Felipe

Gonzales and Mr Francois Mitterrand, has been active in mobilising money and aid for the Government in Managua. — Copyright, London Observer Service.