Rebels mourn leader’s ‘suicide’

Press, 23 April 1983, Page 10

Rebels mourn leader’s ‘suicide’

NZPA-Reuter San Salvador Salvadorean guerrillas, mourning the reported suicide of their veteran Leftwing leader, said yesterday that they had killed at least eight soldiers in fresh fight- 1 ing in eastern El Salvador. The rebel Radio Venceremos said that five soldiers were killed when guerrillas attacked and briefly occupied a small town northeast of San Salvador. Three other soldiers were killed in an ambush near the eastern city of Suchitoto. Residents in Santa Ana said that at least 13 bomb explosions rocked the city and plunged it into darkness for several hours. The radio devoted most of yesterday’s broadcast to a eulogy of Salvador Cayetano Carpio, head of the Popular Liberation Forces, one of the five guerrilla forces grouped under the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Nicaraguan authorities said that he killed himself in Managua nine days ago after discovering that his own men were responsible for the murder of his deputy, Commander Melida Anaya Montes. The rebels had first blamed the murder on the American Central Intelligence Agency. The radio called Cayetano Carpio a “true giant of Latin American and world revolution.” Salvadorean authorities were still assessing what effects his death would have on the guerrilla movement. It would cause some confusion in the guerrilla ranks for a while, but the longterm effects were hard to judge. In Mexico City, a source close to the guerrillas said that his death and that of his deputy were a terrible blow to the F.P.L.