The Guardian 1 February, 2006
Schafik Handal dies
Bob Briton
Schafik Handal, the internationally known and deeply respected leader of El Salvador’s opposition Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (FMLN), died of a heart attack at San Salvador’s Comalapa Airport on January 24. He had just returned from the inauguration of Bolivia’s new leftist President, Evo Morales, when he fainted and was taken by helicopter to a hospital in the capital. Doctors were unable to revive him. He was 75 years old.
Tributes have flooded into the FMLN from around the world. Commemorative services have been held in many cities, including New York, and masses of people are expected to attend his funeral, which is due to take place as The Guardian goes to press.
Schafik was born on October 14, 1930 in the city of Usulután. His parents were Palestinian immigrants from Bethlehem. He grew up in comfortable circumstances but was aware from an early age of the gross injustices that existed in the family’s adopted country. From the age of 14 he was involved in the struggle against the military dictatorship of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. He studied law at the National University where he threw himself into the bitter campaign for university reform and independence.
Schafik was eventually elected to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador, the largest and most effective of the organisations resisting the tyranny of pro-US military dictators since the onset of their rule in 1931. Like many other party militants, Schafik was detained, tortured and exiled to Chile and neighbouring Guatemala and Honduras. He returned clandestinely and worked behind the scenes to assist the open political organisations permitted to function in El Salvador in the 1960s and ‘70s. In the end, fraud and ruthless repression in the political process left the progressive forces no option but to take up arms.
In 1980, Schafik was instrumental in the formation of the FMLN, which brought together five opposition forces committed to the armed struggle. He became one of its principal military leaders. Only massive support from the administration of US President Ronald Reagan and its region-wide "low intensity war" thwarted the victory of the popular forces in El Salvador and elsewhere. Death squads supported the military with unspeakable acts of cruelty against the people.
With the military situation between the government and the guerrillas stalemated, Schafik led the FMLN to conclude the peace accords with the government. The UN auspiced accords were signed in Chapultepec, Mexico, in 1992. The FMLN then became a political coalition and in 1997 Schafik was elected to the Legislative Assembly where he would serve as the leader of the party bloc. At his party’s suggestion, he had resigned his posts on the Communist Party’s Central Committee to conduct his electoral work and in 1994 the Communist Party and its partners in the FMLN decided to merge into a single political party.
In 2004, Schafik stood as the FMLN’s candidate for President of El Salvador. He was defeated by Antonio Saca of the right-wing US-backed ARENA party by a margin of 58 per cent to Schafik’s 36 per cent. The result highlighted the limitations still to be found in the country’s electoral system, which obliges poor citizens to travel long distances to vote and disenfranchises the many Salvadorans scattered across the globe by the 12 years of civil war, poverty and repression.
Despite the many obstacles to the political work of the FMLN, many people expected that Schafik would eventually join the wave of new, progressive leaders leading their people to victory in Latin America. It is a bitter twist of fate that he should die on his return from the inauguration of Bolivia’s President Morales, whose election underscores the significance of the changes taking place in recent times in countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.