SAN SALVADOR - EL SALVADOR
FARBUNDO MATI -EL SALVADOR
This is political pin made by PODRAVKA - Koprivnica in 1980's.
At that time KOPRIVNICA is a city in Yugoslavia.
Today it's in Croatia. Dimension: 16 X 14 mm Engraved on back: PODRAVKA
SCARCE LAPEL PIN !
***** Farabundo Martí National
Liberation Front
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (in Spanish: Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación
Nacional, FMLN) is since 1992 a leftwing political party in El
Salvador and formerly a coalition of five revolutionary guerrilla
organizations. The FMLN was formed as an umbrella group on October 10,
1980 from the left wing guerilla organizations: the Fuerzas
Populares de Liberación Farabundo Martí (FPL), Ejército Revolucionario del
Pueblo (ERP), the Resistencia Nacional (RN), the Partido
Comunista Salvadoreño (PCS) and the Partido
Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC).
After peace accords were signed in 1992, all armed FMLN units were
demobilized and their organization became a legal political party. The
FMLN is now one of the two major political parties in
El Salvador.
In the elections of March 15, 2009 the FMLN won the Presidential
elections with former journalist Mauricio Funes as its candidate. Two months earlier in
municipal and legislative elections, the FMLN won the majority of the
mayoralties in the country (though losing San
Salvador) and a plurality of the National Assembly seats (35 out of
84).
History of the FMLN
The FMLN was named after the rebel leader Farabundo Martí, who led workers and
peasants in an uprising to transform Salvadoran society after the
devastation caused by the eruption of the volcano Izalco in 1932. In
response, the military regime led by General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez,
who had seized power in a 1931 coup, launched an effective but brutal counterinsurgency
campaign. Known as "La Matanza" ("The
Massacre"), this campaign saw the killing of some 30,000 people under
the guise of being supporters of the insurgency. A good number of those
killed were peasants and members of the various indigenous groups that
inhabited El Salvador. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed.
[edit] Communist Party
of El Salvador
The Communist Party of El Salvador
was formed in the 1930s. One of the principal leaders was Farabundo Martí. Some later leaders of the
Communist Party of El Salvador included Cayetano Carpio and Schafik Handal. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the
Communist Party of El Salvador opposed armed struggle and mainly engaged
in legal electoral and trade union organizing. After the Cuban revolution in 1959, and with a
growing radicalization in the 1960s, some within the Salvadoran
Communist Party began to advocate armed struggle to overthrow the
Salvadoran military dictatorship. They ultimately had to leave the
Communist Party to initiate the armed struggle.
[edit] Popular Liberation
Forces "Farabundo Marti"
In 1970, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador,
Cayetano Carpio, left the Communist Party to form a new
organization to wage armed struggle to overthrow the military
dictatorship. This new organization became the Popular Liberation Forces "Farabundo Marti" (in
Spanish: Fuerzas Populares de Liberación "Farabundo Martí", also known
by the Spanish acroym, FPL). Throughout the 1970s the FPL grew
and became the largest and most influential organization on the
Salvadorean left. In the 1970s many other revolutionary organizations
were formed as well. Three others ultimately became part of the FMLN in
1980 along with the FPL and the Communist Party. These were the Ejército Revolucionario del
Pueblo (ERP), Resistencia Nacional
(RN), and the Partido
Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC).
Ejército
Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP)
ERP was formed in 1972. The principal leader of the ERP was Joaquín Villalobos. They were based
primarily in Morazán and had a perspective that
focused almost entirely on the military aspect of the struggle, and less
on the aspect of political organizing.
La
Resistencia Nacional, (RN)
the Resistencia Nacional (RN), was formed
in 1975 as a split from the ERP. The RN was formed by people who left
the ERP after the leadership of the ERP assassinated a group within the
organization that advocated more of a mass orientation, as opposed to
the militarist orientation the ERP had at the time. The assassinated
group included famous Salvadoran poet Roque
Dalton. The RN put into practice the line that Dalton and his
co-thinkers in the ERP had advocated, putting more emphasis on sectoral
organizing amongst the masses of people (in unions, student
organizations, etc.). The RN was primarily based in Morazán as guerrilla commandos as well as
in the city of San Salvador as clandestine urban forces mainly composed
of university students.
The National Resistance conducted fewer attacks against the
dictatorship in El Salvador compared to the FPL or ERP, but the RN
operatives were much more effective in destabilizing the national
tyranny with much fewer deaths on both sides. The armed wing of the
Resistencia Nacional was FARN (Fuerzas Armadas de la Resistencia
Nacional) known as RN-FARN.
Partido
Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC)
The PRTC was part of a Central America-wide organization that
advocated a regional revolution as opposed to a country-by-country
revolution. The PRTC left their Central America-wide organization when
they joined the FMLN.
Civil
war and emergence of the FMLN
On December 17, 1979, in period of national crisis, the three
dominant organizations (FPL, RN and PCS) of the Salvadoran left formed
the Coordinadora Político-Militar. The CPM's first manifesto was
released on January 10, 1980, and the day afterwards the Coordinadora
Revolucionaria de Masas was formed as a union of revolutionary mass
organizations. CRM later merged with the Frente
Democrático Salvadoreño to form the Frente
Democrático Revolucionario.
It is alleged that some credit for the unity of the five
organizations that formed the FMLN may belong to Cuba's Fidel
Castro, who facilitated negotiation between the groups in Havana in
December 1979. While all five groups called themselves revolutionaries
and socialists,
they had serious ideological and practical differences, and there had
been serious conflicts, even including in some cases bloodshed, between
some of the groups during the 1970s.
On May 22, 1980 the success of negotiations led to the union of the
major guerrilla forces under one flag. The Unified Revolutionary
Directorate Dirección Revolucionaria Unificada was created by the FPL,
RN, ERP and PCS. DRU consisted of three Political Commission members
from each of these four organizations. The DRU manifesto declared,
"There will be only one leadership, only one military plan and only one
command, only one political line." Despite continued infighting DRU
succeeded in coordinating the group's efforts and equipped forces.
Banner used until 1992. Clarification: the official FMLN banner was red
and white; the red and yellow version shown above was used by the FPL.
Photos of the celebration of the peace accords on January 16, 1992 by
the whole FMLN show the red and white flag, which, slightly adapted,
became the banner of the legal political party.
On October 10, 1980 the four organizations formed the Frente
Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN). In December of the
same year, the Salvadoran branch of the Partido Revolucionario de los
Trabajadores Centroamericanos broke away from its central organization
and affiliated itself to FMLN. Thus the following organizations composed
FMLN (listed in the order of size at the time of the peace accords in
1992):
- Bloque Popular Revolucionario, BPR, armed wing Fuerzas Populares de
Liberación, FPL, "Farabundo Martí"
- Partido Comunista Salvadoreño, PCS, armed wing Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación, FAL
- Partido de la Revolución Salvadoreña, PRS, armed wing Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP
(El Salvador)
- Resistencia
Nacional, RN, armed wing Fuerzas Armadas de la Resistencia Nacional,
RN-FARN
- Partido
Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos, armed wing Ejército Revolucionario de
los Trabajadores Centroamericanos, ERTC
Youth organizations of FMLN at the time of armed struggle included:
- Juventud Farabundista (FPL)
- Juventud Comunista Salvadoreña (PCS)
- Juventud Revolucionaria (PRS)
- Jóvenes en Resistencia (RN)
- Juventud los Muchachos (PRTC)
FMLN in armed struggle
After the formation of the FMLN, they organized to launch their first
major military offensive on January 10, 1981. During this offensive,
the FMLN established operational control over large sections of the
departments of Morazán and Chalatenango, which remained largely
under guerrilla control throughout the rest of the civil war.
Revolutionaries ranged from children to the elderly, both male and
female, and most were trained in FMLN camps in the mountains and jungles
of El Salvador to learn military techniques.
The FMLN's other largest offensive was in November 1989. In that
offensive, the FMLN caught Salvadoran government and military off guard
by taking control of large sections of the country and even entering the
capital of San Salvador. In San Salvador the FMLN quickly took control
of many of the poor neighborhoods until the military bombed their
positions -- including bombing residential neighborhoods [1] -- to drive the FMLN out. One of the
most famous battles in San Salvador was in the Sheraton Hotel ( 13°41′27.36″N 89°14′31.15″W / 13.6909333°N 89.2419861°W / 13.6909333; -89.2419861 (Sheraton Presidente San
Salvador Hotel)), where
guerrillas and army soldiers battled floor-by-floor in the hotel. The
guerrillas eventually captured 12 U.S. military advisors (Green Berets) in the
hotel until the Catholic Church negotiated their release. The FMLN's
November 1989 offensive did not succeed in its stated aim of
overthrowing the government. But many analysts point to the FMLN's show
of strength in the 1989 offensive as the turning point in the war, where
it became clear that the government would not be able to militarily
defeat the FMLN. Soon after the November 1989 offensive, the U.S.
government started to support a negotiated solution to the civil war,
whereas up to that point they had pursued a policy of military defeat of
the FMLN. Since the U.S. government was the major funder of the
Salvadoran government and military, they exercised considerable
influence over the course of events. So when the U.S. began to advocate
negotiations instead of a military solution, a negotiated peace accord
between the FMLN and the Salvadoran government was reached in fairly
short order in 1992, despite a few incidents that could have marred the
accord, such as the high-profile murder of the peace-seeking FPL
commandante Antonio Cardenal, aka Jesus Rojas.
Citations for Salvadoran military bombing of civilian population:
Douglas Tweedale, “Rebels pull back; Next move unclear in Salvador war,”
United Press International, November 19, 1989 reports hours of
bombardment of FMLN-occupied areas of San Salvador during the early
morning of November 19. Via Ochoa thesis cited below.
Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuria and the Murdered Jesuits of El
Salvador by Teresa Whitfield, Temple Press 1994, p.3: "...the FMLN
occupied areas that were poor and heavily populated. All feared the
civilian cost of the armed forces' counteroffensive. Artillery and
aerial bombardment had left some families trapped in their homes without
food, water, or power; others were fleeing their neighborhoods, running
through the streets beneath the paltry protection of white flags."
"El Salvador 1989: The Two Jesuit Standards and the Final Offensive",
by Ignacio W. Ochoa, 2003, master's thesis in Latin American studies at
San Diego State University, p. 56: "At daybreak [on November 18] army
airplanes were dropping highly destructive bombs over the civilian areas
under FMLN control; helicopters constantly flew over using heavy
artillery. In response, the guerrillas began to use anti-aircraft
artillery within the city itself." The author was in San Salvador, at
and near the University of Central America campus, during November
1989.)
After the
peace accords: FMLN participation in elections
Schafik Handal hands over a declaration of solidarity to the
Ambassador of Venezuela
After the ceasefire established by the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords, the
FMLN became a legal political party. The FMLN has now participated in
elections in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2009. The
1994, 1999, 2004, and 2009 elections were for the Presidency. The 1994,
1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2009 elections were for Legislative Assembly
seats and mayor and municipal council positions.
An FMLN rally with Handal in Jiquilisco, prior to the presidential
election in 2004
The FMLN is currently, along with ARENA, one of the two
dominant political parties in El Salvador. Since 2000, the FMLN has gone
back and forth with ARENA in controlling the largest number of
Legislative Assembly seats. The FMLN has controlled the mayor's offices
in many of the large cities of El Salvador since 1997, including the
capitol of San Salvador and the neighboring city of Santa Tecla. The
current FMLN mayor of San Salvador is Violeta Menjívar, the first female mayor of San Salvador,
who was elected in a narrow victory in 2006. The current FMLN mayor of
Santa Tecla is Oscar Ortiz,
who has served in that position since 2000.
In the legislative elections,
held on March 16, 2003, the FMLN won 34.0% of the popular vote and 31
out of 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly of El
Salvador, becoming the political party with the most assembly
members. The FMLN's candidate in the March 21, 2004 presidential election
, Schafik Handal, won 35.6% of the vote, but was defeated by Antonio
Saca of the Nationalist Republican Alliance.
In the March 12, 2006 legislative election,
the FMLN won 39.7% of the popular vote and 32 out of 84 legislative
assembly seats. The FMLN also retained the mayor's seats in the largest
cities of El Salvador, San
Salvador and Santa Tecla, as well as hundreds of
other municipalities throughout the country. Two months before the
elections of 2009, however, the FMLN lost the mayoralty of the capital,
San Salvador.[1]
At the January 18, 2009
legislative elections, FMLN won 42.6% of the vote and 35 seats. FMLN
is now the largest party in the Salvadoran legislature, though it does
not have a governing majority.
On March 15, 2009, the FMLN's candidate Mauricio Funes won the
presidential elections. He was inaugurated in June 2009 as the first
president coming from the FMLN party.
Post-war
splits and internal changes
At the end of the civil war in 1992, the FMLN became a legal
political party. At the end of the war, the FMLN still comprised the
five political parties -- FPL, CP, ERP, RN, PRTC -- each of which
retained their own organizational structure but with a matriarch. During
the civil war, and continuing in the post-war period, people did not
directly join the FMLN per-se, but joined one of the five component
groups.
1994 - ERP and
RN leaders split
After the end of the war, it became clear that there were serious
divisions within the FMLN, some of which had existed during the war but
had been somewhat hidden from the general public. Particularly it became
clear between 1992 and 1994 that the leaders of the ERP and the RN had a
number of disagreements with the leaders of the other parties. Soon
after the 1994 Legislative Assembly elections, the leaders of the ERP
and the RN left the FMLN, and at least initially taking many of their
members with them. The leaders of this split (including FMLN commandante
Joaquin Villalobos of the ERP) then formed the Partido Democrata
(Democratic Party), which was short-lived. Many members of the ERP and
RN who had left in 1994 then returned to the FMLN.
1995
- Dissolving the five organizations to become a single party
After the 1994 elections and the 1994 split, momentum grew to unify
the FMLN into a single organization without separate internal parties.
In 1995, the five parties that had formed the FMLN dissolved themselves.
It is at that point that the FPL, CP, ERP, RN and PRTC ceased to exist,
and what remained was a unified FMLN. Then people could join the FMLN
directly instead of having to join one of its component parties. While
this decision liquidated the parallel organizational structures inside
the FMLN, there still remained strong loyalties along historic
organizational lines, some of which can still be seen today.
Renovadores split
In the 1999 presidential election, the FMLN ran Facundo
Guardado as their candidate. This was a contentious decision, and
many in the FMLN did not support Guardado, as they believed that his
politics were moving to the right. Out of this internal conflict, two
organized tendencies emerged in the FMLN - the Renovadores ("Renovators" or "Renewal Movement") and the Coriente Revolucionario y Socialista (CRS - Revolutionary
Socialist Current). The two main leaders of the CRS were the historic
FMLN leaders Schafik Handal and Salvador Sanchez
Ceren. The main leader of the Renovadores was Facundo Guardado. As a
charismatic former FPL commander, Guardado had a base of supporters in
the FMLN. He criticized the historic leadership as being too communist and called for a renovated ideology.
The CRS criticized Guardado for advocating social democratic politics and for not being clearly
against neoliberalism. After a couple years of
internal turmoil, in which the Revolutioanry Socialist Current won the
majority of the internal elections in the organization, Guardado became
more frustrated, publicly attacked the FMLN leaders he didn't agree
with, and took actions contrary to decisions the party had made. He was
ultimately expelled and some of his supporters left the FMLN. Guardado
tried to form the Renovadores as its own political party, but they
received negligible support in the 2003 election and then ceased to
exist as a party.
After the Renovadores vs Revolutionary Socialist Current
factionalism, the FMLN's leadership decided to stop organized internal
tendencies, and none have emerged since then.
2005 - FDR split
In 2004 and 2005, the FMLN experienced another split. Five FMLN
Legislative Assembly members, along with a number of their supporters,
left the FMLN to form a new political party, the Democratic
Revolutionary Front (in Spanish: Frente Democratico Revolucionario).
Some of the principal leaders of this split were Ileana Rogel and
Francisco Jovel. The people who left to form the FDR chose this name
because it has a legacy in the Salvadoran revolutionary movement; an
organization by the same name was formed under the leadership of the
FMLN during the civil war to bring together parties and individuals
doing legal political work during the civil war. As opposed to previous
splits from the FMLN which openly proclaimed that they were
ideologically 'center' or 'center-left' or were no longer self-declared
'revolutionaries', the people who split to form the FDR claimed to still
be part of the revolutionary legacy of the FMLN. In the 2006 elections,
no FDR candidates won office, except for the incumbent mayor of Nejapa,
Rene Canjura. Canjura was a popular FMLN mayor of the municipality of
Nejapa for three consecutive periods, and therefore under FMLN statutes,
would not have been eligible to run for a fourth consecutive period. So
he left the FMLN and successfully ran in 2006 as the FDR candidate.
Other than him, no FDR candidates won any electoral victories in 2006.
2009
- FMLN Candidate Elected President
On Sunday, March 15, 2009 an FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, was elected President of El Salvador.[2]
*****
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