Written by Alex Newman
El Salvador's Vice President Salvador Sanchez Ceren speaks during the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Farabundo |
With brazen backing from the globalist establishment, socialist despots, as well as U.S. and international crime syndicates, “former” communist-terrorist “commander” Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the Obama administration-subsidized FMLN appears set to win the presidency in El Salvador’s upcoming runoff election this weekend. If he wins, as is widely expected based on recent polls, the mass-murderer — a close ally of the communist Castro regime in Cuba — will become the latest ex-Marxist guerrilla to lead a U.S. taxpayer-funded Latin American national government.
Sánchez Cerén with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a ruthless Marxist terror group backed by the Soviets that became a political party, won a plurality of the vote on February 2. If he wins the upcoming March 9 run-off election against Norman Quijano of the more liberty-friendly ARENA party, critics around the world and domestic victims of the terror organization are warning that the major problems ravishing El Salvador will only accelerate.
In a recent heart-breaking TV advertisement by victims of Sánchez Cerén’s reign of terror during his time as “commander” of the Soviet-backed FMLN, the family members of Salvadorians slain by the presidential hopeful point out that, as a mass-murderer, he is not constitutionally qualified for the office. Sánchez Cerén recently apologized for the slaughter during the civil war, which ended in 1992, saying, “Out of the inside of my heart I apologize for the damage we put them through during the armed conflict.” For the victims’ families, however, that was not enough.
“With me are hundreds of families from San Vicente; all we are asking is that Sánchez Cerén reveal where our relatives are buried that he admits to having ordered killed,” says Maritza Herrera Rebollo, the daughter of a former education minister who was murdered in 1979 on orders from the FMLN “commander” and current presidential candidate. “As citizens we have a duty and as victims we have the right to tell you who Sánchez Cerén is, because we love our country and because the death of our loved ones cannot be in vain.” Another victim in the ad says: “Today we still do not know where to find our relatives that Sánchez Cerén ordered killed.”
The FMLN’s open connections to dictators such as Castro and Venezuela’s socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro, who unconstitutionally showers funding on the group with his regime’s “petro-dollars,” are also troubling to analysts. Sánchez Cerén even claimed recently that the embattled regime in Caracas — currently trying to brutally suppress a popular uprising by terrorizing, killing, and imprisoning the opposition — is “a light that will illuminate Latin America, the Caribbean and the world.”
The Salvadorian mass-murderer’s fondness for other socialist tyrants and his militant anti-Americanism are, of course, well known. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, Sánchez Cerén even led a mob celebration and U.S. flag burning ceremony as Americans mourned the loss of thousands of innocent civilians. Now, he wants to consolidate power, smash the opposition, and rule El Salvador like his mentor Castro oppresses the people of Cuba.
The ruling party’s widely acknowledged links to ongoing Marxist narco-terror campaigns across Latin America — especially the murderous FARC in Colombia, among others — are also stoking major fears about the future of El Salvador and the entire region. One of FMLN’s bosses, José Luis Merino, also a key Sánchez Cerén minion, serves as the coordinator of the party’s relationship with the communist terror group. Merino, whose role was exposed publicly after documents were recovered from a FARC terror base, was caught facilitating the group’s drug trafficking operations, weapons procurement, and more.
Perhaps even more troubling, at least to Americans, are the FMLN’s well-documented links to powerful criminal syndicates operating inside the United States — particularly the Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13 for short. The infamous street gang — notorious for murder, extortion, violence, child prostitution, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and more — terrorizes communities all across the United States and El Salvador. It has also been busy working hard to ensure FMLN success in the dubious elections.
Current Salvadorian President Mauricio Funes, also with the FMLN but a former journalist who was viewed as less radical than the ex-terrorist commander seeking to replace him, recently admitted that he personally approved payoffs and other benefits to MS-13 bosses in exchange for their political support. Other evidence exposing the brutal gang’s deep ties to FMLN and its regime in El Salvador has also been recently leaked to the press — official documents, videos, recordings, and even correspondence between Funes and an MS-13 boss promising big money and special privileges to gangsters.
While massive taxpayer funding to the FMLN regime from the Obama administration will almost certainly continue to flow, if not grow, Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela, faced with economic collapse and full-blown rebellion, may not be able to keep propping up El Salvador’s ruling communists with oil money for much longer. If and when those handouts from the “Bolivarian revolution” regime in Caracas stop, or even if they continue flowing, analysts suggest the FMLN could become increasingly reliant on the proceeds from criminal activities to shore up its rule.
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