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El Salvador's softened rebels see chance of power
Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:32pm EST
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By Catherine Bremer
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador (Reuters) - Belky Hernandez was three days old when U.S.-backed government troops shot dead her mother, a Marxist guerrilla, in a forest in war-ravaged El Salvador. Her father, also a rebel, was already dead.
Seventeen years later, she runs a stall selling civil war memorabilia and mementos of Cold War revolutionaries Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Alongside them, she now sells campaign T-shirts for Mauricio Funes, the man she hopes will heal old wounds by bringing a party of softened former rebels to power for the first time in presidential elections in March.
Funes, a bespectacled former TV journalist is the first presidential candidate fielded by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front who is not himself a former guerrilla. An eloquent center-leftist, he reported on El Salvador's 12-year civil war but never fought in it.
Leading in opinion polls, Funes promises to pursue market-friendly policies and get on well with Washington if he wins. He appeals to pro-U.S. voters who never before supported the FMLN, while maintaining strong support from long-time loyalists like Hernandez.
"We remember what they fought for. Before, the war was in the streets and now it's inside us," Hernandez said in the former FMLN rebel stronghold town of Suchitoto, ringed by forest where her parents and hundreds of others died.
Since the war ended with 1992 peace accords, the FMLN has lost three presidential elections to the right-wing and pro-U.S. Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA.
Yet as it has moved closer to the political center, the FMLN has become the largest party in the national assembly and some voters more concerned about poverty than ideology feel it is time to give it a chance in power.
"You feel you can trust Funes because he's a civilian and he was never in politics until now," said 83-year-old building site laborer Jose Amaya at a Funes rally in San Salvador.
Funes' opponents fear El Salvador will join a hard left-wing bloc of Latin American countries led by Venezuela if he wins, but he dismisses the claims and the party faithful have dropped much of the anti-American rhetoric of the past.
"This is not Nicaragua or Venezuela. We have our own ideology. We don't want to be enemies with America. We just want help for the poor and better security," said Hernandez.
Polls show Funes up to 15 points ahead of ARENA rival and ex-police chief Rodrigo Avila ahead of the March 15 election.
His political TV show and hard-hitting reporting style have made him a well-known face here with a wide base. Backers say picking him to run has persuaded many middle-ground voters that the FMLN can now be trusted with power.
"The fact is that Funes has boosted a lot of hopes," said Walter Navarete, 42, who joined the FMLN at the age of 14 in the city of Cojutepeque and fought into his mid-20s.
"This is the closest we've ever been."
WHEELCHAIR BEGGARS Continued...
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