Dana Rohrabacher, 11 March 2009:
Madam Speaker, El Salvador is a good friend of the United States. And after we suffered the attacks of 9/11, most Salvadorans kept us in their prayers. But one group felt differently.
The FMLN, a pro terrorist, Left wing party in El Salvador, issued a communiqué that the U.S., because of its policies, was itself to blame for being attacked. The U.S. embassy publicly denounced that declaration, yet the FMLN is now poised to possibly enter into the government in El Salvador.
Four days after 9/11, the FMLN had a march in their capital city to celebrate the 9/11 attack by Al-Qaeda and to burn the American flag. The leader of that march was Salvador Sanchez Ceren, who today is the FMLN's candidate for El Salvadoran Vice President.
El Salvador's election is on Sunday. If an ally of Al-Qaeda and Iran comes to power in El Salvador, the national security interests of the United States will require certain immigration restrictions and controls over the flow of the $4 billion in annual remittances sent from the U.S. back home to El Salvador.
Let me note, that my purpose is not to punish Salvadorans, but if a pro-terrorism government takes power, it will be imperative to review our policies in order to protect the national security of the United States.
[...]
Similar statements (threats) have been issued by Connie Mack, Trent Franks, Paul Broun, and Gus Bilirakis. On 12 March, Mr. Rohrabacher found time to launch yet another warning to the improverished population of El Salvador.
All of these messages carry similar themes of the FMLN being an evil communist, pro-terrorist party that hates freedom, ARENA being a good capitalist, anti-terrorist party that loves freedom, and a formal threat that the U.S. will cut off remittances to El Salvador if the people of that country democratically elect the FMLN. These threats are nothing more than imperialist meddling and should be seen as such. During the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992), the U.S.-backed right-wing government of El Salvador and its proxy death squads were found to be responsible for 95% of all atrocities according to the UN Truth Commission. ARENA itself was founded by none other than Roberto D'Aubuisson, the man who ordered to assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.
These threats from GOP Congressman are just the latest disgraceful attempt at intervention in the internal political affairs of El Salvador. It should now be known as common knowledge that U.S. Special Forces and the CIA gave birth to the death squads in the 1960s under JFK's Alliance for Progress and that the U.S. remained complicit in the training of torture techniques and other acts of brutality throughout the course of the civil war. Ever since the war officially ended in 1992, the U.S. has helped keep ARENA, the death squad party, in power through many means. In the 2004 elections in El Salvador, threats to cut off remittances if the FMLN won were made by prominent Bush administration officials as well as GOP Congressman such as Tommy Tancredo, Dana Rohrabacher, and Dan Burton.
This time around, we must not allow the GOP to get their fascist-loving tendencies get in the way of Salvadoran popular will. We must show our solidarity with the people of El Salvador as they vote in an election that could possibly mark the end to rule by the oligarchy and U.S. imperialists.