CISPES Statement on Murder of FMLN Official

Blogpost

On the evening of Tuesday, June 29 in Apopa, a large working class municipality just outside of San Salvador, a member of the City Council from the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party was gunned down as he returned to his home in the Valle del Sol neighborhood.

The murder of René Antonio Díaz Orellana comes just weeks after the mayor of Apopa, José Elías Hernández of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party, was arrested along with dozens of municipal employees, for collaborating with local gangs. As reported by Insight Crime, the Attorney General’s office alleges that the mayor and other municipal employees “offered goods and employment to gang members – paid for with public funds – in exchange for the gang members’ votes and promises to reduce violence levels… Prosecutors have also accused the mayor of ordering the November 1, 2013, murder of a gang member.”

In the week leading up to the assassination of Díaz Orellana, he and other municipal employees had denounced that they were receiving calls to their personal telephones threatening them with death if they did not abandon their work with the municipal government. Local media sources are reporting that the threats were made in retaliation for arrests of and charges brought against the mayor earlier this month.

At this time, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) wishes to express its deepest sympathy to the friends and family of René Antonio Díaz Orellana, members of the FMLN base committees in Apopa, FMLN leadership, and the party as a whole for this devastating, violent loss.

We also wish to express our indignation over the apparent political and retaliatory motives of the murder. At a time when rising murder rates and gang violence are terrorizing the nation, allegations like those made against the mayor of Apopa and other members of his municipal government raise major concerns about the possible collaboration between right-wing leadership in the country and criminal groups for personal or political gain.

We echo the demands of the FMLN Political Commission and call on El Salvador’s authorities to investigate and arrest both the material and intellectual authors of this heinous crime and bring them to justice.

Every life lost to violence and crime in El Salvador is devastating and painful. As CISPES, we wish to recognize and express our solidarity with all of the youth groups, communities, unions, campesino organizations, women’s and feminist movements, LGBTQI activists, environmentalists, other social movement organizations, public functionaries and all individuals struggling and working every day to build an alternative in their country and to dismantle the structural causes of poverty, inequality, impunity, and violence.

We reiterate our commitment to organize in the United States to call on our elected officials to end policies towards El Salvador that create, contribute, and exacerbate systemic oppression in the country and throughout the region.

Compañero René Antonio Díaz Orellana, ¡Presente!

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