SubscribeCHENEY: Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had -- guerrilla insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress.
The human drive for freedom, the determination of these people to vote, was unbelievable. And the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as soon as they left, the voters would come back and get in line and would not be denied the right to vote.
And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.
The power of that concept is enormous. And it will apply in Afghanistan, and it will apply as well in Iraq.
The General Assembly of 1974 was long on talk and short on action. For seven days, leaders of unelected governments waxed hypocritically about the "ideal" of democracy. Between the lines, however, the message of the dictators was clear: As long as freedom was a threat to tyranny, democracy would remain an "ideal" — not a reality.
Well, my fellow colleagues, today in the Americas, democracy is a reality.
Over the past three decades, the people of Latin America and the Caribbean have transformed our hemisphere through their desire to live in liberty.
The last ambassador to El Salvador, Rose Likens, warned that an FMLN government would have consequences for US-El Salvador relations. State Department functionary Dan Fisk compared Schafik Handal to "firures of the past" such as Daniel Ortega and Rios Montt. When current US Ambassador Douglas Barclay met with Schafik Handal, and the FMLN later published their picture together, he requested they retract the photo and not use it anymore. On February 6, the Assistant Secretary of Western Hemispheric Affairs for the U.S. State Department, Roger Noriega, said: "I think it is fair to note that the FMLN campaign has emphasized its differences with [the U.S] concerning CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) and other subjects. And we know the history of this political movement, and for this reason it is fair that the Salvadoran people consider what type of relations a new government could have with us."
The Special Envoy of the White House to Latin America, Otto Reich, laid it directly on the line on March 13, in a telephone interview conducted from the ARENA offices in San Salvador: "We would not be able to have the same confidence in an El Salvador led by a person who is obviously an admirer of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, as we have today in (ARENA President) Flores." Reich continued to warn that a win by the FMLN would cause a reevaluation of the United States relationship with El Salvador.
In the days before the election, the major daily newspapers ran front page articles about the efforts of United States congressmen such as Dan Burton of Indiana, William Diaz Ballart of Florida, and Thomas Tancredo of Colorado introduced bills threatening remesas and immigration should the FMLN take the Presidency.
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posted by claudius at 10:30 PM on February 5, 2007