Word: aubuisson
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...late last week. As up to 1.7 million voters prepared to trek to the polls, the seven-man race was still considered a toss-up between the controversial front runners, José Napoleón Duarte, 58, of the center-left Christian Democratic Party (P.D.C.), and Roberto d'Aubuisson, 40, leader of the ultrarightist Nationalist Republican Alliance, known as ARENA. There was a good chance that neither candidate would win the outright majority required for election, and that a runoff vote would be necessary within 30 days after Sunday's results were certified...
When I remind him of these accusations, he becomes furious: "The death squads are people like you, like [former] U.S. Ambassador Robert White. They are everyone who helps block economic aid that would save the displaced from dying of hunger." According to D'Aubuisson, the death squads do not exist. What about the 1,259 assassinations that, according to the archbishopric, the death squads carried out in 1983? "Those are, perhaps, Salvadoran Communists who died in Nicaragua fighting against Somoza, and whose names are now exploited by disinformation campaigns...
...Communism. The first one to get into power will call the other, and together they will give the country to the U.S.S.R." When I tell him that Señor Duarte assured me that "if ARENA wins the elections, they will get rid of us all," D'Aubuisson sneers. "They are scared to death because they know we are going to beat them." The words fear and guts are very important in the major's vocabulary. "The guerrillas' intention is to capture me alive. Two guerrillas who were in charge of kidnaping my mother...
Duarte, a founder in 1961 of the Christian Democratic Party and ex-mayor of San Salvador, has been in prison and in exile. He was tortured by the military. Unlike D'Aubuisson, he does not tell jokes or use dirty words. In a country where everyone preserves a sense of humor even when beset by the worst adversities, Duarte is always serious. He suffers from a chronic sadness, deepened these days by the recent death of his mother...
...party headquarters, where he received me, it is also necessary to navigate past a barrier of armed bodyguards. "D'Aubuisson sees Communists under the bed, on the table, when he's awake and in his dreams," Duarte says. "His theory that the tragedy of El Salvador will be resolved by total war is pure demagoguery." Duarte does not enter into dialogue. He carries on a monologue. He represents, in Latin America, the most progressive trend of the Christian Democratic line. "An exclusively military solution to the war does not exist. It will have to be negotiated. But first...