Word: escalones
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Last week the troops of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.) embarrassed President Alfredo Cristiani by seizing control of the wealthy Escalon district and then melting away again. As rebels burned several luxurious homes and sniped at slowly advancing government troops from windows, hundreds of foreigners and wealthy Salvadorans fled the country. The F.M.L.N. even carried the battle to the skies: for the first time in the ten- year-old conflict, the insurgents fired a surface-to-air missile at an air force jet. The sharply escalating violence not only raised fresh questions about Nicaragua's role in arming...
...targeting the lush and peaceful enclave of Escalon, which spreads elegantly along the western fringes of the capital, the insurgents brought the war home to the wealthy. Using luxury cars as barricades against the army's armored personnel carriers and light tanks, the rebels seized about 40 houses. For the most part, they carefully obeyed F.M.L.N. orders not to harm civilians. American officials warned F.M.L.N. representatives in Mexico City and San Salvador against endangering the lives of U.S. diplomats. None were hurt, but some envoys had close calls. On Thursday a chartered jet evacuated 234 civilian workers and dependents...
...Escalon offensive rattled Cristiani, who only three days earlier had held a press conference to display a cache of weapons, including 24 surface- to-air missiles, found in the wreckage of a twin-engine Cessna that had crashed some 70 miles east of San Salvador. The plane almost certainly took off from Nicaragua, bolstering Cristiani's conviction that Ortega's Sandinista government was supplying arms to the F.M.L.N. despite a personal promise to Cristiani last August not to do so. Cristiani suspended diplomatic relations with Nicaragua and refused to attend a summit of Central American Presidents scheduled for this weekend...
...streaming out of Mejicanos' streets, badly battered by days of intensive government firepower. Where the rebels went, or how they managed to elude the government troops, no one seemed to know. But two days later, they re-emerged from the gullies and ravines that border the city's exclusive Escalon district and took control of several blocks of the neighborhood, which is filled with luxurious ranch-style homes set off by manicured lawns. As the government sent in its helicopters and light tanks, it became clear that the rebels had switched tactics and were showing the rich that...
...rebels proved they can disrupt life in El Salvador whenever they choose. They have also shown that the government is all too willing to use its heavy firepower when the war is being fought in poor neighborhoods but is reluctant to strafe and bomb a rich enclave like Escalon, where support for the governing ARENA party is high...