Chavez grants fuel deal to El Salvador: Tuesday 21 March 2006

Chavez grants fuel deal to El Salvador: Tuesday 21 March 2006
7:48 Makka Time, 4:48 GMT    

The deal would benefit some 22 cities and towns

The government of Venezuela has signed a deal with a group of  mayors from El Salvador, agreeing to sell fuel under preferential terms to parts of the Central American country.

The oil deal was signed between the Venezuelan state oil firm subsidiary PDV Caribe and the Intermunicipal Energy Association for El Salvador, which officials said was formed by mayors of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front party, or FMLN.

Details of the amount of fuel to be sold were not immediately available.

But Salvadoran officials from FMLN said they hoped to receive about 79,500 litres a month of diesel and gasoline under Venezuela's Petrocaribe initiative, which sells oil directly to Caribbean countries with generous financing.

Under this agreement, cities headed by the FMLN will pay 60% of their oil bill within 90 days while paying for the rest in kind through agricultural products and other locally made goods, said Carlos Ruiz, mayor of Soyapango.

Ruiz said the deal should benefit about 22 cities and towns.

Violeta Menjivar, the mayor-elect of San Salvador, said that oil shipments under the accord were to begin "as soon as possible".

"Great hopes are awakening in our country," she said.

'Deals with the Devil'

Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, used the occasion to criticise US-backed free-trade agreements such as the one El Salvador joined earlier this month, the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

"They're making deals with the Devil, the Devil himself," Chavez told his audience during a signing ceremony on Monday.

"We will defeat imperialism, sooner rather than later"

Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela

Chavez argues that US-proposed pacts such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas would help big US companies at the expense of Latin America's poor.

"The FTAA is dead," said Chavez, who has joined Cuba in proposing a "Bolivarian Alternative" trade pact based on socialist principles.

"We will defeat imperialism, sooner rather than later."

Chavez paid tribute at the ceremony to Shafik Handal, the FMLN leader who died in January of a heart attack and who as a rebel years ago fought US-backed troops during El Salvador's civil war.

The FMLN, once backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union, battled conservative US-backed governments until a peace treaty in 1992, when the FMLN transformed itself into a political party.


AP
Related: El Salvador poll ends in violence: Thursday 16 March 2006
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9D301232-1D9C-4B9E-8EAD-98851F24173C.htm

The FMLN relinquished guerrilla tactics in 1992

Police clashed with protesters in El Salvador after closely fought municipal elections, with a former guerrilla movement claiming victory in the capital's mayoral race.

Police used rubber bullets and tear gas on Thursday when supporters of the declared winner, Violeta Menijavar, approached a hotel in San Salvador where the final results were being declared.

The election tribunal said Menjivar, of the left-wing former guerrilla Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), won the election by only 59 votes. Menjivar had 64,881 votes to 64,822 for Rodrigo Samayoa of the right-wing ruling Arena party.

Samayoa's supporters shouted "fraud" when the results were announced at the hotel, which the police had fortified with metal fences.

Tension has been high in San Salvador since Arena held off significant FMLN advances in mid-term elections last week.

Left-wing optimism

Arena has won four successive presidential elections in San Salvador with current incumbent Antonio Saca becoming president in 2004.

Long the second-largest party, the FMLN had hoped to continue a trend of victories for left-wing movements in countries such as Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia by winning the congressional vote on Sunday.

But with most votes counted, Arena had won 34 seats and the FMLN 32.

The tight result comes after recent closely fought electoral contests in Haiti and Costa Rica and developments will be  watched in Washington.

The FMLN hoped to continue a regional left-wing revival

El Salvador is perhaps the closest US ally in Latin America, with several hundred troops in Iraq.

It was the first country to sign the Central American Free Trade Agreement, while other states held out.

The FMLN fought a series of US-backed right-wing governments in a 12-year civil war that killed about 75,000 people before peace accords were signed in 1992. It then disarmed and formed a political party but it still opposes closer ties with Washington.

Reuters
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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/06B1CFC2-A9E9-4717-923B-8B45715179FA.htm
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