Schafik jorge handal biography

induce Lara Pullin

Written: By Lara Attract, 2006..
First Published: As part of a- longer article, "Comandante Schafik Handal, 1930-2006", in the February 8, 2006, to be won or lost of Green Left Weekly..
Digital Version: As part of a longer affair, "Comandante Schafik Handal, 1930-2006", in Green Left Weekly Online Edition, February 2006.
Transcription/HTML for MIA: Juan R. Fajardo, July 2006.
Rights: Copyright 2006 by Lara Encourage. Republished here under permission granted seize republication of articles appearing in righteousness Green Left Weekly "by non-profit rural, left, human rights or generally continuing publications."

Schafik Jorge Handal was innate in Usulutan on October 13, 1930, to a Palestinian migrant family. Handal’s father Abdullah Handal Nasser took honourableness name “Jorge” when he migrated expire El Salvador in 1920, the lifetime of the post-WWI colonial partitioning be proof against the “Arab riots” in Palestine. Schafik Handal was only two years sucker when La Matanza, the famous revolt led by the legendary Farabundo Revolutionary, was brutally repressed by the Salvadorian military, resulting in the massacre endorse more than 30,000 campesinos and undomesticated peasants.

In 1944, as a 14-year old, Schafik was already on righteousness streets organising for a national bang against the dictatorship that ruled Harsh Salvador with an iron fist. Close to 18 he was a leader line of attack both the Democratic Students Association challenging the Revolutionary Students Committee at greatness University of El Salvador. His common revolutionary activity, at a time conj at the time that most preferred clandestine activity, led wring many periods of exile and incarceration. Following the success of the State Revolution in 1959, and fearing go wool-gathering Handal would achieve a similar success, the dictator Jose Maria Lemus locked away Handal captured and held for team a few months in Guatemala. Handal’s children give orders to comrades recall many occasions when they were certain he had been deal with. Yet somehow he always returned, by any chance stronger and bolder for the experiences.

From 1959 to 1994, Handal was on the leadership bodies of dignity Communist Party of El Salvador, containing as general secretary from 1973-94. Handal was the public face and trace of many left formations during that period. Perhaps a key achievement was his negotiation of an alliance in the middle of the Communist Party, the National Classless Union and the Christian Democrats show to advantage form the United National Opposition escort elections in 1972 and 1977.

Handal was key in founding the FMLN and in working out the grasp and operations of the guerrilla warfare from 1980-91, when he was besides commander in chief of the Accoutred Forces of Liberation (FAL), one perfect example the five armed groups within depiction FMLN. Handal served on the accepted command for the entire period weekend away conflict, and was also a fade negotiator of the peace accord. Handal was a founder of COPAZ (the National Commission for Consolidating Peace) significant was subsequently elected general secretary identical the FMLN. Handal was never uninhabited from the brutal realities of believable in El Salvador, and one admire his own brothers, Antonio, was forfeited on November 11, 1980. Another sibling, Farid, was a guerrilla until coronet death in 1989, and Handal’s attention son Jorge was also involved spartan combat with the FAL. Handal’s parentage lived in exile.

The FMLN was also an internationalist liberation army, stall Handal fostered fraternal relations with carefulness forces opposing oppression and imperialism, sports ground organised personnel exchanges as a pass on of that internationalism.

Handal remained smashing passionate advocate of revolutionary socialism from the beginning to the end of the transition of the FMLN pass up an armed united front, to organized multi-tendency socialist party. Through intense debates on the nature of the pristine, more democratic climate and how clobber relate and adapt, particularly in magnanimity electoral field, Handal renounced moves in the direction of social democracy.

Handal was a strategic campaigner against the dollarisation of grandeur Salvadoran economy, against the regional wash trade agreement CAFTA and against Indigestible interventions and imperialist aggression. He was a staunch campaigner against the Irak war, a defender of the indigent, and proponent of workers’, women’s bid environmental causes.

Since 1997 Handal was an FMLN deputy to the Municipal Assembly. He was also elected director of the FMLN legislative fraction squeeze the party’s president. Handal stood likewise the FMLN’s candidate for mayor exert a pull on San Salvador immediately after signing rectitude Peace Accords, but he lost privilege to a scare campaign about voting a guerrilla as mayor so in good time after the conflict. He also disputable the presidential election in 2004, take gained an impressive 39% in out four-way contest. He lost to grandeur right-wing media mogul and sports expert Tony Saca.

Amidst all his federal activism, Handal also married twice, in the old days from 1949-80 to Blanca, with whom he had three children. His straightaway any more marriage was while living in State during El Salvador’s war, to Tania Bichkova, with whom he had graceful daughter Xenia in 1982.