Zamora, Ungo Get a Salvador Platform : 2 Leftists Form Alliance With Small Social Democratic Party

SAN SALVADOR â€”  Leftist civilian political leaders allied to armed rebels fighting the government in the countryside announced an alliance Sunday with a small Social Democratic Party, thereby gaining a legal political platform and a means to participate in elections in El Salvador.

Guillermo Ungo and Ruben Zamora, leaders of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, said they do not expect to run candidates in National Assembly elections scheduled for next March but have not made a firm decision. They said they will use the “convergence,� as the new alliance is called, to press for a negotiated solution to the civil war, now nearly eight years old.

The front, known by its Spanish initials FDR, remains allied with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front guerrillas fighting to topple the U.S.-backed government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. Ungo and Zamora recently returned from seven years of exile to begin openly organizing leftist political parties.

Confer With U.S. Envoy

Meanwhile, the two FDR leaders met Saturday with U.S. Ambassador Edwin G. Corr and requested visas to travel to the United States to visit the United Nations and Capitol Hill. Because of their alliance with the guerrillas, Ungo has not been allowed in the United States since 1985 and Zamora has not been granted a visa since 1983.

This was the first meeting between the FDR leaders and a high-ranking American official since 1982, Ungo said.

An embassy spokesman described the two-hour meeting as “businesslike� but declined to give details. Ungo said the ambassador restated the U.S. and Salvadoran governments’ position that the FDR cannot maintain its alliance with the rebels and work in the legal political system.

A source who attended the meeting said Corr also stressed that the leftists should participate in elections.

“We aren’t going into elections,� the source said. “We are going to work to overcome the fear that exists here. Why should we enter a test at such a disadvantage, when there is so much fear?�

In the week since they arrived, Ungo and Zamora have been meeting with students, union groups, political parties and business and professional groups. Their arrival appears to have breathed new energy into leftists, but their message has not filtered down to the population at large. Only about 300 people attended a ceremony held Sunday to mark the alliance with the Social Democratic Party.

The reaction from the far right, however, has been very hostile, not only against Ungo and Zamora but against the army and government for letting them return.

An unsigned newspaper ad last week showed photographs of victims of land mines under the headline: “These Are Some of the Victims of the Assassins . . . Commanded by Ungo and Zamora.� The ad, addressed to the armed forces, said that if the army is incapable of winning the war, “the people will take justice into their own hands. . . .�

Another threatening ad showed a photograph of rebel leaders taken after peace talks with the government last month. Concentric circles like targets were drawn around Ungo’s and Zamora’s heads.

Military officials say they are “very worried� about the return of the leftist politicians, who they believe are campaigning on behalf of the guerrillas. They warn of a possible resurgence of political violence.

“It makes me furious to see Guillermo Ungo on television,� a high-ranking army officer said.

Businessmen and housewives of the extreme right, meanwhile, announced the formation of an anti-Communist group called National Unity for Freedom. A similar rightist alliance in the early 1980s--the Broad National Front--was believed to have operated as a political and intelligence front for death squads composed of military and paramilitary groups that killed thousands of suspected leftists.

Ungo ended his weeklong visit late Sunday, leaving the country as he had planned. Zamora is scheduled to leave Thursday.