El Salvador to give pensions to ex-rebel fighters
Mar 17, 2012, 12:18 AM
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) – El Salvador’s government is giving $50-per-month pensions to thousands of elderly former leftist rebels who fought in the country’s 1980-1992 civil war.
The office of President Mauricio Funes says more than 2,600 former rebels over age 70 will get the pension.
A survey has identified 25,401 former combatants of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front who are still alive. Nearly 90 percent of them are living in poverty.
A Friday statement from Presidential aide Alex Segovia says that “we know it is not enough.”
The rebel movement transformed into a political party following the 1992 peace accords that ended the war. In 2009, it ran Funes for president although he was not a member of the party and didn’t fight in the war.
(This version CORRECTS 5th paragraph to say Funes was not a member of the party, rather than ‘is not.’)
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