
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 10, 1991                   TAG: 9102100017
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR                                LENGTH: Medium

ARSONISTS BURN NEWSPAPER/ DIRECTOR SAYS SALVADOR'S GOVERNMENT, MILITARY

Arsonists on Saturday destroyed the only Salvadoran newspaper that covered the rebel side of the civil war, and the director of the paper blamed the military and the right-wing government.

Neighbors said a government helicopter circled the area before the fire began at the offices of Diario Latino.

President Alfredo Cristiani's civilian government promised an investigation and called the accusations of military involvement "irresponsible speculation."

Fire officials said someone doused a storage area with gasoline and kerosene before dawn and set it ablaze.

Employees who gathered outside the smoldering plant later Saturday said it appeared the paper's files had been searched before the fire, and documents and photographs were taken.

It was unclear whether the 101-year-old newspaper would resume publication. The newspaper, an afternoon daily, had an estimated circulation of 6,000 to 9,000 copies.

The blaze destroyed presses, computers and office equipment.

Its director, Francisco Valencia, told the employees, "We know who it was, it was the people who commit massacres with impunity, the same people who assassinate priests, who attack unions, who attack anyone who doesn't agree with the ideology of the government and this country's power groups."

Right-wing death squads linked to the military are blamed for killing nearly half the 73,000 people who have died in El Salvador's civil war, including dozens of journalists.

The last left-leaning newspapers in El Salvador were put out of business a decade ago by right-wing bombing and terror attacks.

Diario Latino's employees took over the newspaper in July 1989 after the owners went broke. The staff turned it into a more freewheeling paper that presented many points of view, including that of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front rebels.

Diario Latino reporters were the only local newspaper journalists who traveled to rebel-held territory to report the guerrilla side of the decade-long war.

by CNB