Right-wing politician Roberto d'Aubuisson was buried Saturday with state honors as El Salvador observed three days of national mourning to mark the controversial leader's death.
D'Aubuisson died Thursday at age 48 of a sudden heart attack brought on by a yearlong battle with terminal cancer. He was buried in San Salvador's General Cemetery after the three branches of Salvadoran government held a ceremony for him at the National Assembly.The president of the National Assembly, Roberto Angulo, rendered the official honors in a speech that characterized d'Aubuisson as "one of the great leaders of our history."
"He consecrated his life in defense of peace, democracy and liberty, " Angulo said in his speech before the three branches of government.
Opposition figures, who debated and cursed d'Aubuisson throughout his political career for his part in promoting death squads, remained silent out of respect for his family.
But a rebel radio broadcast originating in northeastern El Salvador said d'Aubuisson would be remembered for all the crimes he committed.
In San Salvador, FMLN rebel party leader Joaquin Villalobos told a group of reporters pressing him on the issue that "only time and history will judge" d'Aubuisson.
Pallbearers during the ceremony included President Alfredo Cristiani, Vice President Francisco Merino, Foreign Minister Manuel Pacas and San Salvador Mayor Armando Calderon Sol, all members of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance Party, or Arena.
D'Aubuisson founded Arena in 1981 and built it in less than a decade into the country's most powerful party.
Still known to his followers as "The Major," d'Aubuisson was expelled from the armed forces during a purge carried out by reform-minded officers who staged a 1979 coup. The coup marked the beginning of the end of half a century of military dictatorship in this small Central American nation and coincided with the outbreak of civil war with rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN.
U.S. and Salvadoran officials accused d'Aubuisson of organizing right-wing death squads that killed thousands of suspected leftists during the early 1980s. He was implicated in the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero but never brought to trial.
At the ceremony Saturday, d'Aubuisson was remembered by fellow party members as something more akin to a saint than a murderer.
That image was reinforced in San Salvador's two major dailies with more than 60 full pages of paid condolences and praise, the majority of them taken out by government ministries or agencies.