SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- El Salvador declared three days of national mourning Friday to honor deceased rightist politician and alleged death squad mastermind Roberto d'Aubuisson.
D'Aubuisson, 48, who died of a heart attack Thursday as a complication of his yearlong battle with terminal throat cancer, continued to generate political controversy after his death as opposition legislators refused to support a the motion for a mourning period in his honor.
The motion was presented late Thursday in the National Assembly by d'Aubuisson's Nationalist Republican Alliance party, or ARENA. It fell just short of the majority needed for approval, with moderate Christian Democrats and leftist legislators voting against or abstaining.
But within an hour, President Alfredo Cristiani announced that he was overriding the congressional decision with an executive decree calling for three days of mourning. D'Aubuisson's body is to be buried Saturday.
D'Abuisson was affectionately known to admirers as 'The Major' but earned the nickname 'Blowtorch Bob' for his alleged torture methods when questioning suspected leftists as head of intelligence for El Salvador's feared National Guard.
He shrugged off his early reputation as a torturer and organizer of right-wing death squads and went on to found and build up what is now the country's most powerful political party.
Cristiani was elected after d'Aubuisson chose him as ARENA's candidate for the 1989 presidential elections. After announcing the decree, Cristiani told reporters, 'Major d'Aubuisson will live forever. '
ARENA legislator Gloria Salguera Gross, upset by the legislature's refusal to honor d'Aubuisson, called opposition congressmen 'miserable' and 'perverse.'
Salguera highlighted d'Aubuisson's important involvement in the negotiated settlement to El Salvador's 12-year civil war, which ended Feb. 1 with the initiation of a U.N.-monitored cease-fire. She said ARENA would continue to support the peace process in d'Aubuisson's absence.
'There will be peace in this country even if there are bad and perverse people' like the opposition legislators, Salguera Gross said.
Members of the general public were also divided on the issue of honoring the deceased right-wing leader. The local radio station YSU opened its microphone to callers wishing to express their grief at d'Aubuisson's passing but received as many calls from people with uncomplementary things to say about 'The Major.'
'You have to condemn the bad things and applaud the good,' said one anonymous caller. 'We all know what d'Aubuisson was and I do not think he merits a decree of mourning.'
