Vets rally for pensions:

Around 2,000 military veterans who served during El Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war marched in the capital San Salvador on Monday, some of them in uniform, to demand pensions and other benefits, organizers said.

“We don’t want to wait any longer. We need the legislative assembly to approve the law for veterans. We want this done to give a dignified pension,” Timoteo Palacios, head of the Armed Forces War Veterans Coordinating Committee, told reporters.

He said the former soldiers would not rest until lawmakers passed legislation giving them a monthly pension of $350, land and an indemnity for their service during the conflict “that must not be less than $3,000” — a large sum in the small Central American nation.

The 12-year civil war, in which the United States supported the repressive right-wing military-led government against leftist guerrillas, killed more than 75,000 people, resulted in 7,000 disappearances and eroded the national economy. (AFP)