Schafik Jorge Handal ( Usulutan , 13 / October 14 1930 - San Salvador , January 24 2006 ) was a Salvadoran politician and guerrilla leader . He was the son of Palestinian immigrants . From 1959 to 1994 he was secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador. In the seventies and eighties he fought as a guerrilla leader of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) against the right-wing junta . When the civil war in 1992 ended the FMLN was transformed into a political party with Handal as coordinator. In 1997 he was elected to the National Assembly of El Salvador.