Protest expected to continue for the next two hours. Police presence is light with about 20 officers monitoring the protest. No reports of arrest or police violence at this time.

LARGE PROTEST OUTSIDE WILSHIRE EBELL THEATER CAUSES "RETHINKING"
BY EL SALVADORAN PRESIDENT SACA'S LOGISTICAL PEOPLE CONCERNING ARRIVAL
by CISPES-L.A.
LOS ANGELES April 6, 2008 The large and loud mid-Wilshire protest demonstration against Antonio "Tony" Saca, right-wing president
of El Salvador, in front of the Wilshire Ebell Theater this afternoon, apparently brought about a change in the President's arrival plans.
As a bevy of LAPD motorcycle officers, leading his motorcade, arrived at the box office entrance to the theater, demonstrators "went
into high gear" and the bike officers all reversed their route and the motorcade was taken to a parking lot side entrance. It appeared
both L.A.P.D. and Salvadoran security forces, traveling with the president, wanted to spare him the agitated anti-ARENA scenario.
An L.A.P.D. officer, who related well to a National Lawyers' Guild legal observer, commented, "They're taking him around to the side; he
won't be appearing in this area."
Every large vehicle, including a giant white limo, created a frenzy of chants calling the ARENA president "an assassin," "an enemy of the
poor and workers," and "a Bush puppet with troops in Iraq."
President Saca is visiting Los Angeles today with four events including one with wealthy Cuban-Americans, organized by the owner of
the Liborio Supermarket chain. The invitation to the "ranch picnic" in Moorpark, California, copies of which were obtained by protest organizers
earlier this week, asks for donations of$10,000, but going down to $5000 and $1000, with checks to be made payable to ARENA.
A protest yesterday in front of a Liborio Market in the mid-Vermont Avenue area prompted a Spanish-language reporter to ask
the President at a news event today whether it was appropriate for Los Angeles contributors to make out checks to a political party
in El Salvador. The President responded by saying he was on a formal visit to the city as President, not a fundraising trip.
At the theater today, people were lining up to enter the theater before the ARENA benefit concert began and got to see a
large collection of banners almost immediately in front of them. Two huge banners, with beautiful images of Archbishop Oscar Romero,
read: Monsenor Romero, asesinado por orden de Roberto D'Buisson, fundador del partido ARENA."
A CISPES banner read, "SACA & AVILA MEANS MORE POVERTY AND MORE REPRESSION."
Reaction from theater-goers was not hostile. They stared and a few walked over to talk with protesters. Clearly it was not totally a militant
ARENA crowd but some who had come, at $50 a ticket, to hear singer Alvaro Torres, a well-known right-wing entertainer.
Television and still photographers covered the protest well. Later tonight we expect the Los Angeles page of Indymedia
to have photos of the protest. Indymedia sent a highly respected photographer to the event who took scores of photos. We
will post the website for those pictures later tonight.
The protest was called by, and well-attended by, a large cross-section of Salvadoran groups as well as solidarity organizations and
peace activists.

A boycott of the multi-million dollar LIBORIO SUPERMARKET chain in Southern California has been called by a coalition of Salvadoran groups, according to a statement received by CISPES in Los Angeles.
The statement explains how LIBORIO MARKETS, through its owner, hosted a fundraiser for the right-wing president of El Salvador, Tony Saca, during Saca's recent trip to Los Angeles. The invitation, a copy of which was included in the statement, called for donations of $10,000, $5000 and lesser amounts. Surprisingly the LIBORIO MARKET owner asked that checks be made payable to ARENA.
ARENA is the right-wing party of El Salvador whose founder is considered the intellectual author of the assassination of the revered Mons. Oscar Romero, shot to death in 1980.
The Cuban-American owner of LIBORIO MARKETS is denounced in the statement for "interfering in the internal political process of El Salvador which ought to be free from interventions from outside the country."

if they are against the cafta, SOS, NMI, and minuteman should have been there and support this protest, but there are nowhere.