New eruption in El Salvador

New fighting between government troops and guerrilla forces has brokern out in the eastern half of El Salvador. Monitor Latin America correspondent James Nelson Goodsell writes that the fighting is said to be the heaviest since last January's guerrilla "general offensive," which failed. The fighting covers more territory than at any time since the offensive.

The guerrillas are apparently taking advantage of the May-october rainy season. This is a time in which the Army's mobility is hindered, since it employs mechanized equipment hard to use on dirt roads, which become muddy quagmires after heavy rains.

Meanwhile, two officials of the Instituto Salvadoreno de Transformacion Agraria, the land-reform institute, were murdered near Santa Elena. They were abducted May 16 and their bodies discovered three days later. This brings to 10 the number of land-reform workers killed in the past year, most by rightist extremists opposing the reform program, which has nationalized 260 of the country's largest farms.