[texhax] Very strange: problems with accented characters except when using Emacs

[Carlos]

I am running Latex under Linux RH8. 

Whenever I use Emacs as an editor everything goes fine with my Spanish 
accented characters. However, when I use any other editor, Latex can not 
manage the characters and in facts breaks down. Still in the editor screen 
the characters look fine.

I pressume it has to do with the character enconding system. But how can I 
fix this?

Thanks

Carlos