Military forces ousted Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected President of Honduras early Sunday morning in a coup. Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes condemned the overthrow and announced that El Salvador would not recognize the new government installed in Tegucigalpa. Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua all announced they would close their borders to land trade with Honduras for 48 hours.
Friends and family are speaking out about the disappearance of Marcelo Rivera, an activist involved in many contentious issues. From the Voices on the Border blog:
The social leader and activist, Marcelo Rivera, has been missing since June 18, and people in the community of San Isidro, where Rivera lived and worked claim that his disappearance is a result of human rights offenses and institutional corruption. While community members in San Isidro, Cabañas demonstrate against his disappearance and demand his return, the search for Rivera has had shown no success thus far.
Rivera was last seen by neighbors and family on June 18 in late afternoon hours in El Molino in the jurisdiction of Ilobasco. The search began on Sunday, June 20, led by family, neighbors, and community members. Some family members have said that they “have not seen involvement in the investigation neither from the PNC, or from the Attorney General of the Republic.”
The activist is a well-known social figure as a member of the Departmental Board of Directors of the FMLN, Director of the Casa de la Cultura, and Legal Representative of the Association of Friends of San Isidro Cabañas (ASIC). In January, Rivera was a head opposition leader in the denunciation of local election results in San Isidro, claiming fraud and corruption. Rivera has also been highly involved in the resistance to Pacific Rim’s mining projects.
Homies Unidos is an NGO working in Los Angeles and El Salvador to work with gang members and to attempt to get them to leave their violent and destructive lifestyles. I've written about the group on this blog.
Today comes the surprising news that the organization's executive director in Los Angeles, Alex Sanchez, has been arrested on federal racketeering charges along with 23 other purported MS-13 gang members.
According to a press release on the FBI Los Angeles office website:
The sixteen-count federal indictment, unsealed today, charges 24 members and associates of MS-13 with participating in a racketeering conspiracy that involved a variety of crimes including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, robbery, narcotics trafficking, and witness intimidation, over a period of fifteen years. The indictment alleges the defendants who engaged in the racketeering enterprise, were responsible for seven murders and eight conspiracies to commit murder since 1995....
The indictment charges Alex Sanchez, the Executive Director of "Homies Unidos," a non-profit organization which purports to use the public and private charitable contributions it receives for gang intervention efforts. Sanchez is charged with racketeering offenses, including conspiracy to murder, during the time he was associated with Homies Unidos.
Sanchez, now 37, was deported in 1994 to his homeland, El Salvador, because of a decade-old auto-theft conviction and a subsequent parole violation for possessing a firearm. A year later, he returned illegally to the U.S. and eventually helped form the local chapter of Homies Unidos....
In requesting political asylum for Sanchez, his attorney, Alan Diamante, argued that his client might be killed if he was returned to El Salvador because of his links to the Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha and his stance against police corruption.
The police chief of San Salvador, [former California State Senator Tom] Hayden, three anthropologists, a photojournalist and a psychologist were among the witnesses who testified on behalf of Sanchez.
A change of power in the government provides the opportunity to expose corruption practiced by the prior ruling party. In El Salvador, new president Mauricio Funes has formed a commission to investigate corruption under the prior right wing administrations of ARENA. Funes is already making public alleged examples of graft in government agencies. Raúl Gutiérrez at IPS has an article describing Funes' initiative against corruption:
SAN SALVADOR, Jun 23 (IPS) - Serious allegations of corruption involving central figures in the government of right-wing former Salvadoran president Antonio Saca (2004-2009) will be investigated by a commission led by Finance Minister Carlos Cáceres.
Left-wing President Mauricio Funes, who took office on Jun. 1, announced the decision in his first address to the nation, in which he referred to situations encountered by members of his cabinet in several of the ministries they took over.
The presidential commission will be made up of experts and lawyers who will document every case and recommend appropriate measures, said Funes, who won the Mar. 15 elections as the candidate for the formerly insurgent Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), now a political party.
The team of experts will investigate the National Registry Centre (CNR), the ministries of Public Health and Social Assistance, Interior, and the Environment and Natural Resources, as well as the Salvadoran Institute of Social Security (ISSS).
One of the most shocking cases, according to Funes, is at the CNR, the land and property registration institution, where there are alleged to be 29 "ghost employees" on the payroll, drawing salaries every month but never turning up for work.
These irregularities require an immediate, thorough investigation, to identify administrative and criminal responsibilities, said the president, who did not rule out the possible existence of further anomalies. (more )
Maria Hoisington,a student of Latin American Studies and Human Rights at the University of Washington, published an article in Upside Down World looking at one community's use of soccer leagues to help keep youth out of gangs:
Not only have these policies been unsuccessful in gang abatement, police repression and targeting of youth has, in effect, criminalized the act of being young. In the past five years, there have been constant outcries from non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, opposition party members, and civil society denouncing repression and calling for alternative solutions. I spent April and May of 2009 in El Salvador researching one of these alternatives; a violence prevention program implemented in 2006 by the local government in San Martín, a municipality located outside the capital city, San Salvador. San Martín has historically been one of the most violent municipalities in the country, but has enjoyed substantial success in lowering its crime statistics and providing opportunity for youth during the past three years. The manner in which the local government in San Martín discusses and treats youth issues is drastically different from that of the national government, and directly affects how local youth view their own opportunities and participation in society. A key aspect of the program, known as Plan ‘San Martín Seguro’, or ‘A Safe San Martín’, is a soccer league for youth ages six to eighteen. My investigation focused on the experience of young men who participate in the league. Our discussions centered around the marginalization of communities due to gang presence, the soccer league as a tool for violence prevention, and their experiences of police repression.(more)
My friend Danny Burridge recently wrote an article titled El Salvador: Promises, Perils and Reality published by the North American Congress on Latin America. In the article, he looks at the goals of Salvadoran civil society organizations on the left and whether Funes can and will achieve them. Here is an excerpt:
The peaceful and historic transfer of power in El Salvador reflects the consolidation of "formal" democracy, but deep social change and true democracy are still slightly beyond the horizon. Its years as a guerrilla organization and decades as an opposition party have left the FMLN as a largely hierarchical political organization. The party could build on its formidable grassroots network and work towards becoming an institution that facilitates democratic participation in government decision-making.
Funes will be under intense pressure from myriad interests to reduce the influence of El Salvador's diverse social movement and jettison his promised preferential option for the poor. Despite inevitable missteps, and critics' destabilizing discourses, the Salvadoran people will need to provide critical yet massive support to the Funes government in strengthening the paths toward true change.
El Salvador's Pacific coastline has big waves, and big waves make for great surfing. I came across this El Salvador surf video on a blog called KZURC:
The toughest problem facing the new FMLN government is getting El Salvador's violent crime problem under control. The previous ARENA administrations had no luck at all. Out friends at Voices on the Border describe the first steps announced by Mauricio Funes to combat cime:
On Thursday of last week, President Funes announced his plans to reinforce the national police force (PNC) and invest around $11.5 million in improving their capabilities and conditions. He spoke at a press conference following the induction of Carlos Antonio Ascencio Girón as the new General Director of the PNC and Mauricio Landaverde as the Assistant Director.
The president also announced that beginning in July, all sergeants, corporals, and agents would receive an extra $2 per work day towards food costs. The cost of these bonuses will total $36,064 per day for the18,032 members of the police force included in the plan.
The PNC will also add 1,300 new agents who will provide reinforcements in 25 of the most violent municipalities in the country. Funes also plans to form municipal commissions that will work in coordination with the police and the mayor’s office to prevent violence. In rural areas, groups will work will the armed forces (FAES). The archbishop of El Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas, recently voiced his support for the collaboration of the FAES and the PNC.
In the first 13 days of June, an average of 14 people were killed per day, over 10 times more than in the United States. Much of this violence is connected with gangs and affects the younger population. In the past, there have been reports of police corruption and collaboration with gangs and drug trafficking.
President Funes also made it clear that his administration would not tolerate corruption within the PNC. He stated that “[t]hose that betray the institution and their fellow officers by involving themselves in crime will not have a place in the police family…they will be removed from the institution and will be held responsible for their actions.”
Almost 40 years ago, in July 1969, El Salvador and Honduras fought the "Soccer War", so-called because of tensions triggered by World Cup soccer qualifying matches played between the two countries that summer. Forty years later, those old animosities have subsided, and the countries played another World Cup qualifying match as this article describes:
I went inside, the only gringo in the room, and ordered a beer and sat down next to a big guy named Pedro. He was a Salvadoreño who had lived most of his life in the American capital, where virtually all the handiwork, construction, delivery, and gardening is done by men from the Latin republics, yet Pedro's passion for his fatherland -- and for football -- had never waned. Like all the others in the gaudy club, he had come to watch a World Cup qualifying match between his country and its neighbour, an important step on the path toward a place in next year's finals in South Africa, but more meaningful -- to me, at least -- as proof of the healing power of time.
It was exactly 40 years ago -- during the summer of Apollo 11 and of blissed-out Woodstock -- that El Salvador and Honduras went into combat for three deadly days in what came to be known as the Football War. The Salvadoran army pushed deep into Honduran territory before its supply lines were obliterated by the enemy's propeller-driven air force. Thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed and the enmity persisted for decades. But now the men of both countries could sit together in a foreign tavern and watch a rematch without fear.
The history books say that the Football War began as a dispute involving hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who had migrated from their tiny, overcrowded republic to neighbouring Honduras, seeking land to till. Tensions simmered through the decade, then erupted into rioting during World Cup qualifying matches in each country in mid-July, 1969 -- the very week that Neil Armstrong was making his "giant leap for all mankind" on the Sea of Tranquility.
Southwest Airlines will have maintenance on some of its flight performed in El Salvador according to Dallas area news reports:
Many U.S. airlines already outsource maintenance to foreign countries. The company Southwest will use in El Salvador, Aeroman, has already performed heavy maintenance work for other major U.S. Airlines.
But, unions and consumer groups have objected to outsourcing, questioning the safety and oversight of work performed outside of the U.S., where mechanics are paid less than their American counterparts.
Last year, BusinessWeek reported that mechanics at Aeroman make between $4,500 and $15,000 a year, while U.S. airplane mechanics earn an average of $52,000 a year.
Southwest said it's confident that its new foreign maintenance provider is well qualified for the job. "They pass all or our really stringent tests for safety. They have a great track record," Flanagan said.
The union that represents Southwest's mechanics previously agreed to allow a limited amount of work to be outsourced to a foreign company last year, in a new contract with the airline.
Maria Elena Salinas, the journalist co-anchor on Univision, recently interviewed Mauricio Funes, and wrote about what challenges face Funes in her synidcated column:
Either way, this historical election begs the question of whose lead Funes will follow. Will he be a pragmatic leftist, such as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, or a radical leader, such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez?
Funes says neither one: "You never know — instead of an axis led by Lula or one by Chavez, maybe there will be a new Central American axis led by Funes that will be pragmatic but at the same time radical in facing the problems it will have to confront."
And Funes will be inheriting some pretty serious problems: A country marred by extreme poverty and a high unemployment rate. One of the highest crime rates in the world. The expansion of dangerous youth gangs. An increase in deportations of Salvadorans from the U.S. and a reduction in remittances.
As if that isn't enough, Funes will have to deal with the still-fresh scars from the bloody civil war that killed almost 75,000 people. Even though Funes lost his oldest brother in the armed conflict, he does not believe it is necessary to annul the amnesty law that was signed along with the peace agreement.
"I know exactly who ordered my brother's death," he claims. "With time, I have learned to forgive."
According to Funes, the families of the victims have a right to know the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths. To that end, he would consider opening new investigations. If he does, however, he could find himself in a bind. His vice president, a former rebel leader during the armed conflict, has been accused of war crimes himself.
During his inaugural address, the new president said his government is not allowed to make mistakes, and he is right. There is much at stake. With a new government that has never held power, a weak economy and a fragile democracy, there is very little room for error. The celebrity journalist-turned-president will soon know what it's like to be on the side of those he so often criticized.
The following piece was originally published in the Boston Globe on June 1. Charlie Clements forwarded it to me, and I am happy to post it here.
By Charlie Clements
June 1, 2009
SAN SALVADOR. At the Plaza Libertad today, inauguration day of President Mauricio Funes, I will be thinking back to Feb. 28, 1977, when security forces opened fire there on hundreds of unarmed civilians protesting a fraudulent presidential election. Less than a week earlier, Oscar Romero, then considered a priest of the privileged, had been installed as the archbishop of El Salvador.
Vrtually unnoticed by the US press, that massacre prompted the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee to act, leading the first of 17 congressional fact-finding missions to the region. That first mission included a Jesuit priest, Robert Drinan, who was also a member of Congress from Massachusetts. Romero and Drinan celebrated Mass together in the unfinished cathedral, where Romero's decision to halt construction had recently angered the powerful of El Salvador. "Only when peace and justice are established and the hungry are fed, then we can resume building our cathedral," the archbishop explained.
It's time to take a break from talking about politics on this blog to celebrate the continuing success of El Salvador's national team in its quest to qualify for the 2010 World Cup soccer championship in South Africa. Yesterday, the Salvadorans beat Mexico 2-1, and moved into third place in the hexagonal qualifying matches. The top 3 places automatically qualify for the World Cup. The team's star, Eliseo Quintanilla, scored a late game goal on a penalty kick to provide the margin of victory. The Salvadorans will play at Honduras on Wednesday.
Shortly before the transfer of power in El Salvador on June 1, the Public Opinion Institute at the University of Central America released an opinion poll. The poll asked Salvadorans to look back at the outgoing Saca administration and forward towards the incoming FMLN government. The poll's findings include a grade for Tony Saca of 5.85 on a 10 point scale, as citizens believe that both poverty and crime had increased during his 5 years in office. In contrast, 7 of 10 Salvadorans believe that the country will improve under the Funes administration. If there are improvements, Salvadorans do not believe they will be lead by the National Assembly, because 75% of Salvadorans believe the legislature has little or no representation of their interests. Read the rest of the poll results here.
Whether El Salvador's new president Mauricio Funes will succeed in bringing positive change in the country, will partly depend on the competence of the people who come to lead the divisions of El Salvador's government as part of his cabinet. Our friends at Voices on the Border described a portion of the incoming cabinet:
On May 26, President-elect Funes named the members of the Economic cabinet. Those announced were Héctor Dada Hirezi as minister of the Economy, Alex Segovia as Technical Secretary, Carlos Acevedo as president of the Central Reserve Bank and Carlos Cáceres as head of the Treasury department. The new Economic cabinet has thus far maintained that it would keep the dollar as El Salvador’s official currency, a topic that has been controversial among government officials and citizens since the dollar was introduced in 2001. Other plans include creating more economic transparency, a development bank within the Central Reserve Bank, and a mechanism to ensure that the large “informal sector” of the economy pays taxes.
Also announced by Funes and his advisors recently were Gerson Martínez as minister of Public Works, Manuel Sevilla as minister of Agriculture, Manuel Melgar as minister of Security, Victoria Marina de Avilés as minister of Labor, María Isabel Rodríguez as minister of Health, and José Napoléon Duarte (the son) as the minister of Tourism. News sources have reported that the president is considering Francisco Cáceres as Private Secretary and David Rivas as Communications Secretary. It has been reported as well that Vice President-elect Sánchez Cerén would be also serving as the Minister of Education (MINED). David Mungía Payés has been chosen to be the new minster of Defense. Cabinet announcements have already aroused controversy amongst FMLN party members, and it may be difficult for Funes to negotiate further choices with the FMLN base.
Yesterday at Cuscatlan Stadium in San Salvador, the FMLN held its popular celebration of the inauguration of Mauricio Funes. El Faro had multimedia coverage of the event in this video:
and this photogallery.
Video of the swearing in ceremony for Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador.
At his inaugural ceremony Monday, the first-ever leftwing president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, said his main goal was to ”beat poverty, political backwardness, the marginalisation of broad sections of society, desperation, and the lack of future prospects for our young people.”
The insurgency-turned-political party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) will invest 474 million dollars in the next 18 months to generate 100,000 direct jobs, the new president announced.
Funes received a two-minute standing ovation when he arrived at the convention centre where his swearing-in ceremony was held, attended by 72 foreign delegations and 4,000 special guests, including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The veteran TV broadcaster who took 52 percent of the vote in the March elections said the rightwing ARENA, which ruled El Salvador since 1989, ”governed for the few” and had been ”complacent towards corruption, due to fear of, and complicity with, organised crime.
”I guarantee that the new government will not be about family privileges, cronyism, or shady patronage,” said the new president, who had 82 percent support in the latest survey carried out by the University Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP), at the Central American University, in late May.
”We need to reinvent the country. We need to carry out a peaceful, democratic and ethical revolution; the change is starting today,” said Funes, considered a moderate leftist, flanked by 12 Latin American heads of state and other international leaders and personalities.
He also pledged to improve infrastructure and basic services, and build and repair 25,000 low-income housing units in urban areas, while implementing a plan to fight malnutrition, targeting 85,000 children under the age of three....
In his 50-minute inaugural address, Funes reiterated his preference for a government along the lines of the administration of Brazilian President Lula, who he said was his ”reference point” in terms of social programmes for the poor.
”Lula has shown that it is possible to have a democratic government of the people along with fair distribution of wealth,” said the new president, looking over at the Brazilian leader.
Funes also announced that his government would reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba, which El Salvador broke off in the early 1960s. The socialist island nation will thus once again have direct ties with all of the countries of Latin America, nearly five decades after it was isolated at Washington's behest.
He was interrupted as many of those present chanted ”Cuba, Cuba, Cuba.”
Anglican Bishop Martín Barahona, who attended the ceremony, said he hoped ”the changes that this country needs will be carried out, and that everyone will now have opportunities.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attended the inauguration dressed in bright red, the color of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front. It was an image that would have been unthinkable in the 1980s, when the United States poured $6 billion into El Salvador to fight the rebel group backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union.
The FMLN laid down its arms in 1992 and joined the political system. But some U.S. lawmakers still worry about the party, fearing it could propel El Salvador into the orbit of anti-American countries such as Venezuela. Forty-five House Republicans wrote Clinton in March warning about "potential threats to our security interests" if the FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, won.
Clinton, however, told reporters here that she expects "a positive relationship" with Funes, who is considered by many Latin Americans to be a moderate. Her visit signaled the Obama administration's effort to reach out to a more assertive Latin America altered by a "pink tide" of socialist victories in recent years....
In his inaugural speech at an amphitheater packed with men in red ties and women in red jackets, Funes hailed his two political heroes: President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a moderate leftist, and President Obama.
The men, he said, were "proof that progressive leaders, instead of being a threat, represent a new and secure road for their countries."
He also singled out Clinton, saying: "This woman honors America."
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