Remembering "la Matanza" of 1932

January 22 was the 78 year anniverary of an event in El Salvador known simply as "la Matanza" -- the Massacre. Following an armed uprising of campesinos in January 1932, many of whom were indigenous, the Salvadoran armed forces massacred as man as 30,000 in reprisal.

This week, indigenous communities remembered the slaughter, as reported in Upside Down World:

The killing, led by former President General Maximiliano, left almost thirty thousand dead, "the majority of whom were indigenous -who probably did not know [that the government considered them] communists- thus destroying much of a culture that now demands justice and recognition," says Montoya.

"After this massacre, the Indian community was greatly reduced in the country, many of them changed their habits for fear of being killed and many customs gradually waned into oblivion" recounted the spiritual guide "Tata" Juan.

78 years later, in a place known as "El Llanito" where many victims of the slaughter are buried, an indigenous ceremony was held to "pay tribute to all the fallen who died innocently."

“Naja nusan matiguagua su 1932 matachiwa,” [We will never forget the martyrs of 1932] exclaimed indigenous priests in Nahuatl.

If you speak Spanish, you can learn more about the 1932 massacre known as La Matanza by watching the excellent documentary film 1932, Cicatriz de la Memoria (Scar of Memory) which is available for viewing over the internet at this link.

The documentary is from the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, the Museum of Word and Image. You can buy an English language version of the documentary from the bookstore at the Museum.

Another good resource in English is the book Matanza by Thomas P. Anderson.

Earthquakes and El Salvador

The horrible devastation from the earthquake in Haiti necessarily prompts one to reflect on El Salvador's vulnerability to a similar event. Over the past 60 years, El Salvador has been hit by five earthquakes, which collectively have killed more than 2500 Salvadorans and destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands.

From USGS:

* May 6, 1951 - Magnitude 6.2 - Fatalities 400
* May 3, 1965 - Magnitude 6.3 - Fatalities 125
* October 10, 1986 - Magnitude 5.5 - Fatalities 1,000
* January 13, 2001 - Magnitude 7.7 - Fatalities 852
* February 13, 2001 - Magnitude 6.6 - Fatalities 315

The most recent earthquake to shake the country and Guatemala was felt on Monday, January 18, when a tremor of magnitude 6.0 in Guatemala could be felt in El Salvador, shaking nerves but causing no damages.

Taking measures to mitigate the risk of a catastrophe like Haiti requires resources and attention. Unfortunately, El Salvador's limited resources and perhaps a lack of political will has resulted in too little attention to such efforts. A paper exploring El Salvador's earthquake susceptibility prepared by experts after the 2001 earthquakes had the following conclusions:

The lack of extensive structural damage in reinforced concrete buildings due to these earthquakes should not be interpreted as a vindication of the success of the current seismic design code in El Salvador nor its predecessors, since regardless of their technical merits these codes have generally been applied only sporadically. The lack of major structural damages and collapse of large buildings appears to be more closely related to the nature of the ground motions generated than the quality of engineering design or construction.

Particularly in San Salvador there is now a real danger of complacency regarding the capacity of existing buildings, despite the fact that it is widely known that many buildings have been left damaged by the 10 October 1986 earthquake and these may have been further weakened by the 2001 earthquakes. Destructive moderate magnitude earthquakes occur in San Salvador on average every 20-25 years (Harlow et al., 1993) and the next event, whose due date draws ever closer, could cause terrible damage and loss of life in the overcrowded and expanding capital.

The most devastating impact of the 2001 earthquakes has been the triggering of hundreds of landslides in volcanic soils, which have buried houses and blocked roads, causing most of the deaths in these earthquakes and bringing massive disruption: the Pan-American Highway remained closed for more than 10 months due to the la ndslide at Las Leonas. The number of landslides triggered by these earthquakes, the size of the slides and their geographical distribution, all indicate increasing susceptibility of the terrain when compared to patterns in previous earthquakes, with no ind ication that this was due to precedent rainfall. The hazard of earthquake- and rainfall-induced landslides in the volcanic soils that dominate much of El Salvador, and particularly the most densely populated areas, urgently requires attention. The identification of zones of high landslide hazard is an important component of any programme of mitigation, but relocation to lower hazard zones will often not be an option in this densely populated country with a long history of conflicts over land ownership....

Seismic risk in El Salvador clearly cannot be viewed in complete isolation from other risks, including those due to other natural hazards such as floods and volcanic eruption but also anthropogenic risks such as pollution, deforestation, crime, poverty, disease and social conflict. The failure to tackle the challenges of seismic risk, or even to hold back its increasing levels, is not due to lack of awareness amongst Salvadorians of the very high earthquake hazard that affects their country. Rather the lack of effective measures against earthquake hazards reflects the fact that there are many urgently pressing needs on limited resources, exacerbated by the weakness of central and local government. A pessimistic view of the situation may conclude that earthquake risk mitigation will only be possible following the solution of other major social problems in El Salvador. An alternative view holds that recognition of the interaction of seismic vulnerability with other features of vulnerability, including institutional vulnerability, means that concerted programs of seismic risk mitigation could provide a vehicle and a stimulus to the solution of many other issues, including the current concentration of more than half of the population in one third of the national territory. El Salvador will need external assistance, both in terms of material resources and technology transfer, to make this vision a reality.

El Salvador and change

El Salvador's foreign minister, Hugo Martinez, wrote an essay this week titled El Salvador's new vision to the world published in the Miami Herald. Here's an excerpt:

The concept of change extends to our foreign policy, which will be guided by our nation's interests, and certainly not the interests of any group, be it economic, political or ideological. Our priorities will be bilateral and multilateral relations in the new world order, respect for international law and human rights and the unwavering and comprehensive battle against organized crime in the region. For El Salvador, a country that wants to find friends in the world, diversity of thought in the Americas is an advantage. We want to open our frontiers to bind our friendship among peoples and nations. In that path we hope to have the same respect that we offer.

We recognize the leadership of President Barack Obama In the international domain. From our government's first contact with him at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, as President Funes stated, President Obama showed the Americas one of the best faces that the United States has had in its history. President Funes, then newly elected, welcomed his words regarding the possibility to live in a world of peace and respect, a priority also shared by our nation.

During the next five years, we look forward to laying down foundations for an inclusive economic policy that allows Salvadorans to find in their country, the dream of prosperity they have searched for beyond our borders, We have therefore, launched a pilot program of permanent employment in two municipalities largely impacted by immigration, as one of the starting points of our new economic policy.

Nevertheless, we recognize the value of the contributions that our countrymen have made to the cultures and economies of those countries where they have migrated, especially the United States. We acknowledge, support and advocate for those Salvadorans who, especially in the last two decades, have become the main platform of our economy. And so, in the short term, our government will look after the interests and immigration stability of those who live, work and pay taxes in their host countries.

High rhetoric from the foreign minister, Let's hope the actions will match the words. It will not be easy.

President of El Salvador asks for forgiveness

In a ceremony commemorating the 18th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords which ended El Salvador's civil war, the government has apologized for the human rights violations committed by state actors during that conflict.

From the BBC:

President Mauricio Funes made the first formal apology by one of the country's presidents since the end of the conflict in 1992.

He said the right-wing authorities who governed the country at the time had committed grave human rights abuses.

He also said they had violated the country's constitutional order.

"In the name of the state of El Salvador, I ask for pardon," said the president, speaking at a ceremony on the 18th anniversary of the end of the conflict.

Those words - the first of their kind since the end of the war by a Salvadoran president - will be welcomed by the families of the more than 75,000 people who died in the conflict.

However, Mr Funes, who represents the party of the former Marxist FMLN rebel movement, will no doubt come under criticism for failing to also apologize for the abuses committed by the rebels during the war.

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This is quite a change for El Salvador. During his administration, president Tony Saca of the ARENA party was laying a wreath at the tomb of Roberto D'Aubuisson, mastermind of many of the right-wing government's atrocities during the 1980's.

Funes stance against gold mining clear

Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes has made it clear that, notwithstanding multi-million dollar arbitration claims by gold-mining companies, the current Salvadoran government is not going to grant mining permits. From CISPES:

SENSUNTEPEQUE, EL SALVADOR – Speaking at a ceremony marking the start of the school year on Tuesday, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes made his most explicit statement yet against the mining of precious metals in El Salvador, declaring “There can be no misunderstanding: my government will not authorize any mining extraction projects.”

Funes cited environmental and health concerns in reaffirming the government's refusal to grant extraction permits for various projects around the country, including the proposed El Dorado mine, owned by Vancouver, B.C.-based Pacific Rim Mining. “No one has convinced us that there are ways to extract minerals and metals, especially metals, without contaminating the environment and affecting public health,” Funes stated. “We are not going to [authorize extraction permits].”

It would appear that the arbitration under the DR-CAFTA trade agreement offers the only prospect for gold-ming companies Pacific Rim and Commerce Group to get their mining operations started.

The organized grassroots opposition to mining in El Salvador released a video this week summarizing their concerns about gold mining and describing the opposition movement and the struggles it has faced including the recent murders of activists in Cabañas.

The blog for the SHARE Foundation describes a recent vigil for the murdered environmental activists:

Much like many aspects of Salvadoran life and reality, the vigil has a startling dichotomous nature that challenges your sense of how to best honor the dead and almost throws you off balance—at once, the atmosphere is tragic, even hopeless, and life-giving. There are moments of solemnity, sadness, fear contrasted with moments of joy, friendship, living life to its fullest. Some 250 people participated throughout the afternoon, evening and into the night in what was a standard vigil agenda: an ecumenical service presided over by two Catholic Priests, a German Lutheran Pastor, a Friar and a Baptist Minister; testimonies shared by community leaders, detailing the difficulties they face in organizing and motivating people to continue forward, with no financial remuneration and ever-increasing risk; activists, encouraging people to continue the struggle; representatives of NGOs expressing messages of solidarity and international support; cultural activities including local musicians, fire-jugglers, poets and theater pieces; and lots and lots of dancing and laughing and socializing and café with pan dulce.

John Edwards in El Salvador

Former Senator and US presidential candidate John Edwards has been in El Salvador several times recently. No longer campaigning for votes, Edwards is building houses in poor communities with the Fuller Center for Housing and Homes from the Heart. From the Fuller Center for Housing website:

Edwards' visit from Dec. 15-18 coincided with students volunteering for alternative winter break - 13 from UCLA and 14 from the University of Cincinnati.

"I have never done anything in my life that is worth more to me than what you are doing right now," Edwards told the students. "This is what you will remember, I promise you. I've had every life experience anybody could ever have, meeting presidents ... being on aircraft carriers ... and nothing compares with this."

You can see a video of Edwards' talk to the college students and his work on the houses at this link.

The Cihuatán archeological site

Last week I pointed out Tim Lohrentz' blog The Indigenous History of El Salvador, with information about El Salvador's early indigenous peoples. We are learning more about these ancient inhabitants of El Salvador through archeological excavations, such as the one at Cihuatán.

There is a website for those excavations which describes what archeologists are finding there:

A thousand years ago a giant metropolis flourished in what is now El Salvador, rising from the ruins of Maya civilization.

The city of Cihuatán has long remained Central America's least known and most spectacular treasure. Now an archaeological project will attempt to unlock its secrets.

This web site will document what we find, as we find it. Whether you hope to visit Cihuatán yourself, or only to follow our progress on-line, join us as the project unfolds.

The project at Cihuatán is a joint project of El Salvador's National Foundation for Archeology and San Francisco State University. At the Foundation's website you can learn more about Cihuatán and other archeological sites in El Salvador. In San Salvador, you should make sure and visit the David Guzman National Museum of Anthropology with exhibits and artifacts from the archeological sites. (Tip -- you can ask for an English language guide at the museum if your Spanish is not good enough to read the descriptions on the exhibits).

Recognition for Tim's El Salvador Blog

This blog was recognized today as one of the three best blogs about El Salvador for 2009. The recognition came from Blogotepeque.com, a popular group blog and website. The top two blogs were the blogs of Neto Rivas and Hunnapuh, and I can certainly agree with naming those two blogs as the best about El Salvador.

Report on Salvadoran immigrants in the US

The Migration Policy Institute has issued an in depth report looking at the demographics of Salvadoran migration to the US. From the introduction to the article:

Between 1980 and 1990, the Salvadoran immigrant population in the United States increased nearly fivefold from 94,000 to 465,000. The number of Salvadoran immigrants in the United States continued to grow in the 1990s and 2000s as a result of family reunification and new arrivals fleeing a series of natural disasters that hit El Salvador, including earthquakes and hurricanes.

By 2008, there were about 1.1 million Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. Salvadorans are the country's sixth largest immigrant group after Mexican, Filipino, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese foreign born.

The immigrant population from this tiny Central American country is now nearly as large as the immigrant population from much larger China. (As reference, China's total population is 200 times larger and its territory is about 500 times larger than El Salvador's.)

More than half of all Salvadoran immigrants resided in just two states, California and Texas, although they are also concentrated in New York, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Read the rest of the article here. You can find more information about Salvadoran migration at the MPI profile page for El Salvador here.

Pacific Rim issues statement about murders

Pacific Rim, the gold mining company which has sued El Salvador over the government's failure to grant it mining permits, has put a statement on its website regarding the recent murders of environmental activists in Cabanas:

January 04, 2010
STATEMENT REGARDING RECENT EVENTS IN EL SALVADOR

Pacific Rim Mining Corp. and its subsidiaries (collectively, "PacRim") are environmentally and socially responsible gold mining and development companies with significant assets in El Salvador.

PacRim has recently been the target of false accusations made by certain anti-mining groups, which wrongfully suggest PacRim's involvement in a series of murders in the area of Trinidad, El Salvador. PacRim unequivocally denies these accusations.
PacRim has no knowledge in relation to the Trinidad murders other than what has appeared in the mainstream Salvadoran press, which reports that these tragic incidents are apparently related to a longstanding feud between two local families.

More broadly, the same anti-mining groups that have wrongfully implicated PacRim in the murders have portrayed the incidents as the result of an allegedly hostile conflict related to the debate over mining in El Salvador. However, there is no evidence indicating these violent acts bear any relation whatsoever to the debate over mining in the country. PacRim encourages all parties affected by the recent violence in Trinidad to rely on the appropriate legal processes to determine the true facts of these cases.

PacRim takes this opportunity to reiterate its support for open dialogue in relation to all events affecting the communities in which it operates, and to unequivocally condemn the use of violence and threats of violence as part of such dialogue. Furthermore, PacRim condemns attempts to incite violence through the deliberate dissemination of misinformation about PacRim and its activities in El Salvador.

The Indigenous History of El Salvador

Blogger Tim Lohrentz has begun writing a blog titled The Indigenous History of El Salvador, which is described as "A look at the Chorti, Poton Lenca, and Pipil peoples of El Salvador, perhaps the birthplace of the Mayans, as well as recognizing the indigenous spirit in the struggle for social justice today."

Lohrentz' post from New Years Day describes the legends of ancient Mayan religion:

Transforming the Gods

The beginnings of the Mayan religion were tumultuous. As the Chortis, the Mayans along the Pacific Coast, became more adept at agriculture - hybridizing corn, beans, and squash, and introducing yuca (manioc), peanuts, and cacao from areas to the south - adoration was given to Mother Earth, ix, who provided all good things. The Chortis named corn, ixim, which means something similar to 'fruit of Mother Earth'. Corn came from teosinte, ixim ka, 'wild fruit of Mother Earth'.

But as people ate more corn, a disease appeared (pellegra - a niacin deficiency) and destroyed entire villages. Leaders became lesioned, weak, demented, and died. After many deaths, much sacrifice, the gods seemed to reveal a solution to help the Mayans overcome the awful disease - soaking corn in ash. A new creation narrative was developed to explain how this happened, gods were transformed, and new language was created.

While still female, Ix was transformed from mother earth to jaguar god, the spotted (lesioned) god that came from the underworld, the land of death. This was done through creating the legend of Ixbalanque - the spotted (lesioned) jaguar hero twin. Balan means jaguar - clearly the linking of ix and balan in this hero twin was a way of transforming this god from the generous and beneficent Mother Earth to the clever and death-dealing jaguar. Likewise, it is likely that at this time Ixbalba, also written Xibalba, came to mean 'the underworld'. The new theology and philosophy was carried with the Mayans to help convince neighboring peoples to trust their new discovery of the cure for the diseased corn. And it clearly worked, as civilization spread at a tremendous pace from 1500 to 1300 BC.

Everyday language was transformed as well. A new word was created for corn, nar, to differentiate it from the diseased corn, ixim, the corn of the jaguar god. The term nixtamal, the process of soaking corn in ash or lime, was created and means "to cure the corn of the disease ix." Ix refers to pellegra, the disease of spots, the disease of the lesioned jaguar god of death. Nir means 'to cure' in Chorti and nian means 'none' or 'not any'.

Go and check out The Indigenous History of El Salvador for more information about these ancient peoples, their calendar, language and culture.

Use of remittances

An article this week from the Miami Herald talks about remittance flow into El Salvador and other Central American countries. One of the concepts in this article is using remittance flow to establish a financial history which will let families take out loans to support small businesses in the home country:

Technoserve was founded by a Connecticut businessman in 1968 who was inspired after volunteering at a hospital in Africa. The group's Salvadoran pilot program helped remittance receivers draw up business plans and worked closely with Washington-based Microfinance International Corp to detail remittance histories of immigrants and their families, Ionnone said.

``The idea is to create a so-called transnational loan,'' Ionnone said. ``We can transfer the creditworthiness of a person in the U.S. to a person in a place like El Salvador.' (more)

Top El Salvador stories of 2009

My annual roundup of the top stories from El Salvador during the last year.

Election of Mauricio Funes. On March 15, Salvadorans went to the polls and elected their first president from a left-wing party, Mauricio Funes. The election, 17 years after the end of El Salvador's bloody civil war, was peaceful and fair. Funes, the former television journalist ran as the candidate of the FMLN, but consciously distanced himself from the hard-liners in that party, even his running mate Salvador Sanchez-Ceren. At the end of the year, Funes continues to enjoy extraordinarily high approval ratings.

Divided government produced by National Assembly and municipal elections. The first round of national elections in January 2009 elected deputies to the National Assembly and mayors in every municipality. The mayor's office in San Salvador switched from the FMLN to ARENA as the incumbent FMLN mayor, Violeta Menjivar, was defeated by Norman Quijano. While the FMLN had the most seats in the legislature, it did not garner a majority of the seats, and conservative ARENA and PCN together could form a majority when they work together. In the last months of the year, 12 dissident ARENA deputies split from their party and formed a faction called "GANA" throwing additional complexity into the political divisions in the government.

Surge in murder rate. Violent crime surged dramatically in the past year in El Salvador. 2009 concluded with a tally of 4,365 murders, compared to 3,179 in 2008, an increase of 35%. No one seems to have the answers. Without a doubt, the gangs in El Salvador are a significant part of the problem, and it was emblematic of this tragic year when gang members murdered Christian Poveda, a French filmmaker. Poveda's documentary La Vida Loca, portrayed the lives and culture of the gangs.

November floods and landslides. A storm associated with Hurricane Ida dropped 14 inches of rain on central El Salvador in 24 hours on November 8. A landslide destroyed the town of Verapaz, and flooding and mudslides killed 200 and destroyed almost 2000 houses. The rains destroyed bean harvests and other crops in many areas, and illustrated again the vulnerability of many of the poorest communities in the country.

World economic crisis hits El Salvador hard. El Salvador shared in the world's economic misery this year. Unemployment was up and exports were down. The downturn in the US produced a 9% decrease in the remittances which make up almost a fifth of the El Salvador's economy. Shortly after taking office, Funes announced a half billion dollar recovery plan to try and deal with the impacts of the global crisis on El Salvador.

Conflict over gold mining. Gold mining companies Pacific Rim and the Commerce Group filed for arbitration under the DR-CAFTA treaty, alleging the government had illegally deprived them of their economic interest in mining concessions. The Salvadoran government, however, showed no signs of permitting gold mining in the country. Violence and threats were directed at opponents of mining, and three activists were murdered including two in the last ten days of the year.

Government sends army into streets to fight crime. President Funes sent an additional 2500 troops into the streets in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods, and gave them increased powers to participate in the fight against violent crime. The move was politically popular, but significant cautions were raised by those who remembered the role of the armed forces in the repression of the 1970s and 1980s.

Reopening of proceedings on crimes of the civil war. The year 2009 saw new judicial proceedings aimed at senior officials responsible for some of the most emblematic human rights crimes of the civil war. A court in Spain agreed to hear a proceeding against the top military officers responsible for the Jesuit murders in 1989, and the government formally apologized for the crime. The new government of Mauricio Funes announced with it would comply with a decree of the InterAmerican Commission on Human rights and open proceedings into the 1980 assassination of archbishop Oscar Romero.

Good US relations under Obama/Funes. Relations between the US and El Salvador continued to be strong, despite the election of a left wing president. The US congratulated Funes immediately on the night of his election, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended Funes' inauguration wearing a red dress. But unlike president Funes, the FMLN has not cooled its rhetoric about the "empire" to the north.

Corruption. Cases of corruption continued to come to light in 2009. When the digital periodical El Faro published an audio tape showing Roberto Silva and ARENA party official Alfredo Tórrez discussing a bribe, it cost Torrez his position in the party and likely prevented the Attorney General from having another term in office. Torrez later died in what was ruled a suicide. Former president Saca was revealed to have diverted government funds for the presidential publicity budget, and president Funes announced investigations into padded payrolls at government ministries.

I admit, there's a lot of bad news in those top stories. But for 2010, let's remember that travel publisher Lonely Planet picked El Salvador as one of the top 10 countries in the world to visit this year.