No asylum for Salvadorans fleeing gangs

As I've noted before in this blog, the gang violence in El Salvador has motivated some to leave El Salvador, entering the US illegally in search of a greater measure of safety. But if caught in the US, they will be given a one way ticket back to the dangerous situation they fled.

The New York Times ran a lengthy story today about the US immigration system's refusal to recognize asylum claims based on a fear of gang violence. From the article Asylum Law Offers Little Refuge for Those Who Flee Gangs:

In general, legal standards for asylum in the United States are not easy to meet. Asylum seekers must show they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or “membership in a particular social group.” In 2009, a total of 9,614 foreigners were granted asylum, according to official figures. Guatemala, the Central American country with the highest number of successful petitions, had 265 grants. As the immigration debate becomes increasingly polarized, there is little interest among politicians or the public in seeing the asylum numbers increase....

At the same time, American immigration judges, always careful not to open the asylum door to any flood, have made it more difficult for Central Americans running from gangs. In a landmark ruling in 2008, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied a petition by three Salvadoran teenagers who fled recruitment by a gang called the MS-13, saying they had not shown that they were in more peril than Salvadorans in general.

The NYT article describes the cases of two Salvadoran men whose asylum claims were denied -- one was killed by the gans after being deported, while the other lives in hiding in El Salvador. It's yet another example of some of the ways in which the US immigration system suffers from serious flaws.

Tropical storm Alex adds to 2010 storm toll

Rains associated with Tropical Storm Alex, have left three dead in El Salvador and more than 1200 people flooded out of their homes according to LPG. An orange alert continues in the country with schools closed in affected areas. As I mentioned in my last post, these storms can significantly impact the country's agricultural production, in addition to the loss of human life and the destruction of people's homes.

Storms impact food availability

Storms which have brought torrential rains and flooding often wipe out food crops, while too little rain has the same effect. A recent IPS article highlights the vulnerability to weather events of local production of food in El Salvador:

In September and October of that year, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon led to a shortage in rainfall throughout Central America, which negatively affected the planting of grain and bean crops in areas of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to the FAO report.

Then, in November, Hurricane Ida struck Central America, causing severe damage to agricultural infrastructure in parts of the region. In El Salvador, heavy rains left 198 people dead and 15,000 homeless, in addition to 239 million dollars in losses and damages.

"All of my efforts were destroyed. Only a small part of my corn crop was saved," Isidro Rivas, 48, a farmer in the village of Izcanal, 45 kilometres east of San Salvador, told IPS. The torrential rains unleashed by Hurricane Ida flooded his three hectares of corn, sorghum, pepper and papaya crops.

El Salvador and Guatemala were battered by the force of nature once again in late May, this time by the passage of Tropical Storm Agatha. Losses in the agricultural sector have been estimated at six million dollars in El Salvador, according to official figures. However, the full economic impact of the storm has yet to be calculated, although it will be massive, stated Alexander Segovia, the technical secretary to the president of El Salvador.

"Whether it is flooding or drought, extreme weather conditions always hurt agricultural yields, especially since approximately 60 percent of grain crops in El Salvador are grown on hillsides," Edgar Cruz of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) told IPS.

With a tropical storm season expected to be more active than usual in 2010, food security in El Salvador is under continued threat. Perhaps some day, micro-insurance will offer a way for small farmers to hedge against weather risks.

Oscar Luna re-elected as Human Rights Ombudsman

Oscar Luna was re-elected by El Salvador's National Assembly as the country's Human Rights Ombudsman (PDDH for its Spanish initials).

One of the highest profile members of government in El Salvador has no power and no ability to make or enforce laws. The post of PDDH was created in the constitution following the 1992 peace accords. The PDDH is to monitor and report on human rights issues in the country. His power is only the power of persuasion and publicity. The PDDH can neither prosecute violators nor pass laws. He can only denounce the human rights violations which he observes.

According to LPG, for his new term, Luna has promised to promote creation of units in such areas as the rights of indigenous peoples, HIV-AIDS, rights of immigrants and the creation of an assistant ombudsman for the elderly.

The problems of El Salvador's prisons

The prisons in El Salvador are often referred to as one of the sources of El Salvador's crime problems, not a tool used to reduce crime. El Salvador has a high incarceration rate, with 370 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants. That's 17th out of 217 countries, according to a recent study. (Although only half the rate of #1, the United States, which imprisons 753 persons per 100,000). Read more statistics about the prisons here.

As part of his use of the military to help fight crime, president Funes is sending soldiers to patrol the prison areas, as described in this AP report:

Soldiers in El Salvador have started patrolling prisons to fight gangs and inmate-led crime. President Mauricio Funes says jailed gang leaders often run criminal operations and order violence from within prisons and the troops will reinforce controls both inside and outside the nation's penitentiaries. In an address to the country, the president said the first troops were deployed Wednesday in a prison in Ciudad Barrios, which holds 1,000 Mara Salvatrucha gang members. He did not reveal the number of soldiers.

One role of the troops is to prevent the smuggling of cell phones and other weapons into the prisons. Marcela Sanchez writing in the Latin American Herald Tribune states:

The cell phone has proven to be the weapon of choice for gang members serving time in El Salvador's prisons. By phoning threats to Salvadorans at home and in the U.S., last year gang members funneled into prisons between $750,000 and $800,000 dollars, illicit profits of extortion that corrupt the correctional system from within.

Efforts to block all cellular calls from the prisons have been circumvented by complicit prison officials. And while 1855 cell phones were confiscated last year, many more have found there way in, sometimes stashed in soccer balls skillfully kicked over the prison walls to inmates waiting within.

Writing at Slate.com, author Torie Bosch describes health problems in the Salvadoran prisons:

But if prison is dangerous for most of the Salvadoran personas privadas de libertad (persons deprived of freedom), it is, perhaps expectedly, worse for those living with HIV and other chronic illnesses. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime notes that factors contributing to the virus's spread among prison populations include "overcrowding, unsafe sexual activities and injecting drug use, violence, gangs, lack of protection for the youngest, female and weakest inmates, corruption and poor prison health services"—all of which are not only present but pervasive within El Salvador's 23 correctional facilities for adults. Delivering medical treatment to HIV-positive patients and other sick inmates in an overcrowded, gang-filled system is an immense task, complicated by the country's poverty, the dangers of bringing health workers into the prison environment, stigma surrounding HIV and homosexual activity, and inmates' own resistance. But new programs may create a safe zone for HIV-positive inmates and allow for better education and treatment.

Bosch goes on to describe a new program which brings testing and awareness about HIV into the prisons.

Report on Funes first year

I highly recommend that anyone interested in present day El Salvador read the report by Linda Garret at the Center for Democracy in the Americas titled Expectations for Change and the Challenges of Governance: The First Year of President Mauricio Funes. The link is to an advance edition which was just released online and has a preface written by Congressman James P. McGovern of Massachusetts. In a clear and readable fashion, this report looks at the accomplishments, the challenges and the shortfalls of Mauricio Funes' first year in office as El Salvador's first left wing president.

Return to El Salvador documentary

There is a new documentary titled Return to El Salvador which presents El Salvador and its struggles since the end of the civil war. To learn more, you can watch this trailer:



You can also visit the documentary website which has a 7 minute excerpt from the film, or you can buy a copy of the DVD here.

Bus massacre shocks El Salvador

All of El Salvador was shocked today as the country's violence took a horrifying turn. Sunday night in Mejicanos, a suburb of San Salvador, gang members shot at a micro-bus of Route 47, then doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. Fourteen people were burned to death in the bus.

The attack attracted press coverage world-wide. From National Public Radio:

"This is an act that seeks to generate terror among the population," President Mauricio Funes said, adding that his security Cabinet was to meet to increase security in the country...

The attack took place in a gang-plagued part of the municipality of Mejicanos, just outside San Salvador, National Police Commissioner Carlos Ascencio said. At least 14 people were killed, he said.

Moments later, gang members opened fire on another bus in the same neighborhood, killing two people.

Ascencio said Monday night that eight suspects had been arrested in the bus burning, including one who was detained minutes after the attack and smelled of gasoline. Among the detained were a woman and two minors.

Earlier, Funes said seven suspects had been detained, most accused of being members of the Mara 18 street gang.

Justice Minister Manuel Melgar called the attack "a typical terrorist act," but said the motive was under investigation.

At least 217 drivers and other employees of El Salvador's public transport industry have been killed over the last year and a half in suspected gang attacks, said Catalino Miranda, president of the national federation of transport workers and businessmen. Most victims were shot to death.

How do you react to something like this? Go numb? Cry? Pray for the victims and their families? Scream in rage? Demand vengeance? Huddle in fear? Call for more troops in the streets? I have no answers.

The vulnerable communities of the lower Lempa River

From the SHARE Foundation:

Movement of Rural Communities Affected by Flooding Demands Government Response

With Tropical Storm Agatha behind them, now able to asses damages and plan for the future, the Movement of Rural Communities Affected by Flooding held a press conference. Representatives of communities located near the lower Lempa, Grande, Jiboa and Paz rivers came together on this rainy, grey Friday morning at the CRIPDES National Office to make a number of concrete demands. These four rivers flooded during Hurricane Ida, and these communities have been among those arguably most affected by hurricanes, rains, flooding and landslides for decades. Representatives included SHARE counterparts CRIPDES San Vicente and ACUDESBAL, who work with communities on the western and eastern banks of the lower Lempa River, respectively.

The conference began as the representative of ACUDESBAL summarized the situation. Communites located in lower river basins in El Salvador and throughout the country, dependent on agriculture to survive, are unsure whether to plant. Those that didn't lose their crops in Agatha are hesitant to plant now, for fear of continued flooding with more rains on the way. Their livelihoods, though, depend on the year's corn, bean and sorghum harvest.

There is a high level of vulnerability in all communities in lower river basins because of lack of public works for the levee systems and drainage canals. In the Bajo Lempa, as in other major rivers with dams upstream, this situation is worsened by bad management of dam flood gates, thrown open without concern for communities downstream. During the worst of Tropical Storm Agatha, 6,000 cubic meters of water per second were discharged, while during the worst of Hurricane Mitch and Hurricane Ida, the maximum reached was 4,000 cubic meters per second.

Due to this massive amount of water rushing downstream, the levees, already in a serious state of disrepair, broke in eight places along the lower Lempa River, leaving the communities always in threat of flooding even more vulnerable. This, coupled with what is widely expected to be an extreme hurricane season, has planted fear in place of the corn seeds, washed away. Repairs to the broken levees demand heavy machinery, impossible to bring into a zone that resembles marshland when it rains heavily. So communities are forced to wait it out, saying their prayers and crossing their fingers until November.

Along with crossing their fingers, they have been organizing to demand that their government act. The press release presented included the following demands:

• The immediate provision of food and supplies to the families most affected by flooding;
• Urgent development of a disease-prevention and clean-up campaign;
• An exhaustive investiagtion of damages, including agricultural losses, social infrastructure, levees, and drainage canals;
• Rehabilitation and maintainence of the drainage system;
• Repairs and reconstruction of damaged sections of the levees;
• The establishment of a mechanism to regulate discharges of major dams, including sanctions for those who violate these new regulations.

When asked how the new government has responded to the second national emergency of its term, the response was clear. While communities recognize that Civil Protection's response to this most recent emergency was a significant improvement over the past and that coordination with various levels of government institutions has advanced, the damages caused by these disasters are preventable. The Movement of Rural Communities Affected by Flooding has struggled for over a decade for prevention and mitigation projects in high-risk zones; previous ARENA governments ignored their call, while the new Funes administration failed to respond in a timely manner. Had these projects been carried out, affected communities would not be suffering once again.

The press conference ended with a final call to the central government, as well as on the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Public Works, to focus efforts on prevention and mitigation projects and to minimize human and economic losses in future emergencies.

Laptop computers for 800,000 low income students in El Salvador

This week El Salvador's Education ministry discussed an ambitious program aimed eventually to have laptop computers in the hands of 800,000 students in poor rural schools.

The computers come from the One Laptop Per Child initiative which was formed to place low cost durable laptop computers in the hands of children to jump start education and learning. The XO computer from OLPC is designed specifically for use by children in poor communities around the world.

According to a news report, the government project, called Closing the Knowledge Gap, currently has the computers in the hands of 400 students in five rural schools in Chalatenango. A year from now, the goal is to have the computers in the hands of 78,000 students in 411 schools, and 800,000 students within 4 years. Students can take the rugged little laptop computers home to continue the process of learning with their family.

To learn more about this project, you can read this blog entry from a participant in teacher training at the Evangelical University in El Salvador or watch thisvideo which starts with happy children from Peru with their XO laptops and continues with pictures from a training session for teachers in El Salvador:



You can also watch another video showing two happy boys with OLPC laptops.

Bus clowns protest at passenger murder

Video
News organizations around the world picked up the story of clowns in El Salvador who marched to protest the killing of a bus passenger by "imposter clowns." From the BBC:

Around 100 professional clowns, who make money by performing on public buses, marched through the capital of El Salvador to protest against the killing of a bus passenger by two robbers in clown outfits.

The man was shot five times when he declined to give money to two assailants dressed as clowns who boarded a public bus. No-one has been arrested.

The protesters marched down San Salvador's main street, holding signs and chanting "real clowns are not criminals".

Guns in El Salvador

In a blog post titled Armed to the Teeth in El Salvador, Michael Allison quotes statistics about firearms in El Salvador, originally reported in ContraPunto:

• More than 75% of the country's homicides are committed with firearms.
• Every 3 hours someone is killed with a firearm.
• It is estimated that about 500,000 weapons, legalized or not, are held by the public.
• More than 57% of the fatalities are people aged 15 to 29 years of age.
• Since the end of the war in 1992, El Salvador became the 7th largest importer of weapons worldwide whose main market is the United States.

There has been a gun control law introduced in El Salvador's National Assembly which Allison classifies as a "good start" to addressing the prevalence of gun violence. It's not clear that such a law will pass.

Study of child labor in El Salvador

El Salvador's Ministry of the Economy released the results of its 2009 study of child labor in Salvadoran households. You can download the complete study at this link. The study is an attempt to measure the level of child labor in El Salvador and the attitudes and circumstances which which contribute to it.

The study defines child laborers as children who had worked for at least one hour in the previous week, paid or unpaid, whether for wages or payment in kind, including working in a family enterprise such as a farm or a food stand. The study surveyed 20,000 households in the country.

The 2009 report found that roughly 10% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 were working, totalling roughly 189,000 children in El Salvador. The percentages ranged from 1% of children between the ages of 5-9, 10% of children between ages 10-14, and 24% of children between the ages of 15-17.

The report notes the following characteristics of child labor in El Salvador:

• 60% of child workers live in rural parts of the country.
• 73% of child workers are boys.
• 40% of the children who work do not attend school.
• About half of the child workers are found in agricultural work.
• The great majority (64%) of child workers are unpaid help working for their families.
• Children who work are generally a year behind their age peers in school.
• A lack of financial resources was the main reason parents cited for their children not finishing school.
• In 69% of the households where there is a child working, the head of the household had not finished primary school.
• In 68% of the households where there is a child working, the head of the household is a single mother.

Families in poverty have to make tough choices. Sometimes the choice is that school is less important than doing some work which might help put food on the family table. Since poverty is greatest in rural areas of El Salvador, it is not surprising that we see child labor more prevalent there. Programs which help lower the cost of school, and which help provide resources to families led by single mothers or parents with little education, can contribute to a reduction in the number of children who must spend part of their childhood working.

A week in El Salvador

Ir's always nice to see prominent media taking note of what El Salvador has to offer. The travel section of the New York Times recently wrote:

For a small country, El Salvador abounds with attractions: volcanoes, coffee plantations, national parks and a gorgeous Pacific coast.

The Times then goes on to describe a possible itinerary for the tourist who wants to spend a week in El Salvador.

For more ideas, choose the tourism link on the right side column of this blog.

Understanding the Pacific Rim v El Salvador arbitration

I did not have time to watch more than an hour or so of the hearings in the arbitration between Pacific Rim and the government of El Salvador which took place on May 31 and June 1 in Washington, D.C. Luckily, the folks behind the
Voices from El Salvador blog were watching and wrote a thoughtful summary of day 1 and day 2. The writer summed up what could be gleaned from these formal legal proceedings:

I found these hearings interesting on a couple levels. Much of what we hear about the mining debate comes from grassroots organizations that support the anti-mining movement in El Salvador. While the information we receive is important and interesting, too often we don’t know what is happening within the government ministries, or what Pacific Rim is really thinking. We see how their decisions manifest in Cabanas, but we don’t necessarily see the process. These hearings have been a window into what the Salvadoran government and Pacific Rim have been doing and thinking over the years. Granted, the information that we are getting is filtered through legal teams and the facts have been methodically organized to support legal arguments, but its more than we’ve gotten in the past.

The archived video recordings of the hearings continue to be available at this link. At least this part of the process has been transparent for all to see.

The Voice from El Salvador blog also republished an article Thinking Twice About A Gold Rish: Pacific Rim v El Salvador, by Gus Van Harten, an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto. Van Harten takes a careful look at the policy issues involved in having private arbitrators make decisions regarding the environmental policy decisions of a sovereign government. The tensions he describes are being played out in the Pacific Rim case.

Sexism and violence

My friend Daniele has written an important article titled Sexism: It's to Die For dealing with the issues of sexism, machismo and femicide in El Salvador. She starts with the story of a gang rape of a disabled girl, and then looks at the attitudes which could allow a community to not be outraged and even to back the accused band of rapists:

These attitudes have a source. Whether spit from the mouths of fearful neighbors or from the pulpit in a twisted religious interpretation, these attitudes are called machismo, and one of El Salvador's big struggles (like most countries in the world) is how to finally shed sex discrimination. This discrimination can be propogated by societal structures, authorities, teachers, parents, etc, and it finds its extreme expression in violence against or the assasination of women, called feminicide. In El Salvador, sexism is so ingrained that the band of men found it completely acceptable to rape multiple women and girls in their own community, in the middle of the day, and not fear retribution. Their male and female family members felt that the Las Melidas team was in the wrong, and that their grandfathers, husbands and sons had done nothing unusual. In short: in this case in the Lower Lempa, Salvadoran "masculinity" was valued over the innocence of childhood. Clearly, it will take a concerted and well-coordinated effort to change this reality.

Danielle goes on to to discuss other societal and cultural forces which distinguish the violence perpetrated against women from that crimes against men. And in El Salvador, the rate of murders of women is rising much faster than the increase in murders of men.

Efforts are starting to be made to combat femicide in El Salvador. An organization named Ormusa is helping to advocate for changes to the way these crimes are addressed in the country:

Ormusa thus has designed a project to do just that. [Attorney] Silvia says that the Funes administration’s Commission for the Family, Woman, and Childhood has started to make mention of the subject; thus, now is the time to bring the issue to the forefront of the minds of civil society and lawmakers. Ormusa plans to publish articles, increase their political advocacy, and continue educating women about their rights. Silvia encourages us to walk in solidarity with the work of Ormusa and Cripdes in our everyday interactions, whether by using inclusive language or questioning assumptions about gender roles. Only by rooting out our own sexist attitudes can we build a world where childhood isn't sacrificed to errant ideas of adults.

Make sure and read all of Daniele's article. You can also learn more about the problem of femicide in my post from earlier this year.

Salvadorans grade Funes' first year in office

Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes completed his first year in office today. Recent public opinion polls show that citizens of the country are generally pleased with their first president from a left wing party.

The Public Opinion Institute at the University of Central America polled more than 1200 Salvadorans in May and released their results here. Among the highlights:

• Citizens give Funes a rating of 6.78 on a 10 point scale, down from 7.16 in August 2009.
• 57.8% say Funes is doing a good job, while only 17.5% think he is doing a bad job.
• 58.3% have seen positive changes in the country under Funes, while 41.7% said they had not seen an improvement

When asked about Funes' biggest achievement, more than 40% of respondents cited his program to provide free uniforms, shoes, and school supplies to school children throughout the country. Nothing else came close in the poll.

The failure to combat the crime problem was cited by 26.7% of those polled as Funes' greatest failure, with economic issues being cited as well by 10%.

53% answer that President Funes has control over governmental decisions, while 36.8% believe he is being manipulated by other sectors. When this latter group is asked to state who is manipulating Funes, 20.3% indicate the left-wing FMLN, while 19.2% indicate he is being manipulated by right-wing ARENA and 14.2% point to the rich and powerful in the country.

These IUDOP poll results are very similar to the findings of a new public opinion poll released by La Prensa Grafica. You can read the LPG poll results here.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that Tony Saca, Funes' predecessor, enjoyed similar approval ratings at this point in his administration.