New resources

I've added some resources on this blog to further its purpose of making good information about El Salvador available to an English-speaking audience. On the right hand column of the blog you will now find a book list, a movie list, a blog list, and a collection of El Salvador-related YouTube videos.

I hope you find them helpful. If you have suggestions for me to add to any of these lists, please forward them, and look for other categories of resources to be added in the future.

Youth seek to interact with government to combat violence

Reducing levels of crime in El Salvador needs participation and cooperation of all sectors in society. A positive example of how the government can engage with the citizens on the topic of security was a forum on "Youth and Violence" organized by young people in Cabañas last week.

From their press release about the event:

The Youth of Cabañas Conduct a Forum Against Violence and the Criminalization of Youth in the Country.

The Department of Cabañas joined the celebration of International Youth Year with a forum called "Youth and Violence" which took place in Sensuntepeque - Cabañas - Wednesday 25 August, with the aim of establishing the young person as an actor conscious of his or her reality but at the same time being able to offer opinions and solutions to their problems.

The uniqueness of this event is the leading role of the youth sector, not only in organizing the forum, but also in the development of the themes on: Public Safety and Human Rights, generation gap, social challenge and criminalization of youth.

The event involved over 600 young people from the Department, in order to be part of the analysis and proposals for the daily crime afflicting youth living in El Salvador, where they are often criminalized and stigmatized, under the pretext that they are part of gangs which extort and terrorize the population.

Among the invited authorities were the Director of the National Civil Police, Carlos Ascencio, the Assistant Ombudsman for the Defence of Human Rights, Salvador Menendez Leal, the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Manuel Melgar and departmental authorities. Public officials have the task of listening to the proposals of the youth sector in the search for alternatives to violence and criminality in the country, and of finding ways authorities and youth can work together towards a safer future.

Young people of Cabañas reiterated the need to transform the stigma of the youth sector and to direct social processes of inclusion and participation in the political, economic, social and cultural life as José Martí said: "Let us be worthy representatives of the responsibilities our times entail."

The participation of high level officials from sectors of the government reflects what I have seen as a greater willingness of the Funes administration to engage in dialogue with civil society groups and to get their input on government policies. Hopefully this example can be followed in other areas and on other topics as well.

Some good travel blog entries

I like good travel blogs written by nomad travelers describing their adventures in El Salvador and elsewhere. A few good ones crossed my computer screen this week. Carla and Mike are Road Trippin in El Salvador and write about journeys on the Ruta de las Flores in the western part of the country. Two of the places they visited were Apaneca and Ataco:

Apaneca is a town that looks like it belongs in another century: cobblestone streets, one main church, workshops for furniture makers – very relaxed vibe. The cool mountain climate – a shock compared to Intipuca – adds to the pleasant atmosphere. Our final mountain village was Ataco, which also has cobblestone streets but what makes this town stand out is the color! Many of the homes and shops are painted in fruit colored hues: lemon, lime, melon, orange, strawberry, grape… And if they aren’t painted then they are decorated with fantastic murals depicting traditional life, community heroes, and social issues in vibrant colors. We walked all around town snapping pictures of the different murals and we know that we did not get them all

It’s amazing how art can uplift a place – and turn the ordinary to extraordinary! The town is not rich, it’s a farming community, but it has such vitality, because of the surrounding art. (more)

The travelers writing Mars and Venus revolving around Latin America were in the same parts of El Salvador taking in the weekend food fair in Juayua:

Juayua, El Salvador has this amazing food festival every weekend and this is exactly where we spent our entire weekend. The food and energy that comes from this little village is the best. We arrived to the city later in the day on Saturday to find that about half of the stands surrounding the central plaza had already been closed. There was still more than enough to eat and we came back for much more on Sunday.

First off was fried yucca root served with a topping of pickled cabbage. Delicious and similar to the flavor of a french fry. Next stop was the stand selling chicken tomales for 25 cents. This is the second tomale that I´ve had here in Central America and I´m starting to notice that they like to leave the chicken on the bone when they put it in the tomale. Extra flavor I guess! I didn´t find out until after I devoured it, but my first tomale even had a chicken foot in it, but that´s a whole different story. Lol. As we strolled under the tents, past the hundreds of stands set up for the market, we passed by a girl eating chocolate covered strawberries from a kabab stick. I knew this needed to be our next sample.

The man with the strawberries had a cooler full of frozen kabobs of strawberries and bananas and for topping you could choose from crushed peanuts, shredded coconut, cocoa krispies and multi-colored sprinkles. There was a pot of melted chocolate that the fruit was dipped into and as soon as the warm chocolate covered the frozen fruit, he would dip it in your topping of choice and you would end up with the most perfect chocolate covered strawberries.

You could even get some tasty frogs or snakes:

Salvadoran migrants part of massacre

Media sources in El Salvador and the rest of the world have been filled with the reports of the massacre of 72 presumed Central and South American migrants. According to the lone survivor of the massacre, they had been killed by members of the Zetas, one of the Mexican drug cartels engaged in a brutal drug war. Gunmen stopped a truck carrying the victims, demanding a ransom or to recruit the migrants. When they could not or would not meet the demands, the massacre began, according to the witness who managed to escape. The massacre took place on remote ranchland about 90 miles from the southern US border.

Of the bodies which had been identified by this evening, six were reported to be Salvadorans.

The path from Central America towards an illegal crossing into the US has become more and more deadly as gangs, drug cartels and corrupt authorities prey on the migrants. From the Wall Street Journal:

Human-rights groups, however, say Mexico's government has done little to protect migrants on its turf. More than a dozen Mexican rights groups in March presented a case against the Mexican government at the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States, arguing Mexico was systematically violating the rights of illegal migrants.

An estimated 20,000 migrants are kidnapped each year in Mexico, according to a study last year by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission. In as many as 200 cases, the abductions were carried out by local police or in collusion with police forces, the report said.

"In many cases, they are victims of federal and local authorities, especially those involved in public security, who brutally beat them, humiliate them, and extort them," the report said, adding that Mexican courts showed little urgency in prosecuting such crimes.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Not only are they targeted for money, says Mr. Poire, but they are also seen as potential recruits for drug cartels locked in a deadly battle that has taken 28,000 lives since 2006, when [Mexican president] Calderón sent the military to fight organized crime....

The journey through Mexico has become more and more treacherous as suspected drug traffickers branch out into other businesses, including human trafficking. They are increasingly targeting migrants in a variety of ways, say analysts, authorities, and migrants.

Migrants are often victims not only because they are presumed to have cash on hand, but because many have relatives with cash in the US. This was confirmed to the Monitor during interviews with migrants at Tultitlan in central Mexico, a crossing ground for many heading to America.

At a shelter in Tultitlan, migrants say they are victims both of Mexican authorities seeking bribes and Mexican gangs who beat them for their cash, and worse, kidnap them in hopes of getting ransom from relatives in the US.

Amnesty International calls the attacks on and abuse of migrants in Mexico a human rights crisis. You can read its report from earlier this year here and watch a video on the topic at this link.

San Salvador -- 1947

Blogger Ixquic came across this film footage of San Salvador from 1947:

There's a noticeable difference from the dangerous, crowded, dirty conditions which mark the historic center of San Salvador today. The church which appears in the video is the old cathedral which burned to the ground in 1951. The current Metropolitan Cathedral was only finished in 1994 after the conclusion of the civil war.

Improvement in homicide rate?

The online periodical El Faro reports this week that El Salvador's police authorities believe they are seeing the start of an improvement in El Salvador's tragically high murder rate. According to the report, July 2010, with 9.4 homicides per day, had the lowest monthly daily average recorded since the 8.5 murders per day in December 2008, the last time the homcide figure was below double digits. In the first two weeks of August 2010, according to police sources cited by El Faro, the average increased to 10.1 homicides, but the numbers were down between 6% and 40% over August 2009 in five departments: San Vicente, Santa Ana, Usulután, San Salvador and Sonsonate.

July marked a turning point in the fight against the killings, believes the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Manuel Melgar, who was cautious in forecasting whether or not this marks a trend for the crime rate. 'We have noticed a decrease in killings and are working to make this a trend. You have to see how it behaves (this phenomenon) in the coming days ... I am no fortune teller to know how it will behave, "he said.

El Salvador's security officials believe the improvements are the product of changes they began to make in March of this year, with a greater effort at recovering at risk communities, more police availability, more arrests, as well as the presence of the armed forces in various areas of the country. Melgar also pointed to greater cooperation among various governmental institutions including the Attorney General, the PNC, the Bureau of Prisons, the immigration authority, and the armed forces, who are now working from a single policy.

While the murder rate may be starting to trend down, violence in El Salvador can still shock the country. The BBC News quotes San Salvador's archbishop after a particularly gruesome murder:

The Catholic Church in El Salvador has asked the authorities to step up their fight against a spate of violent murders in the country. Archbishop of San Salvador Jose Luis Escobar Alas said he thought the security forces were well-meaning, but needed to do more.

He was speaking four days after a six-year old girl was found decapitated. Monsignor Escobar Alas said her murder was a symbol of how barbaric things had become in the Central American nation.

"A girl of six, murdered on her way to school, how can that be?", he asked.

He said he had held a meeting with the security forces after the murder and thought they deserved the trust of the Salvadoran people. But, he said, they needed to do more to "purge the bad elements in the police, the armed forces and the prison system".

The same day that the archbishop spoke, a father with his two daughters were massacred in El Divisadero, a village located about 18 kilometers (some 11 miles) south of San Salvador, by at least five men who burst into the family’s dwelling.

And so Salvadorans continue to worry, hope, fear and pray for relief from the epidemic of violence. In one expression of those wishes, members of more than 5 dozen Lutheran churches across the country came into San Salvador on August 6 to march for improved security for El Salvador's people. The theme of the march "NO to Violence, YES to Life" echoed through the streets of the capital city. It was a fitting theme on the feast day of San Salvador's patron saint and the 24th anniversary of Lutheran bishop, Medardo Gomez, which you can watch in this video:

It is too early to tell whether El Salvador has turned the corner on violent crime and murder. And even if the statistics are improving, there is a long, long way to go. We can all hope and pray that this is a trend, and not a statistical fluke. We can all say "NO to violence, YES to Life."

Funes still popular

President Mauricio Funes receives a positive rating from 81% of Salvadorans, according to a CID Gallup survey published yesterday.

The study was conducted from August 12 to 15, 2010. A total of 1,010 Salvadorans were polled, with a sampling error of 3.08 points, up or down.

The proportion of people with positive views increased slightly from 79% in July, but in October 2009, Funes had his highest proportion of positive ratings: 87%.

Funes' popularity cuts across party lines. 90% of FMLN supporters rate him positively, and 63% ARENA members.

62% of people believe that this administration has changed things "for the better" and only 16% "for the worse."

In the US, Barrack Obama would love to have poll numbers that high.

Reader Requests

After almost 6 years of blogging and more than 1500 posts, I'm looking for suggestions and ideas about how to make this blog more useful and informative to all its readers. What do you want to know? Are there other topics I should cover? Should the layout be re-designed? Should the blog be more interactive? You can leave a comment on this post, or send me an email using the link in the right hand column.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Tim

A new US ambassador to El Salvador

Mari Del Carmen Aponte will finally become the next ambassador to El Salvador, although without confirmation by the full Senate. President Obama used a recess appointment to get around a Republican hold on the progress of her nomination which had been pending since last December.

From Politico.com:

Washington Latin America hands say Aponte’s confirmation was held up by Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) over a past relationship with a Cuban American who had alleged contact with the Cuban interests section, although nothing shown to be illicit. “No big deal, but given the utter nuttiness about Cuba among some, she wasn’t getting confirmed,” one Latin America hand explained.

Aponte’s confirmation had been strongly championed by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who praised Obama's decision to move forward with the recess appointment today.

“Republicans in the Senate have deployed a strategy of broadly obstructing presidential appointments in order to grind the people’s business to a halt, and it was tremendously disappointing that they chose to delay Ms. Aponte’s confirmation as part of this strategy," Menendez said in a statement. "Furthermore, it is shameful that they raised an issue from the distant past, which has been fully answered, to tar Ms. Aponte.

Ms. Aponte's background shows her to be a good choice as the next ambassador to El Salvador:

Mari Del Carmen Aponte is currently an attorney and independent consultant with Aponte Consulting. From 2001-2004, Ms. Aponte was the Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA). Prior to that, she practiced law for nearly twenty years with Washington D.C. based law firms. Ms. Aponte also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council of La Raza and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. She is also a member of the Board of the University of the District of Columbia and Rosemont College. She served as president of the Hispanic National Bar Association; the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia; and is a member of the District of Columbia Judicial Nominations Commission. In 2005, she was also elected to the Board of Directors of Oriental Financial Group (NYSE-OFG). In 1979, as a White House Fellow, Ms. Aponte was Special Assistant to the United States Housing and Urban Development Secretary Moon Landrieu. Ms. Aponte has a B.A. in Political Science from Rosemont College, a M.A. in Theatre from Villanova University, and a J.D. from Temple University.

Environmental causes of migration

Yesterday I mentioned my friend Beth who works with a local community on reconstruction projects necessitated by weather disasters. Well worth reading is her thoughtful essay In Search of Shelter and Protection: Environmental Migration and Climate Change. Here is an excerpt:

Disaster patterns in El Salvador are ever increasing, and will continue to do so in the coming years due to unpredictability of El Nino/La Nina cycles. This year, for example, unexpected downpours in August, the month that is normally a mid-summer drought, will threaten to destroy corn crops, which will further indebt farmers who already lost bean crops in Hurricane Ida last November. Increase in sea level rises could wipe out the entire Bajo Lempa region in the next 100 years, and corn may become inviable in the next 50 years depending on temperature increases.

How many Salvadoran will need to migrate within or outside the country due to these changes? How will the Salvadoran government come up with money for adaptation? And should they? (NGOs such as UNES feels that since climate change was caused mainly by the US and Europe, they owe an ecological debt to countries in the global south such as El Salvador). Disaster microinsurance, better river basin management, and new urban planning to handle those internally displaced from Bajo Lempa are among the adaptation options. But undoubtedly some, as many Salvadorans already have done, will look for work abroad to feed their families. How many? And how?

Environmental migration is already a adaptation strategies millions are using to survive- estimates range from 20-200 million globally. Recent studies from Princeton University suggest 1.4 million to 6.7 millio as the amount of Mexicans who may flee to the United States from drought induced by climate change. How many will die along the way? US borders are getting tighter, and climate change is accelerating. (more)

The San Vicente landslides -- 9 months later

On November 6, 2009, landslides caused by torrential rains demolished sections of the towns of Guadalupe and Verapaz on the slopes of the San Vicente volcano. Nine months later, I participated in a meeting with leaders of the town of Guadalupe. They spoke of their concerns -- the foremost being that they needed a bridge built as part of an evacuation route. When the rains come again, as they certainly will, flash flooding cuts off the route of escape leaving people trapped for the mudslide which may follow. Meanwhile, families whose homes were destroyed still live in temporary wood structures close by the community, cooking in a community kitchen and using community bathroom facilities.

Guadalupe and Verapaz have a history of suffering from disasters on the folds of the volcano. The February 13, 2001 earthquake wiped out much of the towns, and then in September that same year, a landslide caused by flooding repeated the damage. And then in 2009 the tragedy repeated itself.

The 2009 tragedies were predictable and were predicted. The image below is from the 2004 book Natural Hazards in El Salvador. This image from the book (click on it for a larger version) shows the paths that landslides can be expected to take down the slopes of the San Vicente volcano. Guadalupe and Verapaz are directly in those paths.



The actual paths of the November 2009 landslides follow the predictions. You can see pictures of the damages caused by that flooding and the landslides in Nick's blog

The government does not want to rebuild in the town of Guadalupe. It wants to resettle the town in a location farther down towards the coast, but the leaders of Guadalupe believe that area is equally likely to flood and is not as good as their milpas around Guadalupe. Besides that, the government wants to break their hearts by insisting they demolish their own houses. The government says if they do not leave, they must sign documents absolving the government of all responsibility for future disasters.

Despite the loss of lives and homes and possessions, and despite the certainty that it will happen again, the people of Guadalupe do not want to leave. They want the government to build a wall and a channel to direct the flowing mud and rocks around the town. They want a bridge to provide an evacuation route if conditions are threatening. They want to rebuild their destroyed homes. They don't want to leave the community where they've lived their whole lives. They tell us they are planning a protest march to broadcast their demands to the government.

It is a difficult problem if you are a government official. Resources are limited. How much do you spend to protect a community in the high risk zone for future disasters? Who performs the cost/benefit analysis? How do you treat people fairly? How do you build trust in government decisions?

This is a story which plays out in various ways across El Salvador as poor people, living in at-risk communities, struggle for safety, dignified housing, and for a government responsive to their needs. You can read my friend Beth's story of another community, declared uninhabitable by the government, and its struggle for a solution at this link.

The victims of the November 6, 2009 San Vicente landslides will not be forgotten. A local musician has committed their memory to song in this tribute to the victims:

Video honors women in El Salvador

This video from the SHARE Foundation provides a tribute to some of the courageous women of El Salvador:

Mother and advocate for justice, Alicia Garcia, dies

Last week El Salvador lost one of its leading figures in the struggle for justice for victims of the civil ware. Alicia Garcia was a mother who suffered greatly during the war, and out of that suffering came a determination to persevere on the path of justice. From the SHARE Foundation:

On Wednesday, August 11th, Alicia Garcia, one of the founding members of the Committee of Mothers Monseñor Romero, passed away after over thirty years of unending struggle in defense of human rights and for justice in El Salvador.

After witnessing the student massacre of June 30, 1975 from the Maternity Hospital where she worked at the time, sheltering students running from the National Guard and watching bodies thrown into military trucks, never to be seen again, coupled with the disappearance of her own son, Alicia accompanied women searching for their loved ones in prisons, morgues, and mass graves. When he was named archbishop, Monseñor Romero encouraged the Comadres to form a committee to search for their loved ones, support each other, and denounce violence together. At every Sunday mass, Monseñor Romero would read a list of disappeared, tortured and killed people that the Comadres compiled as they received information and testimonies from victims and families of victims.

Because of their extensive library of documents and photographs of the death squad and military violence during the 1970s and 1980s, the Comadres offices were bombed many times. In meeting with delegations, Alicia would often share her own heart-wrenching testimony of the disappearance, torture and death of her children and her unending search for their whereabouts and sometimes, her own stories of torture at the hands of the military.

From accompanying women to morgues, mass graves, and prisons during the war, Comadres, with Alicia in the forefront, formed a crucial part of the Pro-Monument Committee, which created the Monument to Truth and Memory in honor of the civilian victims of the civil war. When she spoke about this monument, Alicia would emphasize the story behind each name, the struggles for justice, the family left behind, many of whom never knew the final resting place of their loved one. "To never forget," she said.

Alicia continued to call for an end to impunity and investigations into human rights violations during the war, worked with victims and orphans in mental health issues, and shared her story and the story of thousands of Salvadorans with younger generations and international delegations to ensure that the past is never forgotten.
As we mourn her death, we also celebrate her life and take it as an example for our own. Alicia, who faced unfathomable hardships and unsurmountalbe odds, never gave up her faith or her struggle for justice. During the war, she was a beacon of light and strength for thousands of mothers whose loved ones had disappeared, and became a beacon of light for an entire society against violence, repression and injustice. She is a call, a reminder, to continue the work for justice and in defense of human rights, whatever the cost. Alicia, we will not forget.

The organization she co-founded, COMADRES, dedicated to remembering and seeking justice for victims, will be a lasting legacy.

Mara Komoska wrote about meeting Alicia:

Her testimonio and the question and answer period afterwards changed my life. Alicia told us about her personal experience of having been kidnapped, raped and severely tortured by her own government. She told us that their office had been bombed eight times and that all of their files (documenting the cases of the disappeared) had been destroyed. We all sat there in shock after listening to her story. Then a classmate of mine raised his hand and asked Alicia, “Are you afraid to continue doing this work? Are you afraid to walk down the street on the way to your office because you know you could be kidnapped again or that the office could be bombed again?” Alicia thought about it a moment and then said, “No, I am not afraid, because I know that our path is just. I know that what we are doing is right. And Archbishop Romero said to us that the right path may be covered with briars, but that you have to tread it, because it is the right way; it is God’s way.”

A challenge to political parties

In January 2009, I wrote a post titled "The Primacy of the Party" where I described the Salvadoran system for electing deputies to the National Assembly. The voters do not vote for individual deputies; they vote only for the political party. The ballot for deputies to the National Assembly is simply a series of party logos, and the voter marks the logo of the party for whom he wishes to elect deputies to the National Assembly. The parties develop their slate of deputies for each department, and rank those deputies from 1 to the total number elected in the department.

The Supreme Court in El Salvador has now ruled that this closed system violates El Salvador's constitution. The Voices from El Salvador blog has its usual excellent analysis:

On July 29, the Legislative Assembly and the Constitutional Branch of the Supreme Court began openly debating election reforms. The Supreme Court issued a ruling that struck down clauses of the Election Code that required candidates to be members of a political party in order to run for office in the Legislative Assembly. In the same ruling, the Court also said that the closed lists that political parties currently use on election ballots are unconstitutional. Instead, the Court said, voters must be able to vote for individual candidates from each party.

The Court stated that sections of the Electoral Code were unconstitutional because they diminish voter autonomy and effectively eliminate direct elections, which is a right protected by Article 78 of the Salvadoran Constitution. Warned in advance of the Court’s impending decision, the Legislative Assembly passed several constitutional reforms, one of which completely banned independent candidates from participating in municipal and Legislative. The last minute reforms, some of which were passed at 1 am the night before the Court published its decision, were clearly intended to create conflict with the Supreme Court. (more)

The court's decision has prompted Salvadoran politicians and commentators to debate the relationship among the branches of government and the nature of the country's democracy. President Funes has expressed his disagreement with the Court's decision. The Supreme Court's decision brings a direct challenge to the entrenched officials in each political party who control the slates of delegates. How the issue is resolved will reveal much about the maturity of the post-civil war Salvadoran democratic institutions.

Children of the mangrove swamps

I was in Puerto Parada, El Salvador Monday. Puerto Parada is a very poor community bordering the mangrove swamps along the Bay of Jiquilisco. It is a community heavily damaged by flooding earlier this year (more about that in a subsequent post).

What troubled me most about my visit there was information I learned from a local Lutheran pastor. He told me that 50% of the local children do not attend school, because their parents send them out to work in the mangrove swamps. This is a particularly grueling form of child labor, where children gather mollusks in the estuary waters of the mangrove swamps.

The US Department of Labor described the story of one child in those swamps:

In the rush to get to work, she didn’t take time to eat breakfast. It was more important to make sure she had the things she needed to endure a workday that often meant up to 14 hours in mud and danger -- about a dozen cigars and at least four pills to keep her from falling asleep. Ironically, a good part of the money that she earned was used for buying these "indispensable" items.

Down in the mangrove swamp without shoes, this young girl had to withstand inclement weather, mosquito bites and cuts and scrapes caused by having to extract the curiles from deep in the mud. At times, the cigars helped to repel the mosquitos. However, when she ran out of them, Alejandra just had to put up with the insects as she moved from branch to branch and from one area to another in search of shells. When she returned from work, her body was nearly always covered with bites.

Her earnings amounted to very little. In a day, if she was lucky, Alejandra, the eldest of eight siblings, might manage to collect two baskets of curiles (150 shells), worth little more than 12 colones (US$ 1.40).

On account of her long day, she had no time to go to school, much less play with other children. And in any case, she preferred not to join them as they said that she had a bad odor and ostracized her for being a curiles worker.

The plight of child workers in the mangrove swamps was also highlighted in the documentary "Not a Game":

Deep poverty destroys the childhood of these little ones, and eradicating this practice and the conditions which cause it should be a goal of everyone. The US recently announced a $10 million grant to El Salvador to help combat child labor in this country.

You can learn more about Puerto Parada from Linda's El Salvador blog here.

Pacific Rim survives first round in CAFTA arbitration

Pacific Rim, the Canadian mining company which wants to open a gold mine in El Salvador, survived an initial attempt to dismiss its lawsuit against the government of El Salvador. On Monday, August 2, 2010, the international arbitration tribunal hearing the claim issued a ruling on preliminary objections filed by the government of El Salvador to the complaint. The tribunal overruled the objections and will allow Pacific Rim to proceed to an evidence stage in the action. This was a preliminary procedural ruling -- the tribunal rules on whether Pacific Rim may pursue its claim by assuming all facts in the written complaint are true and considering only any other facts which are not disputed by the parties. The tribunal went to some length to explain that it was not ruling on the merits of Pacific Rim's claims, but only ruling that its written complaint contained sufficient allegations to proceed to the next phase which will include hearing witnesses and receiving evidence.

A complete copy of the decision is available here.

Salvador del Mundo monument

As part of the celebrations of San Salvador's patron saint, La Prensa Grafica is encouraging readers to upload and vote on their favorite photos of the Salvador del Mundo monument which is the symbol of the capitol city. You can view the dozens of photos here.

August Festivals 2010

The August festival days have started in San Salvador and the rest of the country leading up to the patron saint festival for San Salvador, El Divino Salvador del Mundo. Today, August 1, had the opening Parade of the Mails. Rene Figuroa at Demotix has a description:

The first day, there is a Parade named “Desfile de correos” (The Mails Parade), leaded by the Mayor of the City. A lot of people take their children to see the Parade, lengthwise at least 5 miles. In the Parade, a lot of citizens, marching bands, floats, cosplayers, The August Old Men (men in scary masks), The Historians, The Flowers Procession, Military Forces, Clowns, among many others, file out. Also, a girl is elected as the Queen of the Feast.

Figueroa also has a set of photos of today's parade.

La Prensa Grafica has its annual special section on this week of festivals here. The schedule of the week's events in San Salvador is here.