Rains cause damage throughout El Salvador

Starting with Tropical Storms Agatha and Alex, continuing though Tropical Storm Matthew earlier this week and additional soaking rains, the amount of rain falling on El Salvador has created serious problems in many places. As of today, 61 communities were under red alert because of the risk of flooding and landslides as a result of the rain. Most of those communities are in low-lying coastal zones. The remainder of the country is under orange and yellow alerts. Schools were cancelled at noon today.

Authorities count 2,352 persons evacuated, 1,117 persons in 18 shelters. Thirteen communities are cut off by flood water and can only be reached by boat. Three people have died. There is $600,000 in damages to roads.

The impact of the rains on farming will bring hunger. La Prensa Grafica reports that 60% of the bean harvest has been lost on account of the rains. In addition, 40% of the corn harvest will be lost. A reduction in the coffee crop is also expected as too much moisture leads to fungus diseases among the coffee plants.

My friend Beth who works to help a community in one of these high risk zones writes about the struggle:

CEIBA was out in Santiago Texacuangos this morning, after receiving calls from communities all over the area whose houses had flooded, or whom has lost a wall. Mercedes, community organizer for CEIBA, and I met with the mayor this morning to discuss the emergency and how we can collaborate if the situation gets worse. Most concerning is the community of Los Cruces, 17 families stacked on a hillside with sheet metal....

[A] large concave hole has formed under the house in question. The house is now SLANTED, ready to fall on top of the 2 houses below, each of which hold families of 12 people, nearly all women and children. If the rain holds out and the hole gets larger, this house will undoubtedly collapse, the force of which could cause landslides on the entire hillside. What will these families do?

It was a question being asked in many parts of the country. And the rainy season has at least another month to go.

You can see photo galleries of some of the impacts of this week's rain here and here.

You can see a satellite image of current weather in El Salvador at this link.

El Salvador's Supreme Court cuts back press freedom

An article in the Latin American Herald Tribune describes a recent court decision in El Salvador which limits protections which the press might have to suits by people who do not like what is written:

SAN SALVADOR – El Salvador’s Supreme Court ruled that the media and television station owners, editors and managers may be brought to trial for slander, injury or defamation in a decision interpreted as a blow against press freedom.

The high court’s Constitutional Chamber issued a 4-1 decision on Friday regarding the “unconstitutionality” of the third clause within Article 191 of the Criminal Code, which guarantees protection against criminal rulings against the press, Supreme Court spokesman Mario Larin said.

In reaction to the ruling, the country’s main dailies, including El Diario de Hoy, La Prensa Grafica and El Mundo, agreed that the decision constitutes a “blow to freedom of expression.”

“The ruling of four justices will foment fear and intolerance,” warned El Diario de Hoy, while El Mundo wrote that “it removes the protection from owners, managers, editors and people in charge” of media outlets.

“That clause protects a certain group, only managers, owners, editors and chiefs of media outlets? According to basic principles of the law, when any regulation is made, the lawmaker has to think that it will be general, that it will be for everyone, it cannot be specified,” Larin said.

The decision eliminates a type of “exemption” which this group enjoyed, Larin said, adding that it ran counter to the principle of the “constitution, which says that the law is equal for all.”

He also said that freedom of expression cannot be “above the other rights, like that of reputation and privacy.”

The initiator of the challenge to section of Article 191, is Salvadoran businessman, Roberto Bukele. Bukele, is the owner of the McDonald's franchise in San Salvador who has had a long-running legal dispute with the McDonald's corporation.

I have not seen any legal guidance on whether the owner of a blog which deals with El Salvador is protected from suit for the things he might write.....

Murals of hope

If you travel to view the site of the El Mozote massacre near Perquin in Morazan Deapartment, one of the things you will see is this mural on the side of the little church which faces the plaza. The mural was a project of visual artist Claudia Bernardi who uses art and murals as a tool to restore a sense of community in populations impacted by massacres or other human rights atrocities.

A recent article on the Huffington Post tells the story:

To see Bernardi's gorgeous images is to be seduced by their jeweled colors of raw pigment and lured by their lyrical titles. But a closer look reveals skeletal remains, fragments of the silenced, drawn with indelible tenderness. Her work weaves visual poetry with a brutal frankness informed by her time spent in mass graves exhuming innocent victims of political conflicts. As a member of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (AFAT), a scientific organization founded to investigate human-rights abuses against civilian populations, Bernardi has worked at sites throughout the world.

It was in 1992 that her work for AFAT first took Bernardi to El Salvador. The team was to investigate rumors of a massacre eleven years previous in the hamlet of El Mozote. Their focus was initially limited to a small building known as "The Convent," where they would subsequently unearth the remains of 143 people, 136 of whom were under the age of ten. AFAT would return to El Salvador several more times, completing their investigation of El Mozote in 2004.

She visited the village of Perquin in 2001, four kilometers north of what was now the ghost of El Mozote. There, Bernardi began working with the community and together they would eventually create a mural dedicated to the victims of the massacre. Inspired by the villagers' ability to use art to overcome their longstanding differences and personal traumas, Bernardi would found The School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin in 2005.

Today, the school continues to use art as a tool for education, community development, and a voice for victims of human-rights violations. The school is free and open to all. Students, from children to the elderly, sometimes walk miles to learn to draw, paint, make textiles and wood sculpture. It is run by four local artists who, just five years ago, had never even made a work of art.

You can see a photo album of the development of the El Mozote mural at this link and read more here about Walls of Hope and its recent project at the site of a massacre of indigenous campesinos in Guatemala.

More photos from El Mozote here.

Residential voting

When El Salvador holds an election, voters often have to travel a long distance from their homes to cast their ballot. Polling places are often at a great distance from smaller communities, and in the capital city of San Salvador, you might be assigned a polling place on the opposite side of the city because your name begins with a particular letter.

A technical team for Eugenio Chicas, president of the Supreme Election Tribunal, has now designed a Residential Voting Plan, which could address many of these issues. From the SHARE Foundation blog:

In this proposal, voting conditions will improve and become much accessible for Salvadorans all over the country. Instead of 460 voting centers, there would be 1755 stategically placed in schools that have the capacity to recieve all the registered voters. The idea being that no voter would need to travel more than three kilometers to vote. Currently, in places such as the Tamarindo Beach, voters travel up to 40 kilometers to reach the nearest polling center. In San Salvador, voters would go to a polling center in or around their neighborhood, instead of travelling to the other side of the city to vote.

The technical team for the TSE, proposes that this shift could be made partially by the 2012 mayor and representative elections and fully by the 2014 presidential elections. They also propose that it could be done with a budget of eight million dollars, though opponents suggest that it could be done for no less than twelve million. These opponents, such as the ARENA party, have in the past earned a lot of money during the elections by hiring family members, friends or their own businesses, to do much of the work required. The TSE technical team shows how by using tools like Google Earth, they were able to save a significant amount of time and money by not visiting all 6,000 schools in the country to determine which would be the best polling station. President Funes has already offered to financially support this initiative, as has the European Union.

The proposal for residential voting, would fulfill one of the objectives of the Peace Accords, by making the country more democratic. It would also be a great step towards development as El Salvador is also the only country in Latin America that does not have residential voting. And the TSE technical team suggests that it would promote citizen participation by making polling stations more community run and more accesible. This type of organization could be greatly beneficial in the future during natural disasters and health promotion campaigns.

This proposal follows on the successful use of residential voting in the Department of Cuscatlán in the 2009 elections, as described in the final report of the European Union election monitors:

In 2003, the Legislative Assembly enacted the establishment of decentralised voting, or the residential vote (“voto residencial”), which was to come into effect as of 2006 as a pilot project in seven municipalities spread out among various departments. As opposed to centralised voting, the goal of residential voting is to bring the ballot boxes closer to the voters, allowing them to vote as close as possible to their place of residence, thus cutting down on travelling distances and favouring greater participation.

The pilot experience proved successful and therefore the TSE decided to extend residential voting for the 2009 elections to the entire department of Cuscatlán.... The unanimous opinion, among both political interlocutors and civil society representatives, is that the residential voting project should be extended nationwide for the next elections in 2012. In so doing, the exercise of the right of suffrage would be facilitated by reducing travelling distances and by limiting, or eliminating, the need for transportation towards the JRVs, which in many cases is left to the parties.

Removing impediments to people exercising their right to vote is a good step for any democracy.

Change to the healthcare delivery system in El Salvador

Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes described his National Integrated Health System yesterday which aims to reform the way that healthcare is delivered for the majority of Salvadorans. Funes described his proposal as "revolutionary" and "real change."

An article in ContraPunto describes aspects of the new system:

The flagship program of the new system is Integrated Network Health Services, which aims to spread out the health service with Community-based Family Health Teams (ECOS), which will carry coverage throughout the country under the premise that it will be the state that moves healthcare towards the citizens, rather than the latter having to search out care, as is the case today.

These teams are already working as pilot programs since August in 74 municipalities, and are composed of five people: a doctor, nurse, nursing assistant, a health promoter and a utility person.

Each ECOS will be responsible for 200 families, which will have charge of all aspects of health, including health issues such as housing, water and food as other conditions, because the medical personnel will be present constantly in communities.

"It's an issue that goes beyond just sitting at the desk and waiting for the patient," said Vice minister for Health Policy, Eduardo Espinoza.

On top of this primary network, for every eight ECOS there will be a Family Specialist ECOS which will be responsible for overseeing the work of the primary and to cover specific medical needs. In these groups there are three doctors, a pediatrician, a psychologist, a dentist, a clinical laboratory technician and a nurse and a nursing assistant. (translation errors are mine).

The proposal also addresses the supply of pharmaceutical drugs in the country, greater integration of the social security health system (ISSS) and the ministry of health operated system, a national emergency system, and greater citizen involvement in the system. Funes proposed increasing the amount of El Salvador's GDP devoted to healthcare from 1.5% to 5% by 2014.

This is a very ambitious proposal. The idea is right -- we'll have to see how Funes finds the money to pay for it.

Gold, lawyers and contaminated rivers.

Two different headlines today are intricately related. On the CNN Money website, the headline was Gold Edges Up to a New Record, which told readers that for the first time in history, the price of gold on international markets closed at $1280 an ounce. In the Salvadoran newspaper DiarioCoLatino, the headline was San Sebastian: The Open Secret of Mining Pollution. This article describes the legacy of pollution in the San Sebastian river, which local residents and activists say stems from a gold mine there. The mine is owned by the US company the Commerce Group, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

It is the record high prices of gold which have led North American gold mining companies like the Commerce Group and Canadian firm Pacific Rim to go to battle with the government of El Salvador. The Salvadoran government currently prohibits both firms from operating gold mining concessions. With gold at record high prices, the conflict between monetary profits and the fear of environmental degradation from mining is a sharp one.

The battlefield for both mining companies is international arbitration under the DR-CAFTA treaty. Pacific Rim and the Commerce Group have each sued the government of El Salvador for tens of millions of dollars, under the foreign investor protection sections of that trade agreement. DR-CAFTA allows investors to bring arbitration claims against a sovereign government and to have the dispute heard in front of a panel of arbitrators at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a part of the World Bank.

I have previously written about the Pac Rim arbitration, where the arbitrators have denied El Salvador's preliminary objections and the case is now moving on to the next phase. Today's post focuses on the Commerce Group case.

As described on the Commerce Group website, the company owns a gold mine in San Sebastian, in La Union department in the far eastern part of El Salvador. There has been gold mining at this location for more than one hundred years. According to the company, "At the turn of the twentieth century, the [mine] was rated as one of the richest gold mines in the world. The United Nations’ 1969 Mineral Survey Report states that “unquestionably the San Sebastian deposit was the jewel of the El Salvador mining industry and one of the most prolific gold mines in Central America.”

The Commerce Group acquired the mine in 1968. It was not operated during El Salvador's civil war, but operated during the 1990's after the war. It ceased operations for economic reasons in 1999. But now its current plans are to conduct open pit mining operations at the site:

The Company plans to use an open-pit mining method and will truck the lower grade mineralized material to one or more heap-leaching pads developed at the SSGM site. The use of open-pit mining and heap-leaching techniques will enable the Company to process a higher volume of low grade mineralized material.

(Pacific Rim plans a sub-surface mine).

In 2006, the government of El Salvador revoked the company's permits to exploit the gold deposits for environmental reasons. It is that decision which the Commerce Group is challenging in its arbitration.

Salvadoran environmental activists are concerned about existing contamination of the San Sebastian river in the area surrounding the mine. Last Tuesday, September 14, an internet video forum was held where Cidia Cortez and David Pereira of the Center for Investigation over Investment and Trade (CEICOM) described the results of CEICOM's investigation into the environmental effects of the San Sebastian mine. The investigation was performed in conjunction with geologist Dina Larios, a professor at Ohio University. They described findings related to acid drainage from the mine producing elevated levels of heavy metals in the waterway as well as health effects evident in the local population. You can see an archived copy of the video forum at this link. You can also read reports of some of their findings here and here. The photos from San Sebastian below are from today's article in Diario CoLatino.





With the price of gold at record highs, the Commerce Group has every incentive to challenge El Salvador blocking the re-opening of the mine. The allegations of the Commerce Group in the international arbitration are summarized in its response filed on September 17 to El Salvador's preliminary objections:

I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

1. Commerce Group Corp. (Commerce) and San Sebastian Gold Mines, Inc. (SanSeb) (collectively the Claimants) are affiliated U.S. corporations that have formed a joint venture to undertake gold mining in El Salvador. Both are publicly held corporations that have, in the aggregate, approximately 3,300 shareholders, over 95% of whom reside in the United States. Over the past over 40 years the Claimants have invested over $100 million in their mining activities in El Salvador; they have a history of mining in the country going back to October, 1968.

2. The Claimants mined gold at the San Sebastian Gold Mine in Santa Rosa de Lima. For over 25 years, however, there has been no processing of gold at or near the San Sebastian mine; all of the ore from the mine was hauled to and processed at the Claimants’ mill and plant in San Cristóbal, which is approximately 15 miles from the San Sebastian mine. In the 1990s, the Claimants produced tens of thousands of ounces of bullion through their operations. When the San Sebastian Gold Mine was operating, the Claimants employed hundreds of laborers, geologists, engineers, plant operators and others in El Salvador. During their long history in El Salvador, the Claimants brought not only employment, but also considerable infrastructure improvements to the vicinity of Santa Rosa de Lima, such as roads and bridges, made contributions for the general good, and built a church.

3. In 2003, El Salvador’s Ministry of Economy replaced the Claimants’ existing mining concession with a new 20-year exploitation concession under the new mining law. The concession gave the Claimants the right to mine at the San Sebastian Gold Mine site. A year later, El Salvador extended the concession to 30 years, or in other words, until 2034. In 2003 and 2004, the Claimants obtained two exploration licenses for additional areas. From 2004 onwards, the Claimants continued to invest significant time, effort and resources in developing their mining exploration and production operations.

4. In 2006, the Republic of El Salvador (El Salvador or the Respondent) began a course of conduct that has resulted in the destruction of the Claimants’ investments. In contravention of its domestic and international legal obligations, El Salvador arbitrarily revoked the Claimants’ environmental permits, ordered the closure of their operations and failed to renew their exploration licenses. These measures are manifestations of a broader government practice to terminate all mining activities by foreign investors in El Salvador. In complete disregard of the Claimants’ rights under their exploitation concession and exploration licenses, El Salvador has effectively adopted and maintained a de facto moratorium on metallic mining.

5. As a result of El Salvador’s conduct, the Claimants have been unable to proceed with plans to develop their operations. In 2008, the Claimants entered an agreement with a strategic partner to develop the San Sebastian Gold Mine. After meeting with representatives of the El Salvadoran government, however, the strategic partner withdrew. It was clear that the El Salvadoran government would not allow mining under any circumstances.

The government of El Salvador filed its preliminary objections to the Commerce Group arbitration demand on August 16, 2010. These objections are procedural and jurisdictional. They do not go to the merits of whether or not the Commerce Group should be entitled to operate its mine. The objections are only interesting to lawyers like me, but if the government prevails, the Commerce Group complaint will be dismissed. If the objections are not sustained, then the case will proceed to the merits of whether El Salvador is within its rights to limit gold mining when that mining is linked to environmental damage in the surrounding area.

The architecture of remittances

If you have spent any time driving through the countryside of El Salvador you have seen them -- remittance houses -- those houses with a certain ostentation and a pastel paint job built using remittances from Salvadorans working in the US. It's an identifiable architectural style (or lack of style?) in El Salvador. Now the country's leading art museum, the Museum of Art of El Salvador, is running an exhibition devoted to the architecture of remittances. The show is titled Architecture of Remittances: Dreams of Return, Symbols of Success and runs through October 17.

If you cannot visit the museum before the show ends, the exhibition has a website here with many photos of remittance architecture and narrative about the cultural forces that these houses represent.

Funes speech in Miami

El Salvador's president Mauricio Funes spoke with a decidedly centrist tone in a presentation yesterday at the Americas Conference sponsored by the Miami Herald. The Miami Herald summarized in English some of Funes' remarks:

Staking out a middle ground in a highly polarized region, El Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said he was not interested in U.S.-style capitalism or Venezuela-inspired socialism but policies that made his nation ``effective and efficient.''

Speaking at the opening day of the Americas Conference in Coral Gables on Tuesday, Funes brushed off the idea that his government might try to adopt the ``XXI Century Socialism'' that Venezuela has tried to export to allies such as Nicaragua and Bolivia.

``In El Salvador it's not possible to build socialism and much less 21st Century Socialism, which I really cannot define and is not clear to me,'' he said. ``I don't think [the model] is clear to many of the political actors in the region.''
While Funes said the party that brought him to power, the left-wing FMLN, has its own ideas, he described himself as the president of all El Salvadorans ``even those who didn't vote for me.''

Since taking office 15 months ago, Funes has restored ties with Cuba and was among the first presidents in the region to blast the 2009 coup in Honduras that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, a staunch ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

But Funes has also pushed for Honduras to be readmitted to the Organization of American States, has maintained cordial ties with the United States and been a vocal critic of presidents who have pushed for constitutional changes to extend their terms -- a category that both Venezuela's Chávez and former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe fall into.

Funes said he was only interested in political ``recipes'' that worked in El Salvador.

``Our model is clear rules, strengthening the rule of law and strengthening institutions so democracy can function in our country,'' he said.

Funes also spoke about illegal immigration, stating that the flow of migrants northward would not be stopped by xenophobic laws or drug cartel massacres until the Obama put greater emphasis on closing the gap between rich and poor and economic development in Central America.

Leftist blogs in El Salvador had criticized Funes for postponing a planned trip to Cuba in order to attend the conservative Miami Herald sponsored conference.

You can watch Funes' complete remarks in the video below (in Spanish only):

Independence Day

September 15 is El Salvador's Independence Day. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent greetings to the Salvadoran people:

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY CLINTON

El Salvador’s Independence Day

On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I congratulate the people of El Salvador as you celebrate the 189th anniversary of your independence this September 15.

As Salvadorans around the world enjoy patriotic festivities and honor the heroes of your struggle for independence, we join in celebrating your rich culture and our shared traditions. I was honored to be present for the inauguration of President Funes last year and reinforce our common commitment to building strong democratic institutions, promoting the rule of law, and expanding economic growth and opportunity to more people. We have also made great strides working together to combat terrorism, crime, and drug trafficking. These ties of friendship extend beyond our governments with our strong business and deep people-to-people connections. We are committed to working closely with El Salvador to further strengthen the close relationship between our nations.

I wish all Salvadorans a happy independence day -- ¡Felicitaciones! I look forward to continuing our work together building a future of lasting security and prosperity for all our people.

Investigating the police

This week the Voices from El Salvador blog has the important story of Zaira Navas, the Inspector General of the National Civilian Police. Conservative legislators, who perhaps have their own past records of disregard of the rule of law, are trying to reign in her investigations of corruption in the PNC:

This week, Diputado José Antonio Almendáriz from the conservative National Conciliation Party (PCN) proposed that the Legislative Assembly Security Commission form a special commission to investigate Zaira Navas, Inspector General of the National Civil Police (PNC). Diputado Almendáriz is challenging Navas’s very clear mandate to investigate Police Commissioners accused of corruption or criminal activities.

Since 2009, Inspector General Navas has made news for her office’s investigations of PNC Commissioner Douglas Omar García Funes, former Commisioner Godofredo Miranda, ex-Director General of Police Ricardo Menesses, among others. Commissioner García Funes is the chief of the Counter Transnational Gang Center and is suspected of drug trafficking. According to an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Commissioner used his officers to provide security for shipments of drugs as they pass through El Salvador, and ensured that other police agencies would not interfere. Godofredo Miranda was accused, among other things, of botching an investigation into drug traffickers arrested under his command. Ricardo Menesses was forced to resign his post last year due to allegations that he has ties to high-ranking gang leaders and organized criminals.

Late last year, Inspector General Navas began receiving death threats for her investigations. The threats were so serious that U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, who has had an interest in El Salvador for many years, wrote a letter to President Funes asking that he provide her with adequate protection so that she is able to complete her investigations. The threats did not deter Navas and her office continued its work.(More)

Today the Minister of Justice and Security Manuel Melgar came out in support of Navas, indicating that she had his full backing in her investigations and that there was no political bias in the decisions of what investigations should be opened.

LA Times interview with Mauricio Funes

Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes was in Los Angeles last week and was interviewed by the LA Times. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

Who controls the narcotics traffic in El Salvador?

Everybody. There are Salvadoran cartels in connection with Colombian cartels. Guatemalan cartels are there. And recently we have found evidence of the presence of [the Mexican-based drug cartel] Los Zetas.

Just a few days after I came to office, I received an intelligence report saying that Los Zetas were exploring the territory and that they had started to make contacts with Salvadoran narco-traffickers and Salvadoran gangs, particularly the MS [Mara Salvatrucha, a transnational gang born in L.A.'s Salvadoran immigrant community]. It is the one that has shown, up to now, to have the most firepower.

The change that has occurred lately is that the [criminal] gangs have become involved in the business. At the beginning, the gangs were just a group of rebel youngsters. As time moved on, the gangs became killers for hire. Now the situation is that the gangs have become part of the whole thing. They control territory and they are disputing territory with the drug traffickers. Why? Because they need to finance their way of life: basically, getting arms.

Have state institutions been infiltrated?

I am convinced that the army is not infiltrated by the cartels. The grenades and the arms that these people have, they have not gotten them through the army. That does not mean that there are not other institutions that are infiltrated. Since my government started, we have dismissed more than 150 police officers, out of a total of slightly more than 20,000, because of suspicions they were involved with organized crime. I have my suspicions that the judicial system is also infiltrated by organized crime.

Yes, organized crime has penetrated certain institutions, but these institutions have not collapsed. We are talking about rotten apples, and we still have the opportunity and the time to get rid of them.

How do you explain that civilian institutions remain stronger in El Salvador than in Guatemala or Mexico?

The 1992 peace accords [which ended the civil war] allowed for a sort of re-foundation of the Salvadoran state. Through that process, it was possible to cleanse the army and security forces that were linked to gross violations of human rights. And now we have a professional armed force. If that cleansing of the armed forces had not taken place, we would probably be in the same situation as Guatemala.

Are current U.S. policies on drugs and immigration on the right track?

There will be [cartels] as long as there are consumers of drugs.

Furthermore, the only way we can prevent more migrants from coming to the U.S. is by providing jobs, opportunities and development. The same thing applies to narcotics. If the United States is concerned about [illegal] immigration and drug traffic, the best solution is a strategic alliance that together will bring development and job opportunities and social benefits to El Salvador.

Polling on political parties

The daily newspaper La Prensa Grafica released some public opinion poll numbers this week. The opinion poll asked Salvadorans a number of questions about their views of the politicians and the political parties in the country.

There were two numbers which stuck out at me, and they are related. The first number was president Mauricio Funes continued strong approval ratings in the country. 70.1% of Salvadorans say that they have a good or very good opinion of Funes. In contrast, no other Salvadoran politician gets a rating higher than 47.1%, and that politician is former president Tony Saca. The second number was the 50.2% of Salvadorans polled who say they do not consider themselves a part of any political party. The FMLN was the strongest political party, but still only 27.2% of Salvadorans considered themselves part of the FMLN.

In the past, there was a tendency to portray El Salvador as sharply divided between left and right, between the FMLN and ARENA. In fact, most Salvadorans are in the middle. They are not attracted by the extremes of either party. And so they strongly approve of their president who is trying to govern from a position much more towards the center.

Festival of the lanterns brings light to the darkness

In contrast to the news of gang threats and the reduction of bus service, the Festival of the Lanterns shone in the night streets of Ahuachapan. In a photogallery titled Ahuachapan Didn't Turn Out the Light, El Faro displays images from this year's festival.

September 7 was the eve of the feast day of the Virgin Mary's birth, and in Ahuachapan in western El Salvador, it was the Festival of the Lanterns (farolitos). The streets and public places of the city are filled with lanterns and memorials to the Virgin. Over the years the festival has grown beyond its religious roots and now includes showcases of artisan works and many food offerings.

Second day of transport stop

Many buses stayed off the streets for the second straight day in El Salvador. A proclamation supposedly made jointly by Mara Salvatrucha and by 18, the country's two dominant and competing gangs, apologized to the public for the inconvenience, but said the threats to the transportation sector were necessary to protest the new Anti-gang law passed by the National Assembly.

Two thousand additional soldiers and additional police units were patrolling bus terminals and routes to protect the buses which were running. Authorities said about 60% of the routes were running today rather than only 10% yesterday.

Bus system stopped by threats

Threats and rumors of threats by gangs led the majority of the buses in El Salvador to stay off the streets today. From the Latin American Herald Tribune:

Between 40 percent and 60 percent of El Salvador’s bus routes are not operating on Tuesday due to fear of attacks on the vehicles or the transportation workers by gangs, the leader of the Fecoatrans transit company association told Efe.

“This is due to the threats made ... by criminal bands that dedicate themselves to extortion. They weren’t just rumors, they were pamphlets, telephone calls,” Catalino Miranda said.

Miranda alluded to pamphlets and phone calls ordering owners and operators to keep their buses off the streets to prevent the drivers from being murdered or the vehicles from being burned.

“To that, one must add (the fact) that the country is paralyzed in some zones,” Miranda said.

He said that “many businessmen have made the decision to protect their units” fearing a repeat of what happened in June, when 16 people lost their lives as assailants set a bus on fire with the passengers still aboard.

Although the motivation behind the threats is not known, Miranda did not rule out that they could be linked to the recent approval in Congress of a bill making gang membership a criminal offense punishable by 10 years in prison.

Also a possible factor in the surge in threats could be the government’s decision to use the army to reinforce security at prisons holding gang members.

Hundreds of Salvadorans had to walk to work starting early Tuesday morning because the buses were not running to San Salvador from the towns of Apopa, Soyapango, Cojutepeque, Olocuilta and San Miguel.

People throughout the country had to deal with the absence of the buses. Businesses closed early. Informal vendors were not at their stalls. Public security officials called for the country and the transport sector not to be intimidated. Police and military were deployed to bus stops.

What's next?

Assorted news items

Some news items from El Salvador this week.

Police discover barrels with millions of dollars in cash. Police have counted more than $9 million of cash found in two barrels buried on a ranch named El Recalado, in Zacatecoluca in the central part of the country. The operating assumption is that the cash is related to drug-trafficking. Police sources say that owners of the ranch are tied to Guatemalan narco-criminals.

A third survivor of Tamaulipas massacre is from El Salvador. According to a statement made by president Funes in El Salvador, there is a third survivor and witness to the massacre who made it alive to the US. A second survivor is reportedly a Honduran.

Bodies of Salvadorans in massacre returned to El Salvador. This video from La Prensa Grafica shows the return of caskets to grieving families in El Salvador.

Funes on US tour to encourage TPS renewals. In a regular trip for Salvadoran presidents, Mauricio Funes is in the US to encourage Salvadorans on Temporary Protected Status to renew their registration. More than 210,000 Salvadorans are in the US under this provision of US immigration law following the 2001 earthquakes.

Remittances up in 2010. Family remittances received from abroad are up so far in 2010 over the same time period in 2009. According to figures from El Salvador's Central Reserve Bank, incoming remittance flows increased $50 million to $2.076 billion in the first seven months of 2010 from $2.026 billion during the same period in 2009. This equals an annual growth rate in remittances of 2.5%

Suchitoto waterfall video

File this one under "things to see next time I am in El Salvador." The CNN website provides this video of the Los Tercios waterfall in Suchitoto. From the Suchitoto Municipal Tourism Office website:

The Los Tercios Waterfall is just a 1.5 km walk from the city center. Its uniqueness and beauty lies in the vertical wall behind the water that is composed of large hexagonal columns of rock. This very rare rock formation is the result of nearby volcanic activity, although numerous folkloric legends also claim to explain the origins of the shape of the rocks.

Los Tercios has water between May and November, although it is worth a visit between December and April too in order to see the stones most clearly.

For more about what to see and do in Suchitoto, visit the very helpful website of the Municpal Tourism office.

The Women of El Mozote

The El Mozote massacre in December 1981 was one of the gravest atrocities and war crimes committed during the course of El Salvador's civil war. It is important to keep the memory of what happened there alive so that it can never happen again. No one has ever been punished for the war crime.

Los Angeles writer Marcos Villatoro recently made a short video called The Women of El Mozote which features interviews with some of the women who have returned to El Mozote after the massacre and the war, and now tell the story to those who visit there.



Marcos told me that he made the video so that the women can sell it from the small tourist kiosk they have at the site of the monument to the massacre. So pick up a copy of the full video if you ever visit El Mozote.

If you like this, you might also want to check out the trailer for Marcos' new project, Tamale Road, or I also recommend his book of poetry, On Tuesday, When the Homeless Disappeared.

El Salvador passes anti-gang law

El Salvador's National Assembly passed a law this week which criminalizes being a member of a gang. The law, endorsed by president Funes, was passed with the votes of 78 of the 84 deputies in the National Assembly. Membersship in a gang can be punished with up to six years in prison, while being a gang leader is punishable with a prison term of up to ten years. The LA Times reports on the bill's passage:

Simply belonging to a gang is about to become a criminal offense in El Salvador, a country where street gangs that incubated in Southern California terrorize neighborhoods and contribute to a high homicide rate.

The measure was prompted by outrage over gang attacks on two buses in June that killed 16 people. Congress approved the law Thursday, and it now awaits the signature of President Mauricio Funes, which probably will come soon. Funes was an early sponsor of the bill.

But several human rights activists and groups that work with gangs complained that the law emphasized punitive measures over tackling root causes.

"The history of El Salvador is the more government repression, the more violence we have," said Maria Silvia Guillen, head of a foundation that specializes in gangs and legal issues. To continue "with exclusively repressive measures, without taking into consideration prevention and reintegration [into society], is to continue making mistakes."

Antonio Rodriguez, a priest who runs a violence-prevention program at his parish in one of San Salvador's most troubled neighborhoods, said the government would do better by financing rehabilitation projects.

"This kind of law does not frighten the gangsters," he said

Others criticize the law for vagueness in defining what proof will establish that someone is a gang and for violating constitutional protections of freedom of expression. It is a law which lets the government appear to be doing something about the gangs, which gives the police another tool, but it does little to eliminate the root causes of gang activity or provide mechanisms for rehabilitation.

They prey on migrants

The massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, Mexico was not an isolated incident. The path to the US border has become a hellish gauntlet of criminal bands and corrupt authorities for the Salvadoran and other Central American migrants who dare to attempt it. A story on the MSNBC website describes how hundreds of families have shown up at government offices looking for information about the fate of their loved ones who have not been heard from. There are many more migrants who have disappeared than the 72 bodies found in Tamaulipas:

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Paula Cruz wept quietly at the foreign ministry office in El Salvador's capital after reporting that her son was missing — apparently kidnapped — in Mexico.

"I got a phone call asking me to send $2,500 to ransom him," the 77-year-old mother said, clutching the last letter she received from her 43-year-old son. "I didn't have the money. I don't know if he is alive or dead."

Cruz fears her son may be one the 72 migrants found shot to death in northern Mexico last week. She is one of hundreds of people who streamed to government offices in Central America after news of the massacre spread, searching for news of relatives who went missing after setting out through Mexico hoping to reach the United States.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, family members' descriptions did not match the bullet-ridden bodies found in heaps at a ranch in the state of Tamaulipas. Instead, rights workers say, the missing migrants may be part of a huge toll of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of migrants killed by organized crime gangs and whose bodies may have been hacked up, dissolved in acid or buried in unmarked paupers graves.

The true number of undocumented migrants killed in Mexico in recent years may never be known, but they would almost certainly dwarf the number discovered last week. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said there were witness accounts of 198 mass kidnappings involving 9,758 victims in a six month-period in 2009.

Thirteen Salvadorans have been identified among the victims of the massacre, while 138 families have reported to El Salvador's foreign ministry that they have a missing loved one who they fear may have been a victim. Among the 13 Salvadorans identified were a 15 year old girl and a 16 year old boy. Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes has requested a meeting with the Mexican president Felipe Calderon to discuss the issue. The archbishop of San Salvador used his position to urge the governments of El Salvador and Mexico to conduct a thorough investigation to hold people responsible. He also expressed solidarity with the families and with other migrants, who leave El Salvador looking for options to feed their families. Their decision to go to the United States is not tourism, he said, it's survival.