Circus artists of the street

The informal economy of the streets of San Salvador has a little of everything. This video from the digital media site ContraPunto highlights the street performers of El Salvador's capital city.

Watching this video prompted Linda to write about her encounters with these street corner entertainers in this post.

Writing about El Salvador

Here is another good travel blog entry by a visitor to the country. Freelance writer Tracey Barnett tells the story of a visit to Lake Coatepeque in her post Lightning Flashes in El Salvador:

I surveyed this sparkling expanse of blue amid the volcanoes. Just a week ago I’d never even heard of Lago Coatepeque, or Los Volcanes National Park, home to three volcanoes.

I relished the swaying of the palms in the electric breeze, waiting for the storm to arrive. Lightning flashed over Santa Ana Volcano on the far side of the lake—the same volcano I would climb the next day. After weeks of backpacker hostels I had decided to splurge and stay at the Torre Molina, what passed for a luxury resort in these parts, and shelled out the $30. Dining options were limited, so I stayed for dinner.

I ordered grilled tilapia and was savoring the meal along with the sunset out on the balcony overlooking the lake, when Elmer, a friendly hotel staffer, interrupted my reverie.

“Ya viene el agua,” he said. “Now the water is coming.”

In the beautiful scenery of this lake among the volcanoes, Barrett also learns the story of some of El Salvador's poor.

Their faces flashed before me against the windy sky: Manuel, Elmer, the sad-eyed woman on the street corner clutching a bowl in her twisted hand for coins. There was not a coin I could give her, or any of them, that would change their precarious existence, that would bring them into the warm shelter of a life of privilege.

Read more.

El Salvador's corruption ranking

The organization Transparency International released its annual Corruptions Perception Index today. El Salvador ranks relatively well among its peers, but that hardly means that it has a government with a reputation for honest officials.

Transparency International(TI) defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This definition encompasses corrupt practices in both the public and private sectors. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries according to the perception of corruption in the public sector. The CPI is an aggregate indicator that combines different sources of information about corruption, making it possible to compare countries.

The 2010 CPI draws on different assessments and business opinion surveys carried out by independent and reputable institutions. It captures information about the administrative and political aspects of corruption. Broadly speaking, the surveys and assessments used to compile the index include questions relating to bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds, and questions that probe the strength and effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts.

El Salvador ranked number 73 out of 178 countries, and ranked 11 out of 28 countries in the Americas. On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being the most corrupt and 10 the least, El Salvador's perceived level of corruption is a 3.6. Costa Rica was the only country in Central America to score higher. View the full results here.

Starbucks to open in San Salvador

Starbucks has announced that it will be opening its first coffee shop in Central America in San Salvador. The store is part of a plan to open locations throughout Central America. The locations in Central America will be operated under license agreements with Corporación de Franquicias Americanas (CFA). Starbucks and CFA will open the first coffee shop before year end in the Santa Elena residential zone in San Salvador. CFA operates franchises for several global brands in Central America including Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy's, China Wok and Pizza Hut.

A writer at Examiner.com had this to say about the news:

Unfortunately, the presence of Starbucks in El Salvador has a downside, which is the presence of just another multi-national corporation sending its profits out of the country. El Salvador's economy is dysfunctional and largely dependent on remittances from Salvadorans in the U.S. The presence of Starbucks in El Salvador does nothing to make the country more self-sufficient in food production which is a major challenge for the government, concerned individuals and companies doing business in El Salvador.

I'm no fan of the globalization of US consumer culture, but that writer's statement also needs to be balanced with the construction jobs for the Salvadorans who built the store, the jobs for the workers in the store, the portion of the store supplies which are purchased locally, etc.

Tallest buildings in El Salvador and Central America

Three skyscrapers completed in 2009 and 2010 give San Salvador the bulk of the tallest buildings in Central America (excluding Panama). The tallest is the new Pedregal Tower apartment building in the Multiplaza development. The 100 meter tall building features 28 floors of luxury apartments.

This chart from Wikipedia lists the other skyscrapers of Central America:

Place	Name	City	Country	N° Floors	Height	Completed
1	Torre El Pedregal	San Salvador	El Salvador	28	110.3 m 1	2010
2	Torre Premier Club	Guatemala City	Guatemala	31	101 m	1999
3	Torre Futura	San Salvador	El Salvador	19	99 m	2009
4	Terra Alta	San Salvador	El Salvador	20	98 m	2009
5	Guatemala City Marriott	Guatemala City	Guatemala	24	85 m	¿?
6	Torre Citi	San Salvador	El Salvador	19	79 m	1989
7	105 Campestre Torre I	San Salvador	El Salvador	24	79 m	2008
8	Marques del Valle	Guatemala City	Guatemala	25	78 m	2006
9	Gran Tikal Futura	Guatemala City	Guatemala	20	75 m	¿?
10	Torre Sky	Tegucigalpa	Honduras	25	75 m	2008

An amber light for Oscar Romero

Wondering how close the Roman Catholic church is to canonizing archbishop Oscar Romero? Now there is a blog which will clue you in. At the Super Martyrio Blog, which calls itself "the inside track on the beatification cause of Archbishop Romero of El Salvador," blogger Polycarpio has designed a color-coded system to track the status of Oscar Romero's progress toward possible canonization as a saint of the Roman Catholic church. A red light means stagnation, an amber light means slow or moderate forward motion, and a green light means progress. Currently, Polycarpio assigns an amber status for Romero:

Therefore, it appears that the "freeze" on the Romero beatification process has been lifted, and we will indeed be searching news reports for evidence that the process has begun to move down the final stretch. After the Positio Super Martyrio is studied by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, absent further objections, the next step is to send a recommendation to the Pope to approve the martyrdom of the candidate. Typically, the pope then signs and publishes a decree approving the martyrdom, and a beatification date can be set. On his way to the meeting of the Latin American Bishops in Aparecida, Brazil in 2007, Pope Benedict said, "I await confidently what the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will have to say on the matter" (of Romero's martyrdom). Now, we await "confidently," also.

More important that his sainthood forecasting, is the collection of materials Polycarpio has assembled on the blog related to the teaching and theology of Oscar Romero. After a period of inactivity on this informative blog, Polycarpio has been filling the blog with a series of thoughtful, bilingual posts in the past several weeks. To make accessing all his material easier, there is now a helpful subject index on the blog.

Polycarpio is also the author of the single-most popular post on my blog -- the Top Ten Romero Quotes.

When you are reflecting on archbishop Romero's legacy, you may also want to view this photoremembrance at MiMundo.org of the activities earlier this year commemorating the 30th anniversary of Romero's assassination.

Blog Action Day -- the right to water

October 15 is Blog Action Day. Thousands of blogs today are devoted to the single issue of water.

Water is a a paradox in El Salvador. At many times there is too much water, and floods destroy crops or heavy rains produce landslides burying homes. And yet hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans lack a source of clean potable water for their daily living.

According to Salvadoran government statistics, only 78.7% of homes in the country have access to clean, piped water. While the percentage of homes with potable water is 90% in urban areas, the total is only 56.7% in the rural areas of the country. These statistics put El Salvador behind most other countries in Latin America according the to the Monitoring Program of the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

An El Faro article describes what it is like to live without dependable potable water access:

Rosa Villalta lives four blocks from an improved source of drinking water. His family depends on two points of supply, like 86 others living in the community of El Cañita, south of San Salvador. The first, a waterhole on the edge of a ravine barely 70 yards from his home. The second an ANDA pump that supplies water to several surrounding neighborhoods but seems to be insufficient to provide service to the community.

At one time, about 15 years ago, the Villalta family could still wash clothes on the banks of the creek El Garrobo, next to the memorial park, Gardens of Remembrance. Not anymore. Every day, Rosa Villalta pays a dollar for pitchers to fill the two barrels that are next to her pila. The water they get at home, shared with seven other adults and six children, is a yellowish water, with a residue of waste, soil, leaves and branches.

The same article makes the point that having pipes to your home does not mean that there is water flowing through them. In some parts of the country, water flows an average of perhaps 3 or 4 hours a day. The national water authority ANDA states that it does not have the capacity to provide service throughout the day to everyone.

Another El Faro story makes the point that access to water is most costly for those who can least afford it:

Macro figures [about water access], however, dilute the micro stories. For a few, the water problem is summed up in being unable to refill the pool with the desired frequency, for others it is that not every day of the year liquid jets out, for another group, there are more hours without service than hours with, there are those for whom the problem is to pay the bill, or whether the water they are drinking is really clean, and for the least of all, just a few liters per day represents an entire family's concerns...

Ironically it is in places like this, where any depiction of the misery always fall short, where the cubic meter of water is the most expensive to pay. Except when it rains, getting a gallon of water is more expensive for this group than for those who can not fill the pool with the desired frequency.

When you do not have a water system in your community, getting water becomes a major expenditure of family income and time. Usually these families will buy large containers of water from a truck which drives through the neighborhood. When your income is $5 a day, a few dollars for water is a great burden. There may be a source of water, perhaps a well, some distance away. Family members, usually the women, end up spending their time simply hauling water back to the home. That water may, or may not, come from a safe drinking source.

As a consequence of El Salvador's failure to provide sufficient and equitable distribution of water, a social movement has grown up to demand that water be treated as a fundamental human right. Many of these organizations have come together in the Water Forum for El Salvador. The forum advocates for improved availability and quality of water for Salvadorans. Another group advocating on the water issue is the Center for the Defense of the Consumer. As part of its mission, the CDC notes that it receives thousands of complaints each year about water delivery in El Salvador.

For several years, the Forum and other civil society groups have demanded approval of a general water law by the National Assembly. But, as this Voices from El Salvador post describes, the law has been stalled for more than 4 years:

First proposed to the Assembly back in March 2006 by the Foro Nacional del Agua (National Water Forum), the General Water Law aims to regulate, protect, and restore water resources....FMLN Representative Lourdes Palacios stated in March, “It is necessary to have a regulation that guarantees access to potable water to the Salvadoran people” (El Diario de Hoy, 29 March 2010). Given El Salvador’s extremely high rate of pollution and water contamination, one might assume the water issue would receive somewhat immediate attention from the Committee. Palacios notes, however, that the Environmental Committee has made surprisingly little process on this or any other issue.

Representative Palacios laments that many perceive the Environmental and Climate Change Committee as “a commission that exists only in name”; perceptions will not change if the new Committee on the Environment and Climate Change fails to act on key and urgent issues facing the country.

The present government has announced no major initiatives to improve the water situation in the country. That's a tragedy, because so much needs to be done.

For more information about the water issue in El Salvador, read this Blog Action Day post by Jacintario, the post No Hay Agua on Linda's El Salvador Blog, or choose the "Water" topic from the list on the right hand column on my blog.

Comandos de Salvamento

I have been remiss in failing to point out the 50th Anniversary of the Comandos de Salvamento. Wherever there is a natural or man-made disaster in El Salvador, the Comandos de Salvamento, "Rescue Commandos," are sure to be there. With their yellow uniforms with the green cross, these volunteers provide emergency services throughout the country. September 30 marked 50 years since the founding of this fine organization.

From the Comandos website:

Mission

Comandos de Salvamento is a Salvadoran humanitarian institution whose mission is to save the lives of people due to consequences of mother nature or of man, regardless of race, religion, or political creed.

Vision

To contruct a systematic professional response of humanitarian aid during emergencies based on prevention, education, mitigation and quality control that generate structural changes in order to augment our work in Communities, Municipal Government, and the National Civilian Protection Agency.

The context of our work includes, but is not limited to: vehicular accidents, search and recovery,homicides,assaults, earthquakes,flooding,hurricanes, fires, and war (79-92).

Congratulations to this organization of true Salvadoran heroes for 50 years of service to their countrymen!

You can learn more about the Comandos at their website which is available in English, and check out the photo gallery and a YouTube Channel to these rescuers in action.

50th Anniversary video

(Thanks to blog reader Ixa for regularly reminding me about the Comandos).

Funes asks pardon of indigenous peoples

On Columbus Day, president Mauricio Funes apologized to indigenous peoples for the injuries done to them by the conquest by European nations:

“The government that I lead wishes to be the first government that in the name of the Salvadoran state...makes an act of contrition and begs pardon of the indigenous communities for the persecution, for the extermination of which they were victims for so many years,” Funes said on the 518th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the Americas.

“From this day forward we officially terminate our historical denial of the diversity of our peoples and acknowledges El Salvador to be a multiethnic and multicultural society,” he said in inaugurating the First National Indigenous Congress.

Funes recalled episodes of national history such as the first uprising of native peoples in the country, which took place in 1832, as a result, he said, of the “reigning model of oppression.”

He recalled that it was “suffocated by repression and force” and that 100 years later, in 1932, “history repeated itself” and the government at the time “gave the same brutal, violent response to the requests of the native communities,” killing more than 32,000 people.

Funes installed a congress that will seek “the necessary consensus among representatives of indigenous peoples to constitute a National Committee to formulate public policies for that segment of the population,” his office said in a communique

.

30th anniversary of FMLN

Today is the 30th anniversary of the founding of the FMLN. The FMLN was founded in 1980 as the military wings of five revolutionary movements in El Salvador came together to form a unified guerrilla force which would fight a civil war in El Salvador for the next 12 years. And in the 18 years since the end of the civil war, the FMLN has been the dominant leftist political party in El Salvador.

At the time of this 30th anniversary, the FMLN is at the point of its greatest influence, with a president, Mauricio Funes elected under its banner last year and the largest number of deputies in the Salvadoran National Assembly. Ironically, though, it was probably Funes' decision to keep the party at arm's length during the election, that made him electable. And Funes continues to follow a course as president which is independent of the FMLN party platform.

In an interview in ContraPunto, the Coordinator General of the FMLN, Medardo González, described the party's view of the country's president:

First, there is an important sector of the population of the left-wing voters, and particularly the FMLN voter, who voted for the flag of the FMLN, who believed that President Funes positions would be more leftest and more consistent with the party. And we say, those expectations were not fulfilled by the president....Funes is implementing a plan that is not the plan of the FMLN. The FMLN presented a program, but the plan that the President is implementing has clear differences with the draft presented by the FMLN. But it is a breakthrough in this country that the present government is a government in which we are participating, and it is not a government of the oligarchy that is directing policies. We see a positive change.

For example, for me, signing the commitment to the Inter-American Development Bank (referring to an agreement for a loan of $ 200 million with the IDB signed by Funes in his last visit to Washington), is something I would not have done. But if the ARENA candidate was president of the Republic, we would be in a situation a hundred times worse. We are much better. We will make the most of these conditions and ensure that the next president of the republic represents a more genuine and directly leftist position.

And so on this 30th Anniversary, the FMLN is celebrating that it elected a president, but lamenting that this president does not take his direction from the FMLN leadership. The FMLN apparently stands ready to preserve the gains it has won. The party issued a statement declaring that it was ready to defeat any coup which might be plotted to overthrow the left-wing government in El Salvador.

Video inviting party faithful to a 30th anniversary rally.

Fighting violence with job creation

The organization Bpeace has chosen El Salvador as one of the countries where it will work to reduce conflict and violence by creating jobs. (The other countries where it currently works are Rwanda and Afghanistan). The organization supports and provides business acumen to local entrepreneurs to kick start the creation of jobs. You can read about their initiative in El Salvador on the Bpeace website at this link.

The high cost of alcohol in El Salvador

The digital periodical El Faro had a lengthy article in the past week about the number of deaths in El Salvador caused by alcohol. The article was based on statistics from the World Life Expectancy web site which ranked El Salvador first among 192 nations in the rate of alcohol-related deaths. El Salvador reported a death rate from alcohol of 22.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. (The number 2, 3 and 4 ranked countries were also from Central America).

The appearance of the World Life Expectancy website gives some doubts to its credibility, so I turned to the comprehensive 2004 Global Status Report on Alcohol published by the World Health Organization. That report has comprehensive statistics on the consumption and consequences of alcohol in countries throughout the world. The WHO focuses on alcohol and its abuse as a public health problem.

The analysis of the WHO Report relies on a calculation of the percentage of deaths of various kinds which are caused by alcohol. So, for example, in a country like El Salvador, the WHO expects that 28% of the murders of men and 25% of male traffic deaths are related to alcohol. Since El Salvador has some of the highest murder and traffic fatality rates, the murders and traffic deaths assumed to be a product of alcohol are among the highest. So I'm not sure that the conclusion that El Salvador has the highest alcohol death rate is an accurate one, but there is no doubt that the problem is a significant one. You can see some of the specific statistics about alcohol consumption in El Salvador from the WHO report at this link.

A recent YSUCA editorial decried the hypocrisy of Salvadoran legislators, backed by business interests, who opposed raising the tax on alcoholic beverages recently:

Since the early twentieth century, the state has abandoned its monopoly on alcohol production. But the hypocrisy surrounding the issue is still evident today in the matter of taxes. Each time you touch the alcohol tax, discussions emerge that show the enormous hypocrisy behind many who provide the defense of liquor or beer. In El Salvador, liquor and beer are still behind many deaths and accidents. The killings which are not linked to crime, but what is often called social violence, are often related to alcohol. Jealousy, anger, revenge, everything is accelerated by alcohol when taken in excess. And alcohol abuse is known and exists in all social strata. Wounds, shock, resulting from brawls and fistfights, ... and that's not to mention the psychological damage, is felt in family and social life.

The YSUCA editorial goes on to mention the traffic deaths caused by drunken driving, as another major cost of alcohol in the country. Tragically, there does not seem to be much interest in the government to improve the situation. The El Faro article concludes:

And is there a willingness in El Salvador to implement measures to restrict consumption and help reduce the problem? After a silence of five seconds, a sigh and a glance at his companion as if seeking help to answer, [Joseph] Ruales opts for a diplomatic answer: "I think there is progress, but I believe there are many things to do yet. There is no point, for example, to make a law that says that alcohol can not be sold to minors under 18 years if there is no way to regulate and punish those who break the law." [Ruales is the representative of the Pan American Health Organization to El Salvador]

Funes goes to Cuba

It was almost 50 years ago in 1961 that El Salvador broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba after Fidel Castro's successful communist revolution in the country. Through most of those 50 years, a fierce anti-communism among the conservative ruling powers in El Salvador made the two countries cold war enemies. During El Salvador's civil conflict, Cuba provided moral and other support to the FMLN guerrillas fighting the US-supported government.

So this week's visit by Mauricio Funes, the country's first elected president from the left wing FMLN, was filled with symbolism. The trip follows Funes' re-establishing El Salvador's diplomatic ties with Cuba in June 2009, a step which Funes took as one of his first official acts after assuming the presidency.

The Latin American Herald Tribune describes the content of Funes visit to Cuba:

Funes’ agenda on Monday included a two-hour meeting with Raul Castro and continued on Tuesday with a tour of the Latin American Medical School in Havana and attending the accord-signing ceremony for treaties on education, culture and health.

Upon his arrival in Cuba, and on several occasions during his stay, Funes emphasized the intention of his government to redress an “historic sin” that had resulted in the two nations not having diplomatic relations for half a century. Diplomatic ties were restored only after Funes took office in 2009.

The Salvadoran leader expressed his support for building a relationship of “mutual benefit” with the communist island and informed President Castro of his interest in strengthening relations across the board.

Funes especially emphasized the cooperation and advice of Cuban specialists in promoting El Salvador’s new Comprehensive National Health System.

The Salvadoran traveled to the Caribbean island accompanied by three of his Cabinet ministers and about 50 businessmen from the hotel, pharmaceutical, food production, tourist and aeronautical sectors, among others.

Funes asks for millions to combat narco-trafficking

El Salvador and other Central American nations are asking the US to increase aid to fight drug-trafficking. The Washington Post published an article describing how Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes delivered this request for aid directly to the US government:

Unnerved by the explosion of drug trafficking in the region, Central American governments are petitioning the Obama administration for more funds to strengthen their police and social programs, saying current U.S. aid is insufficient.

President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador presented a $900 million Central American anti-drug-trafficking plan to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday, and asked the Obama administration to help fund it.

But with the administration under pressure to cut costs, it may be difficult for the Central Americans to win more U.S. aid.

The U.S. government has spent about $1.8 billion over three years to fight drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America through the Merida Initiative.

"There should be a bigger presence of the United States government in Central America beyond the Merida Initiative, which was created to emphasize the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico," Funes said in an interview.

"The amounts provided for Central America are small," he added. "They don't compensate us for the efforts we're making."...

Funes said that Clinton "was sympathetic" to the proposal he presented Wednesday, and he suggested forming a U.S.-Central American group to study it.

But one State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that because of U.S. budget constraints there would probably not be "exponential growth" in anti-drug aid for the region.

In a sign of the growing reach of Mexico's drug cartels, President Obama for the first time included Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica on the annual U.S. list of major drug-trafficking nations, which was released this month. Guatemala and Panama were already on the list.

El Salvador is not (yet) on the list of major drug-trafficking nations. El Salvador and Belize are the only Central American countries not on the list.