The Central Reserve Bank and Burger King

In yesterday's post about migration statistics, I mentioned El Salvador's dependence on remittances from Salvadorans abroad. El Salvador's Central Reserve Bank keeps track of the that money flow. Its latest statistics on remittance flows show that remittances are up slightly (2.1%) from the same time period last year. Through October of this year, Salvadorans living abroad have sent in $2.926 billion, while in 2009 they had transmitted $2.865 billion.    That's an average of almost $300 million per month -- or $50 per month for every man, woman and child in El Salvador.

And El Salvador's commercial interests are structured to capture that remittance flow as much as they can.   I learned about one example of this last week when I was in San Salvador.   A friend pointed out the very large indoor playgrounds which accompany every fast food franchise in the city.   Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, KFCs, Pollo Campero and more all have these big play areas, much larger than any you see in the US.   My friend made the point that these fast food restaurants were always completely filled each weekend with birthday parties, and the birthday parties are all paid for directly by family members living abroad.

The fast food operators make it easy for the families living abroad to order their birthday parties with online sites.  Consider the Burger King El Salvador site, where you get the complete birthday party package description and you can even track all your parties with an online calendar.  Pizza Hut makes it easy to pick the ingredients on your family's pizza online, and so on.

This is just one example of ways that businesses operating in El Salvador act to capture the remittance dollar.   Another example are the cell phone companies -- the companies remind you that your family members living abroad can now recharge your cell phone minutes simply by going online to the cell phone website.

So charge up your phone and call all the family -- our uncle in the US is buying a birthday party at Pizza Hut for your cousin.

Deportations continue unabated

So far in 2010, the US has deported some 17,352 migrants back to El Salvador according to statistics cited in El Mundo.   Of  these, 6,866 had criminal records.   In addition, some 10,000 Salvadorans were returned to the country from Mexico when they were detained on their way to the US.   These statistics are down very slightly from 2009.

Other figures in LPG estimate that there are some 530,000 Salvadorans in the US illegally, in contrast to the 320,000 Salvadorans who are legal residents of the US with green cards.   An additional 240,00 have temporary protected status (TPS).    Remittances from Salvadorans living outside of the country constitute more than 1/6th of the country's economy.

These figures make Salvadorans very interested in the prospects of immigration reform in the US --- prospects which seem pretty dim after the conservative tilt in the November elections for Congress.

New law targets violence against women

On Thursday, November 25, El Salvador's National Assembly unanimously passed the Law for A Life Free From Violence for Women. For the first time, the law creates a separate crime of femicide for the murder of a woman on account of her gender. The law also imposes stiffer penalties on a wide variety of crimes of sexual assault and abuse of women.

In her blog, Laura Hershberger cites the statistics which made this law so necessary:

In the past ten years in El Salvador, violence against women has increased by 197%, making it the number one place for femicides in the world, with 129.46 assassinations per one million women.

According to the Second National Report of the Situation of Violence Against Women in El Salvador, put out by the Salvadoran Institute for the Development of Women (ISDEMU), between January 1st and November 5, 2010, the ISDEMU saw 6,320 cases of violence against women. Among those including: domestic violence, child abuse, sexual harrassment and abuse, labor abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

Of the 477 femicides registered in 2010, 74 were under the age of 17, thirteen were tortured, 14 were burned and 8 were decapitated. These are the characteristics of femicides in El Salvador.

In 2007, approximately every 73 hours a woman was assassinated, in 2009, it was every 31 hours and in 2010, every 13 hours a woman was assassinated.

According to the ISDEMU document, in 2010, 702 women have been victims of sexual aggression, 4,230 have suffered from domestic violence, and 1,325 young girls were abused.

The authorities in El Salvador have done an abysmal job of prosecuting persons for crimes against women. According to a ISDEMU report, of 6,803 cases of sexual crimes against women reported to the office of the attorney general between 2008 and 2009, only 436 produced a jail sentence. Of the 477 murders of women so far this year, there are only 30 convictions.

Thus the new law is a good first step, but it will only offer protection for women if the police and the judicial system act much more vigorously to enforce the rights of women to be free from abuse, assault, and violence.

Thanksgiving

On this day of giving thanks, you may want to read two tales which Linda recently put on Linda's El Salvador Blog,  Tortillas for Thanksgiving and  A Banquet Parable.

Happy Thanksgiving!.

Law to prohibit metallic mining gets support

Lourdes Palacios (FMLN) and Juan Carlos Mendoza (GANA)
announce their support of a mining ban.

A law to prohibit metallic mining in El Salvador got important support today, as a deputy in the Salvadoran National Assembly from the GANA party announced GANA's support of the measure. Dozens of representatives of civil society organizations had gathered for a forum titled "Why is it important to approvae a law that prohibits metallic mining in El Salvador?"  A panel presentation included two legislators from the Assembly's Commission on the Environment and Climate Change. The position of Lourdes Palacios, deputy from the FMLN, was already known to the assembled group. The FMLN supports a mining ban. But audience members clapped loudly when Juan Carlos Mendoza of GANA announced that his legislative faction would also support a prohibition of mining for gold and other metals. GANA has 14 deputies in the National Assembly and their support along with the 35 FMLN deputies is easily enough to pass the bill.

Also appearing at the forum was Anita Cortez from the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman Oscar Luna (PDDH). Ms. Cortez expressed the support of the PDDH for such a ban, stating that the ban was a necessary part of implementing and protecting fundamental human rights to health and water. She expressed criticism of the government for never having acted to obtain redress for environmental damages caused by the Commerce Group mine in San Sebastien, La Union.

Dr. Angel Ibarra of Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (UNES), opened the forum with a lengthy critique of the actions of mining companies and his view of the environmental threat gold mining would pose to the country.

Armando Paz

Prevention is a key to reducing the level of violence in El Salvador, and various programs are working with youth to help promote a non-violent future.

Walking around San Salvador I was struck by the number of signs with this message. "Hay algo que quieras cambiar?" -- "Is there something you want to change" and directing the reader to the website armandopaz.com. "Armando Paz" or "Fortifying Peace" is a venture of the Organization of American States, USAID, MTV, and Trust for the Americas, among other organizations. With extensive use of social media, the program represents an attempt to involve youth to solve the problems facing their generation. The program aims to build a culture of peace, opening spaces to share the messages and opinions of the youth, which are describing positive initiatives to change the situation of the country. The program has proceeded from collecting project ideas from youth through its website to now conducting forums with hundreds of youth to discuss their ideas and projects. Armando Paz is being run in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama.

Another way to fortify peace is through community youth programs. The government is promoting communities working together with security forces on programs targeted at youth. I attended one such event last Sunday in Tonacatapeque. Youth from four communities on 11 different teams came together for a soccer tournament. The event was put together by the communities, the Lutheran church and the Ministry of Public Security. The ministry furnished the uniforms and the trophies for the tournament. It was a peaceful celebration of youth and sport, and a positive example of what is possible.

Being inspired

Among the many reasons I connect with El Salvador and write this blog are the inspirational people and stories I come to know. They include both Salvadorans and people from other countries who walk in solidarity with them. A couple of new books offer stories of inspiration which may influence you.

One book is the self-published Inspiring, Hopeful Voices of El Salvador. This book was compiled by Pastor Donald Seiple and Caroline Schaefer of St. Stephen Evangelical Lutheran Church as a labor of love. They write about the book:

This is a collection of nineteen true stories representing El Salvador's remarkable people and those who choose to walk in solidarity with them. It is not a history book, but rather a collection of intimate stories told by its people or by those deeply involved and dedicated to their struggles. These personal accounts grow from interviews with a cross section of Salvadoran people encountered by the Reverend Donald J. Seiple, Pastor Emeritus of St. Stephen, during his twelve years of ministry in this tiny Central American country and by Caroline Sheaffer, a member of St. Stephen. Caroline developed this project to record the stories of the faithful Salvadoran people so that they would never be lost but would inspire others as they did her on her visits to the country.

Since I know many readers of this blog have connections to the Lutheran Church in El Salvador, I know you will be interested in this book for its several interviews with people associated with that church. There is information about how to order on their website.

The second book is Vessel of Clay: The Inspirational Journey of Sister Carla. Maryknoll sister Carla Piette grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin and then dedicated her life to service of the poor in Latin America with Maryknoll, first in Chile during the Pinochet regime and then in 1980 in El Salvador. Sister Carla had heeded a call from Oscar Romero for assistance in the church's efforts to protect the vulnerable in El Salvador's growing conflict. She arrived there on the day Romero was assassinated. Later that year, she too would die, drowned in a flash flood as she performed her work.

Sister Carla's story is not well known. It tends to be overshadowed by the murder a few months later of her co-workers, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan and Dorothy Kazel by the Salvadoran military. This book, by Sister Carla's friend from Wisconsin, Jacqueline Hansen Maggiore, does a wonderful job of portraying one woman's dedication to serving the poor, regardless of where that call would lead her.

US Embassy on Facebook

The US Embassy is now on Facebook. Since September of this year, the embassy of the United States in El Salvador has had its own Facebook page.   The embassy's use of this social media tool coincides with the arrival of new ambassador Mari del Carmen Aponte.  The embassy's page already has more than 2300 fans and has a regular feed of news from the embassy and many photos.

Meet up in El Salvador

I'll be in San Salvador all next week. If any readers of the blog want to meet up with me, I'll be at La Ventana Cafe on Friday, November 26, starting at 4:30 pm. La Ventana is located at 83 av.Norte # 510 con 9a calle Poniente. Frente a Plaza Palestina. Colonia Escalón. http://www.laventana.com.sv. I'd love to meet you.

A mining update

Our friends at the Voices from El Salvador blog have a post about the fact that 73 applications for metallic mining permits are pending before the country's environment ministry (MARN). Apparently any action on these permit applications will wait until MARN receives the result of a consulting project by the TAU Group. This study, costing $200 million, is being funded by the Spanish government and is intended to provide improvements for El Salvador's process of receiving, evaluating, and granting such mining permits.

The existence of so many pending permits has to raise a fear for the Salvadoran government of more international arbitration claims if permits are denied. The government is currently defending itself against multi-million claims brought by the Commerce Group and Pacific Rim before the World Bank. In that context, I think the Tau Group study is a good idea by the Salvadoran government. The weakness the government has in the pending arbitrations is the appearance that there is not a well constructed and followed process for deciding on mining permits. If the Tau Group study helps the government strengthen that process, the country's risk in investor arbitrations will diminish.

To look in depth at the process followed in the Commerce Group case, you can now read the in-depth analysis by Global Trade Watch titled CAFTA Investor Rights Undermining Democracy and the Environment: Commerce Group Case. The report concludes:

At stake in the Commerce Group and Pacific Rim CAFTA cases is whether the operations of the fragile democracy that emerged from 12 years of civil war in El Salvador and the policies by its elected leaders to ensure mining does not further damage the country’s ravaged environment will prevail – or whether CAFTA will allow the demands of multinational mining firms to reign supreme.

Although Salvadoran civil society has been effective in getting the government to think more seriously about the potential environmental and social impacts of mining in El Salvador, the government has made no final decision about future gold and silver mining policy. CAFTA’s extreme investor rights now loom over these policy decisions, with the government forced to calculate potential CAFTA liabilities against publicly demanded improvements in environmental and human rights policy.

Meanwhile, Voices from El Salvador also reports that Pacific Rim has filed a lawsuit against seven anti-mining activists, accusing them of robbery and damage to property. Read more here.

The pupusa and Martha Stewart

Sunday, November 14, was El Salvador's National Day of the Pupusa. By legislative decree, the second Sunday of November celebrates the country's national food dish.

Even Martha Stewart has paid tribute to the pupusa. In this episode from her show in 2009, Martha Stewart learns how to make pupusas and offers a recipe for pupusas with cheese.

Film illustrates plight of migrants crossing Mexico

A story today in the Latin American Herald Tribune describes a recent rescue of 103 migrants held by human traffickers in Mexico:

MEXICO CITY – Mexican marines rescued 103 Central Americans and five Mexicans being held at a banana plantation apparently operated by people traffickers, and arrested eight suspects, federal prosecutors said.

Three newborns and a pregnant 12-year-old girl were among those rescued by the marines, the Attorney General’s Office said.

The rescue operation was staged at the La Herradura banana plantation in Tapachula, a city in Chiapas state, which is on the border with Guatemala, the AG’s office said.

This rescue follows the discovery of 72 Central American migrants who had been massacred in Tamaulipas, Mexico in August.

Now Amnesty International is promoting a new film about the plight of Central American immigrants who fall victim to rape, kidnapping and worse.   From the announcement about the film:

The Invisibles, a new film in four parts documents the journey of Central American migrants travelling through Mexico and the brutal reality of life on the move.

Our hope? to shine a light on what has largely remained an invisible issue and highlight the Mexican government’s obligation to prevent and punish these abuses, whether perpetrated by criminal gangs or their own officials.

The idea for the film came about after several research trips to Southern Mexico to document the human rights abuses of thousands of irregular migrants who travel through Mexico every year.

Our team spent hours interviewing migrants who told us what was happening to people on their way to the US: how they had been prayed on by criminal gangs and sometimes public officials and how the gangs were killing, raping and kidnapping migrants. The stories were horrifying but the people we spoke to were determined to reach the US. We decided we had to find a way to draw the world’s attention to this human rights crisis.

Watch the four sections of this new film here.

New campaign against Commerce Group gold mine

A coalition of solidarity, environmental, religious, educational and civil society group have commenced a campaign against the Commerce Group San Sebastian gold mine in El Salvador. The campaign coincides with the initial hearing in the international arbitration suit which Commerce Group commenced against the government of El Salvador.

The press release issued by the coalition states:

A coalition of Milwaukee and national organizations called on Commerce Group, a Milwaukee-based mining corporation to drop its controversial $100 million legal case against the government of El Salvador. 58 organizations from across the country signed a statement demanding that the case not only be dropped, but that there be cleanup of environmental damages caused by the mine and compensation to victims of mine pollution. In 2006 the Salvadoran government revoked the company’s mining permits, following evidence that its operations were dumping highly toxic poisons into local water. In retaliation, Commerce Group filed a demand before a World Bank trade court (the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, ICSID) demanding not only payment for its investments but also for tens of millions of dollars in what it claims are “lost profits.” The demand is being filed under the foreign investor “protections” of the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). The first hearing in the case will take place on November 15 in Washington, D.C.

Miguel Rivera, an environmental organizer with the Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES) in El Salvador, warned that the case and the international trade rules that allow it “limit the government’s ability to defend the lives of the residents” and “put economic rights above the people’s right to life.”

Commerce Group’s mining activity in El Salvador over the past 40 years has resulted in severe environmental and public health problems in the municipality of Santa Rosa de Lima, where the mine is located. The Salvadoran government revoked Commerce Group’s mining permit on September 13, 2006, citing devastating environmental damage that can’t be prevented with any existing modern technology.

A 2006 study by Dr. Flaviano Bianchini found that the San Sebastian River, which runs through the town contains 100,000 times more acid than uncontaminated bodies of water in the same region. The study also found levels of poisonous cyanide more than 10 times higher than the maximum allowed by the World Health Organization. The Investment and Trade Research Center in El Salvador has recently filed a lawsuit against Commerce Group with the Salvadoran Attorney General to investigate the connection between mining activities and disproportionate rates of death due to kidney failure in nearby communities, likely related to elevated levels of heavy metals in the San Sebastian River.

According to Al Gedicks, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and author of Resource Rebels, commenting on the case, said “If anything, it is Commerce Group who should be paying for the toxic legacy they have left behind.” Gedicks is one of several scholars who have joined an international coalition of environmental organizations, policy advocates and churches to halt the lawsuit and stop metallic mining in El Salvador. The group, the Midwest Coalition Against Lethal Mining (MCALM), includes several national organizations such as Sister Cities and CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the people of El Salvador.

According to Babette Grunow of MCALM, “This lawsuit is a cynical attempt by an unsuccessful company to exploit international trade agreements to make money that they have been unable to make by legitimate means.” Grunow points to Commerce Group’s own filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which shows no earnings since 2002, four years before their permit was revoked. “This lawsuit is nothing but a dishonest ‘get rich quick’ scheme at the expense of an entire nation,” said Grunow.

Chapter 11 of DR-CAFTA, under which Commerce Group has filed its suit, remains one of the most controversial aspects of U.S. trade policy. The equivalent chapter in NAFTA, Chapter 10, has come under fire in recent years, including from President Obama. During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to “strictly limit” foreign investor protections in a renegotiation of NAFTA and to fully exempt any regulation protecting public safety.

A copy of the letter signed by coalition members can be found here. I previously wrote about the environmental concerns and theCommerce Group arbitration claim at this link.

The November 15, 2010 hearing in Washington, D.C. will be broadcast live over the internet, beginning at 9:30AM, EST. The hearing can be watched at this link. The written briefs the parties submitted to the arbitration panel can be found here.

Telling our stories

People can better reach an understanding across cultures when they hear each other's stories. In an essay titled simply From Civil War to Peace, Cecilia Alvarado tells of her journey from growing up amidst a civil war in El Salvador to raising a family in California:

Growing up in the middle of a civil war is not easy and it is only made harder when your family does not have a lot of money. El Salvador, much like the rest of Central America at the time, was in conflict. The war raged within our borders for 12 years between 1980 and 1992. It caused instability, fear and disruption of services. Seventy-five thousand people lost their lives in the war. In a small country, that means you were almost certain to know people that had died as a result of the fighting.

We were fortunate there was not a lot of fighting near our town but soldiers from both sides would pass through looking for food and water. Dad spent much of his free time on the porch waiting for them to pass through so he could offer refreshments in hopes of gaining enough respect from them to avoid any problems. It worked as the soldiers would have their fill and move on to the next place without problem. (More).

The cesspool of Salvadoran prisons

One of El Salvador's most intractable problems is the state of its prison system.   The high crime rate has filled the prisons to three times their capacity.  Conditions are deplorable.   Gangs control large areas inside the prisons and direct their criminal networks outside the prison walls.

An IPS story titled Salvadoran Prisons – Hubs of Organised Crime highlights the problem of the prisons as control centers for crime:

Decades of government neglect, a corruption-racked penitentiary system and a growing wave of violent crime have combined to move El Salvador's prisons even further away from their stated purpose of rehabilitation while strengthening their role as veritable schools of crime.

According to government figures, around 80 percent of all cases of extortion in El Salvador are coordinated from jail by cell-phone, thanks to a well-oiled network of suppliers of phones, chips and chargers, inmates and their families, and prison guards.

In one such case, in March 2009 the prosecutor's office charged Darwin Ticas, an inmate serving a 30-year sentence for homicide, with running an extortion racket involving 11 people from his cell. The scheme, which operated in the eastern city of San Miguel, included members of his family.

Extortion is not the only crime ordered from prison cells. Kidnappings and murders are also planned, usually by convicts belonging to the Salvatrucha and M18 gangs, the two leading street gangs in Central America. (more).

The Office of the Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a report last month on the severe flaws of the system:

The Inter-American Commission appreciates the Salvadoran government's efforts to correct many of the deficiencies that the country's prison system has suffered for decades. In this regard, the IACHR takes note of important initiatives such as the strengthening of the Penitentiary School; efforts to purge the ranks of prison personnel; the establishment of national dialogue processes; measures planned to reduce prison overcrowding; plans to improve the management of the Salvadoran Institute for the Integral Development of Children and Adolescents (ISNA); and the attitude of greater openness that the current government has shown toward civil society organizations.

At the same time, the Office of the Rapporteur expresses its concern over the structural deficiencies it observed in the Salvadoran prison system. This situation is the result of a decades-long absence of public policies that would enable the prison system to fulfill the aims established by the American Convention on Human Rights: "the reform and social readaptation of the prisoners."

The Office of the Rapporteur verified a prison overpopulation rate of more than 300%. The high level of overcrowding and the lack of adequate physical structures, including insufficient access to sanitary facilities and drinking water, facilitate the spread of respiratory illnesses and infections, creating deplorable heath conditions. The Office of the Rapporteur is also concerned about the lack of access to reeducation and training programs; the practice of military forces conducting bodily searches of inmates' family members at certain prisons; the lack of adequate installations for receiving visitors in appropriate conditions; and the inadequate food provided to those deprived of liberty.

The annex to this report details a series of abuses in the prison system by both regular prison authorities and the armed forces which have been called in to augment prison security. Compounding the problem is the fact that El Salvador puts in prison significant numbers of people who are arrested, before they are ever convicted in a trial.

Prison overcrowding may have contributed to the deaths of 16 and injuries to 24 young inmates during a fire at a detention facility this morning.   The cause of the fire is believed to be an electrical short circuit.  Also this week Salvadoran authorities discovered a tunnel being dug out from the prison in Ciudad Barrios, San Miguel, which could have let a hundred or more inmates escape.

The government believes, however, that its efforts at the prisons, including the use of the army, are starting to pay dividends.  At the seven prisons where the army is deployed, the government reports it has reduced the number of cellphones and contraband entering the prison, used technology to block cellphone signals from within the prison, and established security perimeters around the facilities.  The government has linked these measures to slight decreases in the incidence of extortion and murder during the first ten months of this year.

El Salvador's problem with violent crime and the state of its prisons are inextricable linked.   Improving state control over the prisons, improving conditions, and working to rehabilitate inmates is necessary to reduce the crime rate.    Reducing the crime rate is necessary to reduce the overcrowding in the prisons.  Army patrols around the prisons and army patrols on the streets of crime-ridden communities will never be enough.

Salvadoran anti-mining activists kidnapped

Members of a Salvadoran environmental organization travelling to meet with the Guatemalan government to protest a gold mine were kidnapped and robbed by men wearing Guatemalan police uniforms. They are members of the Center of Investigations into Investment and Commerce (CEICOM) and were travelling with journalists from Salvadoran TV Channel 10. They had been driving to Guatemala City to discuss the risks to bodies of water shared by Guatemala and El Salvador if a proposed gold mine is developed. After their cameras and computers were taken from them, the activists and journalists were left on an abandoned farm.

The proposed mine is the Cerro Blanco mine in the department of Jutiapa, near the municipality of Asuncion Mita. The Cerro Blanco project is being developed by the Canadian mining company GoldCorp. GoldCorp. mining activities in Guatemala and elsewhere in Latin America have been the subject of numerous protests by environmental and civil society organizations.



This was the second time members of CEICOM were kidnapped on their way to a meeting in Guatemala regarding the Cerro Blanco mine. On July 30 of this year, the same thing happened as they drove in Guatemala to a meeting with that country's Human Rights Ombudsman.

CEICOM delivered a letter to El Salvador's foreign minister, demanding the the Salvadoran government spur a complete investigation into these events. The foreign ministry has agreed to send a diplomatic request to its counterparts in Guatemala urging a thorough investigation.

The concerns of environmental activists about Cerro Blanco were described in this IPS news story earlier this year:

The Cerro Blanco gold and silver mine in the southeastern Guatemalan province of Jutiapa, on the border with El Salvador, is under fire from environmentalists in both countries concerned about the threat it poses to the shared Lake Güija and rivers on either side of the border.

"Toxic waste water from the mine will be discharged into the Ostúa river in Guatemala, and will flow into the 45 square kilometres of Lake Güija, and on into the Lempa river, the main river basin in El Salvador," David Pereira, a Salvadoran activist with the non-governmental Research Centre on Investment and Trade (CEICOM), told IPS.

In his view, the mine should be shut down because it will cause irreparable damage to water sources, soil, animals and plants and human settlements in the vicinity. The main risk is to the Lempa river, which supplies more than three million Salvadorans, with activities like agriculture, livestock raising and hydroelectric power plants depending on it.

Pereira's conclusions are based on a study by Dina Larios, professor of geochemistry and hydrogeology at Ohio University in the United States, which contains serious warnings about waste water from the mine.

Dumping water with high concentrations of fluorine, arsenic and boron in the Ostúa river at a temperature of 35 degrees would endanger its biodiversity and cause thermal pollution, affecting fishing which is the livelihood of hundreds of families in the area, Pereira quoted the study as saying.

The Cerro Blanco mining project, approved by the government of former Guatemalan president Óscar Berger (2000-2004), is now under construction and is expected to start producing gold and silver later this year.

The Salvadoran Catholic Church has also expressed its concern about the mine, and asked El Salvador's leftwing President Mauricio Funes to intervene.

The assault on the CEICOM members is likely to increase the visibility of Salvadoran concerns about this proposed mine in neighboring Guatemala and any potential threats to El Salvador's most important watershed. Anti-mining groups in El Salvador are already planning their next round of actions.

La Calabiuza

El Salvador does not have Halloween, but there is La Calabiuza. On the evening of November 1, the residents of the Salvadoran town of Tonacatapeque, northeast of San Salvador, celebrate the Día de la Calabiuza with a parade and street festival. During the celebration, the costumed revelers recall the mythological characters of El Salvador and their dead relatives. The night ended with music and a dance in the central square.

To see some images from this year's celebration, you can watch this video from La Prensa:

or this video from MyTonaca.com:

The following day, November 2, is the "Día de los fieles difuntos" -- the Day of the Faithful Souls or the Day of the Dead. Families go to visit the graves of their loved ones with flowers and picnicking. You can see a photo gallery of images from this celebration in and around the cemetery in Tonacatapeque at this link.