Inciting awareness

Danny with friends

My friend Danny Burridge has lived and worked in El Salvador for the past 4 1/2 years. Recently he started a new blog titled Embracing Crisis, about some of his experiences. Danny states that his purpose in writing the blog is "to incite awareness and weave a better world."

Danny's two initial posts, Starting a Story and The Little Cicada, talk movingly about at-risk youth from the La Chacra neighborhood where Danny volunteers. Here's one of Danny's insights from Starting a Story:

To be sure, there’s more little kids that will one day want in the gang than the pandilla could ever accept. I would say that in La Chacra, it’s a myth that gangs “recruit” little kids. It’s the poverty, the family disintegration, the lack of a support structure, the lack of education, the lack of opportunities, the lack of somebody to care, the lack of love that recruits little kids. It’s the fact that the gang members are the coolest and most powerful people in the neighborhood. They take you in and accept you, they protect you, and they get you money. So kids want in, but they don’t understand the implications. I recently heard a teacher lamenting that these days in El Salvador, there aren’t any young people who are willing to dedicate their lives to their convictions. But the truth is that the kids in the gangs sacrifice everything and live everyday willing to kill and die and go to jail for their convictions. But I don’t think that’s what the teacher was referring to.

Will Manyula be replaced?

It's traditional at year end to review the lives of famous persons who dies in the preceding 12 months. This year, a death mourned by thousands of Salvadorans was the death of Manyula, the old Indian elephant in the San Salvador zoo.

A newspaper in Calcutta, where the search for a replacement elephant is occurring, explains:

Perhaps the Salvadorans’ fascination with Manyula had to do with the attraction between opposites. Maybe it was the wonder that the sight of the gentle giant evoked in a country nicknamed the “Tom Thumb of the Americas” because of its shape and size.

To generations of Salvadorans, Manyula was a symbol of serenity and permanence, a calming and benign presence amid the natural disasters and political upheavals that claimed thousands of lives.

“My grandmother first brought me to see her. I had been visiting her for the past 43 years,” a woman told a local newspaper.

Manyula was called the “queen of the zoo” and her enclosure was moved right to the entrance. Now, a small statue with a plaque stating “Plaza Manyula” stands at the spot.

Painters have painted her and musicians have composed songs to her. Manyula by singer Omar Angula is a hit. Salvadorans have posted the elephant’s videos on YouTube and grieved for her on Facebook, the page drawing 9,000 members.

The article describes the sadness in El Salvador with which the news of the elephant's death was met:

For over half a century, El Salvador had looked to its most famous Indian resident to seek solace amid the civil wars, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes and gang wars wracking the country.

When she fell ill at 60 this year, the news made the front pages for days. After her death from renal failure on September 21, thousands of mourners — young and old, politician and poor — turned up with candles, flowers and posters as the grand old lady was buried in a very large grave in capital San Salvador.

Now Central America’s smallest nation wants a replacement — or two — for the Indian-born Manyula, the country’s only elephant who became a national icon during her 55-year stay at the San Salvador zoo.

But the search for replacement pachyderms to live in the zoo is not without its critics. Animal rights activists are protesting against the zoo obtaining another elephant saying:

On September 21 Manyula, the only elephant at El Salvador’s Parque Zoológico Nacional de San Salvador, died at age 59 from kidney failure. She had lived in the zoo for almost her entire life, having been abducted from her family in India as a baby, and died without ever knowing the companionship and comfort of another elephant again. We need your help to ensure that the zoo does not acquire another elephant and subject her to a similar lifetime of deprivation.

The Indian newspaper notes that the opposition to replacing Manyula only seems to be coming from outside of El Salvador.

Evicting street vendors for a more "orderly" San Salvador

It is one of the perpetual themes of life in San Salvador --the clash between street vendors and the municipal government which wants to impose some order on the stalls which clog the streets and sidewalks of the city's historic center.

An article titled Street Vendors Defend Right to Make a Living in San Salvador from IPS does a good job of describing the ongoing conflict:

Since June, the mayor has ordered the forced eviction of 1,053 hawkers, as part of an attempt to regulate street vending in a city where more than 16,000 street vendors hawk their wares, occupying many streets and plazas.

Several of the evictions, which form part of what the metropolitan police has dubbed "Operation Thunder", have ended in pitched battles, with dozens of people arrested or injured.

Civil society organisations, the Catholic Church, legislators and the human rights ombudsman have called for talks, in order for the two sides to come up with a negotiated solution to address their opposing needs: an orderly, functional city centre and the right of vendors to make a living.

"The problem isn't going to be solved by means of violent evictions," Saúl Baños, a lawyer with the Foundation for the Study and Application of Law (FESPAD), a local human rights organisation, told IPS. "Negotiations should be held, to come up with the best compromise between these two needs."

The archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar, stated this month that "this issue is of great concern to the Catholic Church.

"We understand the need to bring more order to the city, but it is important for people not to lose their source of work, and to be able to continue making an honest living," he said.

Forced evictions are frequent in cities of Latin America and in other developing regions, where the proliferation of street stalls crashes up against plans to clean up cities and make them more orderly.

The IPS article explains that El Salvador's mayor, Norman Quijano, has such plans for the city's center:

Relocating many of the 16,000 street vendors in this city of 2.1 million and strictly regulating the rest are at the centre of the plans of Mayor Quijano, of the opposition right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).

"All of the countries of Latin America have had this problem in their capitals, and all of them have addressed it," Carolina Ramírez, head of municipal development in the San Salvador city government, told IPS.

"We want to cause the least possible collateral damage to all of the vendors who make an honest living," she said.

She explained that in the short term, the city government plans to remodel and expand several existing markets, for which it has a four million dollar loan from the Inter-American Development Bank. It is also seeking financing to build new markets, as part of the longer term plan, she added.

There will be an informal economy and street vendors so long as the country produces too few jobs.   Building market places for the vendors will only alleviate the congestion of San Salvador's central district if the vendors find customers in these new markets.   Otherwise, the imperative to feed their families will keep these vendors returning to the streets where customers can still be found.

More Salvadoran migrants kidnapped in Mexico

This year, tragedies in Mexico have brought the public's attention to attacks on migrants crossing Mexico on their way to the US. Another high profile attack took place on December 16 as gunmen kidnapped as many as 50 Central American migrants stowed away on a freight train in southern Mexico. The incident has further strained relations between El Salvador and Mexico since Salvadoran officials believe Mexico is doing to little to investigate or prevent such crimes.

The BBC reported the most recent attack:

The director of a Catholic shelter for migrants, Father Heyman Vasquez... told BBC Mundo that he had spoken to some of the migrants who reported escaping the kidnapping. He said that 92 out of some 300 migrants on the train had been arrested by migration officials, but that shortly afterwards, the train was stopped by unidentified gunmen.

The migrants reported how the gunmen boarded the train, robbed and hit the stowaways with machetes, and took a group of them away at gunpoint. Father Vasquez thinks between 30 and 50 were abducted. He says the gunmen took all the women who were on the train, as well as some men and children.

The Salvadoran consulate, which also interviewed some of migrants who had been on the train, believes the number of those kidnapped is about 50.

The BBC story notes that Mexican authorities had been denying that any kidnapping took place. Mexican officials did say that they had stopped the train and arrested 92 migrants earlier that same day.

But denials became more difficult after the kidnappers started placing ransom calls to relatives of the abducted migrants. According to a report in the Washington Examiner:

The supposed kidnappers of 50 Central American migrants who disappeared in southern Mexico last week called a family in the United States demanding a ransom, a Roman Catholic priest who first reported the abductions said Thursday. But they contacted relatives of a migrant who had escaped after the Dec. 16 assault, said the Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, who runs a migrant shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca.

The abductors probably thought he was still in the group, Solalinde told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, adding that he reported the call to Central American and Mexican authorities. "We're calling the governments of Central America in case they know of any other calls for ransom," he said.

It was another apparent confirmation of the massive abduction, which Mexican authorities initially denied when they were contacted by the foreign ministry of El Salvador on Tuesday with the complaint.

Witnesses said the majority of those kidnapped are Salvadorans, and Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez continued his criticism of Mexico for initially ignoring the abduction, calling the government's response "hasty and unfortunate." "We believe you can't deal with these problems by ignoring them," he told a news conference Wednesday night. "Rather, they should be recognized and thoroughly investigated."

El Salvador's criticism of Mexican authorities has been growing since the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas earlier this year. Despite these widely-publicized dangers, however, conditions in El Salvador and other Central American countries continue to push desperate migrants to try and make the perilous journey.

A Christmas Eve story

One Christmas Eve, Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, visited the poverty-stricken community of La Bernal to celebrate with its inhabitants:

After the Mass and the First Communions, we fixed up two tables really nice. They were kind of long tables with white tablecloths that hung down to the floor. The children who had received their first communion sat at one table, with Monseñor at the head. The rest of the community sat at the other table. Tamales had been made.

"Two apiece!" said the women who were handing them out.

There was one regular tamal and one sweet one for everyone. Suddenly a little boy appeared out of nowhere. He was a tiny little kid, about four years old. Light haired and covered with dirt. Barefoot, and with a nose full of snot. He came up to Monseñor Romero from behind and pulled on his cassock with his grubby fingers.

"You want some?" Monseñor asked him.

The little boy nodded his head a few times. Yes. This kid was filthy with dirt and stains. Monseñor picked him up, put him on his lap and started feeding him from his tamal. He'd eat one bite and give the next bite to the boy. One for him, one for the boy, one here, one there,,, And so just like that, the two of them ate tamales together that Christmas eve.

From Memories in Mosaic, by Maria Lopez Vigil, 2000.

Drug cartels and El Salvador

A BBC News report yesterday discusses concerns that Mexican drug cartels, the source of so much violence in Mexico, might be considering greater operations in El Salvador:

From a giant billboard in the Salvadorean capital, a man with a defiant attitude shows off a slogan on his shirt: "No one can intimidate El Salvador," it reads.

The ad - part of a government-funded anti violence campaign - holds a special significance at the time when many worry that an overflow of Mexico's drug violence could soon hit this small Central American nation.

The first one to raise the alert was President Mauricio Funes himself, last April.

"We have information that they [the cartels] have entered El Salvador with exploratory purposes," President Funes said.

Because of what he described as the "effectiveness" of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's policies, the cartels were looking at new bases for their operations, he added.

Since then, security forces have been watching closely to see if criminal organisations like the Zetas - one of Mexico's most violent cartels - are deploying in Salvadorean territory.

The cartels' possible collusion - or confrontation - with local gangs is also being monitored. (more).

There is no doubt that drugs already pass through El Salvador on their way from South America to the US. If drug cartels were to establish greater operations in El Salvador, beyond the mere transportation of drugs, it would pose another serious threat to El Salvador's already overwhelmed police and security forces.

Holly Jolly Christmas

Linda of Linda's El Salvador Blog gave me permission to republish her recent post on popular Christmas culture in modern El Salvador.

Holly Jolly Christmas

We were driving through a holiday lights display, laughing at the animated images of Santa in his workshop and the bears in the bakery. With the fresh blanket of snow all around us, the lights were especially pretty.

"When you were a little girl, did you celebrate Christmas with the story of Santa Claus?" I asked my friend from El Salvador. It was her second visit to the US - her first time in the snow.

"Yes," she said. "The parents told the children about Santa Claus, but really, the parents made little gifts for their children. We had Christmas trees. The big stores had trees and decorations and you could visit Santa. Now, with electricity in the communities, people put lights on their Christmas trees. Some houses in the community have lights, but not as much as this," she said, pointing out the car window.

The Christmas traditions in El Salvador are an eclectic mix of pilgrimages to find Jesus and pilgrimages to Metro Centro, of straw reindeer and mangers filled with straw, of golden trees made of tinsel and poinsettias which grow in the gardens along the streets. On one side of La Plaza Barrios people rush by a golden tree with sparkly wise men sponsored by Western Union; on the other side of the street people quietly kneel in the cathedral and offer prayers beside the wise men who bring sparkly gifts to baby Jesus.

One of my friends once had a job in a sweatshop, sewing white furry trim on to red velvet skirts, making "Christmas dresses for little girls in the United States, like Santa's helpers," she had told me.

Some of the Christmas decorations in El Salvador strike me as really funny - the snowman at the airport, the big hat at the mall, the parade of straw reindeer marching along the sidewalk. Others are very sweet - the tree at the guest house decorate with gold-painted tortillas, the little decorated pine tree in a coffee can at a friend's house.

Home-made ornaments next to shiny ones from the store. A real tree in a pot next to the plastic one with the LED lights. The story of Baby Jesus and the story of Santa Claus. Gifts of faith and presence. Gifts of special things and presents. Across miles and language and culture, we have a lot in common.

Addressing dangers of sugar cane industry

Recent years have seen a growing Salvadoran environmental movement and concern about the impact of businesses such as mining and sugar cane on local communities. The NGO EcoViva has an article on its blog about a grass roots initiative in local communities proposing laws to regulate harmful practices in the cane fields:

The proposed law will limit certain practices of the sugar cane plantations, including indiscriminate pesticide and fertilizer application, deforestation and burning before the harvest. It was written the help of legal expertise from the University of El Salvador and has the backing of eight coastal government districts and many community organizations.

A new coalition of local governments and community groups called the Movement for the Defense of Natural Resources and Human Life, headed up by the Mangrove Association, is leading a regional effort to eliminate these harmful practices that are commonplace in El Salvador’s highly unregulated sugar cane sector. According to members of the Movement, all of these practices have had a measurable impact on community health and local ecology.

Some national and local officials, including Mr. Barahona, believe that an unusually high local incidence of chronic kidney failure can be linked to the presence of specific agricultural chemicals in the groundwater, and he is calling on national agencies to take emergency action.

The practice of burning before the harvest is another critical issue. ... In 1996, an infant was reported to have been killed during a similar burning operation that is routine during the sugar cane harvest. Though burning is known to reduce soil productivity and even sugar content in the cane plant itself, it is still used to improve harvesting efficiency. (more).

All I want for Christmas

One of the blessings I have received as a consequence of writing this blog is to get to know an organization named the Volunteer Missionary Movement or VMM.  In fact, the organization so impressed me that I now serve on its Board of Directors.

VMM makes it possible for people to volunteer in poor communities in El Salvador and the rest of Central America.   VMM volunteers make a two year commitment to volunteer as a way of living out their calling as Chistians to be of service to the poor, the homeless, and the marginalized.  VMM places these dedicated volunteers with project partners doing such things as promoting community development in Usulutan, working with at risk youth in gang-ridden neighborhoods of San Salvador, leading a pre-school program in a poor neighborhood in Mejicanos, connecting North Americans in solidarity relationships in communities in El Salvador, or teaching indigenous women in Guatemala principles of animal husbandry.


The volunteers from VMM are an amazing group of people who are devoting years of their lives to such service.   A great way to get to know them is through their own blogs and newsletters some of which I have featured on this blog from time to time.   So click on the links to get to know some of them:

• Danny 
• Danielle 
• Olivia 
• David and Nancy 
• Laura 
• Jennifer 
• Maggie

At this time of the year, please consider a gift to VMM to support their ongoing service to poor communities in El Salvador and elsewhere.  I don't generate ad revenues on the blog. I don't have a subscription fee, and I don't ask for donations to support the blog.   But if you do find the blog useful and informative, my Christmas wish is for donations to VMM.   You can donate online at this link.   Tell them Tim sent you.

Latest opinion polls

Whenever the Public Opinion Institute (IUDOP) at the University of Central America releases a new public opinion poll, it's always worth a read.  But there's not much surprising in their most recent poll:  Salvadorans' biggest concern is safety and crime, and Mauricio Funes continues to enjoy high approval ratings as the country's first president from the left.

Answers to questions from the IUDOP show that Salvadorans are pessimistic about the economy.  More than 50% believe the economy worsened and that poverty increased in 2010.   Only a quarter believe that things will improve next year.

Perhaps the most striking result is that Salvadorans believe that the police are doing a good job in combating crime in the country.  60% of Salvadorans polled felt that the PNC has gotten more effective in dealing with crime.  58% believed that the government's security plan was starting to show results.

The annual IUDOP poll always asks respondents which institutions they find trustworthy.  Usually, the highest rated institution is the Catholic church, followed by other institutions.  This year, for the first time, the most trusted institution was the Salvadoran armed forces, with 43.5% of Salvadorans saying they placed much trust in it.  This change would seem to be related to the army's patrols in the streets as part of the fight against crime.

La Prensa Grafica also recently released a poll with similar results.  The LPG poll also shows Funes with his continued high approval ratings.  

In addition, the LPG poll shows that ARENA and the FMLN continue to dominate the loyalties of Salvadorans who identify with a political party.   As shown in the graph below, the FMLN leads ARENA by almost 10 percentage points 28.3% to 18.6%, with the other parties all below 2%.  What the graph lacks is the off-the-chart number of "none of the above responses" which equal almost 50%.   Most Salvadorans are not party loyalists, but instead are in the middle and mostly concerned about the safety and well-being of their families.

Leaked cables show US embassy commentary

As US State Department cables continue to come into the public domain via WikiLeaks, five cables have recently been published by the Spanish paper El Pais coming from the US Embassy in San Salvador.  The cables are reports back to Washington on current events and the political environment in El Salvador in 2009 and 2010.

The cables are all written by Robert Blau, who as Charge d'Affaires was the senior US official in the Embassy prior to the arrival of current US ambassador Aponte. His clearly-written cables give an insight, not usually available, into the issues the US finds of importance in El Salvador.

Robert Blau and Mauricio Funes with their wives on the night
 of Funes' election as president of El Salvador

A regular theme is the tension between president Mauricio Funes and the FMLN.  The first cable disclosed came only a few months into the presidency of Funes, and describes a conversation with someone close to Funes expressing concerns about security and potential tapping of the new president's phones by the FMLN.  From August 21, 2009:

XXXXXXXXXXXX said Funes and those in his inner circle were concerned about both his personal security as well as technical security of their communications. XXXXXXXXXXXX also lamented the state of physical security around Casa Presidencial, the presidential office compound. XXXXXXXXXXXX said he suspected elements in the (left-wing) FMLN were monitoring phone calls of the President, XXXXXXXXXXXX, and other non-FMLN members of the Government. XXXXXXXXXXXX said Funes would welcome U.S. assistance in both areas. Charge [Blau] offered to arrange a meeting with Funes and appropriate Embassy staff.

One week later Blau advised the US State Department that street protests seemed to be organized by the FMLN to undermine president Funes:

A recent wave of protests organized by a so-called environmental group, "La Coordinadora Nacional de Medio Ambiente (CNMA)", are likely part of a movement by hard-line elements of the FMLN to undermine President Funes. Over the past several weeks, the CNMA has carried out large-scale, coordinated protests throughout the country ostensibly protesting GOES plans to continue with the construction of the hydroelectric dam "Chaparral" and perceived inequities in the seed disbursement program to farmers. It seems that hard-line members of the FMLN party are using this relatively unknown organization to vent their frustration about the direction of economic policy and directly challenge the President.

The hard line leadership of the FMLN was again a theme in a cable from December 2009 which discussed the FMLN's 25th anniversary convention and a meeting with FMLN party leadership and Embassy officials:

The FMLN's historic, guerrilla roots run deep, and the rhetoric of years on the battlefield and two decades in opposition will not disappear quickly, or maybe ever. While our outreach to the FMLN during the 2008-2009 campaign and since Funes' inauguration has paid off in open channels of communications, we continue to combat old suspicions of U.S. motives in El Salvador and the region. On the other hand, good relations with the U.S. enjoys a 90 percent approval rating. If the FMLN overdoes its radicalism, it will have a hard time sustaining its current electoral advantages.

A lengthy cable on January 26, 2010 summarized the current situation in El Salvador:

Eight months into the Funes presidency, the GOES [government of El Salvador] can best be characterized as schizophrenic. The part of the government that Funes controls is moderate, pragmatic, responsibly left-of-center and friendly to the USG. The part he has ceded to hard-line elements of the (left-wing) Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is seeking to carry out the Bolivarian, Chavista game-plan, including implacable hostility towards the USG [US government]. Divisions on the right have given the FMLN a dominant position in the Legislative Assembly. However, the FMLN does not have an outright majority in the legislature, and it faces strong opposition in the popular and independent-minded President Funes.

Funes's popularity could erode quickly if his administration does not start showing visible results in reducing violent crime and reviving the economy. The government's long-run inability to tackle crime or produce economic growth, coupled with petty infighting and corruption within the country's political parties, raises questions about the future of democratic governance in El Salvador.
...
The GOES's inability to make gains in public security, continued anemic growth and the disintegration of the right taken together present a challenging road ahead for democracy in El Salvador, especially if coupled with a Funes-FMLN split. Funes's persistent high popularity ratings, now well over 80 percent, make it too soon to sound the alarm, but democratic institutions are vulnerable. Sanchez Ceren's recent call for sweeping constitutional reforms to institute "participatory democracy" is a timely reminder that the hard-line FMLN's threat to Salvadoran democracy is real. The Embassy, allied with civil society, will continue to engage and support moderates in the GOES while working with democratic forces across the political spectrum to strengthen Salvadoran constitutional institutions.

The relationship between Funes and hard-line elements in the FMLN was once again a theme of a February 23, 2010 cable from the Embassy:

There is a growing division between Funes and the party that brought him to power. Funes joined the FMLN at the end of the 2009 presidential campaign. Throughout the campaign, he maintained a close group of pragmatic, non-FMLN advisors (the Friends of Mauricio), a fact which rankled some FMLN hard-liners. Since Funes took power, tensions between Funes's centrist camp and the far-left FMLN leadership have grown. Funes has publicly rebuked his own Vice President, FMLN hard-liner Salvador Sanchez Ceren, and other members of the FMLN for advocating policies that sharply depart from Funes's moderate reform strategy. The FMLN appears content to ride Funes' high approval numbers while applying pressure via street protests, radical rhetoric, high-profile travel to Havana and Caracas, and back-room legislative maneuvering. So far, the fragile pact between Funes and the FMLN remains intact, but the relationship is clearly strained.

There are reportedly 1119 cables concerning El Salvador in the WikiLeaks database.   There may be many more topics for blog posts....

The murder of the deputies -- a trial brings no clarity

The trial for the murder of Salvadoran politicians in Guatemala in 2007 came to a conclusion last week.   But the conviction of several suspects raises as many questions as it answers.   An article in ContraPunto with the headline "Obscurity and Doubt Hang Over the Case" captures the state of information about the case.

Long time readers of this blog will remember the assassination of three Salvadoran members of the Central American parliament while they traveled in Guatemala in February 2007. The bodies of these three politicians and their driver were found in the burned out remains of the SUV they had been driving.  One of the victims was Eduardo D'Aubuisson, the son of the founder of the ARENA party, the late Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson.  The initial investigation by authorities in Guatemala quickly arrested members of the organized crime division of Guatemala's national police. But in a brazen raid, unknown persons managed to penetrate Guatemala's high security prison and execute those suspects in their cells.

The prosecutors at the recent trial presented a tale of the motives and events which led to the murders.   In late 2006, Salvadoran legislator Carlos Roberto Silva was kicked out of El Salvador's National Assembly and lost his immunity from criminal prosecution for money laundering.  According to prosecutors, Silva sought vengeance on the politicians he blamed for his ouster, and arranged with an ex Guatemalan legislator, Manuel Castillo to procure the murder of the Salvadoran politicians and their driver when they were travelling in Guatemala.

This version of events has now been given credibility by the court in Guatemala which convicted Castillo and seven others for the crime and sentenced them to lengthy prison terms.

Meanwhile the purported mastermind Silva is in the US.  He is currently in US custody for illegally entering the country, but is seeking political asylum claiming that he is being politically persecuted (and prosecuted) back in El Salvador.   It was Silva who was heard on a tape discussing a bribe with another Salvadorna poltician.

But there's more.  Perhaps Silva has nothing to do with the murder of the deputies.  The UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has written a report with a different motive and different actors behind the 2007 murder of the deputies.   The CICIG conclusions were reported in the Salvadoran paper El Mundo, and this post from the Voices from El Salvador blog has a summary of this alternate theory of the crime:

The CICIG investigation determined that the motive for the assassinations of the three diputados was robbery.  William Pichinte, an ARENA diputado, was carrying $5 million dollars and 20 kilos of cocaine in a secret compartment of his vehicle.  The parallel ‘security’ structure in Guatemala had identified the delegation, diverted them to La Parga farm, stripped the vehicle until they found the money and cocaine, and then assassinated the diputados and their driver.

The four Guatemalan police officers were not the only ones involved in the robbery/murder to be killed. The Venezuelan Victor Rivera, aka “Zacarias,” was one of the principles responsible for organizing the robbery. He arrived at La Parga farm, supposedly to confirm the orders to kill the diputados, and he also intervened during the arrests of the four police officers.  Zacarias came to El Salvador in the early 1980’s as a CIA asset to work with former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles and Lt. Oliver North in the Ilopango Air Base “drug trafficking, kidnapping and training death squads.”(according to former DEA agent Celerino Castillo).  He was later run out of the country for ‘creating and operating irregular structures from within the National Civilian Police,’ and was linked to the 1996 police killing of medical student Adriano Vilanova (published by the human rights office in 1996 ).   Between 1997 and 2000 ‘Zacarias’ continued working with the private security sector in El Salvador and Guatemala, while picking up several public contracts with the Guatemalan government.  He was assassinated in April of 2007.  CICIG has implicated drug cartel kingpin Jorge Arturo Paredes Cordova and Rivera’s personal assistant María del Rosario Melgar for his murder.

The list of unanswered questions is a mile long.   Roberto D'Aubuisson, whose brother was murdered, called on the US this week to extradite Silva to El Salvador to be prosecuted, while members for El Salvador's National Assembly from the FMLN and PCN want more investigations into the theory in the CICIG report.

A savage week -- 30 years ago

Thirty years ago this week, right wing death squads and the Salvadoran military, and the oligarchy they were protecting, made it abundantly clear that there were no limits to the violence they would wield against opponents.

First, on Thursday, November 27, 1980, six leaders of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) were kidnapped from a school where they were meeting, tortured, and killed. Their bodies were dumped along a roadside later that same day. The FDR had been a broad opposition coalition which represented many sectors of Salvadoran society. The murders drove the FDR to align itself with the armed movement which was the FMLN.

Among the six murdered leaders was Enrique Alvarez Córdova. He was raised in one of El Salvador's "14 families." He tried to serve in the government as an advocate for progressive change. He eventually committed himself to the struggle for social justice in the country. His story is recounted this week in an essay by John Lamperti in Truthout. Lamperti notes that:

The year 1980 was notorious for murder in El Salvador. The 10,000 to 12,000 killed included a beloved archbishop, the rector of the national university and the four US churchwomen. Even so, Alvarez stands out among the victims, since he was born and raised in the privileged class those same armed forces existed to protect. "He was the first rich man who died in El Salvador for the poor ... for his country, for his people, for the poor," said Monsignor Ricardo Urioste of San Salvador's archdiocese. How could such a man fall victim to El Salvador's right-wing terrorists? The answer is fundamentally simple. Alvarez had, very consciously, chosen the side of the majority of the people.

The murder is commemorated in this poem:

The Murder of the Polo Champion

They killed the polo champion.
The man of a thousand suits,
the same one who had mansions
and yachts
and rich and pretty women almost the world over.
They shot him dead
and threw him, hands tied,
into a ditch.
They killed him because he abandoned his suits,
his horses and polo,
his yachts and mansions,
and above all because he began to walk like a poor man among the poor.

-Alfonso Quijada Urías

I also recommend the excellent biography, Enrique Alvarez: Life of a Salvadoran Revolutionary And Gentlemen, by John Lamperti.

Five days later, "they" committed another infamous murder. Armed soldiers of the Salvadoran military stopped the van carrying four US churchwomen, took the women to a remote place, raped and murdered them. Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, lay missionary Jean Donovan and Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford had been devoting themselves to caring for the poor in a country spiraling into armed conflict. Their deaths became a symbol of the savage lengths to which the Salvadoran state would go to preserve its privileges of power. They joined the ranks of the martyrs of the struggle for justice in El Salvador.

You can read biographies of the four women at this link from the InterReligious Task Force on Central America and watch this short video put together by Maryknoll:

Alvarez and the churchwomen were only the highest profile victims of violence perpetrated by El Salvador's death squads that week. As had been true throughout the year, dozens of bodies turned up on streets and in dumps -- campesinos, union leaders, educators, religious, students -- a part of the madness which was El Salvador's civil war.

World AIDS Day 2010 El Salvador

Today is World AIDS day, and so it's appropriate to focus on the disease and efforts to combat its spread in El Salvador.  This USAID profile offers an assessment of HIV-AIDS in the country:

With less than 1 percent of its adult population reported to be HIV positive, El Salvador is a low-HIV-prevalence country, but the virus remains a significant threat in groups who practice high-risk behaviors, such as commercial sex workers (CSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM). Overall prevalence has increased since the first case was detected in 1984. El Salvador has the second-largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Central America, behind Guatemala. As of November 2009, 23,731 HIV/AIDS cases have been reported in the country. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that in 2007, 35,000 Salvadorans were living with HIV....

Factors that may put El Salvador at risk of an expanded epidemic include early sexual initiation, limited knowledge of preventive practices among people engaging in high-risk behaviors, and the country’s large mobile population. According to the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) among sexually active women aged 15 to 24, the average age to initiate sexual intercourse is 16 years old. Unmarried adolescents face barriers to accessing condoms and are not allowed to get tested for HIV without parental consent. AIDS prevention knowledge remains somewhat limited, as evidenced by the 2010 United Nations General Assembly report, which demonstrated only 52 percent of MSM could correctly answer five questions: two questions about ways to prevent HIV infection and three others regarding common misconceptions about AIDS. Many Salvadorans travel back and forth to the United States for work, and El Salvador has a large migrant population from other countries that travel through the country. Compounding these issues are stigma and discrimination toward HIV-infected individuals and at-risk groups, which can deter people from getting tested and receiving adequate support if they have the disease. On a positive note, 90 percent of CSWs surveyed stated they used a condom with their last client.

As the report states, education and prevention efforts are key. I had the good  fortune last week to observe an excellent workshop on HIV-AIDS for at-risk youth. Approximately 40 youth aged 10-16 gathered in a class room in one of the toughest communities near Santa Ana. This program, led by a presenter who connected well with these kids, provided them with accurate, useful information -- how HIV is spread, how to protect yourself, how to use a condom, how to have self-respect in relationships. There wasn't any doubt that these kids left the room knowing the facts -- but giving them the support and the living tools to make good choices is a longer term process.

The workshop was sponsored by Homies Unidos El Salvador.   Homies Unidos is the organization founded by ex-gang members working directly with gang members, their families, and their communities to improve their situations and to allow the re-integration of gang members into the community. It's tools are ones of empowerment, to give young people the chance to recognize opportunities outside of the gangs and their allure.   I'll have more to say about Homies Unidos in a future post.

Images from the workshop