The New York Times published a story today about gold mining conflicts in El Salvador titled First a Gold Rush, Then the Lawyers. The focus of the story is on Pacific Rim's attempts to open a gold mine in El Salvador, and is fairly sympathetic to the Canadian company. There is nothing in the article which will be new to regular readers of this blog, but it presents a broad overview of the gold mining issue.
Our friend Polycarpio, who writes the quality Super Martyrio bilingual blog dedicated to Archbishop Oscar Romero, recently wrote a post about the US government views of Romero, as revealed by diplomatic cables from the time. With Polycaripo's permission, it is reprinted in full here:
While a recently leaked diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador sheds light on the prior Salvadoran government’s machinations to enlist the Vatican’s assistance to discourage international investigations of Archbishop Romero’s assassination, historic embassy cables reveal U.S. intelligence insights on Archbishop Romero himself. A dozen cables obtained by George Washington University and posted on its National Security Archive show that the U.S. State Department believed that Archbishop Romero, at first, “played a critical and most constructive role on behalf of moderation and peaceful reforms,” but the Embassy had soured on Archbishop Romero by January 1980, when diplomats began to perceive that the Archbishop was giving up on the Junta that came to power in a reformist 1979 coup in favor of a popular uprising. The Carter Administration reassessed its views at the time of Romero's death in March 1980.
In 1979 and 1980, several U.S. Embassy cables analyzed Romero’s sermons with attention that would make a theology student blush. For example, an October 11, 1979 cable entitled “The Archbishop and the Military,” was entirely devoted to analyzing Romero’s October 7, 1979 sermon. Similarly, a December 17, 1979 cable entitled “Archbishop Strongly Urges Agrarian Reform,” focused on Romero’s December 16, 1979 sermon (a sampling: “Archbishop Romero devoted approximately half hour of ... homily to strong endorsement of agrarian reform, stating that he was speaking not as technician, but as pastor to his flock. He quoted Second Vatican Council at length in support of agrarian reform and quoted Pope John Paul II to effect that over all private property lies a social mortgage”). By the time the Embassy reported on Romero’s March 23, 1980 sermon (“Stop the Repression!”), the reports had grown decidedly ambivalent, even airing the views of Romero’s detractors: “A police station was allegedly attacked from a church, a priest was accused of subversive activities, Radio Havana stated that the Archbishop supported insurrection ... the armed forces accused the Archbishop of refusing to help a policeman who was tortured inside a church.”
In a draft Jan. 1980 letter to Pope John Paul II, the Embassy had concluded that, “Impatient with the pace of progress of the moderate Revolutionary Governing Junta led by the Christian Democratic Party and reformist military officers, and increasingly convinced of an eventual victory by the extreme left, the Archbishop has strongly criticized the Junta and leaned toward support for the extreme left.” The draft letter, however, admitted “frequent and frank dialogue with Archbishop Romero and his Jesuit advisors” and, when Archbishop Romero wrote to President Carter in February, calling for a halt to U.S. military aid to El Salvador,Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s response offered a conciliatory tone. “The great moral authority of the Church,” he wrote, “and your uncompromising defense of human rights and dedication to non-violence convince me that our shared values can be the basis of a cooperative effort in search of peaceful solutions.”
After Archbishop Romero was killed, the Carter Administration praised his work. “Archbishop Romero spoke for the poor of El Salvador,” a White House statement said, “where their voices had been ignored for too long. He spoke for change and for social justice, which his nation so desperately needs. Terrorism cannot silence the message of compassion of the Archbishop. It cannot and should not intimidate those who seek social justice and democracy.”
In a recent public opinion poll, 83% of Salvadorans reported that the cost of living was going up, and a significant percentage believed not controlling inflation was one of the primary failures of president Funes' government. A new report at 7marketSpot.com puts some numbers on inflation in El Salvador:
The continuing impact of higher international commodity prices has put the Funes administration under pressure to curb rising inflation, even as domestic demand remains weak. According to data from the Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador (BCR, the Central Bank), annual inflation jumped to 6% in April, from 2.1% in late 2010, and -0.2% a year earlier, reflecting in part much higher petrol prices this year—in January-March oil imports increased by a sharp 40% year on year. Moreover, owing to a high dependence on imported grains and wheat, consumers have been badly affected by rising costs of imported food items.Inflation is one symptom of the vulnerability of the Salvadoran economy to forces outside of its control. Dependent on imported foodstuffs, without domestic gasoline production, and exposed to natural disasters which can wipe out a year's harvest of corn, rice or beans, El Salvador is always one step away from greater economic hardship. The country needs policies which will increase food self-sufficiency and other sustainable practices in energy and other markets.
According to a recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), El Salvador is only one of four Latin American countries (alongside Bolivia, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic) where the knock-on effect of a rise in international food prices can lead to a 10% or more increase in the domestic consumer price index. Although external pressures are expected to subside somewhat in the second half of 2011, the BCR now estimates that inflation will reach 4.8% in December 2011, compared with its original estimate of 2.8%. In addition to fuelling public discontent, higher inflation risks setting back the country’s modest recovery, with lower consumer purchasing power and falling deposits (reflecting negative real savings rates) resulting in lower credit growth.
Given the limited scope for monetary policy action in the dollarised economy, the Funes administration has chosen a sector-by-sector approach to deal with rising inflation. In May the Legislative Assembly voted to eliminate a US$0.16/gallon tax applicable to petrol and diesel sales until the end of the year, to soften the impact on consumers. At the same time, the government has been subsidising the cost of imported beans, a staple crop consumed by almost all Salvadoran households.
The website Socialbakers.com tracks Facebook usage across the globe. Their website now shows that El Salvador has surpassed one million Facebook users.
That represents a penetration of some 16% of the Salvadoran population, and ranks El Salvador 74 out of 213 countries. Not surprisingly, 84% of the users are age 34 or under.
Increasingly, Facebook is playing a role in Salvadoran politics and civil society. The protests against Decree 743 have a FaceBook page titled I Support the 4 Magistrates of the Constitutional Court. Politicians like President Mauricio Funes and San Salvador Mayor Norman Quijano have pages, as does the US Embassy. Inevitably, more and more organizing, debate, and campaigning will happen on Facebook and Twitter as the level of participation in these social media seems to have hit a critical mass.
There has once again been an unexplained murder of an environmental activist the department of Cabañas where conflict over proposed gold mining continues. The conflict has already claimed several lives. The following is from the staff of Radio Victoria, a progressive community radio station in Cabañas:
On June 2, in the city of Ilobasco, Cabañas, thirty year-old Juan Francisco Duran Ayala was putting up flyers and banners that asked for the approval of a law against metal mining and for the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim to leave Cabañas as part of a Cabañas Environmental Committee (CAC) campaign. The CAC reports that the mayor of Ilobasco, José Maria Dimas Castellano, ordered members of the municipal police to remove the banners and intimidate the activists that were hanging them. The next day Juan Francisco left for his classes at the Technological University in San Salvador and was not heard from again.Solidarity organizations have commenced a campaign to demand a thorough investigation of this murder and the earlier unsolved murders of activists in the region.
Yesterday we received word that Juan Francisco Duran Ayala's body was located and today there has been a positive identification of his body. The Coroner says he died from a bullet in the head.
This murder comes 2 years after the kidnapping and murder of anti-mining activist Marcelo Rivera, and the murders of 2 other CAC activists, Ramiro Rivera y Dora Alica Sorto.
We believe that as long as the earlier cases continue without investigative results leading to the intellectual authors, impunity will continue to reign allowing continued actions of intimidation and violence in Cabañas.
Juan Francisco’s father Benjamin Ayala Flores is the Coordinator of the FMLN war veterans association in Ilobasco. He lives in Ilobasco and his dream was to see his son graduate with a degree in languages from the Technological University, where Juan Francisco has been studying for over three years.
As members of Radio Victoria our hearts go out to Juan Francisco´s family and to the Cabañas Environmental Committee for the Defense of Water and Natural Resources who once again are suffering a needless tragedy.
There is no resolution to the constitutional crisis in El Salvador over Decree 743, the law designed to make it more difficult for independent thinking judges to declare laws unconstitutional. For those who want an overview of this dispute, our friends at Voices from El Salvador have put on their blog a comprehensive timeline of the passage and subsequent protests surrounding Decree 743. There is also an overview on the story here at the Spanish language site of the BBC.
It is truly unique to see the different branches of El Salvador's government positioning themselves while the protests from civil society do not let up. For example, president Mauricio Funes found it necessary to take out a full page ad in the newspapers to explain why he signed the law (he thinks it is constitutional and will promote institutional stability). Funes also attacks ARENA for switching positions on the law and now calling for its repeal after they allegedly received assurances that the Amnesty Law of 1993 would not be annulled. Meanwhile the judges of the Constitutional Court decided to issue a press release condemning the political parties and the president for suggesting that there could be any kind of negotiation of the content of rulings the Court might make. The judges called on the other branches of government to respect the principle of judicial independence.
The protests are making the four independent magistrates of the Constitutional Court popular heroes. The spirit of the protests are captured in this video, calling on a sleeping power of the people to wake up and reject the old political parties and the old ways of doing things:
The Los Angeles Times had a story on June 11about the proposal by Funes to draft into the military 5000 at-risk youth aged 16 to 18 to keep them out of gangs. Funes announced the plan in his June 1 address to the nation:
The plan calls for drafting 5,000 male teens deemed at risk of joining gangs and putting them through six months of civil defense training at centers run by the army reserve. Such service, officials say, would instill discipline in the youngsters while removing them from squalid conditions that have proved fertile for gang recruitment.
The draftees, ages 16 to 18, would receive noncombat training only and would not handle firearms.
'Youths are going to be subjected to the rigors of military discipline, but will not receive military instruction like the use of arms, and only will be instructed in protecting of civilians who are vulnerable in cases of natural disasters,' said Defense Minister David Munguia Payes.
In his speech on the June 1 anniversary of his presidency, president Mauricio Funes stated that Salvadorans who live outside of the country will be able to vote in the next presidential election in 2014. Such a change in Salvadoran elections would incorporate a very large group of additional voters into into the process. Currently, Salvadorans who live abroad can vote only if they return to El Salvador to cast a ballot.
How many Salvadorans live outside the country's borders? I'm not sure. A La Prensa Grafica story about the president's announcement stated that there are 2.8 million Salvadorans living in the United States. Another story, in the Contra Costa Times, cited US census figures from 2010 that there are 1.6 million Salvadorans in the US. That story did acknowledge that the census probably did undercount those living in the US illegally. Although most ex-pat Salvadorans live in the US, they also live in Canada, Europe and many other countries.
The 2011 World Barrista Championships were held June 2-5 in Bogota, Colombia. The winner this year was Alejandro Mendez from El Salvador. With a polished presentation featuring coffees grown in El Salvador, he brewed and poured sophisticated coffee drinks for a panel of judges You can watch his winning presentation here.
Competitors at the annual championship must prepare four espressos, four cappuccinos and four original signature drinks in a 15-minute performance set to music. They are then judged not only on the taste of the beverages, but also on cleanliness, creativity, technical skill and overall presentation. In the final championship round, Mendez competed with other finalists from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Spain and Japan. (Learn more).
El Salvador Barista Champion 2011 Alejandro Mendez from World Coffee Events on Vimeo.
The protests continue over the action of the Salvadoran National Assembly to try and change the rules to make it more difficult for the country's highest court to rule laws unconstitutional. The law, called Decree 743, would require a unanimous vote of the court's five judges to invalidate an unconstitutional law.
The four judges responsible for the major rulings of the Constitutional Court ruled that Decree 743 was itself invalid and proceeded with only four votes to accept a suit involving presidential spending. The position of the judges sets up an institutional crisis with no particular way to solve it if the National Assembly and Funes do not back down.
The possibility of the National Assembly backing down was described by Alfredo Cristiani, the former president and current leader of ARENA. In an interview with La Prensa Grafica, Cristiani indicated that ARENA is going to reverse its position and now introduce a bill to repeal Decree 743. Together with the votes of the FMLN, which already opposed Decree 743, there would be sufficient votes for a repeal, assuming Funes does not veto it.
Organization of opposition to the decree including petition signings and demonstrations is happening on Twitter using the tags #acampadasv and #indignadoSV. A photo gallery of one of those demonstrations appears at El Faro.
El Salvador's Supreme Court today released a press statement showing the votes of the Constitutional Court judges ruling on the constitutionality of various matters. Of 26 cases, in 16 cases the five judges had been unanimous and in 10 cases four of the five judges had signed the opinion.
Dozens of civil society organizations signed a joint communique denouncing the decree as an attack on the institutions of democracy and an attack on the balance of powers among the branches of the Salvadoran government. The political science faculty at the University of Central America pronounced its views on the legislative attack on judicial independence.
As I have mentioned, much of the opposition has been organizing on the Internet. Diana Godoy Chicas wrote this on her blog:
We started a movement. We created a social media movement that some have called #Twitterazo. #AcampadaSv and #IndignadoSV became a hash tags in Twitter to keep the people informed. If the national media was not informing, we started doing it. We became a group of independent people without any political affiliation, without any color and without an organization behind us. The only thing that matter was having our flag blue and white in the heart. We were all together, without knowing who started it, just knowing that something was maybe being born there. Each one trying to contribute in their own way.Perhaps we should call this the "El Salvador Spring."
We only want to fight for our democracy and therefore we only have to options: live this change without doing something or generating a real change. We have decided to take the hard road or as Robert Frost would say “we are taking the one less traveled by”.
We are writing the history of our country; we want something better for the future generations. And that is the beginning of the real change: To care!. On Friday, a few hours after the news about the approval of the decree by the President started, #AcampanadaSV manage to assemble more than 200 people to protest against the decree 743. Yes, we are young efficient people and we know that even though we do not have any of the three state powers, we have the power to inform....
So you may ask me what I did this weekend, and I will tell you that I wrote #history. I stood up for the Democracy of my country. And it was worth it.
The Constitutional Court (Sala de lo Constitucional) of El Salvador's Supreme Court is the judicial body which has the responsibility for ruling on whether laws passed in the country are constitutional or not. The Constitutional Court is made up of five judges, and recently they have been issuing important decisions which work in favor of vindicating good governance, transparency, and the value of an individual citizen's votes. Our friends at Voices of El Salvador describe the recent work of the court:
Since becoming magistrates in 2009, Belarmino Jaime, Florentín Meléndez, Rodolfo González y Sidney Blanco have chosen strategic cases to strengthen national institutions and target corruption within government agencies. Over the past two years, the four magistrates have passed down some very important decisions, while the fifth magistrate, Nelson Castaneda, has mostly abstained from votes. In one example, the Court condemned a law that reallocated funds left over from the general budget to the President’s discretionary account. They also declared as unconstitutional the practice of limiting voters to elect only a political party and then allowing the party leadership to select the people who would fill legislative or other representative seats. In a related issue, the Constitutional Court struck down a ban on independent candidates, weakening the power that political parties have over the electoral process. Members of the Constitutional Court also declared unconstitutional the absolute control that the Attorney General’s Office has over what cases are investigated and prosecuted. The decision that caused the greatest controversy in recent weeks was their declaration against the 2005 reforms that allowed the PCN and PDC parties to continue participating in elections despite their in ability to secure the number of votes necessary to be put on the ballot or have representation on the Supreme Electoral Court.In the more than six years I have been writing this blog, this is the first year when I have ever had anything good to say about a court in El Salvador. For so long El Salvador has had a court system from top to bottom known for corruption, a glacial pace, and subservience to the powerful political actors in the country. Now there is a judicial body acting as an independent third branch of government and doing so with integrity.
While these sentences establish clear separation of powers and support transparency, they each considerably affect the powerful grip that the country’s respective political parties have held over Salvadoran governability.
As of Friday, June 2nd, the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly and the Presidency succeeded in sabotaging the Judiciary. A legislative initiative led by the National Coalition Party (PCN) proposed to change the process by which the Constitutional Court operates, requiring unanimity among the five magistrates on the bench to approve a decision. Such consensus is rare and would essentially prohibit the court from producing new decisions. Without deliberation, debate or amendments, the legislation passed Thursday afternoon and PCN representative Elizardo González Lovo left the assembly before the session was over to take the reform directly to the presidential palace to be approved or vetoed. To the dismay and shock of many, President Funes signed the reform within hours and it was made effective immediately.I'm not the only one who is disappointed in Mauricio Funes. (We can't be surprised at the right-wing parties acting this way, but before this Funes seemed to actually get the idea of the importance of good governance and institutional integrity.) Salvadoran civil society and the online community immediately began protesting. They turned out for rallies against this new law over the weekend. There is a Facebook page for the protests. Protesters are using the tag #acampadasv on Twitter. Blogger Ixquic described this new legislative decree as a blow to having a country governed by laws, and referred to Funes as a hypocrite for going along with the law.
According to the President, the unanimous vote is a step forward for democracy because it promotes consensus, forcing more debate within the chamber and prevents economic or political interests from creeping in.This situation appears to be headed towards a real constitutional crisis in El Salvador. The judges of the Constitutional Court are reported to be planning to rule that the new law itself is unconstitutional and has no effect.
"Those who are attacking me are against the consensus and that's the paradox. What I'm asking is that there is a greater consensus on the subject matter of analysis of the Constitutional Chamber, something so important and strategic interest for the country, we can not afford that only four out of five reach resolution. It seemed like good reform, which is why I sanctioned it, because I think that five of five gives more assurance that the resolutions will be in accordance with the law, fitting to the Constitution and not in defense of the interests of powerful political-economic groups," he argued.
The Organization of American States is meeting in San Salvador from June 5 to June 7. The theme of the meeting is Citizen Security in the Americas. In the lead up to the meeting, there are a number of stories about drug-trafficking, violent crimes and gangs in Central America in the media.
National Public Radio broadcast a three-part series on the spread of the violence from Mexican drug cartels to Central America. Two of the three episodes focus on El Salvador, and the risk the country faces:
Earlier this month, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, in a plea for regional unity against the Mexican cartels, said the nations of Central America face a "very powerful enemy." He said the profits garnered by the drug smugglers exceed the resources "available to the security forces of our countries."A prime example of the existing operations of the drug cartels in El Salvador is the Texis Cartel, described by El Faro a few weeks ago. But Salvadoran blogger Neto Rivas also points us back to news stories from 14 years ago about dozens of clandestine air strips in El Salvador used by drug-traffickers. Some of the drugs passing from South America to the US have always passed by or through El Salvador.
The party line from Funes' administration is that, yes, drug trafficking is on the rise in El Salvador, but so far it hasn't gotten out of hand. The Salvadoran government, they argue, hasn't lost control of any of its territory to the smugglers, as has happened in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.
Outside of Funes' administration, however, not everyone shares this opinion.
Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes proposed Wednesday creating a "weapons-free" military program to keep at-risk youths from joining gangs in the crime-ridden Central American nation.Funes is going to do better than this proposal if he wants to address the violent crime afflicting his country.
The project is aimed at helping some 5,000 young Salvadorans, who for six months "would receive guidance for their rehabilitation through unarmed military training," Funes told the Legislative Assembly.
Those who complete the service will receive vocational training that could bring about a "change in their behaviour to become a productive member of society in the country," he said.
Today marks the second anniversary of Mauricio Funes taking power as El Salvador's first left-wing president. An opinion poll from the University of Central America shows that the grades which Salvadorans give Funes have been slipping over those two years, as El Salvador's intractable problems of crime and the economy show little improvement:
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