On Monday, former general and new Minister of Justice and Security David Munguía Payés gave an interview where he declared a "war on crime" and announced that his goal was to restore tranquility to the population and to produce a 30% decrease in crime within one year. The new minister made the point that such a dramatic reduction would require the participation of all elements of government and society.
Mike Allison, who writes the Central America Politics blog, has a nice opinion piece on Al Jazeera about the changeover for the Minister of Public Security in El Salvador. He writes:
Funes said "David Munguía is a man I have the utmost faith in, a retired soldier who deserves recognition from civil society for his performance in the armed forces during the two-and-a-half years he has been working under my mandate."
Funes does not appear to be someone who cares what the FMLN, civil society, the Catholic Church, and international solidarity activists say about his decisions. He has shown this in the past with his use of the armed forces on the streets of San Salvador and with Decree 743 that temporarily neutered the Constitutional Court. Funes does what he thinks is right. On the other hand, Munguía Payés' appointment could indicate that Funes does not have a deep group of individuals in which he places much trust. Funes might have felt that he had no option but to stick with Munguía Payés over the objections of much of Salvadoran society.
Personally, I think that Munguía Payés' appointment sets bad precedent. I am not worried so much about him as I am the fact that his appointment opens the door for additional appointments of former military officials to head state institutions. That's not a path that anyone wishes to see El Salvador travel down.
Two things I'll be watching for: what do opinion polls show as the reactions of the regular Salvadoran (sending the troops into the streets has been quite popular even if ineffective), and what changes in police tactics and deployment come with this new leadership.
In eastern El Salvador, the municipality of El Carmen in La Unión department has been experiencing a swarm of hundreds of small earthquakes in the past few days. Since Wednesday afternoon there have been 978 micro-quakes, 27 of which were strong enough to be felt by persons living in the area. The SNET reports that the quake swarm is related to movement along the earthquake faults in the region and is not related to volcanic activity. Dozens of homes are reported to have been damaged including cracks in their walls, but there are no reports of injuries. Residents have been urged to stay alert, and many are sleeping outdoors.
El Salvador and the United States signed the Partnership for Growth development agreement on November 3. The Partnership for Growth is a foreign policy initiative of the Obama administration which aims at poverty reduction through economic development. The action items in the countries' agreement followed the completion of a "constraints analysis" which identified reducing crime and insecurity and increasing productivity of the tradables goods and services sector as priorities for unlocking economic growth. The partnership has a five year plan, and you can read the Joint Country Action Plan at this link. If everything in this plan can be accomplished, it would be a good step forward for El Salvador where economic growth is lagging all of Latin America and crime takes a toll on all Salvadoran families.
There is also a good post about the Partnership for Growth from our friends on Voices on the Border at this link.
But US foreign policy is viewed with suspicion and cynicism in some sectors. On Thanksgiving Day, a group of protesters from the US and El Salvador took up positions outside the US Embassy. Linking themselves to the Occupy Movement in the US and the Indignados movement in Spain and elsewhere, the small group protested policies which they believe are designed to benefit multinational corporations or the 1% and ignore the 99%. They issued a statement over the internet which declared:
We specifically demand an end to the following transnational policies in Central America:
The Free Trade Model that destroys local economies , victimizes workers and the poor, and protects corporate interests over national sovereignty. For example, in El Salvador, Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company, is using a World Bank tribunal to sue the the Salvadoran government for protecting their own environment and communities.
Regional Militarization Strategies that criminalize social protest, subject national security systems to intervention and supervision by the U.S. government and facilitate violent repression of activities that jeopardize the interests of global capital, exemplified by the collusion between U.S. and Honduran political-military forces in the 2009 ousting of President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. Since the coup in Honduras, farmers, women, youth, the LGBTQ community and activists have been the victims of increasing state repression and human rights violations.
Environmental Destruction and Climate Change that has largely been caused by greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. and other highly industrialized countries. Central America recently suffered Tropical Depression 12 `E, whose devastating intensity is widely considered to have been a result of climate change. In El Salvador, this storm caused 34 deaths, the evacuation of 50,000 people from their homes and losses in infrastructure and agriculture estimated at 850 million dollars. Meanwhile the U.S. continues to increase its emissions and block meaningful national and international action on global warming.
We stand together today, citizens of the Americas and beyond, united with the global Occupy movement to promote alternatives to this inherently flawed system like economies of solidarity, fair trade, food sovereignty, fair tax systems, participatory democracy: a global system that puts people and the environment before profits. We are here to liberate our governments and our planet from corporate occupation and to take them back for the people.
The Commerce Group is one of two gold mining companies which sued the government of El Salvador under CAFTA. The international arbitration claim brought by the Commerce Group was dismissed earlier this year for failure to comply with procedural requirements of CAFTA. The Commerce Group has appealed in what is called an "annulment procedure." Last week, the Commerce Group announced to the arbitration tribunal that it could not make a $150,000 advance payment of costs which the tribunal had requested. The appeal could be suspended for that reason.
The Commerce Group is a barely publicly traded company located in Waukesha, Wisconsin and controlled by the Machulak family. On Monday, John Machulak who is a lawyer and has been representing the company in the lawsuit gave a rare interview about the company's position to radio station WUWM, Milwaukee public radio. You can listen to that interview at this link.
Update: The group US-El Salvador Sister Cities, which has actively supported the anti-mining movement in El Salvador has posted a response to the comments of Machulak. You can read that response here.
Retired general David Munguía Payés, the former Minister of Defense, was named by president Mauricio Funes to be the new Minister of Justice and Public Security. This appointment of a military man who had been a commander in the armed forces during El Salvador's civil war has been condemned by the FMLN and by human rights groups. It has generally been supported by the right wing parties in the country. The appointment of a man who, as recently as May, was the senior commander of the armed forces, is viewed by many as a violation of the spirit, if not the terms, of the 1992 Peace Accords which took the armed forces out of internal policing roles.
El Salvador is in the middle of a debate over the direction of its anti-crime policy. The resignation of Manuel Medgar as Minister of Security twelve days ago has prompted rumors that Mauricio Funes may appoint a former military chief to head the country's police and civilian security forces. This might suggest a further militarization of public security, which already sees thousands of troops patrolling El Salvador's most dangerous neighborhoods. Despite the soldiers and the hard line policies of successive administrations, there has been no reduction in crime.
An article from IPS describes a different approach, in a public/private partnership at the Instituto Técnico Obrero Empresarial Don Bosco (ITOE), a technical school that provides primary, secondary and vocational education to 450 youngsters from the violent slums on the outskirts of the capital of El Salvador. Here's an excerpt:
Of the current student body of 450, 150 are youngsters classified by the authorities as "high risk" – in other words, they have been involved in gangs or criminal activities or are on the verge of falling into crime.
One example is 15-year-old Antonio, who was spending his time on the narrow streets of his neighbourhood with members of the Mara (or Barrio) 18 gang before his parents brought him to the institute.
"I liked hanging out with them," he told IPS. "I wasn't part of the group, but I looked like I was: I dressed and talked like them. I even did little jobs for them as a lookout."
Now he is in secondary school at the ITOE and wants to become an electrician, one of the trades taught at the institute, along with auto mechanics, carpentry, soldering, and tailoring and dressmaking.
The students include juvenile offenders who were serving sentences but due to good behaviour were referred to the institute by the courts, to study and learn a trade.
That is the case of 18-year-old Ricardo, who was sentenced to four years for rape, three of which he has served in the ITOE. Now he is about to graduate from secondary school and has plans to go on to the university.
"I would like to study to be a lawyer, and eventually become a judge," he told IPS. (More).
November 16 is the 22nd anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter by members of the Salvadoran armed forces in a massacre ordered by the Salvadoran high command. As readers of this blog know, the failure by the Salvadoran government over that time to bring to justice the high level commanders who ordered the killing, pushed human rights groups including the Center for Justice Accountability ("CJA") to go to court in Spain to prosecute the case.
This video from CNN provides background on the Spanish proceedings.
This past year, developments in the Spanish case, have forced Salvadorans to confront impunity directly. They will see whether their country's institutions can, will, or should ever deal with impunity and assessing responsibility for crimes against humanity committed during El Salvador's brutal civil war. The Spanish court has forced El Salvador's government to take a position when the court issued international arrest warrants in the Jesuits case for former high ranking military officers.
When it became clear that the Salvadoran National Police were going to honor the arrest warrants, nine of the defendants met on Sunday night (August 7) at a country club outside of San Salvador to presumably discuss next steps. Later that night, at approximately 10:00 p.m., all nine turned themselves into a military facility also outside of San Salvador. The decision to self-surrender to the military was presumably an attempt to defy the usual civilian process involving international arrest warrants and extradition treaties. In an unprecedented development, the Minister of Defense of El Salvador accepted the validity of the international arrest warrants and turned the defendants over to civilian authorities where they are all now being held in custody.
In addition to former Minister of Defense Rafael Humberto Larios and former Air Force Chief General Rafael Bustillo, the following defendants surrendered: Colonel Francisco Helena Fuentes, Vice Defense Minister Juan Orlando Zepeda, Mariano Amaya Grimaldi, José Ricardo Espinoza Guerra, Gonzalo Guevara Cerritos and Antonio Ramiro Ávalos Vargas y Tomás Zárpate Castillo.
The Spanish courts have 60 days to formalize the extradition requests. The Salvadoran Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to honor the arrest warrants and extradite the men to Spain to be prosecuted for their role in these outrageous crimes. One of the main issues confronting the Salvadoran court is whether the amnesty law which was passed in 1993 at the end of the twenty year civil war will continue to protect military officials for human rights abuses committed against the civilian population. While amnesty laws that protect military officials from human rights prosecutions are illegal under international law, how the court will rule is very difficult to predict.
Persons and groups in El Salvador reacted in a variety of ways to the action of the Spanish court.
Alfredo Cristiani, the president of El Salvador at the time of the killings, harshly criticized the Spanish court proceedings as an attack on the sovereignty of El Salvador. (Cristiani has been mentioned as a potential participant in the cover-up of the killings). Critstiani claimed that Spain had no right to re-try a case which had already proceeded through the Salvadoran court system, that both sides had committed wrongs during the civil war, and that the Spanish case was unnecessarily opening old wounds. The GANA party has similarly backed the accused military leaders.
The archbishop of San Salvador elected to stay on the sidelines, stating that the church would support any decision of the Salvadoran courts which were taken in the interests of the country.
A march through the streets of El Salvador towards the Spanish embassy expressed its solidarity with the nine military officers seeking to avoid extradition to Spain. Among the marchers was ARENA party deputy Roberto D'Aubuisson, whose father orchestrated death squads and ordered the murder of archbishop Oscar Romero.
The FMLN issued a statement where the FMLN expressed:
The party is committed to truth, respect for human rights, and the application of justice that includes the moral compensation for victims, as elements that lead to achieving the great goal of National Reconciliation, established in the Peace Accords.
That being a subject of national interest, prudence and political responsibility should prevail along with respect for the victims, and we believe that it is improper for the case to be used by groups for partisan or electoral purposes.
We express our interest that this case be resolved in the courts and aired with strict adherence to law.
We are confident that the country's institutions work, and strongly reject the individuals or minority groups who intend to make use of this case to threaten the country's political stability.
Hopes that El Salvador's institutions might actually be ready to confront impunity dimmed when El Salvador's Supreme Court ordered the release of the military officers. According to CJA:
But the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, ordered the defendants’ release on the theory that El Salvador had not received a formal extradition request. In the Court’s view, INTERPOL Red Notices authorized only locating, not arresting wanted subjects. Spain has requested that El Salvador clarify the defendants’ legal status. Commentators have noted that the Salvadoran Court’s decision may conflict with treaty obligations to comply with INTERPOL rules, which state that Red Notices secure the “location and arrest” of suspects, prior to a formal extradition request.
The Jesuit case confirms that the peace process and the amnesty law have been insufficient for the process of national reconciliation, the restoration of the dignity of victims and to finally leave the armed conflict in the hands of historians. El Salvador deserves to know the truth.
2012 marks the twenty-year anniversary of the Peace Accords that ended El Salvador’s war. What better time to announce that they will not honor Spain’s extradition request because the government intends to open cases against those suspected of having war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Jesuit case, the murder of Oscar Romero, the El Mozote massacre and other well known crimes of the war years have not seen the focused light of judicial proceedings in El Salvador designed to get at the truth and provide justice to victims. Dealing with these crimes of the past requires dealing with many issues:
Is amnesty necessary for the ongoing peace of society?
What crimes are so grave that an "amnesty" should not be permitted to allow the guilty parties to escape?
What is the consequence of opening old wounds?
If you open up the Jesuit case, where do you stop?
Should the killing of a civilian family on the slopes of the Guazapa volcano get the same treatment?
Does assigning blame and responsibility require (a) punishment (b) reparations to the victims (c) apology?
How do you weigh the costs and benefits?
An open dialogue among all elements on Salvadoran society on these issues has never occurred, but must occur, if each anniversary of the Jesuits massacre is to stop being a symbol of justice ignored. Contrary to those who say that amnesty provides healing in the country, consider the points made in this article titled Justice heals: The impact of impunity and the fight against it on the recovery of severe human rights violations’ survivors which describes the impact of impunity on the ongoing psycho-social trauma which the victims suffer.
[M]any factors have contributed to the lack of justice in El Salvador. The parties to the negotiations were more interested in recommendations for legal and institutional reform; they sought to ensure the future but abandoned the past. By asserting the impossibility of justice in the existing context, the Truth Commission for El Salvador did not challenge the justice system to undertake investigations, and the government’s negative reaction to the Truth Commission’s report and the immediate passage of a broad amnesty law apparently foreclosed the possibility of justice.
Essentially abandoned by political leaders and not consulted in the process of developing the truth commission or its recommendations, victims had little recourse. In this context, victims and their representatives in El Salvador have not been able to bring sufficient pressure to achieve justice or secure compensation. Despite important advances in judicial reform, the justice system has yet to rely on the Truth Commission’s findings, implement the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or otherwise rely on international law developments in the struggle against impunity.
Mari Carmen Aponte is the US Ambasador to El Salvador. She was originally nominated by president Obama to fulfill that role in December 2009, but after the Senate failed to act on her nomination, Obama granted her a recess appointment. She assumed the post in September 2010. Obama then renominated her in February 2011.
There was a hearing on Ambassador Aponte's new nomination before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 8, 2011. You can read her written testimony here.
In a rare show of support, three ex-presidents of El Salvador from ARENA, Franciso Flores, Alfredo Cristiani, and Armando Calderón Sol, all traveled to Washington to back her nomination.
Cristiani told El Diario de Hoy that he supported Aponte because of her ability to work with all factions within El Salvador, the work she had done in the short time of her holding the position, and her ability with Latina heritage to understand aspects of the country's culture.
Another expression of support came fron anti-Castro activist Felix Rodriguez in an editorial in the Miami Herald :
Ambassador Aponte arrived in the midst of this ideological tug of war. Showing enormous diplomatic dexterity, she has forged a very close relationship with President Funes. This close relationship has helped maintain the historically close ties between the United States and El Salvador, despite this complex political environment.
Her diplomatic successes have earned her the unprecedented support of the private sector and of the most prominent political leaders in El Salvador. Three former presidents of El Salvador — Francisco Flores, Armando Calderon Sol, and Alfredo Cristiani — took it upon themselves last month to travel to Washington and visit with leading congressional figures to request and support the confirmation of Ambassador Aponte before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Such a bold step and unusual display of outright support for an ambassador by former presidents who have all enjoyed extremely close relations with the United States is unheard of. It simply never happens.
The fact that it did speaks volumes as to what these Salvadoran statesmen think of Ambassador Aponte and her time as U.S. Chief of Mission in El Salvador. They are simply overwhelmingly impressed. And so am I.
The opposition to Aponte's nomination continues to be led by conservative Senator Jim DeMint who said
When President Obama nominated Aponte to become the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador many senators were again concerned about her past relationship with Cuban intelligence officials as well as her qualifications. Instead of allowing senators to access that information, Obama granted her a recess appointment in August 2010.
Ms. Aponte’s decision to publish an opinion piece hostile to the culture of El Salvadorans, presents even more doubts about her fitness for the job. The Senate should reject her nomination when her recess appointment expires at the end of this Congress and force the president to appoint a new nominee who will respect the pro-family values upheld by the people of El Salvador.
Our relationship with the Salvadoran people has been one of trust and friendship for decades. We should not risk that by appointing an ambassador who shows such a blatant disregard for their culture and refuses to clear unsettled doubts about her previous relationships. It’s time to bring Ms. Aponte home.
The opinion piece of which DeMint writes was an editorial entitled For the Elimination of Prejudices Wherever They Exist, which which appeared on June 28 in La Prensa Grafica. The editorial expressed the commitment of the US to the elimination of violence and discrimination against LGBT individuals, and was completely consistent with US policy.
If not approved by the Senate, Ambassador Aponte's recess appontment will terminate at the conclusion of the current session of the 112th Congress at the end of the year. Let's hope the Senate acts promptly to confirm this capable representative from the US to El Salvador.
There was an important resignation from El Salvador's government last week, as Manuel Melgar left his post as Minister of Security. Our friends at Voices from El Salvador have an excellent overview of the resignation which you can read here.
The hacking group "Anonymous" has purportedly launched attacks on the web sites of several governmental offices in El Salvador, including the offices of the president. From a press report by AFP:
Hactivist group Anonymous has taken down a number of El Salvador's government web sites in its latest round of attacks. The attacks are part of Operation Justice El Salvador, which was planned over the last two weeks. A number of official web sites were targeted, including several government ministries and the web site of the president, which was taken offline after receiving 30 million hits on Saturday.
Other web sites that were hit included those of the legislative assembly, the national civil police and the ministries of justice and labour.
Anonymous "tried to attack our website to publicize the private information of internal and external users," the ministry of the economy said, according to French news agency AFP.
Like previous attacks by the group, these appear to have been Distributed Denial of Service (DSoS) attacks, which overload a web site's server by flooding it with illegitimate traffic. This can be automated using a number of free tools that are available online, which Anonymous has used to its advantage.
El Salvador has been strongly criticised in the past by Amnesty International for its human rights record, including the abuse of anti-terrorism laws to detain people and the unlawful killing of people by police death squads, which is likely why the web site of the national civil police was attacked.
(I'm not sure that the last paragraph of this news report was anything more than speculation by the reporter).
According to Information Week, attacks attributed to Anonymous also hit Wal-Mart, Capital One, and Finnish sites in the past week.
The United Nations is trying to get donor nations to fund relief efforts in El Salvador and Nicaragua. As part of that effort, the UN issued a news release yesterday emphasizing that significant support to the victims of the floods will be needed for months to come:
November 5, 2011 -- The humanitarian emergency caused by last month's devastating floods in Central America is only just beginning, a top United Nations relief official said today, warning that the situation could get worse for the estimated 1.2 million people affected without urgent international support.
“The people affected by this crisis have lost everything, and their difficulties are only just beginning,” Catherine Bragg, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said as she wrapped up a four-day visit to Nicaragua and El Salvador, two countries badly hit by the disaster.
“Hundreds of thousands of people face a struggle for survival over the next six months. We must act now. We cannot let the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua down.”....
“But the cumulative effect of annual catastrophic events has pushed national capacities to their limit,” the Office said. The UN is mobilizing international assistance to assist the efforts of the Governments and last week launched emergency appeals for both countries.
However, the $14 million appeal for Nicaragua is currently only 22 per cent funded, while the $15 million appeal for El Salvador is only 23 per cent funded.
“The needs are real, and the situation could get worse if we do not step in now,” said Ms. Bragg, who is also Deputy UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. “I hope donors will give generously to these appeals.”
A visual reminder of the ongoing struggles of the victims is this photo gallery showing life in shelters for those who still have not returned to their homes more than two weeks after the end of the rains.
A leading voice for human rights in El Salvador, the Human Rights Institute at the University of Central America (IDHUCA), is publicly denouncing the failure of the government of El Salvador to provide justice in many of the highest profile cases from El Salvador's civil war.
In 1999 and 2000, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued decisions which declared that the government of El Salvador had the obligation under international human rights law to provide for credible judicial investigations of the murders of Oscar Romero and the six Jesuits and their housekeeper. You can read a history of both of those cases before the IACHR here.
The IACHR held a working session on October 27 to determine El Salvador's compliance with those earlier rulings. The IDHUCA, along with the Center for Justice and International Law, voiced their frustrations with the Salvadoran government's noncompliance with the commission's recommendations. The human rights groups point to the fact that no new judicial proceedings or investigations had occurred in either case. The government has not acted to repeal the amnesty law. The government has acted to oppose requests for extradition of former Salvadoran military officers who have been charged by a Spanish court in the massacre of the Jesuits. Thus in the view of these human rights organizations, the culture of impunity for human rights violations continues unabated in El Salvador.
Despite El Salvador's lack of compliance with previous IACHR declarations, the IDHUCA last week proceeded to file a series of additional complaints in other cases where the guilty parties have remained unjudged and justice has been denied the victims. According to the IDHUCA, it has :
Filed complaints in the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights the cases of Francisco Ventura Reyes, university student wh0 was disappeared in 1980; Rolando González Morales and Carlos Santos Menjívar, youth detained and tortured in 1981 and 1983, respectively; Roque Dalton, the poet assassinated in 1975; Félix Antonio Ulloa, Rector of the University of El Salvador, assassinated in 1980; and Mario Zamora Rivas, a leader of the Christian Democratic Party and Chief State Counsel of the Republic, assassinated in 1980. With the exception of Dalton, who was executed by the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), the rest of the responsibility is assigned to government forces; however, all the complaints are against the Salvadoran state for denying truth, justice and reparations to the victims.
The single greatest human rights violation from the 1980's in El Salvador was the massacre at El Mozote. The Salvadoran government's continuous failure to make any effort at a judicial inquiry led the IACHR on March 8, 2011 to take further action. The IACHR has taken the next step and referred the El Mozote massacre case to the Inter-American Court for Human Rights in Costa Rica.
Today is the 200th anniversary of the Primero Grito de Independencia -- the first shout of independence. In 1811, rebellions started in San Salvador against Spanish rule in Central America. From Wikipedia:
On November 5, the revolt began in San Salvador. According to tradition, the rebels waited for a signal from the bell tower of the Church of La Merced, but this did not occur on the scheduled time. The rebels later assembled on the town square outside the church where Manuel José Arce proclaimed in front of the public: "There is no King, nor Intendant, nor Captain General. We only must obey our alcaldes," meaning that since Ferdinand VII had been deposed, all other officials appointed by him no longer legitimately held power. A tumult in the square grew to the point that the intendant, Antonio Gutierrez y Ulloa, asked that the gathered name somebody to formally receive their demands. Manuel José Arce himself was chosen and selected as the leader by the crowd. Despite this, the insurrectionists took arms and proclaimed the total independence of San Salvador from the Spanish crown, but were later subdued.
The rebellions which started in 1811 would be erupt for the next ten years until the final independence of the Central American countries from Spain on September 5, 1821.
There are major commemorations of the bicentennial in San Salvador. The official website for the bicentennial is here.
On the calendar of the Roman Catholic church, November begins with the holy days of All Saints and All Souls. In El Salvador, it's time for a spooky parade and to remember one's departed relatives.
The website My Tonaca has a set of images from this year's November 1 celebration of the Calabiuza in Tonacatapeque, with many pictures from the night's parade of people in costume with legendary folk images. El Diario de Hoy has a video of the parade here.
La Prensa Grafica has a photo gallery from November 2, the Day of the Faithful Departed, in which Salvadoran families visit, decorate, and commemorate at the graves of departed family members.
The archbishop of San Salvador, Mgr Jose Luis Escobar Alas spoke strongly about the dangers posed by global climate change reports Independent Catholic News:
The Archbishop of San Salvador, Mgr Jose Luis Escobar Alas, has said that climate change is the most serious problem confronting humanity at the present time. He said urgent steps are needed to reduce to reduce global warming, but the causes are so directly linked to economic interests, he thinks will be very difficult to deal with the problem - not only in El Salvador but throughout the world.
Mgr Escobar said El Salvador should do its part, however, it is the industrialized countries that are causing the most harm.
The Archbishop welcomed a request made by President Mauricio Funes, calling for countries that most affect the climate to accept responsibility and act to prevent future catastrophes. The statements by the President were made during the summit that took place in the Central American country after a tropical storm tore through the region for ten days. Torrential rains caused more than a hundred deaths, thousands of homeless and severe damage in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
"Events like the storm that hit us this time are repeated year after year, and the people are always affected, the poorest people", said the Archbishop of San Salvador. Mgr Escobar Alas concluded his usual press conference on Sunday saying that El Salvador should take an active part in solving the problem and not just wait for other countries to act.
This is Tim's El Salvador Blog, a place for looking at what's going on in El Salvador. Participate in the discussion by adding your comments. This site began November 17, 2004. For older articles be sure and check the archives.
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