tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9177745.post6605009754852890641..comments2024-03-23T11:16:46.213-05:00Comments on El Salvador Perspectives: The government, the archbishop and the lawyersTimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02452039674856298357noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9177745.post-22946951775231203842007-11-05T20:24:00.000-06:002007-11-05T20:24:00.000-06:00Tim, we might not disagree as much as you may thin...Tim, we might not disagree as much as you may think. I am not saying that the Romero story is the most important story stripped down to its bare essentials: the government, the lawyers, and the archbishop. What I call "the most important story" is the larger question of the final shape post-war society will take in El Salvador. Will the Left end up feeling, in the end, that the Right got away with murder (à la Chile), and will the Salvadoran Left, which had opted ultimately for armed insurrection, ever completely buy into this post-war democracy? The Romero case is a signal case in that path to legitimacy, and the Amnesty Law is at the fulcrum of the larger question. To the Right, it's the gel that holds the peace together. But, to the Left, it's a white wash. How do you negotiate a compromise that moves you further along to reconciliation without having anybody compromise their principles? To my mind, the Romero assassination was the trigger to the Salvadoran civil war and, therefore, it is at the other side of the war also a key to the final peace.Carlos X.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16580093848691478319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9177745.post-66431272312024108082007-11-04T17:59:00.000-06:002007-11-04T17:59:00.000-06:00Polycarpio,I am not sure I agree with you (and tha...Polycarpio,<BR/><BR/>I am not sure I agree with you (and that would be a first). I don't see how the story of the Romero controversy is the "most important story" of the current moment. I don't see any real changes here -- at no point from 1992 to the present was an ARENA government ever going to make any movement to permit an unencumbered judicial inquiry into Romero's murder. The approach to the Church made be the government just before the IACHR hearing is exactly the kind of lip service to the commission which the government paid in the Serrano sister case. In other words, this is just another chapter in the unchanging story. The conflict between the archbishop and Tutela Legal is, however, troubling from the standpoint of the continued independence of one of the key voices for human rights in the country.<BR/><BR/>For me, the more important question, (I'm not smart enough to pick the "most important") is what impact discussions of repeal of the Amnesty Law might have on the 2009 elections. Will Funes campaign for the repeal? Will there be a backlash?Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02452039674856298357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9177745.post-46732808909981339632007-11-03T23:40:00.000-05:002007-11-03T23:40:00.000-05:00Tim, In my opinion, this controversy goes well bey...Tim,<BR/> <BR/>In my opinion, this controversy goes well beyond the value or merit of Romero himself and even beyond the merits of the Romero case, of his particular assassination. In addition to the minor furor when 83 social organizations wrote a letter to Archbishop Sáenz, urging him not to "negotiatiate" with the government, there was also an editorial in the left-leaning DIARIO CO-LATINO insisting that the Church does not have a monopoly over the matter and that the voices of the populace and the civil society should not be ignored. Others have chimed in along the same lines, although the matter has been typically ignored by the mainstream media. (La Prensa Gráfica opted not to cover the news conference by Archbishop Sáenz on the subject; at San Romero, we went back twenty Sundays and found that the paper had covered all the Sáenz conference, "religiously," back through June, on Sundry topics ranging from barbs directed at Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to the Archbishop's criticisms of a Puerto Rican preacher who claims to be the Anti-Christ.)<BR/> <BR/>I submit to you that the issue is not the saint-worthiness of Óscar Romero or even the merits of this case, the reprehensibility of the assassination, nor the facts regarding this crime. The issue for El Salvador is the transparency and the health of its institutions as an emerging democracy. The great outcry in the wake of the revelations about a dialogue between Church and State was not about Romero. Little was said in this protest that had much to do with Romero himself or was personal to Romero. If we step back and look at the big picture, we can see that this is not working at the lowest level, at the personal level or the individual level. Instead, this controversy deals with human affairs at the hightest levels -- the affairs of institutions and states. The Republic of El Salvador has been held to account before an international body, and that body has recommended actions for the country to put its internal affairs in order such that they comport with international standards. Now, Salvadorans have heard that the government is trying to lessen its obligations by negotiating a private compact, a lesser agreement with narrow sectors and limited parties. The press has recently published reports that revealed that leading politicians from all the major parties have been having ex officio, off the record, private discussions about affairs of state, outside the country, in Spain, to work out the business of the country. EL FARO confirmed that ARENA confirms its presidential candidates though a shadowy vetting process, using a cadre of politickos called "the twelve apostles," and we already know that the FMLN picks its candidates from the top down. The question is whether post-war El Salvador will be an open democracy with transparent institutions, or an obscure democracy, that is a "free society" with due process on paper, but whose real business is carried out in smoky back rooms out of public earshot.<BR/> <BR/>The Romero controversy must be read in that context. Just as it would be a mistake to read it more narrowly -- about the merits of Romero or the particulars of one investigation -- it would also be a mistake to give a short-shrift. Given its broad contours, it may be the most important story to follow at this particular moment. It is so important that I changed the focus of my blog, Super Martyrio, from the canonization cause to the Salvadoran investigation. I congratulate you for providing this fine report: very informative.Carlos X.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16580093848691478319noreply@blogger.com