Tim's El Salvador Blog

Death toll rises in El Salvador flooding

2009-11-09T13:15:00.001-06:00

The following graphic from La Prensa Grafica provides a map showing the locations in the country impacted by the flooding and landslides (click on graphic for full screen version):

(Alternate version)

The death toll from yesterday's floods and mudslides rose to more than 130 as more bodies were found and more inaccessible areas were reached by authorities, and more than 90 are still missing. At least 1500 houses were destroyed and some 10,000 forced from their homes. President Funes has declared a national state of emergency and declared that the damages in El Salvador are incalculable. He has called for help from neighboring countries and is seeking to use some funds designated for dealing with the economic crisis to be used for the present crisis.

From the BBC Coverage:

A torrent of mud and boulders from the Chichontepec volcano hit the town [of Verapaz] near the capital, San Salvador, on Sunday, wrecking 300 homes and burying cars. Bodies covered in mud-caked sheets are being collected at a local chapel. Officially the death toll across El Salvador after days of heavy rainstorms stands at at least 130 people.

President Mauricio Funes declared a national emergency, describing the damage as "incalculable". "Today is a very sad day for the country and its government, in fact it is one of the most tragic days in memory," he said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday.

The BBC's weather centre says the disastrous rains were mainly caused by a low pressure system in the Pacific, which was linked indirectly to Hurricane Ida. Ida, which passed the country three days ago, was downgraded to a tropical storm as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.

Verapaz, one of the most seriously affected communities on the slopes of the San Vicente volcano was also a victim of the 2001 earthquakes. This photo from EDH shows the damages in 2001 and today.

Organizations gearing up to provide humanitarian relief include:

More information and multimedia:

Get current English news headlines on the flooding here.
Interactive Google map with damage locations.
Citizen reporter site of LPG
Citizen reporter site of EDH.
Powerful images from effects of river flooding in Aguilares.
Collection of photos on Flickr of landslide in Verapaz.
Collection of photos on Flickr of flooding damages in San Vicente.
Dave's Landslide blog.

More on November 2009 flooding and mudslides

2009-11-08T19:10:00.001-06:00

Five departments most affected by rains and flooding, put on orange alert by Salvadoran authorities.

The death toll has risen to at least 100 according to EDH. That would make this the worst natural disaster in El Salvador since Hurricane Stan in 2005.

Landslide near San Vicente

Some of the worst mudslides are reported in the town of Verapaz located in the folds of the San Vicente Volcano, also known as Chichontepec volcano. As 14 inches of rain fell on the area, water and mud came pouring down the sides of the volcano. According to El Diario de Hoy, there has been an 8 kilometer long landslide and entire neighborhoods are under the earth. Also in that vicinty, the river Acahualpa swept away some 30 houses from the communities Dos Puentes and La Caridad (also known as El Zope). In the department of San Vicente as of 1:00 pm Sunday, November 8, there were reported 25 deaths and 40 missing.

View Larger Map

More photo galleries of the damage:

Flooding of the River Chilama in La Libertad.
Images from San Vicente

Link to website of El Salvador's Civil Protection Agency

Flooding and mudslides kill more than 90 in El Salvador

2009-11-08T16:46:00.002-06:00

Three days of torrential rains produced destructive flooding and mudslides in El Salvador killing dozens with many more missing. From the Los Angeles Times:

Torrential rains in El Salvador triggered flooding and mudslides that left at least 91 people dead across the Central American nation, officials said today.

At least 60 people were reported missing, and authorities warned that the toll could rise as rescuers reached hard-hit zones that remained cut off by floodwaters and landslides. About 7,000 people were evacuated and scores were plucked from flood zones by helicopter, Interior Minister Humberto Centeno said.

The impoverished nation of 5 million was pelted by three days of rain attributed to "a disturbed weather area" off the Pacific coast of El Salvador, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said the heavy rains were unrelated to Hurricane Ida, which earlier sideswiped the region as a tropical storm over the western Caribbean.

Salvadoran authorities reported flooding in the capital, San Salvador, and rural areas to the east. Some of the worst damage was reported in the eastern province of San Vicente, a farming region where authorities said many residents remained cut off from communication.

A radio journalist who reached Verapaz, a town of 6,000 in that region, reported seeing dozens of people desperately searching for relatives missing amid homes buried by landslides after a river spilled over its banks. Carlos Lopez, a Red Cross spokesman, said 300 homes in Verapaz were "semi-destroyed."

Lopez said hundreds more rural dwellers were cut off in the southern province of Usulutan. Many took refuge on the rooftops of their shanties. Rescue workers were having a hard time reaching the area because of landslides that blocked highways.

According to El Faro, this is the most intense rain El Salvador has received in more than a decade. In San Vicente, 355 millimeters of rain fell in 24 hours from Saturday to Sunday (14 inches), while during the destructive Hurricane Mitch in 1998, there was 600 millimeters of rain spread out over three days.

Images of the devastation:

Photogallery of images of damage in San Vicente and Verapaz
Aerial images of flooding.
Images from San Salvador.
BBC Photogallery of flooding

Look for another update here later tonight.

El Salvador to investigate the assassination of Oscar Romero

2009-11-06T22:52:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I described the determination of El Salvador's president Mauricio Funes to make an act of public atonement on the 20th anniversary of the murder of the six Jesuits in 1989. Today, in an equally significant departure from the policies of the past ARENA governments, El Salvador announced that it would investigate the 1980 assassination of archbishop Oscar Romero, determine culpability, and make reparations.

The announcement came at a hearing of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington, D.C. In 2000, the IACHR had ruled that El Salvador had violated basic human rights for its role in the assassination of Romero and the subsequent lack of any judicial inquiry or punishment. The ruling required that El Salvador:

1. Undertake expeditiously a complete, impartial, and effective judicial investigation to identify, try and punish all the direct perpetrators and planners of the violations established in this report, notwithstanding the amnesty that has been decreed.

2. Make reparations for all the consequences of the violations set forth, including the payment of just compensation.

3. Adapt its internal legislation to the American Convention with a view to nullifying the General Amnesty Law.

For the next eight years, the government controlled by the right-wing ARENA party did nothing to comply with this directive.

Today's hearing was a report to the IACHR on how the new government in El Salvador does plan to comply with the IACHR mandate. David Morales, the new government's human rights lawyer, told the commission that the current government is committed to comply. A commission will be established to investigate the crime, a statue is being erected to the memory of Romero, and a video produced dedicated to his memory. The Funes administration is studying the issue of reparations according to Morales, but he stopped short of committing to a repeal of El Salvador's amnesty law -- noting that such a repeal was not solely within the power of the executive branch.

Of course, there have been investigations of archbishop Romero's killing before. The UN Truth Commission dealt with the murder, as did the IACHR, and a court trial in the US granted a judgment against one Salvadoran, Alvaro Saravia, involved in the killing. However this will be the first time that an institution of the Salvadoran government will act on the assassination of the beloved Catholic pastor. It is a first blow against impunity in El Salvador. One can only wonder where this process will take El Salvador, if the investigating commission looks at the role of Roberto D'Aubuisson, founder of ARENA and sponsor of death squads, as the intellectual author of the assassination.

One thing struck me about today's hearing before the IACHR, and it pointed out the 180 degree turn of the Salvadoran government. David Morales, representing the official government position, last appeared before the IACHR as the lawyer for Tutela Legal, the human rights office of the archdiocese of San Salvador. Last time he was there as the lawyer representing the parties demanding justice for Romero from the government -- today he appeared as the lawyer for the government.

March 24, 2010 will by the 30th anniversary of Romero's killing while he said mass at the chapel of the Divina Providencia cancer hospital in San Salvador.

A first in El Salvador -- government atonement

2009-11-05T22:25:00.000-06:00

November 16, 2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the assassinations of the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, by Salvadoran armed forces during the civil war. And with the change to a left-wing government comes the first acknowledgment of the country's crime. From the AP:

SAN SALVADOR — El Salvador's president says the country will award its highest honor to six Jesuit priests murdered by the army in 1989.

President Mauricio Funes says the National Order of Jose Matias Delgado awards are a "public act of atonement" for mistakes by past governments.

They will be presented on Nov. 16 to mark the date 20 years ago when soldiers killed Spanish-born university rector Ignacio Ellacuria, five other Jesuits, a housekeeper and her daughter.

The killings sparked international outrage and tarnished the image of U.S. anti-communism efforts after it was found that some of the soldiers involved received training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Funes made the announcement on Tuesday.

In September, the US House of Representatives also passed a resolution marking the 20th anniversary of one of the most infamous human rights cases of the Salvadoran conflict during the 1980s.

Funes deploys military to combat violence

2009-11-04T20:27:00.001-06:00

The bloody statistics show the reasons for this week's action by Mauricio Funes:

Murders Up 40% in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR – The number of murders in El Salvador between January 1 and November 1 stands at 3,673, more than in all of 2008 and 40 percent more than during the same period last year, the press reported Tuesday, citing official statistics.

La Prensa Grafica newspaper based the figure on data from the National Police, the Attorney General’s Office and the medical examiner’s office.

The number of murders, which average 13.9 per day, is 40.2 percent higher than the 2,620 homicides that were tallied during the same period in 2008.

The National Police added that during last month alone there were 431 murders, 158 more than in October 2008.

Authorities warn that nearly two-thirds of the 3,184 men killed this year were between the ages of 18 and 30.

The San Salvador metropolitan area, which contains 14 municipalities, has had 419 more murders this year than during the same period last year.

Seventy-six percent of the killings were carried out with firearms.

In the face of the increase in violence, 94 percent of the residents of Greater San Salvador supported the possibility of increasing the use of army troops for security tasks, according to a survey by the firm JBS Opinion released Tuesday by the Diario de Hoy newspaper.

On Tuesday, president Mauricio Funes announced a plan to increase significantly the use of the Armed Forces to provide support to the National Civilian Police (PNC) in the fight against crime. Currently, some 1300 soldiers make joint patrols with the PNC. Under Funes' plan thousands more troops (he did not specify the exact number) will go on patrol, search for wanted individuals, provide perimeter security at prisons and reinforce El Salvador's borders. The additional troops, which Funes called an "exceptional measure" will work in the departments of San Salvador, San Miguel, Santa Ana, La Libertad and Sonsonate where the level of crime is the highest. After 180 days, the measure will be re-evaluated to determine whether to continue the military's role.

The deployment of additional troops marks the first significant step of the Funes administration on public security since he took office on June 1. Funes defended the measures declaring that "I approved the increase of support of the Armed Forces of El Salvador to the National Civilian Police as a method of guaranteeing order, internal peace and citizen security."

El Salvador -- One of the top 10 places to visit in 2010

2009-11-02T20:55:00.001-06:00

Lonely Planet, the travel guide publisher, has released the 2010 edition of its Best in Travel report. This year, incredible as it might seem, El Salvador was listed as one of the top 10 countries in the world to visit. From the report:

El Salvador sneaks up on you: in lefty lounge bars in San Salvador, at sobering war memorials and musums, and along lush cloud-forest trails; it's a place of remarkable warmth and intelligence, made all the more appealing for being so unexpected....Ane when it comes to cities, none in Central America is smarter or cooler than San Salvador, with first-rate universities, museums and galleries, a vibrant bar and live-music scene, and an array of progressive NGOs, both local and international.

The number one country in the list was New Zealand. The other countries named in Lonely Planet's top 10 were Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Portugal, Suriname, and the USA.

Deal reached in Honduras

2009-10-31T16:02:00.003-05:00

A negotiated solution to the crisis in Honduras appears to have been reached. Ousted president Zelaya and the de facto government will form a power-sharing government and respect the outcome of the upcoming November presidential election according to this report from the BBC. The Honduran Congress must approve the deal.

The consitutional crisis began in Honduras on June 28 of this year, when democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya was forced out of the country by the Honduran military. In September, Zelaya snuck back into the country and has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy ever since then. The period since Zelaya's ouster has been marked by significant protests by citizen groups and repression by the de facto government.

More comments on violence amd the military

2009-10-28T21:37:00.003-05:00

A collection of statements about violence in El Salvador and whether there should be a role for the military in patrolling the streets:

[S]even member organizations of the Central American Coalition for the Prevention of Juvenile Violence issued a communiqué rejecting the participation of the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES) in public security functions.

In the statement, institutions such as the Centeral American University Human Rights Institute (IDHUCA) and the Center for Orientation Training, among others, demanded that President Mauricio Funes not incorporate the Armed Forces in the National Civilian Police’s work, saying that this is unconstitutional.

They added that the previous presidents used the military to fight crime and that “this measure has been ineffective” and, in fact, homicides have risen.

Instead, they called upon Funes to strengthen the Police with financial resources and training.

These institutions disagree with the majority of officials and organizations linked to the left who have in fact supported [the use of] the Armed Forces in public security duties.

http://www.elsalvador.com/mwedh/nota/nota_completa.asp?idCat=6358&idArt=4190052

*******************

According to the director of the [National Academy of Public Security] ANSP, the presence of the Armed Forces together with the PNC will contribute to the creation of a sense of trust in the population. He explained that objective insecurity derives from the real quantity of crimes committed in a nation and subjective insecurity comes from the perception of insecurity. According to polls, the population has expressed that it feels more secure with the military presence, then he explained that this would help lower levels of insecurity.

"To see the uniformed elements could contribute to eliminate subjective insecurity, that could help; but we do not believe that the army is going to reolve the problem of security in the country," he expressed and that the problem could be resolved with greater police intelligence, development of scientific investigation, "and that is, according to the Constitution, an exclusive monopoly of the National Civilian Police."

http://www.diariocolatino.com/es/20091026/nacionales/72939/

****************************

Supreme Court of Justice Magistrate Mirna Antonieta Perla Jimenez stated that involving the army in the fight against crime is not the solution to said problem.

“Sending the army into the streets is going to aggravate the crime problem, therefore fight the real causes of crime. Regrettably, thousands of people are arrested in the nation each day and this has not led to lower levels of extortion, murder, robbery, injuries, because the real criminals have not been fought in the first place,” stated Justice Perla.

Similarly, Perla said that it is evident that there are [criminal] individuals who are directly linked with the structures of [state] power.

“We have seen that even the police are sheltering criminals,” she said.

http://www.diariocolatino.com/es/20091026/nacionales/72940/

*********************

The desire to give these [public security] attributes to the Armed Forces practically ignores the history of the world, LatinAmerica, Central America and the recent case of Honduras, but especially Salvadoran history. It also ignores the military and public security recommendations made in the Truth Commission Report; furthermore, it ignores the constitutional reforms of 1992, the achievements of the social struggle won with the signing of the Peace Accords.

--The Foundation for the Study of the Application of Law (FESPAD)

************************

There's a lot for president Mauricio Funes to contemplate as the country yearns for safety on the streets.

Thanks to Larry Ladutke.

Remembrance through art

2009-10-27T16:45:00.000-05:00

From Madness to Hope was the title of the UN Truth Commission report which documented the violatons of human rights which occurred during El Salvador's civil war. Now a new dramatic work with the same name is being performed at the Los Angeles Theater Center. From the press release:

The new play by William Flores, "De La Locura A La Esperanza (From Madness to Hope)" commemorates the events of the difficult struggle as the people of El Salvador waged a fight for freedom against oppression. Flores, who also directs, has assembled a cast of over 30, including actors, dancers and singers, communicating a historical record of those turbulent times through dramatic scenes, songs and traditional folkloric dances.

The show is accompanied by visual exhibits from the Museo De La Palabra Y La Imagen including: From War to Peace (Images and documents about the Salvadoran Civil War); and The Legacy of Salarrue (Paintings, images, objects and manuscripts from the private collection of El Salvador's greatest painter and writer.

There will also be an installation by artist Claudia Bernardi: Shouts From The Invisible.

The play runs through November 1.

Stories of War and Hope

2009-10-25T22:39:00.000-05:00

Worth a visit is the website El Salvador: Stories of War and Hope. The website has collected oral testimonies of participants in the events of El Salvador's civil war. The words of these participants put a human face on that tumultuous period for an English speaking audience.

Fracture in ARENA unity

2009-10-23T22:11:00.001-05:00

ARENA, the conservative party which ruled El Salvador for twenty years before its defeat in presidential elections in March 2009, has an internal rebellion on its hands. As described in El Faro, twelve of ARENA's 32 deputies in the National Assembly have declared themselves independent of the party leadership. They are demanding 2 seats on COENA, the national executive council which directs the party. The president of ARENA and head of COENA is former president Alfredo Cristiani, and he has denounced the rebels declaration of independence from party leadership. On the ARENA website, a statement condemns Herbert Saca, cousin of former president Tony Saca, for instigating the rebellion for unnamed personal motivations. Herbert Saca was a close adviser to his cousin during the Saca administration.

The party has been searching for persons or reasons to blame ever since it lost the presidency earlier this year.

More tuna from El Salvador

2009-10-22T22:20:00.000-05:00

The Spanish company Calvo Group has opened a major expansion to its tuna processing operation in El Salvador. It is a major source foreign investment in the country:

Grupo Calvo inaugurated new production lines yesterday in La Union Port, a project backed by a USD 2 million investment. Its new industrial enterprise, spanning 2,000 sqm, has the capacity to process up to 4,000 tonnes of a variety of products.

The factory has incorporated new machinery to process and can tuna loins, which will allow the company to increase its local supply as well as shipments to the European Union (EU), Central America, Brazil and Taiwan.

In total, Calvo has already invested around USD 140 million and will employ 1,500 fixed workers from La Union and adjacent municipalities.

At this time, it processes some 35,000 tonnes of tuna loins and high quality canned products in El Salvador, and that total will increase substantially thanks to the new investment.

In 2008, Calvo exported products from El Salvador worth USD 106 million, that is, 9.4 per cent more than in 2007, when it generated USD 96 million. In 2006 it exported USD 70 million worth of product, a figure 25 per cent lower than that registered in 2007, the company disclosed in Estrategia & Negocios.

Calvo set up in Punta Gorda, La Union, in September 2003, and carried out its first facility expansion in January 2006, once the packing plant became operational.

Report accuses TACA subsidiary Aeroman of shoddy maintenance

2009-10-20T20:27:00.002-05:00

I have written several times before about the growing numbers of US airlines which fly their passenger jets to El Salvador for maintenance work. The work is done by Aeroman, the maintenance subsidiary of TACA, and is a source of hundreds of good-paying jobs for the mechanics. I wrote about
Frontier Airlines, Jet Blue and America West sending their planes south.

When Southwest Airlines announced that it too might move maintenance work to El Salvador, my post produced a spirited debate about the possibility that safety might be compromised by using the less-expensive Salvadoran mechanics. There was no proof, and it might have just been put down to the pain of unionized American workers losing their jobs to foreign outsourcing.

But now National Public Radio in the US has run an investigative report including interviews with Aeroman mechanics and instances of faulty work creating unsafe conditions on US Airways passenger jets. From the report:

[T]he mechanics say managers keep pressuring them to fix the planes faster. For instance, if there's rust on a metal beam, but it's just a little over tolerance, "the supervisor says, 'Oh, just leave it like that,' " the mechanic says, through an interpreter. " 'There's no need to repair it.' "

The FAA requires that mechanics fix the planes according to the airline manuals — whether they're in the U.S. or overseas. But the mechanics at Aeroman say their supervisors often say that takes too much time.

Although the FAA periodically inspects at the Aeroman facility, the inspections are always pre-announced, with plenty of time to present a quality appearance, according to the report.

It's a troubling story, if airline passengers are being put at risk. Yet, as the story notes, it has been several years since there was an aircraft crash due to poor maintenance (and it was not Aeroman maintenance). You need to be careful extrapolating from a handful of anecdotes. Perhaps the story's most important lesson is that airlines and the FAA need to step up their level of scrutiny of Aeroman and similar shops.

Not great news for TACA which had just announced its merger with the Colombian airline Avianca.

Should the Armed Forces fight the crime wave?

2009-10-19T20:27:00.000-05:00

Photo by Jesus Flores

Stories like this one are too common in El Salvador:

SAN SALVADOR – One person was killed and four others wounded when two suspected gang members shot up a tortilla stand outside the Salvadoran capital, police said Thursday.

They said the attack took place Wednesday night in a rural area of the municipality of Apopa.

The assailants walked into the small shop and opened fire, a police officer told Efe, killing Ernestina Barahona, 58, and leaving four other people wounded, including an 11-year-old boy.

While authorities did not suggest a motive for the attack, protection payments extorted from bus drivers and owners of small businesses represent a major source of income for El Salvador’s fearsome youth gangs.

The year 2009 seems to be headed towards the highest murder total yet. Just in the first 13 days of October, there were 201 homicides -- an average of 15 a day. The wave of murder and extortion disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable parts of Salvadoran society.

Faced with this human tragedy, José M. Tojeira, rector of the University of Central America, wrote a column in Diario Colatino titled "In the fight against crime." Tojeira made a proposal that half of the current armed forces be switched to the National Civilian Police (PNC) in order to fight crime in the country:

De corto plazo sería integrar a la mitad de las fuerzas militares en el cuerpo policial. En la fuerza Armada hay recurso humano, oficiales con capacidad de disciplina, con buena formación administrativa y acostumbrados a tratar los problemas con racionalidad y estrategia.

Traspasarlos a la PNC, juntos con sus tropas, podría implicar un proceso máximo de un año de entrenamiento y formación policial. Pero en un año se estaría incluyendo en la PNC aproximadamente cinco mil personas sin un costo presupuestario especial. Quedarían en el Ejército otros cinco mil hombres que podrían utilizarse tanto para misiones de paz en el exterior, asistencia en tiempo de desastres, etc.

La idea puede parecer loca, pero es mejor que andar sacando militares a la calle a acompañar a los de la PNC. Nuestro país no tiene amenazas externas y en realidad no necesita ejército. Pero si se quiere mantener por esos temas de cooperación internacional en misiones de paz o de ayuda en tiempo de desastre, con cinco mil miembros sería suficiente. En un país de escasos recursos, y donde la delincuencia está ocasionando costos humanos tan elevados, las decisiones tienen que ser radicales. Sobre todo si decimos que las personas son primero.

One short term step would be to integrate half of the military into the police. In the armed forces there is a human resource, officers with the ability for discipline, well trained in administration and accustomed to dealing with problems with rationality and strategy.

To transfer them to the PNC, together with their troops, is a process could involve up to one year of training and police formation. But in a year, included in the PNC would be approximately five thousand people without a special budgetary cost. There would remain in the army five thousand men that could be used both for peacekeeping missions abroad, in times of disaster assistance, etc..

The idea may seem crazy, but it's better than taking out soldiers walking the streets to accompany the PNC. Our country has no external threats and in reality an army is not really needed. But if you want to keep them for issues of international cooperation in peace missions and aid in time of disaster, five thousand members would be sufficient. In a country with limited resources and where crime is causing such high human cost, decisions have to be radical. Especially if we say that people come first.

There are already some 2000 members of the armed forces designated to support units who patrol high crime areas in tandem with police patrols. You can see them in their army fatigues and M-16 rifles walking along with PNC officers in their characteristic navy blue uniforms. This practice was started under former president Tony Saca and continues today. Tojeira's proposal would involve a much larger number of people -- but would they be acting as members of the military or would they be former soldiers now under civilian police command?

The idea of moving more than 5000 soldiers into the fight against crime in El Salvador took off immediately. President Mauricio Funes indicated that it was an idea worth considering, at the same time as the PNC was declaring a state of emergency because of the increased number of homicides. Meanwhile the Armed Forces stated that they would propose dedicating 6500 troops to combating crime, in a proposal which clearly maintained the troops under the control of the military command structure.

La Prensa Grafica reported that the Human Rights Ombudsman, Oscar Humberto Luna supported the temporary use of the armed forces to combat crime, although he had reservations. The archbishop of San Salvador endorsed the idea yesterday in his press conference.

Lutheran bishop Medardo Gomez also wanted limitations:

En cuanto al tema de la violencia y la inseguridad, Gómez sostuvo que el uso de la fuerza armada para combatir dichos problemas sociales “debe de ser una medida temporal y sujeta a la supervisión policial”. Obispo asegura que de no hacerse así “se correría el riesgo de volver al militarismo, por lo cual estos problemas se deben de tratar desde la raíz, para evitar que la medicina sea peor que la enfermedad”.

With regard to the to the issue of violence and insecurity, Gomez maintained that the use of the armed forces to fight said social problems “should be a temporary measure and subject to police supervision.” The Bishop stated that not doing so “would run the risk of returning to militarism, which is why these problems should be dealt with at their root causes, so that the medicine is not worse than the disease.”

Director of the Human Rights Institute at the UCA, Benjamin Cueller, however, sounds a cautionary note in a column in the online periodical ContraPunto, emphasizing that the original proposal from the Tojeira was for a dramatic reduction of the size of the armed forces and the re-training of soldiers as civilians. Cuellar pointed to the danger created when the armed forces refuse to be subject to civilian judicial authority if a soldier kills an innocent civilian in cold blood. He pointed to the military coup in Honduras and questioned whether El Salvador wanted to return to a situation where the armed forces saw themselves as the guarantor of their view of an ordered society.

These are questions of constitutional significance in El Salvador. Under El Salvador's constitution and the 1992 Peace Accords, public security is the job of a professional, civilian police force to be completely separate from the Armed Forces. The President is allowed to call out the armed forces, only in exceptional circumstances after he has exhausted all ordinary means of maintaining public order. (El Sal. Const. Art. 159 and 168) For many in El Salvador, the extortion and murder afflicting many communities, now justify such extraordinary measures. It is an age old question which many societies grapple with -- how much civil liberty are are citizens willing to cede to their government in return for physical security?

A decision from Mauricio Funes about the role of the armed forces will come soon. In a symptom of how the crime wave is impacting Salvadoran society, rumors were circulating today that gangs were going to attack schools or particular municipalities in response to the plans to involve the army in crime fighting.

Thanks to Larry Ladutke for our conversation which formed part of the background for this post.

IUDOP poll on Salvadorans and religion

2009-10-17T23:00:00.001-05:00

The Public Opinion Institute at the University of Central America (IUDOP) has just released a poll on the religious practices of Salvadorans. The wide-ranging poll taken during June of this year asked 1260 Salvadorans 100 questions about the role of religion in their lives. Almost 90% of Salvadorans identify themselves as Catholic or Protestant Christians:

Catholic 50.4%
Protestant 38.2%
Other 2.5%
None 8.9%

This poll continues a steady decline in those identifying themselves as Roman Catholics and an increase in Protestant denominations. In the past 11 years the percentage of Catholics has fallen from 64.1% to 50.4% and the number of Protestants has increased from 16.4% to 38.2%:

Among the Protestant denominations, the percentages of affiliation were:

Assemblies of God 21.3%
Baptist Friends of Israel (Brother Toby) 11.5%
Elim 9.0%
Church of God 7.0%
Baptist 7.0%
Prophetic 6.1%
Pentecostal 4.5%
Apostles and Prophets 3.9%
Light of the World 3.7%
Jehova's Witnesses 3.1%
Adventist 2.9%
Prince of Peace 2.2%
Mormon 2.0%
Apostolic 1.8%
Tabernacle of Avivamiento 1.6%
Lutheran 0.4%
Others 9.8%
None 2.2%

The study has much more about the role of religion in El Salvador which you can read (in Spanish) here.

Preserving indigenous language

2009-10-16T09:26:00.001-05:00

An interesting article from IPS describes attempts to preserve Nahuat as a living language in El Salvador. Indigenous people are almost invisible in El Salvador following a centuries long history of oppression. Nahuat is the language of the Nahua/Pipiles people. From the IPS article:

”Yek shiajfikan” reads a sign hanging above the gate of the ”Dr. Mario Calvo Marroquín” elementary school in the Salvadoran town of Izalco, welcoming pupils in Nawat, the language that was spoken by the area’s native communities.

A small group of no more than twelve boys and girls are gathered in a small classroom in the southwest province of Sonsonate, singing the national anthem, in a scene that could be set in any other school in the country – except here they’re not singing it in Spanish, but in Nawat, the language of their ancestors.

In 2002, teachers at this school took it upon themselves to begin teaching their pupils the language that was spoken by the Nahua-Pipil communities when the Spanish colonialists arrived in the sixteenth century, a language that is now on the brink of extinction.

The language was brought to Central America in pre-Hispanic times by groups that migrated from the central region of present-day Mexico in the tenth century, anthropologist Ramón Rivas explained to IPS.

Nawat, or Pipil as it is also called, is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl, which is still widely spoken in many parts of Mexico. The Salvadoran variety, however, is endangered, and has already vanished elsewhere in Central America.

Today, there are only around 200 Nawat speakers left in this country of 5.7 million, according to the 2009 edition of the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (more).

Climate Change in El Salvador -- Blog Action Day

2009-10-15T00:01:00.001-05:00

October 15 is the worldwide Blog Action Day. Thousands of blogs today are dedicated to the single global issue of climate change.

Because of its exposure to the effects of tropical storms and its low-lying coast line, El Salvador is at risk from the impacts of global climate change. The primary impacts of climate change could be temperature increases, changes in rainfall patterns, and flooding from sea level increase. A "Country Note" prepared by the World Bank looks at climate change and the agricultural sector in El Salvador and noted the following:

According to a study on adaptation strategies to climate change realized by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in collaboration with the National Service of Territorial Studies (SNET) in the coastal plains of El Salvador, between the municipalities of Zacatecoluca, Tecoluca and Jiquilisco, the following was concluded for the year 2015; i) loss of between 10 and 19% of the territory due to sea elevation of 13-55 cm, especially in the mangrove swamp area; ii) forest fires and forest plagues; iii) increased soil erosion and loss of humidity in soil and iv) diminishing productivity of corn of between US$3.1 million and US$7.5 million for the years 2025 and 2100 respectively caused by droughts.

The Global Climate Risk Index constructed for the period between 1997 and 2006 and covering both human and economic impacts, ranks El Salvador 30th in the world, underscoring the country’s high vulnerability to climate related events. In recent years (between 2001 and 2005), storms and droughts have had the highest human and economic impact in the country- 400,000 people have been affected by droughts (1 event) with the cost of damages reaching US$22.4 million and 74,941 people have been affected by storms (2 events) with the cost of damages reaching US$355 million.

The Country Note is a useful overview of a the vulnerabilities of El Salvador's agricultural sector.

There are a variety of efforts going on in El Salvador to help the country address these vulnerabilities. Friends of the Earth International is working to promote advocacy and awareness at the social and governmental levels of the need for action on climate change. A project funded by the Canadian government has helped to develop micro-businesses in the Jiquilisco Bay region so that the local population will not be solely dependent on agricultural and fishing activities which can be wiped out by a drought or a flood. Oxfam is promoting flood control projects.

You can find more information on climate change and El Salvador at the website of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and at a web portal jointly run by several Central American countries.

Fulbright fellow to study economic development projects

2009-10-13T07:25:00.001-05:00

Driving my car last week, I heard a radio interview with Chris Halberg, a recent Marquette University graduate who won a Fulbright fellowship to conduct a study in El Salvador of the impact of certain economic development programs in rural areas. You can hear the interview and Halberg's discussion of the current situation in El Salvador at this link.

TACA and Colombian airline to merge

2009-10-08T19:18:00.001-05:00

El Salvador-based TACA Airlines announced this week that it is merging with the larger Colombian airline Avianca. The companies indicate that they will continue to operate the airlines with separate identities going forward. Since 1961, the airline has been owned by the Kriete family. They will own about 1/3 of the shares of the combined company.

You can read a history of the company at this link from its founding by a New Zealander who flew in the Canadian air force in World War I until the present time when TACA operates an extensive route system throughout the Americas.

Scenic treasures of El Salvador

2009-10-04T18:06:00.002-05:00

Travel writer Gerogia Brown has an article this weekend in The Guardian titled the lakes and volcanoes of El Salvador which highlights some of the scenic spots of El Salvador. Here is an excerpt:

Antonio's fishing boat bobs on the glassy surface of a huge crater lake, dwarfed by a panorama of dramatic volcanic peaks. Beneath us the water plunges to a depth of 240m, perhaps more. "Now we are at the deepest part. They call it the place with no end," shrugs Antonio. "This is a good place to swim."

Like many of the fishermen on lake Ilopango, Antonio swims for a living, using the traditional and dangerous method of freediving to catch fish from the shallower parts of the lake. I, however, am a bit concerned about what strange creatures may lurk beneath, and certainly don't want to try to catch anything. I stare at the sparkling water, only to hear squeals of delight from behind me. A group of local boys are launching themselves from the branches of a tree almost 10m above the water. My competitive streak kicks in – if a 12-year-old kid can swim here, so can I.

An ungainly tree-scramble later, and I'm free-falling into the bottomless warm water to the sound of my own screams and loud hilarity from the shore. Like so many experiences I have in El Salvador, it's completely unexpected, a hell of a lot of fun, and features volcanoes in some form. We are, after all, smack bang on the Pacific ring of fire. (more)

Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage stalls in El Salvador

2009-10-01T20:25:00.000-05:00

Attempts to amend El Salvador's constitution to prohibit same sex marriages have stalled in El Salvador's National Assembly for now. The decision of the FMLN to withhold its support from the amendment kept the proposal from gaining the necessary two-thirds majority vote. The IPS news service has a lengthy analysis of the politics of LGBT rights and the constitutional amendments in El Salvador:

The proposed reform would add a stipulation that only "men and women who were born so" are competent to enter into marriage. In addition, "Marriages between persons of the same sex celebrated or recognised under the laws of other countries, and other unions that do not fulfil the conditions established under Salvadoran law, will be null and void in El Salvador." ...

Amendments to articles 32, 33 and 34 of the constitution, closing off any possibility of marriage or civil union between homosexuals, or the adoption of children by same-sex couples, were introduced to Congress in 2006 and approved unanimously by the previous legislature in April 2009.

In the previous legislature, the FMLN supported the constitutional amendments, presumably to curry favour with voters at the centre. But during the campaign for the March 2009 elections in which President Mauricio Funes was elected, the party changed its position and now maintains that the changes violate the civil rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) community.

Votes from the FMLN, which holds 35 of the 84 seats in Congress, were needed to ratify the amendments, as the rightwing parties that support the changes do not have enough lawmakers to reach a two-thirds majority.

Funes approval rating highest in the Americas

2009-09-29T21:55:00.001-05:00

A collection of polling results assembled by the Mitofsky polling firm from countries in the Americas puts Mauricio Funes at the top when it comes to approval ratings. Funes scored an approval rating of 84% among the citizens of El Salvador, the highest of the 15 countries surveyed. Next highest was Lula of Brazil with an 81% approval rating. Barrack Obama was in the bottom half with an approval rating of 52%.

The opinion polls were taken during August and September 2009. Not included were Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Canada and Nicaragua. Nor was Honduras, in the midst of a military coup and power struggle, included.

Avoiding deportation back to gang violence

2009-09-28T13:26:00.000-05:00

The Baltimore Sun has another story of a Salvadoran youth who fled to the US to escape the gangs of El Salvador and now seeks asylum in the US. The newspaper describes the legal fight waged by a lawyer in a prominent Baltimore firm providing pro bono representation to the 12 year old Salvadoran boy:

In general, asylum can be granted when someone has a well-founded fear of persecution for one of five reasons: race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group. The last category has been tried in gang cases, but the appeals board said those resisting gang pressure do not make up a social group.

[Lawyer] Chowdhury knew he had to thread the needle. Santos faced peril in El Salvador, the lawyer reasoned, not because he'd resisted the gang, but for a very basic reason: "Because he was his brother's brother." And a nuclear family has long been an accepted social group for asylum cases.

But as the asylum hearing approached, Chowdhury worried any gang claim might fail because of the apparent judicial skepticism. And there was a hiccup: If Santos fled because of threats to his family, why were his mother and brother still in El Salvador?

Then in February, his mother and brother made it to Texas. She'd had enough when five MS-13 members beat Pablo Michael on a soccer field. Not only were his mother and brother now in the U.S., it meant they could testify at Santos' asylum hearing.

That was not necessary. On June 11, shortly after Santos spoke, Immigration Judge Philip T. Williams granted the boy asylum. The judge embraced Chowdhury's argument, noting that the family was "mistreated in the worst way" by MS-13.(more)

The Supreme Court will not be reviewing the case of three other Salvadorans who also fled El Salvador fearing gang violence. In August, I described the case of the Mira family, who managed to persuade the US Supreme Court to block their deportation while their asylum claims were being heard. The US Justice Department has now agreed to reopen the removal proceedings facing the Mira siblings, which allows them to stay in the US while their case continues to be argued. It also eliminated the need for the US Supreme Court to address the issue of gang recruitment in Central America as the basis for an asylum claim.

Salvadoran leaders in US meet

2009-09-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

Some 1.6 million people with their roots in El Salvador live in the US. The Washington Post describes a recent conference of Salvadoran American leaders who met to discuss how their various groups can work together in social and political spheres:

For nearly three decades Salvadoran immigrants have been among the nation's most organized newcomers, founding clubs to raise money for schools back home, establishing medical clinics for new arrivals and battling in Congress and courts to gain legal status for tens of thousands of political dissidents who fled persecution by the U.S.-backed government during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s....

Among the clearest points of agreement was that Salvadoran Americans should insist that any legalization plan adopted by Congress allow about 200,000 Salvadoran illegal immigrants who were granted temporary legal status in the wake of a 2001 earthquake to be the first in line to become permanent legal residents.

Indeed, several participants pointed to the unusual interests of those Salvadorans as an example of why they need to organize as a separate, national Salvadoran American movement.

"We have a separate identity even as we're part of the larger Latino community," said Jose Artiga of the SHARE foundation, which promotes development in El Salvador.

For all the event's optimism, there are some daunting obstacles to transforming the numerical strength of Salvadoran Americans into political clout. According to an analysis of Census data by the Pew Hispanic Center, 47 percent of U.S. residents of Salvadoran descent are not citizens. And 26 percent more are citizens but are still children, leaving only 27 percent who are currently eligible to vote. And it was perhaps telling that much of the discussion at the conference was in Spanish.