[Cispes-update] All charges dropped in case against "Suchitoto 13"

[CISPES National Office]

All charges dropped in case against “Suchitoto 13”

CISPES News Update 

*vaya
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=35&
Itemid=28&lang=es>  aqui para CISPES informes en español*

February 21, 2008




 


Also in this update:

-          ARENA <> ’s smear campaign against FMLN bolstered by U.S.
intelligence report; FMLN proposes campaign finance reform

-          Assassinations <>  of mayor and municipal employee in Alegría
remain unsolved

 

On Tuesday, February 19, 13 political activists arrested last July in the
town of Suchitoto were set free, and all charges against them were
dismissed. This victory for the “Suchitoto 13” comes on the heels of the
initial charges of “acts of terrorism” being dropped on February 8,
following a drawn out, 7-month investigation. The terrorism charges, enabled
by El Salvador’s 2006 Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism, were
universally denounced by human rights organizations in El Salvador and
around the world, and carried a potential sentence of up to 60 years in
prison. 

 

After the government’s February 8 admission that it did not have evidence to
substantiate the original terrorism accusations, the charges were reduced to
“public disorder” and “aggravated damages,” crimes carrying sentences of up
to 4 years. Accordingly, the case was moved from the jurisdiction of a
special anti-terrorism tribunal in San Salvador – also established by the
2006 law – to the regular court system in Suchitoto. 

 

On Tuesday, the judge in Suchitoto dismissed the new, lesser charges,
granting the defendants “definitive liberty” after the prosecution failed to
appear at a preliminary hearing to present evidence. The government’s
attorneys later said their car broke down en route to the court. It is
unclear whether the government will seek to appeal the decision.

 

The “Suchitoto 13” were violently arrested at a July 2, 2007, demonstration
against Salvadoran president Antonion Saca’s plan to “decentralize”
Suchitoto’s public water system, a move that was widely viewed as a first
step toward the eventual privatization of that system. Following their
arrests, several of the defendants were psychologically tortured by members
of El Salvador’s National Civilian Police (PNC), a police force that the
U.S. State Department has praised as one of the best in Latin America, and
which it trains at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in San
Salvador.

 

Starting on Monday, February 11, various social organizations participated
in a three-day march from Suchitoto to San Salvador to ensure that public
attention remained focused on the case, even after the charges had been
reduced. The march had two clear messages: opposition to El Salvador’s
anti-terrorism law and the call for all charges to be dropped in the
Suchitoto case. The latter demand was met with Tuesday’s court ruling. In
support of the march, the mayor of Soyapango, Carlos Ruiz of the FMLN party,
declared, “this is a protest to say ‘No more state terrorism!’ It is a just,
rebellious response to oppression.”

 

In a further development, the Supreme Court of Justice petitioned the
Legislative Assembly to rule on the constitutionality of the Special Law
Against Acts of Terrorism, approved by a right-wing block in September 2006.

 


 


ARENA’s smear campaign against FMLN bolstered by U.S. intelligence report;
FMLN proposes campaign finance reform


 

In a recent visit to the United States, Salvadoran president Antonio Saca
expressed concern about the findings of a recent U.S. intelligence report,
which predicts that Venezuela will intervene in El Salvador’s 2009
elections. In his Annual Threat Assessment, U.S. Director of National
Intelligence Mike McConnell states that “we expect [Venezuelan president
Hugo] Chávez to provide generous campaign funding to the Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador in its bid to secure the
presidency in the 2009 election.”

 

Similar U.S. national security reports, later exposed as false and comprised
of politically-manipulated intelligence, were used by the Bush
administration to justify its preemptive war against Iraq in 2003.
Nevertheless, Saca ordered an investigation into the U.S.’s claims and
recalled a diplomat from Venezuela for consultations, declaring, “we are
instructing the diplomat to return to El Salvador to provide first hand
information on this topic.” 

 

Additionally, Saca warned that “any interference of a government such as
Venezuela’s in El Salvador’s domestic affairs is unacceptable.” Conversely,
Saca seems to view electoral intervention by the United States government as
not only acceptable, but welcomed. In a November 2007 press conference with
President Bush, Saca stated that the U.S. “can help out a lot in preventing
citizen support for certain proposals in the upcoming elections.”

 

FMLN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes denied the U.S.’s accusations and
pledged that his party would not receive financing from Venezuela. Funes
promptly proceeded to propose a campaign finance reform package to the
Legislative Assembly that would cap campaign spending, mandate transparency
in campaign financing and expenditures, and ban donations from foreign
sources.

 

For his part, Venezuelan president Chávez also dismissed the intelligence
report, stating that the FMLN did not need his support because it is a
“solid” and “well-organized” party with popular support. “It’s a lie. We
don’t need to do that, and they don’t need it,” Chávez said.

 

In further response to the U.S.’s claims, Saca’s right-wing ARENA party
accused the FMLN not only of accepting electoral financing from Venezuela,
but also of allowing economic intervention by means of a petroleum
importation agreement between FMLN municipalities and the Venezuelan state
oil company. ENEPASA, the enterprise that imports and distributes subsidized
oil from Venezuela, publicly expressed its willingness to submit to any type
of investigation and insisted that it has complied with all legal
requirements and paid all necessary taxes for the project.

 

 


Assassinations of mayor and municipal employee in Alegría remain unsolved


 

Hundreds of family members and social organization representatives took part
in a public demonstration in the central park of the municipality of
Alergría on Sunday, February 17, to call for justice to be served in the
double assassination that occurred in the town last month. On January 9, the
young mayor of Alegría, Wilber Funes, was shot dead along with municipal
employee Zulma Rivera as the two drove to an outlying area of the
municipality to assess progress on a public works project. Sunday’s activity
was supported by Funes’ FMLN party, which gathered signatures on a petition
to Attorney General Félix Safie demanding that this case not result in
impunity.

 

More than a month after the killings, there has been little sign of an
investigation moving forward. Although the Attorney General’s office says it
has identified suspects, no arrests have been made. During Sunday’s event,
the father of Zulma Rivera offered his analysis of the situation, stating,
“if justice is not carried out, it is because they don’t want it. The
killers are from here, from Alegría.” He added that he believes there are
people in the municipality who are concealing the identities of the
assassins.

 

 

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