[Cispes-update] Political Violence Increases in El Salvador

[CISPES National Office]

Political Violence Increases in El Salvador

(para español vaya
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=35&
Itemid=28&lang=es>  aquí)

CISPES Update

July 29, 2008

 



 

As student groups prepare to commemorate the anniversary of an infamous
massacre of students by government forces on July 30, 1975, political
violence continues in El Salvador 33 years later.  In the last two years,
social organizations, human rights monitors, community groups and the Frente
Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) political party have
publically denounced the alarming increase in politically-motivated
assassinations of their members and leadership.

 

2008 has been particularly violent for organized sectors of the population.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been more than a half dozen
murders that, though unresolved, seem to be political in nature. The
Salvadoran population in general continues to be affected by the
assassinations of community leaders, including the recent murder of Holman
Riva. According to police reports, Riva, an employee of the FMLN’s municipal
government in the municipality of Ilopango, was killed on July 2, along with
his nephew. The victims were taken from their home in the middle of the
night and shot with nine bullets each.

 

Student activist Ángel Martínez Cerón was killed in a similar fashion on
July 26 in the city of Santa Ana, located in western El Salvador. Martínez
Cerón, coordinator of the January 24 Revolutionary Socialist Student Bloc,
was shot eight times before his assassins delivered a final bullet to the
head. According to statements made by the Student Bloc, other members of the
organization have been detained and harassed by agents of the National
Civilian Police (PNC). Just days before Martínez Cerón’s death, PNC officers
had searched the youth’s home, arresting him, his brother, and another
member of the organization. Police harassment of the young activists
followed a series of protests against bus far increases in Santa Ana.

 

These recent assassinations come in the wake of a series of murders of
activists and opposition politicians earlier this year. Héctor Ventura, who
had been cleared of terrorism charges in February after participating in a
protest against water privatization last summer, was killed in his home on
May 2. In January, the mayor of Alegría, Wilber Funes, was killed alongside
municipal employee Zulma Rivera. The young, popular mayor had planned to run
for reelection as a member of the FMLN party in 2009. Referring to these
assassinations, FMLN deputy Benito Lara recently stated that “here we have
various cases that remain unresolved, unclear, and it is difficult for us to
accept the theory that these are merely cases of common crime.”

 

In spite of national and international outcry, Salvadoran authorities have
yet to respond to calls for serious investigations into each one of these
cases. To this date, each of the cases remains in impunity.

 


Right-wing parties refuse to audit comptroller’s office


 

Faced with the fact the El Salvador’s Corte de Cuentas (comptroller’s
office; in charge of government accountability and oversight) has not been
audited since 1995, and in response to a series of solicitations made the
FMLN seeking an explanation of anomalies in the government’s handling of
five international loan agreements, the Legislative Assembly recently
ordered an audit of the entity.

 

However, the president of the Corte de Cuentas, Hernan Contreras, has
publicly refused to cooperate with such an audit. Contreras is a leader of
the right-wing National Conciliation Party (PCN). “Constitutionally, [the
audit] should not be done,” declared Contreras, whose consecutive
appointments as leader of the comptroller’s office has been vociferously
challenged by opposition parties. Roberto Lorenzana, a legislative deputy
representing the FMLN, countered that “all of the institutions of the state
should be audited.”

 

According to the legal organization FESPAD, various social organizations
have also called for an audit of the Corte de Cuentas. Following FESPAD’s
analysis of the situation, the Corte’s failure to fulfill its oversight
functions has resulted in widespread distrust of the institution among the
Salvadoran population. 

 

ARENA’s ‘Grad Crusade’ deemed “absurd”

 

On July 6, the governing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party held
a campaign event titled the “Grand Nationalist Crusade” in San Salvador’s
Cuscatlan Stadium. Facing next year’s elections with a presidential
candidate, Rodrigo Ávila, who still does not have a running mate and who has
not been able to consolidate the party’s supporters, ARENA’s event sought to
duplicate the leftist FMLN’s national convention, which took place in the
same stadium last November, and at which that party’s presidential ticket
was officially introduced to a capacity crowd of 70,000.  According to media
reports in the online newspaper El Faro, as well as personal testimonies of
workers, many government employees were forced to attend the event in an
effort to fill the stadium.

 

ARENA’s “Grand Crusade” has been strongly criticized by ARENA’s traditional
right-wing allies in the PCN party, whose General Coordinator, Ciro Cruz
Cepeda, judged the activity to be “an absurd thing.” Cruz Cepeda added that,
“when a political institution forces its employees to attend its campaign
rallies, it could generate weakness within the party.”

 

Several days before the event, employees of various public institutions
began speaking out against pressures they were facing from high-level
government officials to attend the partisan event. Among the government
entities that pressured employees to take part in the “Grand Crusade” were
the Social Security Institute, the public water administration, and the
ministries of education and governance. On the day of the event, the ARENA
party transported attendees to the stadium using government vehicles.

 

In his speech at the event, presidential candidate Ávila urged the audience
to work to defeat the FMLN at the polls, calling on ARENA’s supporters “to
be unified to defend liberty in the face of the threat of communism.”

 

According to Juan Pablo Durán, legislative deputy from the Democratic Change
(CD) party, ARENA’s event sought “to demonstrate unity in a moment of
weakness.” Many analysts also pointed to signs of continued internal
divisions within ARENA as evidenced by the conspicuous absence of ARENA’s
three ex-presidents, Christiani, Calderon Sol, and Flores.

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