[CISPES-Update] Special update: Celebrating One Year since the People's Victory in El Salvador!

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Special Update:

One year after the People’s Victory in El Salvador!

 

On Sunday, March 14, the streets of San Salvador once again filled with red
t-shirts, hats, bandanas and FMLN flags to commemorate the one-year
anniversary of the victory of the FMLN’s presidential and vice-presidential
candidates, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sánchez Cerén (March 15, 2009). In a
speech before the crowd of 25,000, historic leader of the FMLN and current
Deputy to the Central American Parliament Nidia Díaz declared, "Today we
reassert the effort and the heroism of thousands of compatriots that
continue fighting and those that gave their lives, without which this
victory would not have been possible."  

 

Looking back on the accomplishments of the first year, many Salvadorans are
quick to point out that the most significant accomplishment of the 2009
elections was the electoral defeat of the right-wing, most notably of the
ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) party, whose “president for life” is
Roberto D’Aubuisson, the founder of the Salvadoran death-squads. For twenty
years, consecutive ARENA presidents implemented drastic neoliberal measures,
from the privatization of most public services like electricity and
telecommunications to CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement,
resulting in an unemployment rate of at least 55%.  ARENA’s “iron fist” and
“super iron fist” policing policies failed to lower the country’s violent
crime rates and  in 2008 El Salvador’s homicide rate became the highest in
the Western Hemisphere, with a documented resurgence of death squad-style
“social extermination” groups. The level of political, economic and military
power held by the elite, not to mention their near-unconditional backing
from Washington, made their ouster last March a truly historic
accomplishment, one that has been compared to the 1992 signing of the Peace
Accords that ended the Civil War and toppled the country’s military
dictatorship.

 

Leading into the 2009 elections, many Salvadorans said that the country
simply could not survive another five years of ARENA. One year ago today,
Salvadorans mobilized en masse to the polls, casting aside the right-wing
and media’s vicious fear campaign against the FMLN as well as the threats
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=537&Itemid=
27>  made by Republicans in the U.S. Congress to deport Salvadoran
immigrants in the event of an FMLN victory. Many credit the sheer number of
voters as a key factor in being able to supersede the fraud committed by the
right-wing parties, most notably the buses of “voters” that arrived
overnight from Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The highly-organized
community response to the fraud (several buses were blocked and turned away
at the border!) was more pronounced during the 2009 elections than any other
in recent history, demonstrating both the high level of opposition to
allowing ARENA to rule for another five years and the high level of popular
organization that will make social and economic transformation in El
Salvador possible.

 

One of the major achievements of the new government of President Mauricio
Funes and Vice President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has been the re-orientation
of the government towards the needs of the majority, especially through the
social ministries. While President Funes’ commitment to creating a “unity
government” means there are many other sectors besides the FMLN represented
in the new government, the appointment of FMLN leaders to the ministries
that work most closely with the population has been critical to the success
of the new administration. As FMLN general coordinator Medardo González
declared during Sunday’s victory celebration, “These are measures that, step
by step, indicate the vision of a leftist government.” Some notable
examples:

 

*	Health: The required payment—insultingly known as a “voluntary
fee”—at all public hospitals and clinics has been abolished and the
foundation has been laid for a new maternity hospital.
*	Education: For the first time, the government is providing school
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=624&Itemid=
28>  uniforms, shoes and school supplies to every child in El Salvador, as
well as extending the school meal program to urban schools, thereby
addressing some of the main impediments for poor families to send their
children to school. The Minister of Education, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, has
also launched a national program to end illiteracy in the style of
successful programs in Nicaragua and Cuba.
*	Agriculture: President Funes has stated that El Salvador needs to
return to food production for domestic consumption in order to ensure food
sovereignty for the Salvadoran people. Through subsidized seeds and
fertilizers and new lines of credit for small farmers, the government is
making important steps to addressing the decimation of the El Salvador’s
agricultural sector caused by neoliberal policies.  The government granting
of over 4,000 land titles to campesinos/as has begun to rectify past
governments’ failure to complete promised land reform policies.
*	Labor: For perhaps the first time, El Salvador’s Minister of Labor,
is truly representing
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=642&Itemid=
87>  the interests of workers.  Dr. de Avilés is transforming the Ministry
from an institute that impeded workers’ searches for justice to an institute
that defends workers’ rights and supports the organized union movement.
Several unions, including in the maquila sector, have finally been
recognized, drawing the ire of the business elite; unions in sectors who
have been completely or partially privatized, like telecommunications and
water, have finally been granted industrial union status.
*	Housing and Public Works: Through the Casa para Todos program, the
new government plans to build 25,000 houses and generate 100,000 jobs in the
process. After Tropical Storm Ida, priority was given to the communities
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=658&Itemid=
59>  hit by the storm; the government has purchased land to be able to
permanently move entire communities to safer ground. Long-time FMLN leader
Gerson Martinez is now at the head of the most historically corrupt ministry
in El Salvador, dramatically re-orienting its priorities to ensure community
benefit, safety, seismic resistance, and accessibility for people with
disabilities.

 

The FMLN, as a political party, was clear that whenever they were able to
take the reigns of the government, their highest priority would be to rescue
the democratic function of the State. Especially during the past two
decades, the state institutions were profoundly corrupted; millions of
dollars disappeared annually into the personal and political coffers of the
right wing (perhaps the Funes campaign promise that scared them the most was
to “open the books”!) One of the highest priorities of the Funes
administration is to re-create a functional, democratic state, starting with
a strict opposition to corruption. A new Inspector General was brought on
board at the National Civilian Police, resulting in charges against at least
40 officers within the first month of the program, and the new Minister of
the Interior, FMLN leader Humberto Centeno, has brought charges against
former government functionaries including ex-President Saca’s right-hand
man, former Minister of the Interior Rene Figueroa.  Other significant
movement toward a real democracy has been initiated in FMLN municipalities;
El Salvador’s first
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=670&Itemid=
28>  ever popular consultation was held in Zacatecoluca and many FMLN mayors
continue to promote other participatory processes of governance.  Both the
FMLN and the Salvadoran popular movement see these steps toward “rescuing
the state” as essential precursors to more fundamental structural change in
the future. 

 

Another of the most significant factors that has changed the political
landscape in El Salvador is the near-collapse of the right-wing political
parties. Due to power struggles within ARENA, especially as former President
Saca was blamed for the party’s electoral defeat, a third of the party’s
Legislative Deputies defected and formed a new right-wing fraction, GANA,
which will be requesting political party credentials this year. While not
ideologically much different from ARENA, the breakup has been a blow to the
right-wing dominance in the Legislative Assembly, forcing different
fractions to negotiate with the FMLN as the party with the largest number of
seats (36 out of 84). Furthermore, the victory of the leftist party has made
many of the other parties want to appear as “populist” as possible, making
it much easier for the FMLN to pass important legislation, for example, to
approve the budget.

 

However, long-time revolutionary leaders of the party, its members, and the
social movement share the understanding that the victory of Funes is far
from all that is needed to challenge the power structure in El Salvador. For
one thing, though the right-wing parties may be floundering, the Salvadoran
elite still hold an incredible amount of power and the policies they created
for their own benefit are still in place. As Medardo González said to the
crowd gathered on Saturday, ARENA “was defeated but not overcome,” as they
still have “partial control of the state apparatus.”

 

The new government inherited a nearly bankrupt state, heavily indebted to
the U.S. and international institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.
Though large sums of that money were stolen by former Presidents, Funes has
nonetheless assumed responsibility for paying it all back. With extremely
little state income and a right-wing that goes on the attack anytime someone
suggests big businesses should be paying more taxes, the new government has
continued to accept the “generous” offers of the U.S. and multi-lateral
financial institutions in the form of even more loans. While there is no
doubt that the Funes administration and all of the ministries will use this
income to the best extent possible, and for needed improvements in the
country, the vicious cycle remains in place. 

 

To the disappointment of many in the social movement, the FMLN and the
international solidarity movement, President Funes has also publicly stated
that he will not seek to re-negotiate CAFTA, nor will he join the ALBA, the
co-operative Latin American trade agreement with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua
and Bolivia. Even a massive investment in social spending to alleviate the
effects of poverty and unemployment will reach its limit as long as El
Salvador and the rest of Central America remain strangled by CAFTA. The
recent lawsuits by two North American mining companies, demanding hundreds
of millions of dollars from El Salvador, have re-energized the popular and
labor movements against CAFTA, despite President Funes’ unwillingness to
challenge it.

 

Another significant challenge this new phase of revolutionary struggle is
the increasingly visible contradictions between the Executive Office and the
FMLN—the political party that brought Funes to power. Alongside the social
movement, the FMLN has opposed CAFTA and called for El Salvador to join the
ALBA. As a revolutionary party, founded as an armed struggle, the party is
committed to larger projects like 21st Century Socialism, Latin American
integration and anti-imperialism. In one strong contradiction, the FMLN
strongly denounced and mobilized against the June coup in Honduras;
President Funes, however, has decided to recognize the presidency of Pepe
Lobo and is calling for Honduras to be re-admitted into the OAS. In his
speech on Sunday, FMLN coordinator Medardo González summed it up as follows,
“We aren’t going to coincide on everything. The nature of the FMLN, as a
party, is to be a revolutionary project with a socialist angle, and the
project of the national unity government is broader.”

 

But perhaps the coup in Honduras is one of the very reasons why President
Funes is being so moderate in his position, especially with regard to
foreign policy. Immediately after the coup, the Salvadoran right-wing told
Funes to watch out, lest he be “looking in the mirror.” Pressure from the
U.S. was not far behind; in a meeting about immigration reform between U.S.
Secretary <http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/12/133352.htm>  of State
Hilary Clinton and El Salvador’s Minister of Foreign Relations Hugo Martínez
following the Honduran coup, Clinton’s main request of El Salvador was to
play a more “protagonist” role in finding an “exit to the crisis in
Honduras.”  Many speculated that the U.S. State Department used the over 2
million Salvadoran immigrants living in the U.S. as leverage to ensure that
El Salvador would get on board with the Honduran elections in November.  The
tremendous amount of U.S. “aid” money, through such channels as USAID, the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA),
the ILEA, and the FBI, make it nearly impossible for the Salvadoran
government to act independently without fear of U.S. retaliation.  Obama and
Clinton have praised Funes as being “pragmatic,” and indeed it seems the
Funes administration has made the decision to act within the established
parameters, while doing the most they can to improve the quality of life and
the state of democratic governance for the Salvadoran people.

 

Before his death in 2006 long time leader of the FMLN and 2004 presidential
candidate Schafik Hándal wrote that the Salvadoran social movement must
always stay more radical than the party. Social movement organizations are
currently in the process of reinvigorating their bases after the movement’s
activity waned during the post-election “honeymoon period” and determining
priorities based on their new relationship with the government. The only way
President Funes will feel capable of making farther-reaching changes is if a
visible segment of society demands them and gives him a mandate to make
them. Though El Salvador’s social movement is facing its own set of
challenges, for example, they face a right-wing media poised to exploit any
and all contradictions, real or imagined, between the party, the social
movement, and Funes, this role is clear. Certain sectors of the struggle,
including the anti-mining movement, are also contending with a violent
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=671&Itemid=
27>  terror campaign (assassinations, kidnappings, and death threats) that
demonstrates institutionalized impunity in the Attorney General’s Office and
National Civil Police (PNC) resulting from a century of military
dictatorships and right-wing rule. 

 

Despite the challenges, the social movement and the FMLN remain committed to
strengthening popular organizing, as their consolidation and mobilization
will be the only ways to ensure that the next FMLN government is able to
take even more dramatic steps in challenging the neoliberal system. One of
the priorities of the social movement in the following year is base-building
and political education, such that greater and greater numbers of the
population will question why the current changes are not enough.
Furthermore, if the FMLN can win a majority in the Legislative Assembly (43
seats), they will have much greater ability to lead the country in a new
direction. The recent popular consultation in Zacatecoluca is another step
towards the participatory democracy and construction of popular power that
began with the “Open Social Dialogues” to collectively establish the FMLN’s
platform for 2009-2014. 

 

It’s impossible to know whether President Funes would be taking more radical
steps if El Salvador were not in such a vulnerable position with regard to
the United States, but such a situation calls for a strong international
solidarity movement against U.S. economic, political and military
intervention. U.S. intervention and allegiance with the elite remains one of
the major impediments to revolutionary change in Latin America, much as it
was in the 1980s. 

 

The strength and promise of the Salvadoran struggle today lies in its
ability to work both within and outside of the system, to create change
within the government when possible and to mobilize the social movement when
those changes reach their circumscribed limits; in doing so, they will
consolidate greater popular and political force to continue to change the
system itself. 

 

To read more analysis in Spanish:

http://www.elfaro.net/es/201003/noticias/1373/

http://www.diariocolatino.com/es/20100313/nacionales/77829/

 

To support CISPES’ solidarity campaigns against U.S. intervention in El
Salvador and our ability to keep bringing the news and analysis from the
Salvadoran popular movement, 
please make a tax-deductible donation here
<http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=296> ! ¡Mil
gracias!

 

 


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© 2009 CISPES - The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
CISPES National Office | ph. 202-521-2510 | 1525 Newton St. NW, Wash. DC
20010| cispes at cispes.org

 

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