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CIS

Colonia Libertad,

Avenida Bolívar # 103

San Salvador, El Salvador

Centroamérica

Teléfonos:

(503) 2226-5362              

(503) 2235-1330

e-mail: cis_elsalvador@yahoo.com

www.cis-elsalvador.org

October 24-December 18 2000

1. Government Obliged to Negotiate to Receive International Loans on Which They Depend
2. Ministry of Labor Finally Gives Legal Status to SUTTEL - Now CTE-TELECOM is on the Attack
3. On October 10th the FMLN Celebrated their 20th Anniversary
4. Amnesty Law Under Scope - Two Generals Found Innocent in Case of U.S. Religious Women
5. Editorial: The Global Economic Crisis Strangles El Salvador

Government Obliged to "Coordinate an Agreement" in Order to Receive International Loans on Which They Depend

As CIS presented in its October 4 Action Alert, the government of El Salvador was trying to ratify in the Legislative Assembly a series of loans between the Executive and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Currently, the process continues, but under a new modality.  The new modality is made up of a concertación  (a group that is formed with the goal of coming to an agreement and is usually formed for a short or medium period).  The Executive has been forced to dialogue with the distinct opposition parties, above all the FMLN, who has been the first political party to demand a report of the loan accounts and require a rational debt policy. Until now, the management of loans and loan agreements has always been done in secret form without the participation of the civil society, NGOs, or the Legislative Assembly. Now the loans are being revised and modified according to the suggestions of the various political parties.  Among those loans in discussion are some, which, under the auspice of “modernization”, are looking to continue the neoliberal project of the ARENA government whose objective is to continue with the privatization of public entities.  The privatization of ANDA, certain parts of the health sector, and the remaining “public” portion of telecommunications (which, according to the privatization agreement, was supposed to remain public) are conditions to some of the loans in question.  Furthermore, other loans require the massive firing of employees of Public Works. In addition, some of the said loans support the Ley de la Función Pública that is a law elaborated under the neoliberal lens that strips workers of the fundamental rights.

In this context, the Executive Branch found itself in series problems due to the rejection of the loans as such by the FMLN. The Executives first strategy was to carry out a public campaign “denouncing” the FMLN for opposing the loans, among which exist few that will go towards social investment.  The campaign started with an interview with President Flores by the newspaper, El Diario de Hoy. In the interview, Flores blamed the FMLN for blocking the ratification of the loans saying that he was tired of negotiating, which according to him he had been doing for 14 months. “I believe that the country has to understand that (with the loans) there is the hope of being able to inject the economy with the stimulus it needs to reactivate,” stated Flores. In addition, he blamed the FMLN of wanting to financially "drown" the government.

Juan José Daboub carried out the second strategic move of their publicity campaign against the FMLN during the meeting of the IMF, World Bank, and the IDB in Prague, Czech Republic. The Technical Secretary of President and the Salvadoran Representative to the said IFIs internationally denounced the FMLN for blocking the ratification of the loans. The media, traditional and unconditional allies of the government, totally took up cause with the government's position collaborating with their intent to discredit the FMLN for the alleged “objection to development”. The next day, COENA, in an unprecedented move, ordered their bases to march against the FMLN.  However, nobody marched.

In a paid ad the FMLN clarified their position in regards to the approval of the loans and rejected the declarations of Flores and his cabinet.  In their proclamation the FMLN explained that in the face of the political economic failure of the government they looked to evade their responsibility to the people, accusing and blaming of their failures on the FMLN. In addition, the FMLN clarified the lie presented by Flores about having been dialoging with them for the last 14 months.  The ad states “It is absolutely false that he (Flores) has been dialoging and negotiating with the FMLN for 14 months in order to arrive at an agreement about foreign loans.”  Various loans have privatization as their destination—privatization of public education, public health care services, water that the majority of the population opposes.

For their part the government has not been able to give a clear answer to the opposition party about the destination of some of the funds that in their entirety exceed more than $312,500,000.00 (U.S.).  These thirteen loans will go towards the Ministry of Health, consultants for the Reform Program, the financial sector, ANDA, the Legislative Assembly, educational technology, and the Court of Creditors of the Republic. The FMLN has solicited evaluations of the projects, which are currently being carried out, and the response of the Executive, until the moment, has not sufficed. The government is frustrated. For months they have paying interests on the loans even though the money has not been disbursed. The FMLN has expressed their desire to modify the loans for the “modernization” of the public sector, the Minister of Health, and the reform of the electric plants because of the focus to privatize them.

The Government on the Offensive - Motivated to Distract the Population?

There are various interpretations of the governments attack on the opposition.  It definitely falls within a context in which the official party has been under tension due to internal conflicts.

Many people believe that the denouncements made by the president could be motivated by a strategy of shifting attention from the conflicts within the official party to the internal differences of the major opposition party.  In this context the government wanted to make the illusion that it is only the “Orthodox” sector of the FMLN that opposes the approval of the loans. In addition, the supposed “blockade” was being denounced in a time of economic stagnation, and the crisis of the health sector among other problems. It is a time of serious questioning of the government administration.  Based on these reasons one could conclude that the government is trying to dump responsibility on the opposition party for their own inadequate response to the demands of the population.

The actions of Flores have been characterized as a period of dominance, confrontation and government imposition. His announced “concertación” was never carried out.  However, he has now been obliged to dialogue with the opposition in order to ratify some of the loans that if they are not approved would mean the failure of his social policy and public inversion policy. For these reasons it is not strange that Flores complains about the set backs in the ratification of the loans.  Since the government has been losing the majority in the Legislative Assembly, spaces have opened in which it is now possible to verify for what exactly the loan money has been used for in the past and where the money is destined for with the current loans. In this manner, on October 6, the president met with the chairs of each political party represented in the Legislative Assembly.  They agreed that they would analyze together the budget for next year and the pending loans waiting for ratification. During the next two months they will be meeting every Friday to discuss themes of national interest, such as the loans, the budget, public investment, revision of the public debt, constitutional reforms and the creation of fiscal and national savings policies. Up until now, the FMLN has stated that they are ready to discuss 6 loans. “They are six loans that we are ready to work with because in those we can reach an quicker understanding”, stated Salvador Sánchez Cerén, Chair of the FMLN in the Legislative Assembly.  Presently, perhaps the most substantial gain has been that on October 17, they agreed to modify the mechanism to negotiate future loans from the IFIs. When the Executive takes steps for future loans they will look for the participation form the political parties. On October 16, Daboub declared that the government will modify whatever is necessary in order to obtain ratification of the credits.

Now that they are at the negotiating table the press has manipulated the situation in a different form – saying that the FMLN is “conditioning” their votes (which is the very political essence of the IFIs) on the governments acceptance of certain economic points proposed by the FMLN. Such points include reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba, the re-restructuring of agricultural loans, allotting 8% of the budget for the mayors, the elimination of the 13% IVA on medicine and basic food staples, and the application of the IVA based on a scale type system, etc. However, the FMLN is exercising an important right in proposing and asking for budget reports from ARENA since the government does not present detailed reports on the destination of the loans, there is evidence of past political use of the money, and that the loans and the interests are financed with taxes paid for primarily by citizens of low income.  Additionally, through this situation the reality behind the international loans has become more known.  At the root of these loans are the Structural Adjustment Programs that they place on “developing countries” as a condition to negotiate, or renegotiate loans on which, due to the same political economic structure, these countries develop.  Said programs have only caused more poverty to the countries of the third world.

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Ministry of Labor Finally Gives Legal Status to SUTTELL - Now CTE-TELECOM on the Attack

After the August 25th ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice in favor the workers of CTE-Telecom in which the Ministry of Labor was ordered to give legal status to the union, SUTTEL (formerly ASTTEL) had to confront the Ministry again.  Seemingly, the Ministry was prolonging the process as long as possible and according to reliable sources in the Ministry, the workers expressed that the situation was due to the Ministry acting on a direct order from CTE-Telecom.  SUTTEL then filed a new complaint against the Minister of Labor, Jorge Nieto, for negating the legal status.  The complaint was filed in the Supreme Court on October 11.  On Monday, October 23, the last day of the allocated period established by the order of the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Labor finally gave legal status to the union.  However, the union is still having problems, now directly with CTE-Telecom.

Members of SUTTEL have expressed that the union has had a high level of acceptance. Only after three months of the first Supreme Court ruling they have managed to affiliate 50% +1 of the employees.  Seemingly, this fact has intimidated the company who has acted against the union. In first place, the company has stated that the Minister of Labor of the legal formation of the union has not notified them.  In other words they do not recognize their existence and much less their legal status. Second, the person in charge of Human Resources, who apart from not recognizing the union, has verbally fired a member of the SUTTEL board of directors. The SUTTEL Secretary of Conflicts accompanied the fired member to explain how to the manager oHowever, the manager continued to reject the recognition of the union and maintained firm in his decision to fire the worker. The following day the worker was not allowed to enter work, the CTE-Telecom guards physically blocked him, even though he had not been formally fired (in writing).  This act is a violation of the right to organize and a violation of the Labor Code, which in Article 248 established that members of the board of directors of unions with legal status or that are in the process of obtaining legal status, cannot be fired.  Due to this situation it will probably be necessary to apply international pressure to denounce and protest the act that places in danger the fragile legalization process of the union.  The union is the only front of struggle for the worker of CTE-Telecom.

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The FMLN Celebrated Its 20th Anniversary on October 10th

October 10th marked the 20th anniversary of the FMLN - twelve years of clandestine operation during the Salvadoran armed conflict and eight years as a political party born from the Peace Accords.  The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front was born in October of 1980. Five organizations that worked for democratic and economic justice untied to form a front against the repression of the government, death squads and paramilitary groups. The five organizations that made up the FMLN were the Salvadoran Communist Party (PC), the Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP), the Popular Forces of Liberation (FPL), the Central American Worker's Revolutionary Party (PRTC) and the Armed Forces of the National Resistance (RN). The human price that the people paid was 80,000 dead and 8,000 disappeared. The large majority of which were victims of state and paramilitary state repression. In Latin America, the FMLN was considered a strong, well organized and well structured guerilla front with successful military strategies through which they placed the government between a rock and a hard place despite the government having received 6 billion dollars in military aid from the United States (6 billion is the "official" amount while it is believed around 12 billion is a more accurate statistic). The FMLN's success was largely due to the enormous social and popular support.  Currently, the FMLN is an important opposition party with a greater number of legislative deputies than the official government party and municipally governs 60% of the national population.

Within this framework, during the week of October 8th the anniversary was celebrated with various activities that included: a music festival in downtown San Salvador; the official celebration in a capital city hotel; the inauguration of the Farabundo Martí Institute of Political and Administrative Science; a historical museum; and a closing ceremony in the municipality of La Palma, Chalatenango during which they presented the Municipal Council with a title of nobility recognizing the historical location. On October 15th 1984 the municipality of La Palma was the site of the first peace dialogue between the government and leadership of the FMLN.  The week of festivities was marked by the presence of Left organizations from all of Latin America, socialist parties from Europe and representatives from Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Mexico and Venezuela.

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Amnesty Law Under Scope

Two Ex-Generals are on Trial for Covering Up the Murder of Three Nuns and a Lay Woman (1980) - Declared Innocent

On Tuesday October 10th the trial of two Salvadoran ex-generals, José Guillermo García y Vides Casanova, started in West Palm Beach, Florida. Both ex-generals are accused of covering up the assassinations of Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan.  The assassination of the four religious women took place on December 2nd, 1980 when six national guards intercepted them as they were returning from the International Airport.  After being abducted they were brought to an isolated location raped and then assassinated by shooting them at close range.  On May 23rd and 24th 1984 five members of the National Guard were found guilty of executing the four women and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The first day of the trial the defense made a petition - incorporate the declarations of Luis Antonio Colindres Alemán who stated to the press that the two ex-generals were innocent and that he was the intellectual author of the assassinations.  However, one of the prosecuting lawyers stated that the trial does not intend to prove that the two ex-generals gave the order to kill but rather it intends to establish that the two military leaders have responsibility for the actions of their subordinates and that they (the ex-generals) covered up the assassinations. At the time of the crime, José Guillermo García was Minister of Defense and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, was the General Director of the National Guard. In his declarations to the press, the sub-Sergeant Luis Antonio Colindres Alemán also said that the four victims were themselves intellectual authors of torture and the death of a ex-national guard whom he did not identify.

The declarations of Colindres contradict those of the rest of the other national guardsmen who have stated that they received superior orders to commit the crime. It was never revealed who gave the orders.

The ex-generals allege to be innocent and have a clear conscience.  According to them, the only thing that they've done has been, in a historic moment, defend El Salvador from an international aggression.

Government functionaries from the official party, such as President Flores, Vice-President Carlos Quintanilla Schmidt, the chair of the fraction of ARENA René Figueroa, the Minister of Interior Mario Acosta Oertel and the Director of the PNC Mauricio Sandoval have all demonstrated strong disagreement with the trial.  According to their declarations, the case of the religious women is a closed chapter.

The jury declared the ex-generals innocent on Friday, November 3rd, saying that they couldn’t control their troops.

Salvador Sánchez Cerén, ex-General Secretary and current Chair of the legislative fraction of the FMLN, when asked his opinion stated "The Government is guilty of not assuming the recommendations of the Truth Commission Report and illegitimatizing the Amnesty Law."

The Truth Commission Report and the General Amnesty Law

The signing of the Peace Accords in 1992 marked the end of the armed conflict between the FMLN and the government of El Salvador.  However, the peace process included a series of long-term agreements. One of them, the Mexico Agreement of 1991, established the creation of the "Truth Commission" which was to investigate the grave human rights violations that had occurred since 1980 "whose prints on society reclaim with the most urgency the public knowledge of the truth".

The Truth Commission Report officially released its report on March 15, 1993. This commission registered more than 22,000 complaints of grave acts of violence that had occurred between January 1980 and July 1991. The FMLN was responsible of 5% of the registered complaints while agents of the state (the armed forces and security forces), paramilitary organization aligned with the state, and death squads were responsible for 95% of the violations.

Three days after the publication of the Report, then president Cristiani addressed the public over television and radio pressuring for immediate and general amnesty to cover all those mentioned in the report. The Legislative Assembly approved the “General Amnesty Law for the Consolidation of Peace” March 20th, 1993 - five days after the public release of the Truth Commission Report. In addition to covering political crime and common crime connected with political persons, the law also covered crimes of the judicial system such as the judicial resolutions that clearly contradicted the law or proven facts, bribery of jurors and inadequate representation of clients.

Supreme Court Rules on the Constitutionality of the Law

October 3rd, the Supreme Court made public their ruling on the two cases of the unconstitutionality of the General Amnesty Law.  At first look the ruling appears to be ambivalent.  On one hand, they declared that the General Amnesty Law is constitutional. But on the other hand, they established certain criteria of exception in which cases the General Amnesty Law cannot be applied.  These criteria are:

Revising the Constitution one would find Article 244 which states:  "The violation, infraction, or alteration of the constitutional mandates will be especially punished by law, and the civil or criminal responsibilities in which public functionaries, civil or military, incur will not admit amnesty, barter or pardon during the presidential period in which they were committed.”

Studying the ruling and interpreting the Constitution you can conclude that the magistrates, in a certain meaning, ruled based on the Constitution. Their ruling is based on the Constitution because Article 244 had already established that infractions of the Constitutional provisions will only be valid under amnesty if they are not committed by public functionaries and if they are committed by public functionaries, amnesty is not valid for the crimes committed during the same presidential period in which the amnesty law was approved. Which is to say, in this case, amnesty applies to the infractions that the FMLN had incurred during the armed conflict because they were not public functionaries. Amnesty is applicable to crimes committed by public functionaries that were committed before the presidential period of Cristiani (1989-1994) those committed during that period are not.  For example, the murder of the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter are not valid under the amnesty law.

However, what can be perceived is the intention to confuse the ruling. Government functionaries and the  media have presented that the Amnesty Law is complete, always valid, and unconditionally constitutional which is not true.  They have taken advantage of the ambivalent decision of the Supreme Court. In practicality, the Supreme Court magistrates left the decision of determining what is applicable under amnesty and what is not to the judges. As a result, they also left open the possibility to the Attorney General's Office to legally proceed in those cases in which amnesty is not considered applicable.

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The Global Economic Crisis Strangles El Salvador

"In both the South and East, the compression of living standards since the early 1980s (not to mention the breakdown of institutions) has been considerably greater than that experienced by the rich countries during the 1930s"

- Michel Chossudovsky

El Salvador's economic crisis is not a unique situation, it is part of the global economic crisis. No one region of the world is alone in these times of economic despair.  Generally, two contradictory forces characterize the global economic crisis. One is the fortifying of a cheap labor economy and the other is the search for new consumer markets. In the creation of "new markets" the national market -- domestic production for domestic needs -- is destroyed.

Relatively few global corporations control the global neo-liberal economy. They utilize macro-economic reforms to maintain and further carry out their economic control. International Financial Institutions (IFIs) -- i.e. the WTO, World Bank, IMF or IDB-- along with military interventions assure that the "reforms" are carried out and that the structure is not broken. (It is important to note the IFIs are regulatory bodies, they respond to interests of the controllers.)  Some of the macro-economic "reforms" (many of the concepts of "reforms" are not new at all, the structure of this model has been around a while although now it is much more consolidated) that characterize the global economy are: the dollarization of domestic prices; deindexation of wages; destabilizing a nations public finances; debt payment; collapse of state investment; price liberalization; trade liberalization; privatization of state enterprises; tax reform; deregulation of the banking system; liberalizing capital movement; restructuring of the health sector; and export promotion. (Although the masters of the global economy use “liberal” rhetoric, we are also in a time of unprecedented intervention as the WTO has the power to override national laws and strong national security apparatus' are needed to quell the hungry masses.)  The results of these "reforms" have been the destruction of the national economy, enlargement of the debt, hiked domestic prices, increased communicable diseases, world unemployment, declining wages, compression of consumer spending and increased luxury consumption by a select few -- all of which leads to increasing global poverty.

As stated earlier, El Salvador is part of the global economy and these causes and effects are playing themselves out within El Salvador resulting in an economic crisis.

The Salvadoran Context

The result of all these policies combined is economic crisis.  The economic growth has dropped to only 1.6%. Inflation has risen 3.6% and the value of the imports almost doubles the value of exports leaving an ever-increasing deficit. Recently, the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUSADES) released the findings of one of its polls which revealed that 45% of the population believes that the economy is worse than the year before.

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