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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

Contents:                                                                                      

FEATURES:

CIS NEWS:

BRIEFS:

Community Radio Building Democracy in El Salvador

Media ownership in El Salvador is highly concentrated. In some communities, local radio stations have arisen in response to mainstream coverage that is right-biased, pro-government and lacks local relevance. These community based efforts have shown themselves to be crucial democratic spaces in communities that are poor, under represented, and seldom heard. 

SOA and ILEA: Two Prongs of the Same Strategy

The month of July saw the inauguration of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador, a largely-US government run institution dedicated to training police offers from all over the Americas. The official silence around the Academy’s establishment, as well as its prior rejection by the governments of both Costa Rica and Panama, has many concerned that the ILEA will train police in repressive tactics much as the School of the Americas did throughout the Cold War.

Inter-American Human Rights Court Rules Against the Salvadoran State

In a sentence handed down on March 1, 2005 the Inter-American Human Rights Court found the Salvadoran State responsible for the disappearance of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, who were separated from their family in 1982 during a military operation in the rural province of Chalatenango. The sentence dictated 9 steps that the State must follow in providing reparations to the Serrano family an all other families that lost children during the 12-year-long civil war.

Implementation of Micro-Credit Program for Women

In conjunction with the US-based Salvadoran Enterprises for Women (SEW) the CIS has launched a program to provide training and micro-credit to rural women. The program has the dual goal of providing the participants with supplementary income, as well as encouraging them to organize themselves to better advocate for themselves and their communities.  To date, three different municipalities have groups of women receiving training and credit to produce natural medicines and beauty products, raise chickens, and run a clothesmaking shop through this program.

Sinti Techan Network and CIS organize workshop in Zaragosa

The Sinti Techan Network, through its member organizations, is organizing a series of workshops about the impact of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on agriculture, labor rights, and access to water. The June 23 workshop held in the municipality of Zaragosa explored the impact of CAFTA on agriculture.

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Building real democracy means fighting against economic, cultural, and political exclusion. To maintain this fight, communities need to be organized. Small rural communities in El Salvador are among the most excluded and marginalized groups in the country. They often live off little or no income apart from family remittances. In order to organize and fight against this marginalization they need effective means to communicate among themselves and with larger society. This means having spaces to create and celebrate their culture and identity, as well as publicly reflect on and analyze their reality. Against all odds, community radio stations throughout El Salvador are opening these spaces and creating possibilities for social change. 

 One of the greatest challenges faced by these stations and the communities they serve is the domination of the corporate media. This concentrated ownership block is characterized by preference for profits over journalistic integrity, pre-packaged foreign produced programming over locally produced material, a clear right wing bias, and a total absence of democratic participation. The TCS Company, owned by Boris Esersky, runs the three major non-cable TV stations in El Salvador, which hold a 90% block of the TV audience. Researchers Rockwell and Janus observe that, “Erersky is a media Caudillo, whose government connections shaped the current Salvadoran broadcast spectrum and kept forces disloyal to the government from buying ad space with most Salvadoran broadcasters.” 

For TV viewers who have access to cable, other stations are available. A large majority of these are owned by the MegaVisiòn group, which shows a clear preference for programming produced by transnational media giants such as MTV, Nickelodeon, and TV Chile, over local produced programming. This preference was dramatically demonstrated by the discontinuation of the interview show “Sin Censura” (Uncensored) that discussed political themes of popular interest.  As of 2002, an estimated 81.9% of all programming that appeared on Salvadoran television was foreign produced.  

In print media the vista is just as bleak. There are two major daily morning papers in fierce competition, La Prensa Grafica and El Diario de Hoy, that both publish smaller papers with a narrower scope. However, the competition does not go beyond a commercial rivalry; they are virtual ideological twins, characterized by sensationalism and a clear right of center bias. There is a very noteworthy exception in the realm of print: CoLatino, a co-operatively owned paper that supports social organizations in El Salvador and is critical of the right wing ARENA government. CoLatino, however, has a limited readership in comparison to its larger rivals. The paper has managed to survive over the years, despite perpetually limited resources and repression (their office was burned down twice during the civil war).

A population’s access to television and print media is often related to its socio-economic status and geographical location. This is more evident in the case of print media than television in El Salvador. All three daily papers, for example, are based in San Salvador, which means they have a very limited circulation in the rural areas outside of the capital. Coupled with higher rates of illiteracy amongst rural communities, print media becomes an extremely limited medium for distributing information. Television, in comparison, seems to have reached even the most remote hamlets.

In this context, radio becomes a powerful and effective response to the corporate media monolith. Currently there are over 17 community radio stations throughout El Salvador that unite under the banner of Association of Participatory Radios and Programs of El Salvador (ARPAS). Each member radio is unique in its character and in the relationship to its community, yet they unite in a federation model with the common vision “to be a network of community radios and centers of radio communication that promote democratization through participatory communication in conjunction with organizations and networks that fight for comprehensive human development.”  Another stated goal is “to influence public policy and the critical consciousness of the people.”

Apart from acting as a legal representative of the member stations, ARPAS has a production studio in the capital and broadcasts via satellite a national and international news program, produced collectively by the member stations.

Despite the fact that Article Six of the Salvadoran Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression and communication, these radio stations have had a long struggle to achieve the right to legally operate. The now privatized telecommunications commission of El Salvador, ANTEL, insisted on categorizing community radio stations as clandestine, pirate, and a threat to public stability. As a result they consistently denied them licenses. Through massive public pressure, however, which included national publicity campaigns, pressure on the legislature, and citizen mobilizations throughout the country, ANTEL was forced to give licenses to the ARPAS stations.

Much current alternative radio in El Salvador has roots in the 12-year civil war (1980-1992). In a political climate in which journalists were assassinated, newspaper offices bombed, and a general culture of silence imposed by government supported death squads, two clandestine radio stations emerged among the insurgent Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) forces. Radio Venceremos was affiliated with the Popular Revolutionary Army (ERP) faction of the FMLN, while Radio Farabundo Marti was a project of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL). Both operated under the nose of the heavily armed, US supported, national army. Broadcasting from underground rebel camps in the mountains, these stations served an important strategic role in the civil war.

Perhaps more importantly the presence of an alternative voice helped to break the culture of silence and misinformation. The stations became an extremely important source of information for the international press. They served to denounce grave violations of human rights, to breakdown demoralization and isolation, building solidarity both domestically and internationally, and to build critical consciousness amongst the Salvadoran population.

The legacy left by Radio Venceremos and Radio Farabundo Marti is being recuperated and carried forward by the network of community radio stations in El Salvador. One of the founders and principal members of the Radio Venceremos crew, Carlos Enrique Consalvi, better known by his on air pseudonym Santiago, remarked “I believe that the community radios have best understood and collected what was and what is Radio Venceremos …in each one of their communities they are the media closest to the population; they know the needs of the people and they mobilize for historical memory events … they fulfil a role that obviously commercial radio will never be able to because it’s aim is merely commercial and totally removed from the needs of the most excluded and poor communities of the country.”

Radio Victoria, one of the founding members of ARPAS, is a vibrant example of the possibilities of community radio. Located in the province of Cabañas in the Northeast of the country, the station was originally created to serve the community of Santa Marta, a poor rural community that was repopulated after the signing of the peace accords, but has subsequently expanded to cover neighboring Ciudad Victoria and Sensuntepeque. Radio Victoria is run by youth from the local communities and proudly boasts participation from a wide range of community groups throughout the region including church youth groups, children’s groups, a committee against AIDS, and local community development organizations.

The station makes itself available for community members to come in and make announcements, raise questions, or denounce local problems on air. By broadcasting and helping to organize local forums and through the production of programs of political analysis, the station promotes debate, critical consciousness, and organization in the region. Furthermore, the news crew, composed primarily by youth between the age of 16 and 24, produces a local news program that deals with local issues that would normally duck below the radar screen of commercial media outlets.  

Community-based, non-profit, participatory radio in El Salvador serves another important function that commercial media outlets will never be able to serve: the creation and maintenance of historical memory. For the commercial media the war and El Salvador’s long history of oppression and popular resistance that preceded it, are memories that would be better left behind. There are, however, many sectors of Salvadoran society that realize that progress for the future must be rooted in an intimate knowledge of the past. Community radio stations throughout El Salvador are working to ensure true Salvadoran history is not forgotten by accompanying the people in reclaiming spaces to tell their stories, to speak and be heard, and by giving new generations possibilities to create their own identity and culture. 

At the commencement of the Organization of American States (OAS) meeting this past June 5^th, Condoleezza Rice announced US plans to create an International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador. If the plans go through, the academy would be the fifth US coordinated ILEA, with others already established in New Mexico, Thailand, Hungary, and Botswana. The ostensible purpose of the academy is to train various police forces throughout the Americas, to the end of coordinating security efforts in areas of anti-terrorism, drug trafficking, and gang activity. The lack of public transparency around their functioning, however, makes it nearly impossible to evaluate the activities of these academies.

The Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudswoman, Dr. Beatrice de Carrillo stated that “the construction of the Academy would mean the total lack of sovereignty of our country.”  Along with the US military base at Comalapa International Airport, the presence of Salvadoran troops in Iraq, and the passage of CAFTA, the construction of an US operated police academy in El Salvador makes clear the Salvadoran Government’s willingness to sacrifice sovereignty in response to US interests.           

President Antonio Saca stated that “All Salvadorans should feel proud that the United States has chosen us.” He conveniently left out that El Salvador was not the first country chosen for the establishment of the ILEA. The academy was originally to be built in Costa Rica, but massive popular opposition detained it.  One of the crucial factors in derailing the US-Costa Rican agreement was the US refusal to exclude military and ex-military personnel as potential teaching staff.

History demonstrates that US involvement in Latin America’s security comes at the expense of human rights. In Central America alone, US trained security forces have left a long trail of grave human rights abuses. Some examples include: the CIA orchestrated overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala in 54’, the Contra forces in Nicaragua during the 80’s, and deaths squads and infamous Atlacatl battalion here in El Salvador during the civil war. 

Although Rice announced the institution as if it had already been built, and it is rumored to have already begun training police from El Salvador, Mexico and Colombia, the agreement has not yet been ratified by the Salvadoran congress and thus can be stopped. The government has yet to make the bill available to legislators, ostensibly in an attempt to push it through at the last minute without any public debate.

The US insistence on having military trainers at the academy strongly suggests an effort to remilitarize the region’s police forces. As pressure has mounted over the past decade to close down the infamous School of the Americas, Washington seems to be looking for other tactics to protect its interests in Latin America. In El Salvador, this poses a threat to the fragile peace gained in the 1992 Peace Accords, one central gain of which was the demilitarization of the nation’s security forces. 

In a historic turn of events, the Inter-American human rights court passed a sentence condemning the Salvadoran state for having violated human rights in the case of the Serrano Cruz Sisters. The court, founded in 1979 as a judicial body to uphold the inter-American convention on human rights, has jurisdiction over the 25 member states that have ratified its charter (the US remains conspicuously absent).

Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz remain unfound, 23 years after being forcefully separated from their family while fleeing “Operacion Limpieza” (cleaning operation). In June 1982, Operacion Limpieza brought 14,000 soldiers to the rural area of northwest Chaletenango Province, executing a scorched earth policy designed to destroy the guerrilla support base among the civilian population. The majority of the families in the area had to flee. The sisters were allegedly found by army officers and taken to the provincial capital, Chalatenago. Several witnesses have testified to having seen army officers give the girls to Red Cross officials in Chalatenago. This is the last known information about their whereabouts. There are 46 other documented cases of children that shared the same fate during Operacion Limpieza, but many more remain undocumented.

The sentence in the Serrano case is the culmination of a long struggle for justice on the part of the girls’ family. After the Peace Accords were signed in 1992, a group of mothers of disappeared children presented their cases to the Truth Commission. The commission’s final report, however, did not contain any information regarding the disappeared children. In 93’ Victoria Cruz Franco, mother of the disappeared Serrano sisters, denounced the kidnapping of her daughters to two municipal judicial institutions, only to have the case rejected by both. In 1999 with the help of the Association in Search of Disappeared Boys and Girls (Pro-Busqueda) and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) Victoria presented her case to the Inter-American commission on Human Rights in Washington D.C. The commission passed a condemnatory sentence in March 2003, but with no binding jurisdiction the sentence accomplished little.

The Commission, however, presented the case to the Inter-American Human Rights Court on June 14, 2003. The trial took place on September 7th and 8th 2004. The Court published two separate decisions. The first, published November 23, 2004, declared that the court could not render judgment on actions of the Salvadoran State committed before June 6, 1995, the date that they accepted the jurisdiction of the court. The second decision, however, stated that the Salvadoran state had violated the Serrano Cruz’s family’s rights to judicial guarantees, judicial protection, and personal integrity (articles 8.1, 25, and 5 respectively of the Inter-American Human Rights Convention). This ruling was possible despite the initial November 2004 resolution because the Court ruled that they had jurisdiction over the case because the girls were never found (i.e. the case was not closed).

The court decision dictates 9 steps that the Salvadoran government is required to follow to assuage the damage caused to the Serrano Cruz family and to move towards more permanent solutions for families that were separated during the civil war. This includes the formation of a National Commission to search for children that disappeared during the civil war. The commission is to include civil society and must create a website and a DNA database to help facilitate the search process. Furthermore, the state must publicly recognize its responsibility in the case and create a national day for the disappeared children.

CIS News:

The women of the community la Chila, in the Municipality of Comasagua, Department of La Libertad, are learning to make natural medicine and beauty products. The goal of the training is to provide them with supplemental income from the sale of the products, as well as savings (from income that would otherwise have to be spent on medicine or hygiene products).

The project in La Chila is part of a new program at the CIS, which in conjunction with US-based Salvadoran Enterprises for Women (SEW) is providing training to women in rural communities on how to run a small business. While women from several communities in Comasagua are learning to make the natural medicines and beauty products, residents of other communities in the municipalities of San Rafael Cedros and San Francisco Chinameca are using their training to raise chickens and create a clothing shop. Women in the municipality of Suchitoto are making candy, jellies and embroidered goods.

 The new in-country coordinator of SEW, Ester Alvarenga, says that an equally, if not more important goal of the project is to encourage women to organize themselves. For this reason, she has been visiting all of the communities that have received training and/or credit to give workshops on social organization.  The outcome of the project therefore is not just limited to the women reaping financial benefit from their micro-businesses, but also includes their uniting among themselves to advocate for their interests and those of their communities.

The group assembled in the Corinto daycare center in the municipality of Zaragoza (Department of La Libertad) laughed heartily when Nidia Hidalgo of the Salvadoran Ecological Union (UNES) asked them how much they received annually in government subsidies.

“They don’t give farmers anything,” added a gentleman seated toward the back.

They laughed even harder when she asked how many tractors they had.

The workshop, hosted jointly by the CIS and the Sinti Techan Network, explored the likely impact of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on Salvadoran agriculture.   The workshop opened with a reflection on how agriculture has changed over the last 20 years. The conclusion reached was that fewer people are producing because it is less economically viable. Hidalgo pointed out that this means that every year larger and larger amounts of food are bought from other countries.

Several participants also commented on the reduction in the diversity of some products, namely corn. Hybrid and genetically modified (GM) seeds have come to supplant the production of many traditional species.

Hidalgo used this realization to discuss how CAFTA will formally legalize the entry of genetically modified seeds, at the same time expanding intellectual property rights over both traditional and GM plants.

The final portion of the workshop was dedicated to small group reflections on specific impacts of CAFTA on agriculture and the resultant social fallout. Participants were then asked to converse regarding potential alternatives.

The workshop is part of a series of on CAFTA that the Sinti Techan network is conducting through its member organizations. In addition to agriculture, the workshops will focus on labor rights and access to water.

Briefs:

Fired workers stage hunger strike

On July 7, 2005 eight workers fired from the Salvadoran postal office and penal system ended a hunger strike that they had maintained for 37 days outside the metropolitan cathedral. The workers are demanding their reinstatement or severance payment after being dismissed in December 2004 along with 106 other workers. The majority had been working in their positions for 20 years or more. Beatrice Carrillo, the Human Rights Ombudswoman, made a public request to President Antonio Saca that he respond to the workers demands. “This is a great tragedy. We can not permit this to continue, the Legislative Assembly has to intervene in the labor condition of thousands of workers,” remarked Carrillo. Upon leaving the Cathedral, the eight striking workers were accompanied by friends, family, and fellow workers form the General Union Association of Public and Municipal Workers (APEGYM) and from the Union of Women Workers in a march to the Legislative Assembly. There they submitted a letter to the Assembly demanding severance pay for the 114 workers fired. Due to the weak physical state of the striking workers, they had to be carried on stretchers throughout the march. (Sources: AP, 7/8/05; Co Latino 6/4/05, 6/6/05, 6/13/05)

CAFTA Passed

On Tuesday, August 2, 2005, President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) into law. The trade measure had passed the Senate in early July by a vote of 54-45: considered a slight margin for the usually pro-free trade Senate. On July 28, the measure passed the House by an even tighter margin of 217-215, but only after an extended period of lobbying and promising congresspersons opposed to CAFTA infrastructure projects in their districts.  Congresswomen Melissa Bean on CAFTA, attempted to justify her decision to vote in favor of CAFTA, “By eliminating nearly $1 billion per year in foreign taxes on the U.S. –produced goods of medical device makers like Baxter Healthcare, pharmaceutical companies like Abbott Labs, aerospace firms like Boeing and technology companies like Motorola, CAFA will help them expand their market access, thereby growing and creating more jobs here at home.”   She went on to argue the benefits for Kraft, Pepsi-Cola, Mars, and biomedical industries.   While once again the “rights” of transnationals to make profits won out over the survival and dignity of workers in the U.S. and Central America, many are interpreting the Bush administration’s strong arm tactics, that were needed in order to approve the measure, an indication of waning support for the free-trade model.  Indeed, when Administration officials could not win the argument in an economic framework, they stooped to say that CAFTA was a measure for national security and part of the plan against terrorism.  While 15 Democrats supported the measure, 27 Republicans opposed it. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are the only other nations to have ratified the measure to date. The Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Nicaragua have to ratify it within the next two years.  The Administration will have to again make their argument next for the approval of AFTA – the Andean Free Trade Agreement – in a region more organized and more resistant to neo-liberal economics. (Sources: San Francisco Chronicle, 8/3/05; Houston Chronicle, 8/2/05)

Daniel Parsons-Moss, a communications student at Antioch College and 2005 summer intern at the CIS, helped to research and write this edition of the CIS Bulletin.

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