Tim's El Salvador Blog

Deep flaws in criminal justice system says UN

2012-02-07T07:18:00.000-06:00

The United Nations issued a report last week pointing to the serious problems in El Salvador's criminal justice system:

2 February 2012 – A United Nations expert human rights panel has voiced concern about the right to security impinging on the right to be free from arbitrary detention in El Salvador, as well as extreme overcrowding in prisons and police facilities in the Central American nation.

Wrapping up a 10-day mission to the country, the five-member UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also highlighted the lack of written notification of sentences to the defendant and the lack of effective access to defence counsel.

Another concern was the “over-reliance on informers and testimony by opportunistic witnesses,” the Group said in a news release issued in the capital, San Salvador.

“This practice not only affects the credibility of testimonies due to the incentives offered, but also jeopardizes the fairness of the judicial process as the procedure of cross-examination is often not made possible,” said the Group’s Chair-Rapporteur, El Hadji Malick Sow.Prisoners who were interviewed privately complained of the invasive and humiliating searches faced, including of their relatives and lawyers, introduced since the armed forces were charged with security in prisons.

The Group questioned the effectiveness of the judiciary, particularly concerning the right to be brought promptly before a judge. “The fact that some individuals wait eight years for an appeal, with minimal intervention from judges, is disconcerting,” said Mr. Sow. (more).

Residential voting

2012-02-05T08:12:00.001-06:00

In my last post I described the changed rules for electing deputies to the National Assembly. Another change for the 2012 elections will be a significant expansion of residential voting. Residential voting simply refers to having polling places which are closer to where people actually live. Currently people are assigned to polling places which may or may not be the closest site to their home.

There will be residential voting in nine departments in the eastern and central parts of the country: Cuscatlán, Cabanas, Usulután, San Miguel, La Paz, San Vicente, La Union, Morazán, Chalatenango as well as the cities of San Salvador and Santa Tecla. This expansion of residential voting will cover approximately half the population. More voting centers will be set up in rural communities closer to people than the actual municipality's center. In the cities, people will vote in their neighborhoods rather than being assigned a voting center alphabetically according to their last name.

Our friends at Voices on the Border describe the positive impacts seen in the pilot program for residential voting in the department of Cuscatlán:

The program had a positive effect on voter participation. In the 2004 presidential elections, 70 percent of Salvadorans on the Electoral Register in Cuscatlán cast a vote compared a national average of 67 percent. In the 2006 parliamentary elections, Cuscatlán had 63.5 percent electoral participation compared to a national average of 54 percent. In 2009, the pilot program in Cuscatlán had 65.5 percent participation in parliamentary elections and 71.5 percent participation in presidential elections compared to 54 and 63 percent respectively on the national level. While national participation remained the same or fell, participation in Cuscatlán, already higher than the national average, rose in both presidential and parliamentary elections.

Additionally, the program is expected to facilitate voting access for many of the most vulnerable members of Salvadoran society, including the elderly, persons with disabilities, and those without the financial means to travel a longer distance.

When voting centers are closer to home, it is also more difficult for political interests to perpetrate electoral fraud by bringing in people from other communities, or as has been alleged in previous elections, from Honduras or Nicaragua. Citizens are more able to police the voting registry and identify people that are not from their community.

For those with internet access, the TSE has set up an online form which lets any Salvadoran learn where his or her polling place will be this year. For everyone else, an educational effort is needed to make sure voters know if and where their polling place has been changed.

Residential voting is supposed to cover the entire country for the 2014 presidential elections. It's a good reform to make Salvadoran democracy more participatory.

The new voting rules

2012-02-04T10:00:00.000-06:00

El Salvador has national elections approaching on March 11. Salvadorans will be going to the polls to elect mayors and to elect deputies to the National Assembly. The rules have changed this year as a result of decisions by the Salvadoran constitutional court. For the first time, independent candidates can run for election to the National Assembly. Also for the first time, voters can express their preferences for individual candidates from the slate assembled by a particular party.

Here's a review of the changed process. Each department within the country is allocated a certain number of seats in the 84 seat National Assembly according to its population. So, for example, the populous San Salvador department has 25 deputies and the less populous San Miguel department has 6 deputies.

Each seat in the department has a vote quota equal to the total number of votes cast in the department divided by the number of seats. To use round numbers, if 1 million votes were cast in San Salvador department to allocate 25 seats, the quota would be 40,000 (1 million / 25). A political party would then receive one seat in the National Assembly for each 40,000 votes it receives. So, in our example, if ARENA received 400,000 votes, it would receive 10 seats in the National Assembly from San Salvador.

Under the prior system, the voters could not vote for individual deputies; they voted only for the political party. The ballot for deputies to the National Assembly was simply a series of party logos, and the voter marked the logo of the party for whom he wishes to elect deputies to the National Assembly.

The parties would develop their slate of deputies for each department, and rank those deputies from 1 to the total number elected in the department (25 in San Salvador for example). If the FMLN won sufficient votes for 12 seats, the top 12 names on its list become the deputies. There were no independent candidates.

Under the new system, voters will be able to vote for individual party candidates and for independent candidates, but with a series of limitations that the parties in the National Assembly adopted to minimize the impact of the court rulings which opened up the vote.

Here's what an example ballot looks like:

You can mark your ballot in several ways:

Mark the banner of one party
Mark the pictures of one or more candidates from the same party
Mark the banner of one party and mark the pictures of one or more candidates of that same party
Mark the picture of one independent candidate

Your ballot is void and will not be counted if you vote in any of these ways:

Mark the pictures of candidates in more than one party
Mark the banners of more than one party
Mark the banner of one party and a candidate in a different party
Mark an independent candidate and mark any other candidate or banner
Mark two or more independent candidates

You can see if you follow these rules by practicing with an online voting game which the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) created at this link.

Remember that there are two allocations being made by these votes. First -- of the available seats in a department, how many are allocated to each party. Second -- of the seats which a party won, which candidates will fill those seats. Voting for an individual on a party ticket allows the voters choose how to allocate the seats a party wins, rather than the party leadership.

With respect to independent candidates, as I understand it, they will get a seat in the Assembly if they receive at least the number of votes equal to the share for one deputy. To return to our example of the 25 deputies in San Salvador, a independent candidate must receive at least 1/25th of the total votes cast in order to win a seat.

It's confusing, and much more complicated than the prior system of simply putting an "X" on your favorite party flag. Unfortunately, as of today, the TSE has not started a campaign to provide voter information about these changes. ContraPunto describes internal squabbles within the TSE blocking the start of an information campaign. With some 40% of Salvadorans saying they do not know about these election changes, and probably a higher percentage not knowing the rules for casting a valid ballot, various civil society organizations are trying to start an educational effort to fill the void left by the TSE.

I'm predicting some chaotic situations on election day. There will be a much larger number of void ballots than in prior elections and many disputes at the election tables as the votes are counted that night.

Look for much more coverage of the elections in the coming weeks.

El Salvador's gangs

2012-01-27T22:13:00.000-06:00

Central to any discussion of crime and violence in El Salvador is the role of the maras or street gangs. They are a major contributor to the epidemic of murder, extortion and other crime afflicting the country. Researcher Sonja Wolf sets out the scale of the problem in a recent article titled The Maras: An Escalating Problem in El Salvador for the Latin America Bureau.

Wolf describes the gangs' lifeblood - extortion:

Extortions constitute the gangs' chief source of income. Initially they approached community residents for comparatively small sums, but over the years the shakedowns have become more extensive and sophisticated. Mano Dura, which entailed the large-scale incarceration of gang youths and especially leaders, required street-based members to collect more funds to support their detained peers and hire defence lawyers. Extortions had been coordinated from within the prisons until stricter security measures made it more difficult to smuggle in mobile phones. The gangs have since changed their modus operandi, often dispatching children to deliver the extortion request to victims.
Nowadays shopkeepers, market vendors, teachers, and sex workers operating in gang territories all need to make regular payments, but public transport companies are particularly affected. Each year dozens of bus drivers are murdered and buses burnt in order to enforce extortion demands. In June 2010, Dieciocho members killed the driver and fare collector of a microbus and subsequently set fire to the fully-loaded unit, burning 17 passengers alive and injuring 14 more. Route 47, servicing the Mejicanos municipality in Greater San Salvador, had been exclusively extorted by MS-13, but when the Dieciocho sought to gain a share of the business, hostilities between the local cliques ensued and culminated in the bus massacre. The maras make millions of dollars annually, profits that are laundered through loans to shopkeepers or investments in microbuses and night clubs. These entertainment venues in turn are sites of further criminal activities, notably the extortion of other establishments and drug sales.

In the rest of the article, she details the involvement of the gangs in schools, in the drug trade, and in widespread instances of rape of girls in gang territory. For a fuller treatment of the gangs in El Salvador, consider getting a copy of Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America, where Sonja Wolf has a chapter devoted to El Salvador's gangs.

Threats and violence continue against Salvadoran environmentalists

2012-01-25T16:05:00.000-06:00

A guest post by Danielle Mackey and Theodora Simon.

Violence and intimidation continue in El Salvador against environmental activists and defenders of human rights who have publically opposed metallic mining. The latest round of threats was focused against a Salvadoran Catholic priest, Father Neftalí Ruiz, and a community radio station, Radio Victoria.

Fr. Ruiz, the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Cabañas Environmental Committee and a member of the National Working Group against Metallic Mining (“The Mesa,”) was attacked on January 20th, when he opened his home to a group of supposed university students who had expressed interest in his work. The two young people then tied him up at gunpoint and proceeded to search the files on his computer. They left the home with the computer and media storage devices, but did not take anything else of value. The young men stated numerous times during the assault that they were looking for information and made several calls to a third party while searching the computer to report their findings.

Environmentalists detailed the events and their evaluations of the continuing violence against the community at a press conference held by the Mesa on Tuesday, January 24th “These acts are meant to intimidate us so as to weaken our resistance,” emphasized David Pereira of the Investment and Commerce Investigation Center (CEICOM).

Alluding to past cases in which the Attorney General and police have blamed cases of death threats and violence against activists on common delinquency, gang violence or interpersonal conflict, Father Ruiz declared that he knows no one with a motive to hurt him for any such reason. “The only work I do is to defend Mother Nature, to preach the Gospel, and denounce injustices.”

In the five murder cases to have hit the environmentalist community, material authors were quickly rounded up and prosecuted, but there exists significant evidence to suggest that they were hired assassins. In the most recent death, in which an environmentalist college student named Juan Francisco Duran Ayala was executed on a community basketball court, Fr. Ruiz served as a spokesperson at the exhumation of the young man’s cadaver. In none of the cases of aggression against the community — which the community fears will not end with last week’s attack on Fr. Ruiz — have intellectual authors been identified by the authorities.

The robbery and attack on Fr. Neftali is not the only recent case of violence and intimidation against defenders of human rights: members of Radio Victoria in Cabañas are also receiving a wave of death threats via email. Radio staff, who have been adamant in defending human and environmental rights through their work in community media, have also been subjected to multiple rounds of death threats throughout the past few years. According to the press release published by the Mesa, this latest round seems to be connected to party politics. “Last week the mayor of Victoria put up a large ARENA party flag in the middle of Santa Marta, which made a lot of people angry because of past history; ARENA's connections to death squads, military force and repression as well as implementing policies that favored big businesses and the wealthy elite during the 20 years they ran the government,” explained radio founder Cristina Starr in an email to radio supporters last week.

A few days after three bus-loads of residents of Santa Marta protested in Victoria, Radio staff began to again receive threats via email and nocturnal visits to their remote rural homes. “You all can imagine how this wears on us,” Starr wrote. “Radio members cannot go and stay in their homes, they cannot be with their families and they always have to be wary and careful wherever they go and whatever they do.”

There is concern among the environmentalist community that the pattern of superficial investigation will hold true with these most recent cases as well. “We are demanding that the Attorney General of the Republic and the PNC (Civilian National Police) investigate (these cases) seriously. I say ‘seriously’ because there have been other attacks and even assassinations with which we’re unsatisfied with the investigation results presented by the Attorney General,” explained Pereira. The concerns of the activists are substantiated by the outputs of the Salvadoran justice system: a United Nations Development Program report from 2007 found that only 14% of cases enter the judicial system, and only 3.8% are ever fully prosecuted, with the guilty party brought to justice.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes recently asked for forgiveness for past human rights atrocities and called for a “peace with justice,” during the recent celebration of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords that ended the Salvadoran Civil War. The cases of Fr. Ruiz and Radio Victoria present continuing human rights violations left stagnant in this country’s current justice system. The environmentalist community believes that this situation leaves human rights defenders vulnerable. “We have shown that in our country, it is a crime to defend the interests of the vast majority,” manifested Catholic Bishop Monsignor Francisco Sol in yesterday’s press conference.

As they continue to resist metallic mining and promote human rights despite the threatening climate, activists question how long the impunity will reign. “I ask the National Civilian Police and the Attorney General, what are they going to do in this case? Since 2008…I have reported death threats,” expressed Fr. Neftali in yesterday’s press conference. “What are they waiting for? For there to be more deaths, more bloodshed?”

[Footnote from Tim -- a reader asked me to clarify that Fr. Neftali and Bishop Francisco Sol are members of the Salvadoran Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAS) and not the Roman Catholic Church, although both churches oppose the expansion of metallic mining in El Salvador]

More military men in charge of El Salvador's police

2012-01-24T21:41:00.000-06:00

On Monday Mauricio Funes replaced the civilian head of the National Police (PNC) with retiring general Francisco Ramón Salinas Rivera. This came just a few months after Funes had named another former general, David Munguía Payés, as the Minister of Public Security. Earlier, a third military officer was placed as second in command in the state intelligence unit.

The appointment of Salinas out of the armed forces to be in charge of internal policing and security matters was promptly criticized by the FMLN the BBC reports:

"The choice of General Salinas is another step towards the dismantlement of the democratic and civilian doctrine behind our public security, and openly contravenes the peace accords and the constitution," the FMLN said in a statement.

The FMLN argues that no member of the military should head the police, a force it says is defined as civilian in the constitution.

Human rights groups also criticized the appointment according to the BBC:

Director of the Human Rights Institute at the Central American University Benjamin Cuellar said "betting on the Armed Forces as a solution to our problems" would land El Salvador in a war on drugs which "is already lost and whose victims will be on our doorstep".

President Funes said choosing Gen Salinas to head the police was in no way a militarisation of the organisation, nor did it violate the peace accord.

He said the General had already requested his retirement from the Armed Forces and was therefore a civilian.

The President said high levels of violence and the rising influence of Mexican drug cartels in El Salvador had forced him to take "stronger institutional measures".

As El Faro notes, the appointment of General Salinas comes just a week after Funes apologized for the massacre at El Mozote commited by the Salvadoran military and Funes instructed the military to stop celebrating as heroes military officers who had committed atrocities.

In another potentially troubling development, the courageous Inspector General of the PNC, Zaira Navas, announced that she had resigned her position. Her reasons for leaving were not clear, but she said it was not related to the appointment of Salinas.

Mitt Romney and Salvadoran death squads

2012-01-20T21:48:00.002-06:00

An article on Salon.com today reports that the private equity firm of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney started with initial investors who were Salvadoran oligarchs with links to Salvadoran death squads. Salon reports:

A significant portion of the seed money that created Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, was provided by wealthy oligarchs from El Salvador, including members of a family with a relative who allegedly financed rightist groups that used death squads during the country’s bloody civil war in the 1980s.

The evidence in the article is tenuous at best. Investors in Bain Capital are related to a wealthy man who allegedly financed death squads along with Roberto D'Aubuisson. There is no evidence that Mitt Romney was ever aware of these connections.

Why even mention this? The Salon.com article points out that Romney touts these investors as showing that he is a friend of Latin America:

During his first presidential bid in 2007, Romney more than once touted the Central American investors in Bain while trying to woo Hispanic voters. In a speech in March of that year to the Miami-Dade Lincoln Day Dinner, Romney actually specified five of the original “partners” in Bain Capital — but the de Sola family was not among those he named.

And that August he told the Miami Herald, “The investments for the company that I started, Bain Capital, came largely from Latin America. My largest single investors came from El Salvador, Ecuador, Colombia and Guatemala. And so I feel a deep kinship to people in Latin America.”

I'm not sure that taking money from the corrupt Salvadoran wealthy class to help them make money outside of the region makes someone a friend of Latin America.

Hat tip to Karen.

Remittances grew in 2011

2012-01-19T22:36:00.000-06:00

Remittances, the money Salvadorans living and working abroad send back to their families, rebounded in 2011. Making up a sixth of the nation's economy, remittances are one of the most important economic drivers for El Salvador. Remittances had fallen with the downturn in the US economy as many Salvadoran migrants were unable to find jobs. According to Inside Costa Rica:

The Central Bank of Reserve (BCR) of El Salvador reported on Wednesday that the country received 3.64 billion dollars in family remittances from abroad in 2011, 6.4 percent more than in 2010.

The Bureau for Economic and Statistics Studies, attached to the BCR, said that in physical terms, that figure accounts for 217.9 million dollars more than in the previous year.

Last year's family remittances accounted for about 16 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), said the BCR. Of the total family remittances, the banking system paid 74.1 percent to beneficiaries, equivalent to 2.7 billion dollars.

In the fourth quarter of 2011 reported the largest growth (9.6 percent), due to better indicators in the U.S. economy, the BCR reported.

Twentieth Anniversary of 1992 Peace Accords

2012-01-17T11:33:00.000-06:00

January 16 marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords which ended El Salvador's bloody twelve year civil war. You can read an English language version of the Peace Accords here at the United States Institute of Peace.

In a symbolic act, the official commemoration of the anniversary was held in El Mozote. President Mauricio Funes apologized on behalf of the Salvadoran state for the massacres committed in December 2001 in El Mozote and surrounding communities. He announced a series of community development initiatives in the El Mozote area.

From the BBC:

Mr Funes made his emotional apology on the 20th anniversary of peace accords that ended the nation's civil war. The president travelled to El Mozote, some 200km (120 miles) from the capital, San Salvador, near the border with Honduras.

"For this massacre, for the abhorrent violations of human rights and the abuses perpetrated in the name of the Salvadoran state, I ask forgiveness of the families of the victims," he said on Monday.

Breaking at times into tears, Mr Funes said: "In three days and three nights, the biggest massacre of civilians was committed in contemporary Latin American history"....

President Funes said the country's armed forces, 20 years on from the peace accords, were very different, "democratic and obedient to civilian power".

He called on the army to revise its history to avoid honouring those responsible for human rights abuses.

Excerpts from Funes' speech can be found here.

The United Nations oversaw the implementation of the Peace Accords and sees the need for more work to be done by the country to fully realize the benefits of the peace process:

16 January 2012 – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today on El Salvador to address its socio-economic inequalities and advance rule of law reform to ensure its citizens can experience positive and tangible results from the peace process that was initiated 20 years ago at the end of its civil war.

“As we acknowledge the success of the peace process in El Salvador, we cannot forget that peace consolidation is a long process that requires addressing the root causes of the conflict,” Mr. Ban said in his message marking the twentieth anniversary of the historic Peace Agreements.

“Tangible peace dividends must materialize in citizens’ daily lives. Addressing socio-economic inequalities and advancing the reform of rule of law institutions in the face of citizen insecurity are among key challenges yet to be addressed at the national and regional level.”

Looking around at online comments, blogs and editorials, I found some common themes:

"If these have been 20 years of peace, why don't I feel better?"

"We no longer have war, but we don't have peace."

"There is no peace without justice."

"The conditions of poverty and inequality which prompted the civil war, still exist."

Major Salvadoran media devoted special sections to the anniversary:

La Prensa Grafica's special section on the anniversary.
El Faro's special section.
El Diario de Hoy's special section on anniversary
El Diario de Hoy has a photo gallery from the end of the civil war here.

A fitting place to visit for the anniversary is this virtual Monument to Memory and Truth, which like the black stone wall in Cuscatlan Park in San Salvador, lists the civilian victims of the conflict.

Documentary gives nuanced view into El Salvador's gangs

2012-01-12T07:40:00.001-06:00

Whenever Al Jazeera English broadcasts a story about El Salvador, it's usually well done. This week's video on the program Witness titled Life in San Salvador is no exception. From the promo for the documentary on the Al Jazeera website:

In the dusty, rubbish-strewn streets of Mejicanos, a working-class district of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, Father Antonio Lopez Tercero points to the gang graffiti scarring the walls. Gang violence is one of the defining features of life in El Salvador today....

"Life is worth nothing in this country," Father Antonio says. "There is so much impunity. Killing someone is like killing a chicken."

'Padre Toño', as Father Antonio is known, is one of many whose lives are affected by the violence. But he is also one of the few prepared to work with the gang members; seeing them not just as criminals, but as victims of a divided society.

"It takes no effort at all to go from being a victim to being an offender," he says. "All the resentment and accumulated senselessness of the world in which they've grown up means it is all too easy to cross over into violence."

Witness accompanies Father Antonio on his daily rounds, meeting those whose lives have been most affected by gang life and gang violence - people like Giovanni, a former gang leader who is now expecting his first child and is determined to go straight, and Sonia, whose son was murdered by a gang but who has yet to receive justice.

Case against killers of poet Roque Dalton dismissed

2012-01-10T08:30:00.001-06:00

A court in El Salvador has dismissed the prosecution sought for the killers of Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton. The revolutionary poet was killed in 1975 by fellow guerrillas.

According to the Washington Post, the judge in San Salvador ruled that the time limit for prosecuting the murder would prevent now opening this case:

The complaint named former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front leader Joaquin Villalobos and Jorge Melendez, who serves in the current government as head of the civil defense office.

Melendez denied the accusation. Villalobos, however, acknowledged that rebel leaders ordered Dalton killed, reportedly after colleagues accused him of treason and being a CIA agent.

Judge Romeo Giammattei ruled Monday the 15-year limit on prosecution had passed.

Prosecution of Roque Dalton's killers has long been sought by his sons, who point to this case as another situation of impunity where a crime of the past was never addressed. Justice should be blind to whether crimes were committed by the army and government or by the guerrillas fighting against them.

Fernando Llort responds to destruction of mural

2012-01-04T09:16:00.000-06:00

Press conference video

With a quiet dignity, Fernando Llort made his first public statement about the destruction of his mural which had adorned the facade of the Metropolitan Cathedral. He spoke of the facade as the greatest work of his life and the destruction of the mural as the greatest sadness of his life.

Llort says he accepts the apology of the archbishop and respects the church and its hierarchy. But despite that, he was still left with a deep pain and many questions. He repeated that this public work belonged not to him, or to the church, but to all Salvadorans.

Llort had three requests.

First, he requested that the church make a full and complete explanation of its study and reasons for destroying the mural rather than restoring it.

Second, he asked that there be greater recognition in El Salvador of the value and respect due for the work of Salvadoran artists and artisans.

Third, he asked that the church return to him the rubble from the tiles removed from the facade so that he could create a new art work in homage to Salvadoran artisans.

Archbishop explains decision to remove Llort mosaics

2012-01-02T10:18:00.000-06:00

In his weekly press conference on Sunday, San Salvador archbishop José Escobar Alas, answered questions about the removal of the mosaic by artist Fernando Llort from the facade of the Metropolitan cathedral. Monseñor Escobar Alas stated that the cathedral was in the midst of a project to paint and clean all the exterior and interior surfaces of the cathedral. When it came time to clean the mosaic, pieces were falling off. Many pieces had been discolored and damaged by the sun and the rain. Pieces of tile which had been damaged or discolored by the weather could not simply be replaced, because the new pieces would not match the existing ones. The archbishop said that following an analysis by the engineering and architectural firm working with the church, which concluded the restoring the mosaic was not possible, the decision was made to remove it.

In his remarks, the archbishop went out of his way to commend the Ferndo Llort and his family for their dedication to Salvadoran society as well as the Catholic church. Although he stated that Fernando Llort was consulted with respect to the restoration project, the archbishop apologized for the pain caused by not giving the artist advance warning that the mosaic would be removed. The church would like Llort, if he will agree, to create a replica of the mosaic on an interior wall of the cathedral.

You can listen to an audio recording of Monseñor Escobar Alas' press conference here.

Fernando Llort is scheduled to give a press conference on Tuesday to discuss his views on the destruction of the mosaic.

Church ripping Llort mural from facade of cathedral

2011-12-31T10:08:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it. In a move that came in a surprise to most in El Salvador, the Catholic church in San Salvador is removing the famous tile mural of artist Fernando Llort from the facade of the Metropolitan Cathedral. With little fanfare, the church is destroying an important national artistic treasure.

The destruction of the mural has been condemned by the Salvadoran government and by the family of Fernando Llort. The family of Llort says the artist is deeply saddened, and that he had not been advised in advance nor given the opportunity to retire his most important artistic work in dignity. The mural, completed in 1997, was an homage to the 1992 Peace Accords which ended El Salvador's civil war.

The Catholic church has stated that parishioners had been consulted and that they were in agreement with the decision. Images of what will replace the Llort mural on the facade of the cathedral have not been released, but press reports indicate that it will be some sort of painting or sculpture of the Divine Savior of the World, patron of San Salvador.

On his website, Llort had this description of the work on the Cathderal:

The Catholich Church from El Salvador asked me to design the facade for the Cathedral. This has been one of the most inspiring artistic moments of my life, because it meant to me that I was putting my art on a very important symbol of my country, with a huge historical value. It was a work that took us (me and a group of artisans) around 1 year to finish.

The Facebook page of the Fernando Llort Foundation was filled with expressions of sadness and solidarity. Another Facebook page, Indignados por El Mural, is rapidly filling with pictures and comments and anger at the blindness of the church to the meaning of this artwork.

These pictures show what the mural has been reduced to:

Record number of murders - but why?

2011-12-29T22:46:00.000-06:00

The close of 2011 in El Salvador is dominated by a single statistic. There were more murders this year than in any other year since the signing of the 1992 peace accords. According to police statistics, through Christmas Day there has been 4308 homicides in El Salvador, topping the prior post-war high of 4233 in 2009. The murder tally in 2011 represented a 9.3% increase over the year before. It leaves El Salvador with one of the highest murder rates in the world, 65 per 100,000 inhabitants, perhaps surpassed only by its neighbor Honduras. Mike at Central America Politics blog has a detailed look at the murder rate over the past several years.

As reported in El Faro, the National Police (PNC) are blaming part of the increase on the growing influence of drug-trafficking in the country, including the sale of drugs locally on the streets.

The biggest dispute, however, about these statistics is the role of gangs. New Minister of Security David Munguía Payés asserts that 90% of the murders are gang-related. In contrast, the sub-director for investigations at the PNC, Howard Cotto, asserts that only 30% of the murders are gang-related. The former general Munguía Payés claims that he has a better crime database than is used by the PNC. Cotto says there are 28,130 gang members in the country, but Munguía Payés says his statistics show there are more young men in those gangs.

When asked about the source of murders in the country, El Salvador's attorney general, Romeo Benjamín Barahona Meléndez, refused to pin specific percentages to any one cause. Barahona also mentioned that some crime was committed by criminal groups who were simply robbers and thieves, but not part of the organized maras.

Of course, you have to question anybody who says they know the proportion of murders committed by gangs or drug-traffickers when the PNC says it has been able to solve only 34% of the murders in the country.

The answer to the question of what causes the epidemic of murder in El Salvador drives the new Minister of Security's planned security policy. Munguía Payés has pledged to reduce the level of murders by 30% during the course of 2012. Because he believes the vast majority of murders are committed by the gangs, he is focused on a strategy which involves taking the battle to gang-controlled areas and using superior armaments and force to diminsh the gang threat. He recently swore in 318 members of a new anti-gang unit in the PNC, and spoke in an interview about the need to increase the firepower available to the police.

Photo credit: Jesus Flores photos.

On Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T10:53:00.001-06:00

With Christ, God has injected himself into history. With the birth of Christ, God’s reign is now inaugurated in human time. On this night, as every year for twenty centuries, we recall that God’s reign is now in this world and that Christ has inaugurated the fullness of time. His birth attests that God is now marching with us in history, that we do not go alone.

Humans long for peace, for justice, for a reign of divine law, for something holy, for what is far from earth’s realities. We can have such a hope, not because we ourselves are able to construct the realm of happiness that God’s holy words proclaim, but because the builder of a reign of justice, of love, and of peace is already in the midst of us.

Archbishop Oscar Romero
Christmas Day, 1977

From quotations of Oscar Romero collected in The Violence of Love.

My best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year for all the readers and friends of Tim's El Salvador Blog. May we all be part of making peace, hope and justice flourish in 2012 in El Salvador and throughout the world!

Polycarpio's Top 10 Oscar Romero Stories of 2011

2011-12-23T09:46:00.000-06:00

Throughout the year, our friend and blogger Polycarpio writes about all things related to slain Archbishop Oscar Romero on the Super Martyrio blog. As in previous years, here is his recap of the:

TOP TEN ROMERO STORIES OF 2011

These were the stories that kept Archbishop Romero in the headlines in 2011, thirty one years after his assassination. Even though there was no news on the canonization front, 2011 was a strong Romero year.

1. OBAMA VISITS ROMERO'S GRAVE

The L.A. Times called Obama’s tribute to Romero, “arguably ... the most dramatic gesture of his swing through Brazil, Chile and El Salvador.” The clamor and clangor of a presidential visit (Obama’s motorcade was said to consist of over thirty cars) led to silence and solemnity as Obama, accompanied by Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, and Archbishop José Escobar, lit a candle in the Cathedral crypt. Activists fumed that Obama didn’t speak, but the symbolism said it all.

2. NEVER BEFORE SEEN ROMERO PHOTOS SEE THE LIGHT

Four hundred slides of and by Óscar Romero revealed the human side of a man known primarily for his clerical career. Apart from showing competence as a photographer, the pictures reveal Romero’s life-long concern for the poor, whom he presents with “a very special sensibility ... that not every priest is going to have.”

3. CANONIZATION OFFICE PUTS ROMERO WRITINGS ON-LINE

Over six hundred articles and commentaries by Archbishop Romero, written throughout his priestly and episcopal career, were published for the first time on the Internet on the canonization office web site. Like his photographs, Romero’s writings offer a glimpse into his evolving “preferential option for the poor” before he was Archbishop of San Salvador.

4. SALVIE PAPER FINGERS SUPPOSED ROMERO SHOOTER

National Guard Deputy Sargeant Marino Samayoa Acosta was the bearded man who pulled the trigger on March 24, 1980, killing the Archbishop of San Salvador, according to Diario CoLatino. The Salvadoran government announced that it “does not rule out” conducting an investigation.

5. SALVIE FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH POSTULATOR

About the only glimpse into the secret workings of the beatification drive came when SalvadoranForeign Minister Hugo Martínez called on Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, the Postulator of the canonization cause, and apparently confirmed that the process is still with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and not yet with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

6. NEW ROMERO DOCUMENTARY OUT

“El cielo abierto” ["The Open Sky"], directed by Mexican filmmaker Everardo Gonzalez, was the latest attempt to tell the Romero story anew. Daily Variety opined that, “this is a solid, moving treatment of a major late-20th century figure, and should see fest[ival] play followed by docu[mentary] channel rotation.” (Read more.)

7. SPANISH COURT: ROMERO KILLED FOR PROMOTING PEACE

In the cat and mouse moves between a Spanish court investigating the 1989 Jesuit massacre and the Salvadoran military officers accused of having perpetrated it, you might have missed the Court’s findingthat the Romero's assassins acted out of fear Romero, as a peace maker, was an affront to their military careers.

8. WIKILEAKS: SALVIE GOV'T TRIED TO POLITICIZE CANONIZATION

Wikileaks revealed that the Salvadoran government had considered supporting the Romero beatification to get the Church to stand down on demanding an investigation of the crime. The leaked Sep. 2007 cable reported that “The [Government of El Salvador] is considering an approach to the Vatican to seek the Holy See’s support for dropping the case from the [Inter-American Commission on Human Rights] without derailing Romero’s beatification.”

9. CARD. TURKSON: ROMERO WAS "GOOD SHEPHERD"

After visiting El Salvador in Nov. 2010, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana professed “a growing appreciation” of Archbishop Romero. He delivered the Romero Lecture at Notre Dame University in March. “My home country of Ghana was also beset by various types of conflict,” observed the cardinal. “Drawing near to Archbishop Romero … I feel encouraged in my role as as President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a close-co-worker of the Holy Father.”

10. SALVIE PAPER GETS PRIZE

El Faro’s story last year had tracked down Cpt. Álvaro Saravia, thought to have organized the Romero assassination, in an unknown country, where now he lives in squalor not unlike that of the victims whom Archbishop Romero defended. “The worst misfortune in the world! Poverty!,” Saravia admited: “How could a man not be a guerrilla if he saw his children dying of hunger?”

US Peace Corps suspends sending volunteers to El Salvador

2011-12-22T16:43:00.000-06:00

The US Peace Corps announced yesterday that it has suspended sending new volunteers to work in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala for safety and security reasons:

The Peace Corps has cancelled its January 2012 volunteer training classes for El Salvador and Guatemala. Due to ongoing security concerns, the agency is enhancing operational support to currently serving volunteers in these countries.

All currently serving volunteers in El Salvador and Guatemala are safe and accounted for. The Peace Corps will continue to closely monitor and assess the safety and security climate and enhance volunteer support in these countries.

The Peace Corps operated in El Salvador between 1962 and 1979, and returned in 1993. Over 2,000 Americans have served in El Salvador since the program was established, working with communities on projects focused on community, economic, and youth development. There are 113 volunteers currently serving in El Salvador.

Current volunteers are being recalled from Honduras, although there is no announced intent to do so for El Salvador or Guatemala.

You can read a collection of blogs of Peace Corps volunteers in El Salvador at this link.

The kidney disease epidemic in El Salvador

2011-12-21T21:10:00.000-06:00

There is a health crisis in El Salvador and other Central American countries which has been greatly under-reported. Chronic kidney disease is killing thousands in the region, and the causes are not known.

At a regional health conference in February 2011, El Salvador's Health Minister Dr. María Isabel Rodríguez spoke of an epidemic of chronic kidney disease afflicting the country, where kidney disease is now the leading cause of hospital deaths for men aged 20 to 60 and the third leading cause of death for women. One in four men living in coastal areas has the disease.

Recent news reports from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, together with PRI have now highlighted this epidemic. From the report by the Center for Public Integrity titled Thousands of sugar cane workers die as wealthy nations stall on solutions:

Each year from 2005 to 2009, kidney failure killed more than 2,800 men in Central America, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists‘ analysis of the latest World Health Organization data. In El Salvador and Nicaragua alone over the last two decades, the number of men dying from kidney disease has risen fivefold. Now more men are dying from the ailment than from HIV/AIDS, diabetes and leukemia combined.

“In the 21st Century, nobody should die of kidney disease,” said Ramon Trabanino, a physician from El Salvador who has studied the epidemic for a decade.

The surge of kidney disease is overwhelming hospitals, depleting health budgets, and leaving a trail of widows and children in rural communities.

The causes of this epidemic in El Salvador and other Central America countries are not yet understood:

Victims are mostly men who conduct manual labor — mostly harvesting sugarcane. In El Salvador and Nicaragua over the last two decades, the number of men dying from kidney disease has risen fivefold.

The disease’s cause remains a mystery. A key contributing factor and potential culprit: dehydration and heat stress from strenuous labor. Researchers also suspect that exposure to an unknown toxin may trigger onset of the disease.

It is a disease of major epidemic proportions in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador. From PRI's The World:

At a health clinic in El Salvador, in the farming region of Bajo Lempa, Dr. Carlos Orantes recently found that a quarter of the men in his area suffered from chronic kidney disease.

What’s more, he says, most of the men who are ill show no signs of high blood pressure or diabetes – the most common causes of CKD elsewhere in the world. “Most of the men we studied have CKD from unknown causes,” he says.

What the men in the area have in common is they all work in farming. So Dr. Orantes thinks a major cause of their kidney damage is the toxic chemicals – pesticides and herbicides – that are routinely used here in agriculture. “These chemicals are banned in the United States, Europe and Canada, and they’re used here, without any protection, and in large amounts that are very concerning,” he says.

But he’s not ready to rule out other possible causes. For instance, the overuse of painkillers can damage the kidneys, and so can drinking too much alcohol. Both are major problems here, he says.

Because of the prevalence of the disease among sugar cane workers, the reports note that many are looking for connections in the conditions and environment under which such work is conducted. But the reports also note that workers in other areas of El Salvador's economy also suffer from the disease. Sugar cane growing is a major industry in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America, and there are powerful economic interests in the way that cane is currently grown and harvested.

This video discusses the epidemic of chronic kidney disease among sugar cane workers in a community in Nicaragua:

The size of this epidemic requires that the international community support the countries in Central America with resources for greater investigation of the sources of kidney disease, as well as resources for maintenance and treatment of patients who often live in some of the regions most impoverished areas.

EcoViva reports that the Spanish government is funding construction of a multi-million dollar clinic for dialysis patients in El Salvador.

Salvadorans' views of their country and government

2011-12-20T21:34:00.002-06:00

At the end of each year, the public opinion researchers at the University of Central America release their wide-ranging poll of Salvadorans' views on their country and their government. You can read the entire poll results here. Some of the highlights:

With respect to the issue of crime,

65% of Salvadorans believe that crime is the biggest problem facing the country, while 30% believe the biggest problem is the economy.
76% believe crime increased in the past year.
22.5% of Salvadorans said they had been the direct victim of a crime in the past 12 months.

Civil society organizations and bloggers may be concerned about the increasing use of armed troops on El Salvador's streets, but it remains politically popular. Although they believe that crime worsened this year, 59% of Salvadorans say that the presence of troops in the streets is contributing to reduce crime some or a a lot.

When asked in which institutions in society they place confidence, the Catholic church is trusted by 39% of Salvadorans, followed by protestant churches at 37%, and followed next by the armed forces at 37%. The least trusted institutions were the political parties, the National Assembly and the Supreme Court.

President Mauricio Funes standing has dropped steadily over the last two years from 73% of Salvadorans saying he was doing a good job in November 2009 to a low of 42% in November 2011. (A CID-Gallup poll cited this week by Mike at the Central American Politics blog has different numbers with Funes getting a 57% approval rating, higher than any other president in the region).

In the upcoming March 2009 elections for mayors and legislators, ARENA and the FMLN have their usual base of between 24-28%, and this year the GANA party is polling between 8-10%.

The national government got high marks for its response to the flooding disasters of October, with 81% of Salvadorans ranking the response as good or very good.

Some great volunteers in service

2011-12-19T15:18:00.000-06:00

I've been writing Tim's El Salvador Blog for more than 7 years now. I've tried to make it a reliable English language source of information about some of what goes on in El Salvador, and from the feedback I have gotten many of my readers think I have at least party succeeded.

From time to time, people ask me what they can do to support the blog. since it's free and (so far) I don't accept any advertising.

The answer is nothing -- this is my contribution to raising the level of awareness about El Salvador for English-speakers around the world.

But I do have a request. If you like this blog, please consider a donation this Christmas to the Volunteer Missionary Movement, where I am a member of the Board of Directors. Our volunteers are not missionaries in the sense of evangelizing converts, instead they are some terrific people who feel called by their faith to serve the poor in El Salvador and Central America. They are people like Maggie and Olivia working with youth and families in Mejicanos, like Beth working on community organizing and disaster prevention, like Pieter working with indigenous women in Guatemala, and like Sam and Andrea working at a cultural center in Managua.

Here's my goal. I would really like all the readers of Tim's El Salvador Blog to make a $5, $10 or $20 donation to VMM to support the work of these volunteers. There's a link where you can do it online right here, and there's also directions for other ways to donate. It's easy, and you'll be helping support some meaningful works of solidarity in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Gracias.

Progressive tax reform in El Salvador

2011-12-16T19:25:00.000-06:00

El Salvador's National Assembly Wednesday passed a progressive income tax system proposed by president Mauricio Funes. The vote was 66 to 17 in favor of the bill, with all deputies in the National Assembly voting in favor of the bill other than members of the right wing ARENA party.

Under the bill, a Salvadoran making $500 or less per month will pay no income tax. Those between $500 and $6200 will pay 25%, which is the current rate. Those who make more than $6200, will pay 30%. In addition, income taxes on businesses were raised to make sure they were paying taxes into the system.

Prior to these reforms, El Salvador had a particularly regressive tax system. The chart below, based on a study by the InterAmerican Development Bank, shows that the tax burden on Salvadorans as a function of family income. The lowest 10% pay the highest amount of their income in various taxes at 30%. The next lowest 10% of the population pay 17%, while the wealthiest 10% of Salvadorans pay only 11% of their income in taxes:

The tax reform passed Wednesday is designed to change the shape of this graph and reduce the tax burden on the poor while raising it on the rich. The measure is estimated by the government to bring in an additional $170 million in taxes.

The measure was vigorously opposed by big business in El Salvador, but only the ARENA party deputies voted against the bill.

Senate Republicans block confirmation of an excellent ambassador

2011-12-12T18:57:00.000-06:00

I had an appointment today to meet with US Ambassador to El Salvador Mari Carmen Aponte. She wasn't able to meet, however, because she had flown to Washington the night before for an impending Senate vote on her confirmation as ambassador. Unfortunately for Ambassador Aponte, when she returns to El Salvador, it will be to start to pack her bags since Senate Republicans refused to let her nomination make its way through the Senate. The Washington Post reported a short time ago:

The Senate on Monday blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee to be ambassador to El Salvador as Republicans opposed the selection over unfounded rumors that her boyfriend of years ago was a Cuban spy and new conservative outrage over a summertime op-ed on gay rights.

Mari Carmen Aponte, a Washington lawyer and Hispanic activist, has served as ambassador in San Salvador since September 2010 after Obama, in response to Republican opposition to her nomination, made her a recess appointee. But her temporary tenure is to run out at the end of the year.

On a vote of 49-37, the Senate refused to move ahead with the nomination despite pleas from Democrats.

It is truly a shame that ignorance, homophobia, and political partisanship got in the way of confirmation of the most qualified ambassador to serve in El Salvador in many years.

Possible Republican filibuster of Aponte confirmation

2011-12-12T08:52:00.000-06:00

Mari Carmen Aponte's recess appointment as US Ambassador to El Salvador expires at the end of the year unless her nomination is confirmed by the US Senate. There is a possible test vote today to see if Republicans have the votes to block the nomination with a filibuster. Roll Call has a good overview of the debate.

El Mozote -- 30th anniversary commemoration

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Ninth in a series

This weekend, people from throughout El Salvador and the world gathered in a remote location in northeastern El Salvador to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the El Mozote massacre. It was a time to remember and a time for renewed commitment to the quest for justice for the victims. This year, the commemoration commenced on Saturday, December 10, which is the 63rd anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Anniversaries bring infrastructure improvements to El Mozote. There was fresh asphalt pavement on the last few hundred yards into the village. A grader smoothed a hill side to make parking spaces for cars, just as the cars started to pull in.

A raised stage had been raised close to the little church on the main plaza in El Mozote. The whole plaza was filled with hundreds of people. Vendors sold artisan items, T-shirts, and pupusas.

As we arrived, a children's chorus was beginning to sing under the direction of Sister Anne Griffin. More than one of the subsequent speakers commented on the hope embodies by those voices singing on the spot where hundreds of children were massacred. Children read the names and ages of child victims.

The event was attended for the first time by a high level official of the current Salvadoran government. Hugo Martinez, El Salvador's foreign minister. Others present included the ambassadors of Venezuela and Colombia, representatives of the United Nations, Oscar Luna, El Salvador's Human Rights Ombudsman, and others. But the most important attendees were the family members of the victims of El Mozote.

The headlines this event generated came from the remarks of Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez. After commenting that prior Salvadoran governments had treated the immense suffering of El Mozote was a matter of indifference, he said

I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate on behalf of the government of El Salvador our request for forgiveness to the thousands of innocent victims, but especially the victims of the massacre at El Mozote.

Martinez said that the government under Mauricio Funes was accepting the responsibility for the crimes committed and that it was in solidarity with the victims of El Mozote and the surrounding communities.

Later in the morning, Oscar Luna, El Salvador's human rights ombudsman, made his presentation. Starting with the events of 30 years ago, he traced the search for justice up to the present day proceedings in front of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. He left no doubt of his opinion that what has been done so far has been insufficient. He called for a repeal of the Amnesty Law, a judicial investigation of those responsible for the command and control of the massacre, and concrete reparations including financial, medical, psycho-social and legal assistance to the families of the victims.

The voices of the victims were also heard this day as those who had lost family members presented their testimony. Other parts of the commemoration included a Catholic mass, a music concert, dance presentations, and more.

This weekend also saw the dedication of a new monument to the innocent victims of the massacre. The new monument is located about 1 km down the road past El Mozote. Not completely finished, it rises dramatically on a hillside with dramatic views. On top, as a crown, are the silhouettes of the El Mozote family from the monument in the village square. Statutes of prophets of non-violence encircle the monument including Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa. A figure of Jesus Christ includes the phrase "my peace I give you, my peace I leave with you."

You can see pictures I took of the new monument and the anniversary activities at this link.

El Mozote -- the victims

2011-12-11T07:00:00.000-06:00

Eighth in a series

Thirty years ago today.

This list of the names of the victims was initially compiled by Tutela Legal, a church-run human rights group in El Salvador, and updated by Mark Danner, author of The Massacre at El Mozote, records the ages and professions of 767 people who were murdered by the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion. (Source).

EL MOZOTE

1. DOMINGO CLAROS, 29, wood cutter
2. CRISTINO AMAYA CLAROS, 9, son of Domingo Claros
3. MARIA DOLORES AMAYA CLAROS, 5, daughter of Domingo Claros
4. MARTA LILIAN CLAROS, 3, daughter of Domingo Claros
5. MARIA ISABEL AMAYA CLAROS, 8 months, daughter of Domingo Claros
6. ISIDRA CLAROS, 60, aunt of Domingo Claros
7. BONIFACIA RODRIGUEZ OR ANASTACIA ARGUETA, 65
8. LEONISIA RODRIGUEZ OR DIONISIA RODRIGUEZ, 27, seamstress daughter of Bonifacia Rodriguez
9. VILMA RODRIGUEZ, 2, daughter of Dionisia Rodriguez and Manuel Alvarenda
10. MARTINA RODRIGUEZ, 35, daughter of Bonifacia Rodriguez and sister of Dionisia and Vilma Rodriguez
11. RUPERTO CHICAS, 40, farmer, hushand of Martina Rodriguez
12. MIRNA CHICAS, 10, daughter of Martina Rodriguez and Ruperto Chicas
13. Child, 6, son of Martina Rodriguez and Ruperto Chicas
14. CHILD, 4, daughter of Martina Rodriguez and Ruperto Chicas
15. CHILD, 3, son of Martina Rodriguez and Ruperto Chicas
16. CHILD, 1, son of Martina Rodriguez and Ruperto Chicas
17. CONCEPCION MARQUEZ, 75
18. JULIA CLAROS, 30, daughter of Concepcion Marquez
19. ALBERTA CLAROS, 18, daughter of Julia Claros
20. CHILD, 1, daughter of Alberta Claros
21. FRANCISCA CLAROS, 11, daughter of Julia Claros
22. CHILD, 7, daughter of Julia Claros
23. ANTOLINA CLAROS, 28
24. FRANCISCA CLAROS, 16, daughter of Antolina Claros
25. Claudio Del Cid, 20, carpenter, companion of Francisca Claros
26. CHILD, 6 months old, daughter of Francisca Claros and Claudio Del Cid
27. MARIA DEL CID, 60, mother of Claudio Del Cid
28. GIRL, 15, daughter of Antolina Claros
29. CHILD, 11, daughter of Antolina Claros
30. OSCAR CLAROS, 7, son of Antolina Claros
31. JESUS CLAROS, 5, daughter of Antolina Claros
32. LEONISIA CLAROS, 25, daughter of Concepcion Marquez and sister of Antolina Claros
33. FABIAN LUNA, 20, day laborer, companion of Leonisia Claros
34. CHILD, 5, daughter of Leonisia Claros and Fabian Luna
35. LUCIO CLAROS, 2 1/2, son of Leonisia Claros and Fabian Luna
36. CHILD, 7 months old, daughter of Leonisia Claros and Fabian Luna
37. Emilia CLAROS, 35, daughter of Concepcion Marquez and sister of Antolina and Francisca Claros
38. MELESIO ARGUETA ALVARENGA, 40, day laborer, husband of Emilia Claros
39. PRISCILIO CLAROS, 7, son of Emilia Claros and Melesio Argueta
40. GIRL, 18, daughter of Emilia Claros and Melesio Argueta
41. CHILD, 10 months old, daughter of victim #40 and granddaughter of Emilia Claros and Melesio Argueta
42. ISABEL ARGUETA, 6, daughter of Emilia Claros and Melesio Argueta
43. CHILD, 4, son of Emilia Claros and Melesio Argueta
44. CHILD, 2, son of Emilia Claros and Melesio Argueta
45. COSME ARGUETA, 45, sister of Melesio Argueta
46. ISRAEL MARQUEZ, 80, merchant
47. PAUIA MARQUEZ, 60, wife of Israel Marquez
48. ELVIRA MARQUEZ Chicas, 34, pregnant at time of death, niece of Israel Marquez
49. SONIA MAKQuEz OR SONIA CHICAS, 5, daughter of Elvira Marquez and Leonardo Marquez Del Cid (victim #51)
50. GIRL, 19, daughter of Israel Marquez
51. LEONARDO MARQUEZ DEL CID, 40, farmer, father of Sonia Marquez (victim #49)
52. BALBINO MARQUEZ DEL CID, 60, farmer, father of Leonardo Marquez
53. FRANCISCA DEL CID, 55, wife of Balbino Marquez
54. ORBELINA MARQUEZ, 45, seamstress, companion of Leonardo Marquez Del Cid
55. BRUNO CLAROS, 50, farmer
56. HORTENSA ROMERO MARQUEZ, 39, wife of Bruno Claros
57. MATILDE PEREIRA, 70, farmer, father of Brullo Claros
58. RODOLFO CLAROS, 15, brother of Bruno Claros
59. CHILD, 5, ward of Bruno Claros
60. BOY, 18, son of Bruno Claros and Hortensia Romero
61. GIRL, 16, daughter of Bruno Claros and Hortensia Romero
62. EVA ROMERO, 11, daughter of Bruno Claros and Hortensia Romero
63. IRMA ROMERO, 9, daughter of Bruno Claros and Hortensia Romero
64. BRUNO CLAROS, 7, son of Bruno Claros and Hortensia Romero
65. HIPOLITA CLAROS, 13, daughter of Domingo Claros (victim #I)
66. MARIA CONCEPCION ROMERO, 44, mother of Hipolita Claros
67. MELESIO Diaz, 65, butcher
68. NORBERTA MARQUEZ, 40, companion of Melesio Diaz
69. MARTIR DIAZ, 14, daughter of Melesio Diaz
70. MOISES CLAROS, 75, day laborer
71. MAN, 90, father of Moises Claros
72. EUGENIA CLAROS, 27, maguey spinner, daughter of Moises Claros
73. DAVID CLAROS, 10, son of Eugenia Claros and grandson of Moises Claros
74. CHILD, 6, daughter of Eugenia Claros and granddaughter of Moises Claros
75. CHILD, 8, daughter of Eugenia Claros and granddaughter of Moises Claros
76. CHILD, 3, daughter of Eugenia Claros and granddaughter of Moises Claros
77. CHILD, 2, daughter of Eugenia Claros and granddaughter of Moises Claros
78. CHILD, 9 months old, daughter of Eugenia Claros and granddaughter of Moises Claros
79. BENJAMIN ANTONIO CLAROS, 45, son of Moises Claros
80. ANASTACIA MARQUEZ, 40, pregnant at time of death, companion of Benjamin Antonio Claros
81. MATIAS MARQUEZ, 75, carpenter, father of Anastacia Marquez
82. MARIA ARGUETA, 30, companion of Matias Marquez
83. DOLORES MARQUEZ, 25, pregnant at time of death, daughter of Matias Marquez
84. LUCIO MARQUEZ, 45, day laborer, companion of Dolores Marquez
85. CHILD, 7, son of Dolores Marquez and Lucio Marquez
86. CHILD, 5, son of Dolores Marquez and Lucio Marquez
87. DOMINGA MARQUEZ, 70, mother of Lucio Marquez
88. CHILD, 5, daughter of Benjamin Claros (victim #79) and Anastacia Marquez (victim #80)
89. CHILD, 6, son of Benjamin Claros (victim #79) and Anastacia Marquez (victim #80)
90. CHILD, 9, son of Benjamin Claros (victim #79) and Anastacia Marquez (victim #80)
91. CHILD, 11, son of Benjamin Claros (victim #79) and Anastacia Marquez (victim #80)
92. FRANCISCO Claros, 80, day laborer, cousin of Moises Claros (victim #70)
93. ROGELIA DIAZ, 76, wife of Francisco Claros
94. BOY, 16, paralyzed, grandson of Francisco Claros
95. PAULINA MARQUEZ CLAROS or PAULINA CLAROS or PAULINA DIAZ, 60
96. TELESFORO MARQUEZ, 35, deaf and mute, son of Paulina Marquez
97. LORENZO CLAROS OR LORENZO DIAZ, 25, son of Paulina Marquez and brother of Telesforo Marquez
98. EUGENIO VIGIL, 60, farmer
99. AGUSTINA VIGIL, 25, pregnant at time of death, daughter of Eugenio Vigil
100. CHILD, 7, daugllter of Agustina Vigil
101. MARCELINA VIGIL, 22, daughter of Eugenio Vigil
102. DIONISIO MARQUEZ, 20, day laborer, husband of Marcelina Vigil
103. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, 70, day laborer, father of Dionisio Marquez
104. CHILD, 5, son of Dionisio Marquez
105. CHILD, 9 months old, daughter of Dionisio Marquez
106. MARFA ANSELMA MARQUEZ, 25, pregnant at time of death, daughter of Miguel Marquez
107. ARIURO GIDIO Chicas, 39, day laborer, companion of Anselma Marquez
108. LUCIA MARQUEZ, 14, daughter of Maria Anselma Marquez and Arturo Gidio Chicas
109. DORA MARQUEZ, 11, daughter of Maria Anselma Marquez and Arturo Gidio Chicas
110. CHILD, 7, daughter of Maria Anselma Marquez and Arturo Gidio Chicas
111. CHILD, 5, daughter of Maria Anselma Marquez and Arturo Gidio Chicas
112. CHILD, 1, son of Maria Anselma Marquez and Arturo Gidio Chicas
113. GIRL, 18, daughter of Miguel Marquez (victim #103)
114. CHILD, 2 days old, grandson of Miguel Marquez
115. MARTO VIGIL, 75, farmer, brother of Eugenio Vigil (victim #98)
116. PAULA DIAZ, 75, wife of Marto Vigil
117. DOMINGA DIAZ, 30, ward of Marto Vigil
118. CHILD, 5, daughter of Dominga Diaz
1l9. MAGDALENA DIAZ, 60, sister of Paula Diaz
120. GIRL, 19, daughter of Magdalena Diaz
121. GIRL, 16, daughter of Magdalena Diaz
122. CESARIO MArQuEz, 70, farmer
123. CLEMENTINA PEREIRA or CLEMENTINA ARGUETA, 60, wife of Cesario
Marquez
124. GIRL, 15, daughter of Cesario Marquez
125. GIRL, 14, daughter of Cesario Marquez
126. CHILD, 1 l, son of Cesario Marquez
127. HILDA MARQUEZ, 25, pregnant at time of death, daughter of Cesario Marquez
128. CHILD, 6, daughter of Hiilda Marquez and Felipe Argueta
129. CHILD, 4, son of llilda Mar4uez and Felipe Argueta
130. Child, 3, son of Hilda Marquez and Felipe Argueta
131. CHILD, 1, daughter of Hilda Marquez and Felipe Argueta
132. FILOMENA CLAROS, 50, daughter of Concepcion Marquez (victim #17)
133. CHILD, 11, son of Filomena Claros
134. BOY, 18, day laborer, son of Filomena Claros
135. GIRL, 14, daughter of Filomena Claros
136. CHILD, 7, son of Filomena Claros
137. CHILD, 5, son of Filomena Claros
138. ASCENCI6N MARQUEZ, 39, day laborer, brother of Concepcion Marquez (victim #17)
139. SUSANA CLAROS, 48
140. EUGENIA CLAROS, 30, pregnant at time of death, daughter of Susana Claros and companion of Ascencion Marquez
141. JESUS CLAROS, 10, son of Ascencion Marquez and Eugenia Claros
142. ROSITa CLAROS, 5, daughter of Ascencion Marquez and Eugenia
Claros
143. CHILD, 7, son of Ascencion Marquez and Eugenia Claros
144. CHILD, 3, son of Ascencion Marquez and Eugenia Claros
145. CHILD, 2, daughter of Ascencion Marquez and Eugenia Claros
146. ANDREA DEL CID, 60
147. VICENTA DEL CID, 80, sister of Andrea Del Cid
148. ROSA DEL CID, 20, pregnant at time of death, daughter of Andrea Del Cid
149. EMELY DEL CID, 4, son of Rosa Del Cid
150. MAURICIO DEL CID, 9 months, son of Rosa Del Cid
151. ANGELA DEL CID, 5, daughter of Rosa Del Cid
152. LEONCIO DIAZ, 105, a butcher in his youth
153. LEONCIA MArQuEz, 100, companion of Leoncio Diaz
154. GILBERTO SORTO, 25, farmer
155. FELICITA VIGIL, 20, wife of Gilberto Sorto
156. ANACLETA SORT0, 65, mother of Gilberto Sorto
157. CHILD, 5, son of Gilberto Sorto and Felicita Vigil
158. CHILD, 3, son of Gilberto Sorto and Felicita Vigil
159. MARTINA ARGUETA, 35
160. CHILD, 12, daughter of Martina Argueta
161. CHILD, 9, son of Martina Argueta
162. CHILD, 7, son of Martina Argueta
163. CHILD, 2, daughter of Martina Argueta
164. ONOFRE ARGUETA, 19
165. CHILD, 11, daughter of Onofre Argueta
166. CHILD, 9, son of Onofre Argueta
167. CHILD, 7, son of Onofre Argueta
168. CHILD, 5, daughter of Onofre Argueta
169. CHILD, 3, son of Onofre Argueta
170. GERTRUDIS GUEVARA, 80, day laborer
171. MARCELINA MARQUEZ, 25, companion of Gertrudis Guevara
172. TOMAS MARQUEZ, 5, son of Gertrudis Guevara and Marcelina Marquez
173. CHILD, 3 months old, daughter of Gertrudis Guevara and Marcelina Marquez
174. SEGUNDO CHICAS, 25, day laborer
175. SATURNINA ROMERO, 25, companion of Segundo Chicas
176. CHILD, 9 months old, daughter of Segundo Chicas and Saturnina Romero
177. CHILD, 10, son of Segundo Chicas and Saturnina Romero
178. CHILD, 7, son of Segundo Chicas and Saturnina Romero
179. CHILD, 5, son of Segundo Chicas and Saturnina Romero
180. FACUNDO CIIICAS, 25, brother of Segundo Chicas
181. MELDA MARQUEZ CHICAS, 25, wife of Facundo Chicas
182. CHILD, 12, son of Facundo Chicas and Melda Marquez
183. CHILD, 10, son of Facundo Chicas and Melda Marquez
184. CHILD, 9, son of Facundo Chicas and Melda Marquez
185. CHILD, 7, son of Facundo Chicas and Melda Marquez
186. CHILD, 2, son of Facundo Chicas and Melda Marquez
187. ANSELMA DE MARQUEZ, 80
188. CHON MARQUEZ, 22, mentally retarded son of Anselma de Marquez
189. DOROTEO N., 60, day laborer
190. FERNANDO GUEVARA, 60, farmer
191. FLORINDA DEL CID DE GUEVARA, 58, an amputee (one leg), wife of Fernando Guevara and sister of Francisca Del Cid (victim #53)
192. MARIA ROMERO, 45, merchant, a widow
193. LUCAS GUEVARA, 35, day laborer
194. ANDRES GUEVARA, 50, day laborer, father of Lucas Guevara
195. RUFINA ROMERO, 35, companion of Lucas Guevara
196. TELMA ROMERO, 12, daughter of Lucas Guevara and Rufina Romero
197. ROSITA ROMERO, lo, daughter of Lucas Guevara and Rufina Romero
198. CANDELARIA ROMERO, 6, daugllter of Lucas Guevara and Rufina Romero
199. JOAQUIN ROMERO, 7, son of Lucas Guevara and Rufina Romero
200. JOSE ROMERO, 6 months, son of Lucas Guevara and Rufina Romero
201. BENITO ROMERO, 3o, day laborer, son of Maria Romero (victim #192)
202. FLORENTINA DEL CID, 25, companion of Benito Romero
203. LUCIA DEL CID, 10, daughter of Benito Romero and Florentina Del Cid
204. CAMILO DEL CID, 7, son of Benito Romero and Florentina Del Cid
20f. ROSITA DEL CID, 4, daughter of Benito Romero and Florentina Del Cid
206. CHILD, 1, daughter of Benito Romero and Florentina Del Cid
207. EDUARDO DIAZ OR EDUARDO CLAROS, 30, day laborer
208. CARMEN CLAROS, 18, companion of Eduardo Claros
209. JUBENCIO DIAZ, 10, son of Eduardo Diaz
210. CLICERIO DIAZ, 3, son of Eduardo Diaz
211. JOSE DIAZ, 5, son of Eduardo Diaz
212. DECIDERIO Diaz OR DECIDERIO CLAROS, 50, farmer, father of Eduardo Diaz
213. MARIA MARQUEZ OR MARIA GUEVARA, 40, companion of Deciderio Diaz
214. SANTOS MARQUEZ OR SANTOS GUEVARA, 20, daughter of Maria Marquez
215. ELADIO ClAROS, 25, day laborer, son of Deciderio Diaz and companion of Santos Marquez
216. DORIS CLAROS, 16, daughter of Eladio Claros and Santos Guevara
217. Child,13, son of Eladio Claros and Santos Guevara
218. Child, 11, daughter of Eladio Claros and Santos Guevara
219. CHILD, 8, son of Eladio Claros and Santos Guevara
220. Child, 5, daughter of Eladio Claros and Santos Guevara
221. VIRGINIA CLAROS, 16, sister of Eduardo Claros (victim #207)
222. OLAYO ClAROS, 15, day laborer, brother of Eduardo Claros (victim #207)
223. MARTINA CLAROS, 15, pregnant at time of death, companion of Olayo Claros
224. FRANCISCA CLAROS, 18, sister of Eduardo Claros (victim #207)
225. IGNACIO GUEVARA, 60, farmer
226. PETO DIAZ, 50, farmer
227. ANDREA MARQUEZ, 45, companion of Peto Diaz
228. VICTORIANA DIAZ MARQUEZ, 30, daughter of Peto Diaz and Andrea Marquez
229. LOCADIO DIAZ MARQUEZ, 18, son of Peto Diaz and Andrea Marquez
230. UGENIA DIAZ MARQUEZ, 14, daughter Of Peto Diaz and Andrea Marquez
231. CHILD, 4, son of Victoriana Diaz Marquez
232. CHILD, 1, son of Victoriana Diaz Marquez
233. SALOME MARQUEZ, 25, day laborer
234. MARTA MARQUEZ VIGil, 50
235. MARGARITA MARQUEZ CLAROS, 25, daughter of Marta Marquez
236. LIRIA MARQUEZ, 7, daughter of Margarita Marquez
237. DINORA MARQUEZ, 6, daughter of Margarita Marquez
238. AMPARO MARQUEZ, 4, daughter of Margarita Marquez
239. ROSITA MARQUEZ, 2, daughter of Margarita Marquez
240. MIRIAM MARQUEZ, 1, daughter of Margarita Marquez
241. CLEOTILDE MARQUEZ, 60, sister of Marta Marquez
242. COSME DIAZ, 80, day laborer
243. JOSE MARCOS DIAZ, 34, merchant
244. ROSA PEREIRA, 22, wife of Jose Marcos Diaz
245. IRMA YANET DIAZ, 4, daughter of Jose Marcos Diaz and Rosa Pereira
246. LORENA PEREIRA, 3, daughter of Jose Marcos Diaz and Rosa Pereira
247. AMiLCAR PEREIRA, 2 months, son of Jose Marcos Diaz and Rosa Pereira
248. MAURA PEREIRA, 10, student, goddaughter of Jose Marcos Diaz
249. ALEXANDRO DIAZ, 60, merchant, father of Jose Marcos Diaz
250. MARIA MARQUEZ, 50, companion of Alejandro Diaz
251. RAMoN MARQUEZ DIAZ, 18, merchant, son of Alejandro Diaz
252. SANTOS MARQUEZ, 40, farmer
253. AGUSTINA GARCIA, 35, companion of Santos Marquez
254. RENE MARQUEZ, 11, student, son of Santos Marquez and Agustina Garcia
255. EDI MARQUEZ, 5, daughter of Santos Marquez and Agustina Garcia
256. CHILD, 2, daughter of Santos Marquez and Agustina Garcia
257. FELIX DEL CID, 19, day laborer
258. ESTANISLAO CHICAS, 75, blind man
259. ANGELICA MARQUEZ, 45, seamstress, wife of Estanislao Chicas
260. CARLOS CHICAS, 25, blind, son of Estanislao Chicas and Angelica Marquez
261. NARCISA MARQUEZ, 20, companion of Carlos Chicas
262. CHILD, 5, daughter of Carlos Chicas and Narcisa Marquez
263. CHILD, 3, daughter of Carlos Chicas and Narcisa Marquez
264. CHILD, 2, daughter of Carlos Chicas and Narcisa Marquez
265. ANTONIO CHICAS, 15, student, brother of Carlos Chicas and son of Estanislao Chicas
266. HUMBERTO CHICAS, 13, son of Estanislao Chicas and Angelica Marquez
267. ESTANISLAO GUEVARA, 30, day laborer
268. FELIPA DIAZ, 25, companion of Estanislao Guevara
269. CHILD, 8, son of Estanislao Guevara and Felipa Diaz
270. CHILD, 7, son of Estanislao Guevara and Felipa Diaz
271. CHILD, 6, son of Estanislao Guevara and Felipa Diaz
272. NATIVIDAD ARGUETA, 80
273. MARTINA DIAZ, 65, maguey spinner, wife of Natividad Argueta
274. DANIEL ROMERO, 48, farmer
275. FLORENTINA PEREIRA, 42, wife of Daniel Romero
276. ANA MARIA ROMERO, 16, daughter of Daniel Romero and Florentina Pereira
277. JESUS SALvADoR ROMERO, 13, son of Daniel Romero and Florentina Pereira
278. ELMER NicoLAs MARQUEZ, 2, ward of Daniel Romero
279. LEONCIO DIAZ, 60, merchant
280. EDILFONZA DIAZ, 68, wife of Leoncio Diaz
281. JOSE MARIA MARQUEZ, 60, day laborer
282. DONATILA PEREIRA, 45, seamstress, companion of Jose Maria
Marquez
283. SofiA MARQuez, 25, daughter of Jose Maria Marquez and Donatila Pereira
284. OSCAR MARQUEZ, 19 son of Jose Maria Marquez and Donatila Pereira
285. CHILD, 7, son of Sofia Marquez
286. CHILD, 3, son of Sofia Marquez
287. CHILD, 2, son of Sofia Marquez
288. EVENOR MARQUEZ, 17, day laborer, son of Jose Maria Marquez and Donatila Pereira
289. MARIA FREDY MARQUEZ, 14, student, daughter of Jose Maria Marquez and Donatila Pereira
290. CHILD, 3, daughter of Jose Maria Marquez and Donatila Pereira
291. CAYETANo ARGUETA, 60, day laborer
292. MARIA ANGELA GUEVARA, 50, companion of Cayetano Argueta
293. CHILD, 12, student, son of Cayetano Argueta and Maria Angela Guevara
294. CHILD, 10, student, son of Cayetano Argueta and Maria Angela Guevara
295. FLORENCIO ARGUETA DEL CID, 62, day laborer
296. MARIA Valentina ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 30, daughter of Florencio Argueta Del Cid
297. AGUSTINA ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 22, daughter of Florencio Argueta Del Cid
298. MARIA MARTIR ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 23, daughter of Florencio Argueta Del Cid
299. JUAN FRANCISCO ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 10, son of Florencio Argueta Del Cid
300. LUCIO MARQUEZ, 24, day laborer, husband of Maria Valentina Argueta Marquez (victim #296)
301. EEVARISTO MARQUEZARGUETA, 8, son of Maria Valentina Argueta Marquez and Lucio Marquez
302. ANTONIO MARQUEZARGUETA, 5, son of Maria Valentina Argueta Marquez and Lucio Marquez
303. CRISTINO MARQUEZARGUETA, 2, son of Maria Valentina Argueta Marquez and Lucio Marquez
304. CELESTINO MARQUEZARGUETA, 1, son of Maria Valentina Argueta Marquez and Lucio Marquez
305. TIMOTEO ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 30, day laborer, husband of Agustina Argueta Marquez (victim #297)

306. SANTOS ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 9, student, son of Agustina Argueta Marquez and Timoteo Argueta Marquez
307. JESUS ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 6, son of Agustina Argueta Marquez and Timoteo Argueta Marquez
308. ISABEL ARGUETA MARQUEZ, 4, daughter of Agustina Argueta Marquez and Timoteo Argueta Marquez
309. SANTOS CLAROS, 30, day laborer, companion of Maria Martir Argueta Marquez (victim #298)
310. ARMANDO ARGUETA CLAROS, 8 months, son of Maria Martir Argueta Marquez and Santos Claros
311. ANTONIO MARQUEZ, 35, day laborer
312. EDUVINA MARQUEZ, 25, sister of Antonio Marquez
313. MONICA DIAZ, 80, murdered in the area of Tierra Colorada, jurisdiction of Arambala
314. LORENZO CLAROS, 7, grandson of Monica Diaz
315. ROFELIA ORELLANA, 70, murdered in the area of Tierra Colorada, jurisdiction of Arambala
316. EDUARDO HERNANDEZ, 70, day laborer, murdered in the area of Tierra Colorada, jurisdiction of Arambala
317. SARA N., 75, companion of Eduardo Hernandez, murdered in the area of Tierra Colorada, jurisdiction of Arambala
318. LUCITA CHICAS, 35, niece of Israel Marquez (victim #46)
319. EFRIAN RAMOS OR EFRIAN MARQUEZ, 40, merchant, husband of Lucita Chicas
320. CHILD, 2, son of Efrain Ramos
321. Child, 4, son of Efrain Ramos
322. CHILD, 12, son of Efrain Ramos
323. ANTONIA GUEVARA, 35
324. CHILD, 5, son of Antonia Guevara
325. CHILD, lo, student, niece of Antonia Guevara
326. CHILD, 8, student, nephew of Antonia Guevara
327. CHILD, 6, student, nephew of Antonia Guevara
328. CHILD, 3, student, nephew of Antonia Guevara
329. FLORINDA Diaz, 60
330. Neftali MARQUEZ, 40, day laborer, companion of Florinda Diaz
331. CHILD, 7, ward of Florinda Diaz and Neftali Marquez
332. PERFECTO DIAZ, 64, bricklayer
333. ANDREA MARQUEZ, 40, wife of Perfecto Diaz
334. EUGENIA Diaz MARQUEZ, 20, daughter of Perfecto Diaz and Andrea Marquez
335. CHILD, 3, daughter of Eugenia Diaz Marquez
336. MACARIO DIAZ MARQUEZ, 15, day laborer, son of Perfecto Diaz and Andrea Marquez
337. VICTORINA Diaz MARQUEZ, 16, daughter of Perfecto Diaz and Andrea Marquez
338. CHILD, 3, daughter of Victorina Diaz Marquez and Francisco Argueta
339. CHILD, 2, daughter of Victorina Diaz Marquez and Francisco Argueta
34o. JOSE RAUL DIAZ, 14, day laborer, nephew of Perfecto Diaz
341. JOSE CAYERANO ARGUETA, 40, musician
342. MARIA GUEVARA, 30, companion of Jose Cayetano Argueta
343. SALOME ARGUETA, 18, day laborer, son of Jose Cayetano Argueta and Maria Guevara
344. JOSE ARGUETA, 14, day laborer, son of Jose Cayetano Argueta and Maria Guevara
345. Child, 12, day laborer, son of Jose Cayetano Argueta and Maria Guevara
346. LORENZO ARGUETA, 40, day laborer
347. WOMAN, 18, wife of Jose Argueta
348. SALVADOR MARQUEZ, 65, day laborer
349. MEDARDA DIAZ, 60, wife of Salvador Marquez
350. CRISTINA MARQUEZ, 25, daughter of Salvador Marquez and Medarda Diaz
351. BARTOLOME MARQUEZOR Salome Marquez, 40 son of Salvador Marquez and Medarda Diaz
352. RUFINO MARQUEZ, day laborer, son of Bartolome Marquez
353. CLEMENTINA MARQUEZOR PASITA Diaz, 26, wife of Rufino Marquez
354. WALTER MARQUEZ, 3, son of Rufillo Marquez and Clementina Marquez
355. EDITH MARQUEZ, 12, daughter of Rufino Marquez and Clementina Marquez
356. GLORIA MARQUEZ, 10, daughter of Rufino Marquez and Clementina Marquez
357. NORBERTA DIAZ, 60, wife of Eugenio Vigil
358. JOSE MARIA MARQUEZ, l0, son of Leonardo Marquez (victim #51 and Orbelina Marquez (victim #54)
359. MARIO MARQUEZ, 6, son of Leonardo Marquez (victim #51 and Orbelina Marquez (victim #54)
360. MAXIMINO MARQUEZ, 4, son of Leonardo Marquez (victim #51 and Orbelina Marquez (victim #54)
361. VILMA YANET MARQUEZ, 1, daughter of Leonardo Marquez (victim #51 and Orbelina Marquez (victim #54)
362. MARIA SANTOS PEREIRA ARGUETA, 25
363. MIRIAM RODRIGUEZ PEREIRA, 9, daughter of Maria Santos Pereira Argueta
364. DOLORES RODRIGUEZ PEREIRA, 7, daughter of Maria Santos Pereira Argueta
365. LILiAN ELIZABETH RODRIGUEZ PEREIRA, 6, daughter of Maria Santos Pereira Argueta
366. NILSON RODRIGUEZ OR HERNAN RODRIGUEZ , 4, son of Maria Santos Pereira Argueta
367. EVELIO RODRIGUEZ PEREIRA, 3, son Of Maria Santos Pereira Argueta
368. CHILD, 10 months old, son of Maria Santos Pereira Argueta
369. ISABEL ARGUETA, 65, widow
370. MARGARITA REYNA MARQUEZ, 55
LA JOYA

371. MARIA ROMERO MARTINEZ, 25
372. MARIBEL ROMERO, 5, daughter of Maria Romero Martinez
373. LUPITA ROMERO, 3, daughter of Maria Romero Martinez
374. ARNOLDO ROMERO, 6 months old, son of Maria Romero Martinez
375. MARIA HERIBERTA MARTfNEZ, 30, 9 months pregnant at time of death
376. ANASTACIO CHICAS ROMERO, age unknown, day laborer, companion of Maria Heriberta Martinez
377. DORE CHICAS MARTINEZ, 7, son of Maria Heriberta Martinez and Anastacio Chicas Romero
378. NUNCIACIoN CHICAS MARTINEZ, 3, daughter of Maria Heriberta Martinez and Anastacio Chicas Romero
379. Justiniano CHICAS MARTINEZ, 8, daughter of Maria Heriberta Martinez and Anastacio Chicas Romero
380. PEDRO CHICAS MARTINEZ, 12, daughter of Maria Heriberta Martinez and Anastacio Chicas Romero
381. MARINO CHICAS MARTINEZ, 14, daughter of Maria Heriberta Martinez and Anastacio Chicas Romero
382. DAVID CHICAS MARTINEZ, 1, son of Maria Heriberta Martinez and Anastacio Chicas Romero
383. FELIPA MARTINEZ, 60, mother of Maria Heriberta Martinez
384. VICENTA TORRES, 30
385. DORA TORRES MARTINEZ, 3, daughter of Vicenta Torres
386. CHILD, several months old, daughter of Vicenta Torres
387. CHILD, several months old, daughter of Vicenta Torres
388. VICTORINA CHICAS, 35, maguey spinner
389. LUCRECIA CHICAS, 5, daughter of Victorina Chicas
390. PETRONA CHICAS OR PETRONILA CHICAS, 40
391. CATALINA CHICAS, 8, daughter of Petrona Chicas
392. JUSTINA GUEVARA or JUSTINIANA GUEVARA, 50, maguey spinner
393. JACINTA GUEVARA or JACINTA Diaz, 25, maguey spinner, daughter of Justina Guevara
394. MARIA GUEVARA OR MARIA Diaz, 5, daughter of Jacinta Diaz and granddaughter of Justina Guevara
395. ROQUE GUEVARA OR ROQUE Diaz, 4, son of Jacinta Diaz and grandson of Justina Guevara
396. AMBROSIO GUEVARA, 1, son of Jacinta Diaz and grandson of Justina Guevara
397. JOSEFINA GUEVARA or JOSEFINA HERNANDEZ, 50
398. HILARIA HERNANDEZ, 45, sister of Josefina Hernandez
399. LORENZO VIGIL, 40, day laborer
400. AMINTA VIGIL ARGUETA, 19, daughter of Lorenzo Vigil
401. PEDRITO VIGIL ARGUETA, 10, son of Lorenzo Vigil
402. JOSE WILFREDO VIGIL, 2, son of Aminta Vigil Argueta and grandson of Lorenzo Vigil
403. CHILD, 3, son of Aminta Vigil Argueta and grandson of Lorenzo Vigil
404. MATEA VIGIL, 60, aunt of Lorenzo Vigil
405. CONCEPCION VIGIL, 40, day laborer and maguey spinner, son of Matea Vigil
406. EUGENIA MARTINEZ, 25, companion of Concepcion Vigil
407. LEONARDA MARTINEZ, 60, mother of Eugenia Martinez
408. MARIA MARTINEZ, 6, daughter of Concepcion Vigil and Eugenia Martinez
409. FEDERICO MARTINEZ, 4, son of Concepcion Vigil and Eugenia Martinez
410. CHILD, 6 months old, daughter of Concepcion Vigil and Eugenia Martinez
411. MARIA ARGUETA, 30, sister of Eugenia Martinez
412. CHILD, age unknown, son of Maria Argueta
413. CHILD, age unknown, son of Maria Argueta
414. CHILD, age unknown, daughter of Maria Argueta
415. AQUILINO DIAZ OR AQUILINO SAENZ, 35, day laborer
416. FRANCISCA CHAVARRiA, 40, companion of Aquilino Diaz
417. SANTOS CHAVARRiA, 9, son of Aquilino Diaz and Francisca Chavarria
418. JOSE CHAVARRiA, 8, son of Aquilino Diaz and Francisca Chavarria
419. CHILD, age unknown, daughter of Aquilino Diaz and Francisca Chavarria
420. CHILD, age unknown, daughter of Aquilino Diaz and Francisca Chavarria
421. ESTANISLAO DIAZ, 65, farmer, father of Aquilino Diaz
422. TOMASA MARTINEZ, 70, wife of Estanislao Diaz and mother of Aquilino Diaz
423. DOMINGA CHAVARRiA, 20
424. CHILD, age unknown, son of Dominga Chavarria
425. CHILD, age unknown, son of Dominga Chavarria
426. CHILD, age unknown, son of Dominga Chavarria
427. SEBASTIANA RAMOS, 35
428. PETRONA CHAVARRiA, 50, aunt of Francisca Chavarria (victim #416)
429. TOMASA CHAVARRiA, age unknown, mother of Francisca Chavarria (victim #416)
430. SANTOS CHAVARRiA, 55, brother of Tomasa Chavarria, maguey spinner
431. FAUSTINA CHAVARRiA LUNA, 15, daughter of Santos Chavarria
432. EUSTAQUIA ChavarriaLUNA, 1l, daughter of Santos Chavarria
433. SANTOS ChavarriaLUNA, 5, daughter of Santos Chavarria
434. CHILD, 1, daughter of Santos Chavarria
435. REGINO Chavarria, 65, brother of Santos Chavarria
436. Otilia Hernandez, 30, daugllter of Regino Chavarria
437. JOSE ROSARIO PeREZ, 20, day laborer and maguey spinner, companion of Otilia Hernandez
438. CHILD, age unknown, son of Otilia Hernandez and Jose Rosario Perez
439. CHILD, age unknown, son of Otilia llernandez and Jose Rosario Perez
440. CHILD, age unknown, son of Otilia l-lernandez and Jose Rosario Perez
441. CHILD, age unknown, son of Otilia Hernandez and Jose Rosario Perez
442. MARCIAL PEREZ, 15, maguey spinner, hrother of Jose Rosario Perez
443. AGAPITO LUNA, 23, farmer
444. INES MARTINEZ, 45, day laborer
445. MARGARITA MARTINEZ OR MARGARITA ROMERO, 40, wife of Ines Martinez
446. CRISIINA MARTINEZ, 23, daughter of Margarita Romero and Ines Martinez
447. CRISTINITA MARTINEZ, 9 months old, daughter of Cristina Martinez
448. CHILD, 6, son of Cristina Martinez
449. FACUNDA ROMERO, 25, daughter of Margarita Romero and Ines Martinez
450. MARTA ROMERO, 10, daughter of Facunda Romero
451. CHILD, 8, son of Facunda Romero
452. CHILD, 6, son of Facunda Romero
453. MAN, 22, day laborer, son of Margarita Romero and Ines Martinez
454. BOY, 19, day laborer, son of Margarita Romero and Ines Martinez
455. JACINTO SANCHEZ, 80, day laborer
456. AMELIA SANCHEZ, 95, sister of Jacinto Sanchez
457. DOMINGA SANCHEZ, 30, daughter of Jacinto Sanchez
458. MELA SANCHEZ OR ANGELICA SANCHEZ, 14, daughter of Dominga Sanchez
459. JUANCITO SANCHEZ, 10, student, son of Dominga Sanchez
460. SANTOS SANCHEZ OR SANTOS ARGUETA DE SANCHEZ, 35, wife of Jose Sanchez
461. FIGENIA SANCHEZ, 13, daughter of Jose Sanchez and Santos Sanchez
462. IRMA SANCHEZ, 6, daughter of Jose Sanchez and Santos Sanchez
463. MARIANA SANCHEZ, 4, daughter of Jose Sanchez and Santos Sanchez
464. ESPENTACION SANCHEZ OR PETIO SANCHEZ, 2, son of Jose Sanchez and Santos Sanchez
465. JACINTO SANCHEZ, 3, son of Jose Sanchez and Santos Sanchez
466. CONCEPCION SANCHEZ, 3 days old, daughter of Jose Sanchez and Santos Sanchez
467. REYNELDA LOPEZ OR REYNELDA ELIZABETH LoPEZ, 32
468. ARNOLDO LOPEZ, 10, daughter of Reynelda Lopez
469. EDGAR MARIN LOPEZ, 8, daughter of Reynelda Lopez
470. JOAQUIN LOPEZ, 6, daughter of Keynelda Lopez
471. HERIBERTO LOPEZ, 4, daughter of lteyllelda Lopez
472. JOSE DORE LOPEZ, 2, daughter of Keynelda Lopez
473. JOSE CLEOFAS LOPEZ, 8 months old, daughter of Reynelda Lopez
474. FRANCISCA GoMEZ OR FRANCISCA SANCHEZ, 75, wife of Ismael Lopez
475. PRISCILA Lopez, 22, daughter of Ismael Lopez
476. CHILD, 7 months old, daughter of Priscila Lopez
477. MARIA INES MARTINEZ, 34
478. JESUS MARTINEZ, 8, son of Maria Ines Martinez
479. TEODORO MARTINEZ, 5, son of Maria Ines Martinez
480. MAXIMA MARTINEZ, 50, daughter of Maria Ines Martinez
481. CHILD, 4, son of Maria Ines Martinez
482. GREGORIA MARTINEZ, 24, cousin of Maria Ines Martinez
483. BERNARDA MARTINEZ OR CECILIA MARTINEZ, 12, daughter of Gregoria Martinez
484. ESTHER MARTINEZ, 9, daughter of Gregoria Martinez
485. CHILD, 5, daughter of Gregoria Martinez
486. CHILD, 3, daughter of Gregoria Martinez
487. CHILD, 9 months old, daughter of Gregoria Martinez
488. TEODORA RAMIREZ, 45
489. TRANSITO RAMIREZ, 22
490. RODOLFO RAMIREZ, 8, son of Transito Ramirez
491. FLORITA RAMIREZ, 3, daughter of Transito Ramirez
492. CECILIA RAMIREZ, 85, aunt of Transito Ramirez
493. ALEJANDRA ROMERO, 75
494. CRISTINA GUEVARA, 25
495. CHILD, 3 months old, son of Cristina Guevara
496. SILVERIA MEJIA ROMERO, 25, maguey spinner
497. JESUS MEJIA CHICAS, 10, son of Silveria Mejia Romero
498. MARIA MARTA MEJIA CHICAS, 8, daughter of Silveria Mejia Romero
499. JUANITA MEJIA CHICAS, 6, daughter of Silveria Mejia Romero
500. JOSe LUCAS MEJIA CHICAS, 3 son of Silveria Mejia Romero
501. CHILD, 2, son of Silveria Mejia Romero
502. CHILD, 3 months old, son of Silveria Mejia Romero
503. MARIA MARCOS REYES, 20
504. JOSE FRANCISCO REYES LUNA, 5, son of Maria Marcos Reyes
505. MARIA NELY REYES LUNA, 3, daughter of Maria Marcos Reyes
506. EVARISTO REYES LUNA, 6 months old, son of Maria Marcos Reyes
507. PRESENTACION MARQUEZ, 41, day laborer
508. MARIA MARTIR MARQUEZ, 38, wife of Presentacion Marquez
509. GIRL, 14, daughter of Presentacion Marquez and Maria Martir Marquez
510. CHILD, 11, daughter of Presentacion Marquez and Maria Martir Marquez
511. CHILD, 9, son of Presentacion Marquez and Maria Martir Marquez
512. CHILD, 7, son of Presentacion Marquez and Maria Martir Marquez
513. CHILD, 4, son of Presentacion Marquez and Maria Martir Marquez
514. VICENTA MARQUEZ, 80, widow
515. ENEMESIO RODRiGUEZ OR ENEMESIO GUEVARA, 38, day laborer
516. DONATILA CHICAS or DOMITILA ORELLANA, 30, pregnant at time of death, companion of Enemesio Rodriguez
517. CHILD, 7, daughter of Enemesio Rodriguez and Donatila Chicas
518. CHILD, 5, daughter of Enemesio Rodriguez and Donatila Chicas
519. CHILD, 1, daughter of Enemesio Rodriguez and Donatila Chicas
520. CATARINO RODRIGUEZ or CATARINO GUEVARA, 70, day laborer, father of Enemesio Rodriguez
521. NARCISA MARQUEZ, 68, wife of Catarino Rodriguez
522. MAXIMO RODRIGUEZ, 40, day laborer, son of Catarino Rodriguez and Narcisa Marquez
523. LEONARDA MARQUEZ, 40, wife of Maximo Rodriguez
524. ELENA RODRiGUEZ, 16, daughter of Maximo Rodriguez and Leonarda Marquez
525. HERMINIO RODRIGUEZ, 14, son of Maximo Rodriguez and Leonarda Marquez
526. CAMARO RODRiGUEZ, 12, son of Maximo Rodriguez and Leonarda Marquez
527. CHILD, 6, son of Maximo Rodriguez and Leonarda Marquez
528. CHILD, 4, son of Maximo Rodriguez and Leonarda Marquez
529. FELIX RODRiGUEZ, 30, daughter of Catarino Rodriguez and Narcisa Marquez
530. CHILD, 10, daughter of Felix Rodriguez
531. CHILD, 8, son of Felix Rodriguez
532. CHILD, 6, daughter of Felix Rodriguez
533. CHILD, 4, son of Felix Rodriguez
534. PEDRO ARGUETA, 40, day laborer
535. PEDRO ARGUETA, 35, day laborer, brother of Pedro Argueta
536. JULIA DEl CId, 18, pregnant at time of death
537. HUMBERTO Chicas, 19, day laborer, companion of Julia Del Cid
538. CHILD, 2, son of Julia Del Cid and Humberto Chicas
539. VICENTE MARQUEZ, 60, day laborer
540. SERVANDA MAsQuEz, 28, daughter of Vicente Marquez
541. SERGIO MARQUEZ or SERSIDO MARQUEZ, 25, day laborer, son of Vicente Marquez
542. CHILD, 7, son of Servanda Marquez
543. CHILD, 3, son of Servanda Marquez
544. MONCIIO MARQUEZ, 15, day laborer, husband of Mercedes Pereira, who was killed in Los Toriles
545. TERESA ARGUETA or TERESA RodriGUEZ, 22
546. PEDRO CHICAS, 27, farmer, husband of Teresa Argueta
547. CHILD, age unknown, son of Pedro Chicas and Teresa Argueta
548. Child, age unknown, son of Pedro Chicas and Teresa Argueta
549. CHILD, age unknown, son of Pedro Chicas and Teresa Argueta
550. CHILD, age unknown, son of Pedro Chicas and Teresa Argueta
551. CHILD, 4, daughter of Pedro Chicas and Teresa Argueta
552. CARLOS CLAROS, 25, day laborer
553. LUCAS CHICAS, 20, companion of Carlos Claros
554. RUMALDO MARQUEZ, 30, day laborer
555. MELIDA CHICAS, 24, wife of Rumaldo Marquez
556. CHILD, 8 days old, son of Rumaldo Marquez and Melida Chicas
557. CHILD, 2, son of Rumaldo Marquez and Melida Chicas
558. CHILD, 1 l, daughter of Rumaldo Marquez and Melida Chicas
559. CHILD, 8, daughter of Rumaldo Marquez and Melida Chicas
560. CHILD, 6, daughter of Rumaldo Marquez and Melida Chicas

LOS TORILES

561. NARCISO ARGUETA, 80, farmer, father of Felipe Argueta (killed in El Mozote)
562. ABILIO VIGIl, 43, farmer
563. SATURNINA ARGUETA, 45, companion of Abilio Vigil
564. ESTANISLAO ALVARENGA OR ESTANISI.AO ARGUETA, 60, father of Abilio Vigil
565. JUSTINIANA N., 50, companion of Estanislao Alvarenga
566. SEFERINA VIGII. OR SEFERINA ARGUETA, 15, daughter of Abilio Vigil and Saturnina Argueta
567. FRANCISCO ARGUETA, 13, son of Abilio Vigil and Saturnilla Argueta
568. MARIA ANTONIA ARGUETA, 11, daugilter of Abilio Vigil and Saturilina Argueta
569. MERCEDES ARGuEtA, 9, daughter of Abilio Vigil and Saturnina Argueta
570. MARIA SANTOS ARGUETA, 7, daughter of Abilio Vigil and Saturnina Argueta
571. CHILD, 5, daughter of Abilio Vigil and Saturnina Argueta
572. CHILD, 3, daughter of Abilio Vigil and Saturnina Argueta
573. CHILD, 1, daughtcr of Abilio Vigil and Saturnina Argueta
574. MANUEL ALVARENGA OR MANUEI. SAN10S PEREIRA ARGUETA, 30, day laborer, companion of Adonisia Rodriguez (killed in ElMozote)
575. FLORENTINA PEREIRA, 70, mother of Manuel Santos Argueta
576. PETRONA MARQUEZ, 39
577. HERMINIO MARQUEZ, 41, day laborer, companion of Petrona Marquez
578. MARIA ZOILA MARQUEZ, 17, day laborer, son of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
579. MARIA CARMEN MARQUEZ, 15, daughter of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
580. JOSE SANTOS MARQUEZ, daughter of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
581. MARIA JUANA MARQUEZ, 8, daughter of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
582. JUAN MARQUEZ, 5, son of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
583. NICOLASA MARQUEZ, 17 months old, daughter of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
584. CHILD, 8 days old, son of Petrona Marquez and Herminio Marquez
585. CRESCENCIO ARGUETA, 80, day laborer, stepfather of Orbelina Marquez (victim #54, killed in El Mozote)
586. GIRL, 14, daughter of Crescencio Argueta
587. CHILD, 12, daughter of Gescencio Argueta
588. CHILD, 8, son of Crescencio Argueta
589. NATALIA GUEVARA, 45
590. ROSA CANDIDA PEREIRA, 14, daughter of Natalia Guevara
591. JOSE MARIO PEREIRA, 10, son of Natalia Guevaril
592. SIMEONA VIGIL, 90, mother-in-law of Natalia Guevara
593. BERTOLDINO PERIERA, 70, farmer, son of Simeona Vigil
594. MARIA MARQUEZ, 65, wife of Bertoldino Pereira
595. INES PEREIRA MARQUEZ, 18, day laborer, son or Bertoldino Pereira and Maria Mstirquez
596. CARMEN MARQUEZ, 17, compallioll of Illes Pereira M'lrquez
597. Jose IGNACIO PEREIRA, 25, farmer, son of Bertoldino Pereira and Maria Marquez
598. MERCEDES PEREIRA, 16, daughter of Bertoldillo Pereira and Maria Marquez
599. JESUS PEREIRA, 13, son of Bertoldino Pereira and Maria Marquez
600. JUAN ANGEL PEREIRA, 55, day laborer, son of Simeona Vigil
601. Marto ROMERO, 10, granddaughter of Simeon Vigil
602. MARTO Vigil, 25, day laborer
603. GUILLERMA MARQUEZ, 25, pregnant at time of death, wife of Marto Vigil
604. JOSE VIGIL, 8, son of Marto Vigil and Guillerma Marquez
605. MARIA VIGIL, 7, daughter of Marto Vigil and Guillerma Marquez
606. ANGEL VIGIL MARQUEZ, 6, son of Marto Vigil and Guillerma Marquez
607. CHILD, 4, son of Marto Vigil and Guillerma Marquez
608. CHILD, 2, daughter of Marto Vigil and Guillerma Marquez
609. LUIS VIGIL, 50, day laborer, uncle of Marto Vigil
610. JOSE VIGIL, 30, farmer, cousin of Marto Vigil
611. BERNARDA MARQUEZ, 25, wife of Jose Vigil
612. CHILD, 7, son of Jose Vigil and Bernarda Marquez
613. CHILD, 5, son of Jose Vigil and Bemarda Marquez
614. CHILD, 1, son of Jose Vigil and Bemarda Marquez
615. AGUSTINA MARQUEZ, 46, mother of Bernarda Marquez
616. JOSE DANILO MARQUEZ, 35, farmer
617. MARTA CHICAS, 30, wife of Danilo Marquez
618. JOSE MARQUEZ, 10, son of Danilo Marquez and Marta Chicas
619. CHILD, 8, son of Danilo Marquez and Marta Chicas
620. CHILD, 12, son of Danilo Marquez and Marta Chicas
621. CHILD, 5, son of Danilo Marquez and Marta Chicas
622. CHILD, 1, son of Danilo Marquez and Marta Chicas
JOCOTE ARMIRILLO

623. CELESTINA VIGIL, 50, killed in El Mozote with her children, mother of Florentina Del Cid
624. FLORENTINA DEL CID VIGIL, 30, pregnant at time of death
625. CAMILO DEL CID, 12, son of Florentina Del Cid Vigil
626. JAZMiN DEL CID, 8, son of Florentina Del Cid Vigil
627. CHILD, 3, daughter of Florentina Del Cid Vigil
628. GENOVEVA DIAZ, 60
629. MODESTA N., 40
630. CHILD, 2 months old, son of Modesta N.
631. CHILD, 9, daughter of Modesta N.
632. CIIILD, 6, daughter of Modesta N.
633. LORENZA MARQUEZ, 40
634. BENEDICTO MARQUEZ, 9, son of Lorenza Marquez
635. MODESTO MARQUEZ, 6, son of Lorenza Marquez
636. MARIA BERNAI.DA MARQUEZ, 4, daughter of Lorenza Marquez
637. MARIA ARGUETA, 35
638. SANTOS HERNANDEZ, 12, student, son of Maria Argueta
639. CHILD, 10 months old, son of Maria Argueta

CERRO PANDO

640. SATURNINA DIAZ, 22
641. EUSEBIA DIAZ, 10, daughter of Saturnina Diaz
642. ESTELA DIAZ, 2, niece of Saturnina Diaz
643. CHILD, 20 days old, daughter of Saturnina Diaz
644. ANTOLIN DIAZ, 22, maguey spinner
645. TOMASA ARGUETA, 20, companion of Antolin Diaz
646. CHILD, 3, son of Antolin Diaz and Tomasa Argueta
647. CHILD, 2, son of Antolin Diaz and Tomasa Argueta
648. CHILD, 15 days old, daughter of Antolin Diaz and Tomasa Argueta
649. JUAN CHICAS, 29, maguey spinner
650. CIRIACA ARGUETA, 30, companion of Juan Chicas
651. LUCIANO CHICOS ARGUETA, 15, maguey spinner, son of Juan Chicas
652. GERVASIO CHICAS ARGUETA, 12, maguey spinner, son of Juan Chicas
653. TRANSITO CHICAS ARGUEtA, 9, son of Juan Chicas
654. NICOLASA CHICAS ARGUETA, 6, daughter of Juan Chicas
655. DIONISIO ARGUETA OR LEONISIO ArgUETA, 32, maguey spinner
656. FELIX PORTILLO or FELIX DIAZ, 29, companion of Dionisio
Argueta
657. CHILD, 10, daughter of Dionisio Argueta and Felix Portillo
658. CHILD, 7, daughter of Dionisio Argueta and Felix Portillo
659. REGINO ARGUETA, 40, maguey spinner, hrother of Dionisio
Argueta
660. MARTIR PORTILLO, 35, wife of Regino Argueta
661. MATILDE ARGUETA PORTILLO, 16, day laborer, son of Regino Argueta and Martir Portillo
662. FILIBERTA CHICAS, 16, companion of Matilde Argueta
663. GERARDO ARGUETA, 29, maguey spinner
664. JUANA ARGUETA, 24, companion of Gerardo Argueta
665. CHILD, 9, daughter of Gerardo Argueta and Juana Argueta
666. MIGUEL ARGUETA, 25, maguey spinner
667. DOMINGA ARGUETA, 22, companion of Miguel Argueta
668. CHILD, 5, daughter of Miguel Argueta and Dominga Argueta
669. CHILD, 3, daughter of Miguel Argueta and Dominga Argueta
670. CHILD, 2, daughter of Miguel Argueta and Dominga Argueta
671. CATARINO ARGUETA, 65, maguey spinner, fatiler of Ciriaca Argueta (victim #650)
672. FRANCISCA ARGUETA, 70, wife of Catarino Argueta
673. TIMOTEO ARGUeTA, 28, artisan, son of Catarino Argueta and Francisca Argueta
674. ROMANA PEREIRA, 28, companion of Timoteo Argueta
675. GIRL, 1s, daughter of Timoteo Argueta and Romana Pereira
676. CHILD, 8, son of Timoteo Argueta and Komana Pereira
677. CHILD, 5, son of Timoteo Argueta and Romana Pereira
678. JORGEN ARGUETA, 80, mother of Dionisio Argueta (victim #655)
679. GENARO ARGUETA, 82, farmer, companion of Jorgen Argueta
680. EDILFONZO ARGUETA, 51, farmer, son of Jorgen Argueta and
Genaro Argueta
681. LOLA MARTINEZ, 20
682. CHILD, 8, daughter of Lola Martinez
683. LUCIO ARGUETA, 24, day laborer, son of Catarino Argueta (victim #671) and Francisca Argueta (victim #672)
684. WOMAN, 22, companion of Lucio Argueta
685. CHILD, 3, son of Lucio Argueta
686. CHILD, 2, son of Lucio Argueta
687. JUSTO MARTINEZ, 45, locksmith
688. ANGELA ARGUETA, 33, wife of Justo Martinez
689. TOMAS MARTINEZ ARGUETA, 20, son of Justo Martinez and Angela Argueta
690. DIONISIA MARTINEZ, 18, companion of Tomas Martinez Argueta
691. Child, 2 months old, son of Tomas Martinez Argueta and Dionisia
Martinez
692. ESTEBAN MARTINEZ ARGUETA, 16, son of Justo Martillez and Angela Argueta
693. BOY, 14, son of Justo Martinez and Angela Argueta
694. CHILD, 12, daughter of Justo Martinez and Angela Argueta
695. CHILD, 9, daughter of Justo Martinez and Angela Argueta
696. MAXIMO ARGUETA, 30, maguey spinner, son of Catarino Argueta (victim #671)
697. HERIBERTA RAMOS, 28, companion of Maximo Argueta
698. BoY, 15, son of Maximo Argueta and Heriberta Ramos
699. Boy, 13, son of Maximo Argueta and Heriberta Ramos
700. CHILD, 10, son of Maximo Argueta and Heriberta Ramos
701. CHILD, 8, son of Maximo Argueta and Heriberta Ramos
702. MATEO LoPEZ, 55, maguey spinner
703. AGUSTINA MARTINEZ, 30, wife of Mateo Lopez
704. GIRl, 15, daughter of Mateo Lopez and Agustina Martinez
705. CHILD, 12, daughter of Mateo Lopez and Agustina Martinez
706. CHILD, 9, daughter of Mateo Lopez and Agustina Martinez
707. CHILD, 6, son of Mateo Lopez and Agustina Martinez
708. VITOR MARTINEZ, 60, mother of Agustina Martinez
709. JESUS LUNA, 78, day laborer, companion of Vitor Martinez
710. CATARINO MARTINEZ, 26, maguey spinner, son of Vitor Martinez
711. FERMINA CHICAS, 24, companion of Catarino Martinez
712. CHILD, 10, son of Catarino Martinez and Fermina Chicas
713. CHILD, 7, son of Catarino Martinez and Fermina Chicas
714. CHILD, 5, son of Catarino Martinez and Fermina Chicas
715. MARTiN MARTINEZ, 32, maguey spinner, brother of Catarino Martinez
716. FERMINA ARGUETA, 29, companion of Martin Martinez
717. CHILD, 10, daughter of Martin Martinez and Fermina Argueta
718. CHILD, 7, daughter of Martin Martinez and Fermina Argueta
719. CHILD, 5, son of Martin Martinez and Fermina Argueta
720. PABLO CHICAS, 28, maguey spinner
721. DIONISIA ARGUETA OR LEONISIA MEjiA, 24, companion of Pablo Chicas
722. GIRL, 13, daughter of Pablo Chicas and Dionisia Argueta
723. ANDRES CHICAS ARGUETA, 11, son of Pablo Chicas and Dionisia Argueta
724. CHILD, 9, daughter of Pablo Chicas and Dionisia Argueta
725. CHILD, 6, son of Pablo Chicas and Dionisia Argueta
726. NASARIA ARGUETA, 70, mother of Diollisia Argueta
727. RAFAEL ARGUETA MEJiA, 27, maguey spiniler, son of Nasaria Argueta
728. LEONCIA ARGUETA, 24, companion of Rafael Argueta Mejia
729. CHILD, 5, son of Rafael Argueta Mejia and Leoncia Argueta
73o CHILD, 2, daughter of Rafael Argueta Mejia and Leoncia Argueta
731. TIBURCIO MEJIA, 35, day laborer, son of Nasaria Argueta
732. ELOISA PORTILLO or ARCADIA PORTILLO, 30, companion of Tiburcio Mejia
733. MARIA MEJIA, 29, daughter of Nasaria Argueta
734. ANDRES FLORES, 48, day laborer, companion of Maria Mejia
735. COLASTICO MEJIA, 40, maguey spinner, cousin of Maria Mejia
736. BRUNA ARGUETA, 42, companion of Colastico Mejia and daughter of Jorgen Argueta (victim #678) and Genaro Argueta (victim #679)
737. GIRL, 15, daughter of Colastico Mejia and Bruna Argueta
738. CHILD, 12, daughter of Colastico Mejia and Bruna Argueta
739. CHILD, 9, daughter of Colastico Mejia and Bruna Argueta
740. SINFOROSO PEREIRA, 30, day laborer
741. EUGENIA DIAZ, 28, companion of Sinforoso Pereira
742. CHILD, 8, son of Sinforoso Pereira and Eugenia Diaz
743. MARIA RAMOS, 75, widow
744. PATRICIA ARGUETA, 75, artisan
745. MIGUEL ARGUETA, 58, farmer
746. EDILFONZA ARGUETA, 48, companion of Edilfonzo Argueta (victim #680)
747. AURELIA RAMIREZ, 70
748. SUSANA RAMIREZ, 32, daughter of Aurelia Ramirez
749. ENEMESIA LUNA, 75, widow

751. CONCEPCION PORTILLO, 35, bricklayer
752. DOMINGA PORTILLO, 28, seamstress, wife of Concepcion Portillo

JOATECA

753. MAXIMO PEREZ, 28, catechist
754. BENEDICTO PEREZ, 10, son of Maximo Perez
755. ESTANISLASA PEREZ, 8, daughter of Maximo Perez
756. ROMULO PEREZ, 4, son of Maximo Perez
757 AGUSTINA PEREZ, 23
758. CHILD, 3 days old, daughter of Agustina Perez
759. CRESCENCIA PEREZ, 18, sister of Maximo Perez
760. CARLOS ORTIZ, 48, day laborer
761. TERESO DE JESUS LUNA, 14, day laborer, deaf and mute
762. NATIVIDAD LUNA, 18, cousin of Tereso de Jesus Luna
763. OCTAVIANA LUNA, 8 months old, daughter of Natividad Luna
764. JULIA N., 12
765. WOMAN, 50
766. GIRL, 15, daughter of victim #765
767. GIRL, 13, daughter of victim #765

El Mozote -- the rebirth of hope

2011-12-09T21:26:00.000-06:00

Seventh in a series

The name "El Mozote" will forever be linked with a massacre and some of the most unimaginable cruelty inflicted by one set of human beings on another. But El Mozote is also the name of a community where people today live, dream, and struggle to support their families. El Mozote was a deserted, ghost town at the end of the civil war, but some of its former residents who were not present on the day of the massacre have returned. Without ever forgetting the past, hope is being reborn. In a town where so many children are buried, children now paint images of life and hope.

If you travel to El Mozote, one of the things you will see is this mural on the side of the little church which faces the plaza. The mural was a project of visual artist Claudia Bernardi who uses art and murals as a tool to restore a sense of community in populations impacted by massacres or other human rights atrocities. The "Wall of Hope" was developed in connection with the 2006 commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the massacre.

A recent article on the Huffington Post tells the story:

To see Bernardi's gorgeous images is to be seduced by their jeweled colors of raw pigment and lured by their lyrical titles. But a closer look reveals skeletal remains, fragments of the silenced, drawn with indelible tenderness. Her work weaves visual poetry with a brutal frankness informed by her time spent in mass graves exhuming innocent victims of political conflicts. As a member of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (AFAT), a scientific organization founded to investigate human-rights abuses against civilian populations, Bernardi has worked at sites throughout the world.

It was in 1992 that her work for AFAT first took Bernardi to El Salvador. The team was to investigate rumors of a massacre eleven years previous in the hamlet of El Mozote. Their focus was initially limited to a small building known as "The Convent," where they would subsequently unearth the remains of 143 people, 136 of whom were under the age of ten. AFAT would return to El Salvador several more times, completing their investigation of El Mozote in 2004.

She visited the village of Perquin in 2001, four kilometers north of what was now the ghost of El Mozote. There, Bernardi began working with the community and together they would eventually create a mural dedicated to the victims of the massacre. Inspired by the villagers' ability to use art to overcome their longstanding differences and personal traumas, Bernardi would found The School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin in 2005.

Today, the school continues to use art as a tool for education, community development, and a voice for victims of human-rights violations. The school is free and open to all. Students, from children to the elderly, sometimes walk miles to learn to draw, paint, make textiles and wood sculpture. It is run by four local artists who, just five years ago, had never even made a work of art.

On a recent visit to El Mozote, one of those students who worked on the mural took pride in showing it to me and pointing out the portions of the wall where he had painted. He was an embodiment of the images of hope on the wall of that simple church.

You can see a photo album of the development of the El Mozote mural at this link and read more here about Walls of Hope and its recent project at the site of a massacre of indigenous campesinos in Guatemala. There is a link of photos from one of my visits to El Mozote at this link.

Also working with the people of El Mozote is Sister Anne Griffin of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. From their mission in nearby Arambala, Sister Anne and others work to support the returned residents of El Mozote with reconciliation and healing, as well as development and a path forward. She wrote of plans to create a center for such healing:

However, there is still much to be done and the people of El Mozote need access to a Healing – Reconciliation process which, from the beginning, would have the infrastructure necessary to support its ongoing development. El Mozote receives many visitors and the center could change the fame of El Mozote from a massacre site and a place of death to an acknowledged center of reconciliation and healing.

The planned center would have cabins, a spirituality/healing center with rooms for meetings and therapy, a chapel, and infrastructure to support many visitors. I hope to learn more about this project. Perhaps the reparations of which Mauricio Funes spoke this week with Sr. Anne and residents of El Mozote could help to make it a reality.

You can watch a DiscoveryNews video at this link in which both Claudia Bernardi and Sr. Anne Griffin tell the story of El Mozote and some of the signs of hope and new life in El Mozote.

You can also see the signs of hope and new life in a short video by Los Angeles writer Marcos Villatoro called The Women of El Mozote which features interviews with some of the women who have returned to El Mozote after the massacre and the war. They are remarkable women, and they now tell the story of El Mozote to those who visit there so we will never forget:

Marcos told me that he made the video so that the women can sell it from the small tourist kiosk they have at the site of the monument to the massacre. The YouTube version is a 7 minute version of the full length version which runs about 38 minutes. So pick up a copy of the full video if you ever visit and support the women of El Mozote.

I want to conclude this post about rebirth in El Mozote with a quote from Claudia Bernardi on the 25th anniversary of the El Mozote massacre:

This was what was so wonderful about El Mozote! We are all still here and we are remembering the dead by providing evidence of our collective existence.

We have forgotten nothing but we are all here to celebrate the life we still have, the love we are capable to share, the dreams and visions that we want to make happen as a militancy of hope.

El Mozote -- Funes meets with victims' families

2011-12-09T07:11:00.001-06:00

Sixth in a series

This past Monday, President Funes met with relatives of the victims of the massacre at El Mozote and promised reparations. Translated from the article in DiarioCoLatino:

President of the Republic, Mauricio Funes, revealed [December 5] that on the coming 16th, during a ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Peace Accords, he will present a set of collective reparations for victims of gross violations to human rights. The President revealed this initiative today at a meeting behind closed doors, he had with family members and representatives of organizations that were formed after the slaughter at El Mozote.

"It will be a public act, we want to have widely available, because it is an occasion to again express to the people and the international community the commitment of the government of El Salvador with full respect for human rights and the policy of reparations," the leader told the relatives of victims of the massacre recorded on 10, 11 and December 12, 1981, in Mozote, La Joya and Los Toriles, in the department of Morazán.

"What is in our power and our responsibility will be done. And together we will promote measures that depend not on the executive branch, but are related to the work of Justice and of the Attorney General of the Republic," he said.

According to subsequent investigations of the Truth Commission (the UN agency created to investigate the acts of violence committed during the Salvadoran civil war) approximately 900 Salvadoran peasants were killed in El Mozote and surrounding cantons. It is considered not only the greatest act of violence against civilians committed by government agents during the civil war. "Thank you for coming to the presidential palace. For me it is a pleasure to welcome you. Very symbolic. Before, during right-wing governments, just big business arrived here, the owners of the country, as they believed themselves," Funes told the visitors....

"I want to express my solidarity as always and to say that the government and this servant have a very strong commitment to the respect and vindication of human rights," he said.

The President also pledged to continue promoting concrete reparation measures to be accomplished in dialogue between the government and relatives of the victims of the slaughter.

"The fruit of this dialogue will be measures that we will adopt and take forward," he acknowledged.

President Funes stressed that his government will follow up directly with what happens in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in this case, through the Directorate of Human Rights in the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Social Inclusion.

"With the apology to the relatives of the victims, two years ago we began a process of recovery of the truth and reparations that the country, under the governments of the right, had prevented," he recalled.

El Mozote - Seeking Justice in Spite of the Amnesty Law

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

Fifth in a series

This post in my series on El Mozote is a reprint of an essay by Bethany Loberg originally posted by my friends at SHARE on Tuesday. They have graciously allowed me to reprint it here.

December 11th, 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of the El Mozote massacre – one of the largest, most brutal massacres in Latin America. As part of the military’s scorched earth campaign to remove any possible source of supplies for the guerrilla by killing entire rural villages, members of the armed forces entered El Mozote and the surrounding villages in December of 1981, rounding up, separating, and systematically killing men, women, and children. Through investigations including exhumations and testimonies, Tutela Legal, the San Salvador Archdiocese’s human rights office has identified 819 individuals killed in the massacre – over half under the age of twelve.

Thanks to Rufina Amaya’s tireless efforts to tell her story, as the sole survivor of the massacre, international news coverage, several rounds of exhumations of human remains, and the work of human rights organizations like Tutela Legal, the massacre can no longer be denied. El Mozote has become a well-known symbol of the brutality of the armed forces during the war.

The Salvadoran government, however, has not taken actions to investigate or bring to trial the intellectual and material authors of these brutal murders. To the contrary, since the peace accords, the army and government have paid homage to Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, a key leader in the massacre, on numerous occasions. As Gisela León of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) stated in a recent interview, “The massacre of El Mozote represents the absolute impunity that all cases from the conflict are in.” Efforts at truth-telling and investigation, necessary elements in reaching reconciliation, have come solely from civil society.

Pedro Chicas Rivera, survivor of the massacre in La Joya, a village near El Mozote, first presented the massacres in La Joya, El Mozote, and the surrounding communities in Salvadoran courts in October of 1990, with the assistance of Tutela Legal. The case faced one set-back after another. When auxiliary attorney Hugo García requested inspection of the massacre site, exhumations of the victims, and that the president name the officials in charge of the military operation, he was immediately removed from the case. The judge assigned to the case stated that he could not investigate the case without orders from the president of the Salvadoran Supreme Court, and later admitted that he had received orders from high-level officials to definitively close the El Mozote case.

Nevertheless, through countless acts of lobbying and advocacy, Tutela Legal, families of the victims, and international solidarity exerted enough pressure for the judge to name the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team as advisors in the case and begin inspections in April 1992. In October of the same year, the team began exhumations, initially uncovering 143 skeletons, 136 of whom were children.

Though proof of the massacre had been irrevocably established, in February 1993, the judge illegally suspended investigations and further exhumation. The following month, the Legislative Assembly passed an amnesty law officially freeing perpetrators of crimes during the war from any legal or civil responsibility – a law which violates multiple international laws and conventions El Salvador has signed.

The amnesty law continues as the central legal deterrent to seeking government-sanctioned investigations and justice. Passed March 20th General Amnesty Law for the Consolidation of Peace was the second amnesty law passed following the peace accords. The Salvadoran legislative assembly passed an initial amnesty law entitled the National Reconciliation Law on February 23, 1992. While the law extended amnesty to those who had committed political crimes during the war, it noted the importance of victims being able to clarify what happened to their family members and explicitly excluded “those who, according to the Truth Commission report, participated in grave acts of violence … whose footprint in society most urgently require public knowledge of the truth. The law required the government to wait six months after the release of the U.N. Truth Commission’s report to make any further decisions regarding these cases.

Nevertheless, when the Truth Commission report came out, the Salvadoran legislative assembly waited only five days to pass the General Amnesty Law for the Consolidation of Peace, which provided “broad, absolute, and unconditional” amnesty to everyone who participated in political and common crimes in any form during the war, including those previously exempted under the reconciliation law. The amnesty law went so far as to explicitly preclude any further investigation into these cases. The amnesty law was a clear attempt to keep anyone involved in the murder of Archbishop Romero, the El Mozote Massacre, the murder of the Jesuits, and other crimes against humanity from facing investigations, charges or further publicity.

Amnesty laws have been used in various other countries, though El Salvador’s is unique in legally preventing further investigation into crimes. In a presentation on amnesty laws last May, Salvadoran legal expert Edgardo Amaya noted that proponents of amnesty laws convey them as a means for laying the past to rest and moving forward, and stated that amnesty laws do not always mean burying truth. He gave the example of South Africa, where perpetrators of political crimes could receive amnesty only after submitting an application and giving full public disclosure of their crimes. Amaya posited the necessity of establishing the truth as integral to reaching justice.

Similarly, Martha Minow, author of Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Mass Violence and Genocide, recognizes the important distinction between conditional amnesty and blanket amnesty laws that come without government acknowledgement of the crimes perpetrated, and the great pain of the people. Minow argues that blanket amnesty laws “institutionalize forgetfulness, and sacrifice justice in a foreshortened effort to move on. Moreover, such an effort to move on often fails because the injury is not so much forgiven, but publicly ignored, leaving it to fester.”

In El Salvador, deep wounds have certainly been left to fester. While former president Cristiani and other right-wing politicians have repeatedly declared that discussing, investigating or opening any of the cases from the armed conflict would mean “re-opening old wounds,” many Salvadorans respond that these wounds never had the chance to heal.

Though the general amnesty law slammed the door on judicial justice in El Salvador, family members of the victims and human rights organizations have sought justice through other routes. In 1990, María Julia Hernández, then-director of Tutela Legal, took the El Mozote Massacre case to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC). In the El Mozote Case, along with Monseñor Romero’s assassination, the assassination of the Jesuits and the two women, and other cases of grave human rights abuses during the war, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission has continually observed that the amnesty law is incompatible with the American Human Rights Convention, and should be overturned. The commission also found the Salvadoran state responsible for the violation of various human rights, including the right to life.

Given the lack of government compliance to the IAHRC ‘s recommendations in the El Mozote case, in March 2011 the IAHRC introduced the case to the Inter-American Human Rights Court. The Court accepted the case, and a hearing is pending for the first trimester of 2012. This will be the first time that an international court will rule on the General Amnesty Law. CEJIL, the Center for International Justice and Law, will represent the victims together with Tutela Legal. Unlike the Human Rights Commission, the Court’s rulings are legally binding.

While seeking justice at the international level, the “Pro-Historic Memory Committee for Human Rights” and the Romero Coalition have continued to work for justice in El Salvador. In 1998, members of the Pro-Historic Memory Committee submitted a legal case to declare the amnesty law unconstitutional. While the court upheld the constitutionality of the amnesty law, it recognized the existence of constitutional limits to amnesty in cases of violation of fundamental rights, and declared that judges should determine the applicability of the amnesty law in each individual case. The ruling paved the way to re-open cases of grave human rights violation, like the El Mozote massacre. The challenge thus far has been to find a judge brave enough to accept such a case.

In spite of the amnesty law, Tutela Legal and the families of the victims of the massacre brought the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team back to El Salvador to continue exhumations in 2000-2004. They argued that the exhumations were for humanitarian reasons, so that families might bury their loved ones and find closure in their grieving process.

This past year, the magistrates of the constitutional division of the Salvadoran Supreme Court have ruled on a variety of controversial cases, taking a valiant judicial stand never seen before. With this change in circumstances, the Romero Coalition has worked to investigate possibilities of challenging the constitutionality of the amnesty law and of re-opening the case of Romero’s assassination in Salvadoran courts.

Despite ongoing impunity, neither the victims nor human rights organizations will allow the massacre to be forgotten. The triumph of the people in the El Mozote case has been resilience: constantly seeking and telling the truth. The massacre is well known and documented, and the Victim’s Committee continues to receive visitors and share the story. Though the government sought silence, the people continue to seek justice – through their own monuments and documentation as well as through official legal channels for justice, nationally and internationally. Monseñor Romero’s hope continues to inspire them: “I have faith, brothers, that one day all these shadows will come to light and so many disappeared and so many assassinated, and so many unidentified cadavers will have to come to the light.”

The people have brought their light to the massacre. It is time for the government to bring theirs.

El Mozote -- the US role

2011-12-07T07:19:00.000-06:00

Fourth of a series

How much responsibility does the United States have connected to the massacre at El Mozote?

The massacre at El Mozote was carried out by the Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran armed forces. It was an elite unit, and the US was proud of having played a role in creating it. An Americas Watch report wrote in 1992:

The history of U.S. human rights policy in El Salvador is not only one of downplaying or denying the war crimes of the Salvadoran military. U.S. officials often went one step further, asserting that the behavior of the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion, in particular, was "commendable" and "professional" in its relations with the civilian population. The Atlacatl Battalion, which carried out the massacre at El Mozote, was created in early 1981 and trained by U.S. advisers drawn primarily from the Special Forces in a first effort to reorganize the Salvadoran military to wage a full-scale counterinsurgency war. By mid-1981, 1200 soldiers had begun operating as a "rapid reaction" battalion in conflictive zones, spearheading major
military operations in the departments of Chalatenango, CabaÒas, and Moraz·n.

U.S. officials have long been extremely proud of the Atlacatl Battalion's performance and have praised it throughout the history of the war. In the February 8, 1982, Senate hearings on the presidential certification on El Salvador, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Elliott Abrams lavished praise on the Atlacatl Battalion, saying that "the battalion to which you refer [regarding the massacre at El Mozote] has been complimented at various times in the past over its professionalism and over the command structure and the close control in which the troops are held when they go into battle."

In congressional testimony a few months later, a senior U.S. Defense Department official went one step further, saying that the Atlacatl had "achieved a commendable combat record not only for its tactical capability in fighting the guerrillas but also for its humane treatment of the people."

Such statements portray an intentional blindness to the activities of the Atlacatl forces at best, and at worst a conscious attempt to mislead the American public. The Atlacatl troops would later murder the Jesuits in 1989.

Beyond simply supporting the Atlacatl, did the US have foreknowledge of the massacre about to occur in Morazan? Throughout the civil war, US had military advisers in El Salvador. In his 1993 New Yorker article, Mark Danner raised the possibility that US advisers might have been on the Atlacatl's excursion into Morazan:

How had the Milgroup [ the Military Advisory Group at the US Embassy] officers heard so quickly that “something had happened” in Morazán? Although the adviser believes it was the guerrillas who got word to the Embassy, a number of highly placed Salvadorans, including one prominent politician of the time who had many friends among senior officers, claim that two American advisers were actually observing the operation from the base camp at Osicala. On its face, the charge is not entirely implausible — American advisers had been known to violate the prohibition against accompanying their charges into the field — but it is impossible to confirm. Colonel Moody Hayes, who was then the Milgroup commander, refused to discuss El Mozote with me, explaining that he didn’t know “what might still be classified,” while officers from the defense attaché’s office and from Milgroup who were willing to talk generally dismissed the charge as unfounded. State Department officials, however, were clearly worried about the possibility.

There might have been some additional confirmation of US advisers' participation with the Atlacatl mission in a 2007 comment on my blog purportedly by George Walker, who was in the US Special Forces in El Salvador. The comment asserted that a US Special Forces advisor was actually at El Mozote that day:

For example, there was a senior Special Forces advisor at El Mozote the day/night of the massacre (and only one). He attempted multiple times to dissuade Colonel Domingo Monterosa to spare the victims. When Monterosa ignored him, the advisor departed by foot and made his way, alone, back to San Salvador. There he made a full report to embassy officials of what the unit and Monterosa were doing in El Mozote.

The Atlacatl Battalion was commanded by Colonel Domingo Monterrosa. Many references to Monterrosa refer him as trained by the US School of the Americas (SOA). Monterrosa did attend a course in 1966 in parachute rigging at the School of the Americas when that institution was located in Panama, but that appears to be his only attendance at SOA courses. Showing that the massacre at El Mozote did not diminish Monterrosa's standing in the eyes of the US, Ambassador Thomas Pickering attended the funeral of Monterrosa after the colonel was killed by FMLN guerrillas in 1984.

US military aid poured into El Salvador throughout the civil war. It cannot be disputed that the weapons used by the killers of the children of El Mozote came from the US. From the forensic investigation after the Peace Accords:

Weapon Types

The size and depth of the firing pin imprint, evidence of extractor mark and location, as well as other distinguishing characteristics such as bolt face marks were the criteria used in determining weapon type. With one exception the cases were all fired in a 5.56 mm NATO-caliber firearm. The cases appear to have been fired in United States M-16 military rifles. The single exception is a 7.62 mm NATO case possibly fired in a united States M-14 rifle. A single cartridge case, such as this, and without direct association with human remains, cannot be assigned any significance. It may be associated with the event under consideration, or it may pre- or post-date the event. For purposes of this analysis the 7.62 mm NATO case is noted but not further considered in total number of firearms employed at El Mozote.

Cartridge Headstamps

Headstamps on cartridge cases often identify the government or commercial manufacturer, as well as date the case to a specific year of production. Of the 245 cases 184 had discernable headstamps. This is a 75.1 % sample of all cases. The remainder all exhibited partial headstamps, but were too oxidized or corroded to ascertain specific details. All cartridge cases, including the 7.62 mm NATO case, were head-stamped "L C", which indicates they were manufactured for the United States Government at Lake City Ordnance Plant located near Independence, Missouri (Hogg 1982: 110). All 184 cases also contained dated headstamps. The earliest date is 1973 with six cases having this imprint. Next is the single 7.62 mm NATO case with a 1974 date, followed by two cases with a 1975 date. The majority (172) of the cases carried a 1978 date. The most recent date was 1981 with three cases found with this date.

One thing about US policy seems to be clear. The Salvadoran armed forces could see that gross violations of human rights would not interrupt the flow of US military aid. Whatever leverage the US had as the war's primary funder was not used to prevent massacres at El Mozote and elsewhere. As Mark Danner wrote in his 1993 article in the New Yorker:

In the United States, however, Rufina’s account of what had happened at El Mozote appeared on the front pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, at the very moment when members of Congress were bitterly debating whether they should cut off aid to a Salvadoran regime so desperate that it had apparently resorted to the most savage methods of war. El Mozote seemed to epitomize those methods, and in Washington the story heralded what became perhaps the classic debate of the late Cold War: between those who argued that, given the geopolitical stakes in Central America, the United States had no choice but to go on supporting a “friendly” regime, however disreputable it might seem, because the alternative — the possibility of another Communist victory in the region — was clearly worse, and those who insisted that the country must be willing to wash its hands of what had become a morally corrupting struggle. Rufina’s story came to Washington just when the country’s paramount Cold War national-security concerns were clashing — as loudly and unambiguously as they ever would during four decades — with its professed high-minded respect for human rights.

In the United States, the free press was not to be denied: El Mozote was reported; Rufina’s story was told; the angry debate in Congress intensified. But then the Republican Administration, burdened as it was with the heavy duties of national security, denied that any credible evidence existed that a massacre had taken place; and the Democratic Congress, after denouncing, yet again, the murderous abuses of the Salvadoran regime, in the end accepted the Administration’s “certification” that its ally was nonetheless making a “significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights.” The flow of aid went on, and soon increased.

El Mozote -- the reporters

2011-12-06T05:00:00.000-06:00

Third of a series

The story of the El Mozote massacre, as testified to by Rufina Amaya, became known to the world through the reporting of two journalists, Ray Bonner of the New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post.

News of the massacre had been filtering out of northeastern El Salvador during late December 1981, as the FMLN's radio station, Radio Venceremos told the story. But as the propaganda vehicle for the guerrillas, the broadcasts lacked credibility. The FMLN brought Bonner and Guillermoprieto separately into Morazan and to El Mozote where they saw, and then reported, the evidence of a massacre.

Bonner's article appeared January 27, 1982 in the New York Times with the headline Massacre Of Hundreds Reported In Salvador Village. The article began:

From interviews with people who live in this small mountain village and surrounding hamlets, it is clear that a massacre of major proportions occurred here last month.

In some 20 mud brick huts here, this reporter saw the charred skulls and bones of dozens of bodies buried under burned-out roofs, beams and shattered tiles. There were more along the trail leading through the hills into the village, and at the edge of a nearby cornfield were the remains of 14 young men, women and children.

In separate interviews during a two-week period in the rebel controlled northern part of Morazan Province, 13 peasants said that all these, their relatives and friends, had been killed by Government soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion in a sweep in December.

The villagers have compiled a list of the names, ages and villages of 733 peasants, mostly children, women and old people, who they say were murdered by the Government soldiers. The Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, which works with the Roman Catholic Church, puts the number at 926.

Guillermoprieto's article appeared the same day in the Washington Post and opened like this:

Several hundred civilians, including women and children, were taken from their homes in and around this village and killed by Salvadoran Army troops during a December offensive against leftist guerrillas, according to three survivors who say they witnessed the alleged massacres.

Reporters taken to tour the region and speak to the survivors by guerrilla soldiers, who control large areas of Morazan Province, were shown the rubble of scores of adobe houses they and the survivors said were destroyed by the troops in the now deserted village community. Dozens of decomposing bodies still were seen beneath the rubble and lying in nearby fields, despite the month that has passed since the incident.

The newspaper reports came at a critical time for the Reagan administration's support of El Salvador's government. Congress would only allow additional military aid if the government was improving its human rights record. The day after Bonner and Guillermoprieto's articles appeared, Ronald Reagan sent to Congress the Administration’s certification that the government of El Salvador was “making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights.”

And the Reagan administration proceeded to attack the those reports which would seem to contradict that certification. From the Columbia Journalism Review:

As Tim Golden observed in a November 1, 1992, piece in the Sunday Times Week in Review section, "the magnitude of the atrocity seemed to be matched by the baldness of the official response. Army and government leaders said no such massacre had taken place. Official of the Reagan administration . . . derided the reports as gross exaggerations."

Indeed, shortly after Bonner and Guillermoprieto's stories ran, Thomas Enders, then assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, attacked them before a congressional committee, saying that although there had been a firefight between the army and the guerrillas in the area, "no evidence could be found to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians." President Reagan accordingly certified that the Salvadorans were "making a concerted and significant effort" to end "the indiscriminate torture and murder of its citizens." (Later that year a House Intelligence staff report revealed that the embassy officials sent to investigate the massacre "never reached the towns where the alleged events occurred.")

Elements of the press soon joined in the attack on the story. Leading the attack was The Wall Street Journal, which in early February devoted its entire editorial column to a critique of U.S. press coverage of El Salvador, singling out Bonner as being "overly credulous," and accusing the Times of closing ranks "behind a reporter out on a limb." William A. Henry III of Time weighed in during March: "An even more crucial if common oversight is the fact that women and children, generally presumed to be civilians, can be active particpants in guerrilla war. New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner underplayed that possibility, for example, in a much-protested Jan. 27 report of a massacre by the army in and around the village of Mozote."

It would not be until the 1992 Peace Accords and the subsequent issuance of the UN Truth Commission Report and forensic investigations that Ray Bonner and Alma Guillermoprieto would be vindicated.

For more, read Raymond Bonner and the Salvadoran Civil War 1980-1983. Bonner also published a book in 1984, Weakness & Deceit: US policy and El Salvador.

El Mozote -- Rufina Amaya the survivor

2011-12-05T09:00:00.000-06:00

Second of a series

When the Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran army massacred the civilian population of El Mozote, they left only one survivor. Rufina Amaya's husband and children were all executed, but somehow she managed to escape. For the next 25 years, she would be the sole voice for those hundreds of victims. She was the one witness, the one to testify to what she had seen, to keep the world from forgetting what had happened in El Mozote.

The following two videos on YouTube contain one of the many times Rufina told the story of El Mozote:

Part 1

Part 2

Rufina Amaya passed away on March 6, 2007. The New York Times carried this obituary of Rufina. After her death Journalist blogger Jorge Avalos described her as:

la mujer más humilde que he conocido. Una mujer que venció con su palabra tantas mentiras y tanta inhumana brutalidad para recordarnos el poder de la memoria y de la verdad.

the most humble woman I have known. A woman who vanquished with her word such lies and such inhuman brutality in oredr to remind us of the power of memory and of truth.

Grave of Rufina Amaya at El Mozote

Spain formally requests extradition in Jesuits case

2011-12-04T22:42:00.001-06:00

The government of Spain has formally requested the extradition of 15 former Salvadoran military officers accused of directing or covering-up the November 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. As I wrote recently, this action forces the courts of El Salvador to act, and forces the country to consider whether and how the crimes against humanity from the civil war era will be addressed. A lawyer for some of the officers said in an interview in El Faro that they had been expecting this development and were not worried.

The El Mozote Massacre -- 30 years later

2011-12-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

The El Mozote Massacre

December 11, 1981

Thirty years ago, one of the worst atrocities of the Salvadoran civil war, the El Mozote massacre, took place. All but one of the civilians taking refuge in the small village of El Mozote, more than 800 men, women, children and babies, were brutally killed by the Salvadoran army. It is a tragedy the world must never forget.

Over the next week leading up to the 30th anniversary, I will have a series of posts about the massacre. Today I start with the basic facts of the massacre.

On the afternoon of December 10, 1981, soldiers of the Salvadoran army's elite Atlacatl battalion arrived at El Mozote in northeastern El Salvador. The Atlacatl was a "Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalion" specially trained for counter-insurgency warfare. It was the first unit of its kind in the Salvadoran armed forces and was trained by United States military advisors. Its mission, Operación Rescate ("Operation Rescue"), was to use a scorched earth approach to eliminate the rebel presence in a small region of northern Morazán where the FMLN had a camp and operated its clandestine radio broadcasts.

El Mozote consisted of about twenty houses situated on open ground around a square. Facing onto the square was a church and, behind it, a small building known as "the convent", used by the priest to change into his vestments when he came to the village to celebrate mass. Near the village was a small schoolhouse.

Upon arrival, the soldiers found not only the residents of the village but also campesinos who had sought refuge from the surrounding area. The soldiers ordered everyone out of their houses and into the square. They made them lie face down, searched them, and questioned them about the guerrillas. They then ordered the villagers to lock themselves in their houses until the next day, warning that anyone coming out would be shot. The soldiers remained in the village during the night.

Early the next morning, the soldiers reassembled the entire village in the square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked them in separate groups in the church, the convent, and various houses.

During the morning, they proceeded to interrogate, torture, and execute the men in several locations. Around noon, they began taking the women and older girls in groups, separating them from their children and machine-gunning them after raping them. Girls as young as 10 were raped, under the pretext that they were guerilla supporters. Finally, they killed the children. A group of children that had been locked in the church and its convent were shot through the windows.

After killing the entire population but one, the soldiers set fire to the buildings. More than 800 people lay dead throughout the town, including at least 146 children 12 years old and younger.

The sole survivor of the massacre was Rufina Amaya. She had managed to escape and hide herself below a bush as the killing continued, forced to hear the murders of her own children. In the years that followed, she would become a tireless voice, not letting the world forget what had happened in El Mozote.

Throughout the Salvadoran civil war, both El Salvador’s government and its supporters in the Reagan administration in Washington denied that any massacre had taken place. They blamed news stories of the massacre on guerrilla propaganda. It was only after the war ended, and forensic anthropologists began to excavate the site, that the truth of what had happened at El Mozote became widely accepted. Still, no one has ever been held accountable for this horrific atrocity. No reparations have ever been paid. No justice for the victims ever rendered.

Discovery News video from 2007 with story of El Mozote.

Free markets and the food crisis in Central America

2011-12-03T15:30:00.001-06:00

For your weekend reading, I highly recommend the article Free Markets and the Food Crisis in Central America by Carlos G. Sanchez at CIP Americas. The article describes the transformation of the economies of Central America and the loss of food sovereignty. The countries of the region, including El Salvador, have been transformed from ones where enough food was grown to feed their own populations to countries which rely on imported food and are subject to the swings of prices in the global food and commodity markets. The impact of free trade policies, an emphasis on cash export crops, and economic forces which have driven people out of the countryside and into crowded urban areas has resulted in widespread food insecurity throughout the region.

Sanchez includes a call to action in his article:

The starting point should be that every Central American has adequate access to food, and for this to happen, the structure of production and commerce must change. National and regional production should, first and foremost, attend to the needs of local markets. We must produce to cover the food and nutritional needs of Central America. But it’s not only about guaranteeing food, which could be achieved in the short term through imports. It’s about creating and strengthening the production chain of local and regional markets.

Read the entire article here.

Hat tip to Larry for pointing out this article.

War on crime declared

2011-11-30T21:21:00.001-06:00

On Monday, former general and new Minister of Justice and Security David Munguía Payés gave an interview where he declared a "war on crime" and announced that his goal was to restore tranquility to the population and to produce a 30% decrease in crime within one year. The new minister made the point that such a dramatic reduction would require the participation of all elements of government and society.

Mike Allison, who writes the Central America Politics blog, has a nice opinion piece on Al Jazeera about the changeover for the Minister of Public Security in El Salvador. He writes:

Funes said "David Munguía is a man I have the utmost faith in, a retired soldier who deserves recognition from civil society for his performance in the armed forces during the two-and-a-half years he has been working under my mandate."

Funes does not appear to be someone who cares what the FMLN, civil society, the Catholic Church, and international solidarity activists say about his decisions. He has shown this in the past with his use of the armed forces on the streets of San Salvador and with Decree 743 that temporarily neutered the Constitutional Court. Funes does what he thinks is right. On the other hand, Munguía Payés' appointment could indicate that Funes does not have a deep group of individuals in which he places much trust. Funes might have felt that he had no option but to stick with Munguía Payés over the objections of much of Salvadoran society.

Personally, I think that Munguía Payés' appointment sets bad precedent. I am not worried so much about him as I am the fact that his appointment opens the door for additional appointments of former military officials to head state institutions. That's not a path that anyone wishes to see El Salvador travel down.

Two things I'll be watching for: what do opinion polls show as the reactions of the regular Salvadoran (sending the troops into the streets has been quite popular even if ineffective), and what changes in police tactics and deployment come with this new leadership.

Seismic swarm in La Unión

2011-11-26T14:46:00.001-06:00

In eastern El Salvador, the municipality of El Carmen in La Unión department has been experiencing a swarm of hundreds of small earthquakes in the past few days. Since Wednesday afternoon there have been 978 micro-quakes, 27 of which were strong enough to be felt by persons living in the area. The SNET reports that the quake swarm is related to movement along the earthquake faults in the region and is not related to volcanic activity. Dozens of homes are reported to have been damaged including cracks in their walls, but there are no reports of injuries. Residents have been urged to stay alert, and many are sleeping outdoors.

US - El Salvador partnership

2011-11-25T21:58:00.001-06:00

El Salvador and the United States signed the Partnership for Growth development agreement on November 3. The Partnership for Growth is a foreign policy initiative of the Obama administration which aims at poverty reduction through economic development. The action items in the countries' agreement followed the completion of a "constraints analysis" which identified reducing crime and insecurity and increasing productivity of the tradables goods and services sector as priorities for unlocking economic growth. The partnership has a five year plan, and you can read the Joint Country Action Plan at this link. If everything in this plan can be accomplished, it would be a good step forward for El Salvador where economic growth is lagging all of Latin America and crime takes a toll on all Salvadoran families.

There is also a good post about the Partnership for Growth from our friends on Voices on the Border at this link.

But US foreign policy is viewed with suspicion and cynicism in some sectors. On Thanksgiving Day, a group of protesters from the US and El Salvador took up positions outside the US Embassy. Linking themselves to the Occupy Movement in the US and the Indignados movement in Spain and elsewhere, the small group protested policies which they believe are designed to benefit multinational corporations or the 1% and ignore the 99%. They issued a statement over the internet which declared:

We specifically demand an end to the following transnational policies in Central America:
The Free Trade Model that destroys local economies , victimizes workers and the poor, and protects corporate interests over national sovereignty. For example, in El Salvador, Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company, is using a World Bank tribunal to sue the the Salvadoran government for protecting their own environment and communities.
Regional Militarization Strategies that criminalize social protest, subject national security systems to intervention and supervision by the U.S. government and facilitate violent repression of activities that jeopardize the interests of global capital, exemplified by the collusion between U.S. and Honduran political-military forces in the 2009 ousting of President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. Since the coup in Honduras, farmers, women, youth, the LGBTQ community and activists have been the victims of increasing state repression and human rights violations.
Environmental Destruction and Climate Change that has largely been caused by greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. and other highly industrialized countries. Central America recently suffered Tropical Depression 12 `E, whose devastating intensity is widely considered to have been a result of climate change. In El Salvador, this storm caused 34 deaths, the evacuation of 50,000 people from their homes and losses in infrastructure and agriculture estimated at 850 million dollars. Meanwhile the U.S. continues to increase its emissions and block meaningful national and international action on global warming.
We stand together today, citizens of the Americas and beyond, united with the global Occupy movement to promote alternatives to this inherently flawed system like economies of solidarity, fair trade, food sovereignty, fair tax systems, participatory democracy: a global system that puts people and the environment before profits. We are here to liberate our governments and our planet from corporate occupation and to take them back for the people.

There's an album of photos from the protest here.

Commerce Group lawsuit update

2011-11-23T09:30:00.000-06:00

The Commerce Group is one of two gold mining companies which sued the government of El Salvador under CAFTA. The international arbitration claim brought by the Commerce Group was dismissed earlier this year for failure to comply with procedural requirements of CAFTA. The Commerce Group has appealed in what is called an "annulment procedure." Last week, the Commerce Group announced to the arbitration tribunal that it could not make a $150,000 advance payment of costs which the tribunal had requested. The appeal could be suspended for that reason.

The Commerce Group is a barely publicly traded company located in Waukesha, Wisconsin and controlled by the Machulak family. On Monday, John Machulak who is a lawyer and has been representing the company in the lawsuit gave a rare interview about the company's position to radio station WUWM, Milwaukee public radio. You can listen to that interview at this link.

Update:
The group US-El Salvador Sister Cities, which has actively supported the anti-mining movement in El Salvador has posted a response to the comments of Machulak. You can read that response here.

Retired general becomes new security minister

2011-11-22T22:34:00.001-06:00

Retired general David Munguía Payés, the former Minister of Defense, was named by president Mauricio Funes to be the new Minister of Justice and Public Security. This appointment of a military man who had been a commander in the armed forces during El Salvador's civil war has been condemned by the FMLN and by human rights groups. It has generally been supported by the right wing parties in the country. The appointment of a man who, as recently as May, was the senior commander of the armed forces, is viewed by many as a violation of the spirit, if not the terms, of the 1992 Peace Accords which took the armed forces out of internal policing roles.

Positive intervention, not militarization, works

2011-11-20T13:22:00.000-06:00

El Salvador is in the middle of a debate over the direction of its anti-crime policy. The resignation of Manuel Medgar as Minister of Security twelve days ago has prompted rumors that Mauricio Funes may appoint a former military chief to head the country's police and civilian security forces. This might suggest a further militarization of public security, which already sees thousands of troops patrolling El Salvador's most dangerous neighborhoods. Despite the soldiers and the hard line policies of successive administrations, there has been no reduction in crime.

An article from IPS describes a different approach, in a public/private partnership at the Instituto Técnico Obrero Empresarial Don Bosco (ITOE), a technical school that provides primary, secondary and vocational education to 450 youngsters from the violent slums on the outskirts of the capital of El Salvador. Here's an excerpt:

Of the current student body of 450, 150 are youngsters classified by the authorities as "high risk" – in other words, they have been involved in gangs or criminal activities or are on the verge of falling into crime.

One example is 15-year-old Antonio, who was spending his time on the narrow streets of his neighbourhood with members of the Mara (or Barrio) 18 gang before his parents brought him to the institute.

"I liked hanging out with them," he told IPS. "I wasn't part of the group, but I looked like I was: I dressed and talked like them. I even did little jobs for them as a lookout."

Now he is in secondary school at the ITOE and wants to become an electrician, one of the trades taught at the institute, along with auto mechanics, carpentry, soldering, and tailoring and dressmaking.

The students include juvenile offenders who were serving sentences but due to good behaviour were referred to the institute by the courts, to study and learn a trade.

That is the case of 18-year-old Ricardo, who was sentenced to four years for rape, three of which he has served in the ITOE. Now he is about to graduate from secondary school and has plans to go on to the university.

"I would like to study to be a lawyer, and eventually become a judge," he told IPS. (More).

Jesuits case forces Salvadorans to confront concepts of justice

2011-11-16T18:26:00.000-06:00

November 16 is the 22nd anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter by members of the Salvadoran armed forces in a massacre ordered by the Salvadoran high command. As readers of this blog know, the failure by the Salvadoran government over that time to bring to justice the high level commanders who ordered the killing, pushed human rights groups including the Center for Justice Accountability ("CJA") to go to court in Spain to prosecute the case.

This video from CNN provides background on the Spanish proceedings.

This past year, developments in the Spanish case, have forced Salvadorans to confront impunity directly. They will see whether their country's institutions can, will, or should ever deal with impunity and assessing responsibility for crimes against humanity committed during El Salvador's brutal civil war. The Spanish court has forced El Salvador's government to take a position when the court issued international arrest warrants in the Jesuits case for former high ranking military officers.

From the CJA:

When it became clear that the Salvadoran National Police were going to honor the arrest warrants, nine of the defendants met on Sunday night (August 7) at a country club outside of San Salvador to presumably discuss next steps. Later that night, at approximately 10:00 p.m., all nine turned themselves into a military facility also outside of San Salvador. The decision to self-surrender to the military was presumably an attempt to defy the usual civilian process involving international arrest warrants and extradition treaties. In an unprecedented development, the Minister of Defense of El Salvador accepted the validity of the international arrest warrants and turned the defendants over to civilian authorities where they are all now being held in custody.

In addition to former Minister of Defense Rafael Humberto Larios and former Air Force Chief General Rafael Bustillo, the following defendants surrendered: Colonel Francisco Helena Fuentes, Vice Defense Minister Juan Orlando Zepeda, Mariano Amaya Grimaldi, José Ricardo Espinoza Guerra, Gonzalo Guevara Cerritos and Antonio Ramiro Ávalos Vargas y Tomás Zárpate Castillo.

The Spanish courts have 60 days to formalize the extradition requests. The Salvadoran Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to honor the arrest warrants and extradite the men to Spain to be prosecuted for their role in these outrageous crimes. One of the main issues confronting the Salvadoran court is whether the amnesty law which was passed in 1993 at the end of the twenty year civil war will continue to protect military officials for human rights abuses committed against the civilian population. While amnesty laws that protect military officials from human rights prosecutions are illegal under international law, how the court will rule is very difficult to predict.

Persons and groups in El Salvador reacted in a variety of ways to the action of the Spanish court.

Alfredo Cristiani, the president of El Salvador at the time of the killings, harshly criticized the Spanish court proceedings as an attack on the sovereignty of El Salvador. (Cristiani has been mentioned as a potential participant in the cover-up of the killings). Critstiani claimed that Spain had no right to re-try a case which had already proceeded through the Salvadoran court system, that both sides had committed wrongs during the civil war, and that the Spanish case was unnecessarily opening old wounds. The GANA party has similarly backed the accused military leaders.

The archbishop of San Salvador elected to stay on the sidelines, stating that the church would support any decision of the Salvadoran courts which were taken in the interests of the country.

A march through the streets of El Salvador towards the Spanish embassy expressed its solidarity with the nine military officers seeking to avoid extradition to Spain. Among the marchers was ARENA party deputy Roberto D'Aubuisson, whose father orchestrated death squads and ordered the murder of archbishop Oscar Romero.

The FMLN issued a statement where the FMLN expressed:

The party is committed to truth, respect for human rights, and the application of justice that includes the moral compensation for victims, as elements that lead to achieving the great goal of National Reconciliation, established in the Peace Accords.

That being a subject of national interest, prudence and political responsibility should prevail along with respect for the victims, and we believe that it is improper for the case to be used by groups for partisan or electoral purposes.

We express our interest that this case be resolved in the courts and aired with strict adherence to law.

We are confident that the country's institutions work, and strongly reject the individuals or minority groups who intend to make use of this case to threaten the country's political stability.

Hopes that El Salvador's institutions might actually be ready to confront impunity dimmed when El Salvador's Supreme Court ordered the release of the military officers. According to CJA:

But the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, ordered the defendants’ release on the theory that El Salvador had not received a formal extradition request. In the Court’s view, INTERPOL Red Notices authorized only locating, not arresting wanted subjects. Spain has requested that El Salvador clarify the defendants’ legal status. Commentators have noted that the Salvadoran Court’s decision may conflict with treaty obligations to comply with INTERPOL rules, which state that Red Notices secure the “location and arrest” of suspects, prior to a formal extradition request.

An editorial in El Faro perhaps summed up the situation best when it said:

The Jesuit case confirms that the peace process and the amnesty law have been insufficient for the process of national reconciliation, the restoration of the dignity of victims and to finally leave the armed conflict in the hands of historians. El Salvador deserves to know the truth.

In a different approach, Mike at Central American Politics blog wrote:

2012 marks the twenty-year anniversary of the Peace Accords that ended El Salvador’s war. What better time to announce that they will not honor Spain’s extradition request because the government intends to open cases against those suspected of having war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Jesuit case, the murder of Oscar Romero, the El Mozote massacre and other well known crimes of the war years have not seen the focused light of judicial proceedings in El Salvador designed to get at the truth and provide justice to victims. Dealing with these crimes of the past requires dealing with many issues:

Is amnesty necessary for the ongoing peace of society?
What crimes are so grave that an "amnesty" should not be permitted to allow the guilty parties to escape?
What is the consequence of opening old wounds?
If you open up the Jesuit case, where do you stop?
Should the killing of a civilian family on the slopes of the Guazapa volcano get the same treatment?
Does assigning blame and responsibility require (a) punishment (b) reparations to the victims (c) apology?
How do you weigh the costs and benefits?

An open dialogue among all elements on Salvadoran society on these issues has never occurred, but must occur, if each anniversary of the Jesuits massacre is to stop being a symbol of justice ignored. Contrary to those who say that amnesty provides healing in the country, consider the points made in this article titled Justice heals: The impact of impunity and the fight against it on the recovery of severe human rights violations’ survivors which describes the impact of impunity on the ongoing psycho-social trauma which the victims suffer.

It is the victims who need to be represented. It is the victims who have lacked an advocate. The late Margaret Popkin in her article The Salvadoran Truth Commission and the Search for Justice wrote:

[M]any factors have contributed to the lack of justice in El Salvador. The parties to the negotiations were more interested in recommendations for legal and institutional reform; they sought to ensure the future but abandoned the past. By asserting the impossibility of justice in the existing context, the Truth Commission for El Salvador did not challenge the justice system to undertake investigations, and the government’s negative reaction to the Truth Commission’s report and the immediate passage of a broad amnesty law apparently foreclosed the possibility of justice.

Essentially abandoned by political leaders and not consulted in the process of developing the truth commission or its recommendations, victims had little recourse. In this context, victims and their representatives in El Salvador have not been able to bring sufficient pressure to achieve justice or secure compensation. Despite important advances in judicial reform, the justice system has yet to rely on the Truth Commission’s findings, implement the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or otherwise rely on international law developments in the struggle against impunity.

For a detailed examination of all the available information about the murder of the Jesuits and the subsequent cover-up, I recommend Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuria and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador, by Teresa Whitfield.

Ambassador Aponte nomination hearings in Senate

2011-11-15T22:23:00.000-06:00

Mari Carmen Aponte is the US Ambasador to El Salvador. She was originally nominated by president Obama to fulfill that role in December 2009, but after the Senate failed to act on her nomination, Obama granted her a recess appointment. She assumed the post in September 2010. Obama then renominated her in February 2011.

There was a hearing on Ambassador Aponte's new nomination before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 8, 2011. You can read her written testimony here.

In a rare show of support, three ex-presidents of El Salvador from ARENA, Franciso Flores, Alfredo Cristiani, and Armando Calderón Sol, all traveled to Washington to back her nomination.

Cristiani told El Diario de Hoy that he supported Aponte because of her ability to work with all factions within El Salvador, the work she had done in the short time of her holding the position, and her ability with Latina heritage to understand aspects of the country's culture.

Another expression of support came fron anti-Castro activist Felix Rodriguez in an editorial in the Miami Herald :

Ambassador Aponte arrived in the midst of this ideological tug of war. Showing enormous diplomatic dexterity, she has forged a very close relationship with President Funes. This close relationship has helped maintain the historically close ties between the United States and El Salvador, despite this complex political environment.

Her diplomatic successes have earned her the unprecedented support of the private sector and of the most prominent political leaders in El Salvador. Three former presidents of El Salvador — Francisco Flores, Armando Calderon Sol, and Alfredo Cristiani — took it upon themselves last month to travel to Washington and visit with leading congressional figures to request and support the confirmation of Ambassador Aponte before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Such a bold step and unusual display of outright support for an ambassador by former presidents who have all enjoyed extremely close relations with the United States is unheard of. It simply never happens.

The fact that it did speaks volumes as to what these Salvadoran statesmen think of Ambassador Aponte and her time as U.S. Chief of Mission in El Salvador. They are simply overwhelmingly impressed. And so am I.

The opposition to Aponte's nomination continues to be led by conservative Senator Jim DeMint who said

When President Obama nominated Aponte to become the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador many senators were again concerned about her past relationship with Cuban intelligence officials as well as her qualifications. Instead of allowing senators to access that information, Obama granted her a recess appointment in August 2010.

Ms. Aponte’s decision to publish an opinion piece hostile to the culture of El Salvadorans, presents even more doubts about her fitness for the job. The Senate should reject her nomination when her recess appointment expires at the end of this Congress and force the president to appoint a new nominee who will respect the pro-family values upheld by the people of El Salvador.

Our relationship with the Salvadoran people has been one of trust and friendship for decades. We should not risk that by appointing an ambassador who shows such a blatant disregard for their culture and refuses to clear unsettled doubts about her previous relationships. It’s time to bring Ms. Aponte home.

The opinion piece of which DeMint writes was an editorial entitled For the Elimination of Prejudices Wherever They Exist, which which appeared on June 28 in La Prensa Grafica. The editorial expressed the commitment of the US to the elimination of violence and discrimination against LGBT individuals, and was completely consistent with US policy.

If not approved by the Senate, Ambassador Aponte's recess appontment will terminate at the conclusion of the current session of the 112th Congress at the end of the year. Let's hope the Senate acts promptly to confirm this capable representative from the US to El Salvador.

Minister of Security resigns

2011-11-14T21:57:00.000-06:00

There was an important resignation from El Salvador's government last week, as Manuel Melgar left his post as Minister of Security. Our friends at Voices from El Salvador have an excellent overview of the resignation which you can read here.

Hackers attack Salvadoran government web sites

2011-11-08T21:20:00.001-06:00

The hacking group "Anonymous" has purportedly launched attacks on the web sites of several governmental offices in El Salvador, including the offices of the president. From a press report by AFP:

Hactivist group Anonymous has taken down a number of El Salvador's government web sites in its latest round of attacks. The attacks are part of Operation Justice El Salvador, which was planned over the last two weeks. A number of official web sites were targeted, including several government ministries and the web site of the president, which was taken offline after receiving 30 million hits on Saturday.

Other web sites that were hit included those of the legislative assembly, the national civil police and the ministries of justice and labour.

Anonymous "tried to attack our website to publicize the private information of internal and external users," the ministry of the economy said, according to French news agency AFP.

Like previous attacks by the group, these appear to have been Distributed Denial of Service (DSoS) attacks, which overload a web site's server by flooding it with illegitimate traffic. This can be automated using a number of free tools that are available online, which Anonymous has used to its advantage.

El Salvador has been strongly criticised in the past by Amnesty International for its human rights record, including the abuse of anti-terrorism laws to detain people and the unlawful killing of people by police death squads, which is likely why the web site of the national civil police was attacked.

(I'm not sure that the last paragraph of this news report was anything more than speculation by the reporter).

According to Information Week, attacks attributed to Anonymous also hit Wal-Mart, Capital One, and Finnish sites in the past week.

The hard work of recovery from Deluge of 2011 remains

2011-11-06T07:41:00.000-06:00

The United Nations is trying to get donor nations to fund relief efforts in El Salvador and Nicaragua. As part of that effort, the UN issued a news release yesterday emphasizing that significant support to the victims of the floods will be needed for months to come:

November 5, 2011 -- The humanitarian emergency caused by last month's devastating floods in Central America is only just beginning, a top United Nations relief official said today, warning that the situation could get worse for the estimated 1.2 million people affected without urgent international support.

“The people affected by this crisis have lost everything, and their difficulties are only just beginning,” Catherine Bragg, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said as she wrapped up a four-day visit to Nicaragua and El Salvador, two countries badly hit by the disaster.

“Hundreds of thousands of people face a struggle for survival over the next six months. We must act now. We cannot let the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua down.”....

“But the cumulative effect of annual catastrophic events has pushed national capacities to their limit,” the Office said. The UN is mobilizing international assistance to assist the efforts of the Governments and last week launched emergency appeals for both countries.

However, the $14 million appeal for Nicaragua is currently only 22 per cent funded, while the $15 million appeal for El Salvador is only 23 per cent funded.

“The needs are real, and the situation could get worse if we do not step in now,” said Ms. Bragg, who is also Deputy UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. “I hope donors will give generously to these appeals.”

A visual reminder of the ongoing struggles of the victims is this photo gallery showing life in shelters for those who still have not returned to their homes more than two weeks after the end of the rains.

Impunity continues for the crimes of the 1980s

2011-11-05T20:35:00.001-05:00

A leading voice for human rights in El Salvador, the Human Rights Institute at the University of Central America (IDHUCA), is publicly denouncing the failure of the government of El Salvador to provide justice in many of the highest profile cases from El Salvador's civil war.

In 1999 and 2000, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued decisions which declared that the government of El Salvador had the obligation under international human rights law to provide for credible judicial investigations of the murders of Oscar Romero and the six Jesuits and their housekeeper. You can read a history of both of those cases before the IACHR here.

The IACHR held a working session on October 27 to determine El Salvador's compliance with those earlier rulings. The IDHUCA, along with the Center for Justice and International Law, voiced their frustrations with the Salvadoran government's noncompliance with the commission's recommendations. The human rights groups point to the fact that no new judicial proceedings or investigations had occurred in either case. The government has not acted to repeal the amnesty law. The government has acted to oppose requests for extradition of former Salvadoran military officers who have been charged by a Spanish court in the massacre of the Jesuits. Thus in the view of these human rights organizations, the culture of impunity for human rights violations continues unabated in El Salvador.

Despite El Salvador's lack of compliance with previous IACHR declarations, the IDHUCA last week proceeded to file a series of additional complaints in other cases where the guilty parties have remained unjudged and justice has been denied the victims. According to the IDHUCA, it has :

Filed complaints in the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights the cases of Francisco Ventura Reyes, university student wh0 was disappeared in 1980; Rolando González Morales and Carlos Santos Menjívar, youth detained and tortured in 1981 and 1983, respectively; Roque Dalton, the poet assassinated in 1975; Félix Antonio Ulloa, Rector of the University of El Salvador, assassinated in 1980; and Mario Zamora Rivas, a leader of the Christian Democratic Party and Chief State Counsel of the Republic, assassinated in 1980. With the exception of Dalton, who was executed by the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), the rest of the responsibility is assigned to government forces; however, all the complaints are against the Salvadoran state for denying truth, justice and reparations to the victims.

The single greatest human rights violation from the 1980's in El Salvador was the massacre at El Mozote. The Salvadoran government's continuous failure to make any effort at a judicial inquiry led the IACHR on March 8, 2011 to take further action. The IACHR has taken the next step and referred the El Mozote massacre case to the Inter-American Court for Human Rights in Costa Rica.

Bicentennial of the first shout of independence

2011-11-05T00:30:00.000-05:00

Today is the 200th anniversary of the Primero Grito de Independencia -- the first shout of independence. In 1811, rebellions started in San Salvador against Spanish rule in Central America. From Wikipedia:

On November 5, the revolt began in San Salvador. According to tradition, the rebels waited for a signal from the bell tower of the Church of La Merced, but this did not occur on the scheduled time. The rebels later assembled on the town square outside the church where Manuel José Arce proclaimed in front of the public: "There is no King, nor Intendant, nor Captain General. We only must obey our alcaldes," meaning that since Ferdinand VII had been deposed, all other officials appointed by him no longer legitimately held power. A tumult in the square grew to the point that the intendant, Antonio Gutierrez y Ulloa, asked that the gathered name somebody to formally receive their demands. Manuel José Arce himself was chosen and selected as the leader by the crowd. Despite this, the insurrectionists took arms and proclaimed the total independence of San Salvador from the Spanish crown, but were later subdued.

The rebellions which started in 1811 would be erupt for the next ten years until the final independence of the Central American countries from Spain on September 5, 1821.

There are major commemorations of the bicentennial in San Salvador. The official website for the bicentennial is here.

Images of the week -- ghouls and the departed

2011-11-04T09:40:00.001-05:00

On the calendar of the Roman Catholic church, November begins with the holy days of All Saints and All Souls. In El Salvador, it's time for a spooky parade and to remember one's departed relatives.

The website My Tonaca has a set of images from this year's November 1 celebration of the Calabiuza in Tonacatapeque, with many pictures from the night's parade of people in costume with legendary folk images. El Diario de Hoy has a video of the parade here.

La Prensa Grafica has a photo gallery from November 2, the Day of the Faithful Departed, in which Salvadoran families visit, decorate, and commemorate at the graves of departed family members.

Archbishop speaks out on climate change

2011-11-02T20:16:00.000-05:00

The archbishop of San Salvador, Mgr Jose Luis Escobar Alas spoke strongly about the dangers posed by global climate change reports Independent Catholic News:

The Archbishop of San Salvador, Mgr Jose Luis Escobar Alas, has said that climate change is the most serious problem confronting humanity at the present time. He said urgent steps are needed to reduce to reduce global warming, but the causes are so directly linked to economic interests, he thinks will be very difficult to deal with the problem - not only in El Salvador but throughout the world.

Mgr Escobar said El Salvador should do its part, however, it is the industrialized countries that are causing the most harm.

The Archbishop welcomed a request made by President Mauricio Funes, calling for countries that most affect the climate to accept responsibility and act to prevent future catastrophes. The statements by the President were made during the summit that took place in the Central American country after a tropical storm tore through the region for ten days. Torrential rains caused more than a hundred deaths, thousands of homeless and severe damage in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

"Events like the storm that hit us this time are repeated year after year, and the people are always affected, the poorest people", said the Archbishop of San Salvador. Mgr Escobar Alas concluded his usual press conference on Sunday saying that El Salvador should take an active part in solving the problem and not just wait for other countries to act.

Funes reports on damage totals from Deluge of 2011

2011-10-31T22:20:00.000-05:00

The office of El Salvador's president Mauricio Funes released estimated damage figures from the recent rains as described in a report in El Faro. The cumulative damage estimates include:

$840 million in total losses
Affecting one out of every 20 Salvadorans
Most affected sector was agriculture with losses of $300 million
$261 million in infrastructure damages
$208 million in damage to houses, schools, and health centers
Economic growth for 2011 will only be 1.4% rather than 2.1% (already the lowest in Latin America).

These reports do not include the losses of individual households which had their possessions destroyed or have been unable to work.

The president's office reported that its internal polling shows that 84% of Salvadorans approve of the way the government had handled the crisis. Funes also took credit for reducing the overall level of loss of life by strengthening the government's ability to respond, including strengthening the Civil Protection ministry which had only 30 employees when Funes took office in 2009.

Urgent water issues

2011-10-30T20:52:00.002-05:00

The availability of healthy water continues to be a serious challenge for El Salvador, and the Deluge of 2011 has only made it worse. According to a story in La Prensa Grafica, the Ministry of Health reports that 10,186 wells were destroyed or contaminated by the flooding. In addition, some 28,862 latrines were damaged in the flooding. These damages to the water and sanitation infrastructure of the country create additional risks for disease.

Meanwhile, El Salvador's legislators have failed to take up a bill which would protect the country's water resources for the benefit of all its citizens. An article from IPS describes the inaction:

A bill for protection, recovery and use of water resources in El Salvador, drafted by a platform of about 100 social, religious and academic organisations, has been bogged down in parliament for the past five years in spite of the country's water crisis.

"Debate in Congress has been delayed due to lack of political will," Carlos Flores of the Salvadoran Ecological Unit (UNES), one of the civil society organisations belonging to the Water Forum, the umbrella group which presented the draft General Water Law to parliament, told IPS....

While political debate languishes, climate change is driving the country to the point at which demand for water exceeds the available supply, and quality declines, described as a situation of water stress.

A study titled "Situación de los recursos hídricos en Centroamérica: hacia una gestión integrada" (The Status of Water Resources in Central America: Towards Integrated Management), published in April by the Global Water Partnership (GWP), reports that El Salvador is the only Central American country faced with water scarcity.

It warns that water supply in El Salvador is hovering on the threshold of 1,700 cubic metres of water per person per year, the upper limit for the definition of water stress.

The quality of water in the country's rivers is also an issue. A study by the environment ministry last April determined that only two percent of the rivers contain water that can be made fit for human consumption, or used for irrigation or recreational activities.

"We are experiencing a severe water crisis, which will become more serious as a result of climate change, which is why a law is urgently needed," said Flores of UNES. (More).

Great amounts of money will be spent to repair the flooding damage to wells and water supplies. But the job will only be half done if the water legislation languishing in front of the National Assembly is not adopted.

Bill Clinton on the Deluge of 2011

2011-10-28T22:23:00.001-05:00

Former US President Bill Clinton issues a call for aid to the countries in Central America suffering the effects of the Deluge of 2011 in this video.

How can I help?

2011-10-27T08:30:00.000-05:00

El Salvador needs short term and long term aid to care for all the people affected by the Deluge of 2011 and to produce a safer and more sustainable environment into the future. Not surprisingly, I have received many inquiries about where people can give.

As you may have deduced from the address for this blog, my religious affiliation is Lutheran. One good way to give money for disaster relief in El Salvador and the rest of Central America is the ELCA Disaster Response. ELCA Disaster Response is very efficient, and guarantees that 100% of funds designated for a particular disaster will be spent with that disaster and not used elsewhere in the organization. You can donate at this link.

In addition, here is a list of organizations working in El Salvador where I have good knowledge of their work and who would be worthy recipients of your donations.

Note that I have only listed US based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations because the bulk of my readers come from the US. There are certainly more organizations based in El Salvador which are doing great work in disaster relief, but it is more difficult for someone in the US to give funds to them, and you don't get a tax deduction. I will list one organization, however. The Comandos de Salvamento have been providing response to emergencies in El Salvador for decades. They were performing heroic duty from the moment the waters began rising. You can visit their website and donate online here.

There are many other organizations which are providing disaster relief as well. A few searches on the Internet will help you find them. I invite any organization providing disaster relief in El Salvador to provide information about your organization using the comment feature on this blog.

In evaluating organizations, you may want to consider these Tips for Giving in Times of Crisis and use the tools at Charity Navigator to check up on an organization soliciting your funds.

News coverage (finally) of the floods

2011-10-26T23:02:00.000-05:00

Over the past several few days there have finally started to appear more complete news stories in the English language press related to the Deluge of 2011. The coverage may be related to an emergency appeal by the United Nations to raise disaster relief funds for El Salvador. The UN's assessment of the situation is to the point:

25 October 2011 –
United Nations aid agencies are ramping up their efforts to provide shelter, food and health care to El Salvador, which is facing one of the greatest disasters in its history as heavy rains continue to cause severe flooding across Central America.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today that 56,000 people have been displaced and many are in need of water, food and sanitation. The agency also said there has been an increase in reported cases of flood-related illnesses such as diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, chicken pox, and dengue fever.

During a press briefing in Geneva, OCHA spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs said a $15.7 million joint flash appeal with the Government was launched today with the aim of assisting 300,000 people in the next six months.

OCHA estimates the overall number of affected people to be 1.2 million, but said this figure was constantly evolving.

The appeal will focus on providing shelter, drinking water, food and health services as well as actively monitoring the country’s two principal volcanoes, as there is particular concern about possible mudslides and seismic movements in populated areas, including San Salvador, the capital.

Following the UN appeal, Reuters AlertNet published an article about the need for aid dollars to prevent a food crisis in El Salvador.

UNICEF published a report on its website about families displaced by the rains, along with this video:

The BBC had a story about the damages caused by the floods with a particular focus on the loss of food production.

IPS ran a piece titled Central America slowly learning the value of disaster prevention.

Bloomberg, like the Wall Street Journal, has only commented on the impact on coffee exports.

The Washington Post had an article titled D.C's Salvadoran community aiding flood victims.

The Christian Science Monitor ran my blog post from October 24.

The human role in the Deluge of 2011

2011-10-24T22:59:00.000-05:00

The floods of this month in El Salvador were extraordinary. But when we look at the consequences of the floods, it is clear that calling this a "natural" disaster excuses too easily the role of humankind in contributing to the tragedy. There are several places where the actions or inactions of human beings had a role:

Global climate change. Weather scientists asked about the flooding rains of October opined that the rains were an example of the more extreme and variable weather events produced by global climate change. The charts I have posted in this blog showing rain totals of other weather events in El Salvador certainly seem to show that the past decade has been significantly worse than the preceding 40 years. The carbon emissions of an industrialized world have created an imbalance producing life threatening weather events in ever-increasing frequency.

Structural poverty. In the pictures from the flooding in El Salvador and the rest of Central America, you do not see any photos of the homes of the middle and upper classes -- you see champas of scrap wood and corrugated tin. You do not see manicured lawns under water -- you see the tiny milpas of the campesino farmer. You do not see a submerged Lexus -- you see the water flowing over an ox cart. You do not see the bank manager sitting in a school which has been converted into a shelter -- you see the single mother with two children who sells trinkets on the side of the street.

These flood disasters which hit El Salvador on a regular basis disproportionately affect the poor because they can only afford to build their dwellings in places where they are at risk. So they end up living in the flood plains, along the gullies which can flash flood, and in communities where a mudslide can block access along the one unimproved road.

Salvadoran Catholic bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez has proclaimed that the disaster caused by the rains demonstrated "the economic vulnerability, that is to say the poverty so many of our countrymen live immersed within, the social vulnerability, characterized by the structural injustice and the ecological vulnerability, for which the great fault lies in the wild ambition that rages against God's creation, this house of all of us which is deteriorating more each day."

The role of hydroelectric projects. Some are certainly blaming the flooding of the Lower Lempa River on the dams built on the river and the periods of enormous water discharge through the September 15 dam. It's hard to know what would have happened if there were no dams on the river. Generating clean electric power is also important for the country as is the flood control on the river.

The failure to complete risk mitigation projects. The areas where there were floods and landslides in El Salvador are all places known to be at risk, because they have flooded or collapsed before. In part, the fact that the risks are well understood contributed to a relatively low loss of life in these floods -- communities could be evacuated because the coming dangers were foreseeable. But since these risks were foreseeable, why was so little done to eliminate the risks in the first place? I remember standing near the community of Puerto Parada in the summer of 2010 where flood waters from the Rio Grande de San Miguel had just about dried up. Someone pointed to where the levee along the river had burst to allow in the flood waters. In the past two weeks, I have seen the video of the water again flowing through Puerto Parada as the levee burst again. This same story is repeated in many areas in El Salvador. The government has not done enough to mitigate the foreseeable risks.

***

Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, replanting fields, and treating water borne illnesses will all be an important part of flood relief in the coming days, weeks, and months. But until the underlying structural problems are addressed and the risks are mitigated, I fear this tragedy will repeat itself. And with global climate change, the repeat event may come much sooner than El Salvador can ever afford.

The relief efforts for the Deluge of 2011

2011-10-23T23:21:00.000-05:00

As the floodwaters recede, this post focuses on the relief effort. The government is still warning, however, about the ongoing possibility of landslides from the super-saturated soils on mountainsides which it describes as a "moderate probability" in many areas throughout the country.

International aid is arriving. There has been a shipment of medicines from Venezuela. Brazil delivered 1000 tons of rice and beans, and another $100,000 donation for the purchase of foodstuffs. Spain provided 109 tons of food. A shipment of aid for Salvadoran families valued at $181,000 from the US government arrived by plane today. The US Embassy lists aid worth almost $250,000 delivered previously on its website. Other countries providing assistance include Chile, Germany, Mexico and Taiwan. The Salvadoran government is receiving funds from a $50 million loan from the InterAmerican Development Bank and has designated $22 million of repair of bridges and roads washed away by the floods.

With elections upcoming, political parties have not resisted the temptation to politicize aid distribution. The mayor of San Salvador, Norman Quijano, has filled the Facebook page for the San Salvador municipal government with scenes of the mayor personally delivering bags of food or temporary housing materials and getting grateful hugs from his constituents. In fact, many of the bags the San Salvador government is using to deliver aid are emblazoned with Quijano's smiling face. The GANA web page is similarly filled with GANA party officials handing out bags of food or clothing. In Santiago Texacuangos, the GANA party candidate came to bring aid to local shelters dressed in GANA orange, but was blocked by the local officers of the ARENA led municipal government.

With this influx of aid, the government is promising to make aid distribution transparent. Prior disaster relief efforts by the Salvadoran government have been met with charges of corruption and favoritism in aid distribution. Now the government has announced that it will make public all information about the distribution of aid and government contracting. A hot line has been set up for the reporting of corruption and irregularities in aid distribution.

But ordinary citizens have ignored political or religious differences and are simply pitching in to help their fellow Salvadorans impacted by the floods. From private donations, the Salvadoran Foundation of Health (FUSAL) has made 172 shipments benefiting 23,579 families. Salvadoran blogger Hunnapuh has written:

The population which has not been directly affected by the disaster and which has some means, looks not to party colors and has thrown itself into helping either the government, church, favorite service institution or private company, without distinguishing between tricolor, red, green, yellow, blue or orange or between Catholics and evangelicals.

Salvadorans in the US have set up a manner to donate to relief through text messages. Text the word SALVADOR to 20222 for a donation of $ 10. which will be directed to the Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation (SAHF) for disaster relief.

El Salvador is asking the US for relief from deportations. Mauricio Funes announced that he is requesting that the US suspend deporting Salvadorans and to continue in force Temporary Protected Status (TPS) which allows more than 200,000 Salvadorans to live in the US following the 2001 earthquakes. During the time period of the rains, the US deported 622 Salvadorans back into the country, and more than 18,000 in the previous 12 months.

The Maras of El Salvador

2011-10-22T16:35:00.000-05:00

Journalist Alma Guillermoprieto begins her new essay in the New York Review of Books with the line "I’m back in El Salvador for the first time in thirty years, and I don’t recognize a thing." Thirty years ago, Guillermoprieto was one of two US journalists who broke the story of the massacre which had happened at El Mozote, in Morazan province.

Today she is writing about a new type of violence afflicting El Salvador. Her piece titled In the New Gangland of El Salvador explores the phenomenon of gangs in El Salvador with conversations in the poor neighborhoods where the gangs are flourishing and interviews of gang members in prison.

She writes:

It would be easy to lay the blame for this social and economic disaster exclusively at the feet of the party founded by Roberto D’Aubuisson—the Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA, by its Spanish initials—which governed the country with evident if not single-minded interest in the well-being of the wealthy for twenty years after the peace accords were signed in 1992. (In 2009, Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the party founded by the former guerrillas, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, won the presidency.) But there is also the enormous fact of the war itself: the demolished roads and other infrastructure, the collapse of rural society, the rise of urban slums peopled by campesinos fleeing those remote areas of the country that were the war’s principal staging ground, the systematic practice of ruthlessness, the drastic increase in single-parent families, the loss of an educated elite, the huge stockpile of leftover weapons no one kept track of. None of this, however, adds up to a complete or satisfactory explanation for the proliferation of the maras, currently estimated to number some 25,000 members at large, with another 9,000 in prison.

Guillermoprieto does not try to provide us with that complete or satisfactory explanation, but this essay does offer a little more insight into the maras of El Salvador.

Al Jazeera covers the floods

2011-10-22T08:53:00.000-05:00

As far as I can tell, Al Jazeera English has provided the only English language broadcast news coverage of the flooding in El Salvador. (The network has a history of good reporting from El Salvador). Here is the Al Jazeera video report on the Deluge of 2011:

A UN official estimated that the damages from October's floods in El Salvador could top $1 billion.

Health impacts of the widespread floods

2011-10-21T22:01:00.000-05:00

The floodwaters are starting to recede in parts of El Salvador and the rain has stopped. Public health concerns throughout the flooded areas are of immediate importance. People have been crowded into shelters, flood waters have contaminated wells, and contact with the dirty water can cause disease. Only diligent attention to providing clean water and sanitation will prevent outbreaks of illness.

Attention is being paid by a number of organizations. Here is today's report of the Pan American Health Organization:

El Salvador. The rains have opened dam reserves and blocked roads affecting 181 out of 262 municipalities of El Salvador. 2,000 square kilometers are now flooded which is equivalent to 10% of the entire national territory.

Health Impacts. Currently there 250,000 people affected and 38,682 persons displaced to 603 shelters located mostly in the departments of La Libertad, Usulutan, and La Paz. It is estimated that 12% of the displaced people in shelters will need temporary housing for 4 to 6 months.

The Ministry of Health has reported increased cases of diarrhea, conjunctivitis, chickenpox, and dengue fever. A total of 159 health centers are affected including 17 with severe damages, 36 with moderate damages and 106 with minor damages. Hospital Soyapango which serves 290,000 has lost its power source. Hospital Sonsonate reported that there are limited surgical and maternity capacities as well as blocked roads to the hospital. Most health centers are experiencing floods and equipment damages.

The El Salvador Ministry of Health reports that it has been active providing care in the shelters and that the primary conditions found have been respiratory diseases and rashes. The Ministry has been providing health checks, mental health therapies and sanitation evaluations. Bulletins of the Ministry of Health relating to the flooding appear here.

Our friends at Voices on the Border did a good overview on all these health issues in a post yesterday which I re-post here:

As floodwaters continue to recede, communities throughout El Salvador are starting to consider the short and long-term impact of the 1400 milimeters (55 inches) of rain that has fallen in the past week. One of the most immediate issues is public health.

According to Eduardo Espinoza, Viceminister of Health, the most immediate public health concern in El Salvador is the 2,200 community wells contaminated by flooding, which threaten the availability of safe drinking water. The Health Ministry announced yesterday that it is distributing ‘Puriagua,’ a chlorine solution used to disinfect contaminated drinking water. Other organizations are also distributing chlorine-tablets and purified water. Although the wells pose a significant health concern, “the risk of outbreaks can be minimized” through prompt action to identify wells and provide clean drinking water, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Flooding can increase the risk of communicable diseases in a number of ways – contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal diseases; floodwater can bring disease-carrying animals such as dogs, rats or mosquitoes into closer contact with humans; direct contact with waste carried by floodwater can cause skin disease; and exposure to weather conditions can lead to respiratory ailments.

The most prevalent health concerns, so far, seem to be respiratory and skin problems, judging by the number of consultations at shelters nationwide. Out of 9,139 health consultations made by October 17th, 2,395 dealt with respiratory problems, primarily among the very young and the elderly. The Health Minister recommended that special care be taken to wrap these vulnerable groups warmly. Another 1,231 consultations dealt with skin problems. However, according to the World Health Organization, neither problem is “epidemic-prone.” 145 consultations dealt with gastrointestinal diseases and diarrhea.

Other “epidemic-prone” diseases are being monitored closely. The Panamerican Health Organization (PAHO) has donated diagnostic kits to monitor the spread of H1N1, dengue, malaria, and a disease called leptospirosis carried by rodents and dogs. Espinoza reported five cases of chicken pox in the Municipality of Cojutepeque, which have been addressed with “isolation measures and antiviral treatment to contain the spread of the disease.” Espinoza also reported six cases of the H1N1 virus under isolation. “So far, there has been no case [of H1N1] in the shelters,” says Espinoza.

Another public health problem is that flooding has damaged 138 health establishments, according to the Health Ministry. As just one example, the PAHO reports that the infrastructure at the Kidney Health Unit in the Lower Lempa has been “completely damaged” by more than two meters of water, “losing the medical equipment vital to treat renal failure.” The organization writes, “This unit treats 350 patients with chronic renal failure, who, currently, have no other alternative.”

Dr. Anne Daul, a fellow with the the George Washington University department of Emergency Medicine, added that flood victims also need to be concerned about the psychological impact from loosing a home or even loved ones. She also warns that major catastrophes such as this can break down the social fabric, which puts women at risk of gender-based violence.

Deluge of 2011 through eyes of a child

2011-10-20T20:38:00.000-05:00

Photo - El Faro

The sun started to come out today, and I'm not going to write much about the flooding in El Salvador. Instead, I'm going to encourage you to go view the photogallery from El Faro at this link. The gallery contains photos of children now living in a shelter who painted pictures of their experience. Their pictures are worth more than a thousand of my words.

The flooding of the Lower Lempa region

2011-10-19T22:53:00.000-05:00

The Lempa River is the longest river in El Salvador. Winding through much of the country, it drains a large region. Rivers in Guatemala and Honduras also flow into the Lempa. A series of dams on the river provide hydro-electric power to the country. As the river flows down towards the Pacific Ocean, it spreads into a broad flood plain known as the Bajo Lempa or Lower Lempa region of El Salvador.

Map of the Lower Lempa region (click to enlarge)

Because the Lempa River collects water from this broad area, the flooding from the Deluge of 2011 has been particularly severe there. EcoViva, an NGO which partners with community organizations in the Lower Lempa region, described some of the impacts on its blog:

JIQUILISCO, El Salvador— A tropical depression in the Pacific, coupled with a weather front stemming from Hurricane Jova in the Atlantic, converged on El Salvador this weekend to cause what appears to be the largest disaster in a generation. Earthen levees along the Lempa River burst as an upstream dam released 9,500 cubic meters of water per second for over 12 hours, three times more water per second than the levees along the river were built to withstand.

At press time, the region had seen over 1.2 meters of rainfall accumulate over a seven day period, far eclipsing the historic impact of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 which saw the accumulation of 0.86 meters of rain. Government civil protection authorities estimate that over 48,000 people throughout El Salvador are now crowding into a system of over 500 flood shelters. The number of reported fatalities is currently 32, with two people reported as missing. Areas hardest hit by flood waters include the provinces of La Paz, Sonsonate and Usulután.

On Saturday, October 15, the President of El Salvador declared a state of emergency across the nation, with special attention to coastal areas like the Lower Lempa River Basin, located in the state of Usulután’s Jiquilisco municipality. Approximately 40 villages were completely flooded out in that region. Dozens of communities were cut off from contact for up to 48 hours as roads were completely washed away. For the last four days, community groups have been working with local and federal authorities to reach isolated communities and evacuate everyone effectively.

In the Jiquilisco area, over 7,000 people are currently staying in schools, community centers and other makeshift shelters.

At its height, the river was some 30 feet above normal. This video illustrates vividly the pain of evacuation as waters of the Lempa spread everywhere:

The SHARE Foundation, an NGO working with communities in El Salvador, also wrote about the evacuations in the Lower Lempa:

As Irma from ACUDESBAL, a local organization, shared with us, “here in the Bajo Lempa, we’re all one family. People care about each other, and worry about each other.” In the end, it was the young men in the ACUDESBAL-trained rescue group that were able to evacuate stranded community members.

While some people wait for evacuation, others have hunkered down where they are. Communities like Los Naranjos, La Pita and Puerto Nuevo, South of San Carlos Lempa in Tecoluca, have been cut off since Friday, when the road flooded. These communities have sought refuge in community centers until the water recedes, but they have no access to food, water or other basic supplies. The only way to access these families, and bring them medicine and sustenance, is by boat.

Other communities face yet another problem—the places where they have sought shelter are “unofficial,” not recognized by the government. At these unofficial shelters, there is no government support for supplies. There are shelters throughout the country without enough food, drinking water or sanitation supplies (toilet paper, soap) to provide for people. The Human Rights Ombudsperon, Oscar Luna, has said that Civil Protection has not provided the assistance necessary for those affected. Meléndez, Director of Civil Protection, has confirmed that there are over 10,000 people in “unofficial” shelters who have received no government support.

Voices on the Border, another NGO working with the communities of the Lower Lempa, reports on some successes in the evacuation:

Some good news to report; the communities of Nueva Esperanza, Ciudad Romero, Zamorano and others that are completely underwater have been completely evacuated. We have been worried about a group of 57 people (last night we reported 40, but that number was revised upward this morning) were stuck on the top of the Nueva Esperanza Community center and then the bell tower of the church last night. We just received word that they reached the emergency shelter at about noon today.

There's a gallery of pictures at this link.

Crop losses in the region will be particularly severe in the Lower Lempa region. Voices described one scene of farmers trying to harvest as the waters rose:

This afternoon a member of Voices staff came across an agricultural cooperative in Mata de Piña where workers were trying to salvage their corn crop that they were almost ready to harvest. Members of the cooperative were working in waist-deep water, picking, shucking, and grinding corn in hopes of salvaging something. This is a bleak reminder of what is to come in the weeks and months ahead. The region has lost all its crops and will be dependent on food aide programs for the foreseeable future. Today – we’ll just focus on the basics… food, clothing, and shelter.

The flood waters which have inundated the Lower Lempa region got there after being discharged by the dams upstream. The dams are managed by the the Rio Lempa Hydro-electric Executive Commission ("CEL" in Spanish).

Over the course of the torrential rains, CEL began releasing ever greater amounts of water through its dams, especially the September 15 dam above the Lower Lempa. The releases were said to be necessary because the dams had reached their capacity and faced pressure which could only be relieved through the discharge of huge amounts of water. The role of those discharges are now being criticized by groups in the affected areas. From Voices on the Border:

ACUDESBAL (the local inter-communal association) and CESTA (an environmental NGO) published a press release denouncing the role of the September 15th hydroelectric dam in the near total devestation of many communities in the Lower Lempa. The release says “During this climatic phenomena, the CEL again released 11,500 cubic meters per second, but unlike Hurricane Mitch, this amount of water was released for a prolonged period of time, and the river bed is more clogged [than in '98'], which caused flooding from San Marcos Lempa all the way down to Montecristo Island”. The release demands that CEL accept responsibility for their negligence, especially after an interview with the CEL president Irving Tochez, where he claims that CEL is in no way responsible for the devestation, but rather mitigated further disaster by ‘helping to retain water and releasing it in a controlled manner’.

According to this afternoon's hydrological bulletin from SNET, releases from the September 15 dam are down to 2300 cubic meters / second, and the river level is gradually going down.

The CEL, recognizing that its release of waters inevitably leads to the flooding downstream, has been taking steps to help improve its image. The CEL has been sending relief supplies for families in shelters in the affected areas. The head of the CEL and the Minister of Agriculture made a joint trip this week to meet with community leaders in the Lower Lempa to talk about efforts to minimize the impact of the floods.

I have no way to comment on whether the CEL was acting responsibly. Clearly the past 10 days' rains have been unprecedented. With much more rain falling in the drainage basin of the Lempa River than has ever fallen before, officials were certainly going to need to open the floodgates to a large flow of water. Whether they could have released less water, without compromising the safety of the dams, is probably something that only scientific studies with lots of data will answer in the future.

Voices on the Border, the SHARE Foundations, and EcoViva are all accepting donations to help in their work supporting the victims of the Deluge of 2011 in the Lower Lempa region and elsewhere.

Deluge of 2011 -- Day 10

2011-10-19T21:04:00.000-05:00

Ten days of rain have produced dramatic rain totals throughout the country as this chart from El Salvador's weather service, the SNET, shows. The most rain has fallen at Huizucar in the south central part of the country, where an amazing 1470 millimeters (57.9 inches) of rain has fallen. In a sizable area (orange and yellow on the map), more than a meter of rain has fallen.

The rain was still falling today, with 20-70mm of rain falling in locations in the central volcanic chain in the country. In Puerto Parada, in the western part of the country, officials continued to evacuate inhabitants as the Rio Grande de San Miguel was rising after having already breached its levee in two places. Rio Paz in Ahuachapan was also overflowing its banks again.

On Thursday, however, the entry of a cold front is supposed to mark the end of the rains in most of the country. Next Monday, schools will reopen for the first time since the emergency was declared except for those schools being used as emergency shelters.

President Funes went before the international press today to say that the international community lacked a clear understanding of the magnitude of the crisis in El Salvador and the rest of Central America. The Salvadoran president blamed part of this lack of international media attention on the fact that the weather conditions creating this calamity lacked a name like "Hurricane Mitch" but instead was "Tropical Depression 12-E." He emphasized that this unnamed disaster would need an international response similar to Mitch in 1998. Funes called these 10 days of rain, the most devastating weather disaster in the history of the country.

The tally of the number of people taking refuge in shelters rose significantly today. The official statistic is now more than 48,700 persons in 566 shelters.

Deluge of 2011 -- International aid coming to El Salvador

2011-10-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

Source

The chart above shows the relative magnitude of the rains of the past 8 days in El Salvador compared to other weather disasters. While it should be remembered that rainfall amounts are very localized, and that the highest totals occurred in only a very few spots, it is still clear that this has been a very extreme event.

At this link you can see a current radar map from weather.com which will play back the weather from the previous 36 hours. You can also follow links from that page to see the current weather forecast. Perhaps the most important forecast is the hydrological forecast from SNET which can be found here and which contains forecasted river levels and risks of flooding. The forecast is in Spanish, but Google translate works pretty well with it for those who need an English translation.

International aid efforts are starting to help alleviate some of the needs in El Salvador. Taiwan, Spain, the United States, Venezuela have all promised aid. International humanitarian organizations are also at work. For example, the World Food Program has been distributing emergency rations from a stockpile kept in El Salvador:

In coordination with the government of El Salvador, WFP has provided High Energy Biscuits to over 7,500 people – a total of 10 metric tons – who are currently in shelters in 27 communities. In Honduras more than 5,000 people have been assisted with 55 metric tons of food rations in close collaboration with local authorities whereas in Nicaragua, WFP in close cooperation with SINAPRED is prepositioning food in various areas of the country, including the indigenous areas of Rio Coco and Bocay.

The regional response involves WFP’s Central American Humanitarian Response Centre in El Salvador. They were responsible for transporting 10 metric tons of High Energy Biscuits to Guatemala over the weekend and providing assistance with food distributions in El Salvador. The Centre stocks primarily High Energy Biscuits which are available for quick regional deployments and complement the stocks of non-food items stored at the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) base in Panama.

ReliefWeb is a clearinghouse internet site where international relief organizations share information on natural and humanitarian disasters worldwide. The site is now aggregating information on these floods at this page. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has published an assessment report on the floods (in Spanish) which provides an overview of the impacts on the various nations in Central America and humanitarian needs.

Despite these efforts, there are still many areas which have received little or no real support, sometimes because roads are blocked by landslides and fallen trees. Sometimes because they have just been overlooked. Twitter today had many tweets taking the form "Families in community XYZ need food"

I came across the following description on the website Examiner.com that in some ways summarizes the nature of this tragedy:

Central America doesn’t have the same standard of housing that many nearby countries adhere to. Many ‘houses’ are built from substandard materials such as wood, plastic and corrugated tin. Occasionally locally made cinder blocks are available but these are more expensive than recycled materials and when the rains come, ‘water-proof’ isn’t a condition anyone can count on. Having a simple roof over the family is about as good as it gets and when day after day of torrential downpours hammers the home-made hand-crafted structure they’ve built, odds are that something’s going to give. Adding to the misery, many homes are built on unstable hillsides or in flood-prone low lying areas. The best land is taken by the agricultural interests and the campesinos build on land that nobody else wants. Simply put, it’s a recipe for disaster when the rains are more than usual and that’s exactly what’s happened. When the clouds clear and the rivers eventually fall, the numbers of dead and missing will be counted again. The roads, those lifeblood routes of commerce, will be repaired some time later and the numerous bridges will be jury-rigged to allow the resumption of traffic. It’ll be a while before Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua return to normal: for those who’ve lost their homes, families and belongings, it may never happen.

The deluge of 2011

2011-10-18T00:08:00.000-05:00

As of Monday night, October 17, the rains had not ceased in El Salvador (although things are a little better in the east of the country). The rainfall measured in some locations exceeded an extraordinary 1.2 meters over the past week, surpassing the rainfall total of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Here are the latest statistics for El Salvador:

150,000 people have reportedly been affected in some way by the rains.
The official death toll has risen to 32.
More than 32,000 people have been evacuated from 149 communities.
Some 21,500 are living in 223 shelters across the country.
More than 18,400 houses have been damaged by floods and landslides.
At least 576 landslides have been recorded
10 bridges have collapsed.

See a collection of images of the floods here.

Schools continue to be suspended in much of the country until further notice. A number of schools have been damaged by the flooding.

El Salvador's National Assembly passed a resolution for three days of national mourning and a 60 day disaster declaration. During those 60 days, international aid goods and supplies can come into the country duty free.

The following infographic from La Prensa shows the rainfall accumulations from October 10 through Sunday, October 16:

The English language press has only barely started to cover this story.

From AFP:

SAN SALVADOR — Civil defense officials across Central America were on high alert as the heavy rain that has pounded the region for more than a week showed no sign of abating.More than 80 people have been killed over the past week in mudslides and flooding across the mountainous region, home to 42 million people.

Rain-swollen rivers have destroyed bridges and damaged highways, while flooding has destroyed crops and damaged thousands of homes.The toll is expected to rise as reports from isolated villages begin to trickle in -- and in the coming days officials fear more mudslides from rain-saturated soil, food shortages in faraway towns, and health problems due to water-borne diseases.

Those killed include 32 in El Salvador, 29 in Guatemala, 13 in Honduras and eight in Nicaragua, according to local officials.

Hard-hit El Salvador on Monday launched a worldwide appeal for humanitarian assistance due to the intense rain.Aid has already begun pouring in from Taiwan, Spain, the United States, Venezuela and a host of other countries, Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez told a press conference, adding Taipei had donated some $300,000 in flood relief.

Alarm bells were ringing over a pending malnutrition crisis throughout the poverty-stricken region after heavy rains washed away crops in areas where thousands of families rely on small-scale farming for their nutrition needs.

Officials blamed the effects of global warming for the spate of deadly rains and flooding."Climate change is not something that is coming in the future, we are already suffering its effects," said Raul Artiga with the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD).

In El Salvador, at least 10 bridges have collapsed and another 10 show serious damage, while 14 highways have serious damage, according to a preliminary report. Public Works Minister Gerson Martinez estimated the damages at "several million dollars."

El Salvador has experienced record rainfall of 1.2 meters (four feet) in one week, shattering the record set by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

From the BBC:

El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes said the country was "really being put to the test". "The situation has got even worse, it's still raining heavily in various parts of the country," Mr Funes, said in an address to the nation, late on Sunday. He said more than 20,000 people had been evacuated and entire communities had been cut off due to impassable roads.

The government launched an appeal for international humanitarian aid, with the rains forecast to continue through Monday. Spain has responded by sending 20 tonnes of supplies, including tents and hygiene kits.

In Ciudad Arce, 40 km (24 miles) northwest of the capital, San Salvador, a landslide swept away five houses, killing at least nine people, officials said.

La Prensa has created an interactive Google map which identifies the locations of landslides, blocked roads and fatalities.

You can help. A number of organizations are making fund-raising appeals for disaster response. Some of them include:

Please note that there are many more El Salvador-based organizations actively providing relief and soliciting funds as well. I have listed the organizations above because they are reputable and will be more accessible for the English speaking readers of the blog. For some ways to help within El Salvador, see the listing in this blog post by Hunnapuh.

Fr. Dean Brackley Presente!

2011-10-16T15:02:00.002-05:00

I received the sad news this afternoon, that a dear friend, Father Dean Brackley, a Jesuit priest and teacher at the University of Central America in San Salvador passed away after a months long struggle with cancer. A month ago, Fr. Dean was awarded an honorary doctorate from Marquette University. Here was the presentation from the award of that degree:

Rev. Dean Brackley, S.J., is a professor of theology at the University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador, and in 2010 he held the Rev. Francis C. Wade, S.J., Chair at Marquette University. Father Brackley entered the Society of Jesus in 1964 and was ordained a priest in 1976. He earned a doctoral degree in Religious Social Ethics from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1980, and has traveled a vocational path marked by spiritual creativity, moral courage, and an unfailing companionship with the poor.

Father Brackley’s early life in ministry was spent as a community organizer on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and in the South Bronx, exposing him to the eroding conditions of poverty and violence. As a faculty member at Fordham University he was known for his profound impact on the lives of students and for scholarly pursuits that brought theological and spiritual questions into deep engagement with the concerns of the real world. It was this commitment to the human and social implications of the Gospel that brought Father Brackley to the most significant decision of his life. When six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter were massacred at the University of Central America in San Salvador in 1989, Father Brackley quietly and heroically volunteered to take the place of one of the martyred Jesuits. Responding to the exhortation of Christ to “lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” he would thereafter never leave the side of the Salvadoran people on a permanent basis.

Serving at Universidad Centroamericana since 1990, Father Brackley has overseen the School for Religious Education, spearheaded pastoral outreach programs, and established new scholarships for students who go on to serve in parishes and faith communities throughout the country. Father Brackley has never failed to balance his demanding academic and administrative responsibilities with the personal and pastoral care of God’s people. He remains a compassionate and priestly presence to residents of a poor urban community in San Salvador.

During his years of service at UCA, Father Brackley has hosted thousands of students and faculty members from North American Jesuit universities who come to El Salvador in order to honor, understand, and connect their lives to the sacrifice of the Jesuit martyrs. As an American whose life gives witness to deep and intentional solidarity with the poor, his ministry has grown to include the teaching and pastoral care of these pilgrims, acting as a bridge between the familiarity of their university lives in the United States and the joy amid suffering that they experience in the Salvadoran people. He holds their holy confusion with reverence, helping the visitors understand that, in Christ, there is no “other.” In all of his work, he brings the voice of the voiceless to bear on important issues.

Father Brackley is the author of numerous articles and two books, The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times: New Perspectives on the Transformative Wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola and Divine Revolution: Salvation and Liberation in Catholic Thought. His books, articles, and public lectures are important contributions to the canon of Christian spiritual writers.

At a Christmas Eve address shortly before his death, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador encouraged the faithful to live in such a way that, “We are never ashamed of saying, ‘The Church of the Poor.’” Indeed Father Dean Brackley is never ashamed. Rather it is in the poor that he finds the fullness of his vocation as a priest, intellectual, and advocate. It is in the poor that he recognizes – and helps others recognize – the face of Christ.

Because his life exemplifies the very heart of Marquette University’s mission, Reverend President, I hereby recommend Father Dean Brackley of the Society of Jesus for the Marquette University degree of Doctor of Religious Studies, honoris causa.

Weather map for El Salvador

2011-10-16T11:22:00.002-05:00

The current weather map at this link shows the weather systems which have been affecting El Salvador and also includes weather forecasts for the coming days.

The following map shows rain totals across the country on Saturday through Sunday morning:

Blog Action Day -- The Rains and Food

2011-10-15T22:29:00.000-05:00

October 16 is the annual Blog Action Day, and the global topic this year is Food. In light of the weather emergency continuing in El Salvador, I will deal with the implications of the ongoing rains on food issues in the country.

The country is under a state of emergency. In a press conference Saturday night, president Funes called for all elements of Salvadoran society to pull together. As of tonight some 13 thousand Salvadorans have been forced to flee their homes, and the death toll has risen to 10.

Emergency efforts to distribute food are underway for families forced from their homes. Donations are being received from many sources, and the Salvadoran armed forces are participating in distribution of emergency aid.

This picture from LPG shows Scouts receiving and organizing food donations.

LPG picture gallery.

A tweet from LaPrensa reported that some 4000 pupusas are being made and donated by an association of pupuserias in Olocuilta to distribute to affected families.

The San Miguelito market in San Salvador sent hot meals to evacuated communities in the Lower Lempa:

Source: El Salvador Noticias.net

As noted in Friday's post, at that time experts were forecasting losses of as much as 40% of the country's harvest of the staple foods corn, rice and beans. Other reports suggest that as much as 60% of the bean crop could be lost, and coffee production could also be impacted. This destroys the hopes I wrote about six weeks ago, that a record bean harvest might help bring down the cost of food in the country.

This chart compares this weather emergency to other recent rain and flooding events, comparing the amount of rain in millimeters during the entire event and during the first 24 hours. The rains from this tropical depression are already the 6th worst in the past 42 years, and the rains are forecast for three or four more days:

The needs in the country are basic -- shelter from the rain and floodwaters, clothing for what has been lost, food for the hungry, and long term works for mitigation of risk in many areas. Also needed, as my friend Beth points out, is psycho-social care for the victims.

Several organizations are making calls for donations. Consider these organizations if you want to help:

More discoveries at Joya de Cerén archaeological site

2011-10-15T20:06:00.000-05:00

Archaeologists working at Joya de Cerén in El Salvador have uncovered an ancient road in that Mayan village. An article in Science Daily describes the discovery:

A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash.The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren near the city of San Salvador in 1978. In Yucatan Maya, the word "sacbe" (SOCK'-bay) literally means "white way" or "white road" and is used to describe elevated ancient roads typically lined with stone and paved with white lime plaster and that sometimes connected temples, plazas and towns.

The sacbe at the buried village of Ceren -- which had canals of water running on each side -- is the first ever discovered at a Maya archaeology site that was built without bordering paving stones, said Sheets.

Read the rest of the Science Daily article for more information on the ancient community at Joya de Cerén.

Update on damage from rains

2011-10-14T19:35:00.001-05:00

The rains which started on October 10 have not yet ceased. President Mauricio Funes has declared a state of emergency (video) throughout the country due to the rains' impact. The saturated soil can hold no more of the rain which falls, producing floods and mudslides in at-risk areas. The death toll has climbed to six. La Prensa Grafica reported today that 15,000 families have been affected in some way by the rains, 6548 persons are currently in 92 shelters across the country. Rivers have overflowed their banks in 47 locations, and there have been 384 mudslides. Schools remain closed.

The rains in El Salvador are part of a tropical depression bringing tragedy across Central America as the Boston Globe reports:

Heavy rains generated by a low-pressure system hammered Central America for a third day Friday, putting officials on alert in countries where mudslides and swollen rivers have already killed 36 people.At least 21 people have been killed in Guatemala and thousands of others were evacuated or saw their homes destroyed by the incessant downpours.

In El Salvador, rivers have overflowed their banks, destroying villages and prompting an evacuation of about 4,000 people from their homes, the country's disaster management office said in a statement Friday.

In Honduras, six people have been killed in floods and the roads connecting the nation to Guatemala have been destroyed. Other communities have been left isolated by the floods. In Nicaragua, four people have died this week.The system is expected to hover over the region for the next couple of days, generating more rainfall, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

Very worrying is a front page story in El Diario de Hoy quoting experts' views that as much as 40% of the country's harvests of the basic grains -- rice, corn and beans -- could be lost. Such crop losses would increase rural poverty and prevent any easing of already high food prices.

English language bloggers in El Salvador are writing about this weather emergency. Voices from El Salvador has been providing regular updates on the blog and on Facebook on the impacts for the communities of the lower Lempa River region near the coast where flooding is a problem. Those communities are threatened as the government releases water from the dams up river to relieve pressure on the dams.

Blogger Alisha writes about what it's like living in the ongoing rains. Jen notes the alerts throughout the country and the widespread reports of damage, while the Crispaz blog has government estimates of needed relief funds. Kathy notes that there is a real need for prayer when "there are three really big things to worry about: landslides, flash floods and rivers over-flowing their banks."

And three motorcyclists on their way to from north to south through the Americas, posted a video blog of the rain they found in El Salvador.

This might be a good time to make an extra contribution to your favorite NGO working in El Salvador.

This week of rain is a good example of why El Salvador, along with other countries in Central America, are in the top 10 for countries most exposed to natural disasters according to the UN's WorldRiskReport 2011.

You can follow updates (mostly in Spanish) on Twitter with the #lluviasv tag. There is a photo album here with a collection of images of the flooding from the Salvadoran media.

Rains pound El Salvador causing flooding and landslides

2011-10-12T16:36:00.000-05:00

Heavy rains, caused by a tropical depression off the Pacific coast have caused flooding and landslides in various parts of El Salvador. School has been suspended in 8 of the country's 14 departments. The weather system has left 18 people dead across Central America, including two women in El Salvador who died in separate landslides.

Certain towns in the department of Ahuachapan in the west are under a red alert for flooding, while much of the coastal region is under an orange alert and much of the rest of the country under a yellow alert. The rains could continue for another 36 hours.

According to La Prensa Grafica, as of 10 a.m. this morning, there are approximately 1800 displaced people in shelters, 10 rivers have overflowed their banks, and there were 26 reported landslides.

You can see current weather radar images from El Salvador's national weather agency here. La Prensa has a map with rainfall totals here and a gallery of images from the flooding here.

Millennium Compact -- 4 year anniversary

2011-10-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

At the end of September 2011, the Millennium Challenge Account project in El Salvador celebrated its fourth anniversary and its achievements to date. The Millennium Challenge is a US foreign aid program aimed at combating poverty in the countries which receive the funds.

An article in DiarioCoLatino has the comments of José Ángel Quirós, executive director of FOMILENIO, the Salvadoran government agency charged with administering the programs in the country. The program has a goal of alleviating the poverty of more than 150 thousand Salvadorans and improving the quality of life of 850 thousand inhabitants of the northern zone of the country. According to Quirós, after 4 years FOMILENIO had been able to provide training to more than 8500 persons, awarded 3000 scholarships and constructed 20 educational institutions, and created at least 9000 direct jobs.

At the anniversary event, Alex Segovia, Technical Secretary to the Salvadoran president, asserted that when the Funes administration started two years ago the program was is risk of being cut off for lack of execution, but now it was one of the best executed programs in the world.

The US Embassy in El Salvador wrote:

El Salvador’s compact represents the largest concerted economic development program in the Western Hemisphere. In its first four years of implementation, $379.5 million have already been invested in four broad project areas: education and training, community development, productive development, and road connectivity. This last category includes the compact’s most visible project, the $242 million Carretera Longitudinal Norte, a 218 km highway that will connect 94 municipalities of El Salvador’s Northern Zone.

An aspect of Millennium Challenge projects is an attention to transparency and measuring outcomes. For example, you can read here the plan for the US and El Salvador to measure the success of developing jobs and improving household income. You can also go to the US web site for the El Salvdor Compact to review a Table of Key Performance Indicators. Reviewing that data, shows that while the program has been achieving its goals in the areas of agricultural and small business training and education, it still has quite a distance to go on water and sanitation projects and construction of the northern highway (only 13 of 195 kilometers are completed).

When the Millennium Challenge grant to El Salvador was announced during the presidencies of George W. Bush in the United States and Tony Saca in El Salvador, critics on the left reacted with suspicion, calling it simply a program to build a road to allow gold mining companies to exploit natural resources. That criticism always seemed misplaced to me given the real need for improvements in electrical, water, educational and road infrastructure in the poorest zone of the country. Sometimes people need to recognize that a US-sponsored program can actually do real good in the world.

The Salvadoran government is also reaching out to the Salvadoran diaspora, looking for investment back in their home country, especially in the areas getting development assistance from the Millennium project.

Remittances and household finance

2011-10-06T22:40:00.000-05:00

A recent article in La Prensa Grafica explores the importance of remittances, the money sent from relatives living and working abroad, in supporting Salvadoran families. The article pulls data from the recent 2010 multi-purpose poll of households conducted by the Salvadoran government.

Some of the statistics:

More than 337,000 families in El Salvador receive remittances, equalling 21% of the households in the country.
91.6% of the families direct their remittances towards consumption, while only 1.4% say they save some or all of what they receive from abroad.
Remittances constitute 17% of the national economy, one of the highest levels in Latin America.
Remittances have reduced levels of poverty in El Salvador. 70% of of the households which receive remittances are not in poverty.
Most households receive between $46 and $113 per month in remittances.
More than 90% of Salvadorans have a relative living in the US.

Remittances sent into El Salvador have totaled $2.422 billion through the first eight months of 2011, an increase of 4.8% over the previous year.

CDA issues report on El Salvador.

2011-10-02T21:04:00.001-05:00

The Center for Democracy in the Americas published a report on El Salvador on Friday, September 30. This update focuses primarily on the judicial system and crime and security issues. It's a useful summary of current developments in those areas. Get it here|.

The killer of Oscar Romero identified

2011-10-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

It has been a mystery for more than 30 years. Who pulled the trigger of the sharpshooter's rifle which murdered Oscar Romero? Citing sources close to the plot, a Salvadoran newspaper has now identified the killer. From the Super Martyrio blog:

If a martyr is killed, does the killer’s actual identity matter for the purpose of raising the martyr to the honor of the altars? It matters in the case of Óscar Romero, according to Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez, a Salvadoran cleric familiar with Archbishop Romero’s beatification process. “When we were starting the process,” Bishop Rosa says, the Vatican “asked us three questions: who killed him, why, and the context in which he served as Archbishop of San Salvador.” He adds, “Who killed him was the only question we were unable to answer,” at the time. (G. Fajardo and F. Valencia, Msgr. Rosa Chávez asks Romero shooter to contribute to the truth, CO LATINO, September 17, 2011—in Spanish.)

New information published in El Salvador in the last days would answer that question, purporting to establish that National Guard Deputy Sargeant Marino Samayoa Acosta was the shadowy figure who pulled the trigger on that fateful evening of March 24, 1980, having been selected for the job by a man named Mario Molina, who was the son of Arturo Armando Molina, a Salvadoran army colonel who assumed the presidency under widespread allegations of fraud. The new information appears to complete the factual findings in Saravia v. Doe, a 2004 U.S. federal case in which Capt. Álvaro Saravia was found liable, in absentia, for his “role in coordinating and planning the assassination of Archbishop Romero,” and in a U.N. Truth Commission Report which found that, “Former Major Roberto D’Aubuisson gave the order to assassinate the Archbishop and gave precise instructions to members of his security service (including Saravia), acting as a ‘death squad’, to organize and supervise the assassination.”

The Diario CoLatino article, drawing on several sources, provides a narrative of D'Aubuisson's conspiracy to kill archbishop Romero from the order given by D'Aubuisson to carry out what had already been planned, through the sharpshooter's shot from the entrance of the chapel at Divnia Providencia, to the report of "mission accomplished."

The published news articles do not state where Samayoa is today or whether he is still alive. If he is located, the question will again be front and center -- how should the sins of the civil war be addressed?

El Salvador's economy lags

2011-09-28T08:20:00.000-05:00

An article in the Latin Business Chronicle looks at economic forecasts from the International Monetary Fund for countries in Latin America. El Salvador is forecast to finish last among the region's economies with growth of only 2% in 2011. The reasons for El Salvador's anemic growth are varied. The country is closely tied to the US economy, which is also struggling mightily. Investors avoid the country. The crime problem impedes business activity. Unfortunately, solutions have been few.

Wiki-leaked

2011-09-24T15:22:00.003-05:00

Almost 100 US State Department cables from the US Embassy in San Salvador have now been published on the website of El Faro. The collection of cables from WikiLeaks offers a behind-the-scenes look at US diplomacy and assessment of its tiny ally in Central America. Most of the cables come from the time of the administration of Tony Saca, but there are some more recent cables during the Funes administration.

Children, soldiers and gangs

2011-09-22T18:45:00.000-05:00

My friend Danny Burridge doesn't blog very regularly. He's too busy immersing himself in the lives of children in one of San Salvador's poorest neighborhoods, La Chacra. But when Danny does blog, it comes with real passion, and it is always worth reading. His recent post Fire and More Fire talks about lives lived under the harsh tactics of Salvadoran soldiers patrolling a high-crime area:

Juan Carlos has been there for a while as a 15 year old. He’s totally tranquilo and humble but carries himself, especially in the shoulders, like he thinks he’s hot stuff. One night a couple months ago around 9:30pm, he went out to buy something from the store that he probably could’ve easily waited until the morning to get, but he went anyway, and sure enough the soldiers suddenly rounded the corner. He got slammed against the wall, searched and hit in the side by what he thought was some type of club or maybe the M-16 butt. His bruise the next day was big enough to have been either.

Luckily, perhaps, his uncle Pedro helps to run a pupuseria stand right down the street, and when Pedro saw what was going down, he told the soldiers to lay off the kid, that it was his nephew and he was clean. The commanding soldier told Pedro to eat excrement, called him an ass bandit and threatened to give him worse treatment than Juan Carlos was getting. Pedro, as a short fuse, quickly invited the soldier to put down his gun and they would see who the bigger man was. The other ladies at the pupuseria started chiming in without much diplomacy, and the soldiers ordered them to shut up. Martita reminded them it was supposedly a free country now, and she wouldn’t shut up for anyone, least of all a mess of cowardly dogs. Suddenly the soldiers had their guns pointed at Pedro, Martita and the rest of the women and children at the pupuseria accusing them of being a front for gang extortions. At this point, Josue (Pedro’s son) and Angelita, 11 and 8 respectively, made a break for it and ran away. Vanessa who is 6, just started to cry. The civilian population continued the heated argument with the armed forces who had their weapons aimed at the people they were supposed to protect. And this is 2011.

Read the rest of Danny's essay here.

Climate change threatens mangrove forests

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

An article titled Losing mangrove forests in El Salvador on the website of Al Jazeera English deals with the issue of climate change and how its is affecting the mangrove forests along El Salvador's southeastern coastline. Rising sea levels endanger the mangroves:

The mangrove forest is a unique ecosystem found in tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions in the Americas, Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Often found where fresh water and salt water mix, the mangrove creates specific ecological conditions that support a wide variety of flora and fauna.

The trees have a series of stilt-like supports that extend from the trunk for increased stability and resilience. The mangrove trees have evolved to be able to withstand change in water level caused by normally occurring tidal cycles and mild flooding, helping protect coastal areas from damage from extreme storms and tsunamis. In recent years, however, a rise in sea level has brought the ocean waves intruding further inland than ever before, wreaking havoc on the trees and the entire ecosystem.

According to Dr Ricardo Navarro, director of the Centre for Appropriate Technologies in El Salvador (CESTA), over 30 metres of mangrove forest has been completely destroyed by this phenomenon in the last six years. "With the increase in global sea level, the ocean waves are entering further and further into the mangroves. What happens is the waves wash away the soil nutrients, leaving the trees in pure sand. So the trees die, and then all of the animals leave the area."

All along the central coast of El Salvador there is a dead zone stretching along the beach, measuring between 10 and 50 metres. The cause? Climate change, says Dr Navarro.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that global sea level rose 21 centimetres in the last century. This rise is reportedly caused by a combination of glacial melting, melting of the polar caps, and the physical expansion of the oceans with a rise in water temperature, all thought to be consequences of human-caused global warming.

Read the rest of the article here.For more information about the communities which depend on the mangroves and the challenges they face, make a visit to the blog of EcoViva. EcoViva is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year of working with the communities of the Lower Lempa on environmental sustainability, economic self-sufficiency, social justice, and peace.

Pupusa Obama

2011-09-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

Linda, at Linda's El Salvador Blog, recently discovered pupusas named for Barack Obama, as she tells in this story:

This afternoon, as we sat in a large circle a question was placed before Bishop Gomez: "What is your favorite kind of pupusa?" The Bishop side-stepped the answer for a while, and told a couple of pupusa stories. The pupusa is an indigenous food; the best ones puff up as they are cooked; one place has a pupusa loca (which I believe has a little bit of everything in it).

The question was asked again. This time the response involved President Obama. Did we remember when President Obama visited El Salvador? Weeks before he came, the Bishop said, "resourceful vendors prepared a special pupusa and began calling it the Pupusa Obama." Why was it called the Pupusa Obama? It was made with black corn.

We laughed in disbelief, but the Bishop assured us that this was true. We laughed some more and asked the Bishop again...did he have a favorite kind of pupusa? The answer finally came: pupusa con laroco y queso. Of course!

You can read the rest of Linda's discussion of pupusa varieties here.

Funes moving forward on vote for Salvadorans abroad

2011-09-19T07:30:00.000-05:00

Mauricio Funes is moving forward with plans to make it possible for Salvadorans outside of the country to vote beginning with the 2014 presidential elections. He first announced his intentions in June. Americas Quarterly describes Funes most recent declarations on the importance of absentee voting:

President Mauricio Funes yesterday announced his support for changes to El Salvador’s electoral laws that would allow Salvadorans living abroad to vote in national elections. At an event in celebration of El Salvador’s national Independence Day, Funes emphasized: "I do not exaggerate when I say that the institutionalization of absentee voting is a historical necessity... we are not a true democracy until the one-third of Salvadorans living outside the country have a voice in our elections.”

According to Funes, his government has requested technical advice from the United Nations and will strive to make all necessary changes before national elections in 2014. One component of the effort will be the modernization of El Salvador’s national identity card, Documento Único de Identidad (DUI), which Salvadorans living in the United States will be able to acquire at their closest consulate.

More than 2 million Salvadorans live outside the country, primarily in the US. Another way of looking at this -- of every person alive today who was born in El Salvador, 1 out of every 4 lives outside of the country. Their labor results in remittances sent back to El Salvador totaling $2.4 billion in the first 8 months of 2011. Those funds sent by Salvadorans living abroad, represent 1/6th of El Salvador's economy. Funes proposes to give this large and economically important segment of Salvadoran citizens the right to vote on the future of the country they support.

Chanchona

2011-09-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Chanchona music, a style local to eastern El Salvador, is a spirited folk music played with violins and an upright bass. PRI's The World recently introduced listeners to chanchona music with a story about the group Los Hermanos Lovo who play the folk music. It is a music for joy and partying they say::

Chanchona music comes from eastern El Salvador, from the three, largely rural departments of Morazan, La Union, and San Miguel. The name “chanchona” literally means “sow,” – it’s a nickname for the heavyset upright bass that anchors chanchona groups. Many groups, Los Hermanos Lovo included, are made up of extended family, and the music is passed down from parents, aunts, and uncles.

The music’s roots probably stretch back to the early 20th century. In the ‘50s and ’60s, radio spread Colombia’s infectious cumbia music throughout Latin America. Chanchona music picked up cumbia’s distinctive, two-step rhythm.

That chanchona music kept its joy through the 1980s and 90s in El Salvador is remarkable. A civil war engulfed the country, and it was most brutal in the east of the country – called the “Oriente.” Sheehy says that, in fact, chanchona music sometimes created a bridge between the two warring sides. “In eastern Oriente where the civil war was the fiercest, there were moments of extraordinary peace,” Sheehy says. “There were radio DJs in San Miguel–the capital of one of three provinces or departments that make up the eastern part of El Salvador—who told me a story about a dance celebration where a lot of people didn’t realize the presence of leftist guerillas and also people from the armed forces–from the right politically–and they intermingled, played and had a great time. And everybody loved the music of chanchona; that was a force that brought people together.” (more).

This Smithsonian video interviews Los Hermanos Lovo and offers some of their chanchona music:

Beautiful El Salvador

2011-09-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a video with some catchy music and wonderful views of the beauty of El Salvador to make your day.

El Salvador added to US drug trafficking list

2011-09-16T15:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, as El Salvador celebrated its Independence Day, the US government added El Salvador and Belize to its list of major drug producing or drug-transit countries. From the US State Department press release:

Under the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (FAA), the President is required each year to notify Congress of those countries he determines to be major illicit drug-producing countries or major drug-transit countries that “significantly affect the United States.” A country’s presence on the list does not necessarily reflect its counternarcotics efforts or its level of cooperation on illegal drug control with the United States. The designation can reflect a combination of geographic, commercial, and economic factors that allow drugs to be produced and/or trafficked through a country....This year the President has identified 22 countries as major drug-producing or drug-transit countries: Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. Belize and El Salvador are new to the list this year.

Prior to their inclusion this week, El Salvador and Belize were the only Central American countries not on the list. It's a sad development, but probably not that surprising. A BBC news report states:

Correspondents say the inclusion of Belize and El Salvador on the list reflects the growing influence of Mexico's powerful drugs cartels.In El Salvador in particular, the Mexican cartels are thought to be forming alliances with street gangs known as "Maras".

On a visit to El Salvador last March, President Obama promised $200m (£139m) to help fight crime in Central America.

Independence Day

2011-09-15T19:54:00.000-05:00

Today, September 15, is Independence Day in El Salvador. El Salvador and other Central American countries celebrate the 190 years since their independence from Spain in 1821.

To honor this day, here is El Salvador's National Anthem in this video:

An English language translation is available here.

Recent opinion polling

2011-09-12T20:02:00.000-05:00

Recent opinion poll results were published on the Periódico News Millenium website. Some highlights:

President Mauricio Funes has a 65% approval rating. While it's still a strong rating, it does show ongoing slippage from the early days of his administration.
Party preferences for the 2012 elections of mayors and the National Assembly show right wing ARENA and left wing FMLN each polling between 25 and 30%. No other party shows particular strength and most people are undecided. This has been the pattern in most recent elections.
Salvadorans are equally divided on what to do with the case of the murder of the Jesuits. 43% say the case should be reopened and 41% say no.

Some insights on gangs

2011-09-04T12:32:00.001-05:00

Jen at El Salvador from the Inside has a recent post titled An Unexpected Lesson on Gangs where she describes a conversation about current gang culture in El Salvador. Here's an excerpt:

Speaking of which, Damon mentioned that the pub we were sitting in, and pretty much “all” of them along this strip behind the Hotel Intercontinental, pay “rent” to the gangs. Except for one guy, he says. The guy who owns BILLY’S (pseudonym) doesn’t play around. He even hires local police to work for him as ‘vigilantes’ (private security guards), even though the practice is prohibited. He pays them well and no one stops him.

We talked about how gangs are becoming more sophisticated now. Damon says “You know what my profile is of a gang member, Now? It’s a kid with those tight (emo) style pants and spikey hair. He doesn’t have any tattoos, and you can’t tell he’s a gang member.” Here in this bar, that guy over there could be a gang member, or maybe he is” said Damon, gesturing to people around us. This is something that is becoming almost common knowledge for anyone who knows about Salvadoran gangs. As we march further into this millennium, gangs are becoming slicker; they are dropping the tradition of wearing tattoos, which has often worked against them. And they are actively infiltrating new demographics. My husband and I read reports of university kids that were busted for working in car-theft gangs.

Read the rest here. The gangs are a serious part of the murder rate in El Salvador which is again at record levels in 2011.