Salvadoran Activists Targeted with US-Style Repression
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Recently, that process of healing has been put to the test with the jailing of 14 local and national activists arrested in July, during protests in and around the small colonial city of Suchitoto. Dozens of social movement organizations coalesced in Suchitoto due to plans by Salvadoran president Antonio Saca to unveil there his administration's new "National Decentralization Policy." Many local activists view that policy as a thinly veiled plan to privatize water resources.
Among the 14 protesters arrested were 4 staff members from the Association of Rural Communities for the Development of El Salvador (CRIPDES) who were intercepted on their way to Suchitoto and forcibly removed from their vehicle. On July 7th, a Specialized Judge for Organized Crime, operating within a new court system established by El Salvador's recently-passed anti-terrorism legislation, sentenced 13 of the activists to three months of preventive detention to allow the public prosecutor to gather more evidence to support the charges of acts of terrorism, public disorder, and illicit association.
Advocates for civil liberties have questioned the anti-terrorism legislation and its application in this case. Lilian Cotto, deputy for the Central American Parliament, notes that the right to protest is constitutionally protected. Anaite Vargas of the Inter American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy, and Development, asked President Saca to not apply the Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism and Organized Crime against the detainees in Suchitoto given that these laws have become in effect a form of governmental malpractice against civil society's legitimate right to pacific protest.
PATRIOT Act South
US citizens should not be startled by events unfolding in El Salvador, given that the anti-terrorism legislation passed there was inspired by the USA PATRIOT Act. In fact, many aspects of Salvadoran public policy are US-inspired, for while El Salvador has been far from the minds of most US citizens, the reverse is far from true. This Massachusetts-sized nation of six million residents counts another two million former residents or expatriates, most of who are now living in the United States. The country dollarized its economy in 2001. And El Salvador is currently the only Latin America nation which still has troops in Iraq. El Salvador followed closely the passage and application of the PATRIOT Act in the United States, passing its own "Anti-terrorism Law" on September 21, 2006 (the law was pushed through the Legislative Assembly following the widely publicized shooting of two riot police officers in front of the National University).
To date, the law has been applied to leaders of the street vendors who have periodically confronted police efforts to evict them from downtown areas within the metropolitan area. Vicente Ramirez, a leader of the street vendors, was released on a plea bargain in July of this year, after charges were reduced from terrorism to aggravated damages, nearly five months after he was jailed for a protest that included rock throwing and the burning of a municipal vehicle in Apopa. Another group of street vendors is awaiting trial under the new law for protests in downtown San Salvador.
The detainees arrested on their way to the Suchitoto demonstrations include social movement leaders, community residents, and a young journalism student. One of the activists, Lorena Martinez, is known to many in the United States from her years of advocacy efforts on behalf of 300 CRIPDES communities made up of campesino families, many of them former refugees displaced by the civil war. As president of CRIPDES, Ms. Martinez together with the other national and local leaders, has toiled ceaselessly for basic services, housing, roads, and other necessities for these communities.
Martinez was captured along with CRIPDES's vice-president Rosa Centeno, a longtime staff member who administers the group's small loan program for rural women. With them was Hayde Chicas, a 24-year-old journalism student at the National University, who has been gaining practical experience working part-time in the CRIPDES communications office. The fourth member traveling in the association's pickup truck was Manuel Antonio Rodriquez, a shy, unassuming driver and nighttime security staff for the association.
What is most disturbing perhaps to civil liberties activists, is that while most of the other 14 individuals captured on July 2 were, in fact, blocking highways and attempting to impede the president, governmental authorities, and invited guests from reaching Suchitoto, the CRIPDES activists were intercepted on their way to the demonstration. Rodriquez was roughly yanked from the vehicle and thrown to the ground.
The Politics of Repression
The arrests, while surprising in their preemptive nature, were not altogether unexpected within the current political climate of El Salvador. However, when the 14 were not charged or released within the initial 72 hours, concerns grew. Five days after their arrest, Judge Fuentes determined evidence presented against 13 of the 14 to be sufficient to warrant preventive detention for three months. Eventual prison terms under the new law could reach 60 years. Following this announcement, Karla Albanes, lawyer for the detainees, remarked that she would limit herself to say only that political pressure had been brought to bear.
That politics would play a role is not surprising for a nation suffering extreme degrees of political polarization. Since 1989 El Salvador has been governed by the rightist Republican National Alliance, ARENA, a party whose founder, Roberto D'Aubuisson, was an organizer of the death squads and is widely believed to be have helped orchestrate the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. Nevertheless, the ARENA party continues to enjoy broad support among some sectors of the country's poor majority. This support is bolstered by initiatives such as "The Solidarity Network" whereby families residing in some of the country's poorest municipalities receive a government handout of $15-$20 every two months.
The most recent mayoral elections in March 2006 showed the two leading political forces, ARENA on the right and the Farabundo Mart' National Liberation Front (FMLN) on the left, practically tied in the capital city of San Salvador. While recounts showed the FMLN to have maintained the city by a handful of votes, for ARENA to have come that close to capturing the city, historically a stronghold for progressive, left-leaning voters, was an eye-opener to all. ARENA will no doubt redouble its efforts to win the city and maintain the presidency in 2009 (when local and national elections converge). Many view the 2009 electoral campaign as having already begun.
The stakes are high for both sides in a country just 15 years out of civil war. For the sake of El Salvador's political stability, it is hoped that recent attempts to outlaw public protest will not stand up in court and that if they do, these limitations of civil liberties will be challenged internationally.
For action ideas and resources on the CRIPDES activists and
the ongoing struggle for economic justice and civil liberties
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