The Suchitoto 13: An Update from El Salvador
Full Article:
One year ago, in our November 2007 issue, we published Cristina Damon's article "Salvadoran Activists Targeted with US-Style Repression." The story focused on the arrest and extended detention of 14 activists participating in (or in some cases, simply traveling to) a demonstration against water privatization in the town of Suchitoto, and noted how the Salvadoran government had used recent legislation modeled on the USA PATRIOT Act to suppress the right to dissent.
This article, together with four others (from our comrades at NACLA Report on the Americas, In These Times, The Nation, and the Inter Press Service), was honored by Project Censored as one of the most important to be covered by independent reporters in the past year. "El Salvador's Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror" is featured in the book Censored 2009, available at www.projectcensored.org.
When publishing the "25 Most Censored Stories,"
Project Censored invites the authors to submit an update to let
readers know how the story has continued to unfold. Here is what
Chris Damon writes:
In the year following the arrest of fourteen social movement activists in Suchitoto, there have been gains for the Salvadoran social movement, which launched unified, concerted actions to overturn the law and to achieve the unconditional liberty of the detainees; however, there have also been significant losses.
Thirteen of the original fourteen activists arrested spent 26 days under detention in the main men's and women's prisons. As a result of prison overcrowding, for some this meant going without a bed and having to purchase water for bathing and drinking. They were released July 27, 2007, under conditional terms that prevented them from traveling outside the country pending the presentation of further evidence.
This waiting period extended for seven months, finally ending on February 8, 2008, at which point the state attempted to quietly change the charges from "Acts of Terrorism" to "Public Disorder and Aggravated Damages." Given this change, the Special Tribune appointed to handle terrorism charges transferred the case to the regular judicial system. An audience was held February 19 for which the States Attorney's office failed to show up to present their case leading the presiding judge to grant definitive liberty to all fourteen defendants due to the lack of charges or evidence presented. Despite an appeal by the States Attorney, the ruling was upheld on April 4.
Jubilation over these victories was short-lived, given that on the night of May 2 one of the former defendants, Hector Antonio Ventura, was murdered as he slept in his small village of Valle Verde, Suchitoto.
While no one has been arrested or charged in the murder, both the media and authorities have characterized the death as related to the epidemic of gang crime which plagues the country, the most violent in Latin America.
However, the murders of activists like Ventura have caused human rights organizations to take notice. In May, the Foundation for the Study of Law Application, together with other social movement organizations, presented the case as the central element of a formal request to the State Attorney's office to investigate this and fourteen other murders that they argue may represent the use of gang elements to commit political assassinations. They cite the "Combined Group for the Investigation of Illegal Armed Groups with Political Motivations" (1994), which established criteria for determining the probability of political motivation in a given crime: modus operandi, characteristics of the victim, and level of impunity achieved by the authors.
As of yet there has been no official response to these demands.
And the controversial Anti-Terrorism Legislation remains in effect.
