ORPA guerrilla trial begins in Guatemala

Former ORPA guerrilla Fermín Solano Barillas goes on trial for the 1988 massacre of twenty-two indigenous in Chimaltenango. Don't let them fool you into believing that Claudia Paz y Paz is only going after military officials who committed human rights violations. They are still lying. (See here from September.)

Carlos Mendoza gave an interview for Gerencia about violence in Guatemala.

National Geographic has The Fine Tapestry of the Kaqchikel Women of Guatemala.

When the Kaqchikel women in the province of Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, weave, they instill pride and evoke their rich cultural heritage. Weaving also rescues an important tradition that vindicates indigenous women and provides them an avenue to realize their ideas, feelings, thoughts and dreams through the development of designs and color combinations. Weaving leaves a legacy for future generations. When young Kaqchikel men and women wear these garments, they realize that they are part of a rare cultural tapestry and that it is their task to nourish this ancient craft.

NISGUA has Guatemala commemorates victims and 15 yr anniversary of truth commission.

This year, Guatemalan human rights defenders and social organizations partnered with musicians, poets and artists for a multi-generational, interactive day of activities to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of "Memory of Silence" and commemorate victims of the internal armed conflict. This year's events were particularly special, reflecting on the genocide trial and its historic sentence, that continues to validate genocide survivors' decades-long struggle seeking truth and justice for crimes of the past.

And yesterday I included a few links as well in What is going on in Guatemala? While I questioned whether the current government of Guatemala is an ally of the US, Dana Frank had just finished writing a piece arguing how Honduras isn't an ally either.

What is going on in Guatemala?

From The Pan-American Post

Yesterday, a Guatemalan appeals court recused itself from deciding whether the country’s 1986 amnesty law could prevent the prosecution of General Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. As Prensa Librereports, this makes it the third court to declare itself unfit to take up an October Constitutional Court order to assess the admissibility of the amnesty law to the Rios Montt case. In other Guatemalan judicial news, the country’s Constitutional Court is set to hear final arguments today over whether Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz should be allowed to serve out a four-year term, or whether it expires in May. The court has previously said it favors the latter, and called for a committee to convene and nominate her replacement, so the likelihood of a reversal is slim.

See also Court hearing on Guatemala’s attorney general draws hundreds. Maybe it's not fair but Can't they find a judge who doesn't think Rios Montt is guilty?
Ricardo Barrientos has a post on U.S.-Guatemala Relations: What Is Going On?

Guatemala recently completed its rotation on the UN Security Council, and the preliminary results of the elections in El Salvador and Costa Rica show that the region will continue under the influence of leftwing or left-leaning governments.  After Mr. Brownfield’s public statements, tension has eased and the angry rhetoric calmed down, but the chapter has not ended.  

I don't think that Ricardo and I see things these same way. Governments on the right rule in Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama while the left will likely continue to govern in El Salvador (institutionalized left?) and Nicaragua (personalist left?). I'm not sure that I am ready to characterize the next Costa Rican government.

The bottom line is that Guatemala received an emphatic message: it must keep aligned with what the U.S. wants.  The problem for decisionmakers in the region is that it is not always clear what the U.S. wants.

I'm not ready to lay out the entire argument but I am falling into the camp that believes that the current Guatemalan government, as well as much of the country's political and economic elites, is not an ally of the US. The US wants Guatemala to have a strong democracy that protects the rights of workers, journalists, and civil society. The US wants the Guatemalan government to support CICIG, the attorney general, and the rule of law. The US wants the government to develop a broader tax base and to invest more in its people. The US wants Guatemala to make an effort to interdict drugs from flowing through the country into Mexico and that, if they do interdict some, that they turn it over to authorities.

I might be the only one in the camp that doesn't see the Guatemalan government as an ally but it has got to start somewhere.

Watch out for Colombia

From infosur hoy

The Colombian government has been helping Guatemala improve its training of police officers and use of crime-solving technology and intelligence since 2011.

“Colombia is committed to supporting Guatemala in its police reform effort,” Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said during an official visit to Guatemala last October.

In terms of improving Guatemala's public security institutions, we have recently been looking to CICIG and Claudia Paz y Paz. There's been another story largely missed (as far as I can tell) and that is the role of Colombia.

Its police have been assisting the Guatemalan police (and others in the region) in all sorts of ways, including training and in reassigning the force geographically. Colombia will also soon send "senior officials from the Army specialized in education, training and protocols to help prepare new PNC officers." CICIG's "new" commissioner, Iván Velásquez Gómez, is from Colombia as well.

Perhaps the second half of the decade belongs to Colombia, especially if the peace agreement with the FARC is realized.

American Dad on Oliver North and Iran Contra in 1:50 seconds

So tonight we are discussing Nicaragua during the 1980s - the revolution, the counter-revolution, the Iran-Contra affair, and the Anti-Contra-War campaign in the US.

And American Dad no less!

FMLN cruising to a second round victory in El Salvador?

I had planned on writing about the recent polls from the UCA and La Prensa Grafica that had given the FMLN approximately 10 pt. leads over ARENA, but the newest one from the Universidad Francisco Gavidia just hurts. The poll that they released on Friday gave the FMLN a 20 pt. lead heading into next month's second round (once you exclude the 10 percent who are not voting).

I have a hard time seeing Sanchez Ceren surpassing Armando Calderon Sol's 1994 high but, then again, I was pretty certain that he would get between 35 - 45 percent in the first round - not 49! In 1994, Calderon Sol narrowly missed winning a first round victory as well when he captured 49 percent of the vote in the country's first postwar elections. He went on to defeat Ruben Zamora (current Salvadoran ambassador to the US) in a second round with 68 percent.

Francisco Flores defeated Facundo Guardado with 52 percent (Flores timeline from CISPES) in 1999. There was no need for a second round. This was a pretty ugly election following an embarrassing primary election (s) for the FMLN and dirty campaigning by ARENA. Flores seems to have been absent for the last few weeks and it now looks like he has been suspended from ARENA.

Tony Saca defeated Schafik Handal with 58 percent of the vote in 2004. Most of us thought that Handal was a terrible candidate for the general election and he was. However, the FMLN seemed to have learned from the 2003 mayoral election for San Salvador that the individual candidate did not matter - they had a strong brand. Saca then jumped ship from a sinking ARENA and has since been cozying up to the FMLN. I have this recurring nightmare that the relationship between the FMLN and Saca is going to turn into an Ortega-Aleman pacto.

And Funes defeated Avila with 51 percent of the vote in 2009 even though the FMLN had everything going for it, well, except maybe governing experience and concrete accomplishments which they now have.

According to the UCA's recent poll, roughly 30 percent of the voters made their mind up in the months before, including the day of, the election. At the same time, 66 percent of the respondents said that the accusations against Flores strongly influenced their choice of candidates. Flores seems responsible for turning a close race into a lopsided victory for Sanchez Ceren in round one. ARENA now has to convince the Salvadoran voters that they are a clean party, competent to govern. They get rid of their corrupt officials like Flores and Saca (cough, cough). I swear, everybody else is honest.

It's going to be really tough. So many respondents do not believe that ARENA should return to power (55 percent said no) and so many say that they would never vote for ARENA in March (46 percent said never).

ARENA needs to start looking towards 2015 and 2018 (municipal and legislative elections) and maybe event 2019 (presidential elections) when they get to do this all over again.

Convictions in the Los Cocos, Peten massacre

Twenty-seven farm workers were massacred at Los Cocos in the Peten in 2011. The massacre was an example of the drug trafficking wars being fought out in the rural areas of Guatemala and along its land and maritime borders with Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico.

Hal Brands wrote a post on The Peten Massacre in Context for the blog at the time and I wrote about how the massacre occurred in the midst of a decreasing homicide rate in that region (and as the rate was decreasing nationally).

On Friday, three Mexicans and six Guatemalans were convicted for their role in the murders and sentenced to 106 years in prison.

Judge Jeannette Valdez Rodas said in announcing the verdict that the evidence showed "a scene of terror" at the killing site at a ranch in the northern Peten region.

The killers showed "maximum cruelty, with minds that display the maximum degree of dehumanization," said Valdez Rodas, noting that one of the victims had been essentially gutted and had the letter "Z" carved into his stomach.

The men convicted continue to declare their innocence and one of them even said that "if we had a little more courage, we would say who did it."

Guatemala has done a good job since 2009 of decreasing its homicide rate, for a variety of reasons that they can and cannot take credit for, and improving its investigative and prosecutorial capabilities. As a result, impunity has decreased. However, insecurity remains high and I'm not sure that they are likely to see huge improvements over the next few years. Not worse might be a more reasonable goal.

“If you gave a false name in the U.S., please try to remember what it was.”

Want to know what happens to the 50,000 Guatemalans deported from the US? Plaza Publica's Alejandro Perez has had his article Bittersweet Welcome: The Ceaseless Cycle of Deportations from the US to Guatemala translated to English.

The tide of Guatemalan deportations from the United States is not dropping. What choices do returnees have? What attention do they receive? Public agencies, businesses and migrant organizations search jointly for alternatives but nothing seems enough to change the situation that made them first risk their lives in search of work.

While the number of Guatemalans repatriated from the US increased by 25% in 2013, it doesn't look like the total repatriated from Mexico and the US combined changed at all. See my post from December on Guatemalan deportees exceed 50,000 in 2013.

United States calls situation in El Salvador a communist plot (February 19, 1981)

From the archives:

The U.S. government released a report detailing how the "insurgency in El Salvador has been progressively transformed into a textbook case of indirect armed aggression by communist powers." The report was another step indicating that the new administration of Ronald Reagan was prepared to take strong measures against what it perceived to be the communist threat to Central America.

When the Reagan administration took office in 1981, it faced two particularly serious problems in Central America. In Nicaragua, the Reagan administration was worried about the Sandinista regime, a leftist government that took power in 1979 after the fall of long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza. In El Salvador, the administration was concerned about a growing civil war between government forces and leftist rebels. Brutal violence on the part of the Salvadoran military--offenses that included the 1980 rape and murder of four U.S. missionaries--had caused the Jimmy Carter administration to cut off aid to the country. 

In both nations, Reagan officials were convinced that the Soviet Union was the catalyst for the troubles. To address the situation in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration began to covertly assist the so-called Contras-rebel forces that opposed the Sandinista regime and were based primarily in Honduras and Costa Rica. For El Salvador, the February 19 report was the first volley. The State Department memorandum indicated that the "political direction, organization and arming of the Salvadoran insurgency is coordinated and heavily influenced by Cuba with the active support of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Vietnam and other communist states." It thereupon provided a "chronology" of the communist involvement in El Salvador. 

In response to this perceived threat, the United States dramatically increased its military assistance to the government of El Salvador, provided U.S. advisors to the Salvadoran armed forces, and began a series of National Guard "training exercises" in and around El Salvador. To no one's surprise, the conflict in El Salvador escalated quickly and charges of torture, kidnapping, and assassination flew from both sides of the civil war. During the 1980s, U.S. military assistance to El Salvador topped nearly $5 billion, but the violence and instability continued unabated. In 1992, the United Nations and President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica arbitrated an agreement between the warring factions in El Salvador. A U.N. commission also condemned U.S. complicity in atrocities committed by the Salvadoran military. President George Bush (who served as Reagan's vice-president in the previous administration) discounted the U.N. accusations, but claimed that peace in El Salvador was the product of a vigorous U.S. response to communist subversion in the western hemisphere. 

Sure glad that things have changed, huh?

Some links to news from El Salvador

Where is Paul?

I am trying to catch up on some work so here are a few quick links for you today.

Salvador Sánchez Cerén has a comfortable lead for second round voting by Tim.

Eso que no se investiga en El Salvador by Hector.

Nearly $300 million sent back to El Salvador in remittances in January.

Geoff Thale and WOLA take on Jim DeMint’s Fear-Mongering About El Salvador. I wrote about DeMint's nonsense in Former US Senator threatens Salvadoran democracy.

Central America on the Precipice

For those of you in the Carlisle, Pennsylvania area, Christine Wade and I will be at Dickinson College next Wednesday to participate in a discussion on recent events in Central America. This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Constance and Rose Ganoe Memorial Fund for Inspirational Teaching, courtesy of J. Mark Ruhl, and also the Department of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies.

Click here for details.

Human Rights Watch's letter to the Guatemalan president

Human Rights Watch has posted a letter to the president of Guatemala on the upcoming selection of justice officials that does a good job surveying the progress and challenges of the last few years in light of fight over the next attorney general and new members of the Supreme Court.

We are writing to follow up on the discussion we had with you in Guatemala City last week. We appreciated your openness to dialogue and felt the exchange of ideas was useful. We would now like to share further concerns regarding the upcoming selection of an attorney general and members of the Supreme Court, based on our review of the nominating procedures that are currently in place.

As you know, we were very disappointed by the Constitutional Court’s decision to cut short the term of Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz. The Guatemalan Constitution clearly states that the attorney general’s term lasts four years, and the executive order appointing Paz y Paz in December 2010 explicitly said that she was to serve a four-year term. Yet the Constitutional Court ruled—with no explanation—that her term would expire in May, after only three years and five months in office.

We believe the Court’s ruling has done serious damage to the credibility of Guatemala’s justice system. Whether this damage can be undone will now depend in large measure on how the nomination processes for the attorney general and judicial posts are carried out. Unfortunately, there is good reason to fear that they will not go well. The stakes for Guatemala could not be higher.

Read the rest of the letter.

Former US Senator threatens Salvadoran democracy

According to recent polls coming out of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) remain well-positioned heading into next month's runoff election against Norman Quijano and the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party. CS-Sondea released a poll which gave the FMLN a 56 to 44 percent lead over ARENA. 1,800 Salvadorans took part in the February 6th to 9th survey. A CID Gallup poll also found that the FMLN leads the intended vote over ARENA, 55 to 45 percent.

These poll results are obviously important for the FMLN. Most late first round polling had given the FMLN a sizable lead over its competitors, but that lead disappeared when likely voters were asked about a potential second round runoff between Sanchez Ceren and Quijano. The FMLN is stronger than most of us thought.

Given that Salvadorans obviously don't know what they are doing, former US Senator from the Carolinas Jesse Helms Jim DeMint threatened El Salvador and all Salvadorans with Armageddon should they exercise their democratic right to go out and freely vote for their preferred candidate.

After a bit of speculating and worst-case scenario-ing, DeMint says that the US should cut off Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and highly regulate the $4 billion dollars in remittances sent back to the country by hard working Salvadorans in the US each year.

It is up to the Salvadorans to save their democracy.

However, a dose of truth-telling from their friends here will help them make an informed decision. That can only begin when responsible members of Congress haul in officials at the State Department and demand an explanation of who lost El Salvador.

I'm not really sure what to think. Senator DeMint is entitled to his opinion. While he is no longer in an important position, US Senator, he should exercise some restraint and common wisdom when trying to undermine other countries' democratic processes.

Cut TPS and regulate remittances? That's recycled. Republican members of Congress threatened El Salvador with those punishments in 2004 and 2009. And most of the other material in the op-ed showed up in O'Grady, Abrams, and Cardenas already so whatever.

However, for some reason I'm now more inclined to support the FMLN than I used to. When I spent 1997 in El Salvador, my friend Salvador used to call me pecenista (PCN). I actually felt more comfortable with the Democratic Convergence (CD) or as a pedecista (PDC). I think that is why the FMLN supporters I hung out with never truly trusted me - that and hanging out with the embassy guards who thought that I worked for the agency.

Lawlessness Is Undoing Effort to Save Honduran Forests

Elisabeth Malkin has a new article on Lawlessness Is Undoing Effort to Save Honduran Forests for the New York Times.

COPÉN, Honduras — Nine men were harvesting mahogany deep in the woods here when Alonso Pineda and his son appeared, carrying shotguns. An arrest warrant hangs over the two for clearing the forest illegally, but on that day they posed as its protectors.

“This is private property, and that tree is contraband,” Mr. Pineda shouted, witnesses recalled.

Mr. Pineda’s claims were not true, presumably part of a ruse to seize the wood for himself. In fact, the men cutting the timber that day belong to a legal cooperative that has been managing the forest for almost 15 years under government agreements that include permits to collect valuable mahogany while leaving the rest of the woods virtually untouched.

“You’ll have to take me out of here dead,” replied one man. Someone else buzzed a chain saw, recalled another member of the group, Luis Ruiz, and the outlaw pair vanished among the trees.

It was just a fleeting glance of Mr. Pineda, who has led settlers into the woods to cut down trees and replace them with corn plots and pastureland, which can eventually be sold, forestry experts and residents say. The communities conserving the forest, which is owned by the state, say they are losing their livelihood because of such incursions.

Okay, this is embarrassing. In 1998, I went for a nice Chinese dinner in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and then on to the movies to see Titanic. There were not many choices. In fact, there might not have been any other choices. Anyway, by coincidence, I ran into Rob from Colorado who was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras. Rob and I actually studied abroad together in Argentina in 1995 and just so happened to see each other at the theater on the one weekend that he had to go into the city for a meeting.

Rob was working with local communities on conservation issues, mainly preventing deforestation. However, he complained that most of his job was involved helping various Honduran communities organize against US corporations involved in tearing down the forests. I just mention all this because big business was absent from the article. Are the clearing of forests by legal big businesses, domestic or foreign, not a concern?

And the second thing that I wonder is whether the Chinese are involved here too. Belize has been having difficulties managing the illegal harvesting of rosewood that is mostly sold to China.

Violence and impunity around mining in El Salvador

I apologize. I really don't pay enough attention to the battle surrounding the mining industry in Central America. I can't say that I will comment on the affairs any more so than I do now, but I will draw attention to stories that I find interesting such as this one with Le Monde diplomatique on El Salvador, violence and impunity.

The bullets buried into the walls of the room within a foot of their intended victim, in El Salvador’s northern town of Ilobasco. After the attacker had fled unrecognized into the dusk, the phone rang: “Have there been any deaths in the house?” The female caller used an anonymous number and refused to give her name. This time Alejandro Guevara had been targeted: the anti-mining activist had been receiving threats by phone and text message in the weeks before the attack. On 8 October 2013, five days after the shooting, he told the press: “This is a plan that we have seen since 2009 ... the same method they used when they killed our colleagues. This is the same structure operating to persecute us; it reveals the forms of suppression used against the environmentalists working in opposition to mining projects in the municipality. This has been happening all along, but here it is uncovered.”

I'd be happy to host guest posts from other academics on the subject of mining like I have in the past with Michael Dougherty at Illinois State University or on other topics that I don't touch on all that much.

Chixoy dam reparations cause rift between US and Guatemalan governments

Ben Reeves has the latest on Guatemalan president spars with US over Chixoy Dam reparations in the Tico Times.

“During construction of the Chixoy Dam in the 1970s and ’80s, thousands of Mayans living in the construction zone were relocated and hundreds were killed,” U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Maureen Mimnaugh said last Friday. “In 2010, then-President (Álvaro) Colom and representatives from the affected communities agreed to a reparations plan, which to date neither the Colom administration nor the subsequent Pérez Molina administration formally ratified.”

In response, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina lashed out at a U.S. senator and congressional staffer: “Another country is not going to legislate us. We may be a small country, but we are a sovereign, independent country, and we have our own laws,” Pérez Molina told local media last week. “I’m not going to allow (the U.S.) to impose things on me.”

Go read the entire piece with some commentary from me at the end.

Claudia Paz y Paz on way out and Dr. (!) Baldizon on the way in?

Some Tikal friends

Tim Johnson (Red flag? Guatemala reins in crusading top prosecutor), Aryer Neier (Guatemala’s Shameful Repudiation of Justice) and The Pan-American Post, among others, look at the Guatemalan Constitutional Court's decision to interpret the constitution so as to end Claudia Paz y Paz's term in May rather than December as originally thought.

It is a terrible end to what has been a terrific term for the Attorney General. Paz y Paz and others are fighting the court's orders but it looks like an uphill climb. Legally the decision seems questionable but lawyers and constitutional experts (almost?) always disagree, no matter what country we are speaking about.

On the other hand, her removal looks pretty shady. Two internal court reports had previously determined that the AG's term should end in December. The individuals who wrote those reports, however, were then removed from their positions.

I keep thinking back to The American President and the "debate" between President Shepherd and A.J. Michael Douglas' character (Shepherd) says that "you fight the fights you can win." Martin Sheen's character (A.J.) tells the president that you have to "fight the fights that need fighting."

It's highly likely that the Attorney General will be done in May. Does it make more sense to dedicate the next three-plus months to strengthening her office and influencing the selection of the next AG or does it make sense to fight a, in all likelihood, losing battle on principle?

In other news, former Guatemalan soldier Jorge Sosa was sentenced to ten years in prison in the US on immigration charges related to his lying about serving in the Guatemalan special forces and having been partly responsible for the 1982 massacre at Dos Erres.

6 historical paintings stolen from El Calvario Church in Antigua.

Eight people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in the Peten. Children and adults were killed in what authorities believe was a settling of scores among people involved in the drug trade.

This isn't really how I would describe things. Not just this person but I've read some terrible articles from VOXXI recently.

Is there anything that Dr. Manuel Baldizon and the future president of Guatemala hasn't plagiarized?

Teaching Central America

Russian President Putin in Guatemala 2007

I am teaching a seminar on Central American politics this semester. I grew up at the end of the Cold War and was drawn to the study of the region because of how the struggles played out in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. As a result, my earlier syllabi were heavy on the civil wars.

Not all in one semester, but I've assigned Mark Danner's Massacre at El Mozote, Teresa Whitfield's Paying the Price, Daniel Wilkinson's Silence on the Mountain, and Stephen Kinzer's Blood of Brothers as well as Booth, Wade, and Walker's Understanding Central America and Walker and Armony's Repression, Resistance, and Democratic Transition in Central America.

While I enjoyed the readings and courses overall, as did my students I think, they tended to be too heavily geared towards the region's civil wars. I can't say that I've entirely fixed it this semester, but I consciously chose to end the Cold War section of the course by spring break. That still leaves over half the course to cover two decades of Central American happenings which still isn't the easiest thing to do (but better than the two or three weeks that it used to be).

I'm still not satisfied with the course. I can't say that any professor ever is. We are always striving top improve what and how we teach. But anyway here is what we are reading this semester. Click here for the entire syllabus if you are interested. Suggestions are welcome.

Week 1 (February 3rd)

• Introduction / Historical Overview of Central America

Week 2 The Early Cold War in Latin America (February 10th)

• The Early Cold War in Latin America, Brands, pp. 1-95 (handout)

Week 3 The Revolutionary Wave of the 1970s-1980s (February 17th)

• Kruijt, pp. 1-98 (handout)

Week 4 The Reagan Years and Nicaragua (February 24th)

• Understanding Iran Contra
• The Anti-Contra-War Campaign: Organizational Dynamics of a Decentralized Movement
• In the Name of Democracy, Carothers, pp. 77-117 (handout)

Week 5 El Salvador and the Jesuit Martyrs (March 3rd)

• Brackley, “The University and Its Martyrs: Hope from Central America” (handout)
• Brackley, “Higher Standards for Higher Education”
• Scranton Mission and Vision
• Student presentation on elections in El Salvador

Week 6 Transitions to Democracy 1 (March 10th)

• In the Name of Democracy, Carothers, pp. 1-76; 166-182; 237-262 (handout) 

Week 7 - Spring Break

• Enjoy the break but remember to read for Monday 

Week 8 A new beginning with the end of the Cold War? (March 24th)

• Allison, Martín, and Wade “A New Era of US-Central American Relations”
• Counterinsurgency in El Salvador, Mark Peceny and William D. Stanley
• Watch Voces Inocentes (in class) 

Week 9 Central America during the US’ war on terror (March 31st)

• Allison, Martín, and Wade “America’s “War on Terror” Comes to Central America”
• Greg Grandin, The Latin American Exception: How a Washington Global Torture Gulag Was Turned Into the Only Gulag-Free Zone on Earth
• Radical Neglect? The “War on Terror” and Latin America
• Student presentations on elections in Costa Rica 

Week 10 (April 7th)

• Allison, Martín, and Wade “President Obama and Central America”
• Freedom House, Countries at the Crossroads 2012: Nicaragua
• Alternate Paths to Power? Women's Political Representation in Nicaragua

Week 11 Honduras (April 14th)

• Clayton M. Cunha Filho, André Luiz Coelho and Fidel I. Pérez Flores, A right-to-left policy switch? An analysis of the Honduran case under Manuel Zelaya
• Fr. Ismael Moreno on Honduras, Why is there so much violence in our country?
• John Donaghy, Why is Honduras so poor?
• Clouds over Honduras

Week 12 (Easter) - No class.

Week 13 Panama and Costa Rica (April 28th)

• Panama
• Reading on the upcoming elections
• The CAFTA Conflict and Costa Rica's Democracy: Assessing the 2007 Referendum
• Growth without Poverty Reduction: The Case of Costa Rica
• Reading on recent elections
• Student presentations on upcoming elections in Panama

Week 14 – Guatemala (May 5th)

• Anita Isaacs, Guatemala on the Brink
• Why No Mayan Party? Indigenous Movements and National Politics in Guatemala
• Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica, and Ana Arana, Fundación MEPI, Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala
• Video of Oscar and How the Media Got Guatemala's Dos Erres Massacre Wrong (in class)

Week 15 El Salvador (May 12th)

• Mara Salvatrucha: The Most Dangerous Street Gang in the Americas?
• Criminal Violence and Democratization in Central America: The Survival of the Violent State
• Inocente Montano
• Reading on recent elections

Week 16th Final Exam Period (May 19th)

• Student presentations

Something is wrong in the region’s “exceptional” democracy

Arenal 2001

I'd like to welcome back Christine Wade of Washington College for a guest post on the significance of Costa Rica's recent elections. 

A myriad of articles about the recent the Costa Rican elections have proclaimed the country’s “turn to the left.” Perhaps some do this because it is simply too convenient to whip up an article or op-ed about leftist victories in El Salvador and Costa Rica. Or perhaps some are still trapped in the Cold War. But these headlines miss the more salient point of Costa Rica’s elections - Costa Ricans are fed up. And they’re fed up with the status quo.

Given the historically low approval ratings for President Chinchilla, it should be of little surprise that the PLN’s Johnny Araya has struggled in polls in recent months. But the general political malaise amongst Costa Ricans is much bigger than this election cycle.

In writing the most recent edition of our book, Understanding Central America, my co-authors and I report on the significant changes in participation and attitudes among Costa Ricans in recent years. Between the early 1990s and 2010, voter turnout in presidential elections declined 23%. Turnout in the February 2014 turnout was about 68%, meaning nearly one-third of voters simply stayed home. Declining political participation isn’t just limited to voting. Costa Ricans are also reporting lower levels of participation in political party activities and communal activism than in the recent past. In 2012, Costa Ricans were the least active in civil society in the region. Between 2008 and 2012, there was a 16-point decline in system support among Costa Ricans. They also demonstrated a significant increase in what we refer to as “triple dissatisfaction” (low commitment to democracy combined with below midpoint economic performance evaluations and institutional support), which rose from 2% in 2004 to 15% in 2012. Something is wrong in the region’s “exceptional” democracy- and the evidence suggests that it’s systemic, not ideological.

Costa Rica does have some serious issues that drive part of this dissatisfaction, but it’s a mistake to explain this away as shifting ideological preferences. The February 2 vote produced a surprise first-round victory for the PAC’s Luis Guillermo Solís, but I read this as a message about the level of overall dissatisfaction with the country’s “politics as usual” as opposed to shifting support for progressives. In a recent post-mortem on the elections sponsored by the Inter-American Dialogue, Kevin Casas-Zamora pointed out that the left-right vote split is about the same as in the CAFTA referendum. (He also highlighted the need for serious institutional reform, but more on that later.)

It’s time to move beyond the left-right discourse that all too frequently characterizes the analysis of Central American politics if we are to better understand the political dynamics of a region in flux. As the case of Costa Rica demonstrates (and this is true for El Salvador as well), such superficial explanations obscure more than they enlighten.

The sixth edition of Understanding Central America by John Booth, Christine Wade and Tom Walker will be available later this year.

In Latin American politics, public piety can gain allies

Hermano Juancito and I provided some commentary to David Agren new article for the Catholic Courier on In Latin American politics, public piety can gain allies.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez often prayed publicly while campaigning for office, which he assumed Jan. 27. Shortly after the inauguration, first lady Ana Garcia de Hernandez appeared in media photos providing food for pilgrims, celebrating the Feb. 3 feast day of Our Lady of Suyapa, the national patroness.

The next day, Hernandez handed over a radio frequency to the Catholic Church for a station to be known as Suyapa FM.

Hernandez seldom shies away from public piety and leaves no doubt of his devotion and Catholic convictions. But some observers say the displays are shrewd politics -- especially as the president attempts to leverage people's religious preferences for political gain and associate his agenda with that of religious institutions. Analysts say he's linking politics and religion in an attempt to gain legitimacy -- after prevailing in the November elections with roughly 35 percent of the vote -- and trying to increase his ability to govern a country considered one of the most corrupt, poor and violent in the hemisphere.

Obviously, it is pretty tough to characterize the relationship between the Catholic Church and politics in Central America today. Some religious leaders take strong stances on political issues while some others appear to take more partisan stands. Most of the candidates are Catholic but no one is exactly the candidate of the Catholics. I don't know which candidates are Catholic for the sake of winning votes versus those that are Catholic or religious because that is who they are.

Most of the voters are Catholic, though that number is declining with the increase in Protestants. Then there's the varying degrees of religiosity that characterize people - belonging, believing (importance of religion), and behaving (attending services).

Don't really care if Guatemala attorney general leaves now or later

Guatemala's Constitutional Court recently ruled that Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz's four year term ends in May, not December as originally thought. The court in essence ruled that Paz y Paz was completing the four year term originally begun by Conrado Reyes. Once he was removed from the post, Paz y Paz was appointed to fulfill his four-year term, not to start her own four-year one. Boz has a good analysis in Time running out for Guatemala's AG, which I have been saying for the last six months or so. No need to repeat it, just go read his.

Motivations of those looking to remove Guatemala AG Paz y Paz are suspect but I thought reasonable legal argument that her term ended in May
— Mike Allison (@CentAmPolMike) February 6, 2014

Some have obviously been gunning to remove Paz y Paz for some time so you have to suspect motives here. However, I can't say that the court's decision wasn't the legally correct one. They're not wrong all the time. And while it matter how they rule and whether Paz y Paz leave in May or December, the more important question is who is going to replace her when her term ends?

See also the Rios Montt Trial, the New York Times, and the Pan-American Post. The Pan-American Post also has some coverage of President Perez Molina's recent unhappiness with the United States. The president's colleague working for the Wall Street Journal launched a related attack last week.

FMLN hits political stride before runoff

I have a new post up at the World Politics Review on El Salvador Elections Show FMLN Hitting Its Political Stride Before Runoff (the direct link should work - let me know if it does not).

With five weeks before the runoff, the FMLN and ARENA will now focus on motivating their voters to head to the polls once again and to lobby for the support of the 300,000 Salvadorans who voted for Saca. While at this point it is still possible for ARENA to make up the 10-point difference, the FMLN is the clear favorite heading into the second round. Though somewhat marginalized in the Funes administration, a second round victory would provide Sanchez Ceren and the FMLN with an opportunity to advance their political agenda.

One thing that we were not able to change was yesterday's TSE's news that turnout was actually 63 percent, not the 53 percent as initially reported. The original estimate included 100k who were registered but were out of the country and another 540k whose DUI's had expired.

The guerrillas vs. the death squads in round two

Just a few more links on this past weekend in El Salvador.

Tim Johnson on Ex-guerrillas in El Salvador hang tight. I am cited at the end of the article.

Randy Archibold on Presidential Elections in El Salvador and Costa Rica Go to Runoffs.

The Economist writes about Turning left.

Tim has Towards a second round in El Salvador's presidential elections.

Reuters on El Salvador ex-rebel strongly placed to win run-off.

And Mr Ramsey has El Salvador and Costa Rica Elections Trigger Runoff Votes.

Given that we all need to write that Salvadoran Sanchez Ceren is a former guerrilla commander (not so important that he is a former vice president, minister of education, and three-time member of congress) and the FMLN is a former guerrilla group, we also need to emphasize that ARENA was formed to promote the interests of the country's oligarchy and has its roots in the violent death squads of the 1970s and 1980s.

Neither the FMLN nor ARENA is what they used to be but if we have to highlight the FMLN's guerrilla roots we might as well highlight ARENA's death squad roots. (Inspired by @GregWeeksUNCC)

Douglas Farah on the state of US-Central American relations

Douglas Farah has an opinion piece on US-Central America relations and the gang truce in El Salvador. In the Loss of Central America’s Northern Triangle, Farah  argues that the gang truce has only served to strengthen the maras and to make a mockery out of the country's rule of law. What I don't entirely understand is his conclusion.

These options are emblematic of the Hobbesian choices facing most countries in Central America. None of the leaders of the Northern Triangle are offering new thinking on how to tackle the multiple, complex problems in the region. The reality is that the host of factors driving the violence and the hollowing out of the states can only be tackled at a regional level. Each individual country is too small, too insular and too poor to do much on its own.

The United States must engage with the region as a whole, both out of self-interest and the interests of those in the region seeking a new paradigm that moves beyond transactional politics of corruption and violence to rule of law, economic freedom and transparency. Yet, the U.S. cannot want change more than the Central American governments do, nor can it help when the elites — both the traditional and emerging groups — do not view real reform as in their self-interest. Policy options are limited and complex, but the crisis is growing quickly.

I get that the United States needs to engage the countries of Central America at the regional level but I am not sure how he envisions that to be any different than today. In addition to all the bilateral programs, the US and Central America engage through the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Perhaps region-wide partnerships for growth, millennium challenge compacts, and commissions against impunity will do the trick but I'm not exactly sure.

Farah rightly characterizes US frustration with the region as well which I wrote about last year. It's not easy for the US to approach Central America at the regional level when the countries are led by Otto Perez Molina, Juan Hernandez, Daniel Ortega, and Funes (to be replaced by either Sanchez Ceren or Quijano). And then you can thrown in Martinelli and Chinchilla.

However, I'm not sure what he means by

That hope is gone, replaced by deep cynicism and dismay that governments of both the right and the left immediately sought to turn their countries into piñatas in which only a few on either side benefited. The far left and far right, after decades of blood letting, found they could make money together while their countries entered into downward spirals of impunity, violence and massive corruption.

He's writing about the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) but the only country that fits this description is Nicaragua. It's definitely not Honduras and Guatemala. The far left has very little power, especially wealth, in either country. In El Salvador, it is possible that the far left enters into some sort of arrangement to weaken and loot the state but I wouldn't say that they are there yet. And it is probably the country with the least citizen cynicism and dismay where the alliance is strongest. Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua has the most support of any of the region's president although that might change with the next constitutional reforms.

There's more but you get the gist. Now time to prep for my 1:00 PM class on Comparative Civil Wars.

FMLN dominates first round in El Salvador

When all was said and done yesterday, the FMLN came up just over one percentage point short of a first round victory. The FMLN's Sanchez Ceren captured 48.9 percent of the vote while his primary challenger, ARENA's Norman Quijano, took in 38.95%. Tony Saca finished a distant third with 11.4%.

The US right wing has been very outspoken against Tony Saca. They believed that he was staying in the race to divide the conservative vote and to help the FMLN win. It looks, however, that Tony Saca's continued presence in the race actually forced Sanchez Ceren and Quijano to a second round. While it's difficult to know what would have happened had Saca not run at all, it's hard to imagine that the FMLN would not have been able to pick up enough of his votes to walk away the winner last night.

Boz and El Faro have very good takes on yesterday's election in El Salvador.

I would add that many of us hoped that President Mauricio Funes' 2009 election and five-year term would help mend differences between the ARENA and the FMLN. His moderate left government would reduce the polarization in one of the region's most polarized countries. I'd say that he has failed in that sense (well it might have been my goal not his anyway) especially during the last few weeks with his very personal attacks against former President Francisco Flores and his campaigning on the day before and the day of the vote. The President could have stayed above the fray and been a voice for the people.

The FMLN might be heading down the road to disappointment as well depending on how they negotiate for former ARENA president and Unidad candidate Tony Saca's political support. Everyone seems to believe that he is as dirty as they come but that does not appear to be stopping the FMLN from working out a second round alliance.

I'm pretty sure that the FMLN could defeat ARENA in a second round without Saca but I am not sure that they will want to take that chance. An alliance would probably help much more in the legislative assembly where the FMLN will need GANA to pass legislation. The FMLN will have to be thinking about winning a second round, passing legislation in the assembly, and competing in the 2015 legislative and municipal elections. Does an alliance with Saca demoralize its base? The FMLN seems to have believed that a demoralization of its base was the cause of its poor 2012 performance (remember that vote where ARENA was ready to take on the world?).

Finally, for now, the electoral campaign and the vote demonstrate the strength of many of the country's political institutions, the TSE in particular. While no means perfect, the country's democratic institutions seem to be much stronger than those of its neighbors in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. We like to lump the Northern Triangle together but it doesn't always make the best sense.

Yeah second rounds - we get to do this all over again in March and April

Sorry for the late arrival. After putting the kids to bed, I stayed offline in order to watch the Super Bowl on DVR. Not that exciting. I'm also finishing up three syllabus. Spring session starts tomorrow.

In the meantime, we look headed for a second round in El Salvador.

Kind of reminds me of 1994 when ARENA finished the first round with 49 percent of the vote and the FMLN with 25 percent. ARENA won handily in that second round in the country's first postwar election. The FMLN should feel good tonight even if they don't win a first round victory. However, they might be kicking themselves because they probably would have walk away with a first round victory had Oscar Ortiz headed the ticket.

We are also looking at a second round in Costa Rica. As of 9:33 PM, Johnny Araya leads with 30.6 percent. The surprise is that he is ahead of Luis Guillermo Solis who has 29.4 percent. Solis had been moving up in the polls as Villalta weakened. He has 17.4 percent.

The 2014 Lozano Long Conference — Archiving the Central American Revolutions

The 2014 Lozano Long Conference — Archiving the Central American Revolutions - will be held February 19-21 at The University of Texas at Austin.

The 2014 Lozano Long Conference will feature new critical interpretations of the “revolutionary decades” in Central America (1970 through 1990), drawing together scholars from the United States and Central America with research expertise on this crucial period of contemporary history. The scholarly rationale for the conference is especially strong, given that a whole generation of scholars of Central America, who came of age during the revolutionary era, are now senior members of the profession. Their unique perspective, in dialogue with a rising generation of young scholars who did not live through this period and bring a different set of perspectives and viewpoints to the conversation, will be featured.

The second conference objective is to initiate a project of acquisition of documentary materials—personal papers, political broadsides, photos, clippings, music—related to the Central American crisis. We hope to emphasize to potential contributors the salience of these collections as historical artifacts so these materials are not lost forever. These ephemeral materials will complement the more formal post custodial archival activities that LLILAS Benson is engaged in with our partners in the region. We foresee that, through an active process of acquisition and conservation, LLILAS Benson has the potential to become the world’s foremost repository for 1980s Central America-related materials.

Here is a link to the panels and participants. It looks like an excellent conference.