Daniel Ortega: we love our tyrants

Nicaragua's done a number of good things to improve its image in the region and around the world in recent years. But it does not look like Daniel Ortega's embrace of dictators and tyrants will ever change. From Tim Rogers at the Nicaragua Dispatch:

But kidding aside, the Sandinistas’ repeated defense of anti-democratic regimes and its sadly servile relationship with Russia and Venezuela is an embarrassment that’s harmful to the country’s standing in the world. Not only is it bad PR to pal around with international outcasts, it’s also an inaccurate representation of the open, embracing and western-friendly country that Nicaragua has become.

If you were to have visited Nicaragua this week, you would have seen U.S. tourists, Canadian backpackers and European expats. You would not have seen any goose-stepping North Korean tourists, Syrian surfers, or South Ossetian investors. If you looked really hard you would have seen the only Russian tourists visiting the country: a small and disheveled-looking delegation from the Duma, whose visit got way more play in the official media than it deserved.

Nicaragua — in many ways — is a country that’s coming into its own. It’s growing slowly but surely into a maturing destination for tourism and foreign investment. The Nicaragua brand name is now starting to be associated with good things, not just war, poverty and severe dysfunction. Sandinista handlers needs to do more to encourage those positive changes, rather than risking it all by palling around with the nutjobs of the world.

Instead of glad-handing with glassy-eyed Russians and blowhard Bolivarian basket cases, or courting meaningless friendships with obscure breakaway Georgian republics whose names I have to google every time I write about them, the Sandinista government should do more to improve relations with its immediate neighbors in Central America and other nations whose friendships actually contribute to Nicaragua’s growth and wellbeing. Nicaragua should also do more to reach out to the truly progressive and prosperous countries in Latin America, such as Uruguay, Brazil and Chile.

Nicaragua needs to look in the mirror and remind itself that it has a lot to offer the world. The country is a natural beauty, full of innovative, intelligent, industrious and friendly people. Nicaragua deserves to have better friends — and it certainly has no excuse to continue hanging out down by the train tracks with all the international misfits, pipeheads and crackpots.

Daniel and the Sandinistas liked to proclaim a non-aligned foreign policy in the 1980s even though they appear to have felt more comfortable in the socialist camp. And, today, even with all the important changes, they still appear to be more comfortable, at least when in comes to world affairs, in the non-democratic camp. A non-aligned foreign policy (?) in support of some of the world's worst regimes continues to be a black mark on the Sandinista record.

So what's going on in Guatemala?

Nic Wirtz wrote up Portillo Admits Guilt, Awaits Sentence for Americas Quarterly. Portillo accepted responsibility for illegally taking $2.5 million in donations from Taiwan.

“I am guilty. I knew at the time that what I was doing was wrong, and I apologize for my crimes, take responsibility for them, and accept the consequences of my actions,” Portillo told the court through an interpreter.

"I understood that, in exchange for these payments, I would use my influence to have Guatemala continue to recognize Taiwan diplomatically," the former president said.

Taiwan has denied that it bribed Portillo in return for diplomatic recognition. The Taiwanese governments stands by its claims that the funds were for school supplies, not diplomatic recognition. Guatemala now has more questions for Taiwan. I do wonder whether the truth behind the cash will impact Portillo's plea deal. I assume it must as there were allegations of misappropriating $70 million during his term. The US courts could have sought a life sentence for all his crimes.

Armed motorcycle gangs have assassinated more than 1,100 victims in Guatemala since 2011. I don't know. I'm not sure it makes sense to call them motorcycle gangs. Anyway, it's dangerous to drive the roads of Guatemala.

Four more suspects were arrested in connection with last September's massacre in San Jose Nacahuil. See here for some background.

The National Intercultural Youth Orchestra (ONIJ) looks to bring together Guatemalans of diverse ethnic backgrounds through music.

Finally, how about a self-sufficient house? An astrophysicist has the answer.

Poor media coverage of violence is harmful to Guatemalan democracy

A few years ago I used to constantly harp on what I considered the poor coverage of violence in Guatemala. Specifically, it really annoyed me when reporters would use improving murder rates as evidence that murder and violence were getting worse. There were lots of other problems but I remained focused. Here are some of those thoughts from last year.

I also rejected candidate Otto Perez Molina's campaign rhetoric that told everyone that Guatemala was suffering twenty-five murders each day when the actual murder rate appeared to be between 16-18.

Obviously one reason to care is simply that we want our media and politicians to describe whatever it is that they are describing as accurately as possible. However, I'd also say that how they cover and report on violence, specifically in Central America, has serious consequences for how citizens evaluate their government. In order to present himself as the mano dura candidate, Perez Molina went around the country telling people that the murder rate was approximately one-third higher than it actually was. The media would lead with a story claiming that twelve people died across the country on another bloody Saturday somehow forgetting the fact that 16-18 people on average were being murdered every day.

People lose confidence in the police, the media, their elected officials, and, perhaps, democracy if their political systems appears to be incapable of resolving their country's most pressing problems.

Fortunately, Krystin Krause looks at some of these issues in a new article on Supporting the Iron Fist: Crime News, Public Opinion, and Authoritarian Crime Control in Guatemala in Latin American Politics and Society.

Authoritarian responses to rising violent crime rates have become a serious problem in Central America. Inspired by theories of agenda setting and media framing, this article examines the influence of news media coverage of crime on attitudes toward crime control. Using an original survey experiment, it tests the relationship between crime news, fear of crime, trust in government institutions, and support for authoritarian crime control measures in Guatemala.

It finds that crime news influences support for authoritarian crime control via its effect on lowering citizen trust in government institutions. Exposure to crime news also affects self-reported victimization rates and levels of support for a presidential candidate promoting iron fist policies. These findings not only give insight into the relationship between crime news and political attitudes but also have implications for the rule of law and the politics of crime in new or fragile democracies.

Guatemala remains a very dangerous country to live and work in. However, the media's tendency to sensationalize violence (I'm looking at you Nuestro Diario) appears to decrease citizen trust in government, to increase citizen support for vigilantism, and to lead citizens to support mano dura policies executed by the very people, the State, in which they are losing trust. The results were (only) produced using an experiment so there are concerns about the external validity of the findings. However, Krystin's findings should trouble people and lead to additional research on the relationship between media coverage, violence, and support for democracy and democratic policies and procedures in Central America.

Want to know about LGBTI rights in El Salvador?

Danielle Marie Mackey and Gloria Marisela Moran tell the story of Rubi Navas and the struggle for LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans/transgender and intersex people and other sexuality, and gender diverse people, regardless of their term of self-identification) rights in El Salvador. There was some progress under Mauricio Funes but the LGBTI community is concerned that President-elect Salvador Sanchez Ceren (wow!) has not made his stance on issues of concern to the LGBTI community clear.

But on Feb. 1, three days before the first round of the 2014 Salvadoran presidential elections, the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal proclaimed that all people must be allowed to vote, without discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

While recent historic advances, like this one, were made by the administration of outgoing president Mauricio Funes, questions remain about whether his successor, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, will take the same proactive stance.

Despite previous progress, the climate for LGBTI rights in El Salvador is complicated by corruption and organized crime, which exacerbate the already pervasive issues of discrimination and violence.

The Basurero is Burning in Guatemala City

In writing at Vice, Benjamin Reeves has a story on The Basurero is Burning: Life at the Gates of Hell in Guatemala City.

When I visited the dump in an attempt to document conditions there, I was turned away at the gate by police and told I couldn’t take pictures without a special permit from the city—a predictable result given the way the authorities have stopped information about the basurero from getting out.

Guatemala's press has largely failed to cover the humanitarian crisis in the neighborhood. What coverage there has been focused on the efforts of the fire department to control the blazes that periodically break out there—and reports do not mention, as José did, that the fire smoldered for a month prior to the arrival of the fire department. There’s very little attention being paid to the ugly conditions of day-to-day life in the basurero. José believes that “the government pays journalists not to write about the dump.”

In any case, it wasn’t very difficult to dodge the police at the gates. I was able to photograph the gates of the dump from a moving car, and the city's public cemetery is perched precariously above the cliff wall of the dump—the vast hell-scape can be hazily seen through the smoke.

Even the poor surviving in the city dump are extorted by maras.

Tragedy at La Terminal in Guatemala City

Prensa Libre

Yesterday's bad news was that La Terminal, Guatemala City's main market, went up in smoke. About sixty people were injured due to burns, falling debris, and smoke inhalation. The fire also caused approximately $90 million in losses. At least 600 stalls were destroyed. The fire started early in the morning and was allegedly caused by a short circuit.

There's a lot of blame going around right now. Bomberos arrived quickly but the fire was already out of control and they could not access water for several hours. Vendors going in to save their goods also slowed down the bombero's efforts. Many vendors used gas cylinders for cooking and warmth, most of which exploded during the fire, making work extremely dangerous. Some vendors believe that there was "a criminal hand in the fire."

However, there were also many examples of heroism. Hundreds of volunteers joined with bomberos to prevent the fire from spreading any more than it already had. Food prepared by the vendors to sell that day was instead provided to the bomberos and volunteers.

Vendors shouted to President Otto Perez Molina, Vice President Roxanna Baldetti, and Mayor Alvaro Arzu that they wanted the market rebuilt. It's not clear yet, however, whether they are going to rebuild the market in the same place.

Saint Romero of the Americas

March 24th marks the 34th anniversary of Oscar Romero's martyrdom in El Salvador. He was murdered because he learned to speak for those who had no voice. He called on all sides, not just the armed forces, to refrain from using violence to further their own needs and the Salvadoran people. Romero's death ended El Salvador's last serious hope for averting an escalation of the civil war that really had already begun.

Romero, the UCA Jesuits, the US Government, and many others in Salvadoran society threw their support behind the October 1979 reformist coup. Announced economic and political reforms were meant to prevent another revolution in Central America following the July Sandinista Revolution. The coup failed when the government was unable to restrain the armed forces and the death squads, eventually leading to the resignation of the junta's more moderate civilian members. Conservative military officers regained power over the junta and the opportunity to avoid further bloodshed was lost.

If the rumors are to be believed, Romero might be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church within the next three years.

Bilingual healthcare in Guatemala

Anna-Claire Bevan has a short story on how Q’eqchi’ translators are improving the delivery of medical care to Guatemala's indigenous Q’eqchi’ community.

On average, each month 900 monolingual Q’eqchi’ benefit from the translators’ services, and demand from the Q’eqchi’ population is growing as word spreads of the bilingual treatment on offer.

“When there are no translators it’s difficult because we don’t understand the doctors. When there are translators it’s easy because we can talk to them,” Miguel Caal Pop, an agricultural worker, said via a translator.

As well as assisting conversations between doctors and patients, the translators also ease the language barrier by explaining prescriptions, outlining the course of treatment and accompanying patients to purchase medicine.

Isabel Choc Choc has visited Sayaxché Hospital on numerous occasions. She says she keeps coming back because of the service she receives.

“If there weren’t any translators here I would have had to bring someone from my family. Now I don’t have to and I feel happy. They explain things to you so that you’re informed,” she said.

Locals say the hospital used to be like a private clinic, but the integration of Q’eqchi’ has been so successful over the past year that it now feels like a national hospital, and there are plans to implement similar services in two other municipalities in Petén.

Staffing hospitals and medical centers with bilingual or, better yet, multilingual, speakers seems like such an easy way for the Guatemalan government and ministry of health to better serve the needs of the people of the country. Given that the Guatemalan government is preparing to make significant national budget cuts, I don't imagine that we'll see an explosion of services like this unless funded by the international community.

"I apologise for my crimes, take responsibility for them, and accept the consequences of my actions" - Alfonso Portillo

Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo admitted in a New York City courtroom that he accepted $2.5 million in bribes from Taiwan in exchange for his country's continued recognition of the island in its ongoing dispute with China. He'll receive somewhere between four and six years in prison for this

Portillo said he "knew at the time that what I was doing was wrong". He had campaigned on a promise to fight corruption and impunity in Guatemala.

"I apologise for my crimes, take responsibility for them, and accept the consequences of my actions," he told the federal court in New York.

He said the money was moved through US banks and admitted that he knew "these transactions were designed, in part, to conceal and disguise the source and ownership of the money".

Otto Perez Molina claims that these "open secret[s]" are a thing of the past and that relations with Taiwan and donations from them are more transparent. We shall see. While they did happen fourteen years ago, it is not clear when the bribes stopped - Berger? Colom? I can't say that Portillo's guilty plea is making former Salvadoran President Francisco Flores feel comfortable right now.

It's bad for democracy and for the people of Guatemala and El Salvador that their leaders have taken bribes from Taiwan in return for continued diplomatic recognition. On the other hand, if that's all that they are being accused of I guess it feels like a bit of a letdown. What I guess I am more concern with now is an investigation into the Guatemalan judicial process that found Portillo not guilty. What, if any, shady transactions went on to ensure his release?

In other criminal extradition news, Waldemar Lorenzana has now joined Portillo in the United States. Lorenzana was arrested in Guatemala in 2011 and his extradition to the US was approved in 2012. Lorenzana allegedly was involved in drug trafficking along the border with El Salvador and Honduras. He also has ties to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Steven Dudley explains why Lorenzana is known as the "Patriarch."

Lorenzana was called the patriarch for many reasons. In addition to his drug trafficking activities he was a patron to numerous local and national politicians. These politicians would repay him by getting his companies lucrative public works contracts. The contracts were another stream of income for the family and gave the Lorenzanas a way to launder their proceeds.

The family also has large tracts of land where they employ hundreds of people. At Christmas, they give out gifts to kids and bags of food to their parents.

Their largesse made them hard to capture. On at least two occasions, Guatemalan and US authorities were unable to get past the throngs of protesters who had been called to the streets because of Lorenzana family members' imminent arrests.

El Salvador's post-poll challenges

2004 elections in Berlin

Nina Lakhani has El Salvador's post-poll challenges for Al Jazeera. I have a few thoughts cited in the article. The first comment addresses whether some areas of FMLN/ARENA cooperation from the Mauricio Funes administration (Partnership for Growth, second Millennium Challenge Compact, and even resolving constitutional crises) will continue now that Sanchez Ceren has won by a such a small margin in an election disputed by Norman Quijano and ARENA and leading to their veiled threat of military intervention. I chalked up a lot of the heated rhetoric in 2013 and the beginning of 2014 to the campaign. I thought that things would return to "normal" after the election was all said and done. Now, I'm not so sure.

The second comment related a little to what ARENA has learned from the campaign. Unfortunately, while most people are calling for the FMLN and ARENA to compromise (and various pacts of the nation) for the good of the country, I'm not sure that is the lesson that either party has learned. With regards to ARENA, they made up a ten-point deficit from the first round and a fifteen-point deficit in recent polls to nearly a tie the FMLN in round two.

They did that by going on the attack against the FMLN, linking them to drug trafficking, organized crime, gangs, and Maduro's thugs. Some legitimate concerns in there but nothing that says we need to collaborate and listen. With legislative and municipal elections next year, attack would most likely be the order of the day. The FMLN, on the other hand, went all guerrilla for its transition team, including US anti-favorites Melgar and Merino, to help smooth the move from Funes to Sanchez Ceren. The transition team is different from who will eventually be appointed by Sanchez Ceren but these appointments might be an indication of what is to follow.

The final comment that I made related to the need to temper expectations.

"The opportunities for radical, revolutionary, transformative policies to turn natural disaster prone El Salvador into an economically strong, peaceful, prosperous country overnight don't exist.

"The best we can expect is for the government to leave the country in a better shape than they found it in."

Salvadorans, and most all Central Americans, obviously need conditions to improve as soon as possible. Unfortunately, as soon as possible needs to be counted in years, administrations, and decades.

Here a guerrilla, there a guerrilla, everywhere a guerrilla

Salvador Sanchez had a transition team, E-I-E-I-O,

And on that team he had a guerrilla, E-I-E-I-O,

With a guerrilla here and a guerrilla there

Here a guerrilla, there a guerrilla, everywhere a guerrilla

Salvador Sanchez had a transition team, E-I-E-I-O.

Salvador Sanchez Ceren has apparently appointed Oscar Ortiz, Medardo Gonzalez, Sigfrido Reyes, José Luis Merino, Manuel Melgar, Norma Guevara and Lorena Peña to his transition team.

Not fair? How about they are old? Where's the next generation?

Not quite impressed.

Business Implications of El Salvador and Costa Rica Votes

I spoke with Mark Keller last month about the potential political (and business) implications of the Costa Rican and Salvadoran elections. Some of my thoughts appear in this Latin Business Chronicle article entitled Business Implications of El Salvador and Costa Rica Votes

“The new administration should be somewhere between moderate left and radical left,” says Uccelli of JP Morgan. Current president Mauricio Funes, widely considered more moderate than the party’s old guard, focused on social investment, including providing meals in schools and aid to women which have proven popular.

Sánchez Cerén has promised to keep these programs, and may try to expand them, says Uccelli. He has also promised to create jobs, foment small business, and employ a “mano inteligente” approach to crime, favoring strengthening the police over the military in combating transnational drug crime. University of Scranton Professor Mike Allison, who spoke with LBC in February, also says the FMLN would be more sensitive to environmental concerns and opposed to opening mining in the country, a fact which could have economic implications for the country which has suffered sluggish economic growth in recent years.

I'm pretty sure that most would agree that there is not going to be a serious activation of the mining sector in the country under Sanchez Ceren and the FMLN. As I also said to Mark, the FMLN will probably be more concerned with the environmental implication of a variety of economic development strategies, not just in regards to mining.

The second Millennium Corporation Compact negotiated between the US and Salvadoran authorities calls for large investments in the coastal and maritime areas of the country in order to promote tourism and the agro-export industry. However, given the environmental vulnerability of those regions, many Salvadorans are against much of the planned development. It's not clear how committed Mauricio Funes was to striking the right balance between environmental and investor concerns, but I am pretty sure that Sanchez Ceren will be.

That might have implications for what happens to the second ~$300 million compact and is something to keep in mind.

Does Sunday's Close Election Mean Trouble for El Salvador?

The Inter-American Dialogue's Latin American Advisor asked several individuals to respond to a series of questions following the contested election in El Salvador.

In El Salvador's electoral court yesterday declared leftist Salvador Sánchez Cerén the winner of the country's razor-close presidential election. Runner-up Norman Quijano, however, can still appeal and has threatened to take the dispute to El Salvador's Supreme Court if necessary. How long will the dispute over the contested election drag on? What will the close election mean for El Salvador's next president and his ability to govern? Does the election dispute indicate El Salvador is in for a period of political polarization and dysfunction ahead? What are the biggest challenges facing the next president?

Here is some of Christine Wade's response.

Public insecurity, narco-trafficking and organized crime, economic stagnation, corruption, poverty and inequality—this is what awaits the new administration. While the parties have different ideas about how to best address these problems, they must work together to find solutions. Sánchez Cerén has already sent messages of unity to Arena and the business sector, but whether they can put aside their differences remains to be seen."

You can read the rest of her answer and those of three others here.

Why would anyone now expect the FMLN to work with ARENA?

I might have something later but why in the world but why would anyone now expect the FMLN to work with ARENA?

Let's see, ARENA made up a double-digit loss in the first round and margin in the polls by working with the media and its domestic and international allies to link the FMLN to the chaos in Venezuela. They claim that the FMLN is in bed with the MS-13 and other gangs. They say that the FMLN is full of people involved in drug trafficking.

ARENA called into doubt the country's democratic institutions by attacking the much improved Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). They called on the armed forces to stay alert if they were needed to "save" democracy. That is so 1960s. They are demanding that the TSE violate the mutually agreed upon electoral rules and do something that is not called (recount every single vote).

It's not as if the FMLN is comprised of a bunch of angels. It is perfectly possible that they act in a heavy-handed authoritarian manner at some point in the future a la Chavez or Ortega. But what is clear is that ARENA has once again shown its true anti-democratic stripes while Sanchez Ceren has called for unity. I know - much easier said when the first count put you up by nearly 7,000 votes and the final scrutiny confirmed the victory but still. No calls about heading to the mountains to defend democracy.

I was pretty optimistic that the FMLN and ARENA would be able to work together when the campaign season was behind them. However, given the manner in which last week's election and post-election procedures unraveled and with congressional and municipal elections one year away, I'm no longer that optimistic. Maybe I shouldn't have been in the first place.

But I wouldn't blame the FMLN for not working with ARENA now even if that might be what the country needs.

2014 Presidential Elections in El Salvador: A Dangerous Form of Security Discussion

Kari Mariska Pries, a PhD Researcher at the University of Glasgow, sent along a link to her reflections on Sunday's election in El Salvador.

Sunday’s calls for celebration in “esta gran fiesta democratica”[1] transformed, by evening, into tense stand-offs and a statement that “La Fuerza Armada esta lista para hacer democracia”. What had been projected to be a docile, comfortable second-round presidential election with the governing FMLN party easily obtaining the presidency by a 10-18% margin melted into a tense political dispute with opposing candidates separated by less than a percentage point. As of Tuesday, 11 March 2014, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) continued to aske the candidates to refrain from declaring victory and stated that results would be delayed until Thursday so that a recount could be conducted. Likely factors for this upset abound. What is certain is that the deep political polarisation of El Salvador has, since the end of its civil war in 1992, rarely been more evident or potentially more explosive.

Click here to read the rest of her essay.

A win is a win for El Salvador's FMLN?

Still getting over the shock of yesterday's results. I hope to have something more significant to say later in the week but I have to finish prepping for my Central America course tonight. In the meantime, some of my thoughts were cited and reflected in these two articles.

From the New York Times' El Salvador’s Presidential Election Close at the Wire by Elisabeth Malkin

The party “is more pragmatic in that they have had five years in power,” said Michael Allison, an expert on Central America at the University of Scranton.

On security, Mr. Sánchez Cerén sidestepped the most contentious issue, a truce between street gangs that has reduced El Salvador’s murder rate.

Under the 2012 truce, which the government does not openly support, gang leaders have won better prison conditions and ordered gang members to stop killing one another. But El Salvador’s murder rate is still one of the highest in the world while extortion continues unabated.

Mr. Quijano, 67, has condemned the truce, arguing that the government has negotiated away the legitimacy of the state, Mr. Allison said.

Under Mr. Funes, El Salvador has had generally good relations with Washington, although both Congress and the administration have pushed the government to crack down more effectively on organized crime, drug trafficking and corruption.

As many as two million Salvadorans live outside the country, most of them in the United States; they sent an estimated $4.2 billion back to relatives last year.

Security was uppermost on voters’ minds, regardless of whom they voted for.

And from Seth Robbins in El Salvadorans wait anxiously amid razor-thin election results for the Christian Science Monitor's

The tight race came as a surprise to most election observers, as polls had predicted a comfortable victory for Sánchez-Cerén, who won the first round by 10 percentage points. Mike Allison, a Central America expert at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, pointed out that both parties drew more voters to the polls in the second round, but that ARENA was able to add more than 400,000 voters to its initial rank of supporters.

“The FMLN might have peaked,” Mr. Allison says.

The reasons for the reversal in the FMLN’s fortunes, analysts speculated, could stem from a concentrated voter turnout effort by ARENA after lackluster results in the first round. The FMLN also had to overcome a sluggish economy, attempts by ARENA to link it to unrest in Venezuela, and an unpopular truce that members of the current government tacitly endorsed between two large and dangerous street gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18. In recent months, the truce has unraveled and murders have risen sharply.

Finally, I'm not in this but this El Faro editorial looks pretty popular - Un país dividido. It's not that I reject everything that they say but Quijano's call for the armed forces to protect the country from fraud goes well beyond anything than the FMLN did. Calling both sides "irresponsible" isn't entirely fair.

The second problem that I have with the editorial is that it looks like it is calling on the eventual winner, in all likelihood the FMLN, to work with the opposition (ARENA) and the 49% of the population who didn't vote for them. Does anyone think that ARENA would have responded by looking to share power with the FMLN just because it was a close election?

“The men and women of El Salvador are the ones who decide, and if you don’t accept the result, you are violating the will of the people,” Sanchez Ceren said. “I say to my adversary, to his party, that my administration will welcome them with open arms, so that together we can build a new country.”

Just try and picture these words coming out of Norman Quijano's mouth. 

They Don’t Work For You Anymore

Here is some reaction to yesterday's election in El Salvador from Christine Wade, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies and Curator of Louis L. Goldstein '35 Program in Public Affairs at Washington College in Maryland.

It was certainly unexpected. Despite polls that predicted a double-digit victory for the FMLN’s Salvador Sánchez Cerén, there appears to be fewer than 6,000 votes separating him from his opponent. The polls were so decisive that I’d even drafted a post-mortem on ARENA’s failed election strategy, and an eye to future reforms for the party.

In what was perhaps the lowest point (and that’s saying a lot) in any election since the country’s transition to democracy in 1994, last night ARENA’s Norman Quijano proclaimed himself the winner, denounced the FMLN’s narrow victory as fraud, condemned the TSE, and said that the armed forces were watching the results and would be ready to defend democracy. That last one should really trouble you. It was unsettling.

For decades, El Salvador was governed by the military- either directly or indirectly. The Salvadoran military was responsible for an overwhelming proportion of the deaths and abuses that occurred during the country’s civil war. The 1992 peace accords restructured El Salvador’s military and placed it under civilian rule, with the president (currently Mauricio Funes) serving as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. One of the key elements to sustaining the Salvadoran peace has been the military’s return to the barracks. This is why so many scholars, analysts, and human rights activists have expressed concerned about the use of the armed forces in policing efforts.

Much has been made of Sánchez Cerén’s past as a former FMLN guerrilla during the current campaign, but relatively few have remarked on ARENA’s shady past. That the presidential candidate of a party borne out of death squads would invoke the armed forces in his “victory” speech last night merely underscores the extent to which some within ARENA’s Cold War echo chamber have failed to embrace the new role of the armed forces and the basic principles of democratic institutions. And while the drama of the day and uncertainty of the evening may have helped to fuel Quijano’s rhetoric, this much is clear: defending ARENA (or any party) against alleged voter fraud is not within the military’s purview. Let’s hope that cooler heads within the party prevail within the coming hours and days. Until then, perhaps it bears reminding Sr. Quijano of the new rules of the game: the military doesn’t work for you anymore.

Let's hope COENA separates itself and the party from its candidate's fiery rhetoric

Salvadorans returned to the polls on Sunday to elect their next president. After cruising to a first round victory one month ago, most of us expected the FMLN to cruise to another victory in round two. Every poll gave them a double digit advantage heading into this weekend's vote. However, a strange thing happened on the way to victory.

With 99.88% of the vote counted, the FMLN only leads 50.11% to 49.89% over ARENA, or ~6,400 votes. All the polls were wrong or many Salvadorans did not behave the way that they told pollsters that they would.

Both the FMLN (+100k) and ARENA (+400k) surpassed their first round vote totals which is pretty impressive given that I (and others) were expecting some drop off in voter turnout for round two. Both also surpassed their 2009 votes.

What was initially a story about the better than expected showing of ARENA (at least two hours ago) is likely to turn into a story about ARENA's Norman Quijano's dangerous speech not just alleging fraud (which is fine) but calling on the armed forces to get involved if necessary (not so fine).

An angry Quijano accused the election tribunal of corruption, and hinted at fraud.

"We are not going to allow fraud," he said, claiming victory. "Our armed forces are watching this process."

ARENA failed to use its 2009 loss to transform itself into a pro-democratic and pro-capitalist political alternative to the FMLN. Its strong performance in the 2012 municipal and legislative elections convinced it that they were fine without any major reforms. Tonight's strong showing might reinforce the belief that they do not have to change to regain the presidency.

However, their candidate's speech tonight demonstrates that key party leaders are still stuck in the 1980s and that the party formed because Ronald Reagan was allegedly soft on communism is alive and (un-)well.

Salvadorans need them to change. It is not healthy in 2014, if it ever was, to call on the military to resolve political disputes and in the midst of vote counting. Let's hope COENA separates itself and the party from its candidate's fiery rhetoric.

The future looks bright in El Salvador?

Twenty years after the "elections of the century," Salvadorans return to the polls today to elect their next president.

A pretty good op-ed from Paige Donnelly and Russell Crandall on El Salvador’s Delicate Balance. I am looking forward to Russell's next book on The Salvador Option: U.S. Counterinsurgency and Nation-building in El Salvador, 1977-1992.

Maybe it is just me but I'd rather have the profiles of FMLN supporters (los que viven en zonas urbanas, los que viven en el AMSS y zona Occidental, Estratos marginales y obrero, personas de 26 a 40 40 anos y de 18 a 25 anos, los que siempre ven, oyen o leen noticias en los medios de comunicacion) rather than ARENA supporters (los que viven en zona rurales, los que viven en la zona Paracentral y Central, Estratos alto y medio bajo, personas de 56 anos a mas, los que nunca ven, oyen o leen noticias en los medios de comunicacion) heading into this election and future ones.

Seth Robbins has a good article for the Christian Science Monitor on Could El Salvador's next president help civil war victims find justice? The courts and attorney general might push to overturn the amnesty and beginning prosecutions for civil war ear crimes but I don't see Sanchez Ceren pushing much here. However, there are lots of other symbolic, financial, and informational ways in which he could help.

Maybe it should be but I'm not sure Salvadorans were debating whether the FMLN or ARENA would be better at Stopping drug cartels (key issue in El Salvador election).

The FMLN should win pretty easily today. They've done a good but not great job which, given all the challenges facing the country, should be the expectation for any government in El Salvador and perhaps in the region. However, it's ARENA's poor governance and worse (?) role in the opposition that has doomed them today and set El Salvador up for another five years of FMLN governance.

Antigua, Guatemala is also happy

Thanks to a friend who posted this on Facebook.

Saint Rutilio Grande?

Good news out of El Salvador and the Vatican:

A sainthood cause is to be opened for the man whose assassination inspired Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero to speak out against injustice as his country slid towards civil war.

Fr Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit priest and close friend of Archbishop Romero, was killed along with the two others on 12 March 1977, which many believe was provoked by Fr Grande’s advocacy for the poor in El Salvador. 

The current Archbishop of San Salvador, Jose Luis Escobar, announced on Tuesday that he is launching a diocesan inquiry, the first phase in a canonisation process, according to Fr José María Tojeira, former rector of the Jesuit university in the city.

Archbishop Romero had initially adopted a non-confrontational stance to the country’s military regime but experienced a “conversion” moment after travelling to Fr Grande’s parish after the assassination.

Archbishop Romero is quoted as saying: “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead, I thought: if they killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.”

From that point on the archbishop became an outspoken critic of the Government and an advocate for the poor. He was assassinated in 1980 while saying Mass.

Fr Grande was an early promoter of liberation theology and got to know Archbishop Romero when they lived together in the seminary. He was master of ceremonies at Romero’s episcopal ordination in 1970.

Fr. Grande was murdered along with two other parishioners on March 12, 1977. You can more about about his life in this reflection by Fr. Joe Mulligan.

Why should you take Cardenas, Elliott, Reich, and DeMint seriously now?

The US right-wing apparently hates the FMLN's Salvador Sanchez Ceren even more than that famous socialist Kenyan who is advocating Sharia law and implementing death panels while vacationing in Benghazi.

This time it is Jose Cardenas in Foreign Policy.

With street gangs -- and Merino -- involved in the drug trade up to their eyeballs, obviously, the ramifications of such irresponsible policies and associations are alarming, not only for the Salvadoran people but for U.S. security interests in the region. According to the State Department's 2014 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, El Salvador is "a major transit country for illegal drugs headed to the United States." That a new FMLN government under Sánchez Cerén would be committed to reversing that situation certainly raises doubts. All we can hope for at this point is that come Sunday, the Salvadoran people have their doubts as well.

FMLN relationship with street gangs? Most sane people have already concluded that the leaked audio tapes about the government's negotiations with the MS 13 and 18th Street gangs tell us nothing that we didn't already know and were not explosive revelations. The government traded sex and some prison comfort in return for a de-escalation of the violence which had been causes by many factors, including US gang culture and immigration policy and a weak Salvadoran state that launched mano dura and super mano dura instead of investing in the people of the country.

Merino's management of ALBA funds is not threatening but if there is legitimate evidence that he has been involved in drug and arms trafficking, the US should present that evidence to Salvadoran authorities. We've heard the same rumors for the last six years. If the attorney general clearly will not investigate for political reasons, then the US can reassess its relationship. You don't threaten a country because there is one person related to its president who you don't like. We are talking about 8 million or so people in El Salvador and the US and you want to torpedo our bilateral relationship over Merino?

The gangs coerced peopled into voting for the FMLN? While certainly possible, anything really is I guess, Salvadorans disagree. In February's UCA poll, 98.4% of respondents reported that they had received no pressure to vote/not vote. Fortunately, I guess that means that they were not listening to the Republicans in the US who want to disrupt remittances and deport thousands of their countrymen from the US if they vote their conscience.

While you are in the opposition (Shadow Government anybody?), you are supposed to demonstrate that you have better policy alternatives than the incumbent or at least better at carry out policies that every agrees are the desired choices. ARENA has so far failed that test and will in all likelihood be punished at the ballot box.

And given how wrong the US right-wing was about Mauricio Funes, why should you take Cardenas, Elliott, Reich, and DeMint seriously now?

Update
I forgot, this guy too.

 I wonder if they are all on Flores' payroll - "trumped up legal threats?" Even ARENA has dumped him.

And the next president of El Salvador is and other news

Downtown Guatemala City (2013)

Tim has an excellent round-up on some recent developments in El Salvador as we head into this weekend's winner-take-all steel cage match to determine the country's next president.

FMLN USA takes a look at recent developments in the Francisco Flores saga. Don't you feel bad for Flores? I do. We don't know everything yet but I get the impression that he's probably the least corrupt of ARENA's four presidents.

Norman Quijano hasn't been a great candidate but at least ARENA didn't select Ana Vilma de Escobar, former vice president alongside Tony Saca, who is under investigation.

This is what Senator Leahy and the US government wanted, right? Movement on tackling organized crime and corruption.

There's a lot more work to do and while most of the emphasis has been on ARENA officials linked to corruption, the next FMLN administration will only strengthen the country's institutions if they root out corrupt officials within their ranks as well.

Hector Silva has Corruption in El Salvador: Politicians, Police, and Transportistas and The United States and Central America’s Northern Tier: The Ongoing Disconnect for the Inter-American Dialogue (which I mentioned yesterday).

President Mauricio Funes and Minister of Justice and Public Security Ricardo Perdomo are sending another 5,000 soldiers into the streets and to the borders to tackle the uptick in violence. While Salvadorans have little faith in the police (see Hector above), I can't say that this is a welcome development. Funes will begin and end his term putting soldiers on the street to tackle crime.

I don't think that El Salvador and the FMLN will head down the Venezuelan path but some people are worried. And while one can chalk up a lot of the craziness to leftovers from the 1980s Reagan administration (no, I won't link to them), we don't know what the future holds. The Democrats have found a way to work with the FMLN and with ARENA so I am not too worried. However, all bets are off if Republicans retake the White House in 2016.

In non-El Salvador news, Daniel Ortega lives! No, really. Pacaya is erupting. Ex-interior minister Raúl Velásquez heads to trial. Respected Supreme Court Justice César Barrientos Pellecer commits suicide. Luis Guillermo Solis looks like he will win by a larger margin in Costa Rica than Sanchez Ceren will in El Salvador.

Finally, some good news with Vegetable Gardens Ease Poverty in El Salvador.

Hector Silva on The United States and Central America’s Northern Tier

Hector Silva has a new working paper on The United States and Central America’s Northern Tier: The Ongoing Disconnect for the Inter-American Dialogue. I haven't read it yet but it looks promising.

In this working paper, Silva offers a review of US security cooperation with the nations of Central America’s Northern Triangle—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Organized crime, rampant corruption, and largescale violence have stunted the region’s economic and social development since the end of Central America’s civil wars in the 1990s.

As Silva notes, US aid has missed the mark and done little to reverse climbing homicide and crime rates. By examining the history of US engagement in the region and the political forces that have driven both US and Central American action, Silva reveals a disconnect between Washington’s national security agenda and that of the region’s leaders.

According to Silva, it is this disconnect that has prevented the United States and the countries of the Northern Tier from pursuing the sort of comprehensive strategies needed to address the institutional weaknesses that lie at the heart of the region’s security challenges.

See also Hector's piece on The Infiltrators: Corruption in El Salvador's Police for Insight Crime.

Central America on the Precipice (video)

Christine Wade and I gave a presentation on Wednesday night at the invitation of the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College. It was a great trip and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and speaking with Dickinson students and faculty about recent developments in Central America. We also met with several faculty from the nearby US Army War College.

Christine spoke about challenges to democracy while I was tasked with tackling criminal violence, especially drug trafficking.

I started off my talk by borrowing a bit from John Donaghy's discussion of Honduras from last week. I wanted to let every one know that it would be a mistake to reduce Central America's violence "problem" to drug trafficking, organized crime, and maras. Violence goes so much deeper than these issues, into the homes and elsewhere. I remember a Jose Miguel Cruz talk from fifteen years ago where he said that El Salvador was one of the region's most violent countries in the 1970s (prior to the civil war) so it would be a mistake to characterize the challenge of today's violence simply as a consequence of the civil war or various post-war processes.

It would also be a mistake to reduce violence to "their" problem since it is a shared challenge that affects us all. Obviously, the illicit drugs are primarily consumed by the US and produced somewhere south of the US border. However, as seen in the recent Los Cocos convictions (three Mexicans and six Guatemalans) and the Facundo Cabral murder (people from half the region's countries seem to have been involved at some point), everybody has a stake in this game.

A few other brief notes - I am getting kind of annoyed when people say that people in the US do not feel the effects of the drug war. As someone who lives in a pretty safe, middle class suburb outside the thralling metropolis of Scranton, I don't feel it too strongly. However, given the damage that the drug trade has caused to our inner cities and to the destruction of families, the misallocation of precious resources, and to making the US have the highest incarceration rate in the world, we are sure feeling the effects.

One of the audience members also asked about the difficulties of and our sensitivities in carrying out research in a region of the world where the US role has been so, I don't know what's the word, terrible. I hope I wasn't too harsh, but I disagreed with the premise of the question to a certain extent. I carry out mostly elite-based interviews in the region and the perspectives on the US role, both historical and contemporary, are quite varied.

I was, more or less, cursed out by Alfonso Bauer Paiz. He still had very strong emotions towards the US because of its efforts to overthrow Arbenz in 1954. Other guerrillas do not appear to have much animosity towards the US. The US and Guatemalan guerrillas were on opposing sides in a war.

Last summer I spoke with a former guerrilla who works for an NGO in Guatemala City. The interviewed occurred about two months after the Rios Montt trial had concluded. I asked about the role of the US in Guatemala today. He characterized the US government's role as rather positive. He said that pressure from the Ambassador and other US government officials is the only reason why Guatemalan political and economic elite ever execute a policy in favor of the Guatemalan people.

A few days later, I met with the head of CACIF. He explained to me how he had met with US Ambassador Chacon several times to explain why the US' support for the judicial proceedings against wrong and dangerous.

Finally, I mentioned during the talk (or just afterwards in some comments) that ARENA was formed in El Salvador because the country's economic elite thought that the could not rely upon the military and the US to support their interests. The US and the military promoted some land reform in 1979 and the early 1980s and the nationalization of some key components of the coffee industry which directly struck at their power and privilege. The death squads not only killed peasants, the Archbishop, and US churchwomen, but they also killed US land reform advisers. There is more complexity to attitudes of Central Americans about the war and about contemporary issues than is generally recognized.

Click for video of the event.