Former gang members in El Salvador

Anastasia Moloney looks at the many difficulties that former gang members confront in El Salvador even if the gangs for some reasons allow them to leave the life.

"Gang members never really had an opportunity. We support those who have a desire to change and to rehabilitate. No one hires ex-convicts or gang members. Their families are also stigmatised," said Nestor Granados, head of sales at the Project Metamorphosis factory.

"They find doors are closed. Most people just want to see them locked up for good... Society needs to recognise that violence is everyone's problem. It's not just a gang problem."

Run by a Christian organisation Love Link, the factory has a waiting list with the names of hundreds of people hoping to get a job and earn the minimum monthly wage of $237.

One former gang member and ex-wife of a gang leader is relieved to have ended a life of crime.

"Many people get involved in gangs because they need the money. But before you know it, you are sucked in and are looking after weapons, selling drugs and involved in extortion," said the 28-year-old, who did not want to give her name.

"Fear is always present. Fear the police will get you, fear a rival gang member will kill you, fear of walking into the wrong neighbourhood. I felt confined," she said against the din of machines.

While she could earn up to $1,000 a week as a gang member, she divorced her husband and left the gang because she did not want to put any future children in danger.

But reintegrating into normal life is an uphill struggle.

"Before I didn't really have to work. We had our own rules," she said, glueing labels on shoes. "This isn't easy money. It's hard work."

Glasswing International and Project Metamorphosis are two organizations mentioned in the article that are working to prevent young people from becoming involved in gangs and to help rehabilitate former gang members.

I knew things looked good but not this good

Carlos Mendoza and the good people at the Central American Business Intelligence have an update on where Guatemala is likely to end the year in terms of homicide rates. Using homicide data from the National Civil Police and population estimates from the National Statistics Institute, it looks like Guatemala will end the year with its fifth consecutive year of lower homicide rates. That would be an 8 percent improvement over 2013. An estimated year-end homicide rate of 31.4 per 100,000 Guatemalans would put it in Colombia territory so that is good but still about 10th dangerous in the world.

I also like to treat the PNC's numbers as the lower bound and INACIF as the upper bound. They are also estimates as some murders are not actually characterized as murders, some bodies are disappeared, and the population estimate is an estimate.

However, five consecutive years of decreasing homicide rates is something to celebrate.

Big data and crime fighting

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I thought I'd plug my friend and colleague today. Mike Jenkins is a assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Scranton.

My research explores the innovations police executives are implementing in the new community problem-solving policing era. While this new era has had its share of growing pains in recent years, there is no question that better data and technology will help make this form of policing even more effective, while simultaneously enhancing community relations.

He recently recorded a segment for The Academic Minute excerpted above on the role of big data in fighting crime.You can also see him in this video talking about his new book on Police Leaders in the New Community Problem-Solving Era.

In his spare time, he enjoys writing for The Huffington Post and elsewhere.

Exciting times at the University of Scranton!

Things to be grateful for - Norman Quijano is not the president of El Salvador

d'Aubuisson in ARENA legislative offices (2004)

San Salvador Mayor Norman Quijano has announced that San Antonio Abad will be renamed this week in honor of ARENA party founder Major Roberto d'Aubuisson. The road stretches from Los Héroes in front of the Universidad de El Salvador to 75 avenida norte.

I thought that it was idiotic that the FMLN had renamed a street after Hugo Chavez a few years ago, but this just seems so much worse. Yes, he presided over the Constituent Assembly that wrote the country's Constitution and he was influential in supporting the end to the civil war, but that in no way makes up for why he has been referred to as Blowtorch Bob.

It looks like El Salvador's right-wing is getting ahead of any decision from the Vatican on beatifying the man d'Aubuisson had assassinated - Monsenor Oscar Romero - and from the US and Spain on extradition officials implicated in the 1989 Jesuit murders.

The Salvadoran civil war is alive and well.

Myth of the Caudillo Mayor in Guatemala

Iván Morales Carrera (@ivancarrera) recently presented the results of his research on municipal level elections in Guatemala to faculty and students at the Francisco Marroquin. In his work, he debunks the myth that Guatemala is full of mayors who sort of rule over their little fiefdoms until such time they decide to retire from public life. Instead, their is much greater turnover at the municipal level than what is commonly thought and that the examples of long serving mayors (Arnoldo Medrano, Tono Coro, and Rubelio Recinos) are more the exception than the rule. Therefore, efforts in Congress to impose term limits on mayors are misplaced. What we actually observe are dynamics similar to national-level presidential elections - the runner-up in the previous election defeats the incumbent.

You can read Ivan's entire article here.

Eight killed at graduation party in shooting in El Salvador

According to Reuters

Suspected gang members in El Salvador shot dead seven men and a woman early on Tuesday during a middle school graduation party in Pacific seaport town of Acajutla, police said.

At least four suspected members of local street gangs known as Maras broke into a house in Acajutla, about 52 miles (84 km) southwest of the capital San Salvador, and opened fire on the group without warning, police said.

"This is the most serious incident reported this year," the country's police chief Mauricio Ramirez told reporters.

Among the seven dead men was Cristian Romero, a gang member wanted for murder, authorities said.

The killers wore masks and bulletproof vests, and were armed with guns such as M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles, police said.

Seven victims are believed to have been gang members while the eighth victim, a woman, was the owner of the establishment. (See also Contrapunto)

A scary escalation.

There aren't many positives in Mister Donut for Mayor but check it out

EngageMe

A terrific article on Mister Donut for Mayor (and other things) in El Salvador from Jennie Erin Smith in The New Yorker. Here are a few highlights:

Only the nation’s endocrinologists are happy. 

more than ten per cent of Salvadorans now have diabetes, one of the highest rates in Latin America

Middle-class Salvadorans, who drive around their dicey capital from one pocket of safety to another, treat the restaurants as the public parks they never had.

Guards with double-barrelled shotguns stalk the perimeters of many restaurants, a standard courtesy in a region where homicide rates are almost ten times what they are in the United States. 

It may be true that the chains have profited from El Salvador’s afflictions. It’s also true, as even Korn concedes, that they’ve injected a measure of happiness into a society with little to be happy about. 

During the campaigns for this year’s Presidential election, Mister Donut ads exhorted customers to vote for neither the left-wing ruling-party candidate nor his right-wing rival but a dark horse, Chocolate Doughnut. 

There aren't many positives in Mister Donut for Mayor but check it out.

Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Northeastern Pennsylvania

I was asked to write-up a brief overview on Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Northeastern Pennsylvania for a round table discussion scheduled for an event at the University of Scranton on Monday. I was only asked to prepare a five-to-ten minutes so it is not very in-depth. Anyway, I thought that I would share it here.

According to several studies, approximately 41 million foreign-born immigrants were residing in the United States as of 2012. Mexican-born immigrants comprised approximately 28 percent of that total. Significant populations also came from India, China, the Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba and South Korea. In terms of Pennsylvania, like many states, we have a long history of immigration. Foreign-born immigrants comprise roughly 5.9 percent of the Commonwealth’s population. Recently, the Latino population has grown from 2 percent to 5.9 percent and the Asian population from 1.1 percent to 2.8 percent from 1990 to 2011.

In terms of undocumented immigrants, the estimated number has decreased from a high of 12.2 million or so in 2007 to between 10 and 11 million today. That decrease was caused in large part by growing opportunities in Mexico, increased security on our southern border, record-level deportations, and a significant slowdown in the US economy, particularly in the housing, restaurant and service sectors. While the number of Mexicans coming to the US has decreased rather significantly, we have witnessed a significant increase in undocumented migrants coming from the Northern Triangle of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, where people are fleeing violence caused by drug traffickers, gangs, organized crime, and petty street crime and the lack of economic opportunity. Many young people and families are going north to the United States to reunite with family members that have been here for years. In many ways we believe this is the same pattern that happened with earlier immigrant groups.

When it comes to Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties, an estimated 25,000 foreign-born individuals live here. The foreign born population in Lackawanna County has grown from 2.3 percent in 2000 to 4.6 percent in 2012 while the in Luzerne County, the foreign born population has grown from 1.9 percent to 4.8 percent. There has been a strong increase in the Latino population in the area, as well as increases in the Russian and Indian populations. As of 2012, Scranton also counted some 170 Bhutanese families from South Asia. 

According to the 2010 census, Lackawanna County’s Scranton’s population is approximately 80 percent white, 10 percent Latino, 5 percent black, and 3 percent Asian. In Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, approximately 79 percent is white, 11 percent black, and 11 percent Latino.

Pan-American Post on Guatemala happenings

The Pan-American Post has two updates from Guatemala in yesterday's news roundup.

Despite concerns over corruption and civil society groups’ objections to recent judicial nominations in Guatemala, the country’s Constitutional Court upheld the appointments in a 3-2 ruling yesterday afternoon. Prensa Libre reports that the new Supreme Court and appellate court judges -- who were reportedly chosen as a result of backroom deal between the ruling Patriot Party (PP) and the opposition Renewed Democratic Liberty Party (LIDER) -- will assume their offices in five days’ time. In an interview with El Periodico, human rights advocate Helen Mack of the Fundacion Myrna Mack told the paper that the decision represents proof of the lack of judicial independence in the country. As a next step, Mack endorsed a proposal by the UN-backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) to hold a series of technical conferences to put together an agenda for justice reform.

Steve Inskeep of NPR’s Morning Edition has a brief interview with former Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, who describes some of the risks she faced in her job. Out of concern for her safety, Paz y Paz claims that she traveled with a seven-member security detail in Guatemala. Asked about why she has moved to the U.S. after leaving office, the ex-prosecutor said her family “needed to be away for a little bit.”

Following the overturning of the Efrain Rios Montt genocide and crimes against humanity convictions, I held open the slight possibility that the technical ruling could be a step forward for Guatemala's courts. 

One did not just want Rios Montt found guilty simply because we "knew" he was guilty. We wanted him found guilty on those charges if the evidence supported that conclusion. We wanted the trial to be conducted fairly even though that option was not made available to those massacred. And we wanted the trial itself to contribute to the strengthening of the rule of law in Guatemala. 

Unfortunately, the legal reasoning behind the overturning of the conviction was flimsy. The prosecutor was pushed out early and the selection process for her replacement was questionable. And now after the Guatemalan people and the entire world have seen the the questionable selections of Supreme and Appellate court judges, whatever wishful thinking one might have clung to has now disappeared. 2014 has been a rough year for the rule of law in Guatemala.

Education for Justice: Torture

Here I am discussing the annual theme that my Education for Justice program at the University of Scranton selected to highlight this year. You'll have to forgive me but I didn't get much heads up on what they wanted me to discuss as I was actually there to speak briefly about my research on Central America.

To help Central America, send smarter aid, not just more aid

Go read what my friend, and friend of Central America, Mauricio Vivero has to say with regards To help Central America, send smarter aid, not just more aid.

The plan announced last week by the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras is a promising start toward addressing the issues causing so many people to flee those countries.  

Announced alongside Vice President Joe Biden and Inter-American Development Bank President Moreno, the plan focuses on development and job opportunities for youth, providing security through prevention and better law enforcement, and improving governance. But it’s going to take more than rhetoric to attack the problems driving migration. The governments of Central America and their private sectors, the United States government and U.S. philanthropic community, and other international donors are going to have to provide resources to turn the rhetoric into reality. 

Mauricio is the CEO of Seattle International Foundation. You can read SEAIF's recent report on foundation funding to Latin America here.

Coffee vs. Gangs in Honduras

I am cited in the article by Rob Crilly (@robcrilly) on Coffee vs. Gangs in Honduras.

For David, it was the 18th Street Gang who came calling. He started out like so many others, acting as a lookout in his neighborhood, keeping a wary eye out for strangers, other gangs, the police or anything else that caught his attention.

“They get you when you are innocent,” he said. “Then they give you a fashionable watch, a cellphone, some money, clothes. When you are done, you’re 25 years old and at a rank you couldn’t even imagine.”

Go check out the article and read more about Coffee vs. Gangs from Kenco.

Congrats to Tim and his El Salvador Blog

Tim's El Salvador Blog celebrated its ten-year anniversary yesterday.

It's appropriate that I am in El Salvador as I begin writing this post.   I realize that a great many of the topics which have filled the pages of this blog have been present in the past 10 days I spent in the country. 

I participated in events commemorating the 25th anniversary of the massacre of the 6 Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter.   It's one of many anniversaries of massacres I have blogged about, and all of those persons who gave the orders for those massacres have never faced any form of judgment.   Impunity is a word I have used often in this blog.

Another ongoing blog theme is migration. I casually talked yesterday in English with men who had been deported from the US after living there for many years.  I heard the stories of the center where El Salvador processes children deported from Mexico.   I passed by many "remittance houses" built with money coming from the US and elsewhere.

Thank you Tim for helping us all understand El Salvador a little better and for inspiring me to start blogging as well.

Here's to the next ten years.

It wasn't just Ellacuria and the Jesuits who were targeted that night in El Salvador

Following a number of posts on the 25th anniversary of the martyrs in El Salvador, I planned to write a post today reminding people that it wasn't just Ignacio Ellacuria and the other Jesuits at the Central American University who were targeted in November 1989.

When the FMLN launched its second final offensive on November 11th, the Army High Command appears to have had a list of several individuals who they sought to liquidate in the midst of the violence. The list included leaders of the civilian opposition who had relatively recently returned to the country to participate in the 1988 and 1989 elections as well as other religious who had been working to end the violence in the country.

Last night, Tim republished the Subversive Cross which he initially posted on November 16, 2009.

On November 16, 1989, that same fateful day in El Salvador when the Jesuits were murdered, Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez was also targeted by the military. For Bishop Gomez and his Lutheran church were also voices who denounced the injustice they saw in Salvadoran society. They were deemed to be subversives by the government for siding with the poor and doing such radical things as operating a refugee camp for families fleeing the armed conflict, or for teaching the poor that they were entitled to equal human rights with the rich and powerful.

You know the government's view of your church when it sets up a machine gun post directly across the street from your church, your church named Resurrection Church – the church of Easter, and the machine gun is always aimed at the front door of the church. 

Go over to Tim's page to read the entire post.

The other intended victims of the army in mid-November, including Bishop Gomez, took refuge in Embassies scattered throughout the capital. As a result, they survived. The Salvadoran Jesuits thought that they were safe on the campus as the army had already searched the UCA and had it surrounded.

So while it is important that we remember the work of the Jesuits and why they died, it is also important to remember that they were not the only ones who were targeted that week. The Salvadoran High Command was prepared to wipe out nearly all civilian opposition figures that they deemed a threat.

I am glad...that they have murdered priests in this country [El Salvador]

Reenactment of the Jesuit murders (1997)

With the release of a recent Pew Research Center Survey confirming the decrease in the number of Catholics in Latin America, Tim Padgett connects the findings to the murders of the Jesuits in El Salvador.

What links the 1989 El Salvador atrocity and this week’s Pew report is the ongoing debate over liberation theology – the idea that the church should focus its efforts on social justice and aiding the poor. The utter lack of social justice in El Salvador was the cause of the civil war; the Jesuit priests’ promotion of liberation theology, and its reputation as veiled Marxism, prompted the army to murder them.

And since then, I believe, the Catholic church’s failure to prioritize at least the basic tenets of what those Jesuits were championing seems a big reason so many Latin Americans are no longer Catholics.

I don't doubt that the Catholic Church's perceived retreat from social activism and a preferential option for the poor had something to do with the decrease in the number of Latin Americans identifying themselves as Catholics.

However, at least in Central America, the decrease in the share of the Catholic population is also a consequence of U.S. and its allies' counterinsurgency policy. Dozens of priests and religious women were murdered in Guatemala and El Salvador. There were also thousands of lay ministers killed because of their faith. The state repression in the late 1970s and 1980s made it dangerous to be outwardly Catholic.

The December 1981 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador was unusual because of both its size and because the population was Evangelical Protestant. It was an example of a massacre more typical of Catholic communities. We are also talking about an environment in which "Be a Patriot, Kill a Priest" chilled relations.

The U.S. not only supported armed forces that were killing Catholics. Following the repression of the Catholic Church, U.S. taxpayers and Evangelicals sent millions of dollars to the region in order to take advantage of the repression, support the growth of the "apolitical" Evangelical faith, and eat away at the support of Catholics who were stoking the flames of the insurgency. Remember, these were the same people who would say that U.S. nuns deserved to be raped and murdered by the because they might have run a roadblock and gotten into a shootout with the Salvadoran National Guard (Secretary of State Haig and the Pistol Packing Nuns).

From the New York Times in 1986

The [Protestant evangelical] movement has also become closely identified with the battle against the country's Marxist-led guerrillas. While its leaders in the past invoked purely spiritual reasons for their mission, now some say openly that their ''crusade'' is part of the fight against Soviet encroachment in Latin America.

The dramatic growth of the sects here and elsewhere in Latin America is a result of an intense multimillion-dollar evangelical campaign by American-based churches and religious agencies. Their impact and anti-Communist focus appear especially strong in war-torn El Salvador. Preachers often refer to the leftist insurgents in theological terms, calling them ''sinners,'' ''forces of darkness'' and ''allies of Satan.'' U.S. Links Tightened

Because most of the sects here still receive considerable financing and guidance from their North American headquarters, their activities have further tightened the links between the United States and this small nation, which already depends overwhelmingly on American military and economic aid. American money has helped set up new temples, schools, clinics and radio stations.

Moreover, the movement's growth has widened the arena in which political conflicts are fought out under religious banners. The age-old mix of religion and politics in this region had centered largely on Catholic factions and disputing leftist, liberal and conservative views.

Now, like the new Catholic theologians on the left, the revivalist newcomers of the right use the Gospel as a vehicle to promote their political views.

Here is one of the Protestant organizations discussed in the article as well

The California-based Campus Crusade for Christ, an agency specializing in recruiting and training, channels converts to churches of the Pentecostal movement, which makes up three-fourths of the Protestants here. Its leaders say they regard their mission as both religious and ideological.

''Our main objective is to influence the university,'' said Manuel Martinez, an executive at the Campus Crusade for Christ. ''All mass movements and revolutions begin there. The conflict we have in El Salvador today began in the universities.''

But in 1980, one of El Salvador's more turbulent years, Campus Crusade mounted a nationwide drive called ''The Spiritual Battle for El Salvador.'' As a pivot, it used an American-made film called ''Jesus,'' which, according to the drive's organizers, has been shown in more than l00 towns and villages to 250,000 people.

Why do I say that the spread of Protestantism was part of counterinsurgency policy?

Increasingly, preachers appear in remote refugee camps and villages where the short-handed Catholic clergy do not reach. In l985, in a move apparently initiated by Washington, the local office of the United States Agency for International Development signed its first cooperation agreement here with a Protestant group to distribute food to refugees.

There are also signs that the Protestants are receiving encouragement from the armed forces. ''We now preach in the barracks and the jails,'' said Edgardo Montano, a preacher with the Assemblies of God. ''Before, only the priests could go there.''

In Chalatenango Province recently, soldiers first helped out on a Protestant housing project, then the zone commander himself attended the inauguration. Asked whether this might identify the project with the army and leave it a target of the guerrillas operating nearby, the project director, the Rev. Edward Ward, said: ''The army has had a murderous image for so long. It also deserves some good publicity.''

Here is a long excerpt from a 1987 Christian Science Monitor article

Being an evangelical provided a form of safety. ``If one is an evangelical, he won't have problems with the military. If he is a Catholic he may have problems,'' says a high-ranking Catholic Church official. Many Catholic priests and lay people have been killed by the military or right-wing death squads in Central America because they were considered subversive.

While sectors of the Catholic Church in Central America urge social change and a more equitable distribution of resources in the region's highly unequal societies, the politically conservative evangelical sects preach personal salvation. Many have a millennial message - that the end of the world is at hand and the faithful must prepare themselves for Jesus' second coming.

Because of the evangelicals' strong anticommunist stance and their rejection of efforts at social change, the US-backed governments of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have found the sects useful. In Guatemala, for example, evangelicals were recruited to head the Army-run civil defense patrols, especially during the rule of born-again Christian Gen. Efrain Rios Montt (1982-83).

In El Salvador, US-based evangelical churches are assisting US Agency for International Development (AID) programs in relief and refugee work. AID invited one US-based evangelical group, World Relief, to run projects that the Catholic Church, mainstream Protestant churches, and other independent relief organizations refused to associate with, because these groups said the projects were part of the Army's counterinsurgency effort.

Many Catholic liberals in Latin America suspect the US is orchestrating a region-wide campaign to promote the sects in an attempt to undermine the more socially-involved Catholic Church.

US policymakers were disturbed by the Catholic Church's shift away from its traditional support for US-backed military governments following Vatican II and the 1968 bishops' meeting in Medellin, Colombia, which committed the church to promoting a ``preferential option for the poor.'' At the end of a Latin America fact-finding trip for Richard Nixon in 1969, Nelson Rockefeller wrote: ``The Catholic Church has ceased to be a reliable ally for the US and the guarantor of social stability in the continent.''

In 1980, President-elect Reagan's Latin America strategists noted the necessity of countering liberation theology in the Sante Fe document, which outlined how to combat Latin America's leftist challenge.

Catholics also say the church's weaknesses have aided the sects. Foremost is the small number of priests. There are only 350, half foreign, in El Salvador, a country of 5 million. In contrast, the largest sect, the Assemblies of God, has over 800 pastors ministering to approximately 200,000 people. One reason for the discrepancy is that a priest's training takes seven years, while some evangelical pastors are virtually self-ordained. Another reason is the highly disciplined life required of a Catholic priest.

``In some rural areas, the priest visits only once a month,'' notes one diplomat. ``In the US, if you had a drinking problem or a problem with your wife you'd go to a social worker or a psychiatrist. Here people don't go to psychiatrists. They want to talk to a priest, but the priest isn't there.''

Observers say the emotionally cathartic evangelical services provide a release for those traumatized by the violence. ``But,'' says a nongovernment political analyst, ``it also absolves you of all social responsibility. You're only responsible for yourself and your personal salvation. It leads to political apathy.''

While the evangelical sects claim to be apolitical, critics charge that this apolitical stance, merged with their strong anticommunism, make the sects a strong bulwark of the status quo.

Wealthy Salvadoreans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans are joining evangelical sects. The Assemblies of God just opened their first church in San Salvador's exclusive Escalon district in the former mansion of one of the country's wealthiest families. The California-based group, Full Gospel Businessmen, holds Saturday prayer breakfasts in the fanciest hotels. Many high military officers often attend.

Mr. Swaggart met and prayed with President Jose Napoleon Duarte, his family, and Cabinet. He also met with some top Army commanders and officers and addressed the military academy. Many officers have recently joined the sects.

One can't help but think about something that Archbishop Oscar Romero said during one of his homilies

I am glad, brothers and sisters, that they have murdered priests in this country, because it would be very sad if, in a country where they are murdering the people so horrifically, there were no priests among the victims. It is a sign that the church has become truly incarnate in the problems of the people.

New film on the Salvadoran Jesuit Martyrs: Blood in the Backyard

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuits and two women were brutally murdered at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, by US-trained and funded commandos of the Salvadoran armed forces. The executions, carried out in the middle of the night in the Jesuits' backyard, reminded the world just how dangerous preaching the Gospel and serving the poor in a politically-fraught landscape could be.

Loyola Productions is proud to present BLOOD IN THE BACKYARD, a compelling documentary film about the men and woman who suffered the ultimate sacrifice and whose lives gave witness to what it means to live a life of faith that does justice.

Blood in the Backyard premieres this weekend at the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice in Washington, D.C. The film includes interviews with U.S. Representative Jim McGovern, former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Walker,Jon Sobrino, S.J., and Chema Tojeira, S.J.

Blood in the Backyard looks like it will be a terrific updated addition to previous films such as A Question of Conscience and Enemies of War.

Overall poverty decreases but extreme poverty increases in Nicaragua

According to the Fundación Internacional para el Desafío Económico Global (Fideg), the number of Nicaraguans living in conditions of extreme poverty (less than $1 per day) increased by 2 percentage points (7.6 to 9.5 percent) from 2012 to 2013. However, the number living in "general poverty" (less than $2 per day) decreased by 2 percentage points from 42.7 to 40.5 percent.

According to Fideg, Nicaragua has improved its poverty rate ~1% each year since 2009. That's positive but obviously slower than what is needed as Nicaragua is generally considered the second poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti.

One of the factors causing extreme poverty to increase, the report said, is a drop in export prices on agricultural goods, primarily coffee. Thousands of temporary workers depend on farming, as do several local economies in Nicaragua.

A drop in schooling and poor education are other factors that have prevented families from escaping extreme poverty, the report said.

We probably won't know for another year but I imagine poverty rates will worsen across Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador as well as a result of roya (coffee rust). It's possible that some other economic development (increased remittances?) will offset the coffee impact but we shall see.

This year, the government earmarked $1.3 billion – more than half its official budget – to finance anti-poverty programs and free health and education services. Venezuelan aid also has helped fund programs for the distribution of roof sheeting, financial credits, low-cost housing and food packages for the poor.

We've already had indications that Nicaragua is suffering from Venezuela's decreased support as well.

Rep McGovern calls on US to take responsibility for its role in Central American upheaval

Congressman Jim McGovern reflects on he and Congressman Joe Moakley's work on El Salvador in the Huffington Post with El Salvador Still Deserves Justice. Moakley was the US Congressman who was tasked with conducting the US Congress' investigation into the murders at the UCA in 1989 and the subsequent cover-up. McGovern was his congressional aide who then staffed the investigation into the murders.

The U.S. has never acknowledged any responsibility for the many assassinations, massacres, disappearances and repression perpetrated by the Salvadoran military and security forces against an innocent and unarmed civilian population. With the "re-branded" WHINSEC, the Pentagon pretends that the past doesn't exist. But even the WHINSEC can't escape the past, having invited Salvadoran military officers to be guest instructors even though they were named in the U.N. Truth Commission Report as responsible for murders and other human rights abuses. The WHINSEC began to classify the names of all its students and foreign faculty members in 2006 so as to avoid any further embarrassment. The House voted twice to restore the names to public domain, and this requirement was signed into law. But the Pentagon refuses, citing national security concerns. The matter is being settled in the courts.

Those who lost family and loved ones at the hands of U.S.-trained militaries have not forgotten the role the U.S., the SOA, and even the WHINSEC has played. At the time of the 20th anniversary of the Jesuit murders, the Government of El Salvador awarded its highest honors posthumously to the six Jesuits and two women. Then-President Mauricio Funes publicly apologized for the role of the State in the murders and asked forgiveness of the priests' and women's surviving family members. It was an extraordinary act of accountability and reconciliation.

Throughout Latin America -- in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and elsewhere -- nations are struggling to document the truth of their turbulent and violent past and promote reconciliation. I await the day when the United States will recognize its own responsibility for the suffering and sorrow of so many families throughout Latin America, including El Salvador, ask forgiveness, and as an act of reconciliation, close the WHINSEC.

I met McGovern and Moakley in El Salvador in 1997. Moakley had been invited by the Central American University (UCA) to come receive an award for his work on behalf of the people of El Salvador. I don't remember much of the event except that he received a standing ovation - that's really all I need to remember. Father Kevin Burke of Santa Clara University (editor or co-editor of Ignacio Ellacuría: Essays on History, Liberation, and Salvation (2013), Love that Produces Hope: The Thought of Ignacio Ellacuría (2006), Pedro Arrupe: Essential Writings (2004) and The Ground Beneath the Cross: The Theology of Ignacio Ellacuría (2000)) was also there that night but I didn't meet him personally until last month's event at Marquette.

As far as I know, the closest the US has come to recognizing its responsibility for much of the violence came in 1999 when President Bill Clinton visited the region. Most of the that coverage was on his "non-apology" in Guatemala where he said that

"United States... support for military forces or intelligence units which engaged in violent and widespread repression... was wrong."

He did so shortly after the UN's Commission for Historical Clarification released its findings. However, Bill Clinton also spoke earlier that day in San Salvador where he addressed the country's legislatures.

Earlier today, in El Salvador, the President told regional legislative leaders that it was time to put the bitter ideological struggles of the past behind them and begin to address their gaping social and economic inequalities.

In an address to the National Assembly of El Salvador today, Mr. Clinton obliquely acknowledged the United States' role in the wars that bloodied the region. But in that address, he stopped short of apologizing for American support for murderous military regimes that fostered long reigns of repression.

American backing for right-wing Governments in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and covert actions against leftist guerrillas created ''bitter divisions'' in the United States, Mr. Clinton said. But with every nation in Central America now under democratic rule, he said, the United States will try provide the financial and moral assistance to enhance political and economic development.

''We are determined to remember the past,'' Mr. Clinton said, ''but never repeat it.''

In the US, President Clinton was condemned by the right for making any apology whatsoever while he was also condemned by the left for not really apologizing at all. The same held true on the right in Central America. I would assume on the left as well but I don't remember having read any coverage of their response.

I think President Clinton's statements were an important step in recognizing the US recognizing its complicity in the violence (perhaps the arrests of war criminals in the US could be read as another). However, President Mauricio Funes' apology on behalf of the Salvadoran State, it would be more meaningful if it came directly from those who were in office at the time of the violence (see here).

Justice Deferred: Rule of Law in Central America

I have a new report on Justice Deferred: Rule of Law in Central America for the World Politics Review where I take more of an historical overview of developments in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

After more than two decades of work by national and international actors, the rule of law in Central America remains weak. While there seems to have been progress in prosecuting high-profile cases, most crimes go unpunished. The rule of law is stronger in the capitals and urban areas than in rural areas, and rarely extends to women, the indigenous and the poor. There is a commitment to free and fair elections in theory, but not so much in practice. Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War and Central America’s movement toward civilian government, the rule of law remains elusive.

The end to the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador as well as the civilian transition in Honduras provided an opportunity for the transformation of the political, social, and economic conditions in each country. Competitive elections began in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s with the transitions of the FMLN and URNG to political parties. There were some successful efforts by civilian leaders to regain control over the military in the 1990s / 2000s in each country and to move the security institutions in the direction of what one would expect of such institutions in democratic states.

However, while we can point to a number of successful rule of law initiatives over the last twenty-five years, there is little evidence of any systematic transformation.

You can go read the longer form piece here (~3,500 words).

In Memory of the Martyrs of the University of Central America

Prayer vigil at the UCA (1997)

Re-enactment of the martyrs deaths at the UCA (1997)

The President of the University of Scranton Father Kevin Quinn wrote some reflections on what the martyrs of El Salvador mean to him and how the University plans to commemorate the November 16th anniversary of their deaths.

To me, the martyrs—my Jesuit brothers and their companions—provide motivation for the distinctive education that Catholic and Jesuit universities in North America bring to the students we serve in the 21st century.

What all universities claim to teach their students—specifically, to think critically, reason analytically, solve problems and communicate clearly—is necessary, but not sufficient, for Catholic and Jesuit universities. A Catholic and Jesuit university should ask more of its students by educating and forming them to become men and women of faith and of service to their communities.

Jesuit education, animated by the vision of St. Ignatius Loyola and his first companions, applies insights born of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. The insights include: “a personal calling that frees us to embrace our truest passions in following Christ and in service of others; the redemptive possibility of self-giving love that invites us to attend to the cries of those who suffer; the experience of enduring goodness that gives hope for a world in which the Spirit always labors.”

One of the key phrases capturing the charism of Ignatian spirituality is “to love and serve in all things.” Here lies the key to Jesuit higher education in the 21st century. For a Jesuit university should ask more of its students by challenging them to make Ignatius’ charge—his notion of service—their own. Jesuit educators can do this by shaping not just what students know, but who they become: men and women of adult faith, of competence, for and with others. This is the Jesuit difference.

But there is a catch here, a shift in educational philosophy: It is not just serving others and learning about people, but learning with and from people who are often excluded from participation in economic, social and political life. And further, the Jesuit difference integrates academic inquiry, creative imagination and reflection on experience that inspires fashioning a more just and humane society. In sum, the 21st century Jesuit university should encourage profound engagement with the real and so commit itself to a pedagogy of active, collaborative, transformative learning about social justice, as an integral part of a liberal education.

To deliver a transformative education in the Jesuit tradition requires the integration of academic, moral and spiritual learning—the union of mind, heart and soul.

I love teaching at a Jesuit university where people are committed to these ideals and are striving to make them a reality. The sense of community is really something special. I'm not sure we are there yet but maybe that's just the magis in me.

Today marks the anniversary of the launch of the FMLN's (second) final offensive in El Salvador. The offensive was spectacular but would ultimately fail causing a series of events, including the murders at the UCA, that would ultimately lead to the end of the war and the signing of peace accords two years later.

Tomorrow, I head to Fairfield University, my alma mater, in order to participate in a panel discussion on “Celebrating Life and Culture in El Salvador.”

Even Margaret Thatcher didn't like President Reagan

I typically try to understand what President Ronald Reagan was thinking when teaching Latin American politics and US-Latin American relations even if I disagree with the course of action he and his administration chose to pursue. But then there's this:

On the face of it, [Margaret] Thatcher’s relations with Reagan were more cordial, but she had no illusions about him. Her first foreign secretary was Lord Carrington, with whom she was talking over a drink one evening. As the conversation turned to the American president, Thatcher looked at Carrington, tapped the side of her skull, and said: “Peter, there’s nothing there.”

When the Falklands war broke out, relations for a time were very strained. One of the soi-disant intellectuals in the Reagan administration was the neoconservative Jeane Kirkpatrick, who wanted to keep on good terms with General Galtieri and his gang of murderers in Buenos Aires, and dined at the Argentinian embassy on the night of the invasion. The British ambassador in Washington, Sir Nicholas Henderson, said that it was as if he had joined the Iranians for tea on the day that the Americans were taken hostage in Tehran.

What Thatcher’s detractors on the left might try to grasp is that she was far less servile in her dealings with Washington than Tony Blair. In particular, she was highly critical of American policy (or lack of it) in the Middle East, insisting that there would never be peace until justice was done to the Palestinians.

By 1989 Reagan had left the White House, and the following year Mrs T was defenestrated from Downing Street. Not long after that, “Nico” Henderson was talking to Tony Benn, and said: “If I reported to you what Mrs Thatcher really thought about President Reagan, it would damage Anglo-American relations

 Better to say nothing.

Links around El Salvador

PBS News Hour has a few short videos on violence in Central America. The first one is on Who’s to blame for El Salvador’s gang violence? Brian Epstein has a piece that accompanies the video on Producer’s Notebook: A look at life inside the violent gangs of El Salvador. There is also a brief video on gang violence in Honduras and Guatemala.

Alberto Arce explains In a land of brutal violence, Salvador's women and girls are targeted for rape and murder.

David Gagne has El Salvador Squashes Talk of Dialogue With Gangs. There will be no dialogue with gangs. It's fine not to negotiate but avoiding all dialogue might be more dangerous which might be why the government might support dialogue between the Church and gangs and the pastoral work of the Church as long as the relationship does not involve negotiations of any sort. Sounds like we should expect more confusion and possibly arrests such as that of Padre Tono unless everybody gets on the same page. 

Julio Rank Wright writes on Dinamismo en los Partidos Políticos de El Salvador for Americas Quarterly. Julio looks briefly at the challenge of El Salvador's political parties in attaining internal democracy and transparency, and reaching new sectors in an increasingly urban and young country.

1997 San Salvador mayoral debate including Hector Silva

Hector Silva and Mario Valiente

Hector Silva writes about The Stalled Money Laundering Case against El Salvador's 'Chepe Diablo'. Hector's dad is in the photo above. Hector and the other candidates for may of San Salvador entertained the international election observers in 1997. Hector and Mario spoke in English while the third candidate (PDC maybe) felt a little awkward as he participated in Spanish.

Declassified documents from Argentina detail the strong links between the country's military junta and the government of El Salvador in 1979 when Jorge Videla was in power in Argentina and Carlos Humberto Romero in El Salvador. President Romero wanted help with Archbishop Oscar Romero while Argentina wanted diplomatic support.

Less than four months to legislative and municipal elections.

Nicaragua's First Billionaire

Bloomberg has the background on Carlos Pellas, Nicaragua's First Billionaire Is Country's Sugar King.

Today, privately held Grupo Pellas runs four sugar mills, produces ethanol and provides the raw material for Pellas’s Flor de Cana brand of rum. The group controls more than 20 companies, with stakes in media, distribution, insurance, citrus, health care and auto dealerships. It boasts $1.5 billion in annual sales -- equal to 13 percent of Nicaragua’s gross domestic product -- and employs some 18,000 people. Carlos, 61, the major shareholder, is Nicaragua’s first billionaire, with an estimated fortune of $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Being skeptical of businessmen who make their money off sugar and who are able to amass a fortune under Somoza, the Sandinistas, Chamorro, Alemán, Bolaños, and Ortega again, I wish the author had dug just a bit deeper.

You can read the author's August article on Guatemala's first billionaire Mario Lopez Estrada here.

Who's next?

Oscar Romero to be beatified in 2015?

As I wrote in a March 2013 op-ed on Could the next pope come from Latin America?

However, it is not all about symbolism. The selection of a Latin American pope might help to rejuvenate a Church that has lost ground in recent decades to Protestant and evangelical churches. It might help to heal the rift that occurred between those who supported a theology of liberation and those who preferred that the Church remain more traditional, some might say apolitical. Finally, the selection of a Latin American Pope might give added hope for the canonisation of the murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.

According to Archbishop of El Salvador José Luis Escobar, the Catholic Church intends to beatify Monseñor Oscar Romero next year. The news comes out of a November 4th meeting that the Salvadoran Archbishop held with Pope Francis.

This will make up for all the times I've been wrong.

University of Scranton Commemorating 25th Anniversary of the Martyrs of El Salvador

The University of Scranton just released its programming to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the martyrdom of six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and daughter at the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador. The Jesuit Center took the lead on the event's programming with the assistance of Education for Justice (perhaps just not enough to warrant a mention I guess).

I am facilitating the Friday panel on “What the Martyrs Mean for Us Today” where I would like to encourage the faculty and administrators to contemplate what the martyrs mean for the University of Scranton as a Jesuit and Catholic University in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Father Ignacio Ellacuria, and Román Mayorga Quirós before him, focused the UCA's resources on solving El Salvador's most pressing problems of the day. They created a human rights institute and a public opinion institute, carried out research on the effects of the violence, and were deeply involved in trying to get the FMLN and the Army to dialogue in hopes of ending la locura through a political process.

Tonight, we are unofficially kicking off the commemorating with a screening of "A Question of Conscience." The film tells the story behind the massacre, including interviews with Fr. Jon Sobrino who was away the night of the murders and a profile of Lieutenant Espinoza, a graduate of the Jesuit prep school in San Salvador, who was a member of the US-trained Atlacatl Battalion that carried out the massacre.

Education for Justice and the Center for Service and Social Justice are co-sponsoring tonight's film which was initially motivated to provide some background for our University of Scranton students who are traveling to Washington, D.C. next weekend to participate in the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice 2014.

Tonight's film in the Moscovitz Theater begins at 8pm.

10 year anniversary of impunity in Gilberto Soto's murder

Several people concerned with human rights took out an ads in Salvadoran newspapers calling on Attorney General Luis Martinez to investigate the murder of Teamsters Port Division Representative Gilberto Soto. Soto, a US citizen, was investigating the conditions of workers rights in El Salvador when he was assassinated in Usulutan ten years ago,

For the sake of Gilberto Soto’s children; for the sake of the workers of El Salvador; for the sake of the soul of your nation; we request that you reopen this and other emblematic human rights cases. We urge you to work cooperatively with the PDDH and independent human rights organizations to identify those who ordered these crimes and those who covered them up.

Like many murders in El Salvador, it's hard to determine who killed Soto. However, El Salvador’s Human Rights Ombudsman (PDDH) and the Human Rights Institute (IDHUCA) at the UCA compiled enough evidence to indicate that the authorities' version of the events did not hold water and that there seems to have been forces at work obstructing a serious investigation and ensuring a cover-up.

Ernesto Cardenal criticizes Nicaragua's proposed interoceanic canal

From the Tico Times

Nicaraguan writer and Catholic priest Ernesto Cardenal this weekend blasted plans for the construction of a massive interoceanic canal, calling it a “monstrosity” that would split the country in two and irreversibly damage Lake Cocibolca, the biggest freshwater lake in Central America.

Cardenal penned an op-ed column in the local newspaper La Prensa titled “La monstruosidad del canal” – “The monstrosity of the canal” – in which he criticized the favorable conditions that the government of Daniel Ortega granted to Chinese businessman Wang Jing in the canal concession.

“We should denounce to the world what is happening in Nicaragua,” Cardenal wrote, accusing Ortega of imposing the project on the country with “power absolute.”

I can't say that I was totally shocked but at last week's talk at Marquette, I spoke to someone who has been involved in Central America solidarity work for quite some time. I listened to him rail against the Guatemalan government for its repression of indigenous groups in the name of hydroelectric and mining profits. He then criticized the Honduran government and business sector for displacing peasants in the Aguan region in order to plant palm oil. He was proud of solidarity's work in defeating Milwaukee's Commerce Group in El Salvador.

But then he went on and on defending the Nicaraguan government's handling of the proposed canal. It was painful. I'm not an engineer, but I don't know how anyone can deny the likely environmental and societal damage that the proposed canal will have on the people of Nicaragua.

Engineer, when they kill me, you find all of my body and deliver it to my mother

The AP has a story on Israel Ticas, one of the country's few "forensic scientists" it would appear.

Some would argue that digging up graves is a fool's errand in El Salvador, a country with the world's second highest per capita homicide rate after neighboring Honduras. But this is a vocation for Ticas, who calls himself the "lawyer for the dead." In fact, he is a systems engineer turned police detective who taught himself forensic science. Most address him by his academic title, "Engineer."

Short and solidly built, he looks younger than his 51 years. Ticas speaks in the street slang of the gangsters who occupy his neighborhood, but looks the part of a plainclothes cop. When not in biohazard gear, he wears a leather jacket and dark glasses, or a double-breasted suit with a tie held in place by a gold clip.

He was a young police intelligence agent during the US-backed government's war against Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front guerrillas in the 1980s. Today, those former guerrillas hold the presidency, and Ticas works for an independently named attorney general as the department's only criminologist.

If anything, El Salvador needs more men like Mr. Ticas.

Not just baking, but now farming, tailoring, carpentry, and construction work.

The official campaign season opened on October 30.

Mark Anner was kidnapped by the Treasury Police in 1988 and then seriously injured in October 1989's bombing of the National Federation of Salvadoran Workers in El Salvador. He is now an associate professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science at Penn State.

El Salvador's Ambassador to the United States during much of the 1980s, Ernesto Rivas Gallont, apologized for following orders and not telling the truth about the massacre at El Mozote and other heinous crimes.

Day of the Dead and Mexico's missing student-teachers

The Christian Science Monitor's Whitney Eulich writes As Day of the Dead looms, families of missing Mexican students hold out hope. One month after the disappearance of 43 college students in Mexico, family members and government authorities are still investigating to find out what happened to them. Instead, all the find are more mass graves without any signs of the missing students.

Orange and yellow marigolds and sugary breads are making an appearance across Mexico City this week as families prepare to celebrate the Nov. 2 Day of the Dead.

To commemorate deceased loved ones on this Catholic-inspired holiday, Mexicans build altars, visit graves, and leave offerings, such as a favorite food or drink.

But for weeks already, some of the parents of the 43 college students who disappeared a month ago in Guerrero state after an encounter with police have gathered around an “altar of hope” on their children's campus. It underscores their demand for answers in what has become a grim national scandal. 

Over 1,200 bodies have been found in mass graves in Mexico since 2006.

I hate to think about this but mass graves / clandestine cemeteries have been found in Mexico and El Salvador. There was a story about a mass grave along the US - Mexico border a few months ago as well. Will they ever uncover similar graves in Guatemala or Honduras?