NACLA's war by other means in El Salvador

Kevin Young has published "War by Other Means in El Salvador" in NACLA. It's an interesting piece, though I don't necessarily agree with the framing of the article and a lot of the specifics.

The “Partnership” exemplifies a more general U.S. strategy in Latin America. Since 1998 the region has elected roughly a dozen left-of-center presidents who explicitly reject U.S. intervention and neoliberal economics. In response, the United States has tried to institutionalize neoliberal policies that can constrain future governments regardless of political affiliation. In effect, Washington has sought to mitigate the danger of elections by insulating economic policy from democratic input. As the FMLN’s experience in El Salvador suggests, these left-of-center governments are heavily constrained by forces opposed to progressive change. However, both government choices and popular struggle also help to shape policies on the ground.

Bent over backwards wouldn't be the right phrase, but the Obama administration sure seems to have gone out of its way to help the Salvadoran people even though there are many in State and other levels of government that are not entirely comfortable working with the FMLN.

Given that many people in the US did not want El Salvador to receive a second MCC, qualify for the Partnership for Growth, or get any special treatment following decisions to prohibit mining, it's hard to characterize Obama policy towards El Salvador as part of any coherent US strategy. I also wonder whether people would support moving some decisions out of government hands if ARENA were still in the executive branch.

Then there's the truce - Funes and his government negotiated the pact in secret from the Salvadoran people and the US. The US criticized the truce all along even though publicly the criticisms were somewhat muted. The US has complained about drug trafficking in El Salvador and, for the most part, the Funes government responded, "you must be misinformed. There are no drugs here."

The Obama administration has most likely overlooked ALBA-related corruption, or simply brought it up quietly, behind the scenes, as previous US administrations seem to have done with ARENA previously. As a FMLN friend once said, "ARENA has its ANEP, why can't we have our ALBA?"

Again, it's an interesting characterization of US-Salvadoran relations but one that does not entirely take enough complexity into consideration in my opinion.