Salvadoran School Children get a Helping Hand

The school year is well underway for children across the Americas. But this year in El Salvador, families’ task of outfitting and feeding their children is being made a lot easier.

In August, Vice President and Minister of Education, Salvador Sanchez Ceren announced a program to supply two school uniforms, one pair of shoes, and a set of school supplies to every public school student in the country. This new program will aid 1,360,000 children.

In addition, the FMLN has broadened the existing school meal program. Previously, the program was offered only to children in rural areas with high levels of poverty. It has now been expanded to include low income families in urban settings. The expansion adds over 450,000 children.
The FMLN’s policies of universal inclusion are a stark contrast to those of ARENA. During the lead up to the March presidential elections, radio reports from rural communities in the northern departments of Chalatenango and Cuscatlan, accused ARENA candidates of offering fabric for children’s school uniforms in exchange for votes. These election bribes are symptomatic of ARENA’s actions through out their reign. Their supporters were rewarded and opponents left wanting, increasing the already wide divide between those living above the poverty line and those below.

Photo from CISPES www.cispes.org

Honduras Coup as a warning to El Salvador

In the early morning hours of Sunday June 28 ’09, the Honduran military kidnapped their president, Manuel Zelaya. The coup is most likely a result of the changes that Zelaya has been putting into place and fear that Honduras would start more radical changes including amending their constitution. This backlash should be a warning to El Salvador’s newly elected FMLN president Mauricio Funes.

The coup was staged on the day of a vote to gauge public opinion on proposed changes to the constitution. The constitution was written 1982 at the height of US President Reagan’s wars against Central America and does little for the common person of the country; rather it protects those already in power. Although elected democratically, Zelaya is a minority in the right wing governing bodies. He had received a great deal of pressure and threats from almost all sides; army leaders, the Congress, the Supreme Court and election officials, who called the vote illegal. It is no surprise that once Zelaya was kidnapped and transported to Costa Rica, the congress read his ‘resignation letter’ and swore in Roberto Micheletti as the new president. Micheletti is a much more conservative, right wing politician and was a vocal opponent of Zelaya.

Just south across the border from Honduras is El Salvador, a country who has fought hard against neo-liberal policies, US interference, and brutal right wing oppression. On June 1, the FMLN President Mauricio Funes was sworn in, beginning a shift to the left. As Funes rolls out his reform he will be forced to walk a fine line between putting in place the policies his party campaigned on and getting the necessary votes in congress which still houses a majority of right wing officials.

The events unfolding in Honduras proves that the oligarchy will only stand for so much change before they begin calling in favors and stamping out progress. During his press conference from Costa Rica, Zelaya stated, “If the United States is not behind this coup, then the plotters won't last 48 hours in power." The clock is ticking to see if his assessment is proven correct.

Photo from Orlando Sierra / AFP/Getty Images / June 28, 2009.

Hope Spreads

El Salvador’s recent presidential elections that nominated Maricio Funes and the FMLN to govern the country is just the most recent example of change sweeping across Central and South America. As more countries elect left wing governments, those of us suffering under right wing/neo-liberal governments are buoyed by their successes.

Former FMLN combatant Damian Alegria told me of a time in the late ‘80s after almost ten years of armed combat; the party was suffering huge losses and feeling quite battered. Operation Hope was created to raise the troupe’s moral. Combatants throughout the country were told to explode a grenade in an unpopulated area at 8pm on a specific night. On the designated night, FMLN members heard the simultaneous explosions coming from the hills all around them. They quickly realized they were not isolated in the struggle. Indeed there were combatants all over the country, all united in the fight for a free democratic land.

Just as the Operation Hope grenades spurred on the combatants, each victory of the Left shows us the breadth of the movement. It is easy to become discouraged here in Canada when the political parties are blurring into one and the Left is fragmented and prone to infighting. The people of El Salvador’s success in dislodging ARENA’s 20 year reign is the latest victory to be sound in the dark world of neo-liberalism.

The people take action

Although there were reported to be 5,000 election observers registered to work on Sunday, it is the civilian´s actions in their home communities that had a dramatic effect in preventing rampant fraud.

A tactic that has proven to be successful in past elections is to import people to vote for a specific party. ARENA has been charged with ´hiring´people from surrounding countries and sending them with fake DUIs (the id card needed to vote) to polling stations with clear instructions on who to vote for. Very few of these operations have been stoped or investigated by the authorities.

In the very early hours of Sunday March 15, a call from Cuscatlan went out for assistance from a group of civilians who had been monitoring a sports stadium in their community. Over 100 large school buses had been hurriedly driven into the stadium and the tall fence doors closed behind them. A group of election observers from Quebec answered the call and were on the site by 2am. At that time, they could see through the chain link fence the buses lined up in the parking lot and spoke briefly to two bus drivers who were standing by the gate. The drivers claimed they did not know what they were they would be sent, who had hired them or what the assembly was for. The Observers asked to be let into the stadium grounds to look around but were not allowed. Shortly after their exchange, rocks thrown from inside the fence began to rain down on the Observers and civilians.

The Observers then went to the local radio station that is part of a network of left wing stations. They gave an update on the situation in Cuscatlan and answered questions from callers and the staff. While in the station, calls came in from other regions of full buses crossing the boarder into El Salvador and even a report of civilians stopping boat loads of foreigners from landing on Salvadoran beaches.

Near the Guatemalan boarder, another group of civilians saw a suspicious bus load of peasants entering their community. When the passengers gave said they were all coming to El Salvador to pick up their pay cheques, the towns people called the passenger´s bluff by offering to call their boss. When no name or phone number could be produced, they put the bus load under a citizens arrest and held everyone until the police arrived and escorted them back out of the country.

Fewer reports were made of the important DUI cards being counterfeit or stolen however a brave citizen did prevent fraud by pulling a knife on would be DUI thief on a public transit bus. When thief was challenged, he fled and dropped his bag of ID cars a few blocks form the bus. The bag contained the DUIs from the last bus he had robbed as well as many others including a number of counterfeit ones.

The March 15 presidential elections are being described as without significant fraud and the impressive number of Observers is often pointed to as the reason. However, at one press conference held by FUNDASPAD the Observers admit they saw few irregularities at the polls. Many of the would be fraudulent voters had already been apprehended by the vigilance of people within their communities. People were determined to prevent another vote be stolen and were willing to put their own safety on the line to do so.

FMLN wins

On Monday morning the city´s usual buzz of activity is more sedate.

We all have the election hangover. Through my window I hear the occasional chant from somone on their way to work. Shouts of ¨Funes!¨ are answered by ¨Viva!¨ from anyone within ear shot. The election was fairly close but still the FMLN won by enough to be decisive, with 90% of the vote counted, FMLN has 51.27% and ARENA 48.73%.

Last night the streets in San Salvador became an open air party as thousands took to the streets and converged around the monunet Salvador del Mundo. Youth waving flags on car tops, children in tree tops, families decked in head to toe red, even seniors being helped along by their loved ones, they all joined the celebration.

Today as we have our breakfast, stories of last nights festivities, our shock when we first heard the results and our predictions for the future are shared.

Visiting ARENA

I had mixed feelings about visiting the ARENA office but decided to go along with the group. What I saw confirmed to me that I do not belong among their ranks.

Our group was received warmly even though we were a few minutes early. Three women busily brought us coffee and water. A number of male party officials introduced themselves and shook everyone´s hands, said they were glad we came to visit and hope we would see that the upcoming elections are fair and democratic. All this was pretty standard political fare. But the inanimate objects in the office told the rest of the ARENA story.

We were taken on a brief tour and the majority of meeting rooms and even some hallways had groupings of 8-10 promotional images from the movie 300. All of the images were of heavily muscled Romanesque men killing one another. The film was said to the the ARENA leaders favorite because it is a story of struggle and victory.

In the main office we spoke with Adolfo Torrez, the Director General for the department of San Salvador. He is a well tanned fit man with lots of jewelery and a substantial flashy watch. His demeanor was casual and he often joked with us. But all the while that we were in the ARENA office, a young man of about 6 feet was video taping us and during the meeting with Torrez, 2-3 people were photographing us from ever angle. If one of the group asked a question, the video lens closed in on them and remained there for a disproportionate amount of time.

In the main office the walls are covered with photos of previous ARENA presidents as well as global leaders such as Agusto Pinochet. The ARENA leader who is widely named as the leader of the death squads, D´Aubuisson, was shown in many pictures. Also decorating the room were models of warriors, some fictional such as elf fighters from the Lord of the Rings series, others Roman gladiator types. There were also a number of racks displaying long swords from various cultures.

All of these pictures, model figures, constant videotaping and photographing as well as some sexist remarks created a very tense atmosphere. Of course, that is the intention. ARENA has come as far as they have largely through force and intimidation and even though they claim to be wanting a fair, democratic election, their aggressive platform and continued intimidation techniques suggest it is business as usual.

Our group, consisting of mainly internationals but many Salvadorans discussed the meeting at length afterwards. Emotions ran high as one of the members broke down into tears as she tried to release the stress from the day and express how she would never have felt safe in the ARENA office if she had not been surrounded by our group of supportive, like minded individuals. Other Salvadorans expressed similar cathartic feelings and one Chilean woman told of having to not look at the Pinochet portrait for fear of forgetting her herself and being overcome by her emotions.

I am sure the next time I see the ARENA officials, they will be using the same intimidation techniques but now that I have been into the heart of their operation, I feel I am better prepared to anticipate their actions and steel myself for them.

The media switches gears

March 12/13
We are now in the first days without campaign ads in the newspaper, TV and radio.

I expected it to be quieter but the media has switched gears and rather than official ads for the parties, they now run interviews with ´experts´ who continue the smear campaign against the FMLN by continuing to advance the ARENA party line. Also claiming that ARENA has been in power for 20 years and they have maintained peace and prosperity. They are trying to position themselves as a populist party but a walk past their main office in San Salvador, with its Hummers and luxury sports cars proudly on display, tells a different story.

The newspaper, La Prensa Grafica, although not technically an ad for them, have a large colour picture of an ARENA member in full red white and blue regalia on its cover page. Buried deeper in the paper is a small article quoting FMLN´s secretary of communication, Sigfrido Reyes, denouncement of false DUI cards. DUI (documentos unicos de identidad) are the main form of identification for Salvadorans but many report have been made of fake DUIs being used to generate electoral fraud.

The non partisan television commercials are dominated by the election offices. There is an extensive campaign to educate and remind civilians that Sunday is the day to vote and what items they need to bring with them. The turn out for the January municipal elections was quite low at just over 50%. This low number is being attributed to voter scepticism, dis-interest, and a general feeling from the public that no matter how they vote, it will not matter due to the high level of historical electoral fraud.

Friday night at midnight the country will become (technically) dry. Hopefully the sobre minds will lead voters to a vote for change and away from the corruption that has been rampant for decades.

Last day of Campaigning in El Salvador

Salvador Sanchez Ceren FMLN´s
Vice Presidential candidate

Wed March 11

It is the last day of campaigning and the media has been worked into a fevered pitch. The TV is dominated by smear campaigns from the right wing ARENA party and the newspapers and radio are just as bad. The most popular tactic is to compare a vote for Funes to a vote for Chavez, to say explicitly that FMLN will limit religious freedoms, the remittances from the US and other countries will be discontinued and various other ridiculous and fear mongering charges.

Funes´s and the FMLN´s campaign meanwhile have been comparatively classy. In TV commercials, long shots of children playing and happy workers welcome the imminent change to a left wing government.

News reporters tried to charge FMLN supporters with an attack on a group of ARENA campaigners. A street fight occurred today where rocks were throw from one side of the street to the other. Initial reports said the FMLN had been shooting guns but it quickly came out that no shots were fired. However, the retraction is essentially worthless as once a report of such as gunfire on the streets attributed to one party had been sent out on the air, the desired effect of fear and suspicion is created immediately. No retraction or eye witness accounts can undo damage. These false reports support ARENA´s charge that FMLN supports are gang members and ARENA is needed to maintain the tenuous peace that exists today.

The newspapers, El Diario de Hoy and others, are running full page ads in the form of letters to the readers from concerned citizens. One such letter requested the body of the author´s dead relative to be returned to the family for a proper burial. Although not explicit saying the FMLN were responsible for the death, the right wing controlled media are using deaths from the civil war years as a thinly veiled threat that a change in the governing body may cause the war to start anew.

The city streets are covered in red, white and blue paint and posters for the two presidential candidates. There were other parties with candidates up until a few weeks ago but they have all since dropped out leaving the two main rivals.

The campaign ban imposed for the last three days before an election will cause the parties to be creative. Direct advertising is not allowed but undoubtedly there will be many ways for the parties to maintain their media presence.

El Salvador's bitter sweet Municipal elections

Violeta Menjívar at a campaign rally

On January 18 2009, thousands of Salvadorans headed to the polls in what is set to be a monumental year for El Slavador.

In addition to the January municipal elections, a second vote will take place March 15 for the country’s president. According to all polls, the FMLN’s candidate Maricio Funes is in the lead. If Funes wins, it will be the first time the FMLN will hold the presidential seat as well as the first regime change in over 20 years.

The municipal elections, although bitter sweet, were declared a victory by the FMLN as they increased their number of seats in the National Assembly to 35 out of a possible 84, and will be leading 36 more municipalities, to make a total of 96. Sadly, the capitol city of San Salvador, after a 12 year reign, fell to ARENA. The incumbent Violeta Menjívar lost her position. She was campaigning to the end, even shutting the main intersection of Blvd. Constitucion and Calle San Antonio Abad to throw a New Year’s party complete with multiple music stages, spectacular fireworks, speeches, dancing and general merriment by all. After her speeches that night Menjivar walked through the crowd stopping to shake hands, pose for pictures and answer questions. Her popularity seemed high but San Salvador is just as divided as the rest of the country. So while one area of town was chanting, “Violeta Sigue!” another area was hoping for ARENA to take the city with their mayoral candidate Norman Quijano.

Blanca Flor Bonilla

Also busy campaigning for a mayoral seat was Blanca Flor Bonilla. A long time member of the FMLN, she was running in the municipality of Ayutuxtepeque. Bonilla won her position and will be taking the city’s lead in May when the new term begins. Her plans for the mostly rural city are to create a showcase for eco agriculture. During a strategy meeting with her team, Bonilla explained in her clear, matter of fact way that pollution should not be seen as just damaging the environment, “If it’s bad for the trees it is bad for the people.” While Ayutuxtepeque will undoubtedly gain much having Bonilla as their mayor, after working for the FMLN since 1974, the Party will surely feel her loss.

All eyes are now turning to the Presidential elections which are set to take place Sunday March 15.

Six Nations Standing Firm

(as published in the Fall '08 edition of GlobalAware's Molotove Rag)


It’s been over two years since a group of Six Nations women stood up and put a freeze on the Douglas Creek Estates (D.C.E.), a large housing development on the outskirts of Caledonia, Ontario. A lot of media attention was given to the blockade and to the skirmishes between Native people and area residents that ensued, but the media coverage has dried up over the last year. That’s not because anything has been settled. There is still a blockade, still aggressive towns folk and still many unsettled land claims.

Working a land claim site is a 24 hour a day job, so burn out is a very real concern. Now that the D.C.E. reclamation is in its 30th month, a small group of activists and I decided to visit the site to help keep up the protestors’ moral, show our support for them and hear about their experiences. After contacting a few Six Nations women who are involved in maintaining and organizing volunteers for the sites, we packed up some food and other donations and headed into Haudenosaunee land. With respect for the requested anonymity of all the people we met, names, street addresses and other descriptions have not been included. Six Nations activists live in constant fear of retaliation from angry towns folk, land developers and of groups such as CSIS maintain files on them to be used against them in the future.

The Caledonia area conflict goes back over two hundred years. In 1784, under the Haldimand Proclamation, a fraction of their ancestral land was set aside for the Iroquois people. The land was to be six miles on either side of the length of the Grand River, equalling about 950,000 acres. The government now only recognizes the small Six Nations reserve around Brantford which equals less than 5% of the original treaty land. Revenue from the sale of some of the land and compensation for flood damages caused by the construction of the Welland Canal were to be held ‘in trust’ by the government, but from as early as 1949 (Miller vs. The King) the Six Nations has been filing suits against the government over mismanagement of the funds and land.

Motivated by this mishandling and the lack of signs that anything was changing, the Six Nations women walked into the construction site of the Douglas Creek Estates on February 28, 2006 and halted construction then called for the provincial and federal government to negotiate with the Six Nations’ Haudenosaunee Confederacy chiefs. But despite ongoing negotiations, the OPP launched an early morning attack on the men, women and children who were camped out on the contested land. The OPP began arresting people and attempting to clear everyone off the land. It was a brutal confrontation. People were physically assaulted, pepper sprayed and many were arrested.

A rapid, unarmed response from the Six Nations community flushed OPP snipers back off the land. Hydro poles, gravel piles and tire fires provided road blocks and sent a clear message to the Canadian government, OPP and, by virtue of the extensive media coverage, to all of Canada that land claims can no longer be ignored. The First Peoples have had enough and will no longer be bullied, swindled or buried in bureaucracy.

Since then, the road blocks have been removed and the main street re-opened, but the housing development is still barricaded. On the site there is one structure left standing: the sales tool for the estates, its ‘model home’. The home is now inhabited at all times by Six Nations activists. When we visited, the home held four people and a friendly family of dogs. One man has been at the site since the reclamation began. He greeted us warmly and welcomed the donations we brought. He and the three others told us stories of the April 20 raid and of the subsequent attacks and threats by area residents. Negotiations are progressing slowly. In what seems like stalling tactics, the federal government has repeatedly changed its representatives. But, thanks to donations of furniture, food and other supplies, the model home functions well as both living quarters and a command post, the community is on alert, and our hosts made it clear that they are in it for the long haul.

There are two other sites just down the road from Caledonia. In Brantford, there is a proposed insulation factory and a luxury hotel on the outskirts of the city. In July of this year, Six Nations activists brought construction of the factory to a halt and although the hotel building continues, it is being closely monitored. Currently there are people camped out on these sites, keeping an eye on the activity and reporting back to the Six Nations council.

We met with one man in his tee-pee at the hotel site, then another man at the factory site. Each man shared with us his motivation for volunteering to work the sites. Between jokes and stories of his grandchildren, one of the men explained the Seven Generation idea: all decisions made by the community must always be made with deep concern for the impact they may have on future generations. He told us the environmental devastation that is occurring is wholly irresponsible and unacceptable. When referring to the proposed insulation factory, he suggested that industry clean up abandoned sites at the centre of town, rather than expanding further onto Haudenosaunee land.

Whether a fee and license system or a full scale moratorium is used to control new development, the Six Nations are demanding at least a seat at the table during negotiations. Unlike previous developments on their land, they want to have a say in what goes up and where. Until the day a truly equitable resolution is met, First Nations people will continue camping out and using their bodies to stop further land incursions.


For further reading on the land claim progress, please see:
Mohawk Nation News - http://www.mohawknationnews.com
Turtle Island News - http://www.theturtleislandnews.com
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) - http://ocap.ca/taxonomy_menu/1/11

Roberto Barrio

It was late, not sure how late, but it was totally dark. There was a raging thunder and lightening storm which had knocked out the electricity and the wind was threatening our meagre candle. The pounding rain was making a deafening sound on the corrugated tin roof. Every half hour or so a guard on his rounds shined his flash light into our space, he was checking to make sure no paramilitary thugs have jumped the fence and were messing with us.
It was our first night in Roberto Barrio, Chiapas, Mexico.

I travelled to Chiapas to meet and work along side the Zapatistas. I had read their declarations and essays about their resistance to the forces of neo-liberalism but wanted to learn more about what life ‘on the ground’ was like.

I joined a small delegation of like minded people organized by the San Diego group Schools for Chiapas. We met up in San Cristobal de las Casas, a beautiful colonial town that seems to be a hub for Mexican tourism. Roberto Barrio was our third stop on the two week trip and was the community that had experienced the most oppression from the surrounding paramilitary. The organizers sat us down the night before we headed to Roberto for a serious talk. They explained the situation in the area and told us that under no circumstances were we to go anywhere alone or leave the gated area where we would be staying. We had already spent one and a half weeks meeting and working with Zapatistas in the highlands but those are peaceful communities where Zapatistas and government supporters work side by side. This threat of conflict was new to us but sadly a daily occurrence for the residents of Roberto and many other communities.

Roberto Barrio is one of five Zapatista caracoles; a guarded civilian centre that functions as a safe place for Zapatistas to gather. There are offices of the Good Government (the Zapatista Government that is, not the bad Mexican one), a women’s co-operative store, a dentist, several classrooms and other school buildings, and the place we frequented the most, a small restaurant serving delicious rice and beans. Some families live in the caracole. They are internally displaced people who can not move back to their land due to threats of violence or the destruction of their homes. Living in the caracole is a temporary measure until they can find a community to move into but it’s a safe haven until then.

The Zapatista vision is based on ideals of justice, peace, liberty and democracy and also living in harmony with the earth. Al Gore’s slide presentation would be old news to these folks. Being mainly subsistence farmers, the Zapatistas know first hand the damage chemical fertilizers, pesticides and GMO seeds can do to the environment and are taking steps, independent of the government, to stem the environment’s deterioration.

As well as the people working in agriculture, we met with about 25 women from the women’s co-op (Co-operativa de Mujeres Compañera Lucha) and talked about their history, structure and struggles. The beautiful black bags they embroider with vibrant flowers are sold in a small store outside the gates of the caracole but it’s far from being a tourist destination which means the sales are very low and the women have little revenue coming in to buy basic necessities. Working in the communal structure the Zapatistas have established, is the only way these families can share enough of their resources to continue ‘la Lucha’ (the Fight).

My two weeks in Chiapas gave me a glimpse of the Zapatista way of life and some of the forces trying to end it. It was a beautiful, inspiring and challenging trip that I encourage anyone with a desire for social change to take.