Julio 18, 2007
Proceso 1250

Pending debts and justice

In certain sectors of the Salvadoran society, the year 1992 has been taken as a divider in reference to the reports of the political crimes. For these sectors, the only political crimes that would have to be prosecuted, judged, and punished without any contemplation at all are the ones committed after that year –when the post-war period begins-, while those that were committed before that year would have to be forgiven and forgotten. Without a doubt, the defense of this thesis is not an innocent suggestion: many of those who defend it carry on their shoulders different types of crimes, and some of them can even be described as brutal. In other words, these people would find very convenient not to have to go back and dig into the past, and just keep going in a society with no memory, trapped in the actions of the present. They keep saying that it is not good to open the wounds of the past.
            There are too many traps in the thesis that indicates that in matters of political crime all that counts is what happened after 1992 as to accept it with no questions asked. In the first place, there is the partiality through which the political crimes committed in the post-war are evaluated: through this perspective, the attention is usually focused on the FMLN –from all the kidnappings that the Communist Party has been linked to, to the actions of Mario Belloso-, conveniently setting aside those crimes that have been connected with the State or with the paramilitary institutions (from the murder of Francisco Velis to the death of Francisco Antonio Manzanares and Juana Mojarás de Manzanares, the parents of Marina Manzanare, a.k.a., “Mariposa”). No crime like the ones formerly listed should be tolerated, justified or even ignored as “something that did not happen”. And if those who insist on paying attention only to what happened after 1992 had that wide perspective about the different crimes committed during the post-war period, you could almost believe that they mean well. But their biased attention to only one type of crimes prevent us from taking them seriously, while at the same time this can lead anyone to question why they insist on such perspective.
            In the second place, with the former thesis, they intend to overlook an undeniable reality: the most atrocious political crimes were committed in El Salvador before 1992 and not after that year. This does not mean that the political crimes of the post-war can be easily tolerated. However, the most perverse criminals of the recent history literally did get away with murder during the seventies and the eighties of the last century. They killed, they tortured, they hunted people down, they terrified the population, and they held in their hands immense fortunes out in the open. Most of the crimes committed by these individuals are crimes against the human rights of the people, this is why there is no use in establishing a category with what happened before 1992.
            Everyone knows that the acts of terrorism were mostly committed by agents of the State (members of the former security bodies and the Armed Forces) and by the members of the death squads, although the leftist armed groups were also involved in terrorist acts. All of them have to pay their debts to justice. They also have to deal with the fact that it is a moral duty to admit their crimes and ask for the forgiveness of the victims and the survivors.
            In the third place, the intention of the formerly explained thesis is to guarantee a situation of impunity to those who committed the most unforgivable crimes during the seventies and the eighties. If only the crimes that were committed after 1992 count –and especially those that the FMLN can be blamed for- then the proposal is to forgive and forget those crimes committed before 1992. And this means that those individuals who committed their crimes before that year can sleep with their conscience at ease, waiting for time to go by, and expecting that the victims just forget about their names and their faces.
            It is not by mere chance that, among those who want to severely judge the role of the FMLN during the post-war, there are people who were involved in politically violent actions and that were never judged for that. Many of these criminals are the strongest defenders of forgiving and forgetting. In the end, they are actually trying to avoid punishment and not having to deal with the fact that they owe an apology to their victims. The worst aspect of all this is that many of them have become moralists who keep judging politics and what can be or cannot be tolerated when it comes to the actions of the FMLN.
            This is the case of Joaquin Villalobos, who –with no moral solvency at all- has been talking about the kidnappings that occurred during the first stages of the post-war period in which the structures of the Communist Party were allegedly involved. Villalobos has linked these cases in the present with the actions Mario Belloso. There is nothing to discuss here; however, what does deserve a discussion is the fact that somebody like the former commander “Atilio” (Villalobos himself) is capable to insinuate that the crimes of the FMLN are so critical that the government “could demand from the authorities to end with the legality of the FMLN as a political institution because the FMLN is an armed party, just like it has happened in Spain with those groups that sympathize with the ETA (See J. Villalobos’ article “Belloso, a hero in ARENA”, in El Diario de Hoy 7-11-07, page 22). A couple of aspects have to be questioned here: first, because of what he says. To sustain that the FMLN is an armed party not only puts at risk both the life and the integrity of its sympathizers and its militants, but it also strengthens the authoritarian mechanisms of the State against the sociopolitical opposition.
            In the second place, it is necessary to question these statements because of who is saying these things: Villalobos still has to deal with many issues related to justice in this country, for instance, because of the role he played in the assassination of Roque Dalton; because of his responsibility as the maximum leader of the former Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP) regarding the kidnapping and the murder of Roberto Poma and the assassination of the national guards who were taking care of the Bloom Children’s Hospital when the ERP made public its guerrilla actions; because of the kidnapping of certain mayors during the civil war… Only when Villalobos does accept his responsibility for the crimes he was involved in, then he will be morally able to judge the crimes committed by his former comrades.

 

The elections and the abstention in Latin America
During the last few years, the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIDH, in Spanish), located in Costa Rica, has been developing a research line to study both politics and elections in Latin American. They just presented a report called “Elections, democracy and human rights”, a document that analyzes the situation of the electoral democracies of the region, as well as the state of some of the political rights of the citizenry.
            Once again, this report analyzes the enormous distance between the political parties and the population. Everything indicates that in Latin America these institutions, instead of representing the people, have undermined, through the years, the will of the population with their actions.
            In general, the study indicates that there is a growing tendency towards abstention during the electoral periods. The IDH pointed at the fact that in Latin America, for instance, when comparing the electoral participation level of the eighties with the one of the last years it is possible to see that the abstention levels have increased. From 1981 to 1991 there was an abstention level of 25.03%, while between 1992 and 1996 it increased to 29%, and in the particular case of 2006 the abstention level was 40.74%.
            If we consider that in 2006 alone there were 40 electoral events, the abstention level seem alarming. In fact, El Salvador has one of the lowest levels of electoral participation in the region, a tendency that this country “shares” with Colombia and with Guatemala.
            The report suggests that what is causing this increasing level of abstention is the deficient performance of the political parties, something that would be gradually creating a divorce between politics and society. This is an alarming situation because the political parties are only responding to their own interests rather than to the needs of the population.
            In this sense, because the political parties are the only legitimate representation mechanisms of the people they must fulfill their duties; that is, to take care of the interests of the population and resolve with their power the problems that affect the society.
            On the other hand, the report and those responsible for making it public through the press did indicate that young people are not actively participating in the electoral process, and that this is something that is happening in most of the countries in the region. This lack of interest is reflected not only in the low level of electoral participation but in a generalized feeling of apathy towards politics.

The procedural democracy
The so called procedural democracy has several weak spots in the case of El Salvador:

  1. The failures of the present electoral system, among them, the lack of representation or the saturated representation levels that occur sometimes when it comes to elect the Congressmen, reveals that there is a weak sense of the political representation of the people in this area of the State.
  2. The absence of the necessary reforms able to improve the electoral process, especially in terms of transparency. The country needs to immediately adopt certain transformations, such as the regulation of the political parties, a way to control their campaigns, and an improved analysis of the role of the communication media during the electoral periods, among other aspects.
  3. It is necessary to improve the electoral process itself. On the one hand, through the possibilities offered by the residential vote option, in order to bring the people closer to their electoral rights. With the implementation of this measure, it would be possible to reduce the level of abstention of the citizens and to increase the transparency levels of this process, because these transformations would neutralize several negative actions of the political parties, such as the migration of the voters (they transport the people in order to increase the amount of votes that they could get in certain regions of the country). On the other hand, through the implementation of the institutional reforms in the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE, in Spanish), the leading authority in this field. One of the most important measures should be to dissolve the connection between the political parties and its directive boards. The former electoral events have not only questioned the organizational skills of the TSE and its credibility. This institution has to be able to control its own procedures and the actions of the parties. These tasks will not be successful until while the political parties keep just competing during the elections.
  4. It is necessary to examine the role of the institutions responsible for the delicate procedures, such as the electoral registry and the administration of this information. Most of all, it is necessary to take care of the independency of the institutions, that is, to neutralize the institutional attachments to the political parties, in order to protect the organizations from any sort of manipulations.

The political parties
With the analysis presented by the IIDH, it is also necessary to reflect about the actions of the country’s political parties. The people are usually blamed for their apathy when it comes to their lack of participation in the elections. However, it is necessary to reexamine the available analysis about the abstention factor from the perspective of the performance of the political institutions.
      The political parties keep their distance from the general interests, they take care of their own concerns, and they are incapable of creating a national perspective that allows them to work along with the different political forces.
      From this point of view, the political parties are responsible for their negative image. The proposals launched by the political parties have not been able to resolve the problems of the majority.
In this sense, the apathy of the younger voters could be the result of the political parties’ inability to create projects for this sector of the society. In order to accomplish such task, it is necessary to examine the proposals that the political institutions have prepared for the younger voters, because in this kind of proposals is where they usually discuss the absence of this sector of the population during the electoral events.
      In the specific case of El Salvador, at least the two most important parties            –ARENA and the FMLN- do not include that many references to the situation of young people, and that is probably why these parties do not have much to offer to the younger voters in their governmental programs, at least this is the case of the presidential campaigns of 1994, 1999, and 2004.
                  The measures that the parties present in their governmental plans reveal that youth is usually associated with sports and recreation. In other words, young people are seen as a passive group of actors whose interests only have to do with fun activities. Even if sports and recreation are necessary, the youth also needs social, economic, political, and cultural answers.
      On the other hand, the field of education does appear in the proposals; however, this area is reduced to the possibility of having access to a scholarship, without taking into consideration that it is also important to evaluate the educational trends.
      This traditional approach of the policies or the measures designed for young people do not leave too much room for the participation of this sector in other activities. That is why it is important to wonder what are the political parties willing to do in order to neutralize the feelings of disenchantment of the population as a whole. It seems that the answer to this question is “nothing”, and that is why the gap that separates the political parties from the population will grow wider, unless they make some necessary transformations happen.

 

Other articles featured in this issue of Proceso:

  • There are still no answers for the problems connected with the fuel
  • Acts of terrorism in El Salvador?
  • The IDHUCA Report: To save El Salvador!
  • Document: The results of the investigation prepared by the Legal Tutelage of the Archbishop’s Office in reference to the case of Suchitoto