THE DIFFICULTIES TO FULFILL A PROMISE

WHAT IS THE PLACE THAT THE GANGS OCCUPY IN THE SALVADORAN DEMOCRACY?

There are two kinds of possible answers to this question. From the perspective of most Salvadorans, the politicians of the right wing, and the business elite could respond to this question in a negative manner without hesitating. According to these sectors, it is important to celebrate the idea of a law against the gangs. The Anti-Gang Law was launched about a year ago by former president Flores. Back then, he swore that he would create an environment of tranquility for the honest Salvadorans who were daily harassed by soulless gang members. He promised to gain back the authority over dozens of neighborhoods and communities occupied by them. That is why he decided to send policemen and members of the army to the streets in order to face the incontrollable cancer represented by the gangs.

However, if the opinion of several groups is taken into consideration, the opinion of groups connected with the organizations that defend and promote the human rights (a minority), it would be necessary to condemn the attack against the gangs because what might undermine the construction of a democratic society is not the gang members, but the reaction that the society has before their presence. In this sense, the freedom of the Salvadoran citizens and the principle of equality before the law would be in danger. It is important to get the attention of the society when it comes to this reality because this is taking place in the context of the post-war, a scenery that intended to strengthen the promotion of the human rights. In addition, no one can be too exaggerated when it comes to remind the public memory about the human rights’ issue because the country’s history has been splattered with critical violations to these rights.

In the opinion of those who think that it is necessary to avoid an authoritarian reaction from the society in its struggle against the gangs, democracy is not compatible with the kinds of actions that have been encouraged during the last year. That is why it would be more convenient to raise the voices against the hypocritical authorities that claim that their duty is to defend the freedom of the citizenry, while these freedoms are denied to a sector of the society. In other words, under no perspective someone could accept the fact that the gang members are treated as a second-class citizens.

In this context, it is necessary to reflect upon one fact: what is the kind of society that El Salvador wants to build. There are different kinds of perspectives about the issue of the gangs. There are also several ways to conceive the solution to the problem. However, any debate about this issue should consider the fact that it is necessary to build a democratic society able to respect the rights of the citizenry.

It is evident that the commission (which includes representatives of different sectors of the society) that has been created to validate the performance of the politicians never had enough authority or enough power to discuss the problem of the gangs in all of its complexity. This commission only discussed the type of legal measures that were necessary to efficiently fight against the gangs, avoiding legal abuses that the police and ARENA were willing to commit as long as they were able to arrest those who were identified as a stigma for the society.

About a year ago, the former president, Francisco Flores, widely advertised his crusade against the gangs. Since then, the sectors close to the right wing embrace the cause and began to ask for the head of the gang members. Even if it is true that with the arrival of Antonio Saca, the new President, the media stopped using the same violent tone (as well as some of the columnists) when referring to the gangs, there is still an emphasis on the police’s repressive measures and the need to take the gangs out of the streets at any cost.

The police measures the effectiveness of their performance through the number of arrested gang members. The director of the National Civilian Police (PNC, in Spanish), Ricardo Menesses, when asked to evaluate the performance of his institution during the last year, he said that they did and excellent job. Their success, according to him, is due to the fact that they had arrested 17,162 gang members (9,983 belong to the gang called Mara Salvatrucha; and 7,421 belong to the Mara 18; 73 belong to the Maquina; 173 are from Mao-Mao; and 516 belong to other gangs). The general results of the judicial process indicate that 84% of these cases will be closed because there is not enough evidence to justify the action of justice, 7% of the cases will be provisionally filed, 5% of the cases will be investigated, and 4% will have a court hearing.

The tendency to radicalize the political power, its tendency to follow the problem of the gangs with authoritarian measures, counts with the approval of a considerable amount of Salvadorans. The different opinion polls have revealed this tendency.

In the places that have been more affected by this problem, most of the population celebrated the adoption of the anti-gangs law since the very beginning. That is why the former president claimed that he had originally adopted this plan. The new elected President also used the issue of the fight against the gangs (together with the ghost of communism) as one of the leading themes of his campaign.

The fact that he invited several citizens to speak their minds about the anti-gang law should not make the public opinion forget that he has always said that he supports this law, and that he used this subject for his political campaign. This means that an important sector of the political system does not believe in the need to respect the rights of the Salvadoran citizens. This indicates that when specific political interests are defended, the liberal values can be pushed aside and used, at the same time, as the theoretical foundation of the political commitments. This reality is evident not only if we look back at the electoral campaign of March, but also if we take a close look at the present language used by the leaders of ARENA and the directors of the police. He stated that he would keep arresting gang members regardless of how many times the judges insisted on setting them free for the lack of evidence against them.

A CRISIS IN THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS?

Recently, the director of the World’s Commerce Organization (OMC, in Spanish), Supachai Panitchpakdi, stated that “we all would be poorer” if the last minute attempt to save the present round of negotiations fails. Before this kind of request, the representatives of each country had a meeting to give the first answer to a preliminary agreement sketched by Supachai together with the other leading mediators. The ambassador of Japan, Shotaro Oshima, agrees with Panitchpakdi’s request, and stated that the State members should make every possible effort to establish a pact.

Supachai also mentioned that “the failure (of the negotiations) of this month means that there is an unsuccessful status quo (in the global commercial relations) certainly for the rest of this year and the next, and possibly for the up-coming years”. According to the diplomat, this negative aspect could undermine the trust in the multilateral commercial system, and the countries could possibly turn their backs on the OMC and look “for other ways to establish commercial regulations”.

Because of the numerous obstacles faced by the present process of negotiation that takes place in Geneva, everything seems to indicate that 147 members of the OMC have not recovered from the impact of the failure of the conference that took place in Cancun on September 2003. In order to get over the impasse, the members have agreed on establishing a “route map” for a commercial reform (which has to be ready by August) connected specially with the agricultural and the industrial goods.

The new consensus would try to make the commercial negotiations of the OMC a viable project, because this institution has been affected by the considerable differences between the wealthy and the poor countries, particularly when it comes to the agricultural subsidies. In addition, the agreement guaranties that the negotiators will be able to keep working in the next months, when the governments find themselves involved in matters of internal politics: the presidential elections in the United States and the transformations in the leadership of the European Union.

Cautious Diplomats
The preliminary pact designed by the leading mediators has the goal to convince the poorest countries that they will obtain a considerable cut in the agricultural subsidies (granted by the wealthiest countries), and at the same time, the developed countries will count with open markets for their industrial goods and their services. Inside this context, and for the first time, the European Union would agree to establish a deadline to eliminate its subsidies from the agricultural exports; while other developed states would agree to drastically reduce the aid to the farmers, because according to the less developed countries, they misshape the world’s commerce.

The commercial diplomats showed a certain cautiousness during the development of the conversations held at Geneva; while the representatives of the alliances of the Group of 20 and the Group of 90, which are less developed countries, said that they would only adopt a common position after the meetings planned for July 20th. The Group of 20, leaded by Brazil, India, and South Africa, represents the wealthiest States of the less developed countries, while the Group of 90 includes most of the poorest members of the OMC.

Is free trade fair?
In the context of the present negotiations, there are people who do not agree with the “threatening” bilateral agreements. Especially those agreements promoted by the United States, which have been the target of the critics made by the President of France, Jacques Chirac, the famous economist Joseph Stiglitz, and the organizations that defend the human rights.

In the case of the former organizations, the Center Europe-Third World (CETEM, in Spanish) and the American Association of Lawyers (AJJ, in Spanish) severely criticized the agreements between the nations about free trade and the promotion and the protection of the investments, because they understand that they are “weapons of mass destruction” of the national and the international public rights and the human rights. This declaration made by the institutions of the civil society was presented to the Sub-Commission of Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights, which will meet in Geneva from July 26th through August 13th.

This is how both humanitarian groups will add themselves to what Chirac said in a message addressed to the guests of the 15th AIDS International Conference, which ended by mid July in Bankok. Chirac said that the United States demands that the less developed countries stop manufacturing generic medications against AIDS as a condition to sign the bilateral agreements of free trade. France sustained that such policy goes against the dispositions adopted by the Declaration of Doha about the kind of access that the less developed countries have to that kind of medications. The Declaration of Doha was approved on November 2001, in the Ministerial Conference of the World’s Commercial Organization (OMC), in the city of Qatar.

Joseph Stiglitz, an American economist who worked for the World’s Bank and then as an advisor for Bill Clinton during his administrations (1993-2001), seems to agree with the formerly mentioned ideas.

He said that Washington uses in all of its bilateral agreements its economic power in order to support the actions of the most important pharmaceutical houses to protect its products from the generic competitor. According to the renowned economist, the approximately 2000 bilateral agreements that are in effect world wide are far more harmful for the rights of the people than the international or the regional treaties, whether they are in effect or just initiatives.

Both institutions insisted on the idea that the bilateral agreements are generally the result of “a tactic of the centers that hold the economic and the political power of the world, especially in the United States. This country’s tradition is to negotiate one on one with either the weak or the corrupt governments that are prone to agree with their dispositions”. However, the same thing happens in the regional areas, since the United States has managed to see some forced approvals in the Free Trade Agreement between Central America and the United States (CAFTA), in order to be in a better position to negotiate the ALCA.

According to the director of the AAJ, the questioned agreements are a consequence of the principles of the system of commerce that automatically extend the preferential treatment to all of the members of an agreement, “it allows the free planetary circulation of the neoliberal policies”. Because of that system of “communicating vessels, the national economies are disintegrated and this creates a harmful environment”. The AAJ defines those agreements as “Trojan horses of the international power in a peripheral country and in a sub-region”.

From this perspective, the free trade is an enormous threat, not only an economic threat for those unprotected national sectors, but also for the process of democratic improvement. In the end, this happens because the national policies are subjected to the movements of the most important international companies, and they are the ones that indirectly lead the way of the policies that the less developed countries have to adopt. This means that they overlook what the citizens of every country in particular think. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the national economic policies, and, at the same time, from a social perspective, reestablish the rights of the citizenry.