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Proceso 1119
October 27, 2004
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: A name for the history of infamy
Politics: A precedent for next electoral campaigns?
Economy: The new fiscal reform
A name for the history of infamy
History, understood as the narration and the explanation of
the past, usually has two faces: the official history, that is, the history of
the governmental administrations, woven with facts and events that legitimize
the established power; and the unofficial history, that is, the history of those
who have acted against the established power, those who have questioned it and
rebelled themselves against that power. Another way to talk about to this
ambivalence of history is the one that establishes the distinction between the
history of the winners and the history of the defeated ones: generally, the
official history is elaborated by those groups and individuals that have become
the “winners” of the most critical social conflicts. In other words, the
official history is the history of the winners; the defeated ones -the victims
of power-, usually do not have a history of their own, and some of them can
barely vindicate an underground presence in the collective memory. Therefore,
the defeated ones are not only subjected to the official power, but are also
condemned to be forgotten.
The contrast between the "official history" -the history of the winners- and the
"unofficial history"
-the history of the defeated ones- can be seen from another perspective: the
history of infamy versus the history of decency and heroism. There is no doubt
that real historical processes are woven with infamy, decency and heroism. The
specific individuals that participate in those processes can more or less be
infamous, decent or heroic, depending on the role that they play, their
attitudes and the values they defend.
Yet, there are personalities that become sort of role models, on the one hand,
of infamy; and, on the other hand, of decency and honor. When those individuals
that personify infamy are part of the winners, their conduct and their infamous
attitudes are integrated to the official history, becoming part of what can be
called the "history of infamy", through which the dirty and the despicable
matters, because they degrade the fundamental human values, are seen as an
example. Through this procedure, the winners destroy the memory of those
personalities that, because they have belonged to the side of the defeated ones,
are a model of honorability and decency, in the sense that they have dedicated
their lives to defend the human dignity and justice.
Roberto D'Aubuisson is part of the history of infamy in El Salvador. Whether he
shot a weapon against some opponent of the left-wing or not, or if he ordered
someone to do that for him, his anti-communist speeches and his accusations
against certain political figures were translated into persecution and death.
D'Aubuisson defamed, threatened, blamed and denigrated defenseless people who,
later on, were insulted; their dignity did not matter for those who unfairly
accused them. At least during the first half of the Eighties, he was the flagman
of the extermination of the Communists. During those years, the country lacked a
democratic system, a power scheme that revolved around ARENA predominated –and
he was at the head of it, naturally-, and it excluded those –among them the
Christian Democracy- that demanded an economic, a social, and a political
restructuring of El Salvador. To make D'Aubuisson the father of the Salvadoran
democracy is one of the aspects of that history of infamy that the Salvadoran
right wing has been building since ARENA became part of the national political
life, he acted as the privileged spokesman of the country’s most powerful
sectors and their interests.
It is necessary to give D'Abuisson his true place in the history of El Salvador:
he was a fanatic anti-communist, responsible -along with others- for a hatred
that turned itself into pain and death for thousands of innocent and defenseless
Salvadorans. During a considerable portion of the Eighties, his dream was to
destroy the actual or the presumed Communists, not to compete in an election
process. In these years –the ones with the highest levels of violence and
paramilitary terrorism- the commitment of D'Aubuisson was not in favor of the
votes and against the bullets, but on the contrary: bullets were essential and
votes were merely “the necessary evil”. It is not necessary to forget these
events to give D'Aubuisson a place of his own in the history of the Salvadoran
infamy.
As a counterpart to that history of infamy, it is necessary to remember the
names and the contribution of those that are part of the history of decency and
honor. They belong to this history by their own right; men like Óscar Arnulfo
Romero and all those that were willing to give their lives for a society with
more justice. All of their names are part of history; names that have to be
remembered and honored, because they are a role model of decency and respect for
the dignity of humankind.
Definitively, something like this cannot be said about D'Aubuisson. To say that
he is a role model is to say that hatred, fanaticism and denigration are
positive features. No one with the slightest amount of rationality, not to
mention decency, can sustain such an aberration. The best thing of D'Aubuisson
-what the right wing values the most about him- represents everything what the
Salvadorans should not be if trying to live in democracy. His name is a name for
history, indeed, but for a history about which all Salvadorans would have to
feel shame for. That shame does not go away no matter how much some people
intend to see D'Aubuisson like a man who suffered because of his ideals -the
victims of its fanaticism suffered more-. No matter how hard some people try to
write the history of infamy declaring themselves the victims of an orchestrated
plot prepared by those who have the intention to prevent the vindication of the
presumed heroism of D'Aubuisson.
A precedent for next electoral campaigns?
The electoral campaigns in El Salvador after the Peace
accords generally are used by the right wing to set a record before the society
about their hatred against the left wing. The loss of prestige of the political
leaders of the latter has been the key element of the right wing’s propaganda
strategy. When mailboxes with weapons are not discovered, allegedly hidden to
return to the civil war, the left wing is usually linked with the levels of
violence and kidnappings in the Salvadoran society.
During the last elections, the “discredit” strategy reached a paroxysm of hate.
Before the possibility of a triumph of the left wing party, the right wing took
out a complete arsenal of low blows. While their candidate spoke about the need
to reach agreements and the need to bury the past, an alleged organization for
the defense of freedom that felt threatened with the “situation”, through its
founder Rafael Menjívar, was in charge "to reveal" the communist and the
"undemocratic" past of the FMLN’s candidate.
On October 22nd, a court of San Salvador announced the decision to condemn
Rafael Menjívar because of calumny and the illegal use of the image of the
FMLN’s political leader, Schafik Handal. It is necessary to pay attention to
these news, and not to see them as just another list of common facts, because it
brings us back to the debate about the recent electoral campaign. A case of
defamation would have been unnoticed by most of the citizens if there was not a
trial between the leader of the FMLN -famous for being the target of all the
attacks launched by the right wing- and an enigmatic character, Rafael Menjívar,
who came out of the blue and played a starring role during the last presidential
campaign.
In the middle of the electoral campaign, the former candidate that ran for
president representing the FMLN filed a demand against Menjívar, and now the
judicial power is the that has to solve the case. In the beginning, the Attorney
General, Belisario Artiga, did not seem to be very excited with the subject.
After several months of distortions and a reprimands of the Supreme Court of
Justice because a fair trial was being denied to a citizen, in the end the case
was presented before the courts. Although the efforts of the Attorney General’s
Office to bury the case were vain, no one will ever know which was the
definitive impact of this subject on the public opinion. It is not the same to
see the trial take place six months after the elections, with the President
solidly and positively placed in the public opinion polls.
In any case, the press paid a great amount of attention to the opinion of Handal
against its detractor. Although, as it usually happens in the country, the mass
media did not know or they did not want to value in its right dimension the
implications of the decision of the court. Some were just there to announce the
news. Others, presented the information as if it was a trivial subject, without
any political importance for the present Executive power. Others tried at the
moment to connect the answer of the judges with the freedom of expression
subject that is being discussed, due to the presence in the country of the
authorities of the Inter-American Press Society.
The FMLN celebrated the decision of the three judges who saw the case like a
victory over a weak electoral system, a system with deficiencies that would have
put the presidency of the Republic at risk. A press release of the left wing
party does not leave any room for doubts: "For the FMLN, the sentence of
Menjívar is a precedent that will contribute to clean the future electoral
campaigns and to preserve the free character of the vote. It is an evidence of
the fact that the votes in favor of ARENA were not legitimate. Under the
enormous and the saturated propagandistic campaign of lies and fear based on a
considerable number of calumnies, there were no free votes as it is established
by the Constitution". In addition, the left-wing party clearly knows that
Menjívar "is an ordinary name ‘lender’ that, throughout the development of the
trial and until the sentence, was there standing alone and abandoned by ARENA,
the institution that hired him in the first place for this sample of a criminal
conduct".
However, for the right wing, the reaction about the decision of the justice
system is seen from a different perspective. Some even dare to speak of a
violation to the freedom of expression rights of the citizens. They would see in
the decision of the court a perverse act against the liberties in the country.
In the opinion of a congressman from ARENA, "this verdict could limit the
possibilities that the citizens have to criticize the actions of the public
officials who represent them". In addition, ARENA has tried to avoid any sort of
connections with Rafael Menjívar.
As for the interpretations of the right wing about the judicial decision, it is
convenient to notice those that wanted to connect this event with an alleged
attack -in this case, it would be the left wing in conspiracy with some judges-
against the freedom of expression or things of the sort. In this case, such
freedom was not the point. The role of the media was not being examined during
the campaign against Handal that the right wing launched during the last
electoral campaign. Perhaps, in any case, it would also be convenient to say
that not always the accusations against either the news media or a journalist
are an attack against the freedom of expression. Too many times the
constitutional precepts about the innocence of the people are overlooked in the
local mass media.
About the sentence of Rafael Menjívar, although the judges did not make
reference to it in their verdict, there is no doubt that their decision has to
do with the role played by the Electoral Supreme Court in the last campaign for
the presidential elections. At the same time, the sentence indirectly affects
the image of ARENA, because Menjívar produced his advertising spots on behalf of
this political party. In this sense, Handal got what he wanted in his intention
to denounce the legitimacy of the political process and question the election of
Saca. That is why the leaders of the FMLN are right when they say that "the
sentence against Menjívar is a clear message for those who, for money, lend
their names to slander others, and for those that, going against the truth, use
freedom of expression to lie, to calumniate and to manipulate the thoughts of
the Salvadoran people".
The sentence of the court cannot only be interpreted as a verdict connected with
just one person. In the end, it was all the political system, in reference to
the electoral matters, that was being judged and that would have to be reviewed
in the future. Indeed, it seems that the message has not reached its destiny. An
analysis about the reactions of the right wing allows to come to this
conclusion. However, also the judges have not quite acted according to their
roles. The sentence against Menjívar was a good opportunity to reveal the
behavior of the political actors and the media during the electoral campaign. It
is not possible to forget that, even the day of the elections, several news
media were broadcasting messages connected with the electoral propaganda, a
clear violation to the legal dispositions in the matter. Since the verdict does
not refer to the role played by the mass media in the process, it is difficult
to think that the sentence will become a precedent for the future electoral
campaigns.
Perhaps, indeed to avoid these connections, several news media rushed and
interpreted the decision of the judges as an alleged attempt against freedom of
expression. Shielding themselves in this freedom, they are willing to step on
the most elemental legal dispositions. From this perspective, the Menjívar case
soon will be forgotten, and it will not have an effect on the next electoral
process. In the end, some people will keep thinking that, in the battle against
the left wing, all the low blows are allowed as long as these “strategies”
remain as the tool to control the political power.
The new fiscal reform
For weeks they have been announcing a fiscal reform. After
several years, the government has realized that it is crucial to obtain more
resources to face the considerable amount of needs that the population has. This
reform in question is aimed to increase the collection of taxes as a proportion
of the GNP. With this, the government intends to fulfill the electoral promise
of giving to the social policies the importance that they deserve.
In this sense, the design and the implementation of this reform are important
steps for this administration, because it is a mechanism that has to be
encouraged in order to fulfill the promises made during the campaign.
On the other hand, the FMLN also realizes that it is necessary to make a reform
in the area of the public finances. The opposition proposes a series of measures
to obtain more funds for the society. Unlike the government, the left wing party
is against a fiscal reform seen exclusively from an administrative perspective
-which basically consists on the restructuring of the laws connected to the
legal, the financial, and the bureaucratic procedures -. More than that, it
intends to alter the fiscal structure of the country. In other words, while the
government focuses the reform on the perspective of the financial proceedings,
according to the FMLN, it is necessary to dramatically affect the taxation
structure.
The new fiscal reform
After a long process of examination of the fiscal laws, the Ministry of Hacienda
(Internal Revenue Service) and the Legal Secretariat of the Presidency recently
presented the reform proposal. The project contemplates to examine the Penal,
the Tax, and the Procedural Penal codes, as well as the Laws of the banking
system, the income tax and the simplification of the customs’ law, among others.
The objective is to increase the revenue by fighting the fiscal evasion, the one
of the private companies as well as the one committed by regular business
owners.
Here are some of the measures that will be taken into account to punish the
fiscal evasion. In the first place, the General Directorate of Internal Taxes
will have access to the banking information in order to know how solvent the
clients are. On the other hand, the financial institutions also will have to ask
for an income tax declaration before granting any loans.
The second measurement is connected with of the combat against contraband. The
Ministry of Hacienda will be able to use undercover agents to investigate and to
successfully obtain evidences of this crime, a crime that will be punished with
six to eight years of prison. This way, the customs’ infractions will be
avoided.
In addition, the State Treasury will be able to freeze the banking accounts of
the people that do not pay on time, and the Attorney General’s Office will have
the power to immobilize the account while the judicial procedures last. It will
also be obligatory to present a solvency document issued by Hacienda in order to
obtain a driver’s license, to bid at a State’s level, and to run for public
positions.
Nevertheless, in the mean time –also under a presidential order, according to
what the reform contemplates- a law of incentives will be placed and it could
last for three months for all those companies and people that have not paid
their debts on time; the goal is to update their tax declarations.
These measures do not count with the approval of all the sectors. Gerson
Martinez, president of the Hacienda Commission and the Special Budget,
questioned the "tax amnesty" measure. The legislator laments the position of the
Government, because for him, this is a pact behind the backs of all the
contributors: "this does not seem correct to us, to say that they are ending
with the evasion of taxes and that an amnesty for some people is already being
negotiated".
Martinez adds that by virtue of this law the debt of hundreds of tax evaders
will be pardoned, and this contradicts the promises to control those people that
do not pay their debts or those who do not pay their taxes. He also indicated
that "such proposal, which has remained as a project for so long, is being
negotiated with certain groups of power. It is not a pact with the regular
business owners, nor with the contributors; is not a pact with people: it is a
pact with the sponsors of the presidential administration".
In this same line, there seems to be a certain tension between the Executive
power and the business sector. "This is only a patch to administer a crisis",
stated Roberto Rubio, an analyst and the president of the Foundation for
Development (FUNDE).
Different opinions stand out inside the members of the business unions, and some
people think that in the Presidential House they are just covering the gaps
through which, for decades, the public State Treasury has been bleeding. And
they know that some wounds have been closed but that others remain open. Just in
reference to the income taxes, approximately $150 million are not collected
every year because of the evaders, and as far as the Value Added Tax (IVA, in
Spanish) is concerned, other $300 million are not being collected. If the
multiple mechanisms of tax evasion are added (legal deductions to the payment of
the income tax), the figures go beyond $660 million per year, and even so, the
private sector itself admits that "those numbers do not even begin to represent
the problem of tax evasion".
However, the defenders of the fiscal reform affirm that, in the words of the
former minister Eduardo Zablah Touché "as far as it can be possible, we will
reduce the amount of cunning people and their dirty tricks". "We have the water
up to our waist, and with this [ the fiscal reform ] we will prevent it from
reaching our neck", adds Carlos Acevedo, the former adviser of the Salvadoran
Foundation for the Economic and the Social Development (FUSADES).
With that goal, the Government will count with the basic mechanisms to face the
payment of the retirement pensions and the national debt, to take care of the
budget expenses, and to finance some of the social programs; however "this will
not work miracles with the reactivation of the public investment", according to
the ANEP.
On the other hand, certain organizations have more demands for the country. The
Inter-American Development Bank (BID, in Spanish) and the World Bank (BM, in
Spanish) are responsible for a number of studies that recommend to increase of
the IVA, by at least 2% of the GNP, to create new taxes, and to appraise the
financial transactions. The Executive power has chosen prudence.
Several considerations
When speaking about the fiscal reform, it is necessary to previously evaluate
the fiscal policy in question. In the last years, several studies have confirmed
that the country has a regressive fiscal structure. There is a considerable gap
between the groups that get most of the national income and those that do it in
a much smaller degree. In theory, the latter do not have to be necessarily poor
to go through this problem. Even if that happened -which is not the case- this
taxation structure reproduces differences, and in a country that aspires to
become truly democratic and count with a considerable number of opportunities,
these obstacles would have to disappear.
The test of those differences can be found in the Report of Human Development,
El Salvador 2003. This document indicates that the social differences created
because of the income level have been intensified. It seems peculiar that
something like this can happen when the government has insisted during the last
fifteen years on the idea that the country’s level of poverty has decreased
since 1992. The government’s discourse is that "the statistics confirm it". But
the statistics also confirm that the national income distribution level remains
unequal, the gap between the poorest groups and wealthiest ones is extremely
deep.
A fiscal reform that intends to be equitable, that is, that tries to prevent the
intensification of the differences, must necessarily touch the interests of
those that obtain greater benefits from the economic activity. In a society, the
benefits of this activity are not equal because in order to obtain them it is
important to consider at least a couple of aspects: the particular capacities of
each individual, and the material conditions available. All people should at
least be able to have certain material conditions that could allow them to count
with a starting point.
There will always be those who are against the search for the conditions that
could provide people with a certain material equality, because the former feel
that such actions interfere with their economic interests and their privileges.
For that reason, this week, the ANEP as well as the editorialist of El Diario de
Hoy were cautious before the measures that the State Treasury intends to
implement. It is true that a high fiscal pressure can create economic problems
in reference to the departure of funds and the loss in the concession of loans,
among other things. But it is also important to see that all the economic
activities that involve taxes will be able to generate new sources of income to
the State. With this, the welfare of the population could really be improved for
many Salvadorans, through the creation of external economies -better conditions
regarding health, education and the environment, the factors that would increase
the productivity level-.
The political parties and the different sectors from the society must create an
efficient and an equitable fiscal pressure (that does not decelerate the
economic activity, strongly reducing the process of accumulation of capital). It
is important that all the sectors of the society participate in this project:
those that have more, must somehow sacrifice themselves more than those that are
less fortunate. Why must all people be sacrificed in the same degree, if in the
last years the economy has not delivered similar benefits for all?
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