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Proceso 1122
November 17, 2004
ISSN 0259-9864

Índice

Editorial: Democracy, a third force, and the popular majorities

Politics: Ellacuria and the Coup d’état of 1979

Economy: The economy at the service of the society: the ideas of Luis de Sebastian

Editorial

Democracy, a third force, and the popular majorities

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Politics

Ellacuria and the Coup d’état of 1979

This is the 25th anniversary of the last coup d’état in El Salvador. In November, the country also commemorates 15 years of the time when a commando of the Atlacatl battalion came into the UCA and murdered Ignacio Ellacuria and the Jesuit priests that lived in the same house. Two of their collaborators were also murdered. The civil war became more intense after the coup d’état of 1979; however, it was also the starting point of the Peace Accords. The murder of the Jesuit priests, according to several analysts, weakened the position of the most important people at the moment: the most radical members of the army and the business elite of the right wing. That was why they finally accepted to negotiate the “peace” with the members of the guerrilla. In addition, Ellacuria made the best analysis of the events that surrounded the coup d’état. He tried to understand its contradictions and its meaning for the political conjunction of the moment.

In their proclaim of 1979, the rebel officials, associated with some of the progressive intellectuals, intended to “end with violence and corruption, to guarantee the respect for the human rights, to adopt measures that could lead us to an equitable distribution of the national wealth, and to lead in a positive manner the country’s foreign relations”.

Such an event –it was the first time in the history of the country that a group of military men dared to question the tacit protection pact between the elites and the army- did not count with the approval of the most radical sectors of the armed forces, that is, the officials of the highest ranks who would later take control of their institution. There is no doubt that everything that happened after the coup d’état had a profound effect on the tragic political life of the country. Ellacuria realized this situation from the beginning and indicated that it was necessary to pay attention to this opportunity.

The critical support to the coup d’état
The statement made by the University’s Council of the UCA on November 14th became a characteristic example of the importance that Ellacuria gave to the events of October 15th. This statement explains the reason why these events were crucial. This statement indicates that far from legitimizing the actions of those that participated in the coup d’état and their supporters, what is necessary is to analyze the process itself, and, eventually, pay attention to what the country can get from all this. “The document indicates that the important aspect of this event is that the process is good for the country, and that most people can take advantage of it”.

There is an important relation between the works of Ellacuria and his passion for the population. He clearly indicated what were the needs of the country’s political process. In any case, he explained that his sympathy for the coup d’état had to do with a meticulous diagnosis of the country’s situation at the time. The country seemed at the verge of a greater tragedy if the young military men did not do something to end with violence. And given the incapacity of the masses to lead a popular armed insurrection, the coup d’état was the best way possible to prevent the most recalcitrant sectors of the right wing from exposing the country to a greater tragedy.

In order to do something for the interests of the less fortunate, Ellacuria supported the coup d’état. “Our university will watch the process closely. We are not following the interests of any kind of government, all we want is a qualified government, we want actions that can favor the population. Our compromise is with the whole country, and, given its internal division, that compromise is closely connected with the oppressed population that fights for its own liberation. We will be by the power when the power actually favors the population, and we will be against it when the power betrays the cause of justice and the common welfare”.

Ellacuria was not naïve when he supported the board of government that was created after the coup d’état. He clearly identified the difficulties that he was going to face, to which he had to respond if he wanted to see his political project bloom. “The revolutionary board of government carries –according to the statement made by the UCA- with a considerable ‘mortgage’ of the past, and this is a heavy load to start a new life. A mortgage in the economic, the political, the military, and the public sense. The faster they break up with the methods of the past, the easier it will be to get ahead. It takes actions to achieve something this important, not just images or words. To gain legitimacy and support it is necessary to take action because the legitimacy and the support that the country has had have been implemented by a corrupt regime, a toy of the economically dominant forces”.

Soon, Ellacuria would talk in terms of failure about the new political process. He clearly indicated that the board was a primitive initiative. “After ten months, the present Christian Democratic Military Board and the political project that they represented should be seen as a failure before the problem that the events of October 15th intended to resolve. Their presence is connected with armed forces that have proved that its structure and its configuration definitively have to put an end to this murderous repression. The fact that not one of those responsible for this oppression has been found or punished only goes to show that the present military board does not have the capacity or probably not even the will to break up with the project of the right wing. In these ten months, their performance shows that they do not represent a central political position, because even if their reforms have to do with “the center” their way of administrating the country, which is what gives sense to the reforms, is clearly following the style of the right wing”.

Ellacuria against democracy?
It is convenient to ask this question because the support, although critical, that he gave to the coup d’état has also to be interpreted from a different perspective. In other words, it is necessary to see that Ellacuria was supporting the government that had arrived after the coup d’état against a “democratically” elected administration. The President at the time, General Romero, defeated on October 15th of 1979, had immediately followed the Molina administration (represented by another member of the army allegedly elected by the population). The coup d’état of 1979 broke the chain of presidents that had been elected in a process that involved a fraud. How could Ellacuria approve of such behavior? Does that make him, as his detractors say, a Communist priest that intended to impose the dictatorship of the popular majorities?

Something has already been said about the reasons why Ellacuria supported the coup d’état. Basically with an economic chaos at sight, the political deterioration of the process, and the incapacity of the government to stop the massacres, he thought that an armed intervention could be justified in order to avoid more violence and more deaths, and that, in addition, it would allow the country to follow a new political direction. Perhaps in his support there is the conviction that (according to philosophers and to fathers of the church such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquina) it is a legitimate reaction to reject the actions of the inefficient governments that violate the human rights, or those that are simply incapable to respond to the aspirations of the people”.

In some of the considerations made by Ellacuria about the military insurrection, the former consideration still lives on. In the article “At last, the military insurrection”, there is an explanation that follows this line. “It was evident that the Romero administration was incapable to resolve the country’s tragic situation, which was close to a civil war of fatal consequences… We have been saying this (…) clearly enough. The government was not able to administrate the country anymore, the government acted irrationally and unfairly, the government was practically on his own. In these circumstances, the government lacked not only legitimacy, but its projects were not viable strategies anymore. Inside and outside the country nobody wanted this government. In these circumstances, the insurrection was inevitable”.

No one can say that the Romero administration was a democratic one; it was not even covered by a democratic façade. Even if it was the result of an election process, it was not a clean process; therefore, the candidate of the armed forces was always sure that in the end he would win. That is why it cannot be said that Ellacuria supported a coup d’état against a democratically elected government. In any case, even supposing that there was an actual election process, the social and the economic situation at the moment and the State’s terrorism were enough elements to justify the coup d’état.

The real democracy
The concept of democracy that Ignacio Ellacuria defended goes beyond the formal considerations. The definition according to which democracy is simply a competition between the elites to win the favors of the electorate in order to rule the country was not good enough for Ellacuria. Democracy cannot be just a mere formality. It has to have substantial elements, such as the respect for the human rights, acceptable life standards, and a certain political decency. “In this sense, the elections, the parties, the congress, even the freedom of expression issue, and mobilization are not enough to actually speak about democracy. Especially when all of these aspects are subordinated, not to the respect for the popular will, but to other interests; mostly if these aspects are not absolute values, but relative ones, when the condition is that these ‘values’ do not go against what they actually intend to achieve: to keep the power in their hands and to keep a specific political project going”, Ellacuria said.

On the contrary, the concept of democracy for the people that Ellacuria spoke about, especially for the Salvadoran population, demands a redefinition of the institutional performance and the interests they protect. That is why he spoke about a democratization of the structures. “The democratization of the structures has to do with the abandonment of the North American project” which acts as an obstacle for the independence and the self determination of the country. On the other hand, this democratization requires “the reorganization and the union of the social forces”. It is also necessary that the political parties become part of the democratization process. There will not be an actual democratization process if the institutions that sustain the country’s political life do not become part of it.

The substance that Ellacuria demanded from the concept of democracy was far from what the politicians usually consider as wide definitions that are impossible to achieve. Ellacuria indicated that for a democracy to be considered as such it is necessary that the politicians put themselves at the height of the circumstances. It is necessary that the political and that the economic elites are willing to listen to the demands of the majorities, and are able to sacrifice a portion of their selfish interests.

This idea allows us to discredit the affirmation according to which Ellacuria was a Communist priest that followed the thesis of the FMLN during the war. Nothing could be further from the truth. He even said that the project of the FMLN, which was against the American one during the war, was “not completely democratic; it might be a national and a popular project, but its ideology, its hegemonic tendencies, and its lack of realism are elements that should be subjected to a serious number of corrections”.

The validity of Ellacuria’s political thesis
It is not absurd to declare that the small degree of democracy that we have nowadays is the result, among other reasons, of the sacrifice made by Ellacuria and the other martyrs. In addition, many of his articles, in which he demanded a higher level of democratization for the political, the social, and the economic structures are still valid for today. In order to corroborate this affirmation, all that it is necessary to remember is the idea of democratization that the political parties have, or the need to fight for a national project that considers the aspirations of the population. There are many things that have to be done to achieve an actual political transformation, a dramatic transformation. Ellacuria proposed, among other things, that the society had to participate in the political projects. We are still far from achieving an active participation project for the society. The majority still does not identify itself with the political system. They see it as a distant institution that only looks after the interests of the powerful ones.

What Ellacuria said back in 1979 about the conditions in which a democratization process should develop itself in the country is still an important approach. The behavior of the elites (the ones that belong to either political wings) has not changed even now that the war is over. His perspective about a real democracy is still inspiring. Through the thoughts of Ellacuria, it would be necessary to wonder if the Salvadoran democracy is an open democracy from a social perspective, and if it is educating the citizenry in a responsible manner –involving all of the subjects connected with the civil, the political, and the social rights-; or if it is just another servant, as it was before, of the interests of the financial oligarchy.

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Economy

The economy at the service of the society: the ideas of Luis de Sebastian

During the week that pays tribute to the memory of the martyrs of the UCA, it is important to speak about those people who have dedicated themselves to study the economic problems of Latin America, and, particularly, the problems of the country. One of those people is the economist Luis de Sebastian, who is a renowned author because of his many studies about the Salvadoran economy, in which he always indicates his concern about the social development of the country.

Between 1974 and 1980, Luis de Sebastian worked as a professor of the Economics Department, and as the Academic Vice-rector of the UCA. The role that he played inside the university was crucial since he collaborated with Ignacio Ellacuria with the publication of the theories that became the foundations of this institution in terms of the ideas about the social change that the UCA promoted. To guide this perspective, many people helped in the Board of Directors, in the editors’ council of the ECA magazine, the rectory, both of the vice-rectories, the deans’ offices, the departments’ administration offices, and even those students that identified themselves with the ideal of transforming the UCA into a “university for the social change”. This meant a university to cultivate knowledge: a serious, a responsible university, an institution of research. A university dedicated to study the “national reality”. From that perspective, the academic work of Luis de Sebastian was acknowledged in 1989 with the Honoris Causa Doctorate in Economics, granted by the UCA, a couple of months before the Jesuit priests were killed.

With his work, Luis de Sebastian, indicated that the world’s main economic problem is poverty, and that more than half of the population lives in poverty: “the situation that we call underdevelopment, which is the lack of all that is necessary to subsist with the dignity of rational human beings, has been a normal situation for the people”.

The coexistence of misery and well-being in the same context –in a specific society, or in the world itself- is the worst of the economic problems for our generation since misery and welfare coexist, they do not follow separate ways as two different static situations, they are both a couple of different faces of the same humankind, two phases of a dialectic process that affect each other. Luis de Sebastian stated that some countries need the poverty of other countries in order to keep their own wealth. The poverty of some countries and the wealth of others are a couple of factors based on a group historical causes, common causes. It is the same historical movement, it is the same development process that they follow. This happens because there is only one world and one world’s economy, and, inside it, there are many variables that go against each other, there are many interests in a permanent confrontation, there is a struggle of social levels in different nations and in different sectors of the economic activity. “It is a struggle of social levels different nations nations”.

According to this economist, the problem that cause the crisis in the world, such as inflation, the deterioration of the balance of payments of the United States, and the petroleum crisis, among others, have been the detonators of the Salvadorian crisis due to its dependency of the United States. The free trade, moved by the increasing number of imports, has negatively affected the economic activity. That is because, with the intention of becoming part of the international market, the country has looked for free trade agreements without adopting protection mechanisms for the national producers, that is why they are vulnerable to a loss.

According to Luis de Sebastian, the governments have not been leading an adequate administration of their duties, the authorities in the economic field have not fulfilled their role either, both of them have not been quite able to face the impact of the world´s economic crisis (in matters of an economic policy), and this whole situation has negatively affected El Salvador. In addition, the analysis shown by the Salvadoran economist has been historically defined by the political bureaucracy. From a critical perspective, Luis de Sebastian, has evaluated the influence of the economic policies implemented by the different administrations and their results.

To obtain a larger degree of economic development, is supposed to be the ultimate goal of an economic policy –a steady balance of payments- and both external and internal equilibrium. However, for Luis de Sebastian this is only an utopia, because, actually, the achievement of any of this objectives is incompatible with the achievements of the rest. And since the three of them will not be fulfilled, it must be decided which one will prevail, and which one should be sacrificed. In the opinion of De Sebastian, the economic authorities have sacrificed a great deal of development and employment possibilities in the areas of the external and internal equilibrium. At this point, a clear example of the bad administration of the economic policy is that by the end of the sixties, the fiscal accounts reflected a budget surplus of almost $40 million, while the prices did not increase, and the balance of payments reflected a deficit of almost $4 million. This meant that, at the time, a perfect interior balance was achieved as well as an acceptable external balance in spite of the unemployment level and the reduction in the growth rate of the economy.

According to Luis De Sebastian, the economics policies used by the end of the seventies, were not the most suitable ones. He thinks that “the use of the instruments of the economic policy to heal a deficit of the balance of payments has a theoretical justification when the deficit is being financed with a policy of inflation; however, when there is no inflation as we know it, and the deficit, which is being financed because of the lack of accumulation of private monetary balances, is the consequence of overvalued currencies, the economic policy is not the specific instrument of intervention in this case, because it will not be able to fulfill such task by paralyzing the general economic activities.” At the same time, the surplus of 1967 ands 1968 was a scandalous event for the fiscal policy because it was not positive for the economy. If the currency policy is severe, then the fiscal policy has to be light. If both of them are severe, the income’s growth is repressed, as it was in the case of the years that were formerly considered.

As for the commercial policy, “a moderate deficit of the balance of payments could actually not be bad as long as this deficit is caused by the purchase of equipment of capital, basic supplies for the industry, and semi-processed goods; in other words, it has to be an input for production. From this perspective, it is a deficit that will bring development, a debt for the future, an investment that could change the comparative advantage system, the pattern of exports, and in that manner eliminate a future deficit.” For Luis De Sebastian to have attacked the deficit with the reduction of the economic activity in the sixties was “to choose a stable condition at the expense of the movement that development supposedly brings, and at the expense of a full employment policy.”

The economic mistakes made by the different administrations by the end of the sixties and by the early seventies allow to conclude that the problems that the country has now are “the historical result of the inadequate manipulation of the economic policies applied by the governments in times of crisis.” Policies that have been mainly aimed towards the external debt, a situation that has complicated the country’s economic condition, the cost of the slow economic growth of the last decade. According to De Sebastian, one of the most critical economic problems of the underdeveloped countries is the incompatibility between development and balance, that is the uneven distribution of the income. De Sebastian indicates that “a distribution that concentrates a substantial amount of income in just a few hands becomes an obstacle for the development process creating a lack of equilibrium in the balance of payments. That is why all the external aid should have a distribution objective, making sure that the assistance is in fact an income transference between the wealthy and the poor.”

A committed professional
In the academic field, Luis De Sebastian made an effort to educate committed professionals. In 1980, he published in the ECA Magazine an article that should be known by the new generations of economists, titled “The Economic Science, is it a science or a technique?” In this article, he sustains that an educated economist should not be guided only by the technical and the analytical instruments of his profession. He also has to have a historical background, he has to understand the political and the social situation that the country is going through in order to make a diagnosis and a responsible implementation of the economic policy.

This article was interesting because of the conjunction of the country at the time. The effect of the civil war was already evident, and, in this mélange of events, many economists and sociologists did not know what was supposed to be the adequate political position and if that would be against their “technical-intellectual” knowledge. De Sebastian indicated that “at the moment, the professional people felt that they have to define themselves politically, it is urgent to determine if the economic sciences can be politically neutral”. In this article, he concludes that the political aspect is logical and empirical before being technical, therefore, ultimately, the technical aspects should be subordinated to the political ones.

The former ideas are still valid. Today, there are many “technical” new professionals who forget that economics is a social science, and that, as such, there are certain elements of the reality that can not be quantified. However, De Sebastian also admits that the technical dimension of economics is important, nevertheless, this dimension should not be the ultimate goal. The objective of economics is to respond to specific problems: “to be at the height of the historical circumstances we need good economists, technical ones as well as political ones, and a better interaction between both groups…”

In 1979, he wrote another article called “towards an economic theory of liberation,” which is also important to understand the present context. This one explains that an economist or any other professional of the social sciences should not understand the term “underdevelopment” exclusively as a group of quantitative variables that are under the acceptable levels: the rate of illiteracy, the GNP, or the growth of the products per capita, among other factors. It is necessary to understand underdevelopment better to admit that it is a problem that has become a structural conflict in the history of a country or a region. Therefore, the social and the economic analysis should consider those historical facts that shaped the situation of these countries.

De Sebastian sustains that to build an economy of liberation one has to be careful enough not to sacrifice the evident realities of the society because “one has” to count percentages and data. The society is divided in social levels and there is a property regime. It is necessary to consider the most decisive elements of reality, even if these can not be quantified. A model of liberation in this sense is more than an economic model, it goes beyond relations that can not be quantified, and it should always have a strong political context just like the martyrs of the UCA, De Sebastian mentioned that the professionals of the social sciences should always be aware of what is going on and discover what are the mechanisms of the oppressive power from an academic perspective, from the perspective of research in order to perform a responsible scientific investigation. He indicated that the economists should consider something that is generally overlooked in their field: “the economic models do not consider the distribution of the income, redistribution is usually overlooked and it is not consciously seen as an instrument of economic policy. Because of this, no one usually determines a redistribution of the final income as the objective of a model.”

Luis de Sebastian did not only spoke about this issues in class or in his writings, he also faced the government when it was necessary. In one of his articles, in which he discussed the crisis of the 80’s, he explains that the emergency plan to reactivate the economy would not resolve the social or the economic problems of the population. In addition, as it also happens now, he indicated that those who rule the country do not admit that all that happens with the economic apparatus is structurally connected with the political context. Due to that lack of vision, the national emergency program would not succeed. That was exactly what happened: the plan to reduce the negative growth rates of the economy failed during the early 80’s.

Last September, the UCA counted with the presence of Luis De Sebastian. In his speech he referrer to the role that the UCA should play in the society. His dissertation was inspired in the words of Roman Mayorga Quiroz, a former rector of the UCA: “A university for the social changes.”

According to De Sebastian, the UCA should promote a kind of knowledge able to transform reality. It is not only about contemplating reality or just about protesting about it. This is about taking charge, academically speaking. In order to act upon reality, it is necessary to consider some of the main features of our society: inequality and injustice. In this struggle, the university should reject violence and always try to establish a dialogue, it should be a promoter of professionals that are faithful to the national reality. This means to put oneself in the place of the less fortunate, and understand reality from that perspective.

In the search for the truth, the university should cultivate a knowledge about El Salvador. The easy tasks should be avoided, that which is obvious, rhetoric, and demagogy; it should work with the method of scientific knowledge along with the rules of research. The UCA should have a serious and a profound knowledge of the national reality in order to affect it.

One of the examples that the future professionals of UCA should have is the life and the works of Luis De Sebastian and his knowledge in the technical dimension of the economy. He did not limited his vision of reality and this led him to undertake a committed intellectual activity, denouncing the abuse of power in society. All of his technical knowledge was not an obstacle for his accurate political vision, a vision through which he was able to foresee many of the situations that the country would have to face in the future.

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