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Proceso 1129
January 19, 2005
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: The thirteen years of the Peace accords
Politics: The beginning of an uncertain year
Economy: The economic situation thirteen years after the Peace Accords
The thirteen years of the Peace accords
The Peace Accords were signed 13 years ago (January 16th ,
1992). That interval of time allows us to seriously analyze the achievements of
the Peace Accords as well as its limitations. This balance has to question, on
the one hand, all of those interpretations that have read and that still read
the Peace Agreements as an unimportant matter, and even as a backward movement
in the history of El Salvador; on the other hand, it also has to question all
those interpretations that have seen in the Peace Accords the greatest
accomplishment of the Salvadoran population. Thirteen years later, both
positions are plainly revealed for what they are: biased interpretations and not
very objective views.
In order to come closer to the actual meaning of the Peace Accords, it is
necessary to take a closer look at its most important achievements.
1. The civil war ended. No one will be able, ever, to say how good it was for
the society to end with the civil war.
2. The Armed Forces were depurated and now they are no longer a part of the
political life.
3. The FMLN dissolved the guerrilla structure, and it became a legally
established political party.
4. The Office for the Defense of the Human Rights and the National Civilian
Police were created.
5. The reform process of the judicial system began.
All of these important achievements would be unthinkable without the Peace
Accords. All of these achievements were fundamentally political, and have been
the key to keep, for thirteen years and with all of the problems that come along
with it, the incipient Salvadoran democratic order. The Salvadoran democracy can
be as weak as anyone might think it is, but it surely would not even exist if
the Peace Accords had not ended with the war, if they had not depurated the
Armed Forces, and allowed the conversion of the FMLN into a political party.
However, the problem is that it is not enough to make political achievements to
create more of a democratic and an equitable a social reorganization for most of
the Salvadorans. Those who signed the Peace Accords knew this, judging by the
content of the documents. The document clearly states that the political reform
was the first step to build a different society, different from the one affected
by the civil war; the second step had to lead to an economic reform. How to take
this step? What were going to be the mechanisms and the institutions involved?
What was the expected economic model? These questions do not have a clear answer
in the Peace Accords, and that is simply because the economic reform was just an
insinuation. The bet of those who signed, mainly those from the FMLN, was that
the adequate conditions for this would develop themselves later on -once the
political reform would take place- in order to approach the subject of an agreed
economic model compatible with the needs of the population. That “later” never
came; the insinuated aspects of the economic reform in the Peace Accords were
systematically eliminated from the agenda, and they were just forgotten. The
euphoria for the political profits in the Peace Accords has been, partially, the
reason why the economic reform was forgotten. The ARENA administrations are also
responsible for all this –especially the administrations led by Alfredo
Cristiani and Armando Calderón Sol- and did everything they could to proceed
without following the economic demands approached in the Peace Accords.
Yet, even if the economic reform was in the background, it has its roots in the
Peace Agreements. Leaving it for later, as something derived from the political
reform, was a terrible mistake committed by those who, when signing the Peace
Accords, had the intention to build a different society.
The FMLN is partially responsible for the fact that a new and fairer economic
model was not discussed from a serious and an analytical perspective at the time
that the Peace Agreements were negotiated. To have delayed this discussion
proved to be an erroneous decision, because such discussion never took place.
ARENA and the business elite took advantage of the vulnerability in the economic
matters included in the Peace Accords: an inarticulate model divided in three
sectors that has only favored a small group of people.
When the Peace Accords were signed no one detected the terrible mistake
committed by the FMLN. In the discussions held with the government, the FMLN was
seen at an equal level, an institution able to paralyze the country, an
institution that had to be part of an agreement. It had both territorial and
military power; in fact, the best aspect of the political reform cannot be
understood without the capacity that the FMLN had to make a military political
pressure. The FMLN was never in better conditions to conceive, articulate, and
execute the political reform along with the economic one. However, they
approached these subjects as a couple of parallel realities, not as a couple of
realities that had to be blended together.
As a result of all this, we not only have an extremely weak democracy, always
threatened by the lack of governance, but also an economic model that, through
the exclusion and the poverty that it creates, undermines and debilitates the
advances of democracy. In other words, we have the consolidation of an economic
model that, far from being coherent with the political achievements of the Peace
Accords, it is actually a threat for such goals. This is the drama of El
Salvador: a violent peace prevails, not the violence of the war, but the
violence of poverty, the exclusion, and marginalization. There are reasons to
celebrate the 13th Anniversary of the Peace Accords, but also there are reasons
to complain for losing a great opportunity -to build a new socioeconomic order-
because of the myopia and the ambitions of those who time and time and again had
proclaimed not to be interested in anything but the well-being of the
majorities.
The beginning of an uncertain year
The year 2005 appears as a year full of uncertainties, a
year that comes along with the threat of repeating the state of political
anxiety that we lived throughout 2004. Once again, the background is formed by
the confrontations between both of the most important political parties. The
negative situation between ARENA and the FMLN in reference to the approval of
the General Budget of the Nation is just a symptom of a complex crisis, which
should lead us to seriously analyze the performance of the political system.
The wear-and-tear strategy of the adversary
At this point the results are evident. ARENA would have preferred to buy the
will of a couple of congressmen from the FMLN, instead of negotiating with the
leaders of the left wing party. The fact that these organizations are incapable
of talking about the best mechanisms to finance the expenses of the State for
this year has definitively to do with the pre-electoral conjunction. Inside the
official party, they seem to believe that the discredit campaign will end up
with the image of the FMLN, whose leaders are presented as extremists who try to
sabotage the genuine actions of the Executive power. At least that is how the
government’s spokespeople have referred to the situation time and time and
again, when they have explained their differences with the left-wing.
The president’s team believes that a good part of the population approves of the
performance of the Saca administration. In fact, according to the last poll
conducted by the Institute of Public Opinion of the UCA (IUDOP, in Spanish),
more than 55% of the population thinks that the president is adequately
administrating the country. According to the survey, "the Salvadorans described
the performance of the government with a 6.76, in a scale from 0 to 10. It is
important to indicate that this amount is superior to the one obtained by Flores
by the end of 2003". In reference to the promise made by the government about
improving the social situation of the country, 45% of the population considers
that Saca is fulfilling it; 27.3% thinks that his administration is only
partially fulfilling it, whereas only 26.8% of those interviewed declared that
the president is failing to fulfill his campaign promises.
In summary, the strategy of wearing down the image of the left-wing party has
been about connecting the behavior of the leaders from the FMLN with their lack
of sensibility towards the demands of the country. And they expect that the
level of acceptance that the president counts with before the public opinion
will be enough to discredit the members of the FMLN. This way, ARENA would be
making sure that the party will have a good performance in the next elections.
In this line, the right wing bet is placed in a constant wear-and-tear of its
main opponent, as a mechanism to force the approval of the budget. As for the
rest, many easily realize -in a clear authoritarian option- that the Executive
authority has the last word on the State’s expenses and other elements of the
political life.
Everything seems to indicate that it will be very difficult for the FMLN to
convince the public opinion about the fairness of their skepticism. In the first
place, the left-wing party was not convincing enough when speaking about the
reasons why it was against the plan of expenses designed by the Council of
Ministers. Secondly, it did not present an alternative plan to neutralize what
it considers as unnecessary in the governmental debt plan. Due to these
mistakes, the left-wing party lost the battle and was not able to gain
credibility among the public opinion. The lack of credibility about the behavior
of the FMLN is due to their incapacity to reveal its postulates to the
Salvadoran population.
It is important to discuss this issue because, in spite of what usually is
indicated with too many speculations, the Salvadoran population has not totally
approved of the decisions of the official party. The survey of the IUDOP itself
indicates that an important number of Salvadorans do not think that the
discussion groups have to do with a genuine effort of the president to approach,
along with other political actors, the country’s problems. A considerable number
of those interviewed thinks that these actions are simply used as propaganda for
the government: "the results reflect divided opinions about this issue: 48.9% of
the people said that the discussion groups are useful to improve the social
situation of the country; however, 47.2% said that these groups were only part
of the governmental propaganda".
In other words, the strategy of wearing down the image of the left-wing party,
that the government thought about launching through the alleged discussion
groups, has not come up with the expected results. Such fact, however, does not
reflect the amount of resources that ARENA has invested in the subject. A
considerable part of the Salvadoran population thinks that it is a hook to gain
electoral preferences. It is necessary to insist on this subject, because the
left-wing has tried without much intelligence to dealt with the problem. Its
members never knew how to react before the attacks of the official party’s
propaganda.
For that reason, The leaders of the FMLN follow the ARENA saga hoping that the
citizens’ own capacity of analysis will help them to confront the next
elections. In any case, there is no doubt that, at the moment, there is an
authentic crisis between two of the key institutions of the Salvadoran power. It
is important to pay attention to this problem of governance, especially in the
context of the Peace Agreements’ Anniversary.
A regime in crisis?
Some make an effort to present the political situation like a fleeting crisis
that will be
resolved once the results of the next elections are revealed. Some people expect
that the situation takes a turn for the best once the voters act with a little
good sense, and return the control of the Legislative Assembly to ARENA. Such
optimism would be based on the internal disorganization portrayed by the FMLN,
combined with the great popularity that Saca counts with among most Salvadorans.
There is no doubt that a possible victory for ARENA in the next legislative
elections would be a good mechanism to palliate the crisis between Legislative
and the Executive authorities, which already has lasted for too long. In this
case, the official party would only have worry about negotiating the approval of
the budget with its natural allies from both the PCN and the PDC.
In any case, to fulfill the predictions of ARENA, this result would have to be
positively overwhelming for this party in order to take away the 56 votes that
now belong to the left-wing party. In order to do that, the other parties of the
right-wing must have a superb political performance, much better than the one
they have offered until now. Otherwise, the problem will not be resolved. The
political strategists of Saca have placed their bets on this scenery. They have
prevented the PCN and the PDC from disappearing and have promised a position to
the PCN in the electoral tribunal.
In other words, the right wing has accumulated enough power in the institutions
of the country to ensure "the necessary" victory in the next elections.
Nevertheless, as the strategists of the government would have to know by now,
the electoral results are always uncertain. In addition, in the Salvadoran
context everybody knows how strong each one of the parties actually is. It would
be reasonable to think that the legal salvation maneuver of the PDC and the PCN
will not be enough to ensure the success of the political bet placed by Saca. In
addition, despite the last minute changes, Saca and the FMLN keep playing the
starring roles in the country’s political life, they are the only parties that
count with enough strength to get the attention of the electorate. In this
context, it is quite difficult to predict what will be the electoral scene in
which the desires of the right wing will be fulfilled. It is very probable that,
even in the worst of the cases, the FMLN is able to keep its power of veto in
the Legislative Assembly.
In this context, a short-term solution will not solve the problem. The present
political situation is so serious that demands solutions that go beyond the
immediate goals of the actors in conflict. The conjunction of the Peace Accords
reminds us that despite the importance of this foundation stone of the modern
Salvadoran policy, it is necessary to review it and amend it, to put it at the
height of the present needs of the population.
There are many elements that justify the need of a new reform to complement and
to change, possibly, the conception of the political confrontation that is at
the base of the Peace Accords. The permanent disagreements with the approval of
the Budget are the most evident element of this note of discord between the
politicians. With this attitude, they no longer worry about giving a certain
image of unity during the celebrations of the Peace Agreements. It has been a
couple of years since the pro-governmental groups and the opposition have had
separate celebrations. For some of them, the agreements already gave everything
they had to give for the harmonization of the political life; for others, the
right wing squandered the spirit of the agreements that they never intended to
actually fulfill.
Instead of getting lost in a debate between the positions that sustain, on the
one hand, that the Accords are a thing of the past, and, on the other hand, that
the Accords have been used by some of the most powerful sectors of the country
for their own advantage, it would be convenient to wonder what are the
commitments that the politicians should make so that peace can be restored in
the country. And, at first sight, it seems that it is absolutely necessary to
dramatically reform the structure of the political power. Experience has
demonstrated that it is useless to continue dreaming about cooperation, between
both sectors in conflict, in the name of the national interests.
For that reason, the least that can be done is to adopt a series of political
reforms that can improve the coherence of the political institutions. There are
a couple of subjects in reference to this problem:
1. It seems necessary to adopt a reform in the electoral institution, which
simultaneously assures its independence from the parties, and turns it into the
most important authority of the electoral matters.
2. It would be necessary to discuss a reform that automatically assures that
whoever controls the Executive authority is also able to control most of the
seats in the Congress. This way, the system would be more coherent, and the
mechanism through which the levels of democracy are reported would be clearer.
The economic situation thirteen years after the Peace Accords
The celebration of the 13th Anniversary of the Peace
Accords has opened the doors to reflect on the implications of these historical
documents in the present. Indeed, one of the most important points within the
Agreements was the economic subject: the parts in conflict were committed to
look for solutions for the diverse socioeconomic problems through the
transference of properties, the credits aimed to cultivate the lands, and the
creation of a Forum for Social and Economic Agreements, where different aspects
from the economic and the social scenery would be approached. During the
implementation of such agreements, it was the Forum what seemed to be more
problematic, due to the obstacles that the association of businessmen saw in it.
From the beginning, the Forum was conceived with a certain ambiguity. In the
introduction of the Fifth Chapter in the Peace Accords, this ambiguity is
evident, and it indicates how difficult it would be to deal with the Forum. "The
philosophy or the general direction of the economic policy of the Government,
which the left wing does not necessarily share, are not the object of this
Agreement, both parts agree that it is necessary to offer some basic directions
that will allow to create the necessary social stability in the transition
period, to consolidate peace and to advance towards the reunification of the
Salvadoran society".
In other words, no one is questioning the economic policy making style of the
government. Considering that the economic policy is nothing more than the
reflection of the economic theory that the government uses to maintain the
status quo, it can be said that the changes that could be implemented were only
superficial. Thus, the Forum of Social and Economic Agreement is a failure in
reference to the economic issues. To a certain extent, it is possible to accept
that the other aspects of that part of the document were moderately resolved:
the land transference program, some measures to alleviate the social cost of the
structural adjustment programs, and the national reconstruction plan. Although
it is important to mention that many of the most relevant decisions made in the
Forum would affect the subjects that were previously mentioned, this observation
remained in a piece of paper, because the important economic matters were never
approached during the brief existence of the Forum.
The Forum was formally established on February 16th of 1992. Nevertheless, the
country’s most important business associations did not attend, because they
considered that it was important to fulfill several conditions first. After a
continuous number of rejections, it was not until September 9th of that same
year when the agreement group between the private sector, the representatives of
the government, and the labor sector finally got together. A year after the
Peace Accords, there seemed to be a possibility to negotiate some of the aspects
of the Labor Code. In 1993, the Forum, due to the boycott of the business
sector, came to an end. In fact, for several political actors at the time, this
forum did not make any sense, because its duties had been adopted by the
Superior Council of Labor, an institution that had been recently created.
The forum never came close to at least to create the "basic directions that
could allow the country to generate a social stability in the transition
period". In fact, for many analysts, the forum had a promising beginning,
creating expectations about the most important decisions in economic and social
matters that would be made for the benefit of all the Salvadorans. However,
during its implementation and due to the business elite’s constant refusal to
discuss these issues, it ended up being just a space to negotiate labor
subjects. It is clear that this aspect is extremely important in a democracy,
but is not enough for its consolidation. Therefore, the forum did not last in
the long term.
In this context, it can be said that the peace negotiations were and are
conceived as a purely political exercise; in this sense, it was a space that
both the government and the insurgent groups took advantage of to determine the
creation of a new political scene. This is not a despicable action in any sense;
nevertheless, it left the economic matters in a secondary place of importance.
In fact, some thought that, once the political freedom was established, the
solution to the economic problems created by the conflict would be conceived in
the new scenery. Thirteen years later, there are no substantial advances on this
matter.
From the official perspective, they speak about the consolidation of democracy
in the country and about the right course in the way towards development. In
ARENA there are voices that triumphantly announce that El Salvador, once the war
ended and the Agreements were reached, became a country of opportunities for
all. This biased perspective does not contemplate the fact that a considerable
part of the population still lives in unfavorable conditions (the percentage is
higher than the one of 1992), since the country has substantial socioeconomic
differences.
Perhaps, the most important reflection is that it would be wrong to consider
that the political and the economic dimensions can be handled separately. It is
not possible to talk about the consolidation of democracy in a country where
almost half of the inhabitants live in poverty. Both dimensions must then be
complementary; otherwise, a degree of political freedom could exist, but just to
build "castles in the air". There still is an economic deficit in the
agreements.
Some transformations in the economic matters
Since the Peace Accords were signed, the Salvadoran economy has been subjected
to many changes. Some socioeconomic indicators, among them the poverty level,
have revealed slight advances. Nevertheless, there are others, mainly in the
national accounts, that reveal discouraging numbers. An example is the
stagnation of the economy, demonstrated by the reduction of the GNP from the
7.5% that it had in 1992, to the 1.8% that it reached in 2004.
In references to the advances, although the poverty level has been reduced
throughout these 13 years, that does not mean that the problems are resolved.
The Survey of Homes and Multiple Purposes (EHPM, in Spanish), indicates that
from 1992 to 2002, the poverty level was reduced from 65% to approximately 43%.
Meanwhile, the percentage of population that lives in conditions of absolute
poverty decreased by 12.3%, when it went from 31.25% to 19.2% in that same
period.
More than half of the reduction of the absolute poverty levels during the last
years can be explained by the increase of the remittances. Although migration is
considered as an effect of the social and the economic displeasure of the
population, it is important to mention that the remittances have brought
positive consequences for the national economy. For 1992, the economic
contributions sent by the Salvadorans who live abroad prevented a little more 4%
of the rural population from reaching levels of absolute poverty. Ten years
later, this percentage had increased to 8.6%. The remittances, then, are the
most important source of income for these families and help to resist the
considerable commercial deficit of the country. After the Peace Accords were
signed, the migration level decreased (15,000 people per year); however, by1996,
with the deceleration of the economy, that amount increased again (35,000 people
per year). From the total amount of people that emigrates, nearly 60% of them
are between 15 and 30 years old; most of them leave because they are searching
for better employment opportunities.
On the other hand, according to the Report of Human Development El Salvador
2003, prepared by the Development Program of the United Nations (PNUD, in
Spanish), in 2002, at least 4.3 out of every ten individuals of the country
continue living in poverty, whereas 19 out of every 100 people live in absolute
poverty. This means that their income is below the cost of the basic food
basket. In the case of the rural population, the situation is worse: the poverty
level affects 55.8%, and 29.1% live in absolute poverty.
The distribution of the income is another problem, and the indicators have shown
an unfavorable behavior in the last years. El Salvador has historically
presented a concentrated income distribution structure. For example, in 1961,
the wealthiest 20% of the population received 61% of the national income;
whereas the poorest 20% only received 6%. In the seventies, this situation took
a turn for the worse: whereas 20% of the poorest families reduced their
participation level in the national income (only 2%); the wealthiest 20%
increased it (66%).
This situation affected the civil war of the eighties. Nevertheless, in 1992,
the situation was slightly improved because 20% of wealthiest homes received
54.5% of the national income, and 20% of the poorest families, 3.2%. For 2002,
20% of the wealthiest homes had increased their participation to 58.3%, and 20%
of the poorest families had reduced it to 2.4%. In addition, the urban-rural
social gaps had become larger; in 1992, the total poverty level was11.3%, and
the absolute poverty level was 11.5%; for the year 2002 these numbers had been
increased to 21.8% and 16.9%, respectively.
Another one of the important effects brought by the postwar period was the
“contraction” of the coffee-growing sector. This sector, which was traditionally
characterized as the axis of the economy, barely reached in 2002 an exportation
level of 3.5%. The fall of the prices in this sector all over the world took the
country, not only to a smaller production level, but to a reduction of the rural
labor level. El Salvador centered its axis of growth in the industrial sector
and in the field of commerce. And now, the maquilas are the ones that provide
the most important amount of contributions to the national income.
On the other hand, throughout this stage an important transformation in the
fiscal matters took place. The Peace Accords had a budget to sponsor social
programs of transition and services. The international aid was present, that is
why now the external debt of the government exceeds 38% of the national
production. And although the government was concentrated in the improvement of
the present taxation system, this one managed to achieve such improvement by
increasing the Value Added Tax (IVA, in Spanish), established in 10% in
September of 1992, and reaching 13% in July of 1995. At the moment, the IVA is
the most important source of taxes and represents approximately 57.41% of the
total revenue for 2004, which led the country to a regressive taxation
structure.
The political and the economic improvements have to follow a parallel direction
in order to speak about a true consolidation of peace. The information about
poverty, the reduction of the income level, and the fiscal situation indicate
that it is still necessary to achieve many social and many economic
improvements.
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