Proceso is published weekly in Spanish by the Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI) of the Central American University (UCA) of El Salvador. Portions are sent in English to the *reg.elsalvador* conference of PeaceNet in the USA and may be forwarded or copied to other networks and electronic mailing lists. Please make sure to mention Proceso when quoting from this publication.
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Proceso 921
October 4, 2000
ISNN 0259-9864
 
 

INDEX

Editorial A very confused dispute
Politics ARENA: the theatre of uncertainty
Economy Runaway shops and the Caribbean Basin Initiative
Communications The manual on sex education and the press
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

    The Salvadoran government headed by President Francisco Flores has launched a frontal attack against the FMLN on the pretext that this party is impeding the approval of several million-dollar loans necessary to reactivate the economy. But the attack is motivated more by the ancestral rivalry between these two big parties than by any logic having to do with the economy. This offensive has created more confusion in the already confused policies of the government in general. The source of this confusion lies in the arbitrary mixture of two different problematic situations: the rivalry, which has already been mentioned, and an apparent modification in the economic policies of the ARENA party which, up until now, had opposed the adoption of an active role in the economic development of the country.

    In various and diverse press interviews, President Flores has accused the hard-line wing of the FMLN—the grouping which the news media has denominated “the orthodox line”—of refusing to accept the foreign aid loans already negotiated by the government in order to suffocate the governmental administration on a financial level. The Minister of the Economy personalized the attack even more when he directly accused the head of the FMLN legislative faction. The total amount of the loans, the first disbursements of which should already have been made, is more than two million colones which, according to governmental calculations, represents some ten thousand jobs by means of which it hopes to bring the economy out of the stagnation in which it presently languishes. The frustration of the government is even greater because, for several months now, it has been obliged to pay interests on the monies promised from these loans alhtough these have not been disbursed.

    President Flores has apparently decided to go to the press in order to appeal to the FMLN and put it on trial before the citizens of the country, given that he alleges that he and his administration are tired of negotiating after more than a year now. According to Flores, the FMLN is calling for more information. According to the Minister of the Economy, the FMLN is calling for an evaluation of projects implemented and financed by earlier loans. Both government bodies maintain that they have already provided all available information and that the projects were implemented in accordance with the terms of the contracts. The administration’s frustration, however, is considerable because its word carries no weight. At the height of the frustration, the Salvadoran government went to the extreme of presenting its impotence and bitterness to the president of the InterAmerican Development Bank, denouncing the stubbornness of the hard-line sector of the FMLN.

    The hard-line sector of the FMLN has responded to the government’s offensive by issuing a declaration to the effect that, in the first place, it is not true that the FMLN is attempting to suffocate the ARENA administration on a financial level, given that during the last year it has approved nine loans for a total of more than two million colones. Secondly, President Flores, they say, is lying when he states that his administration has engaged in dialogue or conversations with the FMLN during the last year on these matters. It comes as a surprise, then, that he is now fatigued by efforts at negotiation which have not yet begun. In fact, the only person who has gone to the Legislative Assembly to present repeated explanations about the foreign aid loans is the Minister of Education, with occasional presentations by the Minister of the Treasury. Apart from these two, there have been no known negotiations between ARENA and the FMLN on this issue. If, however, this had been the case, there is no explanation to be had about how now, after such resounding accusations, President Flores is calling on the political parties to engage in conversations concerning these loans. Everything seems to indicate that the failure is not on the FMLN side, nor on the side of the Legislative Assembly, but must be laid at the door of the executive office as a result of its lack of efficiency.

    But even were it the case that the government administration had been attempting to negotiate for more than a year now with the FMLN, this would only mean that what the govenrment administration might be offering at the negotiating table is not satisfactory. This is to say that neither the information provided nor the positive evaluations would be sufficient to obtain its objective. If, therefore, it wishes the loans to be approved, it ought to offer something more along the lines of what its adversary wishes to see. The right-wing parties allied to ARENA are made up of money and public office posts—items which the ARENA party and its administration give out without scruples and without batting an eye. But it is not this that the FMLN is seeking and the ARENA party and its administration may have to cede more than they want to, given that the FMLN’s power, in this case, is very real.

    It is incomprehensible that the ARENA administration which prides itself on its efficiency has negotiated a series of loans and has even gone to the extreme of having committed or earmarked the disbursements, on which it has paid interest now for several months, without having the full assurance that the Legislative Assembly, in which body it does not have the majority of seats, would approve them without any difficulty. Moreover, how could it have occurred to them that it was taking a prudent step in pushing forward to the point of even committing the funds and the taxes paid by the people in order to pay the interests on the loans, all the while knowing that in order to approve these loans it had to be able to count on the votes of a jealous and stubborn opposition in that legislative body. But that is not all. Let us take a look at the much touted governmental efficiency. At mid-year, the administration still had not implemented a little less than half of its investment budget, which is administered by the Ministry of the Treasury in a show of deficient planning and implementation as well as paralyzing bureaucracy, in exchange for a last minute hold-up in the implementation of some projects, the lack of supervision of others and a poorly qualified personnel together with a delay in the disbursements. This might be summed up in a single word: inefficiency on the part of the government.

    Given this deficiency exhibited by the government administration, the FMLN has reason, and more, for its large doubts about the new foreign aid loans and for its demand that the Ministry of Education present detailed reports on the administration of the loans with which it is currently implementing its projects. And this apart from the fact that some of these are earmarked for the process of privatizing education, health and the administration of water. It should be noted that the majority of the population opposes the privatization of these services. The Flores administration has not been as transparent as it has wanted to us to believe on the question of the administration of public finances. Along these same lines, it should be noted that economic growth for this year cannot be made to depend upon some few loans which, should they be ratified, would be disbursed at intervals over the next few years. For this very reason, the ten thousand jobs that the administration ostensibly plans to create using the monies from these loans would be effected at intervals and not immediately. The real problem confronting the administration, as the FMLN has pointed out, is the failure of the government’s economic policies, this being one of its greatest weaknesses.

    Should it turn out to be true that the FMLN is opposing the ratification of these loans—which is highly questionable, at least on the terms which the government is alleging—the fact that the government has mixed up various issues is contributing to the creation of more rather than less confusion of the reality of the economic panorama at issue here. If the government administration is in reality interested in economic reactivation, it would not seem to be very prudent on its part to begin a public fracas with one of the most important political forces in the country. More prudent political advice would council a coming together to work in a united way on something that would be advantageous for everyone.

POLITICS

    Deputy Orlando Arévalo was the star of the most recent chapter in the theatrical series which preceded the ARENA party convention last weekend. A few days before the party convention, this deputy’s denunciations against what he considers to be “mafias” in control of the government party were made public. He accused this “mafia” of having kidnapped the party for sectarian interests and called upon the ARENA party members to boycott the convention, given that there was no way of causing the failure of the “show” already in place to be presented by the said mafiosos. To his way of understanding this, there was not guarantee whatever that significant changes might be made which could conceivably respond to the concerns and aspirations of the rank and file. Along the same line, Ricardo Valdivieso, on the eve of the convention, announced his decision to renounce his aspiration to the post of vice president for ideology, in solidarity with his colleague Roberto Avila, whom the party authorities have marginalized—a situation which Valdivieso considers intolerable.

    Meanwhile the executive office continues his national and international campaign to denounce what it considers to be the hard-line wing of the opposition party. During the same week, Walter Araujo, president of COENA, called upon the ARENA party members to organize demonstrations against the FMLN for its refusal to approve the international loans the government is soliciting. In a surprise appearance, the President of the Republic, Francisco Flores, made the decision to call upon the people to intervene following what he considered to be a systematic process of obstruction by the left.

    But before Arévalo’s performance, the group calling itself the founders of the party, led by Valdivieso, began a movement for the “renewal” of the party. This after the results of last March’s elections were made public and with an eye to “rescuing” ARENA in order to encourage a process of getting closer to the rank and file. Flashback: in May a group of ARENA’s founding members proposed to make public their internal differences with their party. Since that time the urgent calls issued by these founding members has been responded to with complacency, even to the extent that President Flores not only approved of the movement, but also presented the possibility that other sectors of the party might make their complaints public and so contribute to the democratization of the ARENA party.

    Such virulent reactions had not been expected after the public declarations of the rebel deputy; however—take note: he has been called the “choro” (meaning, “rotten”) deputy; such reactions have even consisted in death threats against him. And there were now signs of any opening up on issues concerning internal democracy, as Flores had mentioned as perhaps following the founding members’ denunciations. And so it was that there is no indication of the emergence of any internal democracy such as the president had announced. Rather, decisions taken against Arévalo—the most brutal of which has been his complete ostracism—are clear signs that ARENA will not suffer dissidence gladly. But at this stage of the game, on the question of why, as opposed to what happened to Arévalo, the ARENA party leaders sought to present themselves as pleased by Valdivieso’s declarations. And his participation in the convention was negotiated with him, even after his denunciation of the prevailing verticalism in the party.

    In the Arévalo case, the repudiation has been complete. Upon learning of his denunciations, the attacks have come from all sides . Is it possible that there are different kinds of members in the ARENA party? Is public criticism, then, to be accepted only from some of them, but not all? On this point, the party whip for the ARENA legislative faction, René Figueroa, left no room for doubt: he cast Arévalo as a rude peasant, ungrateful for the favors bestowed upon him by those who had admitted him into their midst.

    At the present moment, not even the party convention which has wanted to present itself as a force for renewal, has managed to assuage the doubts about what is happening in that right-wing party. Not even should Arévalo recant publicly and be re-admitted into the ranks, would the uncertainty surrounding ARENA be dissipated. The image of a united party displayed so carefully by the party leadership can no longer withstand a confrontation with reality—a reality which is not only strengthened and reinforced by the discontent of the group of founding members, who (except for Valdivieso) did not participate in the party’s convention by is also buttressed by latent unresolved conflicts and discussions which have not taken place on key questions such as the identity and calling of the ARENA party vis-a-vis the problems afflicting the country.

    What ought to draw everyone’s attention, however, are the statements of the current president of COENA, Walter Araujo, with regard to the open and public criticisms of the internal functioning of the government party. Araujo believes that ARENA’s critics are emphasizing the division and control of the party by diverse elite groups. For this reason, in a strategy aimed at “neutralizing his adversary” he sought to demonstrate that, on the contrary, the new COENA (now that 50% of its members have been replaced in a process of renewal of that body) has experienced radical changes and that ARENA is projecting itself irrevocably towards the future. If these statements are to be taken seriously, one must give oneself to understand that the ARENA party leaders are not disposed to accept the fact that internal problems that are threatening the cohesion of the party really exist.

    One may be in agreement with the principle that every political party ought to work to take particular care of its public image and avoid transmitting feelings of panic and division in its presentation of itself to the populace. One must, however, also be suspicious of efforts to cover up at all costs any manifestations of discontent inside the ARENA party. If one does not accept the fact that internal differences exist which are based upon real and specific acts and facts, the correction of which must be dealt with in a radical way, it will be able to finally resolve these problems only with great difficulty.

    On the other hand, the facts indicate that there is no real effort being made to pose the difficulties confronting this right-wing party in a serious way. It would appear that efforts to change the course of the party on these matters and deal effectively with the complaints against the closed circles of the party elite might prove to be too costly and might compromise the interests of the power groups who make up that party to an unacceptable degree.

    It might be concluded, then, that the strategy to provide a solution to these internal problems cannot be other than repression and blackmail applied against dissidents. The way to appease Valdivieso has already been found and, at this stage of the game, the self-named rebel is to be found in the throes of repentance for having treated his party colleagues in such a way and is beseeching the party authorities to pardon him. The president of COENA has indicated that he might accept Arévalo’s repentance while, to the contrary, his party colleagues in the Legislative Assembly are firmly decided to marginalize him without allowing him even the least opportunity to expiate his guilt.

    All in all, the publicity campaign for the creation of the image of a party in which all are happy notwithstanding, it does not appear to be possible to turn a blind eye to the evidence of internal discontent within the ARENA party. Each day it becomes more difficult to ignore reality and maintain the farce of solid unity such as the ARENA party leaders have attempted to construct with such care. And the uncertainties continue to pop up. Will there be a new pact to achieve governability within the right wing? How will the internal crisis be handled once there is less journalistic attention being paid to the goings on within the ARENA party? No one knows for sure what is happening inside ARENA, nor what course those who are not in conformity with the party as it is now will take. ARENA’s track record would seem to augur the applications of a no-holds- barred policy for quieting discontent within the ranks. On the other hand, given the more and more pronounced antagonism of the diverse groups in that party coupled with the anxiety of its leaders to stay in power, a surprise outcome might be in the offing.

ECONOMY

    For more than a decade, the situation of the runaway garment shops (“maquilas” in Spanish) has been colored by recurrent denunciations of labor rights violations and petitions for the exclusion of El Salvador from the lists of most favored nation status under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which provides for lower customs barriers for exports into the United States.

    The great majority of the complaints have been forthcoming from U.S. trade unions of the American Federation of Labor Unions and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) who advocate for better working conditions in these runaway garment shops but which are, in reality, working to staunch the flow of jobs lost from U.S. garment industry to countries were the labor force receive much lower wages.

    AFL-CIO complaints have found more fertile soil in the recent report attributed to the Monitoring and Analysis Unit of the Labor Relations Unit of the Ministry of the Economy, which points out that in the maquilas serious Labor Code violations are being committed. The AFL-CIO has taken up this report with the purpose of soliciting the withdrawal of benefits from the CBI for El Salvador thus vetoing the access of Salvadoran maquila exports to the U.S. markets. Finally, the demand did not result in success and the benefits of the CBI were ratified by U.S. President Bill Clinton for all of the countries originally included in the initiative.

    Even so, the moment is still propitious for a review of the most recent data on the garment shop sector involving runaway shops with an eye to calling attention to the fact that this sector does not represent a viable option for development in El Salvador, even with all of the benefits which are attributed to the CBI (i.e., 73,000 jobs and 5% of the net exports).

    In order to encourage a process leading towards sustainable development, a necessary condition is that economic growth ought to be led by sectors with high multiplying effects and where the distribution of value added is relatively equilibrated between the profits to business owners, workers’ salaries and taxes. The benefits which produce the maquila are not to be underestimated; neither, however, should they justify a situation under which the state ought to undertake fiscal sacrifices and, even less, create special programs which would provide incentives for investment in this category, especially at a point in time when the agricultural and livestock sector as well as the industrial sector are confronting a period of slow growth.

    The early reactions of governmental officials at the prospect of prolongation of CBI benefits are triumphalism, especially if we consider statements by Miguel Lacayo, the Minister of the Economy for whom no doubt exists that “the impact which we foresee (of 150,000 jobs in the next four years) will doubtless be even greater” or statements by Salvadoran Ambassador to Washington, D.C., René León, for whom “to be included [in the CBI] means the opening up of a new stage in business relations with the U.S. and the creation of thousands of new jobs”. Without casting aspersions on the merits of prolonging the CBI in El Salvador, we present below an examination of the other side of the coin of this initiative and of the proliferation of runaway shops, to wit: low salaries, violations of labor rights and the disarticulation of production associated with runaway garment shops in general.

    Although it may be acceptable that, in the short run, the premise that the economy depends significantly on exogenous factors such as family remittances and runaway shops might be accepted, for all that, one should not lose sight of the fact that strategies exist for articulating and making viable encouragement for the economic growth of productive sectors (i.e., agriculture and industry). At different points in time, the early ARENA administrations announced programs aimed at promoting modernization of agriculture and industrial reconversion while at the same time, more recently, the current administration announced a program of agricultural reactivation. However, in practice, there are no outstanding results and the Flores administration seems more interested in encouraging the growth of the maquila, as is reflected in the earmarking of 250 million colones for subsidizing interest rates on credits oriented towards increasing the area for industrial parks (see PROCESO 918).

    All of this ought not to surprise us if we consider the hopes for the creation of 150,000 jobs, although neither should we accept this as an option for sustainable development. The reality is that 89% of the jobs in the maquila are filled by women who receive an average salary similar to the minimum legal wage (1260,00) colones, which does not seem so bad if we consider that the alternative is unemployment. But neither is it acceptable from an ethical perspective or from the point of view of seeking to fulfill basic needs. The minimal legal wage can hardly be considered sufficient in that it does not manage to buy the basic food basket for an average family. This means that the salaries are very much below the relative poverty line. Unfortunately, for nations such as El Salvador, low wages represent a “competitive advantage” for countries of the CBI and Mexico to allow them to compete among themselves for foreign investment, which, definitively speaking, is unacceptable as a strategy for this country’s insertion into the world economy.

    In El Salvador, the average maquila salary (1260 colones) is below the average wage for a job in industry (1992 colones) which will be increased only with difficulty because the government and business consider any increase as a reverse stimulus for foreign investment in this category when they use the argument that in the neighboring countries such as Honduras, the minimum wage is even lower than that of El Salvador. This not only harms the workers in the maquila but also harms all workers who have jobs in which they are paid the minimum wage. In fact, the minimum wage has been raised only once in the last four years.

    To the fact of low salaries are added the list of unfair labor practices presented by labor organizations up through the year 1995 and which were recently confirmed by the report by the Ministry of Labor mentioned above in which the following data is presented: that 32% of the workers do not have a contract and only 3% belong to a union; half of the workers work more than 44 hours a week without overtime pay and the majority present complaints of abuse. One should not be surprised that the Ministry of Labor as representatives of the Salvadoran Association for the Garment Industry (ASIC) are said to deny the truth of this report which, it should be said in passing, was published and then withdrawn from circulation by the Ministry of Economy itself.

    For many, the fact that the international context favors the proliferation of maquilas ought to be accepted without further ado. And then, therefore, El Salvador ought to become “one big maquila”, as ex president Armando Calderón Sol (1994-1999) proposed at one point in time. Nevertheless, although it cannot be denied that external conditions are determined, although it is necessary to consider that—over and above low salaries—the maquila suffers from other characteristics which impede a situation in which growth is dynamic for other sectors. For example, as they enjoy tax-exempt status, they do not contribute to generating tax income either for the state or for the municipalities and, in addition, because of the requirements of the CBI, the greater proportion of raw material must be imported from the United States. This implies that only a small proportion (13%) can be purchased nationally. Because of this, it is completely reasonable to propose the adoption of policies which improve the insertion of El Salvador into the international market.

    In summary, it can be said that the CBI and the proliferation of maquila garment shops has benefited most of the business owners of these runaway shops, the majority of whom come from Asia and the U.S. who have been able to diversify their investments in an activity for which they do not have to pay taxes, which guarantees access to a large low-cost labor force and they receive, additionally, subsidies in the form of lower interest rates. Neither the governments, nor local businessmen, nor the workers of the countries where the maquilas operate receive such benefits. On the contrary, each one of these actors ought to pay the quota of sacrifice in exchange for poorly paid jobs and a small proportion of the net exports (5% of the total). The government pays the tax sacrifice in giving up the tax payments and it pays higher costs in the form of subsidies to the maquila sector. Businessmen must compete for scarce funds with which to finance strategies for the development of the agricultural and industrial sectors and workers must submit themselves to the working conditions and low salaries characteristic of the maquilas.

COMMUNICATIONS

    To judge by the disappearance of this topic from the news media, including newspapers, radio and television, the manual was returned to some warehouse and no one has lifted a finger in this matter. The polemic between the Health Ministry and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, supported by the Ministry of Education, received very superficial coverage in the two largest news dailies of the country except for a serious effort by La Prensa Gráfica which was very successful. The discussion surrounding the manual on sexual education entitled “From Adolescents for Adolescents” was especially intense during the last two weeks of the month of July when Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle began a campaign against it.

    This article constitutes a journalistic analysis of the media on this manual on sex education centering on a specific sector of the Catholic Church and the Ministry of Health which will not deal with televised or radio transmitted coverage, although not because this is not important. There are three reasons for the decision to deal exclusively with newspapers: first, they are the medium that imposes the journalistic agenda in any country in the world. Secondly, they were chosen for their physical characteristics in that they represent the possibility for extended coverage on certain topics. A third reason is that, in terms of material conditions, an analysis of newspapers presents fewer difficulties.

    The study presented here deals with the issues of La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy for the period of July 10 through July 31. Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle criticized the manual in statements following his Sunday homilies on July 16 and July 23 and the announcement of the withdrawal of the document was made on July 26. During the 21 days during which the press was analyzed, the two dailies published six news articles, two press reports, an editorial and seven opinion articles, or editorials. For the purpose of this analysis the editorials which appeared on the editorial pages signed by their respective authors will be commented upon only marginally. These signed editorials, although frequently coinciding with the editorial line of the newspaper—not precisely by chance—, are theoretically the exclusive responsibility of their authors.

    Throughout the polemic surrounding the manual on sexuality, El Diario de Hoy gave greater coverage than La Prensa Gráfica in quantitative terms. The first of the morning dailies to publish four news articles, an editorial, a news report and six articles of opinion—these last opposed the manual. The only editorial was published by La Prensa Gráfica and is, of course, the must illustrative of the posture which that newspaper assumed on the problem. The text, under the title “Rejection of a Nauseous Manual”, is full of negative epithets against what it calls the document: “a scandalous leaflet”, “an example of conceptual vulgarity and the vehicle for awakening evil emotions”, among others. For this daily, “what is most shocking are the illustrations which are poorly drawn and conceived in an even worse manner. In manuals on sexual education in other countries, the graphics are schematic, more in the style of figurines or story books than that of cheap pornography”. It presents the opinion that the practices of the “child prostitutes” and peasants who rape their own daughters cannot be generalized to represent “normal families”.

    One of the first news items in El Diario de Hoy was published on July 2, the day after the second public criticism presented by Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle. The news note, entitled "“he Church Agrees on the Closing of the Casinos”, included in the last three paragraphs, references by the Archbishop to the manual. “It exacerbates sexual instincts and foments egotism”, states the hierarchical representative of the Catholic Church, and adds that it was “immoral”, in that it fomented sexual pleasure and was an attack on the dignity of persons. The second news item—the longest of those published by this morning daily—carried the title “Polemical manuals on sexual education to be withdrawn from schools”.

    For her part the Minister of Education, Evelyn Jacir de Lovo, was the principal source for this news article which occupied pages two and three of this newspaper. This functionary declared that the document did not contain “integrated proposals for sexual education”, was specially oriented towards the biological aspects of the subject, presented “excesses” and did not respond to the Education Ministry’s policies on course material for sexuality. The newspaper pointed out that the manual included treatment of the subjects of masturbation, homosexuality, bisexuality, contraceptives and the use of the condom. Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle is cited as having presented his idea that the document promotes teachings which are contrary to Christianity. There is also a paragraph dedicated to the Ministry of Health which confirmed that the document was withdrawn for review. The opinions of feminist organizations are presented as well when they declare themselves to be in favor of education for young people on the topic of sexuality and that the Foundation Fundación Sí a la Vida [the “Yes to Life Foundation”] qualified the manual as “perverted” and “pornographic”.

    The third news item published by El Diario de Hoy went beyond the line of attack characteristic of this newspaper and cited the Vice Minister for Health, Herbert Betancourt, as insisting upon the need for sexual education among adolescents in order to avoid disease and premature pregnancies. The fourth news item cited as its exclusive source the Minister of Education who held that she would continue making efforts towards sexual education for young people but without the aid fo the manual. The text that is closest to the reportage offered by El Diario de Hoy took up the controversy centered squarely on the positions of Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle, the Bishops’ Conference of El Salvador and the Ministry of Health. If this diverged from the radical posture of the newspaper, it did nothing much to offer a profound treatment of the topic. In two pages, the reporter cites detractors and defenders of the manual without providing elements which contribute anything new to the debate surrounding the basic problem by announcing, in the lead of this report, that the elevated number of adolescent pregnancies and young people affected by sexually transmitted diseases.

    La Prensa Gráfica’s treatment of this polemical topic was completely different from that of El Diario de Hoy. Independently of the fact that it gave less space to the matter (two news articles, a news report and an opinion article), the coverage of that newspaper was of better quality, especially in the report published in the “Enfoques” [Focus] supplement of the newspaper for July 30. In four pages, the reporter demonstrated the need to educate young people on their sexual life—without insistently having recourse to Biblical messages or religious postures. The reportage cited the findings of several polls, analyzed statistical data, interpreted this data, presented a historical survey on sexual education in El Salvador and cited various and sundry sources such as the Apostolic Nunciature, the Archbishop of San Salvador, The Ministries of Health and Education, young pregnant women and young people who participated in the evaluation of the manual as well as examples of manuals from countries such as Brazil and South Africa. As for news, La Prensa Gráfica referred to the first criticism presented by Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle. According to the Archbishop, the campaign by the Health Ministry was contrary to the promotion of values because it promoted the use of the condom and substituted for the role of parents in education on the topic of sexuality. Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle also exhorted the government to review the document.

    The second news item published by La Prensa Gráfica announced the decision by the Health Ministry to withdraw the manual from circulation in order to avoid a confrontation with the Catholic Church. In this same report, the opinion of the Minister of Education was presented, for whom the manual does not respond to the national policy on sexual education. The article also cited the criticisms by Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle and the point of view expressed by the representative of UNICEF.

El Diario de Hoy	La Prensa Gráfica
Archbishop Minister of Education Minister of Education Vice Minister of Education Feminist Organizations "Sí a la Vida" Foundation	Archbishop Apostolic Nunciature Minister of Education Minister of Education Vice Minister of Education UNICEF representatives Adolescens Results of polls Examples from Brazil and South Africa

    The efforts to which both news dailies dedicated themselves are clear, given a simple analysis of the sources used. Four of the seven sources most cited by El Diario de Hoy were opposed to the continuation of the use of the document to educate adolescents.

    La Prensa Gráfica, in addition to being more varied in its reporting, cited three of the eight sources most mentioned as being against the use of the manual, another three were clearly in favor of it, while the remaining three (poll findings and examples from other countries) can be considered to be “neutral”. One can also draw some conclusions FROM the way in which the news articles in each daily were structured. For example, the longest article in El Diario de Hoy, on July 27, presents, as its central argument, the opinion of the Minister of Education, according to whom the manual suffered from many “excesses”. In addition, it cites the Ministry of health (for the sole purpose of corroborating the withdrawal of the manual from circulation), feminist organizations—all without speaking either in favor of nor against the manual—and the Fundación Sí a la Vida whose conservative postures on sexual topics are well known. On the other hand, the longest news item published in La Prensa Gráfica contrasts the opinions of the Minister of Health with those of the Archbishop and the Minister of Education. A basic principal in professional journalism is the consultation of and contrast between various sources.

    In the elaboration of the manual on sexual education the following entities participated: the government, representatives of the Catholic Church, local NGOs, international cooperation agencies and international organizations such as UNICEF and UNESCO. The efforts towards reorienting sexual education among adolescents should not be put off, especially in a country such as ours where almost 58% of all births involve young people between the ages of 15 and 19, according to data presented by La Prensa Gráfica. El Diario de Hoy, as opposed to the other morning daily, adhered clearly to the public posture of the Catholic hierarchy and allowed the opportunity to encourage an open debate on the subject pass, as it has done on other occasions on other problems of national interest.

    The lack of pluralism in Salvadoran society cannot come as a surprise to many. To others, however, it is a source of continual surprise that in at the price of being a democratic society which values being democratic, certain visions of the world representatives of determinate social sectors continue to impose their views. The most serious problem is that this takes place in a country where the constitution guarantees religious freedom. Paradoxically speaking, Costa Rica, where Catholicism is the official religion, sexual education is taught with a manual which served as the basis for the preparation of the Salvadoran manual. As during the Inquisition, the vision of a certain sector of the Catholic Church condemned this initiative—without reverting to the use of fire, but through the use of other methods which are equally effective. As in the old days, what is prohibited seeks alternative channels to make itself felt. This is the context in which the Diario CoLatino has begun to publish the complete manual in its daily editions. One must continue to be concerned, however, to reach a minimal consensus on what ought to be included in a manual on the subject of sexuality which is part of a national policy.

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Article presented by Xiomara Peraza, Professor of the Literature and Communications Department of the UCA.