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Proceso 924
October 25, 2000
ISNN 0259-9864

INDEX

Editorial The impunity of power
Politics Politics and national reality
Society Salvadoran pride?
Economy Beyond free trade agreements
 
 

EDITORIAL

    Between justice and peace, El Salvador chose peace and sacrificed justice. For this reason, it enjoys the benefits of peace at present. Or so President Flores declares and, as a corollary, he opposes the reopening of the Jesuit case in order to investigate intellectual authorship—as opposed to the trial currently in process in the U.S. against two retired Salvadoran generals and, in general, he opposes the investigation of human rights violations committed during the war. But this is not all. For the same reason, that is to say—in order to preserve the tranquillity of the country, there has not been an investigation carried out in the assassinations of Katya Miranda, Lorena Saravia, Ramón García Prieto, Guth Zapata, more than 120 street drunks and so on down a very long list. Neither the National Civilian Police nor the Attorney General’s Office nor the judges and magistrates know who are the persons responsible for these crimes are. Apparently, the argument is that to investigate them would be to destabilize the country and, according to the curious logic of the president, it is best to choose tranquillity over justice. Salvadoran justice, for its part, presents victims but not those responsible and one is given to think that such victims are the product of supernatural forces which are beyond the reach of the justice system, the motivations of which are unknown.

    Neither the Attorney General’s Office nor the National Civilian Police with their myriad divisions, disguises and deployments have been able to resolve the most important cases of fraud, kidnapping, robbery and murder. In fact, they have not been able to resolve any case whatever in recent years. But neither have the judges and magistrates been able to produce the guilty parties. The only thing investigated is small and petty crime and the only persons condemned—when there are any—are some few material actors in the crimes. Justice is not done because neither the police, nor the Attorney General’s Office, nor the judges, nor the magistrates can pay the attention due to the enormous number of crimes committed, but, above all, because they suffer from serious deficiencies when it comes to investigating, bringing to trial and sentencing those proven to be guilty because there is more corruption than would appear and, above all, because those accused have the power to subvert public order and put the stability of the society in danger. For these reasons, the Salvadoran State is weak. It has no courage nor any energy to investigate these crimes and present them before the judges and the judges frequently do not dare to issue a judgement against these accused either and if they do there are the magistrates who take charge of declaring them innocent. All of this under the complacent, but not very independent, gaze of the Supreme Court which wraps itself in the majesty of laws misunderstood, which invite very little credibility and are poorly presented. Social, political and economic power is much more powerful than the law, judges and magistrates. Power is beyond the reach of justice or is above justice and for this reason peace is, in fact, the equivalent of impunity. So it is that as it is with the El Salvador and ARENA of President Flores chose peace and forgot justice. It is, therefore, very difficult to find justice in El Salvador, but neither is there any real peace.

    The dilemma between peace and justice, as the president poses it, is a false dilemma. Without justice there can be no true peace. Any peace, which aims to build on the absence of justice, is a very fragile peace when it is not, in fact, imposition and dictatorship. This is why Pope John Paul II repeats this same message, insistently, in all of his messages during this period of working towards peace. Apart from the fact that it is rather daring to speak in the name of El Salvador as a whole on the matter which should be decided only by those who have real power in the country and which use the argument of reconciliation and even that of Christian principles to cover up a decision which is, in reality, essentially a political argument.

    As justice is denied in El Salvador, the alternative for seeking it in international tribunals becomes an alternative. Here, arguments such as those presented by family members and classmates of the two retired Salvadoran generals accused in the U.S. carry no weight. In an independent and trustworthy tribunal what counts are the facts and evidence which link the accused with the acts and judicial arguments. In the Salvadoran justice system it is a well-established custom that criminals can present themselves in such a way that they can pass for victims and their victims and family-members may be presented as persons not worthy to be considered, as vengeful and resentful, without Christian or human sentiments, whose demands for justice may be presented as a desire for revenge, where fear is emphasized in order to paralyze legal action, where there is little respect for witnesses and their declarations and, the most newsworthy item of all, where the Attorney General, instead of accusing criminals actually spends his time protecting and defending them. This is a new facet of the perversion of Salvadoran justice.

    Ostensibly acting in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court on the breadth and depth of the amnesty in effect, the Attorney General called upon the Fourth Circuit Court of Instruction to determine “whether the file on the murder of the Jesuit priests was to be reopened”. The judge’s response could only be in the negative. Any judicial functionary knows very well that the law does not permit the reopening of a case which has already been decided upon. The erroneous decision writ large is the fault of the prosecuting attorney for having presented the case (in his petition to the court) incorrectly and contrary to the law and the Constitution of the Republic and to the demand, or complaint, presented by the UCA. One cannot, then, assume carelessness or ignorance of the law and its procedures—only bad faith or ill intention as a basis for attempting to obtain a negative response from a judge, or to give the impression of having complied with their duty and, in this way, be able to file a complaint. In this way, the prosecuting attorney condemns his petition to failure and does not comply with his duty to accuse alleged criminals, makes a mockery of those who are presenting the complaint and of the victims themselves, but complies with the wishes of those who placed him in the post to defend their interests. In refusing to make an accusation, the Attorney General demonstrates that he is not independent of the executive power, nor of other interested powers that be in that he does not pursue the intellectual authors of the UCA massacre: he is, therefore, corrupt.

    This resistance to presenting an accusation and to pursuing the crime explains, in part, that the Attorney General lost the first round of the Katya Miranda case, whose rights he could not defend before the judge, after having previously proclaimed that he had a solid case. The explanation he gives for his failure is not opportune because he already knew beforehand that the uncle of the minor child, an ex police chief who worked in criminal investigation, contaminated the scene of the crime. A good investigation of how and why this contamination took place would lead to the person who committed the rape, murder and cover-up in the Katya Miranda case.

    At no time has the UCA called for the reopening of the case. What the UCA has requested is the opening of a new trial against those it considers the intellectual authors of the crime. The obligation of the prosecuting attorney is, therefore, to present this requirement to a justice of the peace and not to one whose province is instruction only. Given this procedure, the judge is left with no other alternative than to declare himself incompetent and send the case to a justice of the peace. The weakness of the Salvadoran justice system does not lie in the laws but in the fact that there are powers which hold sway above the law and if the justice system attempts to make the submit to the rule of law, such powers threaten instability and disorder.

POLITICS

    A review of the events of recent weeks presents the desolate panorama of national reality and sows doubts among the most optimistic. The ostensible giant steps being taken seem to lead to more social chaos rather than to a better future. This crude reality cannot be denied by even the most enthusiastic or even by those who seek good experiences, nor by those so polished in speaking positively that they end up by presenting acts and facts in a way not wholly congruent with reality under the pretext of rescuing the national image which is so fragile that it is actually deteriorated. The customary discourse, which avoids bad news because of its ostensible negative effect, suffers from hints of schizophrenia, which must somehow be overcome. On the other hand, it is important to recognize the fact that the country is confronting serious problems of diverse kinds before—starting out from this very premise—we can then proceed in the direction of an attempt to resolve them.

    The nature of these problems is various and requires as much a well-articulated social structure as an institutional framework which allows for initiating the transformations required in order to confront the gravity of the difficulties. In this sense, one of the keys to the solution lies in the capacity and willingness of the leaders make the national institutions function. And this point is precisely the root cause of the large polemic occurring at the point in time when national problems are approached because in light of these problems lies the interest in analyzing the behavior of the diverse actors and their commitment to solving them.

    Francisco Flores came to power declaring his commitment to concern himself with national problems. He promised to change the face of politics, fight corruption and free the state apparatus of incompetent functionaries. From this premise the most optimistic began to consider that his administration would be exemplary and would revive interest among apathetic citizens who might then hit upon a reason for believing once again in the political class. A year and a half later, now, the president has not kept his campaign promises and—most serious of all—he is surrounded by a team of functionaries who are more than open to question. On the other hand, not only has he not attacked the endemic problem of state corruption, but the incompetence of the majority of state functionaries in their carrying out of their affairs of office, is also enormously worrisome. Their responsibility in the recent deaths which have shaken Salvadoran families is proof of the inefficiency with which some state dependencies are being handled. The specter of the recent deaths continues to dog the steps of the public health authorities.

    On another point, the Flores team has characterized itself by constant confrontation with the political opposition. The arrogance and poor sense of reality which some functionaries have shown in the treatment of their political adversaries make serious dialogue difficult on the principle points of national problems.

    Along the same line of evaluation, an analysis of the contribution of the political opposition is seen to be important in that it could have contributed to bringing about a resolution favorable to the populace. Faced with the dominant power of the government party, the opposition has not shown any great capacity for monitoring the President in the Executive Office. It has not been able to pose a solution to big national problems in an intelligent and creative way. In general, the opposition is still wrapped in the debate of its internal internecine warfare as well as when it faces the perspective of an overly premature electoral campaign. Those who move in this direction, although they might be seen to be favored as a result of the notorious incapacity of the governmental group, have not been able to present concrete proposals which might allow for the articulation of a united front which would might make those in power take a few steps back.

    The small political parties—PDC, CDU, PAN—have been eclipsed by the media show of the struggle of the big parties. And in the measure that legislative arithmetic permits, in good measure, the overshadowing of the contributions of the small parties (which, taken together, manage to round up eight votes) their disappearance from public debate becomes a fait acompli. Certainly the political parties mentioned have made a large effort in the Legislative Assembly in the direction of trying to be taken into account, but, at this point in time, the de facto relationship is that obtaining among ARENA, the FMLN and the PCN.

    The PCN has not been able to overcome its image as a satellite party in the service of ARENA, and this in order to promote the personal interests of its leaders. Added to this is the peculiar state of affairs which has revealed the questioning, based on moral issues together with the administration of prominent members of that party. The need to protect its leaders and its rank and file is what has characterized the PCN in the new legislature. For this reason, personal interests have played a very decisive role in the behavior of these legislators: those who doubt this have only to take notice of the Francisco Merino case as an example. The need to obtain personal benefit from their relationship with the official party has committed the votes of the PCN legislators.

    The FMLN, on the other hand, has had its initiatives for monitoring the Executive Office seriously limited as a result of the right/wing alliance which functions in the Legislative Assembly and which has kept the FMLN under constant attack. But it has not, however, demonstrated its capacity to lead a national united front, taking advantage of the discontent among various sectors of the population as a result of the constant false steps undertaken by the president. Its “wait and see” posture in which it places its bets on a greater social upheaval which would incline the balance in future elections more in favor of the FMLN is not the most correct posture. The best possibility for the FMLN would be, together with the sectors most hard-hit by current social problems, to exert more pressure on the President to gain more benefits for the population in general.

    On the other hand, to fall to the level of taking part in the media game being played by the government in order to present the population’s problems is not the most intelligent option. It is, however, important, to lower public opinion of a party given to confrontation, insensibly faced with government initiatives which would alleviate the anguish of those most in need in order to promote its own agenda. But the work of a creative left cannot simply stay at this level. It must seek to come closer to the population. In addition to this, the FMLN ought to be the point of encounter where sectors not in agreement with the current leadership of the country could create public opinion and contribute to the discussion and eventual proposal for solution to national problems.

    The need for citizen participation is urgent given the current state of affairs in the country. In a context of low credibility and ineffective policy, organized sectors of the society have much to offer. Citizen participation should not be limited to tasks in eliminating hemorrhagic dengue fever, or fighting crime, however important these may be. To limit community activity to sporadic task-oriented work of this kind is to underestimate people. For this reason, the arena for discussion which organized sectors of civil society ought to find in the FMLN ought to go beyond this kind of task-oriented participation.

    In this way, the diverse political parties involved—from the Legislative Assembly to the Executive Office—in national problems have not been able to respond to the needs and demands of Salvadoran society. The moment is ripe for advancing towards a more creative coming together in the search for a solution to problems. The opposition as well as the government sector ought to make this effort because the reality lived by the majority of the people in the country demand it.

SOCIETY

    A few weeks ago, some business circles related to the activity of the big mass media congratulated each other upon seeing that one of its prominent figures, Boris Esersky, was honored by the Salvadoran Association of Radio Broadcasters (ASDER) naming him “the pride of Salvadorans”. True it is that this man’s name has been linked indelibly with the history and development of many of the most important media enterprises of El Salvador. He has known how to win a notable position as a businessman throughout his career within the circle of people who enjoy a great deal of power and influence in practically all levels of national life. And this place he owes solely to the strategic character of the task to which he has dedicated his life—the publication of information—, but also to his deep knowledge of the mechanism by means of which the most favored social groups of society in this country function.

    There will always be those who are sure that the reasons for choosing the career of businessman are more than obvious and that an event of that kind ought to have been carried out a long time ago. But from this logic he who wishes to stand on the pedestal of history has as much right as those who want to hold him responsible for the current arbitrary status of Salvadoran journalism. But what calls attention so strongly is the symbolic character which was intended for the act, just at a moment in which the situation of the freedoms associated with the journalistic work has been again questioned by the InterAmerican Press Society (SIP). For the way in which the act was covered in practically all the media of the country, it seemed that behind such recognition there was a kind of legitimization represented by the birth and unbreakable umbilical cord connecting the work of a good part of the journalistic enterprises of the country: his adherence to the dispositions issued by official politicians and from the nucleus of the economic power of the most firmly set bases of Salvadoran society.

    It is an open secret that, from his earliest years, his most successful journalistic practice—which is to say, that which stayed for the longest time within the full gamut of the informational services—was not characterized, precisely, by its independence from specific circles of power. Fruit of the most varied interests and particular anxieties, different persons or groups gave free rein to their desire to “construct” public opinion by having recourse to the creation of journalistic organs by means of which they kept certain people up to date concerning part of reality. So it was that the majority of the first journalistic experiments of the country were intimately linked to the production and publication of ideas and interpretations of reality and not so much to the mere publication of the facts. For this reason those who took the best advantage of the media in the early days of journalism were, on the one hand, the politicians who sought leadership and support and, on the other, religious interests concerned with the formation of their faithful flocks in the faith.

    The second half of the nineteenth century laid the foundation for a new kind of dependency administered in media work the commercialization of the image and the publicity spots. And so to the interest of defending specific ideological proposals was added the necessity for maintaining the interests of capital to the vanguard of any projects having to do with the progress of the media enterprise. The daily circulation of several newspapers of the period presupposed a certain amount of investment, which was difficult to cover solely with the income from sales of the newspaper. So it was that the existence of the media was determined by its capacity for attracting the greatest number of businesses in such a way that sufficient patronage was obtained from them to continue operating in exchange for income from publicity. This practice, which has been carried on and maintained firmly strongly marks the appearance and development of televised and radio enterprise. In fact, the success of the current television and radio companies in the country is based principally on the way in which the sale of publicity spaces has been administered.

    It is in this context in which the work, enthusiasm and presence of men like Esersky took form. Convinced that not everything that happened in the country had to become news, he and other businessmen decided to found several radio and television stations in order to entertain the listeners of radio and the watchers of television. This option for entertainment took root much more in the realm of television. Even the few spots dedicated exclusively to information were saturated by events from the social life of the wealthiest classes in the country. In those days, there were probably very few national businessmen who considered it necessary to abandon the pages of the written press in order to gain publicity spots. And so it was that neither television nor radio were, at least during the early moments, privileged agents in the make-up of a kind of public opinion which would also modify the perception that the population had of the media’s way of operating.

    The real merit of Esersky and his colleagues at that time, in this sense, lay in their capacity to attract the attention of big national business towards the work that was being done from the radio broadcasting stations and television broadcasting stations which they, in a calculating way, were founding. It was in the shadow of this and other ambitious businessmen that the television screens and the radio speakers once again opened more air time to official sources committed to the interests of those who directed the national economy. Hand and hand with the persons who came from the highest echelons of the highest classes of society, these institutions had to be coherent with the impulse which had guided their founders in embarking upon the creation of more and “better” media businesses. Finally, it was from this original identification with determinant social interests that the path was opened to some journalistic practices which excluded the opinion of some and systematically denied the rights of free expression and the free flow of information for the whole population.

    In honoring the work of the most outstanding of the businessmen of a generation which formed the media offerings which still continue with us today, they are also honoring the way in which the guidelines of journalistic work in our time has been marked. It is openly recognized that as long as this social class which gave birth to the mass media pioneers and watched their development, continues to enjoy access to well-defined spots and spaces in the circles of political power, the country will continue to be a witness to how the domination-marginalization system which governs big media concerns is reproduced. Esersky gratefully receives the praise showered upon him, knowing all the while that it also means that the work of other journalistic enterprises is developed within the same limitations and along the same lines of political traps and tricks. And on many occasions, these tricks of the trade have received the quick support for his enterprises.

    Definitively speaking, that circle of power, which views Esersky as a model citizen—obviously for his inclination to support the cause of the most powerful—has just one more reason to feel proud. With the unconditional support of the state, once again the typical manner of proceeding in the face of the rest of the social actors has been legitimized, in such a way that it will continue to encourage the formation of oligopolies, and continue, as well, to sanction those who do not adhere to the most despotic dictates of power, and it will also continue to manipulate the institutions charged with monitoring its work within society. This is the real background to the homage which congratulates a man, today, and with him will congratulate, as well, a whole generation of heirs to power.

ECONOMY

    The proposal, discussion, negotiation, ratification and setting in motion of the Free Trade Agreements throughout the western hemisphere has become an inevitable topic of importance not only for governments, the business sector and the legislative powers of each country, but also—and principally—for civil society in general. The Free Trade Agreements presuppose the open passage of products and capital, the growth of investment and the consequent generation of new sources of jobs, which augur broad benefits for the nations involved. But beyond the consequences of an economic nature, these agreements ought not to lose sight of extra economic factors. The global context of these agreements proposes a commercial and economic integration parallel to the empowerment of democracy and the sustainable development of nations. From this comes the urgency with which the process of integration ought to be pushed forward.

    Responding to this idea, in 1994, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton—continuing in the tradition of his predecessors—, proposed the creation of a mechanism for integration which would involve the whole hemisphere. And so it was that the idea was born to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA). The commitment to the creation of the ALCA was ratified in 1998, during the celebration of the Second Summit Conference of the Americas in Santiago de Chile. At the same time, the year 2005 was proposed as the goal for completing the process and the mechanism’s entering into full effect of the mechanism.

    Nevertheless, although the heads of state and presidents of the continent—and, in general, the diverse political, economic and social sectors—recognized the difficulties involved in such an ambitious project, little has been done in order to overcome them. It might be mentioned that, for this reason, the most outstanding difficulties are highlighted. In the first place, the poor preparation of some states—among them, the Central American states—for confronting, in favorable conditions, the challenges of this commercial opening up, situates them at a clear disadvantage as compared with more developed economies. In second place, the ambivalent posture of the U.S., whose government has been one of the most enthusiastic in the encouragement of the formation of the ALCA, whose internal debate internally over the convenience or lack thereof of the mechanism, which has implied the taking of some false steps because of the adoption of unilateral measures in the process. Finally, although it is already implicit in the first difficulty, the lack of symmetry between the countries of the hemisphere ought to be pointed out as possibly becoming an insolvable problem should real alternative solutions not present themselves and should their implementation not become effective during the period established for the consolidation of the ALCA.

    The first difficulty seems to be the most immediate and, at the same time, the one upon which the least work has been done. Effectively speaking it requires a particular effort by each state as a joint effort which still has not produced the hoped for results. One look around the continent presents a broad fringe of countries with “small economies”, with little or no experience in free trade, which, at the same time, presupposes modest economic and social development. In the case of Central America, it is evident that this difficulty can be summed up in each nation’s lack of preparation and competitiveness. The State of the Region Report for 1999 identifies some weaknesses in the countries of the isthmus as they insert themselves into the dynamic of ALCA: economic vulnerability, modest infrastructure, inefficient governmental macroeconomic policies and a weak macroeconomic and sectorial structure. The weaknesses identified can perfectly well be extended to many Caribbean countries and, in lesser measure, to South America.

    As was mentioned above, parallel to the particular work, joint work should be carried out which orients national initiatives in a harmonizing vision. In that sense, the Consultative Group on Smaller Economies was created in 1995 without the fundamental objective of progressively inserting the most vulnerable nations into the ALCA process. Nevertheless, the commission’s work seems not to have been appreciated by the Commercial Negotiations Committee (CMC), the body responsible for guiding the work of the negotiation groups.

    On the other hand, it is fair to recognize the effort at political and economic cooperation demonstrated by the countries of the continent in recent years. Many governments have offered their support for the political negotiations and the ending of armed conflicts in Central and South America. Concomitantly, there are cooperative economic agreements in effect in which some of the most favored nations seek to help the more vulnerable nations as, for example, in the case of the San Jose Pact in which Venezuela and Mexico committed themselves to alleviate the petroleum costs of 11 central American and Caribbean countries.

    Likewise, substantial benefits can accrue to them in the making up of subregional economic blocks such as the Central American Common Market, CARICOM, the Andean Pact, MERCOSUR and the North American Free Trade Agreements (NAFTA). This last is the most important one for the hemisphere because of the strength and weight of the economies, which make it up: Canada, U.S. and Mexico.

    In other words, the participation of the U.S. in the ALCA would provide decisive encouragement in the progress of the societies of the continent because the vast majority of these have that nation as their principal trade ally. Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress did not approve the “fast track” negotiation of the economic and trade integration pushed by Clinton’s Administration, which would accelerate the process. The conditional participation of the U.S. in the ALCA is a second difficult to which attention should be paid, above all at the moment in time in which the government of that country discusses political and social programs in Latin America such as “the Colombia Plan” to fight narcotics trafficking or the establishment of regional monitoring centers.

    The third big difficulty is, doubtless, the most delicate, owing to the serious ethical implications arising from it. It would be impossible to ignore the asymmetrical nature of the relationship among the American economies at the time of establishing mechanisms for hemispheric integration. This goes beyond the bilateral treaties in which preferential treatment is conceded to the weakest nations with the idea of compassionate assistance. In any case, the low level of preparation of some economies and the need for their insertion into the integrative processes by means of work carried out inside and outside ought to be assumed. On this point, the subregional free trade agreements and preferential agreements can serve as a useful exercise for a hemispheric project

    It is very probable that the makeup of the ALCA, fixed for the year 2005, will not satisfactorily succeed in articulating the economic aspects with the social, labor, environmental, political and cultural aspects in such a way that the abyss which separates the American economies might be lessened. The effort at the formation of communities among the nations ought to presuppose the encouragement of states empowered not only economically but fundamentally political in nature. In this regard, it suffices to underline the commitment assumed by the presidents in the empowerment of democracy, justice and human rights. "We support new initiatives designed to deepen our commitment to these important principles"” reads the "Plan of Action" of the second American Summit Conference.

    As things go, the refusal and holding back on the part of governments from incorporating themselves into the negotiations to a civil society underestimating, thereby, their suggestions and recommendations is not comprehensible. From this follows their indications of a lack of transparency in negotiations, which causes more insecurity, lack of knowledge and a lack of confidence among the population towards the measures carried out by the governments. A responsible democratic effort—to which the presidents have committed themselves—cannot leave out the participation of civil society in the discussions and negotiations. It is not a question of confusing economic with politics or with environmental issues—which, in the long run, would be an evasion of responsibilities and roles. Rather, it affirms that the economic progress of the people will go hand in hand with a substantial advance in political leadership and the building of democracy.