Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI)
E-mail: cidai@cidai.uca.edu.sv

Central American University (UCA)
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Tel: +(503) 210-6600 ext. 407
Fax: +(503) 210-6655

     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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INDEX

Editorial:  Double insecurity
Politics:  An image of unity: governmental advertising
Region:  United for El Salvador?
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

     It still is very difficult to understand President Francisco Flores, despite the time he has spent at the head of the Salvadoran government. Sometimes he would seem to be very naive, which is not an advisable attitude for a president in a country as complex as El Salvador. However, in other occasions, it seems as if he wants to convince us that reality is different to what it appears to be at first glance. He intends to hide reality, but this one is so evident that his speech falls into a bottomless pit and, therefore, looses credibility.

     When he came back from Madrid, in one of his first statements, President Flores seemed surprised about the high frequency of the kidnapping cases. Perhaps because he thought that this type of crime would diminish or disappear with the earthquakes. He might have thought that the destroying force of the earthquakes buried the kidnappers, or that they just magically turned into examples of virtue and good behavior because of the emergency. President Francisco Flores expected common delinquency, not kidnapping. Maybe he believed in the promise of the National Civilian Police director about ending with this organized crime activity for once and for all. Despite all the arrests of presumed kidnappers, this type of crime is as frequent as ever. It can only mean that something very important is not working out well inside the National Civilian Police.

     The kidnapping of a powerful businessman's daughter, which happened right before the very eyes of the National Civilian Police, has motivated the president's statements about the high amount of kidnapping cases.  This one in particular occurred close to a police station, in the area where the central government and the National Committee of Emergency, the new Presidential House and the Defense offices are located.

     Contrary to the belief of the press, the police found the victim by chance. Her rescue was not due to the police's investigation skills. The person who alarmed the authorities did not even give notice of that kidnapping case, he was just reporting a common crime. This call led the police to the victim, and to arrest the suspects with great attention of the news media. But it is almost certain that none of the arrested people belongs to the head of the band. The police should not ignore the efficient organization of kidnapping bands. The statements by the public safety authorities about the kidnapers and about organized crime are, most of the time, mere speculations. It is a fact that the authorities do not know for certain who they are fighting against  —in case that they do know about it that means that they are accomplices.

     The new solution that president Flores and his team have come up with does not indicate any possible good results. According to president Flores there should not be anymore kidnappings or, at least, this type of crime should be decreasing, since the last penal code reform is already approved. But the obvious is happening. Kidnapers do not seem to worry about the severity of the punishments —mentions, astonished the minister of Security. The truth is that organized crime is not neutralized with legal reforms —even when legislation can provide a very important support. With this new failure, the government gets ready to fight organized crime by increasing the amount of soldiers on the streets.

     The high military ranges seem anxious to participate in that labor of safety. They count with a specialized unit for rescuing hostages. Government and military men forget that fighting any type of crime is not their duty. They confuse rescuing hostages, which is a specific military intervention, with the duties of the police force.  They also ignore recent experiences, which show that kidnapping is not fought by increasing the military and police presence in a territory; they ignore that organized crime is an exclusive challenge of the police. A characteristic in the millionaire’s daughter kidnapping was the military and police presence.

     It is not helpful to have patrols in the streets if they do not know who are they looking for, if they do not know where to go. The confusion of the police and the government is evident in their new "strategy" of breaking in bars or night-clubs on weekends to control the visitors and ask them for the whereabouts of the most wanted delinquents. In one of these night “operations”, they found policemen consuming liquor on duty. In other words, we do not need groups of soldiers and policemen, but police intelligence to investigate and the political will to prosecute criminals.

     The increase of the armed forces presence on the streets would be theoretically complemented with the centralization of the National Civilian Police (PNC, in Spanish) in the hands of the republic’s president. In the practice, the PNC is controlled by its director, with the departure of some civilians from the direction of the National Academy of Public Security and with the quartering of the police troops. The tendency to militarize seems to be irresistible. Militarization is a politic option contrary to the Peace Agreements, contrary to the original concept of the police, and does not offer a serious solution to the aggravating security problems that El Salvador suffers. Unsafe situations developed in this country when the military forces were in charge of the security forces. One of the main resistances to a democratic and civilian police came from the military, because it meant to lose control over an area that they considered as their own, and which allowed them to participate in illegal activities.

     Public officials and the private business sector are more concerned about kidnappings because of its negative effects on the foreign investments, rather than because its inhuman nature. At least because of that reason they should face the problem in a more serious way. The international press presents El Salvador as the country of kidnapers and earthquakes, an unsafe country by both its nature and its social organization. Natural phenomenon can be mitigated with a proper social organization and, in the same sense, an adequate social organization makes it more difficult for the delinquents to commit any number of crimes.

     In an article of this last March 8th, the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica celebrated with those terms ("an image of unity") what it considered "the great success of the country" achieved by the governmental delegation, civil society and Catholic Church before the Consultative Group, after the presentation of the official document for the national reconstruction. The author of the article recalled that the "participation of the National Commission of Development, COMURES (Municipalities Corporation) and the Episcopal conference kept a long tradition of an unity image of the country in the Consultative Groups". There were plenty of representatives of the National Commission of Development (CND, in Spanish), who declared "we did a meaningful presentation: the government, civil society, mayors, Monsignor Rosa Chávez and others. We came to present a united face of the country".

     However, for the surprise and deception of the designers of this "image of unity", the governmental strategy did not produce the desired result, despite the support of personalities such as the BID´s president and the Spanish government. Even though an image of unity, transparency and capitalist orthodoxy was presented, the main sponsoring countries were not convinced to support this small capitalist, "democratic", and troubled country. The same newspapers that sold the official propaganda about a united country had to accept their disappointment because of the international community's lack of generosity.

     The donations were not overflowing. The ideas of national unity and leadership of President Flores did not impress the international community. On the contrary, the president's best efforts did not go beyond the 300 million dollar. The local journalists accepted that "good intentions were not enough for the donations to grow at the same speed as the loans" (El Diario de Hoy, March 8th, page 2).

     One can easily agree that this situation needs both the unity and participation of all Salvadorans to raise a new nation project that allows us to face the disaster. Without the necessary context, one can fall into the government's publicity game. Because one thing is to talk about union, in terms of strategy and convenience to call everyone's attention, and a very different thing is to believe and have the firm political conviction that unity is the way to impel changes in the present situation. In each one of those cases, the behavior and the strategies are different. Certainly, discourses, decisions and priorities allow us to have a clear idea about the desires and the will of the different people directly involved in this issue. Contrary to what the presidential house staff who elaborated the publicity strategy might think, fraud and ambiguity are not the best political allies.

     These have been the most characteristic features of the political behavior of the governmental team since the beginning of the tragedy. On one side there is the need of national unity; on the other it is openly worked against it.  In order to review some examples of this contradiction (in the context of the Consultative Groups), it is necessary to remember the refusal of president Flores to invite COMURES to the Madrid appointment, the national advertising campaign about the governmental support of the National Commission of Development's reconstruction document, and the official presentation of another document in Madrid, different from the CND's in its vision, diagnosis, and confrontation strategy of the problems inherited by the country after the earthquakes. The national unity issue has just been an image game. The governmental team has not seriously considered the need of a national unity, beyond the idea of an "image of unity".

     It is not clear why the national unity issue has not been discussed since the Consultative Group meeting on last March 7th. What happens is that those who dogmatically believe in the power of technology  (who are the plague of the present governmental team),  take the slogan of the selling perspectives of image too serious. From a business strategy point of view it is believed that "image sells", and this idea conceives politics as a marketing product to cover up the political interests and flaws. The most sincere desire of human kind is transformed into an issue of the most grotesque manipulation. This is what president Flores has turned the search of national unity to face the tragedy into: a political manipulation, which protects the selfish, interests of his economic an political allies.

     If the idea of national unity were not understood only in terms of raising political and economic international dividends, a discussion about the social reconstruction strategy could begin, with the participation of the different political and social forces. Their different proposals should be exposed in a debate, in order to achieve a national compromise not just with the victims, but also with the poor. The private sector's blurry participation in the reconstruction, presented by the government, should be immediately and clearly explained.

     The CND has to explain its position and stop following the governmental manipulation game. Such example of manipulation is in the propagandistic use, which has nothing to do with reality, that the government makes of the CND's function, presented as the main source of civilian participation promotion. As long as the professionals who integrate this commission truly believe in the society's effective participation in the control of public administration, they should remind the president of the abyss between his speeches and the actual civilian participation.

     The fact that the CND members lack of enough support from the organized groups of society cannot be ignored any longer, in order to consider the CND as representatives of the civilian society. Their opinions, without setting aside their good intentions, can only be considered just like any other citizen's. For them to become delegated representatives of society, they must have enough social representation.

     Otherwise, the fiction about civilian participation and national unity will go on, without truly assuming the political compromise of integrating the society as a whole in the decisions that are taken on its behalf. This country has had enough manipulation and image games to go on in the same direction. This is a moment of change, not just based on images, but on reality.

     One of the main concerns, after the January and February earthquakes, has been the elaboration of a national plan of reconstruction, which goes through the participation in the debate on this issue. However, the harsh criticism emerged against the governmental mechanisms used during the emergency, and against the grotesque intent to "politicize” the tragedy announced the complexity of this issue. The national unity was tested, opening the way for diverse opinions. The nourished debate has left some initiatives. Among those, the FMLN's, the National Commission of Development's (CND, in Spanish), and the governmental plan's United for El Salvador are the ones that deserve some attention. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL, in Spanish) contributed to the debate, delivering an evaluation of the social, economic, and environmental impact of the disaster, which might help us as a foundation to identify the most affected areas and present a list of needs to the international community.

     The reunion of the special Consultative Group for El Salvador (in Madrid) was the key moment to explain to the potential sponsors the magnitude of the tragedy and, at the same time, the strategy to follow for the reconstruction. This is, fundamentally, a central government duty, but it does not exclude the rest of the country's social and political actors. The government of Francisco Flores, facing the pressure of the international community (extremely sensible to the inefficient administration of resources, and to the lack of transparency and participation of the citizenry in the application of projects) had to present a distorted vision, in an effort to manipulate the national and international public opinion. There was manipulation because of the existence of an official document —which was published in the WEB page of the Development Inter-American Bank (BID, in Spanish), and had a small echo in the informative media of the country—  that president Flores "assigned"  —and favored?—  to the CND, which would presumably be presented by the governmental delegation in Madrid.

     Both documents present a dramatic dimension of the tragedy; they identify the same priorities: housing, productive reactivation, immediate generation of employment, efficient management of risks. Both documents also include the same terms: civilian participation, descentralization, social audit, and transparency in public administration. However, inspired from different points of view of the national reality, the documents present opposite solutions. While the CND points out a "historical change", which would redefine some problematic economic aspects, the government's document explains that the political, economic and social aspects of El Salvador led us to an exceptional way before the earthquakes, and that those earthquakes were simply a point of discontinuity, to be overcome in a lineal process to which we have to come back. A brief characterization of both proposals will clarify these aspects.

     First, the CND's document "Elements for the reconstruction and the development of El Salvador" is a general approximation to the impact of the tragedy, which intends to offer strategic lines to follow for the national reconstruction and development. The document identifies the main national representatives, highlighting the participation of local governments and civil society. This document relies on the Territorial Action Proposal of the Nation's Plan, which has three fundamental aspects: regional development and descentralization, widening and transformation of the business managerial base, and the Central American and world integration.

     The situations of poverty and marginality grow stronger for most of the Salvadorans. In the most affected areas, according to the consultation of the CND, three out of five victims are small farmers and micro impresarios of the informal sector. In reference to the coffee-growing farmers of Comasagua and Santiago de Maria  —practically destroyed areas—, the report admits that there are precarious living conditions  in the country. "If they did not have much before, now they have less, because they have no job". The CND describes the map of poverty without digging deep into its historical configuration. Therefore, the CND makes a radical proposal, because it points out the need of a structural change; however, at the same time, it lacks depth because it does not refer to the structural roots of the national problems.

     The CND proposal also mentions inevitable challenges: "we see reconstruction as an unavoidable process, which will allow us to overcome some structural problems from the past". There is no specification about what those problems are, or how they could be neutralized. Even if there is no clarity in these points, it is obvious that, based on such aspects, the CND is taking distance from the governmental discourse: "if we followed the path that existed before the earthquakes, we would lose the present opportunity and we would avoid the obligation that the disaster imposes. Certain budget or tax measures must be synchronized with the magnitude of the disaster and the needs of the reconstruction".

     Second, the "United for El Salvador, Recuperation Plan of the damage caused by the January and February 13 earthquakes of 2001" document starts by giving us a heavenly vision of the country: it calls it a "modern system of liberty and democracy". According to the government, El Salvador is a politically, economically and socially enviable nation that is guided by the principles of democracy, economic openness and social participation.

     In the political aspect, they rave about the wide participation spaces: the CND, the EDUCO program, the Rural and Sustainable Ways, and the Healthy Schools, among others. In the economic area they rave about the country's macro economic stability, economic freedom and the advantages of dollarization. If there has been anything like the fall of the Domestic Gross Income (PIB, in Spanish) to a 2.1% for the last year it is not because of internal factors such as the application of restrictive monetary policies, but fundamentally because of the increasing of the petroleum prices and the fall of the international prices of the main exportation products, according to the government. Finally, the achievements reached in social aspects are underlined: the poverty and illiteracy reduction, and the decrease of the housing deficit.

     The governmental plan aims to turn the tragedy of both earthquakes into an opportunity for all Salvadorans, along with the support of the international community, in order to build a "New El Salvador". However, the strongest idea in the document is that the country should go back to the situation that there was before the earthquakes; this means a denial of all the "historical changes". It seems that, according to the government's judgment,  "a country with modern structures, diversified production, competence and a wide coverage of public services" is automatically reached by the rules of the free market and a little participation of the State, foundations of the neoliberal discipline.

     The space for contributions to the process of reconstruction and national development continues. If the international aid became a crucial element, that is no obstacle to justify that this country cannot go by itself in this process. This situation involves questionable aspects of the present governmental administration model, such as the distribution of property and richness. On the other hand, even if the Peace Agreements were an immense achievement and the steps towards development were exceptional, the income distribution mechanisms, and the investment and business concentration are still an obstacle to build a fair country.

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