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

Central American University (UCA)
Apdo. Postal 01-168, Boulevard Los Próceres
San Salvador, El Salvador, Centro América
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.

     Subscriptions to Proceso in Spanish can be obtained by sending a check for US$50.00 (Americas) or $75.00 (Europe) made out to 'Universidad Centroamericana' and sent to the above address. Or read it partially on the UCA’s Web Page: http://www.uca.edu.sv
     For the ones who are interested in sending donations, these would be welcome at Proceso. Apdo. Postal 01-168, San Salvador, El Salvador.

INDEX

EDITORIAL

    With this week's edition, Proceso reaches its number 1000 issue. It is easy to say it, but after almost 22 years reaching this number is not as easy as it might seem. Those first years are already far away. During the early eighties and scared by the civil war, the serious violations against the human rights, and the sharp social and political tensions, the first number of Proceso saw the light and soon became a reference source for the national and the international journalists, researchers and analysts who studied the Salvadoran situation. All of them wanted to have an objective perspective of the country's enormous problems. Those years were characterized by the most absolute disinformation about the situation that El Salvador lived. The right-wing's press had turned into the spokesperson of the governments who planned to hide the critical social and political tensions, the state's terrorism, and the irremediable circumstances caused by the civil war that emerged from the late seventies' horizon.

To revert that perverse disinformation dynamic was one of the initial purposes at Proceso. On this course of action, the most urgent factor was to gather information about the problems that were hidden from the public: political violence, the state's repression, the military and the political actions of the left-wing groups, and the violations against the human rights. What Proceso could say about these subjects not always had the desired social impact, in order to neutralize the effects of the prevailing disinformation. However, a window was opened for the analysis of the national reality, which could have been exploited by those who were not satisfied with the visions emanated from the official circles. Along the eighties, Proceso filled an empty space in El Salvador. During the fist years of that decade, after the "pilot" numbers, Proceso shaped the presentation format, as well as the subject areas that characterize the publication until this day.

By the late eighties, Proceso already had its own profile. An evolution took place in its internal orientation: the informative line, although it remained the same, has opened a space to examine the national and the Central American situation. To combine information with interpretation became a distinctive element of Proceso practically since the mid eighties. That conjugation -sometimes achieved and sometimes not- still confronts the challenges to understand the country's situation and the ability to foresee its future tendencies.

To take the country's "pressure" week after week is a task that requires to pay close attention to the effective and possible changes. In order to accomplish that, it has been necessary to write essays and interpretations about the national reality. This reality has had many different interpretations. The analysis of the national reality has not always been accurate. However, in several occasions, the important tendencies -the exhaustion of the military resolution; the crisis of the agricultural sector, and the tertiary division of the economy; the institutional weakness to take a step ahead in the democratization process; the irruption of the social violence- have been noticed and examined by Proceso before any other publication.

It is necessary to say that Proceso is not an island inside the Central American University "José Simeón Cañas". Consequentially, a good part of its analytical achievements are closely related to the work of other academic and social projection unities of the University. Although it is true that the Information, Documentation, and Research Center -a unity assigned to the UCA's vice rectory of Social Projection- (CIDAI, in Spanish) has the responsibility to produce Proceso, this weekly publication not only states the CIDAI's perceptions, it involves the University as a whole.

It is clear that not everything that is published in Proceso can be ascribed to the UCA as an institution. The University's members do not have to conceive the analysis and the interpretations as their own either. However, Proceso's analysis and interpretations, since they do not attack the fundamental principles and guidelines of the UCA -as far as the compromise to search for the truth, a scientific honesty, and the work to benefit the most underprivileged sectors of the society- are supported by its superior authorities and by the members of the University.

Proceso was conceived as a weekly publication that would take the pulse of the Salvadoran reality. This has been the purpose, week after week, after almost 22 years. The challenges have been permanent in the information line as well as in the interpretation guidelines. The Peace Agreements included in its agenda, as an extremely important issue, the country's democratization problem. Other equally important issues appeared -such as the institution's vulnerability, the post-war violence, and the media's orientation-, which obliged the responsible ones to take charge of the new key interpretations of the Salvadoran situation. In many occasions, the rhythm of the facts and its novelty have not helped to say the right words; at times, the structure of other analysis has been an obstacle to focus on new issues. Both situations bring unavoidable challenges for a weekly publication that intends to be at the height of the Salvadoran problems.

The 1000 issue of Proceso, far from closing a cycle, represents the continuity of a permanent task. The issue number one -dated June 15th, 1980- explains that Proceso's main objective is to "provide the readers with objective, veracious, and new information about the Salvadoran reality". Inside the issue number 987 -almost 22 years later- it can be read that "Proceso selects the most relevant facts for the Salvadoran reality, the national as well as the international ones, in order to analyze the country's recent problems and follow the guidelines that lead to its interpretations". Between the period that separates one issue from another, the compromise of the university with the national reality has always been present.

    This publication reaches Proceso's number 1000 issue, which means that, approximately for over 22 years, Proceso has been present at the Salvadoran intellectual universe. At this moment, it is necessary to review Proceso's performance with a reflection about the national political activity, one of the neuralgic points of this publication ever since its creation.

The birth of Proceso was parallel to an intensification of the national political crisis: the beginning of the civil war in 1980. Back then, it was clear for the contenders that the violent actions –the armed actions, in the case of the left-wing opposition; and the repression, in the case of the Governmental Board-, were the only options to impose to the Salvadoran society their vision of reality. In this sense, it is revealing that the first issue of Proceso, dated June 15th 1980, would introduce the reader to the analysis about the political panorama, saying that “the week presents a significant variation in the general repressive actions, as the government sharpens its legal and juridical instruments”. At the same time, Proceso also included a fundamental piece of information in reference to the military and political field: “the Salvadoran Communist Party -(PCS, in Spanish)- and the Popular Forces of Liberation (FPL), the Armed Forces of the National Resistance (FARN), and the Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP) declared that the four groups had come together to form an army that would act under the same name, under the same orders, and with a strategy generated by their own experiences”.

From this moment on, the pages of this publication showed a systematic record of the civil war actions, its influence over the national political life, its painful effects; but Proceso also showed the possible ways that could lead to a pacific solution of the conflict. That is why it was necessary to identify the key figures of the process and their compromise with peace. At the same time, by December 1981, it was sustained that the conflict’s internationalization , according to the East-West axis of confrontation established by The United States, would be a significant element for the final resolution of the problem. However, at the same time, the international pressures were emphatically inclined towards a pacific solution, based on the political understanding of the conflict’s causes and on the acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the insurgent’s demands.

In addition, the position of the local figures clearly appears inside the pages of Proceso during this period of time. The official sectors –ARENA, PDC, PCN, the military, and the private business elite-, encouraged by the posture of the Reagan Administration, were clearly against any solution that could involve a redefinition of the political game. Instead, other local sectors –the guerrilla itself, the church, the syndicates, and certain professional unions- supported by several governments, such as the ones of France and Mexico, asked for a political resolution of the armed conflict.

However, despite these invaluable contributions to understand the dynamics and the evolution of the Salvadoran internal war, the analysis did not reflect the voice of the civilian society. It seemed as if the insurgents, the sectors closer to the government, and the international community were the only protagonists of the national politics. Very little was said about the demands of the innocent victims, or about the Salvadorans who were against the bipolar logic established during the conflict.

The negotiation process
Faithful to the bet for a political solution of the conflict, Proceso was interested in the rapprochement efforts made between the belligerent sectors. Even during the most difficult times, after the murder of the UCA’s Jesuit priests, in 1989, this option was not put aside. The report about the actors’ behavior regarding the dialogue issue allow to discern the congruent way in which this subject was discussed. In addition, a series of valuable analysis about the position of each one of the actors were made in the heat of the events, and were left for future debates. These analysis constitute a valuable source of information to compare today’s declarations with the decisions and the actions that the actors made in the past, who now claim themselves the only architects of peace.

In any case, it is acknowledged that the arrival of Cristiani to the national administration, in 1989, and the national and the international situations were a key factor to achieve the negotiation. “Nobody with a clear judgment –said Cristiani- would want this unfair and fratricidal war to go on. The Constitution compels the president to take care of the country’s social harmony. We will scrupulously accomplish that command, seeking for a legal and political understanding with all of the sectors. The FMLN is one of these sectors, and we will try to get an immediate contact with them”. There is no doubt that this declaration marked an inflection point in the behavior of the ARENA leaders, who until that day avoided the dialogue issue and the search for a negotiated solution of the armed conflict. This is how Proceso acknowledges the first ARENA president for showing an attitude contrary to those of the most important spokespeople of his party. His attitude contributed to conquer the peace.

A new era
The new era, inaugurated by the Peace Agreements, received from the beginning a clear acknowledgement inside the pages of this weekly publication. It could not be any different. An examination of the intellectual positions about the Salvadoran conflict shows that the negotiated peace subject has always found a particular echo in Proceso. A day after the signature of the Chapultepec Agreements, in an analysis about the situation of the country, it was mentioned that “after eleven long years in which the war’s mechanisms had been imposed over the efforts of a negotiated solution, the historical density in favor of the peace and in favor of the country’s democratic transformation has been such, that for many social sectors it is still very difficult to assume as a reality what is presently going on in the country”.

However, despite the decisive support to the peace and the reconciliation process, it was soon found out that these elements would not be achieved at the expense of both justice and the attention for the victims of the war, just like the political actors of that time intended it to be. In a particular way, the amnesty subject was questioned, making an emphasis on the political hypocrisy of its promulgation and its counterproductive effects for the new society. At the same time, this was an insistence on rejecting a false pacification process, the purpose was to cut the heads off the popular movements. For this issue, Proceso’s analysis were used as premonitions about what would happen after the signature of the Peace Agreements.

That is why it is still valid to say that “The complete knowledge of the truth cannot be in dispute with the reconciliation, just like the defenders of the ‘forget and forgive’ line sustain”. In addition, it is not positive to “stop and distort a true national construction with false pacification conceptions, founded in the malicious ignorance of the severe conflicts and the hurtful social differences of this country. To officially or officiously combat the vindicated and the organized militancy of the farm-laboring and the popular unions, accusing them of a anti-pacifist radicalism, is not enough to hide the pretension of reducing them to helpless articles of a democratic showcase in the free market of justice.

This is how, from the beginning, the new political mechanisms created by the Peace Agreements were understood. There were complains about how inadequately the peace issue was being handled. To read today’s national politics is a revealing exercise about the preoccupations that existed before. It turns out that the country has been “pacified”, however the social and the popular organizations and unions that could have helped to demand today’s justice have been dissolved.

However, on the other hand, it is necessary to emphasize that the introduction of those organizations would have an unusual presence in the analysis made by Proceso during the post conflict period. Was that the result of a progressive loss of an effective leading role for the left-wing in this new situation? It is highly probable. In any case, it is necessary to emphasize that idea, given its absence in the analysis made before the Peace Agreements were reached.

The challenges for Proceso
The former considerations lead to the conclusion that, along Proceso’s 1000 issues, this weekly publication has played its role making an effort to uncover the mechanisms of the political process. There is no doubt that it has done its work with a doses of audacity. It is necessary to remember the difficult times when information was a scarce product, the most involved sectors of the war worked against information. During that time, Proceso was not only a source of well-balanced information and analysis, but it also helped, without a doubt, to unmask the actors involved in the war.

Times have changed and, consequentially, new ways to get closer to the national reality must be found. In this sense, Proceso has to remain as a dispassionate source of both information and analysis, capable to distinguish the mechanisms that the country’s course marks. That is why it is necessary now to combine Proceso’s tradition for objectivity and braveness with the best instruments of the political analysis that allow us to have a more accurate perspective of reality. This is the task that the present publishers and writers must follow, if they want to continue having something relevant to say at the national intellectual field. Quite a challenge, but it has remained the same despite the multiplication of the different centers specialized in the political, economic, and social analysis, since the distortion of the truth is still one of the most ingrained traditions in El Salvador.

    During almost 22 years, the economic issue has occupied a privileged placed in Proceso. Not only because it is one of the main “internal factors” of the crisis, just like Ignacio Ellacuria used to say, but also because it was evident that the different events of the social, political, military and international context were also causing gradual changes in the economic field.

During the first years, the analysis of the economic situation was clearly influenced by the economic reforms made by the governmental board, the economic impact of the war, and the crisis of the external sector, specially during the period of 1981-1985. The economic “package” of the Christian-Democratic government of Napoleon Duarte (1984-1989), and the later actions unleashed by the 1986 earthquake built a new stage and a new level for the analysis of the economic situation at least until 1989, when the scenery drastically changed with the arrival of the first ARENA government. This political party still handles the country’s administration.

During the nineties, ARENA’s presence in the Executive power has been influenced by a series of counter-reforms, which reverted the changes operated by the governmental boards and the Duarte administration. With the Peace Agreements reached in 1992, a new era for the economic growth arrives, and it dissimulates but it does not hide the presence of potential sources of an economic crisis. These potential sources reveal the flaws of the economic “model” that has been shaped during the ARENA administrations.

Somehow, the weak and the strong features of the model are the result of the implementation of deliberated policies, although it is necessary to acknowledge the impact of other elements that cannot be controlled by the government ( a fall in the exportation prices, the migration, the flow of the remittances, the Initiative of the Caribbean Basin , and the relative strength of the foreign investments in the textile maquila). The disasters caused by the 2001 earthquakes have also had a sensible impact over the economic performance, and not only show the recurrent and growing character of the disasters, but that history can also repeat itself.

When it comes to analyze the economic situation, Proceso reveals how, at different stages, the disasters (caused by the earthquakes, floods, dry seasons, or the war conflicts) have affected the economic performance. It also reveals how the different reforms and counter-reforms of the economic policies have not been able to make this country less dependant from The United States. During the eighties, the AID projects and the counter-insurgent programs with an economic and social content (CONARA’s style) were the ones that financed the war. During the nineties, and even in the present, the commercial preferences and the reception of the immigrant workers in The United States are favoring the maintenance of an economic strategy that has not been able to eradicate the tendencies towards the imbalance, nor to consolidate the internal growth poles.

The eighties: reformism, economic low blows, and disasters
Proceso appears after the agricultural reforms, the banking system’s internationalization, and the external commerce measures were made. It was at that moment when the potential economic crisis took a turn for the worst: the production was reduced, an external imbalance took place, and there was not enough currency to cover the importation expenses. In addition, the inflation grew and the tendencies towards the imbalance of the fiscal deficit became more probable. This situation would remain critical throughout the eighties. Ever since the first issue of Proceso was published, it was evident that the crisis would end with the governmental propaganda. However, the governmental propaganda persists until this day. In that first edition, Proceso pointed out that it would try to present an alternative perspective, different from the propaganda made by the government. Back then (1980), the government launched an Emergency Plan of thirteen points which intended to overcome the critical economic situation of the time (Proceso 1).

The publication of Proceso intended to examine the economic tendencies, and to demonstrate the participation of the North American government in an economy that was not growing -but which demanded a great amount of resources to finance the war, the public safety and the economic reforms, and to face the macroeconomic crisis (See Proceso 94, 135, 218, 269, 317)-. The different governmental plans aimed to palliate the contraction of the production and the macroeconomic unsteadiness were also the object of an examination. For instance, the so called "economic package" adopted by the Duarte Administration in 1986, and which generated very different social reactions during that year (See Proceso 219 and 220). Another example is the 1986 Post-earthquake Emergency Plan (See Proceso 262) or the 1987 Economic Program (See Proceso 317).

During the eighties, Proceso also included the observations made about the impact of the social and the natural disasters on the economy, specially about the ones caused by the dry season and the floods that took place in 1982 (there was an earthquake in that year), the earthquake that devastated San Salvador in 1986 (See Proceso 94, 256, 260, 263, 269 and 366), and the dry seasons that took place that year and the following (See Proceso 317). In fact, Proceso is one of the few sources with information about the political, economic, and social impact about the disasters of the recent history (the last twenty years).

The nineties and the dawn of the 21st Century: privatization, the modernization of the state, and the "three sector" economy
The eighties crisis, characterized by the war and the recurrent social and natural disasters shaped a disappointing economic perspective for the first ARENA administration (1989). One of the goals for that administration is an economic plan that has two elements: the stabilization and the economic reorientation (See Proceso 391). That economic program kept on guiding the public policies of the two following administrations. This is when they started to discuss the "Neoliberal" model, the privatization, the modernization of the state, and the economic openness. These issues are still discussed nowadays, and they are part of the economic policies of the third administration of ARENA.

Among the transcendental issues that Proceso systematically examined first are: the re-privatization of the financial system (See Proceso 421, 422,441, 449, and 554); the legal reforms to authorize the individual property in the sector affected by the agricultural reform of the eighties (See Proceso 420); the privatization of the following sectors: telecommunications, the distribution of electric energy and the system of pensions; the process followed to sell several entities; and the liquidation of either the assets or the state's institutions such as the IVU, IRA and the INCAFE.

Just like in the eighties, the nineties were the witness of new and devastating social and natural disasters caused by the same reasons of the past: the 1991, 1994, 1997, and 2000 dry seasons (See Proceso 485, 486, 622, and 764), the floods associated with the 1998 "Mitch" tropical storm (See Proceso 829, 833), and of course the 2001 earthquakes (See Proceso 937-940).

However, even with the increase of the highly risky situation and the impact of the disasters, it cannot be denied that, during the nineties, the analysis of the different macroeconomic crisis was losing its argumentative points: since 1992 the currency's rate of exchange became steady; the production started to grow much faster thanks to the repatriation of the capitals, the reconstruction programs, and a better climate for the foreign investments; the consumption expanded itself following the growth of the credit and the growth of the family remittances, while the external sector achieved its stability thanks to the transferences and the loans. Finally, the inflation was reduced.

This apparently encouraging economic perspective should be actually contrasted with at least three fundamental factors: first, the dependency on the migration to The united States to palliate unemployment, underemployment and the economic instability problem. In the second place, the dependency on external factors for the generation of employment -specially the foreign investments on the textile maquila. In the third place, the orientation of the growth towards the "three sector" activities related with commerce and the services, being detrimental to the traditional sectors of productivity, such as farming and the domestic industry.

Real changes?
The analysis made by Proceso helped to rescue valuable information about our recent past, revealing the most important changes operated in the last 22 years: the eighties (the so called "lost decade"), and the nineties (called "the decade of Neoliberalism"). In the end, the critical tendencies persist (the growth of both the commercial and the fiscal deficit). However, the end of the war and the arrival of the new "lifesavers" have put on make-up on the crisis, specially with the monetary stability derived from the stability of the currency's rate of exchange, which the country enjoys since 1992.

The unbalancing tendencies persist, as it can be observed in all of the annual economic balances of the nineties. And even if there were no contractions in the production, such as in the eighties, it cannot be denied that since 1996 the growth rates have been dropping to similar levels as those of the eighties (2%). As far as the three economic sectors are concerned, the agriculture continues experimenting reductions in its production, while the domestic industry has not achieved a conversion that would allow it to take advantage of the so called "benefits" that the globalization process offers.

Apart from the exchange type stability and the finalization of the war, the Salvadoran economy keeps showing the same critical tendencies, as well as an evident incapacity to achieve a steady growth in order to reach rates higher than 5%, despite the reforms and counter-reforms consecutively executed by the different ARENA governments. In this sense, the retrospective examination of Proceso suggests that it would be considered premature to say that the Neoliberal economic model has been the solution to the problems inherited from the eighties, since these problems -as well as the risks and the disasters- continue to live and are still a challenge for the ones who formulate the future and the present economic policies.

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