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Proceso 1118
Octubre 20, 2004
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: The dirty tricks of nationality
Politics: Twenty-five years after the last Coup d'état
Economy: The economic effects of the 1979 coup d’état
The dirty tricks of nationality
The opposition to the candidacy of former president Flores
for the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) was
described as “stingy” by President Saca. He considers that it is not polite to
be against the aspirations of a Salvadoran that hopes to occupy such a relevant
position. According to him, he would be very proud if a Salvadoran were to be
chosen for that position. The presidential logic seems impeccable. Former
president Flores would be suitable for that position just because he is a
Salvadoran citizen and, for the same reason, the nation, as a whole, would have
to support his candidacy. It is a simple nationalistic argument, that overlooks
his intellectual, political and diplomatic capacities, his experience in the
international field and, in particular, his experience in the field of the
regional integration, and his adhesion to the principles and the actions of the
Organization of American States. Nothing of this sort is relevant when a person
has the Salvadoran nationality.
With this apparently consistent logic, President Saca ought to feel even more
proud of Monsignor Romero, the most universal Salvadoran there is. Monsignor
Romero is the most renowned, remembered and the most celebrated Salvadoran
anywhere in the world. His name and his image can be found in many places in the
American continent, Europe, and the East. He is also Salvadoran, and has many
more merits than the former president that Saca would feel so proud of if he
were chosen as the Secretary General of a continental organization. For someone
who is such an admired Salvadoran personality, inside as well as outside the
national borders, President Saca already should have given instructions to his
ambassador in the Vatican to promote the canonization of Monsignor Romero as a
national cause of vital importance for the country and for the Salvadoran
Church. But this is not the case.
President Saca does not feel the same pride for Monsignor Romero, even though he
is also Salvadoran. The reason is simple. In fact, the important aspect of this
is not the nationality, but that former president Flores shares with him the
trajectory and the ideology of ARENA. In addition, the founder of that party is
directly connected with the murder of Monsignor Romero. It is understandable
then why president Saca does not feel proud of this universal Salvadoran and,
consequently, it is clear why he does not condemn the questionable actions of
Romero’s detractors, those who refuse to give him the recognition that he
deserves. Monsignor Romero is not a fundamental piece of the history of the
Salvadoran nationality for ARENA. However, outside the national borders, he is
indeed acknowledged in an unquestionable way. Nationality is not, then, the
determining factor. For the Salvadoran right wing there are Salvadorans and then
there are Salvadorans.
The inclinations of president Saca are actually testing the humanitarian spirit
of his administration, a key element of the propaganda about the Presidential
House. An administration that ignores the scornful attitude that former
president Flores adopted when he received the recommendations of the
Inter-American Commission of Human rights, an branch of the Organization of
American States, cannot rave about a government with a human face, because it
still has not shown any signs of sensitivity before the human rights subject.
The president of a government with a human face cannot ignore one of the most
delicate aspects of the human rights of the country because the positions of
former president Flores were made public. If memory is what fails here, the
presidential advisers should help them remember. In fact, the ARENA
administrations hide behind the shield of their lack of memory to avoid the
aspects connected with the violation of the human rights.
Even though President Saca affirms that his administration only supports a
single regional candidacy and denies that he endorses the one of former
president Flores, the facts demonstrate that his administration is working to
put him at the head of the Organization of American States. What moves Saca goes
beyond the fact of Flores’ nationality. One of the aspects of the policy of
ARENA is to promote the idea of an attractive country for the foreign
investments, a country that, by the way, has not been able to reach the desired
standards, although, for fifteen years, those administrations have been working
hard to attract a considerable amount of investments. That is why President Saca
also requested a position inside the Security Council of the United Nations
–a request that was rejected -. The public officials have a slogan to speak in
the name of the kind of country they dream about when they participate in
conferences, forums, workshops, etc. abroad. In this, they follow the script
written by former president Flores, which is also used by Saca.
However, the reality of the country betrays them. It is like the bridge on the
Acelhuate river that communicates San Salvador with Soyapango, a piece of
infrastructure that recently just collapsed without a warning. The government is
really trying to present a country with a solid growth, and a sustainable
development, respectful of the institutional sense, a very democratic country,
in short, a country that, like the bridge, looks apparently safe. Nevertheless,
the foundations of the bridge are weak, and it can collapse at any time, just
like the country. Fifteen years of a transition guided by ARENA have not been
able to provide the country with the necessary support to drive it towards where
the official speech wanted it to go.
To be against to the candidacy of former president Flores for the Secretariat of
the Organization of American States is not the actual sample of meanness, but to
support it, knowing that he is an unsuitable person for the job. The fact that
he is a Salvadoran citizen is not enough. If that were the case, anyone could
aspire to these positions, and there would always be a reason for the pride that
President Saca feels. It is not enough to be a former president either, because,
as it has been verified, in the case of the last Costa Rican secretary, that
position does not offer any guarantees of suitability. The Central American
presidents and chancellors should look for a candidate outside their exclusive
club. There are many Central American citizens that could be more qualified than
the former presidents, as Gert Rosenthal, the former director of the Economic
Commission for Latin America, someone with a much higher level of education than
Flores and with an outstanding international experience. For a long time,
Rosenthal has also been a serious promoter of the regional integration process.
And this is a fundamental characteristic, if the goal is to work for the unity
of the region. The sincere desire to present a regional candidacy would have to
be reflected in the trajectory of the candidate. Certainly, former president
Flores is not that candidate.
Twenty-five years after the last Coup d'état
Twenty-five years after the last coup d'état of the
military youth is a good moment to reflect on what has been the political life
like since those days. What have we learned? Is there some kind of similarity
between the reality of those days and the present? Is there an absolute
certainty that there will be no more coup d'états in the country? The present
commentary will try to go deep into these questions in order to understand the
political moment that El Salvador is presently living.
Has the lesson been learned?
The manifesto of the members of the army that prepared a coup d’état on 15 of
October of 1979, tried, among other things, to consecrate the "cease of the
violence and corruption, to guarantee the effectiveness of the Human rights, to
adopt measures that would lead the country to an equitable distribution of the
national wealth, and to guide in a positive manner the country’s foreign
relations". The need to encourage such project was present, according to the
members of the army, in a previous analysis that created the conviction that the
problems of that time were "the product of old fashioned economic, social, and
political structures that have prevailed in the country, [ which ] do not offer
for most of the inhabitants the minimum necessary conditions to live as human
beings".
A serious problem of that time, as indicated by the proclamation of the military
youth, was corruption. Twenty-five years later, it is lamentable to observe that
corruption has not disappeared. No one knows exactly what is the magnitude of
corruption inside the country’s institutions, or what is the rank of all the
people involved in it. Nevertheless, judging by what is going on and by some
recent cases that have been made public, it is easy to conclude that the
flagellum of corruption exists in the high circles of the Salvadoran State. As
for guaranteeing the validity of the human rights, the country has gone a long
way. In any case, in spite of the serious flaws in this area, the country has
surpassed that period in which the institutions of security were the ones
planning the public decapitation and execution of the opponents, or those that
were considered as the alleged opponents.
In reference to the equitable distribution of the national wealth, the country
is still far from the ideal that those who participated in the coup d’état had
on 15 of October of 1979. The country has not gone too far with it, and
therefore the situation has gotten worse. At the present time, El Salvador
occupies the second place on the list of the countries with the most unequal
distribution of resources in Latin America, socially and economically speaking.
In other words, the national wealth is more concentrated and the members of the
elite are not willing to share the elements of their good life with the rest of
the society. The country’s foreign relations have not followed a positive line
either. Although El Salvador is not in war with its Central American neighbors,
its presence in Iraq in is part of a cloudy circumstance that has nothing to do
with the interests of the majority.
The question is what has happened in the country since then? It is not possible
to say that the society surpassed all the obstacles that the military riot of
those years denounced. Perhaps, unlike back then (1979), there are no more
members of the army that could belong to the left wing, worried about the way in
which the elites impose their law to the less fortunate social classes. In that
sense, a direct consequence of the last coup d'état was the conscience that was
developed in the wealthiest sectors about the necessity to take control of their
political destiny.
ARENA was born in this context and the late Roberto D'Aubuisson stood out as one
of the members of the army that defended the status quo. The sectors of the
right wing learned the lesson and ended up controlling the military institution,
putting aside the “dangerous” members of the army that sympathized with the left
wing. The virulent analysis that some sectors are still making about the events
of that 15 of October show the resentment of those that were expropriated from
their lands and other properties. An editorial of El Diario de Hoy recalls the
events in these terms: "the regime connected the financial system and the
robbery of the lands with the State. It is also necessary to remember how with
the agrarian reform, also the banking system fell quickly into bankruptcy
although it was one of the most important institutions, with executives of great
experience, efficient administrations, infrastructures with strong foundations,
trained personnel, and the trust and loyalty of its customers. It is not
difficult to guess the reason why the system became part of the State: the
reliable, progressive, honest and beneficial institutions were taken because, in
the famous words of Willy Sutton, a gangster of Chicago that also robbed banks,
it is there where the money is".
With those words, although they do not have much to do with the reality of the
formerly described companies, anyone can have an idea about the degree of hate
that the editorialist reflects towards those members of the army and the
intellectuals who either took part in the coup d’état or that supported it. The
most conservative sector of the right wing does not accept the fact that the
coup d'état responded to a specific situation of the national life and that it
has to be analyzed beyond the passionate perspective of those who were affected
by it. That is why it is not actually true to say that the country has lost
twenty-five years of the development cycle or that the economic, the social and
the political problems of the present are directly connected with the decisions
made by the country’s governmental board of that time. However, by the way, what
were the objectives of the coup d'état?
A blow out of boldness?
It is necessary to consider that an important progressive sector of the country
supported the coup d’état. Outstanding intellectuals, known by their support in
favor of a change in the political, the social, and the economic structures of
the country, accepted to take part, along with the members of the army, in the
governmental board. From the beginning, in the proclamation of the members of
the army it is established that "to achieve the goals that with all justice the
Salvadoran population demands, the Revolutionary Governmental Board will
integrate a cabinet formed by honest and willing elements that will represent
different sectors, and use all of their patriotism in the performance of such
important duties".
The day after the military insurrection, the most sagacious analyst of the
national political reality at the time noticed that, despite the lack of time to
evaluate the facts, the coup d’état itself was a promising event. Ignacio
Ellacuría said: "if someone puts together a revolutionary government able to do
justice listening to the demands and noticing the people’s sacrifice, someone
who looks for the support of the progressive forces, someone able to stay open
to the critics, its presence in circle of power can be transcendental not only
to liberate the country from a horrid stage, but to open a new way through which
the Salvadoran population will be able to build its own destiny".
If the proposal of the governance committee were to become a reality, according
to Ellacuria, "this October 15th will transform itself into an historical date
in the struggle of the Salvadoran population for its social vindication. It can
constitute the date in which the promises of the right wing (of the previous
regime) will start falling apart. The unfulfilled promises about the popular
sovereignty, the democratic regime, the human rights, and social justice. The
monotony of these promises must reach an end in El Salvador. The promises must
be transformed into true and effective realities. The proclamation of the
revolutionary board of government, leaded by the progressive military men of El
Salvador, is lined up towards these accomplishments".
A modern interpretation of that past reveals that the dreams of Ellacuría did
not come true in reference to the possibilities that the first Revolutionary
Board of Government had to solve the problems of the country. The fratricidal
confrontation that the members of the army said they wanted to avoid only became
worse and lasted for twelve long years. In addition, until today the promises of
social justice of the Salvadorans have not been fulfilled. Why did the army
failed?
Ellacuría himself spoke about the most serious mistakes of the new process. "
the fundamental errors were:
a) To exclude the organized people and the revolutionary organizations from the
solution principle, when they are the main enemy of that dominant class, a class
responsible for the situation of the country;
b) To base all the process on the Armed Forces, when no one knew anything about
its degree of corruption and its complex network of implications with the
dominant class, whether they were conscious or not about it;
c) To think that it is possible to come up with an average solution or a central
one between the dominant class and the revolutionary class in a country like
ours with its specific stage of development;
d) To believe that new things could be done without ending with the usual
actions of the previous socioeconomic and political order ".
In other words, the young military men never cut the connection between their
umbilical cords and the dominant sectors of the country. The most conservative
groups of those sectors took control of the military apparatus once again and
they became the guardians of the interests of a small exploitative elite.
Despite the later recovery, there is no doubt that the coup d’état of the young
military people is an important landmark in the history of the country, since a
group of the army wanted to put itself to the service of a national project
where the exclusion of most of the citizens were not the rule.
The last coup d’état?
The events of October 15th culminated with an election process that, as it can
be said today, meant the beginning of a normalization process for the
representative democracy in the country. Since then, the administrations are
chosen through an electoral process. In spite of all its limitations, the
democratic process keeps advancing. But, was that the last time that the Armed
Forces intervened the political life of the country? Will they ever intervene in
the country’s political life again?
No other special event has motivated the armed forces to directly participate in
the political process. The most conservative members of the army (who belonged
to the right wing) that regained the control of the Armed Forces keep the life
of this institution at a certain pace. In addition, the electoral performance of
the members of the right-wing party, whose interests are protected by the armed
forces, has been a complete success in the last twenty years. For all of these
reasons, in the short and medium term, there does not seem to be another coup
d'état in the horizon. In addition, at the present time, the international
conjunction is less tolerant with that type of political adventures.
However, in the end, there are several elements that can lead people to think
that a serious political crisis cannot be discarded for the near future. The
serious violations against the social justice persist and the social differences
are intense and critical in the country; in addition, the political system
remains in the same hands. The possibility of seeing the opposition inside the
Executive power is still the worse nightmare of both the right wing and the most
inflexible members of the army.
The economic effects of the 1979 coup d’état
A quarter of a century ago there was a coup d'état against
the administration of Carlos Humberto Romero. According to those who planned
this event, it was encouraged by the need to resolve the difficult economic and
political situation of the country. In 1979 an excluding economic structure had
consolidated itself, a structure that had its roots in the 19th century. In the
course of the following century, a considerable number of social demands were
accumulated and they would explode during the Eighties. In order to briefly
characterize the panorama of the time, the following words turn out to be
interesting: "the military insurrection creates the combination of two factors:
the intensification of an unbearable deterioration of the economic, the social
and the political situation (objective factor), and the persuasion of the young
officers about the “fact” that such situation could not only take the country to
a dead end, but to the total discredit of the military situation ".
A brief revision of diverse analyses on the problematic of that year can be very
revealing. There was a critical economic situation and the people were excluded
from the political decisions. If the situation of the Salvadoran society of the
late Seventies is compared with the one of the early 21st century, many similar
characteristics could be identified. This could lead anyone to think that the
efforts that have been made in the last years to improve the development of the
country have not been successful, because the levels of poverty are still high.
The economic situation before 1979
To observe the economic situation of the Salvadoran population, it is convenient
to notice that before the coup d'état, the political parties such as the
Christian Democratic Party (PDC, in Spanish) and the National Popular
Revolutionary Movement (MNR), and organizations like the Popular League of
February 28th (LP-28), and the National Federation of Unions of the Salvadoran
Workers (FENASTRAS), among others, had created the Common Platform of the
Popular Forum, an institution that considered, among other things, that "the
real income of the Salvadoran family has decreased; unemployment has become a
chronic characteristic of the society, the life in the country has reached a
level of misery". The statistics of the Ministry of Economic Planning confirm
those words, because at that time 8% of the population approximately received
50% of the national income. A 30% of the population earned less than $6 per
month, and 58% counted with less than $12 per month.
The economic crisis fundamentally obeyed to a couple of elements: it was one of
the most critical moments for the agricultural economic model of exports, which
began to seem obsolete before the new active mechanisms of the world-wide
market. In the second place, there was the failure of the Central American
economic integration scheme and, particularly, the loss of the Honduran market
as the addressee of the local products, these events became an obstacle for the
national economy. The manufacturing sector was hardly able to develop itself,
and one of the most important markets for the local manufactures was therefore
lost. As for the demographic aspect, the destruction of the relations with the
Honduran market became an obstacle for the incorporation of the agrarian
population to the economic activities of a modern production system, in a moment
when the demographic growth was very intense.
The economic impact of the reforms
In the conjunction of the coup d’état of 1979, three fundamental measures were
established: the Agrarian Reform, the nationalization of the banking system, and
the nationalization of the foreign trade. Such measures intended to achieve a
more equitable distribution of the income and to improve the productivity of the
economy.
The Revolutionary Board of the Government decreed an agrarian reform, which
affected 2,000 landlords, whose properties covered an extension of 800,000
hectares, almost half of the total extension of the fertile land in El Salvador.
The minister of Agriculture and Cattle-Raising of that period, Enrique Alvarez
Córdova, explained that this measure had the objective "to maintain an integral
production process and to avoid the disorganized division of the property". The
agrarian reform process, according to Alvarez, "was going to favor the workers
of the field; and, in addition, it would create a market of consumption in favor
of the industrial field, commerce, and the area of services". The public
official described the decision of the Revolutionary Board of the Government as
"unbreakable".
The model of the Agrarian Reform was supported at all times by the government of
the United States, because it was a copy of the agrarian reform’s design that
Washington imposed in southern Vietnam, as part of its counterinsurgency
strategy. They intended to apply the same strategy in El Salvador, once the
promise failed: a program of "pacification" that included the evacuation of the
owners of the land and the communities that allegedly sympathized with the
guerrilla.
It is necessary to admit that the situation of the farmers in that period was
untenable: 63 out of 100 children were undernourished; 60 out of 1,000 children
were born dead in deplorable conditions, and only 37% of the families who lived
in the rural area had access to water. And if, in fact, the agrarian reform was
aimed "to support" the organizations of farmers, it is important to wonder why
did it fail. Why did it harm so much to the agricultural exports model that was
one of the main features the country throughout history?
For some of those that participated in the coup d’état of 1979, the weak spot of
the agrarian reform was "the lack of resources". The plan had to be completed a
couple of years after the best lands were redistributed, offering credit
assistance and improving the technological resources. However, after a while,
they realized that the people who now owned the lands did not count with the
necessary resources to make it work.
The person who is now the president of the Independent Harbor Executive
Commission (CEPA, in Spanish), Miguel Angel Salaverria, in 1979 was a member of
the Association of Beneficiaries and Exporters of Coffee (ABECAFE). Salaverría
stated in a recent interview published by El Diario de Hoy that, "the agrarian
reform harmed the Salvadoran agricultural sector because some of the coffee
properties became cooperatives that were inefficiently administrated ".
On the other hand, combined to this reform, the Revolutionary Board of the
Government, with the purpose of supporting it, included measures such as the
nationalization of the foreign trade and the nationalization of the banking
system.
The nationalization of the financial system, although it had the best technology
and it was considered the most advanced in Central America, since it counted
with a well trained and an efficient staff, led the authorities to file for
bankruptcy. The politicization of the credit mechanisms, the increasing levels
of bureaucracy, the ignorance of the new directors, among other factors, were
part of the deficient way in which the State administrated the banking system in
those years. At the time, the banking system worked granting credits with
political goals to friends and sympathizers. A considerable portion of these
credits was never paid back, because the people who were close to the power
sources demanded loans, knowing that these would never be reimbursed, this was a
difficult situation for the productive sectors and the people who had really
worked on their land in order get a loan.
With this, an apparatus of corruption was created, which lead the banking system
to a period of recession. The politicization of the credits, the increasing
bureaucracy levels, the ignorance of the new directors, and the inadequate
financial operations were the factors that caused the fall of the financial
system.
On the other hand, the nationalization of foreign trade, through which the
producers had to sell everything that they exported to the Central Bank, for
this one to collect the profits that were obtained from the negotiations in the
international market. The BCR paid in local currency to the producers; in other
words, the exporters lost a considerable portion of profits because the official
type of exchange was of 2,50 colones per dollar.
These measures that were immediately established after the coup d'état moved
away from the original objective, that is the objective to favor the rural
families, because they completely politicized the reforms, causing serious
effects on the economy of that time, and the stagnation that can still be
perceived now.
El Salvador, twenty-five years later
At the present time the situation of the country might seem different. The
context of the business sector has changed in the last years. In the Nineties,
there was an economic transformation: from a model based on the agricultural
exports to one based on the foundations of the growth and the proliferation of
the tertiary sector (commerce, services and banks). In spite of the economic
reconstruction that was possible through policies such as the re-privatization
of the national banking system, the privatization of the companies that belonged
the State, the dollarization of the economy, and the promotion of the commercial
openness, the situation of the Salvadorans is still a very critical one.
According The Report on the Human Development of El Salvador 2003, the
conjunction of 1979 was characterized by "increasing differences (that)
constituted a factor that affected the high social polarization that prevailed
during the Seventies, and which ended at the outbreak of the armed conflict
during the Eighties". This is clearly demonstrated on Chart 1. With it, it is
possible to observe that the economic structure of the country tends to be a
strong concentration of income. The periods with a greater tendency towards the
concentration of income are both the year of the coup d'état (1979) and the
beginning of the new century (2002). In 1979, the poorest 20% of the population
obtained only 2% of the national income, whereas the wealthiest 20% of the
population obtained 66% of the national income. In 2002, the situation is not so
different: 2.4% of the national income goes to the poorest 20% of the
population, and 58.3% goes to the wealthiest 20%. Because of these
characteristics, it is important to wonder if the reconstruction of the economic
apparatus that has been carried out in the last years through the ARENA
administrations has been effective enough to resolve the problem of poverty in
El Salvador.
Chart 1
Income distribution per home
Year The poorest 20% The wealthiest 20%
1961 6 61
1969 4 51
1979 2 66
1992 3.2 54.5
2002 2.4 58.3
Source: The Report on the Human Development of El Salvador 2003
The statistics seem to show the opposite perspective of this whole matter. This
can lead us to think that the economic measures that were implemented after the
Eighties have taken the economy to the old situation that characterized it
throughout the last century: the concentration of the income. Based on these
facts, it is necessary to reflect on the following words expressed by the
Superior University Council of the UCA after the events of October 15th : "El
Salvador has been, like so many other countries of the periphery, not only an
economically dependant nation, but one that has been thought and organized to
benefit minorities, those minorities that enjoy their power and their wealth,
and keeping most of the people in a situation of domination and misery" (See ECA,
# 373-373, October-November,1979). Therefore, it is important to make an effort,
especially from the government, to prevent the economy from working in the
benefit of just a few, so that that motto that affirms that "El Salvador is a
country of opportunities" becomes a reality. The people have a long way to go to
build a society that guarantees a welfare for all.
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