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Proceso 1163
September 28 2005
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: A vulnerable society
Politics: Political will and disasters
Economy: Different visions about El Salvador
A vulnerable society
The Salvadoran society –especially the less fortunate
sectors of it- is an extremely vulnerable society. Both the natural and the
social phenomena reveal this vulnerability. The earthquakes of 2001 are an
example due perhaps to the sharp impact of these cases, and to the fact that the
society was not prepared to face these problems. However, this is not only about
the earthquakes; the mosquitoes –those that transmit dengue- have also revealed,
with an astonishing regularity, both the deficiencies of the public health
system and the precarious conditions in which those that are affected by the
dengue live. At this moment, a couple of natural phenomena have the authorities
in a critical position, while the affected communities are anxious. The volcano
of Santa Ana might erupt, and the rainy season is becoming a threat in the last
days.
The gases emanated by the volcano of Santa Ana, just like the earthquakes of
2001 and the dengue –without even considering the impact of an eventual
eruption- have revealed the precarious conditions in which the affected
communities live. They have also revealed the impotence of the authorities to
offer a solution to face the impact of the phenomena, a solution to face the
marginality in which the families live in those areas. The lack of efficiency of
the government has been combined with negligence, incompetence, and
irresponsibility: there cannot be another conclusion after looking at the
information about how the authorities have abandoned the families that live in
the areas that are close to the volcano.
With the amount of rain of the last days you can always reach a conclusion like
this. The authorities –specifically the Ministry of Governance- have seemed
negligent, incompetent, and astonishingly irresponsible. The damage caused by
the rain in the poor communities located near the rivers and lakes in different
areas of the country (or at the lower areas of the city –the barrios of
Candelaria, Modelo, and La Vega, for instance-) is nothing new, it has happened
before, and now it was worse. The rain comes from the higher areas, where
deforestation has deteriorated its capacity to retain the water.
The impact of the rain over the poorest sectors of the society reveals both its
vulnerability and the complete lack of disposition of the government to assist
the people’s needs in an integral manner, to begin with, most people do not even
have a secure and a decent home. The government’s spokespeople do not even think
in something better than neutralizing the tragedy, that is, to see it as a
result of the blind forces of nature, against which nothing much can be done.
That attitude does not only free them from any responsibility, but it also
leaves in the hands of each family –or in the hands of people of good will that
that might want to help- the task of rescuing their few personal belongings and
looking for a safe place to stay.
The most important communication media are willing to play this game of the
government. Some of their news programs’ specialties include the art of
neutralizing the social impact of the rain, for instance. In these days, the
report of a local television channel began with the phrase “sleeping with the
enemy”, when they referred to the damage caused by the overflowing currents of
the Acelhuate river, in the south of the capital city. In the perspective of
this kind of journalism, the rain and the rivers that overflow are both the
enemies of men kind –at one time, mosquitoes were also typified as “murderers”-,
irrational enemies with a destructive force that cannot be controlled, while no
one can be blamed under this perspective but nature itself.
For this kind of journalism, there is no other relation between the conditions
in which people actually live and the impact of the natural and the social
phenomena. For this kind of journalism, there is no relation between the damage
caused by the rain and the houses made out of tin that belong to the families
that live near the Acelhuate river and that were destroyed with the flood. For
this kind of journalism, poverty, marginality, and the lack of resources are a
natural fact; that is, something that like the rain, the wind, or even the
sunset, have always been there, defining the destiny of the Salvadorans that
have nothing. Therefore, this kind of journalism does not even wonder about the
economic, the social, or the cultural reasons that force most people to live in
conditions that make them more vulnerable to the impact of the natural phenomena
such as floods or earthquakes.
These precarious and insecure conditions are not natural at all, but they are
the result of a social and an economic order that works turning its back on the
fundamental needs of the population. The strength of the rain –or the
earthquakes- might be as natural as they want it to be, but its impact is a
social matter. Those that live in precarious conditions and in poverty are the
most affected ones with the floods. And it is this precariousness what has to be
faced because it is that precariousness what turns the rain or the earthquakes
into disasters. Disasters are not natural, they are social matters, and they
carry the vulnerability of the different social groups. That is the kind of
vulnerability that has to be faced. This requires the implementation of a group
of public policies aimed to the welfare of the population.
Political will and disasters
The rainy season has once again revealed that the
socioeconomic conditions do not guarantee the survival of the population. A long
rainy season –and do not even mention the effects caused in the region by
“Katrina”, which almost destroyed New Orleans- is enough to threaten the lives
of the people that live in areas such as the barrio La Vega, in San Salvador.
The newspapers reproduced brutal images of the floods all over the country. A
photograph showed how a family had to put their furniture on the roof. Another
picture showed an elderly woman with water up to her waist. In another picture
there was a dog trying to swim its way out of the water. However, out of all of
those images, the most astonishing one was a picture of a six year-old girl
whose body was carried several miles away from her house. Life in El Salvador is
literally lived in the outside and no one seems to offer a place to stay for
those who need it.
The natural disasters are an undeniable part of the life in El Salvador. During
the second half of the 20th Century, Jorge Larde y Larin, a historian, wrote a
chronology of these phenomena, and it was titled “Floods, earthquakes, and
fires”, and this sums up some of the main devastations caused by the forces of
nature. What can be learned about this sort of calamities is that even if the
natural disasters cannot be avoided, it is also true that there are ways to
reduce its impact on society.
The sewerage of the country’s capital city is full of problems –old structures
that are about to collapse, the drainage system is clogged because people have
the terrible habit of throwing garbage on the street- that can be summed up in a
word: negligence. There is a shameful way to confront the problem of the
drainages’ maintenance. Practically nobody–specifically the City Hall of San
Salvador, the Office of Public Works, and ANDA- has undertaken these
responsibilities. Both the Office of Public Works and ANDA have always said they
are not in charge of the maintenance of these places, that the institution
responsible for it is the City Hall. At the same time, the former indicates that
the Office of Public Works is responsible for it.
In a blur of confusion, through which it is not clear what are the
responsibilities of each corporation, why can the MOP work on the roads without
consulting the City Hall? Why, if the City Hall is directly responsible for the
streets in the capital city, it has no concern at all about the illumination
system? This is how the list of accusations could go on and on.
There are a couple of explanations about this sort of conduct. One of them has
an economic character. To take care of the maintenance of the drainages involves
a considerable amount of money. And it seems that each institution is taking
care of its own budget. They are public service institutions, but they do not
want to spend money on something that is actually for the good of the public.
Others better do that. The other explanation has a political character. Everyone
knows the dispute between the City Hall of San Salvador, a territory in the
hands of the left wing for several years by now, and the central government.
However, the present reality does not admit this kind of selfishness.
Preoccupied by the floods caused by the bad shape of the aqueducts of San
Salvador, the government and the City Hall of San Salvador have united their
forces to resolve these problems. They intend to coordinated their resources to
face the emergency situation caused by the rain, although as El Diario de Hoy
indicated on September 24th, “they will take care of the drainages in the
long-term”.
According to the Mayor, Carlos Rivas Zamora, the reparation of the drainages in
the city will be a long process –Rivas calculates that it might take 18 years to
do this- and it will cost more than $300 million. The drainages of the city were
put together back in the 1920’s, and they have never been changed since then.
The inhabitants of the poorest areas of the capital city pay the price for the
lack of an urban development strategy because they are the ones that are more
vulnerable to this sort of problem.
The agreement announced between the government and the City Hall of San
Salvador, is a historical event. It seems that both of them have chosen the
“healthiest” alternative: to leave their ideological differences behind and act
according to their role as public institutions. However, the news have to be
taken with caution. Beyond the announced effort to evaluate all the structure of
the drainages, it is necessary to adopt specific measures. And, most
importantly, it is necessary to define who will pay for the cleaning and for all
the work that has to be done in the affected areas. This has been the eternal
problem, because nobody has wanted to face the costs even if the money, as
everyone knows, comes from the taxes paid by the contributors.
A delayed approach
It is important to say that the agreement between the government and the City
Hall of San Salvador is a step that should have been taken earlier. The
helplessness of the citizenry is a common problem in all of the social sectors.
This approach was postponed and delayed in an indefinite manner due to the
political disputes between the parties that lead both institutions: the FMLN and
ARENA. What has changed that now it seems as if their differences have been
resolved?
In the first place, any situation of disaster is a test for any government –for
either a national or a municipal administration-. Depending on the right choices
or on the mistakes that are made while confronting a problem, the situation can
turn more complicated or more comfortable. For instance, the former president of
Nicaragua Arnoldo Aleman was booed by the Nicaraguan citizens when, while he was
on an extremely expensive wedding honeymoon, his country was being destroyed by
the Mitch hurricane. President George W. Bush is now seen as the person
responsible for the erroneous behavior of the North American authorities to
respond to the emergency created by hurricane Katrina. Perhaps with a higher
level of political perception, President Saca and the Mayor Rivas Zamora
announced their intention to work in a coordinated manner in order to face the
disasters caused by the rain.
President Saca came into this administration with an image of openness and with
disposition to establish a dialogue, differently from the attitude adopted by
his predecessor, Francisco Flores. However, the dialogue spaces that were opened
during his administration have not been strengthened by effective changes in his
policies. Is this a new frustrated promise of openness?
As for Rivas Zamora, it is necessary to consider his situation in relation to
the party that brought him to the City Hall, the FMLN. The Mayor of San Salvador
kept for a long time a serene attitude before the presence of a wave of critics
against him which came from the leadership of the FMLN. Rivas Zamora has been
criticized for “stepping out” of the party’s “line”. It is important to remember
that along with his colleague from Nejapa, Rene Canjura, he was present at
Saca’s presidential inauguration, in spite of the boycott declared by the
leadership of the FMLN. With both feet outside the FMLN, Rivas Zamora does not
care, at this point, if his former colleagues criticize him for trying to look
for a line of agreements with the Saca administration.
In this context, the announcement of this common strategy against the natural
disasters has to be taken as one of the many offers that the political parties
make to the population in times of crisis, as long as the actors involved do not
prove, with facts and actions, the contrary.
Different visions about El Salvador
On last September 15th, President Saca addressed a speech
for the whole nation in order to celebrate the 184th Anniversary of Independence
of El Salvador. During his speech, the President stated that the country is in
the pathway of development. He indicated that “we must keep getting ahead in the
pathway of progress and development that we decided to follow 15 years ago”. The
words of the President were aimed to justify the policies implemented by the
former ARENA administrations: “For this country we have worked during the last
15 months. For this country we keep working, we keep listening to what people
have to say, and, most of all, we keep fulfilling our promises”.
According to the discourse of the President, in the country everything is going
well, and if there are problems in the pathway to development and the
consolidation of democracy, these will be resolved with the kind of effort that
characterizes the Salvadoran population. The President also indicated that the
country might have a bright future as long as we are able to defeat the
adversities and win the battle against despair. The President stated that the
country is on the right track that will lead it to development, a track on which
the country has been for the last 15 years. He added that with all that the
present administration is doing the future looks even brighter.
The President exposed his ideas before the presence of professors and American
business leaders. He was invited by The University of Chicago to talk about the
implementation of several public policies in the country. During his speech, the
President stated that they were giving him a valuable opportunity to speak
“about what we are doing in El Salvador to get ahead in the pathways of
development, freedom, and democracy”.
He also indicated that the development of his presidential administration rests
over four fundamental elements: the security of the jobs through the creation of
more employment opportunities, the creation of a modern infrastructure, the
social investment to improve both the education and the health levels, and the
insertion of El Salvador into the globalization process in order to look for
more and better opportunities for investment and trade.
The CAFTA was an important issue during his presentation. The President referred
to the agreement as an instrument of regional security, as a key factor to
create economic opportunities and improve the development of the countries, and
also as an instrument of hemispherical integration. According to Saca, this is
due to the fact that the free trade agreement with the United States will help
us to achieve the consolidation of the political stability, a higher level of
economic growth, and a stronger connection with the Central American markets.
According to those ideas, the CAFTA is the most important bet that the
Salvadoran government has placed on its search for development.
The speech of the Salvadoran President during the 60th General Assembly of the
UN was delivered in the same tone. He insisted on his perception of this
administration: “My administration is doing everything that it can to keep a
government with a human sense, a government close to the people and their
expectations, centralizing our actions on the both the social and the economic
issues”. It seems that, wherever he goes, the President always presents the
country as a place where many economic and social achievements are taking place.
For Saca, this is due to the policies implemented by the ARENA administrations,
including his.
A different reality
In spite of the statements about the economic and the social successful
achievements that the President always refers to inside and outside the country,
there are institutions and people that do not share that perspective.
During the second week of September, the office of the PNUD in El Salvador
presented the 2005 Report on Human Development. The presentation of this
document was made by the economist William Pleitez. The Vice-President of the
country, Ana Vilma de Escobar, was also present in this event to receive the
report. Those present also included the representatives of several business
companies and the representatives of research institutions.
For the PNUD, the 2005 Report on Human Development has the goal to measure how
far the countries have gone in their battle to reduce the poverty levels.
Presently, this report is especially important because back in 2000, the
Objectives of the Millennium were established (ODM, in Spanish), and their
purpose is that by 2015 the countries manage to reach certain goals in the fight
against poverty. The report indicates that there are many countries that have
not gone that much further in their struggle against poverty. For the formerly
mentioned economist, El Salvador is one of them. In the last five years, the
country has not managed to make substantial achievements due to the economic
stagnation and the low level of the social budget.
Pleitez stated that the actual problem of the country is not that the country is
far from reaching the ODM, but that in the last few years the country has not
made much progress and that can prevent us from reaching the goals in 2015. The
small growth of the Human Development Index (IDH) is due to the fact that the
GNP per capita is in a recession. In 2003 this indicator took a step backwards,
since the PIB per capita of the former year had a higher value. Another one of
the problems that becomes an obstacle for the fight against poverty is the low
level of the social budget. In the last few years, the level of the social
budget has been around 3.1% as a proportion of the PIB. The government has not
tried hard enough to increase the social budget. This indicates that if the
growth rates of the GNP keep decreasing, the social budget, even if it remains
constant as a proportion of the GNP, is not enough to face the increasing number
of needs that the country has in the sectors of both education and health.
In spite of the clear declarations made by Pleitez during the presentation of
the report made by the PNUD, the vice-presidency of the country sustained that
according to the information that the government has, the country is making
great progress in the fight against poverty. In this sense, the warning given by
the PNUD through its report should not include El Salvador. And this is because
the vice-presidency considers that there are several goals that have been
reached ahead of time. This perspective is connected with the positive vision of
the President. Both the President and the Vice-President consider that the
nation is walking through the right pathway that leads to development.
This optimism of the government should be more realistic. Another economist,
Rafael Pleitez, said that one of the most important obstacles in the fight
against poverty is the level of the social budget. This problem is connected
with the country’s level of indebtedness: A considerable portion of the funds
that the State counts with is used to pay for the debts. The payment of the debt
cannot be evaded, since the situation of the country depends on the risk rating
levels assigned by the institutions that classify this kind of information. For
FUSADES, it is important that the government starts improving the fiscal policy
in order to face a couple of problems: a higher level of social budget and the
payment of the debt.
In reference to the CAFTA, William Pleitez, from the PNUD, stated that the
commercial agreement with the United States should not be considered as a
development strategy. This one should only be an instrument inside of an
integral policy of the State. The government has to understand that “the task of
development is fundamentally an internal task”. This advice, in a way,
contradicts the contents of the speech given by the President in the University
of Chicago. The CAFTA is a key aspect of the economy for the President to a
point that the sociopolitical stability, the reactivation of the economic
activity, and a closer approach between the nations of the isthmus go through
it. It seems that the Salvadoran President has overestimated the achievements
and the possibilities of the commercial agreement.
Will the model be transformed?
In order to reach the ODM, it is necessary to make important changes in the
economic model. According to William Pleitez, in order that these changes take
place, the government and the rest of the political forces have to take the
ideological contents away from the debate. There has to be a pact able to
transform the strategy of economic growth. This position shows that, contrary to
what the Salvadoran President thinks, not everything is going well. It is
necessary to stop and examine what is wrong with the economic model that was
built in the first administration of ARENA, a model that has been growing
stronger in all of these years.
In other words, in order to transform the economic model, it is necessary that
the politicians also change their perspective, especially when it comes to a
decision-making process that involves the national issues discussed by the
Executive authority and the Legislative Assembly. In order that the reactivation
of the economic activity is able to create more jobs and improve the conditions
in which people live, it is crucial to see the key role played by the decisions
that are made in the political circles. The performance of the economy is part
of the commercial laws approved by the Legislative Assembly and sanctioned by
the President of the country, and it is also a part of the public policies
implemented by the Executive authority. To reach a consensus inside the
political circles is crucial to improve the economic performance of the country.
However, the governmental vision seems to be totally different from this
perspective. A much more active economy, with more and better employment
opportunities strengthen the political stability. They depend on each other. The
problem is that the economic model established in the country seems to undermine
the foundations of a fundamental aspect of politics: democracy. Many decisions
made by the Executive authority as far as the economic matters are concerned set
aside the search for a consensus and neglect the participation of the citizenry.
That is why it is normal if the President considers, just like he stated in the
University of Chicago, that “the CAFTA was the missing element of our project of
peace and democratization in Central America”.
The construction of a real democracy is an internal task of a country. The
search for peace, justice, and freedom should not be confused with the
establishment of a commercial agreement that allows the free openness of the
market between different countries.
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