The incompetence of the authorities

Economic development and "dollarization"

Delinquency and the media

Nicaragua: the struggle is for transparency

THE INCOMPETENCE OF THE AUTHORITIES

The escape of several minors —one of whom was convicted of several murders— from an improvised rehabilitation center provided the ideal argument for the Security Ministry and its court to return to the subject of the charges against the penal codes and to terrorize an already terrorized population. The security and justice authorities have not hesitated to attribute the cause of the escape of the murderer who is a minor to the codes themselves. This fact provided the Security Ministry with the opportunity once again —without batting an eye— to accuse the codes of protecting criminals. The news media also contributed to insisting in the same terms on reminding their readers and viewers of the danger presented by the escaped minor and indicating the risk the witnesses would run in offering testimony when the minor was brought to trial. In summary, if the codes are changed by making their provisions and procedures stiffer —along the lines demanded by the Security Ministry, big business and the news media— the escape would not have taken place. The fact that the escapees did not get far and are already in the custody of the authorities again has not, so far, weakened the arguments presented.

That minors are becoming dangerous criminals more and more frequently is a fact that should not be ignored. This lamentable phenomenon, which has a complex explanation is occurring in El Salvador as well as in the U.S. and Canada. It is a sad coincidence between an underdeveloped country such as ours and two of the most wealthy and highly industrialized countries in the world. Nevertheless, the Salvadoran codes have very little to do with the escape mentioned above. The problem is posed in a poor manner and strongly points out either the naivete of the press or its incompetence in analyzing the national situation outside the context imposed by the official discourse of the authorities and businessmen.

The young people escaped from the rehabilitation center because they were not well guarded. The images show guards, doubtless, very well-intentioned guards, but more ready for retirement than trained to guard a center where restless and dangerous young people are housed. Some aspects to the escape have been commented upon, but no one has explained how they succeeded in breaking through the iron bars. This means that the local guards and justice authorities have little control over what happens inside the center or that the building does not exhibit the minimum conditions for retaining the young people who are there against their will or both situations are true. The building was a military barracks converted quickly in order to receive these young people for six months. According to this, the responsibility cannot be attributed to the laws, but to the justice and security authorities. It is from these authorities, therefore, that one must ask for an explanation of the irresponsibility.

The provisional nature of the building notwithstanding, this center ought to be a rehabilitation center. It is, however, not known what kind of programs are carried out inside the center. One of the components of a rehabilitation program is evaluation and psychological assistance. But it is not known if the internees receive this kind of attention. To judge from what happened, it would appear that no importance is given to those crucial aspects of the process of social reinsertion. It appears that the thesis that the period of incarceration, in and of itself, would provide the conditions for the young peoples to normalize their personality and their conduct. A psychological evaluation might detect their lack of equilibrium and might oblige the authorities to provide the necessary attention.

One does not have to be a specialist to understand that a young person of seventeen years of age who has committed several murders must be suffering from serious personality problems. As a result of their escape, it appears that the judge was asked to require a psychological evaluation and specialized treatment but that both were denied as they were considered irrelevant. But if the judge failed to comply with his obligations in such a flagrant manner, the authorities charged with the rehabilitation of these minors should have dealt with the psychological problems of these young people. It is very probable, however, the these authorities also consider these matters irrelevant. The authorities in charge of the rehabilitation of minors, are, therefore, the ones who are directly responsible for the escape and would, moreover, be indirectly responsible had the criminals made good their threats against the witnesses.

To continue insisting upon the deficient aspects of the laws —which, doubtless, exist , but not to the extent that they would like us to believe— only serves to cover up the incompetence of the authorities in charge of security, justice and rehabilitation of minors. It is worrisome that these authorities do no appear to be aware of any response other than a repressive response. The Director of the Salvadoran Institute for the Protection of Minors offers no better solution to the problem than incarceration. She recognizes that the center where the escape took place does not provide adequate conditions for the young people. Although she is thinking of penitentiary incarceration, she softened in her statement by affirming that the place is not appropriate for the rehabilitation of minors. And there are good reasons for doubting that the institute in question might have a real rehabilitation program for the minors interned there.

This reductionist vision is shared, as repressive and legalistic as it is, by those who rebel against the conditioning prohibiting the revelation of the identity of the minors. It is a real scandal that the director of the institute charged with protecting these minors has declared that because it is a case, the purviews of which extend beyond any legal context, the identity of the young person who escaped could be published. And this the press has done, alleging its commitment to the security of the population and to freedom. This is the same press which then converted this young person into public enemy number one and which wrote that "it could be a young person as any other young person, but his lack of regard for the lives of others and his desire for vengeance made him into the most dangerous and feared man in the country". These are nothing more than fearful judgements lacking in objectivity of any kind because the editorial body of the newspaper has not even spoken with him. This young man is no worse than any other criminal, some of whom are not even in jail. As long as there is no response other than the repressive and legal response (as if this were sufficient to deal with all criminal reality) delinquency will continue to outrun the authorities. The posture of the authorities evidences attitudes of social revenge and impotence, but offers almost no real solution to a complex social problem which is causing tremendous impact.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND "DOLLARIZATION"

As in 1994, the topic of "dollarization" has been placed on the agenda as one of the measures which the government, through the Treasury Ministry, has proposed in order to improve the business climate of the country. According to the Minister of the Treasury, Mr. Enrique Hinds, the objective of this measure "is not price stability [nor is it] the lowering of interest rates. The aim is to [achieve] credibility in the long run in such a way that there is no uncertainty about devaluating. With this [measure] the time limits for doing business are changed and better social conditions are created".

Several weeks after presenting the proposal once again, it appears that the proposal has more detractors than defenders, with the exception of the Minister himself together with the businessmen linked to the financial sector and those dealing with imports. The major business associations and part of the academic sector of the country have indicated that dollarization is not propitious for the productive sector. At the international level, some opinions contrary to the measure have also come to the fore, and these are forthcoming even from the monetary authorities of the U.S. Given the foregoing, it may be interesting to examine some of the important evaluations offered on this topic with an eye to evaluating the implications that the implementation of dollarization would have on the development of the country.

After an initial period in which private enterprise has shown that it is cautious about this proposal, at the beginning of May several associations have openly declared themselves to be opposed to it. The Salvadoran Association of Industries (ASI) is not in agreement with the measure owing to the fact that it considers that the costs would outrun the benefits. The Agricultural and Livestock Chamber of Commerce of El Salvador does not support the measure for similar reasons: they consider it of very little benefit for the agricultural and livestock sectors because it would negatively affect their ability to compete.

Apparently, the only ones in who have demonstrated an interest in favor of dollarization have been the financial sector and a small number of import businesses. The president of the Banco Cuscatlán —the largest bank in the country— has expressed, in similar terms as the Treasury Ministry that, with the adoption of the dollar, potential risks to investors in the country would be lowered and investment would increase; the costs of capital and interest rates would be lowered with the resulting increase in economic activity. On the other hand, representatives of the association of construction materials distributors consider that dollarization would be beneficial because imports could be had at a lower cost.

At an international level, the efforts to implement dollarization have not been received with much enthusiasm. The idea has been rejected by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States and, more recently, by representatives of the World Bank, for whom the dollarization of an economy in development is "risky because it does not have a sufficiently firm macroeconomic basis" to support such a monetary change. According to the same source, given the perspectives on the deepening of the international financial crisis, it is not convenient to adopt the currency of a developed country.

The variety of evaluations on the question of dollarization demonstrates that it does not appear to be the most viable way to achieve greater macroeconomic stability and growth. In fact, the danger of devaluation seems to be a much more distant possibility than it did eight or ten years ago and the increase in prices has been at a single digit level since 1998. Given this, the question arises on what would really be the benefits of dollarization. To accept the position of the Ministry of Hacienda (which seeks to eliminate the risk of devaluation), one must ask if this risk is the most serious problem confronting the economy of today, or if other risks exist.

Certainly, today there is no risk of devaluation in spite of the continuous deepening of the deficit of the balance of payments, owing, fundamentally, to the abundant affluence of income in the form of family remittances. In any case, the risk of devaluation would affect to a greater extent those sectors which have contracted foreign credits in dollars, be they banks or import businesses. In this context, it is important to take into account the results of a study on the financial system sponsored by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), which shows that, between 1993 and 1998, the loans to commercial banks in foreign currency have increased by almost 1000% and have reached totals close to 500 million dollars.

An eventual devaluation of the Salvadoran colon could cause a situation of financial insolvency for the banks, increase interest rates and paralyze investment as well as the creation of jobs. On the other hand, dollarization could benefit banking institutions because foreign banks could charge lower interest rates on credit contracts; in the same way, it would be possible to expect that domestic interest rates would also be reduced, and this would encourage investment and employment.

Nevertheless, in the current context of economic policies, one ought to take into account of what little use the elimination of currency exchange risks would be or of what little use the reduction of interest rates would be if economic sectors for which investment would be profitable are not taken into account. The results of neoliberal reforms implemented during the decade of the 1990´s have led to the shrinking of agricultural and livestock activity and the stagnation of the industrial sector. The perspective is even more somber if one considers the intention to deepen the policy of lowering customs barriers without this being accompanied by a corresponding policy of modernization of agriculture and livestock or industrial reconversion.

For this reason, dollarization, in and of itself, does not represent a solution to the problem of how to increase the rates of economic growth; on the contrary, it could have negative implications for exports in the measure that it would eliminate the possibility of improving its ability to compete by means of devaluation processes. For all the rest, it is important to point out that, since 1992, the exchange rate has remained constant, and for this reason dollarization would change practically nothing in the medium range, except in the case of the financial sector, which would receive broad benefits.

A strong argument against dollarization is rooted in the fact that it does not have a productive apparatus which, on the one hand, would generate transferable goods in amounts sufficient to guarantee a sustained increase in net international reserves and which, on the other hand, would provide dollars for the circulation of merchandize and services in the economy. Net international reserves achieved to date and which have given support to promoting the concept of dollarization, do not depend on endogenous economic dynamics, but rather on the sending and receiving of family remittances from outside the country. To change the colon for the dollar on the basis of these remittances implies being able to count on the certainly that, in the near future, the country's economy would be able to count on resources to guarantee sufficient profits for the functioning of the economy. As a result of the foregoing, before we think about dollarization, it would be much more sensible to try to harmonize the monetary, exchange rate, customs and fiscal policies with the objective in mind of improving the ability of the productive sector to compete and of increasing the production of exports.

DELINQUENCY AND THE MEDIA

Two weeks ago a note entitled "Social Ills or Individual Pathologies?" was published in Proceso (No. 851). The argument presented in that essay aimed to call attention to the strong tendency in the realm of public opinion and among certain state institutions to assume that violent acts constituted isolated cases, and thereby contributed to evade the analysis that violence in El Salvador might respond to a structural problem more than to particular cases alone. The article displayed an interest in highlighting other kinds of "violence", distinct from criminal violence. But this did not mean that it could not also deal with the question of criminal violence. An example of this is the current state of affairs marked by the attention which the whole country has focussed on the juvenile criminal known as "El Directo".

Criminal acts also suffer from the simplified interpretation which a marked tendency towards making them individual and particular brings with it. Certainly, and contrary to what happens in other manifestations of violence, crime is recognized by all as a social problem; but only in the measure that it affects the greater part of the population and not so much the social structure itself which facilitates the emergence of persons who commit crimes. This is to say, in official discourse, that crime has reached the status of being a social problem because it is considered, predominantly, from the point of view of the victims and not from that of those who commit the crimes. For the news media and those entities charged with imparting justice there is not more than one subject —the criminal—who assassinates or rapes and who, therefore —and mercy for those who question this obvious premise— merit punishment of the most severe kind.

This is precisely the case of Gustavo Adolfo Parada Morales, alias "El Directo". What has become clear in this case, once more and in a more forceful manner, is the power which the media has to manipulate the public opinion of the whole nation. No one can deny that the fact that a seriously dangerous juvenile delinquent who escapes from a rehabilitation center is a serious act which merits journalistic coverage. What can be placed in doubt is that the way in which the case has been treated has not been the most adequate or appropriate. From the beginning, the polemic begins to revolve around the legal aspect. The majority of commentarists and editors are in agreement that the Law governing Juvenile Offenders is too soft and, as a result, is not adjusted in fine tuning to a society where juveniles continuously break the law.

Supported by the inadequate which this precept is, according to his criterion the press, radio and television assigned themselves the task of publishing the largest possible number of photos of the person charged and created a furor of terror hardly seen before. Now the controversy is centered on the interest of the judges who are hearing the case in presenting a case against the media who, in publishing the face of "El Directo", have violated the law. Given such a possibility, the media has cried aloud arguing that, given the danger which the citizenry faces with young murderers such as this, the intention to make the law guarantee the "right to privacy" of this minor is senseless.

A question arises, at first blush: what real interest do the media have in the "wellbeing of the citizenry"? One could, only with difficulty, give a positive response to this question. In the first place, where was that interest for the citizenry when, during the raw years of the past decade, murderers and torturers did as they pleased throughout the length and breadth of Salvadoran territory without any of the news media making a statement about it? Those were other times, many will say in order to respond and counteract this line of questioning. Those were times which, as it would seem, justified the fact that the very directors of radio press and television chains who now cry out to the four winds the right of the citizenry to be informed, deliberately suppressed the names of those responsible for horrendous massacres, the whereabouts of disappeared children and every kind of systematic violation of human rights.

A second point is that it is not at all clear that the mass media is concerned to protect the citizenry when, without a single scruple, they publish on a daily basis children, completely nude, who have been mistreated, or ask a woman who is a recent victim of rape questions as absurd as "how do you feel?". In the same way, the concern of the media for the common good falls heavily in doubt when crimes so condemnable as those attributed to "El Directo" are not given the same coverage, because influential personalities are involved in them. If the dailies and other media are so interested in defending the rights of the population, shouldn't they give equal coverage to all criminal acts? Why do some appear to have more relevance for the media than others?

The answer to this last question is simple: sensationalism. More important than the well-intentioned concern for the citizenry is the undoubted interest in filling their coffers. In the specific case in question, that the population ought to be able to identify the face of the young offender in order to take precautions and contribute to his capture is a valid and sustainable argument, but for this a regular-sized photo or a few seconds of television time would have sufficed. It was not necessary to fill the front pages of the newspapers with photographs of the accused showing him from all possible angels for a period of three days. On the other hand, that the escape of "El Directo" and the crimes which are attributed to him cause horror is logical; it could not be more alarming that a person so young has committed seventeen murders and, moreover, that his crimes might go unpunished.

But, would it not be more appropriate for someone who is interested in the welfare of the Salvadoran people to investigate the motivations of juvenile delinquents or carry out an investigation which would permit the possibility of sketching out ways of preventing and confronting this kind of case, rather than filling the pages of the newspapers and television screens to the morbid fascination of the audience, and this with the only objective of not losing out in the competition with other media?

It is not by satanizing each criminal that the news media will contribute to improving a critical public security situation in El Salvador. It is not by exploiting the general tendency of the people to look only at the superficial and sensational aspects of things such as these entities charged with informing the people that they are going to comply with the pedagogical function that is inherent to them and that they ought to place before their economic interests. It is not by dealing with facts such as these as isolated cases that journalists are going to fulfill the critical and committed role that their profession demands of them.

As long as the mass media continue to succumb superficiality and sensationalism which is more and more characteristic of them it will be more and more difficult to offer up something to the democratization of the country and the common good. It is not a question here of justifying those who commit crimes by appealing to the quota of responsibility that everyone of us has for the situation of the country. Those who commit a crime must suffer the consequences for having committed it. But reality is never so simple. We live in a society whose configuration daily produces dozens of "directos". To shake off the passivity and individualism which obstructs a more profound commitment to the problems of the country is a task in which the media can play a decisive role, if we could only arrive at a state of affairs in which money is less important than the wellbeing of the majority.

NICARAGUA: THE STRUGGLE IS FOR TRANSPARENCY

Following the investigation begun by the General Comptroller of the Republic (CGR, for its initials in Spanish) of Nicaragua mid-February concerning the property and holdings of President Arnoldo Alemán —which showed an increase of 900%— the CGR solicited new information and clarifications from the president concerning his family goods and holdings as well as his personal belongings given that he has stated that his brothers' property is his and vice-versa. The president, however, refused to provide any clarification, offering varied and evasive arguments.

On March 16, during the evening hours, and in a climate of growing expectation on the part of public opinion, there was to be an encounter between the President and the Comptroller, Mr. Agustín Jarquín. There were three topics touched upon during the encounter between the CGR and the president, according to the Comptroller: the 1999 budget, the presidential holdings and the Central American project aimed at monitoring aid from the international community decided upon in Stockholm.

The three matters were polemical: the president insists on maintaining millionaire entries which may be used wholly at his discretion, the President refused to provide information to the CGR on his holdings and he had just created some days before a new monitoring body for the international aid to be presented in Stockholm, in yet another attempt to create "another" Comptroller's Office.

But the meeting between Mr. Jarquín and Mr. Alemán did not happen. The President waited for Mr. Jarquín with his most trusted functionaries but he wanted the Comptroller to come into the meeting alone, without his team. Mr. Jarquín did not accept the proposal and left. Everything seems to indicate that there was only one topic which the President would place on the table for discussion: the topic which, minutes after Mr. Jarquín had left, was presented to public opinion by Presidential Advisor and godfather of Mr. Alemán, Mr. Jaime Morales Carazo, who presented a report on a "discovery" made by the presidency: contracts for multiple and various services which the CGR had signed with persons and businesses throughout 1998. Among these, one was with a fictitious person and, therefore, the CGR had committed an illegal act.

The story was not presented in this manner, in summary, but in a carefully distorted manner: the CGR, which says it is struggling against corruption and which requested an increase to the budget for this particular work, had misspent no less than 1.6 million dollars paying "ghosts" and professional people of dubious reputation, therefore the Comptroller could not accuse anyone and, as he "smelled" the fact that they had discovered this, he was afraid to enter the meeting alone with the President...

Within only a few hours was made public who the fictitious persona contracted by the CGR was, in the only one of the acts which are really questionable in the "revelation" made by the President's godfather. It was none other than Mr. Danilo Lacayo, the popular presenter on the public opinion program, "Buenos Días", transmitted by Channel 2 television. The program probably has more viewers and the most consistent influence among sectors of the middle and upper class of the country. For one year, Mr. Lacayo had carried out propaganda and publicity work —and also an investigation— which was very well paid by the CGR. In response, Channel 2, which is close to Mr. Alemán, within a space of 48 hours, closed down the program which had been successfully on the air for five years.

The unexpected alliance between the CGR and Mr. Lacayo, which implied the "irregularity" of filtering of CGR documents to the presidency and the justified indignation of journalists and non-journalists alike which appeared on the list "revealed" by the president's godfather created a situation in which the presidential game slipped out of the hands which had controlled it and of those who had set it up. Three legal trials were set inmotion. The CGR accused Mr. Morales Carazo, Mr. Lacayo and Mr. Néstor Abaunza —who signed the contract in the name of the CGR. The Ombudsman for Justice —which is a presidential dependency— accusing the Comptroller and his most trusted team of illicit association for the commission of a crime, falsification of documents, fraud, etc. And the Police —which carried out its own investigation— accusing Mr. Danilo Lacayo and Mr. Abaunza of undue use of names and usurpation of functions.

But the objective of this new presidential maneuver was the same as the most recent one: to divert attention from the debate on the 1999 budget. More specifically, this time it was a question of "choking on a gnat but swallowing a camel". By ventilating the illegality of the contract with Lacayo, he sought to cut off at the root the investigation begun by the CGR on the notable increase in the Alemán holdings and cast it into oblivion.

On the case of the budget, the approval of which is greatly in delay, there appears —according to repeated denunciations by the CGR— some 150 million dollars —nothing less than 20% of the total budget— as non-specified entries [line items] to be handled entirely at the discretion of the President and the Central Bank.

The objective of the involved presidential intrigue —inflated around a single fact: the contract with "a ghost"— was also to create rampant confusion about the work of the Comptroller and the figure of the Comptroller, sowing, in this way, doubt and suspicion in the minds of public opinion, to pave the way for the removal of Jarquín, for his substitution or to reform the Law for the functioning of the CGR. This reform would allow for a situation in which the Comptroller would not be removed from office —which it appears would imply greater and greater public cost—, though it would dilute his leadership within an institution with new liberal Sandinista and liberal "comptrollers" who would no longer carry out the work of professional monitoring not tied to party lines. In this way, the institutionality" would be saved but with other persons in the institution it would be totally inoperative.

The President would "resolve" this case before the meeting in Stockholm, where the topics of transparency and governability would weigh more than the quantity and kind of aid which Nicaragua would receive and could count on the sector of the Frente Sandinista para la Liberación Nacional (FSLN) which is amenable to entering into "pacts" for their support in this "solution" .

The haste in resolving a "problem" might explain the carelessness and crudeness of the "intrigue of the ghost contract", traits which did not go unnoticed by the international community, although the government insists on denying it, declaring that "nothing is going on" and "the confidence of friendly governments continues in force". This is not true. The representatives of the international community know well what is happening and defend the functions of the monitoring body. The president's behavior has seriously damaged the Nicaraguan government in the eyes of the ambassadors of the European countries which will be in Stockholm and this includes the International Development Bank, always the firm ally of the liberal government. And there are not only international costs. The results, in the eyes of national opinion, of the president's war against the Comptroller's office has also contributed to the creation of a heavily laden environment in government circles where fear is growing about the results of the year 2000 municipal elections.

The government of Arnoldo Alemán did not foresee that the work carried out by the CGR in monitoring state resources would be so consistent. Since his taking office, the President has not missed a single opportunity in trying to obstruct, lessen, lower the prestige or neutralize the CGR through other state institutions which control it or function on the basis of bribes. It is a question of a war carried out with the support of the President on all fronts.

The Comptroller's Office, for its part, has had to work under siege and harassment. Society has witnessed all of these complex political battles and scuffles —always dressed up in very difficult to understand legal robes—, informed daily by the news media, indignant, uncomfortable, indifferent, depending on the sectors. Without a political culture which values laws and institutions, with little experience in the defense of the civil rights, in a society in which passivity and impotence has been predominant.

Given this, and many other reasons, the demonstration of 15,000 Nicaraguans on the afternoon of March 25 through the streets of Managua repudiating governmental corruption and supporting the Comptroller and the work of the Comptroller's Office team establishes a very significant variable in correlation with the forces of the country. Finally, a group of spectators jumped up on the stage.

It was Radio Primerísima —its director, William Grigsby, and the listeners of his evening program Sin Fronteras— who called the march. It only took a week to make the idea, which arose collectively from the radio station, a reality. In recent years —even during the years of revolution which were so full of street demonstrations— demonstrations which arise and take shape clearly from the base and not oriented by any party machinery, have been very scarce. In this case, the call from the base worked and in a few days of word of mouth communication, thousands were at the meeting. This is a clear indication of the worn out traditional ways of organization, of the crisis of traditional leaderships and of the need to find new forms of collective political expression.

The march brought together a widely varied spectrum of people who oppose the government, representatives of various parties and tendencies. The indignation against government corruption, against its insensitivity and ostentation, was what allowed the joining together of a very broad spectrum of dispersed strength. For this reason, and in the judgment of diverse analysts, the march foreshadowed the need for a national opposition alliance which would confront, in all civic forms, the corruption of the government.

The march drew together, as well, a varied range of Sandinistas who represented the base movement of Sandinismo, the Sandinista movement, not always identified with the FSLN. Those who marched were principally those who are unhappy with the pact between the FSLN and the government and those who long for a political and economic alternative different from what is offered to them today. No one in the FSLN could stop the mobilization of thousands of Sandinista base members, who mixed with the thousands of non-Sandinistas in repudiating the government and applauding Agustín Jarquín.

The government has understood, mistakenly, that being able to govern must be the equivalent of no social organization and no protest and President Alemán has tried to harvest this "ability to govern" by entering into a pact with Daniel Ortega and a sector of the leadership of the FSLN. But the ability to govern is much more than the government would like to believe or make people believe. Corruption might create a growing situation which cannot be governed and the banner leading the struggle for transparency —which on March 25 mobilized so many people in the streets— can administer new civic marches and other non-violent citizen initiatives. It is a banner which is only recently being flown and which joins people together and unites them.

The citizen march on March 25 represents an awakening of a decisive political factor which can alter the current correlation of forces. What occurred in Paraguay only days after the march in Managua, and what happened in Ecuador some months before —countries which are wracked by official corruption, institutional crisis and social demonstrations combined to bring down duly elected Presidents—, represents in the Latin American political ambience.

"We see that there is a growth in the tendency of citizens to take control", commented Agustín Jarquín on the events of Paraguay and those closer to home, in Managua. "Enseñorearse" is a term in Spanish which suggests the Anglicism "empowerment". Both expressions denote a new history, a coordinate in which reality is being written in our time, as much by the powerful North as by the weakened South. The winds of this new reality begin to blow in our small corner of the continent, pushing us to a new long march.

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The foregoing is a collaboration by Equipo Envío of Nicaragua.