Proceso 896
March 29, 2000
ISSN 0259-9864
 

INDEX

Editorial The presence of monsignor Romero
Politics The twentieth anniversary: a cry for reconciliation
Economy Will the Banco Hipotecario be privatized?
Society The pact for governability: there are none so deaf as those who will not hear
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

     Monsignor Romero has mobilized El Salvador as no political party, guild, association, trade union or institution has been able to do in recent years. He gathered together a multitude in front of the monument to El Salvador del Mundo and in front of the cathedral of San Salvador. Multitudes filed through the streets of San Salvador to arrive at his cathedral from diverse parts of the capital city. The night of March 24 a river of people —for the most part belonging to Christian communities and parishes and including a large number of young people— took the principal streets of the capital city, encouraged by his presence. At the UCA there was a crowd larger than ever gathered together at the Festival Verdad 2000. Many communities and groups joined together to commemorate his memory throughout the length and breadth of El Salvador. Monsignor Romero brought the Salvadoran people out onto the streets and plazas as no one had been able to do since the war, except, perhaps for the day in which the Peace Accords were signed.

     The crowds congregated in the streets and plazas experiencing the presence of Monsignor Romero in a very intense way. His real and active presence was felt by many. It was an experience of the resurrection. In this way Monsignor Romero appeared to his people, and the people experienced his resurrection. When he appeared to his people, Monsignor Romero made the power and goodness of God present. The power of God which rises above death and justifies itself in the presence of his murderers and those how participated in the cover-up of the crime. The goodness of God which once again shows a special preference for this people who have his name in the name of their country: El Salvador. Monsignor Romero was not only made this goodness present during his life, but also now, beyond his death. His voice not only continues to resonate vibrantly and energetically, but still continues to be very recent in spite of the changes and transitions. The Salvadoran people, whom he served until his death, continue needing salvation from poverty and violence. Therefore, they continue needing prophets and pastors who denounce sin in the country and who guide it toward the salvation promised y the kingdom of God.

     Given his living presence, Monsignor Romero lights the way to follow for the struggle for freedom from injustice and oppression and is the fountain from which the despairing and tired find the enthusiasm to continue and offer reasons for continuing to hope for the kingdom of God in El Salvador.

     The triumph of Monsignor Romero demonstrates that one should not fear to denounce the new modalities of injustice and oppression together with the concentration of capital and privatization. It shows, moreover, that one should not fear the people but that the only thing which must be feared is the loss of hope and, with it, the loss of credibility and confidence among the Salvadoran people. If the capacity for offering hope and the capacity to hope is lost, the potential for saving the people will be lost as well.

     The presence of Monsignor Romero united two realities which, in general, remain separate: that of salvation with the Salvadoran people. Salvation is not only distinct from historic reality, but it is the salvation of the people, although without forgetting people, or the need that the people have for a personal encounter with God. But the first thing is the creation of a people who are really the people of God. In uniting these two realities, Monsignor Romero allowed something new to arise and something which has unforeseeable transcendence.

     For Monsignor Romero, to save is to say the truth in the name of the whole people and this was the objective of his Sunday homily, that this be the voice of the Salvadoran people and that it be so in abundance. It is precisely for this that they killed him, and with his assassination they wanted to quiet his voice. Not the voice of the archbishop, but the voice of an archbishop which had become the voice of the people. For Monsignor Romero, to save is also to give hope to a society sunk in the shadows because of the obstinate negation of the satisfaction of basic needs of the majority of the population. One should not fear problems, as big and complex as these may be, but one should not lose hope when faced with challenges which they pose. Monsignor Romero was convinced that upon the ruins of the Salvadoran society some day the glory of the Lord would shine. To save, briefly, is to announce that the horizon or point of reference is a liberating God.

     The great news about Monsignor Romero and the martyrs of the twentieth century is that they linked martyrdom and salvation of a whole people. The large majority of the Salvadoran people and of humanity, deprived of the basic conditions for their existence are, in this tragic reality, the absolute demand to which a Christian person who works for personal and collective salvation must respond. To these masses of people, Monsignor Romero dedicated his episcopal ministry. In these masses, Ignacio Ellacuría saw the people crucified by injustice and violence: people who would suffer in their own lives these lacks until the passion of Christ, before whom it is inevitable to ask oneself, from the point of view of the Christian faith what should I do to take them down off of the cross?

     To ask oneself whether Monsignor Romero gave his life for Christian reasons or for political reasons, for his faith or for his commitment to justice is a senseless question. He gave his life as Jesus did, for the love of his people, for their salvation, so that that people might come to be a people of God. Monsignor Romero did not give his life only for good things nor only for small freedoms, but for something much bigger and overarching —for the salvation of his people and for those who are part of that people. It is not by chance that that people have interpreted it in this way and, as a consequence, have permitted his resurrection in their hearts. Monsignor Romero prophesied with simplicity and his prophecy has come to pass, not because of his own works, but because of God. His resurrection in the Salvadoran people is the work of God. It is one more demonstration of the love of God for the Salvadoran people.

     The twentieth anniversary of the martyrdom and resurrection of Monsignor Romero and his people brought forth a cry of joy which had been suppressed for many years. A cry of joy that is at the same time a cry of protest against his murderers and a cry of satisfaction when we see in our days how the power of God raises up the victims of death and makes his goodness manifest. It is that goodness which has surrounded the Salvadoran people in these days which, joyous, have rushed into the streets and plazas to shout the triumph of life over death.

POLITICS

     Simultaneously with the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to the Holy Land, El Salvador is commemorating the twentieth anniversary of an event which is also historic but profoundly tragic: the assassination of Monsignor Romero on March 24, 1980 in the chapel of the Hospital of the Divina Providencia. To date, the crime continues to lie dormant in impunity, but the motive of the assassination has always been known in the breadth of its dimensions. Monsignor was assassinated for having taken up, with the courage of an exemplary pastor, one of the causes which the Pope proclaims abroad now: that of the poor.

     The Pope has dedicated the last years of his life to spreading abroad among believers the message of peace, justice and reconciliation —and he had given demonstrations of the more and more significant strength of this message. For this reason it is sadly paradoxical that Monsignor has died for having decided to spread that very same message. Now, the most important political, social and economic forces in the world speak to the imperious need for fighting poverty. “San Romero de América” died for that cause twenty years ago when he spoke in the name of the most needy and was considered subversive and this was sufficient for him to be condemned to death.

     John Paul II, the maximum leader of the Catholic Church, joined together in the Holy Land, thousands of Christians and a significant number of Jews and Mohammedan. At this same moment in time, Monsignor Romero, the most important leader which the Salvadoran church has had, gathered together thousands of Catholics, non-believers and numerous non-traditional churches in the celebration of his martyrdom. Both were unprecedented events. Nevertheless, the national press paid little attention to this transcendental commemoration of the assassination of Monsignor Romero.

     To begin with, with the exception of the events of greater relevance, nothing is mentioned about the numerous activities, which the diverse ecclesiastical, pastoral, academic and cultural institutions organized around the commemoration. Neither did it speak of the number of congregations, journalists, diverse groups of visitors who came from different parts of the world to remember their pastor. Not to mention the mass on March 24 and the candlelight procession held afterwards which was attended by an estimated 30,000 people. Of the two biggest morning dailies in the country, only La Prensa Gráfica covered the Festival Verdad 2000 —made outstanding by the participation of the Nicaraguan Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy and the Venezuelan group “Guaraguao” and witnessed by approximately 8,000 persons, although they did not deign to publish the fact that the event was organized by the Human Rights Institute of the UCA (IDHUCA).

     Given the well-known and entrenched dogmatism of El Diario de Hoy which permeates its editorial line to this day, it was to be hoped that they would systematically ignore the event which, by all opinions, was a national event. But this was not enough. Just as happened with the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the assassination of the Jesuits in November of last year, some of these journalists took part in the dirty work of confusing the readers and manipulating history. Last Monday, March 27, a “news report” was published which was ostensibly to remind their readers of what happened during those turbulent days in March, 1980. The political coloring of this publication could not have been more obvious.

     The editors did not make much of an effort to hide the final intention of their “reportage”, which was to narrate the news event and convince their readers of two things: first of all, that the leftist Revolutionary Coordinator of the Masses capitalized upon the assassination of the Archbishop and the “riots” (they preferred not to use the word “massacre”) which took place on the day of his funeral. Secondly, that those who were truly responsible for such “riots” were the left movements. As both declarations before public opinion and as the events are far from showing that their version of what occurred was the truth, the journalists limited themselves to expound it that way and even dared to sow doubts about the conclusions published by the Truth Commission Report.

     This report pointed to Major Roberto D´Aubuisson as the intellectual author of the crime. For El Diario de Hoy, the Truth Commission report based itself upon “what people said and indications which never withstood judicial examination for the purpose of making them proofs”. What stays up in the air is how the newspaper could so heavily question the report, its sources and the proofs which support its findings.

     The Truth Commission expounded in detail how the assassination of Monsignor Romero was planned and executed, who participated in its implementation and how every attempt to bring the light of truth was systematically obstructed. On page 132 of the document one reads: “In order to investigate the case, the Truth Commission reviewed the previous investigations and the legal files, as well as documents of all kinds and interviewed many confidential witnesses”. What appears there are the names of the people involved in the crime and of some of the persons who were close to Monsignor in the days before his murder. In the report appears the quotation of an article in El Diario de Hoy for February 23, 1980 where the pastor was called a “demagogic and violent archbishop... [who] encouraged, from the cathedral, the adoption of terrorism” and ended by offering the following consideration: that it was “convenient that the Armed Forces begin to oil their weapons”.

In the recent “report” of this same daily, on the other hand, nothing but tendentious and false declarations appear: “The police apparatus of the junta which carried out the coup d'etat, and then the Duarte Administration, the FBI, INTERPOL, Army Intelligence could not find viable proofs concerning who planned the crime”. And the opinions of personalities who share the interests and points of view of this newspaper are given privileged space. For example, the Minister of the Interior, Mario Acosta Oertel expressed the opinion that Monsignor “strayed from his pastoral work and dedicated his time to political activities with the left. Far from giving words of comfort to the needy, his discourse became an encouragement for the class struggle”. These and other similar declarations given space at the time of the commemorations are a demonstration of how much of the mentality that was dominant in the past among the powerful classes of Salvadoran society and which so many times justified horrendous crimes, continues to exist.

     Perhaps the fact that 73 of the 84 deputies have succeeded in agreeing in order to publish a declaration that Monsignor Romero was a “Pastor who struggled to achieve justice, freedom, democracy and peace” can be considered a small advance along the rocky road to national reconciliation. But that kind of declaration will continue to be insufficient and lukewarm as long as in them they continue to evade the responsibility to demand justice and continue evading, as well, the duty of giving the pastor the place which is rightfully his in national history.

     To speak of Monsignor Romero in a cold way with the ostensible objective that was pronounced by the Legislative Assembly means bowing one's head before the voices of hatred which, enclosed within the strict limits of his dogmatism, refuse to accept the irreplaceable role which he played in life —and which he continues to play even after his death— as the greatest pastor El Salvador has ever had, one who gave strength and hope to his people.

     All in all, the fact that the spirit of Monsignor lives in the heart of the Salvadoran people and that this is spreading throughout the world, is hopeful, as were the words of “San Romero de America”. Hopefully the message of peace which the Pope has taken it upon himself to disseminate and which he spreads throughout the world, the intention of conciliation which has recently flowered in the country and the example of Monsignor Romero might contribute to opening the dogmatic minds to the search for truth and justice which has nothing to do with ideology. May that search be more than an economic and political problem: may it become a human project.

ECONOMY

     The privatization of the bank was the first project in the broadest process of privatization begun by the first ARENA administration led by Alfredo Cristiani who, on top of everything else, became one of biggest shareholders in the Banco Cuscatlán, probably the most important in the country given the amount of its shares and profits. Practically all of the banks and financial institutions were privatized before 1993, except the Banco Hipotecario which could not be involved in the process because of the frictions and tensions surrounding the mechanisms for the sale of its shares. It is even the case that, in 1996, the president of the Board of Directors of that bank resigned, alleging the existence of anomalies in the sale of shares because the government —the Armando Calderón Sol administration— was trying to manipulate it according to its whims.

     Recently, it has been made known that the government wishes to again being the process of privatization of the Banco Hipotecario, for which purpose it has already elected an international bank which will offer financial advice regarding the sale of shares, which it is hoped will come to a conclusion before the year ends. Afterwards, the President of the Republic, Francisco Flores, denied these declarations, but the topic has been left handing in the air, adding to the growing malaise caused by the wave of privatization raised by the ARENA administrations. So it is , then, pertinent to take a quick look at what the historic results have been of the privatization of the bank in order to take them into account at the moment in time when the functioning and property of the Banco Hipotecario are modified.

     When the re-privatization of the bank began in 1990, the Cristiani administration insisted that the measure respect the process of democratization of capital for which the participation of the workers in the property of the privatized businesses would be promoted and, moreover, would become the financial system in the "motor of support" for economic development. Almost a decade later, it is clear that none of the two offers was complied with.

     In the full rush of the process of re-privatization of the bank, arose the same questioning that afterwards arose when the privatization of the Banco Hipotecario was frustrated: irregularities in the process of the sale of the shares. According to what happened in 1993, it was suspected that the sale of shares of the re-privatized banks would have violated the Law of Privatization of the Financial System, especially on the question of the value of the shares which might be acquired by big investors, which could not exceed 100,000 colones.

     Nevertheless, at that point in time there were indications that big investors were using the names of their employees to acquire shares which would then be transferred to the name of the corporations of their bosses. This information was confirmed by the president of the Central Reserve Bank himself, Roberto Orellana Milla who, on February 24, 1993, revealed that the possibility for reforming the Law for the Privatization of the Financial System was being studied with an eye to correcting the aforementioned anomaly. This problem transcended the international level with its publications in the Mexican news weekly PROCESO, which, in its February 15, 1993 edition, informed its readers that it had proved, by its own investigation, "that the businesses of President Cristiani and his wife are among the principal shareholders in the private banks along with their family members".

     This premise became stronger with the revelations of a recent investigation concerning economic concentration in El Salvador, according to which "the recomposition of the elite surrounding the privatization of the bank is to be observed". According to the finding of this study, the bankers themselves also own insurance companies and, more recently, have acquired the property of the Administrators of Pension Funds whose principal shareholders are "also those of the principal banks". (Albiac, D. "The Richest of the Rich in El Salvador", ECA, October, 1999, pp. 841-864).

     On the other hand, the fact that the re-privatization of the bank would make of this "ignition for support" of economic development was another offer which has not been complied with, just as the current economic situation demonstrates. The re-privatized bank dedicated itself to financing projects using the criterion of a quick recuperation of credits which implied relegating projects requiring a longer maturation period to a lower level of priority, although they could have stimulated the growth of productive sectors. Consequently, in the current situation of the agricultural and livestock sector, which has lost importance in the creation of the GNP, while the participation of industry has stagnated and is growing at a slower rate than the average for the economy. On the other hand, construction, commerce and finance sectors have experienced vigorous growth which, nevertheless, also quickly showed signs of exhaustion.

     Interest rates and commissions charged by the banks are another factor which, as well as the assignment of credit, have negatively influenced the growth of production and employment. Although, according to the bankers themselves, interest rates are between the lowest levels and commissions that the banks charge add an unnecessary financial charge to credit users and this has been noted on many occasions by the business associations in industry, agriculture and construction themselves.

     In this context it is normal to see the rise of doubts concerning the convenience of privatizing the Banco Hipotecario following the same remedy used with the rest of the banks and, above all, considering that the environment of the financial system will provoke a situation in which this bank will become —as all other re-privatized banks— an factor in strangling economic growth of the productive sectors.

     Even so, on March 21, the president of the Board of Directors of the Banco Hipotecario declared that the government had supported the continuation of the process of the bank's privatization. He added that, for 1999, it was estimated that the bank estimated that it held 2,257 million colones in shares, 1,067 million in loans and 1,832 million in deposits. Moreover, it is estimated that it faces losses in the amount of 171.5 million colones in the same year, which would not constitute an impediment for proceeding with its privatization because, just as with the other banks which were re-privatized, it would be cleared up —using state funds— before being offered to eager buyers.

     This announcement was denied on March 27, by the President of the Republic, Francisco Flores, who declared that "we are not selling or privatizing the either the BFA (Banco de Fomento Agropecuario), or the Banco Hipotecario", because "we consider that both institutions ought to dedicate themselves to the small [businessman]. The instructions which we have given to the Hipotecario are that it seek and specialize in small and medium-sized businesses". It would appear that, with his posture the future of this bank will be defined: it will continue to be the property of the state and will continue to orient its financial services towards small and medium-sized businesses. This should be good news to the large majority of the people of the country, should this be true, given that, on the other hand, it would be avoid new processes of concentration of bank property and, on the other, it would be opening up new opportunities for orienting credit toward sectors which are not being adequately dealt with by the private banks.

SOCIETY

     Immediately after having confirmed his victory, the re-elected mayor of the capital city, Hector Silva, invited his counterparts of the Greater Metropolitan Area of San Salvador, private enterprise and the central government administration to participate in drawing up what he called a "Pact for Governability" in which "great projects" are to be discussed —defined and discussed with the insistence of the heat of the electoral campaign— which the Greater Metropolitan Area of San Salvador needed. The context in which this invitation occurred took on a special quality: according to the preliminary results of the March 12 elections in the Legislative Assembly, no party would enjoy an absolute majority and the metropolitan area of San Salvador would be governed, in the greater proportion, by the FMLN. Before this, President Flores had adopted a party-line discourse attacking the opposition with double-edged arguments —that opposition which he had asked to be a "constructive critic" for the benefit of the country— and drew a line on the ground for his troubled administration: on the one side stood he and his party and on the other, those who represented the antithesis of the development and prosperity which the country needed.

     In this way the ambience which characterized the race for the San Salvador mayor's office was seen as the essence of all that Mayor Silva had had to deal with during the three previous years of his administration. In a little less than three months, the figure of mayor and his council, his projects and goals, his proposals and objectives, were the target of an avalanche of finger-pointing and actions which were intended not only to attack the merit of the mayor's projects but principally to sink the opposition mayor's administration itself in the worst possible attempts to discredit it. A stage setting such as this justified in and of itself the so-called event by Silva of at least guaranteeing the governability of the two million people who live in the Greater San Salvador area. In fact, various sectors and high-level functionaries of the country said they supported the initiative —among them private business itself, the authorities of the Catholic church, diverse mayors of the area and, doubtless, President Flores.

     Among all of the requests to construct the pact, perhaps Flores was the one who had the greatest expectations. The president had closed ranks before the growing possibility of governing together with the opposition which, in general terms, counted upon the recognition of a good percentage of the population and which, in municipal terms, would have to answer to a group of the populace almost as broad as that of ARENA. But, faced with a qualitatively different composition of forces from whom he received the office of the president, Flores was left with nothing other than to join the group of those who spoke in the name of joint work, of the need for agreements, and, definitively, of consensus-building.. This was precisely the proposal that the president launched after the results of the election were made official: the necessity for consensus-building.

     In this way, nevertheless, the administration has already given sufficient indications of acting in arbitrary ways in speech and act so as to fully trust his offer. Certainly dialogue and agreement already form part of the package with which Flores sold himself to the voters during the presidential elections of 1999. His "Alliances" appealed to the work of all in function of some interests and problems which he and his team considered common for the country as a whole But at ten months of having assumed office, Flores has not dedicated the same amount of effort as he did during his campaign for converting his wishes for consensus-building in a practice for wielding state power, into a "new way of doing politics". Once again, dialogue is appealed to in an effort to draw up the map to follow, but that dialogue —as could be observed during the ISSS conflict— suffers from three great ills.

     In the first place, in it a discussion is proposed which does not make up one of the priorities of his government but which arises as a final response to critical or extremely conflictive situations for the administration. Secondly, that dialogue is based on some terms which the administration itself aims to call valid and inevitable. That was the particular case of the ISSS strike, from which no greater modifications in the Flores and ISSS authorities' plans may be expected other than those traced out with regard to the social security system. In third place, the current administration appeals to dialogue in which two kinds of actors have a place: those who want "what is good" for the country and those who use all their efforts for "the bad". In this sense, dialogue and discussion of what is said implies more than an; opportunity for the country; it is an opportunity for that troublesome opposition, given that by means of dialogue it can give free play to the initiatives which come from the government and which can get on the road of those who truly work for social well-being.

     These same ideas underlie the proposal put forth by President Flores. With it, it seems that the president wishes to place his own cards on the table with respect to the request made by Silva, only that, instead of speaking of actions in favor of governability, the president prefers to speak of consensus-building. And it is that to accept the mayor's idea implies assuming as certain that there exist some elements which do not allow him to govern in the best possible way--best for the population of San Salvador. It implies recognizing that Flores himself, his party and his government cabinet have acted —by commission or omission— against this governability which the capital city mayor is calling for. It implies, moreover, giving an evaluation in the post-electoral context its value which presupposes the existence of problems and which, instead of taking up arms against them, analyzes their origins and advocates solutions by means of consensus-building. And what is even more revealing is that this evaluation comes from an opposition mayor.

     Flores speaks of consensus-building in a tone which does not awaken much interest on he part of the political forces of the country; moreover, in his actions he persists in calling attention to that contrast between deeds and words which have characterized him throughout his administration. In this sense, what is more worrisome about his proposal is not so much all that is denied but what it could come to confirm. Once again dialogue arises as a conjunctural measure facing a critical situation for the power of the party in power. Just as Flores himself will indicate, his attitude is a response to the repeated calls which have been made to him by various political parties and not his initiative, fruit of a more or less objective analysis of the new political panorama of the country. In fact, according to his opinion, the results of the elections did not represent "major changes" for his presidential administration.

     Likewise, the new effort for consensus-building which is proposed to the political forces which survived the elections is not even accompanied by a plan which would guarantee its application and follow-up. The pact suggested by Silva at least carries with it a very concrete implicit objective: the drawing up of a document which would define with clarity the lines which will guide the work for the metropolitan area and what each of the participants in this effort will be called upon to do. Moreover, because it is a pact, its development and implementation presupposes the presence of all of the invitations to participate in it, the definition of some of the topics which will have priority and the drawing up of the definitive document on the basis of proposals and contributions accepted by all involved. But the Flores idea lacks that objective and the minimal procedures which would guarantee its effective application.

     So things go and the president and his administration, far from doing something good for the country at this stage of the reorganization of political forces, lend themselves to more of the same: a government administration which grows in its conviction that the matters of state belong to it, the president and the cabinet exclusively and it is not concerned to carry out its work with the participation of all interested sectors. Definitively speaking, the president is contributing to the generation of a climate in which the lack of governability appears as a serious threat to the stability of the country.