Proceso 911
July 19, 2000
ISSN 0259–9864
 
 
 

INDEX

Editorial El Salvador: four problem areas
Politics Citizen participation
Economy The current situation of the coffee-growing sector
Society City and conflict
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

    The current situation in El Salvador is extremely worrisome. It would seem that the country is veering off course, victim of chaos, crime and generalized social violence. We are speaking here of a situation which goes much beyond the lack of any possibility for governing it —a phenomenon encompassed in the term “ingovernability”— until recently a favorite topic in diverse opinion circles. Technically, a society becomes ungovernable when the demands of the populace exceed in their breadth and radical nature, the state’s capacity to respond. In this context, violence seems to be present as much among the citizenry —who present their demands openly— as with the state, to which legal and institutional mechanisms serve for very little for the purpose of containing the public eruption of significant social groupings. This last aspect, which is a central point when speaking of or analyzing a situation which presents itself as ungovernable, is, for all intents and purposes, absent in El Salvador at the present time. The public presence of social movements, a basic factor or notion in any discourse concerning governability, is practically absent in El Salvador at the present time: it is, at present, characterized by its low profile and when it has raised itself up and moved ahead, it has not had a destabilizing effect to the degree necessary to overflow the state.

    An analysis which presents the possible phenomenon of the State’s not being governable, then, does not appear to cover or respond to all aspects of the dynamics which characterize the situation in the country at the present time. There is sufficient reason to think that what is happening in El Salvador is more serious than a mere crisis of governability. We are dealing here with at least two social phenomena which are closely related one to the other, to wit: (a) a breakdown in the ties of social solidarity —which translates into a climate of permanent daily violence; and (b) a crisis in the basic institutions of the country— which impedes their being able to guarantee safe and peaceful social commerce. These two dynamics appear to feed into four tendencies which mark, in good measure, the course of El Salvador today. These four tendencies —presented, as they are below, in this editorial— are the basic problematic constructs of national reality of the country at the present time.

    I. The democratic transition and its consolidation. This point is key for understanding the complexity and difficulties of the Salvadoran political process. In general, it is broadly accepted that the democratic transition presupposes the creation of the institutional minimum necessary in order to make the leap from authoritarianism to democracy. The institutional minimums do not fully exhaust the construction of a democratic ordering; they are only the starting point from which the existence of a solid institutional framework can be presumed —a framework which is capable of channeling broad social demands, this is to say, not exclusively political demands. There is sufficient reason to think that in El Salvador the minimum factors for the transition have not been established with sufficient solidity. >From this it follows that the transition towards the democratic consolidation might be extremely difficult and problematic.

    II. The crisis of public security. This point is closely related to the foregoing point above. In fact, the problem of public security has an institutional dimension which cannot be simply laid aside —nor should it be. The three instances are directly involved with the problem: the National Civilian Police (PNC), the Ministry of Public Security and the judicial system. To the extent that these three instances are not submitted to a drastic institutional cleansing and, at the same time, do not redefine their institutional links, the crisis of public security will tend to become more acute. Of course the problem of public security is not exhausted once its institutional dimension has been examined; there are at least two additional points at which they intersect which make the situation more complex: the psychosocial dimension —this is to say, the way citizens experience the problem of security subjectively—, which is strongly influenced by the media; and the criminal dimension, properly speaking —this is to say, that related to the effective actions committed by organized crime, common crime and private violence. It should not be too much to say that, at the moment, in the social perception of criminality, one of its expression —that of kidnappings— has been blown out of proportion, leaving others, which are equally serious, on the back burner.

    III. Enclaves of authoritarian culture. Some political analysts coincide in noting that democracy experiences greater difficulties in firming up societies where authoritarian culture has not been replaced by democratic culture. In El Salvador, authoritarian values, beliefs and lifestyles are deeply rooted in the society. These are expressed in a perverse logic which can be briefly formulated in the following manner: impotence before those who, hierarchically speaking, have more economic, political or physical power, and arrogance faced with those who, hierarchically speaking, have less power. On the strength of this logic, on the one hand, strength is valued in a positive way as a mechanism for resolving conflicts; and, on the other hand, weakness is rejected —that is to mean, those who have no power or only a minimum of power to fall back on. At least three spaces— pockets —exist in which authoritarian values, beliefs and lifestyles are generated and diffused throughout society, the state sphere, the educational system and the family.

    IV. Labor insecurity. This point has a close relationship with the after effects of the implementation of the liberal program in El Salvador. On the one hand, in the public sector reform (read: reduction) of the state and threats of firing (or real firing) have become the order of the day, with all of the uncertainty and fear which this brings with it. In the private sector, the call to make the workforce flexible places workers at the mercy of bosses who may hire or fire them; additionally enjoying no guarantee of basic labor rights which are being violated all seems to point to a situation in which they could be violated to an even greater degree, if workers (and civil society) do not pressure the state and bosses to change the rules of the economic game. Likewise, labor insecurity is aggravated by a serious structural problem: the disarticulation of the financial, agricultural and industrial sector—the same sectors which are causing stagnation in the economy, with all of the difficulties which this presupposes for a profitable insertion into the world economic circuits.

POLITICS

    The topic of citizenship has become a spectacular presence in discussions on the topic of res publica. Everyone speaks of citizens, their rights and their participation in society. It is for this reason that so much is being said in this country about citizen participation. It should be understood that mechanisms for citizen participation in and influence over decision-making by politicians from the vantage point of state power should be strengthened. These same citizens state clearly their desire for participation. Forums for discussion and reflection concerning national, local and/or world problems are being organized where the topic of the role of citizens is always an important point. And, in this sense, verticalism in decision-making entities is denounced at a national and world level to the extent that it undermines the basic inalienable rights of the citizenry, these being understood as social, civil and political rights.

    In this context, “citizen participation” has become a word which is very much in vogue. Given the existence of kidnappings, the collaboration of the citizenry with the police is called for in order to contain criminal activity. In order to resolve the problem of electoral abstentionism it is believed that greater citizen participation could guarantee control of the decisions taken by the political class and, by the bye, assure their legitimacy vis-a-vis the voters. In this way, democratic representation could have some connection with the direct participation of citizens. Definitively speaking, given the corruption and inefficiency in state institutions, citizen participation appears to be the only salvation on offer.

    Paradoxically speaking, this demand for citizen participation is not accompanied by any effort to include citizen opinion in the big institutional decisions. For example, citizen opinion is not taken into account at the point in time when decisions to privatize public entities are made. Neither are they taken into account when they reveal, by means of public opinion surveys, their point of view concerning governmental behavior in the country. In the end, when the authorities call for or denounce the lack of collaboration by the citizenry, they appear to be looking more for a cover-up of their lack of capacity and lack, as well, of willingness to deal with the problems that society complains of, than a real scrutiny and monitoring by the citizenry of their handling of public affairs. All in all, the concept of citizenry is fundamental for a liberal democratic state.

    Although large insufficiency may be noted in the theories of T.H. Marshall on the question of citizenry, Marshall’s work constitutes, however, a fundamental point which permits a first moment of approaching this topic in the context of liberal nation-states. For this reason, although recognizing the difficulties which can be pointed out in this theory when the topic of citizenry in a globalized context is spoken of, it is necessary to reflect, using his basic postulates concerning the current state of the topic of citizenry in El Salvador. It could be that the very state institutions suffer from serious problems which do not favor the full exercise of citizenship.

    Marshall is considered to be the father of classical liberalism on the topic of “Citizenry”. The celebrated study by Marshall, entitled Citizenship and Social Class (1949) is a classical treatment of the relationship between the state and its citizenry to which diverse theoreticians on this topic had recourse. Citizenry, according to Marshall, is “belonging fully to a community”; a full sense of belonging to a community refers to the participation of the individuals. By means of citizenship, individual equal rights, duties, freedoms, responsibilities and restrictions are guaranteed. In this sense, citizenry is understood to be the possession of rights.

    “In the opinion of Marshall —according to Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norma— citizenship consists, essentially, in assuring that each person is treated as a full member of a society of equals. The way of establishing this kind of belonging consists in offering a growing number citizenship rights to individuals. In guaranteeing all civil, political and social rights, the state guarantees that every member of society feels him or herself to be a full member, capable of participating in and enjoying life in common. Where some of these rights may be limited, or forgotten, there will be those people who are marginalized and who will not be capable of participating (Will Kymlicka and Wane Norma, El retorno del ciudadano en “Ciudadanía, el debate contemporáneo” [“Citizenry, the Contemporary Debate”]. Revista de estudios sobre el Estado y la sociedad, p. 7-8). In this way, belonging to a society, participation in it and the possession of rights and a state of wellbeing which assures the full enjoyment of life in common are the fundamental pillars of Marshall’s concept of citizenship. But what happens when these conditions do not obtain?

    In a first attempt to examine a current institutional crisis which Salvadoran society is aware of, Salvadoran society is seen to be far from complying with these fundamental requisites which make citizen participation possible. In fact, the marginalization to which the greater part of the population is subject, a difficult economic situation and the lack of the state’s capacity to assure even citizen security, are important obstacles which make such participation difficult, according to this reading of what Marshall poses on this question. To the extent that the state must carry out the preponderant role in guaranteeing and encouraging the exercise of citizenship, its efficiency, or lack thereof, precise degree on that point will serve to obstruct or promote the said rights.

    One cannot possibly miss the point here. One of the difficulties to be noted in coming face to face with serious problems about which there is consciousness in the country, is the lack of capacity demonstrated by state institutions in complying with even the most minimal exigencies assigned to it by law. In this context, how can one even speak of the full responsibility of a state for facilitating social, civilian and political rights? Although the great efforts which have been made in the country on this count cannot be denied, it is an absolute necessity to underline the fact that there is still much to be done on the matter of strengthening and empowering the institutions which ought to monitor and oversee compliance with the rights of Salvadoran citizens.

    In this sense, the question which ought to be posed deals not so much with the levels of citizen participation, but with the levels of efficiency in state institutions for promoting that participation and the enjoyment of life in community. From this point of view, the current problem of citizen participation cannot be seen independently of the context of characteristics peculiar to the Salvadoran state. Owing to the institutional blockages which do not allow for the guarantee of rights consecrated in the Constitution —social, political and civilian rights— the state cannot fulfill its obligation of being the guarantor of equality. For this same reason, it does not guarantee the participation of its citizens; nor does it respond to the demands which its citizens pose to its public institutions.

    On the other hand, the denunciation of this lack of coherency and the lack, as well, of compliance on the part of the Salvadoran State with its principal role does not necessarily require an affinity with liberalism. To the contrary, such an analysis would allow for criticism from within liberalism. It is the obligation of the state to comply with the basic theoretical postulates which sustain it. If its state institutions are not in any condition to guarantee the full enjoyment of citizen rights and, therefore, of the rights which are derived from this condition, of citizenship concrete solutions to social demands will be achieved only with difficulty.

ECONOMY

    Since the introduction of coffee into the country, the process of its cultivation has been the object of special governmental policies, beginning with the abolition of communal property in approximately 1860 and continuing on up to and including the current policy for creating a fund of 80 million dollars to stimulate the revelation of the coffee growing sector and to support the financially battered situation of the coffee growers.

    The implications of these state policies are evident. Among the positive aspects are to be found the creation of a new economic growth pole which substituted for indigo production and include, as well, increases in production, exportation and fiscal income. The negative effects might be summed up in the following way: the concentration of landed property, the destruction of virgin forests, the expropriation of communal lands, the proliferation of a landless peasantry and the commencement of poorly-paid seasonal agricultural labor.

    At the present time, the majority of the positive effects of the introduction of coffee are no longer to be seen, principally owing to the fall in international prices occurring more than a decade ago. The goof-growing sector is no longer a dynamic factor for economic growth or for exports. Neither does it generate fiscal income of any considerable value because the taxes on its export were eliminated. On the other hand, its negative effects are maintained, but now with the aggravant factor that, at the present time, the coffee-growing sector generates less seasonal labor than during earlier periods owing to the reduction in the extent of the land areas under cultivation and production.

    The causes of this crisis are basically external in nature, given that international prices have gone from approximately 150 dollars per quintal in 1989 to levels between 80 and 100 dollars per quintal. At exceptional moments, prices have gone back up to these levels, but the general tendency continues to be at the range indicated above or a little higher. Consequently, the coffee-growing sector is debated in a situation of bank deficits and insufficient income to keep it solvent, which has motivated the Francisco Flores administration to create the fund for coffee previously mentioned.

    Curiously enough, this fund has caused divisions within the coffee-growing sector as a result of the fact not everyone’s is in agreement offered by the government in agreement with the convenience or appropriateness of accepting the “generous” aid offered by the government. Basically, two tendencies have come to the fore: one which is totally in agreement with the fund and the other which takes exception to the fact that this only causes greater indebtedness in the coffee-growing sector. This latter group proposes a restructuring of its debt.

    Although it is not a question of denying the fact that coffee continues to be a category which contributes to the agricultural and livestock portion of the Gross National Product as well as to the GNP in general (19.36% and 2.5%, respectively); but neither should one look askance at the possible errors which could arise should only scarce resources be assigned to an economic sector with the national and international clout which coffee has: this would be a real blunder; the result of political —but not necessarily economic— logic.

    Let us begin with the international sphere. The outstanding factor here is that the greatest hopes for a come-back in international coffee prices could be forthcoming from natural threats which, should they come to pass, would cause great damage to the Brazilian coffee harvest, which is one of the biggest world producers. Should this be the case, a conjunction of events could occur in which the reduction of the offer (supply) on the world market together with speculation which would temporarily elevate coffee prices (in fact, these are the current expectations). For all the rest, no plan to assign quotas such as the International Coffee Organization could assign which could induce reduction in the offer (supply) of coffee together with more permanent increases in prices.

    Even while it might be supposed that prices could return to former levels, one cannot discount the national context, in which coffee is developed would contribute very little towards development objectives. Coffee exports have lost importance in the context of the whole; neither do they generate tax income. Coffee production is developed in a situation which involves the concentration of lands and, moreover, not even during its best periods has been capable of creating jobs and income sufficient to overcome the problematic situation of rural poverty.

    During 1986, coffee exports hardly represented 73.1% of the country’s total exports, while for 1999 it came to represent 9.8%. Tax income generated by the coffee-growing sector went from levels close to 30% in 1980 to only 8% in 1990 as a result of a tax reduction to coffee exports which would later disappear completely. On the other hand, statistical data presents a state of affairs in which, before the agrarian reform of the 1980’s, close to 39% of the land surface under coffee cultivation and 44.5% of production was concentrated in only 1.7% of total exploitation.

    The agrarian reform did not change the structure of land-holding to any considerable extent because it did not affect properties of 150-500 hectares, where 60% of all lands were under coffee production. Neither, however, did it significantly affect big producers because the data provided by the Program for the Evaluation of the Agrarian Reform showed that only 5.5% of the total land under coffee production of between 10,000 and 15,000 quintales of oro [the best grade coffee. Translator’s Note] to 8.9% of those which might produce between 15,000 and 30,000 and 1.1% of those which were producing more than 30,000. The most significant effect of the agrarian reform was the fact that some 16.7% of lands under coffee cultivation passed into the hands of cooperatives created on an ad hoc basis.

    Finally, another element in the national context surrounding coffee should be mentioned. And this is that, for the beginning of the decade of the 1990’s, it was estimated that the coffee-growing sector generated close to 40% of the total day labor jobs in the agricultural and livestock sector. Current data is not known, but, vis-a-vis the reduction in land areas under coffee cultivation provoked by the growing urbanization of the coffee ranches, a reduction in day labor jobs generated by the sector might be expected, to which other negative elements might also be added. These are (1) the seasonal character of the jobs and (2) the low salary levels prevailing in this sector.

    It is an open secret that the coffee-producing sector generates the greater part of day-labor jobs only during the four months of the year during which coffee is being harvested. During the rest of the year, agricultural workers must find other activities to bring in income. Additionally, prevailing salary ranges in the sector are very much below the cost of the basic food basket in the rural area, which is reflected in the fact that more than half of the value added goes to the coffee growers’ profits, while only one fourth is assigned as payment in salaries to workers in the coffee harvests.

    For the moment, coffee continues to represent a good part of the crops on the 234,200 manzanas of cultivatable land available and generates a small portion of the GNP (i.e., 2.5%) and an important percentage of day-labor jobs in the agricultural and livestock sector. But, contrary to governmental vision, this is no longer a sector which could recuperate a strategic role in the process of El Salvador’s insertion into the world economy. Coffee production has a not very promising future under current international market conditions and, if this were not enough, it has shown that for the last 140 years that it is not the solution for overcoming the pauperization of the rural sector —to the contrary: it is a factor which contributes to deepening rural poverty. This leads to the suggestion that the evaluation of the importance of adopting policies which might encourage the production of sectors with greater possibilities on the international market and, above all, in those which require a greater distribution of value added. To achieve this, ingenious solutions are necessary together with firm and decisive state intervention, as was the case when the cultivation of coffee was first introduced into the country.

SOCIETY

    The profile of a city, together with the manner of cohabitation among its inhabitants is defined, fundamentally, by the existence of rights and responsibilities as well as minimal mechanisms providing for respect for these same rights and responsibilities as well as compliance with them. This would seem to imply that all such behavior as contributes to peaceful coexistence and is respectful of the rights and duties of the rest of the citizens ought to be conveniently reinforced by the intervention of the pertinent institutions. In the same way, the occurrence of behavior that could upset that equilibrium among persons with different interests and aspirations ought to be firmly sanctioned. So it is that the collective construction of the city would have to rest upon the foundtion of equilibrium among some rights —compliance with which ought to be demanded of its citizens at all times— and some citizen duties or obligations —on the basis of which the authorities might be able to determine when this equilibrium is being violated or upset.

    The city of San Salvador exhibits those symptoms which illustrated the absence of such equilibrium. The limits of citizen activity, never regulated by any competent authority, are superimposed upon the rights and responsibilities of the multiple actors who converge upon that space. The result of this superimposition is, logically, an almost inherent state of conflict when it comes to establishing relationships with the rest of the citizenry, for as minimal as these may be. And this state of conflict is defined precisely by that struggle without arbitration which is carried out among people who attempt to “use” the city for their own benefit and those who try to make their rights prevail by means of the most varied formulas of resistance. In this sense, any attempt to intervene in the cohabitation on a daily basis of those who live in this city will be affected by that situation of conflict which is produced among some of the well-identified actions together with some rights and responsibilities which do not include the most minimal referent for their definition and respect.

    The current state of affairs in San Salvador serves as the scenario for a new expression of this situation of conflict. The municipal government presided over by Dr. Hector Silva has, for several years now, offered the citizens of San Salvador the benefits which the recuperation of the Historic Center of San Salvador would imply. The promise of immediate benefits such as the straightening out of traffic patterns for vehicular and pedestrian transit was sufficient basis for the plan to receive the support necessary for it to be launched publicly. Likewise, other kinds of benefits, such as the empowerment of the downtown as a space in which a dying generation could offer its symbolic universe to the new generations also awakened positive expectations among several sectors of the municipality and the country. But not everyone reacted to the municipal plan in the same way. Those who were most affected by the recuperation activities in the downtown were the small retail street sellers who have taken the streets of the capital cities practically by assault in the search for a space to earn a living in order to survive.

    Nevertheless, up until a few days ago, the participation of the municipality in the much announced rescue activities for the tiny downtown area had been reduced to some excessively focussed activities stimulated, in their majority, by other very particular projects such as the recuperation of some public squares. Very little had been done to work closely on the basis of an integral vision of the rescue operations, in virtue of which the commitment of the actors involved would be related to the recuperation of the public space in and of itself, and, with it, with the respect for the right to use the city which all inhabitants of the municipality have. But after committing themselves with several public transportation associations and government personalities to push forward the plans to recuperate the downtown historic center, the need to relocate and offer an alternative for survival of more than 4,000 retail salespersons distributed throughout the zone made itself felt in a more urgent way. Moreover, one of the priority projects of the municipal government is, precisely, to make the tiny downtown center area a place appropriately available not only for transit but also for living. The pieces fit together in such a way that the mayor’s office involved itself once and for all in the relocation of these stalls where sales took place.

    Opposition to the municipal plan was not slow in emerging. Some of the street sellers whose stalls occupy the sidewalks surrounding the Sagrado Corazón market pronounced themselves as opposed to their inevitable eviction and began a series of activities in which all were invited to participate in a species of “civil disobedience” —destined to halt the measures taken by the municipal authorities. This was a situation which might have been expected to occur. The Silva administration had already had to deal with the resistance of the street-sellers who refused to abandon their stalls on an earlier occasion in which the restoration of Plaza Morazán was undertaken. But this is the first time that that resistance took on shades of violence. In the streets surrounding the market, bonfires were set and crowds were at the point of committing aggressions against the Metropolitan Police Officers and more violence was threatened to confront the imminent eviction of the sellers. The situation got worse when it was observed that the advance in the eviction activities did not correspond with the search for more viable alternatives for those affected by it.

    This circle of confrontation drawn around the plans for the reordering of the downtown center does not seem to be on the road to being broken in the near future. In fact, the street-sellers are taking advantage of the political connotations which any and all measures by the current mayor’s office has in order to win the favor of the political right represented by the ARENA party. Again, what hangs in the balance —or, what has not yet been achieved— is the search for an equilibrium between the rights of retail street sellers and their duty to respect the adequate use of the city. The developments which are arising as a result of this confrontation are the product, among other things, of decades of municipal efforts only minimally committed to a minimal ordering of San Salvador for its citizens. A more serious commitment in this sense might even have succeeded in raising consciousness to a higher level on the question of the necessity to make this double consideration at the moment in time when tensions such as are currently in evidence had to be resolved: considerations in which street-sellers and citizens in general are taken into account on an equal basis.

    But there is another component which cannot be ignored —nor should it be— by those who aim to deal with the problematic state of affairs surrounding the recuperation of the downtown center with a minimum of objectivity: that of the attitudes which, in the midst of the errors committed by the municipal authorities, have taken root among the citizenry. The rejection upon which the retail street-sellers are an expression based, in some measure, upon already traditional way of resolving problems in the city in particular and in the country in general. Where no minimal guarantees exist for overseeing and monitoring respect for the rights and for compliance with the duties and responsibility of persons, this not only causes social disenchantment, but mechanisms for response which exceed legal contexts also tend to become more powerful. From this perspective, the only truly important thing is to make the lack of guarantees —legal, institutional, etc.— adequate to the process of achieving or obtaining interests by each group, without any importance being given to the fact that the road taken might be the least adequate.

    Definitively speaking, the act of dedicating oneself exclusively to demands for one’s own rights is a relatively easy task. Even more so when this task ignores or does not take into account the recognition of those minimal duties, the minimal legitimate compliance with which is the respect which is being demanded. In this sense, what is truly difficult is to assume an attitude of respect not only towards the other person or persons, but also —and in the case of the historic downtown center, this aspect is of vital importance— towards the minimal structures which make up the city. This implies beginning to understand that the streets are not markets, that city squares are not busstops and that markets are not simply warehouses. This level of reflection should enter deeply into the minds of all affected by this recomposition of public space which is aimed at for San Salvador, be they street-venders or patrons. Should the contrary come to be the case, El Salvador’s capital city will not succeed in overcoming the state of disorder and anarchy in which its inhabitants live and go about their daily affairs.