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Año 21
Número 932
December 20,2000
ISSN 0259-9864
 

Editorial Deterioration of the social fabric during 2000
Politics Political Sum-up
Economy Economic Roundup
Society Social Sum-up
 

EDITORIAL

     At the close of the year 2000, a sum-up and evaluation of the year is a clear necessity..  It has been a difficult year for society as a whole, but especially for the popular sectors who have seen how, from the heights of state power, a series of socio-economic measures have been set in motion, the objectives of which have not come even close to improving their living conditions.

     During the year 2000 the passivity of the greater part of the population as it confronts the decisions which emanate from the circles of political power has become manifest once again, as it has in previous years.  Certain it is that some outbreaks of social discontent have taken place, but these  have been focalized in very reduced groups and with very particular interests—as is the case of those demobilized after the conflict--, without succeeding in articulating interests and demands of the most general nature.  But it is also true that new experiences of social participation have arisen in rural areas of the country—specifically in the northeastern area of the Department of Chalatenango or to the north of the Department of Morazan--, but these experiences are not generalized nor do they even involve the majority of inhabitants of the municipalities in which they take place.

     So it is, then, from the point of view of the participation and organization of civil society, the year 2000 seems not to have produced significant successes as compared with previous years.  Much is still left to be done to overcome the passivity and apathy which characterizes public behavior of the greater part of the population.  There are now more possibilities and opportunities for advancing in that direction; nevertheless, the task requires large dosages creativity and commitment which, for the moment, do not seem to be forthcoming.  It is a question of taking maximum advantage of legal, institutional and local openings occurring after 1992 in order to channel and focus the participation of civil society, because  without that participation what is said of democracy will always be insufficient.

     By the same token, participation of the society is key for reconstructing the social fabric of Salvadoran society, corroded by crime, arrogance, impunity and the dregs of authoritarianism present in national political culture.  Abundant are the arguments concerning the deterioration of the quality of life in El Salvador during the post-war era; the ties of solidarity have broken and with them the possibilities for a secure living together in social circumstances.  This is the root of the crisis of security among the populace which has so concerned not only the authorities but also the citizen on the street.

     Many factors make life in El Salvador insecure, but among the most serious is the permanent threat presented by criminals of all stripes and kinds laying siege to the inhabitants of the country: rapists, kidnappers, bankrobbers, swindlers, car thieves, street delinquents.  At all levels the risks of having to deal with criminal activity of all kinds are various, but almost no one in El Salvador is exempt from being besieged by the first person who takes advantage of him.

     Each person, in his or her own way, seeks to take advantage of the rest, to impose him or herself upon others by exhibiting strength and power.  Criminals take this situation to extreme limits;  nevertheless, the assaults on the rights and dignity of our neighbors is not the exclusive task of all concerned.  It is difficult to accept that the average Salvadoran is ready to trample the dignity of all others—friends, neighbors, co-workers—when an opportunity is to be seized to obtain something in exchange, be it only the confirmation of social prestige.

     It is customary to believe that criminals live in a world apart and that they are people radically different from the rest of us—that is, that there is a clear line of demarcation between criminals and non-criminals.  Let us be clear:  in El Salvador, as well as in other Latin American societies, such a separation is not so clearly defined nor as absolute as one might wish to believe.  Not only are “decent” people coming from “good families” sometimes involved in high-level criminal activities, but there are those who just outside the workplace or the home or the school, step over the line of legality in a completely natural way.  Not to mention those who push over the brink into criminal activity just because of an altercation over a traffic situation or because of a heated discussion over drinks.

     It may not be completely out of line to pose the hypothesis that in every Salvadoran there is a potential criminal who, at the first opportunity, will step firmly on the dignity of the rest.  This hypothesis may be useful, first, as a way of reserving opinion on the clear separation between criminals and non-criminals—between “them” (the criminals) and “us” (decent people)—and then as a way of understanding the social complexity of crime.

     Secondly, this hypothesis might be illuminating when one begins to deal with the problem of rooting out crime.  If we all have some potential leaning towards criminality, we all ought to submit ourselves to a process of personal and social change.  We all ought to take care of ourselves, before the neighbor or whoever steps in our way, because no one can assure that we will not ourselves be the aggressors.

     It is clear that this argument has its limits and risks.  One of these is that it may be taken as an invitation to suspect everyone and everything.  This risk is not so great, however, because, as things go in this country, everyone suspects everyone else—especially those who are not our friends and acquaintances, those who wear loose pants, those who have tattoos or those who drive vehicles with polarized windshields.

    What is being proposed is that, if we suspect everyone, we ourselves must accept the fact that we are being suspected because, if we look closely at the problem of violence, it turns out that many of those who appear to be involved in it share with the ostensible non-criminals not only social status, but education, aspirations and customs.  Many of them are Salvadorans, sons and daughters of Salvadorans, educated formally or informally in this country with broken dreams or exaggerated ambitions the same as the great majority of all of the country`s inhabitants.

     Said in another way, violence and criminality have been introduced into the social fabric of El Salvador horizontally as well as laterally.  The category of social violence makes reference, precisely, to the phenomenon of the permeation of society by criminal workings in all of their manifestations.

     If criminality and violence have permeated the whole of society, the task of overcoming both situations becomes particularly difficult.  Undoubtedly a cultural reform might appear to us as a sine qua non for mounting this purpose.  Violence and criminality feed on values, beliefs, attitudes and practices—these providing, as they do, a  cultural-symbolic context—rooted not only in those who openly commit crimes, but in the majority of citizens.

     A change in that cultural-symbolic context, or what is tantamount to a cultural transformation, becomes unavoidable if one wishes to cross over from a situation of social violence to a situation of peaceful coexistence and living together in society.  That new cultural symbolic context cannot be other than the situation that is based on solidarity, respect for the dignity of others, brotherhood, tolerance and hospitality.

     In addition to this new cultural-symbolic context, the transition from a climate of social violence to a climate of social tranquillity requires processes of long term institutional reform, focussed on fighting arrogance, impunity and corruption at all levels of governmental spheres.  Without a reform of this nature, state institutions are going to be incapable of recuperating the legitimacy they have lost in the course of these years.  At the same time, they will be incapable of making their contribution to the recomposition of the Salvadoran social fabric.

     The year 2000 has left us with unavoidable challenges on a cultural and institutional level.  Both challenges can only be confronted in the future by means of civil society organized and participative and with citizens who are conscious of their rights and responsibilities.  Political figures, universities, NGOs, governmental authorities, trade unions, businessmen, all sectors of society must take up the task to perform in order to reconstitute the ties of social solidarity in the country.  A failure in this direction will condemn the country and all of its inhabitants to insecurity, fear and uncertainty, all of which make up the seedbed in which violence and impunity are grown and reproduced.  These have been the dominant realities in the country during the year 2000.  The authorities have not known how to deal with this in all of its radical complexity—or have not wished to take on the responsibility—of constructing a just and peaceful society.  The question remains as to whether those who inhabit the heights and circles of political and economic power will actually do something  serious about the need to root out the crime and impunity which corrode social coexistence in El Salvador.

POLITICAL SUM-UP

    The year 2000 ended with a large dose of uncertainty for El Salvador.  The diverse and varied situation which the country experienced throughout the year 2000 cast doubt upon the willingness and capacity of its leaders to provide answers to the demands of the population.  The challenges of previous years have been aggravated throughout the length and breadth of this year.

The Principal Topics in National Reality during the Year 2000

    The first three months of the year were heavily marked by the electoral process in which the population was engaged in electing the deputies and mayors now currently in office.  During this period of time a series of confrontations took place between the political parties, characteristic of that period of political life in general.  The importance and impact of these elections will be considered at the appropriate point in time.

    A second important topic in the national life of the country during the last year is that of public security.  The increase in the number of kidnappings and the high level of social violence which characterizes Salvadoran society has caused a considerable level of terror in national life.  All areas of society—even public authorities reluctant to accept the alarming facts on the question of public insecurity--are involved in the discussion and proposals around the best way to confront the violence.

    A third point involves the institutions charged with monitoring and overseeing public security have, themselves, been the target of public criticism throughout the year 2000, given that additional ingredients contributing to the worsenng of public security in the country have been the involvement of many National Civilian Police in common and organized crime, complaints of corruption in the judicial branch of government and the constant zigzagging and hanging back evidenced by the Attorney General’s Office in the carrying out of its task of fighting crime.

    On the other hand, neither have the national health institutions responsible for the population been able to guarantee even minimal security in public health.  The epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue which hit Salvadoran children and the massive deaths because of intoxication by adulterated alcohol last year are clear signs of how public health fared during this period.

    Finally, the national economic situation has been a headache for the Salvadoran populace during 2000 as the constant increases in the prices of petroleum and the reduced capacity for consumption resulting from the constricted real wages of the Salvadoran workers’ salaries as well as the poor quality and performance of the national economy have been topics for debate.

    How has this diverse panoply of problems been perceived and responded to?  Have politicians of all stripes been able to deal with these national problems?  What are the challenges confronting the nation now during 2001?  These are some of the questions discussed below in this sum-up of political affairs during the year 2000.

How the Political Class Responded to the National Problems

    The response of the political class to the problems confronting Salvadoran society during this last year has been erratic and inadequate, as it has been during previous years.  Faced with a serious economic crisis, the Francisco Flores administration has not been able to keep the spirits of the population up even as cries have arisen from various sectors:  none have been heard or attended to.  Improvisation and dispersion have characterized administration responses to the problems described above during the last year.  The political class itself, in general, has enclosed itself in interminable petty power struggles since the March 2000 elections and these actions and attitudes have conditioned its attempts to deal with the country’s problems.

    On the economic scene—aside from the repeated announcements of better days to come as a result of the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and the broadening of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the dolarization policy has been the biggest effort of the Flores administration.  And so the new year said goodbye to the old year, which took the Salvadoran Colon with it.

    Announced at the end of last year, the so-called Monetary Integration Law provides for a substantial reduction in bank interest rates which is aimed at giving the economy a jump start.  The administration decided to take the annual road taken by dozens of Salvadorans who risk their lives to look for a new future in up north dolarization is, for the moment, the only way out for the government administration which chalked up defeat after defeat during 2000.  The decision to dolarize should be understood in the context of the dynamics of the year’s economic recession together with the strong political pressures which have shaken the third ARENA administration.

    While uncertainty about the use of the dollar and its supposed benefits for the national economy, the approval of the measure cannot be ignored, as it will greatly effect national political life.  The dolarization of the economy took place at a moment in time when the discussions and negotiations in the midst of the national political class were at their sharpest.  Even so the unlikely measure was not discussed with national political actors and the administration chucked overboard the economic future, cultural identity and the social quality of life of the Salvadoran people without listening to anyone’s opinion.

    President Flores highly adorned speeches notwithstanding, in the last analysis the ARENA party’s authoritarianism has not diminished in the least.  And neither has the behavior issuing from this characteristic.  Political life, for Flores, has become the sphere of his reaffirmation of his party’s interests marked by the iron will of its control over national life.  The president has not been up to snuff on the question of the much needed and much called for consensus building announced as the only way to deal successfully with national problems.  At the most delicate moments in the life of the country all throughout this last year, his short-sighted vision of national politics—a struggle between the forces of good and evil—has been the guiding sight along the road of his many mistaken decisions.

    In this sense he has demonstrated a poor capacity for discussing and accepting proposals which differ from his own vision of reality.  This methodology has done nothing more than increase jealousy and intrigue and generate confrontations between the national political sectors instead of providing a factor for bringing together the social and political spheres as provided for in the country’s constitution.

    On top of this, the incompetence demonstrated by various of the officials of his administration in matters of public affairs and the tendency towards hedging exhibited by the president on what should be national policy has been sufficient to provoke many giant steps backwards in the development of the country’s institutions during 2000.  His hedging on important issues—publicity campaigns notwithstanding—has created more confusion than clarity for the majority of the Salvadoran population.

    In this way, the official political vision has rested more upon propaganda than on real and specific actions leading to viable solutions to the problems confronting the diverse sectors of national life.

The March Electoral Results: Determining Factors for 2000

    Since the results of  last March’s elections were made public—results which consolidated the advance of popular sympathy with the FMLN—national political life has experienced an unaccustomed dynamism which should be taken note of in this sum-up.  As a result of these election results—which  had, as an additional concomitant the placing of ARENA on the high wire tight-rope walk of political leadership—have presented additional dynamic characteristics which tend to aggravate the fragile nature of national institutions and marked the style and quality of the handling of public affairs last year.  Note must be taken of the internal dynamism produced within the ARENA party and the right wing in general, as well as the same dynamic in left politics in El Salvador.

    Inside ARENA, the principal right-wing party in the country, the election results produced a certain air of confusion together with a species of collective hysteria.  The election results seem to have provoked serious convulsions for the right and this should be a blinking red light for society at large on the road to democracy, signaling the (in)sufficient maturity of their political leaders in their inability to accept the verdict of the ballotboxes.  The Legislative Assembly, as a result, has become a theatre of confusion presenting the process of accommodation experienced by the political class. On the one hand, the right-wing, shaken by its electoral fall, and, on the other, a left-wing which, at times, exhibits an overweening insolence as a result of the election results and its new weight in national politics.

    The confusion of some and the delusions of grandeur of others have created an ambience characterized by political infighting and power struggles, intrigues and scandalous processes of political negotiation.  So it is that ARENA was not willing to accept the new balance of power represented on the national political map (explanation of its fears and sharply-honed struggles with the FMLN, which hasm itself, not been equal to the new political context.  The resistance of some and the lack of political tact on the part of others have both contributed to the shabby image of the Legislative Assembly throughout the year.  As a result, many of the political discussions of the highest state legislative body have been the scenario for a constant process of one tripping up or blocking the efforts of the others.  Given this reality, the small political parties have taken on a protagonist role, with the exception of the PCN, whose leaders are more interested in obtaining personal benefits and have aligned themselves with the cause of ARENA.

    But then, one cannot ignore the intransigence demonstrated by the FMLN on more than one occasion in its dealings with the ARENA party has closed off the process of empowering the autonomy of the municipalities.  As the FMLN was the big winner in the municipal elections, ARENA has read into the strategy for strengthening the municipalities the perceived possibility that this phenomenon is a contribution to the cause of the FMLN.  This has meant eternal campaigns against Hector Silva, San Salvador’s mayor, and the central personality of the FMLN in the handling of the destiny of the population.

    And so it was that the topic of the 12% claimed early on by the left for the municipalities has become bogged down in political battles between the left and right on a national level, and has been sacrificed to the necessity for protagonism on the part of the parties which dominate the political life of the country.

    This constant struggle has taken on  proportions which ought seriously to concern the population on the question of the possibilities for the advance of democratic processes on the national level.  In a situation of virtual equilibrium between the two main political parties, not only have the fissures and weak points on the issue of national reconciliation come to the fore—an issue that politicians like to emphasize when they make pronouncements concerning the process of national pacification.  Such behavior also permits one to perceive up to what point the right believes in the legality and empowerment of national institutions.

    Throughout the length and breadth of this last year, the right-wing block has demonstrated its determination to trample upon and even change in a subjective way the rules of the game as applied to national political life, all the while refusing to respond to real and immediate interests.  Such has been the case with the sudden proposals for legislative bills which contradict the spirit of judicial security.  The reformation of the internal rules of the Legislative Assembly on the question of the naming of its president is palpable proof of the foregoing.  The constant and irremediable advance of the FMLN in popular sympathy motivated these changes while providing an explanation to the right-wing’s determination—should it become necessary--to cast overboard its repeated assurances and commitments to the democratic process.

    This concern has been latent since the beginning of the electoral process, in which calumny and ad hominem attacks more appropriate to previous epochs were the order of the day.  The efforts to smear Hector Silva, especially in paid ads in the national press, constitute the principal concerns of the right wing.  The national press, in the midst of the fray, demonstrated its clear ideological propensities together with the interests which the owners of the press defend.  Not even the President of the Republic, so eager to tout political equilibrium, could stay neutral, as would behoove him, given his position.  A public campaign speech for his party on the eve of the elections should be kept clearly in mind, even though the legally established period for such propaganda had already ended.

    After the election results were made known, showing the important advance made by the left, the country was treated to a show of good will in the announcement of consensus-building among the varyingpolitical actors.  The necessity and opportunity to take advantage of the new conjuncture of affairs was considered in order to take up the diverse problems plaguing the country—and this by building a consensus.  These hopeful proposals were late in being announced, while the political parties simultaneously hastened to make manifest their incompetence at dialogue and consensus building on the issues facing the nation.  And so it was that consensus-building processes fell on infertile ground after the elections.

    The ARENA party felt too much offended by the election results to be able to accept them while the voters, perhaps urged on by the positive experience with the FMLN in the handling of several of the country’s municipalities, voted heavily for that party on the municipal level.  Maneuverings by ARENA were not late in being felt in an effort to put a brake on what was certainly a recognized advance by the FMLN.  The infighting over the presidency of the Legislative Assembly by the right-wing block made up of the PCN, PDC and ARENA and the constant press campaigns to discredit the left party are all intrigues and movements which have characterized the ARENA reaction to the election results which brought with them the clear message of a possible removal from power.

    Along with these results and reactions, a sketch of the internal processes of ARENA must be presented.  On the basis of the election failure, diverse sectors  of the party have engaged in struggles for an internal restructuring which would permit the party to recover the strength and vigor it enjoyed previously as an electoral force.  In a surprise process, the most varied discussions have taken place within this right-wing party, known for its hermeticism and  vertical structures, which began to crack when the so-called movement of the founding members erupted on the political scene as the moving force for internal change.  Disagreements among ARENA party members on the question of their handling of the party were publicly ventilated for the first time.

    The most affected by this movement of complaints and denunciations by the ex-founding members was Alfredo Christian, the ex-president who took control of the party after the 1995 electoral failure had to leave the leadership of the  party.  A resulting process of internal accommodation took place resulting in the current leadership of COENA.  It remains to be seen to what extent a change of faces will succeed in reconstituting internal party cohesion.  The extent to which ARENA resolves its internal problems and its leaders breath new life and confidence into the rank and file, could contribute to improving the national political climate.

    The FMLN as well has had to deal with its own internal process during the whole of last year.  However, thanks to the beneficial electoral results, it has dealt with this process with greater maturity than during previous years.  During 2000, internal struggles between revisionists and orthodox groupings inside the party have not taken on alarming proportions:  to the contrary, the results of the last party convention indicate a tendency to overcome the internal divisions.  The elimination of tendencies, although in a nominal manner only, could contribute to overcoming internal problems.

     On the other hand, however, the FMLN ought to learn to function as a more intelligent opposition vis-a-vis the government party.  The image of a closed opposition, more concerned with pointing out government failure than in presenting concrete alternatives to the problems to be addressed, must be overcome.  For this to happen, the broad arenas available for debate in civil society must be taken advantage of to deal with the most deeply-felt topics in national life.  Aside from the proposals presented during the discussions surrounding the national budget, the FMLN distinguished itself not at all in taking advantage of such possibilities for positive debate.  The party should also develop a strategy by means of which the population might be helped in efforts to distinguish between the FMLN and the rest of the parties in the way they handle certain issues in the Legislative Assembly.

Summing Up 2000

     As the year 2000 drew to a close, it might be said that the problems experienced by ARENA and its fears of losing power affected national life on much too great a scale.  The constant improvisations and authoritarianism characterizing President Flores have not permitted him to move ahead with a national agenda.  Democracy has not been strengthened, national institutions are languishing, and the Legislative Assembly is not up to par in dealing with the country’s problems.  The political parties have not been able to respond to the demands of the population and the right-wing has not learned how to digest the democratic counterweight with which it was presented, although neither has the opposition lived up to the expectations of the populace.  The lack of prestige characterizing the political class has grown and porkbarrel politics, dead souls and rotten boroughs have characterized the functioning of public administration.  Corruption and incompetence have marked social life and opportunist attitudes in politics with an eye to consolidating personal power and position have continued to be a fact of life.  Violence has not diminished, nor has it been alleviated in any sensible degree.  Impunity is rampant.  Given this, society and social forces are becoming more and more frustrated as their relationship with politics continues to be weak.

     Another case in point is the phenomenon of reiterated demands by business and commercial sectors who, on the one hand, denounce intervention of politics in national life while, on the other, make the seeking of political favors one of the key mechanisms for obtaining profits.  If this were not the case, it would be impossible to explain, for example, how ANEP could mount huge campaigns to organize events where cries for state intervention to guarantee economic profit are to be heard.  This simultaneously with the fact that with all of its capacity to wield influence, cannot seem to present a legislative bill for free competition in the country.  In good measure, a law of this kind would negatively affect the income of big business represented in that private institution and sabotage the base of its monopolic power.

     As things go, the country has not enjoyed any great collaboration from its political and business leaders as it confronts the challenges which have been presented during 2000.  Faced with this panorama, it is of the utmost importance to ask what awaits the nation during the year 2001.  A quick once-over such as was presented above might lead one to take a pessimist attitude on this point and so public opinion polls indicate.  In spite of the much touted bonanzas which the dolarization policy; and the Free Trade Agreements, the majority of the population does not seem to be very content with the real achievements so far resulting from these measures.  When the possibility of positive results become the topic of conversation, many Salvadorans admit that the benefits will be for big business or people who already have enough money.

     On the other hand, on the question of announced changes in the institutions, not much faith seems to be had in the possibility that these will change or that they will be able seriously to take up their functions in the society.  It is generally thought that the PNC, the Attorney General’s Office and the country’s judicial system will continue to favor and defend the interests of the most powerful.  The majority believes that the national political strategies will continue to defend the interests of the most privileged.  But in spite of this negative cast of thought, it must be recognized that the country has advanced in a certain degree on the issue of public consciousness among the populace concerning the necessity to defend their rights and demand that the authorities comply with the mandates given them when they are voted into office.  Some optimism might be allowed on this theme, at least in some of the processes of denunciations and complaints presented during the last year.

     In good measure, the media has made a very important contribution towards encouraging public debate on national problems.  In spite of the valid criticisms to be made of certain sectors of the press, one must, in all justice, recognize the contribution of the media to national debate and a greater consciousness among the citizenry as well as calling to account some of the shameful actions and behavior of certain political leaders.  Examples of this are: if, at year’s end, tax exemptions which certain deputies wanted to obtain were held back, or if decisions were been made in cases such as that of Katya Miranda—in spite of the unsatisfactory nature of the outcome of this case—or if corruption was denounced in institutions such as the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, the PNC, FEDEFUT and the judicial branch of government—for all of this we have the press to thank.

     Given this, it is legitimate to hope that in 2001 the media might continue with this same dynamism so that the political actors might feel the pressure of monitoring by the population.  Only by real participation of civil society can political change be achieved or impunity arrested or corruption fought against.  Only in this way can the empowerment of state institutions advance.

ECONOMIC ROUNDUP

    There is no doubt that the dolarization of the Salvadoran economy has been the most outstanding aspect of the political economic measures taken by the Flores administration during 2000.  This is not because other measures have not been implemented because, parallel measures have been implemented in programs for agricultural and livestock development as well as territorial development.  The economic context in which dolarization was announced was one of the worst of the decade of the 90’s because economic slow-down was at an all time low and because tendencies towards a lack of balance between external and public sectors continued apace—all without the administration adopting corrective measures.  Dolarization, as the administration itself recognizes, is not the solution to these problems.

    At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the enormity of the eternal macroeconomic unbalance (understood as fiscal deficit and the balance of trade deficit )continued on while inflation, although it increased, continued at extremely low levels just as in the two previous years.  The monetary financial sector, for its part, has observed behavior characterized by a sensible reduction in growth rates for credit and reductions in interest rates (especially passive interest rates).

     This is all to say that, not taking into account the effects of the announcement of the dolarization policy, nothing else new happened in 2000.  Although it is clear that the economy is lining up for a profound crisis characterized by a reduction in economic growth rates, a new inflationary impulse which will be generated by dolarization and a deepening of the fiscal deficit owing to the relatively slow growth of tax collection together with increases in public spending.

     The GNP for 2000 was calculated, preliminarily, at 2.5%, or 3.5% lower than the GNP for 1999 and lower as well than the projections of the monetary and financial program of the Central Reserve Bank.  On the other hand, one of the early effects of dolarization to be seen is the increase in  prices as a result of the rounding off of the approximation of the conversions of colones to dollars and vice versa.  The government itself has already announced that it will implement plans to control the process of “rounding off” in order to void abuse, even in spite of its ever present reluctance to control business and commerce.  This new inflationary impact will be transitory and not permanent, but it will be considerable throughout  2001.

     On the other hand, public finance continues to exhibit weakness as a result of public spending increases which exceed income.  To the foregoing must be added that these last might deteriorate as a result of a reduction in perceived income with the emission of currency (which will disappear with dolarization), but, above all, because of lower tax income resulting from the elimination of customs barriers provided for by the free trade agreements—especially with Mexico—and, in particular, as a result of the difference existing between government programming and planning and what was really collected as tax income (e.g., during 1999, 12% less than expected was collected).

     In this context, the macroeconomic results to be read for 2000 ought to take into account the fact that economic dynamics have not changed much, although, without risking undue pessimism, one might say that a relative worsening of economic conditions is to be seen along with incoherence between the measures adopted and economic reality as reflected in a quick look at the principle results of the year.

Prices and Production

     For the year 2000, it is estimated that a mere 2.5% growth in the GNP occurred, which means that it is the second lowest rate obtained for the decade of the 90’s and the lowest since 1996 when the GNP grew by only 1.7%.  Since then, such a low rate of growth has not been experienced, although a  downward tendency had already been registered:  in 1997 the GNP growth rate was  4.2%; in 1998, 3.5%; in 1999 it fell to 3.4% and in 2000 to 2.5%.

     A clear reflection of this situation is the fact that for the month of September, the volume of production had grown at a lower rate than in 1999.  And so the volume indicators for economic activity reflected that, with the sole exception of public administration and the electricity sector, all economic sectors had experienced a lesser growth rhythm (i.e., the agricultural and livestock sector, manufacturing industry, financial sector), while others felt only a reduction in volume of economic activity *commerce, construction, transportation).  Although these results will vary when the results of the fourth trimester for 2000 are included,a significant change can hardly be expected.

     On the other hand the behavior of consumer prices has been, again, relatively stable: inflation is estimated at 3.5% for 20000, which, although it is greater than the deflation of –1% registered for 1999, it is a significantly low rate.  The most recent data available for groups of goods suggest that the sectors experiencing the greatest increases in prices were housing and miscellaneous, which, for the month of September  showed inflation rates of 8.9% and 3.8%, respectively.  These higher inflationary rhythms are owing to increases in services to housing (electricity, water and telephone), which are increasing as a result of rate adjustments and the gradual reduction of  subsidies on the consumption of electric energy.

     On the matter of minimum wages, it ought to be said that this has remained unchanged during the entire year, which is reflected in the fact that the inflation rate of 3.5% permits a reading in which real wages fell because of inflationary processes.  In other words, real wages fell 3.5% during the year 2000.

The Public Sector

     The non-financial public sector deficit has once again reached the same levels as the deficit for the year 1999, which is to say, close to 2.5% of the GNP.  This implies that fiscal income is less than fiscal outlays to the tune of  2,700 million colones.  Up until now the deficit has been being financed by the acquisition of internal and external bonds, but this situation also generates greater outlays in debt servicing, which, in turn, represent pressure towards increasing the fiscal deficit.

     In addition to indebtedness, the government has another source of financing donations.  In fact, these were an important item to fall back on during 2000; in September  alone they represented 629.8million colones while during the whole of 1999 a slight 189.5 million colones were obtained.

     Available data does not allow for predicting behavior of current income for the end of the year, but the evidence of recent years reflects insufficient growth to deal with the growing financial obligations of the state.  Between 1996 and 1999 tax income increased by a mere average of 5% annually while current spending reached rates close to or greater than 10% annually owing to the fact that both have similar magnitude, this unequal growth is what, in the last analysis, explains why it has not been possible to eliminate the fiscal deficit because, although current income is growing, it does so at a rhythm and in quantity less than current spending.  This brings to account the necessity for a new tax reform, given that the one already implemented by the ARENA administration has provoked a reduction in tax pressures during the last five years (from 12% to 11% between 1995 and 1999), adding to this the fact that the greater portion of taxes are paid by consumers and not by businesses.

Foreign Sector

     During the last two or three decades the foreign sector has exhibited a lack of equilibrium resulting from the fact that El Salvador imports more than it exports, to the degree that it is estimated that, for 2000, the balance of trade deficit will reach U.S. $1,754 million.  This tendency has been documented for practically the whole decade and it is sustainable  only because of family remittances which in the last analysis  prop up the balance of payments permitting the accumulation of net international reserves and maintain the exchange rate at a stable level.  This dependency has been deepening during recent years to the degree that family remittances have come to represent between 90% and 95% of the balance of trade deficit.

    Examining the trade balance in greater detail highlights the fact that traditional exports have increased in comparison with 1999, although it ought to be said that this increase ought to be regarded with caution because, in reality, during the last three years heavy reductions n traditional exports have been perceived which distort the results (between 1996 and 1999 alone exports fell from U.S. $414 to 316 million).  For October 2000 traditional exports reached U.S. $332 million which exceeds the level for 1999 but still does not equal that for 1996 (which were surely poor indeed).

     Non-traditional exports for October 2000 reached  U.S. $781 million which, although it is less than the level for 1999 (U.S. $848 million) still represent an increase which the months of November and December are taken into account.  It is probable that levels similar to or slightly superior to those for 1999 might still be reached.  Finally, exports from the maquila sector continue to grow, although at much more moderate rates (10-12%) than for mid-decade (30-40%).  Exports from the maquila sector for October 2000 reached U.S. $1,258 million, which is greater than the total for  traditional and non-traditional exports taken together, but do not reflect the fact that the maquila, at the same time period during which it exported the  aforementioned amount, imported a total of U.S. $977 million in raw material and machinery.  This implies that net exports for the maquila (i.e., exports less imports) were 381 million colones, or, closer to the figure for traditional exports at one of its worst moments.

     For 2000 growth in imports will be strong, given that, for the month of October alone the total has reached U.S. $4,020 million, al level comparable to that for the whole of 1999 and this category will still increase as a result of imports for the months of November and December.

     We should not be surprised, then, that our balance of trade increases its deficit for the year 2000 and is greater than U.S. $1,600 million.  Nevertheless, as a result of the affluence of family remittances already cited above together with donations, at the end of the year a positive balance will be obtained in the balance of payments on the order of U.S. $200 million and a subsequent increase in net international reserves.

The Financial Monetary Sector

     On the question of  the monetary offering it might be said that, at mid-year, this, as well as production, had reduced its growth rhythm.  The Central Reserve Bank has  been simultaneously reducing its legal cash reserves in order to accelerate growth in the monetary offering which, for the moment, has not had any noticeable effect.  This strategy will probably make itself felt  at the end of the year 20000 or at the beginning of 2001, although with dolarization it is more probable that it will not.  The BCR recognizes in its report for the third trimester of 2000 that the monetary aggregates, even when the third trimester for 2000 is taken into account have been growing at a rate lower than what was originally programmed.

     Credit is also passing through a phase of slow growth, which is even below the levels registered for 1999.  For the month of September, total credits to businesses and private individuals reached 47,205.1 million colones, which implies an increase of  5.2% if it is compared with the same month for 1999 which is in contrast with the  almost 10% increase  for the period between September 1998 and September 1999.

     On the question of interest rates, the BCR itself recognizes that these have experienced a downward tendency, but the case of passive rates or rates paid on interests has been much clearer.  On the other hand, active rates and rates paid on credits are diminishing at a much lesser level.  Evidently, the foregoing implies a greater margin for intermediation for the bank which has increased still more with the announcement of dolarization, which motivated bankers to reduce passive rates by two percentage points and leave active rates intact.

    It should be added that interest rates have been fixed in accordance with inflationary behavior and, for the same reason, when real interest rates are calculated (i.e., discounting inflation) what is to be discovered is that, in spite of the fact that nominal rates are registered at overly high levels.  So, for example, if for the year 2000, inflation reached 3.5% and loans are contracted at an active average of 15%, we have the case that the real active rate will be 11.5%, which is notoriously high.

Dolarization in Perspective

     As mentioned above the announcement of modifications in the currency system has given rise to important doubts as to whether it is a simple process of dolarization or not.  In spite of the fact that the government has said that it is seeking “monetary integration”, the provisions of the Monetary Integration Law point towards a dolarization of the economy given that the financial system will change its accounts from colones to dollars.

     The implications of this measure on monetary policy are clear:  it will practically eliminate the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador, given that it cannot carry on with policies of reduction or expansion of the monetary base of credit or interest rates.  In this way the state loses an important capacity for maneuvering for the handling of periods of slow growth or international crises.

     Nevertheless, what is most questionable about dolarization is that it is being implemented without it being necessary and, still worse, without the conditions which should obtain for its implementation.  Dolarization is an external measure which aims to control processes of hyperinflation originating from successive devaluations of the national currency.  In El Salvador, however,  the rate of exchange has been fixed since 1992 and is therefore not a cause of inflation.  Moreover, as was noted above, the inflation rate is notably low.  What, then, is the logic behind this much questioned decision to dolarize?

     According to the government, its goal is to reduce bank interest rates, but this, in reality, will not be the direct consequence of dolarization but will remain a discretionary criterion of the bankers who will no doubt take advantage of the conjuncture in order to lower the rates by two percentage points paid on deposits maintaining at the same level what is being charged credit users.  This, then, is the first negative effect of dolarization which directly affects those with savings accounts.

     The decision to dolarize was taken, giving greater importance to the political dimension rather than economic analysis.  The economic panorama is not favorable for dolarization not only because there are no problems of hyperinflation, but also because we are confronting problems of fiscal deficit, low levels in the ability to compete experienced by the producers of tradable goods and we find ourselves, as well, in a situation of strategic interaction with neighboring countries which constantly devaluate their currency and which will, therefore, benefit, competitively speaking, as compared with El Salvador.

     The only really clear aspect seems to be that dolarization will eliminate the possibility that in the future a government administration could devaluate or use monetary policy (through the control of credit and interest rates) by not favoring the business interests of small groups which exercise proprietary ownership of the banks.

Considerations

     The year 2000 has brought us more of the same on the economic plane, yet in the last days of the year the announcement of the monetary integration policy, or, dolarization, has raised expectations for important changes in the economic situation for 2001 in the monetary-financial sphere as well as in prices, public finances and even in the foreign sector.  Unfortunately one cannot predict that all changes will be good changes and a first indication of this is the reduction in the rates paid on savings accounts and the interminable confusions which the use of the dollar as currency have already caused even before the Law for Monetary Integration has entered into effect.

     A brief synthesis of the economic conjuncture reveals the following relevant aspects of the situation:

• Production has grown less than in 1999 and shows a clear tendency towards deceleration.
• Prices have gone up as a result of the elimination of IVA exemptions and increases in basic services in housing, but these still remain at relatively low levels.
• The de facto reduction in real wages has caused a deterioration in the buying power of salaried workers
• The foreign sector continues to depend more and more completely upon family remittances and donations for covering the balance of payments deficit and the net accumulated international reserves.
• The public sector neither improved or got worse in the course of the year 2000 but
• Stays at worrisome levels of fiscal deficit which have not been able to be eliminated through fiscal policy and which are being dealt with by means of greater indebtedness and donations.
• The financial monetary sector exhibits low growth levels of the monetary base and credit as well as a reduction in passive rates which is not compensated for by reducing active rates to similar proportions.

     Paradoxically, and, once again, owing to the weight of the political dimension, many of these measures are rejected immediately by the government.  Dolarization presupposes, as has already been said, the elimination of monetary policy.  On the question of the minimum wage, President Flores established a policy of not increasing it because this would provide a negative stimulus to investment in the maquila which prefers to pay salaries lower than these in neighboring countries such as Guatemala and Honduras, for example.

    To judge by previous signs and signals, the vision of the current government administration seems to begin from the premise that the only objective of political economy is that of controlling inflation and administering the flow of family remittances and donations, going even to the extreme of embarking on a risky and absorbing process of dolarization without having first resolved the basic problems which are becoming permanent.  And so things go as we begin the third millenium still without a plan or strategy for coherent and consistent development within our reality.

SOCIAL SUM-UP

Preliminary Considerations

    Observing the development of Salvadoran society on a day to day basis, it becomes evident that we are living in a country in which the social dynamics suffer from the phenomena of abrupt questioning of the social order as well as a sort of prolonged sluggishness in the dynamics of its principal actors.  Salvadorans may wake up one day suffering from the arbitrary activities of a protest for subsidies in public transportation and the next day prepare themselves for celebrating the relative tranquillity of a religious celebration.  A review of these habitual modes of behavior reveals one constant characteristic the existence of which we have been aware for a long time:  conflict.  Without any doubt at all, El Salvador is a country deeply marked by conflict on the social level.  Evidently this characteristic extends its branches into all aspects of national life and manifests itself subtly or scandalously in the movements of the political class and functions as the confirmation in which the centers of power in the economic and structural areas of some determinant modes of life beginning with the values and cultures which are created and recreated day by day.

    Given this, the year 2000 has been a year in which we have gone from the stage of convulsions and growing pressures by determinate groups in society to one in which the actions of these and another groups are seen to fade from view by comparison with events which originate in other areas (such as political and economic areas).  The root of this period of time characterized as “before” and that denominated as “after” in the social dynamic is found, as will be discussed below, in the electoral period which took place during the early months of the year.  Nevertheless, among all of the worries and concerns which arise around this scenario, there is one which imposes itself upon us with greater force:  the prevalence of a disquieting lack of consistency in the speech of the diverse sectors of social life (especially the trade unions and civil society) and the concrete actions which they carry out to make their demands public.  In this sense, the transition from 2000 to 2001 will be of vital importance for these sectors—those which occupy strategic placements in the configuration of the country—in the measure in which they must demonstrate their capacity to assimilate the course which the nation is taking.

    Evidently, big business, together with the political class which defends its privileges against all comers, has the advantage of maintaining a high level of influence in the state apparatus.  This is sufficient for them to manipulate the course of the country  from a position of relative comfort without this presupposing a significant transgression of their own status quo.  But the same is not true of those groups which, organized or not, inhabit the other extreme of the political or ideological spectrum.  The weight of the activity which took place during the year 2000 (the sharp political comeback of the left in the Legislative Assembly and in the municipal governments, the conflictive development of the strike in the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (ISSS) and in the National Health System, the slender spaces and arenas available for the open participation by civil society, the constant manipulation of public opinion by the government and its cronies, etc.) has meant—whether we like it or not—a sensible reduction in their capacity for influencing the construction of solutions on the basis of consensus and in seeking room to come together at least on the question of speeches which their “opposition” has available.

    In this way, while for some it is not necessary to invest much energy in the assimilation of the new shades and colors which make up the current scenario, for others this effort has come to lower their capacity for response and proposal.  The definition of this scenario is derived, fundamentally, from two important events which mark the way in which social actors place their cards on the table and enter into the play of powers and counter-powers characteristic of democracy”:  first, the automatic annulment of the correlation of forces arising from the legislative and municipal elections of March, 2000 and, secondly, the recent economic measures which inevitably place the country on the road to dolarization in spite of the opinion that the citizenry might hold on these issues.  Definitively speaking, when the bonds of the legislative right were consolidated with the conformation of the so-called right wing block (ARENA-PDC-PCN) during the election of the congressional leadership body closed many doors to the initiatives which might have arisen from other sectors which are not traditional right wing think tanks.

    This does not imply, of course, that the political opposition, by the mere fact of being an opposition, might have sufficient power to call together a representative faction of those sectors which might group themselves around their principles.  To date they have not demonstrated either the capacity for gathering together, on their own, the thoughts and feelings of these sectors with even minimal fidelity.  Moreover, the possibilities have been left open so that, given the position that a center-left coalition might have won in the Legislative Assembly, there might be a new permeability as they face the postures of the sectors traditionally relegated to parliamentary activity, such as the labor sector, the consumers and the informal sector of the economy, among others.  But the renovation of the alliance among the parties of the right dashed the hopes of all of these possibilities.  This could explain the lethargy of the social activity which followed the March elections:  before the new legislature could begin its work, the atmosphere was propitious for the presentation of complaints, the expression of positions and for criticizing and complementing party-line proposals.  Once this period passed, however,--moreover, because of the clever, sleight of hand way that it was done, Salvadorans were once again face to face with a situation in which there was no one in whom to confide and so, organized or not, they steeled themselves to deal with more of the same.

    With respect to the influence which the recently approved Monetary Integration Law might have had over the social dynamics, we might now be able to extract some important conclusions which, surely, will mark the guidelines for the social dynamics of the present year.  The decision adopted by the Francisco Flores administration confirms the tendency that seems to have raised its head during recent months:  the tremendous modification of his speech and discourse during the strike of the workers of the ISSS and the National Health System, manifested itself with the full force of concrete actions the day in which his intention to dolarize the national economy.  In a decision of this kind, what is most negative—from the point of view of the president and his economic tutors—was the public consultation, consensus-building aspect or the debate before the measure was taken.  From this, the character of the measure is fundamentally an imposition.

    Given the panorama presented in summary up to this point,  the determination must be taken that there have been three particularly serious relevant tendencies characterizing the social dynamic during the year 2000:  (1) the growing fragmentation of the organized labor movement and of independent civil society independent of right leaning tendencies; (2) the predominance of violence as a mechanism of response to social pressure; and (3) the renewal of the way in which the powerful sectors of the country, especially the economic sectors, take over the areas occupied by the state in order to defend their privileges and make their vision of the world prevail.  A general overview of the principal demonstrations and implications which inform these tendencies is presented below, together with their power to influence people and social groups as they relate to each other.

The Dynamic of the Labor Sector and of Civil Society

    During 1999, the labor activity which accompanied the growing conflict between the doctors and workers of the ISSS and the National Health System awakened many expectations concerning their capacity to influence the planning of consensus for development.  It was practically the first time that the bread and butter demands of the most traditional trade unions—representatives of the lowest levels in the labor hierarchy—were seen to be enriched in a healthy way by the vision of the professional sector of their guild.  In the specific case of the ISSS strike, the preponderance of doctors in the organization of the protests experienced by the Flores administration had a not unnoticeable result:  that of the drawing up of a well-founded proposal for reforming the public health system.  This sector was eventually joined by other trade unions grouped in the Organized Integrated Movement of Organizations (MOLI), in what seemed to be a reawakening of trade union activity, more closely attuned to demands characterizing a democratic transition.

    Nevertheless, as was mentioned above, the electoral period gave this activity a new imprint in such a way that the influence of these groups could exercise over their labor situation passed irremediably represented by the assumption of a posture dealing with the prevailing political offerings.  The medical guild, reprinted by the Medical Workers´Trade Union of the ISSS (SIMETRISSS) and by the Medical Guild of El Salvador, succeeded in distancing itself from the political debate which had become excessively ideologized and radically polarized.  At any rate, this did not stop some representatives of the FMLN from supporting the cause of the trade unions in the conflict in an attempt to obtain their support in the elections.  Right wing politicians, in their own way, especially the PCN and ARENA, made their own way trying to link the demands of the doctors and the ISSS workers with all kinds of destabilization activities which, in their judgment, had no reason to exist.  Even President Flores himself dared to call them “an anti-system opposition”, and, with this, made clear that for his administration there are two kinds of citizens:  those who accept the determinations  presented by himself as president and his advisors without questioning, and those who feel that they have the right to object to the said dispositions.  These last, it is clear that, would receive no consideration from his administration.

    The definition of winners and losers in the March elections coincided with the arrival of various agreements by means of which the prevailing climate of labor conflict was brought to an end.  At the same time, (and here is what is worrisome about this case) the supposed unity of the organized trade union movement lost its raison d´etre and the forward movement it had won during the pre-electoral stage could be equaled by no one more than those who had been demobilized by the army.  In the months that followed, the action of the sector was profoundly marked by fragmentation.  It would seem that, the causes which encouraged the workers to declare their demands publicly had been born and died inside the very walls within which they worked.  Once the concrete problem which had led them to begin applying strike pressure had been resolved, their activity returned to its customary reserved attitude.

    A similar tendency with a longer history, is that which is presented by civil society during 2000 which was, again, a result of the electoral campaign which encouraged  the work of specific organizations which supported the strengthening of the new mechanisms for citizen participation and the construction of public opinion.  Although activity by civil society might be a little more prolific, because its “product” tends to be more constant (events, documents, studies, etc.), it also suffers from the fragmentation specific to the labor movement.  It may be because of a lack of interest or because of a lack of capacity, but this fragmentation has a direct incidence in the deterioration of the capacity to present the complaints, denunciations and public demands of the citizens.  The most traditional mechanisms for citizen representation by means of elections and political parties had been laid aside  and the role of the defenders of citizen interests would have to be assimilated by organized civil society, but the process has not consolidated around this way of doing things.

    One way or the other, the excessive exercise of discretion with which the other sectors imposed themselves upon the population (the case of the businesses which distributed adulterated alcohol or those which irreparably devour the forests which still remain in the country are a clear example) still set their roots deeply in this thin control by the citizenry.  So it is that the labor sector and civil society confront each other at the beginning of the new year with weakness which, at the same time, becomes a challenge: that of taking up the necessity for submitting to the decisions which emanate from the circles of power  and make it open up to the scrutiny by its representatives, on the conditions that they take up the demands and concerns of the great majority of Salvadorans who do not have a scenario for public expression.

Violence Everywhere

    Every morning is the same.  The populace has to deal with a situation in which their life does not depend upon their own actions.  Practically anyone can decide about their own belongings and their own existence in the same way that a court can decide the fate of a highly dangerous criminal.  We Salvadorans live at the mercy of death and crime, but in this country that death and that crime is
manifested in a violent way almost  all the time.  In this sense, each day the notion that violence has become rooted in the daily lives of the population grows stronger  as one of the most effective mechanisms for confronting daily pressures.  Evidently, at the root of this idea is to be found the premise that the current situation submits low-income families and persons—and on occasions, those who are at the middle class level as well—to all kinds of pressures and difficulties in the daily task of survival.

    It is not even necessary to enumerate the multiples manifestations of violence to which we are habitually submitted.  This, which is, in the last analysis, a way of setting up a relationship with “the other”,  has become an institution, in a structure of values capable of adapting itself to the majority of situations and which is constantly reinforced by the context in which it is produced.  From this arises the difficulty of dealing with it.  As was mentioned earlier on (in the editorial) of this number, it would probably be convenient to begin to scrutinize a more individual dimension of the phenomenon—how people conceive of violence—with an eye to posing a possible alternative for its control.  In the long run, violence inserts itself with the relative ease  with which any person could opt for actions which are outside the law in order to satisfy their necessities, given that in daily situations such as applying for a driver´s license, as in other more complex forms such as kidnapping or organized crime.

    The pieces of the puzzle which could possibly explain the phenomenon, then, always have two sides, or faces:  that in which the person presents him or herself as a person with “a propensity” to use violent or illicit methods in order to satisfy necessities.  The other is that in which the society is mirrored—or, concretely, the institutions which are charged with monitoring the establishment of some few minimally harmonious relationships among people—as the principal cause and activating factor of this tendency towards violence.  It is for this reason that the most significant demonstrations of organized violence during the past year (the protests mounted by those demobilized from the army and the protest activities of itinerant street vendors in downtown San Salvador) merit special treatment, in such a way that we do not lose sight of the double consideration to be deal with in this case.  Concretely, it would be an error to explain these manifestations of violence solely through the use of the usual idea that the demobilized army veterans as well a the itinerant and stationary vendors harbor  all kinds of perturbations in their minds, that they are nothing more than a group of criminals and unemployed persons who only wish to live on handouts from the government and society in general.

    At bottom, the way in which these groups choose to express their demands originates from the very conditions in which they had to or have to work and live.  And with this, not only reference is made to the precarious situations in which they live, but also fundamentally to the exclusion of those to which they have been condemned to experience without any contemplation.  Within the ranks of  national politics, the way the informal sector of the economy deals with things as it deals with national reality  is trivialized (we are speaking here of small peddlers and underemployed persons).  And this is the case to the point that any politician feels that he or she has the right to sum up in two or three sentences his or her needs and aspirations.  Something similar occurs with the demobilized army veterans: several years ago, their demands appear as the main course for some deputies who use them to reproduce their own privileges within the state.  In both cases, in denying any possibility for negotiation in dealing with the problems of each sector, the immediate response is always the same:  pressure brought to bear by violent methods.

    Without generalizing overly much, this brief review of two cases might be useful in pointing out two ideas.  First, in the evaluation of the sources of violent behavior by Salvadorans ought to take into account that, as a mechanism of relation between individuals, violence has a social component as well as an individual one and neither is greater than the other.  Secondly, and undoubtedly, control of the expressions of social violence in El Salvador obliges those who work on this matter to consider it as a structure deeply rooted in society.  >From this perspective, neither those who have eased these methods to exercise pressure on society should be  condemned a priori.  Neither should exclusively repressive methods be adopted to respond to this phenomenon.

The Repositioning of the Right Wing in the Centers of Power

    On this point much has already been said in the previous sections of this general sum-up on social dynamics.  At bottom, El Salvador is dealing with a moment in its recent history in which traditional groups of power have decided to exercise all of their influence over social structures.  Uncertainty, sudden shifts in direction and warnings have been left behind.  With the arrival of a new administration of the ARENA party, the ties which bind this sector of the political class to the groups who maintain control of the national economy for some years now.  The progressive change in administrative discourse during the years which administration discourse  has brought to bear during the period of time it has been in power is an interesting one.  This is true above all because it is now acting in the interest of these sectors.  In this sense, a part of the Monetary Integration Law recently approved by the Legislative Assembly at the initiative of President Flores, calls attention to the way in which his administration aims to respond to some of the problems inherited from other administrations, even at the cost of the wellbeing of broad sectors of the population.

    On this point, several state ministries have applied—or plan to apply—a series of measures for promoting the obligatory renewal of personnel, for which reason what is sought is a series of decrees providing for voluntary retirement of public employees.  At first it was the heads of the Ministries of Public works (MOP) and Education (MINED) who most seriously proposed the possibility of voluntary retirement.  But most recently during 2000, practically all of the rest of the governmental institutions began to draw up their own lists of employees who would be removed from their jobs in a medium range situation.  There is still no official position on this question, but several ministers have confirmed that they must present the said lists to the authorities of the Ministry of Hacienda in order to determine when would be the best moment to decree the retirement policy.

    In summary, at this point in the Flores administration it appears that the time has come to begin working on the serious ideological principles of the most conservative right wing in the country.  This implies that the state apparatus will be fully willing to return to work in the same way as when Alfredo Cristiani submitted the entire country to the wave of privatization and to personnel cuts inspired by the illusive modernization of the state.  At bottom, Flores and his team are only working in response to a series of transformations in the regional and world panorama which demand new strategies for taking advantage of the resources which the country has.  The problem is that instead of proceeding once and for all to define an economic development model and a socially sustainable and participative model—or at least a more equitable one--, the government of  “The New Alliance” aims to facilitate the transition to more influential groups in the country so that they can guarantee themselves some few years more of comfortable domination over the social structures.

Final Considerations

    Definitively speaking, the signal which marks the current social dynamic is one of the constant conflictivity.  And the most recent sources of this signal are to be located in the progressive closing of spaces which permit the population to offer its point of view and, at least, criticize the decisions which, taken at high levels, directly or indirectly affect them.  In this way, it is not important how this conflictivity is expressed:  through demonstrations of social violence, incapacity to establish a healthy dialogue between the principal political, economic and social forces or of the more and more usual practice of imposing some form of annulling the diverse opinions which might arise on a particular topic.  What is true is that the unresolved needs of the vast majority of Salvadorans are being consolidated into a nucleo of discontent which, sooner or later, will begin to worry those who say they govern the nation but who really respond to the designs and strategies of some few people.

    So now, if, on the one hand, the cynicism with which the national political class—thanks to the evident defects in the process of economic integration as well as of the financial and commercial sectors of the economy—respond to the problems of the country, one ought also to work to turn back the incapacity of the citizenry to assume their role as monitor and overseer of the work of their government.  And in this sense, there is still much to be done.  Not only because more and better measures for applying pressure and civil complaints, but because the situation which the country is experiencing at the current time demands a process of reflection and assimilation of the way in which the role of the citizenry is shaping up as it enters the new century.

    It seems to be that the social problems for the year 2001 will revolve around the correct identification, characterization and opposition to all of these attitudes which, inserted into society, reduce the possibilities of a pacific social living together.  In the generalization of these attitudes we all participate, given that the way in which we set up relationships with our “neighbors”, or with the way in which determinate political sectors conceive of their opposites inside the state.  The whole country—the citizenry which is organized as well as that which is not organized, civil society, labor organizations, private enterprise, the political class, etc.—ought to become conscious of the fact that for the situation to move forward towards the social precipice a minimal effort is sufficient. And it seems that in our country, while one does not succeed in overcoming the whole range of vices which affect social harmony, that minimal effort, aided by the day to day conflict in which the country is enveloped, will be bearing some fruit which no one will want to eat.

    In that task, the role of government is indispensable.  Today, more than ever, the majority of our government leaders have abandoned all practice involving consensus-building which could result in really favorable solutions for the population.  Even the much announced process of dialogue which Flores himself aimed to establish with the heads of faction in the Legislative Assembly was condemned to that tendency:  what at one moment seemed a sign of change in the handling of public affairs demonstrated by the right during the last twelve years, turned out to be a dilatory tactic, a trap for public opinion which could possibly soften the impact which provoked in the political opposition—inasmuch as it did not leave much time for reacting—the most recent proposals presented by the Executive branch of government.  The urgent call as the new year begins full of uncertainty for the country has, therefore, a very specific recipient:  the administration for the third consecutive time is being led by the ARENA party at the whim of the most conservative designs of the right-wing.

    The call, in this sense, then, is towards an opening up—an opening up towards the problems of the population, those which most concern the average Salvadoran and which, definitively speaking, are the ones which have no opportunities for development.  In an opinion poll carried out by IUDOP (Press Bulletin XV, No. 4) designed to evaluate the first year of the Flores administration, the said problems were classified in the following order:  the need to create jobs, to stop crime, to improve the economic situation, to improve public service (with special attention in the social area) and reactivate agriculture, among others.  What is the president doing standing around the edge of these realities?  There are two possible responses to this question:  either it is the case that Flores has difficulty in taking on these problems as well as other manifestations of the critical situation into which the country is entering, or it is precisely because of his political-ideological roots that the solution is not very important to him, given that to do so might imply that the control  and domination  he has been charged with for the next five years of his administration,  might be reduced.