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     Proceso is published weekly in Spanish by the Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI) of the Central American University (UCA) of El Salvador. Portions are sent in English to the *reg.elsalvador* conference of PeaceNet in the USA and may be forwarded or copied to other networks and electronic mailing lists. Please make sure to mention Proceso when quoting from this publication.
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Proceso 951
May 16, 2001
ISSN 0259-9864
 
 
 
 
 

INDEX

Editorial:  Between the international and the provincial
Politics:  PNC: A lucky strike or a change of direction?
Economy:  Under the shadow of the MERCOMUN
 
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

    The ARENA government adopts contradictory attitudes. Its Congressmen make every time more obvious that they have a poor preparation and that they are lacking in thought. This prevents them from dealing with public affairs with seriousness. On one hand, they talk a lot about opening the country or inserting it into the world market. They seem to be convinced that it is the solution for the national problems. However, they keep repeating the same official speech without considering the why and the how.

    On the other hand, their provincial mentality, opposite to these worldwide dreams, keeps haunting them. It is not clear how they intend to accomplish the openness to the world with their narrow small-town mentality. As long as they do not solve these contradictions, it is highly probable that the country will keep sailing with no direction, far enough from the benefits promised by modernization and internationalization.

    A very odd foreign affairs law is being discussed in the Legislative Assembly. Its text is extremely harsh with foreign people, including the Central Americans, to whom the Salvadoran Constitution gives a special treatment, which is not acknowledged in the new law. Such harshness obeys to the perspective of both the executive power that proposes the law, and the Congressmen who approve it. They see foreign people as a threat, excepting those who come to the country with money. They have a special treatment, because they are seen as possible investors.

    Money is considered a guaranty of honesty and decency. Formerly, foreign people were an ideological threat. They were the ones who corrupted the purity of the peasants and workers. Nowadays, it is a social and economic threat. The Executive Power and the right-wing Congressmen see foreign people as a threat and treat them like suspects, forgetting that they are continuously asking the Washington Government to give human and special treatment to Salvadoran immigrants. In the United States, Salvadorans are also seen as a threat and they are treated like suspects, since they are the foreign ones there.

    Parallel to the centralization that characterizes the ARENA authoritarian governments, the application of the new law is subject to the Minister of the Interior’s discretion. The legislator also resigns to establish a procedure, which (there are seventeen of them) should be established by a regulation system. The procedures come out of the legislative field and are under the total control of the Executive Power. This gives even more power to the Minister of the Interior, who, according to his own interest and convenience, will decide on the application of the law.  Foreign people are also subject to a law that makes their family rights vulnerable. In case of divorce, the foreign person loses the Salvadoran nationality, and their children are exposed to an uncertain juridical situation.

    It is not very logical that the Executive Power and the right-wing Congressmen ask for a treatment for the Salvadoran immigrants, that they are not willing to provide to the immigrants from other countries. These people leave their countries because of the same reasons Salvadorans do: poverty. El Salvador should be more understanding with immigrants, precisely because this country has experimented the same tragedies and risks, trying to find a dignified life and a better paid job. Instead of being tolerant and understanding, the official position shows an exaggerated selfishness and insensibility.

    However, those are not the only aspects of this problem. The right-wing Congressmen, so open to financial and commercial matters, are about to close the country to HIV positive foreign visitants. On one hand, they talk about promoting tourism and investments; but on the other hand, they discuss the possibility of restricting the free circulation of people. Some of them would even want to forbid the return of the Salvadorans infected with this mortal illness, which would be equivalent to impose them, the grief of exile.

    The Salvadoran public health will not be preserved neither by closing some frontiers that are already open anyway (open to any kind of goods and merchandise that circulate with no control from the authorities, overwhelmed by the amount of traffic), nor adopting repressive dispositions; but by strengthening the measures to prevent contagious diseases, particularly in the most vulnerable sectors of the population. On one hand, the ARENA government boasts about being very modern and to be in the vanguard of changes; but, on the other hand, the first thing that comes to their mind are obsolete and unsuitable measures.

    The United States is very interested in this law for foreign people. This country’s representative in El Salvador would like to see this law approved as soon as possible. It seems that she is interested in two aspects. One of them is to include in the Penal Code the immigrants´ traffic, and the closing of the northern Salvadoran borders in order to stop the constant flow of people who cross it. The United States Ambassador does not seem to be worried about the rest of the decisions on this case. The second aspect she is interested in is to extradite the Salvadorans who, having committed crimes in their territory, have found a safe refuge in El Salvador. A law applied to foreign people which includes extradition would be contrary to the international legislation, because this action is regulated by bilateral treaties, which acknowledge reciprocity, and not by general laws.
 
    However, this situation does not worry the United States, as long as it accomplishes its goal. Given its contempt for the international and human rights —when these are not a part of its external policies— it should not seem odd that it is not chosen to be a part of the United Nations commission, an organization which defends such rights.

    The United States can get what it wants from the ARENA government, even if it means to resign to its traditional concept of sovereignty, because ARENA will not dare to go against the wishes of whom they expect a free trade agreement from. As long as the United States does not care how to get what it wants, the Salvadoran right-wing will be able to have one foot on the international scene and the other one on the provincial, but it will be far, very far from leading this country to a sustainable development.

    During the last few months, serious doubts were arisen about the qualification and efficiency of the Civilian National police (PNC, in Spanish) to investigate crime in this country. For many sectors, the high rates of delinquency, organized crime, and the involvement of certain police force members in some of these crimes were an evident sign of this institution’s inability to face these problems. In order to put an end to the situation, the reinforcement of the law against delinquency and a more strict control over the PNC members were proposed.

    Some people insisted that there were two main problems: the absence of a national security policy, and the PNC director’s lack of preparation. The problem’s official perspective won more attention than the public conflict between those two opinions. The director of the PNC is nowadays one of the most powerful people in the country.  The reform of the penal and the penal process laws started, and the police seems to be emerging from the ashes of its discredit.

    For the last few weeks, the media have presented plenty of news about how the police has apprehended organized crime bands. Kidnapping —which a little while ago looked like it had no remedy at all— seems to be taking a backward step. The ANEP, a labor union with more sensibility for this kind of subject, issued a press release complimenting the performance of the police in their fight against organized crime. The idea that is presently spread out by the news media is that the police is after dangerous criminals, and that it is aiming direct hits at the organized crime.

    Once again, the PNC’s director’s (Mauricio Sandoval) promise emerges again: he says that by the end of the year the police will put an end to the kidnapping plague. In less than two months, we go from an uncontrollably chaotic situation (for which the intervention of the armed forces was mentioned), to another radically different (the identification and total control of organized crime bands). According to the declarations made about the number of arrests, in less than a month, the police would have destroyed most of the kidnapping organizations.

    It is a moment of euphoria in the official circles. The image of the police is being cleaned up. Its director does not miss a chance to make public appearances, complimenting the investigations of his agents, renewing his compromise of struggling against crime. Some news media have assigned permanent teams of reporters to cover the house searches and the arrests of criminals. The new watchword of this advertising attack intends to demonstrate that the police is efficient, and that it has overcome its old problems. However, apart from the triumphs that the arrests of the last days have produced, a more serious reflection needs to be made in order to analyze the actions of the supposedly renovated PNC.

    Such attitude is imposed because, on one hand, we still have to wait for the verdict of justice over the accused ones. They have not been proven guilty yet. In addition, given the police’s reputation for bringing “innocent” people to court, with a lack of strong evidence against them, we cannot ignore the possibility that they will continue doing the same, because of the social pressure of obtaining results. Contrary to what some people think, it is not that the District Attorney Office has to invent the evidence at all cost, but that it determines over a strong and verified foundations, the unmistakable participation of the people arrested.

    Otherwise, the existence of the impunity that horrifies the Diario El Mundo editorialist (May 15, 2001), can open the door to something worst, when the innocent pay for the sentence of the guilty ones. Exemplary punishments cannot be applied violating the basic rights of the Salvadorans. To think that with a few arrests the police is all done with its duty, and that the District Attorney’s Office and the justice system will take it from there to make punishments effective —besides violating the constitutional concept of presumed innocence— is to invite the police to forget about the strength of the evidence against the suspects. The media pressure and the generalized repugnance for the kidnappings are not enough to condemn the accused ones.

    The second doubt about the generalized optimism, which resists itself to believe that in so little time —less than a month— the PNC has been able to make such important changes (from an inefficient and corrupt structure to a modern police force, which actions are based on the investigation of the criminal bands). Even accepting that the police counts with enough human and operational resources to make those changes a reality, the time factor would have dwindled away the results in an important way. That is why we cannot take too seriously the advertising attack, which is only aimed at improving the image of the police and its high commands.

    The PNC administration is not showing a change of direction in the management of the institution. The same old actions prevail, despite the complaints received. They are more worried about advertising their image than about improving the working structure of the corporation. In addition, the concentration of power —which has opened the door to some of the recently promoted reforms— does not contribute to strengthen the PNC professionalism, nevertheless to an effective fight against crime in the country. For instance, an agent depends on the will of the director, who can decide as he pleases about the agent’s job. Obviously, these attitudes create institutional uncertainties that put an end to any compromise with the police force.

    In this context, we wonder if the constantly advertised captures of delinquents are just a matter of luck for the police in the last few days. Evidently, if it is about luck, the police had plenty of it lately. In fact, the most publicized case in which the PNC intervened —and which brought the result of the liberation of the victim— was because of a lucky strike. The police did not seem to have any idea about the steps of the kidnappers, they did not even know where the victim was. However, this case is presented, along with many others, as a proof of the new police efficiency.

    If the public safety authorities want to work over the issue of civilian helplessness before the organized crime, they should worry about the strength of their structures. Good results do not depend on the make-up you apply to reality; it is not about games and images. The police work is not strengthen by exalting the image of its director, but by educating the agents and improving their relation with the institution, based on well established criteria, according to the rules of the democracy game.

    Ever since mid April, an intense commercial conflict between the Honduran and the Salvadoran governments has emerged to the public light. The former imposed restrictions for the arrival of Salvadoran poultry products. The latter imposed restrictions for the arrival of Honduran dairy products. This in not a new dispute, it even reminds us about the commercial conflicts of the Central American Common Market (MERCOMUN), during the fifties and sixties.

    Oddly enough, the most recent incident is also given in the context of long negotiations between the Central American countries to establish a free trade area, in order to renovate the Central American pro integration efforts (which —with no justification at all— are still understood as a synonym of development). The difference is that now it is not intended to step ahead at higher stages of economic integration (such as the economic community); and the efforts are aimed at the search for free trade through the elimination of the duty and non-duty barriers on imports, even for out of the region countries such as Mexico, the United States or Chile.

    The impact of these agreements is still unpredictable; however, through the light of experience, it is clear that it will generate costs and benefits that, if it were not distributed equitably or if no compensation was to be received, it can turn into barriers for the free trade viability policy. As the recent commercial conflict between Honduras and El Salvador shows, the weaknesses that —thirty years ago— affected the MERCOMUN process still persist. Without going too far, it is necessary to remember that the Salvadoran-Honduran economic, social, political and military conflict was one of the factors that contributed the most to destroy the MERCOMUN.

    Despite that in recent years regional commerce liberalization agreements have been subscribed, as well as partial agreements with Mexico, we can still perceive that the commerce liberalization issue carries on many of the problems of the past, from which researchers have highlighted at least four of them: unequal distribution of costs and benefits, a divorce between the national and the regional interests, little social participation in the process and, finally, deficiencies derived from the decision making mechanisms.

    To this, we would have to add that the differences between countries have grown in a remarkable way, like the fact that Nicaragua has seen their environmental, economic, productive, human capital accumulation being neglected while, in the other end, Costa Rica has substantially increased it. To this we can add that with Mexico entering into the Free Trade Agreements, even some of the relatively developed Central American Countries have been placed in disadvantage.

    The adventures and misadventures of the MERCOMUN quickly raised many controversies about how to make the integration’s net distribution benefits fair. While countries with higher industrialized levels, such as El Salvador and Guatemala saw how both their regional exportations and their commercial profits increased, other countries such as Honduras and Nicaragua were resigned to see how their amount of imports increased, how their external deficit grew, and how their local production would slowly extinguish, unable to compete with their neighbor countries.

    The poultry-dairy products conflict in El Salvador is very similar: while the Honduran poultry farmers perceive the entrance of their Salvadoran colleagues as a threat, Salvadorans see the market’s opening as an opportunity. In the case of the dairy products, Hondurans are more competitive and have higher sales perspectives than the Salvadorans. This problem focuses again the distribution of costs and benefits; although, in this case this subject appears in a context where the government’s intervention with distribution objectives does not seem to be an option anymore.

    The distribution problems lead us to the national and regional interests incoherence issue, because each one of those countries has very clear national interests. This national interests come before the regional objectives (once more, we have to consider the conflict between Honduras and El Salvador). This explains, in part, why the geographic coverage of the integration efforts is nowadays less important than it was during the fifties, since now it excludes Nicaragua and Costa Rica, countries which occupy an important extension of the Central American southern area.

    Only Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have been subscribed to the “Triangle of the North” countries´ free trade agreement. At the same time, these countries have also subscribed a free trade agreement with Mexico, a country with more diversified and competitive companies.

    Nicaragua and Costa Rica have considered, for different reasons, to stay out of the harmonization process of its commercial policy. Costa Rica is ahead of the other countries not just because its accumulation of capital, but because it has more capacity to negotiate and complete the agreements     and policies (it even signed a free trade agreement with Mexico before its neighbors did). As for Nicaragua, it cannot afford to liberalize the trade of goods with its neighbors, because that would mean giving away its already limited internal market space to foreign companies.

    On the other hand, just like in the past, the process of economic integration clearly shows the need to have fast and clean mechanisms to resolve conflicts. In the most recent commercial conflict, after a month of negotiations, differences have not been resolved yet. This situation has turned into a direct economic loss, an increase in the prices, and an exportation reduction.

    However, even if the problems were cleared up, Central American integration faces two new obstacles: the already mentioned exclusion of Nicaragua and Costa Rica from the process, and the gathering of countries with enormous differences in terms of relative development. Since the seventies, together with the politic and military conflicts, and the rearrangement of the universal, regional and national economy, even the Central American countries´ mutual differences have become even more complex. With Mexico entering this context, the negotiation and managing of the commerce liberalization process turns more complex also, and it obliges to have more institutional strength and social harmony, something the North triangle countries do not count with.

    In this sense, the new efforts of the commerce liberalization will have to face, at least, three fundamental challenges: balance the distribution of the process´ result; harmonize the national interests with the regional ones; and define the institutions and ad hoc mechanisms, in order to solve the conflicts. Generally, the process requires more flexibility. It is important not to force it into already-made patterns, such as the prefabricated free trade agreements. Experience shows that this can become one of the most dangerous threats for the economic integration.

    Given this situation, it is very probable that in the future, the commercial differences could be multiplied, and the national postures against free trade agreements could become stronger. However, the most important duty is to evaluate the results, not just to adopt possible adaptation measures, but to evaluate if commerce liberalization is the best option to promote sustainable development, an issue on which not all the social, economic or political actors agree.