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Proceso 956
June 20, 2001
ISSN 0259-9864
 
 
 
 
 

INDEX

Editorial:  More about Puebla than Panama
Politics:  About the demands of the ex paramilitary group
Economy:  The challenge of the economic recuperation
 
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

    To judge by the official reaction, reproduced with fidelity and without the least sign of criticism nor suspicion from the national press, the plan of the Mexican president is the solution of the economic problems that trouble El Salvador and Central America, in a mid term. But we do not have to dream about this. The plan that the Mexican president came to reveal among his Southern colleagues, if you take a good look at it, has a lot about Puebla and very little about Panama. The Mexican people have developed very well what they want to do with the south east of their country, an area with many natural resources, but very little developed and, thus, poor and with serious national identity and rebellion problems. About the rest, the plan says very little.

    To the southern side of Chiapas, that is, about the part that belongs to Central America and Panama, nothing is said. Maybe because the seven governments of the south do not have any ideas or because they are waiting that others, that is, the Mexicans and the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (the Transcontinental Bank of Development )officials tell them what is that they have to do, or because they have simply believed that they have seen an opportunity in the Mexican's plan, and they have added to it without exactly knowing where they would like to lead their respective countries.

    At first sight, the Mexican Plan promises a lot. The right-wing intellectuals have even found pre-Hispanic relations, in which they think they see some historical unity ties that might guarantee their success. The plan has reminded them the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica and even the Mayan, although they are playing with the concepts, because neither the former begins so much at the south nor includes all the Central American isthmus, nor the latter goes that far to the south or to the north. The Mexican interest for the isthmus reminded them of the Franco-Mexican declaration from the beginning of the Salvadoran war; instead, they forgot about the Nahuat invasion, about the Mexican influence in the independence process, and the adding up to the Iturbide empire. That is how selective memory is when it loses the principle of reality; somehow we have to forgive this mistakes of the right-wing, caused by the excess of enthusiasm that the Mexican government awakes in it.

    Two hypothesis can be mentioned. With the plan, Mexico seeks to resolve the problem that the south east of its territory has. The North is well integrated and consolidated with the free trade agreement that has with the United States. The southeast is something else. It needs other exit routes, and Central America and Panama would be the ideal area to develop its potentialities. This way, the Central American people would become the backyard of the Mexicans, who are already experimenting the impact of the free trade with the world's first military potency. As for the Central American governments, they would gladly accept to serve as backyards, because they would not have a better alternative to make their economies grow and create the employment sources that they desperately need. It would not seem odd if the possibility of getting to the United Sates via Mexico was contemplated among their plans.

    The other hypothesis is that the United States, before the impossibility to sign a free trade agreement with the isthmus in a short term, because of the obstacles that it finds in its own government as well as for the ones that the Central American governments expose, is using Mexico as a bridge to decide as it pleases about the Central American markets. The Mexican intermediary would allow it to intervene in a direct but not less efficient way, to "correct vices and errors of the past, to modernize our productive apparatus, overcome old habits and find new formulas of development", according to the words of the Mexican president.

    The generalities that circulate about the plan do not only include economic and commercial aspects, but also modernization and the institutional reinforcement of the Central American States, through advice in the tax collecting area, law, industry, energy, petroleum derived products, water, transportation, immigration, risk mitigation, etc. The subject appears in the World Bank agenda for Mexico and the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (Transcontinental Bank of Development) is willing to generously finance it, providing about $4,000 million, although the Central American countries must contribute with their own share.

    In the case of El Salvador, which does not have money to invest in that kind of projects, the required contribution would come from new loans, and from the sale of the last State properties. The agenda of the World Bank assigns to Mexico the older brother role, a part that some people salute as the "good chemistry of the older brother". But maybe it would be more accurate to say that it is about developing the role of a foreman in some of the southern provinces of Central America, underdeveloped and incapable to govern itself.

    This hypothesis can be compatible. Mexico assumes the role assigned by the United States, which is immediately accepted by the Central American Governments, and, at the same time is looking to develop and pacify the south east of its territory to integrate it to the rest of the Mexican nation. Like this, the United States can intervene in a more comfortable and free way, in a region that worries it because of the unstoppable immigration situation, although without assuming a direct responsibility over such case. The Central American governments are provided with a development plan that they have not been able to elaborate in the last years. The point of the plan is the privatization and the transnationalization of the territory between Puebla and Panama, which does not necessarily mean that the 38 million of inhabitants will be beneficiated.

    Actually, the corridor project is very old. It is an old imperial project that has been revised before releasing it again. The plan includes the exploitation of the natural resources and of the work of the inhabitants of a vast region with a high unemployment level. The goal is to make a world development pole out of it. As far as Mexico is concerned, for example, it is intended to concentrate the scattered and unhappy rural population, and offer it a job in the construction of infrastructure and maquilas. The capital would be attracted by the subsidies, the tax exemptions, the low cost of the work force, and the promise of high profits.

    As for the participants, they will have to harmonize their legislation, liberate the markets, eliminate the restrictions for the competitors and allow the free circulation of merchandise, not the circulation of people, because this is all about stopping the migratory pressure at the south border of the United States. The Salvadoran right-wing believes that with this plan El Salvador and the isthmus have finally been included into the globalization dynamic. To talk about the development focused on a region would be premature and daring; it is more appropriate to talk about the use of the neoliberal model as an answer to underdevelopment, poverty and social violence.

    Last week, the ex paramilitary group was about to ruin the great party prepared by the Presidential House for the reception of the Mexican and the Central American presidents, in the context of the official release of the Puebla-Panama Plan. Once again, the unsatisfied social recoveries contradicted the image of an unusual international Salvadoran leadership that the Francisco Flores government tries hard to show. The ex paramilitary group surrounded the chancellor’s office, presently occupied by the presidency, to call everyone's attention about their demands of a compensation for their services to the army during the past Salvadoran civil war.

    In this occasion, the Human Rights Defense Office had to intervene, along with other human rights institutions, to avoid what seemed to be as a battle between the police, the ex paramilitary group, and the ex patrol members. The Human rights institutions compromised themselves to provide a dialogue mechanism between the ex paramilitary group and the government, in an initiative that contributed to impede what would end as a violent eviction of the former.

    The location where the presidents' reunion took place threatened to have an important news impact over the announcement of the very much-advertised achievements of the Panama-Puebla Plan. Certainly, the international press would have called the attention about the event, and the government would have felt deceived by the "bad Salvadorans", insensitive to the governmental efforts to improve the country's international image. That is why it is valid to suppose that the government would have swept away the demonstrators at any cost to avoid "staining" the name of El Salvador in the exterior. This is when the mediation of the human rights organizations becomes important. Such mediation prevented what surely would have been one of the most violent interventions of the police in the last few years.

    In the other hand, the demands of the ex paramilitary group have not changed ever since, five years ago, a contingent of ex members of the armed forces walked to the legislative palace to claim for the payment of a compensation from the Salvadoran government. Ever since then, the protests have either been ignored or treated very lightly by the different ARENA administrations. Also, the different groups of the ex paramilitary group and the ex patrol members have seemed decided to face all the consequences, including the violent actions to achieve the satisfaction of their demands.

    About the way how the present government has faced the patrols compensation problem, there is still a lot to discuss. A political irresponsibility is reflected in the way they are treated. It is not possible to just let time go by, with the idea that in the end the effect of the demands will be reduced. The Francisco Flores government has to express his will to resolve this problem. Otherwise, the political manipulation for the election objectives, to which the ex patrol members have been exposed to, will keep being the golden rule.

    The indifference and the indolence of the government when it comes to face the problems of the ex paramilitary group rests -apparently- on the little popular support that their demands have. Certainly, there is no doubt that the economic recoveries of the ex paramilitary group do not have much popular sympathy. Those who now are not satisfied with the government's attitude were elements of repression under the command of the army in their contra-insurrection plan during the past civil war. They collaborated with duties such as espionage, surveillance, torture or disappearance of the political opposition members. Many of them participated in some crimes and murders attributed to the armed forces during that period, that is why it is not silly to think that a good part of the population could still have a repulsion feeling for this organization and for the demands of the ex paramilitary group.

    However, despite the role that they played during the war and despite their possible involvement in human rights violation acts, it is undeniable that the armed forces did not comply with their responsibility of giving them compensations or designing programs of social reinsertion for their ex collaborators. At the same time, this is no obstacle for the present government to take its responsibility for a problem that threatens to release an even stronger social violence. In the years during which the ex patrol members have been claiming for their compensation for their services during the armed conflict, they have shown their organization and resistance skills towards the siege of the police forces.

    Violence has characterized the different protest movements that they have organized. If the authorities think that with their threats about taking the army out on the streets they are going to resolve the problem, they are showing signs of an unbelievable political near-sightedness. Social protests are not resolved with physical violence, gas or indifference. Flores has to learn to face the different demands of the population with a statesman vision.

    In that sense, the excuse of the new priorities inherited from the earthquakes -because of which the government says that he cannot respond to the ex paramilitary groups’ demands- do not convince anybody. The protests of these sectors started a long time ago before the earthquakes, and the government has always ignored the problem and repressed the protests. An intelligent measure would be to design a plan to attend the ex patrol members and their families, which would allow these parts to look for a solution.

    We have to highlight the fact that the style to treat the social recoveries of the different popular sectors is always the same. The president usually alleges blackmailing to avoid facing the local problems. The same thing happened in the case of the social security strikes of 1999; the same thing is happening with the patrol members and with the victims of the earthquake demands. In this sense, Francisco Flores has been a president who does not listen and who avoids the majority's demands. He sees manipulation and blackmail in any protest action, despite that these usually express symptoms of economic deterioration in the groups that claim for their rights.

    In that sense, you can say that the president, because of his attitude towards the social demands, is not collaborating the best way possible with the maintenance and the strengthening of the social peace. It is true that it is not about delivering money to each demanding sector, it is also true that the social conflict points have to be treated with intelligence and tact. Confrontation does not contribute to resolve the problem, instead, it promotes all kinds of violent actions, such as the ones that have characterized the army ex members ever since they started their struggle.

    The governmental team, however, does not seem to understand the negotiation language. Indifference has been its best allied. In the meantime, it is contributing to keep a highly vulnerable society anxious, already a victim of the most varied forms of violence. Once again this situation confirms that we cannot count much with this government when it comes to the solution of most urgent social problems. Just like they did during the release of the Puebla-Panama Plan, the human rights organizations have an important role to play in order to contain social violence actions that will surely involve, again, the National Civilian Police and the ex paramilitary groups.

    A few months away from the 2001 earthquakes, some of the public officials involved in the reconstruction process came to the Hacienda Commission (Internal Revenue Service) of the Legislative Assembly to report their activities and the funds received from the international community. The first aspect that stands out from the report is that the international cooperation has not been as agile as the government would have expected it to be. After three months of the Consultant Group meeting for the reconstruction of El Salvador (and the Central America modernization), where the international community offered an amount of $404 million in donations, there are only $51.3 million available, which would represent 12.7% of the total amount offered.

    The efforts that the government is making to solve the post disaster needs have been concentrated in the infrastructure and the housing areas (specially in the roads). This emphasis mostly responds to the fact that, according to the disasters’ impact evaluations, most of the damage would have been caused in those areas. The reconstruction projects that were proposed presented a clear preference for those sectors: a 53.2% of the projects were for housing and transportation (this last one specially focused to the roads rehabilitation).

    In reference to the recent governmental reports, it is worth to reflect about the development of the post disaster recuperation process, highlighting some aspects contained in the reports provided by the Economy, Hacienda, Housing ministers and the Local development Social Investment Fund's (FISDL) President about the mentioned legislative commission.

    The report of the Economy minister, Miguel Lacayo, explains that the impact of the earthquake transformed into an employment and production reduction that, however, would be about to revert with the free trade agreements subscribed or in negotiation with Mexico, Chile, Canada and the Dominican Republic, which would generate close to 55,000 jobs. If an additional agreement was to be signed with the United States, Lacayo estimates that the employment sources would mean 150,000 new jobs.

    According to the public Works minister, Angel Quiroz, after the earthquakes his ministry has developed an important effort of reopening roads and the removal of debris. For that case, resources in three different stages would have been invested: the immediate reaction plan, in which $3.9 million were invested; the removal of debris, where $2.2 million were invested; and the project of high risk zones attention, in which $3.8 million have been invested. This means a total of $9.9 million spent, equivalent to 86.6 millions of colones.

    As for the housing sector, according to the vice-minister of that branch, Cesar Alvarado, a total of 106,742 houses were built in the most affected areas. He explained that these houses would have been built not only by governmental institutions, but by other international cooperation organizations such as the Red Cross. According to the FISDL, $1.6 millions were used to repair rural roads, which is equivalent to 14 million colones.

    As it was mentioned before, it was also revealed that, from the funds offered by the international sponsors, only 12.6% were being used. The vice chancellor of External Cooperation, Hector Gonzalez Urrutia, pointed out that "we are trying to increase the funds by the last six months of the year", through the meetings that the Chancellor’s office monthly holds with the ambassadors of the sponsoring countries.

    From the recently reviewed reports, at least three important aspects can be detected: the infrastructure effort made by the government has been determined by a budget of $ 11.5 million -100.6 millions of colones; the housing construction effort would have achieved impressive advances in only five months (106,742 houses);  if we examine the ideas of the government, the future of the nation practically depends on what the international sponsors decide do donate.

    According to the available information, the government has only spent 100.6 millions of colones for the reconstruction of the roads, which only represents a 7% of the infrastructure damages identified in he CEPAL evaluation in this sector. In terms of the Nation's budget, this amount only represents a 0.6% from the total and, in relation to the Public Works Ministry budget, it represents an amount close to a 9%. This information suggests that the government is not assuming a great impact over his public finances, at least not about road infrastructure reactivation.

    The effort of housing construction is reaching meaningful dimensions, except when it comes to consider the quality of the houses that have been built. Most of these houses are actually aluminum and wood constructions with an area of 16 to 20 square meter, which do not even count with the most basic services, such as water, electricity or sanitary arrangements. That is why this construction effort of more than 100,000 houses must be taken with the necessary precautions, since this can be accepted as an answer for the short term emergencies, but not as a solution for the housing deficit.

    From the reports presented by the ministers and the government's speech, it is more evident that the hopes for the recuperation are based on what the international community can do for the country, and not as much on  what the government can do by its own means. Even if we acknowledge the high magnitude of the disaster's impact (12% of the Gross National Product) we cannot ignore that the government is not giving (or intends to give) the most important part of the contribution to face the problem.

    Even if we were already carrying a 3% deficit in the Gross National Product, the truth is that the effort made by the road infrastructure area suggests that the government is not using an extraordinary amount of resources to intensify its duties. It has even expressed that it will intend to finance reconstruction projects with non permanent resources (provisional), such as the selling of car plates, from which is expected to collect 100 millions of colones (a similar amount to what has been invested in the road infrastructure).

    In El Salvador, the temptation of "living from the disasters” must be avoided. The international cooperation will not fill in all the deficits of the social and physical investment, which should actually be covered by the government. To prevent this from happening, the government must still face the enormous economic problems that we already had, such as the drastic reduction of the growth rates and the unstoppable increase of the fiscal deficit. In this context, the international cooperation can play an important role as a facilitator of an urgent conversion process of the Salvadoran economy, but it should not become the center of the economic conversion.