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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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INDEX

Editorial:  The small one among the great
Politics:  Six months after the January 13 earthquake
Economy:  The dry season: the threat for disaster
 
 
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

    Flores happily celebrates that his government was invited to the meeting of the worlds' seven richest countries plus Russia. He has reasons to celebrate what can be unquestionably considered as a diplomatic success: to have been admitted in this exclusive circle of money and power —even if it is about a small one among the world's greatest. During these annual reunions, the presidents of the richest nations talk about the course of their economies, their profits and their perspectives. Any other subject interests them only if it can affect them. However, in this occasion, they have made an exception and they have invited a Central American, an Asian and two African citizens to hear the voices of the third world.

    Flores' invitation seems to come from President Bush, who, according to the press, was very impressed by Flores intervention at the Quebec Summit. The Prime Minister of the Spanish government is also impressed by Flores, and considers him an ideal model for the underdeveloped nations. It is a fact that President Flores impresses people at the international forums. However, he does not accomplish such task at his own country, where, according to the popular opinion, he says "nice" things that are difficult to understand by those who have to struggle for their daily survival, in a poor and an unsafe environment.

    However, it cannot be that difficult to impress the United States President, who does not know much about foreign politics, and does not have much education to understand complicated realities. Besides liking each other very much, the Salvadoran discourse must have impressed him because it is very similar to his. Both have a neoliberal simplicity. The case of the Spanish Prime Minister is very much alike.

    Beyond the diplomatic and the propagandistic success, what could President Flores possibly say to the governments of the worlds' richest countries? He will surely talk to them in the only language that they understand: neoliberalism. He will provide them with the Salvadoran version of the free market, privatization, openness, free trade agreements, and the use of the dollar. He might even dare to repeat to them a petition he has made at other international forums: the right of the underdeveloped countries to find markets for their exportation products. Which is very important, because the powerful nations that are gathered there demand a free trade that they do not practice.

    However, the petition of the Salvadoran President has been unnoticed, because he has not been able to firmly elaborate it, and he has not promoted it with the necessary conviction  —maybe because he does not really know what he is asking for. This petition supposes a critic to the lack of market freedom and it is a claim for it to be effective. Without markets, underdeveloped countries cannot make any progress when it comes to reduce poverty. However, it is not very probable that President Flores speaks about the poor; in the best of cases, he will speak about them from the neoliberal perspective, so that the hosts do not feel uncomfortable with the Salvadoran guest.

    Some important advantages might be derived from the sympathy that the American President could probably have for Flores, such as to getting a more stable status for the Salvadoran community, who immigrated because of the earthquake, more money for the public and private investment, his personal support to convince the investors about the qualities of the Salvadoran neoliberalism, and even maybe about the free trade agreement. It is most probable that President Flores tries to obtain advantages only for El Salvador, forgetting about the rest of Central America. This is what his advisors have recommended him, to forget about the region and to bond El Salvador as much as possible with the United States. That isolation attitude is normal among the Central American presidents, Costa Rica's President is trying to do the same.

    At Geneve, President Flores will be the object of the protests that are being prepared. There will be two kinds of demonstrators with the same objective, to protest against the inhuman and savage capitalism that the gathered presidents promote around the world. The motto, which even the Pope encourages, is the claim for something different from globalization. Geneve is the place where demonstrators from Seattle —whose meetings have been a headache for the police and the security forces— will be reunited. The participants have to be practically locked up to avoid any attacks from these groups who oppose to globalization.

    On the other hand, Italian Catholic groups with a social conscience will also attend. They will take the opportunity —from the social perspective of the church— to demand a more balanced distribution of the world's wealth. These groups count not only with the approval of the city's Archbishop Cardinal and the regional bishops, but also with the approval of the Pope himself. They are the same people who gathered together last summer to pray and sing with John Paul II, at Tor Vergata. The Pope, from his country retreat, has asked the governments to listen to the claims of the poor. The guests from the third world should be the spokespeople of these demands. That is the meaning of the invitation they have received, at least formally. However, everyone knows that the Salvadoran President has very little to say about the poor, whom he did not even mention in his recent report to the nation. It is like if they did not exist at all.

    Many people are surprised with these violent expressions, which since a while ago follow the powerful ones of the world wherever they go. In theory, there would be some other ways to express the individual ideas in a democratic regime. However it is not easy to respond to the anger that the demonstrators feel against globalization, the free market and the United States, and in favor of both the third world and the Kyoto protocol. The anger emerges from a deep discomfort that grows from the impotence that the democracies' citizens feel, because they do not control the decisions that affect their lives. It is irrelevant whom they elect as a representative or as a government. The important matters are out of their reach. In this context, some people propose as an alternative to combine the global aspects with the local ones, but nobody knows yet how this combination can operate.

    At the moment, it seems as if only the protest that ends in anger remains, willing to destroy anything. This is how a new way to fight against capitalism and against the United States’ imperialism has emerged (the American people is always surprised by these actions against them, which they find inexplicable). The presence of President Flores in Geneve will not be pleasant; instead it will experiment the inconveniences that the excessive security measures cause. That is the disadvantage of being among the great ones, when you are really small.

POLITICS

    There is a certain national common opinion about the fact that poverty has grown worse with the disaster left by the January and February earthquakes, and that it will be difficult for the country to recover from such a disaster, at least in the near future. Political leaders of different tendencies acknowledge this reality. The civil society's organized groups also talk about the deterioration of the living conditions of the population and, particularly, about the direct victims of the earthquake.

    The extent of the disaster and its possible consequences over the national development level is presented in the last PNUD's report, about Human Development in El Salvador. "Such situation —can be read in the report— has important implications in the country's public policies. If the severe damage that the earthquakes have caused to the society is not confronted quickly and effectively, in a relatively short period it could deteriorate last decade's achievements, related to human development and the struggle against poverty, beyond than the earthquakes have already done".

    People agree about the magnitude of the damage, but the urgent task to define a common intervention strategy remains, to ease the needs of the most affected victims. The PNUD's report explains that any solution strategy necessarily means the "definition and the implementation of a public investment territorialization and decentralization strategy in the immediate future". About this last idea, there is no doubt that a new comprehension of the State's role in El Salvador is now starting.

    A patrimonial and a centralized conception crash with this proposal that, on the other hand, also demands a new comprehension of the country's politics. "To revert the retrogression and to reconstruct what was destroyed, specially when it comes to restore the social tissue affected by the earthquakes: housing, education, health, income opportunities, among other aspects, constitutes a challenge that requires an agreement from all the social and political sectors". Polarized and exclusionary postures do not favor the solution of the serious problem that this country has.

    With these recommendations for a redefinition of the Salvadoran State role, and the quality of its public policies, the question is if the main political actors are convinced of the urgency to achieve such changes. In other words, the performance of the national political class —since the earthquakes— must be examined, to have an idea of how they have analyzed the new social challenges.

    About the formerly mentioned questions, it is evident that politics has demonstrated serious deficiencies. Many analyses have revealed the amount of politicking stirred after the earthquakes. The news media made public, at the time, the mistakes of the political parties and those of the mayors, who dedicated themselves to pay attention exclusively to their sympathizers. In addition, the State's apparatus stood out by its inefficiency and the excessive bureaucratization to attend the needs of the victims.

    From that perspective —which is not flattering at all for the political leaders—, the reality goes beyond those specific problems that were explained at a certain moment because of the governmental organizations' inexperience. Similarly, the opposition's behavior was explained as a reaction to the partiality of the institutions directed by the official party. Six months after the first earthquake, it is convenient to ask ourselves if the main conflicts have been resolved yet or if, despite the serious national problems, the politicians are still lost within its struggle. In other words, up to what point can we say that the politicians are prepared to guide the national construction task, according to the participation, decentralization and national dialogue requirements.

    The deception that most of the population feels has to do with those questions.  To tell the truth, from the post earthquake situation, many things have happened in the country that are related to the efforts made to take care of the problems the Salvadorans are afflicted by.

    First of all, we have to outline that the Madrid's Consultant Group meeting marked a point that —according to many— could favor a wide vision of the nation to open an arrangement between the political and the social sectors. The Republic's president asked the National Commission of Development (CND, in Spanish) to elaborate a study about the earthquakes' impact, in which a strategy of State intervention was included.

    Such strategy had to include the participation of all the political and the social actors. During the Madrid Summit —and after certain doubts— the invitation of Monsignor Gregorio Chavez —who had criticized the partisan attitude that the president used to make the decisions related to the earthquake victims' attention—, and the one of the left-wing mayor of Santa Tecla, Oscar Ortiz, were finally issued.

    However, the real governmental intentions —about the arrangements and the participation issue— were exposed before the delegation returned from Madrid. To talk about both issues was a strategy to seduce the sponsoring countries, many of which has seemed preoccupied by the governmental centralism. In that sense, once they were back in El Salvador, the government policy followed its course without establishing the public policies’ arrangements to face the post earthquake effects. President Francisco Flores justified the governmental position, saying that the opposition's intentions were to create a co-government, which, according to his judgement, disagrees with the political constitution.

    Nothing can be more ridiculous, if we consider that those are not the reasons. What happens is that the politicians are so jealous of their own space that do not give credit to anybody who could have a different opinion, regarding social and economic policies. It is a political near-sightedness that is a key aspect to understand the friction and controversies that are generated between politicians.

    However, in addition to this problem there is the way each one of the political parties has assumed the national reconstruction challenge. What calls our attention is the absence of an internal debate among the politicians, about the country's situation after the earthquakes' damage. In other words, despite that the January and February earthquakes mean an turning point for the country's social and economic life, the internal debates of the political parties have stayed away from that reality.

    In the last few years, the farming sector has been sinking into a deep crisis caused by the little profitability of the basic grains’ cultivation. The crisis includes now also the coffee-growing sector, affected by the international drop in prices ever since 1989. Those times in which farming was the economy's most dynamic sector are over. It used to be the sector that would generate most of the production, employment, exports, taxes and the added demand. The causes of this situation are diverse, and they go from unfavorable conditions in the international markets, to the lack of incentives created by the public policies.

    In this context, a permanent and accurate negative impact is registered over the farming production, caused by the dry season. The dry season is a natural event, which consists on the suspension of the rain, precisely during the highest demand of water for the cultivation. It especially affects the basic grains, but it also affects the coffee plantations, and it even has side effects of great consideration. If we go through the economic history of El Salvador, we will find out that these dry seasons -practically ever since the fifties, but particularly since the seventies- have been considerable.

    The dry seasons mean high costs for the farming sector, specifically, and for the economy, in general. Not only because of its direct effects, but also because other secondary and side effects as well. In addition to the food production and the hydroelectricity losses, and because of the price increase of both the basic grains and the electricity, the policies and the social adjustment mechanisms have also generated more social vulnerability.

    Even if the dry season is a relatively recent phenomenon for the Salvadoran history, the truth is that its accumulated direct effects have to be greatly considered, as the most basic analysis would reveal. Since 1972 to this day, there are records of disasters caused by the dry season that have affected the cultivation of that year, as well as the ones of 1976, 1987, 1991,1994,1997, 2000 and 2001. The available information allows us to establish that in 1972, the following percentages of cultivation were lost: corn, 57.5%; maicillo, 27.3%; beans, 42.2%; and rice, 56.1%. Back in those days, the dry season was considered an eventual phenomenon, of very low probability, and that, therefore, it did not deserve too much attention from the public policies.

    History has taken care of proving wrong such idea, since it is about a repeating phenomenon that seems to have grown stronger during the nineties. For 1991, 1994 and 1997 there has been a loss of 20.3%, 32% and 24.1%, respectively, for the corn harvest. While for the present year, a loss between 20% and 50% is estimated for the same harvest. Oddly enough, very little effort has been made to calculate the total loss, beyond the agricultural loss. Only the 1997 data is available. Back in those days, the basic grain and the coffee harvest together with the impact of the electric generation price increase reached a total of 880.5 millions of colones, which is equivalent to almost a 0.92% of the 1997 Gross National Product (PIB, in Spanish).

    To these costs, we would have to add others, such as the exports’ reduction, the basic grains' importation increase, the decay of the commercial balance, the reduction of the tax collecting from the basic grains' importation (which we do not count with during the dry season), and the saturation of the local market with imported goods, which reduces the prices and almost eliminates the grain production profitability.

    These costs have not been properly calculated; however, not too much accuracy is required to realize that the dry seasons and the disasters are a serious problem for the sustainable development of El Salvador (as well as for other underdeveloped countries). Unfortunately, the political measures and the social adjustment mechanisms do not offer real solutions for the dry season's vulnerability.

    Just like in all the other disaster cases, the governmental measures are of a reactive emergency kind: price control, massive grain importation with no customs tariff, a severe rationing, an increase in the thermal generated electricity, and most recently, the distribution of seeds to intensify the second cultivation of the rainy season.

    These measures are fundamentally seeking to dissipate the impact of the disaster over the urban sectors: to avoid the unavailability of products, minimize the price increase, and guarantee the electric energy supplying. The rural sectors, instead, see their situation grow worse. In addition, they have to deal with problems such as the technical, organizational, and credit assistance, They also have to face the external competition that comes from the national market's opening to imports, which contributes to drop the prices even lower. In the case of the alimentary assistance programs, promoted by the international sponsors, the food provisions cost almost nothing, since they are practically given away.

    In this context, the peasants who produce basic grains must figure out their own survival strategies: to enlarge the cultivation area, intensify the natural resources extraction, and immigrate either to urban zones or to the United States. The first two mechanisms suppose an increase of the environmental and the economic vulnerability. These procedures promote deforestation and erosion, and make the basic grain's dependency grow worse, creating the conditions for the next dry season to cause an even greater loss. Immigration, instead, does have a positive effect over both the peasant sector and the Salvadoran society in general. It increases the family remittances’ flow, balances the external sector, keep currency exchange steady, reduces the rural poverty and increase the demand and the consumption of the rural families.

    It can even be considered that the dry seasons actually do not represent a considerable problem, since its effects could be reduced with the family remittances. Unfortunately, reality is completely different. An image of macroeconomic stability is promoted thanks to the family remittances. In addition, the farming sector struggles in a permanent crisis, the country loses its ability to produce the food supplies that the population demands the conditions of extreme poverty and vulnerability of the peasant's sector that remains in the country are intensified.

    Without exaggerating, and with no intention to sound cynical, it can be said that the dry seasons and the disasters are convenient for the government, because both situations increase the flow of immigrant workers and their remittances, which nowadays are a basic ingredient of the economic strategy —or the inertia— that the government raves about. Even the humanitarian and financial assistance to the country is strengthened. The problem is that, in the mean time, the attention to a wide sector of the rural population —who tries to survive in the extreme poverty conditions caused by the different disasters (floods, dry seasons and earthquakes)— is neglected.