Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI)
E-mail: cidai@cidai.uca.edu.sv

Central American University (UCA)
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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

    On February 13th, a couple of events that invite us to reflect about the country's institutional performance took place: the arrest, by a contingent of the Police Reaction Group (GRP, in Spanish), of congressman Orlando Arevalo, and the later irruption of these agents inside the Legislative Assembly. With their guns pointing at the congressman, they did not only take advantage of their power, but the legal boundaries were almost broken because the Attorney General's Office (FGR, in Spanish) was not aware of the congressman's arrest. It seems that it was a discretionary decision made by the director of the National Civilian Police (PNC, in Spanish), Mauricio Sandoval, without completely realizing that he was abusing of his authority. The agents also disrespected the reporters who were trying to obtain Arevalo's declarations, when they were escorting him to the First Organ of the State.

    Immediately after the arrest, different reactions were made public; however, only some of them have actually understood the bottom line of the problem, that is, the risk that the institutional democracy runs when the police's director orders the arrest, with discussable legal arguments, of a congressman -whose official title is disrespected-, and orders a display of force at the Legislative Assembly. For many -including some of the congressmen- it did not seem relevant at all that the police had invaded their enclosure with violence. Without a doubt, those who showed more dignity were the congressmen Schafik Handal and Horacio Rios, who demanded the immediate dismissal of the police.

    The press -so concerned about democracy- made fun of Handal's anger, paying more attention to his attitude than to his legitimate indignation against the police's lack of respect for the people's house and its representatives. Even the president of the Assembly's directive board, Walter Araujo -who without knowing well what he was saying, he mentioned that he was responsible for calling the police, to "protect" the congressmen from the violence that was going on in San Salvador- he was captured by a photographer when he was laughing -together with colleague, Mauricio Quinteros- at the time that he was listening to the claims of Ciro Cruz Zepeda, because of the police’s operation at the Legislative Assembly.

    Laughter and mockery: that has been the general reaction to what happened at the Legislative Assembly. Some even said that Arevalo deserved to be treated like that for being so rebellious. Others said that it is wrong to question the administration of a man with so many merits, such as Mauricio Sandoval, just because of an unimportant congressman, such as Orlando Arevalo. Many people said that the congressmen do not deserve any respect, and that the politicians’ indignation, such as the one of Schafik Handal and Horacio Rios, does not have a foundation.

    Once these issues were set aside -for being unimportant-, Arevalo's arrest and the police's presence at the Legislative Assembly, a choir of voices claimed at the news media for what they considered truly relevant: the disrespect that the police showed against the reporters who were covering the congressman's arrest. At this point, the reporters were very upset, since when the media's rights are not respected, there is no democracy important enough. The problem was, therefore, the police's arrogance against the media. And, if that was the problem, the government and the PNC's director had to do something about it: apologize and promise to treat the press better. Once they apologized and promised to behave, the media could finally consider itself satisfied, and even show their gratefulness for the authorities' disposition to realize their mistakes.

    The formerly described situation obliges us to place the February 13th events in their actual dimension. In order to do so, it has to be mentioned that the bottom line was not the disrespect against the press -as reproachable as it is-, but the police’s irruption inside the Assembly, and the violent and almost illegal arrest of a congressman that does not represent any threat at all for his captors. About the first issue, it is clear that if the police's discretionary raid is tolerated in a place like the legislative enclosure, the doors will be opened to the police's illegal irruption inside of just any place of the national life, without any support but the whishes of the police's director to do so.

    About the second aspect, it is not only about defending a particular congressman, but his official title: the image of the congressman -no matter how much certain people denigrate it- deserves respect and consideration for representing the constitutional expression of a popular command. If the disrespect against  a congressman's dignity is tolerated now, later on, any congressman could be submitted to the humiliation of the policemen who "obey" their superior's orders.

    Obviously, El Salvador is not a model of institutional development. There is a lot that has to be done so that the country's democratization offers favorable results for most of the population. However, to speak about what has not been accomplished yet is not a way to say that nothing much has been achieved, even if it is a minimum, in the fields of the institutional development and democratization. Precisely, the materialization of that minimum is the basic requisite to reach the desirable level for a fair and peaceful social harmony.

    With the events of February 13th, those minimum levels have been shaken and questioned. A police force that invades the Legislative Assembly, and disrespects the dignity of one of its congressman, questions the country's  basic legality; that is, that legality that outlines the rights and the obligations of the different institutions that belong to the state. A police chief who thinks that he can step over that basic legality is not a positive influence for a society that wants to exorcise the ghost of authoritarianism. The same thing can be said about a Minister of  Government  that does everything he can to justify the action of that police chief, or the actions of a president who openly supports those actions, without considering the damages.

    Some people want to excuse Mauricio Sandoval's mistake -including the media- because he has "succeeded" at fighting crime, as if the price for having an efficient police chief was to stand his authoritative abuse. What an error, because one thing is not attached to the other; and, just because of that, the Legislative Assembly should send a clear message to Sandoval and to those who think like him: his achievements at fighting crime do not excuse him from giving explanations for his violations against the country's basic legality.
 

    Orlando Arevalo made a serious mistake in his career as a politician. He “messed up” with "the people from ARENA": the rulers of the country. Almost two years after the denounces of the so called "rebellious congressman", against what he referred to as "the group that has kidnapped the official party", the National Civilian Police (PNC, in Spanish) arrests him in the streets of San Salvador -as if he was a common thief, a dangerous bandit, or one of the country's most wanted kidnappers-, handcuffed and taken to the Legislative Assembly, after taking his fingerprints and having a photo session for the PNC's files.

    At a first approach to Arevalo's arrest, it seems as it could be about getting even. Since a long time ago, the ARENA leaders were looking for an opportunity to give Arevalo what they thought that he deserved for treating Cristiani, Calderon Sol, and other "heavy weights" from ARENA in a disrespectful way. Last year, they promoted a hearing against him. He allegedly  called the ex-patrol members to sedition, and "kidnapped" the public employees at the Center of the Government. Now they tried to humiliate him in public.

    To tell the truth, by the way the PNC acted in the Arevalo case, he should have no doubts about who are the ones that give the orders in the country. It is possible that at this time the congressman is somehow frightened, and he might also be meditating about his last dispute with the official party. ARENA has demonstrated to him that impertinence has a high price, so high that it can lead him to a public offense. Now, independently from the results of the Special Commission, integrated at the Assembly to investigate the police's procedure or the results of the congressman's judicial demand against the PNC's director, there is no doubt that the lesson has been learned. Those who might have some complaints about the inconveniences that the pacific and the violent demonstrations -the ones that Arevalo has attended to, in the past- might have caused, they can be sure that it is not very probable that this happens again. Arevalo is not naive, and he will understand the meaning of the message: no one can play with the authority and the power of ARENA.

    Beyond the disagreements that Orlando Arevalo might have with those who consider themselves invincible, his arrest, and the way he has been treated, invite anyone to reflect about a much more complicated problem. It is necessary to question the concept of authority that the present rulers of the country have. Everything seems to indicate that the disrespect that the congressman suffered, and that the abuse against the Legislative Assembly obey to a conception about the national reality and about the political relations that must be critically examined. This kind of situations make us doubt about the progress that has been made during the last ten years with the important and fundamental aspects for the democratic life, such as the right to dissent and the right to disagree with the perspective of the reality presented by the authorities.

    The contemptuous and the authoritative tone that President Flores has used when he refers to the political opposition, has been denounced in several occasions. There has been an insistence on how dangerous the discredit in which the congressman's image has fallen into could be for the country's institutional performance. In addition, it has been mentioned in quite a few occasions that the PNC's director is a dangerous character because of his records. He had a very little flattering participation in the defamation campaign that preceded the events that later developed into the massacre at the UCA. The formerly described situations show that those who gave a warning about the dangers at the police were right.

    Mauricio Sandoval and President Flores, by treating the Legislative Assembly as they did with Arevalo's case, confirm these ideas. By their way of "getting even", they sent a clear message to the opposition, or to anyone who dares to criticize their decisions in the future. Obviously, the foundations of their acts must be found in the discredit and in the very little respect that the congressman's image recalls. In addition, since Arevalo supported the transportation businessmen -who do not have a good reputation-, it was clear that to disrespect him would have no political cost at all. That is why they thought that there could not be a significant rejection from the public opinion because of their abuse against the First Organ of the State. And they were right. At this point, only a very small amount of Salvadorans have paid the necessary attention to what happened.

    However, for those who carefully observe the development of the events, the danger cannot be ignored. It is an expression of a feared authoritarian action. If ARENA, with the objective to punish an “outlaw” of his ranks, are capable to attack the most important institution of the state, the situation should be an invitation to meditate the events. The later attempts to legally cover the Assembly's raid (performed by the PNC), or the removal of the officer in charge of delivering the congressman to the Assembly, are not enough to reestablish the general trust. The opposition is right when it has a fear for the indiscriminate authoritarian acts that might take place in the future. With the PNC's director performance, and the support that has been offered to him by the president, the most critical aspect of the situation is exposed.

    Sandoval's speech about the defense of the social order does not justify his actions. The invitation to respect the authorities is also useless. President Flores has demonstrated that he is an authority that does not listen, and he is intransigent when it comes to confront his perception of reality with the position of the other social sectors. In addition, he is not competent enough to ease the society's tension knots. For instance, he could have avoided so many disorders and confrontations with the public transportation businessmen if the had extended the term to remove the old buses, since they ended up doing it anyway after the protests turned out the way they did.

    In summary, all of these situations allow us to question the politicians' qualification to ease the society's tension, or their compromise with the construction of a democratic society. They have to understand that the authority is not useful for organizing a repression; but also, and as a main task, to search for harmony in the relations between the citizenry. Precisely at this issue, Francisco Flores has proved that he is not qualified enough to administrate the country.

    In the name of the struggle against violence, and in favor of the defense of the people's patrimony, the police cannot go on crushing the country's institutions. This is a lesson that must be learned by Mauricio Sandoval and by the President. As for the congressmen, maybe these events will be their last chance to prove that they still have some dignity left, and that they are willing to protect the minimum requirements of a trembling democratic institutional performance.

    There are times when the authorities from the Ministry of Agriculture and Cattle Raising, and mostly the subsistence farmers, are confronted with the problems generated by the impact of the dry season. The first dry season (the available records indicate that was in 1921) and those who have followed it, have extended themselves along the 20th century and the present. Since 1991 to this date, there are records of another five dry seasons, which indicates that, in an average level, this phenomenon keeps repeating itself every two years approximately.

    The formerly described situation indicates a brief return period, since during the eighties, four year periods were the estimate. The dry season now has turned more frequent, and its effects are even more intense than they were before, also the influence map of the dry seasons now includes a larger area, larger than the one of the early eighties (this was practically the same for all of the Central American countries).

    For the followers of the "global heating" theory, the most considerable influence of the dry seasons is explained by the alteration of the oceans, the climate, and the atmosphere, which, at the same time, generate an increasing frequency and intensity of an extreme phenomenon such as El Niño and La Niña. But even if this approach is accepted, it is clear that the dry seasons' impact has been magnified by an increase of the rural population's vulnerability in the technological, environmental, social, and economic aspects. As the case of the United States shows, the disasters caused by the dry seasons take place mostly because of the incapacity of the societies to successfully adapt themselves to its environment, to its incapacity to redistribute the risks in different productive activities, and because of the absence of social solidarity as well.
 

Some of the impacts of the dry season

    In El Salvador, there are systematic records of a basic grains' loss caused by the dry seasons since 1972, and all of them reflect loss levels of up to 57% of the corn production, and 56% of the bean production. For the 2001 dry season, the official sources calculated the corn loss in a 25%, that is, that it would have not been one of the most severe dry seasons, at least if we refer to the available information.

    However, the added numbers hide the cruel reality of the farm laboring sector, which in many cases can experiment a loss between 70% and 90% of its basic grains' cultivations. The impact is especially serious at the oriental area of the country, where higher loss levels are reported (70% for 2001). This means that, in relative terms, the impact for the farm laboring families is brutal: the income and the alimentation sources are lost.

    The macroeconomic impact of the dry seasons -even if it seems "manageable"- is also significant, and affects the GNP, the rural employment, the prices, the commercial balance, and the public finances. It might seem as if the dry seasons do not have a considerable impact: between 1% and 2% of the GNP; however, if the repetitiveness of the damage and the loss caused by these events are considered, the amount grows considerably. Between 1991 and 2001, El Salvador and Central America suffered five dry seasons, which implicates an accumulated loss between 5% and 10% of the GNP. To put this information into perspective, it has to be considered, for instance, that the disaster caused by the "Mitch" transformed itself into a loss of 3.4% of the GNP, while the earthquakes of 2001 generated a loss of 12% of the GNP.

    The prices are also affected by the dry seasons in two directions: first, through a seasonal increase of the prices for the basic grains' consumer, which generally go beyond the increase level of the producers' prices; and, on the other hand, an increase on the electric energy prices, produced by a higher amount of the offer generated through thermal means. An examination of the historical behavior of the basic grains' prices shows that, during the dry seasons, the consumers' prices are increased beyond the ones of the producers. This suggests that the intermediaries are the ones that take more advantage of the profits.

    As far as the electricity prices are concerned, the increases obey, in the case of the dry season, to the level of the water reservoirs of the hydro electric dams which do not reach the optimum level for a complete operation, obliging to restrict the generation of power by hydroelectric means, and increase the generation of power by thermal means or by burning fuel oil, which are more expensive and create pollution. The increase on the electric energy prices for the industrial and the commercial sector turns into an element of pressure for an increase on the costs and the general level of prices. The only ones who take advantage of the energetic crisis seem to be the private generators who have arrived to El Salvador during the last five years.

    The deficit of the commercial balance is also affected by the dry seasons, since the usual measure has been to open itself to the massive importation of food. For instance,  the food importations for 2001 were estimated in almost $52 million, which is equivalent to 2.5% of the total deficit of the commercial balance, calculated in a little more than $2,000 million. In other decades, such as in 1983, the importations after the dry season have represented up to an 11.6% of the commercial balance's deficit, but while this one grew larger during the eighties and the nineties, the participation of the corn importations has been reduced even and when these ones also had experimented a substantial increase (between 1973 and 2001 they went from $18,000 to $52 million).

    The public finances can also be affected because of two aspects: first, by an increase in the expense to finance contingency problems and, second, by an income reduction caused by the elimination of taxes from the basic grains' importation. Due to the accelerated and unnecessary exemption of  duties implemented in the nineties, this last impact is not that abundant as it could have been in the past, but it is still relevant.

A natural or an induced dry season?

    Although it can be easily said that the dry season depends of the precipitation's behavior, a reduction of the precipitation turns into a dry season and into a disaster depending on the amount of rain, whether if it is enough or not for the population. Therefore, the available amount of water for cultivation purposes, human consumption, electrical generation and other uses will depend on the capacity of the ecosystems and the society to store the precipitated water.

    The floods and the successive dry seasons suffered in the underdeveloped countries of Africa and Latin America are due, mostly, to the loss of the water retention capacity on the superficial layers of the ground, and the water infiltration into the deep mantles of water. These capacities fundamentally depend on the existing vegetation and, therefore, they are lost when deforestation proceeds.

    Historically, the records show that the dry seasons are induced; the most critical cases are the ones that have taken place at the United States’ Occidental plains, and the former USSR. During the first decades of the 20th century, the wheat's high prices influenced the fact that the vegetation of the occidental prairies of the United States was substituted by wheat plantations.

    The transformations rapidly lead to the appearance of the so called "dust basins", and to frequent sand storms. The United States government proceeded to develop a wide program to recuperate the lands and to give the agriculture a new direction. At the former USSR of 1950, a decree that intended to increase the cereal production, lead to the destruction of the ecosystems of millions of hectares of semi-arid lands, and to the apparition of a desert "by decree". The program was abandoned 15 years after it started.

    In El Salvador, the situation is different; however, it always leads to the unsustainable use of  the natural resources, due to the elimination of the vegetation, and because of the desertification threats. The cultivation of the basic grains in the hillside fields, with grounds that are not suitable for temporary cultivations, explains in a great deal the predisposition or the vulnerability of the basic grains’ production sector before the alterations in the precipitation’s regime. The oriental zone, the most affected one by the dry season, is not an adequate area for the  cultivation of the basic grains, but it does count with the only available lands and, therefore, it is considered as the country’s barn.

The importance of the social and the productive adaptation

    The successful cases show that the prevention and the mitigation of disasters caused by a dry season, necessarily go through an important social organization level, and through a technological and productive adaptation. The United States’ dry seasons were fought with measures such as: water conservation plans, the protection of farming lands, the introduction of resistant cultivations, productive diversification, the creation of an insurance for the harvest, the  maintenance of grains and fodder reserves, credit programs, and an irrigation increase. In addition, the United States provides a considerable subsidy for agriculture, to the point that, in some occasions, the subsidies are higher than the sector’s added value. Obviously, this kind of activity requires a transference of the resources from the urban to the rural sectors through high taxes and, therefore, it requires a strong doses of conscience, social solidarity and political will.

    A dry season, more than a natural problem, is an abandonment problem of the agricultural sector and the precarious situation of the rural population. The adjustment policies implemented along the nineties have opened the market to the importation of food that competes with the national production, and that has also promoted a gradual dismantling of the necessary institutions to promote agriculture’s development. The most recent piece of information is the reduction of personnel, and the reduction of resources dedicated to the transference of the agricultural technology.

    El Salvador does not count yet with the necessary political will, nor with the social disposition to assume the cost of a development program for the rural sector, and the reduction of the dry season’s effects. There are options to prevent and mitigate the effects of the dry seasons, but its adoption involves important changes in the public and the private policies which emerge as the great challenges of the 21st century, for the Neoliberal ideology governments such as ARENA, and for the societies in crisis, such as ours.
 
 

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