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

Central American University (UCA)
Apdo. Postal 01-168, Boulevard Los Próceres
San Salvador, El Salvador, Centro América
Tel: +(503) 210-6600 ext. 407
Fax: +(503) 210-6655
 

     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.

     Subscriptions to Proceso in Spanish can be obtained by sending a check for US$50.00 (Americas) or $75.00 (Europe) made out to 'Universidad Centroamericana' and sent to the above address. Or read it partially on the UCA’s Web Page: http://www.uca.edu.sv
     For the ones who are interested in sending donations, these would be welcome at Proceso. Apdo. Postal 01-168, San Salvador, El Salvador.

INDEX

EDITORIAL

    It would have been naive to think that Mauricio Sandoval's days at the head of the police force were counted because of the abuse committed by the National Civilian Police (PNC, in Spanish) against the congressman Orlando Arevalo, and the Police Reaction Group's (GRP, in Spanish) violent irruption inside the Legislative Assembly. Despite that a few congressmen applauded such procedure, the rest of them did not approve of Sandoval's authoritarian abuse. Those who were angrier said that they would go through the last consequences of this matter in order to defend the country's required institutional performance. An air of decency appeared in the national political horizon; at last, the most optimistic ones said, the Legislative Assembly would do something important to regain the respect and the legitimacy that it lacks.

    However, much sooner than later, what had been sold as the most unconditional compromise with the country's democratic institutional performance revealed itself as it really was: a demagogy exercise that hid the already known selfish interests. Soon, what would have been a drastic evaluation of Mauricio Sandoval's procedures, turned into a cheap political game. Each and everyone of those involved in this situation was trying to get advantage of the incident, ignoring, in the end, what was truly important: the evaluation of Sandoval's performance in relation to the events that led to Arevalo's arrest, and to the police's violent irruption inside the Legislative Assembly.

    According to the events, it was presumable that, given Sandoval's direct responsibility for what happened, the Legislative Assembly would demand his immediate destitution. At least that was to be expected from the congressmen, to show a minimum amount of respect for themselves. That is also what should have been expected in a basically civilized country. However, neither the congressmen respect themselves, nor the country has enough civil conscience as to stop tolerating the presence of a police director who conceives himself above both the law and the institutions.

    Sandoval's loud and clear abuse has turned into a minor mistake made by his men; and, as far as he is concerned, this issue obliges him to apologize with the Legislative Assembly and the news media. His abuse of power -without mentioning the persecution and the violence used against a congressman-, was diluted in a poor public debate, in which the irrelevant details hid what was actually important: Mauricio Sandoval's authoritarian attitude, and the discretionary attitude he uses to direct the PNC.

    Once again, the Legislative Assembly has betrayed its constitutional obligations; the selfish interests and the power games have been considered more important than the need to defend the country's institutional sense. The way that the general attorneys dealt with the "Sandoval Case" invites us to put our feet on the ground, and accept that we cannot expect too much from the Salvadoran politicians when it comes to the honorability and the compromise with the country's democratization. Most of them are definitively not prepared to go beyond the shady deals and the agreements they make under the table, even if they say they are.

    Maybe everything was just about predicting that the congressmen, instead of breaking for once and for all the selfish interests' leash, they persist on their inveterate practice. Despite of that, it was not absurd to expect them -in a situation in which their legitimacy was being questioned- to defend the country's basic institutional aspects. By not doing it, they did not only contribute to increase the citizenry's disbelief in both politics and the politicians, but they also made it perfectly clear that Mauricio Sandoval can step over the law and act as if nothing happened.

    From now on, it is not much what we can expect from the Salvadoran politicians specifically     from the congressmen- as far as their compromise with the country's real democratization is concerned. They have given us evident signs of being unqualified to take the challenges that the Salvadoran uncertain process of democratic consolidation represents. That is a serious issue, since it leaves the Salvadoran society without the necessary intermediation mechanisms to deal with its demands. The social frustration is increasing, and the desperate solutions, many times also violent, appear at the horizon of those who are unhappy with the way the authorities are handling the country's problems.

    The thesis about the divorce between the political system and the civil society gains more strength; and along with it, violence appears as a real and an immediate possibility. The disorders are gradually turning into alternatives for many citizens who do not find a solution for their problems, since the institutions do not respond to their basic demands. Once again, it is evident that both politics and the politicians have failed to accomplish the social and political intermediation tasks. Therefore, the society's legal options are reduced.

    Everything seems to indicate that the Salvadoran politicians are not willing to realize the harm that they cause with their mistakes and their irresponsibility. They persist with their vices in the most aberrant and absurd way. They do not hide their personal ambitions, nor the deals that they make to accomplish them. Consequentially, they are in no condition to rule themselves by the basic norms of ethics, honorability, and legality.  They are not able to defend the country's institutional performance from the authoritarian  attacks of the Executive. Unfortunately, that is the kind of politicians the Salvadoran population will have to deal with for a while: irresponsible, disrespectful (to themselves an to their investiture), ambitious, and blind.
 
 

    The Guatemalan and the Nicaraguan citizens are aware of the possible existence of some high caliber corruption cases. In Guatemala, President Alfonso Portillo, and Vice-President Juan Francisco Reyes have been involved in a public funds’ transference (transferred to their personal accounts abroad) case. In Nicaragua,  Arnoldo Alemán, the former president, who is now the president of the National Assembly, has been accused of becoming illicitly wealthy. There is enough evidence to prove that he multiplied his fortune while he ruled one of Central America's poorest countries. Other irregularities were also detected in the administration of the municipality at Managua, after the substitution of the Sandinista government the year before, although in this case there are no personal accusations.

    In one or another situation, the pressures of the different social sectors could have an effect on the forcefulness of the evidence. In both countries, the citizens have gone out on the streets demanding the resignation or the explanation of the governments about these serious accusations. However, even if they were true, Portillo, Alemán y Reyes have their cards on their side: they have hidden themselves behind the constitutional  and pseudo-democratic monstrosities, arranged under the shadow of an immature institutional performance they took advantage of.

    The revelations of the morning papers such as La Prensa de Panamá, and Siglo XXI (from Guatemala) took the Central American public opinion by surprise, since everyone was more aware about a free trade agreement negotiation with the United States, and about the kidnapping of Lizardo Sosa, the president of the Banco Central de Guatemala. About the Portillo administration, almost everyone knew the wear and tear that it had suffered throughout the last year, after openly confronting the business and the industrial sectors for keeping alive the national hegemony.
 

    The most important deed between the government and the companies' confrontation was the imposition of new taxes for  the investments. This subject caused the traditional private sector's discontent. Only a few months before the Portillo administration would take effect, some officials were removed from their positions. After that, in the heat of the government and the business sector's dispute, some members of the cabinet were either removed or presented their resignation because of corruption accusations.

    In any case, some sectors did not hide their suspicion about the rapprochement between Portillo and Efraín Ríos Montt, the president of the Congress and one of the founders of the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG). Ríos Montt was seriously accused of violations to the human rights during his administration in the early eighties. However, Portillo took distance from the FRG's caudillo along his two year administration period. The truth is that corruption has turned into a common factor inside the Guatemalan governmental circles, although nobody had dared to throw direct accusations against the president.

    On the other hand, inside the Guatemalan Congress, the FGR has been involved in alteration of the law cases and in acts of corruption. The weakened opposition asked for the  elimination of the congressmen’s privileges, however, in the end, they managed to keep their immunity. Generally, this has been the tendency at the official circles, before the absence of a solid opposition -after the defeat of both the Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN) and the former guerrilla- and a deliberately worn out judicial system, which does not seem to have a relevant presence.

    In this scenery, the cause against the governmental corruption in general and, particularly, against the alleged deviation of the public funds against the Guatemalan presidents does not seem to find a better “handle”, at least in a short term. The only counterweight, influential enough, could come from the traditional business sector, since it has resented the pressure of the governmental measures.

    Nicaragua is another story. Nobody with a healthy judgment can discuss that Alemán became rich ever since he passed by Managua's municipality and the presidency of the Republic, while the country's economy was in a bankruptcy. Very few Nicaraguans will be able to forget that while the Mitch hurricane unleashed its fury at the national territory and the emergency state had been declared, the president was sumptuously celebrating his private wedding in the United States.

    Very few people will be able to forget that Alemán, along with Daniel Ortega, infringed  a terrible low blow to the immature Nicaraguan democracy through the pact made between Liberals and Sandinistas. This pact was used to reform the Constitution, in order to assure, among other aspects, the distribution of the State's Powers and the key institutions of the national life. In addition, because of the agreement between both caudillos -and those who, along with them,  played to hand out the country between them-, the electoral  code was reformed to remove from the competition any political institute that was not related with the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) or with the Frente Sandinista. All of the work that the famous former president, Violeta de Chamorro, had accomplished was wasted.

    Alemán, supported by the liberal congressmen, reformed the Constitution to allow himself to aspire to the National Assembly's presidency, and gain the necessary immunity in order to be protected in the case of an eventual investigation against him for corruption acts. Now, installed in the assembly as the president, Alemán will be able to go on with his “profitable” career, and will aspire to be reelected as president in four more years, when the Bolaños administration is over.

    With the astuteness that characterizes him, Alemán left everything arranged when he passed on the power to Bolaños, his party colleague: he left the economy in a bankruptcy, a galloping social discontent, and a democratic institutional sense that leaves a lot to be desired. In these conditions, the initiatives of today's president, that might require the legislative approval, would be significantly determined by the forces' equilibrium at the National Assembly, where Alemán and Ortega still move their tentacles to play the game according to their interests.

    However, since nothing is static and the last word has not been said yet, we could expect a surprise from Bolaños; for him,  Alemán is not a saint of his devotion. Bolaños accepted, as one of his main tasks, to vehemently attack corruption. The social pressure of the present moment demands that Alemán faces the situation, that could be a favorable factor for Bolaños' work and his image, which needs to be legitimated and strengthened.

    In any case, if the investigations do not prosper, and if the conditions are placed on the side of both characters so that the truth remains hidden, the Central American people, and not only the Guatemalans and the Nicaraguans, will lose the great opportunity to bring before the tribunals those who would have become rich at the expense of poverty, and by ignoring the isthmus’ population.

    Despite the inherent difficulties, the conditions are favorable to make a complete investigation. In addition, these cases are a challenge for  the Central American justice systems, in a historic moment in which the economic actors want to step ahead while the social and political actors seem to remain behind. While these initiatives are not taken, corruption will keep assaulting the national economy, and a valuable opportunity will be lost.

    Ever since the late seventies, the agricultural sector's role inside the Salvadoran economy began to lose its importance because of the international market's impact, and for using the wrong internal public policies. It is difficult to deny that the united States' policies have not been decisive in the agricultural sector's economic growth orientation. The blossoming of the coffee, sugar, and cotton cultivations, and the cattle-raising activities were the result of deliberated policies that came from the United States to promote these agricultural activities. During the seventies, the access and the demand of such products inside the United States' markets caused an unexpected multiplication of their activities, the cultivated area, production and exportation.

 
    During the eighties, the opportunities were lost because of the internal conflict, the way the agricultural reform was executed, and the agricultural sector's abandonment, which still remains.

    The changes of the United States' foreign policy can be added to the former ideas. On one hand, it has led to the abandonment of the open policies, for products such as meat, cotton and other agricultural products. On the other hand, it has deteriorated the policies destined to support the traditional exportation prices, for products such as coffee and sugar. The United States' departure from the International Organization of Coffee (OIC, in Spanish) was, without a doubt, a decisive factor for the prices' collapse, and for the expansion of the world's production.

    It should not sound strange that El Salvador and Central America are experimenting a deep agricultural crisis, which includes the capitalist and the subsistence activities -and they are both intimately related. Without a doubt, this problem leads to a complexity level that goes beyond the reach of any public policy adopted in the national or the regional context.

    The United States' recent offers, about promoting the free trade with the Central American countries, could be an opportunity to start a global reinsertion process of the region's agricultural economies. However, it must be acknowledged that the present conditions are different from those of the last 25 years.

    Ever since the late fifties, there were direct internal incentives to encourage the agricultural production: bland credits, construction of the necessary infrastructure, technical and productive support from the state, etcetera. These policies, blended with a favorable international context (mostly because of the United states' role), strongly encouraged that "relative" agricultural prosperity. It was "relative" because the subsistence farmers were not actually favored by this process.

    The winners were the wealthy land owners, and those urban actors who diversified their investments. In the present, neither the internal nor the external conditions are favorable for a  resurgence of the agricultural production. There are two reasons for this: the last couple of governments -despite their discourse- have not implemented agricultural reactivation plans, but, on the contrary, their policies have favored the urban activities and the rural ones have been set aside. On the other hand, the commercial liberalization policies have created certain conditions so that in El Salvador the new insertion into the world's economy is based on the labor force's expulsion to the United States, and in the exportation economy's reorientation in function of the textile maquila. Therefore, the liberalization is not based on the agricultural or the manufacturing exportations.

    This is the context in which, during the last 20 years, the agricultural crisis has grown worse without the national public policies' adaptation to that reality, beyond the already classic emergency measures (the elimination of duty barriers to the grains' importation after a dry season, the creation of compensational funds for the coffee-growing sector, the distribution of food,  the generation of temporary employment sources, etcetera.). The fall of the coffee's international prices along the nineties, and the disappearance of the cotton are two aspects that have affected the rural areas and developed adaptation measures, mainly from the rural population and not from the governments (the migration to the United States, the intensification on the natural resources' extraction levels, the extension of the subsistence cultivation areas, etcetera.).

    No policies to adapt the agricultural sector to the new international context have been implemented. At least not recently. In the past, they did count with adaptation plans for the international market's activity, and even for certain risk situations that the agricultural sector could be exposed to. For example, the continuous dry season's impacts that took place during the fifties were, in part, the reason to create the Supplies' Regulation Institute (responsible, in theory, to avoid the abrupt fluctuations in the basic prices) and to design and implement the first  extensive irrigation projects in El Salvador.

    In the present, the most relevant governmental efforts to encourage the agricultural production and its productivity are the result of bilateral  and multilateral cooperation programs. An evidence of that is the systematic resources'  and personnel reduction in the General Direction of Renewable Natural Resources from the Ministry of Agriculture and Cattle-raising (Dirección General de Recursos Naturales Renovables del Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería), and in the National Center of Agricultural Technology (Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria). The wider programs are executed through cooperation programs, as in the case of the program for  encouraging the "Development and Transference of Agricultural Technology in the Republic of El Salvador",  promoted by the Japanese government, and the "Environmental Program of El Salvador", executed through certain loans granted by the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. However, the problem is that this kind of programs can only exist while the international cooperation decides so, since the government's participation is mostly receptive and not proactive.

    This is not difficult to understand in the neoliberal ideologies' adoption context, which attempts to promote development with a minimal (or null) participation of the state. Nothing but a chimera! History shows that the world's most developed and industrialized countries have gone through the state's strong regulations and some impositions, and some of those are still in effect to this day. Not one country has been able to developed itself merely by  the means of the free market.

    The recent offer from the United States to sign the free trade agreement and make it effective carries severe risks for the Salvadoran  agricultural sector (and Central America), not only due to the weak conditions of El Salvador, but also because the United States protects its agricultural sector through subsidies, harvest insurance, duty and duty free barriers, technical assistance, etcetera. This obviously turns it more competitive. In fact, if the trade was opened for the United States' agricultural products, the Salvadoran agricultural situation would become worse than it already is.

    Therefore, although it cannot be denied that the opening of the United States' market represents an opportunity to export new products. No one should think that the benefits will be obtained just because it is meant to happen. The state must formulate and implement a clear adaptation policy, which enables the agricultural sector to adapt to the national and the international economic reality aiming to increase the productivity and the profitability. This action requires an examination of the of the governmental procedures designed to support the agricultural sector.
 
 

Please, send us your comments and suggestions