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

    The attention was focused on a foreign woman, an employee from one of the United Nation's programs who was released by the police, according to some opinions, because she had diplomatic immunity; others just said that nothing could be held against her. In any case, as soon as they released her, she left the country. There are those who, without being convinced, pay more attention to the circulation and the consumption of drugs in El Salvador. Between one thing and the other, the National Civilian Police's (PNC, in Spanish) limitations are somehow ignored or, even worse, are already considered something so normal, that they are simply overlooked.

    Police performances, such as the one called "Toxic Storm", which become spectacular thanks to the news media (at the police's service), follow a well-known pattern. The news are widely displayed in the most important media. According to the first information available, the police had been able to locate a party, in which a large and varied amount of drugs was openly consumed. There was a lot of people involved, including a foreign woman. The police and the press created a great expectation: it was about a police operation that would become a strong attack against the drug dealing business. The details of the operation, provided by the officers and displayed by the press, confirm its importance. The case, they assure, will get to court, there will be new arrests and, most likely, there will be punishments.

    A few hours after that, however, another reality starts to emerge in the same press, which has formerly broadcasted and printed the official versions. The police sources, The Ministry of Public Affairs and the Executive power are contradicting each other. The news media does not realize that it is publishing the contradiction of the facts that once it published as the truth. However, that does not stop the high rank officials, who keep talking in a vain attempt to clear the facts on what seemed as established evidence. The lack of both information and consistency, in a word, the lack of seriousness betrays them. Instead of consolidating their case, these actions make it grow weaker. In the one hand, it happens because the PNC still lacks basic investigation skills. On the other hand, the case becomes weaker because they need to be under the direction of people who organize the investigation, the ideas, and the public declarations. The public officials act in a careless, irresponsible, and superficial  way because, technically, it is impossible to ask for any results.

    The party's name the press and the police have seems to be the wrong one, since "Toxic Storm" is the name of a musical group who would attend to the gathering. It is a bad start for an investigation job. The police assured that they had found an amount of drug called “ecstasy”, but the chemical analysis showed that it was acetaminophen. At the same time, the agents calculated the value of the confiscated drug in almost $30,000; however, its real value does not go beyond $1,000. A miscalculation of those who speak without knowing the facts. The police assured that the transactions that took place during the party involved enormous amounts of money, but the judge only received $39. For the police is not only hard to identify the drugs and its value,  but to know how many people attended to the party at the time they arrived. There were 16 people arrested, but the undercover agents are sure that there were 70 people at the party. President Flores, on the other hand, says that there were 185 people there.

    The procedure that was followed in the case of the foreign woman who was found at the party is not clear for the authorities either. Apparently, the police and the general attorneys assumed that she had diplomatic immunity, confusing that term with another one: being the member of an international mission. But that is not all, the general attorneys assure that the undercover agents told them that they had not seen her take part in the illicit actions and, consequentially, there was no reason to arrest her. However, these same agents tell a completely different story: they say that she had drugs on her possession. The PNC's director, instead, says that she was clean. It should not seem odd then that, frequently, the police and the general attorneys face insuperable differences when it comes to translate their arguments into the legal language. In this case, for instance, they have not been able to individualize the crimes committed by the people they arrested. They have not been able to establish the kind and the amount of drug that was taken at the party, besides the fact that it might have been a "consumption amount" involved and not actually a drug dealing event.

    The different interventions of the PNC's director have not contributed to clarify the crime, nor to the arrest of the accused ones. When he has been asked about the differences between the type of drug, its amount, its value and the people arrested, he has remained silent. What seems to be clear is the confusion between President Flores, the PNC's director, the general attorneys, the police officers, and the press. Part of that confusion is that the police cannot explain the murder of one of the agents that took part in one of the apprehensions, which happened a few hours after the arrests were made. The aggression that the judge of the case suffered has not been explained either. The police has not been able to explicate how the systematic and massive traffic of Salvadoran children is performed. These facts are more important than the freedom on a foreign woman. That is the same pattern of the human rights' violation cases that have taken place in the past as well as in the present.

    In this context, it would be irresponsible to agree to the requests made by the PNC's director, who is asking for an authorization to proceed, without a judicial order, to search houses or buildings, freezing bank accounts, and search individuals  whenever he suspects that they might carry drugs or be under its influence. Given the little seriousness of his work, to grant him these freedoms is to open the door to more abuses. If with the jurisdiction that he already has he cannot fight crime in an efficient way, because he cannot lead a police investigation, with more power he will only commit more abuses.

    The Salvadoran legislator, however, is not characterized by his responsibility. In the privileges that have been granted to the members of the Japanese mission, in charge to build the Cutuco Sea Port, the seeds of a new confusion are already planted, since they have been granted with "the necessary arrangements to enter and remain" in the country. Those arrangements are applied in the same way to any foreign citizen, and are interpreted as a special treatment, that is, as a diplomatic privilege. It all will depend on how it is interpreted by the ones interested. The storm is, therefore, inside the police force.
 

    During the last days, the Israeli military fence has spread over the occupied territories. And the consequences are coming out to the public light. Hundreds of deaths, thousands of wounded people and destroyed houses represent the preliminary balance of the destruction that the soldiers of Israel's First Minister, Ariel Sharon, have caused among the Palestinian population. The world knows the terror that invades the Middle East, before an intervention of such great proportions that involves four divisions of the Israeli army -one more than the ones Israel used to conquer Sinai during the 1967 war-, armed to its teeth with the most sophisticated war accessories.

    Several authorized voices in the world find that the humiliations that the Palestinians suffer can be compared with those the Jewish were subjected to by the Germans, during the Holocaust. However, because of these observations, the Israeli First Minister's main argument to silence the world wide critics is to say that this is an anti-terrorist fight, similar to the one that George W. Bush is  dealing with in Afghanistan. Here is where the similarity is established: since The United States are using all of their weapons to eliminate the Al Qaeda fighters, Israel must do the same to end with the Palestinian terrorists. From that moment on, Washington and Tel Aviv shake hands. The same international coalition that supports the flagrant violations to the human rights of the Guantanamo prisoners should approve of the horrors perpetrated by Israel's army in the occupied territories.

    In fact, The White House took some time to react to what the whole world considers as war crimes, perpetrated by Sharon's army in the occupied territories. Many cases of executions are mentioned. The International Red Cross has vehemently reacted because of the Israeli authorities' refusal to allow their ambulances to evacuate the injured ones and those in need of medical assistance at the combat zones. George Bush, instead, keeps making Yasser Arafat responsible for not doing enough to stop the suicidal Palestinians. They would be ultimately responsible for the violent context and for the questioned defensive action of Sharon's government to protect the citizenry. But, who will defend the Palestinians?

The hypocrisy of the international community
    There is not much room for doubt that the suicidal attacks, regularly performed by the Palestinians, are the worst way to fight against the occupation of their land. It does not only affect the lives of the innocent victims, but it also reveals the inhumanity of those who perpetrate them. It is counterproductive and it generates political and military reactions that are contrary to their purpose. In addition, the defenders of Sharon's extermination policy find a good reason in that to justify, at the same time, the selective murders -in this case, in groups- of its army.

    However, in any case, it is still a hypocrisy to unilaterally denounce the Palestinian suicidal attacks and the grave yard kind of silence kept, on the other hand,  about Sharon's activities, just as it can be noticed in The United States. The indifference that certain governments show about the drama that the Palestinian face, because of the occupation and the constant humiliation they have to live with, is as condemnable as the suicidal acts.

    Ever since June of 1967, date in which the Israeli army conquered the Palestinian territory, the United Nations keeps issuing resolutions to demand the end of the occupation. However, ever since then, with the blessing of the different governments at Washington, Israel has ignored the resolutions. The best  initiatives of peace have been sabotaged. In addition, the Security Council at the United Nations does not have enough political and military instruments to  oblige the parts, specially the Israeli governments, to respect the resolutions. There is where the question for the double standards of morality that this international organism works with.

    In this context, it is inevitable not to relate that insensibility of the Security Council about the luck of the Palestinians and their sanctions and former military interventions in the world, such as the war against Iraq, for example. After Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait, in the name of the people's self-determination and the respect for the international rights, The United Nations immediately demanded the invaders' withdrawal and warned about the drastic sanctions that could be employed or the use of a military force. And they kept their promise: George W. Bush's father was the leader of the war that ended with the removal of the Iraqi army from Kuwait, in addition, also ever since then The United Nations keeps an embargo against the Baghdad regime to make it end with its programs of chemical weaponry.

    Once the former ideas are exposed, it is only legitimate if the Palestinians keep wondering why no actions are taken to make the Israel retire from the occupied territories. Why does no one speak about economic sanctions and eventual military actions against the Israeli administration?  Despite how naive these questions might be, there is no doubt that they reveal one of the weakest aspects of The United Nations' Security Council. In the case of this particular organization, if it is necessary to speak about principles, they are determined accordingly to the immediate interests of the most powerful nations. There we can find the difference between The United Nations' role in the Gulf war, and the role played in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. In the first case, the issue was the control of Kuwait's petroleum and, in the second place, the black gold is not only out of sight, but also the responsibility with the Jewish because of the tragedy they lived during World War II.

    That is why there is so much hesitation to make Sharon respect the United Nation's resolutions. The different Jewish lobbies in The United States and in Europe have been able to pressure the anti-Semites to avoid any examination of the present performance of the Sharon administration. Even the European Union, whose leaders show a more critical attitude towards the Israeli army's behavior in the occupied territories, is a part of that blackmail. That is why many of its leaders are lost in a hypocritical rhetoric of a so called neutrality with the parts in conflict.

The reason of the stronger one...
    Ever since The United Nations found itself in the impossibility to play a constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the only logic that prevails in the Middle East is the reason of the stronger one. The Israeli First Minister has perfectly understood it. He takes advantage of the silence that the international community's political leaders keep to take care of the unfinished business with the Palestinians.

    On the other hand, the world's most powerful countries are not extremely interested to question the logic of the brute military force's imposition in the area. The United States is the main provider of weaponry for the Israeli army. And it does that to keep alive the superiority of the Tel Aviv over its neighbors. The thesis of the need to guarantee the survival of the Jewish State has been defended for a long time. However, at the present time, it is well known that The United States is more interested in reducing the Iranian and Iraqi military menace, than in promoting the justice and the development of the countries.

    In this context, the survival of a certain military balance in the region is crucial for Washington's geopolitical interests. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the different Israeli governments had taken advantage of these elements to impose its hegemony in the Middle East, specially over the Palestinians. They know that they count with their ally’s support, the world's first military power.

    The different elements already pointed out have been delaying a happy ending for the Palestinians in their conflict with the Israeli State. It is an illusion to say that the international community, specially the great foreign powers, has done everything to end with the territorial occupation. Those powers have been stopped, among other things, for fear; and also, in a good amount, because of geographically strategic interests. There is too much to risk in this part of the globe to loose such a firm ally as Israel. Because of this situation, these countries, specially The United States have taken a side to deal with the conflict.

In search of a certain decency
    The world’s most powerful counties have significantly lost the capacity to pressure the Israeli governments. That is a transparent situation, at this moment, with the apparent wrath that Bush feels against Sharon, because Sharon refuses to stop the reoccupation of the territories and the destruction of the Palestinian Authority. Sharon knows very well that The United States has more in common with them than with the Palestinians. And that the White House cannot abandon them, mostly if an international military campaign against Iraq is on the way.

    That is why if someone is willing to approach with a certain decency the conflict's resolution between the Israeli and the Palestinians, nothing much can be expected from the political leaders of the great foreign powers, without a strong pressure from the civil society. The cynicism of neutrality, in a time when it is not admitted, has prevailed for such a long time that it can make anyone suspect about the intentions and the possibilities of a fair and lasting solution for the problem. Therefore, in this context, an important issue is the debate of the civil society's organizations from all over the world.

    During the last weeks, the different capitals of the world have been the stage for different demonstrations that claim for a fair solution of the conflict. Many citizens, mostly European ones, have spread themselves into that area to show with their presence their solidarity with the Palestinians, whose houses are destroyed by the intervention of the Israeli army. Many of these members from the international civil society, are accompanying the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, in his house arrest decreed by the First Minister Sharon. All of them are contributing to call the world’s attention over the humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied territories. Their action is crucial to create a new world conscience about the horror in the Middle East.

    Almost four years after the pensions system’s privatization took effect, some doubts still remain about the characteristics of this system and the relation that it has with the public system of pensions that managed to survive the reforms. One of the most recent pieces of information has been the delay in the transference of the quotes of the National Institute of Pensions' users (INPEP, in Spanish) to the private system. This can be added to the already considerable fiscal amount that, for the state, the pensions' system reform has represented.

    For the government and the private business companies, the discussion about the issue is finished, that is why it "has" to be accepted that the reform is the "best" measure that could have been adopted. However, the truth is that there are no clear evidences that the pensions system's privatization will eliminate the problems inherited by the public system: its low coverage, the high social and administrative costs, the lack of equity in its coverage, and the low profitability of the funds. Out of the already mentioned problems, only the last one has been reduced with the arranging of the prevision funds in the values' market. Even the alleged coverage increase has been refuted by the Administrator of Pensions himself, who said that there are "ghost" records at the Pension Funds’ Administrative Offices (AFP, in Spanish), since the pension advisors acted corruptly. By the way,  that refutes the idea that the private business companies are a guarantee of honesty and efficiency.

    The reform of the pensions' system has definitively had, instead, an important impact over the workers' available income, because of the commission and insurance payments to the AFP, and to the insurance companies associated with them. The most paradoxical idea is that, during the first years of the new system's implementation, the worker paid more for the commissions and the insurance, than what he or she could save for his or her personal account. Therefore, it is not easy to rapidly pronounce an opinion in favor of a reform for the pensions' system that it is not showing any positive effects yet, but that, instead, it has had negative implications over the workers who it was supposed to beneficiate. To do that would be to have an extremely ideological and superficial attitude.

    One of the main arguments to encourage the reform of the pensions' system was the imminent bankruptcy of the state's pension system, which -it was said- sooner or later would end up collapsing and compromising the capability of the state to guarantee the pensions of the retired, the handicapped, or the deceased workers. The numbers that led to that conclusion were never made public; however, even if it was assumed as the truth, there was the need to evaluate the  re-engineering possibilities of the public institutions that were connected with the pension's system.

    Ever since the social security system took effect, there were different administration problems that affected the systems' performance. By the early seventies, an report showed that in the Salvadoran Institute of Social Security (ISSS, in Spanish) there were problems such as a bureaucratization at the direction, a debt with the state and the employers, a weak planning area, an inefficient use of the resources, lack of coordination and administrative deficiency. Very little, or almost nothing, was done to solve those problems. There is no doubt that, at the moment of the reform, the problems were even worse, although that did not mean that privatization was the only remedy.

    The conditions (in which the entrance of the private business companies was allowed at the system of prevision funds) have been so favorable that it is not crazy to think that the state's institutions could also work successfully in  a scenery such as this one. During the first year the AFP companies were allowed to charge a maximum of  3.5% as a commission over the worker's salary in the concept administration and insurance payments. Most of this charge was used to cover administrative costs. The amazing aspect of all this is that that amount was used to administrate a monthly amount of savings equivalent to a modest 1% over the workers' salary, to which another 5% was added (provided by the employer), in total, a 6% of the worker's salary.

    It means that by administrating six colones, the AFP would charge 3.5 colones to the workers, which is equivalent to a 58% out of the administrated amount. Eventually, this relation has been changing, to the point that in the present the commission has been established in 3%, the amount the worker pays is 3.25%, and the employer's is 6.75%. In total, the worker is charged with a 10% over his or her salary, and the worker is charged with a 2.7% as an administration fee, that is a 27%. The relation of the administration  and insurance expenses versus savings has gone from 50% to 27%, between 1998 and 2002, but it remains higher than the standard, which goes between an 8% and a 12% from the administrative expenses, conventionally accepted in the context of the private business companies. This means that the problem of the high administrative costs still exists and will keep existing because it has a structural character. The design of the pensions' system establishes it so.

    The recent problem concerning the delay on the elaboration of labor histories and transference certificates is an evidence that the state's public system is not working, but not because this is a main feature of the state, but because no policies have been made to improve its performance in this area. On the contrary,  the intention of the reform contemplated deliberate measures to annihilate the state's system creating mechanisms to reduce the number of members, regulating aspects such as the minimum age and significant increases in the payments of those who could choose to stay with the public system. This caused that most of the contributors would be transferred to the private system, causing an excessive demand of work records that can hardly be satisfied at a weak public institutions’ system. These institutions could not have handled an administration demand of such proportions, not even when they were at their peek. It should not sound odd then that the delay was caused by the state's policy itself.

    The pension funds' transference process, from the public to the private system, also has fiscal implications, since -as it was mentioned before- the government also has to amortize the value of the contributions, and this requires annual expenses that by the year 2004 will reach 2.2% of the GNP.

    Reality shows that not all of the effects (of the pensions system's reform) have been positive and, because of that, it is necessary to take distance and examine the results of the process after four years (since it took effect). There are high administrative costs, neither the agricultural nor the informal sectors have been covered,  there are problems to make the transference certificates effective for the new system, and a new and difficult load has been placed over the shoulders of the public finances. As in other cases, when reforms are applied to the public policies,  the pensions' system privatization winner is the private business sector, specially those related with both the financial and the insurance sectors.
 
 

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