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

    During the last few days, the Venezuelan situation has been an important issue for the Latin American public debate. In some confusing events, President Hugo Chavez would have been removed from the power -on April 11th- by an apparent coup d’etat; later -only three days after that- he was back. The reactions are according to the sympathies(or the aversions) that some people feel about the Chavez administration: there were those who -inside and outside Venezuela- effusively celebrated his surprising "departure" from the power; while now there are others who do not hide their happiness for his "return". To understand Chavez's social and political role -his capability to awaken some contrasting passions- it is necessary to pay attention to the Venezuelan political development that started in the sixties and that still lives to this day. During this period,  plenty of social frustrations were accumulated, and Chavez was a vehicle of expression for them; now, however, his involvement with such duty seems to threaten him.

    It is necessary to remember that, by the end of the sixties, a two-party political system was established at Venezuela: COPEI and Accion Democratica (Democratic Action -AD, in Spanish). Their mutual administrative relay  granted the country a political stability, since the sixties until the late nineties. In 1973, Carlos Andres Perez became president (AD), and he handed over the presidential chair, in 1978, to Luis Herrera Campins (COPEI). The year 1983 was the turn for Jaime Lusinchi (AD); and Carlos Andres Perez inherited that presidential chair again in 1988. In 1989, a strong social protest occurred, known as "the caracazo", against Perez, when he announced the transportation fare increase and a posterior  increase on the fuel prices. In 1991, Hugo Chavez -together with other armed forces' members- turns against the government, creating an uncertain situation for the country. In 1994, Rafael Caldera (COPEI) takes the presidency back; in the meantime, a trial starts against Carlos Andres Perez, who is found guilty of corruption, and is punished with a house arrest.

    In 1998, Hugo Chavez appears once again and this time he is elected president with a 56.2% of the valid votes. The new president starts with a series of drastic constitutional, political and economic changes  that, since 2000, when he is elected president once again (with a 58.8% of the valid votes), had grown worse an pushed Venezuela into a social, economic and political instability. The most recent feature of this crisis was Chavez removal, by a military group and his later comeback to the presidential power.

    Without a doubt, the present situation of Venezuela cannot be understood without the legacy of Carlos Andres Perez. During his first administration -in the context of the petroleum's boom-, he enhanced a solid popular model that granted a handful of subsidies to the workers as well as to the business owners. Perez's first presidential period was characterized by a waste of resources at the state’s institutions; however both bureaucracy and corruption also grew stronger. In 1988, his second presidential period starts, only that this time his economic program -against the Democratic Action- would be very different from his first administration. This time, the president would try to run an ambitious economic reform plan, its main features were the reduction of the state's apparatus, a subsidies' cut,  the commercial openness and the withdrawal of the protection mechanisms that favored the business company owners.

    The reform started by president Perez was parallel to the echoes of the debt's crisis (1983), which strongly affected Venezuela. The external debt of this country had grown in the heat of the petroleum's bonanza. The impossibility to pay the debt paralyzed both the public and the private investment activities. The crisis was immediate, since Perez could not revert or control the discomfort of the middle class, the workers, the business owners and the army. Rafael Caldera continued, since 1994, with the crash measures that his predecessor had already started, and the situation had a well known ending: the left-wing's opposition,  the syndicates and the farm laborer's organizations gave their support to Hugo Chavez in 1998, and they endorsed it in 2000.

    Hugo Chavez's purpose is to reform a society that, according to Carlos Andres Perez, has "totally depended on the state, a subsidy dependant businessmen, the exonerations, all that ‘permit syndrome’ that the state developed to favor them, as well as the state's credits. And the society in general, the middle class mostly, is always depending on the subsidies for all the services".

    The Chavez administration has a "neo-populist" character, that is, a strong tendency to some dimensions of the connection between the state and the society. What predominates is the clientele relations between the state and certain social groups, and this happens in an international context engraved by the state's reduction and its loss of the social and economic starring role. The Chavez project, without a doubt,  has a strong popular orientation-and this is not a good feature according to the business elite-, although its execution contemplates measures oriented to end with the union privileges inherited from the past, as well as with the benefits received by the middle sectors ever since the first administration period of Carlos Andres Perez.

    That popular orientation of the government has been accompanied by a strong concentration of power in the hands of Hugo Chavez, giving to his administration a suspicious authoritarian contrast -supported by an institutional frame of decisions expressly created by the Venezuelan president himself, in order to legitimate his way of dealing with power. This situation, plus his closeness to Fidel Castro and his trips to the Middle East, have made him seem -thanks to the strong media campaigns against him- as a dangerous person. Some people think that it is necessary to get rid of him as soon as possible and by all means. That was what those who tried to take his power away thought, disrespecting Venezuela's fundamental constitutional rules. It is a good thing that the attempt did not worked, since, otherwise, that South American country would have gone into an even deeper crisis.

    Anyone can be as critical as possible with Hugo Chavez, however -if to defend democracy is the point- it cannot be tolerated that a group of military men, encouraged by the businessmen that protect their own interests, decides to break with the current institutional performance -which contemplates the mechanisms to remove an incompetent president- to arbitrarily decide how things should be. Those people, as President Flores, who did not doubt to legitimate the coup d’etat against Chavez were betrayed by their ideological blindness, their ignorance and the weakness of their democratic convictions.
 

    Last week's  failed military coup d’etat against the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, has left a very uncomfortable situation for the Salvadoran diplomacy. In a precipitated and very puerile declaration, President Francisco Flores rushed himself to congratulate those who performed the coup d’etat, making Chavez responsible for the April 11th violent events, offering acknowledgement and collaboration to the power's usurpers. Now, after the “counter-coup d’etat” that allowed Chavez's return and the restoration of the constitutional order in Venezuela, the chancellery officials are doing the impossible to build the president's image. They must defend, with a surprising audacity, a completely different thesis, making people see, in addition, that the Salvadoran President did not mean what the press interpreted. There is no doubt that this maneuver will not grant the expected effects, and Flores will historically become what he is: an imprudent president, who committed an indiscretion -as in many other occasions- in the least indicated moment.

    It is necessary to ask if the diplomatic ridicule that the rushed support of Flores to the coup d’etat of the Venezuelan right-wing sectors is an exclusive product of inexperience, as certain people seem to think; or if it is also a decision, whose explanation can probably be found in the most recalcitrant right-wing thesis (which is generally sustained by the President). There is no doubt that no explanation based on the former ideas will be enough to exonerate the ARENA leader. However, a right comprehension of that fact could help to unmask some myths knitted around his image.

Inexperienced leader?
    It was the year 2000 during November, when Francisco Flores was introduced in the international context. At the celebration of the Hispanic Summit of Panama, he argued with Fidel Castro. He blamed Castro for the twelve years of civil war in El Salvador. The Cuban leader's decisive support  to the Marxist guerrillas of that time would have established the difference in the crude confrontation. On the other hand, Castro questioned the qualification of the Salvadoran president to promote a condemnation against the international terrorism, when a minister of his cabinet would have protected, during a considerable number of years, one of Latin America's most wanted terrorists, Luis Posada Carriles.

    Ever since that argument, despite the mistaken defense arguments that Flores used, a good part of the national press “consecrated” him as the maximum example of the Central American dignity. And the leaders of the region, driven by the importance of the events, also agreed to find in him his legitimate defender. Panama's President was the most enthusiastic one, ashamed as she was by Castro's surprising revelations about the presence of Posada Carriles in the Panamanian territory, and the plans to murder him. She found support in Flores, and applauded his capability to revert the events and turn shame into anger.

    The United States' President, George W. Bush, rapidly noticed Flores' anti left-wing disposition. He called him his "friend",  he called him the most lucid president of the region, and he designated him as Latin America's spokesperson. Ever since then, Flores' ego has grown stronger. He keeps repeating the Neoliberal discourse. Economic liberalization is his standard, and the defense of freedom is his shield. He went to Rome to defend him, requested by his friend, Bush, in the occasion of the Summit celebration of the seven most industrialized countries and Russia.

    Therefore, some connection must exist between the Salvadoran president's pointed remark, and the well-known vertigo syndrome, before such a fast international career  move. It is very probable that he might have not listened to his advisors, who surely asked for more prudence. The rush to defend the Neoliberal thesis did not give him time to remember that El Salvador had signed on September 11th (2001) the American Democratic Letter, which criticized any forced rupture of the region's democratic order. He went even further than his Washington mentors, who, so it seems, knew about the coup d’etat’s arrangements, to offer all the possible support to the businessman involved in it.

    However, at the same time, Flores did not wait to find out the situation of "the freedoms" that would allegedly be defended under Carmona's government. Now it is known that the ones responsible for the coup d’etat disrespected the Venezuelan laws. They committed, in 27 hours, more violations to the human rights than Hugo Chavez in the three year period he has as Venezuela's President. Flores excuse, according to which he did not know if it was a coup d’etat and that nobody had informed him that the Venezuelan president had not signed any resignation, make things even more shameful for Flores. This shows his irresponsibility and his lack of experience in the field of the international politics.

    If he had made contact with his ambassador in Caracas, he might have suggested him a waiting period before announcing his total support to the responsible ones for the coup d’etat. He wanted to be decisive with the strategy encouraged from Washington to internationally acknowledge those who had overthrown Chavez. But it did not happen that way. Using his title of Latin American leader, recently granted by Bush, was a bad move. He ridiculed himself, together with his rhetoric of the defender of democracy and freedom.

A supportive right wing
    On the other hand, Flores' declarations, about the April 11th events in Caracas,  show through an irresistible tendency to support the interests of the most conservative right-wing. In this case, it has been the Venezuelan right-wing, but the same thing would have happened if the case were to defend the selfish interests of any oligarchy of the continent. Flores could not hide his adhesion to what he had considered as a unacceptable insult from Chavez to the nation and the international capitalism in Venezuela. Even if he had to throw away all his rhetoric about the respect for the human rights.

    The National Association of the Private Business Companies (ANEP, in Spanish) showed the same attitude through its president, Antonio Saca. He had the same desire to be the first one to sympathize with the capitalist interests, he send a letter to Pedro Carmona supporting his activities. In El Salvador, the most influential sectors took their president's side to condemn a blood filled coup d’etat. The popular support was questionable.

    Much can be said about the right-wing's reaction to the coup d’etat at Venezuela, but there are no doubts that their support to the destruction of the democratic process must be a reflection issue for the Salvadoran society. Until now,  the usual discourse emphasized on the right-wing’s compromise with democracy and the strengthening of the Salvadoran institutions. Now it is evident that things do not happen on that direction. Or, at least, the right-wing would not be willing to accept a government with left-wing tendencies who would question their economic privileges. And that is precisely what Chavez's discourse and some of his decisions meant for them along the last three years of his administration.

Chavez's "sins"
    There is no doubt that during his administration, Chavez has not been able to conciliate the demands of those who voted for him with the interests of the rest of the society. It seems that he has not been able to keep alive the sympathy of most of the people who believed in him. A recent public opinion poll acknowledges him a 22% of popular support. Even if this amount does not place him in a much higher status than any of his contenders, it is still an odd situation for someone who had been elected by almost 60%  of the voters. In addition, the observers unanimously recognize the extreme polarization that Chavez's sympathizers and the detractors keep. In this sense, Venezuela has turned into an unstable society, where confrontation appears to be the golden rule.

    On the other hand,  along with Chavez's confrontation discourse and his declarations for a political independence of the Latin American countries, he has tried to practice his ideas. The petroleum's international policy is a clear example of that. Until Chavez's arrival to the country's administration, Venezuela was considered as the Organization of Petroleum Producers' less likely to respect the fees demanded by the organization. However, by being resourceful, Chavez has broken that tradition. Through an approach policy focused on the other members of the petroleum organization, he managed to establish the oil's prices, and they have been tripled in only 18 months.

    It is well known that an increase policy for the petroleum prices  contradicts the interests of the richest countries that depend on the petroleum. This is, without a doubt, the reason why, most of these countries reacted in a shy way against the coup d’etat. They found in the Fedecamaras, the Venezuelan business association, an strategic ally who could have helped to reduce the petroleum prices internationally. This is the context to understand the position of The United States before and during the frustrated coup d’etat against Hugo Chavez.

    The problems caused by the floods in the city of San Salvador are a clear symptom of a deficient environmental administration that has turned into a growing problem of an unsustainable urban development. The impact of the earthquakes, floods and landslides, just like the contamination problems and its effects, are a few signs of the negative impact caused by San Salvador's "urban development". The most recent case is the impact caused by the first rain (the transition to this year's winter season), which caused damage and loss in areas traditionally considered as "highly risky", and even in other areas that were considered safe in this kind of situations.

    Although in San Salvador the floods are practically causing disasters ever since the last half of the 19th century, the frequency of this kind of events has increased proportionally to the city's development. Little by little, the floods (and the problems they bring along) have been understood as a part of the daily life, that is, as a problem people has to deal with every single year, or at least as a technical sample of how inadequate the drainage systems are. At least that is the opinion of most institutions and the people involved with them.

    The truth is that the negative effects caused by the floods are the result of multiple physical, technical, environmental, social and economic conditions. The first storm was a reminder of the potential risk that most of the city runs. But at the same time it has turned into an opportunity to briefly examine some of the factors that cause flood disasters in San Salvador. Although this could be considered of small importance, it is a sign that worse times are yet to come.

    During the already mentioned date, the following areas were affected by the rain: the historic neighborhoods at the lower part of the city (especially Modelo and Candelaria, where, in 1922, over 100 people died), the communities located at the river basin of "La Lechuza", upper class neighborhoods such as the Colonia San Benito, and even the higher areas of the city (specially Nueva San Salvador), where, theoretically, floods are not supposed to develop. It is calculated that seventy houses and its families were affected. A similar situation occurred on May 31st, and in several days during that winter and in former years.

    At the foundations of the process there are problems such as the overpopulation at the areas threatened by floods and landslides, the installation of channels at the ravines and rivers to expand the city and its streets, the migration of poor families to the city, the concentration of infrastructure investments, the little number of institutions in charge of the territorial rearrangement, and the inadequate use of  the natural resources (from a preservation perspective of the hydrological cycle).

    After the 1986 earthquake, a new and considerable housing deficit emerged, derived from the massive destruction of  “mesones” (rooms rented to poor families, where they live in crowded and inadequate conditions) in San Salvador's central area and close-by neighborhoods. This situation caused certain conditions that together with the extreme poverty, intensified the occupation of high risk areas, specially at the river basins, ravines and sandy areas that surround the city of San Salvador. It is no coincidence that, since then, the "small" disasters at the high risk communities have been multiplied, although this is not the only cause. It is also necessary to consider what kinds of infrastructure block  the water flow, since this generates dams. The community of Nueva Israel can be considered as an example of this case, where the floods have become worse after the construction of a vault at the ravine’s riverbed, called "La Lechuza", during 1999. For this year, other floods took place at the highest area of "La Lechuza", located at San Benito, a luxurious neighborhood, where this "aggressions" of nature were something new.

    Other factors of these risks have to do with certain structural economic and social activities, as it has been the consolidation of a society highly concentrated in the San Salvador area, a process that reaches its peak during the thirties, and which continues until the present day. Close to 30% of the total population, and close to a 60% of the country's urban population are concentrated in the San Salvador area, among other things,  thanks to the different investments and a relatively better access to the basic utilities. All of these aspects can be added to the fact that the economic performance is parallel to the presence of a numerous rate of poor population. This situation creates an scenery prone to the development of disasters. In fact, those who are more affected by the floods are the families with lower incomes, who inhabit marginal urban communities, and who either work in an informal sector or earn the minimum wage.

    The already mentioned concentration of investments has brought along other effects, such as the creation of new threats, derived from both the infrastructure and housing construction. During the nineties, the urban development of former coffee-growing haciendas, located at the highest area of the river basin (where San Salvador is located),  also took place. Changing in this way the use given to the land means to go from a relatively stable situation of the hydrological cycle -a situation in which the basin was able to retain and infiltrate the intense winter precipitations- to an unstable situation for the hydrological cycle, in which the precipitations superficially flow over the asphalt and the concrete, causing intense and unusual high waters that flow into the lower parts of the city, and affect the higher parts of the counties.

    Regarding this situation, one of the main challenges has to do with the institutional performance's adaptation of the state, the municipalities, and the private business companies. It is evident that the territorial occupation activities, the use of the natural resources, and the economic organization have reduced the resistance to the rain, and this is evident with the annual floods and disasters that regularly keep taking place in practically the same areas.

    Ever since the last year, the central government  undertook a family rearrangement policy for those located at highly threatened zones. However, it is also necessary to deal with other equally complex problems, which are related not only with structural aspects -such as the enlargement of drainages, and the problem seems to be reduced to this perspective-, but also with the harmonization of the economic activities and the preservation of the minimum safety requirements.

    Presently, we are facing the virtual beginning of a beltway construction around San Salvador, which involves new actions to generate urban risks, not only because of its direct impact, but also because of the new urbanizations that will develop around it. The same thing can be said about the inhabitation of the threatened areas, and the areas with a large concentration of people.

    In summary, even if it can be admitted that the dimensions of the urban risks involve mid term interventions, it cannot be overlooked that the inclusion of mitigation criteria and the risk planning activities in the new projects are, clearly, an immediate need that the governments  and the civil society must undertake. The weakest part of the population is always the most affected one in a disaster situation, that is why it is important that the civil society gets more involved in issues of this nature.
 
 
 

Please, send us your comments and suggestions