Peace Process in El Salvador Threatened by Return of Political Violence

Peace Process in El Salvador Threatened by Return of Political Violence
by Simón Fonseca

EL SALVADOR – Eleven years after the Chapultepec Peace Accords put an end to this nation’s bloody civil war, the specter of political violence has returned to haunt the upcoming March legislative and mayoral elections in El Salvador. On January 20, 2003 a member of the opposition FMLN party was killed by a supporter of the ruling right wing ARENA party during an FMLN campaign parade in the small coffee-producing town of Atiquizaya. 29-year-old Álvaro Edgardo Centeno was participating in the parade when a group of ARENA supporters attacked the marchers with rocks, one of which struck Centeno on the forehead, killing him. That night, when a group of Centeno’s friends went to the police to file a report, the ARENA supporters attacked them a second time with metal chains. Police have arrested one man, Francisco Rodríguez, who they claim threw the fatal rock, but no move has been made to investigate the second attack.
Centeno’s murder has brought back chilling memories of El Salvador’s recent past. During the civil war in the 1980’s, death squads terrorized the Salvadoran countryside, assassinating opposition leaders and supporters, and committing bloody civilian massacres. The ARENA party was founded by death squad leader Roberto D’Aubisson, who a United Nations truth commission later found responsible for planning the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. During the past six months, there has been a resurgence of politically motivated violence in El Salvador. An organization calling itself the "Commandos of Extermination" has sent death threats to over 50 doctors and healthcare workers who are striking against privatization of the country’s public health care system. Other health care workers, including Ricardo Monge, General Secretary of the healthcare workers union, have suffered kidnappings, beatings, personal death threats and repression by masked paramilitaries. The house of FMLN youth leader Gisela Cáceres was machine-gunned on November 14, 2002, and FMLN supporters fear an increase in such repression. Police have refused to investigate these attacks.
FMLN legislative candidate Blandino Nerio believes that the return of political violence in El Salvador is related to ongoing negotiations of a free trade agreement between the United States and Central America, known as CAFTA. "We find ourselves at a critical moment in our nation’s history," he explains, "as the next legislative assembly will determine the future of El Salvador for the next fifty years." This newly elected legislative assembly will have the power to accept or reject treaties like CAFTA. The FMLN opposes CAFTA and any trade treaty that would result in massive privatization of vital public services, violation of labor rights, union busting, and destruction of the agricultural sector. President George Bush and ARENA president Francisco Flores want to pass CAFTA by the end of 2003, before presidential elections in 2004 that could bring the FMLN to power. For this reason, Flores describes CAFTA as his "number one priority" for 2003, and ARENA vice-minister of ideology Bertrand Galindo has called for "total war" against the FMLN in the current elections cycle.
As the FMLN’s popularity continues to rise in the polls, Nerio fears that the electoral violence that claimed the life of Álvaro Centeno will increase. Seeking to guarantee free and fair elections and to prevent further violence, the opposition has called for international elections observers to come to El Salvador in March, 2003. In the words of Nerio, "eleven years after the signing of the Peace Accords, El Salvador is not a nation at peace. Without the support of international election observers, ARENA will return to the violent means they used during the war."

For information about participating in the Salvadoran elections as an international observer, contact the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) at 212-465-8115, or visit http://www.cispes.org/Delegations

Some information for this article taken from La Prensa Gráfica, El Diario de Hoy, and Diario CoLatino.