El Salvador Perspectives

Political violence erupted in El Salvador tonight in a manner not seen in decades.    As the FMLN was concluding a rally in San Salvador to kick off the campaign for its mayoral candidate Rogelio Canales, a suspect pulled up in a blue car and began shooting.   Two people were killed and five wounded in the shooting which occurred in the charged atmosphere leading up to El Salvador's national elections four weeks from today.  As of late Sunday, three suspects had reportedly been arrested . Images circulated on twitter of the blood spattered bed of a truck which had been participating transporting rally participants. It's lamentable that in our country, one more time, we kill each other over political differences.  All ought to be responsible with their words and actions.   Democracy, earned after shedding so much blood of our sisters and brothers, can't give way to hate.   -- Miguel Pereira, FMLN mayor of San Miguel   Many were outraged when the first reaction by President N

Two different rankings of countries in the world were being publicized last week.   One set of rankings was publicized by the Lowy Institute , looking at the performance of countries around the world in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.   On that ranking, El Salvador ranked 56th out of 98 countries around the world which have publicly available data for a set of indicators like case rates, testing and mortality.  In general, El Salvador fared better than most of the Americas, other than Uruguay, ranked 12th in the world, and Jamaica at 31st.  (The United States was 94, Mexico 97 and Brazil 98).    Not surprisingly, president Bukele focused on the comparison with other Latin American countries  tweeting : First place in Central America and second in all  Latin America (only below Uruguay). Note that this data relies on the publicly released data from individual governments.   El Salvador does not allow the press or civil society access to underlying data, and the government has previously

The  US Department of Justice  has unsealed an indictment against the top leadership group of MS-13 , the " Ranfla Nacional. "   Eleven of the 14 defendants are in prison in El Salvador from where they direct local and international operations of the gang.   Here is the introduction to the US indictment : La Mara Salvatrucha (hereinafter "MS-1 3") was a transnational criminal organization with tens of thousands of members worldwide whose members engaged in "terrorist activity," as defined by Title 8, United States Code, Section I182(a)(3)(B)(iii) and (iv), and in "terrorism," as defined by Title 22, United States Code, Section 2656f(d)(2). MS-13 and its members used violence against law enforcement, military members, government officials and civilians in El Salvador in order to obtain concessions from the government of El Salvador, achieve political goals and retaliate for government actions against MS-13's members and leaders. MS-13's le

It is almost a cliché to say that El Salvador is a violent country. Today that violence is usually associated in popular understanding with the country's street gangs, but the violence has much deeper roots. Modern El Salvador's violence certainly dates back to the arrival of the Spaniards to the "New World." Seeking gold and silver and other wealth in the natural resources of the Americas, while decimating indigenous peoples and forcibly converting them to Christianity, the European invaders would build a hierarchical society kept in place with violence.  Three books I read in 2020 provide additional perspective into the roots and the manifestations of that violence today. Written from three very different vantage points, CoffeeLand , Unforgetting and The Hollywood Kid , take readers on explorations of the history of violence in El Salvador throughout the 20th century until the recent past. Economic violence translates into physical violence. Violence

Headline on signing of 1992 Peace Accords Twenty-nine years ago yesterday, on January 16, 1992, Peace Accords brokered by the United Nations were signed to end El Salvador's bloody civil war and put in place a series of structural and constitutional reforms.  Today in El Salvador, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele is openly questioning the value of those accords. At the Peace Accords signing ceremony, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali stated:  The long night of El Salvador is drawing to an end...It is no exaggeration to say that, taken together, and given their breadth and scope, these [peace] agreements constitute a prescription for a revolution achieved by negotiation In his introduction to The UN and El Salvador: 1990-1995 , Boutros-Ghali wrote: El Salvador in 1995 could confidently be called a nation transformed. Where once human rights were violated with impunity, a new framework to ensure the rights of citizens was being put into place, bolstered by new democratic in

One of the accomplishments touted most often by the government of Nayib Bukele is the construction of a hospital dedicated to treating COVID-19 patients, "Hospital El Salvador."   The hospital was constructed by converting facilities at the CIFCO convention center in San Salvador and a promised third phase still under construction across the street.   The official twitter account for the Hospital @HospitalSV describes itself as "The largest and most modern hospital in Latin America. For the people, always the best."   This feed, along with government health ministries and the president's office, regularly broadcasts pictures like these of modern facilities and happy recovered patients: From @HospitalSV tweet From @HospitalSV tweet The operations of the hospital were described for the world in a comment piece in The Lancet titled  Hospital El Salvador: a novel paradigm of intensive care in response to COVID-19 in central America , written by hospital staff docto

 Today is the twentieth anniversary of the first of two devastating earthquakes which hit El Salvador in 2001.  That quake registered 7.6 on the Richter scale.  Exactly one month later, on February 13, another earthquake would cause more damage.  Between those two, the  damage was enormous : 1,259 deaths, 9,000 injuries and 1.6 million homeless victims in a country with a population of approximately six million. 150,000 homes were destroyed; 185,000 were damaged. Highways and roads were heavily damaged ). Eight hospitals and 113 of 361 health facilities were severely damaged representing 55 percent of the country’s capacity to deliver health services. Nearly 35 percent of all schools were affected (1,681 out of 4,820). This  BBC story  from January 13, 2001 describes the aftermath of that first earthquake ten years ago.   Worst hit was the neighborhood of Las Colinas, close to San Salvador, where a hillside gave way, burying the homes below it and killing more than 585. Las Colinas fol

Here is my annual list of the top stories from the past year in El Salvador.  Perhaps not surprisingly, president Nayib Bukele ends up being mentioned in all but one of the stories as he dominates the political landscape and the national conversation.  This list is not in order of importance.   Bukele and soldiers march into Legislative Assembly   At the beginning of February, president Nayib Bukele was frustrated that the Legislative Assembly had not approved a loan request to fund various military and public security items. He insisted that the legislature come into session to vote on his request on Sunday, February 9.  When the bulk of legislators did not respond to his call, after deploying security forces across the capital, Bukele marched into the chamber of the Legislative Assembly, escorted by armed troops in combat gear.   He sat himself in the chair of the president of the Assembly and proceeded to pray, leaving several minutes later.  He then spoke to supporters outside w