El Salvador Perspectives

Sharing a series of short takes on some recent events in El Salvador. Ex-president Mauricio Funes and his former Minister of Justice and Security, David Munguía Payes were  sentenced to prison  this week for making deals with gang leaders in prison in  2012 gang truce .  Funes is living in exile in Nicaragua after fleeing there to avoid prosecution.  Munguia Payes who claims the prosecution was politically motivated is in custody in El Salvador.  Military and security forces are going out in a new offensive in the State of Exception.  The office of president Bukele  announced  that although the country was decisively winning its war on gangs, it needed to launch an enhanced offensive to round up remnants of the gangs. Nayib Bukele has appointed a new Commissioner for Human Rights and Freedom of Expression, Colombian lawyer  Andrés Guzmán Caballero . A profile in El Pais  describes the new commissioner as a specialist in cyberc...

  It's politically expedient to attack the corruption of a prior government. The tough part is making sure that your friends and allies don't engage in the same activities now that they are in power.    This sounds like something I would write today in El Salvador Perspectives.  But in fact, this was a quote from a post I wrote in June 2009 .  Mauricio Funes had just taken office as the first leftist president in El Salvador's history to much hope and fanfare and had just announced the formation of a commission to investigate acts of corruption in the government of his predecessor, Antonio Saca.   The commission was to be led by the Treasury Minister, Carlos Cáceres. Despite the announcement of an anti-corruption commission, the endemic practice of Salvadoran politicians enriching themselves at the public trough did not end.  In fact, we learned that Mauricio Funes found out from his predecessor Saca how secret slush funds controlled by the pres...

El Salvador's attorney general has announced several corruption-related prosecutions in recent weeks relating to officials in past governments of El Salvador.   So far, the attorney general has not been seen acting on reports of potential corruption in the current government of president Nayib Bukele.   And Bukele has rejected attempts to require greater transparency over his government's use of public dollars.  One case involves the Chaparral dam currently under construction.  This is a major hydro-electric project originally contracted in 2008 during the administration of president Tony Saca which was controversial from the beginning.   The attorney general's office announced corruption and money laundering charges against former president Mauricio Funes, currently in exile in Nicaragua after fleeing other corruption charges, against José Miguel Antonio Menéndez Avelar, known as "Mecafé" and other individuals.   The corruption claim ...

Today is the final day of ten years of the left-wing FMLN in the presidency of El Salvador.   And so we take a look back at the legacy of the governments of the party formed by former guerrilla forces turned politicians after the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords. Unfortunately for the FMLN, the two presidents elected under the party’s banner end up dragging down its legacy.  Mauricio Funes enjoyed high popularity ratings and swept the party into the presidency for the first time in 2009.  Yet now Funes sits in exile in Nicaragua, with orders for his capture on corruption charges outstanding, and with investigative journalists detailing how he lived a luxury lifestyle fueled by public dollars in a secret account of the presidency.  Salvador Sánchez Cerén has not had charges of corruption leveled against him, but that might be the most positive thing one can say about his presidency.  As a leader, he has inspired no one and been largely absent from an...

Ten years ago on June 1, 2009, Mauricio Funes took office as president of El Salvador to great hope and expectations.  He came into office as the first president elected from the left wing FMLN after decades of rule by conservative right wing parties. How things have changed.   Funes now sits in exile in Nicaragua.   He is wanted in El Salvador for alleged diversion of as much as $300 million from secret accounts of the executive branch.  He is also wanted for leaking a confidential law enforcement memo related to the corruption of one of his predecessors, Francisco Flores.  Funes, along with his mistress and three children received political asylum in Nicaragua in September 2016.  From Nicaragua, Funes tweets non-stop about politics in El Salvador.   It had not been clear that anyone was really paying him any attention.   Here is his Twitter profile: Ex-president of El Salvador.  Persecuted by the criminal just...

The corruption trial of the former president of El Salvador, Antonio Saca, is drawing to a close.   Saca has already confessed to diverting more than $300 million in public funds.   Now he and his co-defendants will wait and learn their fate. The periodical El Faro has been reporting on the financial accounts which made this possible. Essentially, the Executive branch in El Salvador has been given a budget of funds by El Salvador's legislature which is treated as "under reserve" or secret.   These are discretionary funds where the president is supposed to decide where they should best be spent.    Presidents from both parties have treated these funds not only as discretionary, but as one for which they need not be accountable to anyone.   Government auditors are not granted access to the account spending.   No disclosure is made of how the money is used.   Presidential spokesmen refuse to answer questions f...

This article originally appeared on the website of InsightCrime with the title  El Salvador Ex-President Funes’ Trash Bags Full of Money Written by Héctor Silva Ávalos - JUNE 13, 2018 El Salvador has not sparked as much attention as its neighbors when it comes to corruption scandals, but a litany of accusations against former President Mauricio Funes and his relatives along with millions of dollars transferred in trash bags might change that. The scheme was relatively straight forward. A member of the corruption network allegedly headed by former Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes during his 2009 to 2014 term would arrive at a state bank, fill up big black trash bags with thousands of dollars in cash and then drive them to the presidential residence. The money was allegedly for Funes, his family and other members of his inner circle who used it to pay for travel, properties, luxury goods and services such as plastic surgery, according to El Salvador’s Attorney General’s...

El Salvador elected him in 2009 with great hope and public acclaim -- Mauricio Funes was the first president of El Salvador from the left wing FMLN.   This weekend, however, El Salvador's attorney general is seeking an arrest warrant for Funes arising out of a corruption case involving the diversion of $351 million from Salvadoran government accounts.  Funes is in exile in Nicaragua where he has been since 2016. From Reuters : El Salvador’s attorney general ordered the arrest on Friday of former president for alleged embezzlement and money laundering, in addition to allegedly covering up various illicit acts during his government.  Funes, who has been in exile in Nicaragua since September 2016, is accused of using public funds to pay for trips, home remodeling and hospital bills, among other expenses.  The attorney general also sought the arrest of 29 other people, including relatives of Funes and former officials in his administration. The online p...

El Salvador's first president to be elected under the banner of the leftist FMLN, Mauricio Funes, was elected in 2009 to great fanfare.   But in November 2017, he is living in exile in Nicaragua and has just been ordered by a Salvadoran court to pay back $419,145 for which he and one of his sons could not explain the origins.   Under Salvadoran law, public officials need to make an accounting for any increase in personal wealth during their time in office, and if they cannot explain it, it is presumed they came by the increase in wealth illicitly.   A separate claim against Funes' ex-wife and current government minister, Vanda Pignato, was dismissed.      Funes immediately launched into another defense of himself from his Twitter account .   Funes announced that he would appeal the decision and challenged the government to prove that any of this money had come from Salvadoran government coffers.  Funes blamed the ...

The judge overseeing the trial of government officials involved in the 2012 gang truce in El Salvador has dismissed the charges against all the defendants.   The judge ruled that the prosecutors had failed to prove their case , and pointed primarily at the Minister of Justice and Public Security, David Munguía Payés, who is now the Minister of Defense in El Salvador.   Munguía Payés initiated and authorized the government's participation in the truce, according to the court, and the judge also pointed at the likely involvement of then president Mauricio Funes.   The defendants in the case were simply implementing a plan created at the top levels of the administration of president Funes. El Salvador's Attorney General announced on Thursday that he will appeal the dismissal of the charges. Beyond the appeal, one open question is whether Attorney General Douglas Melendez will ever pursue  Munguía Payés and Funes?    The other question is wheth...

In 2009, voters made Mauricio Funes the first president of El Salvador from the Left.  His election was a cause of great celebration for those on the left, and throughout most of his presidency, Funes was one of the most popular presidents in all of Latin America. But the years since have not not been kind to Funes' reputation.   A series of investigations and scandals have dogged the ex-president who now lives in self-imposed exile in Nicaragua: The gang truce .  The now-discredited gang truce arose during Funes' presidency, but he always tried to maintain plausible deniability about his role in it.  In the trial of various government officials for granting benefits to gang leaders in prison, then-minister of security David Munguia Payes testified that Funes had authorized and was kept informed of the elements of the truce as it unfolded: From Héctor Silva Ávalos, writing at Insight Crime : Mauricio Funes... was very familiar with the gang truce from ...

The investigative journalists at El Faro have published a report on a parallel secret set of financial records used by ARENA presidential administrations of Calderon Sol, Flores and Tony Saca.    The records reflect money diverted from the government to many purposes: Between 1994 and 2006, the Presidency of the Republic maintained a register parallel to the official one in order to hide the true use of hundreds of millions of dollars. Two accounting books to which El Faro had access detailed how the last three governments of ARENA utilized 322 million dollars, and more than half of this amount corresponds to checks paid to the order of ex-presidents Armando Calderón Sol, Francisco Flores and Antonio Saca. The El Faro reporting goes on to describe how the various presidents over the course of twelve years hid how they used "discretionary" funds of the presidency.  In additions to payments to the presidents themselves, millions were paid out in bonuses to government of...

Mauricio Funes, El Salvador's first popularly elected left-wing president, has sought and been granted asylum in Nicaragua.  From the Guardian : Nicaragua said on Tuesday it has given political asylum to former El Salvador president Mauricio Funes, who has come under scrutiny back home for a truce with gangs during his administration and is also facing multiple legal cases.  The Nicaraguan government’s official Daily Gazette published a notice announcing that Funes, his partner and three children have all been granted asylum. It said their lives and physical integrity are in danger as a result of “fighting in favor of democracy, peace, justice and human rights”.  Funes said via Twitter that he decided to seek asylum on 31 August “after confirming the political persecution that is being initiated against me”.  According to the Gazette, the petition was dated 1 September, the same day El Salvador’s supreme court ordered the release of a list of Funes’s governm...

On Wednesday August 17, raids were conducted on several locations tied to Miguel Menéndez (known as "Mecafé") one of the financial backers of the 2009 presidential campaign of Mauricio Funes.   Mecafe was one of the prominent "Amigos of Mauricio Funes," a group of business people outside of the FMLN hierarchy who supported the former journalist's run for president.  Funes was the first president of El Salvador elected from a left-wing party. The raids are part of a corruption investigation against the former president including allegations of influence-trafficking, misappropriation and illicit enrichment.  Mecafe owns a private security firm named Cosase which earned millions in contracts with the Funes administration to provide private security services.  Mecafe became the chief of the El Salvador convention authority during the Funes administration. The ex-president has been denying any allegations of wrongdoing on his Twitter account . There is also an...

It may be getting tougher to get away with corruption in El Salvador.    Investigative journalism by online journalists like those at El Faro and RevistaFactum  are regularly describing corruption.    The Probidad division of El Salvador's Supreme Court has open investigations against at least 9 high public officials including two former presidents.   El Salvador's new attorney general Douglas Meléndez has shown a willingness to pursue cases of corruption involving figures on both sides of the political spectrum.    In twelve years of writing this blog, I don't think the amount of corruption has changed over that time.   But the amount of news coverage and the number of possible prosecutions certainly has increased in the past few years.   That's a good thing. As the most recent example, the online periodical El Faro is one of the periodicals world wide participating in the disclosure of the so-called "Panama Papers."   Th...

Written by Arron Daugherty and originally published on the website of InsightCrime . El Salvador's past three presidents have now been accused of corruption, a possible sign the Supreme Court is ready to take on the nation's highest political office. Former El Salvador President Mauricio Funes (2009-2014) is likely to face three separate investigations into his assets, including a money laundering case, an unnamed source close to the Supreme Court told Diario Latino . Funes is already embroiled in an illicit enrichment case and has had certain assets frozen, including four bank accounts, El Faro reported. Accusations against the former president revolve around his inability to account for millions of dollars in personal income and assets. Funes has maintained his innocence and claimed he is being persecuted by his political rivals. Meanwhile the Supreme Court has informed Funes' predecessor, Elías Antonio Saca (2004-2009), that he must account for over $6 million in pers...