El Salvador Perspectives

Unlike many countries in Latin America, baseball is not a big sport in El Salvador. Salvadorans follow NBA basketball much closer than major league baseball, and of course nothing approaches the passion for soccer (football). But there has been some increased interest in baseball in El Salvador since the late 1990's. Now the Miami Herald runs a story about the first Salvadoran player to sign a professional contract in the United States. He is Wilmer Villatoro, a right-handed pitcher playing in the San Diego Padres minor league organization. Since being signed he has reached the AA leval in the minor leagues.

As the US House was voting to approve CAFTA, the Salvadoran National Assembly voted to keep troops in Iraq for at least another year. Young men from El Salvador will continue to risk their lives in a war zone where the only national interest of El Salvador is currying favor with the US government.

Catholic New Service reports that Vatican watchers see promising signs for slain Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero's possible beatification. But politics might still get in the way: Morozzo said a big, persistent problem is "the political use of Archbishop Romero." He said in Latin America he had seen T-shirts picturing Archbishop Romero and Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary. "If his (Archbishop Romero's) figure is seen as political, it is a problem for the church," Morozzo said. "They do not want a saint sharing a T-shirt with Che Guevara."

In a vote late in the night, the Bush administration managed to twist enough arms and promise enough deals to get the votes it needed to ratify CAFTA. The Washington Post describes some of the last minute pressure: The 217 to 215 vote came just after midnight, in a dramatic finish that highlighted the intensity brought by both sides to the battle. When the usual 15-minute voting period expired at 11:17 p.m., the no votes outnumbered the yes votes by 180 to 175, with dozens of members undeclared. House Republican leaders kept the voting open for another 47 minutes, furiously rounding up holdouts in their own party until they had secured just enough to ensure approval.... The last-minute negotiations for Republican votes resembled the wheeling and dealing on a car lot. Republicans who were opposed or undecided were courted during hurried meetings in Capitol hallways, on the House floor and at the White House. GOP leaders told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was th...

It's approaching ten o'clock at night in Washington as the House of Representatives debates ratification of CAFTA. Some of the highlights and lowlights: Highlight -- Hilda Solis, Democratic congresswoman from California of Nicaraguan descent speaking of the impact on the poor of Nicaragua and Central America Low light -- Rep. Burton of Indiana, red-baiting, and claiming that a vote against CAFTA is a vote supporting communists and those who fought against democracy in the 1980s. Highlight -- Rep. Charles Rangel, managing the anti-CAFTA arguments with a sense of humor. Low light -- Rep. Peter Hoekstra: "A vote aginst CAFTA is a vote helping out the Cuban-Venezuela coalition of Castro and Chazez." Highlight -- Rep. Lloyd Doggett -- "I reject an administration that thinks that arrogance alone can be an effective foreign policy." But the real action is off the screen as deals are being made and arms are being twisted to get the votes in favor of CAFTA.

Here are two recent, lengthy articles available on the web which discuss the current realities and paradoxes in El Salvador: Letter From El Salvador : Peter Davis writes in The Nation about the politics and economics of El Salvador. "El Salvador is a series of issues as much as it is a country, and to the degree it is a country it is one where contradictions and extremes rule. As well as paradox." For Two Remote Salvadorian Villages, the Iraq War Hits Close to Home : Jacob Wheeler has an extended version on Utne.com of the earlier San Francisco Chronicle story about the family of El Salvador's soldier killed in Iraq and the community where he lived.

La Prensa Gráfica reports statistics from the US State Department that approximately 15,000 children who are US citizens live in El Salvador. Most of these have Salvadoran parents, and most of them are children of undocumented workers living in the United States. Even though their parents are illegally in the US, by virtue of being born in the United States, they have US citizenship. Since their parents are Salvadoran, they are also recognized by El Salvador as citizens of that country. Most of the children have been sent to live in El Salvador to be cared for by grandparents or other relatives because the parents must work too long and hard to care for them. Once they reach age 21, they can have their parents and siblings legally join them in the United States. There are 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States.