El Salvador Perspectives

Salvadoran authorities have put the areas around the Santa Ana volcano on yellow alert after a recent rise in activity at the volcano. The Salvadoran government agency SNET monitored 17 small earthquakes coming from the volcano, and columns of gas and vapor reached to a height of a kilometer. Authorities are not recommending any evacuations of persons living nearby, but there will be an increased level of monitoring and tourists will be barred from the crater area. SNET has an informative website (in Spanish) about the volcanoes of El Salvador.

La Prensa has published some new polling figures: When asked which party they would vote for in the upcoming elections, respondents answered: 27% ARENA 14% FMLN 41% no answer 18% other parties The level of support for the FMLN has been relatively constant, but support for ARENA has declined from almost 50% to 27%. President Tony Saca has a 72% approval rating.

The AP has an interview of a Salvadoran soldier who just returned from Iraq. The story emphasizes humanitarian work being done by the Salvadoran troops: It was dangerous at times, as servicemen fired their guns in the air to warn against possible attacks. But for at least one Salvadoran soldier - whose countrymen are the only Latin American soldiers left in Iraq - the six months he spent helping to build schools, drinking-water systems and clinics in Iraq were worth the time away from his family. In an interview with The Associated Press upon returning home, Lt. Jose Rivera recalled how the Iraqi people would offer the soldiers tea and call them friends. The children would greet them with hugs.

The Boston Globe has a moving story today about two sisters who grew up with adoptive parents in the United States after their birth parents were killed in the Salvadoran civil war. Twenty-one years after they left El Salvador, the paper tells the story of their return to El Salvador and the strangeness of meeting family and relatives who live in desperate poverty. Their visit to relatives in Las Flores, El Salvador, speaks volumes about the relationship of North American and Salvadoran societies.

AIDS is not recent news, but its global threat must never be ignored. HIV/AIDS has progressed steadily in El Salvador over the past 20 years. As is true in many poor countries, ignorance, discrimination and an underfunded health care system create conditions where the disease can spread. The USAID Country Profile, December 2004 has statistics on the current reach of the disease in El Salvador: Since AIDS was first identified in El Salvador 1984, the epidemic has grown steadily, especially in urban areas. More cases have been reported since January 1999 than in all previous years. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) currently estimates that by the end of 2003, 29,000 adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS, yielding an adult prevalence of 0.7 percent.... El Salvador is considered to have a concentrated epidemic, with prevalence consistently exceeding 5 percent in one or more vulnerable populations: commercial sex workers, in some cases, as high as 10 percen...

On Monday, August 22, television preacher Pat Robertson declared: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if [Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." That comment brought condemnation from many, and was repudiated by US government officials, but it has created a political firestorm in El Salvador. Schafik Handal, the FMLN leader, was in Cuba to attend the graduation of a class of doctors from medical school on the day Robertson's remarks were made. Hugo Chavez was also there. Handal was a guest on a call-in show "Al&#243 Presidente!" which Chavez broadcasts. In response to questions about Pat Robertson's remarks, Handal stated that El Salvador would send hundreds, even thousands of combatants to support Venezuela if it was attacked by the US. Tony Saca immediately condemned Handa...

Edgar Lopez Bertrand, better known as Brother Toby, was freed from custody in federal court in Houston, Texas today. Salvadoran press reported that the well-known Salvadoran preacher was "freed of all charges," but I have not seen confirmation of that statement. A dismissal of charges against Brother Toby would be unusual in light of his guilty plea entered in July. The US Justice Department press release regarding the guilty plea can be found here . UPDATE The Associated Press clarifies that Edgar Lopez Bertrand was not cleared of all charges, today, but was instead sentenced to "time served" equal to the 100 days he had already spent in federal custody. In addition he was sentenced to two years of supervised release and fined.