El Salvador Perspectives

Opposition to mining continues to gain prominence as a political issue in El Salvador. The relief agency Oxfam America reports that more than 1000 people participated in a week of action events on mining in El Salvador. From Oxfam's website : In a national forum in El Salvador, the Minister of Environment, Hugo Barrera, assured participants that national and international laws will be respected in the process of approving mining projects. "“There are no laws that prohibit mining projects" Barrera said, "“but, there are mechanisms and laws for regulating them." He recognized that the Salvadoran laws may have gaps on account of inexperience. "Where the Salvadoran law falls short, we will apply regulations established in developed countries. Projects that contradict these laws and regulations will not be approved."” Yanira Cortéz, Deputy Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights, spoke of the close relationship between human rights and the environment. ...

Two Canadians sailed into port in Bahia del Sol, El Salvador. They describe their impressions of the country in an article published in the Halifax Chronicle Herald : The Bahia del Sol, in El Salvador, is not really a bay, but an estuary called the Estero Jaltepeque, a place where the tide meets strong river currents. On one side, a narrow spit of mainland lies between sea and estuary. Broad enough to hold hotels, restaurants and walled, gated luxury homes, this spit of land is bisected by a highway that leads to several small and quite impoverished settlements, and then the turn off to San Salvador. Pigs, bulls, cows, roosters and dogs wander the road, eating whatever they can find -- fallen mangoes, cashew fruits, half-rotten cabbages, dry brush. In the mornings, the road is jammed with human traffic as well: coconut vendors, cycling bread sellers with large round baskets filled with pan strapped to their handlebars, long lines of neatly dressed workers waiting for noisy smoke-belch...

Another Salvadoran soldier dies in Iraq . A Salvadoran soldier who was guarding a convoy of trucks of the US contractor Haliburton, was killed in an insurgent attack . Sub-sergeant Donald Alberto Ramirez is the fourth member of the Salvadoran armed forces to be killed in Iraq since El Salvador deployed troops there in 2003, and the second in nine days. El Salvador has about 380 soldiers in Iraq. The recent deaths are leading to renewed calls to recall the troops. The murder rate in El Salvador continues to climb . According to official statistics , there were 1873 murders in the first six months of 2006, an increase of 130 over the same period in 2005. Eighty percent of the murders were committed with firearms. Heavy rains cause flooding in the capital . El Diario de Hoy has a photo gallery of images of flooding in San Salvador earlier this week. The images recall the flooding from Hurricane Stan last October and illustrate that the government has not yet been able to make all ...

An interesting article on the CNN website notes how foreign companies which operate call centers in El Salvador have started to recruit workers from the population of Salvadorans living in the United States. Call centers need English-speakers, and the companies hope to lure young people who learned English in the US back to El Salvador to work the phones. According to the story: In order to meet the demands of companies outsourcing their call centers to El Salvador, the Central American country is beginning a program to recruit its employees from an unlikely location: the United States. The Salvadoran government's economic development organization has started a program called "Meet Your Roots" that "looks for children of Salvadorans born in the U.S. and Canada to reside and work temporarily in El Salvador in order to strengthen their identity and ties to the country," according to the organization's Web site. While strengthening cultural ties, the Salvad...

Congressmen James McGovern and Tom Lantos are collecting support among other legislators to send a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing concern about the confrontations of July 5th and related events. The letter reads: Dear Secretary Rice, We write to express deep concern about events that took place in El Salvador on July 5, 2006. On that day, anti-riot police took up positions before a march which was organized to protest increases in bus fares, as part of a larger ongoing demonstration about the cost of living in the country. During a confrontation between protestors and riot police, many shots were fired at police officers in what appears to have been an ambush by at least one gunman. Two officers were killed, and ten other law enforcement personnel were injured. The police then responded with a major show of force, entering the nearby National University, searching homes and organizational offices in the neighborhood, and making a number of arrests. Althoug...

Three British cyclists just completed a 16,000 mil ride to raise money for schools in Chalatenango, El Salvador. As detailed in this story , the trio spent 11 months, cycling from Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Their charity efforts raised more than $70,000 for building and outfitting school classrooms in rural El Salvador.

Typically my bi-weekly posts concentrate on what native Salvadorans are writing in their blogs about their country. This time I will concentrate on the blogs of people volunteering their time in El Salvador. A blogger who goes by the handle Jefferson, has started a blog to chronicle his time in El Salvador. Illustrating the post with his own photography, " Initiation to San Salvador Via 9 " vividly captures street life in El Salvador. Here's a taste: An old woman selling dried Yucca and Plantains in a bag enters the bus through the rear. She sells a bag of plantains to the man behind us, pouring salt and chile in the bag. She shakes the clear plastic bag, and hands it to the man. I gaze over Noah's shoulder, hoping to get a glimpse of the market place. Endless stations selling pirated movies. Overweight women, dressed in lacy aprons pushing wheelbarrows filled with tomatoes, mangoes, and apples. Big department store signs towering over tarps used as ceilings for th...