El Salvador Perspectives

In April, a New York Times Magazine cover story focused on the criminalization of abortion in El Salvador. The article by writer Jack Hitt, titled " Pro-Life Nation ", focused on the situation in El Salvador where there are no exceptions where abortion is legal and where women may be prosecuted for having abortions. The article asserted that women had been sentenced to long prision terms for having an abortion. "Pro-Life Nation" received a great deal of publicity when it was published. I wrote about the Times piece on this blog on April 9. The Public Editor for the New York Times, responding to criticisms of the article, has disclosed today that Hitt may have gotten wrong some basic facts in the story: The cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That ref...

Outgoing US Ambassador to Iraq, Douglas Barclay, travelled to Iraq on Christmas Eve to thank the 340 Salvadoran soldiers there for their service. Although public opinion polls show that as many as 80% of Salvadorans opppose the presence of their troops in Iraq, Tony Saca has recently approved commiting troops for another 12 months in that region. Salvadoran soldiers have worked on reconstruction projects in Iraq, and five Salvadoran soldiers have died during the conflict.

A tale of a song and dance which are part of Salvadoran family celebrations at Christmas, from our friend Carlos X. Colorado. MANO A LA BARRIGA Put your hand on your belly and celebrate the holidays Salvadoran style By: Carlos X. Colorado This may be hard for Americans to understand, but the most emblematic Christmas song in El Salvador is called "The Bullet" ("La Bala"). No, this is not a poetic statement about the current gang violence plaguing the country -- more on that, later. The simple fact of the matter is that Salvadoran holiday celebrations are typified by uproarious family gatherings that turn invariably to communal, familiar, inter-generational dancing. "La Bala" is a hit record that has been popularized all over Latin America, but is especially cherished in El Salvador, the land that produced the group that recorded the most popular version of the song. (San Vicente's own Orquesta Internacional los Hermanos Flores, the only Latin act f...

From the 1978 Christmas message of archbishop Oscar Romero: Along with you, my dear brothers and sisters, I too need to receive the good tidings tonight. As shepherd I must announce it, but as shepherd I must also be one of those shepherds of Bethlehem and receive from the angels the news that stirs our hearts. Let us receive it, you and I, with the same simplicity and humility as those shepherds did. The more simple and humble, the more poor and detached from ourselves, the more full oftroubles and problems we are, the more bewildering life’s ways, all the more must we look up to the skies and hear the great news: “A Savior is born to you.” And let us listen in chorus to that great news, sung throughout the universe: “Glory to God in the heavens, and on earth peace to those whom God loves.” December 25, 1978 Taken from The Violence of Love

In recent weeks, two major Salvadoran banks have been sold to foreign banking interests. In the first transaction, US mega-bank Citigroup acquired Banco Cuscatlan . This sale was followed by the sale of El Salvador's largest bank, Banagricola, to Bancolombia , a financial institution based in Colombia.

For the past week, a string of more than 40 small earthquakes has shook towns in Ahuachapán department. The government has declared a red alert because of the seismic activity. So far more than 1500 houses have been damaged , affecting more than 5000 people in the region.

El Faro reports that the FMLN has decided to eliminate internal elections as a way to choose future candidates for the 2009 presidential and legislative elections. (I previously noted these plans in an April 2006 post which followed the party's weak showing in the legislative and municipal elections). At its recent convention, the party decided to eliminate the internal elections which had divided it in the past. There is not yet a proposal for how future candidates will be chosen, but this would appear to be a change which guarantees that the party will field another hard-line leftist candidate for president in 2009. That may not be the best way to change the FMLN's string of losses in every presidential election since the end of the civil war.