El Salvador Perspectives

On Tuesday, I pointed to a columnist writing about the need for prevention efforts to deal with Central America and El Salvador's high murder rates. The next day, a report was released by the Latin American Technological Information Network (RITLA), which gave the statistics for the murder rate among the population ages 15 - 24. As the BBC reports: Latin America has the highest murder rates in the world for people aged between 15 and 24, according to a study by a Brazilian research group. Using data from 83 countries, the group found that the probability of a young person being murdered in Latin America is 30 times higher than in Europe. The grimmest figures are for El Salvador, where the murder rate among young people is 92 per 100,000 people. A key factor there is the presence of violent youth gangs, the report says. The study, called Map of Violence: The Young People of Latin America, was compiled by researchers at the Latin American Technological Information Network, Ritl...

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all!

Andres Oppenheimer, the Miami Herald columnist who writes about Latin America, recently wrote about the crime problem in El Salvador and where the policies of El Salvador and the US should focus: El Salvador's homicide rate of 68 killings a year per 100,000 inhabitants -- the world's highest after Iraq -- is followed within the region by Guatemala with 45 homicides, Colombia and Honduras with 43, and Venezuela with 41. By comparison, the U.S. homicide rate is 5.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, the study says. And from what I heard from international experts and government officials during a visit here last week, a major increase in the number of U.S. deportations of undocumented migrants with criminal records is swelling the ranks of the unemployed in Central America, and further driving up crime rates. ''A friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint on a bus three times within one week,'' Acevedo told me. ``I've been luckier: I have only been robbed once, also at gun...

El Salvador's president Tony Saca is touring the US asking Salvadorans to re-register for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS, granted by Congress to Salvadorans following the 2001 earthquakes and continuously extended since then, allows Salvadorans who were otherwise illegally in the US to remain and not be deported. From the ( AP ): SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- Salvadoran President Tony Saca will be traveling to the United States to urge Salvadoran immigrants there to reregister in a temporary visa program. The Central American leader plans to visit Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles Dec. 6-9. Earlier this month, Saca visited Washington D.C. and New York's Long Island. During his trip, Saca will ask some 240,000 Salvadorans to stay in the visa program created to help El Salvador after two deadly earthquakes in 2001. The U.S. government extended the program in September. Salvadoran immigrants have until Dec. 30 to sign up for the extension, which allows them to stay in the U...

My friend, the photographer Jesus Flores, recently wrote this tragic, ironic post in his blog about the murder of a clown in San Salvador: This clown, 33 year old Geovanni Guzman, known as "Piecito", was shot 13 times in a place in the city center known as Parque San Jose, right in front of the old church there. I said to myself, "13 times, someone must have been really mad at this clown". And, I was correct. Witnesses told us that he was a robber and thief. Turns out, a number of the clowns that work on the public buses here are actually spotters for gangs, or else rob people when they get off. They come on the bus, do some schtick, see who has money or goods, and then call to the gang members. This clown was shot at about noon, three times in the face, and 10 times in the body. Ouch. As I left the scene, a group of what looked to be gangsters asked what I was doing. "Taking pictures of the dead clown" I said. They asked to see the photos, and as they we...

Calling it "Central America’s most undiscovered ecotourism destination," an article on the website of TerraCurve describes a new web portal for eco-tourism in El Salvador: El Salvador is emerging, leaving its conflictual past behind and reinventing itself as an adventure and cultural destination. The Eco-Experiencias project is helping Salvadoran communities, workers cooperatives, NGOs, and private landowners to interpret themselves to create one of a kind, sustainable experiences that highlight unique cultural, natural and geographical qualities of the departments of Sonsonate and Ahuachapán. EcoExperiencias El Salvador is the nation’s first international branding campaign to position El Salvador as an emerging, ecological destination. The web portal is being developed in two phases. Phase 1, launched on November 13, 2008, presents an interpretive preview of western El Salvador’s four tourism destinations: the Route of the Flowers, the Western Pacific, Forests and Mangrove...

Two recent broadcast stories about El Salvador are worth watching or listening to. First is a news story from the English language version of the Al Jazeera network. The segment looks at the impact of the global economic crisis on El Salvador by focusing on the town of Intipuca , where remittances are an important part of the local economy (as is true everywhere in the country). Second is a radio show on WAMU in Washington, D.C. This interview show focused on the 1989 murder of the Jesuit priests and the new attempt to try responsible parties in the Spanish courts. The guests were Diane Orentlicher, Professor of International Law and Director of War Crimes Research Office, American University, and Douglas Farah, former Washington Post Correspondent in El Salvador from 1987-1990.