El Salvador Perspectives

This week the US State Department released its annual human rights reports concerning the record of the countries of the world in protecting the human rights of their citizens. The 2008 Human Rights Report for El Salvador is not much changed from the past few years. The report summarizes: Although the government generally respected the rights of its citizens, protection of human rights was undermined by widespread violent crime, including gang-related violence, high levels of impunity from prosecution, and judicial corruption. Other significant human rights problems included harsh, violent, and overcrowded prison conditions; lengthy pretrial detention; violence and discrimination against women; abuses against children, child labor, and forced child prostitution; trafficking in persons; and inadequate enforcement of labor rights. The report's harshest critique applies to the ineffective criminal justice system in the country: Although the constitution provides for an independent...

A collection of links to yet more information and news leading up to the elections which are little more than two weeks away. US groups urge their government to affirm neutrality on political process. There is a current campaign including a letter in Congress urging the Obama administration to state expressly that it respects the Salvadoran democratic process and that Salvadorans would not be deported depending on the outcome of the election. Political party platforms. SHARE Foundation provides English language summary of the ARENA and FMLN election platforms which you can read here . National Public Radio story. NPR broadcast a story on El Salvador's elections titled Leftist On Track For Historic Triumph In El Salvador Study shows spending on political advertising . No surprise that ARENA leads in the amount spent . Yet another poll . La Prensa Grafica released its presidential poll results today showing Funes with a slim 30.9% to 28.0% lead. An example of a current ...

Here are the most recent public opinion poll results for El Salvador's upcoming presidential election. All these results were released in the last two days: Borge y Asociados - El Diario de Hoy Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 40.9% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 40.0% CIOPS - UTEC Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 48.9% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 50.5% CID-Gallup Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 36% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 42% Universidad Gavidia Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 36% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 42% IUDOP - UCA Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 31% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 49% In addition, two polls from last week: Jabes - Diario El Mundo Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 40% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 37% CS-SONDEA Rodrigo Ávila - Arena: 30.1% Mauricio Funes - FMLN: 41.3% Thanks to Solava for his help on this post.

An article by Ben Brazil in Sunday's Washington Post titled A Little Risk, Stunning Reward in El Salvador sings the praises of El Salvador as a tourist destination. Most readers of this blog will already know about the sights and locations described in this article, but send it on to someone who does not yet know about what El Salvador has to offer. The article also has a candid discussion about how tourists should think about crime in El Salvador. Brazil starts the article out: I want to tell you about climbing a volcano in El Salvador. More specifically, I want to tell you about this one particular volcano, a perfect cone called Izalco, which rises above green fields of corn and coffee looking dark and primeval and slightly otherworldly. I want to tell you how, in the crater, you can stand among fumaroles that surround you with steam, and how it feels like a natural sauna in the clouds. But before I tell you about all that, I must confess to breaking one of my personal rules o...

Yesterday the US brought felony immigration fraud charges against retired Salvadoran general Jose Guillermo Garcia. Garcia was a defendant in one of the most watched cases seeking to have Salvadoran military leaders held accountable for torture and human rights abuses during the civil war, Arce v. Garcia , often known simply as the case of the Salvadoran generals. In 2002 a jury awarded $54.6 million in damages to three victims of torture during the civil war in El Salvador. The federal jury in Miami found that Gens. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova and Jose Guillermo Garcia ignored massacres and other acts of brutality against civilians during the war. This week's charges do not directly have anything to do with the civil torture verdict. According to the charges, Garcia falsely told Salvadoran officials he had lost his passport and requested a replacement. Actually, the passport had been seized by U.S. authorities, the indictment states. Nonetheless, the Center for Justice and Ac...

The sociology and political sciences department of the University of Central America has taken a look at the participation of women in the recently held elections for mayor and deputies to the National Assembly. Of the 1147 persons running for mayor in municipalities across El Salvador, only 115 (11.5%) were women. A scant 29 of those women won their elections in the 262 municipalities in the country. Of 427 persons nominated by political parties for the National Assembly, only 103 (24.1%) were women. The elections resulted in women being 16 of the 84 deputies. The graphic below shows the relative percentages of men(green) and women (blue) as legislators and mayors after the elections: As the article points out, "the data demonstrate that there is no equality of conditions for the participation of women in politics and that inside the parties little has been done so that women can have realistic possiblities of being elected."

Three weeks are left before El Salvador's potentially historic presidential election. The country is in the midst of an election campaign fought out on the airwaves, at rallies, on the internet, in billboards and newspapers. This week's poll results came from CS-SONDEA which gave Mauricio Funes an 11 point lead, 41.3% to 30.1%. I don't know anything about CS-SONDEA so I can't comment on its reliability as a polling organization, but my own sense is that the election is closer than this poll would indicate. Those CS-SONDEA poll results suggest almost 30% of the voters are undecided. I doubt that as well, but I do wonder if there will be higher turnout for the presidential election than in January. Turnout for the January election of mayors and legislators totaled 54%. That turnout was lower than seemed to be the level of interest in the opinion polls leading up to the election. It is possible that people were not energized to vote for mayors and legislators, but a p...