El Salvador Perspectives

The online periodical Contra Punto reports the latest homicide statistics for the first 7 months of 2009 and they are troubling. Murders are up 37% in El Salvador for the first seven months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. So far in 2009, there have been 2428 violent deaths, compared to 1767 in 2008. These statistics come from the Attorney General's office who asserts that the majority of these murders are gang-related. This senseless violence bringing grief to so many Salvadoran families has to stop. But no one seems able to implement a solution.

Another water issue which could be characterized as the environment versus development, or rich versus poor, or powerful versus powerless, or progress versus obstruction is the construction of the El Chapparal dam on the Torola river in northern El Salvador. Local communities who face displacement are trying to stop the construction of the hydroelectric dam which is already underway. The blog at Voices on the Border provides a description of the project: Despite controversy over environmental destruction of surrounding communities, the Comisión Ejecutiva del Río Lempa (CEL) in El Salvador has began constructing a new hydroelectric dam in the Río Torola located in the northern part of the department of San Miguel in an area known as El Chaparral. Construction began at the beginning of January this year and is expected to continue for fifty months. Proponents of the project say that the dam is in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol and has the potential to provide electricity to two hun...

Today I am republishing a post written by my friend Laura Hershberger. Laura is working in El Salvador with the SHARE Foundation , and is sponsored there by the Volunteer Missionary Movement or VMM. (More about VMM below). Laura's blog post is titled Back pain : This is a reflection on the week in June that I spent as a medical interpreter at the clinic at Maria Madre de los Pobres Catholic Church in La Chacra, San Salvador. The medical professionals who I interpreted for come to El Salvador everyone on a SHARE delegation from Visitation Parish in Kansas City. She was a street vendor who walked around carrying a giant tub of juice cans. The pain in her heals was unbearable. He threw his back out six years ago. He still has horrible pain. He thought it was cancer. But really it was the fact that he lifted tires everyday and put more and more strain on his back. She lost her arm during the war. Her husband just had a stroke and is paralyzed, she now does everything for him and w...

Beginning on Monday, July 27, classes at El Salvador's schools and universities will be suspended for two weeks until August 9 according to news reports . The measure was put in place by Salvadoran health authorities to stop the spread of H1N1 flu. (Classes would not have been in session during the week of August 2 in any event since that is the week of August vacations associated with the feast of El Salvador del Mundo, the patron saint of the country). El Salvador has 469 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu, including 6 deaths. Story heard in El Salvador last week: A wolf, a lion and a pig were debating who was the greatest and most fearsome animal. The wolf declared, "I am the greatest. When I howl the people shake with fear." The lion retorted, "No, it is I who am the greatest. When I roar, all of the people run away." The pig then said, "That's nothing. When I sneeze, everyone dies."

From time to time, posts appear on travel blogs praising the beauties of El Salvador and its people, as the travel writer goes "off the beaten track." This week I ran across a beautifully photographed example in a blog by authors named David and Vladi. In a post titled El Salvador, a dangerous country? , they write: Vladi and I spent a wonderful week in some little villages located in the highlands, far away from big cities and their safety problems. Come with us to get to know El Salvador better... After a long day of bus(es), we arrived at night in Juayua, a pretty town surrounded by volcanoes and coffee plantations. We found thanks to a local guy a great hotel with private bathroom & TV for 15$, breakfast included. In El Salvador, prices are more expansive than in Nicaragua or Guatemala, and believe me, that was quite a good deal! So we stayed there 6 nights, using the chicken buses to visit the nearby villages rather than changing every 2 days our accomodation....

An essay at Foreign Policy In Focus titled El Salvador's Gold Fight presents a viewpoint sympathetic to the efforts to block gold-mining in El Salvador. The article focuses on gold-mining company Pacific Rim and that company's arbitration against the government of El Salvador. Popular resistance to mining continues: The combined effect of local resistance and religious backing had a decisive impact on government decision-making. With public opinion polls showing a clear majority in opposition to gold mining, and despite its initial enthusiasm for Pacific Rim's mining proposals, officials from the ruling conservative ARENA party refused to issue the company permits to begin extracting gold from underground deposits. In essence, the government ceased to acknowledge Pacific Rim's existence. Repeated complaints and applications for permits were filed by the company with government ministries, and promptly ignored. Since then, La Mesa has continued to push the envelope. ...

El Salvador's prisons are not just dangerous and ineffectual -- the maras, or gangs, actually run their criminal enterprise from behind the prison walls. An article from the BBC details how authorities often cede authority over much of what happens inside the prisons to one of the country's two rival gangs: Part of the problem is the authorities' policy of dedicating certain prisons to one particular gang. The idea is to avoid violence between rival groups, yet in practice it means the state has handed over control of the prisons to the gangs, argues Jeanette Aguilar, an expert on the topic at the University of Central America (UCA). "The prisons have been the place where the gangs have moved towards institutionalising themselves. They have created criminal economic networks," she said. Inmates at Ciudad Barrios happily refer to the prison as the MS's home or neighbourhood. Lack of supervision means prisoners can easily get hold of the phones they allegedly ...