El Salvador Perspectives

Today, October 31, 2017, is the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation when a German monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to a church door in Germany. Today in El Salvador, protestants are continuing to make inroads on the dominance of the Roman Catholic church in the country.  According to polling statistics published by La Prensa Grafica today, 45% of Salvadorans consider themselves Roman Catholic, 35% consider themselves protestant, 2% some other religion, and 17% profess no religion.    This is a decline of 10 percentage points for the catholic faithful in the country since 2004. The Roman Catholic church is the only one officially recognized by the Constitution of El Salvador.  Perhaps because of the growing numbers of protestants, there is now a proposal in the National Assembly to modify the constitution to recognize other denominations. Today close to the Salvadoran Lutheran University on the south side of San Salvador, a new...

Over the weekend, the municipal government of San Salvador unveiled renovations to Plaza Gerardo Barrios in the historic center of the city.  The renovation features lighting, new pavement, fountains and other upgrades. The plaza is bordered by the Metropolitan Cathedral and the National Palace and is named for a 19th century general and president of El Salvador. The nighttime events were intended to portray a message of reclaiming important public spaces.  Images of families strolling and taking selfies after dark in a zone often associated with gang-sponsored crime poured out of the Twitter feed of the city government. The plaza is a location of great historic significance.   Demonstrations in the 70s and 80s were often violently repressed by government troops.   The funerals of martyrs Rutilio Grande, Oscar Romero and others took place on the steps of the cathedral facing the plaza.  And troops stationed on top of the National Palace o...

Currently advocates for a just immigration system are lobbying Congress and the Trump administration to preserve Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Haiti as well as other countries.   The largest group of TPS holders (195,000) are from El Salvador. A recent report from the Center for American Progress emphasized the economic and family ties which these immigrants have with their communities in the US: They have lived in the United States for an average of 19 years and are employed at high rates, ranging from 69.2 to 83.5 percent. The contributions made by TPS holders, moreover, will only continue to grow in the future, as they are collectively raising families that include nearly 275,000 U.S.-born children.... TPS holders are long-term, integrated members of communities across the United States. On average, recipients from Honduras have lived in the United States for 22 years, recipients from El Salvador an average ...

El Salvador's left wing party, the FMLN, has chosen  Jackeline Rivera to be its candidate for mayor in the March 2018 elections.   The party needed to choose a new candidate after expelling from the party, Nayib Bukele, the current mayor. Rivera is currently a deputy in the National Assembly for the department of  Cuscatlán. Rivera shared details of her biography earlier this year in an interview at 102Nueve.com .   Rivera was born in the municipality of Cinquera, where her father was an early guerrilla leader.   She was a child soldier, joining one of the five member groups of the FMLN, the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (FPL) in 1979 when she was only 8 years old.  At age 16 she was a radio operator for the FMLN operating in the mountains. A photo of Rivera which appeared on the interview with 102Nueve: After the war, Rivera studied law and became a lawyer.   Eventually she reached her current position in th...

A witness is questioned during the El Mozte trial In a small courtroom in the town of San Francisco Gotera, largely unnoticed by the world, a major human rights trial is taking place.    The trial seeks to establish the responsibility of high ranking officers of the Salvadoran military for the 1981 massacre at El Mozote.   In El Mozote and the surrounding small communities, as many as one thousand civilians -- children, the elderly, women and men -- were brutally killed by the Salvadoran military between December 9 and 11, 1981.  It is a crime the judge has already declared a "crime against humanity." It is possible to follow along with the testimony in English translations.   So far, family members of those who died at El Mozote, and who witnessed some of those days of terror have been testifying. Journalist Nelson Rauda Zablah has been covering the El Mozote trial for El Faro and live tweeting the testimony.   His summary of...

Preparing live iguanas for dinner on a cooking competition show has generated controversy on social media in El Salvador.  From ReMezcla.com : Viewers were scandalized when Top Chef El Salvador, their local version of the American reality series, prepared live iguanas during primetime television. The show’s four finalists were tasked with slicing the reptiles into original dishes for the judges. While iguanas are a traditional food in El Salvador, it was the graphic nature of the program and the fact that the reptiles are a protected and endangered species that sparked outrage...On top of the broadcast, Top Chef El Salvador took to social media to share photos of the contestants cutting off the tails and skinning the creatures. All of these images have now been deleted. You can watch some of this culinary exhibition here: Top Chef pensó que cocinar especies amenazadas era algo que su público iba a disfrutar. pic.twitter.com/gx5TP6a6AF — AJ+ Español (@ajplusespanol) October...

After being expelled from the FMLN, Nayib Bukele has decided to run for president of El Salvador in 2019.    In a 20 minute discourse on Facebook Live Sunday night, Bukele announced that he will not fight the expulsion in the courts, but will instead form a new political movement to achieve the presidency.    Bukele spent much of his time talking about his roots in the FMLN and his father's friendship with Schafik Handal.   But Bukele asserted that the FMLN is now controlled by a small leadership group which is corrupt and seeks only to protect its own narrow interests and corruption.