El Salvador Perspectives

As the Roman Catholic church in El Salvador prepares for one of its largest celebrations ever with the canonization of martyred archbishop Oscar Romero on October 14, membership in the Roman church continues to decline in the country. Source: La Prensa Grafica, Sept. 28, 2018 According to polling data from La Prensa Grafica shown above, the percentage of Salvadorans professing to be Roman Catholics has dropped to 41.5% in 2018 from 55.1% in 2004.  Meanwhile the number of Salvadorans identifying with evangelical Christianity has climbed from 28.7% to 38.1% of the population, and the percentage professing no religion has now grown to 17.7%.

The Attorney General's office (FGR) and National Civilian Police (PNC) in El Salvador regularly (like every day) parade in front of the cameras alleged gang members they have arrested.   And it is a major media show when there are periodic nationwide raids which pick up hundreds of accused young men.   Yet columnist Paolo Luers recently wrote about the key fact you need to know about these public arrests: Most of you are not going to like this letter. But someone has to tell you: If you think that the industrial quantity of captures produced and publicized by the prosecutors and the PNC is an indicator that we will have more security, you were deceived.  The Prosecutor's Office announced that it issued 1128 arrest warrants against persons accused of being members of the MS13 or of the gang 18. The result: 607 arrests. It is not the summary of a month, it is the summary of a single week, between August 26 and September 4, 2018, sum of three mega rai...

CID-Gallup released the results of recent polling of Salvadorans concerning their preferences for president. In the poll of 1205 adults, Nayib Bukele on the GANA ticket was the preferred choice for president of 45% of those polled, well ahead of Carlos Calleja of ARENA with 20%, and Hugo Martinez of the FMLN with only 7%.     27% of voters were still undecided. Bukele's results have increased four percentage points since the last Gallup poll in May 2018, while the other two major candidates have remained flat. 70% of voters say they are likely to vote on election day, February 3, 2019. One of the most interesting results of the poll was the question "what is the principal problem of the country?"  30% answered unemployment, 25% answered corruption in government and politicians, and only 19% answered lack of citizen security/crime.    In recent years, with high rates of homicide and extortion by the country's street gangs, crime had usually been the n...

Image capture from video shot by ZEMBLA team Another Salvadoran war criminal has been located living in the United States.  Colonel Mario Reyes Mena is alleged to have given the orders in 1982 to kill four Dutch journalists covering the civil war in El Salvador.  At the time he was commander of the 4th infantry brigade based in  El Paraíso, Chalatenango.  The massacre occurred close by in Santa Rita. Dutch journalists from ZEMBLA tracked Reyes Mena down through social media activity to a house in the United States.  He has reportedly been living in the US since 1984, two years after the massacre. From NL Times : Zembla tracked down the colonel who ordered the murder of the four Dutch. The now 79-year-old Mario Reyes Mena has been living in the United States for four years. Zembla found him through his three adult children, who are active on social media.  In 1993 a United Nations truth commission concluded that Reyes Mena  was respons...

It feels like the movement towards a water law is reaching a critical moment in El Salvador. After the March 4, 2018 national elections, conservative parties have a stronger position in the legislature, but this has motivated an equally strong response from civil society.  Groups coming together under the umbrella of the National Alliance against Privatization of Water demand recognition of water as a public good and a fundamental human right to be administered and protected by the State. In such administration, there must be citizen participation. Water resource management must holistically focus on entire watersheds.  They have submitted to the National Assembly a proposed "General Water Law" to accomplish these goals. These groups reject a separate proposal by ARENA and other conservative parties and backed by business interests which would put water management for El Salvador under a five member board.  On that board, private business would have two s...

A recent  article in La Prensa Grafica  highlights the number of mayors of Salvadoran cities and towns who have been arrested and charged with collaborating with one or another of the country's criminal street gangs.   There have been seven mayors captured for these crimes since 2016.   They include the mayors of: La Libertad Ilopango Apopa Usulután Puerto El Triunfo, Usulután Jucuapa, Usulután Concepción Batres, Usulután The charges against the mayors vary from buying political support during their election campaigns, to assisting in gang extortion in municipal markets, to procuring murders.  The common factor for all of these mayors, is that the gang presence is extensive in many areas of their respective municipalities.   It is not surprising that some of the mayors chose to coexist with the gangs in ways that illegally benefited both of them. The article in La Prensa Grafica names one other mayor, Nayib Bukele, former mayo...

It used to be that a mention of United Nations peacekeepers in conjunction with El Salvador was a reference to the UN Observers Mission (ONUSAL) which was on the ground in El Salvador in the first few years after El Salvador's civil war ended in 1992.   Today, however, El Salvador is sending out peacekeepers of its own to different parts of the globe.  It happens without much notice, but for three years El Salvador has been sending military units to participate in UN peacekeeping efforts in Africa. Location of Mali From Dialogo, the Digital Military Magazine  this week: United Nations (UN) delegates screened the equipment and flight technology the Salvadoran Air Force’s (FAS, in Spanish) Gavilán I Air Contingent will use as it joins the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA, in French) in September 2018....  The Gavilán I contingent will consist of pilots and specialists in communication, maintenance, and w...