l Salvador is a country
that wants to heal. The Central American republic's 12 years of war, waged on
the right by brutal repression and on the left by devastating attacks to the
infrastructure and economy, resulted in a country with a broken back and torn
psyche.The civil strife that took 40,000 civilian lives ended February 1, 1991 with the implementation of a cease-fire agreement between the government of Alberto Cristiani and the guerrilla armies known collectively as the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN). The agreement that ended the war, called the Chapultapec Accords, called for reducing the military by half, creating civilian-controlled police and intelligence forces, the banning of all paramilitary groups both left and right, and judicial and land reform.
"The most important thing that's happened in El Salvador since the end of the war has been the FMLN becoming a political party," says Salvadoran Rene Valesquez, Executive Director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) in San Francisco.
The transformation of the FMLN from a military force into a political party occured in December of 1992. Originally an ad hoc confederation of left-wing political and guerilla groups, the FMLN consolidated during the civil war into a more-or-less united front. In 1989 the FMLN launched an all-out offensive on the government, prompting a consortium of Central American governments to call for peace talks between the waring factions. It was these talks that eventually led to the peace accords.
The first post-war elections, held in March of '94, resulted in the FMLN winning 24 seats in the legislature, putting the party in second place behind the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which holds 39 seats. The other 24 seats in the 84 seat legislature are held by smaller parties, with the center-left Democratic Convergence (CD) party holding the lion's share at 18 seats.
Progress on the path to normalcy has been fitful but visible. El Salvador's economy, now free from both the inept state control of the Junta and Duarte years, and from guerrilla attacks by the FMLN (which did an estimated $2.2 billion worth of damage to the economy), is undergoing a robust rejuvenation: U.S. government statistics show that last year El Salvador's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) surged 5.8 percent-- up from 5.1 percent in 1993 and 4.8 percent in 1992.
Robert Pastorino, of San Francisco's World Trade Center and a former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, calls El Salvador's recent growth "significant."
"There's more political stability, there's more investment, people are willing to rebuild their factories and plants," says Pastorino. "The key thing is that there's stability both in the countryside and in the infrastructure. Instead of it being destroyed it's being built back up. It's reason for new investment."
Coffee, a staple of the Salvadoran economy since 1856, makes up about 24 percent of the country's $823 million worth of exports. More than 170 hectares of El Salvador's rich lava soils were devoted to coffee farming in 1993. Now that the war is over coffee growers are paying special attention to the quality of their product.
"It's really struggling to be a specialty gourmet coffee," says Irna Knutsen, owner of Knutsen Coffees, an importer of gourmet beans. "They're upgrading now that the horrible times are over."
Knutsen says that in the 25 years she's been in the business she hasn't put much thought into El Salvador's coffees until now because they've been what is called "institutional" grade. The new coffees, Knutsen says, "are clean, well milled and washed, with very few defects. Really nice coffees."
Although coffee is still the leading export, it has been losing ground to other products, such as sugar and foodstuffs, textiles and, more importantly, manufactured goods. Recently El Salvador has cast its net its into the electronic assembly pool, trying to capture some of the runoff from the eastern slopes of the Pacific rim. With an average per capita income of just $1,500 a year-- $2000 less than lordly Malaysia's $3,500 per --El Salvador is becoming increasingly attractive to foreign tech companies.
"El Salvador has long been one of the better producers in Central America," says Posterino. "The light assembly business for electronics is just beginning there."
"Business is growing" says San Francisco based Salvadoran importer Mirna Delgado. "We have a lot of shopping malls there where there were none before that now carry a lot of products from the United States."
Not everyone is reaping the fruit of El Salvador's rich harvest. According to Veronica Herrera, a Salvadoran World Trade Center employee, things aren't all that different for the average worker than in times past.
"Certainly it's better because you don't have all the commotion of the war going on," Herrera says. "But in terms of everyday economics life is really about the same for the average Salvadoran-- there have been some improvements in the city, but the cost of living is still high and income is low. It's lower in the country than in the city."
Renee Velasquez, whose refugee agency assists an estimated 1,100 refugees a month, calls the country's economic boom "an illusion." Velasquez cites a steel strike currently underway in El Salvador.
"The strike," say Velasquez, "shows that the workers are still being abused. It's an illusion that the social conditions have prospered."
The relative calm that followed the war led to a decrease in emigration from El Salvador, says Velasquez, noting that people are still fleeing the country for political reasons.
"The war created a massive mobilization," he says, "but people haven't been leaving in a massive way" since the end of the war. What's really slowed emigration to the U.S., says Velasquez, is Pete Wilson and Proposition 187.
El Salvador's rise in GDP has been met by a corresponding rise in the deficit. U.S. State Department figures show the Salvadoran deficit in excess of $1.3 billion. In the past the deficit has been offset by Salvadorans living in the United States who in 1993 sent remittances totaling $800 million back to family members still living in El Salvador.
"You cannot sustain an economy based on remittances from relatives," says Velasquez.
That the standard of living in El Salvador's countryside is rising more slowly in the countryside than in the city may have to do with the slow pace of land reform; foreign support in the form of aid from the U.S. and other countries has been weaker than expected since the end of the war and moneys earmarked for the purchase of land from the traditional big landowners has been scarce. Still, by November 1994 more than 12,000 transfers had taken place since the peace accords and the program is scheduled for completion late this year, according to state department reports.
El Salvador's emotional health has also experienced slow progress amid setbacks. The peace accords established a truth commission under United Nations direction to investigate human rights abuses committed during the war. In March of 1993, however, the Legislative Assembly, controlled by the right-wing ARENA party, which has consistently won national elections since the end of the war, passed the Amnesty Law, granting amnesty to all suspected war criminals. Among those freed by the law were Slavadoran army officers convicted of killing six Jesuit missionaries, and FMLN guerillas held for the killings of two U.S. servicemen.
Supporters of amnesty believe that it's a step forward-- that the war should be put behind them and bygones should be bygones. Others say that the law has hobbled strides toward normalcy by allowing those guitly of crimes to go free.
"In the process of re-healing," says Velasquez, "yes, I think it helped. The Truth Commission was very significant, even though it didn't send anybody to jail. At least it confirms international recognition of human rights abuses. The best way is not to forget but to continue to change the constitution and the political feelings of the country and try to open up the democratic process."
Although the U.N. in its July 1994 Joint-Group report with the Government of El Salvador reported that violence was still being used for political intimidation in a few areas, most of the country's violence stemmed from organized crime and the appearance of 'hate group" vigilantes. These vigilantes, according to Amnesty International (AI) reports, constitute a more-or-less non-political force bent on preserving traditional "Christian" values. AI also reports "links" between organized crime and the right wing.
Carlos Gonzales, the Salvadoran Consul General in San Francisco, however, says the jump in organized crime is a result of the "vacuum left by the [demobilization of the] security forces."
"The new National Civilian Police," says Gonzales, "hasn't grown fast enough to do an adequate job. I think there's a lot of banditry and gangsterism."
Another factor, says Gonzales, is the bad habits some returnees from the U.S. to El Salvador have brought with them: Gangs. Children of refugees have who have lived for extended periods in the U.S. have returned to El Salvador and "have integrated their gangs into the country."
In the current edition of the Bulletin, Amnesty International's yearly catalog of political horrors, AI reports the following human rights abuses committed in El Salvador:
* The 1994 killing of several FMLN members involved in elections. "The pattern of the killings," said the Amnesty report, "indicated official involvement."
* Heriberto Galicia Sanchez, left-wing candidate for the assembly, was gunned down seven days after he lost the election. Party officials said he had been receiving political death threats.
*The body of Jose Mejia, chairman of an election committee in the province of La Libertad was found riddled with bullets the second day of presidential elections.
According to AI no one has been brought to justice for these crimes.
Renee Velasquez has hope for his homeland's future. "I think there is hope-- no
one wants to go back to the war. It will take more years to resolve."
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