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In the wake of the March 4th electoral rout El Salvador’s left is facing its starkest crisis in decades. The resounding rebuke of the FMLN and its government has resulted in significant gains for the quasi-fascist Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and exacerbated serious internal divisions.
We often debate the pros and cons of welcoming immigrants here. We seldom consider the U.S. impact on the countries they leave. Ultimately, reducing the flow of refugees requires a just foreign policy, one that values people over profits. You can be sure: As long as rights are trampled, voices are silenced, and lives are cut short — there will be forced migration. Even at great risk. Even without parents. Even with a wall.
The Trump administration’s depiction of Central American gang members conveniently overlooks the United States’ role in perpetuating gang violence at home and abroad.
After years of struggle, El Salvador workers have won a victory with a new minimum wage that has made an enormous impact in people's lives. Corporate power has not given up, preferring to pay starvation wages they are attempting to roll back the gains made.
The new law is aimed at protecting the Central American nation’s environment and natural resources. Approved on March 29 with the support of 69 lawmakers from multiple parties (out of a total of 84), the law blocks all exploration, extraction, and processing of metals, whether in open pits or underground. It also prohibits the use of toxic chemicals like cyanide and mercury.
Although the people of El Salvador won a victory when a ruling denied a company compensation for a mine that popular opposition preventing a mine from operating on their land, they should never had to go through this seven-year legal battle in the first place. Such “investor rights” are the most extreme example of excessive power granted to corporations through trade agreements and are the reason the TPP must be defeated.
El Salvador is now the most violent country in the world. Youth is killing youth, the state is in turmoil, death squads and extrajudicial killings are on the rise. More than 6,670 people were killed in 2015, primarily in clashes between rival gangs and between gangs and the security forces. And the U.S., which exported the gang culture to El Salvador, including the most violent gangs and most hardened gang members, owes El Salvador yet another “moral debt.”
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