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This article first appeared
in the March 18 issue of El Socialista,
published by Izquierda Socialista
(Socialist Left) of Argentina. Translation from the Spanish is by Socialist
Action.
The
Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation
(FMLN), the long-standing ex-guerrilla organization of the Salvadoran
people, won the [March 15] presidential elections. Its candidate,
Mauricio Funes, was elected with 51.2 percent
of the votes, defeating the party that has ruled for decades, ARENA.
Large crowds in the streets celebrated the defeat of the neoliberal mass murderers.
The
defeated party, ARENA (The National Republican Alliance), was founded
by the genocidal para-militaries who
massacred the Salvadoran people during the 1980s while aligning
themselves with the bosses. They were the ones who applied the neoliberal economic policies that liquidated the
national currency (today the U.S. dollar is the only legal exchange)
and signed the Free Trade Pact (CAFTA) with the United States, causing the country to
sink into increasing poverty.
El Salvador, merely 20.742 sq.
kilometers in area ... has 5,800,000 inhabitants, with unemployment and
poverty rates of about 40 percent. The main prop of its economy is the
money sent home by the 2,300,00 immigrant
workers who live in the U.S.
The
overwhelming majority of the capitalist class supported ARENA, while
the votes for the FMLN came from the common people, the workers and
peasants.
The
new president is a former journalist with the Yankee network CNN (in
the midst of the civil war) who didn’t become an activist with the FLMN
in recent years either. He gained popularity since he was a critic of
the governments headed by ARENA.
But
in this election campaign he made it clear that, in contrast to what
the FMLN had demanded until just a little while ago, he was not going
to break with the Free Trade Pact or restore the national currency. At
the same time, he affirmed that he [with the FMLN leadership] was
against repealing the law on amnesty—which protects the Salvadoran
practitioners of genocide.
Funes held well-publicized conferences with the Mexican
magnates Carlos Slim and Ricardo Salinas Pliego,
inviting them to increase their investments in El Salvador. He also met with U.S.
Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs Thomas Shannon, while
announcing that he would maintain excellent relations with the United States.
He
said that he would not be a "privatizer,"
but was careful to avoid mentioning any plans to re-nationalize all the
things that ARENA has illegally privatized. The "model" that Funes says he looks to is that of Lula [President
Luis Ignacio da Silva] in Brazil—that is to
say, a government beholden to the bosses and the imperialists.
He
did promise beneficial measures for the common people: free health care
and education (including school uniforms and supplies), elimination of
the sales tax on basic groceries and medicines, a welfare pension for
elderly people, and increased assistance for poor families in the
countryside while extending the same benefits to city dwellers.
Nevertheless,
in the midst of the world economic crisis, these measures, besides
being totally insufficient, might well never be carried out. This is
due to the fact that they would never get funding as long as they fail
to coincide with the interests of the bourgeoisie and the imperialists.
The
heroic people of El Salvador will get their turn—now that they have
defeated ARENA—to renew the struggle for their long-delayed civil
rights, for the fulfilment of the promises
that Funes has made, for punishment of the
mass murderers, and for the fundamental changes that Funes has rejected but that are absolutely
essential to bring an end to joblessness and poverty.
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