Contrapunto readers optimistic about FMLN's chances

You can head over to Contrapunto to participate in a poll about who you believe would win in match-ups between Norman Quijano of ARENA and either Oscar Ortiz or Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the FMLN. The box is halfway down the page on the right.

Out of 533 voters in the first poll, 499 believed that Ceren would emerge victorious over Quijano in 2014. Fewer people have participated in the second poll between Quijano and Ortiz but out of the 100 people that did, 83 said that Ortiz would win. Obviously it's not a representative sample or anything.

While I am not surprised that Contrapunto's readers thought that either FMLN candidate would win, I was surprised that they had more faith in Sanchez Ceren. Most people outside the FMLN would probably disagree. Ortiz is the more popular general candidate with a better chance at winning over moderates and those on the right who do not want to return to the ways of ARENA. It's just hard to see those people (about 30-40% of the voters) going with Sanchez Ceren.

Here was a result from February's Mitofsky poll. 

While it's only one poll, it's going to be difficult for the FMLN to convince a majority of Salvadoran voters to support Sanchez Ceren. He's already well known and has a pretty high unfavorability rating.

Is it 2006 all over again? It's too early to tell, but Sanchez Ceren has the same positives (he's popular within the party and will satisfy the base) and negatives (few people outside the party support him) as Schafik Handal. And we all know what happened to the Handal candidacy.

A few days ago, Contrapunto reported that Sanchez Ceren had already been selected as the FMLN's 2014 presidential candidate but since then other news stories have questioned whether it's a done deal. I imagine that internally the FMLN is still divided over going with the candidate with the best shot at winning, but who is not as committed to the FMLN project as the hardliners versus a candidate with whom it will be more difficult to win but whose administration would not be as frustrating as the one they are living through with Mauricio Funes right now.

What's your take?

Murder-free Saturday in El Salvador

No one was murdered in El Salvador on Saturday, officials said, in what was the first homicide-free day in nearly three years for the Central American country plagued by violent drug gangs.

"After years when the number of murders reached alarming levels of up to 18 per day, we saw not one homicide in the country," President Mauricio Funes said in a statement released on Sunday.

The murder-free day was the first recorded since leftist Funes took office in June 2009. At the beginning of his term, the country had an average of 12 murders a day, but that tally climbed closer to 18 per day in early 2012.

That's pretty remarkable. It's even more remarkable if you consider that weekends are typically more bloody than weekdays.

I would disagree with the article, however, when it says that "Much of that violence is blamed on Mexican drug cartels that use the country as a transit point." The gangs do distribute drugs but they haven't really been significant players in drug trafficking.

Has anybody come across how Guatemalan and Honduran authorities have reacted to the gang truce and subsequent murder reduction in El Salvador? Did it come up during the Summit of the Americas?

I am also wondering how the FMLN would have done in the March elections had the truce been negotiated in February.

Revival on Sixth Avenue

I meant to get this up last week but never got around to it. From the Associated Press

But on a recent weekday in the center of Guatemala City, a lunchtime crowd of professionals and university students ordered tapas and baguettes with prosciutto and camembert cheese in the Eccentrico bistro, watching pedestrians stroll down tiled walkways lined with ficus trees. At a cafe two blocks away, staff set out tables for customers stopping for cappuccino before heading to a nearby movie theater.

An unlikely urban redevelopment project is thriving for dozens of businesses in a five-block section of the Zone One downtown neighborhood.

A nonprofit, city-run redevelopment corporation known as Urbanistica has spent more than $5 million since 2004 to close streets to traffic, light them brightly and monitor them with closed-circuit video cameras and extra police officers. Rundown storefronts have been repainted jungle-green, indigo or paprika.

Some 670 street vendors who used to sell handicrafts from oilcloth tents that congested more than a mile of the city center have been relocated to a covered market steps from a new bus terminal.

Looks like a great opportunity for Guatemalans and for tourists Sixth Avenue is actually how it's advertised in the story and if they can keep it up.

These are photos from Sixth Avenue that I took in 2010 when the area was still under construction.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/06/2734844/unlikely-project-revives-guatemala.html#storylink=cpy

Videla justifies killing 8,000

"In every war people are crippled, killed and disappeared, their whereabouts unknown, that is a fact," Videla said in an interview broadcast on local television.

"How many there were can be debated, but the problem does not lie in the number but in the fact - a fact which occurs in every war - that we allowed the pejorative term of disappeared to ... remain as a term to cover up something dark that was wanted to be kept secret, and that is what is weighing - that there was something dark which has not been sufficiently cleared up."

"The error was using and abusing disappeared like a mystery," he added. "And that's not the case, it is the unfortunate result of a war."

Videla denied that babies were systematically stolen from leftist opponents and then put up for adoption, but said there were some cases in which babies were taken.

"I am the first to admit ... at this time children were taken, some with the best intention that the child would go to a good, unknown home," Videla added in the interview. "But it was not a systematic plan."

Human rights groups say up to 30,000 people were kidnapped and murdered or vanished during the dictatorship, which began when Videla and two other military leaders staged a coup on March 24, 1976.

"Let's say there were 7,000 or 8,000 people who needed to die to win the war against subversion," newspaper La Nacion quoted Videla as saying in a new book "Final Mandate," by journalist Ceferino Reato, based on a series of interviews with Videla.

"There was no other solution," La Nacion reported Videla as saying. "We were agreed that was the price to win the war against subversion and that we needed it not to be evident so that society didn't notice."

"For that reason, to avoid provoking protests inside and outside the country, it was decided that those people disappear. Each disappearance can certainly be understood as the cover-up of a death."

This is most of the Reuters summary of developments surrounding former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina ex-dictator admits dirty war "disappeared". I normally don't cut and paste such long excerpts but I made an exception this time. These are some pretty remarkable admissions.

Honestly, I thought that Efrain Rios Montt would say much the same in Guatemala. His "voluntary" appearance before the authorities would lead to some Colonel Jessup moment where he admits to what he has done but doesn't apologize for it. It's still possible, but it is growing increasingly unlikely as he and his lawyers stick with the bad apples defense and repeated efforts to remove court officials.

Sanchez Ceren likely FMLN presidential candidate

According to a report in ContraPunto, the FMLN is prepared to select Salvador Sanchez Ceren as the party's candidate for the 2014 presidential elections. It doesn't come as much of a surprise no matter how much I would have liked them to strongly consider another candidate (COHA looks like it will have an article out on him soon).

At the XXVI national convention in 2010, the FMLN reiterated the strategy that it had more or less been following since 2005. Here's what I wrote at the time.

In preparation for the 2012 elections, the FMLN is calling for a "national pact to transform El Salvador." Jose Luis...Merino has clearly stated that in 2009 Funes was chosen simply to alleviate the country's fears of an FMLN victory. Now that that fear has been overcome, the FMLN is ready to push an FMLN militant as president to lead them on the path towards socialismo cuscatleco in 2014 and beyond.

The FMLN's alliance with the Friends of Mauricio was a temporary one that was designed to help transition

the country to supporting an FMLN militant as president. While the Salvadoran voters rejected FMLN comandantes in 1999 and 2004, it's not certain that they will do so again. Things have changed since 2004. However, I don't think that Sanchez Ceren is the Frente's best choice to maximize its chances at victory. The FMLN has a solid 35% or so of the national vote. Sanchez Ceren makes it hard for the party to make it to 50%+1. And I'm not sure that a VP Violeta Menjívar is going to help make up the difference.

It doesn't look like some people in ARENA want Norman Quijano to be the party's candidate, but he would definitely have the advantage over Ceren. They just need to moderate their public stance and put up a stronger candidate than the unenthusiastic Rodrigo Avila they sent up to the plate in 2009.

Oh my, not another dreaded spice buyer!

Okay, not exactly how I would characterize Guatemalan drug trafficker Horst Walter Overdick Mejia. Here's Bernie Becker on The Hill. 

Treasury sanctions Guatemalan spice buyer

By Bernie Becker - 04/10/12 06:06 PM ET

The article describes Overdick fine and Becker probably didn't write the title but anyway...

Not so fast on that Zetas - MS-13 Link

While El Salvador's gang truce has held so far, members of Guatemalan President Otto Perez's administration have told Romina Ruiz-Goiriena of the AP that the Zetas and the Mara Salvatrucha might have begun cooperating more intensely over the last few months.

Now, Guatemalan authorities say, they have begun to see new and disturbing evidence of an alliance between the Maras and another of the most feared criminal organizations in Latin America - a deal with the potential to further undermine a U.S.-backed effort to fight violent crime and narcotics trafficking in the region.

Secret jailhouse recordings and a turncoat kidnapper have described a pact between leaders of the Maras and the Zetas, the brutal Mexican paramilitary drug cartel that has seized control of large parts of rural northern Guatemala in its campaign for mastery of drug-trafficking routes from South America to the United States.

In recent months, authorities say, they have begun to see the first signs that the Zetas are providing paramilitary training and equipment to the Maras in exchange for intelligence and crimes meant to divert law-enforcement resources and attention.

See also Fox News and the Huffington Post. I was initially suspicious when the evidence was based upon "secret jailhouse recordings and a turncoat kidnapper."

However, there were also statements from Estuardo Velasco, the head of an Interior Ministry task force on organized crime. Velasco told Ruiz-Goiriena that "the Maras' training by the Zetas had manifested itself in the increasing brutality, planning, organization and firepower of Maras' operations in Guatemala."

Well, this afternoon Interior Minister Mauricio López Bonilla said that Velasco does not work for the Interior Ministry. It's not clear from the article that he knows who he is. López Bonilla did say that they estimate that 10-12,000 gang members operate in Guatemala. They do not have a single leader or a unified structure. And, if they are involved in the drug trade, it is on the distribution of the business.

It's not as if at some point in the future that the Zetas and MS-13, or the Dieciocho, might enter into some shady marriage of convenience. It's just that there is no credible evidence of any such relationship yet in existence and it doesn't make sense to hyperventilate over some future relationship.

It's kind of like Latin America's relationship with Iran. There's nothing to get excited about right now but any thing can happen. Who would have expected the Gipper to be illegally trading weapons to the Iranians via the Israeli to free US hostages in Lebanon and to use the profits to arm the contras in Honduras to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua? Or Ozzie Guillen saying something controversial in Miami?

El Salvador's gang truce

I had a new piece on El Salvador's gang truce up at Al Jazeera on Saturday. It's a little dated now since I wrote it a week ago, but still good news for as long as it lasts in El Salvador.

Negotiating a truce between the country's two main gangs does not solve the causes of violence, but it does provide an opening for the government and the Salvadoran people to take important steps to tackle the root causes of the country's violence.

President Funes has said that he is going to call on all sectors of Salvadoran society to construct "a national accord that will guarantee the increasing eradication of violence and insecurity in the country". According to Funes, such an accord will tackle "the social exclusion and the lack of employment, education, health and recreation opportunities for the youth". However, any agreement will not include a pardon for gang members.

The US Embassy in El Salvador has remained silent on the announced truce. However, this would be an opportune moment for the US to demonstrate its support for alternative efforts to reduce violence in El Salvador and other parts of Central America. The US came under strong criticism after it dismissed Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina's call for a discussion of drug decriminalisation.

Instead of announcing that it has donated 47 new pickup trucks and 365 computer workstations to the Salvadoran police force, the US should announce that it is doubling or tripling resources destined to rehabilitate former gang members. The US could also announce that it will move towards changing the immigration status of 215,000 Salvadorans living with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States to permanent residency status.

Neither of these efforts, on its own, will be a game changer. However, it will show that the US is willing to work with our hemispheric partners, outside the box if necessary, to improve their lives of the people of Latin America.

Previous gang truces in El Salvador have failed and it's not clear that this one will last either. However it is important to remember that for each day that the truce holds, 10 more Salvadorans live to see another day. In a country with a majority Catholic population, Salvadorans might be allowed to breathe a little easier this Holy Week and it's worth giving the truce a shot. 

Violent Deaths in Guatemala

The National Institute of Forensic Science (INACIF) has released March statistics on violent deaths (murders, suicides, and other killings) in Guatemala. I haven't come across the PNC's March homicide statistics yet.

INACIF recorded 487 autopsies during the month of March. Following 507 January and 446 February autopsies, INACIF is on pace to record 5,760 violent deaths in 2012.

That would be another sharp decline in violent deaths year over year. According to INACIF, there were 6,187 violent deaths in 2011, a 7.4% decline from 2010 when they counted 6,673. 2011's numbers were nearly 1,000 fewer than the 7,036 reported in 2009, the most violent year in recent memory.

If the pace continues (okay, we're only three months into the year), over 400 fewer Guatemalans will die under violent circumstances compared to 2011. That would be approximately another 7% decline.

Remittances up 8% in Guatemala

According to a report in the Latin American Herald Tribune, remittances increased 8% during the first quarter of the year compared to the first quarter of 2011.

Expats wired a total of $1.06 billion to their families back home in the first three months of 2012, according to a report on the Web page of the Banco de Guatemala.

Figures from the International Organization for Migration show that some 1.5 million Guatemalans live outside their country, the vast majority of them in the United States.

Guatemala received $4.37 billion in remittances last year, a gain of 6.08 percent over 2010.

Analysts at the Banco de Guatemala expect total remittances in 2012 to reach $4.5 billion.

Remittances from family members abroad represent about 12 percent of the Central American country’s gross domestic product and help to provide economic support for at least 1 million Guatemalan households, according to the central bank.

Wire transfers from Guatemalans in the United States fell sharply in 2008 and 2009 amid a recession in the world’s largest economy.

Femicide and Homicide in El Salvador

According to the Small Arms Survey, El Salvador has the highest rate of femicide in the world with a total of 12 women murdered per 100,000 female population.The Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace (ORMUSA) reported that 160 women were killed during the first three months of 2011 when 647 women were murdered which was a ten percent increase over the previous year, 2010.

The National Civilian Police (PNC) report that 158 femicides occurred between January 1 and March 14, 2012 (Contrapunto). If there really were ~160 women killed during the first 74 days of the year, El Salvador would be on a pace to approach 800 femicides for the year. That would be well above last year's numbers.

Fortunately, the gang truce between the MS-13 and the Dieciocho brokered by the Catholic Church has held for three weeks. March's murder numbers were down by 40% compared to those of February. After averaging over four hundred during the first two months of the year, the PNC reported that there were only 241 homicides last month. While I haven't come across the numbers broken down by gender, femicide is most likely to have slowed as well.

I can't say that the gang truce will last, but hopefully Salvadoran men and women will at least get to enjoy a safer Holy Week in 2012.

The Anti-American Nobel Peace Prize

Jay Nordlinger, senior editor of National Review and the author of "Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World" (Encounter Books, 2012), has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on The Anti-American Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1987, the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its Nobel Peace Prize to Óscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica. Central America was beset by war, particularly in Nicaragua, and Mr. Arias had crafted a peace plan. In Washington, the Reagan administration was highly skeptical. The Nobel committee told Mr. Arias they were giving him the prize to use as a weapon against Reagan.

Robert Kagan writes about this in his 1996 book, "A Twilight Struggle." Said Mr. Arias to Mr. Kagan, "Reagan was responsible for my prize."

To say that the Reagan administration was "highly skeptical" is "highly deceptive." The Reagan administration actively worked to undermine Arias' efforts both among our Central American allies and in the US press. The US rejected any peace effort that would leave the Sandinistas in power in Nicaragua.

From what I understand, Reagan believed that the best way to bring human rights and peace to Central America was not to support human rights and peace. Instead, the way to accomplish peace in Central America was to defeat the communists militarily. Communists was interpreted broadly to include any and all people who challenged US foreign policy. 

Reagan rejected Carter's foreign policies of promoting human rights and respect for individual freedom and did a 180 in terms of US foreign policy when he assumed office. However, for a number of reasons, his administration did begin to believe that democracy and respect for human rights were necessary to bring peace to Central America, but that occurred more during his second term in office and was more of a strategic choice rather than a principled belief.

There are other parts to the op-ed that are seriously problematic starting with the title: The Anti-American Nobel Peace Prize. Nordlinger then goes on to write that the committee has given Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama as well as former vice president Al Gore peace prizes. I don't know. If sure sounds as if Nordlinger is saying that the anti-American committee gave peace prizes to these anti-American leaders. If you want to argue that the committee has maintained an anti-Republican Party foreign policy approach, that's a little more accurate.

And I would say that awarding a Nobel Prize to President Obama before his chair in the Oval Office was even warm was a terrible idea. It's even more of a terrible decision in hindsight as Obama's administration has continued to erode the rule of law at home and abroad. However, I wouldn't go about characterizing the president as anti-American. Misguided absolutely.

Cocaine's Long March North, 1900–2010

Paul Gootenberg has a recent article in Latin American Politics and Society on Cocaine's Long March North, 1900-2010. Here's the abstract.

This essay charts the entanglements and “blowback” effects of U.S. policy toward Latin American drug exports over the last century as the backdrop to today's cascading drug violence in northern Mexico. The history of cocaine reveals a series of major geopolitical shifts (closely related to U.S. interdictionist drug war policies) that bring drug commodity chains, illicit trafficking centers, and conflicts, over the long run, closer to the United States.

It analyzes shifts from initial legal cocaine and small-time postwar smuggling of the central Andes to the concentrating 1970s–1990s “cartel” epicenter in northern Andean Colombia, to the 1990s political shift north to Mexican transhipment and organizational leadership. Violence around cocaine has intensified at every step, and the present conflict portends another shift in the chain.

Even more importantly, it's freely accessible for everyone to read so go take a look.

Perez blames US for boycott

President Otto Perez Molina is now blaming the US for convincing the presidents of Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to boycott last week's drug decriminalization summit in Antigua, Guatemala.

"The boycott was because of fears in the United States that our region could unite around decriminalizing drugs," Perez, a right-wing retired general, told reporters....

"The boycott was not because of the Salvadoran president," he said. "The United States used the position of the Salvadoran president to force the boycott because they believe that we could unite around decriminalization." (Reuters)

I wonder if people really think that the US controls Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes. The US made Funes remove Minister of Justice and Public Security Manuel Melgar. The US is imposing militarization on El Salvador's approach to crime. After saying that he was open to a discussion on decriminalizing drugs, Funes changed his tune because of US pressure. The US forced Funes to boycott last week's meeting in Guatemala. Do people have such little respect for Funes?

And Daniel Ortega? The US allegedly convinced him not to go as well? I read somewhere that it might have been because Nicaragua is one of a few countries (El Salvador is another) whose citizens residing in the US benefit from Temporary Protected Status (TPS). There seems to be only about 3,000 Nicaraguans that benefit from TPS. Doesn't really sound like a persuasive argument to me. And I don't remember Ortega being a guy that jumps when the US says jump.

US Offers to increase assistance to Guatemala

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield spoke with the Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina on Tuesday. Following their meeting, Brownfield said that the US was willing to increase aid to Guatemala to continue the fight against drug trafficking.

The US support will come in the form of additional aircraft, particularly helicopters, as well as well as technical assistance in aviation, increased intelligence, strengthening anti-gang programs, support for prosecutors, specialized security units, drug control, prison reform, border control, and bilateral exchanges of digital fingerprints, among others.

I haven't come across any details yet so it is hard to come to any conclusions just yet. Will the US eventually come through with more assistance? What's the US congress' position? Did the Perez's threat suggestion that the region consider decriminalizing drugs increase the amount that the US was willing to offer? Will Perez continue to promote decriminalization or has he been "bought off" and will now drop the matter?

My initial reaction is that there's a good chance that Perez would have been able to get this type of assistance just by asking. If this was his ultimate goal, there was no need to threaten decriminalization. I don't know. It's a bit underwhelming if this is where the story ends.

Otto Perez Molina looks to regroup

Michael McDonald has a report on this weekend's meeting in Antigua, Guatemala up at The Nicaragua Dispatch.

Saturday’s Central American security summit, which was boycotted by half the presidents in the region, provided a clear indication that Guatemala’s efforts to push for an alternative, regional drug-control strategy are faltering quickly.

The three government leaders that did attend the meeting—Guatemala’s Otto Pérez, Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla and Panama’s Ricardo Martinelli—offered up a messy hodgepodge of proposals, indicating how difficult consensus will be even among those who agree to sit down and discuss the issue.

To be fair, the other countries did send high-level representatives. There's also the possibility of a second meeting where the subject will be raised,

 What is the hodgepodge? Boz writes

1. A stronger crackdown on drugs.
2. US payments per kilo of cocaine seized by the region.
3. A regional court with its own judges and lawyers.
4. Decriminalization of drug trafficking and use.

I can't say whether policies one, two and three would be effective. However, I think that OPM would have been more likely to have garnered support for those suggestions among his regional colleagues and within the US had he not started and stopped with number 4.

As I argued in Decriminalising drugs in the Western hemisphere at Al Jazeera about two weeks ago, OPM would likely have gotten more support for changing regional drug policies had he not started off with the suggestion that they consider legalizing the production, transportation, and consumption of all drugs.

It's unfortunate because a serious rethinking of regional and national drug policies is necessary.

The Murder of Monseñor Romero

March 24th marks the 32nd anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador.

Here is a thirty-minute documentary about Archbishop Romero and Captain Alvaro Saravia, one of the men responsible for his death. Saravia had been living in Modesto, California.





You can check out the Center for Justice and Accountability's website for more details on the case.

Guatemala Heart of the Mayan World 2012

32nd Anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero's Assassination

Dear Friends,

March 24 this year marks 32 years since the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. In memory of this anniversary please find here an exerpt from one of Romero's most famous sermons.



Please remember that one way to honor Romero's memory is to sponsor a University of Scranton Romero SEED for El Salvador (Scholarships to Establish Educational Development). The University of Scranton initiated these scholarships in 2003 to enable extremely impoverished youth to attend grade school, high school and college. All the funds go directly to help the youth in the village of Las Delicias which many of us have come to know personally through trips to El Salvador. 

Click here for more information on the SEED program.

Our first college graduate last year was José María Ortiz who is employed now as an accountant. Our next college graduate Albidia, a biology major, has a temporary setback with breast cancer but she hopes to graduate within a year. SEED is working to give these youth hope but we need your support. Please join me in sponsoring a student during the month of March. 

Please give whatever you can. It will be doubled during the month of March.

Thank you,

Marie Karam
marie.karam@scranton.edu

Fiscal reform in Guatemala

The Guatemalan Congress recently passed fiscal reform that will raise taxes for the wealthy earners. From Kate Newman at Americas Quarterly, 

The reform will allow Guatemalans earning less than 48,000 quetzales (US $6,200) yearly to pay nothing in taxes; currently all earning above 36,000 quetzales (US $4,645) are obliged to pay. Those earning over 300,000 quetzales (US $38,709) annually will pay 7 percent income tax, up from 5 percent. Middle-class earners making between 48,000 and 300,000Q will pay 5 percent.

Why the sudden shift in support? Recently-inaugurated President Otto Pérez Molina claimed the reform was essential for lowering the national debt and generating funds for programs to improve security and development.

Yet concerns of debt, security and development have long been present in Guatemala, and do little to explain the reform’s recent passing. There are likely other factors behind this sudden show of support. One such factor was approval from the Coordinating Committee for Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations (CACIF), whose resistance proved insurmountable in previous attempts to pass the reform. Perhaps its members trust that Pérez Molina respects their interests as others have not; the president depended heavily on private-sector support during his campaign, and appointed well-known business leaders to head several government ministries. Nor does this version of the tax reform work entirely against CACIF interests; while businesses will now pay a 5 percent tax on dividends—drafted as 10 percent in a previously rejected bill—the 31 percent tax they pay on utilities will be reduced to 25 percent by 2014.

I can't help but think that Perez and the congress' passage of the legislation is tied to Guatemala's efforts to get more support from the US to tackle poverty, crime, and other challenges. In one of the reviews of Alvaro Colom's presidency, someone at Plaza Publica wrote how Colom promised not to pursue significant fiscal reform during his first year or so in office so as to calm the business communities' fears. By the time he moved to pursue some reform, the main business organizations were ready to block any of his reforms. And then he was weakened by the Rosenberg murder/suicide. After that, fiscal reform was toast.

Claire Kumar at The Guardian has more on the positives and negatives of the reforms.

Guatemalan paramilitaries sentenced to 7,710 years

A lot of interesting things going on in Central America and Mexico. Unfortunately, I am backed up at work. Here's some good news out of Guatemala from Tuesday.

Five former members of right-wing Guatemalan paramilitaries have been sentenced to a total of 7,710 years in jail for their role in a 1982 massacre.

The men were charged with guiding the army to Plan de Sanchez, a rural community in northern Guatemala, and taking part in the ensuing massacre...

Judge Jazmin Barrios set a sentence of 30 years for each of the 256 victims of the former paramilitaries, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity.

However Judge Barrios said that the five men would only have to serve 50 years each - the maximum sentence allowed under Guatemalan law.

The massacre at Plan de Sanchez was one of 600 documented by a United Nations Truth Commission.

The men were part of the Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil, a civilian militia created by the army to help fight leftwing rebels.

An estimated one million Guatemalans severed in the PACs during the conflict.


See also El Periodico and Prensa Libre's coverage.

Summit of the Americas in South Carolina?

StateDept

• ✔

@StateDept

Summit of the Americas will be held April 14-15 in Columbia. Submit questions now using #AskState for our Twitter Q&A, 3/21 at 11:45 EST.

How many points do you take off for this mistake? 

El Salvador legislative vote since 1994

Here are the vote percentages for congress of the FMLN and ARENA since the 1994 elections. While the FMLN shouldn't be happy with its March 11th performance, I thought that it should be satisfied that it only lost four seats and that the ARENA and CN will not be able form a simple majority in the assembly. It shouldn't be happy with losing 140,000 votes but it could have been worse.

The FMLN's loss was ARENA's gain because the former second largest party is now the largest party. However, ARENA only picked up one seat in the congress compared to what it was elected with in 2009 and only captured one percent more of the national vote.

I'm still sticking with GANA as the winner. Unlike other "new" political parties, it survived the first election in which it competed. It picked up some of the FMLN's 2009 support and has the opportunity to play a decisive role in the congress and maybe even the 2014 election. There's a hefty portion of the electorate that does not necessarily want to support ARENA or the FMLN. I don't know why they would want to support Tony Saca's party given his terrible term as president, but so far they are willing to give him and GANA a chance.

Kino Border Initiative

The Kino Border Initiative "strives to accompany migrants and communities affected by the consequences of migration" and is located in the twin cities of Ambos Nogales (southern AZ and northern Sonora), a major port of entry and deportation for migrants in the southwest. 

In this interview, Jesuit Father Sean Carroll, the Executive Director of KBI, talks about the organization's work with displaced migrants.

El Salvador's FMLN wobbles, but doesn't fall down

I have a new post on my reactions to last week's elections in El Salvador. The post is entitled El Salvador's FMLN wobbles, but doesn't fall down. I think that it's the first title I provided that they actually liked enough to keep.

In the piece, I argue that that ARENA, the FMLN and GANA should be satisfied with their performance in the legislative elections and that GANA, rather than ARENA, is the real winner by a slight margin. While I wrote the piece last Monday and Tuesday, it only went up Saturday. However, I think that conclusions still hold.

When you think of all the reasons why the FMLN was going to do poorly, they're lucky that they only lost four seats.

1. Poor security situation
2. Poor economic situation
3. Divisions between the FMLN leadership and the base.
4. Disappointment with the manner in which the FMLN handled Decree 743, red alerts issued by Spain
5. An unpopular candidate for mayor of San Salvador
6. Outside candidates imposed by the FMLN on communities
7. Open-list voting while the FMLN told supporters just to vote party
8. The lack of advantages from 2009 - popular presidential candidate, unpopular ARENA candidate, frustration with ARENA's ability to resolve the country's problems.
9. improved internal cohesion
10. Really high number of deputies to begin with - the only way the party was likely to go was down.

The other parties had problems too but for all the problems surrounding the FMLN in this election, losing four seats wasn't that bad. 

I don't know for sure, but I think GANA might have picked up more of the FMLN's 2009 voters than it did of ARENA's 2009 voters. Given that GANA is on the right like ARENA, we sort of thought that they would pull away several traditional ARENA supporters. However, it's possible that they captured the support of independents and some on the right who had voted FMLN-Funes in 2009.

Tim and Voices from El Salvador also have interesting thoughts on the results.

Mass Graves in Alta Verapaz

The BBC has a short video on the remains of 32 civil war victims found near a military base in Alta Verapaz. There are several other graves in the area that they have not yet begun to process.

The other Alta Verapaz

On March 15, 2012, Counterpart International won the award for Best Video and/or Podcast Program at the PR News Nonprofit PR Awards for this multimedia package on Sustainable Livelioods in Guatemala!

Alta Verapaz made the international news mostly because of the two-month state of siege implemented there in December 2010.

Public Security in El Salvador

InSight recently published three interesting articles on public security in El Salvador.

In the first one, Is El Salvador Negotiating with Street Gangs?, Geoffrey Ramsey summarizes two El Faro reports on the government's approach to public security. One report indicates that Mauricio Funes' government has reached out to MS-13 and Barrio 18 to reduce violence by moving prisoners.

The second report says that gang leaders stopped the killings in return for large sums of cash. Ramsey says that whatever the cause, the government's approach seems to have worked. I'm not so sure. If it has, we are only going on two weeks of data - the first two weeks of March. Given the number of homicides in January and February, the country is on pace to surpass last year's numbers.

In the second article, Elyssa Pachico writes that the FBI [is set] to Train Anti-Extortion Unit in El Salvador. Given that the US has already been training anti-extortion units, this just looks like an attempt at a re-start.

Finally, Hannah Stone writes that US Hopes to Replicate Salvador Gang Policies in Honduras, Guatemala. Apparently, US Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield" said that the country's anti-gang policies were among the most successful in the region and that he hopes that they will be exported to Guatemala and Honduras. While you don't want to say bad things about the country's that you are preparing to visit, you probably shouldn't make statements that are so divorced from reality.

Finally, in a non-Insight piece, Edgardo Ayala has an article on Schoolchildren and Teachers Under Fire in El Salvador for IPS. Schools have not been able to provide a sanctuary from the violence that exists outside the schools' walls.

Unfortunately, I am not optimistic the likelihood that these "reforms" are going to lead to long-term improvements in the public security situation in El Salvador. I might be more optimistic if they instead looked to Nicaragua for ideas.

Femicide in Guatemala per 100,000

Last month I posted a graph reflecting homicides in Guatemala broken down by sex.

Carlos Mendoza just posted a graph using the same PNC data breaking the numbers down by population per 100,000. You have to go to his page to see the graphs - click here for the PDF version.

Nothing surprising. Homicides of men, women, and apparently children are down in Guatemala. Just thought that it was worth repeating.

Largely symbolic sentence?

The AP story floating around following Pedro Pimentel Rios' trial and sentencing is a bit annoying.

A former member of an elite Guatemalan military force extradited from the United States last July was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre.

Pedro Pimentel Rios was the fifth former special forces soldier sentenced to 6,060 years or more for what became known as the "Dos Erres" massacre after the northern Guatemala hamlet where the killings occurred during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.

The sentence that was handed down late Monday by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is 50 years. It specified 30 years for each of the 201 deaths, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity.

Pimentel got thirty years for each of the deaths and another 30 for crimes against humanity. The 54-year old could serve a 50-year term which would be a life-sentence.It's another important step towards tackling impunity for crimes committed during the Guatemalan civil war.

Elizabeth Malkin at the New York Times has it better.

Guatemalan law allows convicts to serve a maximum of 50 years, but the sentence assures that Mr. Pimentel, who is in his 50s, will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Another perpetrator of the Dos Erres massacre,  Gilberto Jordan, is serving ten years in a US prison for immigration violations. I wouldn't be surprised if he is released early and sent back to Guatemala to face trial.

The big trial and hopefully sentencing of Efraín Ríos Montt is yet to come.

Decriminalising drugs in the Western hemisphere

Here's a link to my new post on Decriminalising drugs in the Western hemisphere on Al Jazeera.It's a little contrarian given that I think that Otto Perez Molina might have done more harm than good with his suggestion to decriminalize drugs.


Here's the gist of it.

For the most part, President Perez's suggestion has been warmly received throughout the region, earning praise from both the left and the right for calling for an approach based upon decriminalisation. While I am sympathetic, I am afraid that President Perez's suggestion might have set back efforts to achieve a smarter regional drug policy. Perez must have known that the United States would come out forcefully against his suggestion to legalise the production, transportation, and consumption of all drugs.

Had Perez suggested that the region discuss decriminalising only marijuana, it would have been more difficult for the US to have fought back as forcefully against the notion. There have already been efforts in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and other countries to decriminalise small amounts of marijuana. There does not appear to be much of an appetite to extend the same reform to cocaine or other drugs, as was shown by the US's response to Bolivian President Evo Morales's "coca, not cocaine", policy. While still a long shot, a policy change targeted at marijuana would have been a much more viable goal than a reform involving all illegal drugs.

Perez also did not take into consideration that the United States is in the midst of a presidential campaign where taking a tough stand against external threats, wisely or not, is expected. As University of Miami professor Bruce Bagley said, "The last thing Obama wants is a decriminalisation debate in the midst of this campaign". Remember, Perez did not bring up decriminalisation during his campaign for the presidency. It was only after he was elected that he found it opportune to introduce the policy. He should not have expected President Obama and his administration to have responded any differently. I understand that Perez and the other presidents want change now, but they might have just made it more difficult for President Obama to make any reforms.