Despite Bukele’s declaration of victory, two days after the election almost all of the ballots cast for the Legislative Assembly still remained uncounted and a significant number of presidential ballots also remained uncounted. On election night, poll workers across the country started reporting in live videos on social media that the computer system for reporting results kept trying to double or triple the number of votes for Nayib Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas, as they tried to transmit the results. Then the system crashed entirely, grinding ballot counting to a halt.

After the vote counting was stopped late Sunday night, the ballots from the country’s capital San Salvador were then “lost”’ for over a day, leaving open the possibility that they had been tampered with before they were “found” the next day.

On February 5, the day after the election, the Popular Resistance and Rebellion Block (BRP), a block of left-wing and progressive organizations in El Salvador, released a statement saying that they condemn:

“… the unconstitutional reelection of Nayib Bukele, imposed with the complicity of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). As an expression of the organized Salvadoran popular movement, the Popular Resistance and Rebellion Block DOES NOT recognize the illegal election results or the de facto regime surging from this electoral farce. We denounce the fact that to guarantee this fraud in favor of the governing party, the regime also illegally modified the electoral system and violated many legal dispositions during the electoral campaign. We positively appreciate the courage of hundreds of thousands of people who voted for the opposition in a context of illegalities, political persecution and the continuing State of Exception, which suppresses constitutional guarantees and which the government utilizes as a mechanism of social containment. In this context of rupture with the constitutional order, of repression and regression in the political, social and economic order, we reiterate our call to build a broad front of left, democratic, and progressive forces to impede the consolidation of the dictatorial regime that seeks to perpetuate itself in power. We call on the people to get organized and deepen the struggle against the Bukele clan’s dictatorship, which sustains itself with illegalities and which has the backing of the oligarchy and imperialism.”

In a press conference after the election, a spokesperson for the group of accredited international election observers from the Center for Interchange and Solidarity, which has observed every Salvadoran election since the 1992 Peace Accords, said, “We suspect that there was an attempt to modify the results by the system that completely failed in the final counting. There wasn’t a ‘Plan B’ and they haven’t given any explanation for why the internet went out, for why the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s electoral reporting system failed, why the printers stopped working. Some reported that the boxes containing the technology arrived without being properly sealed. This has never happened before. So we don’t know if something happened with bad intentions, but the Attorney General must investigate. There were many irregularities and these were the most chaotic elections since 1994.”

Despite these flagrant and widely-reported problems observed by international election monitors, on the day after the election U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hastily recognized Bukele as the winner, saying, that the U.S. “looks forward to working with President-elect Bukele and Vice President-elect Felix Ulloa following their inauguration in June.”

Prominent right-wing political figures in the U.S. also quickly recognized Bukele as the election winner, including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Bukele is popular with Republicans in the U.S., including Donald Trump. On the other hand, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar and several of the more progressive members of Congress sent a public letter to the Biden administration the week before the Salvadoran election raising alarms over President Bukele's state of emergency, unlawful arrests and detention, harassment of political opponents, restrictions on press freedoms, and other actions.

Bukele’s self-declared victory in this election, for which he was ineligible to run, which took place under a militarized State of Exception, brings to an end El Salvador’s period of political opening that began in 1992 with the end of the Salvadoran Civil War. The Peace Accords signed that year put in place reforms forced by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) during its period as a left-wing guerrilla movement, which allowed the left to openly participate in elections for the first time in the country’s history. The left in El Salvador was outlawed and excluded from elections through the 1980s; the elections that the left tried to participate in under the umbrella of broad coalitions in the 1970s were stolen from them through fraud and brutal repression, leading to the rise of the armed left-wing revolutionary movement of the 1980s.

The Salvadoran constitution’s prohibition against a president serving two consecutive terms was put in place because of repeated experiences of military dictatorship in the 20th century, to prevent the same thing from recurring. But after winning the presidency in 2019, President Bukele illegally sacked and replaced the country’s Supreme Court justices with his own supporters, who then “reinterpreted” the constitution to allow him to run again.

Throughout this year’s electoral campaign Bukele changed the rules and tilted the playing field to his party’s advantage while threatening and repressing opposition parties to assure he and his Nuevas Ideas party would win. Bukele’s maneuvers included reducing the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly and redrawing the map of the country, and combining cities where opposition parties like the left-wing FMLN have support with areas where he had more support in order to reduce opposition parties’ representation.

Bukele and his supporters’ had an explicit goal in this year’s election of forcing the left wing FMLN’s disappearance as a recognized political party, by keeping their vote totals under the limit that would allow them to continue as a legal electoral party. While the results are still unclear, the partial and provisional results that were reported before the system crashed seem to indicate that Bukele failed in his attempt to erase the FMLN out of existence. In the numbers released so far, the FMLN has the second highest vote totals, higher than all other opposition parties.

This election took place under restricted democratic rights, with the militarized State of Exception that has dragged on for two years now with no end in sight. The mass arrests of more than 76,000 people under the State of Exception has rocketed El Salvador to have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

While the mass arrests are said to be aimed at combating street gangs, the government itself has admitted that at least 10% of the people they’ve arrested and held without charges are innocent, with the actual number likely higher.

While Bukele’s targeting of violent street gangs has been popular, he has also used the “war on gangs” and the State of Exception as cover to attack his political enemies, principally the left-wing FMLN party. Both of the former presidents from the FMLN, Salvador Sanchez Ceren and Mauricio Funes, have been forced to flee the country to avoid political persecution, receiving political asylum from neighboring Nicaragua’s progressive government. Several other FMLN leaders have been jailed and dragged through trumped-up trials accusing them of corruption, and Bukele frequently accuses the FMLN of being terrorists.

Bukele’s government has also attacked progressive activists like the environmental movement leaders in the town of Santa Marta who helped win a ban on exploitative foreign mining operations in El Salvador, jailing five key leaders for over a year on bogus charges before being forced to release them after widespread international protests.

Bukele’s government also tried to jail Ruben Zamora on bogus charges. Zamora is an important figure in modern Salvadoran history, as a founder of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) in 1980 who survived capture and torture, and whose brother was assassinated by the U.S.-backed military during the Salvadoran Civil War. Zamora was also the FMLN’s presidential candidate in the first election after the civil war in 1994, an ambassador to the U.S. and the UN under FMLN presidents. In recent years he has been an outspoken critic of President Bukele, reminding Salvadorans that their constitution allows insurrection against an illegitimate government. International outcry forced the government to rescind their order of capture against Zamora.

While Bukele currently has a base of support in El Salvador – and even more so among Salvadorans living abroad, due to his highly-orchestrated self-promoting propaganda campaign and the perception that he has ended violence in the country – he seemingly wasn’t content to gamble that his personal popularity would transfer to his party’s candidates for the Legislative Assembly enough to keep their supermajority – a supermajority that allows him to push through whatever policies he wants without debate.

Bukele’s use of extralegal means to attack the left and to tighten his grip on power has politically catapulted El Salvador back 50 years, to the time when right-wing leaders aligned with the military and with U.S. imperialism ruled through open repression and tried to silence any left-wing or popular movement.

#International #LatinAmerica #CentralAmerica #ElSalvador #FMLN #Elections #Imperialism #RightWing #Feature

Morazán, El Salvador – In an escalation of political repression against the left, on December 22 a Salvadoran judge in President Nayib Bukele’s government put out an arrest warrant against longtime progressive leader Rubén Zamora.

This move was widely criticized as a flagrant case of political repression against a progressive critic of Bukele’s government. The nonsensical “reason” was in relation to the notorious 1981 El Mozote massacre carried out by the U.S.-backed right-wing military: Zamora was ordered to be arrested for supposedly having voted for and signed the 1993 Amnesty Bill that made it impossible to prosecute people for acts during the war like the El Mozote massacre. But in fact, Zamora very publicly opposed and refused to vote for or sign the 1993 Amnesty Bill.

It’s President Bukele himself who has provided cover and continued impunity to the military figures who carried out the El Mozote massacre; in September 2020 he blocked a judge from reviewing or allowing the public to see the military archives about the massacre.

1981 El Mozote Massacre by U.S.-backed right-wing military dictatorship

In December 1981, the right-wing military dictatorship of El Salvador carried out their largest of many massacres during the Salvadoran Civil War in the town of El Mozote, Morazán. The military’s Atlacatl Battalion murdered everyone in the town, more than 811 civilians. This was in the mountainous eastern part of El Salvador where the revolutionary movement led by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) was strong, though El Mozote was known to be neutral territory where the FMLN didn’t have a base. That didn’t matter to the right-wing military – they killed everyone anyway.

The U.S.-backed Salvadoran military acted with impunity in carrying out many massacres like this because they had a green light and endless funding flowing in from the Reagan administration in Washington to carry out a merciless ‘war on communism’ against the FMLN.

1992 Peace Accords and 1993 Amnesty Law

The Salvadoran Civil War ended in 1992 with the signing of Peace Accords and the conversion of the FMLN from a guerrilla movement into an electoral party. The FMLN made this move in the context of an extremely unfavorable international situation for revolutionary movements around the world, with the end of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Before the FMLN entered the electoral system, the Legislative Assembly, which was still controlled by the far-right ARENA party, passed the Amnesty Law in 1993 to prevent the prosecution of anyone for the many crimes committed by the right-wing military and death squads during the war.

The left in El Salvador, including the few progressives that were in the Legislative Assembly at the time, like Ruben Zamora, vigorously opposed the Amnesty Law precisely because it would make sure nobody was ever held accountable for terrible massacres like El Mozote. Zamora walked out in protest when the Assembly voted on the Amnesty Law, joining with the hundreds of grassroots activists who were there protesting. His opposition to the Amnesty Law was widely reported at the time, including in the New York Times.

Zamora had a long history of trying to work for social justice through the electoral system in El Salvador, going back to the 1970s and early 80s when many progressives were murdered for trying to run for office or participate in the government, including his brother. After his brother was murdered, Zamora formed the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) as a political front fighting for an end to the dictatorship. Zamora himself was tortured three times by the government during this period.

Zamora was among the first progressives who tried running for office again in the late 1980s while the Civil War was still going on, and he succeeded in getting elected to the Legislative Assembly.

Zamora an FMLN Leader in 1990s and 2000s, now a leading critic of President Nayib Bukele

When the FMLN ran in their first elections in 1994 after the Civil War ended, they chose Rubén Zamora as their presidential candidate, as one of the few people on the Salvadoran left who had electoral experience after decades of right-wing military dictatorship. He didn’t win, but the campaign began the FMLN’s electoral rise, until they finally won the presidency in 2009 and again in 2014. In those FMLN presidential administrations, Zamora served as ambassador to the U.S., to India and to the United Nations.

In 2019 the FMLN lost the presidency to Nayib Bukele. Bukele had been mayor of San Salvador for the FMLN, but he made a sharp turn to right-wing populism after the FMLN kicked him out of the party as it became clear he was mainly interested in amassing personal power.

Zamora’s willingness to take political risks at the cost of his personal safety has continued in the current period of Bukele’s right-wing government and its permanent militarized “state of exception.” Zamora has spoken out publicly in opposition to Bukele’s right-wing populism that is without political vision or program, Bukele’s illegal attempt to run for reelection in 2024, which is prohibited in six articles of the Salvadoran constitution, as well as other flagrantly illegal acts of his administration.

Zamora has gone further and publicly warned of the fact that the Salvadoran constitution authorizes the population to wage insurrection if a president tries to stay in office past one term. This was included in the Salvadoran constitution after repeated episodes in Salvadoran history of presidents consolidating power into a military dictatorship.

President Bukele has governed under a militarized “state of exception” for almost two years, has rocketed El Salvador to having the largest per capita prison population in the world, detaining tens of thousands of people without charges, and is now illegally running for reelection with political cover from judges his party put in place after illegally removing the country’s supreme court judges in 2021.

Since Bukele became president in 2019, he has waged a personal and political vendetta against the left and the leading figures of the FMLN. Both former presidents from the FMLN, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sánchez Cerén, have gone into exile in Nicaragua to avoid political persecution. Many leading FMLN members have been imprisoned on bogus charges, and flimsy investigations orchestrated for the media have been carried out against leading FMLN members for trumped up allegations of corruption, including historic leaders like Lorena Peña and Eugenio Chicas. Leaders of social movements with a long history of social justice struggle who have challenged Bukele's economic agenda have also been prosecuted, like the Santa Marta 5, who were imprisoned because of their leadership in the environmental movement in opposition to reopening the country to exploitative and polluting foreign mining corporations.

The December 22 arrest warrant against Rubén Zamora is the latest escalation of political repression against the left in El Salvador.

Zamora was included in the arrest warrant issued for several former Salvadoran elected officials who were in the Legislative Assembly in 1992-93, when Peace Accords between the leftist insurgent FMLN and the right-wing government ended the Salvadoran Civil War. Their alleged role in passing the 1993 Amnesty Law is given as the reason. But as previously stated, Zamora opposed the Amnesty Law which was passed only with the votes of the right-wing parties, as it was overwhelmingly the right-wing government and military that were responsible for the massacres and human rights atrocities during the war.

A broad range of Salvadoran people and organizations including the Popular Rebellion and Resistance Block (BRP), a coalition of progressive organizations in El Salvador, have denounced the arrest warrant against Zamora as another example of growing political repression under the Bukele administration.

#ElSalvador #ElMozote #FMLN #RubenZamora

Santa Marta, Cabañas, El Salvador – On January 11, 2023, five environmental activists and community leaders from Santa Marta, Cabañas, El Salvador were arrested on bogus charges in a clear case of political persecution. They are still detained five months later and the movement to free them is growing around the world.

The men arrested – Antonio Pacheco, Saúl Rivas, Pedro Antonio Rivas, Alejandro Laínez and Miguel Gámez – are prominent leaders of the grassroots movement that won the world's first ban on metallic mining. The organization they’re part of, the Association for Social Economic Development (ADES), organized for years until succeeding in 2017 to get El Salvador to implement a country-wide ban on metallic mining due to the environmental damage it causes just to enrich multinational corporations.

There are strong signals that the current Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who also controls the country’s legislative assembly and the courts, wants to overturn the ban on mining. The arrest of the Santa Marta 5 appears to be an attempt to weaken the organized opposition to overturning the mining ban.

The Santa Marta 5 are facing dangerous conditions in El Salvador's prisons, and there has been a growing movement in El Salvador and internationally demanding their immediate release.

On June 11, the five-month anniversary of their arrest and detention, ADES released a statement saying, “For five months the Salvadoran government has mercilessly detained these five humble and brave fighters for social justice; the same heroes who saved the country from the horrific outcomes of metal mining in rural communities that was directly threatening the water, environment, agriculture and the continuity of life. Their work was key to demonstrating the infeasibility of metal mining and in approving the law that prohibits it in El Salvador. They deserve to be rewarded, not punished...Our colleagues have not been here for five months. We are overwhelmed by sadness of their absence, but also our fighting spirit to demand their freedom grows every day.”

Salvadoran President Bukele declared a “state of exception” in March 2022, which allows the government to arrest and hold anyone without due process or trial, among other severe restrictions on civil liberties. This was ostensibly to combat street gangs that have plagued El Salvador for decades. In the past year, Bukele’s government has arrested more than 68,000 people under the state of exception and has created the largest prison in Latin America to hold all the people being arrested and detained.

While his crackdown on gangs is popular in the country, Bukele is also taking advantage of that popularity to widen the net and politically persecute his perceived political enemies. He has mainly targeted people and organizations on the left but has also lashed out against some on the right who haven’t gone along with his leadership.

Bukele particularly has carried out a vendetta against the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), El Salvador’s main leftist political party, with both former FMLN presidents of the country, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, in exile in Nicaragua to avoid political persecution, and many other FMLN leaders and members facing very serious trumped up legal charges.

In that vein, Bukele’s government has also gone after the Santa Marta 5, jailing them on ridiculous charges dating back to the country’s civil war in the 1980s. The five were members of the FMLN during El Salvador's civil war, who fought against El Salvador’s U.S.– backed right-wing dictatorship. After the war, many FMLN members, including the Santa Marta 5, continued organizing for social justice in El Salvador.

The Santa Marta 5 are targets of repression because of their leadership in the anti-mining struggle and other popular struggles that confront Bukele’s government.

Additionally, at least 16 union leaders have been arrested and held indefinitely under the state of exception, since many unions continue to organize and fight against Bukele’s anti-worker policies.

The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), which has organized solidarity with the Salvadoran left and popular movement since the country's civil war, is asking people to email their U.S. Representative and Senator, calling on them to speak out against the unjust detention of the Santa Marta 5: https://cispes.salsalabs.org/SantaMartaCongressionalaction/index.html

#SantaMartaCabañas #SantaMarta #ElSalvador #PoliticalPrisoners #environmentalJustice #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Cientos de salvadoreños se concentraron este 21 de febrero en la Plaza Salvador del Mundo para expresar su solidaridad con la revolución bolivariana de Venezuela y el gobierno de Nicolás Maduro. Los participantes, convocados por los comités de solidaridad con Cuba, portaban banderas y carteles mostrando su oposición a la intervención militar de Estados Unidos en Venezuela. Venezuela está enfrentando una amenaza inminente de intervención militar estadounidense como parte de un atentado de golpe de estado orquestado por el gobierno de Trump para imponer un líder pro imperialista en el país con una riqueza enorme de petróleo. Debido a la sangrienta historia de intervenciones militares de Estados Unidos en varios países latinoamericanos, muchos movimientos populares, a través de todo el continente americano, están solidarizándose con Venezuela y con su promesa de resistir la intervención imperialista de EEUU.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #Venezuela #PeoplesStruggles #BolivarianRevolution #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Hundreds of Salvadorans rallied February 21 at the Salvador del Mundo Plaza to express solidarity with the Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution and with the government of Nicolás Maduro. At the rally, which was called by Cuba solidarity committees in El Salvador, people carried Venezuelan and Cuban flags and signs showing opposing U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. Venezuela is facing the imminent threat of U.S. military intervention as part of an attempted coup orchestrated by the Trump administration to impose a pro-imperialist leader in the oil rich country. Due to the bloody history of U.S. military intervention in many Latin American countries, movements throughout the Americas are standing up in solidarity with Venezuela as they vow to resist U.S. imperialist intervention.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #Venezuela #PeoplesStruggles #BolivarianRevolution #Americas

The Christians for National Liberation expresses its heartfelt jubilation on the canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero – Archbishop of El Salvador to the Vatican’s roster of Saints.

Saint Oscar Romero is the first Salvadoran Saint. He was gunned down during Mass in a hospital chapel a day after telling the Army that “They are killing our own people.” And that “no soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. One must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us. And those who fend off danger will lose their lives.”

Romero was outspoken during his country’s bloody civil war in the 1980’s, and also the role the United States played in it. In a letter he sent to US President Jimmy Carter in February of 1980, he urged America not to send military aid to El Salvador: “You call yourself Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here.”

In the context of the Philippine situation, the militant church people who are actively journeying with the struggling Filipinos for social transformation, for the hoped “new heaven and new earth” see this recognition as a challenge to the churches to be one with the poor, deprived, oppressed and exploited. CNL through the years, and up to the present, has a long list of martyrs, of church people killed, tortured, detained and harassed while serving the poor.

CNL members have participated in different forms of struggle, including the armed struggle, and devoted and gave up their lives for the revolution. In the hearts of the ordinary faithful, they, i.e. the martyrs, are saints just like St. Oscar Romero, as they offer their lives for the basic masses. Only that they were not officially enrolled in the Vatican’s roster of saints.

While celebrating the Eucharist and holding up the Host, St. Oscar Romero said “May this Host that is immolated, and this Blood which is sacrificed, nourish us so that we can give our body and our blood to suffering and pain as Christ did. Not for ourselves, but rather so as to bring forth a harvest of justice and peace in our land. (Homily, May 24, 1980)” It was through his spoken word that he touched most people of El Salvador, and the pulpit became a microphone of Christ. For us Christians for National Liberation, this is the meaning of holiness in a world of injustice and oppression!

Let us carry on the struggle!

#Philippines #OppressedNationalities #ElSalvador #Asia #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #RenminMalaya #Spokesperson #NationalExecutiveCommittee #ChristiansForNationalLiberationNationalDemocraticFrontOfThePhilippinesNDFP

San Salvador, El Salvador – Thousands of students came together at the main entrance of the University of El Salvador (UES), July 5, to march against the right-wing initiative of the Salvadoran oligarchy to privatize water. The protest was organized and led by the UES authorities.

The large march was accompanied by the university community, where students, teachers and workers brought out colorful signs, banners and firecrackers.

The protesters marched to the Legislative Assembly where the university community, led by Rector Roger Armando Arias, demonstrating the opposition of the Salvadoran people to the privatization of the vital liquid.

“The struggle is to make sure the people don’t die of thirst,” said Arias.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #UniversidadDeElSalvador #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Miles de estudiantes se dieron cita en la entrada principal de la Universidad de El Salvador el 5 de julio para marchar contra la iniciativa de la derecha oligárquica salvadoreña por privatizar el agua. La protesta fue organizada y encabezada por las autoridades de dicha casa de estudios.

La numerosa marcha fue acompañada por la comunidad universitaria, donde estudiantes, docentes y empleados del Alma Mater, dieron colorido con consignas, mantas y petardos.

La manifestación se dirigió hacia la Asamblea Legislativa, donde la comunidad universitaria, guiada por el rector Roger Armando Arias hizo patente su acompañamiento al pueblo salvadoreño en contra de la privatización del vital líquido.

“La lucha nuestra es para evitar que el pueblo muera de sed” acotó Arias.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #UniversidadDeElSalvador #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Hundreds of students, professors, professionals, teachers and workers at the University of El Salvador (UES) gathered on June 29 to protest against the new attempt by the oligarchic right wing in El Salvador to privatize water.

The large gathering was led by UES Rector Roger Arias, who categorically rejected this new shock from El Salvador’s private businesses and their political arm, the ARENA party, which is once again attempting to privatize public services.

Their slogan was “water is a public good and as a University we will defend it.” These words reverberate deeply in this new conjuncture in El Salvador, in which the right wing elite now has a legislative majority and hopes to privatize water and many other public services.

#SanSalvadaorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #UniversidadDeElSalvador #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Centenares de estudiantes, profesores, profesionales, docentes y empleados de la Universidad de El Salvador se reunieron hoy 29 de junio para manifestarse contra el nuevo intento de la derecha oligárquica salvadoreña por privatizar el agua.

La numerosa concentración estuvo encabezada por el rector de dicha Universidad, Roger Arias, quien categóricamente rechazó este nuevo embate de la empresa privada salvadoreña y su brazo político: el partido ARENA, que intentan nuevamente privatizar bienes del estado.

“El agua es un bien común, y como Universidad la defenderemos”, fueron sus palabras; palabras que resuenan con profundo sentido en esta nueva coyuntura salvadoreña, en la que la derecha criolla, al haber obtenido mayoría legislativa desea privatizar el agua y muchos otros bienes públicos.

#SanSalvadaorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #UniversidadDeElSalvador #Americas

Minneapolis, MN – On Jan. 8, President Trump announced the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for around 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States. TPS for Salvadorans will be phased out in 18 months. This comes after Trump has already ended TPS for Haitians and Nicaraguans, and soon Hondurans will almost surely lose TPS as well. While the loss of TPS for any country is an injustice, the number of Salvadorans with TPS is more than all other nationalities combined.

The Trump administration’s decision to end TPS for Salvadorans is yet another racist and vicious attack in the seemingly nonstop barrage targeting immigrant families. But this is one of the most consequential attacks so far alongside the ending of DACA. Ending TPS for Salvadorans is targeting 200,000 people along with their families in one fell swoop. This is particularly evil because of its scale, because of how long Salvadorans with TPS have been in the U.S. and established deep roots, and because of the U.S. government’s historic and present role in causing mass migration from El Salvador. The U.S. government played a decisive role in causing massive violence in El Salvador which has provoked continual mass migration since the 1980s. Then the U.S. government engages in mass deportation against the people who fled the country that U.S. policies has wrecked.

El Salvador is a country with 6 million people densely packed into a small amount of land. It’s a country whose people have a proud history of heroic resistance against severe injustice and state repression. But now around 500 Salvadorans leave their country every day with the goal of crossing 3 borders on a harrowing journey filled with danger to get to the U.S. Why?

El Salvador is consistently at or near the top in murder and violence rates in the Western Hemisphere. This is largely because of gangs backed by organized crime and powerful figures in the oligarchy that control turf in almost the whole country and have also taken root in neighboring countries like Honduras and Guatemala.

The ongoing violence in El Salvador is like another undeclared civil war that developed on the heels of the U.S.-backed civil war that ended in 1992 which left 75,000 Salvadorans dead. In addition to the large number of people who died during the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s, the US-backed military dictatorship's sweeping repression also caused large numbers of Salvadorans to flee northward to the U.S. Huge Salvadoran communities developed in Los Angeles (which is referred to as El Salvador's '15th department' after the 14 departments of El Salvador) and several other areas of the U.S.

In much of the countryside in El Salvador today, there are mostly old people and women with small children. When people get old enough to leave, massive numbers of them head out for big cities or for the U.S. Think about how bad things must be that people will risk life and limb to get into Trump's U.S., where immigrants are so cruelly scapegoated and targeted for abuse and repression.

How did the gangs in El Salvador emerge and become so powerful? Where did they come from? They are literally made the in U.S. The two biggest gangs are named after streets in Los Angeles. They were formed in Los Angeles among young Salvadorans whose families fled the Salvadoran civil war and ended up in Los Angeles neighborhoods where gangs were already established. So the newcomer Salvadoran youth formed their own gangs to protect themselves.

Then in the 1990s the Clinton administration and California politicians thought it would help their electoral fortunes if they 'got tough' on crime and immigration. The federal “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996”, the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994” along with state-level laws like California’s anti-immigrant Proposition 187 and “Three Strikes” crime bill, filled the jails with Latino and Black youth, and revved up mass deportations of Mexican and Central American immigrants.

Suddenly thousands of Salvadoran youth who grew up in the U.S. were deported to El Salvador, a country they barely knew. Among those sent back were some gang members. This sent Los Angeles gangs to a country devastated by war, with families shattered and split apart, with guns still aplenty, and no jobs or economic opportunity. The gangs spread like wildfire. So the Salvadoran gangs that Donald Trump likes to talk about as part of his racist anti-Latino and anti-immigrant diatribes were created right here in the U.S. and then spread to El Salvador via policies of mass deportation.

El Salvador was hit by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and then hit by a harsh earthquake that led to landslides that swallowed whole communities in 2001. It was then that the U.S. government under President Bush opened up Temporary Protective Status to Salvadorans without an immigration status in the U.S. so they wouldn't be sent back to a country devastated by a natural disaster on top of political and social disasters.

TPS is a humanitarian status that the president can designate when a country is in a state of turmoil and therefore sending people back there would likely put them in danger. The president regularly reviews countries with TPS status to decide whether to extend their status or not. The president has a lot of leeway to grant TPS and to end it. The fact that TPS has been renewed every 18 months for Salvadorans since 2001 is not officially because of the situation of violence and instability in the country, but that clearly has made it too unpalatable for either former Presidents Bush or Obama to end TPS and send hundreds of thousands of people back there. TPS has continued for Salvadorans for 17 years. But clearly Trump has no such qualms about sending hundreds of thousands of people to the most violent country in the hemisphere with few economic opportunities.

The Salvadoran economy is deeply dependent on the money that Salvadorans in the U.S. send back to their families in El Salvador. Ending TPS and then possibly deporting hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans will curtail that flow of money via remittances. This will have a huge negative impact on the economy there. According to the World Bank, Salvadorans in the U.S. send $4.5 billion a year to El Salvador, accounting for about 17% of the country’s GDP. What will be the effect of losing a big chunk of that money flow? It can only be assumed that it will drive more people toward illicit economies or toward trying to make the trek to the United States, fueling more waves of forced mass migration.

Another factor worth mentioning is that El Salvador is in its second term of having a leftist president from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a leftist party rooted in the guerilla movement of the 1980s. Before 2009, the oligarchy represented mainly by the ARENA party held a tight grip on all levers of power that had never been broken. The oligarchy still controls the economy, media, judiciary and the largest group in the legislative assembly. They use all those things to try to block any progressive measure the FMLN president tries to implement. And ARENA has been tenaciously fighting to get the presidency back as well as local control in many towns where the mayor and city councils are from the FMLN. Toward that end they wage a constant propaganda war against the FMLN.

In the years before the FMLN first won the presidency in 2009, ARENA always tried to scare people away from voting for the FMLN in every election by saying that if the leftist FMLN was in power then the U.S. government would punish Salvadorans by ending TPS, by cutting off remittances or taking other retribution against Salvadorans. The FMLN has been in the presidency since 2009 and none of that has happened. It was simply propaganda aimed at scaring people into continuing to vote for the oligarchy’s favored party.

But now that Trump is ending TPS, the Salvadoran right wing and the media they control is in a frenzy blaming the FMLN. They are saying this is happening because the FMLN doesn't simply ask “how high?” when the U.S. government says “jump.” This can be a very powerful tool in ARENA's arsenal because the Salvadoran economy overall and many families are dependent on the money Salvadorans in the U.S. send back to their families in El Salvador since there are so few jobs or real economic opportunities.

But it is clear that the end of TPS for Salvadorans has nothing to do with the FMLN being in power. How could it, when Trump also ended TPS for several other countries with very different governments including Haiti, Sudan and Nicaragua? Soon the Trump administration will decide whether to continue TPS for Syria, Nepal, Honduras, Yemen and Somalia. Given Trump’s consistent anti-Muslim, anti-Latino and anti-immigrant politics, it seems very likely he will end TPS for most if not all of those countries too.

The decision to end TPS for Salvadorans is a result of Trump and the part of the U.S. capitalist class he represents acting in what they think is in their economic and political interest. It is not a response to Salvadoran electoral politics. It's important to counter the propaganda from the Salvadoran right wing and their right-wing backers in the U.S. that they're using for electoral purposes. They are wielding this issue to try to damage the FMLN's prospects in El Salvador's legislative elections this year and the presidential election next year. That propaganda can have a real impact in El Salvador's elections.

In the U.S. the immigrant rights movement, labor movement, and all who believe in social justice must continue to fight for justice for Salvadoran immigrants. We must stand with them against Trump's dishonest and racist rhetoric and especially stand with them in fighting deportations and separation of families. The struggle is not over. There are 18 months to fight for a reversal of this decision on TPS or for legislative action to win permanent residency for Salvadorans who are currently on TPS. And we must continue to build the movement’s capacity to fight every deportation they may try to carry out.

While TPS has been very important for Salvadorans in the U.S., the fact is TPS wasn't enough. A large number of Salvadorans never qualified for TPS because there were many restrictions based on when people arrived in the U.S. and other factors. So we must continue to fight for legalization for all.

Legalization for all is the only just solution, given that U.S.-backed wars in Central America and unjust trade agreements with Mexico and Central America are the root cause of the forced mass migration of millions of people.

#MinneapolisMN #ElSalvador #DonaldTrump #TPS #TemporaryProtectedStatus

San Salvador, El Salvador – El 27-29 de julio 2017, 300 delegados de organizaciones de solidaridad con Cuba de los países de El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panamá, México y Colombia realizaron el II Encuentro Centroamericano de Solidaridad con Cuba. El Encuentro fue patrocinado por el Movimiento Salvadoreño de Solidaridad con Cuba, compuesto por varios comités de El Salvador que apoyan a Cuba socialista. El encuentro reafirmó la solidaridad con el pueblo y el gobierno socialista cubano.

Desde Cuba llegó Fernando González, uno de los 5 héroes cubanos que estuvo preso en los Estados Unidos hasta 2014 y actualmente es el presidente del Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos (ICAP), que construye la solidaridad internacional.

Como parte del encuentro se realizó una marcha el 27 de julio en honor al Día Nacional de Rebeldía de la Plaza Bolívar a la Plaza Martí. En la marcha el espíritu revolucionario e internacionalista se sintió en las calles con banderas de Cuba y otras banderas y mantas revolucionarias.

El 28 de julio ofrecieron homenaje en varios monumentos y tumbas revolucionarias en San Salvador incluso en el Monumento a Schafik Handal, la tumba de Francisco Morazán, la tumba de Farabundo Martí, el monumento a Simón Bolívar, y la cripta de Monseñor Romero. Después los delegados llegaron a la sede del II Encuentro en el Centro de Estudios de El Salvador donde realizaron presentaciones como “América Latina y el Caribe: ofensiva imperial y resistencia de los pueblos”, “Cuba en desarrollo: actualid y perspectivas”, “Solidaridad entre pueblos: una necesidad histórica. La experiencia Cubana”, y “Fortalecimiento de los movimientos centroamericanos de solidaridad con Cuba, Venezuela y Nuestro América. Experiencias de organización y acción por países y lucha en defensa de la soberanía nacional.”

El 29 de julio hubo otra presentación, “Apoyo internacional a la lucha del pueblo salvadoreño en contra de la agresión imperialista, instrumentada por la derecha oligárquica y su partido” a lo cual le siguió una discusión. Rindieron además homenaje al Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Ernesto Che Guevara, y Hugo Chávez. En el evento se dio lectura a la declaración final del encuentro y al plan de acción que se produjo en dicho evento, el cual culminó con un acto cultural.

Un participante en el Encuentro de Costa Rica, Bruno, dijo, “Para nosotros fue muy importante venir a conocer a las diferentes organizaciones de solidaridad que existen en centroamérica y nos interesa muchísimo el hecho de que haya actividades coordinadas. Entonces, queríamos ver el trabajo que hacen las otras organizaciones para hacer actividades coordinadas que tienen mucho más fuerza y mucho más impacto en la solidaridad con Cuba.”

Daniel, un miembro del Comité de Solidaridad Agradecidos con Cuba y con Fidel en Santa Tecla, El Salvador dijo, “El encuentro fue un acto de solidaridad muy bonito y importante. Cuba dio su apoyo incondicional a la lucha en El Salvador en sus momentos de necesidad, como lo ha hecho con los pueblos en toda América y el resto del mundo. Nos da orgullo cumplir nuestro deber internacionalista de apoyar al pueblo y al gobierno cubano en su lucha contra el bloqueo y las crecientes amenazas del imperio. Esperamos seguir fortaleciendo nuestros lazos de solidaridad con las y los hermanos centroamericanos, para que de tal manera enfrentemos mejor los ataques del imperio contra Cuba.”

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #Cuba #ElSalvador #Cuban5 #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – On July 27-29, 300 delegates from organizations in solidarity with Cuba from the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panamá, México and Colombia participated in the Second Central American Gathering in Solidarity with Cuba. The gathering was organized by the Salvadoran Movement in Solidarity with Cuba, which is made up of various committees throughout El Salvador in solidarity with socialist Cuba. The gathering reaffirmed solidarity with the Cuban people and socialist government.

Fernando Gonzalez came from Cuba for the gathering. Gonzalez was one of the heroic Cuban 5 who was imprisoned in the U.S. until 2014 and now is the president of the Cuban Institute of People’s Friendship (ICAP), which builds international solidarity.

As part of the gathering, there was a march on July 27 in honor of Cuba’s national day of rebellion, commemorating the first armed uprising of the Cuban revolution. The march went from Bolívar Plaza to Martí Plaza. In the march there was a strong spirit of revolution and internationalism, with Cuban flags and revolutionary flags and banners.

On July 28, delegates paid tribute at various revolutionary monuments and tombs in San Salvador including the monument to Schafik Handal, Francisco Morazán’s tomb, Farabundo Martí’s tomb, the monument to Simon Bolivar, and Monseñor Romero’s crypt. After that delegates arrived at the Center of Studies of El Salvador (CEES), where the presentations of the gathering would take place. There were presentations such as “Latin America and the Caribbean: Imperialist offensive and the people’s resistance,” “Cuba in development: Present situation and perspectives,” “Solidarity between peoples: A historic necessity – the Cuban experience,” “Strengthening Central American movements in solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela and our America – Experiences with organization, action and struggle in defense of national sovereignty.”

There was also a presentation on July 29 titled “International support for the Salvadoran people’s struggle against imperialist aggression, carried out by the oligarchy and their party.” That was followed by a discussion. Finally, there was tribute paid to Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Ernesto Che Guevara and Hugo Chavez. The final declaration of the gathering was read as well as the action plan that was adopted, and the event closed with a cultural performance.

A participant in the gathering from Costa Rica named Bruno said, “For us it was very important to come and get to know the different solidarity groups that exist in Central America, and we’re very interested in having coordinated actions. So we wanted to see the work that other groups do so we can coordinate activities to have more force and impact in solidarity with Cuba.”

Daniel, a member of the Solidarity Committee Grateful to Cuba and Fidel in Santa Tecla, El Salvador said, “The gathering was a beautiful and important act of solidarity. Cuba gave unconditional support to the struggle in El Salvador in moments of great need, just like they have done with all the peoples of the Americas and the rest of the world. We’re proud to carry out our internationalist duty to support the Cuban people and government in their struggle against the blockade and the increasing threats from the empire. We hope to continue strengthening our links of solidarity with our Central American sisters and brothers, and with that strengthened solidarity we will be able to better confront the empire’s attacks on Cuba.”

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #ElSalvador #Cuban5 #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Decenas de miles de trabajadores salvadoreños salieron a marchar aquí en el día internacional de los trabajadores. El evento inició con tres marchas en diferentes partes de San Salvador que culminaron en la Plaza del Salvador del Mundo con un mitín conjunto. Las marchas empezaron en la Plaza Schafik Handal en Mejicanos, Árbol de la Paz por el Estadio Cuscatlán, y Boulevard de los Héroes. A la marcha se unieron muchos sindicatos, organizaciones sociales y organizaciones de izquierda. Los trabajadores celebraron sus logros incluso un aumento del salario mínimo. También expresaron su rechazo a la propuesta del sector privado para privatizar las pensiones. Los sindicatos presentaron su propia propuesta al gobierno del FMLN de una reforma al sistema de pensiones que garantice el derecho de los actuales pensionados y de los futuros pensionados.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #Labor #ElSalvador #1DeMayo #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Tens of thousands of Salvadoran workers came out to march here on International Workers Day. The event started with three marches from different parts of San Salvador that converged in the El Salvador del Mundo plaza for a unified rally. The marches started at Schafik Handal Plaza in Mejicanos, at Árbol de la Paz by Cuzcatlan Stadium, and on Boulevard de los Héroes. Many unions, social movement organizations and the left participated in the march. Workers celebrated their accomplishments including an increase to the minimum wage. They also expressed their rejection of a proposal from the private sector to privatize pensions. The unions presented their own proposal to the FMLN government to reform the pension system to guarantee a pension for current and future retirees.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #Labor #ElSalvador #Mayday #Americas

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvadorSS #Labor #ElSalvador #Americas

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvadorSS #StudentMovement #ElSalvador #PoliticalRepression #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Los Cinco Héroes cubanos pasaron más de una década en las cárceles de los Estados Unidos, arrestados por el gobierno estadounidense a finales de los años 1990 por haber monitoreado grupos anticomunistas cubanos basados en Miami, Florida quienes han planificado actividades terroristas en contra de Cuba socialista. Los cinco recientemente ganaron su libertad de las cárceles de los Estados Unidos debido a una campaña mundial exigiendo su libertad. Regresaron a Cuba como héroes, todavía firmes en su dedicación a la revolución cubana. La decision del gobierno estadounidense para liberarlos fue uno de los primeros pasos en la restauración de las relaciones diplomáticas entre Cuba y los Estados Unidos.

Los cinco – René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández y Fernando González – están visitando varios países para dar las gracias a los pueblos que les apoyaron y que apoyan a Cuba. Como parte de eso, realizaron una visita histórica a El Salvador el pasado 21 de julio. Con una apretada agenda realizaron varios actos de homenaje al arzobispo salvadoreño Óscar Arnulfo Romero, asesinado por los escuadrones de la muerte de la derecha durante la guerra civil; y al patriota cubano José Martí; sostuvieron también una entrevista privada con el Presidente de la República Salvador Sánchez Cerén, un líder histórico del Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), y concluyeron su visita en un acto popular celebrado en la Universidad de El Salvador (UES), primera y única casa de estudios pública en ese país, institución académica con una larga historia de lucha y pensamiento crítico.

Los 5 héroes fueron recibidos calurosamente en la UES, con el clásico grito universitario ¡Esta es la U! Mientras los cubanos dirigieron un emotivo discurso a la multitud que desbordó el Cine-Teatro.

Cerraron su participación con una condecoración por parte de la Comisión Política del FMLN, el liderazgo del partido de izquierda que actualmente gobierna el país, quien les consignó una medalla al mérito; así también la Comunidad Salvadoreña Palestina les obsequiaron unas hermosas Kufiyas blancas y negras los cuales los cinco orgullosamente mostraron en la tarima.

Antes de visitar El Salvador los Cinco Héroes cubanos visitaron Nicaragua en el aniversario de la revolución sandinista de 1979, y también pasaron por Sudáfrica. Los movimientos revolucionarios en esto tres países tienen vínculos profundos históricamente con la revolución cubana.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #Cuba #ElSalvador #FMLN #SalvadorSanchezCeren #Cuban5 #UniversityOfElSalvador #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – The Cuban 5 spent well over a decade in U.S. prisons, arrested by the U.S. government in the late 1990s for monitoring anti-communist Cuban groups based in Miami, Florida that have planned terror activities against socialist Cuba. The five were recently released from U.S. prisons in the face of a worldwide movement demanding their freedom. They returned to a heroes welcome in Cuba, unbroken and firm in their dedication to the Cuban revolution. Their release by the U.S. government was an early move in the renewing of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S.

The five – René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández y Fernando González – are now visiting several countries to give thanks to the people that supported them and support Cuba. As part of that, they made a historic visit to El Salvador on July 21. They had a packed agenda, including paying homage to slain Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero who was assassinated by a right wing death squad during the Salvadoran Civil War, and Cuban patriot Jose Martí. They met with Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Ceren, who is a historic leader of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). They closed their visit with a packed mass meeting at the amphitheatre of the University of El Salvador (UES), the only public university in El Salvador. UES is an institution with a long and historic tradition of revolutionary thinking and struggle.

The 5 Cuban heroes were warmly welcomed at the UES with the traditional chant of the universitary students, “esta es la U!” (“This is the U!”). They gave a very emotional speech to the crowd that packed the facility.

They were also given a recognition by the FMLN Political Commission, the leadership of the leftist party that governs El Salvador, and by the Salvadoran Palestinian community who gifted them with beautiful black and white keffiyehs, which they proudly put on while on stage.

Before visiting El Salvador, the Cuban 5 also visited Nicaragua on the anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution there, and visited South Africa. The revolutionary movements in all three countries have deep historic ties to the Cuban revolution.

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #Cuba #ElSalvador #FMLN #SalvadorSanchezCeren #Cuban5 #UniversityOfElSalvador #Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador – Manifestantes se concentraron frente a la embajada de Israel en San Salvador el 11 de julio para expresar su solidaridad con el pueblo palestino, y para protestar el ataque militar de Israel en Gaza. Los manifestantes mostraron banderas palestinas y carteles condenando el ataque de Israel contra los palestinos. Esa fue la segunda protesta ésta semana frente a la embajada de Israel aquí. Uno de los organizadores de la protesta de hoy, Logan Kenpo, dijo, “nosotros aquí en El Salvador, hicimos una convocatoria de jóvenes, estudiantes de la Universidad de El Salvador, amigos de facebook entre otros y hemos decidido concentrarnos acá en repudio a la masacre y al silencio y la injusticia que sufre el pueblo palestino y al genocidio que impulsa el gobierno de Israel apoyado por el gobierno de Estados Unidos.”

#SanSalvadorElSalvador #SanSalvador #AntiwarMovement #Gaza #Palestine #ElSalvador #MiddleEast