In recent months the U.S. Department of Justice has sent threatening letters to the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), which works in solidarity with grassroots social justice movements and the left in El Salvador. The government is accusing CISPES of being an 'agent of a foreign power' – specifically of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), the leftist political party in El Salvador. This echoes the FBI's groundless accusations against CISPES in the 1980s, which led to a seven-year campaign of illegal U.S. government harassment against CISPES that the FBI later had to apologize for.
San Salvador, El Salvador – About 20,000 people marched in San Salvador on Saturday, July 7 protesting against the arrest and detention of 13 political activists in Suchitoto, a town in El Salvador’s rural department of Cuzcatlán.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following letter of solidarity from the Salvadoran Labor Front, a federation made up of 27 trade unions, to striking members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association. We urge other unions in the United States and internationally to offer similar support.
Less than a week after the U.S. elections, labor leader Gilberto Soto was assassinated in Usulutan, El Salvador. Soto, a Salvadoran who emigrated to the U.S. in 1975, was a Teamster organizer in New Jersey, an activist with CISPES – the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador – and a long-time member of the FMLN, El Salvador’s left political party. The FMLN has actively opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, both in the legislature, where they hold a plurality of the seats, and in the streets, where they have led tens of thousands of people marching against CAFTA and against the war in Iraq.
San Salvador, El Salvador – Cerca de 20,000 personas marcharon en San Salvador el sábado 7 de julio protestando en contra del arresto y detención de 13 activistas políticos en Suchitoto, departamento de Cuzcatlán en la zona rural de El Salvador.