Leftist declares victory in El Salvador

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: The Age AU

Leftist candidate Mauricio Funes has claimed victory in El Salvador's presidential election, in a historic vote that ends the 20-year rule of right-wing party ARENA.

"This was the happiest night of my life," Funes told reporters and supporters late on Sunday.

"Today, the citizenship that believed in hope and defeated fear has triumphed," Funes said.

"My government will be based on the spirit of national unity," Funes said.



Read more: http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/leftist-declares-victory-in-el-salvador-20090316-8zl5.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. A lot of American money was spent in the past 20 years, trying to keep these guys out of office

[EFerrari]

9. Millions of dollars. You know it!

[bertman]

55. More like HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. If not BILLIONS. The repression really took off

in the early '80's.

[EFerrari]

61. This morning I heard on Amy's show, 6 billion dollars to defeat the FMLN. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

73. Wow!!!!

[bertman]

81. And the best part--

THOSE WERE OUR FUCKING TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!!

[BrklynLiberal]

83. But..of course!!!! Did we hear any repukes screaming about that spending???? NO!!!!

[L. Coyote]

101. And certainly not about the 70,000+ people they killed.

$85,000 American taxpayer dollars per dead person.

[Judi Lynn]

84. For a guy who hated "big government" Reagan surely made this gov't name a nightmare

in Central America and South America. That SIX BILLION U.S. taxpayers' dollars he spent on KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE in El Salvador was spent doing something completely evil. How much more disrespectful could a President get than to take the money from his own taxpayers and spend it destroying helpless, innocent people who were in NO WAY whatsoever a threat to the U.S.

We were the threat, and to make sure he could pull it all off smoothly, he made sure no one here knew he was doing it. Is that the behavior of a man who knows he's doing the right thing? Reagan, Jesse Helms, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell were all crazy about funding the death squads, and bumping off Central American people. Reagan whined they were only a couple of days driving time from our own border.

I guess their idea was that it wouldn't hurt to have a huge, empty dead zone south of the border. 75,000 people slaughtered in El Salvador just within a few years.

No wonder the people are celebrating today. May the people, once emancipated, never lose to the fascists again.

[MrPerson]

2. Yay leftists.

[New Dawn]

3. Zombie Reagan is angrily banging his fists against his coffin's lid.

[Skink]

4. Hold on Norm Coleman is getting ready to file papers.

[Idealism]

5. Viva FMLN!

It is about time the CIA didn't intervene in the elections.

[L. Coyote]

6. About time ARENA, founded by the death squad leaders, got the boot.

Twenty-nine years after it launched an armed insurrection, the Farabundi Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), is
now a political party. When I was there, they were being hunted to death with US financing. Now, they are going to be in power.

=================

An estimated 2.5 million Salvadoran immigrants live in the US. The money they send every month to the seven million people living back home buffers the economy - comprising nearly one-fifth of GDP.

Many of those immigrants fled during the 1980s, when war wracked the city and the countryside. It was then too that the US solidified its dominance in Salvadoran affairs. The United States backed the government with weapons, hardware and millions of dollars in financing. Little El Salvador had become a key Cold war battleground in the Americas.

A national hero

The Arena party was also born, founded by an army major named Roberto D'Aubuisson who directed paramilitary death squads. The party won the presidency in 1989 and has not lost it since. Party faithful to this day revere D'Aubuisson as a national hero. .....

.............. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/2009314124242413618.html

[EFerrari]

7. I never thought I'd see this day.

:woohoo:

And, f#ck you, Ronald Raygun, you butcher. We outlasted your criminal @ss.

[bread_and_roses]

48. Yes! - how wonderful to wake up to this news!

I only wish that blood-soaked monster were alive to see this, and to know that the unbelievable bravery of ordinary Salvadorans in the face of unending terror had defeated him at last.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. And the leftward tilt of Latin America continues...

:woohoo:

[EFerrari]

11. Thanks, Donald Rumsfeld you ef, for being obsessed with the MIddle East!

:woohoo:

[bitchkitty]

10. Go Mauricio, its your birthday, we gonna party like it's your bithday!

I feel wonderful! I feel like there's a chance we'll have a strong true Left in this country someday - that's a great feeling.

[L. Coyote]

12. I was in San Salvador the day after the Space Shuttle exploded. Bush was there

too, and had given $100,000,000 in illegal aid to the Contras.
That is likely why the White House would not allow the launch to cancel,
to avoid press attention shifting to the V-P's crimes. I was writing
about this, and was nearly killed, stabbed nine times, a few days later.

"Jan. 29. 6:45 a.m. Comedor La Ursula. .... A young boy just arrived selling today's newspapers with front page color photographs of the space shuttle "Challenger" exploding. I bought La Prensa, which reports that US Vice-President George Bush accused Nicaragua of hiding its Marxist-Leninist system of government contrary to the democratic aspiration of the people. Bush, at a news conference held in the Central Bank Building in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, stated that the USA unconditionally supports the more than 20,000 men in arms, the contras, who since 1982 have tried to overthrow the regime in Nicaragua with U.S. financing and bases installed in Honduras. Bush stated that the U.S. is committed to help Honduras in its effort to defend its sovereignty and territory against the communist aggression. So reads La Prensa.

"A separate article about U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz's meeting in Washington, D.C. with contra leaders cites Alfonso Robelo as having said: "We can continue to fight without money, but we cannot win." He also said that it is cheaper for the U.S. to finance the contras than to intervene directly. ...."

[Gregorian]

20. That is one hell of a story. Glad you survived.

You're dedicated. That's what I find so amazing about this forum. One never knows who they are rubbing up against. That's heavy stuff.

But it almost takes people like you to get the tiniest tidbits of fact that finally take down the monsters. Thank you.

[L. Coyote]

37. Barely. The Natives saved my life. The assailants took my journalism notes

but did not bother with the money. Funny that!! I fought for and kept my camera and film, but they got my pens and notes.

I was down to 60 over 40 at the emergency room, nearly bled out.

[BrklynLiberal]

74. Wow! This must be a day to celebrate for you...

[Demeter]

43. thank you for living to tell the tale, and for yet another piece of the Bush puzzle

those bastards have got to get their comeuppance and soon, before Poopy dies.

[L. Coyote]

86. There has been no serious follow-up on a host of Reagan-Bush crimes ...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/lost7.html

There has been no serious follow-up on a host of other Reagan-Bush crimes either: the support for Central American death squads; the cover-up of the 1981 El Mozote massacre in El Salvador; collaboration with Noriega; protection for the heroin trade of another CIA-backed group, the Afghan mujahadeen; Ferdinand Marcos's alleged multi-million-dollar pay-offs to Ronald Reagan; the BCCI affair; the savings-and-loan plundering and a hundred other economic rip-offs that enriched the few and left the nation trillions of dollars in debt.

So it was not entirely surprising that Gary Webb's remarkable story about contras and crack caused not a ripple of official reaction. The disclosures were not even mentioned in the nation's two leading papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post. After all, since both prestige papers had blown the story in the 1980s, they weren't eager to admit their screw-up now.

Apparently confident that the Republican crimes will continue to go unchallenged, GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole (who played a prominent role in the Iran-contra cover-up) even had the audacity to attack Clinton on the rise in drug use among teen-agers. Going still further, Dole pledged that as president, he would involve the CIA in the war on drugs. ....

[Sarah Ibarruri]

58. Oh my gosh. What happened to you is terrifying!

Have you been left with ptsd, fear, etc?

[L. Coyote]

75. I was left with phone tapping, burglary, daily phone harrassment, that routine ....

... it ends with torture. Actually, it does not end.
They are still in power, doing the same stuff they did
in the 1980s, still making and killing political enemies.

Why? Because they are in power and they can get away with it.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

110. Who? The CIA? Corporate types? The Secret Service? All? nt

[L. Coyote]

112. I forgot to ask! And burglars don't leave calling cards.

I assumed they wouldn't be identify themselves :rofl: since it is a crime!

I could say more, but investigations could then be compromised.
There is no statute of limitations on some of the crimes involved,
so we cannot give out what is known and who has been identified so far.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

113. True LOL! nt

[earcandle]

66. Thank you for your commitment to Democracy.

[chollybocker]

13. If only Joe Strummer was still alive to sing about this.

[earcandle]

68. More fun in the new world order

Not the fabulous Joe Strummer, but x-tal nails it pretty well.

More Fun

[roody]

14. Great news.

[cosmicone]

15. Bush the uniter has definitely united Latin America with Chávez! n/t

[EFerrari]

16. The FMLN predates Chavez. Support for social democrats in El Salvador

predates him by sixty years. It has only been by sheer force of the United States backing the oligarchy that the right wing has been in power so long.

[L. Coyote]

77. Case in point, occupation of Nicaragua. I had a copy of US troops with a beheaded peasant.

By the early 20th century, U.S. companies dominated the economies of the five Central American republics, controlling most of the banana production, railroads, port facilities, mines, and banking institutions. This export-based economy also maintained a social hierarchy of a small number of large landowners and millions of landless peasants. Nicaragua offers a case study of both American domination of the region and local and international resistance to that domination. During the 19th century Nicaragua was among the main contenders for an interoceanic canal and thus drew major railroad and steamship investors from both Britain and the United States. The United States intervened in Nicaragua four times during the 1890s to protect U.S. economic interests during periods of political unrest. In 1912 U.S. marines landed once again to maintain a pro-American government; this occupation lasted until 1925. As this January 1927 memorandum submitted to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicated, Secretary of State Frank Kellogg justified U.S. occupation of Nicaragua on the basis of communist threats from Mexico and the Soviet Union. .... http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4987/

And what was this so-called "imperialism" that workers opposed? President Taft said it best.
1912 - U.S. marines invade Nicaragua, beginning an occupation that was to last almost continuously until 1933.
President Taft declared:

"The day is not far distant
when three Stars & Stripes at three equidistant points will mark
our territory: one at the North Pole, another at the Panama Canal and
the third at the South Pole. The whole hemisphere will be ours in fact
as, by virtue of our superiority of race, it already is ours morally."

Sound familiar? I cannot count the times I heard white oligarchs in South America say something
like "our superiority of race" about their former slaves, the Native Americans.

The present has context, and in the Americas that context is stealing the gold, conquest, genocide, slavery, rape, pillage, racism. ....
The United States is very different because of the extermination of the Natives, as British law did not allow enslaving them.
British law also did not allow invading Ohio, but we sure solved that problem!! And then the Century of Genocide began.
Latin America is very different because after Church decided the Natives were humans with souls, they quit killing them.

The context in El Salvador and South America is one of celebration of liberation from colonialism and imperialism.
The United States remains to be liberated from its cultural past, one of genocide and racism.
We need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that goeso go back to the Pilgrims landing!!

More: United States Intervention, 1909-33
http://countrystudies.us/nicaragua/10.htm

[arcos]

28. This is a process MUCH, MUCH bigger than Chávez...

And in a lot of ways, it has absolutely nothing to do with him. Each country has their own experiences, their own history, and although there are a lots of similar histories among Latin American countries, there are also very big differences.

[EFerrari]

29. But it is true that Chavez has been a major prop to Latin American autonomy.

In that sense, he has been important -- big mouth and all. :)

[L. Coyote]

34. It is about the Liberacion de las Americas. For some countries, their second or third time!

So far, in the USA, there has not been a real liberation movement, probably because we still keep the few surviving Natives totally powerless in their concentration camps.

[L. Coyote]

76. The same players are in power still! The Devil & Bob Gates ... "Gates admits

Lost History (Part 2): The Devil & Bob Gates
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/lost2.html

Gates admits that the CIA did funnel money through Nicaragua's Catholic Church to finance anti-Sandinista political operations. When I broke that story for Newsweek in June 1987, Nicaragua's Catholic bishops angrily denied its accuracy, and Reagan-Bush allies in the conservative press denounced me. Accuracy in Media demanded that Newsweek conduct an internal investigation, anda dministration officials lobbied Newsweek editors to silence my reporting.

Yet, in a offhand comment about why Casey's lost credibility with Congress, Gates writes that Casey "did, apparently, cross the line on several occasions, such as continuing to provide covert funding for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua after he promised Congress he would stop."

(Gates) was confirmed as George Bush's CIA director after another "half-hearted" congressional inquiry which took his denials at "face value."

Key senators had blocked Gates's nomination to replace Casey as CIA director in 1987 because of suspicions that Gates, as deputy director, had misled Congress about the Iran-contra scandal. By1991, witnesses also had linked Gates to alleged Republican efforts to sabotage President Carter's Iran hostage negotiations in 1980 -- the so-called October Surprise story -- and to secret CIA-sanctioned arms shipments to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s -- known as Iraqgate.

Gates denied all the charges .... Boren's Intelligence Committee brushed aside two witnesses connecting Gates to the alleged GOP actions in 1980and the purported CIA arms deals with Iraq a few years later.The witnesses, former Israeli intelligence official AriBen-Menashe and Iranian businessman Richard Babayan, both offered details about Gates's alleged connections to those schemes. .....

[iamthebandfanman]

17. 'rebels' was the first word used on yahoo.com

but has sense changed to 'ex-rebel'.

[EFerrari]

18. Kick

[Gregorian]

19. Damn! Could there really be a shift going on?

It's about bloody time.

PS- FU Reagan, Ollie, Bush, et al.

[EFerrari]

22. Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, EL SALVADOR!

:woohoo:

[SharonAnn]

23. Don't forget Chile!

[EFerrari]

25. Argentina! And Brazil has a left leaning moderate!

:hi:

[madrchsod]

21. the christian evangelicals made it possible for his win...

will the coalition last is the question that no one knows. that being said it is great victory for the people

[Sarah Ibarruri]

59. Yes they did! nt

[EFerrari]

103. 46% of these very conservative voters are said to have voter for FMLN.

Very cool.

[Peace Patriot]

24. New political alignment in Latin America

Left = social justice goals, strong public sector, national sovereignty (anti-US/corpo domination), local manufacturing, land reform, regional integration, cooperation, and control of finance and development:

El Salvador! --left
Nicaragua--left
Paraguay--left
Uruguay--left
Argentina--left
Venezuela--left
Bolivia--left
Ecuador--left
Brazil--center-left, strongly allied with the leftists
Chile--center-left, allied with the leftists on critical issues
Guatemala--first progressive government, ever, in sympathy with the leftists
Honduras--leaning left, and...

Mexico--center-right, stolen election (Bushwhack "war on drugs" disruption and oil privatization agenda; likely going left next election)

Costa Rica--center-left (regressive CAFTA "free trade")
Peru--center-right (run by corrupt 'free tradists'; leftist likely to win next election)

Cuba--communist; semi-democratic (topnotch educational, medical and environmental programs)

Colombia--fascist (extremely corrupt; rife with death squads and drug traffic; flush with $6 BILLION in US military aid; major troublemaker).

-------------------------

The Bush Junta chief ally in Latin America: Colombia. Do the math.

-------------------------

:applause: :grouphug: :applause: :grouphug: :applause:

KUDOS, LAUREL WREATHS AND BLESSINGS UPON THE PEOPLE OF EL SALVADOR WHO HAVE SUFFERED SO MUCH AND WORKED SO HARD TO ACHIEVE A DECENT LEFTIST GOVERNMENT!

As Evo Morales has said: "The time of the people has come!"

[Submariner]

33. I'm curious...do you know where Panama fits in the Latin America mix

Following Bush's smackdown of Noriega, I imagine they are not pleased with us. Thanks in advance.

[L. Coyote]

35. Are they a country now?

I'll believe it when they have a currency!!

[Demeter]

44. And Poor Haiti, total chaos

[earcandle]

69. Can I post this on my noodlebrain news?

Such an informative summary of what is going on. 

Please shoot me an email to let me know.
And thanks in advance. 

[Peace Patriot]

26. ARENA has conceded! FMLN wins!

http://cispes.org/09electionsblog/

[EFerrari]

27. I still can't believe it.

:hug:

[OutNow]

30. Oscar Romero - Presente!

The struggle for liberation has been a long a bloody one in El Salvador.

Many have lost their lives by the hand of US backed death squads.

To all the victims of right-wing repression - this is a happy day.

Viva FMLN.

Oscar Romero - Presente!

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0324-21.htm

[EFerrari]

32. My grocer friend across the street broke down in tears this afternoon.

The seven priests that were murdered were all his teachers. A week later, he himself was taken and held for more than a year. He has knife scars on his face from that year. ((((((((((Rolando))))))))

Muchos representando.

[Judi Lynn]

47. This must be one of the happiest days in his life up to today.

His country has a much brighter future now if the fascists can be held at bay. Hope the new government will be strong enough to keep those monsters away from the controls of government for a long time. They are morally, psychologically unequipped to lead the country, just as they are here.

He'll probably be walking on air for a while! Who wouldn't who has lived through what he has?

[EFerrari]

100. I talked to him today. He said, he went a little nuts last night

and called his brother who is still in San Salvador. They had a long conversation about how Funes might govern and how the (now) opposition might behave. Uncharted territory. In truth, everyone of us connected to this struggle in any way is still walking on air. :)

[L. Coyote]

36. The Jesuit Priests, presente, the murdered nuns, presente, Ben Linder, presente.

And Bush remains free!

Deja DU: George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135

[Judi Lynn]

46. Just saw what UN ambassador Kirkpatrick said about the 4 murdered nuns in El Salvador

That immortal pronouncement appeared in your post #132:

“these nuns were not just nuns; they were also political activists”

That's just exactly what you'd expect from a Reagan appointee, isn't it? My God, that's depraved.

That is one wonderful collection of material. Thank you for posting it. You've saved some of us a lot of time-consuming research.

[L. Coyote]

64. “these nuns were not just nuns; they were also political activists”

Which, of course, is what gets you killed in Latin America in the nations where the USA pays for the death squads.

[Judi Lynn]

45. Killed 29 years ago, this month. Your article is superb:

Published on Thursday, March 24, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Oscar Romero, Presente!
by John Dear

“I have often been threatened with death,” Archbishop Oscar Romero told a Guatemalan reporter two weeks before his assassination on March 24, 1980. “If they kill me, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people. If the threats come to be fulfilled, from this moment I offer my blood to God for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. Let my blood be a seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon be reality.”

Oscar Romero was killed twenty-five years ago today, but he lives on in El Salvador, Latin America and even in the United States, wherever people give their lives in the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace. He gave his life for that struggle in the hope that the outcome was inevitable, that justice would be done, that war would be abolished, that truth will overcome, and that love and life are stronger than hate and death.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0324-21.htm

Thanks for introducing this excellent summary of Archbishop's unique, and devoted efforts to find mercy for the people around him from a barbaric government.

You couldn't have picked a better place and time to share it.

[earcandle]

70. Bravo Oscar Romero!

Your seeds were fertile and are bearing fruit!

[MountainMamma]

78. I have hoped for this day.........well said Outnow

Oscar Romero - Presente
Jesuits - Presente
Nuns = Presente
Todos los Salvadoreanos who have lost their lives in this struggle
PRESENTE, PRESENTE, PRESENTE

[struggle4progress]

31. El Salvador Former Rebels Win Their First Presidential Election (Bloomberg)

By Eric Sabo

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- El Salvador’s former rebel party won its first presidential election, ending two decades of rule for one of the staunchest U.S. allies in Central America.

Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, said he would usher in a new type of leadership for Central America’s smallest country.

“Thank you for choosing hope over fear,” Funes said in San Salvador late yesterday in a speech carried on CNN Espanol. “This is a victory for all of El Salvador.”

Rodrigo Avila of the National Republican Alliance conceded defeat after results from yesterday’s election showed he trailed Funes. It is the first presidential loss in two decades for the ruling party, which squared off against the Marxist rebel group in a 12-year civil war that ended in 1992 and has remained close to successive U.S. administrations ....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aQNHDrcgXuKU&refer=latin_america

[DesertRat]

38. 51 to 48%

My 20 year old daughter arrived home from San Salvador a couple of hours ago (wearing an Oscar Romero T-shirt). She was there with a group of fellow Catholic college students for an "alternative Spring Break." There was a lot of hope and excitement there today.

Viva Funes! http://www.elsalvador.com/mwedh/default.html

[EFerrari]

39. All kinds of dirty tricks today. Moving polling places,

destroying ballots before people could use them, flooding polling places with ARENA PR, trying to get polling places shut down because of bad behavior. It must have been exciting. Makes you wonder what the real margin would have been. lol

[DesertRat]

40. It was much better today than in the past

ARENA usually paid Hondurans $50 to come over and vote. This time the FMNL had poll watchers closely checking id's and for the past week have been kicking out the Hondurans. :)

[EFerrari]

41. There was at least one arrest today of a Nicaraguense

that had been recruited by ARENA. :)

[struggle4progress]

88. Remember the transparent ballot boxes in the 1982 election?

Chomsky on democracy & education, p205
http://books.google.com/books?id=3ORu91WxxL4C&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=transparent+ballot+boxes+el+salvador+1982&source=bl&ots=7L2urVS58U&sig=mnMAWcavMPd8kQIAJy3-FNDTndg&hl=en&ei=1ri-Sfj8KoHT-Aa588HYBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

El Salvador held an election -- using see-thru ballot boxes. Most voters probably didn't need the message spelled out carefully: everyone knew the country was swarming with rightwing death squads

[Kaleko]

42. This is one incredibly exciting thread.

Thank you all.

:grouphug:

[fasttense]

49. The Age AU made one mistake in their article.

Isn't it Damn Leftist? Oh wait.

Great news for El Salvador, South America and the world.

[Loudmxr]

50. My cousin Shelia is sooo happy. Any Chiagoans probably know who she is.

She has been working for this for a long time. Kudos to you my cousin. (Still is pissed that there is no FBI file on her.... that she knows of.):party: :bounce: :loveya: :yourock: :applause: :woohoo: :hug:

[Odin2005]

51. Good!

:woohoo:

[amyrose2712]

52. Pink Tide !nt

[dipsydoodle]

53. BBC News link

Leftist Mauricio Funes of El Salvador's former Marxist rebel FMLN party has won the country's presidential election.

He defeated his conservative rival, the Arena party's Rodrigo Avila, who has admitted defeat.

Arena had won every presidential election since the end of El Salvador's civil war 18 years ago.

Addressing jubilant supporters, Mr Funes said it was the happiest day of his life and the beginning of a new chapter of peace for the country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7944899.stm

Excellent news :party:

[a la izquierda]

54. Felicidades a la gente.

What a fantastic victory for decades of violence and strife.

[LynnTheDem]

56. Anyone EVER seen a "media" headline "RIGHTEST anything"???

[raccoon]

115. Excellent point. nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

57. Thank GOD!

El Salvador is SUCH A POOR COUNTRY. It has been kept that way by Republicans in the U.S., the CIA, and all the powers that be here, as well as there. It's been a CRIME what they've done.

[reggie the dog]

60. leftist leftist leftist

why not just say that the left won? Why the "leftist"??? They say the "right" won, not the "rightist" candidate....

[dieselrevolver]

62. Amazing

I never thought I'd see FMLN win a Presidential Election. This is truly a remarkable day for my fellow Salvadorans and our Latin American brothers and sisters.

[EFerrari]

71. Welcome to DU, dieselrevolver. Make sure you check out the segment

Amy Goodman did today:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/16/fmln_candidate_mauricio_funes_wins_el

[Hell Hath No Fury]

63. I hope one of the first things Funes does...

..is overturn the ban on abortion. Women are dying right now in El Salvador because of the insane decision to ban abortion, even in if the mother's life is at stake. :mad:

My city, SF, felt the cost of those years of American terrorism in El Salvador. May El Salvador be returned to the people, and may the US and the corporate interests butt the fuck out.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

95. For a bit on that particular abomination (über-extreme abortion ban), see here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=3146191

[Union Yes]

65. The working man/woman are rising up globally.

About fucking time.

Let this be the beginning of a global revolution.

The wealthy have bent the little guy AND planet Earth over and raped em both for too long. The little guy has turned the other cheek for too fucking long.

May this only be the beginning.

Fight the good fight! Take the power back.

Peace

[L. Coyote]

92. Unemployed and underemployed is 62.4 %, cost of living $760, minimum wage just $173.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/miscellaneous/need_to_map/story/64074.html

.............

In 2007, 57.5 percent were considered underemployed, according to government figures provided by Gerson Martinez, an FMLN lawmaker. Among those ages 15 to 24, the number of those unemployed and underemployed is 62.4 percent.

Meanwhile, the average cost of living for a family is $760 a month. The minimum wage in a factory job is just $173 a month.

"In the economic realm, people tend to blame Arena for bad performance of the economy," says Miguel Cruz, a former polling director in San Salvador and now a political analyst.

But troubles are expected to worsen before getting better. More than 2 million of the nation's 7 million residents live abroad in cities such as Los Angeles, sending money home in what's a crucial engine of El Salvador's economy: Remittances represent 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.

The flow of cash from abroad has grown unabated over the past decade. But it's expected to drop by 5 percent next year .................

[antimatter98]

67. The people are starting to take control of their economy, resources, and lives. Bravo!

Will the US be next?

[earcandle]

72. Funny you should ask that question. It was on my mind as well.

How do we do it without being violent? 

[L. Coyote]

79. "How do we do it without being violent?" The keyboard is mightier than the LIES!

[L. Coyote]

80. Democracy Now VIDEOS: Leftist FMLN Candidate Mauricio Funes Wins El Salvador Presidential Election

Leftist FMLN Candidate Mauricio Funes Wins El Salvador Presidential Election, Ending Two Decades of Conservative Rule
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/16/fmln_candidate_mauricio_funes_wins_el

El Salvador Holds National Elections Amidst Renewed GOP Threats Against Electing FMLN
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/13/el_salvador_holds_national_elections_amidst

[L. Coyote]

108. First Interview with President-elect Mauricio Funes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x284952
OR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddJaOYJqM0

MORE VIDEOS:
Avila Concedes!!!
http://cispes.org/09electionsblog/

[L. Coyote]

82. Election Dirty Tricks Again in Washington and El Salvador

Robert Naiman
Posted March 12, 2009 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/election-dirty-tricks-aga_b_174486.html

Last week, more than 30 Members of Congress joined Rep. Raul Grijalva in asking President Obama to affirm U.S. neutrality in El Salvador's Presidential election on Sunday March 15, to stop the recycling in El Salvador of US threats when Salvadorans voted in 2004. But there has been no high-level response from the Obama Administration, Rep. Grijalva told Democracy Now! yesterday.

But right-wing Republicans in Congress have not been quiet. Upside Down News reports:

On Tuesday El Salvador's largest circulating daily, the Diario de Hoy, published news of a letter signed by over 40 Republicans in Congress, denouncing the FMLN and warning of their links to Venezuela and Cuba. The letter expresses "grave concern that a victory by the FMLN could make links between El Salvador and the regimes of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, and other states that promote terrorism, and also with other non-democratic regimes and terrorist organizations."

Meanwhile, CISPES reports:

Yesterday, two Republicans gave speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives threatening that Salvadorans living in the U.S. will lose their immigration status and be outlawed from sending money home to their families if voters in El Salvador exercise their right to elect the opposition FMLN party's candidate on Sunday.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) said, "Should the pro-terrorist FMLN party replace the current government in El Salvador, the United States, in the interests of national security, would be required to reevaluate our policy toward El Salvador, including cash remittance and immigration policies to compensate for the fact there will no longer be a reliable counterpart in the Salvadoran government." .....

.............

[struggle4progress]

85. US congratulates leftist winner in El Salvador (AFP)

... Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman, said the elections were "very free, fair and democratic."

"I want to specifically congratulate Mauricio Funes as the winner of the presidential election and also his opponent, Rodrigo Avila, for participating in the election and for respecting the election results," he said.

"So we look forward to working with the new government of El Salvador... on our bilateral agenda," he said ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jqH60lqIx63fXwtnwkeoWRZNMjdQ

[AlphaCentauri]

107. What would be the future of the TPS program?

[Judi Lynn]

87. Victory for the left in El Salvador

Victory for the left in El Salvador
Mauricio Funes's election win means the rights of the country's indigenous people will at last be recognised and defended
Richard Gott
guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 March 2009 20.00 GMT

El Salvador is the most tragic and oppressed country in the Americas, yet today it wakes up to a new dawn of hope and anticipation, with the election victory of Mauricio Funes, the candidate of a historic leftwing party, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Funes himself is a journalist, a former television presenter and a moderate social democrat, but his party is the heir to the principal radical tradition in the country established over the past 80 years, years of extreme conservatism punctuated by periods of excruciating violence unleashed on the population by the most reactionary landed oligarchy in the Americas. The 500-year struggle in Latin America between indigenous peoples and white settlers from Europe is finally being won, and El Salvador will now take its place beside Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador as a country where the rights of the continent's indigenous peoples are recognised and defended.

The party of Funes takes its name from Agustín Farabundo Martí, a member of that first generation of communist leaders in Central America in the 1920s that included Augusto César Sandino of Nicaragua, the inspiration of the Sandinistas. Farabundo Martí took part in the famous peasant uprising of 1932, sparked off by the global economic crisis that led to a collapse of the coffee price, the country's principal export earner. The crisis was crushed by the US-backed military dictator of the time, General Maximilian Martínez, in what was called "La Matanza", or "slaughtering", in which 30,000 mostly indigenous people were killed.

Farabundo Martí was captured and shot, but his name was taken up by the guerrilla movement that emerged in the 1970s, to carry on the struggle against the successive military governments that dominated the country in the 20th century. That struggle, waged throughout the 1980s, was even more viciously crushed than "La Matanza" of the 1930s, and led to the deaths of more than 70,000 people. The war in El Salvador was one of the best-reported stories of its time in the international media, which highlighted the huge financial support provided by the Reagan government to the local military.

A particular feature of the war was the repression ordered by the army of the Catholic church, with the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in March 1980 and of four American churchwomen in December that year, and of six Jesuit teachers in November 1989. The war was finally brought to an end with a UN-brokered peace process in 1991, but although the FMLN was then able to participate in politics, the country has remained dominated by the ultra rightwing Arena party that had once fuelled the paramilitary militias and death squads of the 1980s. Until today. The Arena candidate, Rodrigo Avila, himself a former police chief, gracefully conceded on Sunday night that he had lost the election. As in the 1930s, El Salvador is feeling the effects of the global economic crisis, and the neoliberal model inflicted on Central America over recent decades is already being rejected in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. El Salvador is just the latest country to follow this trend.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/16/el-salvador

[L. Coyote]

89. You have to love the foreign press. "the most reactionary landed oligarchy in the Americas"

That would get you "scandalized" out of your job in the MSM.

[EFerrari]

97. Have you been back, L.? I haven't as an adult.

Most of my family has gone back and stayed at my uncle's place but I just couldn't force myself to go just to go ten rounds with reactionary @ssholes -- as much as I'd love to do some research there.

[L. Coyote]

99. I've gone to Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico a few times.

I was back within a few years.
In Chile, Pinochet was still in power.
I was a minimun wage activist at the time.
The grape import embargo thing was happening.
I think Pinochet was pretty pissed at the USA.

His Excellency and Dictator increased the minimum wage 40% on my 40th birthday!! Just coincidence, no doubt.

Bolivia was pretty calm.

In Peru, bridges were being blown up in my old villages, one right after I left,
and for the other, just before I got there. Both my old villages were guerrilla held,
one the southern command of the Senderos, the other for a different group.

I was warned the Senderos killed all foreigners entering the zone.
I went in by humbly walking with my heavy pack. I was welcomed and treated kindly.
The people knew me, and knew I had worked to liberate haciendas there.

To get to my second village, in the Amazon, is an all-day road trip.
I rode atop a truck, hitched a ride with a commanding view.
Suddenly armed soldiers stepped out of the jungle in all directions.
They searched the heck out of everyone and stole a bunch of foodstuffs.
Then we had to stop at their outpost along the road to show ID and register.
I took the commander aside and told him that the easiest way to kill them all
was to show up with a bunch of fresh oranges for them to steal!

You don't need guns to kill thieves, I said. He did not laugh.
We went on into the jungle, where they did not dare thread!!

On the way out of the liberated zone, we went thru the same routine,
except they just waved me along! I guess they remembered me.

Mexico was pretty cool back then still.

[L. Coyote]

90. Funes' path to presidency began as war reporter - brother was shot dead in 1980

Funes' path to presidency began as war reporter
By MARCOS ALEMAN – 34 minutes ago - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-K2YFOgtIojJ7NjG9Tkd1wIh1MwD96VBJC02


SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Mauricio Funes made a name for himself by reporting on El Salvador's 1980-1992 war between U.S.-backed governments and leftist guerrillas and as a television show host who was unafraid to tackle the Central American nation's most sensitive issues. .....

Funes says he will "end the structure of privileges" among "business groups who have kidnapped the state and are using it for their own benefit." But he also pledges to respect El Salvador's market economy and protect property rights. .....

He has compared his message of change to President Barack Obama. Even his campaign slogan echoed the new U.S. president: "Hope is being born, change is coming." Supporters chanted "Yes, we can!" at rallies.

Born in 1959 in San Salvador, Funes studied communications at a Jesuit university, ............ Like many Salvadorans, he knew loss during the war. His older brother, a student activist, was shot dead in 1980 — a killing Funes has blamed on the national police. ............

[Judi Lynn]

91. Thanks for the background on Funes. Most articles have been very light on his details. n/t

[fascisthunter]

93. very good sign

[humus]

94. Ring Them Bells

The El Mozote Massacre


In December 1981, the inhabitants of a small Salvadoran hamlet were systematically exterminated by the Atacatl Battalion, a U.S.-trained counterinsurgency force. The Reagan administration, determined to preserve U.S. support for El Salvador's war against leftist guerrillas, downplayed reports of this massacre. The White House ignored and deflected reports that hundreds of unarmed women, children and men were shot, hung or beheaded.

Today, the truth is known beyond any doubt. Fifteen years after one of the worst massacres in Latin American history, Dossier reports on the incident at El Mozote.

(c) Copyright 1996 ParaScope, Inc.

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/el_mozin.htm



Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room,
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom.
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they're breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong.

-B.Dylan

[Judi Lynn]

96. Never heard this song before, had to look it up, listen to it.

Here's the song sung by Bob Dylan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUGwY3mkkiY

Unbelievable.

Thank you for the link regarding El Mozote Massacre. I've already filed the link for future use, and plan to read the material carefully tonight.

Thanks very much, welcome to D.U., humus. :hi:

[humus]

98. thank you much,

here is a celebratory version on this happy day for
all, especially ElSalvadorians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0HQUy-eSrc&NR=1

[EFerrari]

102. Thank you, humus and welcome to DU!

:hi:

[L. Coyote]

104. Europe is wake: Tues. News = Leftist's victory turns page in El Salvador

I wonder if this tidbit of info played a role in the election:
"The outgoing Arena government ... sent 6,000 troops to Iraq to help former President George W. Bush..."

===============
Leftist's victory turns page in El Salvador
MARINA JIMENEZ - Tuesday's Globe and Mail - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090316.wsalvador17/BNStory/International/home
March 16, 2009 at 8:00 PM EDT

A new political era has dawned in El Salvador with the presidential victory of the FMLN, a former Marxist guerrilla movement that is now a peaceful political party, in the Central American country.

President-elect Mauricio Funes, 49, dedicated his presidency to Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated by a death squad in 1980.

Yet Mr. Funes never fought in the jungle with rebels from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, and styles himself more after Barack Obama than Che Guevara. ....

=================
El Salvador votes in left-wing president
17 March 2009 - By Jeremy McDermott - http://news.scotsman.com/world/El-Salvador-votes-in-leftwing.5077851.jp

FOR the first time since the end of a brutal civil war, El Salvador's Left has won the presidency, with a moderate former journalist taking more than 51 per cent of the vote.....
The candidacy of Mr Funes was a break from the past for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), founded by Marxist guerrillas at the end of the civil war in 1992. He was the first leader not to be a former combatant and he took the party towards the centre, away from its Marxist roots. ....

Avila had refused to debate publicly with the charismatic Mr Funes, and his campaign has relied heavily on scaremongering, which did manage to close the gap on his opponent during campaigning. ....

================
El Salvador’s left claims victory in historic poll
Adam Thomson in San Salvador - March 16 2009 - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85561a38-11e0-11de-87b1-0000779fd2ac.html

El Salvador’s left-wing FMLN party of former Marxist guerrillas claimed victory on Sunday night as the tiny Central American country neared the end of vote-counting in one of the tightest presidential races in years.

With 91.1 per cent of the votes counted, Mauricio Funes, candidate for the left-wing Farabundo Mart National Liberation front (FMLN) was in the lead with 51.3 per cent, ....

Jubilant leftists let off fireworks, waved flags and gathered at a monument in the capital to celebrate. ....

The outgoing Arena government ... sent 6,000 troops to Iraq to help former President George W. Bush....

Unlike Mr Funes, Mr Avila commands wide support among El Salvador’s business class.

[unkachuck]

105. K&R....n/t

[L. Coyote]

106. CISPES 2009 Salvadoran Elections Blog

CISPES 2009 Salvadoran Elections Blog
Primera entrevista con el Presidente electo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddJaOYJqM0&eurl=http://cispes.org/09electionsblog/&feature=player_embedded

y MAS
http://cispes.org/09electionsblog/

[fishwax]

109. k/r!

:kick:

[L. Coyote]

111. PRESS RELEASE: CISPES - The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR - Mauricio Funes and running mate Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) declared their electoral victory to the Salvadoran people ....

.... Over 60 representatives of the U.S.-based Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) served as accredited international observers for the historic vote. Observers reported an energized and hopeful electorate arriving at the polls on election day.

Despite receiving multiple reports of irregularities – including foreigners covertly entering the country and being housed in government buildings on the night before the election, vote-buying, and falsified voter cards – experienced observers also witnessed numerous instances of potentially-fraudulent behavior being prevented by the vigilance of Salvadoran citizens. “In contrast to past elections, an organized effort to detect, publicize, and stop irregularities effectively prevented broad scale fraud from skewing this vote,” said Larry Mosqueda, an observer from Olympia, WA, who has observed numerous elections in El Salvador and other Central American countries.

International observers representing various delegations plan to release their findings to the media and to El Salvador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) throughout the coming week. President-elect Funes has vowed to improve the electoral system once in office by addressing unresolved problems highlighted by a 2008 OAS audit and providing for absentee voting by Salvadorans living in other countries.

Whereas many observer missions spend only 30 minutes in each voting center, CISPES delegates were stationed at single polling places throughout the country for the entirety of election day. Observers witnessed the entire voting process, from the set-up of the voting tables and opening of the voting centers all the way until the last vote was tallied.

............. much more ............

[Judi Lynn]

114. El Salvador votes away its bad past

El Salvador votes away its bad past

The left's electoral victory put an end to US meddling and proved that Salvadoran democracy is no regional threat

* Mark Weisbrot

Last Sunday's election in El Salvador, in which the leftist FMLN (Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation) won the presidency, didn't get a lot of attention in the international press. It's a relatively small country (7 million people on land the size of Massachusetts) and fairly poor (per capita income about half the regional average). And left governments have become the norm in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela have all elected left governments over the last decade. South America is now more independent of the United States than Europe is.

But the FMLN's victory in El Salvador has a special significance for this hemisphere.

Central America and the Caribbean have long been the United States' "back yard" more than anywhere else. The people of the region have paid a terrible price – in blood, poverty and underdevelopment – for their geographical and political proximity to the United States. The list of US interventions in the area would take up the rest of this column, stretching from the 19th century (Cuba, in 1898) to the 21st, with the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (for the second time) in 2004.

Those of us who can remember the 1980s can see President Ronald Reagan on television warning that "El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts" as he sent guns and money to the Salvadoran military and its affiliated death squads. Their tens of thousands of targets – for torture, terror and murder – were overwhelmingly civilians, including Catholic priests, nuns and the heroic archbishop Oscar Romero. It seems ridiculous now that Reagan could have convinced the US Congress that the people who won Sunday's election were not only a threat to our national security, but one that justified horrific atrocities. But he did. At the same time millions of Americans – including many church-based activists – joined a movement to stop US support for the terror, as well as what the United Nations later called genocide in Guatemala, along with the US-backed insurgency in Nicaragua (which was also a war against civilians).

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/18/el-salvador-election