Good News About US Neutrality in the Local Elections

Image by Michael R. Swigart via Flickr

According to a posting on Tim's El Salvador Blog today, the US seems to have done a decent job of remaining neutral and not interfering in the local elections of El Salvador last month.

My own observation is that the US did a reasonably good job so far in the 2009 elections in staying on the sidelines and not taking a public stance which would influence the outcome of the elections. A press release issued today by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which attempts to portray the FMLN as winning the municipal and legislative elections despite massive US intervention, is no more than an anti-US diatribe based on events which took place in 2004 and earlier. Although the ARENA government pleaded for the US to jump into the fray on the side of ARENA, the US and Ambassador Glazer did not. Hopefully that will continue to be US policy under the new administration.

This, to me, is good news of two fronts. First, it is good news for the future and the people of El Salvador that they were in a better position to have a more open and democratic process in the past without us in the north interfering. Secondarily, it is good to hear that the popular impression that the US is only an imperialistic, power hungry country may be fading.

There is another round of elections in March for National Offices including President. Let's continue to pray for peace and a smooth electoral process including no interference from the US or other countries.

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• Ex-guerrilla group wins the most seats in El Salvador legislature (cnn.com)

Case of Six Murdered Jesuit Priests Re-examined!

I have been reading multiple reports on this story from all over the Internet. Sources focused on human rights, international law and justice, faith based groups, groups with a focus on Latin American history and just plain folks who report, blog and post about world news generally have all been writing about this piece of news!

Charges have been filed by two Human Rights Organizations in Spain against former Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani and 14 members of the army in connection with the 1989 slaughter of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter.

According to an article at the Global News Blog:

The Spanish Association for Human Rights (APDHE) and the San Francisco-based Centre for Justice and Accountability (CJA) filed a criminal case in the Spanish high court against former president Cristiani (1989-1994), accusing him of protecting the murderers and obstructing the subsequent investigation, and against 14 officers and soldiers of the Salvadoran army for their direct involvement in the massacre and in covering up the crime.

Read the whole story here. More information can be found on blogs and news sources all over the web if you do a quick search.

I find this to be amazing news because when we visited the sight of the murders at University of Central America last August, our tour guide was hesitant to identify those responsible even to us, a group of church folk from the US. The answer we received to the question of "who was responsible for this atrocity, the Government or some rogue members of the Army?" was a rather short and vague, "the person responsible was the only one who could have given such an order". We were all immediately struck by the fear in this answer. She obviously felt unable to tell us, even after 19 years, her thoughts on the perpetrator(s).

May the hearing of this case bring justice in this case and more importantly, may it help eliminate more fear from this country.

More links about this story:
New York Times
Irish Times
LA Times

Our Trip for the El Salvador Elections

Some of us will be travelling to El Salvador in March to participate with the Lutheran Synod of El Salvador in the oversight of the Presidential elections. We just received the information and the trip will be over the week of March 8th to the 17th, 2009.

At this point, it looks like there are six of us going on this trip. We have room for more if you are interested in joining us. Just drop us an email here and tell us you want more information.

We have published two previous stories about the elections and they can be found by clicking here.

Many of our friends and families have asked us why we are going to El Salvador during the elections. They ask things like "what can you do to help?', "isn't the UN doing that?", "why would you want to go then, it could be dangerous?". I suppose all of these are valid questions, but the answer for us is simple.

On our last visit to our friends down south, we met with Bishop Medardo Gomez and a representative of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. They explained that in the past, the elections were very vulnerable to fraud. They told us how the ruling ARENA party had already changed some of the voting laws, like splitting the elections over two separate months, in an effort to slow down the momentum that the opposition FMLN party was gaining. They told us the history leading up to this year's elections, the challenges and hopes their nation had, and they described this election as a crossroads. They then invited us to come and stand with them.

In the moment of that invitation, it was immediately clear to my wife and I that we WERE going. We did not confer with each other, we did not ask any questions, we just knew that we would be there.

We are going because we believe in accompaniment. We believe that relationships are built on and grow through our ability to show up in one anothers lives when something important is happening. Life is not always smooth. There are challenges and bumps along the way. When we are willing to walk with one another, to show up and support each other in the bumps, we know that we do not walk alone.

We will be posting more news and information about the elections as we get it.

President Bush Extends Temporary Protected Status to El Slavadorans Living in U.S.

According to the White House web page, President George W. Bush extended TPS status to El Salvadorans for 18 months in a meeting with El Salvador's President Antonio Saca. This announcement was made on September 24th at the Council of the Americas in New York City where the two leaders met.

TPS status, according to the Federal Register found on the US Dept. of Justice web site is defined as:

a temporary immigration status granted to eligible nationals of
designated countries or part of a designated country. During the period for
which the Attorney General has designated a country under the TPS program,
TPS beneficiaries are not required to leave the United States and may obtain
work authorization. The granting of TPS does not lead to permanent resident
status. When the Attorney General terminates a country’s TPS designation,
beneficiaries return to the same immigration status they maintained before TPS (unless that status had since expired or been terminated) or to any other status they may have been granted while registered for TPS.

According to the same document, this status is usually reserved for Nations
which

are experiencing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other
extraordinary and temporary conditions.

While I would like to think that President Bush had the best intentions at heart, I can't help but wonder if this gesture isn't intended to be a boost for Saca and the ARENA party in the upcoming elections. I hope that it is truly a humanitarian gesture on the part of United States.