Hi everyone! Since two of my very good friends have begun to blog, I decided to create my own as a way to encourage myself to follow current events and develop my journalism skills--of course I reserve the right to write about happenings in my own trivial life as well. Little did I know that some months ago, apparently, I had this same desire to create a blog and already had a profile and blog, but no posts. So this is my first official post, and hopefully I will create them more regularly now.
I will certainly get into current events a little later, but for today I thought I would write about the happenings in El Salvador, given that I just returned from a two and half week trip there. Since El Salvador is one of the poorest countries in the world and is in Latin America, it by definition has a huge share of political and social problems. But there is hope.
Sunday March 15, 2009--Left-wing journalist and FMLN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes wins the Salvadoran elections with the first FMLN victory for about twenty years since Arena, the right-wing party that used to financed by the U.S., took power. The country of El Salvador is still severely split because yes, Arena killed many innocent people during the war, but FMLN, formed from the guerillas during the civil war, also killed many innocent people during the war. So, all in all, it may not seem like either party is better--except there has been tons of corruption, opposition supporters have gone missing, and the government just generally does not make decisions in favor of the majority of their people. Just as Obama was a symbol of change for the U.S., Funes' election signifies a new era for El Salvador.
I was there three weeks after Funes took office on June 1, 2009, and not much was going on. The post-election buzz had died down and everyone's response to "How is the new president?" was "He was only sworn into office three weeks ago." However, a lot can happen in three weeks. I was in three different countries in the space of three weeks. Obama was trying to make new policies his first day on the job. Now it has been nearly two months since Funes took office and he still doesn't have much to show for it. I just hope, for the sake of the people in El Salvador, that is he able to sort through all the previous corruption and make a difference.
He could start by trying to fix his country's restrictions under CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement, among other things, is wreaking havoc in rural El Salvador for communities accosted by mining companies, like Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim, a Canada-based gold and silver mining company, is sueing the International Court for 77 million dollars in profits they could have made through mining in El Salvador. Luckily, awareness of the dangers and years of contamination that result from mining is spreading through the rural communities, but who knows if it will be strong enough to actually stop the mining companies in their tracks.
If you want to learn more about Mauricio Funes:
Elections results: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031600038.html
The man himself: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/mauricio_funes/index.html
FMLN webpage with mediocre Goolge Translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.fmln.org.sv/&ei=fA1iSr-CIcqltgfx_v37Dw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DFMLN%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7GGLL_en
If you want to get involved or learn more about CAFTA and particularly the mining issues in El Salvador, you can search for OXFAM-America.
Until we meet again!
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