Compadres trips to El Salvador - why do we do this?

Very often I get the question - why are you doing these trips?  Is it eco-tourism, volunteer action, social justice?  Its a great question, and I want to see if I can come up with an articulate answer.

I have been doing trips to the Global South - always somewhere in Latin America for over 20 years now, sometimes with students, sometimes with adults - teachers and school staffs - and sometimes by myself.

My reason for doing these trips has changed a little over the past two decades.  First, I have to admit it was simply the thrill of seeing new cultures, learning new ideas about real social justice and quite frankly, I felt I needed to be exposed to the incredible poverty I have witnessed on every trip over the years.

Now its deeper than that.  To me it seems that for most of us to have a real conversersion, to really see the terrible injustices that exist in this world we need to bear witness, we need to go there and see what is going on.  All the charity drives we do will not make a huge impact on the problems of Latin America and the Global South.  We need to see the world through their eyes, even if it is only for a few days so we can begin to understand that we live in a world where resources are not shared in a fair manner.

As I write this, I have mental pictures flashing past me.  The poor rural schools of El Salvador that never have the resources they need to do their work, the poor children of Cuernavaca, Mexico who sell gum and candy on the streets to make a little more income for their families, the terrible working conditions of Haitian sugar cane planters in the Dominican Republic.

These images can paralyze you, make you feel that there is nothing you can do.

But that is not the right reaction.  There is so much one can do by taking part in these experiences. Most importantly, by going to Latin America you are showing the people you meet that you are in solidarity with them and that you want to be part of their story.  By going down there, you are converted to seeing the world in a very different way, you can't return home and live the same way knowing there is terrible inequity and injustice so close to your home.

So, I will continue to bring people down to Latin American whenever I am capable of doing so.  It is so important to see how others live.  We deprive ourselves of an important life experience if we don't make the effort to go down there.  We allow ourselves to stay shielded.  We really miss something special.

So, is this tourism, volunteerism or social justice?  I think it is all three and much more.  It is also what you make it.  If you are open to the experience you can gain so much.

More thoughts on next trip

The fact that we have a year to put together our next trip has some real advantages. We have been in talks with a number of groups that can offer us new opportunities. We are working to link the experience to Religious Studies at St. Paul`s. There is even a chance we may be able to link up to the principals course - but this is certainly a work in progress! We are also going to try to appeal to our principals. A trip to visit schools and talk to teachers, administrators and kids would be a great learning experience for any administrator.

I think also we need to get back to doing more analysis on the current situation in El salvador. The suggestion has been made that we spend more time at the Jesuit University either discussing social justice issues or maybe their education outreach programs. There are also many civil society groups doing wonderful work - we need to spend more time with some of these groups.


grounds of the Jesuit University

I think we should also visit a great variety of school districts. The school we visited in the Bajo Lempa area was very different from the school in San Jose las Flores. Maybe we need to see and talk to more teachers and administrators to get a better sense of how education is progressing now in El salvador. This may lead to some good partnerships between schools in El Salvador and in Canada and I think we should be open to this and discuss the partnership possibilities while we are there.


visiting a school in Bajo Lempa

There are so many good ideas for partnerships that could be explored.

Another idea that has come up is the possibility of actually doing some physical work while we are down there. We have traditionally kept away fromm these types of projects, but maybe this is something we need to look into. As long as it is a project that CRIPDES is interested in it may be another way to force links within the community.

I think we also need to boost up the touristic nature of the trip. Teachers who come on this experience have just finished a long year and they need time to rest and explore some of the natural beauties of the countryside. Staying overnight at an ocean resort could be a great way for the group to relax and come together. We should also spend some time learning about the legacy of Oscar Romero and the war. This history is really interesting and it should be one of the things we focus on.


an overnight stay at a local ocean resort would be a real treat

Finally, I think we need to spend a few days in Suchitoto. This is a beautiful city and the cultural center of El Salvador. We finished our trip there last year and it is a wonderful place to unwind. They also have some language schools that we could take advantage of. On our last trip, one of our participants stayed an extra few days there to work on her Spanish.


colonial architecture in Suchitoto

There is so much more we can do on this thrip that will appeal to our teachers and principals. We will continue to look for new, fresh ideas over the next few weeks.

El Salvador 2005 Journal XV

Our second community visit brought us to another PROGRESO project. This community has many similarities to Laura Lopez. Like most of the communities that we visited in El Salvador, it was resettled near the end of the war. These families did have to cope with the violence of the war. To safely move through the village, the people built trenches to keep the children safe from flying bullets.

The grave of the community’s patron is located on the grounds of the community.
These people have such a close connection to the land. These graves reinforce this connection wherever we go.



This grave is located on the community land. Actually, two insurgents are buried on this site. This is an out of the way location, but the community wanted us to see this memorial.


The community presentation was much the same as before. These communities are very well organized and they present their needs in a way that leaves no doubt what is expected of donors. We were more uncomfortable with this presentation. We felt that much was expected of us and there was too much of a focus on the problems that the community were facing, but little information on how the community was solving their own challenges.

We talked about this at length at our evening debriefing. I think at this point, we were getting exhausted by the volume of information we were taking in and more than a little overwhelmed. I really believe that these communities present what visiting delegations want to hear. What are the problems and what can we do to make a concrete difference in the lives of your people. In the case of this community the real need was a water transfer system. To me it makes sense that you would concentrate on this. If you had functioned with a faulty water system for 14 years I can see how that would be a focus. These communities have really done a great deal - remember the trenches – but it is very difficult for them to sustain their efforts without outside assistance. That is why organizations like CRIPDES exist and why we support them. This is the reality in a poor country struggling to recover from war.





faulty water system that awaits repair

El Salvador 2005 Journal XIV

community meeting in Laura Lopez

I was struck by Laura Lopez’s plan for the future.  This is not a community that despairs for its future.  They see a way out.  Their plan includes the following:

v  A Community Centre for meetings – we met in a classroom.  This is illegal, and if the government knew Laura Lopez was doing this they could lose the meager funding they now receive.  Community meetings are not even supposed to be held on school grounds!

v  A community bakery – they also want to train their youth to become bakers.  Local trades are very important.

v  Chairs for their church.  They are currently using old school chairs.

v  Trade and vocational training centre – this to me is key.  There needs to be some chance for young people to acquire the skills they and the community needs.  They need bakers, masons, carpenters, electricians and mechanics.  This represents an exciting project with real potential for the future.

We gained a great deal of information from Laura Lopez.  This is an exciting community.  I think they have the fight in them to make a real future for their families.  This is how development should happen.  Look to local communities and make changes that make sense to these people.  Give them the power and resources to create their own future.

lunch in Laura Lopez

Oscar Romero Day Declared - March 24

SAN SALVADOR - The Salvadoran parliament Thursday approved a legislative decree which establishes the 24 March each year, starting this month, as the "Day of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, former Archbishop of San Salvador and was assassinated by a squad of right-wing death in 1980, a fact that shocked the world and became one of the factors that led to the civil war in El Salvador.

Thanks to Tim's Blog for the link to this great news!

Romero by Romero 2

Here is part 2 of the trailer.

I will try to find out where to get the entire video

Romero By Romero 1

This is a trailer to a documentary on Oscar Romero - Part 1

This was posted on Tim's Blog

Paul

Romero

El Salvador 2005 Journal XIII

What can the young people do? This is another question that we were faced with at Laura Lopez. The young people in these small communities are looking to their future. If a school is built it will prepare kids for high school. The next step becomes the challenge. It is very difficult for these small communities to get their kids to the next town to attend high school. Many students become discouraged at this stage and drop out. There is no sense that the government is ready to invest in the education of their citizens. There is

children of Laura Lopez

really very little chance that these students will make it to college or university.

In Suchitoto, PROGRESO runs a local scholarship program for high school students. High school scholarships amount to $80.00 a month. This covers food, transportation and the school uniform. At this point, seventeen students are receiving this assistance. These students are chosen from 75 local communities. Students are chosen for this assistance by a general community assembly. The entire family is assessed for their ability to support the student in their studies.

I have found in other countries that education is the key to development. In El Salvador the path to higher education is torturous. Only 20% of students reach junior high. At least 70% of the population don’t know how to write. The older population is uneducated. Teachers in the rural areas teach with a grade 3 education.

As a result, many people see that their only solution is to leave the country. This works out very well for the government. People who leave for jobs in Canada and the USA send home $250 million each year. This is a great boost to the economy with no outlay of money by the government.

El Salvador 2005 Journal XII

Laura Lopez

One incredible thing about this community was their level of social organization. We were introduced to members of the school council, the women’s committee, the pastoral team, the youth group, the woman’s soccer team and the community directorate. Our welcoming committee had representatives from all these groups; they were our hosts for the day. Each committee member had an opportunity to present some aspect of the community’s history.

These people are very politically aware. You could say that when they originally settled in the area they were squatters. This is an area that was controlled by the FMLN during the war. The government, still controlled by the ARENA party was not going to make it easy for the people to gain control of the land. During the first election campaign in 1994, the FMLN won control of the local seat in Suchitoto, which has jurisdiction in the Laura Lopez area. With the help of the FMLN in the Legislative Assembly, the people were able to gain legal title to the land. With the help of groups like PROGRESO, they continue to make great progress. This is a community that has a vision for its future.

These people face great challenges. Each of them has their own story of struggle during the war. Most have family members who were killed during the war. In some cases they witnessed the death of a loved one as they tried to avoid the army. The land is rich producing rice, cucumber, squash, many varieties of corn and beans, green pepper and peanuts. However, Mexico exports cheap corn to El Salvador. Salvadoran farmers receive no support from their own government for fertilizers or pesticides. They have no access to long-term credit so farmers have no way to export what they produce. There is a feeling in this country that agriculture doesn’t work, that there is no way to compete with the agricultural giants to the North.

When you have a chance to see fields of beautiful corn and beans it is really hard to understand how this idea has taken hold in El Salvador.

At the same time, the Salvadoran Government wants to bring cheap goods into the country. CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, promises to flood El Salvador with cheap American and Mexican goods. El Salvador, struggling back from the devastation of a civil war has little to counter this flood of goods. We did not meet many people who saw any salvation in CAFTA.

To fight back, these people are trying to produce the goods that have sustained them for centuries. As they say, “Let’s do resistance with very concrete projects.” They are starting to look at very different economic models that can support a local economy. If these communities can feed each other and trade their surplus locally they may find a way out of the economic sinkhole they currently find themselves in.

El Salvador 2005 Journal IX

Access to services is a human right. As women’s groups trained by the Consensus Table work to pressure local governments through the budget process and training programs, it is hoped that progress for women will be possible.




A sample of one of the gender policy documents published by the Consensus Table

We continued our education by spending the afternoon with CDC – Centro Para La Defensa del Consumidor. Knowledge is power and this agency has done a great deal of work to protect the Salvadoran consumer through research and data gathering. They maintain that once organized, people can struggle successfully for their own rights.

They work to support the protection of human rights by pressuring government agencies to respect the rights of the people. They work at the grassroots level with links to national and international organizations on issues like genetic engineering, health care, CAFTA (free trade), and water.

CDC teaches people to become more vigilant. ANDA, the country’s water agency has been infamous for its over billing of the people. CDC has trained people to read their water bills accurately. They have revealed that ANDA has over billed its consumers by over $20 million dollars. This effort was organized through ‘fairs’ where people were invited to bring their water bills for analysis. During these sessions the corruption of ANDA was exposed.



This is a poster from CDC. It shows a woman with her water bill. The headline relates how ANDA, the government water agency has defrauded the people of $20 million dollars by overcharging on its bills.

El Salvador 2005 Journal VII

At the end of a long day of visits, we visited the offices of Pro Busqueda. The office was started by Fr. Jon Cortino, a Jesuit priest in San Salvador. Fr. Jon was one of the seven priests targeted by the military in 1989 for assassination. Incredibly, he was not at the university the night the priests were killed. He continued to live in the country for the rest of the war and returned only in 1993 to start an organization that has done a great deal to bring families back together.

In 1993, his new organization was able to locate five children who had been taken by the military during the war. This was a common practice. The children would then be given or sold to families that were looking to adopt a child. The following year, Sobrino had 75 requests and found 13 boys. His organization has now solved 301 cases and has found children in over 13 countries including Canada. He has even been able to take the Salvadoran government to court for Human Rights violations. The International Court has ruled in his favour. He is still waiting for the Salvadoran Government to acknowledge the ruling of the court.

His stories read like a detective novel. Requests for information come from all over the country. His investigators return to the site of the abduction looking for clues. In most cases, the families have moved on, in many cases more than once. Someone hears of a story of where the family has relocated. The trail often leads in a wide circle as families attempt to move to locations near their original settlement. With good community support the investigators can be very successful.



Jon Cortino

He tells great stories about how to resurrect after a great and hurtful conflict. The walls of Pro Busqueda are pasted with the pictures of family reunions. Families separated by great tragedy share a moment of unexpected joy.

El Salvador Journal 2005 Part VI

Our history lesson included the FMLN, still a strong presence in the country. The FMLN, named after Farabundo Marti, the leader of the indigenous insurrection of the 1930’s is a coalition of leftwing groups that formed in 1980 to present an armed front to the military government of the country. Most of the areas we visited are controlled by the FMLN, now a legitimate political party. Many of the people we worked with, including Miguel and Damian are ex-FMLN fighters.






The key to understanding the war is land. Most of El Salvador’s land was tied up in large latifundios. A very small number of people controlled most of the land in the country. The land produced coffee for export to the United States and other countries. During the war the Americans supported the government with cash - $1.5 million a day. They also assisted with military advice and weaponry. The US embassy in San Salvador was a huge bunker. People believe that the war would have been over sooner if not for this high level of support from the North.

Emergency Update and Action Alert

December 21, 2009



Anti-Mining Activist Ramiro Rivera Assassinated in Cabañas;

Demand an investigation and an end to the murders!

Ramiro Rivera Gómez, vice-president of CAC (Comité Ambiental de Cabañas/ the Environmental Committee of Cabañas) and a local leader in the community struggle against the environmentally-destructive gold mining projects proposed by Pacific Rim, was assassinated on Sunday, December 20, 2009 in the Trinidad neighborhood of Ilobasco, in the department of Cabañas where he lived.

Héctor Berríos reports that Ramiro Rivera was killed by hitmen carrying M-16 rifles. Ramiro’s thirteen-year old daughter who was with him on Sunday afternoon was also injured but is reportedly in stable condition.

On August 7 of this year, Ramiro Rivera was shot 8 times, but survived the vicious attack. Oscar Menjívar, previously implicated in physical attacks on anti-mining activists, was arrested and charged with Ramiro’s attempted murder. Community members report that Menjívar had previously worked for Canadian mining company Pacific Rim; Pacific Rim denies that he has ever been an employee.

Since his recovery, Mr. Rivera had been under the protection of two police officers from the Witnesses and Victims Protection Unit of the National Civilian Police. On the afternoon of December 20th, they were apparently unable to protect him.

Since June of 2009, when anti-mining and FMLN activist Marcelo Rivera (no relation to Ramiro) was found tortured and killed in Cabañas, there have been continued attacks, death threats and attempted kidnappings of community members and activists who have vehemently opposed the proposed El Dorado gold mine. The Ministry of Environment denied mining exploitation permits to Pacific Rim, a Vancouver-based mining company, which subsequently announced a $77 million dollar lawsuit against the Salvadoran government under CAFTA, the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (watch the Real News video here).

Despite the overtly political overtones of this wave of violence, local police authorities and the former Attorney General's office have classified these cases as common crimes. Salvadorans are fearful and outraged by the continued violence but also by the inability or unwillingness of the police and the office of the Attorney General to protect community activists like Ramiro Rivera and to halt the violence.

Join the international response to this repression of anti-mining organizers in Cabañas TODAY. Call on the Salvadoran authorities to carry out an exhaustive investigation of these crimes and their motives.

---------------------­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­----------------------------------------------------------------------
TAKE ACTION:

E-mail Rodolfo Delgado, head of the Organized Crime unit of the Attorney General’s Office (Sample e-mail text at the end of this alert) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it radelgado@fgr.gob.sv. Please copy Human Rights Ombudsman Oscar Luna to your email, via his front desk: heidybrizuela@pddh.gob.sv





Please forward a copy of your sent email to cispes@cispes.org This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

SAMPLE E-MAIL (English translation below):

Estimado Señor Rodolfo Delgado:

Como miembro de la comunidad internacional, quiero expresar mi profunda preocupación por lo más reciente hecho de violencia contra un líder social en Cabañas, el asesinato de Ramiro Rivera Gómez. Después de que él fue baleado ocho veces en agosto del 2009, fue bajo la protección de la Unidad de Protección de Víctimas y Testigos de la Policía Nacional Civil.

El asesinato de Ramiro Rivera parece otro hecho de violencia sistemático que ha traspasado en Cabañas desde el junio de este año: el secuestro y brutal asesinato del activista Gustavo Marcelo Rivera; las amenazas de muerte a periodistas de Radio Victoria, al director de la Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social Santa Marta (ADES) y a varios líderes comunitarios de Cabañas; el sabotaje al sistema electrónico de Radio Victoria; y los intentos de asesinato de los líderes comunitarios, Padre Luis Quintanilla y Ramiro Rivera.

Considero que existen suficientes evidencias para presumir que el asesinato de Ramiro Rivera y los demás crímenes están relacionados y forman parte de una campaña para intimidar a las organizaciones sociales en Cabañas. Es preocupante que la Fiscalía, bajo la dirección de Ástor Escalante, adjudicó a priori estos crímenes a la violencia común, ignorando las evidencias y antecedentes presentados que indican la naturaleza política de los eventos.

Por lo tanto como miembro de la comunidad internacional, hago un llamado para que ahora bajo la dirección del nuevo Fiscal General de la República Romeo Barahona, la Fiscalía realice una investigación imparcial, exhaustiva y efectiva en el caso del asesinato de Ramiro Rivera y de todos estos casos, para dar a conocer a los autores intelectuales y materiales de estos crímenes y garantizar así la protección de los líderes sociales en la región de forma verdadera.

Después del asesinato de Marcelo Rivera en junio, más de cien organizaciones de los Estados Unidos y Canadá mandaron una carta a la Fiscalía expresando su preocupación grave con los atropellos a los derechos humanos. También el Congresista Jim McGovern de los Estados Unidos expresó la misma preocupación en reuniones con el Señor Fiscal General, Romeo Barahona, y representantes de la Administración del Señor Presidente Mauricio Funes, durante su visita reciente a El Salvador.

También le estoy mandando una copia de este mensaje al señor Procurador para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, licenciado Oscar Humberto Luna, quien ha mostrado un compromiso fuerte para proteger la seguridad y los derechos humanos de los líderes sociales en Cabañas.

De quedar estos eventos en la impunidad, se estaría generando un clima de temor e incertidumbre para los demás líderes comunitarios, contrarrestando así los avances logrados en el proceso de democratización del país.

Agradezco de antemano sus gestiones para agilizar las investigaciones y espero que pronto se haga justicia en estos casos y se brinde protección a las víctimas y reparación a los familiares de Ramiro.

[Tu nombre/ Your name]

___________________

Translation of Email:

As a member of the international community, I want to express my profound concern about the most recent act of violence toward a community leader in Cabañas: the assassination of Ramiro Rivera Gómez. After being shot eight times in August, Mr. Rivera was under the protection of the Victims and Witnesses Protection Unit of the National Civilian Police.

The assassination of Ramiro Rivera appears to be another systematic act of violence that has occurred in Cabañas since June of this year: the kidnapping and brutal assassination of the activist Gustavo Marcelo Rivera; the death threats against journalists at Radio Victoria, the director of the Association for Social and Economic Development (ADES) and other community leaders in Cabañas; the sabotage of the broadcasting equipment at Radio Victoria; and the assassination attempt against the community leaders Father Luis Quintanilla and Ramiro Rivera.

I believe there is sufficient evidence to assume that Ramiro Rivera's murder and the other crimes are linked and part of a campaign to intimidate community organizations in Cabañas. It is alarming that the Attorney General’s Office under the direction of former acting Attorney General Ástor Escalante attributed these crimes to common violence, ignoring the evidence and antecedents that indicate the political nature of these events.

Therefore as a member of the international community, I now call on the Attorney General’s Office under the leadership of new Attorney General Romeo Barahona to carry out impartial, exhaustive and effective investigations of the assassination of Ramiro Rivera and all of these crimes in order to bring to justice the intellectual and material authors of these crimes and guarantee the protection of other community leaders in the region.

After the assassination of Marcelo Rivera in June, over 100 organizations in the U.S. and Canada sent a letter to the Attorney General’s office expressing their serious concern about the human rights abuses. Representative Jim McGovern of the U.S. Congress expressed the same concern in his meetings with Mr. Attorney General Romeo Barahona and with representatives of the administration of Mr. President Mauricio Funes during his recent visit to El Salvador.

I am sending a copy of this message to the Human Rights Ombudsman, Mr. Oscar Luna, who has shown a strong commitment to protect the security and human rights of social movement leaders in Cabañas.

Leaving these crimes in a state of impunity creates a climate of fear and uncertainty for the rest of the community leaders, undermining the advances in the democratic process in El Salvador.

I thank you in advance for your efforts to speed up the investigations and I hope that there will soon be justice in these cases and that the victims' lives will be protected and Ramiro’s family will be compensated for their loss.

[Your name]













--

El Salvador Journal 2005 Part V

We went to a lot of meetings in the first two days in El Salvador. On our second full day we met with Equipo Maiz, the Corn Team, who gave us an alternative history of El Salvador. History is so important if we want to get a true measure of the character of a country. This is the specialty of Equipo Maiz. They have worked since 1983 with small communities to develop a greater understanding of the people’s situation. Through workshops on gender issues, civil participation, privatization and leadership, they hope to equip people with the knowledge to better understand their current situation. They also specialize in telling the story of El Salvador’s past.

A key point in the story. In 1932, the government exterminated over 30,000 indigenous people after a failed revolt. This has resulted in the total denial of the native heritage of the Salvadorans. Unlike Mexico and Guatemala, there is no talk of an indigenous culture in El Salvador. There are really only two indigenous communities now in El Salvador. You can see the native heritage in the faces of the people, but the culture is kept in check. People fear a return to the 1930’s. They have good reason for their fears. Other countries like Haiti and Guatemala have suffered from similar disasters.



Equipo Maiz uses artwork to illustrate their talks on the history of El Salvador

El Salvador Journal 2005 Part IV

The past and the future are so close here. We were on our way to see a community that is growing and developing, but we had to pay homage to the past first. You can’t understand El Salvador without listening to the stories of the struggle. In Rio Lempe, I would like to think that the people are beginning to turn the corner on this long battle.

Funding has provided support for the development of local products including gourmet cheese, organic fruits, cashews and sugar. Community supports include an eye clinic, a water purification plant that provides good drinking water to the community, biological pesticide control and a biogenerator that provides methane gas for cooking.

The community has also developed a fishing co-op that seeks to return a greater share of the profits to local fishermen. Training has also been provided on filleting and salting processes. CORDES has also supported the development of an eco-tourism facility - Hostal Lempa Mar.

Hostal Lempa Mar consists of four cabins that can sleep three persons each. The hostal is located on the Lempa River and offers and excellent restaurant where visitors can enjoy local produce including red snapper taken from the Lempa. Apart from the peace and serenity of the Lempa, this facility also offers kayaking and boat rides on the Lempa. During the week, these same boats are used by the fishing co-op.

Profits from the Hostal stay in the community and all employees of the Hostal are members of the local community. Plans are in place to develop hiking trails in the area and it is hoped that Hostal Lempa Mar will soon be able to promote to the international community through the Internet.



Hostal Lempa Mar. Great fish and an afternoon ride on the Lempa

This area was devestated in the recent flooding

El Salvador Journal 2005 Part III

While the Peace Accords were signed in 1992, the struggle continues. The people of El Salvador continue to struggle for basic human rights, access to clean drinking water and good quality education. In the rural communities the provision of good quality health care continues to be a very real concern. Families struggle to make ends meet. The minimum wage provides a worker a salary of $154.00 (US) per month. CRIPDES and other social organizations estimate that the cost of living is closer to $625.00 a month. Prices continue to rise for basic services like water and transportation; wages are not keeping up with these increases. It is becoming increasingly difficult for families to survive.



In 1994, CORDES was created out of CRIPDES to provide technical assistance for rural communities. CORDES locates close to the communities it supports They are committed to developing productive activities in these communities in agricultural production, financial planning, entrepreneurial support, and public policy development and prevention and risk management.


The best way to describe the work of CORDES is to talk about Rio Lempe. CORDES is very active in this former insurgent enclave. This was the site of our first visit into the country. We visited a small community that is located on the site of a former cotton plantation. The previous owners deserted the area during the war. The present community located on the plantation after the Peace Accords in 1992.

The Rio Lempa, San Vincente


This was the story wherever we went. Relocated communities are trying to make a go of it with little government support. Most of these communities have very dramatic stories of the conflict. This on was no exception.



We visited a small community museum where captured arms are stored in a room with bullet-pocked walls. The local commander gave us a tour of the facility. His picture, from earlier days, with military uniform and black beret, were part of the display. We also visited the site where 28 insurgents are buried after a battle with the military in the community.



This is a country of graves.

One of the captured guns from the community museum. Note the holes in the walls.

El Salvador Journal 2005 Part II

Our first full day was spent with two organizations, CRIPDES and CORDES. CRIPDES is our sponsoring organization. They had hired Roberto as our interpreter for the trip and we met him at the CRIPDES offices. Roberto and Miguel became our good friends and our best sources of information. Much of what we know about the lives of Salvadorans came from their stories.

We were introduced to Marta Lorena Araujo, President of CRIPDES, and Janet of CORDES.

CRIPDES started July 14, 1984 as an organization to support the people of El Salvador during the war. Originally, they worked with displaced people. CRIDPES works in 300 communities in El Salvador to support these communities in the establishment of basic services like health care, clean drinkable water, basic education and electricity. This reconstruction process began in earnest in 1986 when CRIPDES began to assist rural communities to relocate from refugee bases in Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

The repatriation process is one of the early achievements of CRIPDES. In this they worked without government assistance. Support did come from the international community for the building of homes, roads, water infrastructure, education and health care. This rebuilding process continues to this day.

“We Won’t Let them Turn our Town into a Desert”: The Salvadoran Resistance to Metallic Mining

Tuesday, 24 November 2009


by Julia Kaminsky, NY CISPES. Originally published by American Jewish World Service, one of ASIC’s international partners



“Que bello”—how beautiful, whispered my 17-year-old neighbor Chepe as we stepped back to admire our work, paintbrushes still in hand. What had started out that morning as a faint sketch on an otherwise unremarkable wall was now colorfully taking form as a mural of a crane encroaching upon a lush landscape. A steady stream of people had been arriving since the morning—on foot, on bicycles, in the back of a rusting red pickup—all eager to take up brushes and declare their opposition to gold mining in their town.



In March 2008, I arrived in San Isidro, a rural municipality of 10,000 people in Cabañas, one of El Salvador’s poorest regions. I was there to volunteer with Asociación Amigos de San Isidro, Cabañas (ASIC), a grassroots community-development organization. When I first set foot in the dusty town, I had no idea that I was walking into the epicenter of a national and international battle.

The gold-rich subsoil of northern El Salvador has attracted various foreign mining companies, among them Pacific Rim, which operates the most advanced gold exploration project in the country. It operates in San Isidro, near tributaries of the Lempa River—the lifeline of much of Cabañas and El Salvador. Exploratory drilling—the process by which the company finds gold deposits—has deepened groundwater levels, causing water sources in several of San Isidro’s rural communities to dry up.



A local activist, Graciela Funes, pointed to an empty cement tank that once was a well, saying, “People used to come here to wash their clothes, bathe, and bring water to their houses. I am afraid that we will be left without water.”



If Pacific Rim were to receive the extraction permit that it seeks from the Salvadoran government, the results would be disastrous. In a single day, the mine would use 900,000 liters of water—a quantity that could sustain the average Salvadoran household for 20 years. It would also use two tons of cyanide and other toxic substances, which would end up in the rivers, groundwater, air and rain.



Due to heavy deforestation, a long dry season, and inadequate facilities for treating wastewater, Salvadorans’ access to potable water is already low, particularly in rural areas. And given the importance of water for agriculture—the principle livelihood in the region—residents are outraged that their land is being ravaged for foreign economic gain.



In collaboration with local youth and other community groups, ASIC has painted three murals in San Isidro that celebrate the environment and denounce the exploitation that threatens to destroy it. They are part of an awareness campaign designed to get community members involved in the anti-mining movement.



When we finished our project, the community held a celebration inaugurating the murals. Hundreds of people from surrounding municipalities attended the event, which included a performance by 22-year-old rapper Wilfredo Lainez, a local hero for his socially conscious music. That day, he gazed out intently at the audience as he rapped: “We won’t let them turn our town into a desert.”



Armed with paint, words, and homemade beats, the people of San Isidro—from lawyers, to farmers, to young kids dreaming of a better life—are uniting, a veritable David up against a bulldozer-clawed Goliath. They have been joining forces with similarly affected communities throughout El Salvador and Central America through coalitions like the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining (see below). It is my hope that their work will pay off, and that access to clean water will become an inalienable right for all rather than a privilege for some.



I asked Ramiro Rivera, a community leader from a nearby town, why this cause is so important. He replied: “We are asking for respect, because even as a small community, we have dignity.”

The Road From Aguilares: Twenty Years Later: Remembering the Martyrs of El Salvador WILLIAM REISER | NOVEMBER 16, 2009

A group of highly trained Salvadoran soldiers entered the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador shortly past midnight on Nov. 16, 1989. While their primary target was the president of the university, Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., they murdered and mutilated nearly the entire Jesuit community—Ignacio and five others. A seventh member of the community, Jon Sobrino, S.J., was in Thailand teaching a course on Christology. The soldiers also murdered Elba and Celina Ramos, the Jesuits’ housekeeper and her daughter, who slept on campus that night to escape the anxiety caused by the bullets and artillery around the neighborhood where they lived.




What happened that night brought home grimly yet powerfully the prophetic dimension of teaching and research, when these activities are informed by an option for the poor. The 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, which met in 1974-75, put the entire order on record: “The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.” The 33rd General Congregation (1983) reaffirmed that direction and insisted that “we wish to make our own the church’s preferential option for the poor.”

A Weak-Willed Congress

The civil war in El Salvador lasted 12 years, from 1980 to 1992, and claimed 75,000 lives. The incompetence of American foreign policy with respect to the conditions that led to the conflict and in understanding who benefitted from the U.S. support of the Salvadoran military was appalling. As a result of the assassinations at the university, a weak-willed U.S. Congress finally began to face the problem of U.S. complicity in the Salvadoran situation. Representative Joe Moakley, Democrat of Massachusetts, was appointed to lead an investigation that turned out to be as courageous as it was eye-opening. El Salvador was not the only place in Latin America where the poor were being abased. Nine years earlier, four North American women who were returning to El Salvador—two Maryknoll sisters, an Ursuline nun and a co-worker—were raped and murdered on their way from the airport. And two days before Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down at the altar on March 24, 1980, another Jesuit, Luis Espinal, was ambushed in La Paz, Bolivia, and silenced for his defense of the rights and dignity of the poor.

The stories of such “martyrs for justice,” as Father Jon Sobrino calls the slain Jesuits and many others, do not begin with the martyrs themselves but with the people on the bottom—the victims of poverty, miscarriages of justice and class prejudice; the throwaways and the “disappeared.” The story of the Salvadoran Jesuits, for example, takes us to the political, social and economic oppression endured by peasants so poor that they needed to be catechized before they could imagine that the world could be different. What would El Salvador look like if God’s will were done on earth, just as it is in heaven?

Father Ellacuría and his companions understood that the mission of a Christian university as an apostolic instrument is not disconnected from the economic and political conditions of the society in which it is located. On the contrary, the university’s mission derives directly from its awareness of the everyday reality that poor people endure. But as Father Sobrino explains in his essay “The University’s Christian Inspiration,” because a university needs resources it is almost by necessity implicated in a world of economic and political power, and “this incarnation amid power tends to distance the university from social reality as lived by the poorest and most marginalized.” Indeed, even the church has to be careful never to lose sight of the world of the poor, and contact with it. Preachers and teachers whose hearts and intelligence are immersed in that world are more attuned to the deeper rhythms of Scripture. Distance from the poor leads to distance from God.

Aguilares and Rutilio Grande

Aguilares was the village where Rutilio Grande, S.J., had been working and the place to which his close friend, Oscar Romero, rushed when he heard the news of Grande’s assassination on March 12, 1977. It was also where Romero later, as archbishop, experienced a profound spiritual awakening. The bishop’s “place,” he came to understand, is with his people; he is never more bishop than when walking alongside the poorest and most vulnerable of his diocese. Aguilares was also where the Jesuits, so suspect in the eyes of El Salvador’s elite and of Archbishop Romero himself earlier, came to be of one heart and mind. The poor were powerless. Christ became poor, which means that he also became powerless. And the reason for the impoverishment both of Jesus and the people? Because, in El Salvador, others had become rich and privileged at their expense. Poverty is visible, but the oppressive forces that create structural violence are usually hidden. One needs the lens of solidarity to perceive those forces, and Aguilares gave the archbishop the lens that enabled him to identify what he saw as crucifixion.

Father Ellacuría and the other Jesuits in his community had already undergone their “Aguilares moment,” the flash that shatters the familiarity hiding the underside of everyday life. What immediately grabs attention is that they were murdered, not the conversion process that led to the radicalization of their vision. In the case of the archbishop, however, it is less his murder that fascinates us than the story of how a conservative churchman became prophetic.

By contrast, Ignacio Ellacuría’s conversion, his embrace of the central categories that came to be associated with the theology of liberation, unfolded gradually, largely through reading, study and discussion. His theological orientation was rooted in the Second Vatican Council. He had fully digested Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio (1967) and the documents from the Second Conference of the Latin American bishops in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968. His doctoral work in philosophy sharpened his ability to decipher the historical reality that was El Salvador. Apostolic activity without a vision of the kingdom of God tends to validate itself in terms of helping people into the next life but at the risk of meekly acquiescing to the way things are now. Apostolic activity with a vision of the horizon wants to transform the world. It is a faith that does justice, which means that the church—especially its pastors and teachers—tries to make its voice heard in the political arena. As a result, Romero encountered severe opposition among the Salvadoran elites and their military, and in some corridors of the Vatican.

Because the demands of social justice often require stepping into a country’s political life, Father Ellacuría found himself immersed in negotiations between the government and the revolutionary resistance during the course of the country’s civil war. What is intriguing is how he came to his view of justice and liberation by reading and studying and through the clarification of thought and expression that results from conversation and argument. As they fulfill their mission, Christian universities facilitate such a shift in perspective. Some people actually do read their way into conversion. St. Ignatius did so while recuperating after the battle in Pamplona, although even in his case some spiritual lessons were learned only from experience and not from books.

Ellacuría’s Aguilares Moment

I suspect, then, that Ellacuría’s Aguilares moment was in fact extended over some time. While he read, studied and talked, the world in front of him never lost its political and social immediacy. His ability to imagine was not insensitive to “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted,” as the opening line of Gaudium et Spes put it, by class loyalties or ecclesiastical privilege or doctrinal mindset. Since fear keeps truth at bay, it closes our eyes to hard realities we need to face. The Jesuits’ Central American Province newsletter noted: “When people would ask Ellacu if he were not afraid he would say no, but, he added, he no more took credit for that than for lacking a sense of smell. He just didn’t have one.” The world of the poor and of victims was not outside, awaiting full access to his mind and heart. It was already within him.

Jesuit colleges and universities become effective instruments insofar as they have a critical mass of faculty members and staff who share the same Christian inspiration that Ellacuría and his companions brought to the Catholic university in San Salvador and by which they transformed it. The hard part is not assembling the critical mass, however; it is discovering that inspiration and keeping it alive. Here I draw on personal experience. By 1988 I had been teaching theology for 10 years. The theology was in line with Vatican II. I drew widely and appreciatively on liberation theology and Catholic social teaching; the forceful words of the Society’s 32nd General Congregation about justice and faith struck a deep chord. To this point, I could follow Ellacuría. But then, over the course of a weekend, I came face to face with poverty among families no more than a mile from the campus in Massachusetts where I was living and working.

A Late Personal Discovery

Within weeks I was looking at the underside of life in rundown apartments, where shadows and shouts awakened long-buried fears about violence, about different lifestyles, about brokenness and isolation. The memory of Romero—not his martyrdom but his enlightenment—enabled me to make sense of what was happening. I myself was passing through an Aguilares moment, and the people I met were Latino. It was a moment of feeling terribly disoriented and unmoored, yet at the same time untied and excited. Even now, more than 20 years later, I cannot figure out why the discovery took so long in coming. Its delay was not for lack of better training or critical reflection, nor was it for want of forceful church documents and living models. More likely it had to do with fear and insecurity: not a fear of death so much as a fear of hostility, violence and failure, of not knowing how to respond to circumstances and backgrounds so different from my own and so greatly beyond my control.

The next step is obvious. We develop friendships with the very ones who have made us unsettled and afraid. While we might not be as free as Jesus when it comes to seeking the company of those at the margins, at least as a start these friendships enable us to move beyond fear and insecurity, defensiveness and hostility. These relationships reshape how we observe, interpret and respond to the world. The lesson of the martyrs is that whether we think of the world in local or global terms, there is no way to escape the route toward the mortal conflict that tears society in two, except by what Paul called “this ministry of reconciliation.” Working for justice is absolutely essential. But if suspicion and estrangement are not overcome, the kingdom of God remains only partially realized. We may be able to read ourselves into the horizon of justice, but we cannot read ourselves into freedom from fear. The way to that liberation passes through the villages and homes of the poor—the road that leads from Aguilares.



William Reiser, S.J., is a professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.