Movement Demands No to Privatization, Down with the Anti-Terrorism Law

On May 1 a CISPES delegation in El Salvador took to the streetswith some 75,000 Salvadoran workers, campesinos,students, and FMLN members in a historic International Workers Day march. The march was led by the Salvadoran LaborFront (FSS) and its member unions, followed shortly by National Movement of CDand DVD vendors and other coalitions like the National AgriculturalCoordination (CNA), the Popular Social Bloc, and the MPR-12. The labor unions had a huge presence,especially the SETA water workers union which is part of a growing movement tostop the ARENA governments plans to privatize water resources and distributionin El Salvador. The level of unity within the social movementand the common message put forward was another successful outcome of the march.

In addition to denouncing the implementation of the CAFTAfree trade agreement and the possible privatization of water and health care,the marchers focused on the anti-terrorism law passed last year by theSalvadoran Assembly which criminalizes various forms of street protests andgives the government a dangerous tool for cracking down on activists andorganizers. Students held anaccompanying march from the national university in which they used streettheater to ridicule the UMO riot police that constantly harass their rallies whichmet up with the large union-led march in San SalvadorsCentral Plaza. There was heavy police presence at the May Day gathering and some busescoming to San Salvadorfor the march were reportedly stopped, but the march ultimately concludedwithout incidents of police repression.

A 16-person CISPES solidarity delegation joined the May Daymarch with a giant banner that read No to US intervention, Privatization, andthe ILEA. Yes to Resistance! (Checkout a report from one of the delegates.) The delegation has spent the week meeting withunions and other social movement organizations and on Thursday will visit theILEA police training academy in SanSalvador.

FMLN pushes forelectoral reform

The FMLN called out thousands of members for the May Daymarch and used the opportunity to push for significant electoral reforms beforethe presidential, legislative, and municipal elections in March of 2009. FMLN general coordinator Milton Mendez citedinsecurity and unemployment as the two biggest problems facing the countryand said that only by getting ARENA and its right-wing PCN partner out of powerwill there be the possibility for change in El Salvador. To that end, they called on the population tosupport significant and necessary electoral reforms, such as residentialvoting, regulation of political propaganda, financial restraints oncampaigning, and a total updating of the current electoral rolls.

Groups protest PosadaCarriles Release in Front of US Embassy

On April 30, hundreds of Salvadorans arrived to the USEmbassy to protest the recent release of renowned Cuba terrorist Luis PosadaCarriles. The US government decided to releasePosada Carriles in April after he had been arrested sneaking into the countryback in 2005. Posada Carriles, an ex-CIAoperative and anti-Castro militant, is best known for orchestrating the bombingof a Cuban jet in 1976 that killed more than 70 people. The Bush Administration has refused to labelPosada Carriles a terrorist or to extradite him to Venezuela to serve trial. The possibility that he could be sent to El Salvador has arisen given President Sacasfriendly relationship with the USand anti-Cuban exiles; so far, however, El Salvador has refused to do so. The Salvadoran Committee in Solidarity with Cuba presented a letter to the US ambassador demanding that Posada Carriles bearrested and extradited to Venezuelaand calling for the release of the Cuban Five.