Social Movements, Huddle Up! El Salvadoran Youth Comes to U.S. for Dialogue

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Written by Jacoby Ballard

December 18, 2006

From Upsidedownworld: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/551/74/

The TVscreen showed hundreds of people yelling, pushing, punching andstruggling. Oswaldo Nataren, a student activist touring the U.S.withCISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) didn'tunderstand the English commentary and thought that this news on CNN wasfootage of people rioting at the School of the Americas protest, whichwas to be the following day.

Hesaw people fighting with passion in their eyes and assumed that theywere fighting for social justice. Unfortunately, the video clip wascoverage of people fighting outside a mall to buy the new Play Station.My coworker and I looked at each other silently and sheepishlyacknowledged that in this country, the news is more likely to showimages of people struggling to shop than struggling for justice.

Natarenis a visual arts student at the University of El Salvador and a founding member of a progressive student organization called the RoqueDalton University Front (FURD). FURD has organized recently aroundincreased bus fare and tuition hikes, and has worked in coalition withunions and the Popular Social Block (BPS) against the privatization ofwater and the implementation of the Central American Free TradeAgreement (CAFTA).

CISPESwas founded in 1980 as a national grassroots solidarity organizationwhen Salvadoran social movement leaders strategically planned to getactivists within the U.S. involved, as the U.S. funded and trained themilitary in El Salvador. In the 1980's, CISPES's work centered aroundU.S. military intervention in Central America. When the Peace Accordswere signed in 1992, CISPES rejoiced with the Salvadoran people as theycelebrated the end of the shooting war and tentatively made thetransition to new battlefields of struggle. Today, post-9/11, CISPESjoins the peoples of the world who are struggling against rampant U.S.imperialism, fighting against the US government's wars in Iraq andaround the world, while also fighting against the free trade policiesof CAFTA, the FTAA, and the WTO.

WHY EL SALVADOR?

CISPESis often asked, 'why El Salvador?' U.S. citizens have someresponsibility for the political environment in El Salvador, as theU.S. government has a long-standing history of military, economic, andpolitical intervention in El Salvador. U.S. military schools havehistorically trained and funded Salvadoran soldiers, who in turn haveslaughtered thousands of their own in their bloody civil war from1980-1992. The U.S. government is closely allied with El Salvador'sconservative ARENA political party. For the past 17 years, the two havecolluded together to criminalize dissidents and youth movements,privatize water, and implement free trade policies.

Natarenexplains the vigor of the repression in El Salvador, "Although thegovernment here will try to prevent you from action in some ways, thereare still some spaces, some media, some actions that are not attacked.In El Salvador, there is no way to get the message out but to take tothe streets, do things to get the message out in a more powerful way.As our government claims the media, they leave fewer and fewer placesto speak freely, so we have to find a more radical way to get themessage across, often putting ourselves at risk."

Recently,the United States has sponsored the International Law EnforcementAcademy (ILEA), a training school for police from all over LatinAmerica, similar to the U.S. School of the Americas (or the WesternHemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation, as it was renamed in2001), in Georgia. The School of the Americas has trained soldiers fromacross Latin America in counterinsurgency and interrogation techniques,psychological warfare, and sniper training since its opening in 1946 inPanama. In 1984, the school moved to U.S. soil, and continues to belocated at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia and funded by the U.S.government. Though ILEA trains Latin American police instead ofmilitary personnel, nevertheless, the school teaches its student thesame strategies of torture and repression to be used against their ownpeople.

CISPESalso sees the El Salvador as a testing ground for the latest neoliberalstrategies, and therefore emblematic of the vibrant social movementsacross Latin America. As Salvadoran social movement leader SantiagoFlores said, "The government is sharpening its repressive tools as theonly answer to continue with this exclusionary economic model andmaintain power." Progressive movements growing out of the economiccrisis that exists in El Salvador and much of Latin America have beenmet with intense military and political repression, a pattern which2006 CISPES touree Oswaldo Nataren says demonstrates that "theneoliberal model is failing."

ElSalvador is becoming increasingly militarized as well. In El Salvador,since July, a few prominent progressive leaders have been murderedevery month. Most recently vocal community activist and Lutheran pastorFrancisco Carrillo was killed as he locked up his church afterservices. Recently Salvadoran President Antonio Saca has augmentedpolice and military troops by 2,000 troops each to combat "crime." Theincreasing militarization has lead some Salvadoran citizens to fear areturn to the repression of the 80s when dead bodies showed up on thestreet every day, an outrageous and gruesome tactic of threat that thegovernment employed to prevent more people from joining the socialmovement.

Anothercomponent of El Salvador's anti-crime policy under the SacaAdministration (with President Bush's support) is the criminalizationof the gangs, or maras, members of which have lived almost their entirelives in the United States. Because of punitive immigration policiesimplemented in the U.S., many young adults have been deported to ElSalvador where they lack a sense of identity and community. "One of thebiggest reasons that young Salvadorans are choosing to join gangs isbecause of the disintegration of the family caused by immigration tothe United States. Many teenagers are just seeking a sense of belongingand identity that they lost due to massive migration out of ElSalvador," explains Nataren.

TheUnited States an Salvadoran governments blame crime for CAFTA'sfailures, and so they have increased repression. Nataren explained thatthe neoliberal model is responsible for the problems in El Salvador andthe rest of Latin America. He spoke at the School of the Americasprotest in Columbus, Georgia, on November 18 — the anniversary of thekilling of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador on November 16, 1989.Nataren warned that repression in El Salvador is not something that canbe comfortably relegated to memory. "Now we are seeing a return tothose same levels of repression," he said, "and we must not only stopthe School of the Americas, but the greater model of imperialism whosefailure calls for these levels of repression!"

Natarencalled for unity, for social movements throughout the world fight thesame root problem: capitalism. It has been part of CISPES's missionsince its founding to support and learn from the powerful and strategicsocial movement in El Salvador and to use those lessons to build uponthe social movement in the United States. Resistance in El Salvador isbroad and longstanding, and as Nataren explains, there are "spaces likethe Popular Social Block (BPS) that looks at all the needs and concernsof the people and tries to come up with a collective solution. Withinthe university too, there is an attempt to bring together differentgroups, coming together in a common platform." While the BPS is anumbrella organization that unifies the broader social movement; thereare many individual groups such as women's organizations, youth groupsand unions that work on specific social issues in El Salvador.

TheFarabundo Marti National Liberation Front existed as undergroundradical guerrillas in the 1980s, fighting an armed struggle. With thesigning of the Peace Accords in 1992, the FMLN now works as a politicalparty advocating progressive change in El Salvador. In many ways,social movements in El Salvador are more broad and cohesive than in theUnited States. Nataren affirms with pride that "there is a collectivevision in what we're resisting — imperialism, colonialism,neoliberalism. There are different opinions about how to achieve it —some say only through the FMLN; some say to take up arms again — but weall know what we're fighting against. What we have in El Salvador is aunity in action."

POWER TO THE YOUTH!

Nataren'stour focused on youth resistance and organizing, and he met with highschool and college students across the United States. Nataren wasparticularly struck by the meetings with the high school students:"Seeing their interest and excitement about what is going on was reallygreat and important, but I was surprised by their lack of knowledgeabout how U.S. policies affect El Salvador and the rest of the world."

Forsome students, talking with Nataren brought up questions about theirown history. One New York University student commented that, though heis Colombian American, he doesn't know the political reasons behind hisparent's immigration. "As a Latino student, one of my objectives is tolearn about the political history of my people. Now I know some piecesof it — fleeing failing economies and repressive governments. But aschildren growing up here in the United States, this history was part ofthe untold stories. It's important to me to remember."

Natarenexplained to NYU Oxfam organizers that one of FURD's "objectives is toopen space to identify and answer student concerns. The history of theUnited States and El Salvador has demonstrated that at the heart of ourmovements are students stepping up, not just on the University levelbut also in rural areas, in women's movements, in the Civil RightsMovement

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