POPULAR SOCIAL BLOC OF EL SALVADOR

Open letter to US Ambassador William Barclay

San Salvador, November 17, 2006

Mr. William Barclay
US Ambassador in El Salvador
Presente

Greetings from the Popular Social Bloc.  Our organization, created in 2003, is a coalition of popular sectors that includes unions, cooperatives, campesino organizations, religious sectors, students, indigenous, women, and war veterans.  We have come together with the objective of struggling for a real economic, social and political form of democracy.

Given those objectives, the BPS expresses to you the following:

1. We reject your government’s policy of giving military aid to our country as is has served to train soldiers in tactics of torture and counterinsurgency, in particular those that planned and executed the assassination of the Jesuit priests and their workers on November 16, 1989.

1. We denounce that the school where these Salvadoran soldiers were trained – the School of the Americas or SOA – continues functioning under a different name, and we pronounce ourselves in solidarity with the thousands of citizens from the US who from November 17-19 will protest in Ft. Benning, Georgia to shut down the instillations of the SOA.
2. We denounce the existence, since August of 2000, of a US military base in the Salvadoran Comalapa airport.  This base is merely disguised as a counter-narcotics center; it violates our sovereignty and represents a threat to regional peace.
3. We denounce the installation last year of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in our country, as it will contribute to the tendency towards militarism and the violation of the human rights of our people.
4. We are in solidarity with various actions across the continent against US-backed militarism.  These actions have been organized by the Movement of Christians for Peace with Justice and Dignity, of which the Salvadoran Communities of Faith and Life (COFEVI) is part of, and will take place in Bogotá, Colombia; Manta, Ecuador, Buenos Aires, Argentina and here in El Salvador with an action in front of the US Embassy.
5. We reject the imposition of Salvadoran troops sent to serve in Iraq.  Five Salvadoran families have suffered the loss of loved ones in a war that primarily serves the interests of big US oil companies.
6. We demand that your country respect the human rights of Salvadoran men and women who have been forced to emigrate from our country because of the poverty brought upon by the economic model of privatizations and “free” trade agreements that your country has imposed on us since 1989.
7. We demand an end to impunity, and punishment for those responsible for the assassination of the Jesuit priests and their workers, murdered 17 years ago at the Central America University (UCA) in San Salvador.

Rest assured that as the Salvadoran people we will continue fighting to kick out the military base in Comalapa and the ILEA; and will we continue fighting to bring about a government that guarantees us true independence and democracy.

In the present we struggle, but the future is ours!

Coordination of the National Popular Social Bloc (BPS)

November 17, 2006