While CAFTA has been one of the main focuses of protest over the past month, there has been increased organizing and militancy around other issues as well. Prisoners held peaceful demonstrations last week, including a hunger strike in three different jails, calling attention to the horrible conditions in El Salvador's overcrowded prisons and demanding respect for their basic rights. Public sector unionists, meanwhile, held protests to demand the wage increases that Saca promised to government workers. Public hospital workers and teachers organized work stoppages to demand a 10 percent raise.

Yesterday residents of the town of Olocuilta blocked the highway between San Salvador and the airport in a protest to demand basic water services for their community. While in the past government officials have responded to this kind of protest by sending out representatives of the state water agency to negotiate, this time the protestors received a different treatment. Within two hours the riot police had arrived and forcefully removed the peaceful protestors, and government water officials never arrived.

The director of the National Civilian Police, Rodrigo Avila, announced the creation of a new, special police force which they say will infiltrate and attack gangs and other kinds of organized crime rings. However, given the history of government infiltration into social movement organizations, many Salvadorans are concerned that this new police force is another step back in the process of the Peace Accord implementation, and another step toward institutionalizing government repression.