by Francesca Austin Ochoa, Bay Area CISPES

Despite being smaller than the state of Massachusetts, El Salvador ishome to more than 25 volcanoes. They tower above the country'sindustrial cityscapes and rustic villages alike. When they awake, theearth trembles, and the people anxiously wait. It is this waiting,poised between fruition and disaster that now pulses through therepublic. There are rainy seasons, dry seasons, duck hunting seasons,but right now it is election season, and the fervor is tangible. Thesocial movement in El Salvador has swollen beneath the surface of theright wing's hegemony. Like the volcanoes, it waits to erupt.  Theidealism and the promises of the 1980s have not been swept under therug of bureaucracy. They have simmered for over a decade and are ready,no longer if, but when the FMLN gains power.
It was into this whirlwind that the CISPES January 2009 ElectionsDelegation wholeheartedly plunged. Ten days, eleven delegates workingfifteen hours a day, twenty meetings, thirty boxes of cigarettes, threehundred cups of coffee, and pupusas, lots of pupusas. Our objective wasto learn from and support our allies in the Salvadoran social movementthrough observing the municipal and legislative elections. Werecognized that we could not depend on the purported neutrality ofinternational observer missions like the European Union or even theOrganization of American States. We committed ourselves to becomingwell-educated about the electoral system, and as well-trained asobservers possibly could be, all in the one week leading up to ElectionDay.

    On the eve of the election, members of our delegation cheered each other as we parted ways. Four of us were heading to the northern department of Chalatenago, the rest were staying in the capital. Those of us heading to Chalatenango heard reports of busses being detained and hundreds of Nicaraguans crossing the border on foot. Our ride to the lush northern province was shared with international observers from Guatemala.
    One man, a longtime friend of the Salvadoran pueblo and ex-member of the Guatemalan Ejercito Guerilleros de los Pobres seemed entirely unsurprised. He explained to me that the tactic of borrowing the poor from other countries to vote for a particular party was a favorite of Central American right wing governments.
    El Paraiso, Chalatenango, is a municipality of around 4,000 people, mostly from small agrarian communities in the hills surrounding the towns center. The official voters' registry, however, showed over 7,000 names. The incumbent PCN (National Conciliation Party) mayor is notorious for filling in the 3,000 person divide by bussing in people from other municipalities and countries with falsified documents to usher in his victory.
    In a municipality where a mayoral candidate can win or lose by a single vote, and that vote could determine whether or not U.S. corporations will be welcomed in with their scalpels for reconstructive surgery, what happens on election day is of utmost importance. At 4:30 a.m. on January 18th, our small band awoke to the cacophony of rural life namely, roosters. We headed into the still-dark morning to the zocalo-turned-voting center, where throngs of officials, each representing one of the six vying political parties, had gathered, somewhat tumultuously, to set up and review the voting materials.
    As the day progressed, people began to fill the voting center. By midday, swarms of people waited in the dusty sun, youth sat flirting in the shade, ice cream and shaved ice peddlers weaved through the crowds, and the lingering scent of platanos fritos hung over us like a sticky, sweet cloud. 
    Embedded in the carnivalesque excitement, another story was playing out: the foretold busloads of strangers arriving, residents unable to vote because of irregularities between their identifications and the registry, worried whispers of people buying votes, and people being apprehended with multiple ID cards.
    As observers, I think we all felt the frustration of hearing these reports and witnessing first hand the fraudulent activity, but not being able to do anything more forceful than furiously jot down notes. Our role as observers became clear, though, when other observer missions gave the elections two thumbs up. It was left to us to issue one of the only public denouncements, via a press conference with both mainstream and independent media, of the explicit and calculated fraud that had occurred.
    Though CISPES' role as solidarity organization opposed to U.S. intervention has not changed, the methods of intervention are continuously morphing. We were constantly reminded in our meetings with labor and social movement leaders, professors, student and youth organizers that U.S. intervention is as strong as it ever was. Rather than channeling millions of dollars a day into the Salvadoran military, the U.S. through aid, affiliated banks, and its corporate networks is now spending billions to colonize the markets, infrastructure and resources of El Salvador. Their investment a civil war, billions of dollars in arms, military and police training, billions of dollars in government bailouts and election campaigning, billions of dollars in roads, factories, and canals, the murder of 70,000 (and counting) resisters stands to profit. All this in a country the size of Massachusetts.
    With a likely FMLN presidential victory only a month away, we hope that we will see a distinct move away from U.S. economic imperialism. However, as Salvadoran economist Raul Moreno warned our delegation, getting elected is the easy part.  Staying in office and effecting the ideals and the change that have been called for again and again will be the true challenge. Happily, the Frente supporters from the wizened and dedicated ex-combatants, to the theory-addled, beer-guzzling students, to the viejitos fanning themselves in the shade are up for the challenge.  n