Salvadorans Offer Lesson on Trampling of Rights
In 2006 the government of El Salvador replaced lawful dissent with U.S.-inspired anti-terrorism legislation as its national policy. In return, the Salvadoran people are offering Americans an object lesson in the value of our Bill of Rights.
On the morning of July 2, 2007, 400 Salvadorans who were waiting for buses to take them to the central square in Suchitoto to attend a forum on the privatization of water utilities were accused of blocking the road and were attacked by police firing rubber bullets and tear gas. Three were arrested.
Word of the arrests reached the crowd in the square waiting for the motorcade of President Antonio Saca, who was coming to Suchitoto to announce his administration’s new policy, a plan viewed by many Salvadorans as the first step in privatizing the country’s publicly owned water resources.
People began moving out of the square in the direction of the melee. Met by police and military units supported by helicopters and machine guns mounted on jeeps, people in the front ranks raised their hands, shouting, “We are unarmed.” The riot squad responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas at close range. Many Salvadorans were injured. Seven people were arrested.
Lorena Martinez, the president of CRIPDES, the Association of Rural Communities for the Development of El Salvador, along with her vice president and driver, were arrested as they drove to Suchitoto to conduct the forum.
Oscar Luna, the Salvadoran human rights ombudsman, spoke out against the attacks, stating, “I was able to identify the following human rights violations: excessive use of force, excessive use of weapons, mistreatment, illegal treatment, acts of torture, because that is torture when you threaten to throw someone out of a helicopter.”
A witness said, “The people who were creating terror here were the police.”
The Suchitoto 13, as the defendants are known, were charged with “terrorism” under the country’s “Decree 108: The Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism” enacted in 2006. The defendants faced 60 years if convicted as “terrorists.”
Writing in defense of the Suchitoto 13, Amnesty International said it “fears that those concerned were arrested to punish them for their involvement in legitimate acts of protest and to prevent similar acts in the future.”
The fate of the Suchitoto 13 should be of particular interest to Americans who value the right to lawful dissent and free speech. El Salvador’s Decree 108 was not only modeled on the USA Patriot Act, but the vagueness and ambiguity of its language rival that used in the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, passed by the U.S. House in December and now in the Senate. The language in both countries’ anti-terrorism legislation has been crafted so that constitutionally protected dissent can be prosecuted as acts of terrorism and result in draconian sentences.
El Salvador’s right-wing government has close ties to the Bush administration. It was with the urging and support from the Oval Office that Saca was able to implement the Central America Free Trade Agreement in March 2006. Salvadoran critics of CAFTA say it was no coincidence that the anti-terrorism legislation was enacted six months later.
Lorena Martinez said that by passing Decree 108 “the government wants to a set a precedent for social movement organizations … that have been very visibly protesting … against the free trade agreements (and) against the interests of multinational companies.”
On Feb. 8 the charges against the Suchitoto 13 were downgraded from terrorism to public disorder. The defendants still faced up to four years in prison. Following that, more than 1,200 Salvadorans participated in a peaceful three-day march from Suchitoto to San Salvador in support of the Suchitoto 13.
This Tuesday the presiding judge, citing lack of sufficient evidence and yielding to public pressure, dropped all charges and set the Suchitoto 13 free.
Last July 42 U.S. senators sent Saca a letter regarding the charges brought against the Suchitoto 13. In it they wrote, “It’s hard to imagine such acts could constitute terrorism.”
We can only hope these same senators remember the Suchitoto 13 when it’s their turn to vote on the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which was written, like El Salvador’s Decree 108, to instill fear in the minds of citizens whose free speech and lawful dissent are inalienable rights.
Robert Weitzel of Middleton is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. Meredith DeFrancesco is a freelance radio journalist whose weekly RadioActive program is heard in Maine. She traveled to El Salvador in January with the U.S. Human Rights Delegation.
© 2008 Capital Newspapers
The writers clearly assume that our “elected representatives” do not see the world in the same way as the ruling class in El Salvador. But what evidence from the last eight years can they bring to bear to support that assumption?
Too bad those all those 42 senators did not vote against SR2228(?) - the senate version of the bill to eavesdrop on citizens and provide immunity to telecoms.
BTW - the dropping of charges will never happen in our country, since the judiciary has shown itself to be an extension of the executive. Under legislation in progress, citizens(both native-born and naturalized) could be stripped of their citizenship and declared as enemy combatants with no rights.
“This Tuesday the presiding judge, citing lack of sufficient evidence and yielding to public pressure, dropped all charges and set the Suchitoto 13 free.”
Evidently a sensible judge trumps an over-reaching statute, even in El Salvador. The most important thing Americans can do is to elect a people-oriented President who will demand only sensible prosecution of federal laws through the agencies, and one who will likewise appoint wise people-oriented judges. For us, this time, that would be Obama.
Bushism could fade with astonishing speed. Overnight, actually, on 1/20/09.
Daniel David Said: “Evidently a sensible judge trumps an over-reaching statute, even in El Salvador.”
I seriously doubt that any judge in the US would do the same out of fear of retribution by the administration. Also, those that think that it “couldn’t happen here” are fooling themselves. Central America is always been the testing ground for new US tactics. If it works there, they’ll bring it home. Dissent WILL be criminalize sooner than we know it, and then what are we going to do?
elmysterio, your post is one of the many reasons I have been pounding the table here at CD for us to actually elect wall-to-wall liberals (Democrats) to Washington.
If you get a different administration, you don’t have to fear the neocon “retribution” of which you speak.
What makes anyone think that the Democrats have different paymasters than the Repuglicans?
The same people pull the strings - look what the Dems did with their majority. More of the same.
What a thug regime in El Salvador. What a crime that the US supports it. What an atrocity that the US has wrecked so many lives there. I see the formation of the Mara Salvatruchas as karmic justice.
Amen forextrader - even Clinton worked with them.
Privatization of water… a regressive taxation to fleece more $$$ out of the poor.
As occurred in Bolivia and Ecuador, it is good to see the locals resisting this tyranny.
¡Viva la revolución!
Integration of El Salvador into the “global economy” has proven very problematic as one might expect. Madison Av. is luring Salvadorians into “the good life” consumption dependence, and without focus on maintaining their own self-sufficiency, forcing them to depend on dollar transfers from Salvadorians working illegally in the US. The Salvadorian government responded with “maquilas” labor exploitation policy, giving more control over the people to the global corporations with tax-free profits. El Salvador is not the only small country being hooked into capitalist consumption gluttony, and torn away from its cultural traditions, food, water, shelter, health security. The capitalist goal is 7 billion consumption slaves worldwide like Americans today.
time for revolution
best is to kidnap and whack all that oppose basic human rights, give them what they deny others
as someone there in ES since 1983 and in Guatemala I can fill books with stories of injustice and death at the hands of US military and thaose that are involved and feceive monies and those in the narcotraficantte biz like bush and saca and many many others, like DEA CIA and many in the miltary on and on and especially the Clinton’s with Bush Sr in Mena Arkansas, [knew Barry Seal and Gary Webb] ask bilary about Mena, any of you pussy ass yellow journalists
if things do not change then it will definitely be time for another little war, El Salvador style
people are fed up
We “should” be proud that other nations pattern their laws and action after ours, after all we are a beacon of freedom and democracy, right? That the copied legal statutes are illegal, or at least questionable, is no justification to copy. It makes me sick to realize what they (our fearful leaders) do in our names, which legitimizes such actions by other nations, which further legitimizes,….becoming the norm.
If, and when, we are arrested and prosecuted on terrorism charges, perhaps there should be a mass commission of like terrorist activities, resulting in mass arrests, causing flooding of the system. Oh, right! They’d just build more private prisons.
Daniel David Said: “elmysterio, your post is one of the many reasons I have been pounding the table here at CD for us to actually elect wall-to-wall liberals (Democrats) to Washington.
If you get a different administration, you don’t have to fear the neocon “retribution” of which you speak.”
The reality is though that Federal Judge positions are LIFETIME appointments. Therefore, Bush’s stacking of the courts with right-wing lunatics will have long-lasting repercussions.
Oscar Luna, the Salvadoran human rights ombudsman, spoke out against the attacks, stating, “I was able to identify the following human rights violations: excessive use of force, excessive use of weapons, mistreatment, illegal treatment, acts of torture, because that is torture when you threaten to throw someone out of a helicopter.”
No prosecution for those serious abuses of the police/military is the pathetic part of the report. Documentation of these assaults is essential; even in their old, tired age, the hunt these animals for their acts of today will continue! Pinochet’s suffering & terror - even within his mansions - as the people hunted him for Retribution is an excellent example of Justice. As the Spanish justice system pursued him in an international tribunal, the millstone of Justice ground Pinochet’s anguishing mind into loathsome fear with images of his jailers — those demented prison guards of Chile, who tortured the students, unionists, socialists, who, now, awaited the old, tired mind of Pinochet. Presidente Antonio Saca’s Retribution now stalks him, too, as a hungry beast. The Revolution is the Internet.
El Salvador’s Decree 108 was not only modeled on the USA Patriot Act, but the vagueness and ambiguity of its language rival that used in the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, passed by the U.S. House in December and now in the Senate. The language in both countries’ anti-terrorism legislation has been crafted so that constitutionally protected dissent can be prosecuted as acts of terrorism and result in draconian sentences.
Anti-privatization now equals terrorism in both El Salvador and the United States. In shorthand, let the rich control or your a terrorist. Another way of saying it is shut up and live quietly with your imposed poverty. It time to awaken the boys of hubris.
Is it just me, or does it seem to anyone else that conservative politics do better when there are no civil rights?