Another left turn in Latin America, this time in El Salvador [UPDATE]

Mauricio Funes,
El Salvador president-elect

there's only a very few right-wing or center-right countries left in latin america, most notably mexico and colombia... most others are heeding the call of their citizens and rejecting the slavish obeisance to unfettered capitalism and wholesale privatization...

A party of former left-wing guerrillas has taken power in El Salvador following presidential elections over the weekend.

The FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes is the latest in a string of leftist politicians to come to power in Latin America in recent years.

He narrowly beat Rodrigo Avila from the ruling conservative Arena party, according to election officials.

The FMLN fought a civil war against the Government of El Salvador from 1981 to 1992, when peace accords were signed.

It subsequently became a left-wing political party, but Mr Funes is a moderate politician and former journalist who was chosen as presidential candidate from outside the FMLN ranks.

good for el salvador...

[UPDATE]

more on funes...

A charismatic former TV journalist promised to build strong ties with President Barack Obama and promote investor confidence Monday as he took El Salvador into uncharted territory by being elected its first leftist president.

Behind Mauricio Funes is a party of former Marxist guerrillas that fought to overthrow U.S.-backed governments in the 1980s and whose rise to power has raised fears of a communist regime in the war-scarred Central American country.

Funes, who gave up journalism less than two years ago to become the presidential candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, sought to quell those concerns after his historic victory Sunday.

"Nothing traumatizing is going to happen here," he said in an interview with local Megavision television. "We will not reverse any privatizations. We will not jeopardize private property. There is no reason at this moment for fear."

and here...

The apparent victory of leftist candidate Maurico Funes in Sunday's presidential election in El Salvador finally closes out the Cold War in Central America and raises some serious questions about the long term goals of U.S. foreign policy.

With Funes' election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980's. We will now coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our national security. Those we branded as "international terrorists" now democratically govern much of Central America.

Funes, once a commentator for CNN's Spanish-language service, comes to power representing the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a Marxist guerrilla group-turned-political -party, an organization that the U.S. government once described in terms now reserved for Al Qaeda and Hizbollah.

el salvador has had to deal with some very, very rough times over the years, not the least of which was the horrific slaughter wreaked by its involvement with operation condor and the school of the americas (see my previous posts here, here, and here...)

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Wolfie revises history and lies through his teeth about El Salvador

the only one he has to convince is himself... as for the rest of us, it's plain that he's just trying for a different treatment in the history books...

WOLFOWITZ: Maybe it was — look, maybe I could have done it differently. Maybe I could have consulted more. Maybe if it weren’t me and somebody else doing it, look, I’ve said from the beginning…

ROSE: Somebody who’s not an architect of the war, and all that.

WOLFOWITZ: I’m not an architect of anything, but somebody who is not so closely associated with a controversial Iraq policy, yes.

stand up and take it like a man, you sorry sack of shit... and, while you're at it, stay the hell away from the airwaves so we don't have to experience your barely-concealed pose as victim... you were in the thick of it and, if there is any justice in this world, you will be called to account...

and, oh, by the way, how dare you present the horrible slaughter in el salvador, perpetrated by a military that received its training at u.s. hands (see below), as something that turned out for the better...

Comparing Iraq to El Salvador, Wolfowitz said, “El Salvador fought a terrible, terrible civil war for more than 10 years. … And today El Salvador is one of the most successful economies in Central America.”

the denial and outright lying are positively breathtaking... but, brace yourselves... this is revisionist history at its finest and there'll be a lot more comin' atcha...

here's what REALLY took place in el salvador...

The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States changed American policy in El Salvador dramatically. The new U.S. administration worried about Communist expansion in Central America and viewed the El Salvador military government as a potential barrier against Communism. The Reagan administration substantially increased both military and economic aid to El Salvador.

The civil war raged on in El Salvador, fueled by U.S. aid to the Salvadoran military. The government harshly repressed dissent, and at least 70,000 people lost their lives in killings and bombing raids waged against civilians throughout the countryside. The country's infrastructure had crumbled, and the nation appeared to be no closer to its goals of peace, prosperity and social justice than when the process began. Then, in 1989, the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America shocked the international community into action.

and, i wouldn't exactly say that el salvador is among "the most successful economies in central america" either... for one thing, they've got a terrible gang problem, fueled by the deportation of numerous salavadoran gang members from the u.s...

Gang violence continues to be the No. 1 security threat in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. According to official sources, mara activity represents up to 90 percent of all crimes committed, including homicides, kidnappings and extortions.

Officials from these three countries have long complained that U.S. deportation policy exacerbates the gang problem. Poor cooperation and information-sharing has made it impossible to know whether deportees, arriving by the planeload, are criminals or not. There are known cases of notorious criminals passing through the revolving door of deportation that, if anything, gives them the chance to acquire new identities and evade prosecution.

yep, wolfie is quite skilled at talking out of his asshole and expecting our dumbed-down citizenry to buy it...

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Bush's excellent (Latin American) adventure

bubble boy's going to visit five whole countries...

...

Brazil and Colombia

...

Guatemala and Mexico



Uruguay

let's see what's he's going to find...

brazil...

President Lula da Silva of Brazil made a point of visiting Venezuela for his first foreign trip after being re-elected last October. There he presided over the dedication of a $1.2 billion bridge over the Orinoco river, financed by the Brazilian government, while he lavished praise on Chavez and gave the popular Venezuelan president an added boost in his own re-election campaign.

colombia...

Colombia is in the midst of a huge national scandal over the responsibility of government officials for mass murder and assassinations of political opponents. More trade unionists are killed in Colombia each year than in the rest of the world combined.

guatemala...

Guatemala is another right-wing ally with a terrible human rights record: two weeks ago three Central American parlimentarians were murdered by a Guatemalan police death squad.

mexico...

Mexico, where the agenda is sure to include immigration, a constant source of tension in relations between the two neighbors.

uruguay...

Dr. [Tabare] Vázquez’s government includes former Tupamaro guerrillas; the guerrilla group kidnapped and killed an American official in Montevideo in 1970.

colombia, mexico, guatemala...

All three governments have been linked to narco-trafficking, but President Bush will likely praise them for their co-operation in the war on drugs.

the region...

For twenty-five years our government has pushed a series of reforms throughout the region: tighter fiscal and monetary policies, more independent central banks, indiscriminate opening to international trade and investment, privatization of public enterprises, and the abandonment of economic development strategies and industrial policies. The Bush team thinks that these reforms, known as "neoliberalism" in Latin America, were just the right formula to stimulate economic growth.

But in fact Latin America's economic growth over the last 25 years has been a disaster -- the worst long-term growth failure in more than a hundred years. From 1980-2000 GDP per person grew by only 9 percent, and another 4 percent for 2000-2005.

and...

“[T]here is a sense that things are not going well for the U.S. in the region,” said Peter Hakim, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy research and advocacy group. “There has probably never been so much anti-Americanism and so little confidence in U.S. leadership since the cold war.”

i don't suppose it would make much difference to george w. bush that his trip might 1) actually inflame anti-u.s. sentiment in latin america, 2) subtract another point or two from his standing in the polls as he, don quixote-like, trots off to tilt at more windmills while ignoring the desperate state of his own country (virtually all of which has come about thanks to him), and 3) only serve to throw the spotlight on hugo chávez...

While Mr. Bush is in Uruguay on Friday and Saturday, Mr. Chávez plans to be leading anti-Bush demonstrations just across the River Plate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he has cultivated an increasingly friendly relationship with that country’s Peronist president, Néstor Kirchner.

i'm almost tempted to go see mr. chávez myself as long as he's going to be in the neighborhood altho' i hate crowds at outdoor political rallies... they make me nervous...

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