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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"We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interests to intervene, and if you don't like it, lump it."

a little background on the u.s. record for championing human rights and national sovereignty, and rejecting torture and death as a means of political control, set in the context of the western hemisphere institute for security cooperation (whinsec), formerly known as the school of the americas (* see below)...



john pilger interviews duane clarridge (** see below)...



and that youtube clip represents a part of our history we desperately need to know about that, for obvious reasons, seems to remain tucked away from public view... i probably wouldn't be nearly as aware of it myself had i not spent so much time in latin america... as i mentioned in a previous post on argentina's "guerra sucia" (dirty war), my home in buenos aires is a mere five blocks from the spot where many of the "disappeareds" were taken, a building that was also the hq of the argentine military criminals in charge of the guerra sucia, criminals trained by the school of the americas...

* After the legal authorization for the former School of the Americas was repealed in 2001 and the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation was established there were a number of changes at the school. A new human rights training program was developed and currently all students are given the option to attend classes, but are not required to receive the minimal eight hours of instruction in "human rights,^[10] as well as training in the rule of law, due process, civilian control of the military, and the role of the military in a democratic society." A "train the trainer" program was developed which equips students attending the course to return to their home country and establish human rights training classes of their own. In addition to that training other courses now focus on leadership development, counter-drug operations, peace support operations, disaster relief, or "any other matter the Secretary [of Defense] deems appropriate".

duane clarridge...

Duane Ramsdell "Dewey" Clarridge, (1932-) a CIA operative and supervisor for more than 30 years, became famous in the mid-1980s for his role in the Contra end of the Iran-Contra Affair. The brains behind the clandestine mining operations in the Nicaraguan port during the 1980s which many considered a state-sponsored terrorist activity, he is credited to have initiated the efforts for the establishment of the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA.

[...]

Clarridge was indicted in November 1991 on seven counts of perjury and false statements. However, on Christmas Eve 1992 in the waning hours of his presidency, George H. W. Bush pardoned Clarridge before his trial could finish. At the same time, Bush pardoned 5 of Clarridge's associates in the Iran-Contra Affair including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (in an unprecedented move, Weinberger was pardoned before his trial had even taken place), Elliott Abrams, a former assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs; former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane; and former CIA employees Alan Fiers and Clair George.

again, folks, THAT'S our history, no matter how much we might want to pretend it isn't...

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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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