Yesterday's
war headline
binds its wounds
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
December 20, 2004
LONDON - If they say in Mexico,
"How far from God and how close to the United States" it
is even truer for El Salvador, another 600 kilometers
away down the isthmus of Central America. El Salvador' s
currency is now the U.S. dollar, 1.5 million of its over
6 million people work both legally and illegally in the
U.S. and the American embassy is a massive fortress,
perhaps architecture to intimidate as well as to protect,
a reminder that the U.S. is ready if necessary to throw
its weight about as it did earlier this year with the
involvement of the ambassador in its recent election.
This is the U.S.'s "near abroad".
Of all Central America's civil
wars, wars that dominated the headlines almost as much as
Iraq's does today, Salvador's in terms of killings was
the worst. But today the lion has lain down with the
lamb. In 1991 the bush-weary guerrillas were enticed into
the open by the UN and signed a remarkable peace
agreement with the governing forces of the right, who
were encouraged to compromise by their powerful friends
in Washington. Today although the conservatives control
the presidency the left has been elected to head the
local government in the capital, San Salvador, and other
towns, and the U.S. appears happy to live with
that.
There is a sense of a great peace.
Both sides of the political divide have cooperated in
ending the killings, torture and intimidation that were
de rigueur. The economy if at the moment suffering from
the dramatic fall of coffee prices and the earthquake
that three years ago devastated half the country is
essentially vigorous. Corruption is sharply down and so
to a lesser extent is crime. To a visitor returning from
civil war days it is the difference between night and
day- most things that capitalists need to invest function
quite well and the social and medical services are
impressive even in remote areas. The infant mortality
rate has fallen like a stone and longevity has jumped 20
years in a decade and a half. Much of the American
contribution is a force for stability and economic
growth.
Still many of the country's
problems remain untouched. El Salvador, beautifully well
ordered and verdant from the air with its smoking
volcanoes, is the most densely populated country in Latin
America. Half of the country's productive land is in the
hands of a few thousand latifundario. Although the
campesinos today have peace, although they can vote for
an opposition that has some political muscle, they still
have not won what they fought for- enough land to give
them a living. Inside fortress America the word from the
diplomats is that they are not going to push for
large-scale land reform.
If there is to be development in
the highlands it must come from making do with the land
they have- as Farharna Haque-Rahman of the International
Fund for Agricultural Development said to me, "giving
poor farmers a chance to do something for themselves,
even if their land is a pocket handkerchief." For a
couple of days she shepherded me around small farms, deep
in the forest where the roads petered out into potholed
tracks but where the IFAD-funded project makes available
micro credit and well honed advice from extension
workers.
There was Julio Cortez Zavalla who
borrowed $300 from the project and now grows tomatoes,
passion fruit and cocoa and makes cheese from his
neighbors' cows. Twice a week his wife carries on foot
20-kilo loads to the market 5 kilometers away. He has
doubled his income in two years. "We got kicked over the
head by war", he says, "so now we are doing it the
careful way."
There was Virginia Palacios who
behind her mud and brick house had a long shed where she
was breeding over 100 pure white rabbits for sale in the
meat market. She too had taken a small loan from the
project and had doubled her income.
Then there was the small village of
San Jose la Labor that had combined a loan from the
project with money raised by an association in Los
Angeles formed from people who had migrated from the
village. They showed me round the school they had built
with the funds.
I remembered the war, when one
traveled through the countryside scared for one's life,
when nobody dared to talk. This may not be as fair as it
should be but it's better than war. It is growing two
blades of grass where one grew before. I only wish that
both the government and that overseeing U.S. embassy
could understand what the campesinos could really do if
they had a fair slice of land. That was part of the
promise that ended the war but has yet to be
delivered.
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
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