The world ought to know "que estamos jodidos"

They just refer to it now as "the catastrophe".

Each day the numbers rise, in waves, like the flood waters here in El Salvador.

-- one million Salvadorans affected

-- 34 dead

-- 48,723 evacuated

-- 54,000 people have already spent 4 or more days in 566 shelters.

-- 14,140 houses inundated

-- 1,183 wells contaminated

-- 22 highways damaged

-- 4 strategic bridges collapsed

-- 10 bridges damaged

-- 15 bridges in imminent danger

-- 45% of the corn crop lost

-- 70% of the bean crop lost

-- 1% of the coffee harvest lost, valued at $2.5 million 

The longer term impact is even more overwhelming, especially for a poor country like El Salvador.  The economic and social consequences are staggering.

-- Small, roadside/curbside businesses have lost the ability to sell, or to start again.

-- Imported foods will sell at a higher price.

-- Transportation costs are rising due to increased traveling distances.

-- Major schools have been shut down for two weeks.  Many schools are severely damaged.

-- Numerous croplands destroyed or underwater.

-- Chicken and fish farms have been destroyed.

-- Those who took out loans for their now lost businesses will be bankrupt.

-- health concerns grow each day.

President Funes has called this the worst disaster in the country's history.

El Salvador has come back from many previous disasters, including the worst of Hurricane Mitch in October 1998, and then in 2001 when two major earthquakes rocked the country just one month apart from each.  

But, there are several significant factors that make this time different.  Today, the world is in the midst of an economic crisis.  And El Salvador is dollarized.  Their currency is the American dollar.  They rise and fall with the value of our currency.  They have no control nor the ability to establish their own fiscal monetary policy.  We made sure of that in 1994 when Washington had concerns that the leftist leaning FMLN might win the presidency.  

The Salvadorans have a saying that "when Washington sneezes, we get pneumonia."  

El Salvador was still recovering from the damage of tropical storms Ida in 2009 and Agatha in 2010.  Now, they must come back from their worst disaster.  Their national deficit will rise while their production capability just dropped through the floor.  And, the ability of the international community to help is undermined by the global economic crisis.

Recovery and reconstruction will take months, probably years.  All of this in an already very, very at-risk society.  The extent of poverty, gang violence, and organized crime activity is at an all-time high in El Salvador and surrounding countries.

The major of the town of San Julian summed up their situation.  "The world ought to know" he said, "que estamos jodidos." 

From San Salvador, October 2011,  Carlito

Dateline: San Salvador, El Salvador, September 2011

The View from the Other Side of the WALL

I'm on the other side of the WALL now.  The other side of our southern border.  I'm in a different world; an upside down world.  I suppose in some sense we all live in an upside down world.  Only here it's seems more evident.  It hits you in the face, often, directly, and hard.

From the drunk, reeking of urine and begging for money on the church steps after 10:00am mass, to the dog doo that wasn't washed off the sidewalks by the previous night's rain storm, to the exhaust belching out from the never ending stream of buses, to the cars parked on the sidewalk forcing the pedestrians to walk in the street, to the walls, metal gates, and ever present razor wire on every home and business, this country is a constant contradiction.   6,087,000 people crowded into the size of the southern part of Wisconsin. 

And for every four Salvadorans living in this country there is one more living outside the county, mostly in the United States.

The "illegals"

Down here they know full well about the war going on in the US.  This is the war against the undocumented.  But, for those of you who remain on the north side of the WALL, unless you are involved in the fight for immigration reform, you don't hear much about this war.  Unless you tuned in to one of the early Repubican debates.  Then, you heard about out immigration problem.  Or, you didn't.  "Just build that wall bigger and all the way across our border.  Secure it, dammit."  And then, we have no comment, no answer.  Nothing to say about the eleven million people who have been here for years, working and contributing to our society.  We don't want their kids to be educated at our state universities unless they pay out of state tuition.  We don't want the adults to have drivers' licenses so they can drive legally to their jobs.  We don't know that 42% of the dairy farm workers in Wisconsin are undocumented.  We'd rather not know.  We'd rather they just remain invisible, or just disappear.  And if they won't cooperate, we'll help them out.  "One way or another, we're gonna get ya outta here."

Yesterday, Washington announced the arrest of more that 2,400 foreigners with criminal records or who were either fugitives from the law or failed to obey an order to leave the country.

During FY 2010 the Obama administration kicked a million people out of the US.  The director of the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), and other human rights organizations, claim that since 2006 the majority of those deported did not have any criminal record nor did they constitute any serious threat to national security.

On my flight down here I sat next to a Salvadoran who had been living and working in Minnesota for the last six years before being caught by ICE.  He was voluntarily taking himself out of the US.  Upon our arrival in San Salvador he had to go to the US officials in the airport so they could send a fax back to the US court to confirm his departure from US soil and his arrival in El Salvador.  He told me that some family members from the La Palma area were going to meet him at the airport.

That's not all that was going to meet him.

Las Maras, Las Pandillas

Within El Salvador there are two wars going on.  In both the bad guys seem to be winning.  One war is among the gangs.  They kill each other off.  Or they kill someone else.  For fun, for initiation, for failure to pay the rent, for who knows why.  The other day three youth werre found killed.  They said it was gang warfare. Violence, crime, and the concern for security seem to pervade life here.

On Friday, September 23rd, a woman came to my house bringing fish to sell.  Up until recently this woman had a store in Chalete city.   I say had, because three weeks ago robbers broke in overnight.  They cut the security system and stole everything out of the office.  She reported this to the police primarily in order to be able to file a claim with her insurance company.  But, she wonders if the police aren't actually cooperating with the robbers or being paid off.

The girls in the English class that I am teaching tell me of students that are kidnapped off the street and never seen again.  Apparently, they are given the "opportunity" to join the gangs.  And if they don't cooperate they are killed.  Or, they are just kidnapped to be killed.  I guess it's some kind of initiation thing for a new gang member.   Some of those orders come from gang leaders who are in prison.  With their cell phone they order a hit.  A 15 year old is selected to carry it out.

This last weekend there was a triple triple.  I'm not talking baseball here.  It was three killed, then three more, then three more.  Between Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Can't be much security in the prisons here, which are horribly overcrowded.  I read in the paper where several prisoners, in jail for murder, just climbed over the fence one night and escaped.

Riding a bus can be an adventure, or a nightmare.  Violence and robbery on buses and microbuses seems to be routine.  Some of it is a theft at a moment of opportunity.  Take your eye off your purse or your backpack and it may disappear in a flash.  Other robberies involve someone brandishing a knife, or worse. 

Several years ago the murder rate for the bus drivers and money collectors, those operating buses and microbuses, was over a hundred per year.   At twenty cents a ride the buses are a bargain.  But, that's how cheap life is down here, where the murder rate still hovers around twelve each day.

Last December the government decided to crack down on the violence occuring within the transportation system.  The gangs responded by commandering a micro bus which they then set on fire with the people inside, unable to get out because the doors were blocked shut.  Only one person escape by kicking out a window.  He had burns over 80% of his body.  Everyone else inside died.  The gangs threatened more of the same if the government came down too hard.

Sometime back, a group of international technicians came to the school where I am teaching.  They were there to help install water purification systems in several communities. One day when they were leaving the school with all their equipment and computers and cameras they were met in the street by masked men with shotguns who stole everything including some of their clothing.

Security

Many businesses here hire private security guards who stand in front of the business brandishing a big shotgun.  I, perhaps naively, like to think that their presence is a form of security for me as I walk by.  Others tell me that they are only there to protect the business and unless you are a customer inside their store they will not come to your aid.

Every day on my way to school I pass the same security guard on the corner in front of the fried chicken place.  You can get an entire roasted chicken plus trimmings to go for $11.95.  I asked the guard if he works every day.  He said, tomorrow he will have his one day off.

There are more private security guards in this country than police.  There is a security guard in front of the pizza place.  In front of the ladies salon.  In front of the grocery store.  In front of the bank.  In the neighberhood where I am living three hundred households each pay $15 a month for security guards to patrol the streets and secure the neighborhood 24-7.  I live in a gated community here.  Across the street from the school where I teach there are three security guards standing in front of the high school, all with shotguns.  You get the picture.

If someone suspicious comes near me on the street, and I'm near a guard with a big gun, my plan is to get as close to the guard and into the store if possible. 

This is what one sees and thinks about as you walk the streets here.  I'm on two main, busy streets as I walk to and from school.  Usually, at night two of us walk home together after classes end at 7:00pm.  Jill is from Fond du Lac and lives with a family a few blocks from my house.  It's about a 35 minute walk, mostly all uphill.  I always arrive sweating up a storm due to the heat and the humidity and the exercise.  But, today one of the school staff told Jill that our walk was taking us past a park that the gangs control.  We're walking home anyhow.  I'm fighting being overwhelmed with fear.

I know one must be vigilant and alert here.  But, this kind of thinking begins to pervade one's mind and soul.  I imagine that this kind of stressful living must weigh heavily on the people here.  Perhaps this is why many turn to their family and to their faith for solace, comfort and security.

La Chacra and Military Occupation

My friend Danny works in a wreched part of the city known as La Chacra.  He works with the youth in the poor inner city parish named Maria Madre de Los Pobres.  It's an apt name for the parish.  It's in the midst of some of the most crowded conditions I have ever seen.  A railroad track runs through part of the community.  A very polluted river runs through another part of the community.  The gangs control the area. 

The government's approach to fight the gangs is to penetrate known areas of gang activity.  They designate entire neighborhoods as areas to clean up.  In his blog (embracingcrisis.blogspot.com) Danny explains a dinamica he did with the kids in La Chacra:

"we were just minding our own business, walking down the street outside the parish, when suddenly the soldiers rounded the corner, grabbed us and threw us up against the wall of the nearest house, shouted obscenities at us, kicked out our legs, hit us with the butts of their guns, and then searched us.  They didn’t find anything but they thought we were gang members, so they kept us there, all of us, the 40 year old third grade teacher Deysi, our 17 year old drawing instructor Bryan, myself, and a smattering of 15 or so boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 13.  We were left kneeling down on the mildly clean beige tiling of the Open School, sweating, our hands crossed on top of our heads..." 

Danny explains that this was all just an act he does with the kids.  Play acting that he was doing with the youth of the parish.  It really didn't happen.  He does these dramatic acting out of the reality with the kids as a means of facing and dealing with it.  The kids, in this case, Juan Carlos, make up the skit, or dinamica, as they call it.  Then, they act it out.

Danny explains, "The dinamica is a great way to see what is going on inside the kids’ heads."

But, this type of thing really does happen.  Danny writes about the reality of La Chacra: 

"one night a couple months ago around 9:30pm, Juan Carlos went out to buy something from the store that he probably could’ve easily waited until the morning to get, but he went anyway,  and sure enough the soldiers suddenly rounded the corner.   He got slammed against the wall, searched and hit in the side by what he thought was some type of club or maybe the M-16 butt.  His bruise the next day was big enough to have been either.   

"Luckily, perhaps, his uncle Pedro helps to run a pupuseria stand right down the street, and when Pedro saw what was going down, he told the soldiers to lay off the kid, that it was his nephew and he was clean.  The commanding soldier told Pedro to eat excrement, called him an ass bandit and threatened to give him worse treatment than Juan Carlos was getting.  Pedro, has a short fuse, quickly invited the soldier to put down his gun and they would see who the bigger man was.  The other ladies at the pupuseria started chiming in without much diplomacy, and the soldiers ordered them to shut up.  Martita reminded them it was supposedly a free country now, and she wouldn’t shut up for anyone, least of all a mess of cowardly dogs.  Suddenly the soldiers had their guns pointed at Pedro, Martita and the rest of the women and children at the pupuseria accusing them of being a front for gang extortions.   At this point, Josue (Pedro’s son) and Angelita, 11 and 8 respectively, made a break for it and ran away.  Vanessa who is 6, just started to cry.  The civilian population continued the heated argument with the armed forces who had their weapons aimed at the people they were supposed to protect.   And this is 2011. 

Danny continues, "Our little corner of San Salvador, the 28 communities of la Chacra, is a 'red zone'.   People are poor, it's overcrowded, and it's essentially controlled by gangs, as opposed to the state, or the police or overarching principles of civic responsibility.    It was September of 2009, when President Funes first decided to deploy the military into these red zones of El Salvador to try to combat violence and gang activity.  At the beginning, lots of people in La Chacra were mildly content with the decision.  'Better to have a soldier on the corner than a gang-member,' they would say.  

"Human rights advocates and violence prevention organizations condemned  the measure as alarmingly reminiscent of the civil war, contrary to the Peace Accords and a reactionary extension of the Iron Fist policies of previous ARENA governments.

Nevertheless, people felt safer initially.  But now, it’s been two years and people are fed up.   "It has become a crime to live in these communities.   Punishment is doled out by the seemingly permanent presence of patrols of anywhere between 3 to 8 soldiers, M-16’s in their hands and scowls on their faces, scouring the alleyways to “secure the peace”.  If you’re a young male you’re treated like Juan Carlos.  If you’re an adult and don’t keep your mouth shut you’re treated like Pedro and Martita.  If you’re a child like Vanesa or Josue, we can’t yet conceive the scars you will bear. 

"And this is supposed to be part of the solution to the violence: that entire geographic zones be black-listed and militarized; that overwhelmingly good and honest people there be treated like criminals and thereby come closer to embodying the rage and violence of that criminalization; that the artisans of institutional violence (the soldiers) combat capitalism’s superfluous youth organized into networks of peripheral violence (the gangs).   Funes has acquiesced to the perverse logic of an inhuman system that convinces us that the only way to fight fire is with more fire.  

"And so now we’re ablaze.   Because it’s not the least bit arbitrary that La Chacra and other places have been marked by the security forces.  Violence perpetrated by other actors is just as normal, and often times more brutal.   

"Last Thursday August 25th, we woke up to a veritable siege of yellow tape, soldiers, police officers, and even one of the few forensic investigators in El Salvador.   When you see yellow tape you know there’s been a killing.  When you see a forensic investigation truck, you know the attorney general thinks they might actually be able to solve the homicide in question.   

"We had a body in the river.  Word is that the kids from one gang had spent the night torturing and chopping up a kid from the other gang with machetes, smashed in his face with rocks and then came into La Chacra and left him by the bridge going over the river .  The idea was that he would get washed away down the Acelhuate and up into Lake Suchitlan and then over into the Lempa River, and by the time he was down to the ocean, it was just another missing joven.  But the kid got caught in the shallows, and so he became the most pressing issue on everyone’s minds and lips for at least a few days.

"On that day, I watched the story about the muerto on the news at 1:30pm and then walked up to the Open School for the afternoon jornada, dejected.  As usual, Daniela and Grisel were waiting to jump on my back and grab my arms and tell me all kinds of random things as we walked towards the Open School.  But today the first words out of Grisel’s mouth were,  'Boorrich! Did you see the dead guy? They cut off his hands and everything!'

"And then Daniela: 'They cut off his head too didn’t they?'

"Grisel responded, 'No they just smashed it, but he was all chopped up.  They killed him though didn’t they Boorrich?'  I paused and said haltingly, 'Yeah it looks like that’s what happened…'  How was I talking to two 11 year old girls about this?!   I didn’t know what else to say tell them.  Should I tell them it hadn’t actually happened?   Tell them to not talk about it?  To forget about it and concentrate on the abundant beauty and wonder in their lives?

Danny explains, "In the formational part of the Open School, we decided to contrast the killing to the culture of peace that we try to foment with them, but all the kids wanted to do was compare gossip about the event; what time the body had appeared, if it had happened in La Chacra or if people from somewhere else had only brought the body to dump it here.  To be sure, it was the day that Jonathan most participated in the discussion. 

"Deysi and Bryan and I told them peace starts inside each of them, and that it would be their job to build a world where they didn’t have to wake up to mutilated bodies floating in the shallows of the river that runs a one minute walk from their houses.   It was injustice pues: the injustice of the world that we adults have created for our children. 

"Military occupation and violent repression of marginal populations (the police have also been responsible for extra-judicial beat downs, shoot-outs and unwarranted arrests in La Chacra and elsewhere) has not abated the violence in El Salvador.  Homicides have only remained constant at 12 a day since 2009.  The period from January to August of 2011 has been the most violent of the past three years, and August the most violent month of 2011.  Militarization of red zones has also caused criminal networks to expand their activity and violence to previously calm rural and suburban areas."

The Narcos and Organized Crime

This war against the "narcos" and organized crime that Danny describes is the second war in El Salvador.   Of course it's not just happening here in El Salvador.  But, what's the view from the other side of the wall?  From this side of the WALL we see the consumers, the buyers, the users.  Guess who?  It's you.  It's us.  It's those in "el norte."  We buy.  We consume.  We use.  And to keep the war going we sell weaponry back.  To both sides.  To the narcos and to the police. 

And guess who is caught in the middle?  You might be able to guess.  But, the folks down here don't have to guess.  They live, and die, with the reality of being caught in the middle of two wars each and every day.

The Moral Responsibility of the US

For Maricio Funes, the president of El Salvador, the United States has a "moral responsibility" in the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime.

Funes recently addressed the United Nations and recalled that 100.000 million dollars a year in drugs moves through the countries of Central America. "They cross our land to the United States, accompanied by weapons that corrupt public officials and private chaos and leave trails of dead" in their wake. "We talked about a drug trafficking route that moves about 100,000 million dollars a year, culminating in the world's largest market and biggest consumer of these substances: United States," he said.

Here in El Salvador we keep adding new players to take the place of the dead. 

Recently, a plane landed in San Salvador.  The plane belonged to the US government.  It is part of a fleet of planes that we have which are exclusively used to provide a ride back home for those "illegals."  Fifty-five Salvadoran women were released off the plane and kissed goodbye by ICE officials.  

The Salvadoran reality was ready and waiting to give them a welcome home kiss.

From the other side of the WALL,

Carlitos J. Buenischke