CISPES Marches on May Day with Tens of Thousands in San Salvador

Movement Demands No to Privatization, Down with the Anti-Terrorism Law. Portland union 0rganizer Laura Close joins thousands in the streets of San Salvador.

CISPES Marches on May Day with Tens of Thousands in San Salvador

Movement Demands No to Privatization, Down with the Anti-Terrorism Law

CISPES update March 2, 2007

On May 1 a CISPES delegation in El Salvador took to the streets with some 75,000 Salvadoran workers, campesinos, students, and FMLN members in a historic International Workers Day march. The march was led by the Salvadoran Labor Front (FSS) and its member unions, followed shortly by National Movement of CD and DVD vendors and other coalitions like the National Agricultural Coordination (CNA), the Popular Social Bloc, and the MPR-12. The labor unions had a huge presence, especially the SETA water workers union which is part of a growing movement to stop the ARENA government’s plans to privatize water resources and distribution in El Salvador. The level of unity within the social movement and the common message put forward was another successful outcome of the march.

In addition to denouncing the implementation of the CAFTA free trade agreement and the possible privatization of water and health care, the marchers focused on the “anti-terrorism” law passed last year by the Salvadoran Assembly which criminalizes various forms of street protests and gives the government a dangerous tool for cracking down on activists and organizers. Students held an accompanying march from the national university – in which they used street theater to ridicule the UMO riot police that constantly harass their rallies – which met up with the large union-led march in San Salvador’s Central Plaza. There was heavy police presence at the May Day gathering and some buses coming to San Salvador for the march were reportedly stopped, but the march ultimately concluded without incidents of police repression.

A 16-person CISPES solidarity delegation joined the May Day march with a giant banner that read “No to US intervention, Privatization, and the ILEA. Yes to Resistance!” (Check out a report from one of the delegates.) The delegation has spent the week meeting with unions and other social movement organizations and on Thursday will visit the ILEA police training academy in San Salvador.

FMLN pushes for electoral reform

The FMLN called out thousands of members for the May Day march and used the opportunity to push for significant electoral reforms before the presidential, legislative, and municipal elections in March of 2009. FMLN general coordinator Milton Mendez cited “insecurity” and “unemployment” as the two biggest problems facing the country and said that only by getting ARENA and its right-wing PCN partner out of power will there be the possibility for change in El Salvador. To that end, they called on the population to support significant and necessary electoral reforms, such as residential voting, regulation of political propaganda, financial restraints on campaigning, and a total updating of the current electoral rolls.

Groups protest Posada Carriles Release in Front of US Embassy

On April 30, hundreds of Salvadorans arrived to the US Embassy to protest the recent release of renowned Cuba terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. The US government decided to release Posada Carriles in April after he had been arrested sneaking into the country back in 2005. Posada Carriles, an ex-CIA operative and anti-Castro militant, is best known for orchestrating the bombing of a Cuban jet in 1976 that killed more than 70 people. The Bush Administration has refused to label Posada Carriles a terrorist or to extradite him to Venezuela to serve trial. The possibility that he could be sent to El Salvador has arisen given President Saca’s friendly relationship with the US and anti-Cuban exiles; so far, however, El Salvador has refused to do so. The Salvadoran Committee in Solidarity with Cuba presented a letter to the US ambassador demanding that Posada Carriles be arrested and extradited to Venezuela and calling for the release of the “Cuban Five”.