Among Apparent Rampant Corruption in the Region, El Salvador Ranks Surprisingly Low

The second part of USAID’s survey on the political culture of Latin America examined the effects of crime and corruption on democracy. As trust is a necessary facet of democracy, fear of violence and a lack of confidence in the police or other public officials are detrimental to its development.

When survey respondents were asked about their perception of personal security, 44% of Salvadorans reported feeling “somewhat” to “very” unsafe, the third highest level of insecurity in the Americas, ranking behind only Peru and Argentina. El Salvador also has one of the highest rates of violence in the Americas, so these results aren’t surprising. In fact, these abstract perceptions of insecurity are approximately in line with the crime respondents have actually experienced: 38.6% of households report having at least one member who was a victim of violent crime in the past 12 months (crimes specifically mentioned in the survey question are robbery, burglary, assault, fraud, blackmail, extortion, and violent threats). This rate places El Salvador in the group of countries with the highest levels of victimization, on par with Mexico and Venezuela – an alarming place to be. Generally, the young, the wealthy, and those who live in urban metropolitan areas are most likely to be victimized, though citizens with greater economic problems also report high levels. USAID interviewers further found that respondents in neighborhoods with gang presence (pandillas) were more likely to have been victimized, though it is impossible to determine from these data whether this is causation or simply coincidence.

After discussing crime, survey questions turned to the issue of corruption. When asked directly how common it was for public officials to be corrupt, 66.7% of Salvadoran respondents answered that it was “common” or “very common,” a decline from 2008, and only 8.2% believe the problem of corruption is non-existent. Though at first glance these rates may seem high, it’s important to note that this is the 2^nd lowest rate of perceived corruption in Latin America, lower even than that of the United States (69.9% of U.S. respondents think corruption is common practice in the country). Furthermore, only 11.4% of Salvadorans polled said they had been victims of corruption: again, one of the lowest levels in Latin America. These numbers would appear to be heartening, but given what we know about El Salvador, they are mostly just perplexing.  Nor do the results match up with other surveys, such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, which places El Salvador more moderately, as the 16th most corrupt country in the region (out of 28).  According to Transparency International’s metrics, corruption in El Salvador definitely exceeds levels in the US, Chile, Costa Rica and Brazil, among others.

It is difficult to determine whether these responses of perceived corruption correspond to the real levels.  Any number of factors can influence the accuracy of responses, be it a misformulation of the survey questions, the well-known ‘honeymoon period’ of recently elected President Funes, who still enjoys a 72% approval rate, or the simple subtlety of corruption.  A cultural accustom to corruption, along with differing personal definitions of the term can greatly affect the public’s perception.  On the other hand, since there is no way to measure the actual level of corruption in a country, there is no evidence contrary to the survey’s results.  The level of perceived corruption could very well be an accurate representation of the level of practiced corruption.  Also, the percentage of those who perceive the country to be corrupt, puzzlingly, seems to be lower than that of those who note that police don’t protect their citizens.  Many people would consider corruption to be a factor in situations where police fall short of their responsibilities.

Perhaps this is because corruption motivated by power is inherently harder to measure than that motivated by money. Even financially-motivated corruption, however, is much more complex than the survey implies.  The only question used to assess the entire culture of actual (rather than perceived) corruption is about authority figures asking law-abiding citizens for bribes. This is where the survey’s information most significantly falls short of a full investigation of the issue.  Corruption is more than actions, it is a culture.  When it takes hold of a society, it builds impunity and a weak rule of law, which erode democratic values.

If the perception of corruption is so low, relative to the other nations in the region, then the lack of respect for the law is puzzlingly high. More than 52% of interviewed Salvadorans agree that officials would be justified in occasionally acting outside of the law in order to catch a criminal, giving El Salvador the 2^nd lowest population support for rule of law. Moreover, just over 50% of citizens say that a coup d’état would be justified in conditions of high crime and high corruption.

Overall, the seemingly low level of perceived corruption relative to other nations in the region is promising.  Although the true level of corruption is extremely important to the success of a democratic system, the public’s perception of corruption is also important.  The more corrupt the public views the government, the less trust people have for the government, which eventually destabilizes democracy.  The public’s optimistic attitude towards the level of corruption implies a certain level of trust in the government’s democratic system.

Former Salvadoran General Faces Deportation from the US

General Eugenio Vides Casanova currently has been living as a legal resident in South Florida since 1989.  He moved to the United States after retiring honorably from his post as El Salvador’s minister of defense, a position he held for 6 years during El Salvador’s brutal civil war.  During this time, he was a close ally of the United States because of his intense efforts against the Marxist guerillas.

In a case that the New York Times calls “an about-face in American policy,” General Vides is now facing possible deportation following being charged with torture in a U.S. immigration court.   This is the first time the Department of Homeland Security has pursued immigration charges against a high-ranking foreign military official.

Both the prosecution and defense are expected to call former U.S. ambassadors to testify: Robert E. White for the prosecution and Edwin G. Corr for the defense.  Another witness is Juan Romagoza Arce, a Salvadoran doctor who was tortured by the National Guard in 1980.

General Vides has already faced legal trouble in the U.S. for his actions during El Salvador’s civil war.  He, along with General José Guillermo García, was accused and acquitted by a Florida jury in 2000 in a civil case for the killing of four American churchwomen who were murdered by Vides’ Salvadoran National Guard.  The same year, the justice center filed charges of torture against the two generals.  In 2002, they were found guilty of torture by a Florida jury and ordered to pay $54.6 million to three torture victims, a decision that was upheld by an appeals court in 2006.

This case is an example of the lingering effects of El Salvador’s civil war, effects that can even be seen in the United States.  No American officials have been held accountable for their part in human rights abuses in El Salvador during the war.  Even though more than 400 people have been deported from the US since 2003 for rights abuses, this is an important effort to hold Salvadoran allies of the US responsible for their actions in a war that often slips under Americans’ radars.

Those who fought on the other side in the war, the FMLN guerillas, have been at odds with U.S. officials since the war, first for their communist/Marxist ideals and later for actions taken during the war.  For example, US diplomats still refuse to meet with El Salvador’s Public Security Minister Manuel Melgar.  He was a guerilla during the war who is accused of killing 4 US Marines in 1985.  In a July 2009 cable released by the WikiLeaks website, American diplomats described seeing his appointment as the imposition of FMLN hardliners, despite President Funes’ pretty moderate political stance.

The case against General Vides is an important step in acknowledging the human rights abuses by both sides during the civil war, including those who the US government strongly supported.  The trial is expected to last a week, so it should be decided by the end of April, which could set a significant precedent for finally responding to El Salvador’s dirty war.

Economic Well-Being Strongly Tied to Democratic Attitudes in El Salvador

The AmericasBarometer survey has recently published their biannual report, The Political Culture of Democracy in El Salvador.  Funded by USAID and other organizations, it focuses on a multitude of social and economic factors and their effect on citizen’s evaluation of democracy in El Salvador. Given the variety of important topics covered in this report, Voices will be publishing a series of articles on the results and their significance.

AmericasBarometer conducts surveys on the political culture of democracy in the Americas every two years, meaning that 2008 was the last year of data collection prior to the current. Since 2008, the economic recession has hit the Americas, and the rest of the world, hard. In Latin America especially, the rates of unemployment and the ‘extreme working poor’ (defined in the report as those who live on less than US$1.25 a day) rose significantly.  Unemployment rose to 8.5%.  Additionally, 9.9% of citizens are now considered members of the extreme working poor. Further, remittances from the U.S. to El Salvador (which account for 17% of El Salvador’s GDP) declined by approximately 12%. Thus, a special focus in this round of AmericasBarometer surveys emerged: the effect of hard economic times on citizens’ perception of democracy.

The economic recession seems to have gone hand-in-hand with a decline or even reversal of democratic development in many developing countries. El Salvador is no exception, reporting a 4-point decrease (68 to 64 on a 0-100 scale) in public support for democracy since 2008. This decline makes sense, especially in light of a 1996 study by Adam Przeworski, a democratic social theorist and political economist, analyzing the link between income and political stability.  Called the Przeworski Threshold, his finding was that no democracy has ever collapsed when the per capita income exceeded $6,055. Unfortunately, El Salvador has not reached that threshold, pointing to a connection between the country’s constant state of political unrest and its ongoing economic struggles. The reason behind this connection is two-fold: besides a lack of funds to support basic infrastructure, public discontent over the government’s money management and institutionalized economic inequality can incite violent political protests. In keeping with this analysis, survey data consistently indicated that democratic dissatisfaction increased as household income decreased, and household income has decreased the most for those who were already the poorest.

Interestingly, though there is a correlation between a survey respondent’s worsening personal financial situation and a lower level of support for democracy, respondents tended to be much more critical of the democratic system when it was the wider government that was in economic trouble. In a way, this is a positive indicator of citizens’ understanding of the democratic system: it signifies a recognition that the success of a country as a whole and the competence of its leaders have a more permanent positive effect than does individual prosperity. At the same time, however, these statistics highlight how important it is that the democratic government in El Salvador dedicate itself to improving the system in place, so as not to lose the support of its people in times of hardship.  It is during difficult times when public support is the most necessary.

Interviewers also asked participants to rate and compare their levels of ‘life satisfaction’ between 2008 and 2010 (note that 2008 life satisfaction levels are retrospectively reported, and results thus do not reflect real satisfaction in 2008). The results are still astounding: 40.8% of Salvadorans reported a decline in life satisfaction in these two years, most closely influenced by a negative perception of their personal economic situation, which has resulted in lower levels of confidence in democracy.

Other significant factors in a respondent’s appraisal of democracy are education, gender, and class. There is a positive correlation between higher levels of education and support for democracy: 61.7 % of Salvadorans with no or only primary education ‘at least somewhat’ support democracy, compared with 64.1% of middle/ high school graduates, and 68.4% of those with a post-secondary education. Historically, women in El Salvador have been less supportive of democracy, most likely due to their lower social status and rising violence towards women. The survey’s 2010 results confirm this. Only 61.7% of women professed support for democracy, compared with 66.7% of men. Lastly, as one descends through the quintiles of wealth, support for democracy likewise declines, confirming the correlation between economic well-being and approval of the democratic system.

We must ask, then, if a decrease in support for democracy necessarily a) implies a denial of the legitimacy of the political system or b) threatens political stability in a region. It seems to not do either. Despite a significant decrease in support for democracy as a political theory, survey results from El Salvador indicate a 7.1% overall increase in support for the functioning political system, most significantly tied to perceptions of the government’s economic success. The indicator for political system support is calculated based on responses to five different survey questions, which address the fairness of the judicial system, the respectability of the country’s political institutions, the protection of basic rights, citizens’ national pride, and, more abstractly, the perceived ideal level of support for the system. Many of the significant factors in determining support for democracy (such as economic well-being) remain significant when considering system support. In practice, though, they indicate opposite trends. Where the most highly educated were the biggest supporters of theoretical democracy, they show the lowest levels of support for the current political system as a whole. This is unsurprising, however, as this general trend appears in most developing and developed nations. Likewise, though women were more likely to be democratically disinclined, they reported higher levels of support for the actual political system than did their male counterparts. The general increase in system support seen here is also due to citizens’ perceptions of improvement in government economic performance, a hopeful indicator that the Americas may soon emerge from the recession.

The results of the AmericasBarometer survey are in keeping with those of the El Faro survey we covered previously, though the former is notably less partial. Where the El Faro survey tended to ask leading questions and thus overstate respondents’ dissatisfaction, AmericasBarometer kept questions as open as possible and seemed to do its best to remove bias and suggestion. That said, anti-democratic sentiment is still unmistakably present in El Salvador: on AmericasBarometer’s 0-100 scale, El Salvador scored third highest in public support for military coups (40.9 in 2010). Still in keeping with El Faro’s results, where the majority of respondents agreed that they would “support an authoritarian government if it resolved economic problems,” AmericasBarometer finds that support for a coup is highest among those who see the (national and personal) economic situation as grave. Again, significant determinants in support for a coup are education level, relative wealth, sex, and age: the more educated and/or wealthy the respondent, the less likely it was that he or she would support a military coup; and men and older members of society were less likely to be in support than women or youth.

The results of the survey show, for the most part, that economic well-being, whether that of individual families or that of the nation’s government, is one of the strongest factors that affect the public’s support of democracy.  In El Salvador, recently, personal economic well-being has been decreasing, and along with it, the support of democracy.  On the other hand, the public’s perception of the government’s well-being has brought an increase in support for the current system.  While public support for democracy as a political theory is important, support for the current, though imperfect, democratic system is more important to immediate political stability, and this does not seem to have been negatively impacted by the recent economic troubles.

 

Salvadoran Awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize

Each year, the Goldman Environmental Prize is given to 6 “grassroots environmental heroes” from different regions of the world.  This year, one of the recipients is Francisco Pineda, an environmental and anti-mining activist from Cabañas, El Salvador.  As the president of the Cabañas Environmental Committee has been a member of the local fight against Pacific Rim Mining, a dispute we at Voices on the Border have been reporting on for the past couple of years.  Read more about his award at the Goldman Environmental Prize website.

 

Here’s the website’s description translated into Spanish:

Viviendo bajo el constante amenaza de muerte, Francisco Pineda lideró con mucho valor un movimiento de ciudadanos para detener un proyecto de minería de oro que destruiría los pocos recursos de agua y la vida de las comunidades rurales en El Salvador.

Agua y Minería

Agua tiene mucho mas valor que oro para los pequeños productores en El Salvador.  Por falta de una estructura de agua nacional, la gente depende de fuentes naturales de agua cercana para sus parcelas y su uso personal. Sin embargo, estimadamente 90% del agua superficial en el país está contaminada.  Casi todo los aguas negras y grises municipales y industriales se descargan hacia los ríos y quebrados sin tratamiento, lo cual reduce acceso a aguas limpias en la población rural.  Solo 3% de las fuentes de agua naturales aún son limpios.  Las fuentes de aguas limpias son necesarias para el Río Lempa, el río mas largo del país con una cuenca que cubre casi la mitad del territorio.  Un total de 4 millones de personas dependen de esta fuente de agua.

La minería representa la amenaza mas grave para el suministro de agua en El Salvador.  El Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) ha permito mayor acceso para empresas transnacionales, por lo tanto se han recibido varios permisos de exploración para una variedad de proyectos de desarrollo, incluyendo minas de oro y plata. La explotación de oro es muy conocido por su destrucción ambiental.  Muchos operadores de minas utilizan un tranques de relaves, donde cianuro, un químico altamente toxico, está mezclado con fuentes locales de agua y aplicado a las piedras procesados para extraer el oro que contienen.  El desecho toxico termina contaminando la tierra, los ríos, los quebrados, y el agua subterráneo.

Motivación

Francisco Pineda es un campesino y licenciado en agricultura sostenible, y también es el fundador y presidente del Comité Ambiental de Cabañas (CAC), un asociación de voluntarios comunitaria.  Durante el proceso de organizar su comunidad contra un relleno sanitario que iba a contaminar fuentes de agua local, se aprendió sobre la ecología de agua y se convirtió en un líder ambientalista en su región.

En 2002, La empresa minera Canadiense Pacific Rim comenzó su fase de exploración para oro y plata en Cabañas.  El gobierno en su mayoría ignoró la preocupación de la gente sobre los impactos a los bosques y el Río Lempa.  Esto cambió en 2004  cuando Pineda descubrió que había quedado completamente seco la quebrada que el utiliza para regar su parcela.  Pineda caminó hacia la orilla hasta que encontró las bombas de Pacific Rim llevando todo el agua a su sitio de exploración.  Dándose cuenta del potencial destructiva de la situación, el y sus vecinos acercaron a su gobierno local, pero ellos les dijeron que el proyecto de minería iba, sin importar las protestas de la gente.  Autoridades dijeron que las oportunidades para el desarrollo y los trabajos pesaron mas que los posible problemas, pero cuando Pineda y sus compañeros investigaron mas, se vieron que el población local no seria calificado para los trabajo técnicos de Pacific Rim.  Se organizaron un movimiento popular que se logró detener la mina, pero que tuvo consecuencias fatales para varios de los involucrados.

Pineda y sus compañeros visitaron las comunidades en la misma lucha contra proyectos de minería en Honduras y se vieron los efectos de intoxicación sobre la población y escucharon sobre la posibilidades de violencia en una confrontación contra Pacific Rim.  Pineda y sus compañeros regresaron a El Salvador y comenzaron una campaña de educación casa por casa y en asambleas comunitarias.  Desde 2004, el movimiento ha crecido para incluir 26 comunidades y mas de 450 miembros.  Pineda ayudó en fundar la Mesa Frente a la Minería y con su coalición organizó una serie de demostraciones locales y nacionales para dar a conocer el tema.

Viendo el crecimiento del movimiento social, promotores de Pacific Rim reaccionaron con amenazas y ataques.  En 2009, tres compañeros de Pineda fueron asesinados.  Un compañero cercano fue asesinado bajo protección policial.  Un mes después, un grupo de sicarios iban a matar otro miembro del Comité Ambiental, pero cuando no le encontraron en su casa mataron a su esposa embarazada.  Otro activista anti-minero fue secuestrado y se encontraron su cadáver torturado en un pozo.

Hoy, Pineda vive con protección policial los 24 horas del día.  Ha comprometido a seguir su lucha, no importando las consecuencias.

Gracias en gran parte al liderazgo de Pineda, el gobierno de El Salvador no ha ortigado los permisos necesarios para explotar las minas y Pacific Rim ha tenido que reducir su área de exploración por 50%.  El movimiento logro suficiente poder para presionar la administración actual, a pesar de incentivos económicos y fondos para el desarrollo ofrecido por Pacific Rim.

Sin embargo, la victoria pueda ser temporal.

Pacific Rim inició una demanda de $100 millones abajo el TLC, argumentando que El Salvador violó su acuerdo con la empresa.  La demanda pone en cuestión la soberanía de una nación autónoma y sus derechos de administrar proyectos de desarrollo, si participan en acuerdos como el TLC.  Aún mas complicado, Pacific Rim es una empresa Canadiense, un país no incluido en el TLC.  Pacific Rim circunnavegó este obstáculo introduciendo la demanda a través de un subsidiario de los Estado Unidos.  La audiencia no está anunciado aún, pero se espera avances en 2011.

 

 

Former Minister of Health Arrested on Corruption Charges in El Salvador

On Tuesday, April 5, the Salvadoran National Civil Police (PNC) arrested ex-Minister of Health José Guillermo Maza Brizuela and seven others on charges of corruption. Ex-Minister Maza was the Minister of Health under President Tony Saca, who left office on June 1, 2009 when the current President Mauricio Funes took office promising to root out corruption within the government agencies.

El Faro reports that the corruption charges stem from efforts to rebuild seven hospitals damaged in the 2001 earthquakes. In 2003 the World Bank approved a $169.4 million loan package to rebuild the hospitals, and CPK, a large Salvadoran contractor, won a contract with the Ministry of Health. Though the project was to be finished by 2006, only two hospitals are complete and the project is $73.4 million over-budget.

The charges filed against ex-Minister Maza include fraud and falsifying documents involving several aspects of the CPK contract. According to El Salvador, the type of contract between the Ministry and CPK prohibited altering the value of the contract or the deadlines for completing projects. On several occasions, however, ex-Minister Maza approved an increase in the amount of the contract, increasing the amount for rebuilding the Santa Theresa Hospital in Zacatecoluca, La Paz by $1.8 million.

Charges also claim that ex-Minister Maza approved payment for work that was never completed. Though CPK had only completed 47% of the work on the Santa Theresa Hospital, Maza approved payment for 70% of the value of the contract – a loss of almost $3.3 million.

Another charge stems from the purchase of $1.1 million in medical equipment for the Santa Theresa Hospital that was paid for but never received. CPK claimed that they had purchased the equipment and that it was in their facilities. Though the contract stated that they would receive payment when the medical equipment was installed, the Ministry approved payment because CPK claimed it was in their possession.

Among the others arrested with ex-Minister Maza is César Rolando García Herrara, an attorney who negotiated the contract between the Ministry of Health and CPK. Mr. García was the sub-director of the PNC under President Calderon Sol (1994-1999). He is accused of falsifying documents and fraud. The other six detained are Arturo Ernesto López Mejía, René Arturo Portillo Montano, José Mauricio Serrano Martínez, José Alexander Ramírez Jiménez, Herbert Leonel Perdomo Ulloa, Guillermo Rafael Alfaro García, all of whom are accused of corruption-related charges.

Ex-Minister Maza has faced allegations of corruption in the past. While he was Minister of Health, the two CT scan machines that were owned by the public health system were broken, and instead of having them repaired, hospitals sent patients to Maza’s private clinics. The Minister admitted that there was a conflict of interest, but insisted that he gave patients from the public system a discount, and he was not charged with any wrong doing.

These arrests were made as Attorney General Romeo Barahona has been coming under fire for his office’s inability to take on organized crime and prosecute politically sensitive cases. In recent weeks, President Funes has indicated that his administration is taking the steps necessary to form an international investigative body that will investigate organized crime and take on cases that the Attorney General’s office has been unable to prosecute. El Faro also reports that Barahona is currently seeking financial support from the U.S. Embassy to support their efforts in taking on organized crime.

If the ex-minister and executives from CPK are guilty of corruption in building hospitals it will have meant that tens of thousands of people in Zacatecoluca and other cities around EL Salvador have gone without adequate health care. Arresting ex-Minister Maza and the others was a good first step, but the real challenge lies ahead in successfully prosecuting them.

Solidarity in El Salvador

Last month a joint delegation of students from a Stanford University Liberation Theology and Human Rights class and members from the South Bay Sanctuary Covenant, one of our U.S. partner organizations, travelled to El Salvador.  Upon her return to school, Erin Inman, one of the Stanford students, wrote the following article for her school’s newspaper about her experiences in El Salvador on the delegation trip.

 

Traffic looms on either side as police officers attempt to direct the crowd off the street, too large to be contained by the plaza. Spanish words buzz past my ears at speeds too fast to comprehend, so instead, I focus on retrieving my bagged dinner and candle for the vigil.

Just before 6 p.m., the chaotic crowd transforms into three orderly lines drawing people down San Salvador’s main avenue. The march in honor of El Salvador’s martyr and unofficial saint, Oscar Romero, has begun.

People of all sorts flow past me in the sea of celebration: Salvadorian youth energized for a man of another time, Salvadorian elders who remember their hero with pride, international students and workers affected by the legacy of Romero and us, a group of 20 Americans attempting to build solidarity with the Salvadorian nation.

As participants and professors of the winter quarter class, El Salvador: Liberation Theology and Human Rights, we were joined by members of South Bay Sanctuary Covenant (SBSC), a local religious group committed to creating social justice in Latin America, for a week of confronting the past and present realities of El Salvador.

Throughout the week, we met with social activists about the evolving tension and violence in the Cabañas province due to mining and environmental issues. We heard from a variety of voices detailing El Salvador’s current drug, gang, female inequality and immigration problems. Though 19 years have passed since the end of its civil war, many of the issues prompting it remain unresolved.

At the chapel where Monseñor Romero was assassinated, we stood with our hands on the altar, each offering a word of what the man, a conservative, Roman Catholic archbishop turned liberal voice for the oppressed, represented for us.

“Faith.” “Hope.” “Love.” “Justice.” Each word is said with conviction, as if a strong voice could will these words into being.

“The transformation of our people and our society is in our hands. Not in those of Obama nor those of Funes,” offers our guide, a Carmelite nun, in closing. “Rather, change is brought about through my hands and the small decisions I make each day in which I act with justice, peace and solidarity.”

After five days of meetings in San Salvador, interlaced with good food and good conversation, we packed up our mini bus for the two-hour drive out of the capital and into the rural countryside of the Lower Lempa. Every time the bus stopped along the shack-lined roads, we were met with a chorus of “Mango! Pan dulce!,” as sellers thrust food items towards us through the open bus windows.

When the bus pulled into Comunidad Octavio Ortiz, a partner community of South Bay Sanctuary Covenant, signs and general excitement welcomed us. After introductions, we jostled through a rendition of “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” for the children.

“You do realize this means we’ll never be able to run for public office,” a fellow Stanford student joked, upon realizing we were being taped.

Soon, as the energy dwindled down, I was following my host brother down the main road toward his home. We approached a house with two girls preparing dinner near the outside fire, a dog sleeping quietly beneath it. A quick peek into the house revealed hammocks as the only furniture, besides a table or two, upon which sat a stereo and a blaring television.

As the girls chopped vegetables, preparing a soup for dinner, I took in the scene around me. Laundry hung on multiple lines. A heavy duty truck stood alone on one side of the lot; firewood was stacked against the house, and a pile of freshly picked corn lay waiting to be husked, while four dogs, a cat and many chickens snuck in the house, only to be shooed out.

A dog approached me, and when I asked for its name, my host brother looked up from his work, smiled and said “Gringo,” the irony not lost on either of us.

The next two days passed in a blur of tortilla and jam making, sugar cane processing, soccer games, mishaps with outdoor showers and latrines, loud music waking us up at 5 a.m., a developing hatred for cockroaches and my own attempts to avoid butchering the Spanish language.

After living with my host family, meeting with the community board and partaking in the community’s Celebration of the Word, what speakers in San Salvador had alluded to became a reality for me: the Salvadorian people welcomed our solidarity. Young and old alike passed “La Paz” after service, and few of us were without a little girl climbing onto our laps or laying siege to our hands.

On the last night, at a concert celebrating Romero at the University of Central America, stood the very same segments of society from the march a week prior, only this time, our group was not interested in building solidarity. Instead, I smiled, realizing that we embodied it.

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/31/solidarity-in-el-salvador/