Author Archives: Mario Guevara

Presidency’s legal advisor Conan Castro dismisses letter written by members of U.S. Congress

Estamos hablando de diez u once que fueron los que firmaron de trescientos ochenta y tantos que son los senadores en Estados Unidos. No representan ni siquiera el cinco por ciento de ellos. Esto quiere decir que no es unánime, que no es una visión que tenga realmente el gobierno de los Estados Unidos, sino […]

Orlando Montano convicted

(EN ESPAÑOL AQUÍ) The National Court in Spain has sentenced former Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano to 134 years in prison for ordering the murder of six Jesuits in El Salvador. It has been 31 years since the massacre took place on November 16, 1989, when several troops of the Army of El Salvador machine-gunned six […]

U.S. Representatives send letter to Bukele about the attacks to the press / Representantes de los Estados Unidos envían carta a Bukele por los ataques a la prensa

(EN ESPAÑOL ABAJO)   Democratic members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States, led by the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affair, Eliot L. Engel, released, this Thursday, September 10, a letter in which they express their “deep concern regarding (the Salvadoran) government’s increased hostility towards independent and […]

Bukele seeking to change the constitution of El Salvador

EFE and La Prensa Grafica report that president Nayib Bukele has designated Vice-president Félix Ulloa to study and coordinate proposals to reform the Constitution of El Salvador.   The appointment appears registered in the Official Gazette, dated September 1, 2020 and is posted on the institution’s website under agreement 295. According to what is read, […]

Zoom update – September 16

The U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Network (USESSC) is happy to organize a zoom update alongside our friends from the association PROVIDA to provide the latest information on the health situation and challenges in El Salvador.   OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Karen Ramírez and Rudecinda Orellana, from PROVIDA. PROVIDA is a humanitarian association that promotes participatory processes […]

Open Letter to the Salvadoran Government asking them to sign the Escazu agreement

The Escazú Agreement, a watershed 2018 United Nations environmental treaty for Latin America and the Caribbean, could mark a dramatic shift in environmental policy for Central America. Despite the deepening climate change-related degradation of the country’s environment and violence against the environmentalists who come to its defense, though, the Bukele administration hasn’t publicly expressed its […]

Will the military files be opened? Latest developments on “El Mozote” trial

EL FARO reports:   The presidency of Nayib Bukele told Judge Jorge Guzmán, who reopened and has promoted the investigation of the El Mozote massacre (1981), that “there are secret military plans that cannot be revealed by the Ministry of Defense” because the Armed Forces protect “superior assets of a collective nature, such as national […]

USESSC Accountability / Nuestra rendición de cuentas

(EN ESPAÑOL ABAJO)   Thanks to the donations made to our fundraising due to the COVID crisis and tropical storms Amanda and Cristóbal, The U.S.- El Salvador Sister Cities Network was able to raise 19,763 dollars that have been used for the organization and delivery of food kits to communities affected in the five CRIPDES […]

Child pregnancy numbers in the first semester of 2020

Defenders of women’s rights warned that in El Salvador there is a considerable increase in abuse and pregnancies of girls and adolescents amid confinement by the COVID-19 pandemic in a country that, they say, has a high level of impunity in terms of sexual violence. Silvia Juárez, from the Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace […]

U.N. Special Rapporteur: “It is unacceptable for the President to threaten magistrates”

(EN ESPAÑOL AQUI)   The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, considered unacceptable and worrying the words of President Nayib Bukele, who assured that if he were a dictator he would “shoot (the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber) or something like that”. On his broadcast on August 9, […]