How El Salvador Joined the Occupy Movement

Uninvited Guests on Thanksgiving: How the Occupy Movement Came to El Salvador

By Alexandra Early

Originally posted on Counterpunch.org.

At the U.S. embassy here on Thursday (Nov. 24), Ambassador Carmen Aponte held a gala Thanksgiving dinner for a select group of local and North American guests. Outside the castle-like embassy compound, there were some uninvited visitors as well.

Nearly 100 Salvadorans and U.S citizens gathered to display our solidarity with the global Occupy/Indignados movement in the first Central American OWS-inspired protest. The demonstrators included university students, environmental activists, and “gringos” (like myself) who work with human rights and community development organizations based here in the capital.

Like most Occupation crowds in the United States, this one was politically diverse.  Young members of the Communist Party waved Cuban and Venezuelan flags, while dread-locked musicians played the drums, and other participants held up homemade signs urging passing cars in one of the richest neighborhoods in El Salvador to honk for social justice.

But we were all united around a common concern, namely the impact of corporate globalization on working people here and in North America.

As the news media from El Salvador and throughout the region gathered round, various protesters explained how the corporate-influence policies of the Obama Administration were–in the name “economic development”–actually hurting the 99% in El Salvador.

“Free trade” between the two countries has not only destroyed local agriculture and production, victimized workers and the poor and increased immigration to the U.S., but also elevated corporate interests over national sovereignty. In 2009, for example, the Canadian mining company known as Pacific Rim utilized the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to take legal action, before a World Bank tribunal, against the Salvadoran government for denying mining permits to Pacific Rim, as demanded by local environmental activists. Because the newly elected FMLN administration took a stand on the side of its own people and the environment, it now risks having to pay $77 million dollars in “damages” to Pacific Rim.

Alfredo Carias, of the Salvadoran environmental organization called La Unidad Ecologica Salvadorena (UNES), spoke about the broader environmental crimes of the U.S. government and the global 1%. As Wall Street Occupiers entered their second month of protest in New York and other cities in October El Salvador  was hit by some of the worst flooding in its history. Tropical Depression 12 E dumped ten days of unrelenting rain on El Salvador, causing 34 deaths, forcing 50,000 people to flee their homes, and leaving an estimated $850 million worth of damage to infrastructure and agriculture in its wake.

Organizations like UNES attribute the unprecedented intensity of this storm to climate change. But Ambassador Aponte was among the first to caution the public about blaming human behavior for this “natural disaster.”  The U.S. is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases and a leading foe of meaningful international action to slow global warming. After the storm,  the Ambassador discouraged finger pointing , saying  “What is the point of placing blame? With what we have, we have to confront this reality.”

 

Confronting Reality Together, A Different Way

For me, the most important part of the first OWS-inspired protest in Central America was the collaboration it created between Salvadoran social movement activists and their foreign allies in helping to spread the idea of a cross-border movement of the 99%.

In October, I had the chance to visit several Occupy encampments, while touring the Midwest with other representatives of my organization, U.S. El Salvador Sister Cities. Along with two Salvadoran community organizers, we visited a General Assembly meeting at OccupyMadison, a rally organized by labor unions and community groups at OccupyChicago, and a lively march at OccupyCincinnati. One of my Salvadoran compañeros, Agustin, who has been a community leader and popular education teacher since the Salvadoran civil war, was initially unimpressed. He joked that what we were seeing was not the movement of the 99% but “the movement of 99 people and their tents.”

But as we traveled from town to town, I was filled with a pride in my country that I have never experienced before. I thought to myself that, finally, I have something, from back home, to brag about in El Salvador among the veterans of social justice struggles there. However, when I returned to El Salvador I was surprised that the majority of the people in my sister organization, The Association for the Development of El Salvador (CRIPDES) hadn’t heard anything about the Occupy/Indignados movement.

Very little coverage of OWS was seeping through the cracks of the corporate dominated Salvadoran media. Besides, most people had more immediate concerns.  Government and community organizations were scrambling for donations to help rebuild roads and homes in the wake of the flooding; they also needed to prepare for the food shortage ahead due to the resulting reduced harvest of corn and beans in the countryside. This year’s storm only exacerbated the problems Salvadorans face every day: gang violence, unemployment, poverty and woefully under-funded social services.

However, many of us “gringos” employed by human rights and community development organizations, continued to talk with awe and admiration about the Occupy movement. We mused aloud about how to bring OWS to El Salvador and stage our own protest, but we were accustomed to playing the safer, more typical role of gringos solidarios—ie accompanying the Salvadoran social movement not pushing initiatives or projects. We decided we would stage our own gringo protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador. However, as we informed our Salvadoran friends about our plans, the younger, more Internet savvy ones wanted to participate. Working initially with a few local environmental activists, we began to recalibrate the OWS message, focusing on the way corporate greed and capitalism is negatively affecting El Salvador as well.

Click here to read the full article on the Counterpunch website.

Click here to see video coverage on TeleSur

Click here to read the coverage in the CoLatino Newspaper