Photos and text by James Rodriguez, San Salvador, El Salvador

March 24, 2010 -- MiMundo.org

Versión en español aquí.

Translated by Lara Pullin of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

RESOLUTION OF THE XXV ORDINARY FMLN NATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE INITIATIVE TO ESTABLISH THE `FIFTH (V) SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL'

This FMLN National Convention,

CONSIDERING:

(Sunday, December 13, 2009)

1. That the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a political organisation that has the responsibility, recognised by popular majority and as a consequence of our long history of struggle, of constructing in El Salvador a society based on social justice; which is economically productive, environmentally sustainable and wherein all exercise and respect fundamental freedoms and inherent rights of the human being, as recognised in the Constitution of the Republic.

2. That the progressive and left-wing political and social movements, which are leading the struggles for democracy and social progress, are experiencing a period of growth and gain in various parts of the world, and particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean; proposing and winning solutions to the major problems confronting the world today.

Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, June 3, 2009 -- On June 1, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Cerén were sworn in as president and vice-president of El Salvador at the Feria Internacional Convention Center in San Salvador. It was a magical day for the Salvadoran people, social movement organisations, and the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which Funes and Sanchez Cerén represent.

By Jay Hartling

May 31, 2009 -- El Salvador -- On Monday, June 1, 2009 El Salvador will turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country´s first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin America. Representing the Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) ), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, president and vice-president elect, will face a national assembly in which the FMLN is outnumbered by more than 2:1. Out of a total of 84 seats, the FMLN only have 35. This will make broad sweeping changes difficult, but not impossible, and may force Funes to use the power of the presidential veto as a bargaining chip. It is important that those of us observing from a distance understand the complicated environment within which the new government will be operating.

By the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)

March 24, 2009 -- Starting at 7am on Sunday, March 15, Salvadorans headed en masse to the polls to cast their ballots for the future president; by 9:30pm Mauricio Funes, presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), pronounced himself president-elect of El Salvador—the very first leftist head of state in the country’s history.

"An historical event is underway in El Salvador. For the first time, a government especially dedicated to the popular sectors is possible. The current government, subjected to the interests of small groups, has shown their inability to lead the country for the common good. A new government is born precisely of the hope of citizens to break the pattern and install a government that will be at the service of the entire Salvadoran population."
—Program of Government, FMLN.

FMLN members celebrate victories on January 18.

 [For the latest information of the FMLN's election campaign, click HERE.]

* * *

January 20, 2009 -- Amanda Peters was on the spot as an official observer, and as part of a delegation from CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). She spoke with community radio's Latin Radical as the first results started coming in, and gives her nervous prognosis for the presidential round coming up on March 15.

Latin Radical -- Burke Stansbury from the Washington office of the US-based Committee with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) talks with community radio about the first round of the El Salvadoran elections -- legislative and municipal -- to be held on January 17, 2009. Burke reports that the chances of an FMLN victory (supported by a 10 to 15 point lead in the polls over the last year) are good, with the voting population shrugging off the scare tactics of the ARENA party's media blitz.

There are still fears that ARENA, with a history of violence, intimidation and terror (the founder of ARENA was also the head of the notorious death squads of the 1980s), may resort to more drastic tactics, before the presidential elections in March. There is a loud call from the opposition FMLN party for international observers to ensure the integrity of the elections.

By Committee with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)(USA)

Recent polls in El Salvador show that the leftist FMLN party is 15% ahead over the right-wing presidential candidate from the ruling party. This only confirms what Salvadorans in the social movement, members of the FMLN, and the general public have been saying all along: El Salvador is the next in line to join the Latin American shift to the left!

The Committee with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) has a long solidarity relationship with the Salvadoran people. One way CISPES continues to support real democracy in El Salvador, opposing US economic, military, and political intervention, is by bringing international observers delegations to El Salvador. You too can support free and fair elections and learn about the current situation in El Salvador by joining the CISPES delegation from March 9-19, 2009.

[Stop press, March 15, 2009: El Salvador: Victorious FMLN candidate promises `to benefit the poor rather than the rich']

By the National Committee of the War Veterans' Sector of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)

El Salvador has entered a governance crisis the signs of which include the bare participation by the general public in the life of the nation. There is no attempt by the government to achieve consensus, or a will to reach agreement on public policy; and there is no tolerance of even a minimal participation by the citizenry in public affairs. Disillusion and scepticism are the predominant feelings amongst the general public. The country's institutional structures are weak and poorly developed. This impacts even upon political parties, which neither express nor channel popular demands and lack the capacity to play an intermediary role in the conflicts caused by the demands of different sectors of society.

[This is the text of a talk presented at the Marxism Summer School conducted by the Australian Democratic Socialist Perspective in January 2005. The pope referred to is the then-reigning Pope John-Paul II. The current Pope Benedict XVI is mentioned, being Cardinal Ratzinger at the time this talk was presented. See the appendices for more on Ratzinger and his background.]

I have an acquaintance who is a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party and a fundamentalist Christian, she occasionally gives me a lift to the railway station in the morning, which I appreciate. I didn’t know her religious bent until one morning she started regaling me with her opinion of Marxism, which was entirely based on the one sentence written by Marx that she knew: “Religion is the opium of the people.”

I don’t think she could even give a coherent explanation of the sentence, let alone an understanding of its context. She just knew that it was godless communism and that was enough for her.

By Tony Iltis

July 12, 2008 -- The visit to Sydney for World Youth Day (WYD), July 15-20, by Pope Benedict XVI and 300,000 Catholic pilgrims is set to become the scene for protests. Ironically, the protests are being fuelled by the clumsy efforts of the NSW state Labor Party government to suppress them — passing laws making it illegal to “annoy” pilgrims and defining “annoy” broadly enough to include having signs, or even wearing t-shirts, with messages that the doctrinally rigid pope or his followers disapprove of.

* * *

No to Pope Rallies, July 19, 2008

May 24, 2008 -- Jorge Schafik Handal Vega --son of the legendary FMLN founder ``Comandante Simon''' Jorge Schafik Handal -- joined the militant left in El Salvador in 1968 as a student. He was a combatant commander throughout the people’s war in the 1970s and 1980s and, following the 1991 peace accords, was integral to the successful transition of the FMLN’s combatant structures into the political and civil institutions of El Salvador. He is currently a deputy for the FMLN in the Central American Parliament.

Handal Vega is toured Australia in May 2008 to build solidarity with the FMLN’s 2009 election campaign, a message that was enthusiastically received. All recent opinion polls in El Salvador indicate that the FMLN will win both the mayoral and presidential elections next year, wresting the last Central American country to be governed by the extreme right wing out of its control. Desperate to prevent this, the US-backed ruling Arena party has launched a massive campaign of bribery and intimidation, which is accompanied by a growing number of brutal attacks on, and murders of, FMLN leaders and activists.

The FMLN is expecting Arena to also use fraud to try to win the elections, and is urging Australian activists to travel to El Salvador in December-January to act as international observers of the election.