EL SALVADOR

DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN EL SALVADOR: ELECTIONS, MARCH 15, 2009

In many ways, El Salvador is a symbol. In Spanish it means The Savior. Some Taxi Heathrow Airport people joke that if God sent the Savior (El Salvador) to judge the world, we are all in a lot of trouble, and they are right. El Salvador is a classic example of a country systematically intervened by the US in the context of Cold War “low intensity warfare”. This intervention continues to the present day under the guise of “democracy promotion” which is manifested in three guiding principles: neoliberal structural adjustment policies (privatization, trade liberalization, investment deregulation, social spending cuts etc.), propaganda in favor of the existing socio-economic order, and campaigns of terror against alternatives which would threaten the existing order.

San Salvador, Wednesday, March 11, 2009