I had never heard of this award
Press releases from the Vatican announced this week that Salvadoran president Tony Saca will receive the "Path to Peace" award in recognition of his commitment to the development of peace in the national and international arenas. The award is made by the Path to Peace Foundation which advances the Catholic church's pursuit of peace in the world on the international forum of the United Nations. "According to a press release from the Holy See’s permanent observer mission, President Saca was chosen for his efforts in upholding the peace agreements reached between the Salvadoran government and rebel groups." A list of previous Path to Peace Award winners can be found at this link.
Anyone care to comment?
Anyone care to comment?
Comments
He is the, by now, ancient twice former president of Venezuela, who, in a magnanimous act embossed in the certainty that he was being statesman-like, decided to grant a presidential pardon to Hugo Chavez, to come out of military jail from where he was purging his attempted coup d'etat of 1992.
By 1999, once he was rehabilitated to take part in elections as a candidate, by the presidential pardon, Chavez won the 1998 elections and became president, during Caldera's second office.
Today, Chavez is announcing that he will light a thousand viet-nams in Latin America, as the warrior spirit of Bolivar is crouching above us, with his menacing sword.
Now, Chavez is buying wapons and weaponry far superior to whatever Venezuela had ever before.
And Caldera has his award, as I guess, he opened "The-Path-to- Peace-Through-Superior-Firepower" for Venezuela.
Oh, and when Caldera handed out the power to Chavez, in the inauguration ceremony Chavez swore putting his hand above "This Dying Constitution". Once in power, he then proceeded to kill it.
And Rafael Caldera had built that constitution in the 1950's, when he came up with the Pact of Punto Fijo, the agreement that made possible the old venezuelan bi-partidary "democracy" for 50 years....Until Chavez killed Caldera's claim to real fame and lifework, the Pact of Punto Fijo, in Caldera's face.
And Caldera is still alive, in spite of being near 100 yrs old, lucid, and everyday seeing how far are the days of Punto Fijo, from Venezuela's reality today.
History is beautiful.
And Caldera is a fervently catholic man, I believe he is a member of the Opus Dei congregation.
That explains his award also.
Regards,
Maybe this is for going back on his 2006 statement that the accords were null and void. Maybe peace in this sense means "backing away from restarting the civil war."
And now Saca?
What a joke. Is the Pope aware of this scam? For shame.
- * -
BTW chishi, "Peace-Through-Superior-Firepower" is the only way peace is ever achieved.
I believe so, in certain instances, but not in all.
Case in point, El Salvador. Both the army and the guerrilla were not equally "fire-Powered", as the government had air supremacy, and still had to come to negotiations.
Ergo habemus Pace.
For a while at least.
Saludos,
Vietnam.
And perhaps Irak.
Although I will always feel safer, being behind the sight of a Dragunov Sniper Rifle, than in front of it.
Regards,
what morons would give that bastard an award?
i say the only possible way arena will win the 2009 elections is through sheer fraud, realize that while rene figueroa, as leader and strategist of coena, is gay and ugly, he's not as dumb as he looks or sounds, he will fabricate some way by which even dead people will vote for arena and thus proclaim arena the winners. be prepared, be alert. 2009 is coming.
The statement is made so distrustfully, as if something should be suspicious when the Holy See's Mission to the U.N. congratulates heads of states for doing something the Holy See approves of! In fact, three of the past recipients (18%) were U.N. leaders (Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and former General Assembly president Sheika Haya Rashed Al Khalifa ... that's Opus Dei for you, huh?)
Less than 20% of the recipients were "royalty" -- since there's only been 16 awardees, it does not take too many to tip the scales. Nine (56%) were from the Third World.
May that crime against humanity never happen again!
So, they gave a 'peace' award to a guy who is not all that peaceful? Nothing new.
Like others, I have never heard of the award.
Dear Friends,
To those of you who read SHARE News, it is probably obvious that the peace which was promised in the Peace Accords has eluded El Salvador. Particularly under current President Tony Saca's government, it has been difficult to see a clear path towards peace and prosperity for the majority poor of El Salvador. Unfortunately, these circumstances are not so clear to everyone, and we need your help to tell the truth about Tony Saca!
Tomorrow, Saca is set to receive the 2008 Path to Peace Award from the Path to Peace Foundation, in collaboration with the Vatican's Ambassador to the United Nations. (Click here for more information, and see the article at left.) Undoubtedly, this award will be highly publicized in Salvadoran press and could mislead the global community about the current reality in El Salvador and Mr. Saca's track record. We want them to hear the other side of the story - that of El Salvador's poor and marginalized. You can help!
Please send a letter (see the sample, below) expressing your concerns about this award to:
The Most Reverend Celestino Migliore
Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations
25 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016-0903
Fax: (212) 370-9622
Or email: mail@thepathtopeacefoundation.org
Note: Your letter is most likely to be read if it is mailed or faxed!
SAMPLE LETTER:
Your Excellency:
It is with deep concern that I received the news that Path to Peace Foundation has awarded its prestigious prize to Salvadoran President Elías Antonio Saca. During Mr. Saca's administration El Salvador has experienced alarming social, political and economical instability, which has greatly eroded the achievements gained in the 1992 Peace Accords.
El Salvador remains the most dangerous country in Latin America , with a murder rate of 61 people per 100,000 inhabitants. Colombia , a country at war, reports a rate of 38 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Even though the Police attribute most of the murders to gang violence, the Legal Department of the Archbishop in San Salvador reports that of the cases investigated by that office in 2007, 69% fit the profile of social "cleansing" and death-squad-style crimes. What it is more troubling is the level of impunity with which these crimes are committed. A study done by the UNDP-El Salvador, using a sample of 20% of the total homicides committed in 2005, found that only 4% of cases were prosecuted while 96% remained unsolved.
The most representative case of impunity is the failure by the Salvadoran State to comply with the recommendations made by the Organization of American States to conduct an extensive judicial investigation in order to punish the murderers of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. It is important to remember that the Truth Commission created by the United Nations to investigate war crimes found that the late Roberto D'Aubuisson was the intellectual author of Archbishop Romero's murder. Mr. D'Aubuisson was the founder of President Saca's ruling ARENA party (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista).
Every year since he took office President Saca has sent two contingents of Salvadoran troops to Iraq , despite opposition from the general Salvadoran population and the Catholic Church. El Salvador is the only Latin American country that still has troops in Iraq Perhaps fearing repercussions from this support of the US "War against Terror," in 2006 the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly approved the Special Law against Acts of Terrorism. This Law was used last year against a group of peaceful protesters who rallied against water privatization. These 13 activists, captured and accused of terrorism, became an alarming example of modern state repression in El Salvador . The "Suchitoto case" triggered a wave of national and international solidarity not seen since the Peace Accords were signed in 1992. Thanks to the local and international pressure, all charges were dropped against the political prisoners in April.
However, six days later one of the activists was murdered in circumstances that suggest political motivation. President Saca's administration has not only increased social polarization and instability, but his economic policies have also aggravated the economic situation of most Salvadorans. El Salvador has been declared a country facing a food emergency, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. The UN World Food Program recently stated that the average Salvadoran family living in the countryside is consuming just 60% of the calories that it did in May 2006. Given the political, social and economic crisis, Salvadorans are being forced to migrate. According to former US Ambassador to El Salvador Douglas Barclay an average of 270,000 Salvadoran are leaving the country to the US every year. Currently, about a third of the population lives overseas and remittances are the largest source of the country's foreign exchange, according to the Salvadoran Central Reserve Bank.
Path to Peace Foundation lists the creation of a Poverty Map as one of President Saca's achievements. The Poverty Map 2004, a database of household surveys is definitely an important first step to address and eradicate poverty. However, this project, financed by the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank, was a national project planned independently of the Saca administration. In any case it would have been more meaningful to recognize the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and the Social Investment Fund for Local Development (FISDL) for creating this statistical and geographical database.
An aspect that is particularly worrisome is the context in which this award is given. Currently, President Saca is at his lowest popularity of his entire presidential term. According to a survey by the Public Opinion University Institute (IUDOP) of the Jesuit Central American University, 52% of the population thinks that President Saca did not keep his campaign promises and 80% thinks that the economic situation has worsened during his administration. This view, also expressed in other surveys, represent deep trouble to the ruling ARENA party, since the country is only 6 months away from Mayoral and Legislative elections and 8 months away from Presidential elections. The same survey indicates that the opposition party has a higher probability of winning the presidency. In this context the Path to Peace Award risks being used as an instrument to improve President Saca's image. Even worse, it can be used for electoral campaign purposes.
Since the prize has already been announced, I can only express my deep sadness that this prize was awarded to someone who has brought more violence to El Salvador . I respectfully ask the Foundation to monitor carefully whether the award is misused for political purposes in the Presidential campaign.
Respectfully, YOUR NAME
The Most Reverend Celestino Migliore
Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations
25 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016-0903
Via Facsimile: (212) 370-9622
Excellency:
The selection of Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca for the Path to Peace Award will not be well received. With good reason. The selection of Pres. Saca -- despite his being a personable, charismatic, and generally popular leader -- gives many Catholics pause. The first reason is sufficient to disqualify Pres. Saca from receiving this award. Unfortunately, for political expediency, Pres. Saca opposes the investigation of the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero. This is a grave failing. One of the key recommendations of the U.N. Truth Commission Report that sought to resolve the Salvadoran civil war was that the most serious crimes of the war be investigated, and the Romero case was singled out as an example of of one that required investigation. More recently, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has renewed the call for an investigation of the Romero case, and the Salvadoran state under Pres. Saca has defied the Commission's repeated recommendations. Instead, the Saca government has supported and sought honors and tributes for the man believed to have been the intellectual author of Archbishop Romero's assassination. On one of the most visible cases of justice and reconciliation in the international arena, Pres. Saca has defied the international community and this alone is sufficient to disqualify him from this honor. Moreover, from a Catholic perspective, Pres. Saca's actions have stymied Archbishop Romero's cause for canonization because the salient facts of the case that would support Romero's sainthood remain undiscovered.
Two other reasons bear mentioning. Pres. Saca's government is the only government in the hemisphere other than the United States to have troops in Iraq, fighting a war that, as Your Excellency's own February 19, 2003 intervention before the U.N. Security Council warned, "would not be a just one." To now award Pres. Saca a "Path to Peace" prize seems incongruous with the position of two successive Pontiffs. Finally, Pres. Saca has not publically embraced many of the key principles of the social doctrine of the Church, an objective with which I understand the Path to Peace foundation, the Holy See's Mission to the U.N., and Your Excellency, to be concerned with. For all of the foregoing reasons, the award of the Path to Peace prize to Pres. Saca will cause confusion and consternation in Salvadoran society, and further Church action is required.
I urge the Church to act swiftly in the near future to assuage these valid concerns, and to assure Salvadorans and all of the faithful, that the foregoing issues are of great interest to the Church, and that the Holy See and the Holy Roman Church will take steps to pursue them, and to heal any breach caused by the choice of Pres. Saca as the 2008 award recipient.
An unknown award, given to a largely unknown presidente in the world.
There really is no need to bring Monsgr Romero into this.
Get a hold of yourselves.
Regards,
Please Take Action!
To those of you who read this blog, it is probably obvious that the peace which was promised in the Peace Accords has eluded El Salvador. Particularly under current President Tony Saca's government, it has been difficult to see a clear path towards peace and prosperity for the majority poor of El Salvador. Unfortunately, these circumstances are not so clear to everyone, and we need your help to tell the truth about Tony Saca!
Today, Saca is set to receive the 2008 Path to Peace Award from the Path to Peace Foundation, in collaboration with the Vatican's Ambassador to the United Nations. Undoubtedly, this award will be highly publicized in Salvadoran press and could mislead the global community about the current reality in El Salvador and Mr. Saca's track record. We want them to hear the other side of the story - that of El Salvador's poor and marginalized. You can help!
Please send a letter (see the sample, below) expressing your concerns about this award to:
The Most Reverend Celestino Migliore
Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations
25 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016-0903
Fax: (212) 370-9622
Or email: mail@thepathtopeacefoundation.org
Note: Your letter is most likely to be read if it is mailed or faxed!
SAMPLE LETTER:
Your Excellency:
It is with deep concern that I received the news that Path to Peace Foundation has awarded its prestigious prize to Salvadoran President Elías Antonio Saca. During Mr. Saca's administration El Salvador has experienced alarming social, political and economical instability, which has greatly eroded the achievements gained in the 1992 Peace Accords.
El Salvador remains the most dangerous country in Latin America, with a murder rate of 61 people per 100,000 inhabitants. Colombia, a country at war, reports a rate of 38 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Even though the Police attribute most of the murders to gang violence, the Legal Department of the Archbishop in San Salvador reports that of the cases investigated by that office in 2007, 69% fit the profile of social "cleansing" and death-squad-style crimes. What it is more troubling is the level of impunity with which these crimes are committed. A study done by the UNDP-El Salvador, using a sample of 20% of the total homicides committed in 2005, found that only 4% of cases were prosecuted while 96% remained unsolved.
The most representative case of impunity is the failure by the Salvadoran State to comply with the recommendations made by the Organization of American States to conduct an extensive judicial investigation in order to punish the murderers of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. It is important to remember that the Truth Commission created by the United Nations to investigate war crimes found that the late Roberto D'Aubuisson was the intellectual author of Archbishop Romero's murder. Mr. D'Aubuisson was the founder of President Saca's ruling ARENA party (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista).
Every year since he took office President Saca has sent two contingents of Salvadoran troops to Iraq, despite opposition from the general Salvadoran population and the Catholic Church. El Salvador is the only Latin American country that still has troops in Iraq Perhaps fearing repercussions from this support of the US "War against Terror," in 2006 the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly approved the Special Law against Acts of Terrorism. This Law was used last year against a group of peaceful protesters who rallied against water privatization. These 13 activists, captured and accused of terrorism, became an alarming example of modern state repression in El Salvador. The "Suchitoto case" triggered a wave of national and international solidarity not seen since the Peace Accords were signed in 1992. Thanks to the local and international pressure, all charges were dropped against the political prisoners in April.
However, six days later one of the activists was murdered in circumstances that suggest political motivation. President Saca's administration has not only increased social polarization and instability, but his economic policies have also aggravated the economic situation of most Salvadorans. El Salvador has been declared a country facing a food emergency, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. The UN World Food Program recently stated that the average Salvadoran family living in the countryside is consuming just 60% of the calories that it did in May 2006. Given the political, social and economic crisis, Salvadorans are being forced to migrate. According to former US Ambassador to El Salvador Douglas Barclay an average of 270,000 Salvadoran are leaving the country to the US every year. Currently, about a third of the population lives overseas and remittances are the largest source of the country's foreign exchange, according to the Salvadoran Central Reserve Bank.
Path to Peace Foundation lists the creation of a Poverty Map as one of President Saca's achievements. The Poverty Map 2004, a database of household surveys is definitely an important first step to address and eradicate poverty. However, this project, financed by the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank, was a national project planned independently of the Saca administration. In any case it would have been more meaningful to recognize the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and the Social Investment Fund for Local Development (FISDL) for creating this statistical and geographical database.
An aspect that is particularly worrisome is the context in which this award is given. Currently, President Saca is at his lowest popularity of his entire presidential term. According to a survey by the Public Opinion University Institute (IUDOP) of the Jesuit Central American University, 52% of the population thinks that President Saca did not keep his campaign promises and 80% thinks that the economic situation has worsened during his administration. This view, also expressed in other surveys, represent deep trouble to the ruling ARENA party, since the country is only 6 months away from Mayoral and Legislative elections and 8 months away from Presidential elections. The same survey indicates that the opposition party has a higher probability of winning the presidency. In this context the Path to Peace Award risks being used as an instrument to improve President Saca's image. Even worse, it can be used for electoral campaign purposes.
Since the prize has already been announced, I can only express my deep sadness that this prize was awarded to someone who has brought more violence to El Salvador. I respectfully ask the Foundation to monitor carefully whether the award is misused for political purposes in the Presidential campaign.
Respectfully, YOUR NAME
I disagree. Saca has used Romero, and it was the main subject of Saca's meeting with Pope Benedict. In the negotiations over the OAS human rights court, the Saca administration appealed to the Church directly, to try to avoid its obligations. I don't see how Romero could be avoided when the CATHOLIC Church gives Saca a humanitarian award.
You Are right, Catholic church award and catholic martyr, are linked and cannot be logically separated.
My bad.
Although, you must concede that the catholic church as such is not monolithic, and the ones giving the award, are probably as conservative as Dick Cheney, and do not necessarily think kindly of Monsignor Romero.
While those linking and equating Romero to the Catholic church are as liberal as former Ambassador Robert White, and think in kind.
Regards,
Guerrilla: for two decades (1972-1990) dreaming they could violently murder their way to power (with Soviet funding, training and arming).
Same guerrilla: misteriously felt compelled to negotiate to turn in their weapons after the collapse of their Communist masters in 1989.
If you don't see that the guerillas ultimately lost and had to give up their murderous rampage simply because they realized the government of El Salvador now permanently held superior firepower due to the disappearance of the Soviet Union... well then you are blind to the historic record.
- * -
For too long a fig leaf has been allowed to stand as if the guerrillas actually achieved any of their goals after the war they started in 1972.
PNC, a few plots of land for ex-combatants, a Truth Commission, and a few other trinkets and mirrors... frankly, how can anyone truthfully say that the goals the kidnappers, torturers and murderers of 1972 had in mind were even remotely achieved?
The guerrillas lost, and badly, to a position where the government had superior firepower in year 1991 and was going to be in that position for the foreseeable future.
Of course the Soviet Union was dying.
November 8th 1989, fell, physically, the Berlin Wall (although the germans remember it on the 9th, to avoid the clash with the anniversary of Kristallnacht on the 9th).
Three days later, saturday 11 november, at 7pm sharp, Ofensiva hasta el tope begins, as a carbon copy of the 1968 Vietnam's Tet Offensive.
And the Army had superior firepower, and Air superiority then.
And the Soviet Union was dying.
And yet, with true superior firepower, the State sat down to negotiate with the FMLN, instead of crushing them, and insuring total victory.
That is not peace through superior firepower, that is peace by exhaustion, particularly if you anlyze the fact that the Army had superior firepower for more than a decade.
Oh, but I forgot, the army warlords really didnt want to win the war.
Otherwise, with superior firepower they could have done that a long time before chapultepec, and would have saved all of us a lot of grief.
So it seems to me that it was peace through exhaustion.
Or you forget Cristiani's televised speech, live, when in the background you hear a bomb exploding and Cristiani lost his cool, right in the middle of the 89Ofensive?
When the president in his Bunker is startled by a bomb on live TV, my friend, he does not have superior firepower, even if for that brief moment.
But he did look exhausted.
And then, amid the exhaustion he might have thought about peace too.
So I leave you with a thought about, precisely that, peace. In another superior firepower setting some imaginary one, said:
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning...it smells like victory...you know son, someday this war's gonna end"
Col. Killgore, Apocalypse Now.
Regards,
It is very easy to say so because it is the truth. The "kidnappers, tortures and murderers" (the military and the oligarchy) achieved their goals by perveting the PNC, undermining land reform, and marginalizing the Truth Commission.
The far right got what it wanted--and look what "good" it has done El Salvador!
El premio "Path to Peace" ha causado consternación en ciertos sectores. A pesar de la incoformidad general sobre el tema, el paso a seguir está clarísimo: hay que seguir adelante como si nada habría pasado. En términos cristianos, hay que ofrecer la otra mejía. Esta no es la hora de ponerse a calumniar a Opus Dei, ni de tratar de enzartar a Galileo y los otros supuestos errores históricos de la Iglesia. La Biblia dice que el Señor se mueve de maneras misteriosas y los que verdaderamente créen deberían de comportarse de acuerdo con ello, y no estar imponiendo los temas del Cesar sobre las cosas de Dios. Oquey, Saca se ganó el premio. Pero en lugar de estar codiciándolo y menosvaliéndolo, deberían meditar como la izquierda pudiese hacerse digna de tal galardón, y no estar criticando y negativizando todas las cosas. Es un reto a todos los que han opinado de manera negativa: como acercarse al Señor, en vez de estar criticando todo lo que está afuera de su alcance.
Btw, chishi, you from El Salvador? Are you in El Salvador? If you aren't I'll tell you something, do pardon the language: If Tony Saca is going to unveil a public craphole in town x, you'll see the media behind, a constant bombardment in radio, tv, and newspapers that Tony Saca is doing something for the population. So brace yourself to see how ARENA makes much about nothing (a reward that the majority here seem to sustain is largely unknown), it will be most certainly part of Tony Saca's pinnacle career, or how he is trying to sell it. And worst of all is the fact that WE ARE APPROACHING elections, and ARENA is imitating the republicans of USA, that with certain keywords (pro-life -anti-abortion, but supporting mass wars that massacre entire populations, doom to poverty and bad nutrition future generations, and may have caused many, many miscarriages, etc., and the death penalty, is that pro-life?), anti-gay marriage, Christian values, bible, etc.) will rally thousands to their side, despite how clearly in contrast their actions stand against what they preach. But I digress, I derailed myself, what I am trying to say is that ARENA is pouring HUGE EFFORTS on assuring the "Christian vote" of the country, so.... the Army of Sheep of the Lord can cometh and banquish the hordes of Evil and stop the Satanic Lying Hordes of the Left at bay. This award will clearly be another bullet for ARENA's already huge arsenal