ARENA reverts to tactics of 2004
Ernesto Rivas-Gallont, blogger and former Salvadoran ambassador to the United States, has denounced in his blog the current propaganda which ARENA is using in campaign advertisements. For the past week, ARENA has been running advertisements warning that if the FMLN wins in 2009, family remittances from the US and Temporary Protected Status will be at risk. These were the same lies which ARENA used to some effect in the election campaign of Tony Saca against the FMLN's Schafik Handal in 2004.
Rivas-Gallont writes that he has begged US Ambassador Charles Glazer to state publicly that ARENA's propaganda is not true. So far the Ambassador has stated that the US will work with whatever government Salvadorans elect next year. Rivas-Gallont also asks that word of ARENA's lies be spread far and wide, especially in the US, so that "we will inundate cyberspace with righteous protests of this shameful conduct of ARENA."
Here's doing my part.
Thanks to Antonio for pointing me to copies of the ads on YouTube:
Rivas-Gallont writes that he has begged US Ambassador Charles Glazer to state publicly that ARENA's propaganda is not true. So far the Ambassador has stated that the US will work with whatever government Salvadorans elect next year. Rivas-Gallont also asks that word of ARENA's lies be spread far and wide, especially in the US, so that "we will inundate cyberspace with righteous protests of this shameful conduct of ARENA."
Here's doing my part.
Thanks to Antonio for pointing me to copies of the ads on YouTube:
Comments
This is the link to one of them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07y09B2Jqg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om47szVuA6I&feature=related
But the commercials are right in pointing the relationship of the FMLN with CHAVEZ, and eventhough they do not point to the fact that the Comision Politica would like to get Funes out of its revolution's way, that is unfortunately the most likely scenario for El Salvador.
The rest on the remittances and the alliance with the US and the deportations is pure hype.
The remittances are going to dwindle with the coming recession, and the deportacions will just keep increasing as they have every year, wether we have troops in iraq or not. And the immigration phenomena, that will follow the darwinic way of weeding out the weak in the way to the US, since that is what seems to be happening in Mexico, where the tragedy, just keeps on getting bigger.
Not a nice pic, but again, when did El Salvador had it all rosy and happy clappy?
they are paid for. Perhaps the only way to prevent distorted and dishonest political ads in El Salvador would be having a legislation making liable those who
authorize false and malicious statements issued by the correspoding Party Propaganda Coordinators.
Where is the FMLN's answer?
Where is the FMLN's answer?"
You would have to read Diario Colatino, which doesn't happen to have as much of an audience as El Diario de Hoy and Prensa Garfica. Simply put, ARENA controls the country's media, and the small opening that independant and free media have in this country doesn't appear to be getting any bigger. And that is large part of the problem. In El Salvador, you don't have to have a recipe for all of the country's problems following an extensive and thorough step by step plan, have a reputation of being transparent or anything like that... the promise of a t-shirt, pollo, a nice hip slogan and a massive appeal to the emotions will get you all the way.
Put it this way, ARENA has ransacked the state, sabotaged the country's agriculture along with the nation's capacity to sustain itself and an important pillar of thousands of people (El Salvador never ceased to be an agriculture-centric economy in the first place), sell off all your banks, discard your own currency, send all hopes of a monetary policy to hell, and they can still go on and say that it is the FMLN the ones that are selling off the country... and get away with it.
And here we are talking about the same group that opposed an land reformed, opposed the creation of cooperatives, of small land-owners, etc., but that coming election day, to those same small land-owners they claim that if FMLN is to win THEY WILL LOSE THEIR LAND.
That has been the ticket for ARENA in the past 20 years. For every and all problems FMLN has been the fall guy. The last civil war, not to mention the one before it, were not the result of a society in decline with grave injustices in which a large percentage of the populance chose to insurrect-- not necessarily to bring forth a regime change because a lot of those who did revolt didn't know squat about Angels, Marx or Communism, but did know that they were hungry and that they wouldn't take it no more (it was more of a visceral knee-jerk reaction than anything else)--, but product of an international communism conspiracy that resulted with the invasion of the country, as if UFOs, or beings completely alien to the country had suddenly decided to invade and do with the country as "they" saw fit (pretty much what USA is doing in Iraq, and the major reason why support over there of the population is luke-warm). But there you have it. People don't have access to information, don't know their own history, doesn't know what this means to them in the present, so they continue being vulnerable again the same old silver-bullet that got them in the first place: TERROR and enshrining a love of country so dear, that any criticism of the status quo is labeled as heretic anti-patriotic, even if the country is in shambles. Pretty much like Mexico, really, with left-wing guerrillas controlling the poorest states in the south, cartels and mafias doing pretty much what they want near the coasts and to the north, in many cases embedded with the federal government, and millions migrating, and thousands following every single year, but they always have their slogans of "Mexican Pride", here is the same. That over-inflatted sense of pride blinds the population to study itself and recognize the problems and treat them accordingly, and ARENA cashes in on this. And of course, it doesn't help that the people sincerely don't trust the democratic system which is evident in the lack of voter-turn out.
So, put it this way. Remittances have been in decline, deportations increased, the promise of making El Salvador the maquila of the hemisphere was cut short with more maquilas and factories closing down to move operations elsewhere (China, Honduras, etc.), the ever increasing price of food, because the geniuses running the country figured that importing the food was much better (better business for them, if we review the list of people that make up the regions greatest exporters of medicine and food, you'd find the likes of Alfredo Cristiani in place) has happened even with Saca's victory, making the whole political montage tha made up his 2004 campaign nothing more of the biggest scams in history, yet people are not entirely aware of this, just as it hasn't dawned upon many the ramnifications of US's crisis and its impact on El Salvador.
And this will continue to be because there is not an equal access to information, and this will continue to be, because ARENA and the oligarchy (not that both of them aren't one and the same) never did root for an educated population, how could they if this would put and end to the cronyism and the unjustified privileges they have institutionalized?
Are we truly a democracy? Social circles in the upper middle class frown upon anyone that is not an ARENA supporter. But I am thankful to find more and more people that are waking up and at least accepting its shortcomings. A democracy asks for power to alternate. It is time for power to alternate in El Salvador. The FMLN has shown it an govern municipally in an effective fashion, I say give them a chance in the executive. Talks on how Sanchez Ceren fought during the war and how FMLN members were there with them simply make me ask too - and what about those in ARENA that were in the Escuadrones de la Muerte?
I won't lie, his figure as part of the the presidential formula is daunting to me. But I firmly believe we need a change. And I think Mauricio can bring it.