19 years after peace accords

Salvadoran blogger Omar Nieto, who writes at El Salvador's longest-running blog Hunnapuh, has begun writing some of his posts for translation into English at Global Voices.

Omar recently wrote about Salvadorans' views of 19 years since signing of the peace agreements:

Sunday the 16th of January marked another year of peace for the country of El Salvador. It has been 19 years since the signing of a peace agreement in Chapultepec, Mexico, which brought an end to a bloody civil war that had been going on since 1981. With the commemoration of the event came discussion. Political, economical and social commentators as well as bloggers have had something to say on the matter....

The current Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas, stated that although the ceasefire was a “blessing from God,” Salvadorans had still not found peace, but it was not too late to achieve it.

Lamentablemente no tenemos todavía una paz estable, firme, duradera, bien afincada, pero enhorabuena, estamos en un buen momento para ir hacia allá.

Unfortunately we still do not have what we can call a stable, long-lasting peace, but there is reason to celebrate, as now we have a good opportunity to try for it.

Victor, a psychologist and well-know young blogger, comments in his blog Alta hora de la noche that the people of El Salvador do not have a collective awareness of what peace means, as they have never experienced it. He states that the very concept of peace is stained with blood. It seems, he adds, that egotistical behaviour is the “natural state” of Salvadorans who, thanks to a social and cultural system that favours the strong and the powerful, consider the agreement to be a sign of weakness. In his opinion, building a culture of peace, especially among adults, appears to be an impossible task. But it is a task worth doing, he states, each one, fighting the battle, from their own trench.

Read more views of the post-war period here.