The FMLN Victory and Transnational Salvadoran Activism: Lessons for the Future

NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS open forum

By Alfonso Gonzales

h e inauguration o n j u n e 1 o f e l s a l v a d o r ’s publican congressman Tom Tancredo, among new president, Mauricio Funes, followed others, was quoted suggesting that a victory by T a historic election in March, in which the left-wing opposition party, the Farabundo the country’s ruling conservative party, Arena, Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), was dislodged after being in power since 1989. would endanger remittances. Others suggested Explaining Funes’s victory, many commentators that Salvadorans’ eligibility for temporary pro- have pointed to his charisma as a former TV per- tected status (TPS)—granted to immigrants sonality, but few have discussed the pivotal role unable to return home because of an armed con- of transnational Salvadoran activism. Salvadorans flict, natural disaster, or other circumstance that in the Untied States helped create the conditions would endanger their lives—would be revoked. for a free, fair, and transparent election—partic- Effectively, this would mean the deportation of ularly by undermining right-wing fear tactics in thousands of Salvadorans. El Salvador that aimed to scare voters away from Anticipating that Arena would repeat this strat- Funes by suggesting that his election would incur egy, a coalition led by the Salvadoran American the United States’ wrath. National Association (Sana), together with Empre- In December, TV advertisements in El Salva- sarios por el Cambio, SEIU Local 1199, the Com- dor paid for by Arena and its allies began to ap- mittee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador pear that distorted the official U.S. position on the (Cispes), and the Share Foundation, launched a election. In one such ad, clips from an interview counter-strategy. The strategy was based on the with Dan Restrepo, President Barack Obama’s se- understanding that with the right amount of pres- nior adviser on Latin America, stating: “The anti- sure, the new U.S. administration and Congress, American agenda worries Senator Barack Obama interested in mending fences with Latin America, a lot, and the failed polices of Hugo Chávez, be would not allow someone like Tancredo to distort those in Venezuela or . . . be it El Salvador or the U.S. government’s official policy of non-inter- other places.” vention in order to manipulate voters. In another ad, featured in the leading Salva- In January the coalition initiated meetings doran newspaper, evangelist Antonio Bolainez, with key members of Congress in their home one of Obama’s 10 official spiritual advisers, sug- districts, such as Representative Howard Berman gested that Salvadoran voters should not “bring (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Alfonso Gonzales El Salvador to its destruction” by electing a “radi- Committee. The group also met with Berman’s teaches Latino cal left regime that favors Venezuela and Iranian office in Washington and with high-level com- studies at New York terrorism.” Such ads might seem frivolous to mittee members, whom they urged to reaffirm University. His U.S. observers, but they are influential in El Sal- the U.S. government’s neutrality in regard to research focuses vador, where nearly one in four families depend the Salvadoran election results. Sana organized on globalization, migration control, on money sent from relatives living in the United a three-day lobbying effort in February, with a and social movements States. Those remittances, the campaign ads im- delegation of about 50 Salvadoran Americans in the United States, plied, would be jeopardized if Funes won. from all over the country, targeting Congress, Mexico, and Similar ads were aired during the last Salva- the State Department, and the Organization of Central America. doran presidential election in 2004. Former Re- American States. 4 JULY/AUGUST 2009 open forum

Two days before the March 15 elec- In response to the swelling pressure, explicitly commit to respecting the sov- tion, Berman issued a statement that on March 13, Assistant Secretary of ereignty of the Salvadoran electorate. read: “Sunday’s election belongs to the State Thomas Shannon stated: “We are This capacity for action did not people of El Salvador. As Chairman of committed to free and fair elections in develop overnight. Rather, it is the the House Committee on Foreign Af- El Salvador. And we’ve also made it very product of 30 years of political expe- fairs, I am confident that neither TPS clear that we will work with whomever rience cultivated in the United States nor the right to receive remittances the Salvadoran people elect.” in various social and political strug- from family in the United States will be These pronouncements by U.S. gles. Indeed, Salvadorans were at the affected by the outcome of the election, officials—which would have never forefront of the struggle for amnesty despite what some of my colleagues in been made without popular pressure for undocumented immigrants in the Congress have said.” The statement was from a Salvadoran American grass- 1980s, the Justice for Janitors strike read in El Salvador by one of Berman’s roots movement—effectively dele- in Los Angeles in the 1990s, the cam- staffers at a press conference gitimized Arena’s fear campaign against the Central American organized by Sana. Along Salvadoran paign and reinforced the Free Trade Agreement in 2005, and similar lines, Representa- American Salvadoran electorate’s right the May Day immigrant marches of tive Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to self-determination. 2006, among other struggles. This wrote a letter to Obama that organizations Salvadoran Americans’ rich organizing experience gave was eventually signed by 33 demonstrated ability to combat the Arena transnational Salvadoran civil society Congress members. campaign is directly tied to the political foresight, networks, and “We wish to express our that it is their demographic growth resources necessary to hold the U.S. support for free and fair possible to and mounting political government accountable to the prin- elections in El Salvador,” strategically influence in the United ciple of nonintervention. Grijalva’s letter read. “To States and in El Salvador. There are many lessons to be that end, we request your pressure The community has grown learned from this experience. It is a assurance that your admin- the Obama rapidly during the last timely example of how transnation- istration will join us in hon- three decades, becoming al social movements with a strong oring and respecting the will administration the fourth-largest Latino base in the Global North can shape of the Salvadoran people. . . on foreign group in the United States. struggles for state power abroad. Of . Furthermore, we call upon Moreover, their remittances particular importance to the U.S. all U.S. government officials policy. from the United States ac- left, Salvadoran American organiza- and Members of Congress to count for the largest source tions demonstrated that it is pos- refrain from any attempt, at any point of wealth in El Salvador. Salvadoran sible to cautiously and strategically during the campaign, to influence the Americans are concentrated in Los pressure the Obama administration decision of Salvadoran voters.” Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and to hold it accountable on for- Pressure also came from a group of Washington, D.C., and New York, eign policy. North American academics headed by giving them access to political power. One of the most relevant lessons U.S.-born Salvadoran political scien- But the community’s potency is to be is for transnational Mexican organi- tist Héctor Perla Jr. In February, this found not only in its demographics, zations in the United States, which group went on a fact-finding mission remittances, or geographic nodes, but could use some of the same strategies to El Salvador and produced an open also in its human capital. to prepare for Mexico’s 2012 presi- letter signed by 150 scholars calling The lobbying effort speaks to the dential election, which will surely be on the State Department to declare mounting political power of the Sal- fiercely contested. Yet the most im- before the election that neither Arena vadoran American community. Activ- portant lessons to retain from Salva- nor any private U.S. citizen spoke on ists from the community have gone doran American organizations is that behalf of the U.S. government, that from having to organize clandestine- groups in civil society cannot leave it the Arena fear campaign’s allegations ly in the 1980s against U.S. interven- up to the “progressives in power” to were untrue, and that the United tion in El Salvador, often working make wise decisions. The immigrant States would work toward maintain- behind the scenes of North American rights movement, the labor move- ing friendly relations with El Salvador, activists, to openly launching a cam- ment, and other Latino social move- no matter who won the election. paign to force the U.S. government to ments should take heed. 5