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Many communities in El Salvador are adapting to the realities of climate change and economic change throughout the country.
With Support from Us aid and the UN they are piloting a a interesting project known as micro businesses in communities in El Salvador. to help Sustain growth and the possibility of a future for the rural small impoverished towns.
for those that do not know what a micro business is a micro business is a scaled down version of a regular business that is started with as little capitol as possible and usually has less than 5 employees.
In one city in El Salvador a small community outside san Miguel they are doing just that. With the help of volunteers working with this community there have a plan to address their economic, social, and environmental needs that are present with in this community. This area is home to wet lands beaches and some of the largest area of mangrove trees in the country.
Still this being one of the poorest areas in El Salvador, the region's low elevation and location make it vulnerable to the effects of floods, storms, earthquakes and no sources of fresh water or food when natural disasters hit. Along with the social and economic challenges that they face makes it a good place to start a micro business so that they can help themselves become more self sufficient as a community and as individuals. One of the US aid workers in charge of the project says "There was a lot of humanitarian assistance after Hurricane Mitch, but there was no long-term vision," says Sandra Thomson, one of the Sierra Club's project leaders. "With this project, we're looking at ways to empower communities to help them be more self-sufficient” says Sandra Thompson.
It takes into account the communities current needs and the possible future needs of the community and helps them all work together for a common goal. Money comes from actual lender in small denomination of 100- a few thousand dollars which they are expected to pay back when their business is to a point to be able to do so. The project takes a holistic approach to the region's economic, social, and environmental challenges, which are inextricably linked. There are few jobs for the 8,000 people who live in 25 small communities. They gain their livelihood from the natural resource base, fishing from the Bay, cultivating crops, and cutting down mangrove forests for firewood.
A proposed commercial shrimp operation would provide jobs, but it would also destroy precious mangrove forests—trees that can offer protection from flooding and severe weather. The partners are working with the communities to develop micro businesses that create jobs without damaging the environment. In this way, people can earn a living without making their communities more vulnerable to job loss and the natural deterioration of natural resources. So with a more sustainable income from local jobs that do not depend on dwindling natural resources, communities are also more self-sufficient.
The micro business Idea has taken hold in many nations but so far the ones setup here in el Salvador have proven to be very successful. There are many types of business started for example some woman from the corner street always got together on Saturdays to chat about their days and families all the while knitting shirts and shorts pants and all types of sowing to keep their families in clothes. With a small 500 dollar loan this small band of woman started a fabric making business that now sells clothes worldwide. They started out just themselves added employees and now have more then 1000 and the main job provider in this community. It’s the fact that they wanted to achieve something on their own that would make a difference and the micro business model showed them away.
In all ways this model will help future communities and stabilize local jobs for many years to come and I am proud to have participated in a small way to help. It s not effects you in a outside way but you know it effects you in a personal way as well. Ultimately, it's giving people the opportunity to develop alternative livelihoods that leave the natural environment intact and leave them better able to cope with climate change.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Operation Disrupt Democracy in El Salvador
The US continues to be on edge with the way things are happening in Latin America and are trying to undermine portions of the electoral process that are happening? I don’t know personally if I by that but strange things are afoot not just in el Salvador but within all of Latin America. Do i think a different government would change a lot for El Salvador? no not really.. Could it help to give it a try yes I believe that change is needed its just which side has the enough money and support to buy it.
International observers have denounced recent activities of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as designed to overthrow democratically elected presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. A similar strategy is underway to undermine the electoral process in El Salvador by striking fear and confusion into voters before legislative and presidential elections in 2009.
Since November 2007, El Salvador's leftist party, the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), has been consistently polling at a 12-14 point advantage for upcoming legislative, municipal, and presidential elections—ahead of the right-wing ARENA (National Republican Alliance) party's presidential candidate and former national civilian police director, Rodrigo Avila, who has peaked at around 38 percent by conservative estimates. Because an FMLN victory could deal a profound loss to Washington and Wall Street by countering attempts to increase the corporate privatization of land and public services, business media and government officials have stepped up attempts to defeat them in the press and behind the scenes.
In a recent address to the American Enterprise Institute, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Marisol Argueta implored the U.S. government to intervene in the elections on ARENA's behalf. In addition, international press reports have propagated ridiculous claims of a mounting "terrorist conspiracy" between the FMLN, the FARC in Colombia, and Hugo Chavez. Wall Street Journal editor Mary Anastasía O'Grady has complained that if the FMLN wins, foreign investors will suffer. Indeed, several countries that participated in the 18th IBERO-American Summit in October agreed that corporate privatization has failed the majority of people in Latin America. Presidents in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Guatemala are proposing increased regulation and oversight of corporate expansion. An FMLN victory in El Salvador promises further movement in this direction.FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes has said that an FMLN administration would work to oppose biofuel production and the current profit structure for mining projects in favor of spurring agricultural development. "We have to improve agricultural production. Over the past 19 years of ARENA government, the infrastructure for food production has been neglected and dismantled. It is essential and a priority to allot land use for food production and the harvesting of vegetables and staple grains. This is what the people need. We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of allotting areas of land for biofuel production because we are not going to work to feed machines; we have to work to feed human beings."
In its attempt to confuse and ultimately sabotage the FMLN's campaign, right-wing Venezuelan-based pro-U.S. media organization Fuerza Solidaria has released a set of television ads and door-to-door leaflets that assail potential voters with the usual dose of misinformation and scare tactics that accompany every electoral campaign in El Salvador. Designed to suppress votes for the FMLN, one of the ads portrays Funes and the FMLN party as an out-of-touch, antiquated relic rather than a political manifestation of the Salvadoran peoples' historic, and ongoing, broad-based resistance to foreign exploitation. Simplistic "flow chart" arrows on the ad imply that an FMLN-led government would sacrifice remittance money from the U.S. to be a puppet for Chavez's "anti-American expansion project." The intended message is clear and has been the preferred threat of the immigrant-bashing Bush administration to Salvadorans on both sides of the border: those who support the FMLN are against the U.S. If the FMLN wins the election, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will begin massively deporting Salvadorans and the U.S. will cut off remittances.
USAID, NED, and Fuerza Solidaria—with the help of corporate-owned media and the U.S. government—have been a major motor behind anti-democratic political strategies in Venezuela and Bolivia since 2001. In April 2002, the United States utilized the NED to channel funds to private organizations that were running covert propaganda campaigns in support of a failed coup in Venezuela, which detained President Chavez and recognized the short-lived, pro-U.S. government. According to the New York Times, the NED "funneled more than $877,000 into Venezuelan opposition groups in the weeks and months before the unsuccessful coup attempt."
In the wake of the failed coup, the NED channeled another $53,400 to help create a U.S. backed organization called Sumate, a group designed to unite, strengthen, and mobilize opposition to the popularly elected Chavez government, and which supported Sumate's efforts to disseminate disinformation. In 2004 the group published fake exit polls that claimed Chavez lost the referendum recall vote. While their strategies have mostly failed, the actions of Sumate and NED have effectively cast doubt on the legitimacy and democratic goals of the Chavez government, weakening its image internationally.
In Bolivia, investigative journalists Jeremy Bigwood and Benjamin Dangl's inquiries through the Freedom of Information Act and one-on-one interviews showed that the former U.S. embassy there—through USAID and NED—had maintained close relationships with right-wing opposition groups to "promote democracy" by undermining President Morales as well. Through these connections and a USAID Political Party Reform Project, the U.S. has supported forces that could "serve as a counterweight" to Morales's MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) party. In response, Morales recently kicked the U.S. ambassador out of Bolivia. USAID and Fuerza Solidaria were also exposed for their attempts to influence Bolivia's referendum in August 2008.
In November 2007, another NED recipient, the International Republican Institute (IRI), presented Salvadoran President Tony Saca of the ARENA party with the "Freedom Award" for promoting U.S. values in El Salvador such as "linking economic growth with democratic governance and vigorously defending freedom at home and abroad." Never mind the re-emergence of death squads, unsuccessful attempts to convict protestors and vendors as "terrorists," and an unprecedented post-war increase in Salvadoran migration to, and deportations from, the U.S. during his term. This exercise in elite back-patting not only unveils the biases of the IRI, which is chaired by Republican Senator John McCain, but also underscores the U.S. government's explicit endorsement of the right-wing ARENA party, another act of intervention and electoral manipulation.
In January 2008 U.S.-based CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) received a familiar warning from the Department of Justice accusing the group of "acting as a foreign agent" of the FMLN party, presumably as backlash for its political connections with the leftist social movement in El Salvador. An identical letter 14 years ago signaled the beginning of a massive three-year FBI infiltration project aimed at destroying the organization. When asked to name CISPES's "conspiratorial allies" past and present, Executive Director Burke Stansbury responded: "People and popular movements organized to challenge U.S. sponsored political, economic, and electoral violence are the ones that get our attention and our commitments. Our government has designed and rewarded the brutal repression of countless uprisings in El Salvador, and is still very active in this way." Is the FMLN a CISPES ally? "Absolutely. We have always maintained political solidarity with the FMLN and will continue to do so. What is more, we are committed in every way to challenging U.S. attempts to deny El Salvador its basic rights as a sovereign country. Elections are only the tip of the iceberg."
In June the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Charles Glazer, told a CISPES delegation that the U.S. government's days of interfering in El Salvador's elections are over. He said that although they did intervene in the 2004 presidential election, they would not do so again in 2009. His aide then explained that the delegation "wouldn't have to worry about fraud this time because the NDI and IRI will be training [Salvadorans] how to conduct a quick count." One has to wonder what the embassy's definition of intervention is.
To make the U.S. government and ARENA party alliance even more transparent, Ambassador Glazer appeared publicly in early November with the outgoing Salvadoran president at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. President Saca was on the campaign trail again—with Salvadoran taxpayer money—to raise the profile of ARENA with the ironically titled "Peace and Prosperity" conference. Glazer was at his side, ready to field questions and concerns.
There is no doubt that major changes underfoot in the Latin American region have put Washington on edge. Country after country is electing governments who represent the majority of people instead of the financial interests of a few. El Salvador's left appears destined for both an historic victory at the polls and a new phase of struggle against U.S. dominance, as USAID and NED have become the faltering empire's new "diplomatic weapons" of choice.
International observers have denounced recent activities of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as designed to overthrow democratically elected presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. A similar strategy is underway to undermine the electoral process in El Salvador by striking fear and confusion into voters before legislative and presidential elections in 2009.
Since November 2007, El Salvador's leftist party, the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), has been consistently polling at a 12-14 point advantage for upcoming legislative, municipal, and presidential elections—ahead of the right-wing ARENA (National Republican Alliance) party's presidential candidate and former national civilian police director, Rodrigo Avila, who has peaked at around 38 percent by conservative estimates. Because an FMLN victory could deal a profound loss to Washington and Wall Street by countering attempts to increase the corporate privatization of land and public services, business media and government officials have stepped up attempts to defeat them in the press and behind the scenes.
In a recent address to the American Enterprise Institute, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Marisol Argueta implored the U.S. government to intervene in the elections on ARENA's behalf. In addition, international press reports have propagated ridiculous claims of a mounting "terrorist conspiracy" between the FMLN, the FARC in Colombia, and Hugo Chavez. Wall Street Journal editor Mary Anastasía O'Grady has complained that if the FMLN wins, foreign investors will suffer. Indeed, several countries that participated in the 18th IBERO-American Summit in October agreed that corporate privatization has failed the majority of people in Latin America. Presidents in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Guatemala are proposing increased regulation and oversight of corporate expansion. An FMLN victory in El Salvador promises further movement in this direction.FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes has said that an FMLN administration would work to oppose biofuel production and the current profit structure for mining projects in favor of spurring agricultural development. "We have to improve agricultural production. Over the past 19 years of ARENA government, the infrastructure for food production has been neglected and dismantled. It is essential and a priority to allot land use for food production and the harvesting of vegetables and staple grains. This is what the people need. We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of allotting areas of land for biofuel production because we are not going to work to feed machines; we have to work to feed human beings."
In its attempt to confuse and ultimately sabotage the FMLN's campaign, right-wing Venezuelan-based pro-U.S. media organization Fuerza Solidaria has released a set of television ads and door-to-door leaflets that assail potential voters with the usual dose of misinformation and scare tactics that accompany every electoral campaign in El Salvador. Designed to suppress votes for the FMLN, one of the ads portrays Funes and the FMLN party as an out-of-touch, antiquated relic rather than a political manifestation of the Salvadoran peoples' historic, and ongoing, broad-based resistance to foreign exploitation. Simplistic "flow chart" arrows on the ad imply that an FMLN-led government would sacrifice remittance money from the U.S. to be a puppet for Chavez's "anti-American expansion project." The intended message is clear and has been the preferred threat of the immigrant-bashing Bush administration to Salvadorans on both sides of the border: those who support the FMLN are against the U.S. If the FMLN wins the election, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will begin massively deporting Salvadorans and the U.S. will cut off remittances.
USAID, NED, and Fuerza Solidaria—with the help of corporate-owned media and the U.S. government—have been a major motor behind anti-democratic political strategies in Venezuela and Bolivia since 2001. In April 2002, the United States utilized the NED to channel funds to private organizations that were running covert propaganda campaigns in support of a failed coup in Venezuela, which detained President Chavez and recognized the short-lived, pro-U.S. government. According to the New York Times, the NED "funneled more than $877,000 into Venezuelan opposition groups in the weeks and months before the unsuccessful coup attempt."
In the wake of the failed coup, the NED channeled another $53,400 to help create a U.S. backed organization called Sumate, a group designed to unite, strengthen, and mobilize opposition to the popularly elected Chavez government, and which supported Sumate's efforts to disseminate disinformation. In 2004 the group published fake exit polls that claimed Chavez lost the referendum recall vote. While their strategies have mostly failed, the actions of Sumate and NED have effectively cast doubt on the legitimacy and democratic goals of the Chavez government, weakening its image internationally.
In Bolivia, investigative journalists Jeremy Bigwood and Benjamin Dangl's inquiries through the Freedom of Information Act and one-on-one interviews showed that the former U.S. embassy there—through USAID and NED—had maintained close relationships with right-wing opposition groups to "promote democracy" by undermining President Morales as well. Through these connections and a USAID Political Party Reform Project, the U.S. has supported forces that could "serve as a counterweight" to Morales's MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) party. In response, Morales recently kicked the U.S. ambassador out of Bolivia. USAID and Fuerza Solidaria were also exposed for their attempts to influence Bolivia's referendum in August 2008.
In November 2007, another NED recipient, the International Republican Institute (IRI), presented Salvadoran President Tony Saca of the ARENA party with the "Freedom Award" for promoting U.S. values in El Salvador such as "linking economic growth with democratic governance and vigorously defending freedom at home and abroad." Never mind the re-emergence of death squads, unsuccessful attempts to convict protestors and vendors as "terrorists," and an unprecedented post-war increase in Salvadoran migration to, and deportations from, the U.S. during his term. This exercise in elite back-patting not only unveils the biases of the IRI, which is chaired by Republican Senator John McCain, but also underscores the U.S. government's explicit endorsement of the right-wing ARENA party, another act of intervention and electoral manipulation.
In January 2008 U.S.-based CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) received a familiar warning from the Department of Justice accusing the group of "acting as a foreign agent" of the FMLN party, presumably as backlash for its political connections with the leftist social movement in El Salvador. An identical letter 14 years ago signaled the beginning of a massive three-year FBI infiltration project aimed at destroying the organization. When asked to name CISPES's "conspiratorial allies" past and present, Executive Director Burke Stansbury responded: "People and popular movements organized to challenge U.S. sponsored political, economic, and electoral violence are the ones that get our attention and our commitments. Our government has designed and rewarded the brutal repression of countless uprisings in El Salvador, and is still very active in this way." Is the FMLN a CISPES ally? "Absolutely. We have always maintained political solidarity with the FMLN and will continue to do so. What is more, we are committed in every way to challenging U.S. attempts to deny El Salvador its basic rights as a sovereign country. Elections are only the tip of the iceberg."
In June the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Charles Glazer, told a CISPES delegation that the U.S. government's days of interfering in El Salvador's elections are over. He said that although they did intervene in the 2004 presidential election, they would not do so again in 2009. His aide then explained that the delegation "wouldn't have to worry about fraud this time because the NDI and IRI will be training [Salvadorans] how to conduct a quick count." One has to wonder what the embassy's definition of intervention is.
To make the U.S. government and ARENA party alliance even more transparent, Ambassador Glazer appeared publicly in early November with the outgoing Salvadoran president at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. President Saca was on the campaign trail again—with Salvadoran taxpayer money—to raise the profile of ARENA with the ironically titled "Peace and Prosperity" conference. Glazer was at his side, ready to field questions and concerns.
There is no doubt that major changes underfoot in the Latin American region have put Washington on edge. Country after country is electing governments who represent the majority of people instead of the financial interests of a few. El Salvador's left appears destined for both an historic victory at the polls and a new phase of struggle against U.S. dominance, as USAID and NED have become the faltering empire's new "diplomatic weapons" of choice.
Monday, January 5, 2009
police clash with election violence
Why is it so hard sometimes to see theat people have different views and opinons on many things why must people resort to violence to resolve even the most mundane of issues..
SAN SALVADOR -- At least one person was killed, two police officers were wounded and seven young men were arrested in election-related violence in El Salvador, the National Civilian Police, or PNC, said Sunday.Ulises Vladimir Perez was stabbed to death by unidentified assailants in San Martin, a city located 18 kilometers (11 miles) east of San Salvador, while putting up election posters for the Democratic Revolutionary Front, or FDR, party.Salvadoran media reported that the 17-year-old boy was a target because he had witnessed an attack a month ago on a relative who also belongs to the FDR.Oscar Esquivel, an FDR legislative candidate, told reporters he was not ruling out a political motive for the killing.El Salvador is holding legislative and municipal elections on Jan. 18 and a presidential election on March 15, with different polls showing the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a former guerrilla group, leading.
Two police officers were wounded Saturday afternoon when supporters of the ruling rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA, party and the FMLN clashed in Santo Tomas, a city located 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) southeast of the capital.Six people were arrested in the incident, which started when young men who back the FMLN saw the ARENA supporters putting up campaign posters and confronted them, the PNC said.
The two sides exchanged words and then started fighting with sticks and stones, injuring two PNC officers who had responded to the disturbance.Six additional patrol cars were needed to restore order, and the FMLN supporters were arrested for allegedly starting the disturbance.
SAN SALVADOR -- At least one person was killed, two police officers were wounded and seven young men were arrested in election-related violence in El Salvador, the National Civilian Police, or PNC, said Sunday.Ulises Vladimir Perez was stabbed to death by unidentified assailants in San Martin, a city located 18 kilometers (11 miles) east of San Salvador, while putting up election posters for the Democratic Revolutionary Front, or FDR, party.Salvadoran media reported that the 17-year-old boy was a target because he had witnessed an attack a month ago on a relative who also belongs to the FDR.Oscar Esquivel, an FDR legislative candidate, told reporters he was not ruling out a political motive for the killing.El Salvador is holding legislative and municipal elections on Jan. 18 and a presidential election on March 15, with different polls showing the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a former guerrilla group, leading.
Two police officers were wounded Saturday afternoon when supporters of the ruling rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA, party and the FMLN clashed in Santo Tomas, a city located 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) southeast of the capital.Six people were arrested in the incident, which started when young men who back the FMLN saw the ARENA supporters putting up campaign posters and confronted them, the PNC said.
The two sides exchanged words and then started fighting with sticks and stones, injuring two PNC officers who had responded to the disturbance.Six additional patrol cars were needed to restore order, and the FMLN supporters were arrested for allegedly starting the disturbance.
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