How El Salvador’s Supreme Court Is Undermining Democracy—With Washington’s Help
How El Salvador’s Supreme Court Is Undermining Democracy—With Washington’s Help
WikiLeaks has exposed US government collusion with the chamber’s destabilization strategy.
By Hilary Goodfriend
August 8, 2015
On July 20, 2015, the government of El Salvador issued an official warning that right-wing forces are orchestrating “a movement for a coup d’état,” against the “government of the people, a legal government, a legitimate government that fights every day for the interests of the population.”
It’s not the first time allegations of coup-plotting have arisen lately in the small Central American republic. Two months after the March 1 mid-term elections, El Salvador found itself without a legislature. In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber had suspended the swearing-in of the newly elected representatives pending a recount, effectively shutting down an entire branch of government. The current president of the National Legislative Assembly called the action a “technical coup d’état.” The US Embassy called it “institutionality.”
The past several weeks in El Salvador have seen the escalation of a series of tactics that state officials and activists have deemed part of a “soft coup” strategy against the country’s democratically elected progressive government. Since the 2014 inauguration of leftist President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a spike in gang-related homicides has strained state resources, in what Police Chief Mauricio Landaverde has called a deliberate campaign ordered by gang leaders to increase murder rates with possible political motives. Earlier this month, a group of armed soldiers in uniform rallied to demand greater compensation; military leadership disavowed their actions and charged fourteen of them with sedition. Last week, gang threats against bus drivers caused the suspension of dozens of mass-transit routes throughout the San Salvador metropolitan area, which officials deemed an act of “sabotage” against the population. Right-wing groups have circulated calls on social media for the president’s resignation, and the country’s conservative mass media’s onslaught against the governing party contributes daily to a climate of insecurity.
In fact, plans to undermine leftist governance in El Salvador go back years before the election of Sánchez Cerén, the first guerrilla leader of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party to become president of El Salvador. The strategy centers on the country’s Supreme Court—and the US government has been in on it from the beginning.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/how-el-salvadors-supreme-court-is-undermining-democracy-with-washingtons-help/