How El Salvador’s Supreme Court Is Undermining Democracy—With Washington’s Help

[Judi Lynn]

 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


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El Salvador's President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, left, Guatemala's President Otto Pérez Molina, U.S. President Barack Obama, and Honduran President Juan Hernandez meet in the White House Friday, July 25, 2014, (AP Photo)
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 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.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-el-salvadors-supreme-court-is-undermining-democracy-with-washingtons-help/

[underthematrix]

1. Here we go AGAIN with the PBO bashing

[Judi Lynn]

2. PBO? "Portland Baroque Orchestra?" Pension Benefit Obligation? Performance Based Oversight?

Parliamentary Budget Officer? Pine Bluff Observatory?

Oh, right! "President Barack Obama"

So strange to hear someone claim this article was written to slam President Barack Obama. Is he not accountable for his actions?
Why not?

This is exactly the same agenda being employed against El Salvador right now which the US has followed for decades and decades, resulting in broken lives, broken hearts, broken bodies, and piles of previously tortured, and presently dead suspected leftists, or simply indigenous El Salvadorans.

Please do yourself the honor of spending time learning about US policy upon the unrepresented, terrorized, downtrodden indigenous, African-descended, and other poor people of the Americas. It has been an evil spectacle, and in time there WILL be an accounting which is already decades too far overdue.

[underthematrix]

3. Your bright white outrage is noted. Thoughtful intelligent analysis is

grounded in an understanding of the context (history) of a territory. You seem to be reacting to the effects of that history without fully knowing or understanding it. But more disturbing is your magical thinking about how to address the problem which is linked to many other problems. President Obama totally gets that. You don't. I feel so sorry for PBO having to deal with so many anti-intellectual Americans who think the gov't is some sort of reality TV show.