"Democracy is also a casualty in the neoliberal regime. Members of the Bush
administration have embraced the conservative ARENA party as their ideological brethren.
Bush himself praises his Salvadoran counterpart, Francisco "Paco" Flores, as a "brilliant
young leader" and a "breath of fresh air." But ARENA frequently shows contempt for free
speech and the rights of opposition parties. When the rival FMLN gained a plurality in the
Legislative Assembly in 2000, ARENA led right-wing parties in refusing to let them
assume the presidency of that body. More recently, after a prominent health-care union
led several days of street marches protesting the January cutbacks, they found their
offices occupied by police. These are exactly the type of abuses that Bush would need to
remedy if he were serious about his proclaimed desire to "strengthen democratic
institutions" in El Salvador.
In the context of economic turmoil and political abuses, human rights have again become
endangered. Due to an epidemic of street crime, which has given the country one of the
highest per capita murder rates in the hemisphere, life for most citizens is as dangerous
now as during the war. ARENA persistently attempts to undermine the Human Rights
Ombudsman, an office created by the Peace Accords as a major institutional safeguard
against future abuses. And the process of reckoning with past trauma has been difficult.
Against the advice of organizations such as Amnesty International, the right rushed an
amnesty law through the Assembly in the wake of the U.N. Truth Commission report
detailing many of the war's horrors. With few exceptions, those responsible for atrocities
never faced justice.
For its part, the Bush administration harbors figures like Elliott Abrams, who, as a chief
Reagan spin-doctor on Central American affairs, steadfastly denied that horrific abuses
ever happened. Mentioning one notorious site of terror, The New York Times noted in
January that the families of those villagers massacred at El Mozote have long been denied
the "foundations of healing" -- the prosecution of criminals, the official naming of victims,
and appreciation of the urgent need for relatives "to possess a shard of bone to bury."
Published on Saturday, March 23, 2002 by TomPaine.com
Bush Brewing Poverty and Violence in El
Salvador
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I read in the Washington post that Bush greeted the dictator Karimov from Uzbekistan at the
White House in the last week. Karmiov's record on human rights is abysmal.
Uzbekistan Leader's Term Extended
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- The five-year term of President Islam Karimov was
extended yesterday to almost eight years when parliament
rubber-stamped the results of a recent referendum harshly criticized by the West.
More than 90 percent of the Central Asian state's voters backed a constitutional amendment in January extending the president's term.
"The next presidential election is set for the first Sunday of the last 10
days of December 2007," a parliament spokesman said after the
overwhelming vote. The poll falls on Dec. 23, 2007.
Karimov's current term, supposedly his last, began in January 2000 and
should have ended in January 2005.
Karimov's government long has been criticized by the United States and other
Western countries for its human rights record and lack of
economic reforms. In the early 1990s, Karimov forced his main political
opponents into exile and in recent years cracked down on religious
dissent.
Reuters
washingtonpost.com |
