El Salvador Free Trade Zone Plan Sparks Debate
Debates around foreign investment, development, and sovereignty, colored by a long history of neoliberalism and U.S. imperialism, are heating up in El Salvador. […]
El Salvador
Water Wars: El Salvador Social Movements Resist Water Privatization
El Salvador’s right-wing lawmakers and private business lobby are pushing to privatize water. Social movements are fighting to defend it. […]
El Salvador’s New Savior
Bukele is, in many ways, a monster of the FMLN’s own creation. To defeat him, and to ensure the continuity of its own revolutionary project, the party will have to cultivate radical new voices from within. […]
In El Salvador, Vidalina Morales Is Uprooting Patriarchy While Defending the Environment
In this interview the eco-feminist also talks about the urgent need to build a transnational resistance against mining in Central America. […]
Agroecology as a Tool for Liberation: Transforming Industrial Agribusiness in El Salvador
“We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers’ social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers.” – Miguel Ramirez, National Coordinator of the Organic Agriculture Movement of El Salvador.
Draconian Ban on Abortion in El Salvador Targeted by Global Campaign
International and local human rights groups are carrying out an intense global campaign to get El Salvador to modify its draconian law that criminalizes abortion and provides for prison terms for women. This Central American country of 6.3 million people is one of the few nations in the world to ban abortion under any circumstances and penalize it with heavy jail terms.
Nueva Trinidad: 3rd Municipality in El Salvador to Declare Itself a “Mining Free Territory”
In a process of grassroots democracy and popular community engagement, Nueva Trinidad joined its neighboring towns of San Jose Las Flores and San Isidro Labrador in rejecting the presence of mining exploration and exploitation in their territories.
Salvadoran Maquila Plants Use Gang Members to Break Unions
Textile companies that make clothing for transnational brands in El Salvador are accused of forging alliances with gang members to make death threats against workers and break up their unions. Forced labor is also widespread in the maquilas, where the women have to work 12 hours a day to meet the high production targets set for them.
El Salvador: Pardon Granted For One of 17 Women Jailed for Miscarriage, Accused of Homicide
Guadalupe, a Salvadoran young woman who has already spent more than 7 years in prison on charges of aggravated homicide for miscarriage of her fetus, was pardoned. However, Cinthia, who gave birth alone to an infant she says had its cord wrapped around its neck, was denied pardon, ostensibly because she smoked and drank beer on a daily basis. Cinthia, like Guadalupe, was also 18 when she miscarried, and was likewise found guilty of aggravated homicide and has been serving the same 30 year sentence.
Community Democracy Confronts Mining in El Salvador
“All of us, [even] our animals—we don’t want mining!” said the elderly María Isabel as she left the voting center on November 23. By a staggering vote of 235 to 2, she and fellow residents of San Isidro Labrador municipality, located in the northern Salvadoran department of Chalatenango, voted to ban mining in their territory.