El Salvador At A Crossroads As Presidential Election Nears

Less than three weeks before voters head to the polls to select a replacement for outgoing leader Mauricio Funes, El Salvador’s marathon presidential race remains too close to call.

Gang Truce Faces Hurdles In El Salvador

An experimental “tregua” (truce) signed last year by rival street gangs has cut El Salvador’s horrific homicide numbers by more than half. A remarkable turnaround for a country that until recently had the world’s second highest per capita murder rate, the Salvadoran experience is inspiring similar efforts in Honduras. Guatemalan leaders are taking note as well, prompting some wishful thinkers to contemplate a “second peace” for Central America.

El Salvador’s Mining Opponents Want More Than Just A Moratorium

Anti-mining activists have enjoyed a fair share of success in El Salvador, where a five-year-old moratorium on metals extraction continues to keep would be miners at bay. But rather than rest on their laurels, organizations like La Mesa Nacional frente a la Minería Metálica, an influential umbrella group, remain active and alert, lobbying hard for policy changes that, in their opinion, would better protect the country from the still clear and present danger posed by corporate mining interests.

What’s Next For El Salvador’s Life-Saving Gang Truce?

A tenuous truce between rival street gangs has held up for four months and counting, halving El Salvador’s horrific homicide rate and raising hopes among some daring optimists of a lasting “peace process.”

World Bank Helps Canadian Miner Continue Its Pursuit Of Salvadoran Gold

Civil society groups lobby to keep mining out of El Salvador (zambomba/flckr)

El Salvador has already paid dearly for its trend-bucking decision not to open up the country to foreign mining interests. The government has had to shell out millions of dollars in legal fees to fend off arbitration suits filed by jilted mining firms. For anti-mining groups operating on the grassroots level, the high-stakes standoff has been even costlier: at least four Salvadoran activists have been murdered in recent years.

Legislature Finally Turns Its Attention To El Salvador’s Water Woes

El Salvador’s Rio Lempa (IUCNweb/Flickr)

For the million or so residents of greater San Salvador whose faucets run dry on a regular basis, the message they received in late April from the Administración de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (ANDA) was a familiar one: “It’s going to be a while.”

Tenuous Gang Truce Halves Homicides In El Salvador

Salvadoran gang members surrender weapons (Departamento de Seguridad Publica OEA)

Something remarkable recently occurred – or rather didn’t occur – in violence plagued El Salvador. On April 14, for the first time in nearly three years, police did not record a single murder. For a country that normally counts its daily homicide figures in double digits, the sudden absence of murder reports wasn’t just good news; it was huge news.

El Salvador Elections: Modest Victory For Right-Wing ARENA

El Salvador’s rightist ARENA party picks up seats in the unicameral legislature (Flickr/-Chupacabras-)

The opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) eked out a narrow victory in El Salvador’s March 11 midterm elections to maintain a numbers advantage in the country’s municipal governments and earn a slim lead in the unicameral legislature. Hardly a rout, the results nevertheless marked a major reversal of fortunes for the far-right party, which stumbled after losing the last presidential election.

El Salvador: President Funes Irks Armed Forces With Emotional El Mozote Apology

Memorial to the Civil War-era massacre in El Mozote (Alison McKeller/Flickr)

As El Salvador marked the 20^th anniversary of the UN-brokered peace accords that ended its dozen-year Civil War (1980-1992), President Mauricio Funes broke with tradition by directing the nation’s attention to what was arguably the darkest moment of that conflict: the El Mozote massacre.

A Look Ahead At El Salvador’s Municipal And Parliamentary Elections

The left-wing FMLN hopes to maintain its congressional majority (dignidadrebelde/Flickr)

Even though President Mauricio Funes continues to enjoy strong popular support, the party that catapulted him to power three years ago, the left-wing Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), may soon lose ground in El Salvador’s Asamblea Legislativa (AL).