Twenty Salvadoran soldiers await trial in Spain for crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Salvadoran Civil War. The extradition of war criminals to be tried under the Spanish judicial system draws attention to profound weaknesses in Salvadoran trial. A growing number of Salvadorans are beginning to show unease that the nation’s moderate President Mauricio Funes will move the country beyond the social causes of conflict in the 1980s. Crime without Punishment The outbreak of...
Canada’s mining industry is the largest in the world, with a sizable presence in the developing world. In Latin America, Canadian mining companies are often involved in environmentally destructive and socially irresponsible practices. One Canadian mining company, Pacific Rim, is accused of killing activists opposed to its ongoing mining activities in El Salvador. To date, the Canadian government has not taken measures to hold its mining industry to human rights and environmental standards abroad....
Source: The World Bank Taxation – who pays, how much they spend, and where this revenue goes – is a contentious issue in Latin America. Governments collect imposts from their citizens, and in return, the state is expected to invest prudently in education, health, and security programs that benefit society. In Central America, the taxation-governance nexus between the people and the state chronically falls short of implied expectations. Tax revenue comes in at a...
A Nation in Uproar: Salvadorans Condemn Funes’ Record of Broken Promises A constitutional crisis looms in El Salvador in the wake of massive protests against new legislation that undermines the power of the judicial branch. President Mauricio Funes, once the self-professed “candidate for change,” disillusioned his supporters by veering to the right and signing Decree 743 into law. The proposed law was a response to rumors that the 1993 Amnesty Law, which absolved perpetrators...
Death threats targeting journalists were distressingly common during the tumultuous Salvadoran Civil War that took place in the late seventies and eighties. Over the course of the war, a total of twenty-five to thirty journalists fell victim to the various death squads operating in the country. Alarmingly, today in El Salvador, journalists are once again the objects of threats aimed at silencing human rights advocates working within its borders. On May 5th, the...
