April 18, 2005

Salvadoran government represses anti-CAFTA demo

We are reproducing a denunciation by the Sinti Techan network about the brutal repression by the hypocritical government of Antonio Saco against demonstrators protesting CAFTA on April 14.

The entire world should take notice that in El Salvador a dictatorship is being consolidated and, using physical and legal repression, the Salvadoran right is harming the path toward peace and democracy.

Ideological Collective,
Political Regroupment of
the Revolutionary Army of the People
 

The Citizen Action Network on Trade and Investment (Sinti Techan network) energetically condemns the repression of the Salvadoran people.

The Sinti Techan network–El Salvador condemns the violent repression unleashed Thursday, April 14 by the National Civil Police (PNC) against the mobilization of peaceful citizens, in which representatives of thousands of different social organizations from all over the country participated.

The march--part of the framework of activities during the Week of Global Action for Eradication of Poverty--was suppressed some thousand meters from the Presidential House, resulting in injuries, by rubber bullets and tear gas, of leaders and members of different social organizations and of journalists.

These actions demonstrate the true face of President Saca who receives a popular march with repression and later tries to put on a public “show” inviting a false dialogue. This politics, in practice, adds up to poverty for the majority, waste of funds in propaganda and the concentration of riches for powerful groups that control the governing apparatus.

The unpopular character of the way he does things is also confirmed with the drive towards ratification of the TLC-RD-CA-EEUU, a harmful instrument to national interests depriving the people of mechanisms that strengthen their rights and depriving the state of the possibility of carrying out social and economic politics that would benefit the population.

The Sinti Techan network categorically denies links to any fantasmal “foundation” that supposedly supports us, despite the government’s declaration in a press statement, and as was reported on national TV. Action to support politics is an inalienable right of the people; disregarding this, the government maliciously links each action of civil protest to the opposition parties. This is a well-worn strategy of Saca’s administration which doesn’t respect the autonomy of the citizens’ efforts to organize and mobilize, and it demonstrates how little sensibility and seriousness he has toward the popular sentiment.
The actions of repression and the consequent campaign of deceitful propaganda was evidently a premeditated action of Saca’s administration…Actions of repression are a common strategy of Central American governments that aspire to ratify the TLC-RD-CA-EEUU, destroying their own people.

These maneuvers will not stop the actions of the Sinti Techan network and the rest of the popular organizations of Central America. The Central American people have decided to oppose the TLC-RD-CA-EEUU and for that reason, we call on the congressmen and senators of the U.S.A. to recognize the sentiment of the Central American and U.S. people and refuse to ratify the TLC-RD-CD-EEUU.

“Another El Salvador is possible.”