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Today's
Stories
March 26, 2004
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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March
26, 2004
US Meddling in Rightwing Consolidation
Democracy
in El Salvador?
By JOE DeRAYMOND
On March 21 in El Salvador, over 2 million Salvadorans
went to the polls, 58% of whom voted for Tony Saca, the Alianza
Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party candidate for President.
Schafik Handal of the Frente Faribundi Marti para la Liberacion
Nacional (FMLN) received 36%. I was present at the election as
an international observer working with the Center for Exchange
and Solidarity (CIS) at a voting center in a small municipality
in western El Salvador, Jayaque, where I saw bus after bus with
ARENA flags flying arrive at the park, jammed full of voters
who evidently made their crayoned "X" over the ARENA
banner on their paper ballots. When the ballot boxes were opened
after 5 PM, the ARENA vigilantes could hardly contain their glee
as they collected fat piles of ballots for their party.
The Salvadoran people had voted, but
there was little joy in the decision. In San Salvador on the
night of the 21st, after everyone knew the results, an eerie
quiet prevailed. ARENA had defeated the FMLN and two other smaller
parties who failed to achieve sufficient votes to maintain themselves
under Salvadoran election law, but had broken election laws at
will, spent 10's of millions of dollars, employed a vicious smear
campaign, and enlisted the aid of United States Congressmen and
the United States State Department to do it.
ARENA is the right wing party created
by Roberto D'Aubuisson in the early 1980's. He was named in the
United Nations Truth Commission Report as the intellectual author
of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. It remains
a far right political party whose main ideological idea is a
fervent anti-communism. This approach is described by Joan Didion
in her 1982 book "Salvador": "to the right, anyone
in the opposition was a communist, along with most of the American
press, the Catholic Church, and, as time went by, all Salvadoran
citizens not of the right...(the political) left may mean, in
the beginning, only a resistance to seeing one's family member
killed or disappeared."
The candidate of the FMLN, Schafik Handal,
is a stalwart of the social struggles. He represented a party
which was born out of the guerrilla army of the civil war which
converted itself to the largest political force in El Salvador.
Last year for the first time, the FMLN garnered the most votes
of any political party in the local and legislative elections.
ARENA started their campaign in August
with an intense advertizing campaign introducing the fresh-faced
ex-sports announcer Tony Saca. This was over 3 months before
a campaign was legally allowed. They painted their blue, white
and red colors on almost every light pole in the nation. They
employed a vicious smear campaign against the FMLN candidate
Schafik Handal, a veteran of the civil war, who was labeled a
kidnapper and a terrorist in a personal attack campaign also
illegal under the law. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal was paralyzed
by the ARENA voting bloc, and no adjudications of these violations
of law went forward during the campaign. According to Blanca
Flor Bonilla, a Deputy of the FMLN, ARENA spent $55 million of
government funds in their massive advertizing campaign.
There was a steady stream of United States
government intervention in the process, against the FMLN and
in support of ARENA. Since 2003, officials of the United States
have been threatening the Salvadoran people with severe consequences
if they have the nerve to actually change their governement.
The last ambassador to El Salvador, Rose Likens, warned that
an FMLN government would have consequences for US-El Salvador
relations. State Department functionary Dan Fisk compared Schafik
Handal to "firures of the past" such as Daniel Ortega
and Rios Montt. When current US Ambassador Douglas Barclay met
with Schafik Handal, and the FMLN later published their picture
together, he requested they retract the photo and not use it
anymore. On February 6, the Assistant Secretary of Western Hemispheric
Affairs for the U.S. State Department, Roger Noriega, said: "I
think it is fair to note that the FMLN campaign has emphasized
its differences with [the U.S] concerning CAFTA (Central America
Free Trade Agreement) and other subjects. And we know the history
of this political movement, and for this reason it is fair that
the Salvadoran people consider what type of relations a new government
could have with us."
The Special Envoy of the White House
to Latin America, Otto Reich, laid it directly on the line on
March 13, in a telephone interview conducted from the ARENA offices
in San Salvador: "We would not be able to have the same
confidence in an El Salvador led by a person who is obviously
an admirer of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, as we have today
in (ARENA President) Flores." Reich continued to warn that
a win by the FMLN would cause a reevaluation of the United States
relationship with El Salvador.
In the days before the election, the
major daily newspapers ran front page articles about the efforts
of United States congressmen such as Dan Burton of Indiana, William
Diaz Ballart of Florida, and Thomas Tancredo of Colorado introduced
bills threatening remesas and immigration should the FMLN take
the Presidency.
Finally, there were many reports of employee
coercion in this nation of non-union workers. (Excepting the
hospital workers, who in 2002 to 2003 had to strike for many
months to avoid a disastrous privatization of the public health
system.) Maquila, bank and business employees were told that
a Frente victory would mean that their employer would simply
leave the coutry.
The closest analogue to this election
I can recall is the 1990 Nicaraguan election, during which the
Nicaraguan people were told in no uncertain terms that the economy
would continue to be ravaged if they kept the Sandinistas in
power. In El Salvador 2004, United States officials and El Salvador
elites made it clear that all hell would break loose if the FMLN
came to power. In this small nation of 8 million, over 2 million
of whom live and work in the United States, and send over $2
billion dollars a year back to their families (remesas), threats
against this system of forced migration are taken very seriously.
The Salvadoran people know quite well
what these threats mean. There are overtones of Chile's overthrow
on September 11, 1973, by forces supported by the United States,
as well as the more recent abandonment of the elected government
of Aristide to the thugs of the coup of 1991, as well as the
bitter memories of the war years of El Salvador, when the United
States supported a series of dictators and military juntas amidst
a sea of violence against the civilian population.
Leslie Schuld, director of the CIS, which
sponsored the largest international election observer project
this year (or ever) in El Salvador, stated, "The huge election
turnout was a positive sign, but as we review the process we
will be making suggestions for improvement. The fact that voters
were made to fear for their jobs, their immigration status or
their remesas was a setback."
The big losers of the election are the
poor of El Salvador, the majority. They will continue to live
without health care, clean water, basic housing. 90,000 maquila
workers will continue to struggle for $5.43 a day or less, without
the hope of unionizing, without government protection for workers'rights.
The agricultural sector will continue its plummet, as the small
and medium sized farmer will continue to have no credit, and
markets will be penetrated with ease under free trade agreements
and unfair trade advantages of the United States.
On March 24, three days after the election,
the United States Ambassador to El Salvador, Douglas Barkley,
came out with a statement that the US government would recognize
any government chosen by the Salvadoran people, and that the
remesas and immigration policy were not at risk at any time.
What a bizarre, cowardly act, days after the election, after
he had refused to state this during the campaign, and had even
refused to allow a picture of him with the FMLN candidate to
be published.
The elites of El Salvador and the rightwing
multinational power brokers of the United States put a gun to
the head of the Salvadoran people in this election. This election
did not achieve democracy for El Salvador; it did not allow the
voice of a free people making a free choice.
Joe DeRaymond
has been in El Salvador since February 29 on this 6th election
mission of the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS). He
can be reached at: jderaymond@enter.net.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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