Chris Arsenault 23 Mar 2011
Barack Obama visits El Salvador to talk security cooperation while facing the ghosts of past US foreign policies.
Obama's decision to visit the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero was a popular move with many Salvadorians [Reuters]
US President Barack Obama arrived in El Salvador to talk about drug violence, but he also tried to make peace with history, visiting the tomb of Oscar Romero, a popular Archbishop gunned down by a US-linked death squad in 1980.
Despite cutting his visit short to deal with the situation in Libya, Obama still made time to visit the tomb, showcasing its symbolic importance.
"Obama is sending a message, taking a moderate approach to the region, and getting big points for going to Romero's grave," says Carlos Velazquez, a Salvadorian political researcher at York University in Canada. "It is an emotional thing for Salvadorians."
Twelve years of internal conflict, between leftist rebels from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the right-wing US-supported government, ended with a peace deal in 1992.
But violence continues to grip the country. "El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world," according to the US State Department, as violence between rival gangs and drug cartels is far worse on a per capita basis than neighboring Mexico, where killings draw more media attention.
Violence and inequality
Today’s violence has similar root causes to the issues which started the political conflict in the 1980s, including judicial impunity, economic inequality and social fragmentation, says Ivan Briscoe, a conflict researcher and Latin America expert at the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands.
"In El Salvador, there was an absolutely brutal conflict that has been passed down to gang violence," he says. "Inequality led to the insurgency, but now this inequality has found expressions in other forms."
Archbishop Romero, a theologian who mixed ideas of heaven in the next life and liberation on earth, was highly critical of US military aid. In a letter to then-US president Jimmy Carter, Romero said aid would "sharpen injustice and repression against the people’s organisations" which were struggling for "respect for their basic human rights". After his murder, least 75,000 people died in El Salvador's dirty war.
In some respects, times have changed. Obama has shown a willingness to work with some democratically elected leftist leaders in Latin America, analysts say.
Mauricio Funes, El Salvador's current president, who is supported by the FMLN, told Al Jazeera that he welcomes American security assistance. "I will ask president Obama for more funds to strengthen our police, army, and the judiciary but also to get more involved in fighting our structural problems like poverty and social inequality," Funes, a former TV host, said.
During his visit, Obama promised $200mn to Central American governments to fight drug cartels, as part of a package to "strengthen courts, civil society groups and institutions that uphold the role of law" while addressing the "social and economic forces that drive young people towards criminality".
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011323152622625790.html
Barack Obama visits El Salvador to talk security cooperation while facing the ghosts of past US foreign policies.
Obama's decision to visit the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero was a popular move with many Salvadorians [Reuters]
US President Barack Obama arrived in El Salvador to talk about drug violence, but he also tried to make peace with history, visiting the tomb of Oscar Romero, a popular Archbishop gunned down by a US-linked death squad in 1980.
Despite cutting his visit short to deal with the situation in Libya, Obama still made time to visit the tomb, showcasing its symbolic importance.
"Obama is sending a message, taking a moderate approach to the region, and getting big points for going to Romero's grave," says Carlos Velazquez, a Salvadorian political researcher at York University in Canada. "It is an emotional thing for Salvadorians."
Twelve years of internal conflict, between leftist rebels from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the right-wing US-supported government, ended with a peace deal in 1992.
But violence continues to grip the country. "El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world," according to the US State Department, as violence between rival gangs and drug cartels is far worse on a per capita basis than neighboring Mexico, where killings draw more media attention.
Violence and inequality
Today’s violence has similar root causes to the issues which started the political conflict in the 1980s, including judicial impunity, economic inequality and social fragmentation, says Ivan Briscoe, a conflict researcher and Latin America expert at the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands.
"In El Salvador, there was an absolutely brutal conflict that has been passed down to gang violence," he says. "Inequality led to the insurgency, but now this inequality has found expressions in other forms."
Archbishop Romero, a theologian who mixed ideas of heaven in the next life and liberation on earth, was highly critical of US military aid. In a letter to then-US president Jimmy Carter, Romero said aid would "sharpen injustice and repression against the people’s organisations" which were struggling for "respect for their basic human rights". After his murder, least 75,000 people died in El Salvador's dirty war.
In some respects, times have changed. Obama has shown a willingness to work with some democratically elected leftist leaders in Latin America, analysts say.
Mauricio Funes, El Salvador's current president, who is supported by the FMLN, told Al Jazeera that he welcomes American security assistance. "I will ask president Obama for more funds to strengthen our police, army, and the judiciary but also to get more involved in fighting our structural problems like poverty and social inequality," Funes, a former TV host, said.
During his visit, Obama promised $200mn to Central American governments to fight drug cartels, as part of a package to "strengthen courts, civil society groups and institutions that uphold the role of law" while addressing the "social and economic forces that drive young people towards criminality".
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011323152622625790.html
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