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A new anniversary of the fundamental milestone of democracy in the Central American country comes at a time of social discontent and with criticism of the Administration of Nayib Bukele, a critic of this event, which he described as a “farce.” The institutional and legal reforms and the submission of the Army elevate it as an invaluable heritage for Salvadoran politics, historically marked by its armed confrontations.
In the history of El Salvador, the signing of the 1992 Peace Agreements can be marked as a turning point, which today marks 30 years since they were signed in Mexico. This treaty put an end to a bloody civil war (1980-1992) in a country that preceded and during that time was subjected to a military dictatorship sustained by electoral fraud and coups.
According to David Morales -former human rights attorney-, El Salvador entered a stage “unprecedented in the history of the 20th century”. “The country came from extremely repressive regimes, a genocide in the 30s and the explosion of an armed conflict,” he listed.
During the 12 years of civil war, counter-insurgency governments, reforms made up of blood and fire, forced disappearances and massacres took place. The final balance showed 75,000 deaths and a number of missing that ranges between eight thousand and ten thousand.
During that period, the National Army, supported and financed by the United States, and the guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which now mutated into a leftist party opposed to the current government, clashed. The democratic participation of the FMLN thanks to the treaty was one of the tools to dismantle the armed conflicts. He has participated in elections since 1994 and governed the nation between 2009 and 2019.
“Since the signing of the Peace Accords, the electoral processes have had sufficient standards of cleanliness to be considered legitimate,” explains Morales, who is also a lawyer for the survivors of the El Mozote massacre, where the Army executed a thousand unarmed civilians. in 1981.
Morales stresses that the Peace Accords “generated a legacy to make democratization possible.” Among the most important effects it had were the military reforms that involved reducing the number of troops and, above all, their exclusion from citizen security tasks and their submission to civil authority. They ended with paramilitary and repressive structures.
With the end of the war, military police forces were dissolved and the National Civil Police (PNC) was founded. However, this last point was progressively violated with the passing of the war and the Army soldiers gradually began to patrol the streets until they had an almost total presence.
Nayib Bukele, the president detractor of the Peace Agreement
Despite the historical importance of the documents that have been in force for 30 years, El Salvador today has a head of state who questions their real relevance and who has branded them as “a farce.” “It was a farce, a negotiation between two leaderships, but what benefits did the Peace Accords bring to the Salvadoran people? They were signed in 1992, and what did we gain?” Bukele said in 2020 and, since then, he has not referred to the subject again.
When referring to “two domes” he does so with the purpose of reviling the parties involved, which were the FMLN and the government of the time, made up of the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), two currently opposing fronts.
For the 30th anniversary that is celebrated this Sunday, no official acts were scheduled by the Executive or the Legislative Assembly. Even last Tuesday, the Congress, which has a majority of pro-government deputies, approved a decree to declare January 16 as the National Day of the Victims of the Armed Conflict. In that session, they repealed the commemoration for the Peace Accords.
Protests against the Government
For this Sunday, through social networks, a call was made to demonstrate in opposition to the Bukele Administration due to its mistreatment with the 30th anniversary of the Peace Accords.
This is the fifth time that it has occurred in protest against the current government since last September 7, when hundreds of citizens took to the streets to repudiate the law that enabled the use of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency as a payment method.
It is estimated that different social organizations, war veterans and ex-guerrillas, feminist organizations and groups of the LGTBI community will participate in this mobilization.
with EFE
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