Saca was planning to announce his new “decentralization”
plan in Suchitoto but the protests, led by the water workers union SETA,
CRIPDES, and a number of other groups, prevented him from arriving. Coordinated
street blockades turned back his caravan, and Saca was forced to return by
helicopter to the Presidential Palace in San Salvador, where he then held a press
conference to formally announce the new policy. The Salvadoran social movement
has increased its opposition to water privatization, bringing together many
groups organizing at the national level to raise awareness about the effects of
water privatization, while countering Saca’s plan to privatize both water and
health care with concrete alternatives.
Social movement and solidarity organizations have
denounced the unlawful arrests of peaceful protesters and the repression against
organizers and movement leaders in general. Yesterday and today they are
holding meetings with the government’s Human Rights Office ombudswoman Beatrice
de Carrillo to request her accompaniment in their demand to have the 13 jailed
protesters released without charges, and ask that she denounce the increasing
repression against the social movement. The organizations will be presenting a
resolution to the Legislative Assembly on July 3 to demand the deputies from the
different parties also repudiate recent acts of repression against the movement.
Mario Belloso captured nearly a year
after university repression and police shooting
Meanwhile, on the same morning as the protests in
Suchitoto, the PNC and Salvadoran Armed Forces concluded a massive operation of
some 300 officers who worked to capture Mario Belloso, the man accused of
killing two police officers during a protest last July. Belloso was apprehended
in his own home during the early morning and then paraded in front of news
cameras shortly thereafter. The story filled newspaper and television reports
and gave Minister of Security Rene Figueroa and PNC Director Rodrigo Avila the
opportunity to attack youth organizations and the FMLN, insinuating that these
groups have been aiding Belloso in his efforts to evade arrest over the last
year.
In the raid of Belloso’s home, the PNC claims to have
found FMLN paraphernalia, along with specific documents in his computer that tie
him to various youth organizations. Perhaps the most ridiculous claim made by
President Saca is that Belloso was the “intellectual author” of the disturbances
in Suchitoto; Figuero and Avila, meanwhile, accused the FMLN of being
behind the protests. In an official communiqué following the arrest of Belloso
the FMLN stated that, “We reject and repudiate the coarse pretenses of extreme
right-wing politicians, as well as certain news media aligned with the party in
power, who are blaming our party for the regretful events of July 5, 2006. Only
perverse minds would have the courage to make such unfounded accusations”.
Human Rights Office ombudswoman Beatrice de Carrillo called the arrest a
“political show” by the government, while Ricardo Alfaro Barahona of the Forum
for the Defense of the Constitution raised questions about the timing of the
arrest, as it coincided precisely with the police repression in Suchitoto.
Student groups at the National University are bracing for more attacks by
the PNC, as movement organizations strategize about how to respond to the recent
spate of repression and the continued attacks that are sure to follow.
