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Reflection by Yesenia Portillo, CISPES Program Directo

In an overnight session on December 20, 2022, the Legislative Assembly, controlled by President Bukele’s New Ideas party, approved three new laws that will change El Salvador’s pension system.

November 16, 2022, marked the 33rd anniversary of the massacre at the Central American University José Simeón Cañas (UCA) in San Salvador. In the early morning hours of that day in 1989, elite forces of the Salvadoran military entered the university campus and assassinated six Jesuit priests as well as the priests’ female coworker and her 16-year-old daughter. Of the twenty-five soldiers that carried out the murders, nineteen were trained graduates of the United States’ infamous School of the Americas military training program in Ft. Benning, Georgia.

On October 31, organized labor took to the streets on the Day of the Salvadoran Unionist, uniting in struggle against what they denounce as systematic attacks against workers’ rights under the Bukele administration.

Earlier this month, international news agencies reported on the deaths of five soldiers in Comasagua, in the department of La Libertad, as tropical storm Julia passed over El Salvador. But what connections and context did they miss? Why was there a massive troop deployment in a rural municipality in the first place?

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"I am a CISPES supporter because continuing to fight for social justice and a more people-centered country means continuing the dream and sacrifice of thousands of my fellow Salvadorans who died for that vision.” - Padre Carlos, New York City