El Salvador: Uprising
Jonas, Susanne
Since March, entire sections of El Salvador have been in a virtual state of civil war. El Salvador has been ruled by a military dictatorship for decades and the government has systematically...
...The law takes away basic constitutional rights both of individuals and of organizations, legalizes preventive detention, and prohibits "subversive" propaganda (anything critical of the government...
...Now the aid is flowing again...
...tanks to keep down Salvadorean workers, it is a blow against U.S...
...When U.S...
...workers are higher paid than workers in El Salvador, their wages and their legal rights are currently under attack, and are further threatened by the existence of low-wage havens like El Salvador...
...The development of movements such as the Popular Revolutionary Bloc shows the growing level of organization among the Salvadorean workers...
...officials in Washington and investors on Wall Street...
...ruling class is concerned not only about keeping stability and making profits in Central America...
...companies could not run away there...
...In direct confrontations with government troops and pro-government vigilante groups, dozens of peasants have been killed or wounded...
...They know the historical precedent in El Salvador...
...corporations and the Carter Administration...
...In the countryside they have been moving to occupy land and to form peasant organizations (which is legally forbidden...
...If Salvadoreans had decent jobs, they would not be driven to the U.S...
...they would come here out of free choice...
...So the real targets of the new law are the working class and all labor organizations...
...The real meaning of U.S...
...in the 1930s, conditions in El Salvador were so bad that the peasants, hungry and desperate, evicted from their land, staged a major uprising under the leadership of Farabundo Marti and the Communist Party...
...advisers and U.S...
...The march was organized by two peasant groups directed by the Popular Revolutionary Bloc, a front of revolutionary peasant, student, and labor organizations...
...that same 1 percent controls the government and has no intention of redistributing the land...
...companies...
...official support for this law is that the U.S...
...They realize that the only way they can preserve "stability" in Central America is through military dictatorships of the kind they have been supporting for years in El Salvador...
...Even though U.S...
...The law makes it a crime "to plan or project, incite, or carry out sabotage, destruction, stoppage, or any other action or omission whose objective is to alter the normal development of the productive activities of the country" - that is, anything which disrupts profit-making...
...When the peasants and workers rise up and take to the streets there, they are striking a blow for the international working class...
...6869 ("son of S.B.1" now being debated in the U.S...
...A population of unemployed workers whose best hope is a job earning 301 an hour spells paradise for large U.S...
...In these actions and in confrontations with the Army, they have been supported by local priests and even high officials of the Catholic Church - a stance which has resulted in the assassination or exile of dozens of priests...
...workers strike and fight for their rights, the corporations move to places like El Salvador, or they threaten to run away, in order to keep U.S...
...So if things were different for Salvadorean workers, U.S...
...But the Salvadorean ruling class knows that the defiance to 'its rule is coming from the workers and peasants, and that May/June 1978 43update * update * update update their demands cannot be met under the existing system of dependent capitalism...
...to cut aid to the dictatorship for a brief period in 1977...
...In effect, the law makes it a crime to strike or even to organize unions...
...These actions speak much louder than Carter's talk about "human rights," which led the U.S...
...Although their direct action forced the Labor Minister to "review" wages, the Defense Minister stated that the demand for higher wages (560 an hour ) was a Communist conspiracy...
...El Salvador has been ruled by a military dictatorship for decades and the government has systematically and violently attacked every effort by the people to improve the condition of their lives...
...During the next week, in several towns, peasants and farmworkers organized by the Bloc confronted government troops and paramilitary organizations...
...Most Salvadorean peasants are workers, since most of them own little or no land and work for others harvesting coffee, cotton or sugar...
...House of Representatives...
...workers would feel the difference...
...workers...
...In November 1,500 workers occupied the Ministry of Labor for three days and held more than 100 persons hostages, including two cabinet ministers...
...Even the language is similar...
...These are the latest in more than a year of mobilizations against the government by workers and peasants, supported by students and priests, since the fraudulent presidential election of February 1977...
...In addition, they need places like El Salvador in order to carry out the attack against workers in the U.S...
...And when the Salvadorean government uses U.S...
...NACLA Report 44update * update . update . update INTERNATIONAL ATTACK AGAINST WORKERS But the U.S...
...Meanwhile, 45 percent of the people do not have a decent job...
...Thus, there is a real unifying bond between workers in El Salvador and in the U.S...
...On the other side are the country's several million peasants and workers, who are sick and tired of repression and misery...
...workers...
...The two sides in this class struggle are sharply drawn...
...If Salvadorean workers got the decent wages they are demanding, U.S...
...But the revolutionary movement of 1932 remains a living example to the Salvadorean people...
...Since July 1977, urban and agricultural workers have been demanding higher minimum wages...
...One of these organizations, ORDEN, was created ten years ago and is paid by the government to operate as a shock force against peasant organizations...
...They see in El Salvador a country where they can move their shops and pay workers oneeighth of what they would have to pay U.S...
...In short, El Salvador is a mass of unemployed, landless workers, who have nothing to lose but their misery...
...During March, these pro-government vigilantes killed 29 peasants, wounded 50, arrested hundreds more, and forced thousands to flee from their homes...
...When tens of thousands of people gathered peacefully in the central plaza of San Salvador to protest the fraud, government troops fired on the crowd, killing more than 200 and wounding hundreds, according to eyewitnesses...
...They are demanding higher wages, lower rents, the right to own land, and the right to organize - their most basic rights as workers...
...The last time there was a serious Increasing numbers of Salva- crisis in international capitalism doreans seek industrial jobs...
...out of desperation, seeking any job, no matter how poorly paid...
...One percent of the population owns 40 percent of the country's usable land...
...Fortyone percent of the families own no land at all...
...Clearly, this law violates the human rights of every Salvadorean worker...
...Those who have jobs earn little more than 304 an hour...
...At least 31 percent have no job at all - 50 percent in the countryside...
...workers...
...A population of 4.2 million people is squeezed into 8,000 square miles - meaning 525 persons per square mile, and the population is growing at almost 4 percent a year...
...If they had full political rights as workers, the giant multinationals would no longer be able to push them around or pit them against U.S...
...Their demand: that the government raise the minimum wage for farmworkers from $2.40 to $4.50 a day (from 301 to 560 an hour...
...What he really means is "to combat the working class in order to keep up profits...
...In mid-March, when more than a thousand peasants defied government orders and demonstrated in San Salvador, the capital city, police opened fire on them...
...But the U.S...
...On the one side is a right-wing military dictatorship supported by the Salvadorean ruling class, by U.S...
...It was brutally crushed after a week by government forces, leaving 1520,000 peasants dead...
...ambassador, speaking for the Carter Administration, endorsed it, saying that "every government has the right and the obligation to use all its legal powers to combat terrorism...
...The country is an armed camp...
...That is a prospect which terrifies U.S...
...We in the U.S...
...bourgeoisie as well as the Salvadorean ruling class can see the class struggle breaking out...
...workers "in line" - that is, to discipline them, force them to accept real wage cuts, harsher working conditions, speed-up, and infringements on their right to organize...
...Moreover, they have links with armed guerrilla groups which in recent years have staged a number of actions against local and international businesses and the government...
...NEW LEGISLATION AGAINST LABOR In response to increasing popular organization, the Salvadorean government struck back last November with a new law for "Defense and Guarantee of Public Order," which in effect puts El Salvador under permanent state of siege...
...Since that massacre, Salvadorean peasants have been mobilizing continually...
...It is a club over workers' heads - very much in the same way as H.R...
...have an interest in opposing not only runaway shops to El Salvador, but the system which is launching an attack against the working class of the entire capitalist, world...
...What makes the situation in El Salvador so explosive today is that the contradictions are very close to the surface...
Vol. 12 • May 1978 • No. 3
