Carlos G. Aguilar: Peace Agreements and Democratization Processes in Central America
[Carlos Aguilar is a researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), member of the Mesoamerican Secretariat of Grito de los Excluidos and of Grupo Pensamiento Crítico based in San José, Costa Rica, and contributor to the CIP Americas Program.]
The changes that followed the Peace Agreements in Central America, particularly since the 90s when the "democratization process" began, went further than merely implementing regular elections. They signified the adoption of a whole package of fiscal, macroeconomic, labor, and socio-productive reforms aimed at consolidating the base and structure of the oligarchic, corporate, and military regional power.
In Latin America's oligarchic fantasies, democracy and respect for the rule of law are essentially synonymous with defending the local ruling elite's specific interests. The pacification and democratization of the region were not neutral processes designed to forge a stronger civil society or fully recognize social, political, and economic rights, or promote the participation of those who had been structurally excluded from politics in the region, such as indigenous and rural sectors.
Instead, Central American societies were reconstructed on a foundation of permanent and structural violence, with the shadow of war playing a major role. The culprits of the massacres and assassinations carried out during the armed struggle of the 80s have received total impunity—to date, no Central American society has attempted to try military men and leaders who systematically raped and assassinated women, indigenous populations, Afro-descendants, peasants, Christians committed to the defense of the rights of the people, unionists, and men and women in general, even though they murdered a staggering 300,000 people by conservative estimates.
The Peace Agreements left a region tired of war and of U.S. military interventionism; a region whose moral base had been destroyed, and whose social organizations and forms of popular participation had been wiped out. The forces of the political left not only modified their military structures, but also their policy agendas and the basis for their political ideals. In some cases, large parties survived—the Sandinista Front in Nicaragua and Farabundo Martí Front in El Salvador—but became structures plagued by high levels of bureaucratization and hampered by alliances and compromises that limited their ability to make deep changes in the power structures of their countries. In the best of cases, they became appendices, administering the power that the military-corporate elites and the large multinational corporations execute...
To illustrate how dramatic the change in the rural sector was, consider that between 1990 and 2005, surface area dedicated to the production of rice, beans, maize, and sorghum (basic foodstuffs of the poor) declined 50%, mainly replaced by export crops. Suddenly Central American nations found themselves in a situation of extreme food dependency and, because of malnutrition and famine, imports increased dramatically.
In the last few years, women have also increasingly entered the workplace even though, in countries like Honduras, women's salaries are up to 61% lower than men's. Generally, the labor force has little formation, skills, or legal protection. It is based in rural areas where low income self-employment generates more than 40% of total employment. Even though the agricultural sector is one of the hardest hit by structural adjustment, it remains the largest generator of employment.
Work conditions are largely responsible for the fact that migration makes up for almost 12% of regional GDP through remittances. Almost 10% of the population depends on remittance income from migrants. In the case of Honduras, this figure has reached up to 28% of GDP. The recent economic crisis and the ensuing contraction of European and U.S. demand caused the loss of more than 30,000 jobs in the assembly sector in Honduras alone.
In terms of output growth, Central America ranks above only sub-Saharan Africa. It hosts two of the poorest nations in Latin America: Honduras and Nicaragua. Almost half of the region's population is poverty-stricken (an estimated 18 million, of which 8 million were in extreme poverty conditions in 2006). The top 10% of the population is between 10 and 25 times wealthier than the bottom 40% of the population, with Nicaragua and Honduras being the most dramatic cases.
In this context, armed forces have played, and continue to play, a fundamental political role in regional power relations, both internal and external, as operatives for applying the military and security objectives of organizations like the DEA, the CIA, and the U.S. Southern Command. In many instances, military authorities have also become corporate agents since the 90s. In cases such as Honduras, they even have constitutional mandates to operate in areas such as transport, communications, and education (art. 274 of the Honduran Constitution).
In the last few years, there has been a steady tendency to increase the regional armies' budgets and responsibilities, particularly in Guatemala and Honduras. This has been accompanied by decreases in funding for the administration of justice. Some of the reforms of the judicial infrastructure in the region were financed by World Bank and IDB funds. This is particularly true of Honduras, where a project to modernize the judicial power, initiated in 2004 and due to be concluded this year, received 48% of its funding from the World Bank.
The result is duly documented and well known. In Central America, though laws and international conventions apply, enforcement of the law depends on relations of power and rests on mafia-like practices. The justice and law enforcement systems are plagued by broad networks of corruption, involving politicians, business leaders, the military, and parts of the Catholic Church's hierarchy.
The main characteristic of Central American societies and economies is systematic exclusion and impoverishment of the poor majorities. This problem was not only inadequately tackled following the peace agreements but it was further aggravated by the policies applied during the so-called "democratization" phase that took place mainly in the 90s. It must also be said that military and economic intervention on the part of the U.S. government was ever-present and that the peace processes did not bring any substantial change in that pattern.
The conditions that provoked war, hunger, and exclusion in past decades remain wholly part of the Central American political, social, and economic landscape in the 21st century...
Read entire article at Americas Program
The changes that followed the Peace Agreements in Central America, particularly since the 90s when the "democratization process" began, went further than merely implementing regular elections. They signified the adoption of a whole package of fiscal, macroeconomic, labor, and socio-productive reforms aimed at consolidating the base and structure of the oligarchic, corporate, and military regional power.
In Latin America's oligarchic fantasies, democracy and respect for the rule of law are essentially synonymous with defending the local ruling elite's specific interests. The pacification and democratization of the region were not neutral processes designed to forge a stronger civil society or fully recognize social, political, and economic rights, or promote the participation of those who had been structurally excluded from politics in the region, such as indigenous and rural sectors.
Instead, Central American societies were reconstructed on a foundation of permanent and structural violence, with the shadow of war playing a major role. The culprits of the massacres and assassinations carried out during the armed struggle of the 80s have received total impunity—to date, no Central American society has attempted to try military men and leaders who systematically raped and assassinated women, indigenous populations, Afro-descendants, peasants, Christians committed to the defense of the rights of the people, unionists, and men and women in general, even though they murdered a staggering 300,000 people by conservative estimates.
The Peace Agreements left a region tired of war and of U.S. military interventionism; a region whose moral base had been destroyed, and whose social organizations and forms of popular participation had been wiped out. The forces of the political left not only modified their military structures, but also their policy agendas and the basis for their political ideals. In some cases, large parties survived—the Sandinista Front in Nicaragua and Farabundo Martí Front in El Salvador—but became structures plagued by high levels of bureaucratization and hampered by alliances and compromises that limited their ability to make deep changes in the power structures of their countries. In the best of cases, they became appendices, administering the power that the military-corporate elites and the large multinational corporations execute...
To illustrate how dramatic the change in the rural sector was, consider that between 1990 and 2005, surface area dedicated to the production of rice, beans, maize, and sorghum (basic foodstuffs of the poor) declined 50%, mainly replaced by export crops. Suddenly Central American nations found themselves in a situation of extreme food dependency and, because of malnutrition and famine, imports increased dramatically.
In the last few years, women have also increasingly entered the workplace even though, in countries like Honduras, women's salaries are up to 61% lower than men's. Generally, the labor force has little formation, skills, or legal protection. It is based in rural areas where low income self-employment generates more than 40% of total employment. Even though the agricultural sector is one of the hardest hit by structural adjustment, it remains the largest generator of employment.
Work conditions are largely responsible for the fact that migration makes up for almost 12% of regional GDP through remittances. Almost 10% of the population depends on remittance income from migrants. In the case of Honduras, this figure has reached up to 28% of GDP. The recent economic crisis and the ensuing contraction of European and U.S. demand caused the loss of more than 30,000 jobs in the assembly sector in Honduras alone.
In terms of output growth, Central America ranks above only sub-Saharan Africa. It hosts two of the poorest nations in Latin America: Honduras and Nicaragua. Almost half of the region's population is poverty-stricken (an estimated 18 million, of which 8 million were in extreme poverty conditions in 2006). The top 10% of the population is between 10 and 25 times wealthier than the bottom 40% of the population, with Nicaragua and Honduras being the most dramatic cases.
In this context, armed forces have played, and continue to play, a fundamental political role in regional power relations, both internal and external, as operatives for applying the military and security objectives of organizations like the DEA, the CIA, and the U.S. Southern Command. In many instances, military authorities have also become corporate agents since the 90s. In cases such as Honduras, they even have constitutional mandates to operate in areas such as transport, communications, and education (art. 274 of the Honduran Constitution).
In the last few years, there has been a steady tendency to increase the regional armies' budgets and responsibilities, particularly in Guatemala and Honduras. This has been accompanied by decreases in funding for the administration of justice. Some of the reforms of the judicial infrastructure in the region were financed by World Bank and IDB funds. This is particularly true of Honduras, where a project to modernize the judicial power, initiated in 2004 and due to be concluded this year, received 48% of its funding from the World Bank.
The result is duly documented and well known. In Central America, though laws and international conventions apply, enforcement of the law depends on relations of power and rests on mafia-like practices. The justice and law enforcement systems are plagued by broad networks of corruption, involving politicians, business leaders, the military, and parts of the Catholic Church's hierarchy.
The main characteristic of Central American societies and economies is systematic exclusion and impoverishment of the poor majorities. This problem was not only inadequately tackled following the peace agreements but it was further aggravated by the policies applied during the so-called "democratization" phase that took place mainly in the 90s. It must also be said that military and economic intervention on the part of the U.S. government was ever-present and that the peace processes did not bring any substantial change in that pattern.
The conditions that provoked war, hunger, and exclusion in past decades remain wholly part of the Central American political, social, and economic landscape in the 21st century...