political context

El Salvador is the most densely populated country in Latin America. In a land area of 8,000 square miles it has a population of 6.4 million people with more than 1.5 million in the Greater San Salvador area. El Salvador has many volcanoes and high levels of seismic activity.

The Spanish arrived in El Salvador in 1540 and defeated an obstinate resistance from the indigenous population. In 1821, El Salvador gained independence from Spain and in 1823 joined the United Provinces of Central America. El Salvador became an independent state in 1840.
 
A peasant uprising in 1932 led by Agustín Farabundo Martí ended with 30,000 people killed and the beginning of a 12-year dictatorship under General Hernández Martínez. In the 1950s, the right-wing National Conciliation Party came to power in the wake of a military coup. Throughout the 1980s, civil wars and a succession of natural disasters dominated the country's history.

Huge inequalities between a small, wealthy elite and the rest of the population saw support grow for left-wing guerrilla groups. By the late 1970s, security forces were violating human rights on such a wide scale that public support for the guerrillas increased. Army-backed right-wing death squads killed around 30,000 people between 1979 and 1981 and, in March 1980, right-wing death squads also assassinated the much-loved Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero.
 
In October 1980, the five guerrilla groups that formed the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (FMLN) together with the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) were brought together by the Social Democrats and the Social Christian Parties. They established a strong political alliance that was at the forefront of negotiations with the Salvadorian government for 10 years. The extreme right-wing National Republican Alliance (ARENA) was also created in 1980.

The United States refused to recognise the FMLN as a political movement and continued to support the government and army. The Christian Democrat Party ran the country until 1989, when ARENA won the elections in a country still in conflict. In November 1989 the FMLN launched a military offensive and the army, in response, bombed capital city San Salvador and assassinated six Jesuit priests and two women working with them.

After increased international pressure, the government agreed to negotiate with the FMLN and in 1991 both parties signed a United Nations-sponsored Peace Accord. One of the clauses of the accord was that the FMLN could become a registered political party.

El Salvador's recovery from civil war was curtailed by Hurricane Mitch, which struck in November 1998, causing environmental degradation and widespread damage to the country's infrastructure. In 2001 the massive earthquakes of January and February killed around 1,000 people and left nearly one million homeless.
 
Poverty is, without doubt, one of El Salvador's gravest problems. For every 100 people, 43 live in poverty and 19 in extreme poverty, which means that basic income is failing to satisfy the average person's needs.  If it was not for the annual migration of people leaving El Salvador, poverty would be much worse and there would be higher levels of unemployment and fewer remittances. Recent figures show that 500 Salvadoreans migrate to the US every day, the majority of which do so illegally and with a high risk of being killed.

The causes of poverty are varied and include: a high concentration of wealth and income within a small minority of the population; unemployment; dreadful labour conditions; low government social investment; and continual environmental deterioration.

There exists an imminent threat of greater exclusion and poverty throughout Central America and the Caribbean through the Central America Free Trade Agreements (CAFTA), a consolidated and aggressive expression of neo-liberalism. North American big corporations, along with most of the regional governments, including El Salvador, want to impose Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to get their productive surplus into the region, expand their investments and control the strategic resources of energy, water and biodiversity.

If FTAs are implemented, the causes of poverty will become untenable: important economic sectors will be ruined; the small business and agricultural sectors will go bankrupt; salaries will drop; and big corporations will increase their control over public services. Women will continue to be at a disadvantage in the labour market and will rely more on jobs in factories and shopping centres, leading to a risk that their health could deteriorate due to poor working conditions. Women could then increasingly see migration as offering a way out. Migration is currently a largely male pursuit as it more often the man who shoulders the responsibility of providing for the family.

Civil society organisations are making efforts to fight these economic measures. In addition to giving support, Progressio helps its partner organisations to strengthen their capacity to expose policies that are having a detrimental affect on the lives of Salvadoreans and to propose alternatives.

In May 2004 the rightwing ARENA party under Tony Saca was inaugurated, following an election campaign that implied that if the left triumphed there would be a return to armed conflict and the end of remittances from the US. Recently, the president has maintained an image of openness and inclusive discourse. But in reality, Tony Saca has not been able to deliver any changes to the country's main problems: security and economic growth.

Despite the Hard Hand Plan designed to jail all gang members, ARENA has failed to tackle El Salvador's growing gang problem. The jails are full of gang members but the homicide rate has also increased, unemployment is rampant and money is scarce for most families, particularly those living in extreme poverty.

The government announced the Anti-Poverty Plan, which gives US$15 a month to poor families to fund their child's education, a positive sign that the government is willing to try to tackle poverty head on. El Salvador became part of the Central American free trade agreement in 2006, but the trade balance does not show improvement: exports grew to 3.7% but imports grew to 11.6%. The economy grew more than expected to 4.2% in 2006, much more than the expected figure, apparently due to the new sugar cane and cotton plantations. Unemployment affects around 45 per cent of the economically active population. There are constant public protests to demand access to water in rural and urban areas. There has been community and church opposition to the granting of permission for mining operations in the country. UNAIDS cut funds for antiretroviral treatment following a government statement that HIV and AIDS were under control (in order to secure Millenium Development Goal funding).

An Association Agreement (covering a range of issues including political, trade, social, cultural and security links) between the EU and Central America  has led to better regional and national coordination between voluntary agencies. Three Salvadoran congress members from the ARENA party were assassinated in January 2007, with no clear motive, in increasing violence across the country. Presidential, congress and municipal elections are to take place in 2009.