The U.S. Ambassador Speaks and Everyone is Happy

If a Salvadorian heard that the local justice is slow, arbitrary, and unpredictable, they would immediately agree that this is an unobjectionable reality. If in any other foreign country, a foreign ambassador insinuated this publicly, it would possibly provoke a chain reaction in rejecting the ambassador — as is naturally understood.

However, this week, in part a meeting organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in the Salvadorian capital, the American ambassador, Charles Glazer, has said this and more, questioning the judicial system of Salvador — of its inefficiency, coupled with corruption. He says these things represent an obstacle to effective democracy.

Immediately, the different political sectors, trade unions, and those he pointed at accepted his criticism from his report of his first year of work. In this report, he also expressed his concern with the rise in delinquency, calling the authorities to take to the street and return them to security. The President of the country, Antonio Saca, has recognized the value of what the ambassador said, and has boasted that the critics are focusing on the judicial power, and not his administration. He says this shows satisfaction at what he has done — prosecution and the national civil police, his subordinate institutions.

The magistrate of the supreme court of justice, Néstor Castaneda, has clarified the message, qualifying it as positive, declaring that the criticism is aimed at all of the country’s institutions. He said that only the judges cannot be singled out as poor, but the police and prosecutors must also be included. Another judge of the court, Ulises de Dios Guzmán, has gone even farther and accepted that criticism from an ambassador of a friendly country cannot be ignored. The acting president of said organization, Victoria Marina de Avilés, has disagreed with those statements, and said that crime should be handled in a total manner, understanding the underlying causes as largely due economic and social deterioration of the country — no as the responsibility of just one entity.

In the same manner, all of the politicians questioned on the matter have taken the comments of Glazer and expressed their evaluations based in agreement with their tendencies; the same thing happened in October, 2006, when the American ambassador, Douglas Barclay, claimed they should fight organized crime and murders, as well as to fight tax evasion in the production sectors.

The sad part is the unanimous reactions are blatantly an interventionist act, and if this message was delivered by anyone in the outside world, such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Argentina — to mention three — it would have been declared unwelcome immediately, by all of the “nationalist” sectors that govern the county and its allies.

Surely the remarks are justified, but furthermore, they are obviously aligned to the interests of the powerful groups that actually fight to maintain those standards. And, the ambassador is solely responsible in mentioning the problems that have plagued the country for the last nineteen years. Hence, the enjoyment of Mr. Saca when he sees more than criticism, and that his group of power assure that they are doing the right things.

Even against the vast majority of opinions that expressed that the country needs a change, precisely because that crime is not controlled, along with other causes.