Freedom Award Misnamed 
By John Lamperti 
t r u t h o u t | Perspective Friday 07 December 2007

 On November 28 in Washington, DC, the International Republican Institute presented its 2007 Freedom Award to El Salvador's president, ElÌas Antonio Saca. Sen. John McCain, who chairs the Republican Institute, has said El Salvador today "is a model of democratic and economic development" thanks to the "leadership" of President Saca and his predecessors from the conservative ARENA party. Unfortunately, the reality is very different.

While the 1992 peace treaty that ended 12 years of civil war offered hope for social progress, the actual results have been disappointing. Widespread poverty, un- and under employment, inflation and extremes of inequality between rich and poor, continue to plague the Salvadoran population. The postwar ARENA governments have done little to improve the lives of the poor majority. Today, some two million Salvadorans live abroad, and the remittances they send home to their families provide over one-sixth of El Salvador's GDP, hardly a model for economic development. Sadly, the nation's most important export is thousands of its best young people.

Nor has El Salvador, under ARENA and President Saca, been a model for democracy and freedom. The national police are inadequate and (sometimes) abusive and corrupt, prisons are overcrowded and the court system functions poorly. Most years since the war, El Salvador's murder rate has been at or near the top for all of Latin America. Legitimate civil protest and violent crime are widespread due to the tough economic conditions, and the government has taken a "hard hand" approach against both. A highly repressive "Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism" was enacted in September of 2006, modeled on the misnamed US Patriot Act. Human rights groups and other critics charge this law's real aim was to stifle dissent, and point to provisions for anonymous witnesses, judges and undercover agents. The law is vague about just what constitutes "terrorism," and it has already been used - against citizens protesting privatization of their water supplies, threatening them with many years in prison.

When he accepted the Institute's award, President Saca joined very mixed company. The award has been given to some admirable people, such as Burma's democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Other recipients, however, are notable principally for their Republican credentials; the list includes Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush, Mr. and Mrs. Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan and former Sen. Bill Frist. Mr. Saca, known as President Bush's best friend in Latin America and heading the only country in the region with troops in Iraq, is far more a friend of the Republican Party than a fighter for "freedom."

The friendship goes both ways. While Mr. Saca promised to deploy El Salvador's tenth contingent of soldiers to Iraq, he also asked President Bush to step up his efforts to counter "waves of populism" in Latin America, a remark aimed not only at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela but also at the FMLN, El Salvador's main opposition party. An FMLN spokesman charged President Saca was seeking increased US participation in El Salvador to help ARENA candidates in the 2009 elections. Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gómez was also critical: "It seems to us a tremendous contradiction that a president who represents a party (ARENA) calling itself 'nationalist' should request the intervention of the United States," Gómez said.

United States officials openly intervened in El Salvador's last election to help Mr. Saca gain the presidency and the Republican Institute took part in that effort. Perhaps he and the Institute deserve each other. But calling Mr. Saca's recognition a "Freedom Award " is a lamentable sham.

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John Lamperti is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Dartmouth College. Since 1985 one of his main interests has been Central America and what the United States has been doing there. He is the author of "Enrique Alvarez Córdova: Life of a Salvadoran Revolutionary and Gentleman" (MacFarland, 2006).