[NYTr] El Salvador, Where Indigenous Peoples are Ignored
 
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:49:37 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Radio Havana Cuba Viewpoint - Apr 26, 2006
http://www.radiohc.cu

El Salvador, Where Indigenous Peoples are Ignored

American indigenous communities have been victims of a genocidel and
discriminatory process since the beginning of the Spanish colonization
500 years ago.

Unfortunately, five centuries later, indigenous communities are still
victims of a wide range of discriminatory practices and some of them,
like the Salvadoran, are completely ignored.

El Salvador has a sad history concerning the humillating treatment
given to its indigenous. Many of you will remember the Izalco City
Massacre, in January 1932, of around 30,000 indigenous by the army
following orders of President General Maximiliano Hernandez, who thus
inaugurated the dictatorships era in the country.

According to a report by the Central American Human Rights Program,
which denounces the existence of racist demonstrations against the
indigenous communities, racial discrimination is still one of the
diseases hitting Salvadoran society.

Race discrimination increased in this Central American nation last
decade and its government is not taking any action to put an end to
this situation. As the report underlined, one of the promoters of this
xenophobia is the Salvadoran government itself, which turns a blind
eye to racist declarations made in the nation.

In addition, President Antonio Saca's government does not recognize
the indigenous population because it considers that most of
Salvadorans are mestizo.

Meanwhile, the legal adviser to the Salavadoran indigenous
communities, Gustavo Pineda, denounced that even though the members of
this minority are spread throughout the national territory, their
right to live in peace is not respected.

Official data reveal that 12 percent of the 6 million Salvadorans are
indigenous. Of them 61 percent are poor and 38 percent live in extreme
poverty, without access to drinkable water, basic food, health and
education.

Their representatives state that simply being indigenous means they
are in a disadvantageous social situation compared to the rest of the
civil society.

In most of the cases, these populations have lost their main source of
survival, the land and its natural resources, and have begun to
migrate to urban centers, where they employed in badly paid jobs.
To make things worst, the indigenous language has practically
disappeared except in some areas, where thanks to the voluntary
efforts of several indigenous entities, which are not financed by the
government, the language has been rescued.

The current government has not even pronounced in favor of the
ratification of the 169 Covenant of the International Labor
Organization on labor equity for all people without race
discrimination. We should add to this that in El Salvador there is no
judicial framework that recognizes the existence and protects the
rights of indigenous peoples, the real inhabitants of the American
continent.
       
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