Alice Embree on El Salvador : Reflections on a People's Victory, Part 1

Supporters show their colors during campaign rally before elections in El Salvador. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

The left victory of Mauricio Funes in El Salvador is part of a wave of change transforming Latin America in recent years.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / May 11, 2009

[This is the first in a four-part series on El Salvador by The Rag Blog's Alice Embree, who was part of an international team observing the March 15, 2009, Salvadoran elections. For a live report, join the author and others at Monkey Wrench Books in Austin on Wednesday, May 13, at 7 p.m.]

I arrived in El Salvador on March 7, the day of the final FMLN campaign mobilization before the election a week later. As we made our way down to the rally, we were soon immersed in a sea of red shirts, hats and banners spread across the broad avenue for a stretch of ten blocks.

Polls had shown the FMLN presidential slate in the lead against the ruling ARENA party. Mauricio Funes, the presidential candidate, had been a popular journalist. Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the vice-presidential candidate was a revolutionary hero who served as an FMLN comandante under the name Leonel Gonzalez.

The campaign slogan posted on billboards assured “Un Cambio Seguro.” The slogan conveyed the sense of both a sure and safe change. The FMLN slate had wide cross-generational appeal. ARENA had proven over its two decades in power to be the party dedicated to the consolidation of wealth, with no solutions for the vast majority. Still, experience with previous election fraud was cause for vigilance. Ultimately, it was the vigilance and the breadth and depth of mass organizing that translated those red banners into a victory on March 15, 2009.

The left victory in El Salvador is part of a wave of change transforming Latin America in recent years. President Mauricio Funes will be sworn in on June 1 with lots of leftist company from Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva in Brazil, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and, of course, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Many of these presidents have won by healthy margins for second terms. And Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Michele Bachelet in Chile and others, while more centrist, also represent historic change in South America.

I was part of a delegation to El Salvador sponsored by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). Our seventy-person delegation was one of the largest that CISPES had ever sponsored during its three decades of solidarity work. I had been involved in Chilean solidarity work in the 70s and participated in CISPES demonstrations in the 80s. But, this was my first trip to Central America and the delegation was a crash course in El Salvadoran history.

El Salvador is a small country of about seven million, bordered by Guatemala and Honduras and the Pacific Ocean to the south. It inspired the slogan, “El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam” in the 80s as the U.S. poured in billions of dollars of aid and training to put down an armed insurgency. El Salvador was a Reagan experiment in “low-intensity conflict,” a rehearsal for neo-cons. But, the low intensity referred to U.S. boots on the ground. Low intensity meant no U.S. draft and an emphasis on outsourcing the conflict through counter-insurgency training and the supply of arms.

For anyone mobilizing against the extreme right-wing government in El Salvador, the intensity was anything but low as peasants were massacred with U.S. munitions and aircraft. A memorial wall has an entire panel devoted to the sites of massacres and many more panels bear the names of 30 thousand dead and disappeared. Those names represent something less than half of those that died in the conflict.

This March presidential election, after other parties dropped out, now offered two radically different choices. On the left, there was the FMLN. The party’s full name is Frente Faribundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional, created as a united front in 1980 and named after Faribundo Marti, a leader of an indigenous peasant uprising in 1932. On the right, was ARENA, Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, or nationalist Republican Alliance, founded by the architect of Archbishop Romero’s 1980 assassination. [See Alice Embree's Rag Blog article, Remembering Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero.]ARENA had held the presidency since 1989, deferring to the Bush free trade agenda and promoting an agenda of corporate globalization and privatization of public services.

The choices were clear-cut. ARENA brought supporters in rented buses to a soccer stadium event. The FMLN supporters came in the back of pick-up trucks with red banners to a street rally. ARENA intended to continue a path paved by the Central American Free Trade Agreement into corporate globalization. It didn’t take a political science degree to see which party represented working class aspirations.

Also see

• Rag Blog Report : Mauricio Funes Wins in El Salvador by Al / The Rag Blog / March 17, 2009
• Power Struggle : Shining a Light on the Salvadoran Elections by Al / The Rag Blog / March 14, 2009
• Alice Embree: Remembering Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 24, 2009

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Alice Embree on El Salvador : Reflections on a People's Victory, Part 2: Organizing

SETA organizer from El Salvador talks with SEIU organizer from the U.S. SETA is the Salvadoran water workers union leading the fight against privatization. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

Our delegation heard from CONPHAS representatives, students, human rights organizations, legal rights advocates and publishers of popular education materials. These representatives were eloquent in their understanding of the neo-liberal policies of globalization.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / May 12, 2009

[This is the second in a four-part series on El Salvador by The Rag Blog's Alice Embree, who was part of Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), an international team observing the March 15, 2009, Salvadoran elections. For a live report, join the author and others at Monkey Wrench Books in Austin on Wednesday, May 13, at 7 p.m. For the first article in this series, go here.]

Our CISPES delegation received a crash course in El Salvadoran history and then was introduced to the ingredients of popular victory. As we traveled via bus to meet with university students, this song blared through the speakers:

No, no, no basta rezar
Hacen falta muchas cosas
Para consequir la paz.

No, no, no, praying’s not enough
There’s a lot of work to be done
To gain peace.

The upbeat song by the Venezuelan group Los Guaraguao was popular on the FMLN radio. It was an appropriate theme song for the tireless organizing that had been undertaken. The FMLN battled through the eighties in a civil war with many victories and defeats. They took much of the capital, San Salvador, in a 1989 military offensive. Under a U.N.-brokered peace accord, they put down their weapons. Many of the progressive peace accord provisions were not implemented or enforced under ARENA rule. The deck was clearly stacked against the FMLN. Election financing, the press and the electoral apparatus of voter registration were in the hands of ARENA and their wealthy allies. And a system of fraud had been perfected and utilized repeatedly. It included vote-buying and busing foreigners from adjacent countries to the polls with false registration cards.

The FMLN didn’t rest or just pray. They organized ceaselessly and they maintained a unified front –- a feat virtually unheard of on the left, or for that matter, in any kind of politics. They gained delegates in the legislative assembly and won municipal elections, but ARENA held on to executive power.

Key to the March 15 electoral success was a coalition of social and popular movement groups called Concertacion Para un Pais Sin Hambre y Seguro (CONPHAS). The coalition included organizations from the informal sector, market vendors, organized labor, and environmental activists fighting river pollution from foreign-owned mines. The concept is similar to a U.S. Jobs With Justice coalition. Under the umbrella of Jobs With Justice, unions, advocates and political groups with distinct agendas come together and agree to mutual support. CONPHAS is like Jobs With Justice on steroids –- a coordinated effort with a sophisticated political analysis, a diverse organizing strategy and a clear goal of changing government. The social movements and the Frente Sindical Salvadoreno (FSS), or Salvadoran Union Front, working together through CONPHAS, were important FMLN allies.

Our delegation heard from CONPHAS representatives, students, human rights organizations, legal rights advocates and publishers of popular education materials. These representatives were eloquent in their understanding of the neo-liberal policies of globalization. Equipo Maiz, a publishing house specializing in popular education, is a case in point. Their work is based on the education model of the Brazilian Paulo Freire. Pamphlets are illustrated with cartoon images but cover subjects like CAFTA, globalization, neo-liberalism, and community planning. While the subject matters are complex, the presentation is intentionally accessible and non-academic. Equipo Maiz does more than publish. Since 1983, they have convened workshops and theater productions throughout the country to further popular education.

At the Fundacion de Estudios Para la Aplicacion del Derecho (FESPAD), economist Raul Moreno addressed our delegation. Insightful and funny, Moreno speaks about the new face of exploitation -- neo-liberalism. He dissects the elements and explains how the pieces work together. First, neo-liberalism relies on the use of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), or Tratado del Libre Comercio (TLC) in Spanish, to create a legal framework that subjugates a country’s sovereignty. With this legal framework in place, there comes a push for privatization for public services such as water and health and for development through mega-projects –- super-highways for data and goods –- that serve the interests of transnational corporations. A third part of the strategy has been to ramp up the repressive apparatus of the state. Legislation modeled on the Patriot Act has been passed under the guise of fighting terrorism and then used against activists protesting water privatization.

Both Moreno and the water-workers union (SETA) spelled out the way the privatization agenda has been furthered. It should be familiar to anyone with experience in public sector organizing. First, public sector funding is cut so services are compromised. Then an agenda of “decentralization” is pushed. The privatization battles are waged community-by-community, making national opposition more difficult. (Does this sound like education vouchers and charter schools?) International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans are conditioned on privatization and pursuit of mega-projects, with the puppet strings attached to corporate interests. It was chilling to hear the process described so vividly in El Salvador. It was like looking into the mirror image of a globalization strategy that pushes privatization of public services in the United States and ships off U.S. jobs and industrial capacity to unregulated maquilas all over the world.

Our delegation met with representatives from many different sectors. What emerged from these exchanges were the points of unity motivating the FMLN and the social movements that supported them. They shared frustrations, a sophisticated analysis and a common agenda. And they were tireless organizers. The breadth and depth of their organization was stunning. It was as though an ocean swell had gathered strength to become a massive wave.

Please see Alice Embree on El Salvador : Reflections on a People's Victory, Part 1 by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / May 11, 2009

Also see:

• Rag Blog Report : Mauricio Funes Wins in El Salvador by Al / The Rag Blog / March 17, 2009
• Power Struggle : Shining a Light on the Salvadoran Elections by Al / The Rag Blog / March 14, 2009
• Alice Embree: Remembering Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 24, 2009

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Alice Embree on El Salvador : Reflections on a People’s Victory, Part 3: Face of Victory

'Venceremos!' he shouted, and asked that we put his picture on the internet. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
The face of victory

It was in the small, dusty town of Rosario de Mora that I witnessed the historic election in El Salvador.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / May 13, 2009

[This is the third in a four-part series on El Salvador by The Rag Blog's Alice Embree, who was part of Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), an international team observing the March 15, 2009, Salvadoran elections. For a live report, join the author and others at Monkey Wrench Books in Austin on Wednesday, May 13, at 7 p.m. For the previous articles in this series, go here.]

It was in the small, dusty town of Rosario de Mora that I witnessed the historic election in El Salvador. Our seventy-member CISPES delegation was trained as election observers by an organization called FUNDASPAD. In the air-conditioned splendor of the San Salvador Radisson, we presented our passports, were photographed and given credential badges. FUNDASPAD issued each of us a vest, cap, and canvas tote bag with the election code and observer rules. We were among 4,000 international observers that included delegations from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union (EU). Although the election was largely invisible to U.S. media, the rest of the world knew history was in the making.

Decked out in our tan attire designating us as “Observacion Internacional de Eleccion 2009,” we were divided into teams. My four-person team was assigned to Rosario de Mora. Rosario had one election center in a school with sixteen voting tables. We would each have four tables to watch. Annie from Portland was designated our leader because of her Spanish skill and previous observer experience. We paid a visit to the town the day before the election and introduced ourselves to both FMLN and ARENA representatives. Then we were allowed to see the school. Annie expressed concern about an elevated ramp entrance close to a voting booth location because someone could look down to see people as they voted. The next day the arrangement of tables was slightly altered in response to the concern.

On election day, March 15, we left San Salvador at 3 a.m., dropping one team in nearby San Tomas, and proceeding down the winding, bumpy rural road to Rosario. We introduced ourselves to the police stationed at the polls and were allowed to stash our water bottles in their classroom headquarters. At 4:30 a.m. we entered the election site. Across the street, there was already a buzz of activity at the FMLN headquarters and by 5:00 all of the designated FMLN election workers were lined up in table order ready to enter.

In the U.S. we are accustomed to machines and a few, often older, election workers overseeing several booths. It was humbling to observe the low-tech system and the degree of citizen involvement. They had cardboard ballot booths and ballot boxes. There was nothing flashy about the material, but the election workers in Rosario were dedicated. It was as though everyone knew they were involved in an historic decision.

In the January municipal and legislative referendum, more parties had been represented, but the presidential election had only two candidates. Each voting table had four election workers seated -- a president, secretary and two “vocals” to check the registry list. They alternated roles; an FMLN president at odd-numbered tables, ARENA president at even-numbered tables. Each table could have four vigilantes or election observers. Those seated at the table didn’t wear party designations, but the vigilantes had on their party colors – red FMLN vests and red, white and blue ARENA vests.

At 5:00, the election workers entered. It was dark and poorly lighted. Boxes were distributed to each table. With flashlights, the election workers checked that the material was all present -- ballots, markers, ink to mark fingers, a cardboard booth and blue cardboard ballot box to assemble, the “pardon,” or registry list for each table.

At 7:00 the voters began to arrive. It got packed after church with families and children in their Sunday best. Vote buying had been reported in previous elections at a site several blocks from the polls. We had been told to be vigilant about people trying to photograph their ballots -- an indication that they were getting paid and needed proof.

People walked or came in the backs of pick up trucks to vote. The elderly often stood baffled by the canvas curtains on the cardboard booth, trying to figure out if they should put their head through or over the curtains. This was a new feature recommended by the OAS to ensure privacy. These were my images: dedicated election workers, people who couldn’t read or write placing their inked finger near their registry picture, a blind man escorted by his grandchild. With our slick election machines, we are distanced from that simple act of placing a mark on a ballot.

The transparency of the count at each table was also impressive. The ballots were removed from the box by the table president, shown to everyone at the table and placed with an FMLN representative or with an ARENA representative. Sometimes the mark was unclear, an “X” in the middle that didn’t touch either party insignia or touched both. Votes could be nullified if they weren’t clear. Everyone would enter the debate, occasionally heated, until it was resolved.

Since each party was represented equally, there had been concern over resolving disputes. But, disputes were always resolved after vigorous debate. Rosario de Mora wasn’t expected to go to the FMLN. Out of the nearly 5,000 votes cast, 53% went to ARENA. But four tables went to the FMLN. As the counts were finalized for those four tables, a huge cheer would go up at the table and be picked up by FMLN workers at all the other tables.

After the counts were completed, the election workers at each table entered them on to the “Actas,” the official results. Unused ballots were stamped to invalidate them. We observed the faxing of the sixteen “Actas,” checking the totals we had written down at each table against the pages faxed to make sure there were no substitutions. The election workers began to clean up the schoolyard.

It was a long day. We called in to FESPAD at designated times with our status reports, responding to a series of questions on timeliness, training, credentials, lines, observer and police presence and approximate vote totals. We checked totals each hour to make sure ballot numbers matched registry tallies. We offered occasional “observations” when we saw minor infractions. The EU sent two observers who stayed for two hours. The OAS had an observer there most of the day. Our team stayed from 4:30 a.m. until the results were faxed and we left when the ballots were taken from the schoolyard to be escorted by police to San Salvador.

At about 7:00 p.m., two hours after the polls closed, we were getting our backpacks and water bottles ready to leave. By then, election news was filtering in to the FMLN party headquarters across the street. They knew where they were winning and how large the turnout was.

An FMLN “vigilante,” or observer, in his red FMLN vest told us that the FMLN had won. “Venceremos!” he shouted, literally jumping with excitement. That day we were neutral election observers. All I could do was take his picture and he wanted me to put it on the Internet. For me, his exuberant joy is the face of victory.

Also see Alice Embree on El Salvador : Reflections on a People's Victory, Part 1 by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / May 11, 2009

And Alice Embree on El Salvador : Reflections on a People's Victory, Part 2: Organizing by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / May 12, 2009

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Alice Embree : Remembering Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero

Mural at the National University of El Salvador depicting the late Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, assassinated in March 24, 1980. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
Liberation theologian and advocate for the poor, El Salvador's Romero was assassinated 30 years ago today.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 24, 2009

[This article is part of a series on El Salvador being written by Alice Embree. Embree was an official observer during the recent presidential elections there and sent dispatches to The Rag Blog using the byline "Al."]

Twenty-nine years ago today, on March 24, 1980, Archibishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was assassinated in El Salvador. He was celebrating mass in a small chapel. As he raised the communion chalice a bullet tore through his heart.

Romero was an advocate for the poor, a defender of human rights and a proponent of liberation theology. His funeral on March 30th drew mourners from around the world. A crowd estimated at 250,000 packed the plaza in front of the Cathedral. During the funeral, the military fired shots into the crowd from the buildings above, killing more than thirty mourners.

Major Roberto D’Aubisson was identified as the man who ordered Romero’s assassination. D’Aubisson organized El Salvador’s infamous death squads, targeting political activists and carrying out civilian massacres. D’Aubisson also founded the Nationalist Republican Alliance Party, ARENA.

A memorial wall in San Salvador bears the names of nearly 30,000 of the dead and disappeared –- names gathered as part of a Truth Commission at the end of El Salvador’s civil war. Romero’s name is there as are those of the four U.S. churchwomen raped and murdered in December 1980. An entire panel lists the places where civilian massacres took place.

1980 was a turning point for El Salvador. Romero’s assassination brought the small Central American country to the attention of the world. It was also the year that the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) was founded. The five largest guerrilla movements in El Salvador united to form the FMLN as a single political-military force in October of 1980. With the signing of the U.N. Peace Accords in 1992, the FMLN was legalized as a political party.

October 1980 also saw the founding of the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES) in the United States. For nearly three decades CISPES has promoted solidarity with El Salvador and mounted opposition to the U.S. military aid and training, propping up El Salvador’s death squad government. During the 1980s, El Salvador became a Reagan experiment in “low-intensity conflict.”

The ARENA party has held the presidency of El Salvador since 1989, presiding over the signing of CAFTA and economic policies that concentrated wealth and privatized public services. On March 15th the FMLN won the national election. Mauricio Funes was elected president and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a former guerrilla combatant, was elected vice-president. In his acceptance speech, Funes dedicated his victory to the memory of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

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Alice Embree on Political Activism : Carry it On

Alice Embree, holding sign, participates in anti-war vigil at Texas State Capitol, March 19, 2008. Photo by CodePink/Austin.
On my political activism:
Carry it on

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / April 6, 2010

[On March 30, Long-time Austin activist David P. Hamilton wrote an article in The Rag Blog announcing his "retirement" from political activism. He discussed his disillusionment with Barack Obama, whom he worked hard to elect, and with American democracy, which he considers "irretrievably corrupted." For David, the passage of a health care reform bill that he considered a sham was the final straw, and -- at 66 -- he said he's "passing the torch."]

I’m responding to David Hamilton’s retirement notice posted on The Rag Blog last week. Everyone should get to retire or take leave from the movement for social justice. It’s never been a paid job and the benefits certainly haven’t included major medical or dental care.

We don’t need burn-out. But we desperately need persistence. We all must find a balance between what replenishes and what depletes us. For years I have identified with Marge Piercy’s poem, “To Be Of Use.” But, her guidance in “Spring Offensive of the Snail” may be more important.

I cannot live crackling
with electric rage always.
....
This time we have to remember
to sing and make soup.

We can’t lose faith in the struggle for social justice because Obama delivered an expanded war and a Wall Street bailout and failed (never really trying) to deliver a public option for health care. If our faith was in electoral politics, it was misplaced.

My post-retirement activism has been both rewarding and difficult. Bush’s election in 2000 was discouraging, but was nothing compared to watching the hopes of a worldwide peace movement dashed in March 2003 and Bush re-elected in 2004.

I have found strength in the efforts of others -- Cindy Sheehan sitting in a ditch near Crawford; CodePink with their theatrical stunts and dogged determination. I’ve found hope in an emerging GI movement that I support with work on a Killeen coffeehouse. I’ve turned out for Texas State Employee Union campaigns and felt the solidarity of a statewide union. I’ve supported the organizing efforts of immigrant workers. I’ve picketed a private prison that housed children and seen it shut down by persistent community organizing and dedicated attorneys. In El Salvador I was an election observer to an historic left victory. I’ve chronicled some of this for The Rag Blog.

At the same time, I’ve been dismayed by the escalation of war and the inept presidential leadership on health care. I’ve been saddened by the earthquake in Chile and truly disheartened by the election of a right-wing president in a country I care for. There have been plenty of setbacks.

In Austin, the beloved “progressive” city, I’ve watched East Austin get re-shaped by developers with hardly a murmur from progressives. Dismissing the term “gentrification” as too polite, union organizer and writer Bill Fletcher, says: “We need to stop the class and racial cleansing of our cities... where workers are being driven out of cities...” A piece of this might be ending -- in the simple name of democracy – the costly, at-large electoral system here. Austin is the only large city in Texas with this legacy representation.

Decades ago, Mariann Wizard wrote a farewell poem to Austin entitled “Sweet Suck City.” That is what I often think of this town, so steeped in its own coolness.

On March 8th, I was impressed by the International Women’s Day event in San Antonio -- it’s 20-year staying power, its link to the current struggle of hotel workers, its multiculturalism. I’m sure it’s easier to admire that coalition from afar than to invest the day-to-day effort it takes to maintain unity. But, trust me, I haven’t seen anything like that kind of coalition work in Austin, Texas.

So where does this take us? What is to be done? For starters, make some soup, tend the basil, and then read Howard Zinn’s, You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train.

Walk the dog and then think about what small thing you can do. Give a donation to the Workers’ Defense Project. Host a fundraiser for Iraq Veterans Against the War. Help Killeen’s Under the Hood Café. Help subsidize community organizers who want to attend the next U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.

This struggle isn’t about Obama. I heard Bill Ayers describe Obama very well at a SXSW panel. “He’s a centrist and an ambitious politician.” Ayers recounted Obama’s answer to a campaign question about whom Martin Luther King, Jr. would support. Obama responded, “He’d be building a movement.”

Bill Fletcher, a labor union strategist, said Monday, “As a socialist, I know something about socialism. Obama is not a socialist.” But, Fletcher didn’t apologize for voting for Obama. During the election season, I registered voters, made some calls, walked some precincts and went to a county convention. Those hours spent were a drop in the bucket compared to meetings, vigils, marches, fundraisers, and other events invested in social justice causes.

I believe that electoral politics is a game stacked for capitalist centrists. We don’t have proportional voting in this country that allows smaller parties to gain some long-term representation and traction. We have a winner-take-all, electoral-college system. And now, with the Supreme Court decision, corporations will be given even more decisive electoral power.

Progressive change has always happened in this country through organizing and demanding change of politicians. What we need even more than activists at this time are organizers. We cannot concede organizing to the right wing.

A union friend of mine reminded me that the left often likes to hold up a flag and see who will come to them instead of going to people. Whether it’s through “working people’s assemblies” as Bill Fletcher suggested or through other means, this is a time not to mourn, but to organize. Fletcher reminded a roomful of union folks that F.D.R.’s New Deal didn’t happen in a vacuum. Union leaders came to him with a set of demands and he said: “Make me do it.” They organized. He responded. That’s how change happens.

But do remember to tend the basil, enjoy the grandchildren, and make the soup.

[Long-time Austin activist Alice Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and a member of the board of the New Journalism Project.]

Also see "David P. Hamilton : On My Retirement from Political Activism" by David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / March 30, 2010

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Patricia Vonne Headlines Jan. 23 Rag Blog Benefit Bash

Graphic by James Retherford / Hot Digital Dog Design / The Rag Blog.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Latina rocker Patricia Vonne
headlines Rag Blog benefit at Jovita’s

What: Rag Blog Benefit
Who: Latina rocker Patricia Vonne and singer-songwriter Gina Chavez
Where: Jovita's, 1617 South First Street, Austin, Texas
When: Sunday, Jan. 23, 2010, 6:30-10 p.m.
How much: $10 recommended donation

The Rag Blog and Rag Radio present acclaimed Latina rocker Patricia Vonne and folk-rock singer-songwriter Gina Chavez at Jovita’s, 1617 South First Street, Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Jan. 23, from 6:30-10 p.m. Suggested donation is $10. Jovita’s full bar and restaurant menu will be available.

The event benefits the New Journalism Project, inc., a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that publishes The Rag Blog, an influential Austin-based progressive internet newsmagazine with roots in Austin’s legendary 60s underground newspaper, The Rag.

Rag Radio is a public affairs program hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer that airs on KOOP 91.7 FM, Austin's community radio station, every Friday from 2-3 p.m. and streams live on the internet.

Patricia Vonne and Gina Chavez will by Thorne Dreyer's guests on Rag Radio, Friday, Jan. 21. The show will include live performance.

Patricia Vonne is a Latin-roots rocker and song stylist. The Times of London called Vonne, who has toured Europe 19 times, “a hot-blooded mix of Latin Rhythm and rollicking bar-room rock,” and the Austin Chronicle said she “is quickly taking her place among Texas’ musical treasures.”

Vonne’s song “La Huerta de San Vicente” won the grand prize in the Latin division at the 2009 John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and her “Mujeres Desaparecidas” is featured on the Amnesty International website. Vonne is the sister of famed Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

Gina Chavez is an indie folk-rock singer-songwriter whose style has been called a cross between Sheryl Crow and Selena. Chavez is also an activist who established Austin 4 El Salvador, a college scholarship fund for girls from a gang-dominated suburb of San Salvador where Chavez spends time working in the community.

Those unable to attend can still help out with a much-needed contribution to the New Journalism Project. Please go here to donate through PayPal, or send a check to the New Journalism Project, inc, P.O. Box 126442, Austin, Texas 78761-6442.

For more information, contact Thorne Dreyer at tdreyer@austin.rr.com, or Alice Embree at alice@nuevoanden.com.

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Compañero Renato Espinoza

Compañero Renato Espinoza: September 5, 1942-May 18, 2007
by Alice Embree
June 15, 2007

It is ironic that September 11, 2001, is exploited in the United States as a reason to “spread democracy” in Iraq. On another September 11—in 1973—democracy was dismantled in Chile with covert U.S. assistance. It is a date seared into the memories of many in Latin America who saw tanks surround Chile’s presidential palace and crush the elected government. Renato Espinoza, who died on May 18 at 64, kept the story of Chile’s democratic promise, repression, and resistance alive in Austin for many years.

Renato came to Texas in 1963 through an exchange program administered by the University of Texas International Office. (Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Dave McNeely, Ricardo Romo, Carol Keeton Rylander, Lowell Lebermann, Dave Oliphant, John Wheat, Sara Speights, and former Observer editor Kaye Northcott were among the Texans who traveled to Chile as part of the program. I was a participant in the last exchange in 1967.)

Funded by the U.S. State Department, the program was buffeted by political change in both Chile and the United States. The Chileans were student leaders in parties of the left and right. They asked Texans questions about Vietnam and civil rights and got answers that weren’t always welcomed by the State Department or UT administrators.

Renato returned to Texas with wife Loreto in 1965 and earned a doctorate in psychology from UT. The Espinozas returned to Chile shortly after President Salvador Allende’s election, eager to be part of the change promised by the Popular Unity government. It was a time of hope for many Chileans, until the military coup. Renato was arrested in northern Chile while working in the administration of a nationalized copper mine. Through good fortune and the persistent efforts of family, he was released. Most of those arrested with him were executed.

With the help of friends in Texas, Renato was offered a job, and the Espinozas and their two young daughters returned to Texas. Renato and Loreto found a supportive community in Austin’s Latin American Policy Alternatives Group. In September 1976, the brutality of the Chilean dictatorship exploded on the streets of Washington, D.C., when Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Moffit, were assassinated by a car bomb. Letelier was the Chilean ambassador to the United States under Allende and an effective voice against the coup. Working out of the Institute of Policy Studies, Letelier persuaded many governments to curtail investment in Chile. His success made him a target of General Pinochet’s regime.

Shortly after the assassinations, several of us formed the Austin Committee for Human Rights in Chile. Letelier had promoted this committee network on his visit to Austin shortly before he was killed. The Austin committee brought attention to the abuses of the Chilean dictatorship and sponsored educational and cultural events for over a decade. Through this solidarity work, I came to know Renato well.


He was a talented organizer. In this era, organizers use keyboards and listservs, but Renato possessed the old-fashioned skills. He charmed people in English and Spanish, learned what they cared about, and identified the talent they could bring to solidarity efforts. Chilean human rights struck a chord with many as we learned about the U.S. role in overthrowing a democratically elected government and installing a military junta.

Our first major event was a September 1977 showing of a documentary, “The Battle of Chile.” It had been smuggled from the country. We had paid a deposit to the Paramount Theatre, but at $2.50 a ticket we had to pack the place to pay the rest of what we owed. The committee distributed posters, passed out leaflets, sold tickets, issued press releases, wrote guest viewpoints, and filled the Paramount to standing room only. Renato was tireless, an organizer who never shied away from tedious work. We sponsored a number of other successful events—bringing internationally renowned musical groups Inti-Illimani and Quilapayun to Austin venues ranging from Armadillo World Headquarters and Liberty Lunch to Hogg Auditorium, and hosting theatrical presentations and speakers—one of whom, José Miguel Insulza, now heads the Organization of American States.

Renato’s organizing efforts changed my life. Renato enlisted an artist, Carlos Lowry, who had grown up in Chile, to design posters and leaflets. Carlos moved from Dallas and became the Chile committee artist. I was a printer at Red River Women’s Press, where the posters were screened and the leaflets printed. Many silk-screened posters later, Carlos and I married. Renato took credit for the match.

If the Espinozas had only been political organizers, their impact on Austin would have been large. But they were so much more. They were gracious hosts to many gatherings at their lovely South Austin home. They reached out to Latin Americans, Brown Berets, feminists, and a diverse progressive community, and regarded solidarity work as a two-way street. Renato also excelled creatively. He was an accomplished musician, performing frequently in Austin with Toqui Amaru and singing backup with Dan del Santo. He carved faces and fists from the seeds of avocados (palta in Chile). He created displays for his collection of shells gathered from Chile’s 3,000-mile coastline and other beaches around the world. He landscaped and gardened.

As a psychologist, his publications at the Southwest Educational Development Lab enriched the lives of children and parents. After he left the lab, he earned a master’s in public health from the UT Health Science Center and became director of the Center for Minority Health Initiatives at the state Department of Health.

After 17 years of dictatorship, democracy returned to Chile. Renato and Loreto had become U.S. citizens with adult daughters here, but they visited Chile frequently. In Austin, they gave time and resources generously, volunteering at Brackenridge Hospital, delivering meals for Meals on Wheels, and recording textbooks in English and Spanish for the Austin School for the Blind. Renato translated legal documents and court transcripts, worked for the Political Asylum Project of Austin, and volunteered at Casa Marianella in Austin.

Chile now has a president, Michelle Bachelet, whose father died at the hands of the military junta. She and her mother were jailed and then lived in exile for many years. Renato Espinoza might have left Chile broken by the coup, afraid to organize. Instead, he kept Chile’s story of resistance alive. Along with many others, he helped turn the tide of international opinion and law against the dictatorship. He taught many of us the thundering chorus of the Popular Unity anthem: “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido”—A People United Will Never Be Defeated.

In Chile, particularly during the dark days of dictatorship, people would remember those who were dead or disappeared, calling out their names and responding: “Present.”

Compañero Renato Espinoza?

¡Presente!


Alice Embree lives in Austin. A remembrance for Renato Espinoza will be held at 7 p.m., Saturday, June 30, 2007, at Las Manitas Café in Austin.

Reprinted from the Texas Observer.


For more information on Compañero Renato Espinoza, see: http://www.nuevoanden.com/renato/index.cfm

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Austin Group Denounces Honduran Coup

A message from Honduras: "Jail for the coup-plotters!". Photo from Indymedia/Honduras.
Demonstration is part of week of international action against Honduran coup.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / August 17, 2009

Demonstrators in Austin gathered on August 14 to denounce the coup in Honduras and urge the U.S. government to take decisive action to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya. The protest was part of a week of international action against the June 28 Honduran coup.

The protest, that drew more than two dozen people, was called by the fledgling Austin chapter of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and brought representatives from CISPES, the Texas Fair Trade Coalition, PODER, CodePink, Texas Labor Against the War. the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and others to the corner of 6th and Lamar under the blazing Texas sun. Pedestrians and cars stopped at the busy intersection were leafleted.

Demonstrators in Austin protest coup in Honduras on August 14.
Those who support democracy in Central America were encouraged to make their voices heard, asking the Obama administration to join other nations in taking serious steps to restore democracy. Those steps include:

• Revoking US visas and freeze bank accounts of those involved in the coup
• Ceasing all operations and recall all personnel from the Palmerola military base
• Recalling US Ambassador Llorens as required by law in the event of a coup
• Joining other nations in declaring that the US will not recognize any election results in Honduras unless Zelaya is reinstated
• Cutting off US economic assistance for “election support” to the coup regime in Honduras

CISPES urged Austin residents to call 202-224-3121 and urge their Congressional Representatives to support House Resolution 630 demanding, among other things, that President Zelaya be immediately reinstated.

Go here for more information on Honduras.

The Rag Blog

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