U.S. Intervention
In the past, the United States has given the Salvadoran oligarchy considerable support, including $6 billion of direct military assistance and training for the Salvadoran armed forces during the war.
Though in recent years U.S. intervention in Latin America has been less flagrant, Washington’s support for military interference in the region has continued. In 2009, when soldiers forced Honduran President Manuel Zelaya onto a plane to Costa Rica while still in his pajamas, the United States was the only country in the Americas not to classify the incident as a coup, allowing economic and military aid to Honduras to continue.
The use of U.S. foreign aid to exert control over the Americas is worrying for left-leaning governments in the region, especially as institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—which financed the protests that sparked the attempted coup against former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002—continue to funnel money into similar projects, such as funding the party of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. With Sánchez Cerén already likened to the late Hugo Chavez in much of the Salvadoran media, it will be difficult for the president-elect to continue the programs he was voted in to protect without fear of reprisal from the United States.
By threatening to withhold foreign aid, the United States coerced El Salvador into enacting last year’s Public-Private Partnership law, which privatizes public services and assets to a degree that would cause an uproar if it were attempted in the United States. The law, an initiative of El Salvador’s bilateral trade agreement with the United States, was written by U.S. Treasury Department advisers with the IMF, World Bank, and the outgoing administration of President Mauricio Funes. The proposed partnership was unveiled in November 2011 during a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama.
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