El Salvador

At the beginning of 2021, the Salvadorian government, while discussing possible reforms to the Constitution, raised the possibility of establishing compulsory military service. The Ombudsman urged the government not to include the compulsory military service issue in this discussion. More recently, the Ministry of Justice and Security announced that it’s planning to increase, within five years, from 20,000 to 40,000 the number of members of the Armed Forces which raised again the question around the compulsory military that at the moment is voluntary.

On December 21st the US Congress voted to approve an omnibus finance bill that included restrictions on foreign military financing for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

“Shoot them dead.” These were the orders of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, on how the countries soldiers and government should use a “martial law-like” approach to enforcing the strict lockdown imposed to limit the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

On the first day of our Antimilitarism in Movement conference, Nada Hussien discussed the impact of Israeli militarisation around the world. Here is an edited version of her speech.

The Antimilitarist Network in Latin America and the Caribbean outline how militarisation impacts communities across the region

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were massacred in El Salvador. A U.S. Congressional Task Force verified that those responsible were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia, USA. This is only the most notorious incident in the school's history of providing special training to Latin American military personnel known to have committed atrocities and engaged in torture.

30/04/1998 1 Conscription

conscription not enforced

Conscription has, in general, not been enforced since 1992. In February that year a peace treaty was signed between the government and the FMLN (Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional), which ended a civil war which had lasted since 1980.

There is a legal basis for re-introducing conscription.

Conscription is enshrined in art. 215 of the 1983 Constitution, according to which military service is compulsory for all Salvadorans (men and women) between the ages of 18 and 30.

"Death Without Weeping: Daily Life in Northeast Brazil" is the theme of the April 1994 The New Internationalist. Based on the book Death Without Weeping (600 pages, 1992, University of California Press) by anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the lives of slum women and their children in Brazil's poverty-stricken Northeast are shocking and moving by turns. The exploitation, by sugar cane plantations, is endless and gives rise both to desperation and resistance.

Hear My Testimony by María Teresa Tula (1994, 224 pages, $14).