 Welcome to this week's edition of Code Pinks, what the F is going on in Latin America. This is 20 minutes of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean every Wednesday, 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time and 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Today we are going to talk about El Salvador and the extraordinary attempted coup on Sunday in El Salvador's National Assembly led by El Salvador and President. We are joined today by Justina Cortillo from Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and she is the East Coast Regional Organizer with CISPIS. So that's Committee in Solidarity with People of El Salvador, CISPIS.org. Encourage you to go to their website and their Facebook page for additional information on our conversation this afternoon. So, Justina, let's hop right into this extraordinary event that happened Sunday and give us a little bit of background leading up to the President's decision to call an extraordinary session of the National Assembly and give us a little background to that. Yeah, so I think I would say attempted coup is like a little bit unclear at this point but definitely an insinuation as we were saying a little bit earlier that he definitely was flexing his power and showing that if he wanted to, I mean it's what he's basically been claiming that if he wanted to, he could carry something, carry out a full coup. At this point, things have kind of settled. We're not sure what he's planning on doing next necessarily but he definitely, it was definitely an abuse of power and it was definitely an attempt to pressure the Legislative Assembly to approve a loan that he's requesting for his public security plan. So it was also definitely a violation of, a constitutional violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution. The Legislative Assembly, there's a full-on process of how an executive requests a loan to be approved by the Legislative Assembly and it doesn't include going on Twitter and demanding that the Legislative Assembly press a button as he has said and it's not the first time that he's done this. This is the second loan for his public security plan that he has tried to kind of strong arm and he goes on national media or on his Twitter and claims that the Legislative Assembly needs to approve and kind of tries to act like he can force them to approve these loans without really informing the public about what the actual process is, what's mandated by the Constitution and what's mandated by the country's laws in order for a loan, like loans of these nature to be approved. So basically that's what kind of culminated, what happened, what happened in the background is that he is requesting a second over a hundred million dollar loan. The first loan that he requested it was 90 million dollars for his public security plan and that one is also being discussed in the Legislative Assembly. So both loans are in the appropriate time frame and the appropriate process of being discussed by the appropriate commissions in the Legislative Assembly and then once the first commission approves or like negotiates and debates it goes to like the full body to be approved and once the Legislative Assembly approves it then it goes back to the executive and the executive has to take it back to the lender and come to new terms with the lender according to what the Legislative Body agreed to and then it goes through a second round of debate, review, depending on whether or not you know what the Legislative Assembly is looking at is you know what are the terms of the loan and what's the money going to be used for and there's different phases. So even after he gets this first approval it has to go back for a second round of approval after negotiating with the banks. So he kind of makes it seem he has invisibleized that whole process to the population and is making it seem as though the legislators are they're bad and they don't want to fix the crime problem and that because they've all according to him and according to the media have they've all negotiated with the gangs then they are not wanting to approve these loans because they don't want to find a solution. So let's take a minute and talk about the president's security plan and why it's necessary or why he deems it's necessary and also just to let our viewers know on Sunday when this exact when this extraordinary session of the National Assembly was called there was no quorum I believe about 22 of 84 of the members showed up and the president walked in with the military and police as a demonstration of power and and and perhaps implying that he has the military forces behind him although we don't know if that's a full commitment by the military or not but that was the message he was intending. Yes I believe the extraordinary session that his ministers called you know the council of ministers called which under the constitution it's also not a legitimate request the council of ministers can only call for an extraordinary session of this nature if it comes to matters of national security and like urgent national security so natural disaster or a war so approving a loan is not you know an extraordinary circumstance under which the council of ministers can call for an extraordinary session I believe it was Saturday that the that the date that the that the session was called and so because they didn't have a quorum on Sunday he called for an insurrection and so that's I mean on Saturday called for an insurrection and asked people to gather at 3 p.m. on Sunday outside of the legislative assembly so when the legislators didn't when you know a quorum of legislators didn't show up on Saturday I believe he removed their security personnel so he left the legislative representatives the legislative deputies without their security detail and then militarized the legislative assembly and called for his followers to called for an insurrection called for his followers to come to the legislative assembly at 3 p.m. on Sunday so there was a pretty substantiated fear on the part of a lot of the legislators that they were going to be potentially taken by force to participate in these you know extraordinary sessions perhaps it was it was there's a lot of fear I guess about that because why why take away their security detail and there were reports that the police were showing up to some of the legislators homes or their families homes and asking about their whereabouts so yeah and and then also as far as there was also a lot of reports that he was that state employees were being pressured to attend this rally that he called for he also used state buses to bus people into this rally that he held at 3 p.m. and so what happened on Sunday is that he held he held a you know he did a presentation in front of those the folks who came out and whether by pressure or by their own will whatever the case may be has supposed insurrection and you know he gave a speech and then asked them in this it was all very performative you know so he gave a speech and then he asked them for permission to enter the legislative assembly hall and so then he answered public yes basically rally public so to speak correct yeah yeah and he said he was looking for public legitimacy yeah it's like I said it was all very performative so he said can I go in and like what are the people going to say chant and rally as if that is enough permission to go into the legislative assembly hall full of you know he militarized he had already militarized the whole perimeter he had sniper they had snipers on type on top of buildings and then entered with armed military into the hall of the legislative assembly and then prayed he asked you know he did ask the public can I go in to say a prayer so he went in there and prayed that the legislative assembly would approve this loan wow praying with surrounded by the military correct yeah so on Monday I think it was Monday the assembly president Mario Ponce in a press statement said quote we cannot respond to the executive branch with a gun to our head unquote which is pretty much what happened to the assembly members you it's like you you do this or or what when you see the military and the police in the assembly so yes anyhow let's talk a little bit about what the president's security plan is and what his vision is and why he's implementing this plan because this is the plan that he's requesting the loans for and where did he applied at the the central american bank for economic integration i believe is the financial institution yeah so um as I was saying earlier this is um the second loan that is that he's requested and that's currently in in debate and negotiations in the legislative assembly and the thing nothing is necessarily out of the normal however um with this second loan there is a lack of transparency and a lack of really justification of why the money is needed um there's like you know there's a lot of different things here but um one of the things that is being denounced by the social movements is that um this that this this portion of the security or just his security plan in general has been kind of mashed together without any consultation by um civil society so that's one thing um but this this this second hundred um 109 million dollar loan there's the the only thing that the public really has seen about what he wants to do with this money um has come in the form of a tweet um that has been posted seeing presidents operate via twitter right yeah so it's familiar with that in this country as well yeah I mean it's unclear what the legislative assembly has but it but but it is but what has been kind of announced is that there's not enough information that there's kind they don't have enough information about the exact details of how this money's going to be used but what the public has seen is um you know the only official document that the public has seen has come in the form of the of a tweet from the treasury department and um that is like a series of illustrations and graphics um that basically say that they're going to be purchasing you know thousands of surveillance cameras um about a hundred drones facial a facial recognition system and the setup of 13 monitoring systems um and fiber optic um technology um so yeah that it's it's to beef up surveillance tech basically um and so yeah I mean I I think there's um it's questionable whether or not there is mass support for this kind of surveillance in communities as a way to address um the security issue and a salvador um and then you know just another thing to be aware of is that um these kinds of you know the punitive solutions and you know militarization because the first the first phase of his um territorial security plan has supposedly already been oh I was in part implemented there was a beef up of um military and police into um the communities um and then the second phase was uh that was also supposedly implemented although he is waiting on a loan for part of that for the second phase um is uh has to do with um opportunities for youth um and then this third plan is you know the third phase is beefing up the security um systems the surveillance systems um so so yeah the the I think the biggest chunk and the most tangible chunk of what he's put forth because even the second phase that's supposed to be about opportunities if that is also available online and it's very superficial there's not a whole lot of detail uh about you know research that might have gone into what are the best ways to prevent um uh you get a particularly youth involvement because because what the way in which um the security and violence situation is imagined by these solutions is that it's all like youth in underserved communities that are committing the crime so then they become the targets of punitive surveillance measures um when in reality that's not the case this is a larger systemic issue and there is evidence that there are you know narco trafficking um you know uh organizations and functioning in El Salvador and they are not the targets of these security measures the people that are the targets of security measures end up being marginalized communities and youth that have lack of access to opportunities and so that's what the social movements are speaking out about yeah absolutely let me there's two things you said with the narco trafficking and I believe that's how the president is framing the need for this security policy is to combat narco trafficking and gang violence which could be people of all ages probably principally youth but also a lot of what you're describing to me and correct me if I'm wrong or perhaps elaborate on this has to do with you're looking at basically militarizing communities down to the neighborhood level with the financing of this particular middle uh um military equipment and targeting putting young people back to work are we looking at this being a form of controlling migration from Salvador and so let's talk a little bit about that that this is about keeping people in place oh yes absolutely and preventing migration absolutely so out of the country yeah I think um there is not holistic a holistic view of people's right to remain in their homelands and like what what is necessary in order for that to happen what because obviously what needs to happen is people's environments need to stop being destroyed by transnational extractivist industries obviously um and mass inequality that comes from um prioritizing for profit interest transnational for profit interest in local communities is also obviously one of a very much the an issue but um yes I think you bring up a really important point in that we can't forget that um since Naib Bukele has come to office he has been um subservient to the Trump administration's demands at my at migrant containment and this this is something this demand at migrant containment is not new to the Trump administration um it was happening also under Obama and the previous administration was also receiving the same kinds of pressures I mean I think it's the pressures are exacerbated now um but um you know the previous administration had a much more the previous administration of Salvador had a much more um humanitarian view of migration and um their response was always that migration is a human right and that they were implementing as many uh you know they were they were doing their best to address the root causes the economic causes of displacement um and we're talking about the previous Salvadoran administration correct right and so this administration Naib Bukele is um in contrast has been extremely subservient to the Trump Trump administration and has um militarized its borders you know before before this administration the Salvador did not have um a border patrol um migration is you know open um amongst the C4 countries which is you know Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador um and they have been received you know Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador now have been receiving extraordinary amounts of pressure from um ISDHS the Trump administration to militarize their borders um which is against their own international and national laws which say that people can migrate migrate freely amongst that region around that region and so recently El Salvador established a border patrol which did not exist before and um yeah has been criminalizing um out migration um including um including forcibly stopping caravans that have tried to exit El Salvador um arresting folks who are organizing caravans um calling them human traffickers um so yes this is we I think these things cannot be separated from the asylum agreements that have been um entered into with the Trump administration and the ultimate goal of containing migrants so the containment of migrants so that is halting the outflow of people or the freedom to to leave they feel they need or want to um so we've talked about that and you also mentioned um you know the existence and influence of transnational corporations in Salvador actually throughout throughout the hemisphere and central America specifically are we looking at corporations forcing a population to remain in order to provide affordable labor or what do you see as the the principal reason yeah possibly I mean I think the the the containment has more to do at this point with the Trump administration and the U.S. government even the previous governments um the previous U.S. governments um outward push of its southern border um and just the the making of Mesoamerica as the the border and um of of the U.S. and so it's containing migrants from reaching the U.S. southern border um yeah I mean and I think you know when when Naib Bukele first was elected president before he was before he was his term started but but after he was elected the first speech that he gave was at the Heritage Foundation um the right-wing think tank here in Washington DC and um he told that group of you know xenophobic right-wingers extreme right-wingers um that he would end all migration from El Salvador um and that El Salvador was open for business um and it and it is his whole his whole shtick has been that um he's going to bring in um more transnational business and that he's going to therefore um create more jobs it's also been coupled with threats to the eight hour work day for example um and so he it's it's very clear that this is all um you know neoliberalism at play and like it's already so much like what um what um Pepe Lobo said um right after the coup in Honduras Honduras is open for business sounds very very similar the rhetoric right right so we know we know what it means I mean this is this is the other thing is that in El Salvador for a long time now um the U.S. has played a really significant role I mean throughout the region in terms of providing responses to the insecurity and violence there so we have it you know through the drug war policies through the Central American uh regional security initiative and then the Alliance for Prosperity the U.S. has been um spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the region in um creating supposed responses and and yeah just uh shaping that reality shaping the reality in El Salvador so training the police in El Salvador training and giving military security funds to these countries where time and again in El Salvador there's a lot of reports of extra judicial killings by the police um that have been trained by the U.S. and so I mean this is under the FMLN um let alone what you know um under government that's you know open spreading out the red carpet to transnational usually extractivist industry so we know what happens when you throw military and security funding to um people like Juan Orlando in Honduras um that military and security funding is used to suppress dissent it's used to yeah it's used to protect the interests of capital um and and again in El Salvador we already know that there's there's already been exposés of extra judicial killings by police trained in the United States and so throwing more money at that same system is um very dangerous so so we're looking at exacerbating the existing existing system versus trying to find a systemic solution and we can say that throughout throughout the Americas I think so we have a few minutes left and I so thank you for the extended conversation um this afternoon can we talk a little bit about what you see unfolding um the rest of this week in El Salvador on the heels the president's action Sunday afternoon yeah um so uh yesterday evening no on Monday evening there was a manifestation called by the feminist bloc of El Salvador um and they took to the center to rally and protest against um the Salvadoran you know by the president's excessive use of military force um and today there was also a manifestation at the national university um yesterday I saw videos of the university being heavily militarized um so it'll be I'll have to see what ended up happening at today's um rally at the university um the social movements are calling on the attorney general and the supreme court to investigate um the league well you know the the crimes that have been committed by um by the president um and and yeah I think the assembly is currently discussing the loan um and uh I think it certainly it certainly was a well an intent to pressure to get that money um but it also was um uh an intent to deflect um public attention away from um criticisms and investigations that are being brought against his administration um so previously in the weeks prior um the minister of health and the president of the water the national water administrative body um were called into hearings by the legislative assembly so you had the legislative assembly calling on representatives of the executive to come and explain themselves as to why um brown dirty water was coming out of their faucets in in um the the nation's capital um and the water system public or privatized in El Salvador now it's it's currently public there are um there you know in 2007 this is a whole nother conversation but we need to discuss about these it is mostly public but there is a huge you know it's a contentious issue right now um the water mat the water um treatment um is open to privatization and in part privatized but the management uh otherwise is currently public um and it's inefficient in a lot of ways because of the lack of funding and resources that has you know been provided to that system by the elite um and so so yeah I mean they the executive was being called into question for their their response to the crisis to the water crisis um and they had refused to attend the hearings that um the legislative body had called them into and the legislators were getting ready to take the next steps you know the steps necessary to force them to um to comply um with their request for for a hearing and for an explanation about what was what's going on um and so that's something that um they were that the administration was dealing with in the weeks prior um there's also there's other things there's other things that he's you know trying to deflect from right basically he's he's has an executive that basically pushing for the expansion of neoliberal capitalism and privatization yeah so that that is an entire another conversation for for us to have and I welcome you back for that but I will also say in closing um our conversation this inevitably every um webinar we have done on Latin America since we started having these conversations inevitably our the discussion comes down to the expansion the forced expansion of neoliberal capitalism throughout the hemisphere and um and this is yet another example of what of what's happening and so I so appreciate you making time for us this afternoon and it's always a pleasure to talk to you and I just want to remind um our our viewers that Yacenia Yacenia is from cispus committee in solidarity with people of El Salvador and the website is cispes.org I encourage you to go to the website there's there's a great blog posted um on sunday's events in El Salvador and uh and visit their facebook page as well which is uh I think it's just cispus on on facebook oh it's cispus solidarity I believe so and then um so yes and we will definitely have you back we need a broader conversation on the extraction industry and and and another one on migration as well Yacenia so um so we'll have you back and thank you everyone I just want to remind you that we air this webinar every wednesday 12 p.m eastern 9 a.m pacific and also to let all of you know tomorrow on code pink radio 11 a.m eastern we're going to have an hour long conversation on the us's unilateral use of financial sanctions as a form of economic warfare and you'll be able to listen to that on wb ba i out of new york city or w pf w here in washington dc and we'll see you um on what the half is going on in latin america oh yeah please can i just i the so our facebook is um cispus cispes solidarity with El Salvador that's our national cispus page we also have chapters um in different cities in los angeles and dc um in boston and new york and ciaron san francisco and so those um local chapters also have their own kind of social media pages um but yeah our national pages cispus solidarity with El Salvador and that's our facebook and our website is cispus.org and i believe that our um our instagram is cispus underscore solidarity okay terrific and i'm going to share with you the the archive video from today's conversation as well great okay all right thanks again thank you everyone see you next week bye