A busy week in El Salvador

A lot has been going on in El Salvador this week. Fortunately, Tim has you covered.

Here is his annual round-up of the top 10 stories of the year. And the only positive news story of 2015 to make the list is:

10. Beatification of Oscar Romero. On May 23, slain archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified at a ceremony in San Salvador. More than a half million people from El Salvador, Latin America and around the world filled the streets surrounding the Salvador del Mundo monument to celebrate the life of a man they have long called Saint Romero of the Americas. It was a joyous event for a country that needed some good news this year.

In the end, the prosecution of Francisco Flores might be a positive development. However, since his arrest, developments have done a better job demonstrating the weaknesses of the Salvadoran judicial system than its strengths.

Tim also looks at the new attorney general, Douglas Arquímides Meléndez Ruiz, who was sworn in on Wednesday. He was the only candidate to appear on the lists of each of the five parties participating in the vote.

Douglas Meléndez was the only name to appear on the list of acceptable candidates for all 5 political parties in the National Assembly and was subsequently elected with 83 of 84 possible votes. In a press conference after being sworn in, the new attorney general emphasized a need for transparency, but would not comment on pending cases until he had a chance to review them.

Meléndez is a career government lawyer. Most recently he was the legal chief of CEPAL, the port authority in the country. While in the attorney general's office from 1990 to 2006, his work included heading the anti-corruption and complex crimes units.

Finally, Tim looks at a recent University of Central America Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP) poll. It doesn't look good for Salvador Sanchez Ceren and the FMLN, but I'm sure it's just the mean old Salvadoran media which is trying to foment a coup. The president announced earlier in the week that he planned to make some cabinet changes within the next few days, possibly today. 

 
And two more stories that Tim has yet to get around to - Insight Crime has translated Oscar Martinez' Living Within the Boundaries of El Salvador's Gang 'War'. I'll hopefully get around to this as those of us who have done some work on asylum cases need to touch on the daily violence in El Salvador and the difficulty with which citizens are able to relocate within the country.

Finally, says that it is willing to cooperate with Spanish authorities in their request to push forward with the case against retired military officers who were involved in the murders of six Jesuits and two other women in November 1989.

Salvadoran officials on Jan. 6 announced their intent to cooperate after Spanish High Court Judge Eloy Velasco two days earlier renewed his petition to international police agency Interpol and ordered the defendants' capture over allegations they participated in the 1989 murders of the priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, Reuters reported.

Spain's High Court for years has been investigating the case because five of the six Jesuit priests killed were citizens of the kingdom. It first demanded the arrests of 17 Salvadoran ex-military officers as early as 2011, but El Salvador's Supreme Court of Justice said at the time that the case had already been argued and a 1993 amnesty law protected the soldiers, El País reported.

Nevertheless, Salvadoran government spokesman Eugenio Chicas now told Reuters that once legal requirements were met, authorities would go ahead and follow the Spanish request. "The only path for our security forces to take is to proceed with the arrests, that is, there's nothing to do but follow the law," Chicas told reporters in San Salvador.

Now we will just have to see if our understanding of "cooperate" is the same as that of the Salvadoran courts, police, government, and military.