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El Salvador goes left and pledges itself to respect indigenous peoples

 
Mauricio Funes, candidate for former guerilla group Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, has beaten the conservative party, which had been in power for the last 20 years · Although being a small minority within the country, indigenous communities are present in the election manifesto of the winner party, which intends to confer UN declaration on indigenous peoples status of law.

Once again an American country has turned left and joined the list of leftist governments that include the issue of the rights of autochthonous peoples in their political agenda. Now it is El Salvador's turn, a country that held presidential elections last weekend and has finished off with 20 years of Arena's (Nationalist Republican Alliance) governments. Future president Mauricio Funes run for Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a leftist political party which came into being out of the Marxist guerrilla fighting the Salvadoran army from 1980 to 1992.

For decades indigenous communities have been at the bottom of all economic indicators of El Salvador, still a developing country. According to Minority Rights Group, only 5% of the indigenous people own property, while among non-indigenous people the ratio rises up to 95%. It is thus a remarkable fact that Mauricio Funes has included recognition of those communities in his election manifesto [pdf document], where it is stated that "it will grant the existence and the rights of natural or indigenous peoples and will promote their legal and institutional recognition, as well as the observance of internationally established individual and collective rights".

The change proposed by Funes is not only based on general principles; it also provides for concrete action, such as conferring status of law to UN declaration on indigenous peoples and recognizing land as the "indispensable environment for the development of indigenous communities". It also intends to observe the International Labour Organisation's convention 169 concerning indigenous and tribal peoples in independent countries, which establishes measures to ensure protection and employment for indigenous workers and grant them means to participate at all levels of decision-making.

The vast majority of Salvadoran population is mestizo, the indigenous peoples being only from 2% to 10% of the population, according to different sources. The highest ratio is given by Minority Rights Group (10%), as it suggests Salvadoran population of indigenous people -Nahua-Pipil, Lencas, Kakawira and Maya Chortis- is about 600,000.

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