SHARE's Advocacy Program

Below is SHARE's most recent e-news Action Alert asking individuals and organizations to sign a letter addressed to Salvadoran President Antonio Saca to ensure that public officials do not use their positions to influence public opinion on elections, ask Foreign Affairs Minister Marisol Argueta de Barillas to explain her statements at AEI, and respect the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people. SHARE collected over 400 signatures from Salvadoran residents in the US as well as citizens of the US, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Nicaragua, Sweden, Spain. Click here to read the resulting press release in English and here in Spanish.

The Salvadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marisol Argueta, is already lobbying the U.S. to intervene in the upcoming Salvadoran elections.

In her speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on September 18 in Washington, DC, she stated that "losing El Salvador (if the opposition wins) will be a lose-lose situation for the national security of both El Salvador and the United States." She exhorted the U.S. to "do more" and to "pay close attention."

To watch or listen to Minister Argueta's speech, click here and click on "Event Materials" on the left.

SHARE Foundation is collecting signatures for the petition that we will send to President Saca. If you wish to sign SHARE Foundation's petition, please contact the SHARE Foundation and list your name, city, and state at sharedc@share-elsalvador.org or call us at 202-319-5542 by Friday, October 10, 2009.

We, the undersigned, are Salvadoran residents of the the United States and friends of the Salvadoran people who follow what happens in this country closely. We would like to express our concern for the statements made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marisol Argueta, during her speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC on Thursday, September 18, 2008.

In her speech, the Minister expressed that the upcoming presidential elections in El Salvador will be the most contested in the history of El Salvador, and she implored the U.S. government to "do more" and requested that the U.S. "must pay close attention to what is happening in El Salvador, and to the resulting geopolitical and national security consequences." Argueta expressed that "losing El Salvador [understood to mean if the opposition party were to win the elections] will be a lose-lose situation for the security and national interests of both El Salvador and the United States. It will generate freedom cutting measures, it will produce instability in El Salvador and the United States, and it will have the potential of making El Salvador go back 30 years in history when Central America was in turmoil." The Minister also cited the late President Ronald Reagan when he said, "Tonight, the security of the United States is at stake in El Salvador," in an attempt to establish similarities between the current political situation and that of the 1980s. She asserted that during her visit to Washington, she would meet with representatives in the U.S. Congress and the Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, in order to express to them the same message.

We consider these declarations inappropriate when pronounced by a government agent on official business financed by the Salvadoran government. It concerns us that Salvadoran government officials plead to the United States for intervention in the democratic process without respecting the commitment already expressed by U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Charles Glazer, that the United States will not intervene in the Salvadoran elections and that the United States will respect the decisions of the Salvadoran people. It is imperative to honor Article 83 of the Salvadoran Constitution, which establishes that "El Salvador is a sovereign nation. Sovereignty resides in the people, who exercise it in a prescribed manner and within the limits of this Constitution." People exercise their sovereignty by selecting their own governors and representatives, and as such, the act of calling on a foreign country and inviting officials of that country to violate this sovereignty is an insult to the Salvadoran people.

For the above mentioned reasons, we ask that your government officials do not take advantage of their positions as public figures in order to influence national and international public opinion about who should win the elections. We ask the Legislative Assembly to require the Minister of Foreign Affairs to explain the rationale of her statements while she was on official duty. Salvadorans have the right to elect their representatives freely, by means of the vote, set in the framework of the Rule of Law. It is for these reasons that it is El Salvador's duty to assure that the upcoming elections are carried out in a free, fair, and transparent manner.