Witnessing history in El Salvador | Bellevue man helps to keep voting honest in presidential election

By Walt Fangman

What was I, a 70-year-old Bellevue resident, doing in the Central American country of El Salvador last March 15 during its presidential election? I was with the U.S.-based organization CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) acting as an international election observer.

For hundreds of years, El Salvador has been controlled by political and financial elites. Finally, in 1980, the poor majority launched a final armed rebellion, calling for democracy. In the resulting 12 years of civil war at least one in every 200 people in the country were "disappeared" or murdered by "Death Squads" supported by funds from the U.S.A. to the Salvadoran government.

A truce ending the civil war was signed in 1992, creating a so-called democracy. The guerilla force, the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), became a political party at that time. But national governance was retained by ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance), a party created by military leaders and the same elites who had previously controlled the country.

For 20 years, ARENA maintained control, using tactics of fear and fraud. The recent presidential election means that the FMLN will take over on June 1, when President-elect Mauricio Funes is inaugurated.

Voting fraud perpetrated by ARENA has been rife in past elections. Thousands of national and international observers helped prevent some forms of fraud this time by monitoring voting centers on election day. Our CISPES group of 65 dispersed to different centers, arriving at 4:30 a.m.

We carefully watched the setting up of voting tables, the behavior of voters and poll workers during the day, and the final tallying of votes. An important form of fraud in the past has been vote buying which involves substituting previously marked ballots for the blank ones obtained at the voting table.

With election observers watching such ballot switching became impossible. The FMLN and Funes' 3 percent margin of victory can be attributed at in least part to our work. It was a very long (20 hours), but rewarding day for us.

CISPES, was created at the beginning of the civil war in 1980 to partner with and support groups in El Salvador working towards genuine democracy. We CISPES observers came mainly from the U.S. While our ages ranged from 20 to 70, the large majority were 20-30, including the CISPES staffers who set everything up and coordinated our activities.

The group work was very "horizontal." Every one was encouraged to take on an important task in the days before and after the election. Sometimes group meetings seemed to drag on, with everybody having an input. But within a few days I realized that CISPES has a great system that allows youthful leadership to develop.

The younger people were hugely energetic and idealistic (I didn't know if idealism still existed), and very smart. What an inspiration. The United States can be very proud of these amazing young people, and I am truly grateful to have been part of this endeavor with them.

Walt Fangman lives in Bellevue. He is a former professor of Genetics at UW, 1967-2004.

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