EL SALVADOR: Disabled Ex-Combatants Fight for Their Rights

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Raúl Gutiérrez

SAN SALVADOR, Sep 5 2006 (IPS) - Juan Carlos Merino, known during his days as a guerrilla fighter as “Camilo”, has undergone three operations on his spine since he was injured by right-wing paramilitaries in 1987, at the height of El Salvador’s civil war. But despite the doctors’ best efforts, he can still just barely move his legs.

However, Merino doesn’t let that get in his way. He drives a tractor, and rides out on horseback to supervise his crops and fish farming tanks. He also built pens for raising chickens and two pigs in his yard.

The 48-year-old campesino and former combatant with the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), who says his dream is “to walk again,” rides back to his house in the municipality of Cinquera, located 60 km north of San Salvador, after his long workday.

His two sons, four-year-old Isaac and 12-year-old Carlos, immediately run out to remove his feet from the stirrups. He then swings himself out of the saddle and takes the canes they hand him.

Sitting on a plastic chair, he tells IPS that despite his disability, he does not receive the public assistance to which he is entitled by law.

The “fund for the protection of the war wounded” is not living up to its mission, and the government does not respect the rights of those who were wounded in the war, he says.

“When I go to my checkups, they send me to a public hospital and I have to wait hours just to get a prescription and a list of medicines,” he adds.

The FMLN, which is now the main opposition party in this Central American nation, fought the army and the paramilitaries in the civil war from 1980 to January 1992, when it signed a United Nations-brokered peace agreement with the government that put an end to the conflict that had left 75,000 dead, 8,000 “disappeared” and 40,000 disabled.

In compliance with the peace accord, a law was passed in 1993 creating benefits for those who were left disabled by the armed conflict. Several months later, the “fund for the protection of the war wounded” was established to assist those who were left disabled on either side in the civil war, orphans, and the descendants of former combatants.

The fund is made up of three representatives of the government and two officials from autonomous public entities, one demobilised member of the armed forces, and two former FMLN guerrillas.

The fund initially provided assistance to 30,000 people, including disabled ex-combatants and their family members. But today, it only assists 14,000.

Since the law was passed, two disabled former combatants have died in clashes with anti-riot police called out to clamp down on the protests held by associations of the disabled – both former guerrillas and retired soldiers, once sworn enemies but now united in their demand for pensions, medical care and labour market insertion programmes.

The law states that “El Salvador recognises that wounded and disabled Salvadorans are in a situation that merits special distinction” and “it is the state’s duty to grant them adequate economic compensation, in order to facilitate their reintegration into civilian society.”

The “economic compensation” includes pensions, which range from 60 to 154 dollars a month (the latter amount is equivalent to the minimum monthly wage), depending on the severity of the disability or injury suffered.

Olga Serrano, a former guerrilla fighter who today is executive secretary of the Association of War Wounded of El Salvador (ALGES), said that in the last few years, the fund has cancelled many of the benefits granted by the law, infringing the rights of thousands of former combatants.

“Reinsertion into productive society means the disabled need training, vocational courses, to be able to go out and work, and that is not happening,” she said.

“The treatment is discriminatory in every sense,” said Serrano. “Women, especially those who are blind or have scars on their faces, suffer even more, for cultural reasons.” Twenty-five percent of ALGES members are women.

The government has introduced several reforms to the law, undercutting what was originally agreed in the 1992 peace accord.

The government “has paid compensation to some 6,000 war wounded, while reducing the pensions of 6,000 others and canceling the pensions of another 3,000,” says ALGES.

The association complains that the compensation has involved a total payment of 686 dollars, after which the beneficiaries receive no further benefits, even though the law stipulates that the pension is to be received “for life.”

Today the fund provides assistance to just 14,000 people.

Serrano, who is now a sociologist by training, joined the FMLN at the age of 13. Two years later her left leg was injured during a bomb attack. Now she says her injury is much less significant than those of others in ALGES, which she described as her new “war front”.

Members of ALGES and of the Association of the Armed Forces War Wounded of El Salvador (ALFAES) and their relatives frequently hold marches through the streets of San Salvador to demand that the government reinstate their benefits.

Both ALGES and ALFAES have 6,000 members.

An unusual protest was held by 300 war wounded in the capital in July, when most of the demonstrators stripped down to their underwear. They were demanding faster progress in approving pending reforms in Congress.

“We used to be considered heroes, now we’re villains; we never received education for dedicating ourselves to defend the rich,” shouted former soldiers taking part in the protest.

The president of ALFAES, Daniel Martínez, said that “in the reforms submitted to the legislature, we are asking for comprehensive health coverage, that would include our children,” as well as “a 15 percent increase in our pensions every two years.”

The retired soldier, however, said the group’s demands have been ignored by the lawmakers of the governing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the rest of the right-wing bloc that holds a majority in Congress.

The legislators argue that “the case of the war wounded is all settled, but we say that our case will only be settled when we are all dead,” said Martínez.

The chair of the fund for the war wounded, Nora Elizabeth Centeno, acknowledges that more support must be granted to the former combatants and their families, and that they should receive not only pensions but specialised medical care and prosthetic limbs, as well as job training.

“So far there have been very few labour reinsertion courses. I would like to see people receive training, so that they can enjoy the sensation of feeling useful for themselves and their families,” said Centeno, who is also a legal adviser to the Interior Ministry.

Nevertheless, she maintained that the disabled combatants do receive specialised medical care, and that their needs “are covered.” The problem, she said, is that often “the disability is more psychological than physical.”

“Sometimes the law is unfair, but we have to follow it,” added the official.

But Efraín Fuentes, another leader of ALFAES who also sits on the board of directors of the fund, said he was “living in a state of abandonment, which is denigrating.”

“The pensions we draw are a paltry 63 to 95 dollars a month, which is not a decent income. We deserve better,” he said.

Fuentes, who had a foot amputated and suffered severe injuries to his left hand, said “they sent me to a specialist to examine the nerves on my hand, and he said they were just fine.”

“Just like that, they lowered my pension from 126 to 90 dollars a month,” said the retired soldier, who added that “I can’t move my arm below my elbow.”

Serrano said “the worst thing is when they take away the pension from one of our compañeros or reduce the amount without justification, because the fund says the person has recovered, even though that is not true.”

“We have demonstrated that the majority of those who were wounded have no other income,” said the former guerrilla fighter.