6/8/09 WERU SISTERING COMMITTEE UPDATE:
Part of WERU’s mission is to serve our diverse community with a wide variety of programs. WERU has a “sister” relationship, through the National US-El Salvador Sister Cities Network, with Radio Sumpul, a radio station in the province of Chalatenango in El Salvador that was started after a 12 year civil war that ended in 1992. WERU collaborates with Radio Sumpul and the National US-El Salvador Sister Cities Network to cover important issues, promote cultural awareness and support delegations of people from Maine and El Salvador to strengthen sistering relationships.
 Some of you may have heard reports from El Salvador over the last few years with WERU volunteer Reporter Meredith DeFrancesco. NOW, WERU is working in collaboration with the Spanish Students from the University of Maine in Orono to producce the US-El Salvador Report.
The report is scheduled to air, in Spanish, every Saturday at 11:30 AM on the all Spanish/Latin program Gracias a la Vida. The report covers a range of issues and subjects in and of El Salvador, and it's relationship with the United States. To date the report has already touched on the 2009 January municipal elections, Salvadoran poetry and literature, illegal mining, immigration, Liberation Theology and the civil war film, Innocent Voices. Students are currently producing reports on the coffee production, the presidential elections, and US-El Salvador Sister Cities. So tune in!
Next WERU SISTERING Meeting:
Wednesday, June 17th from 6 - 7:30 p.m.
At that meeting will be:
-welcome new members
-a report from Adam on the US/El Salvador SIster Cities meeting held in Lawrence, Kansas.
-a call from a representative in El Salvador.
-if time, possible fund raiser with Primo Cubano to benefit Radio Sumpul and US/El Salvador Sister Cities.
Please RSVP in advance of the meeting to let us know if you will be attending: call 469-6600 or e-mail chris@weru.org
WERU COVERAGE ON EL SALVADOR ELECTIONS...
El Salvador's MARCH 15th PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS:
RadioActive 3/19/09:
Producers/Hosts: Amy Browne & Meredith DeFrancesco
Topics: FMLN wins El Salvador Election- Social Movement Response
 Interviews with Esther Chavez, who is from El Salvador, now living in the United States. She has been working with the US El Salvador Sister Cities network since the early 90s and went down as an election observer on Sunday. She talks about her experience and the historical significance of the election of the FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, and with social movement leader Lorena Martinez, the President of CRIPDES, a network of over 300 organized communities throughout El Salvador, involved in community development projects and organizing around social and political issues, like free trade, water privatization and gold mining. She talks about the significance of the elections and the implications for the social movement in El Salvador FMI: www.elsalvadorsolidarity.org & www.cispes.org
LISTEN,COMMENT AND FORWARD: http://archives.weru.org/news/radioactive-31909
3/16/09 UPDATE from U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Staff:
FMLN WINS THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!
The wait is over. After almost 20 years of an ARENA government and the FMLN being the opposition, things have changed.
 Yesterday the Salvadoran people went to the polls in impressive numbers to elect Mauricio Funes as the next president of El Salvador. With the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) reporting 99.4% of the votes counted, Funes has won with 51.3% (1,349,142 votes) and his contender, Rodrigo Avila, received 48.7% (1,280,995 votes).
In his victory speech at 9:07pm last night Funes said “We have signed a new peace and reconciliation accord for the country itself. I invite, from this moment on, the different social and political powers to build national unity together.”
As the results came in streets throughout the country began to fill with people. Thousands of people rushed to the Plaza Masferrer in San Salvador to celebrate. In Arcatao the street in front of the mayor’s office was full of people dancing. In Las Anonas the celebration was in the community center. All over El Salvador people came together to rejoice in the victory they had waited so long to celebrate.
The news that came from our observers was generally positive. In Tecoluca, Arcatao, and La Libertad the entire process went smoothly. In Tecoluca the FMLN won 6,106 votes and ARENA won 3,482. In Arcatao the FMLN won 849 votes and ARENA 304. We still don’t have the exact numbers for La Libertad but our observers reported wining both voting centers.
However in the community of Cinquera, which has been the host to so much tension and violence over the last couple months, also saw violence on elections night. Once the 419 votes were counted for the FMLN and the 304 were counted for ARENA, the community went to the park to wait for the national the results. Unfortunately, things became violent and an ARDM organizer was beaten by ARENA sympathizers. When a youth from the radio station tried to video what was happening, he was threatened and chased by ARENA supporters, who fired 3 shots in the air. The ARDM called the attorney general for an investigation and waited at the police station for them to arrive. The rest of the community celebrated the victory in their houses.
Our observers are all safe. This reminds us, as Sister Cities, that while we are excited and relieved with the FMLN win on a national level, we still have an important role accompanying the organized communities in El Salvador, especially those whose local government are ARENA.
We would like to end by thanking everyone in the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities network for all your hard work, dedication, faith, and support. We, as staff, feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with all of you during this exciting time, and equally grateful to have the opportunity to continue working with you. We would like to especially thank the volunteers we have had on the ground here in January and March: Jenny, Karen, Leigh, Vanessa, Annie, Sean, and Ian. With out your help and support we would have never been able to accomplish what we have.
We will send out more information throughout the week as well as our official observation report so stay tuned.
Sí se pudo!
More information at:
www.elsalvadorsolidarity.org
www.us-elsalvador-sisters.org
www.cripdes.org
www.cispes.org
3/13/09 UPDATE
OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM US STATE DEPARTMENT TO WERU:
 "The Government of the United States reiterates its official position that it does not support either candidate in the upcoming presidential election in El Salvador on Sunday, March 15. The Embassy of the United States in El Salvador has stated this position publicly and repeatedly.
The separation of powers and freedoms in the United States allows the debate in which members of the U.S. Legislature have expressed their opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the official position of the United States.
The U.S. Embassy will field an observation team on Sunday to monitor the elections which we expect will be free and fair.
The U.S. Government will respect the will of the Salvadoran people and will seek to work constructively with whoever wins that election."
http://sansalvador.usembassy.gov/news/2009/03/12.html
RadioActive 3/12/09
Producers/Hosts: Meredith DeFrancesco, Amy Browne, Jesse Dyer Stewart, Carolyn Coe
Guests: Pedro Juan Hernandez, Economist & Social Movement Organizer with the MPR-12, a network of rural community cooperatives and unions; Pedro Miranda, President of PROGRESO, the regional organization of CRIPDES, in Suchitoto,
 Topic: El Salvador presidential elections: Mauricio Funes, FMLN party candidate (shown left), former journalist, and ARENA party candidate Rodrigo Avila (shown below right), former head of the National Police
 What are the economic problems in El Salvador as a basis for the movement for political change? What US Congressional statements in recent days have inferred that the FMLN party is “pro-terrorist” and that if they win the U.S. government could cut off remittances to El Salvador? Why has the Salvadoran government located military troops through out the Suchitoto region?
LISTEN,COMMENT AND FORWARD: http://archives.weru.org/radioactive/radioactive-31209
"VOICES" 2/21/08:
Producers/Hosts: Meredith DeFrancesco and Amy Browne,
The 2 major political parties in El Salvador are comprised of people who fought on opposite sides in the civil war there in the 1980s. The right-wing ARENA party, of which the current president is a member, is the party of the repressive government and death squads that were financially supported by the US. As a term of the Peace Accords, those who committed atrocities were never tried or punished, and many of them continue to be in power.
 The left-leaning FMLN party represents the popular people’s movement who rose up against the repressive right wing regime. In the recent municipal elections the FMLN were largely victorious, and the FMLN presidential candidate is ahead in the polls for that election, to be held next month. As we’ve reported previously, there are widespread reports from El Salvador that the communities that support the FMLN are being targeted for harassment—- and on-going criminalization of dissent— by the current right wing regime. This has escalated in recent days in the community of Cinquera (photo). Meredith DeFrancesco, Jessie Dyer-Stewart and Amy Browne spoke by phone yesterday with Francisco Amilcar Lobo, a teacher from Cinquera who described what has been happening. FMI: www.elsalvadorsolidarity.org
LISTEN,COMMENT AND FORWARD: http://archives.weru.org/voices/weekend-voices-22109
FURTHER BACKGROUND ON THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS FROM WERU: http://archives.weru.org/tag/fmln
FEATURED EL SALVADOR ELECTION BLOG: http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=37&Itemid=30
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The Sistering Committee wants to build community – to be a voice for Latinos living in Maine and to reach out to the listener areas to better inform and foster an interest in the diverse Latino cultures and issues throughout the Americas.
We need volunteers for that event and for the WERU Sistering Committee to work collaboratively with PICA and MOFGA and communicate with Radio Sumpul. For more information, please call the station at 469-6600 or send an e-mail to info@weru.org.
Look forward to future US/El Salvador Sister Cities gathering events hosted in collaboration with our local sisters PICA,& MOFGA.
  
2008 WERU Adventures in El Salvador:
CHECK OUT THE LATEST MAY 2008 UPDATES!
EXERPT FROM WINTER 2008 SALT AIR by Adam W. Lacher:
Guarjila, El Salvador: In simple Spanish, the old woman explained that she was in the war for four years, that she shot down 10 planes with her rifle and was prized among her fellow guerillas for her talent. I smiled and nodded, showing her I understood. Sitting side-by-side, we were enjoying the cool air against the outside wall of her house, the remains of a rusted and broken automatic assault rifle lying just overhead on the lip of the roof. She looked from me to the calm yellow horizon and laughed a little to herself, her dark wrinkled face cracked wide and open with a wise eagerness, like the space between a drop of rain and dry tilled soil. Perhaps she wanted to tell me I was welcomed in her home even if I didn’t understand every word she said… It was morning in Guarjila.
Over the past two years, volunteers and staff from WERU have been working with our counterparts at Radio Sumpul, a community radio station in the small mountain village of Guarjila, El Salvador, building a relationship to exchange ideas and information while experiencing cross-cultural community radio solidarity. Working with the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Network and our local partners PICA and MOFGA, WERU collaborates with Radio Sumpul to cover important issues, promote cultural awareness and support visiting Maine and El Salvador delegations to strengthen the sistering experience.
In early January, longtime WERU member and PICA organizer Dennis Chinnoy invited WERU to join a sistering delegation named The Human Rights Investigation Team. The delegation consisted of 10 members representing several U.S./El Salvador sistering organizations across the country. The delegation’s mission was to investigate reports of violent government suppression in July 2007 of several hundred civilian water privitization protestors in Suchitoto, El Salvador. The delegation was primarily focused on the unwarranted arrest, initial imprisonment and, at the time, the prospected prosecution of 13 protestors as terrorists under the new Legislative Decree #108 (Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism). The 13 protesters were identified as the “Suchitoto 13” in human rights reports from Amnesty International, Ombudsman for Human Rights, Reporters Without Borders and others...
CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPLETE STORY AND THE WHOLE WINTER 2008 SALT AIR ISSUE
RADIO SUMPUL
OVER THE PAST FOUR YEARS, volunteers and staff from WERU have been working with counterparts at Radio Sumpul, a community radio station in Chalatenango, El Salvador to build a relationship for the exchange of information and ideas and for experiencing crosscultural community radio solidarity.
WITH ASSISTANCE FROM the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Network, PICA and MOFGA, WERU collaborates with Radio Sumpul to cover important issues, promote cultural awareness and support delegations of people from Maine and Chalatenango to visit each other and strengthen sistering relationships.
RADIO SUMPUL IS A COMMUNITY RADIO STATION located in Guarjilla, El Salvador, in the northern province of Chalatenango. Radio Sumpul is a twelve year-old station that was started after the Salvadoran civil war (1980 – 1992), along with many other community radio stations around the country, to broadcast social and political issues and music relevant to people at the local level. While struggling to gain legal status in the mid ‘90s, all community stations were forcibly shut down by the government, except for Radio Sumpul.
The BACK STORY:
El Salvador- During the 1980s, state sanctioned military and paramilitary forces killed over 73,000 Salvadorans and displaced over a million more to Central America (notably impoverished Honduras), Mexico and the United States. In a consistent policy, supported militarily and financially by the United States, the Salvadoran government engaged in bombings, massacres, routine murders, rapes and the customary “disappearances” that targeted unarmed civilians, the campesino, labor and religious organizers, as well as the as the civilian guerilla fighters known as the FMLN. 
The FMLN engaged the government forces for 12 years in order to bring on economic and human rights reforms, but it was in the Honduran refugee camps where real progress began. Despite their lack of resources and the continued aggression directed towards them, the Salvadorian refugees in Honduras solidified their models of participatory democracy, collectivity, skill sharing and literacy, to form what is currently the admirable and well-organized Associations of Rural Communities. The unarmed camps dedicated themselves to returning to their lands to builds stability, peace and an alternative model of democracy. In 1987, one of the first towns to repopulate was the mountainous Guarjila.
Nestled within the northern department of Chalatenango, Guarjila is currently the home of WERU’s sister station, Radio Sumpul. After the civil war, community radio stations started forming all around the country but were not immediately accepted by the government. The Salvadorian State required these startup stations to apply for broadcasting licenses, but while the stations were in the process of doing so the government sent out several forces to raid and shut them down… all were closed except for Radio Sumpul.
The Sumpul staff and programmers barricaded the building and rang the church bells in anticipation of the advancing Salvadorian military. More than thousand people came in response to the bells and aided Radio Sumpul by blocking the raid with their bodies, their screams and several large boulders they unearthed from the mountain. Government forces retreated to the lowlands.
 Today Radio Sumpul is known as “The Voice and Free Song of Chalatenango” and broadcasts both music and news/public affairs on a variety of topics affecting the communities of Chalatenango. Radio Sumpul is one of many community stations in a network organized through the association ARPAS, whose members pay collectively for, and share, the frequency 92.1. The station has an all-volunteer staff with no paid personnel. The programmers are mostly between the ages of 14 and 21 and do three-hour shows. The community radio station runs on a shoestring budget and struggles to stay operating. Last year, their transmitter was damaged during a lightning storm. They were able to borrow another and get back on their feet after a couple months of dead air, but problems kept coming. Shortly after their transmitter repairs the station lost phone service because they simply couldn’t afford to pay their bill. Isolated in the mountains the station faces an uphill battle to maintain programming every day.
WERU Community Radio began their sistering with Radio Sumpul through US El Salvador Sister Cities, an organization started during the civil war to combat human rights atrocities. The organization has evolved over the past twenty years into a conduit of solidarity between communities in the US and organized rural communities in El Salvador. Today this “sistering” experience focuses on important issues such as: the damaging effects of free trade policies and related neoliberal initiatives, small-scale cooperative economic projects, and sharing community organizing models.
WERU is not alone in this operation. Bangor, Maine has had a long time sistering relationship with the village of Carasque, in the northern department of Chalatenago, through the organization Peace through Inter-American Community Action (PICA). The Maine Organic Farmers’ and Gardeners’ Association (MOFGA) now has an organizational sistering with CORDES, the grassroots development arm of the Chalatenango’s organized rural association known as CCR. Many delegations from Maine have visited communities and organizations in El Salvador, focusing on different issues. Maine has on occasion hosted Salvadoran visitors as well.
 WERU’s relationship with Radio Sumpul is growing stronger and beginning to define itself. A handful of WERU programmers have visited Radio Sumpul as members of delegations or on their own, and were welcomed with open arms. Back in Maine, the newly formed Radio Sumpul WERU Sister Station Committee has begun to produce a weekly five-minute segment reporting on our sister station every Friday at 6:30am. In addition, programming concerning Radio Sumpul or issues related to El Salvador can be heard on “RadioActive”, “Voices”, or on specials. Check for updates and archived programming about Radio Sumpul at weru.org.
This June, WERU will host two central members of Radio Sumpul. Blanca Miriam Ayala Mejia and Maria Rosa Dubon Orellana. Miriam received her communications training during the civil war as a guerilla radio operator and is an elected representative to the CCR. Roas helped establish Radio Sumpul as an alternative news source and urgent alert system to mobilize against the new incursion of gold mining activity in the area and is the current administrator of Radio Sumpul. The two women will be involved in several Maine events hosted by WERU, PICA and MOFGA, and will travel with WERU and USELSC staff member, and Maine’s own, Jesse Dyer Stewart to participate in the Grassroots Radio Conference June 21st-24th, in Lowell, MA. Miriam and Rosa describe this tour as a means to encourage grassroots alternative media and community organizing. They will discuss:1) How local participatory democracy and organizing intersect with community radio as the voice of the people. 2) Their communities’ struggle for their rights to land threatened by Canadian gold mining companies and foreign business interests. 3) Constructing local participatory democracy to create sustainable communities in the face of government repression and harassment. 4) The connections between the problems we face in the US and El Salvador and our common solutions. They are calling their tour's title "When We Control the Media."
Listen to WERU for information on dates and times of the sister station events. The Radio Sumpul WERU Sister Station Committee is wide open for volunteer participation! Contact the Station at 469-6600 if you are interested in volunteering!
WERU sister station Radio Sumpul needs your HELP:
Contribute to Radio Sumpul Support Fund:
Operating a Community Radio Station in rural El Salvador presents many challenges, including a variety of technical problems that must be overcome in order to serve the people. Radio Sumpul has no shortage of technical and equipment challenges, one of which has been the lack of a functioning satellite connection with San Salvador in order to get national news and information programming from the nation's capital city. In fact, they have been without this connection for a couple of years.
Radio Sumpul is part of a social movement working to empower rural people and all Salvadorans struggling against economic, environmental, cultural and political oppression, and it is difficult to provide the most timely national news and information to its community without such a satellite link.
At WERU we became aware of this equipment need during the Radio Sumpul Sister Station Tour to Maine in June, and have recently purchased the required replacement part, a “C-Band low noise block downconverter”. We sent it south with some nice folks from PICA and the US/El Salvador Sister Cities Network who traveled to San Salvador in July. The part will hopefully reach Radio Sumpul in Guarjilla, Chalatenango in the near future so that our Sister Station will once again have a functioning satellite link.
We invite listeners to help pay for this satellite component, which cost $280.00, to express solidarity with the wonderful people of Radio Sumpul and the communities it serves. If you are so inclined please send checks to: WERU, P.O. Box 170, East Orland, ME 04431, with “Attn. Radio Sumpul” on the envelope and in the memo line of the check.
WERU will periodically post a “wish list” of necessary items that we are helping our Sister Station to obtain, so please check this site every now and then to see how you may be able to help with a donation or by volunteering.
Click here to browse the WERU Audio Archives for
hours and hours of on-air Sister Station Material
   
Other Sister Station Related sites to check out!
www.elsalvadorsolidarity.org
www.us-elsalvador-sisters.org
www.cripdes.org
www.cispes.org
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