Ambassador William Walker's Speech at El Rescate's 30th Anniversary

MARCH 24, 2011, LOS ANGELES, CA.

Let me begin by telling you why I am here this evening, why I accepted the invitation to address such a distinguished, but distant from Washington, assemblage.
First, because my old friend Salvador Sanabria invited me, and offered me the chance to speak;

Second, because I care deeply for El Salvador, for my many friends there and here, for all those sincere, hard working Salvadorans who only seek a better life, a more positive image for their beloved homeland;

Thirdly, because I believe things in El Salvador – in many ways – are, unfortunately, going in the wrong direction, and unless things change, the future is indeed problematic;

And lastly, because I firmly believe that part of the answer to the question “how to bring positive and badly needed change, both on the image question, but more importantly in the reality of life and economic well-being of those you care about?”, that the answer lies in the hands of you of the Diaspora.

A footnote to my appearance with you this evening. In 1988-92, the American policy I struggled to implement was highly controversial, and nowhere more so than here in Los Angeles. As the personification of American official support for one side of the conflict, the Government, I received letters, criticisms and accusations on a daily basis. Many among you, who had fled the repressive acts of the Government I was accredited to, misunderstood the policy I was attempting to implement. And I am here tonight to admit that many in Washington, my superiors at State included, misunderstood the messages that you were so passionately trying to send. But knowingly or not, we agreed that the war had to end if El Salvador was ever going to show the world what it was, and what it was not.

I’ve waited too many years before returning to this the scene of my youth, having grown up and left in 1961 for the Foreign Service from my home in Santa Monica. I then spent 40 years serving as a diplomatic representative of the United States mostly throughout Latin America, with two of my tours – seven years in all – in a country you all are most familiar with, the most interesting, the most hospitable that this gringo diplomat, and his family, served in – that is the “pulgarcito” of the hemisphere, El Salvador.

My first exposure to El Salvador was as chief of the US Embassy political section, from 1974-77 – leaving just prior to the war; and my second tour was as the American ambassador from August 1988 to early-1992, leaving shortly after the Peace Accords which, thankfully, ended the conflict. Those among you who remember El Salvador in the 1970s, under the military/PCN regimes – with a total lack of interest by the United States in events in that tiny country -- will recall how lovely life was for those with political, economic or military connections – and how miserable life was for everyone else. I left in late 1977, convinced that if something were not done, and soon, in terms of alleviating poverty, ending military rule and repression, and – most importantly – in establishing an administration of justice system, that provided real justice and the rule of law for everyone, not just those with impunity-- it was only a matter of time before something bad happened.

Eighteen months later all hell broke loose. During the 1980s, the conflict in Central America was second only to the Cold War and our relations with the USSR and China, as the foreign policy issue of greatest importance and threat to the US. I would only mention the Sandinista-Contra conflict in Nicaragua, the civil war in ES, our invasion of Panama – all of which h dominated the front pages, top of the fold, of the WP, the NYT, the evening TV news throughout the decade. I spent 1985-88 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in DC, in charge of our relations with Central America and Panama, working 12-14-16 hour days, on call 24/7, since Washington was consumed with events in what we called “our backyard”. El Salvador, and its war, was on everyone’s minds.

I returned as ambassador in 1988 to a vastly different ES. After nine years of exhaustive civil war, it appeared as though lessons had been learned. The military was in retreat and disrepute, especially after the 1989 Final Offensive and the killing of the Jesuit priests at UCA. With the Salvadoran Peace Accords of January 1992, most Salvadorans and outside observers – myself included – believed that El Salvador finally had the opportunity, and the will, to correct the errors of the past. I also saw, and this is what I want to elaborate on tonight, the presence in the United States of an uncounted number of new arrivals – refugees from the war, from the lack of justice, from the poverty, etc. These were those who, themselves and their children, compose the present Diaspora! I believed the errors of the past would be corrected, for no one could contemplate a return to conflict. Yes, a few problems have been dealt with in the past nine years. The military has been tamed. A middle class is slowly emerging. But the critical problems – poverty, injustice, unemployment, crime – remain with us, if not more serious than before.

During my two tours, which witnessed far too many horrendous events – assassinations, kidnappings, massacres – and any number of other despicable acts -- I nevertheless came to greatly admire the fortitude, the resilience, the decency, the work ethic of the overwhelming majority of the Salvadoran peoples – traits that neither those on one side of the conflict or the other, or those caught in between, had a monopoly on. These were traits and virtues possessed by virtually all Salvadorans.

In the 37 years that I have been involved with this tiny nation, I have witnessed the migrations that have brought well over two million Salvadorans to the United States – some seeking economic opportunity, others sanctuary from the war, and still others having other valid reasons to leave. Tonight I am delighted to be with a representative group of those who landed in Southern California.
I am presently involved with three diasporas – the Salvadoran, the Kosovar-Albanian, and to a lesser extent the Vietnamese. All three – as many other diasporas – evolved initially out of conflict, violence, war in the “old country”. Each still has to overcome the negative image created by extensive media coverage of the earlier trauma. Each has given some among it, who only needed an opportunity to prosper, in the openness that America represents, the chance to succeed. Each community also has an underside – people with no documents, or no jobs, or who fall into addiction and antisocial behavior – and whose individual deeds and arrests make the headlines, while the multiple success stories do not. Each of these three diasporas, including your own, has tried to leverage its growing numbers, its potential political and economic influence, its contributions to American society – into tools to help the beloved old country. And each, in my humble opinion, has been unsuccessful.
El Salvador is becoming, no, it already is, the poster child for all that is bad infecting Central America – it is perceived as a region of violence, extreme poverty, political corruption, repression, crime -- and now the unspeakable excesses of the Maras and other criminal elements, the influence and impunity of the Perrones, illegal immigration, narcotrafficking, and the corrosive activities such illegalities support.

I want to tell you, and I want you to somehow convince your fellow Americans – not just here in California, and Texas, and Washington DC – but the people in Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, whose only knowledge of ES comes solely from the daily news, TV documentaries, etc., which I’m afraid reinforce only the negative. As everyone in this room knows, the Maras do not, in any fashion, represent El Salvador. The Perrones, the corrupt politicians, the money launderers – the “bad guys” that every nation on earth harbors – do not represent ES. It’s your relatives in ES, from all social and economic classes that only want to hold their heads high, that love their country – with all its problems and shortcomings -- these are the people who truly represent the reality of El Salvador.

I do not care from which economic class you come from; to which political party you belong; not even whether you believe the US is a positive or negative player in Salvadoran affairs (I have my own doubts on this latter issue) – I only ask whether you are, or can be, or want to be, a part of the solution.

Tonight I have been asked to say a few words about President Obama’s trip to El Salvador, what promise it represents and what obstacles US policy faces. As an overall comment, let me say that I am delighted that the President is making his trip. Latin America in general, and Central America in particular, has been “off America’s radar” for far too long. In the early nineties, as the US so often does, we declared victory far too soon, and transferred our attention and resources elsewhere. I sincerely hope the Obama visit is a turn in new direction.

At a White House news conference prior to the President’s trip, an administration spokesperson laid out the goals for El Salvador --- the establishment of sustainable, resilient communities, fueled by affordable renewable energy -- an environment so attractive, so filled with economic promise, that the impetus behind the Diaspora will come to an end.
These are noble and highly ambitious goals. Unfortunately I have heard them before. What is missing is a plan to make them a reality rather than appear as the same old rhetoric. One third of Salvadorans today exist ‘off the grid, they are not part of the 21st century’ --- a ‘stateless state’ within a state of substandard housing, of no reliable clean water, affordable fuel, proper sanitation, education, communications or economic opportunity, whose very soil has been deserted, stripped of wood and vegetation so that people can make fires for cooking and heating. The environment made toxic by industrial and human waste. This segment of the population is increasing in numbers, and neither the national government nor international donors have the resources nor sustainable will to get at the underlying problems. We have calculated the cost of achieving the Administration’s goals for elevating and keeping these roughly 2 million from abject poverty. The cost would be $500 per person per year --- or a $1 billion annual subsidy.

The national government cannot afford the infrastructure buildup to connect them to the existing grids. It cannot even afford to raise its present subsidies on methane and propane gas for the poor, to keep up with the huge increase in commodity prices.
There is only one group that has a chance. You are here tonight. You of the Diaspora --- and only you --- are positioned to take on this issue.

But what is the political reality? At that same White House press conference, my friend Salvador Sanabria asked the first question. As we know the largest international subsidy to El Salvador is the MCC --- the Millennium Challenge Corporation grant. The MCC is presently up for renewal, in Washington parlance, to be reloaded with fresh cash. Salvador asked a direct question. Will the Diaspora have a voice in the decision making, the planning and execution of the new MCC monies?

It seemed a reasonable question to me. After all, you of the Diaspora annually send back home, in the form of cash remittances --- $3-4 billion. You contribute with your hard earned donations 18% of El Salvador’s GDP --- more than any other industrial or commercial sector --- far exceeding the total annual foreign investment, grants and loans, that El Salvador receives.
Despite that, the answer Salvador received was that the US and Salvadoran governments will jointly decide how they could best utilize the remittances. In other words, the governments, not the contributors, will decide. In government parlance to “utilize”, usually means to appropriate.

Governments, including the US and El Salvador, are desperate for cash. Your remittance flow is a great temptation. Unless you speak up, neither you nor the recipients will have a voice in how your hard earned dollars are spent.
And so despite your enormous contributions and sacrifice in support of your families and homeland, you of the Diaspora will have no voice in deciding the uses to which a share of the remittances is put.

The first step in gaining the Diaspora a seat at the table is for the world to begin to know who you are. Let us view the Salvadoran Diaspora as the international community judges a country that is looking for development loans. Your contribution to the American GDP exceeds $40 billion annually. You buy everything from toothpaste to automobiles. In international terms you are the size of the economy of the Dominican Republic, and twice that of El Salvador itself. The Diaspora economy is well run --- spinning off a savings rate of 10% --- the $4 billion that you send back to El Salvador in cash remittances. By comparison, the US savings rate is 1-3%. The Diaspora should be celebrated internationally for what you have accomplished in the United States, and for what you do for the undeserved of El Salvador --- subsidizing that the one third of the population that the national government cannot afford to support, and generally ignores.

All sustainable economic progress is based on one principle: the establishment of a viable marketplace. Prosperity is a byproduct of commerce. Where there is no commerce there is only want and misery.

The ‘stateless state’ I mentioned in El Salvador, without the basics of modern infrastructure, is not a marketplace, except perhaps for the low cost consumables that your remittances provide for. Your contributions, month after month, year after year, do little if anything, to move the recipients into a modern marketplace economy. However, if they and the Diaspora were forged into a single unified market, open to development by US industrial and commercial interests, companies eager to penetrate the US ethnic market and establish a presence in the Emerging World --- then a new self-sustaining global economic unit twice the size of El Salvador emerges.

Modern markets require modern infrastructure. The two governments have their plans. Based on past experience I have my doubts as to their effectiveness. Too much is siphoned off for studies, consultants, inefficiencies, and let’s be honest, corruption. There might be others with possible solutions, but given El Salvador’s poor record in gaining outside investment, especially for projects dealing with the poor, and El Salvador’s and the region’s image problem, I doubt any will proceed, or succeed. A year ago, I became interested in a project which I would hope you of the Diaspora will take a serious look at.

A global infrastructure design and investment organization --- AGP --- Arete Global Partners --- has been working with members of FUSA and in-country Salvadorans to develop an action plan. It is named the El Tamazul Project ---an independent ‘off the grid’ micro-grid system delivering water, sanitation, electric power, fuel, hygiene, medical supervision and global communications inter-connectivity in support of new market areas --- “micro-cities” inside the urban and rural slums.
The technological core of the El Tamazul micro-grid and the micro-city project has already been developed, much of it by the US automobile industry, with massive government investment. The use of advanced auto technology and parts in emerging world micro-grid and micro-city design opens a market for US goods and technology of enormous proportions.

By its involvement in the funding of this massive technology transfer, you could help promote a far different perception of the Salvadoran Diaspora, changing the image from the current negative stereotype, to that of a community privately funding the introduction of the latest advanced US technology to rid El Salvador of poverty and inequity.

Under the El Tamazul plan, individuals would be asked to donate a small portion of their remittances into an investment account that would then leverage the funds collected with substantial loans from Multilateral Development Banks to finance the deployment of the micro-grids and micro-cities in El Salvador. This way the Diaspora would play a crucial role with historical precedence. The concept was first developed during the 1920s where Irish Americans bought war bonds to finance their country’s war of independence; a concept later adopted by the American Jewish community to finance the fledgling State of Israel.

In this way remittances will no longer be a consumable subsidy, that once spent is gone, but an investment -- designed to pay dividends to the remitter, raise the living standards of the recipient, and become a model for others.

This is a plan built on the reality of the lives of the Salvadoran Diaspora, of your families back home, of your sacrifices --- to promote the welfare of your relatives in El Salvador and to elevate the image of the Diaspora and the nation you so ably represent.
We can do this, working together, with the same words the Irish used in their crusade to give their homeland a new beginning: “By Ourselves Alone.”

Thank you, for your time, your attention and your unending love and sacrifice for family and country.

Given at the El Rescate's 30th Anniversary

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