Sunday, March 15, 2009
ELECTION DAY, GROUP # 6 AND NEJAPA
Zero days left ‘til the Salvadoran presidential election. 4:10 AM—first assignment was handed to us within 10 minutes of getting there: back to Villa Olímpica—reports that the buses were now leaving, transporting all the alleged foreigners and/or Salvadorans from other municipalities and departments. Our group was divided up. I went with two guys, a Salvadoran observer and an observer from Uruguay. Upon arriving we saw nothing, no vigilant FMLN supports, no ARENA supports and especially no buses filled people. I began feeling a little strange from the lack of sleep, hearing things that weren't there. We circled the place a few times, saw nothing and came back. I relayed what we saw, or what we didn't see, to one of the main coordinators at 1316, Freddie. He was upset and started saying that we went to the wrong place. I told him, no, that we were at the same place as last night: Villa Olímpica. He kept saying that we absolutely must've gone to the wrong place and wanted to send another group. At this point I got upset and told him that I was 100 % sure with not a single ounce of doubt that not only were we at the right place but that all (if not, most) of the buses were still there, empty; if indeed people were being bussed out, it had already happened. Freddie showed signs of finally agreeing. Later, I heard that he still sent out another group.
After that, my original delegation (Eyvin, Carla, Perla, Parish, Gaily, Claudia, Romél and myself) were split up. Parish, Perla and Eyvin had planned out a very well-coordinated system for today. A core group of observers were to directly work out of 1316 giving out assignments of reported fraud/irregularities that needed to be investigated; about 12 groups were organized, each group being made up of about four to five observers: one guide/driver, one or two photographers, someone with a cell phone and one cameraman.
I was in group #6, which consisted of: Eric (the guide/driver), Nacho (the photographer), Mario (in charge of getting names, DUI numbers, license plate numbers and other details), José (leader, with cell phone) and myself (cameraman, with cell phone). Everyone in group #6 was from Spain except for me. Eric was Salvadoran but his father was from Spain.
Our first assignment was to investigate the reports of the ink-staining procedure of the voting process. After a person drops his ballot into the box, he returns to the voting table to sign his name and dip his finger in a jar of ink to ensure that he is unable to vote again that day. We went to the voting center at the INDES sports stadium. Immediately at arriving José and Nacho interviewed people that had just finished voting. Mario and I asked to see their fingers. On some people the ink was dark and obvious; on others, nothing—it was as if they didn't even vote. At one voting table I recorded a voter being aided by one of the members of the table in dipping his finger into the ink, the voter retracting a darkly stained finger. At other tables it was different: the voter's fingers appeared slightly dirty, barely tanned. This was a big irregularity, something that shouldn't have been overlooked. This meant that a person that had just voted could theoretically go out and vote again, at a different table, at a different municipality.
I received a call from 1316 that ARENA was using buses again in transporting foreigners from a stadium in Cuscatlán to voting centers. We were instructed to monitor the stadium and when a bus comes out, follow it for as long as necessary. We parked on a side street directly in front of one of the two entrance gates, guarded by private security guards armed with shotguns. So as not to draw too much attention, José, Mario, Eric and I took off our International Observer vests, hats and credentials. Nacho stayed in the truck taking pictures. After waiting half an hour, I walked across the street to get a better look inside. There were approximately fourteen buses (couldn't tell if they were empty or not) and over twenty people, some wearing ARENA t-shirts and hats. There was a huge ARENA flag on the steps to the stadium with a table directly in front of it. It was noted that the vast majority of the people not wearing ARENA clothing looked poor, untypical of the average ARENA support who dresses in nice shoes, nice pants and with trendy haircuts. I walked back to the truck where we talked about our next plan. Mario has suggested that we go up to the guards and ask to be let in, simple and to the point. I disagreed, saying that that was contradicting our initial instructions. But if we really wanted to, I would call and ask the people at 1316 if half of our group should go up to the guards while the other half either stayed put in the event that the buses started to leave or sneak into the stadium with the guards were distracted. As we were weighing out the options, the guards rolled open the gates and out came two buses. We pursued.
We followed for hours. Even the guide/driver didn't know exactly where we were, somewhere possibly outside of the department of San Salvador. La Málaga, the guide/driver had said at one point. The first stop was at a park where several people got on, all wearing ARENA t-shirts. Nacho got out to take better pictures. They spotted us and took off. Nacho got back in and continued. The bus in front had gone a different route so we stayed with the one that trailed behind. We lost it a couple times and at one point it somehow got behind us. It made at least three or four stops where a few people got off and more got on. It stopped only at one voting center in a place referred to as Las Ferias by the guide, dropping off three people. The bus made a U-turn onto heavy traffic. We looked at each other, José and I smoking non-stop, and decided to abandon the pursuit and head back to 1316.
I started hearing voices again. Each time I closed my eyes I heard them louder. Static, rambling voices. José and I smoked cigarette after cigarette to stay awake. At one point I think we all started whistling "The International." I looked at everyone's face. No one was whistling, or even talking for that matter. I was going insane. My eyes started burning, squinting at the bright, hot daylight. I asked José what time it was. It was only 10 AM.
Back at 1316 I drank cold coffee and continued smoking. We weren't allowed to wander far in the case that we were needed to go out again and investigate another potential fraud or irregularity. Mario wrote in his journal. José and Nacho were lying down on the grass lawn in front. I don't know where Eric had gone. I kept drinking the cold, black, sugarless coffee out of tiny Styrofoam cups, constantly having to make trips back to the coffee machine for refills, not minding that there was no sugar, that it was cold, trying hard to stay awake, telling myself, today is Sunday, it is a little after 11 AM, I am in El Salvador for the presidential elections as an international observer, having to remind myself of what was going on. My teeth started feeling weak, as frail as chalk. I had started forgetting what day it was, Saturday? Today is Saturday and tomorrow is Sunday, election day. No, Sunday, today is Sunday. I laid down on the lawn to calm my delirious head with José, Nacho and a few other observers waiting to be called out, all of us, a sea of battered border-line socialist vigilantes. I closed my eyes but did not sleep—thanks to the coffee.
At approximately 12:55 PM we received a call that foreigners were being held at a cleaning factory in Nejapa waiting to be bussed out to vote. Group #6 assembled and piled into Eric's truck and a car, this time accompanied by Carla from the southern California delegation, a lawyer, a few other observers and two ex-guerrillas. Carla, myself and the ex-guerrillas traveled in the car. Carla mentioned to them that her brother had died in the early onset of the war, fighting with ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo) or FPL (Fuerzas Populares de Liberación). They spoke about how some of the rebels that died in the beginning of the war still are not identified.
We arrived at Nejapa at around 1:30 PM. We all asked around for the location of the cleaning factory, but no one was able to confirm the location. After half an hour of wandering and randomly asking people for directions to the cleaning factory, it was decided to head back to the cars and return to 1316, to write this off as either a prank call or just bad communication. We passed the Nejapa's voting center. The outside was a wall of ARENA supporters, most of them sporting their party's t-shirt and hat; it looked more like an ARENA meeting than a neutral (or at least balanced) voting center. We went in, the Spaniards of group #6 leading the way. After passing the ARENA crowd and then the civil police, armed with automatic weapons, we saw that ARENA was running the show. One of the observers in our group spoke with a lady next to a stand that was displaying all the voter names at the center. A voter will come into the center, look for his or her name on one of these stands and next to the name it will say which voting table to go to. But the lady was saying that there was the name and picture of her deceased relative on the display. The observer took all the information down. And then a few more voters looked up and saw their deceased loved ones names as well.
Then we saw a random lady sit down at one of the voting tables and sign a ballot, something that only the secretary of the voting table is responsible for. The secretary had gone to use the bathroom. We all took names, DUI numbers if able and photos.
The voting table, the JRV, is made up of six people: a president, a secretary, the first table member, the second table member and two "party observers," one for each party (FMLN and ARENA) behind the table monitoring all activity.
But at Nejapa we saw at any given table two to three and even up to five party observers—all ARENA. There was one table with two FMLN party observers.
I went up to a few different tables and spoke with the party observers, asking each one what their titles were. "Vigilante [Party Observer]," the first one would say, then the second one, without any sign of guilt, "Vigilante" and finally the third one, "Vigilante."
I spoke with one of the ARENA supervisors for the party observers as well as one of the FMLN supervisors.
"You're not following the rules. This can be seen as intimidation. It's not equal," I said.
"We're only doing it because they started it," said the ARENA supervisor.
"No. We couldn't, we're outnumbered," said the FMLN supervisor.
I spoke with both of them and we agreed to go to every single voting table to make sure that there was only one party observer per party per table. We were able to fix about four or five tables. I left them in the charge of another observer from New Jersey.
Then there were also several cases of other irregularities, such as a case where an ARENA party observer was clutching onto the ballot box, possibly intimidating the voters, intentionally or not, or the case where a lady was being refused to vote because she didn't resemble her ID picture; she was now pregnant and bigger.
Outside I took a picture with a couple of fourteen-year-old girls wearing ARENA t-shirts. I was tempted to show off my Che tattoo but decided against it.
We returned to 1316 and began filling out all the incident reports. In the end our group had about seven reports, possibly more.
I was in the middle of wrapping one of my reports up when we got called into the very back of the building for a meeting with all the coordinators and observers. It was 5:09 PM, nine minutes from the closing of the voting. The preliminary reports had just come in: that even though it was too early to be completely confirmed Mauricio Funes and the FMLN had won the presidency. A first-time presidential win since the guerrilla group became a political party after the Peace Accords of the civil war in 1992. It wasn't official yet, but they had already received figures from several centers with ARENA, Rodrigo Ávila, at 40% and FMLN, Mauricio Funes, at an impressive 60%. A 20% landslide victory.
A lot of us couldn't help it, our minds raw and fragile from lack of sleep and malnutrition. We cried. Eyes wet and red with hesitant tears, each of us stealing a glance at each other to see who's holding it in better, who's doing a better job of hiding the overwhelming feeling of happiness, of holding in this awesome joy, of a dream finally realized. But I was able to hold it in by thinking about irrelevant things like baseball, the building's ceiling, its walls, etc.
After the meeting I went back to writing my incident report and Eyvin came by. We talked a little about the news. I said that this was history, that we were witnessing actual history but more importantly, we were helping it—and that is a testament to the world that if change is wanted and needed, and if people dedicate themselves to that outcome, that goal, no matter what happens, then it's possible. And El Salvador is proof of it. My voice started trembling and my eyes began watering, and suddenly my guard was completely destroyed and I had no chance; I cried. Eyvin patted my on the back and everyone went back to work, completing incident reports, which ultimately lost their timely significance. But in submitting these reports we could still show how flawed the voting process was, something Mauricio Funes vowed to fix if elected.
Outside, it was a party. A competition to see who could wear the most red, who could fit the most people into the back of a pickup. Perla, Eyvin, Romél, Gaily, Perish, Claudia and I went to the main celebration happening at a blocked-off street intersection (Carla stayed at 1316 with a group of friends). It was a sea of flags and banners from Venezuela, El Salvador, Cuba, Guatemala, Sweden, Palestine and red FMLN and FSLN (Frente Sandanista para la Liberación Nacionál, Nicaragua) flags.
Later on in the night the official numbers were FMLN with 51.3% over ARENA with 48.7%.
We were all contaminated with this crazy hope and optimism that nothing was out of the realm of possibility, a feeling that spared no one that was involved in the FMLN election movement.
