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El Salvador:

Fight Against Evictions Shows Need for Communist, Not Reformist, Solution

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EL SALVADOR. The week of the extension was nearing its end; the eviction of the people in the community of El Espino, Antiguo Cuzcutlán, was coming. A group of youth mobilized to go there the night before with our banner saying, “Fight! Win! Workers to Power,” megaphone, rockets (fire works), and Red Flag, all to encourage the vigil and the next day’s struggle.
When we arrived, there was an atmosphere of uncertainty. The community leadership had decided to leave. We began to talk to people; many told us the same thing, “We have nowhere to go.”  We realized by their words, tears and anger that capitalism is to blame for leaving these dozens of families homeless.
We put Red Flag on a table while we unfurled the banner. Quickly some approached to take the paper. We told them there was an article about the community. Many took extras, including members of another organization. Because of logistical problems, we could only distribute the 25 papers we had.
As the night got cold, while we ate tamales, the group of youth analyzed the situation. In this group were communists, anarchists and socialists. We decided to go along with what the inhabitants and we decided collectively.
Community members exchanged words of support among themselves. The idealist sentiment of christianity led them to place their hope in their religion. With songs and prayers, the tears fell out of despair and oppression.
However, we continued chanting to encourage them and to give them a sense of the materialist struggle against capitalism. “The land is won with organized struggle,” we began to chant.
 “The struggle has to be here; it is you who decide to fight,” “Men and women workers in South Africa, Spain and other parts of the world know about this and are with you,” were some of the words of the comrade from ICWP.
We walked around the community to see if the police had come. At midnight the press came with two trucks with the judge’s employees, plus two police patrol cars. Seeing that the vigil continued, the patrol cars and the trucks left.
The people didn’t stop singing and talking, others telling jokes, while the coffee came. At 3:00 a.m. we decided to rest a little. We were all waiting for the moment that the police would come.
 “It’s the police,” “They came!” The inhabitants sounded the sirens, and the fire works’ rockets. It was 5:00 am. The Order Maintenance Unit, anti-riot arm of the fmln, came.
The banners, and all the men and women, were now at the entrance preventing them from passing. A Lutheran minister gave a pacifist speech. He mentioned the constitution, and that the police were here “to defend us,” and even asked for applause for those who came with the job of repressing and evicting.
We tried to raise peoples’ pride and fighting spirit. “Neither with bullets nor with judges, El Espino will not move.” The people got excited and shouted the chants. In front of the police and the fascist media, we chanted against the capitalist Dueñas. “What title? What property? The Dueñas usurp the peoples’ land.”
The judge arrived at 7:00 am and gave them 30 minutes to vacate. Although some decided to take their things out, no one moved from the entrance. Then the police broke the circle without much resistance. The police went from house to house warning of the eviction.
At 9:00 am the governor of the department of La Libertad came. She, with the complicity of the leading community committee, proposed taking them to a shelter on the other side of the city and leaving their belongings stored in a warehouse. The people reacted furiously, saying, “NO!” “What will happen to us then?” The area of this shelter is one of the most dangerous and besieged by gangs.
A few meters from the community, there are lands belonging to the state. The inhabitants proposed that they be given this land. The governor’s answer was a resounding “NO!” Then she said, “Well, we proposed this to you, now you all see what you will do,” and left.
While the fmln government boasts that these five years will be a term of urban investment and congratulates the Dueñas for the great work they have done in building shopping centers, entire families took out their few belongings without a place to go.
The day before, a temporary injunction was filed to stop the eviction. At 10:00 a.m. officials     called to say there had been a decision. They reported that they had accepted the appeal and that the eviction was unconstitutional.
This felt like victory for the moment. Hugs, tears, joy and jubilation followed. A march was organized in the community where the judge was. As victors, the inhabitants re-entered their community. Then we left. Many of them hugged and thanked us for having accompanied them. We planned future meetings with them.
Unfortunately the eviction is imminent, not only because of the laws favoring the capitalists, or because of the bourgeois fmln government.
But also for lack of organization. The reformist struggle does not bring any real benefit for the workers, except something temporary. Without a direct struggle against capitalism and for communism we cannot achieve anything.
The movement of the masses is constant, and we have to continue in the movement from the moments they are not visible until the moment of a direct struggle.
The Party’s ideas were there and they have now reached the community, as they have reached the factories and the fields.
The communist struggle is a process and we have to make the workers conscious that this is a class struggle. There is no reformist solution.

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