Special CISPES Update: Lessons from Obama's Visit to El Salvador http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=826&Itemid=1

Reflecting on the significance of the visit, Funes, the leftist Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) party and social movement members concur that Obama's presence definitively disproves the long-time threat by right-wing political parties that the election of a leftist FMLN candidate to the presidency would sever US relations with El Salvador. "We have won the battle against disinformation. We have dispelled the fear that relations would deteriorate," Funes told reporters

This provides some important breathing room to the Funes-FMLN coalition government to continue El Salvador's political transformation, without the Salvadoran right-wing's greatest empty threat. Nonetheless, opposition to US interventenion across Latin America continues to smolder, and for good reason. Neoliberal economics, the "War on Drugs" and the criminalization of Latin America's immigrants remain the pillars of Obama's Latin American policy - so very similar to his Republican predecessors. Thus far what has changed is Obama's framing: in joint press conferences with President Rousseff in Brazil, President Piñera in Chile and President Funes in El Salvador, President Obama stressed "partnerships" among the US and countries in Latin America, naming his priority as "common prosperity and common security."