The Seminar also broadened the debate with those groups in the women's movement which identify with left politics. Until now the feminist movement in Latin America has lacked a space for political discussion of strategic and ideological options. This has been seen as somehow foreign to the feminist struggle. This Seminar was only a first step, but a promising one. The second Seminar, which will take place in July 1997, preceding the Seventh Sao Paulo Forum, will continue this discussion. * * Sao Paulo State Executive of the PT, and with Latin America.
In the 1980s, the women's movement in Latin America became significant force and organised around a broad platform of Salvador: FMLN at the Crossroads demands with the goal of changing the structural conditions of women's lives and fighting against different forms of discrimination. Although certain left parties generally incorporated some of these questions into their platforms, this inclusion was rather unequal and superficial. In the balance sheet of the gains and difficulties of these years we should underline the immense difficulty in changing the relationship of forces between women and men in the spheres of power. It is clear that, in this sphere, to break with the almost total exclusion of women, we must develop a strategy able to change directly the conditions for women's participation.
During the 1990s, the discussions and mobilisations aiming to broaden women's participation in the spheres of power gained strength. Within this dynamic, this seminar within the 6th Sao Paulo Forum constituted the first Latin American meeting of women in left parties. For the first time, we had a broad meeting of women framework that sought to involve the whole spectrum of left parties in Latin America and the Caribbean, despite the fact that there are ambiguities and limitations in the constitution of the Forum itself. Other networks of women in Latin America have a more limited character or lack any politicoideological definition.
The pre-Forum meeting and the broader discussion in the plenary session opened up the perspective of a broadening of feminist discussion on the left, inaugurating a channel of discussion and contacts between militants of left parties across Latin America.
The Seminar showed that, despite all that women have accumulated in terms of organisation and deepening of the feminist discussion, in many parties this has not been deeply assimilated. There is often a hostile atmosphere to the equal participation of women in the leadership. The interchange 28 International Viewpoint
PT National Women's Secretariat member. Janette Habel THE SITUATION IN EL SALVADOR IS VERY TENSE. An openly authoritarian tendency is developing inside the government. The ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) government has allowed the re-emergence of the death squads made infamous by their founder and leader d' Aubisson.
Journalists and militants are receiving more and more threats. The general climate at this year's Forum was marked by the contrast between the declarations, mostly variations on the theme of "we have won, because we have won democracy," an the tension and uncertainty which was apparent when you looked outside the conference hall. Democracy is under threat, at least in Salvador. The old state structures and judicial system are still intact.
In the context of a generalised neo-liberal offensive, the social and economic promises which were part of the January 1992 Chapultepec peace accords have not been respected. Among other things, this means that many former FMLN fighters cannot meet the payments on the land they have been allocated Many others have still not received their allocation of farmland.
This is the context within which the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) hosted the 1996 Sao Paulo Forum. Over 10,000 Salvadoran militants attended the impressive opening ceremony. Unfortunately, the main FMLN speech, which talked of victory and the installation of democracy in El Salvador, was out of phase with the reality facing the population. Many Salvadorians feel that the FMLN benefits from the current situation, trough its parliamentary representatives. These resentments reflect the misery which is still the daily reality of the majority of citizens, despite 12 years of war, trauma and sacrifice.
Mario Mijango leads one FMLN current which tries to articulate a left response to this popular dissatisfaction with the new direction the FMLN is taking. Mijango directed urban operations for the Peoples' Revolutionary Army (ERP). He and a number of ERP comrades remained faithful to their ideals when ERP leader Joaquim Villalobos split the FMLN to form the Democratic Party (PD). The few public texts of the Mijango group are concerned with the FMLN's refusal to discuss and draw conclusions from the changes which have transformed the world over the last five years. In Mijango's opinion, this shortcoming has left FMLN militants ideologically disarmed, and stripped of a global perspective for their political work. leaders' claims that the Front has "won." In his opinion, the FMLN was forced to negotiate, finding itself with its back to the wall, in extremely difficult conditions. The Front tried to protect a number of social gains, and maintain its own structures and identify for the future struggle. Mijango argues that the Front must now explain to its people that it was obliged to accept the "peace" negotiations because of the unfavourable balance of forces at the international level (US policy combined with the transformation of the USSR).
He argues that, in order to preserve its forces, the FMLN was forced to retreat, without achieving the goals for which it had struggled. Mijango is convinced that social explosions are possible in the foreseeable future. This means that the FMLN continues to play an important role in the popular struggle, including its potential contribution to the self-defence of popular movements. *