To: Mari Carmen Aponte, Ambassador to El Salvador
US Ambassador Aponte: Stop Telling El Salvador to Sell Out Its Workers and Citizens!
Honorable Ambassador Aponte:
We the undersigned are appalled by your attempts to force the government of El Salvador to pass the proposed Public-Private Partnership Law. Your threats to withhold millions in Millennium Challenge development aid - repeatedly stated to the Salvadoran media - violate the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people and government to decide their position on this law without coercion by the US State Department.
Many Salvadoran labor and community organizations have expressed opposition to the Public-Private Partnership Law on the grounds that it will result in corporate control of state services and industries, rising costs for essential services, massive lay-offs, deteriorating working conditions and loss of revenue for the state. In fact, these have been the results of past privatization efforts in El Salvador.
These Salvadoran constituents are exercising their legal, democratic right to lobby their government representatives to vote down this law. It is the Salvadoran electorate – not the United States government – that should be directing El Salvador’s economic policy.
We demand that you:
1) Stop using international aid money to manipulate El Salvador’s sovereign democratic process.
2) Stop pressuring the Salvadoran government to pass the Public-Private Partnership Law.
We the undersigned are appalled by your attempts to force the government of El Salvador to pass the proposed Public-Private Partnership Law. Your threats to withhold millions in Millennium Challenge development aid - repeatedly stated to the Salvadoran media - violate the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people and government to decide their position on this law without coercion by the US State Department.
Many Salvadoran labor and community organizations have expressed opposition to the Public-Private Partnership Law on the grounds that it will result in corporate control of state services and industries, rising costs for essential services, massive lay-offs, deteriorating working conditions and loss of revenue for the state. In fact, these have been the results of past privatization efforts in El Salvador.
These Salvadoran constituents are exercising their legal, democratic right to lobby their government representatives to vote down this law. It is the Salvadoran electorate – not the United States government – that should be directing El Salvador’s economic policy.
We demand that you:
1) Stop using international aid money to manipulate El Salvador’s sovereign democratic process.
2) Stop pressuring the Salvadoran government to pass the Public-Private Partnership Law.
Why is this important?
The Salvadoran Legislative Assembly is currently debating a Public-Private Partnership Law which would pave the way for the privatization of important public services.
The US Ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte, has been vigorously pushing the Salvadoran government to pass this law, even making threats that a $368 million development project from the Millennium Challenge Corporation will not be approved if the law is not passed. Please sign the petition to demand that Ambassador Aponte stop pressuring the Salvadoran government to pass this law.
The US Ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte, has been vigorously pushing the Salvadoran government to pass this law, even making threats that a $368 million development project from the Millennium Challenge Corporation will not be approved if the law is not passed. Please sign the petition to demand that Ambassador Aponte stop pressuring the Salvadoran government to pass this law.