DON WHITE, 1937-2008Â Check out the 
Don White memorial blog here
Watch a wonderful video of Don here.
Don White, long time CISPES activist in Los Angeles, passed away at his home in Los Angeles on June 19, 2008. He will be missed, not only by his family, but by literally hundreds of friends and associates of the many organizations in which he was so passionately involved over the past three decades.
To see more pictures of Don go here
On July 30, 2007 CISPES and organized a protest at the Salvador Consulate in Boston against recent arrests under the anti-terrorism law in El Salvador, the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), the threat of water privatization.
Long-time CISPES member Paul Raymond passed away in May, 2007. Paul visited El Salvador many times with CISPES over the years, was a devoted member of the Seattle CISPES chapter, and a stalwart supporter of the struggle in El Salvador. He is an amazing example of solidarity, someone who gave his life to building community, challenging power and fighting for a better world.
Paul helped found the Northwest School in Seattle in the early 1980s. Read more about Paul’s life in this obituary in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
After the approval of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) the National Movement of CD and DVD Vendors became one of the most active groups in El Salvador resisting CAFTA and US-imposed neoliberal policies.
In 2005 CISPES was featured on CUNY-TV’s “Nueva York” program, which tells the story of 25 years of solidarity with El Salvador.
The 2004 CISPES video “Confronting Empire: Hope, Fear and US Intervention in the 2004 Salvadoran Elections”
Confronting Empire: Hope, Fear and US Intervention in the 2004 Salvadoran Elections from cispes on Vimeo.
Don White, long-time solidarity activist who passed away in June 2008, talks about the FMLN’s defeat in presidential elections during a 2004 CISPES delegation in El Salvador.
The victories of the healthcare strike laid the groundwork for the struggle against CAFTA, the FTAA and neoliberalism. Unions and the FMLN revitalized and rejuvenated a movement and proved that you can stop the neoliberal onslaught. When President Bush announced his intentions for a trade agreement with Central America, the Salvadoran social movement, the FMLN, and CISPES immediately began to organize an international campaign to stop it. Though CAFTA eventually passed, it was only by one vote. If we had not waged a campaign, the margin in the US would have been overwhelming. CISPES went on to work with the FMLN and social movement in El Salvador and our allies in the US to block its implementation.
On February 6th, 2003, CISPES activists occupied Salvadoran consulates in San Francisco and New York City, and march on Boston consulate, and seven people are arrested in a solidarity action with a march of 100,000 people in San Salvador demanding that the government not privatize the health care system.
February 6th was the fifth massive march in El Salvador during what was then a nearly 5 month national health care strike in which hospital workers, doctors, and hospital users all joined forces. CISPES activists throughout the country supported the health care workers’ union by educating about the issue of privatization and free trade, raising money to support the strikers, and by high-profile actions like these consulate take-overs. Pictures of the actions and the arrests made national news in El Salvador. The movement was eventually successful in stopping the privatization of health care!
This campaign video captured the onslaught of neoliberalism in El Salvador in the late 1990s and the growing resistance of the social movement and the FMLN. CISPES played a key role in highlighting the negative effects of free trade, privatization, and the rise of the sweatshops industry. As the new millennium began, solidarity continued to play a key role in combating US policies in Central America.
El Salvador: NOT for Sale – CISPES video, 2001 from cispes on Vimeo.
