Testimony of Gloria Daysi Alonso Jaimes

The following written testimony was provided by Gloria Daysi Alonso Jaimes on June 14, 1989, to a delegation representing the Faculty Committee on Human Rights in El Salvador-Central America (FACHRES-CA). Daysi Alonso was the Secretary of the Comite de Despedidos y Desempleados de El Salvador (Committee of the Laid-Off and Unemployed of El Salvador CODYDES), and worked with its external relations commission and its women's committee (COFEDYDES). CODYDES was formed in August 1986 in the midst of an extended economic crisis that had first gripped El Salvador in the 1970s. The economic malaise of the country had deepened in January 1986 with the implementation by the government of Jose Napoleon Duarte of the paquetazo, a project consisting of deep monetarist budget cuts. The specific immediate cause for the founding of CODYDES was massive layoffs of workers from several large public and private enterprises in 1985 and 1986. The general objectives of CODYDES are to halt both selective and mass firings, to struggle against the closing of sources of employment, to fight for the creation of new sources of employment, and to contribute to the struggle for peace and social justice in El Salvador. An initial wave of popular organizing in El Salvador had resulted in a powerful and combative social movement by the end of the 1970s. The political space within which to organize and to operate was closed down, however, by the end of 1980, and many popular organizations were destroyed or driven underground. Their ranks were decimated by the brutal, unbridled repression unleashed by the Christian Democrat military junta; many of the survivors fled to the guerrilla zones to join the armed struggle (Zamora, 1991: 182-184). The CODYDES-led organizing of unemployed and underemployed workers since 1986 has been one manifestation of the resurrection of the popular

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