Photo: CISPES.org.
Hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of San Salvador on May 1 to celebrate May Day and the victories of the working class. Marchers raised demands for justice, equality and self-determination, .
May Day was a festive affair, full of music, banners, chanting and theatrics. Street theatre and graffiti artists condemned US imperialism and the recent intervention into Salvadoran affairs by by US Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte. The ambassador had suggested US aid could be cut after El Salvador's left-wing Farabundo Martà National Liberation Front (FMLN) government criticised US attacks on Venezuela.
The Salvadoran Social and Union Front headed the march as part of the United Social Movement and Union Coordinating Committee block. The march featured diverse mass social movement coalitions, radical student groups and base committees of FMLN.
Union leader Roberto Gutierrez delivered the collective platform put forward by the march organisers to President Salvador Sanchez Ceren and read the demands to the crowd. These included respect for labour rights and dignified working conditions, expanding the government's pro-poor social programs, guaranteeing the human rights to food and water and enacting a progressive fiscal reform.
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