El Salvador Lawmakers Nix Emergency Decree
Congressional parties in the Salvadorian Legislature rejected a proposal on Thursday by the National Conciliation Party (PCN) to declare a State of Emergency in some regions of the country to counter the outbreak of violence.

Approval of a State of Emergency was described as too extreme a measure by various factions.

Ernesto Angulo, deputy for the governing ARENA (National Republican Alliance) and a member of the congressional Public Security Committee, suggested weighing the PCN initiative cautiously.

For his part, Oscar Kattan, Democratic Change Party deputy, described the proposal as "propagandistic" and "little serious".

The proposed motion was based on Section 29 of the Constitution, according to which constitutional guarantees can be suspended in cases of war, invasion, rebellion, sedition, catastrophe, epidemic or any other calamity or serious public disturbances.

According to official statistics, ten people are murdered every day in El Salvador, and that number increases during holidays.

In 2005, El Salvador reported more homicides (54.4 per every 100,000 inhabitants) than Colombia and Honduras, which used to top the list of most violent countries in the region. That number of murders (3,761) is the highest in the country in the past seven years.

The number of killings during the said period accounts for 29 percent of all deaths during the armed conflict from 1981 to 1992.