A vandalized ARENA billboard in San Salvador. Photo by Luis Galdamez.

On the night of March 15, 2009, I was surrounded by thousands of celebrating Salvadorans. The first left-wing president, Mauricio Funes of the FMLN, a left-wing political party, had just been elected and San Salvador was erupting into a sea of red.

I had come to El Salvador to work as one of 5,000 election observers. The vote over, I was on the street to show my support for the president-elect, and my relief that the process had gone off without any major conflicts. When wearing my credentials, I had been greeted by Salvadorans with smiles and handshakes. One elderly street vendor pulled a member of my group close and whispered, “Thank god you are here. We don’t want any more trouble.”

In the week preceding election day, my group of 26 people, a third of whom were Salvadorans now living in Canada, met with political groups from the left, right, and centre. Damian Alegria, a member of the leftist FMLN, recounted his harrowing years as a guerrilla fighter in San Salvador. He endured imprisonment, torture, and the disappearances of compatriots while fighting the right-wing ARENA party and its U.S.-funded paramilitary.

Then it was time to visit Adolfo Tórrez, a leader of ARENA, the party formed in 1981 by Roberto D’Aubuisson, a death-squad organizer who had been trained at the School of the Americas. In power since ’89, ARENA’s stranglehold on El Salvador was, with this election, finally being pried open.

My group had to squeeze our way through a parking lot overflowing with shiny sports cars and SUVs to get to ARENA’s San Salvador compound. The room housed standard office furniture but also bizarre items more at home in a teenager’s hangout: hobbyist models of fantasy warriors (Lord of the Rings elves, Roman gladiators), racks of Samurai swords, and a wall of promotional pictures from the movie 300.

Several female members hurriedly brought us bottled water and coffee, while the men mingled, speaking fluent English to the non-Salvadorans, asking our names, our home towns, where we worked, etc. It felt like interrogation in the guise of small talk.

Tórrez was the director-general for the Department of San Salvador. He was a well-tanned, fit man with flashy gold jewelry. His demeanour was casual and familiar, but the whole time we were there, a tall young man circled around, videotaping us. When one of our group asked a question, his camera lens closed in on her and remained there long after she had finished talking. Other ARENA party workers moved amongst us, taking photos from every angle. Tórrez’s smile was as incongruous, and as strangely sinister, as the Smurf toys that sat on a corner desk in front of portraits of D’Aubuisson and Augusto Pinochet.

Still videotaping us, ARENA officials walked us out and shook our hands as we boarded our minivan. They took extra care to thank the Salvadorans of our group. Sitting at the back of our van, I couldn’t help but repeatedly look over my shoulder as we drove away from ARENA. I had the feeling they were watching us for miles.

Like a page from ARENA’s violent history, on July 2, Adolfo Tórrez was found shot in the heart outside his home. Pronounced a suicide, his death cuts short the corruption investigation he was under—and ensures that he takes the party’s secrets with him to the grave.

The almost-bare shelves of Toronto's Pages Bookstore in its final days. Daniel Tencer writes about the plight of independent booksellers in the November-December issue of This Magazine.

The November-December 2009 issue of This Magazine is now snaking its way through the postal system, and subscribers should find it in their mailboxes any day now. We expect it to be available on newsstands next week, probably. (Remember, subscribers always get the magazine early, and you can too.) We’ll start posting articles from the issue online next week. We suggest subscribing to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going online, following us on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook for updates, new articles and other sweet, sweet This action.

This issue is our annual mega-hyper-awesome edition (64 pages instead of 48!), as we bring you a special supplement with the winners of the 2009 Great Canadian Literary Hunt.The winners this year were:

On the cover this month is a special package of articles we call Legalize Everything! — five writers tackle five things that should be legalized, and the activists who are fighting to make that a reality. Katie Addleman witnesses the madness of the drug trade, and the misbegotten “war on drugs” that criminalizes the mentally ill, funnels billions of black-market dollars into the pockets of narcoterrorists, and never actually reduces drug use. Tim Falconer asks our politicians to legalize physician-assisted suicide and allow Canadians to die on their own terms. Jordan Heath Rawlings meets the artists who believe that online music sharing may actually be the future of their industry, not its end. Laura Kusisto says criminalizing hate speech erodes Canadian democracy and offers no meaningful protection for minorities. And Rosemary Counter hunts down the outlaw milk farmer who wants all Canadians to have the right to enjoy unpasteurized milk, even if he has to go all the way to the supreme court to do it.

Elsewhere in the magazine, Meena Nallainathan surveys the state of Canada’s Tamil community following the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam last spring, and meets four Tamil activists who may hold some answers for rebuilding a Sri Lankan nation tormented by decades of civil war.

All that, plus James Loney on the Canadian government’s attitudes towards its citizens trapped abroad; Bruce M. Hicks on what Canada’s new Mexican and Czech visa restrictions are really about; Paul McLaughlin interviews B.C.’s Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, on the eve of his American incarceration; Dorothy Woodend on a new crop of documentaries that dissect the workings of our capitalist world; Darryl Whetter gives his picks for the must-reads of the first decade of the 21st century; Navneet Alang warns that when it comes to online charity, sometimes clicking isn’t enough; Lisa Charleyboy profiles Nadya Kwandibens and her photographic exploration of the urban Aboriginal experience, “Concrete Indians”; Aaron Cain sends a postcard from San Salvador, after a chilling meeting with some right-wing politicians on the verge of a losing election; and Jen Gerson ranks Canada’s political leaders on their Facebook and Twitter savvy.

PLUS: Daniel Tencer on the plight of independent bookstores; Sukaina Hirji on Vancouver’s Insite safe injection clinic; Lindsay Kneteman on Alberta’s Democratic Renewal Project; Melissa Wilson on getting the flu shot; Graham F. Scott on Canada’s losing war in Afghanistan; Jorge Antonio Vallejos on a remembrance campaign for Canada’s missing Aboriginal women; Jennifer Moore on an Ecuadorian village that’s suing the Toronto Stock Exchange; Cameron Tulk on Night, a new play about Canada’s far north; Andrea Grassi reviews Dr. Bonnie Henry’s Soap and Water & Common Sense; and Ellen Russell on Canadian workers’ shrinking wages.