A resident of the 15 de Marzo community mounts a banner on bamboo poles in front of a community member's home. The banner, translated, reads: "These are the houses that President Saca promised to give to single mothers." On Thursday, May 28, 2009, members of the 15 de Marzo community staged a demonstration in order to make the needs of the community more visible and to place pressure on the newly-elected FMLN government. In late May, in a controversial late-night session held just before newly-elected president Mauricio Funes would assume his post, the right-wing voting block composed of the PDC, PCN, and ARENA parties came together and approved Legislative Decree 23. The Decree establishes a process whereby a Justice of the Peace, having received a denunciation from a landowner or government prosecutor, can execute within ten days the displacement--by force, if necessary--of an illegal squatter community.
For several minutes on Thursday, May 28, demonstrators of the 15 de Marzo community blocked one busy lane of the Bulevar del Ejército to better attract the attention of passers-by.