El Salvador's gangs

Central to any discussion of crime and violence in El Salvador is the role of the maras or street gangs.  They are a major contributor to the epidemic of murder, extortion and other crime afflicting the country.  Researcher Sonja Wolf sets out the scale of the problem in a recent article titled The Maras: An Escalating Problem in El Salvador for the Latin America Bureau.  

Wolf describes the gangs' lifeblood - extortion:

Extortions constitute the gangs' chief source of income. Initially they approached community residents for comparatively small sums, but over the years the shakedowns have become more extensive and sophisticated. Mano Dura, which entailed the large-scale incarceration of gang youths and especially leaders, required street-based members to collect more funds to support their detained peers and hire defence lawyers. Extortions had been coordinated from within the prisons until stricter security measures made it more difficult to smuggle in mobile phones. The gangs have since changed their modus operandi, often dispatching children to deliver the extortion request to victims.

Nowadays shopkeepers, market vendors, teachers, and sex workers operating in gang territories all need to make regular payments, but public transport companies are particularly affected. Each year dozens of bus drivers are murdered and buses burnt in order to enforce extortion demands. In June 2010, Dieciocho members killed the driver and fare collector of a microbus and subsequently set fire to the fully-loaded unit, burning 17 passengers alive and injuring 14 more. Route 47, servicing the Mejicanos municipality in Greater San Salvador, had been exclusively extorted by MS-13, but when the Dieciocho sought to gain a share of the business, hostilities between the local cliques ensued and culminated in the bus massacre. The maras make millions of dollars annually, profits that are laundered through loans to shopkeepers or investments in microbuses and night clubs. These entertainment venues in turn are sites of further criminal activities, notably the extortion of other establishments and drug sales.

In the rest of the article, she details the involvement of the gangs in schools, in the drug trade, and in widespread instances of rape of girls in gang territory.   For a fuller treatment of the gangs in El Salvador, consider getting a copy of   Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America, where Sonja Wolf has a chapter devoted to El Salvador's gangs.

Threats and violence continue against Salvadoran environmentalists

A guest post by Danielle Mackey and Theodora Simon.

Violence and intimidation continue in El Salvador against environmental activists and defenders of human rights who have publically opposed metallic mining. The latest round of threats was focused against a Salvadoran Catholic priest, Father Neftalí Ruiz, and a community radio station, Radio Victoria.

Fr. Ruiz, the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Cabañas Environmental Committee and a member of the National Working Group against Metallic Mining (“The Mesa,”) was attacked on January 20th, when he opened his home to a group of supposed university students who had expressed interest in his work. The two young people then tied him up at gunpoint and proceeded to search the files on his computer. They left the home with the computer and media storage devices, but did not take anything else of value. The young men stated numerous times during the assault that they were looking for information and made several calls to a third party while searching the computer to report their findings.

Environmentalists detailed the events and their evaluations of the continuing violence against the community at a press conference held by the Mesa on Tuesday, January 24th “These acts are meant to intimidate us so as to weaken our resistance,” emphasized David Pereira of the Investment and Commerce Investigation Center (CEICOM).

Alluding to past cases in which the Attorney General and police have blamed cases of death threats and violence against activists on common delinquency, gang violence or interpersonal conflict, Father Ruiz declared that he knows no one with a motive to hurt him for any such reason. “The only work I do is to defend Mother Nature, to preach the Gospel, and denounce injustices.”

In the five murder cases to have hit the environmentalist community, material authors were quickly rounded up and prosecuted, but there exists significant evidence to suggest that they were hired assassins. In the most recent death, in which an environmentalist college student named Juan Francisco Duran Ayala was executed on a community basketball court, Fr. Ruiz served as a spokesperson at the exhumation of the young man’s cadaver. In none of the cases of aggression against the community — which the community fears will not end with last week’s attack on Fr. Ruiz — have intellectual authors been identified by the authorities.

The robbery and attack on Fr. Neftali is not the only recent case of violence and intimidation against defenders of human rights: members of Radio Victoria in Cabañas are also receiving a wave of death threats via email. Radio staff, who have been adamant in defending human and environmental rights through their work in community media, have also been subjected to multiple rounds of death threats throughout the past few years. According to the press release published by the Mesa, this latest round seems to be connected to party politics. “Last week the mayor of Victoria put up a large ARENA party flag in the middle of Santa Marta, which made a lot of people angry because of past history; ARENA's connections to death squads, military force and repression as well as implementing policies that favored big businesses and the wealthy elite during the 20 years they ran the government,” explained radio founder Cristina Starr in an email to radio supporters last week.

A few days after three bus-loads of residents of Santa Marta protested in Victoria, Radio staff began to again receive threats via email and nocturnal visits to their remote rural homes. “You all can imagine how this wears on us,” Starr wrote. “Radio members cannot go and stay in their homes, they cannot be with their families and they always have to be wary and careful wherever they go and whatever they do.”

There is concern among the environmentalist community that the pattern of superficial investigation will hold true with these most recent cases as well. “We are demanding that the Attorney General of the Republic and the PNC (Civilian National Police) investigate (these cases) seriously. I say ‘seriously’ because there have been other attacks and even assassinations with which we’re unsatisfied with the investigation results presented by the Attorney General,” explained Pereira. The concerns of the activists are substantiated by the outputs of the Salvadoran justice system: a United Nations Development Program report from 2007 found that only 14% of cases enter the judicial system, and only 3.8% are ever fully prosecuted, with the guilty party brought to justice.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes recently asked for forgiveness for past human rights atrocities and called for a “peace with justice,” during the recent celebration of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords that ended the Salvadoran Civil War. The cases of Fr. Ruiz and Radio Victoria present continuing human rights violations left stagnant in this country’s current justice system. The environmentalist community believes that this situation leaves human rights defenders vulnerable. “We have shown that in our country, it is a crime to defend the interests of the vast majority,” manifested Catholic Bishop Monsignor Francisco Sol in yesterday’s press conference.

As they continue to resist metallic mining and promote human rights despite the threatening climate, activists question how long the impunity will reign. “I ask the National Civilian Police and the Attorney General, what are they going to do in this case? Since 2008…I have reported death threats,” expressed Fr. Neftali in yesterday’s press conference. “What are they waiting for? For there to be more deaths, more bloodshed?”

[Footnote from Tim -- a reader asked me to clarify that Fr. Neftali and Bishop Francisco Sol are members of the Salvadoran Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAS) and not the Roman Catholic Church, although both churches oppose the expansion of metallic mining in El Salvador]

More military men in charge of El Salvador's police

On Monday Mauricio Funes replaced the civilian head of the National Police (PNC) with retiring general Francisco Ramón Salinas Rivera. This came just a few months after Funes had named another former general, David Munguía Payés, as the Minister of Public Security.  Earlier, a third military officer was placed as second in command in the state intelligence unit.

The appointment of Salinas out of the armed forces to be in charge of internal policing and security matters was promptly criticized by the FMLN the BBC reports:

"The choice of General Salinas is another step towards the dismantlement of the democratic and civilian doctrine behind our public security, and openly contravenes the peace accords and the constitution," the FMLN said in a statement.

The FMLN argues that no member of the military should head the police, a force it says is defined as civilian in the constitution.

Human rights groups also criticized the appointment according to the BBC:

Director of the Human Rights Institute at the Central American University Benjamin Cuellar said "betting on the Armed Forces as a solution to our problems" would land El Salvador in a war on drugs which "is already lost and whose victims will be on our doorstep".

President Funes said choosing Gen Salinas to head the police was in no way a militarisation of the organisation, nor did it violate the peace accord.

He said the General had already requested his retirement from the Armed Forces and was therefore a civilian.

The President said high levels of violence and the rising influence of Mexican drug cartels in El Salvador had forced him to take "stronger institutional measures".

As El Faro notes, the appointment of General Salinas comes just a week after Funes apologized for the massacre at El Mozote commited by the Salvadoran military and Funes instructed the military to stop celebrating as heroes military officers who had committed atrocities.

In another potentially troubling development, the courageous Inspector General of the PNC, Zaira Navas, announced that she had resigned her position. Her reasons for leaving were not clear, but she said it was not related to the appointment of Salinas.

Mitt Romney and Salvadoran death squads

An article on Salon.com today reports that the private equity firm of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney started with initial investors who were Salvadoran oligarchs with links to Salvadoran death squads.  Salon reports:

A significant portion of the seed money that created Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, was provided by wealthy oligarchs from El Salvador, including members of a family with a relative who allegedly financed rightist groups that used death squads during the country’s bloody civil war in the 1980s.

The evidence in the article is tenuous at best. Investors in Bain Capital are related to a wealthy man who allegedly financed death squads along with Roberto D'Aubuisson. There is no evidence that Mitt Romney was ever aware of these connections.

Why even mention this? The Salon.com article points out that Romney touts these investors as showing that he is a friend of Latin America:

During his first presidential bid in 2007, Romney more than once touted the Central American investors in Bain while trying to woo Hispanic voters. In a speech in March of that year to the Miami-Dade Lincoln Day Dinner, Romney actually specified five of the original “partners” in Bain Capital — but the de Sola family was not among those he named.

And that August he told the Miami Herald, “The investments for the company that I started, Bain Capital, came largely from Latin America. My largest single investors came from El Salvador, Ecuador, Colombia and Guatemala. And so I feel a deep kinship to people in Latin America.”

I'm not sure that taking money from the corrupt Salvadoran wealthy class to help them make money outside of the region makes someone a friend of Latin America.


Hat tip to Karen.

Remittances grew in 2011

Remittances, the money Salvadorans living and working abroad send back to their families, rebounded in 2011.  Making up a sixth of the nation's economy, remittances are one of the most important economic drivers for El Salvador.  Remittances had fallen with the downturn in the US economy as many Salvadoran migrants were unable to find jobs.  According to Inside Costa Rica:

The Central Bank of Reserve (BCR) of El Salvador reported on Wednesday that the country received 3.64 billion dollars in family remittances from abroad in 2011, 6.4 percent more than in 2010.

The Bureau for Economic and Statistics Studies, attached to the BCR, said that in physical terms, that figure accounts for 217.9 million dollars more than in the previous year.

Last year's family remittances accounted for about 16 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), said the BCR. Of the total family remittances, the banking system paid 74.1 percent to beneficiaries, equivalent to 2.7 billion dollars.

In the fourth quarter of 2011 reported the largest growth (9.6 percent), due to better indicators in the U.S. economy, the BCR reported.

Twentieth Anniversary of 1992 Peace Accords

January 16 marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords which ended El Salvador's bloody twelve year civil war.  You can read an English language version of the Peace Accords here at the United States Institute of Peace.

In a symbolic act, the official commemoration of the anniversary was held in El Mozote.   President Mauricio Funes apologized on behalf of the Salvadoran state for the massacres committed in December 2001 in El Mozote and surrounding communities.  He announced a series of community development initiatives in the El Mozote area.

From the BBC:

Mr Funes made his emotional apology on the 20th anniversary of peace accords that ended the nation's civil war.  The president travelled to El Mozote, some 200km (120 miles) from the capital, San Salvador, near the border with Honduras.

"For this massacre, for the abhorrent violations of human rights and the abuses perpetrated in the name of the Salvadoran state, I ask forgiveness of the families of the victims," he said on Monday.

Breaking at times into tears, Mr Funes said: "In three days and three nights, the biggest massacre of civilians was committed in contemporary Latin American history"....

President Funes said the country's armed forces, 20 years on from the peace accords, were very different, "democratic and obedient to civilian power".

He called on the army to revise its history to avoid honouring those responsible for human rights abuses.

Excerpts from Funes' speech can be found here.

The United Nations oversaw the implementation of the Peace Accords and sees the need for more work to be done by the country to fully realize the benefits of the peace process:

16 January 2012 – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today on El Salvador to address its socio-economic inequalities and advance rule of law reform to ensure its citizens can experience positive and tangible results from the peace process that was initiated 20 years ago at the end of its civil war.

“As we acknowledge the success of the peace process in El Salvador, we cannot forget that peace consolidation is a long process that requires addressing the root causes of the conflict,” Mr. Ban said in his message marking the twentieth anniversary of the historic Peace Agreements.

“Tangible peace dividends must materialize in citizens’ daily lives. Addressing socio-economic inequalities and advancing the reform of rule of law institutions in the face of citizen insecurity are among key challenges yet to be addressed at the national and regional level.”

Looking around at online comments, blogs and editorials, I found some common themes:

"If these have been 20 years of peace, why don't I feel better?" 

"We no longer have war, but we don't have peace." 

"There is no peace without justice." 

"The conditions of poverty and inequality which prompted the civil war, still exist."

Major Salvadoran media devoted special sections to the anniversary:

• La Prensa Grafica's special section on the anniversary.
• El Faro's special section.
• El Diario de Hoy's special section on anniversary
• El Diario de Hoy has a photo gallery from the end of the civil war here.

A fitting place to visit for the anniversary is this virtual Monument to Memory and Truth, which like the black stone wall in Cuscatlan Park in San Salvador, lists the civilian victims of the conflict.

Top El Salvador stories of 2011

Here is my annual recap of the top stories of the past year.


The Deluge of 2011.   Torrential rains drowned El Salvador in October of 2011.    The downpours from Tropical Depression 12-E totalled as much as 58 inches in some spots.  These totals made the deluge of 2011 the worst flooding disaster in the country's history, exceeding Hurricane Mitch in 1998.        Although a good government response meant that "only" 35 persons died, the economic costs was enormous with  extensive damage throughout the country.   Most concerning was the destruction of a significant percentage of the bean, rice and corn crops, raising the spectre of higher food prices and hunger before the next harvest.     Relief work continues, so please consider donating.

The El Salvador Spring.    In a series of 4-1 rulings, the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Court had been expanding the rights of citizens to vote at the expense of the entrenched political parties.  The politicians were determined to stop it.   In a direct challenge to judicial independence, the National Assembly passed a law known as Decree 743 which president Funes quickly signed.    Decree 743 attempted to change the rules to require the Constitutional Chamber to have a unanimous vote before it could rule a law unconstitutional.     The politicians miscalculated, however, because the passage of Decree 743 was met by an uprising of civil protest, supported by social media like Twitter and Facebook.   Several weeks later, the National Assembly backed down and repealed Decree 743.  The repeal of Decree 743 serves to strengthen the principal of judicial independence in the country and will fortify El Salvador's democracy in the long run.

Homicide rate continues to climb.   Despite a slight reduction in 2010, the murder rate in El Salvador surged even higher in 2011 to record levels as the country continues to have one of the highest homicide rates in the world.   Government officials differed publicly over whether 90% or only 30% of the murders were gang-related, but there was no doubt that gangs, the narcotics trade, and a general level of societal violence contributed to the ongoing tragedy.   The level of crime led  the US to stop sending new Peace Corps volunteers to the country.

Ex-defense chief become security minister.    With homicide rates higher than when he took office, president Funes decided to make a change in his administration.    Minister of Justice and Public Security Manuel Melgar was sacked.  Funes appointed in his place former Defense Minister and career military officer David Munguía Payés.  The former general promptly declared a war on crime and vowed a 30% decrease in homicides in a year.   His appointment raises concerns about a growing militarization of crime-fighting in the country, and Munguía's proposal that soldiers should be immune from prosecution if they shot and killed a criminal was alarming.

Obama visits El Salvador.    US relations were highlighted when president Barrack Obama visited El Salvador including a highly symbolic visit to the tomb of slain archbishop Oscar Romero.   The US is pushing for regional action on drug-trafficking.   2011 also saw El Salvador and the US sign the  Partnership for Growth, a US aid initiative to help the country with issues impeding its economic development.

The gold mining fight remains in international arbitration.   The focus for efforts to block gold mining in El Salvador remains in international arbitration under DR-CAFTA where mining companies are suing the government of El Salvador.  One mining company, the Commerce Group, had its arbitration complaint dismissed.   The more important Pacific Rim arbitration continues forward in Washington, D.C.   Meanwhile a law to prohibit mining remains stuck in the National Assembly.

Spanish court indicts officers for Jesuit murders.     A court in Spain indicted 20 former Salvadoran military officers for the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. The court in Spain is acting under a doctrine of "universal jurisdiction" in which some crimes against humanity are so serious that they can be prosecuted anywhere. The case against senior officals, including two ministers of defense, had never been brought in El Salvador because of the 1993 amnesty law.  El Salvador's Supreme Court so far has found a way to avoid sending the officers to Spain, leaving impunity in place.

Drug trafficking lengthens shadow over country.  There were worrying signs about the increased activity of drug-trafficking cartels within El Salvador.  The US added El Salvador for the first time to its list of major drug transit countries.  El Faro ran a major story on the Texis cartel and a network of corruption which protected it in El Salvador.

Funes and FMLN gap widens.   The split between president Mauricio Funes and the party which got him elected president continues to grow.   Perhaps the prime example of this was the replacement of ex-FMLN guerrilla commander Manuel Medgar as Minister of Public Security with ex-government army officer David Munguía Payés.   Funes' closeness to the US, including sending troops to Afghanistan and signing the Partnership for Growth, was also criticized by the FMLN.   Funes' popularity as president continues to slip but remains high compared to other leaders in the region.

30th Anniversary of El Mozote massacre.   December 10, 2011 marked the 30th anniversary of the massacre at El Mozote.  This blog carried a series of stories which highlighted the history of this war crime.  At the anniversary commemoration, the government of El Salvador apologized for the first time.  Many said it did not go far enough.

Documentary gives nuanced view into El Salvador's gangs

Whenever Al Jazeera English broadcasts a story about El Salvador, it's usually well done.   This week's video on the program Witness titled Life in San Salvador is no exception.   From the promo for the documentary on the Al Jazeera website:

In the dusty, rubbish-strewn streets of Mejicanos, a working-class district of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, Father Antonio Lopez Tercero points to the gang graffiti scarring the walls. Gang violence is one of the defining features of life in El Salvador today....

"Life is worth nothing in this country," Father Antonio says. "There is so much impunity. Killing someone is like killing a chicken."

'Padre Toño', as Father Antonio is known, is one of many whose lives are affected by the violence. But he is also one of the few prepared to work with the gang members; seeing them not just as criminals, but as victims of a divided society.

"It takes no effort at all to go from being a victim to being an offender," he says. "All the resentment and accumulated senselessness of the world in which they've grown up means it is all too easy to cross over into violence."

Witness accompanies Father Antonio on his daily rounds, meeting those whose lives have been most affected by gang life and gang violence - people like Giovanni, a former gang leader who is now expecting his first child and is determined to go straight, and Sonia, whose son was murdered by a gang but who has yet to receive justice.

Case against killers of poet Roque Dalton dismissed

A court in El Salvador has dismissed the prosecution sought for the killers of Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton. The revolutionary poet was killed in 1975 by fellow guerrillas.

According to the Washington Post, the judge in San Salvador ruled that the time limit for prosecuting the murder would prevent now opening this case:

The complaint named former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front leader Joaquin Villalobos and Jorge Melendez, who serves in the current government as head of the civil defense office.

Melendez denied the accusation. Villalobos, however, acknowledged that rebel leaders ordered Dalton killed, reportedly after colleagues accused him of treason and being a CIA agent.

Judge Romeo Giammattei ruled Monday the 15-year limit on prosecution had passed.

Prosecution of Roque Dalton's killers has long been sought by his sons, who point to this case as another situation of impunity where a crime of the past was never addressed. Justice should be blind to whether crimes were committed by the army and government or by the guerrillas fighting against them.

Fernando Llort responds to destruction of mural

Press conference video


With a quiet dignity, Fernando Llort made his first public statement about the destruction of his mural which had adorned the facade of the Metropolitan Cathedral. He spoke of the facade as the greatest work of his life and the destruction of the mural as the greatest sadness of his life.

Llort says he accepts the apology of the archbishop and respects the church and its hierarchy. But despite that, he was still left with a deep pain and many questions. He repeated that this public work belonged not to him, or to the church, but to all Salvadorans.

Llort had three requests.

First, he requested that the church make a full and complete explanation of its study and reasons for destroying the mural rather than restoring it.

Second, he asked that there be greater recognition in El Salvador of the value and respect due for the work of Salvadoran artists and artisans.

Third, he asked that the church return to him the rubble from the tiles removed from the facade so that he could create a new art work in homage to Salvadoran artisans.