{"id":198624,"date":"2016-10-18T11:13:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T17:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=198624"},"modified":"2017-01-10T06:48:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T13:48:39","slug":"el-salvadors-gang-violence-thrives-in-aftermath-of-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/10\/el-salvadors-gang-violence-thrives-in-aftermath-of-civil-war\/","title":{"rendered":"El Salvador&#8217;s gang violence thrives in aftermath of civil war"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_198632\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-198632\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_33-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen de Jesus Canuza\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_33-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_33-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_33-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_33.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Martin Do Nascimento \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carmen de Jesus Canuza, 21, whose husband was gunned down earlier this year in San Hilario, El Salvador.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>SAN HILARIO, El Salvador \u2014 It\u2019s as if two people live inside Carmen de Jesus Canuza\u2019s lanky, 21-year-old frame. One is a hardened soldier who\u00a0speaks matter-of-factly of death and poverty from behind a thousand-yard stare.<\/p>\n<p>The other is a wounded child who breaks into violent sobs that rattle her weathered layers of clothing before she catches her breath and regains her composure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am suffering. My heart is suffering,\u201d she said in May, recalling the murder just weeks before\u00a0of her husband, Ernesto de Jesus Ar\u00e9valo.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/10\/12\/el-salvador-murder-capital\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. It\u2019s part of the news organization\u2019s \u201cBorder on Insecurity\u201d series.\u00a0The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.texastribune.org\/bordering-on-insecurity\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to get<\/a> story alerts.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Described by his mother as the man of the house and her right hand, Ar\u00e9valo\u00a0was gunned down near the fishing docks.\u00a0His killers could have belonged to MS-13, an American-born street gang whose top brass in El Salvador include immigrants thrown out of the United States. Or they might have been members of Barrio 18 \u2014\u00a0the 18th Street Gang \u2014 the other faction in a war\u00a0that has brought this part of Central America to its knees.<\/p>\n<p>Canuza\u2019s torment is familiar\u00a0in this impoverished and violent country, where\u00a0bloody gang conflict\u00a0has claimed tens of thousands of lives and sparked a years-long exodus.\u00a0Mothers and their children, gang members escaping imprisonment or death and children as young as six or seven have fled, making\u00a0their way to Texas\u2019 Rio Grande Valley in search of safety and asylum in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The current \u201cwar\u201d \u2014 a term people here use liberally \u2014\u00a0takes place in a country where memories of an earlier\u00a012-year civil struggle still cut deeply.\u00a0Some say El Salvador&#8217;s\u00a0turmoil<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>today\u00a0exceeds\u00a0the anxiety between 1980 and 1992, when more than 75,000 people died and thousands more disappeared during that conflict\u00a0between a U.S.-backed, right-wing military and left-wing rebels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring the war you knew who was who,\u201d said Maria Arevalo Romero, Ernesto\u2019s mother. \u201c [Today], people will go to their homes and from there [the gangsters] take them and kill them or they\u2019ll disappear or they demand money from them. And before it wasn\u2019t like that. It\u2019s worse now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Outside of Central America, MS-13 is the better-known of the two warring gangs.\u00a0Its\u00a0roots can be traced to California during the 1980s, when imprisoned\u00a0Central American immigrants coalesced\u00a0to protect themselves from\u00a0rival Hispanic prison gangs.<\/p>\n<p>When former President Bill Clinton\u2019s administration aggressively deported criminal immigrants in the 1990s, thousands of the El Salvadorans were sent home, where the government was unprepared for the level of organization MS-13 had reached or the violence it was willing to employ.<\/p>\n<p>Though the gang&#8217;s leadership and new recruits are concentrated in\u00a0El Salvador, MS-13 now has reach throughout the Americas.\u00a0It\u00a0has evolved beyond a collection of\u00a0knife- and gun-wielding gang bangers to a more sophisticated organization sustaining itself through\u00a0drug and human trafficking and extortion. It is\u00a0also known for its\u00a0savagery: A forensics expert in San Salvador recalled the body of\u00a0one gang war victim that arrived at the morgue\u00a0with about 200 knife wounds.<\/p>\n<p>Considered less organized and not as well known, MS-13&#8217;s main rival\u00a0is\u00a0the 18th Street gang. Also with\u00a0California origins, it too trades in smuggling and murder and is considered equally responsible for the brutality that has driven thousands out of Central America.<\/p>\n<p>The gang conflict has driven\u00a0El Salvador&#8217;s homicide rate to<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>103 per 100,000,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.insightcrime.org\/news-analysis\/insight-crime-homicide-round-up-2015-latin-america-caribbean\" target=\"_blank\">InSight Crime<\/a>\u00a0reported in January.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_198636\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-198636\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_65-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Body of alleged gang member\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_65-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_65-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_65-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_65.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Martin Do Nascimento \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The body of an alleged gang member following a shootout in Ayagualo, El Salvador that police said started when gang members ambushed a patrol.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThey killed my brother right in front of us,\u201d said Araceli Amaya, 25, sitting in a repatriation center in San Salvador in May with her two-year-old son.\u00a0\u201cThey killed him because he didn\u2019t want to be a gang member, a [member of Calle] 18. I can\u2019t go back [where he was killed], so I am going to stay with a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amaya had been trying to reach the United States when she was\u00a0was arrested in Veracruz, Mexico, for being in that country illegally.\u00a0Sent back to El Salvador, she\u00a0was biding her time and planning to try for a\u00a0fourth time to get to the United States. Though the odds are against her, she\u2019s inspired by\u00a0knowing tens of thousands of her countrymen\u00a0have made it.<\/p>\n<p>From October 2013 to August 2016, 165,350 Salvadorans have been apprehended on the Texas-Mexico border (not including the El Paso sector of the U.S. Border Patrol), according to statistics provided to the Tribune by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. About 90 percent came through the Rio Grande Valley. The flow\u00a0follows a trend that started in earnest in 2014, when more non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended at the border for the first time in U.S. history.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Despite the exodus, some are reluctant to compare the current gang warfare to El Salvador&#8217;s\u00a0civil war that began in earnest with the assassination of El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and prompted the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or the FMLN, a left-wing coalition backed by the world\u2019s communist regimes to wage full-scale war against the U.S.-trained government soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t consider it a war,\u201d said Howard Cotto, director of the country\u2019s Policia Nacional Civil, or PNC, the national civil police force. \u201cIn the first place, for El Salvador, the word, \u2018war\u2019 has a connotation that is very significant and very clear. We lived it for 12 years, and we know perfectly well the difference between what we\u2019re living through today and a \u2018war.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just minutes after Cotto pushed back on the label, his interview with foreign journalists was interrupted by the buzz of his personal cell phone. A call advised\u00a0that\u00a0a faction of his officers had just\u00a0shot and killed four alleged gang members. Cotto, a former high-ranking rebel and\u00a0anti-aircraft missile expert, asked the caller few but specific questions: When? Where? How many dead? Any of ours?<\/p>\n<p>Later, Cotto joked when asked for directions to the crime scene.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell we don\u2019t want you to die,\u201d he said, chuckling. He added that if that day\u2019s opportunity were missed, there would almost certainly be another deadly shooting the following day.<\/p>\n<p>Others are more candid about the comparisons. When asked about the current migration by the country\u2019s youth to escape violence, Gustavo Villatoro, a former assistant attorney general, said he lived through the same experience during the earlier civil conflict.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose of us who lived in areas dominated by guerillas had to migrate,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I didn\u2019t want to be a guerilla by choice, I was going to be made to be one. And if not, they\u2019d kill me. And they\u2019d kill my family, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_198639\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-198639\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_21_jpg_800x1000_q100-771x515.jpg\" alt=\"Policia Nacional Civil patrol\" width=\"771\" height=\"515\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_21_jpg_800x1000_q100-771x515.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_21_jpg_800x1000_q100-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_21_jpg_800x1000_q100-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/MHN_TT_ES_21_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Martin do Nascimento \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Policia Nacional Civil patrol in the La Campanera neighborhood of Soyapango, just outside of San Salvador, El Salvador. The neighborhood is known to be controlled by the Calle 18 gang.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There is an added element of mistrust that\u2019s attached itself to the overarching fear permeating the country. At an elementary school where El Salvadoran officials touted a community program called G.R.E.A.T., (Gang Resistance Education And Training), which is partially funded by a U.S. aid package, one officer conceded his ranks have been infiltrated by criminal elements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere have been officers, from [low-level] officers to [high-ranking] officials, that have been involved in acts of corruption, sadly,\u201d said Officer Luis Hernandez Echeverria, a trainer in the G.R.E.A.T. Program. \u201cI think they entered [the police force] with that motive, to take advantage of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some analysts conclude the modern-day violence is not just reminiscent of the civil war, but directly related to it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven El Salvador\u2019s long history of social repression, this culture of violence clearly developed over many decades. But the country\u2019s intense and protracted civil war aggravated it in important ways,\u201d Sonja Wolf, a Central American policy analyst wrote in <em>Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America<\/em>, published by the University of Texas Press. Wolf added that post-war policies aimed at appeasing the former fighters were poorly constructed and only fed the current crime wave.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReintegration measures were ill-conceived and insufficient to meet ex-combatants\u2019 needs,\u201d she wrote. \u201cSeverance pay reached \u2014 with considerable delay \u2014 only 11,000 of the estimated 42,000 former soldiers and guerillas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As they did during the civil war, some El Salvadorans still\u00a0hold a deep-seated\u00a0mistrust of law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a debate surrounding how much the United States shares blame for El Salvador\u2019s current situation. Not only does the American government deport gang members back to El Salvador, but it also sends back youths fleeing the\u00a0violence. Advocates say that\u00a0leaves deported asylum seekers\u00a0no choice but to succumb to the criminals and reluctantly join their ranks.<\/p>\n<p>Cotto, the former rebel fighter who fought the U.S.-supported right-wing militants during the civil war, now runs a police force that receives training and equipment from the U.S. Department of State.<\/p>\n<p>And like the allegations that El Salvador\u2019s government fighters committed extra judicial killings during its civil war, Cotto\u2019s PNC has also been accused of skirting laws to enforce its policies. According to a 2014 U.S. Department of State report on human rights in El Salvador, 18 PNC officers were charged with homicide; 14 of those were allegedly committed while the officers were on duty.<\/p>\n<p>In his office, not too far from a Denny\u2019s and Quizno\u2019s, Cotto was reluctant to point the finger.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think the solution to these problems is to place blame anywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat\u2019s more important than that is to get busy [solving the problem].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For others like Saul Quijada, the director of El Salvador\u2019s morgue, the similarities are too obvious to avoid making a comparison.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe war brought about the destruction of a fundamental part of society, the family. People fled, and their children were left alone, or with their grandparents,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd aside from that, a lot of people were trained for conflict. It showed them how to be good at what they did. And now, we\u2019re seeing that again.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Migrants flee the murder capital of the world<\/h3>\n<p>Meet some of the Central Americans who are fleeing violence and abject poverty at home, only to endure shakedowns and abuse on their way to an uncertain future in the United States. This mini-documentary\u00a0is part of The Texas Tribune&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/apps.texastribune.org\/bordering-on-insecurity\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bordering on Insecurity<\/a>\u00a0project.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SSb4FQgjuAg?rel=0\" width=\"771\" height=\"434\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bloody gang conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and sparked a years-long exodus from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,3331,142,3309],"class_list":["post-198624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-bordering-on-insecurity","tag-crime","tag-latin-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}