EL SALVADOR, Central America’s most densely populated country, is being held back by an epidemic of gang violence. Help from the United States and non-governmental organizations may be its best chance to curb the growing power of the drug cartels, writes World Review Expert Dr. Joseph S. Tulchin.
El Salvador’s economy is notable for the fact that it does not produce bananas. Also remarkably, 17 percent of the country’s GDP is provided by remittances from abroad, almost entirely from the U.S. This stream of cash has transformed the economy over the past few decades and lifted a significant portion of the population out of poverty. It has also provided services to a segment of society that had been traditionally marginalized. The effect has been to reduce inequality to the lowest level in Central America.
Salvadorans living in the U.S. therefore play a critical role in the socioeconomic well-being of their relatives and friends back home. Many were driven out of their country in the 1970s and 1980s during the bloody civil war in which the U.S. backed right-wing political leaders and their military allies. In the end, they failed to put down the country’s left-leaning guerrilla movement, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which got its support from the Soviet Union via Cuba.
As the Cold War ended, the U.S. shifted its efforts to making peace between the warring factions. In El Salvador’s current political system, the FMLN represents the old guerrilla movement and other left-wing groups, while the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party represents the conservative forces. The country’s current president is Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the FMLN, who won the 2014 election by a slim margin.
The end of the civil war did not bring a stop to the bloodshed. El Salvador today is gripped by an ever-increasing cycle of gang violence. The gangs began as havens for unemployed young males and demobilized members of right-wing hit squads. They became better organized and better armed in the 1990s with the return of Salvadoran criminals deported from U.S. jails. Enabled by a weak state and an ineffectual police force, these criminal groups took control of poorer neighborhoods in Salvadoran cities. They supported themselves by extortion rackets and kidnapping, while engaging in violent turf wars with rival gangs.
The situation has now deteriorated to such an alarming degree that it threatens the safety of the entire population. In 2014, the last year of complete data from the World Bank, El Salvador’s homicide rate was 70 per 100,000, second only to Honduras at 90 per 100,000. These are numbers typically associated with war zones. By comparison, the murder rate in most European countries is at or below 1 per 100,000.
Even though the Salvadoran police are poorly trained, ill-paid and widely suspected of corruption, a reported 20,000 gang members were charged with crimes in 2015, up from 14,500 in 2014. Of these, more than 95 percent belonged to two big gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18. The growing power and financial clout of these groups, combined with their military-grade weaponry and links with international organized crime, have made gang violence the number-one public policy issue in the country.
Recently, several promising developments have pointed toward a possible solution. International crisis management organizations from the U.S. and Europe have become involved in talks. The U.S. government is helping local communities respond to the violence through USAID programs, while Congress has approved a nearly $1 billion aid package for Central America. Much of the aid is contingent on governments in the region cleaning up their acts and strengthening the rule of law. In El Salvador, these conditions can be met by strengthening the police and the judiciary, while making both institutions more resistant to corruption.
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Publication Date:
Thu, 2016-02-25 06:00
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