Caribbean & Central America - May 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The government celebrated the first day for almost three years without any murders at all on 14 April. The dramatic fall in violence in El Salvador owes to a truce struck between the mara gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha in March in somewhat murky circumstances [RC-12-04], although the government insists it did not strike a deal with the gangs. One statistic the government has not been able to alter is the very low rate of economic growth afflicting El Salvador, although it argues that this could be reversed if violence could be brought under control.
  The news of the first murder-free day since he took office in June 2009 was gratefully seized upon by President Mauricio Funes who delivered a special statement the very next day. “After years when the number of murders reached alarming levels of up to 18 per day, we saw not one homicide in the country,” he said. When Funes came to power the murder rate stood at 12 per day, but it had reached 18 per day by early 2012.
  Funes was less keen to dwell on the latest growth figures released by the Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (Icefi), showing that once again El Salvador is languishing at the bottom of the pile for GDP growth in Central America. According to Icefi, El Salvador’s economy grew by just 1.5% in 2011 compared with 2.6% growth in Guatemala; 3.5% growth in Honduras; 4.2% in Costa Rica; 4.7% in Nicaragua; and 10.6% in Panama. Icefi predicted that growth rates would fall in the sub-region in 2012 due to the global economic crisis, especially in the European Union, to an average growth of 4%, with El Salvador looking at growth of between 2.2% and 3.5%.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 363 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial