The leaders of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 released a statement on 26 January saying that a week earlier they had agreed “a unilateral gesture of goodwill” designed to “reduce violence” in El Salvador. It had an immediate impact. The 23 January was the first day without a homicide in the country for over a year. The truce was struck just days after leaders of the Protestant churches that launched the ‘Pastoral initiative for life and peace’ (Ipaz), advocating dialogue with the rival mara gangs, began meeting imprisoned gang leaders who pull the strings on the street.
Bishop Martín Barahona of the Anglican Church, who is a key figure within Ipaz, quickly rejected the tag of “mediator” or “interlocutor”. He was careful to stress that “obviously we don’t have the capacity to negotiate or make accords. We are pastors.” Instead, he said Ipaz was opening up a dialogue with the gang leaders, many of whom are behind bars, and would report back to the national council for citizen security (CNSCC). This body was created by the Sanchez Cerén administration late last year to discuss gang-related issues (see sidebar).
It was noteworthy that the mara gang statement revealing the truce added that “the difficult situation the country is going through requires proactive steps and messages in support of peace, not desperate steps that only bang the drums of war and thus fan the flames of violence”. This was a direct response to the tough words from both President Sánchez Cerén and Vice-President Oscar Ortiz who, in mid-January, had instructed the police to retaliate with force “without any fear of suffering consequences” if threatened by gang members.
The current left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) administration is very much echoing the mano dura (‘firm hand’) rhetoric of previous administrations of the right-wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena). This owes in part to March’s elections. The FMLN is conscious that the last gang truce was not well-received by the public because the sharp fall in inter-gang murders was not matched by a decline in crimes like extortion by gang members. For this reason the justice & public security minister, Benito Lara, was emphatic when he reported that the government had authorised the entry of representatives of the Ipaz to prisons to meet mara leaders purely for the purposes of “pastoral work” and not to negotiate with the gangs.
In an interview with Spain’s El País, former FMLN deputy Raúl Mijango, one of the key mediators of the original truce, said the new truce showed “the gangs’ willingness to stop the violence”. But he was downbeat about the prospects for success: “as a person who knows the issue well, I am convinced that it will not last because the necessary conditions do not exist” he said, arguing that there was “less political will to find a solution through dialogue” now than before.
The present government seems far more receptive to the strategy pursued by the powerful private business association (Anep), which is closely aligned with Arena, than the dialogue process Ipaz favours. Anep has hired the tough-talking former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, as a security consultant to draft a proposal for reducing violence in El Salvador. Giuliani sent a team of experts on 18 January to visit the country for a week. It is possible that once the elections are out of the way, the government might be more amenable to some form of dialogue. It might just get some divine inspiration. Pope Francis has just given his enthusiastic backing for the Ipaz dialogue process (see sidebar).
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