Caribbean & Central America - April 2013 (ISSN 1741-4458)

One year ago there were 14 homicides per day in El Salvador; now there are just five per day. “We have found a solution to diminish violence which is unorthodox but which has brought us very good results,” the justice and public security minister, David Munguía Payés, told the permanent council of the Organization of American States (OAS) this month. That unorthodox solution is the gang truce signed between the country’s two main mara gangs - MS-13 and Barrio 18 – and smaller gangs in March 2012.

There was considerable scepticism one year ago when the truce was signed about whether it could be sustained. That has not entirely dissipated despite the passage of time. But, the OAS secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, suggested that the truce could work as an example for other countries plagued by gang violence in Central America - Guatemala and Honduras.

The Salvadorean authorities claim that the number of homicides from gang violence fell 48.2% in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2012. In absolute terms there were 554 homicides in the first quarter (and 1,069 in the first quarter of 2012).

Munguía Payés highlighted the improvement in security in El Salvador one year after the signing of a truce with mara gangs, which he said had seen a reduction of 3,000 murders over this period. “It’s important that 3,000 homes, Salvadorean mothers, have not had to cry for their sons,” Munguía told the OAS permanent council on 10 April. “We still have a big challenge ahead of us but we have started on a path which represents light and hope at the end of the tunnel,” he said. 

Five days earlier, on 5 April, rival gang leaders from the MS-13 and Barrio 18 as well as Mirada Locos, Mao-Mao and Mara Máquina, and gang members attended a public ceremony in San Vicente, the capital of the eponymous department, which declared itself to be the sixth municipality free of violence in El Salvador. Last January the first four municipalities joined the innovative “second phase” of the truce to create ‘sanctuary’ municipalities free of crime: Santa Tecla, the capital of the department of La Libertad; Quezaltepeque, another municipality in La Libertad; Ilopango, in the department of San Salvador; and Sonsonate, the capital of the department of the same name in western El Salvador. Apopa, the seventh biggest city in El Salvador with some 160,000 inhabitants, located in San Salvador department, later signed up.

More than 1,000 people, 10% of them gang members, signed up to the ‘Pacto por la Vida y La Paz’ (pact for life and peace) and promised to keep San Vicente “free from violence”. One of the gang leaders, Wilmer Ordóñez, called on foreigners to come and visit San Vicente, saying that “nobody will steal your wallet or take your watch”. Gang members pledged to clean up gang graffiti and erase gang symbols from walls and buildings. They will also undertake to address universities, schools and other institutions about their experiences.

The big hope for the success of the truce is that it has won cross-party consensus This is not easy to achieve in El Salvador which is heavily polarised between the left-wing Frente Farabundo para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) and the right-wing Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), which between them control 211 of the country’s 262 municipalities. Former FMLN legislator Raúl Mijango, one of the mediators of the truce, said that a total of 18 municipalities, covering some 25% of the national population, would eventually join the second stage of the truce. It is no coincidence that both parties have the same number of municipalities in this pilot scheme: eight of the 18 municipalities are governed by Arena mayors; eight are in the hands of the FMLN; and two are controlled by coalitions.

Insulza highlighted further progress required in certain areas, such as “decongesting the prisons”, and separating prisoners who have not been convicted from the rest, but broadly he was full of praise for the “specific results” of the process in El Salvador and how it provided an example for the region.

Notwithstanding the fall in violent crime, specifically homicides, however, it would be a mistake to portray the gang truce as an unqualified success. Small businesses continue to be the subject of extortive practices by mara gangs. The police claimed that the number of reported cases of extortion fell over the past year but the local media has argued that as little as 10% of all extortions are reported, primarily for fear of reprisals.

Munguía Payés has acknowledged that extortion is the main source of revenues for the gangs and says that “they will not cease to extort money because that is their livelihood, unless they are offered an alternative source of revenues, such as jobs - and we know that there is much unemployment.” He said that with the high unemployment rate in the country, a lot of young people entered the gangs because they felt there was no alternative. Unless the government can reach them with social programmes and employment opportunities, this is not going to change. But, Munguía Payés expressed optimism that the fruits of the government’s social programmes would finally get through to some of these vulnerable youths where “in the past the gangs had prevented it”.

The big imponderable is where the funds to carry out reinsertion programmes for the maras and other strategies in the municipalities will come from. Earlier this year Munguía Payés announced a fund of over US$72m available for municipalities that join the scheme. Businessmen, civil society groups and NGOs also formally launched a new organisation, Fundación Humanitaria, presided over by Antonio Cabrales, formerly head of the private non-profit organisation of entrepreneurs (Fusades). Cabrales said members of the foundation shared the common goal to capitalise on this “historic opportunity… to resolve one of the country’s main problems”. He said its main task would be securing resources from the private sector to support the process. This is essential because state resources could become seriously constrained.

• Archbishop Oscar Romero

The election of Argentina’s Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has raised hopes in El Salvador that Archbishop Oscar Romero will soon be beatified as a prelude to his eventual canonisation as a saint. Romero, the iconic champion of the poor in El Salvador, was gunned down by a right-wing death squad while saying mass on 24 March 1980. It is somewhat ironic that the fate of Romero, who was outspoken in his criticism of government-sponsored violence, lies in the hands of Bergoglio who, it has been alleged, turned a blind eye to the excesses of the Argentine junta.

• Venezuelan plot

Venezuela’s acting president Nicolás Maduro has alleged that right-wing mercenaries linked to El Salvador’s opposition party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena) are behind a plot to assassinate him and to destabilise the country by causing a massive power cut. Maduro said Arena deputy, Roberto d’Aubuisson, son of Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, the founder of Arena, masterminded the plot, along with former Colonel David Koch Arana and Guillermo Cader Acuña, a former member of Arena’s national leadership committee (Coena). President Mauricio Funes ordered the allegations to be investigated, arguing that “Maduro seems to me to be a serious person and would not just make an allegation for the sake of it.”