The government can enforce its Safe El Salvador plan, which focuses as much on crime prevention as on law enforcement. In 2017, 296,000 people were displaced. It can also ramp up projects to deter gang recruitment in poor neighbourhoods. “You can’t work anywhere without permission from the local gang”, says Alex, 46, who worked in construction but decided to leave El Salvador when jobs dried up in his hometown. Their children could face the biggest danger, as it’s only a matter of time before the maras pick many of them out as targets. The combination of quarantine and the "barrio decision" made by the maras led to a historic decrease in the number of fatalities recorded per day in El Salvador. Salvadorans living in “red zones” have to spend hard-earned money on private transport or after-school programs so that their kids don’t come into contact with gangs. Every Salvadoran knows someone who was shot dead by gang members or someone who pulled the trigger. WASHINGTON - Las pandillas, conocidas como maras en El Salvador, han mantenido a las autoridades de ese país entre los más violentos del mundo, llegando a tener por un tiempo la escalofriante cifra de 51 muertos por cada 100.000 habitantes. Members of Mara Salvatrucha listen to a mass in Ciudad Barrios, San Salvador, El Salvador. Nevertheless, the government continues to rely almost solely on security crackdowns to tackle gangs. At many of the roadblocks, the bandera is barely eight years old. El Salvador: El violento paisaje de las maras La violencia desgarra a El Salvador, ante la indiferencia de sus élites y de la mirada internacional. With U.S. help, the Salvadoran government should try to counter gangs with crime prevention as much as with law enforcement. Maras permiten hacer campaña territorial solo a Nuevas Ideas, dice investigadora. En octubre de 2008, sobre la autopista a Comalapa, autoridades salvadoreñas decomisaron a miembros de la MS-13, un cohete antitanque del tipo LAW y varios fusiles de alto calibre. Training and support for police, prison guards and judges could help the Salvadoran authorities target the most violent criminals and ensure that lesser offenders get a second chance outside jail. Street gangs or maras, as they are known in the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA), comprising El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, have mutated from youth groups defending their neighbourhoods’ turf in the 1980s to highly organised, hierarchical organisations that coerce, threaten and kill to produce a menial subsistence for their members in the 21st century. The sense of belonging offered by the gangs was too much for many of them to resist. In many of these “red zones”, gangs are not just a standing danger to public safety but also a de facto authority that exerts tremendous control over residents’ daily lives. Together, these three organisations count around 65,000 members, according to police records. Gangs have mutated from youth groups defending neighbourhood turf in the 1980s to hierarchical organisations that coerce, threaten and kill. A marero had thrown a homemade bomb into her neighbour’s house, killing four people. Despite the mareros’ youth, their faces are scarred and their eyes hollowed by years of dealing out death and taking abuse, making them look much older. El Diario NY. Pure intuition can lead one to think of four things that could happen: either the mareros will try to ignore each other - which is impossible, more so in such a degree of overcrowding - or lethal fights will break out in the cells, or the mareros will associate with each other, or an outbreak of COVID-19 inside the prisons will produce a mass death of the prisoners. Bukele contra las maras: cuáles son las principales pandillas de El Salvador y por qué es tan peligroso que las mezclen en las cárceles Roberto Valencia Especial para BBC Mundo, El Salvador By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. If asked their age, for instance, they reply, “I’m 17 + 1”. The Salvadoran investigative media, El Faro, contrasted the information obtained through spokespersons for the MS-13 and the Sureños del Barrio 18 faction with that of a police commissioner and an official seeking to reconstruct the circumstances that led to the resurgence of violence in the country and the adoption of these measures in the prisons. The mano dura operations have also caught numerous residents in the crossfire. Nayib Bukele, de todo el Triángulo Mara Norte (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador), es el primer mandatario que vino a darle a las maras tratamiento de criminales.Sin medidas complacientes. Maras are a significant force in El Salvador’s criminal and political landscape. Maras like MS-13 were formed in the streets of Los Angeles 30 years ago by young men who had fled the 1980-1992 civil war. Karim Lebhour, Head of North America Communications, coordinated the project. And it’s for the army and police, who wait until after dark to conduct their house-by-house searches for criminal suspects. In contrast with previous migration waves, there are now fewer young men making the journey in search of jobs and many more families with children and young or expectant mothers escaping poverty and gang violence. Óscar, the security official pictured above, uses a common Spanish expression, pagar los platos rotos. Police raids are often indiscriminate. Ya no se limitan a las esquinas del barrio; ahora, sus operaciones tienen otras dimensiones: son dictadas con base en sus fuertes vínculos con organizaciones del narcotráfi co" 31 .Al analizar el caso de El Salvador, la investigadora Sonja Wolf destaca que las maras Salvatrucha y 18 muestran grandes diferencias con las pandillas tradicionales. [6] These maras (sophisticated, third generation gangs) dominate local pandillas (smaller, less-sophisticated gangs) and challenge the state monopoly on force and political power. Police officers always wear a gorro navarone, or face-covering balaclava, scared that gang members will come after them and their families. The gang warned the rest of the family to depart. La investigación concluye en que las "zonas de paz" suponen un camino peligroso donde las maras tienen el poder para negociar con el Estado. It was that or submit to the gangs’ rule somewhere else in the country. “We are open to dialogue with anyone who wants to hear the MS-13 voice, the gang’s spokesperson told El Faro. This site uses cookies. Former President Mauricio Funes made efforts to improve conditions for jailed mareros in exchange for a gang ceasefire. The “maras” (gangs) Salvatrucha and 18 have modified their strategy in order to survive police raids and maintain control over the neighbourhoods where they … Este análisis se basa en Less than a month ago, the news came out of El Salvador that the various maras had made a "decisión de barrio" to enforce the quarantine imposed by the government of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.. Había comenzado a estudiar Derecho y a trabajar para mantener a los niños fuera de las pandillas. El Salvador’s government and its … El Salvador Die gefürchteten Mara-Jugendbanden. Prison conditions for gang members worsened and the mano dura operations resumed. No politician dares advocate for it in public. — Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 26, 2020, Estamos ejecutado la acción de mezclar y recluir en las mismas celdas a los diferentes grupos de las estructuras criminales que tanto daño están causando al país.En este Gobierno no habrá beneficios y privilegios para ningún miembro de estructura criminal. Both the press agencies operating in El Salvador and the prison authorities themselves have released chilling images where dozens of half-naked men emerge lined up, sitting in narrow rows, each one's chest touching the other's back, and where - a novelty for the Salvadoran press - men with the letters MS and the number 18 tattooed on their bodies were gathered equally. Girls can also be targeted at an early age, either to join the gang or to become sex slaves. The latter two scenarios can have serious medium- and long-term consequences for the country: gangs associating with each other can give rise to another force that is more difficult to control than those already plaguing El Salvador, and if there is an outbreak of COVID-19 in prisons, the gang members who survive it will be seen as heroes by the groups to which they belong. Many escape to stay with relatives elsewhere in the country. Eric Lemus. La Mara Salvatrucha, las dos alas de la pandilla Dieciocho, la revolucionaria y la sureña, y la Mao Mao. Over the last fifteen years, various Salvadoran governments have tried to crush gangs con mano dura – with an iron fist. Their influence has grown so great that every major political party in El Salvador and Honduras has at some point paid gangs during elections. The president authorized the army to use "lethal force" against the mareros and ordered that in the prisons they mix members of different gangs. Most gang members were around fifteen years old when they first joined. They may also take neighbourhood women and girls there to be sexually abused. Boys aged twelve and older are prime targets for recruitment. The culprit in most of these murders is the maras, the country’s powerful, pervasive criminal gangs. The U.S. can help by either allowing Salvadorans with Temporary Protected Status to stay in the U.S., or by assisting the Salvadoran government with reintegrating deportees through the creation of job opportunities and improvement of public services. In El Salvador, gangs found fertile ground for recruitment with the country roiled by post-war political upheaval and mired in economic stagnation. Together, these three organisations count around 65,000 members, according to police records. For their part, gangs repeatedly say they want to start a new dialogue to obtain better prison conditions and cut down the number of police raids in their neighbourhoods. Less than a month ago, the news came out of El Salvador that the various maras had made a "decisión de barrio" to enforce the quarantine imposed by the government of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Gangs also claim to be providing a “community service” by protecting locals from other criminals and corrupt police. Todas las noticias sobre Maras publicadas en EL PAÍS. Also, to prevent them from using sign language, he has asked that they be held without access to sunlight. A mara (or marabunta) is a form of gang originating in the United States, which spread to Central American countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Jeannette Aguilar, investigadora de temas de violencia, señaló que esos grupos criminales restringen el … That’s more violent deaths than in several countries that were at war during those years, such as Libya, Somalia and Ukraine. Es su territorio. The gangs remain rooted in the streets but have now penetrated every layer of Salvadoran society. Sencillamente, ellos mandan. “The only living force that exists in our communities is the gangs”. A partir de este día, El Diario de Hoy le presenta un amplio reportaje sobre el control que ejercen cuatro grupos de maras o pandillas. El 13 de mayo de 2006, Ernesto Smokey Miranda, un exsoldado de alto rango y uno de los fundadores de la Mara Salvatrucha, fue asesinado en su casa en El Salvador unas horas después de negarse a asistir a una fiesta para una miembro de la banda que acababa de ser liberada de la prisión.