The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) called on the State of El Salvador to restore the rights suspended since March 2022 under an exception regime “installed in the country for reasons of citizen security“.
El Salvador completed one year under this measure at the end of March, which has left more than 66,400 arrests and at least 5,082 complaints of arbitrary detentions collected by humanitarian organizations.
These measures were adopted by the president of the Central American country, Nayib Bukele, in order to stop the growth of gangs in his country. What are the gangs you seek to eradicate?
Although there are gangs like ‘Mao-Mao’ or ‘La Mirada Locos’, the main ones are the ‘Mara Salvatrucha-13’ and ‘Barrio-18’, which had been plaguing the Salvadoran population for approximately 20 years. The violence inflicted by these illegal groups ranges from robbery and extortion to kidnapping and murder.
Of course, these have spread throughout Central America, since countries like Guatemala and Honduras are plagued by these same gangs.
(It may interest you: New ‘taunt’ from Nayib Bukele to Petro? Now with approval ‘ranking’).
According to figures compiled by the news agency PAEl Salvador has been considered one of the most violent countries in the world, registering 6,656 homicides in 2015, with a rate of 106 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
In 2021 that rate dropped to 18 and in 2022 it would have closed at 10.
‘Neighborhood-18’
‘Barrio 18′ is a gang descended from the ’18th Street Gang’, which emerged in Los Angeles -United States- in the middle of the last century, and which began operating in El Salvador in the early 1990s.
british news channel BBC reports that it was divided into two subsidiaries a decade ago: Barrio 18-Sureños and Barrio 18-Revolucionarios.
One of the dates that most marked the bloody history of this criminal group was June 20, 2010, when it seized a bus in the municipality of Mejicanos, in San Salvador -Salvadoran capital-, and committed the murder of 17 people. .
(Do not stop reading: Salvadoran authorities present Colombian drugs seized in the Pacific).
Salvadoran media reported at the time that members of ‘Barrio-18’ diverted the vehicle to a lonely area, attacked it with bullets, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire with approximately 32 people inside. “Those who tried to escape were shot and forced back up.“, reports los angeles times.
This crime against humanity was committed as revenge against his eternal enemy gang: ‘Mara Salvatrucha-13’.
‘Mara Salvatrucha-13’
The origin of the most infamous gang in El Salvador is linked to that of its eternal enemy. In accordance with PAwas born when many Salvadoran migrants joined ‘Barrio-18’, which initially was made up only of Mexicans.
Although at first they were allies and quickly spread through the poor neighborhoods of the Californian city, they ended up becoming rivals and started a violent war that spread throughout Central America. For this reason, the members of both gangs are colloquially called gangs.
Although the etymological origin has been debated since its creation, it is assumed that ‘mara’ comes from the colloquial way used to refer to gangs in Central America, ‘salva’ comes from El Salvador and ‘trucha’ -a word originating from the street slang- refers to a smart or clever person.
One of the ways in which these US-based criminal gangs moved to Central American countries was the mass deportation program carried out by the US government in the early 2000s, specifically with convicted foreigners. for violent crimes related to drug trafficking, micro-trafficking and gangs.
“This caused many gang members to be deported to El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries. Approximately 20,000 gang members returned to Central America between 2000 and 2004, a trend that continues“, can be read on the Latin American news portal infobae.
(You may also be interested: Petro called the homicide figure from the Government of El Salvador a “false positive”).
And the rest is history. The gang war subdued the Salvadoran civilian population, an issue that President Bukele is trying to stop, and he seems to be succeeding. But many international organizations wonder about the human cost of the measures implemented by his government.
Stefania Leon Arroyave
ELTIEMPO.COM
*With information from EFE
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