Gangs in El Salvador: grown in the US?

[Fitz]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4201183.stm

This is a really sad situation. Here is an excerpt:

El Salvador’s gangs are not home grown - in culture and style they ape the Latino street gangs of downtown Los Angeles in the US.

In the early 1990s, President Bill Clinton began deporting back to El Salvador hundreds of Latino gang members who had illegally made their home in the US.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img...bc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif **I love my gang much more than my mother **http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif

Sochi, 17-year-old gang member

The deportees brought LA gang culture with them to a country flooded with weapons from a decades-old civil war.

They recruited thousands of local teenagers to fight the turf wars they brought with them from LA. Today, some estimates put total gang membership in El Salvador at over 40,000 out of a population of 6.6 million.

 

[Fitz]

Has anyone ever heard that Clinton’s administration contributed to the growth of the gangs of El Salvador? I imagine that this in one view of it, but did that administration have the right to return those that had been imprisoned here in the US?

 

[Matt25]

rtfcam.org/report/volume_22/No_2/article_4.htm

In 1983 then-Vice President Bush, representing the administration of Ronald Reagan, visited El Salvador and, by his own account, “faced down the death squads.” What he did, actually, was pay a visit to the Salvadoran military High Command, the force behind many of the death squad killings, and present a list of officers the US wanted removed. The visit came in the midst of mounting criticism within the US Congress about the pervasive culture of human rights violence within the Salvadoran armed forces and threats on the part of Congressional leaders to cut off US military aid.

       Despite the rising death toll from the activities of military-backed         death squads, massacres of civilians in rural communities, and other         human rights violations, this less-than-decisive move on the part of the         Reagan administration was the only apparent pressure applied on the         US-allied military to stop the abuses. In fact, the US did its best to         cover up many of these crimes, and to this day refuses to release         documents that might shed light on this tragic era

Bush, Sr., was president in 1989 when the Salvadoran military High Command ordered the assassination of the Jesuit community at the Central America University (UCA), carried out on November 16 of that year in the midst of a major guerrilla offensive begun five days before. The first word from Bush administration officials about the killings was to try to point blame towards the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the guerrilla army which had been waging civil war against the repressive government since 1980.

       But that version quickly collapsed as evidence mounted that the army         had carried out the UCA massacre. An eyewitness on the campus that night         saw army boots through the crack of her door as she lay cowering in         fear. In the end, blame fell to the elite US-trained Atlacatl Battalion,         whose members committed the murders on orders from the High Command         which had met the previous evening.

This is the “success story” cited by administration officials as President Bush, Jr., made his 6-hour visit to El Salvador. Bush described the country as one of the “freest, strongest, most stable” countries in Latin America

       The day of the visit held its own tragic irony -- March 24,         anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in         1980.

       Many of Romero's friends and colleagues were angered when the current         Archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, moved the official         memorial activities to March 23 to avoid clashing with the Bush visit.         March 24 is sacred for hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans and many         were offended by the symbolism of having the US president force the         bouncing of Romero's own feast day.

       Jesuit analyst Roberto Cañas wrote of Sáenz Lacalle's decision:         "Thus, over 20 years after that dreadful assassination, the         Catholic hierarchy and the media are seeking to integrate Monsignor         Romero to a lower level, just as efforts were made in days gone by to         silence through violence his homilies of denunciation, prophecy and         hope"


       While President Bush's visit put a brief spotlight on El Salvador, in         reality the country has largely been relegated to the margins of US and         international attention, despite the many problems left in the wake of         the civil war, exacerbated by the earthquakes of last year. The US bears         no small burden of responsibility for El Salvador's social and political         problems having been the chief benefactor of the military dictatorship         that ruled the country with an iron fist for decades. As the military         government came under a mounting challenge at home, the US invested $6         billion in the civil war in an attempt to salvage the situation, even as         the military regime began to collapse under the weight of domestic         opposition, international solidarity with liberation movements, and a         growing ferment in Latin America away from military government and         towards civilian-led democracy.

 

[Matt25]

Goubaud and other youth and human rights workers plan to lobby against anti-gang legislation, saying the focus ought to be, according to LP, “prevention and reinsertion across Central America.”

       Pascual         Campos, a priest working in the slums of Mexico City, expressed similar         concerns regarding the Mexican government: "I hope the Mexican         government will act wisely with respect to the gang question, putting an         emphasis on education, sports and employment opportunities for young         people." He said, "the best antidote against the violence is         working with the youngsters, rather than repression" (IPS).

       Campos         notes that many youths are motivated to join gangs because of the         "breakdown of the social fabric," which creates "a         breeding ground for the gangs." In their "maras," they         find a sense of belonging, of "family," some status on the         streets, and protection from rival gangs.

       "My         'tattoos are like saying, I have this last name, that I'm part of a         family,' Alan Méndez, a 20-year-old Honduran doing time in Mexico for a         number of offenses committed along the border with Guatemala, told the         weekly publication Cambio" (IPS).

       Comments         like these indicate not only the root causes of the growing gang         phenomenon, but also the inadequacy of addressing the crisis with         short-term punitive measures. Hundreds of thousands of youths have been         left uprooted, unemployed, and adrift, as a result of severe strains on         the region’s social fabric. These stresses include social isolation         and marginalization, increased poverty, and the breakdown of family         networks as a result of the collapse of the region's rural economy with         the resulting emigration wave. As one example, 2.7 million people out of         El Salvador's nearly 6 million population live outside the country.         Adding to the pressure, new US policies of aggressively deporting         "criminal aliens" have put thousands of additional         marginalized youths into the streets of Central American cities, among         them "street soldiers" and leaders of the Los Angeles-based         gangs. There is a seemingly endless supply of recruits for the gang         networks.

       The         rise of gangs in the region is one of the more tragic legacies of the         decades of violent social upheaval and the dashed hopes of a generation         that fought and struggled for a better life for their people. It is also         one of the darker faces of a new neoliberal, "free trade"         regimen that has displaced millions of people from their land and         villages and forced them into one of the largest mass migrations in         recent history.

       This         harsh new world seems to have little if any space for impoverished,         marginalized youths, other than the streets and jails, and little         concern about their dignity or their fate.

rtfcam.org/report/volume_24/No_1/article_1.htm

 

[Fitz]

Matt25:

This harsh new world seems to have little if any space for impoverished, marginalized youths, other than the streets and jails, and little concern about their dignity or their fate.
rtfcam.org/report/volume_24/No_1/article_1.htm

I think of course this is a huge problem the world over. I like this last sentence because it challenges all of us to think differently about the problem. Placing blame won’t solve anything. The complexity of this problem screams out for many solutions.

One of my original questions is: Should we imprison these gang types here before sending them back? It doesn’t seem to help anyone.