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Margriet Zoethout
Master Thesis Latin American Studies CEDLA Master’s Program
10660984
11 December 2014
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Kees Koonings Second Reader: Prof. Dr. Michiel Baud
Enhancing Citizen Security on the Frontline in a Contested
Playing Field
A Case Study of the Gang Truce in San José del Pino,
El Salvador
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Photo cover: Community Policing in San José del Pino Photo: Margriet Zoethout Translation page 3: To all protagonists, male and female, of the process of change, that one day your names will be out of anonymity
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Para todos los protagonistas, hombres y mujeres, del proceso de cambio, que un dia sus nombres salgan del anonimato
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Acknowledgements
My research in El Salvador coincided with the World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Being from the
Netherlands, this automatically generated conversations with all different kind of people,
about strategies, about famous players, and about opponents. I watched several matches at
the community police base in San José del Pino, and I remember one particular experience
when I left the neighborhood with the local police chief to watch a match of the Dutch
naranja mecánica on a big screen in a pub close to San José del Pino. For security reasons in
this occasion, the local police chief carried an M-16 rifle additional to his revolver. During the
match, I watched him carefully sitting next to me cleaning his rifle while watching the match.
This experience is exemplary for the many extraordinary situations, conversations
and experiences during my research on gang violence and pacification. While I had left
family and friends at home a bit worried about my safety situation, I learned that life in El
Salvador is not only about violence. During my stay I learned that even in a country with one
of the highest levels of homicides in the world, life continues and people always find a
reason to celebrate. For this reason, I am grateful to a lot of people. First I would like to
thank Johanna, for sharing her house with me in San Salvador, and for the same friendship
we shared twenty years ago. Living together for five weeks, I learned what it means to live in
fear, since Johanna had been victim of extortion, forcing her twice to move to another
neighborhood. I want to thank Hato for enabling me to attend the official inauguration of
the new president Sanchez Cerén and his administration. Thanks to Fidel for your friendship
and for sharing experiences in election events. In Santa Tecla, I would like to thank Isabel
Calderon, Oscar Ibarra and Stanley Rodriguez of the Municipality of Santa Tecla for
introducing me to the successful policies of security and coexistence at the local level, and
for introducing me to San José del Pino. I also want to thank the police officials of the
CAMCO municipal police for providing me transport to San José del Pino, and other officials
of the National Civil Police in Santa Tecla for introducing me to their work.
I am especially grateful to the local police chief of San José del Pino for receiving me
for almost three months at the community police base, for sharing his work and offering a
safe place to do my research. Many thanks to his colleagues as well. Special thanks and
gratefulness to all residents of San José del Pino and San Rafael for receiving me in their
communities and to share their life experiences in interviews, meetings, and special events,
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in particular the carnavál gastronómico the first of August. I felt at home and I really admire
your efforts to enforce peaceful coexistence with all members of the neighborhood. This
research is dedicated to all of you, and to other informants that for safety reasons have to
remain anonymous.
This research would not have been possible without the support and experience of
Kees Koonings who guided me smoothly through this process as supervisor on behalf of
CEDLA. I want to thank Michiel Baud for his thoughtful comments. Thanks to Bente for all
the logistical support, and the other staff members of whom I learned a lot during this
Master’s Program. I want to thank Chris van der Borgh for the first orientations in drafting
my research proposal. Next time in Salvador I will treat you to pupusas. Finally, I want to
thank my family and friends for having been so patient during all these months without
having much time to share together. Most of all I wish to thank my two sons Marijn and
Niels, and my partner Jochem, who have been incredibly patient, helpful and trustful for
allowing me to embark upon this adventure. With love.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 9
Scaling the role of the state and active citizenship ....................................................................... 10
Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................... 17
Violence and Fear ............................................................................................................................ 17
Social Capital .................................................................................................................................... 19
Citizen Security ................................................................................................................................ 20
Chapter 3 Santa Tecla ‘Violence-Free Municipality’ .................................................................. 25
Role model for citizen security .......................................................................................................... 26
Violence-Free Municipality................................................................................................................ 33
Obstacles ........................................................................................................................................... 36
Political Ownership ............................................................................................................................ 39
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 42
Chapter 4 San José del Pino ............................................................................................................ 45
A History of Violence in a Governance Void ...................................................................................... 46
Restoring State Presence................................................................................................................... 51
Effects of the Gang Truce .................................................................................................................. 55
Violence and Victimization ................................................................................................................ 56
Access to Public Goods and (Economic) Livelihood Strategies ......................................................... 60
Social Values and Social Networks .................................................................................................... 63
Constraints ........................................................................................................................................ 69
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 72
Chapter 5 Gang Violence and the Gang Truce as an Ambivalent Process ............................... 75
Role of the State ................................................................................................................................ 76
Non-transparent Process ................................................................................................................... 79
Contested Playing Field ..................................................................................................................... 85
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 94
Chapter 6 Conclusion and Recommendations ............................................................................. 97
Recommendations ......................................................................................................................... 101
Epilogue ............................................................................................................................................. 103
Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 105
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 109
Footnotes ........................................................................................................................................... 115
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Chapter 1 Introduction
When I first came to El Salvador in 1992, I witnessed the celebration of the Peace Accords on
the first of February in the capital of San Salvador, where a huge mass of euphoric citizens
gathered at the Plaza Cívica in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral. Twelve years before, this
place had been the scene where many people were killed during the funeral mass of the
assassinated Monseñor Romero. The peace agreement, a result of negotiations between the
government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and brokered by the
United Nations, ended a civil war of nearly twelve years that caused the death of 75.000
citizens. That particular day in 1992, and the first post-conflict years afterwards, I witnessed
hope, relief, renewed mobility, and daily life experiences that were no longer determined by
violence. At the same Plaza Cívica, two years later, I experienced a violent act during the
closure manifestation of the elections campaign of the FMLN that, for the first time in
history, participated as political party in the general elections of 1994. Standing among the
mass of supporters, suddenly there was a shooting and immediately all people were lying on
the ground. As I remember, I was the only one still standing, for being a foreigner not used
to these kinds of situations. As I heard later, it was a provocative act of a political opponent
who was captured immediately afterwards by the ONUSAL United Nations Mission that was
still present in post-war El Salvador. In this particular case, I experienced for the first time to
what extent Salvadoran people are used to live with violence, since none of them seemed
shocked about this violent incident, and the manifestation continued apparently
uninterrupted.
In the same period of post-conflict, the first expressions of youth gangs so- called
maras started to manifest in public space. I remember a bus that suddenly stopped in the
middle of the street in San Salvador, and youth getting off the bus to start throwing stones
at each other. This is the type of scenes that Ricardo, a leader of the Mara Salvatrucha, is
referring to almost twenty years later when he is telling me his life history as a young gang
member during an interview for my current research in San José del Pino. This time, I had
decided to go back to El Salvador to focus on another peace agreement, the gang truce that
had been brokered two years ago in 2012 between the two main gangs of the country. Due
to gang violence, El Salvador had returned to a climate of war not even a decade after the
civil war had ended, causing despair, fear, limited mobility, and daily life experiences
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determined by violence. Whereas during the civil war the country was divided between army
controlled areas and so-called liberated territories under control of the FMLN, nowadays the
country is divided in territories controlled by los números or las letras, the former
corresponding with the Barrio 18 gang and the latter with the Mara Salvatrucha gang. As in a
war zone, opponents are limited to cross or enter the territory of the others, risking their
lives when doing so.
However, due to a paradigm shift from repressive to preventive public security
policies, a gang truce was brokered in March 2012 facilitated by the national government of
Mauricio Funes, elected president for the FMLN in 2009. Initially, the gang truce was lauded,
above all internationally, and considered an exemplary strategy to end gang violence.
However, in a polemic debate that followed and that continues to date, the non-violence
agreement between the gangs has been declared to have failed, despite the promising
perspectives, such as a significant reduction of the homicide rate, shortly after the truce had
been brokered.
Scaling the role of the state and active citizenship
I have been following this debate since the beginning, and noticed that the effectiveness of
the gang truce is mainly assessed at the national level, based on homicide rates as the main
indicator of violence, on political debates and public opinion in a country with one of the
highest homicide rates in the world. However, if the gang truce has been drafted as a
strategy to end gang violence and enhance citizen security, then its effectiveness,
consequently, should be assessed at the local and the community level as well. Hence, a
review of citizen security policies has shown that the most effective interventions of crime
and violence prevention and reduction have surfaced mostly at the local level. Therefore, I
believe that the element of scale could add a new dimension to the debate about the gang
truce in El Salvador. When defining scale as a relevant element to the debate, I refer to the
following aspects.
First, when referring to the role of the state in enhancing citizen security, and in the
case of the gang truce as a particular strategy to this respect, I believe it is crucial to
distinguish between the role of the state at the national and at the local level. As example,
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an important element in the debate about the gang truce is the fact that the national
government, despite its facilitating role, never openly supported the gang truce, reason for
critics of the process to blame the national government a lack of transparency and a lack of
ownership. In the same debate, however, no clear connection is made with the policies of
local governments who, in the case of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy, committed
themselves to the implementation of the second phase of the gang truce.
Second, another important topic of discussion about the gang truce is the question
whether gang members should be included in the political and public dialogue of a
pacification process. At the national level, there is a strong tendency to exclude gang
members, due to the legal sensitiveness at the political level, and as a result of strong public
opinion that opposes any dialogue with criminals. At the local level however, in the case of
Santa Tecla as a ‘violent-free municipality’ and at the community level of San José del Pino,
gang members are included in the political and public dialogue of the pacification process.
Third, the issue of scale is also relevant in the public debate on the gang truce and
the role of citizens in enhancing citizen security. Public opinion in general rejects the gang
truce and any efforts to support the rights of gang members to be included in initiatives to
enhance citizen security. In the case of San José del Pino, however, community members,
gang members, the local government and the local police base in the community jointly
implement programs and activities to promote security and coexistence at the frontline. For
this reason, I believe it is of relevant importance to include the results of violence reduction
and improvement of the social and economic dimensions of citizen security at the
community level in the national debate about the effectiveness of the gang truce.
Hence, with my thesis I aim to show the relevance of scale to the debate on the gang
truce as a strategy to enhance citizen security. The following central research question has
guided my research:
How has the gang truce affected citizen security in the community of San José del Pino, and
how is this related to the debate about the gang truce and to public security policies at the
local and national level in El Salvador?
My research was divided into three parts that correspond with the three levels of my
research question: community, municipality, and national level. The first part is an
assessment of the effects of the gang truce on citizen security on the frontline and the
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constraints the local agents of change are confronted with. The second part is focused on
the municipal level related to the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy as second phase of
the gang truce. The third part corresponds with the national level focused on the more
general aspects of the gang truce and the corresponding debate at the national level.
Methods
I conducted my research among two different research populations. The first part of my
fieldwork, in the capital of San Salvador for a period of five weeks starting in May 2014, was
qualitative research based on open interviews and analysis of secondary sources. Aim of this
first part was to interview key persons about the gang truce in general and the related
debate at the national level. To this end, I conducted 13 interviews with academics,
politicians, media professionals, representatives from NGOs, and churches. The second part,
from June to late August, is an explorative qualitative case study based on multi methods
research including open interviews, participatory observation, informal conversations, and
analysis of secondary sources. To this end, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in San José
del Pino, a suburb of Santa Tecla. Santa Tecla is one of the municipalities participating in the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy as a second phase of the gang truce. As indicated
before, the gang truce is mainly debated at the national level, but little is known about the
effects of the gang truce at the community level. In order to assess the possible effects of
the gang truce on the social and economic dimensions of citizen security at the community
level, I decided to elaborate a case study on San José del Pino. To this end, I conducted 7
interviews in Santa Tecla with a focus on the municipal level, and 25 interviews in San José
del Pino or directly related to San José del Pino. Almost all interviews were recorded for
later analysis.
With respect to my methods, some specific remarks have to be made. San José del
Pino is one of the most stigmatized neighborhoods of Santa Tecla, due to its strong gang
presence, and can be considered an extraordinary community for three reasons. First, it is
the place of origin of the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the two main gangs of El Salvador, as
some of the main national leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha do originate from this
neighborhood and their families still live here. Second, entrance to the neighborhood was
impossible for the authorities for many years, however, the municipality of Santa Tecla has
succeeded to gain renewed entrance as a result of a change of public security policies which
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included, most significantly, the establishment of a provisional police base in San José del
Pino in 2012 operating within the policy of community policing. Third, San José del Pino was
the official stage where the act of declaration of Santa Tecla ‘Municipality Free of Violence’
was signed in January 2013. Since then, the community was further unclosed for the
authorities, and several development projects were started with active involvement of
residents and gang members, and with support from the municipality, the local police base,
and various international organizations. As a result, a pacification process has started to
enhance security and coexistence at the community level.
Due to the fragility of the pacification process, however, it was decided that for
safety reasons I could only implement my research in San José del Pino if in close
coordination with the local police. I could not enter the neighborhood on my own, and I
could only visit the neighborhood on a daily basis, there was no possibility to stay with a
local family for example. As a result, daily transport to San José del Pino was arranged with
the local officials of the Municipal Agents Community Corps (CAMCO) in Santa Tecla, and all
interviews with the residents of San José del Pino were coordinated with the local police
chief of the community police base. Regarding the latter, it is important to stress that all
community members I spoke with, expressed to feel comfortable with the attitude of the
local police chief, as I checked this explicitly during the interviews. In order to guarantee my
independence as much as possible, I identified myself prior to the interview with my
University ID and explained to the interviewee that my research, and thus the interview,
would only serve an academic purpose. Additionally, the fact that I know El Salvador quite
well, encouraged the interviewees to share their experiences with me. This includes all kind
of representatives of the community, women, elderly people, representatives of the church,
victims of gang violence, school directors, gang members and gang leaders, and police
officials. There is only one exception, of a total amount of 25 interviews, of a gang member
that finally did not show up, despite having been invited three times to an interview.
All interviews took place at the local police station, except for two specific cases, one
interview with a representative of a group of women took place at her home, and two
interviews with directors of the school took place at the local school. In most cases, the
interviews took place in a separate room in the police station. In the specific case of
interviewing victims of gang violence, I previously asked the interviewee if he or she felt
‘comfortable’ doing the interview at the police station. They all answered positively. In all
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cases, I applied the format of open interviews, although specific topics guided me through
the, sometimes emotional, conversations. It was not possible, although originally planned,
to organize a focus group. I believe people still feel afraid to speak out, and prefer to do so
on an individual basis, and not as a group. I have to mention that at the end of my research
period, I felt confidence with a group of women and I believe, if more time would have been
available, a focus group finally might have been possible. Due to safety reasons, participant
observation was rather difficult since I could not enter the neighborhood on my own, or walk
around without police vigilance. Nevertheless, during the last weeks of my stay, I could
attend various meetings of the new neighborhood committee, and participate in different
activities in the community organized by the committee, in some cases in coordination with
representatives of the municipality. Furthermore, I attended a range of different meetings
that provided me with additional information and contacts relevant for my research. Finally,
I collected a lot of additional information such as police statistics and reports, policy
documents of the municipality and the National Civil Police, media footage etcetera.
Chapters
I will present my research findings in the following chapters. In Chapter 2 I will explain the
main theoretical concepts that are the framework for analysis of my research results:
framing of violence and fear, social capital, and citizen security. First, I will generally describe
the phenomenon of violence, including gang violence, with a specific focus on homicides.
Then I will briefly focus on insecurity and fear, coping strategies to confront violence, and
the impact of violence on social capital. Second, I will briefly touch upon the former iron fist
policies, and then explain the concept of citizen security as a strategy of public security
policies. To this respect I will particularly focus on the role of the state and active citizenship
as core pillars of citizen security. Finally I will briefly describe the concept of community
policing. In Chapter 3, 4 and 5 I will describe my empirical findings of the debate,
implementation and constraints of the gang truce at the local level of Santa Tecla, the
community level of San José del Pino, and the national level of El Salvador.
In Chapter 3 I will show the example of Santa Tecla as a ‘violence-free municipality’,
visualizing the gang truce as a local pact of coexistence. I will relate the role of the
municipality in the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy to the role model of Santa Tecla
based on its track record on prevention policies. Furthermore, I will show the obstacles,
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related to the national level, that the municipality is confronted with in its implementation
of the second phase of the gang truce. In Chapter 4 I will focus on San José del Pino as a case
study of addressing citizen insecurity on the frontline. I will describe the history of violence
within the community, and focus on the effects of the gang truce on violence and
victimization, access to public goods and (economic) livelihood strategies, and on social
values and social networks. Finally I will describe the constraints the community is
confronted with in the implementation of the gang truce on the frontline. In Chapter 5, I will
focus on the role of the national state in enhancing citizen security, in this case related to the
gang truce as a particular strategy to this end. I will describe the gang truce, and the related
debate, as an ambivalent process within the context of a contested playing field.
In Chapter 6 I will describe the final conclusions of my research, and I will provide
some recommendations for policy development and further research. To this respect, it is
important to stress that regarding government policies, my research is focused on the period
of the Funes administration which ended in June 2014. In the epilogue of my thesis I will
briefly touch upon some - political - developments that occurred after my fieldwork, and
that are directly related to my research topic and research population. These developments
correspond to the new FMLN administration of President Sanchez Cerén and Vice-President
Oscar Ortíz who took office in June 2014.
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Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework
My research is based on three analytical concepts: framing of violence and fear, social
capital, and citizen security. In the first part of this chapter, I will provide a general definition
of violence, an indication of different categories of violence, including gang violence, with a
specific focus on homicides as a type of violence that distinguishes Central America on the
global average as a sub-region with the highest homicide rates on record.1 Lowering the
homicide rate in El Salvador has been the main objective for the Funes administration to
facilitate the gang truce in 2012. Furthermore I will briefly describe coping strategies to
confront violence, and touch upon insecurity and fear. In the second part of this chapter I
will focus briefly on violence related to social capital. Part of the theory about social capital,
additionally, is included in Chapter 4. Finally I will focus on various concepts of security
policies, starting with the iron fist policies, the concept of citizen security that is relevant
with respect to the issue of scale and state-citizen relations, and to conclude, I will briefly
touch upon the concept of community policing.
Violence and Fear
Today, crime and violence is the number one concern for Latin American citizens, and one of
the region’s top priorities in the public policy agenda.2 Many countries in the region are not
only experiencing a sharp increase in violence, as Bobea argues, but also changes in patterns
and structures of crime, and the addition of new sectors as victims and perpetrators.3
Regarding the latter, youth gangs are a predominant feature in El Salvador, and are referred
to by Brenneman as ‘any durable, street oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal
activity is part of its group identity’.4 Violence, according to Concha-Eastman, is an
intentional use of force or power with a predetermined end by which one or more persons
produce physical, mental (psychological), or sexual injury, injure the freedom of movement,
or cause the death of another person or persons - including him or herself.5 Moser argues
that different categories of violence can be identified, although they frequently overlap:
political violence, driven by the will to hold or retain political power, economic violence,
motivated by material gain, social violence -much of it gender-based - and institutional
violence -including community vigilantism.6 Gang violence, according to this categorization,
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is a type of economic and social violence that is manifested in different ways such as
territorial or identity-based “turf” violence, homicide, (armed)robbery, theft, kidnapping,
extortion, rape, crime and drug-trafficking.7 Gang-related and youth violence in El Salvador,
according to Moser, must be understood as a feature of the country’s legacy of deep socio-
economic inequalities, pervasive violence, and weak democratic and legal institutions.8
The percentages of violence in El Salvador that correspond to gangs, as I will show in
my thesis, vary a lot and are a constantly disputed variable in the public debate about gang
violence and public security policies. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC), organized crime or gang-related homicide accounts for 30 per cent of
homicides in the Americas.9 Moreover, levels of organized crime or gang-related homicide
can fluctuate dramatically, even in the short term, to the extent that they actually drive
changes in homicide rates in some countries in Central America and the Caribbean.10 The
latter is certainly the case in El Salvador for example with respect to the relation between
electoral processes and homicide rates. Denny and Walter argue that the increase in
homicide rates in Latin America is related to so-called gang-on-gang violence that has a
specific dynamic that makes the violence self-perpetuating, as a culture of payback creates a
world where one murder builds on another.11 In El Salvador this is related for example to the
dispute of territories of los números, referring to the Barrio 18 gang, and las letras that
refers to the Mara Salvatrucha gang. Yet, the most serious offence a gang can commit, as
Savenije and Van der Borgh indicate, is to enter a rival’s territory, wipe out their symbols and
graffiti, and kill or harm one of the members.12As a result of iron fist policies, gangs
paradoxically have been strengthened, they have become institutionalized and show more
and more the characteristics of organized crime.13 Hence, when the Funes administration
took office in 2009, the government opted for a paradigm shift from repressive to preventive
security policies that paved the way for the development of an alternative strategy to
confront gang violence, resulting in the gang truce in March 2012.
Contemporary gang violence has changed community life in El Salvador dramatically.
The social fabric of the communities is being damaged through the fear and violence these
gangs bring to their neighborhoods in their rivalry with hostile gangs. The insecurity
generated by violence is expressed in fear, which has been defined as ‘the institutional,
cultural and psychological repercussion of violence’.14 Growing activities of extortion, drug
trafficking and contract killing have distinguished the gangs further from the traditional
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street gangs as they could be identified originally. Inhabitants of communities simply have to
accept the ruling of their neighborhoods by gangs as parallel powers and heavily armed
actors. Hence, urban residents have become citizens of fear, as Balán argues, as a result of
unconsolidated democratic regimes, despite the fact that the transition to democracy
initially fostered hopes for a decline in violence, repression, and generalized fears.15 This is
also certainly the case in El Salvador, as I described in my introduction, where the first years
of post-conflict were characterized by hope, relief, renewed mobility, and daily life that no
longer was determined by violence. As an example, daily life in the communities of San José
del Pino and San Rafael changed dramatically in the course of post-conflict years, due to
gang violence, in this case practiced by the Mara Salvatrucha. As fear rises, as Cárdia argues,
people develop survival strategies that restrict interpersonal contact.16 Moser and McIlwaine
refer to four distinct strategies for coping with violence, namely avoidance, confrontation,
conciliation and other strategies.17 I will use these examples when analyzing the coping
strategies of the inhabitants of San José del Pino and San Rafael to confront gang violence in
their neighborhood. One of the best known survival practices related to gang violence, is the
use of silence, expressed in the saying ‘ver, oir y callar’ that corresponds to the ‘law of
silence’ or ignoring the situation. According to Hume, this is a survival practice that is still
present and useful today.18
Social Capital
According to Concha-Eastman, violence generates changes in social behavior, producing an
erosion of social capital, which is understood as the combination of social organizational
relationships that make possible collaboration and cooperation among distinct levels of
society in order to improve its level of development and harmony.19 The more fear and
mistrust there is between people, the lower the potential for collective organization.20 The
latter is an important element of the definition of social capital according to Putnam. Social
capital, as Putnam argues, refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms,
and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.21 This is also
referred to as cognitive social capital. In Chapter 4, I will describe how the communities of
San José del Pino and San Rafael were confronted for many years with an erosion of social
capital due to enduring gang violence and gang dominance in the neighborhood.
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Furthermore I will show how the social values and social networks have been
reactivated since the pacification process started at the community level as a result of the
‘violence-free municipality’ strategy. The recently established neighborhood committee is an
illustrating example of ‘bridging social capital’. According to Putnam, an organization, or in
this case a process, that builds bridging social capital, is first, inclusive – as it tries to
incorporate all sectors of community, second, it is outward looking – its objective serves the
community as a whole, and third, it is coalescing – it unites people across diverse social
cleavages.22
Citizen Security
In July 2003, the ‘mano dura’ (iron fist) policy was adopted in El Salvador as a repressive
approach to gang control.23 This approach advocated the immediate imprisonment, for up to
five years, of youth as young as 12 who displayed gang-related tattoos or flashed gang signs
in public.24 As a result, in the following year, roughly 20,000 gang members were arrested,
although approximately 95 percent of them were eventually released without charge after
the law was declared unconstitutional.25 A new law, the ‘mano super dura’ required proof of
active delinquent behavior in order to arrest an individual, however, the prison population
doubled in just five years, of which 40 percent were allegedly gang members.26 In Chapter 5,
one of my informants will briefly touch upon the topic of the overcrowded penitentiary
system in El Salvador. Although supported by the public, most evidence of these iron fist
policies indicated that the effects were contra productive. Hence, due to the failure of iron
fist policies, there has been a shift in public security policies across Latin America from iron
fist policies to softer approaches focused on prevention. This is the context in which the
concept of citizen security emerged. As indicated in the case of El Salvador, the paradigm
shift from repressive to preventive policies that was promoted by the Funes administration
since 2009, created the conditions to facilitate the gang truce.
Citizen security is understood as the right of all citizens to move freely and without
fear, to know that their objects and belongings will not be taken from them, that they will
not be fraudulently stripped of their goods, that they will not be intimidated, and that they
can trust other human beings as they trust persons close to them.27 At its most basic, citizen
security features two fundamental ideas – the responsible state and active citizenship.28 The
21
state, formerly, received most of the blame for the high levels of violence in most Latin
American countries, of which some refers to as state failure or even state collapse.29 As a
direct result of state failure, Koonings and Kruijt refer to the so-called ‘governance voids’
meaning spaces or domains in which the legitimate state is effectively absent in the face of
armed actors that abide by the rule of force.30 I will use this concept in Chapter 4 to describe
the structural absence of the state in the communities of San José del Pino and San Rafael
due to gang dominance. With respect to state failure, interestingly, Arias points to the role
of the state to empower groups in society that can effectively criticize state actions
undermining democratic practice and contributing to the power of armed groups.31 Arias, in
this sense, emphasizes the need to change the types of relationships that exist between
state and society.32 To this respect, it could be interesting to explore to what extent the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy could be a successful example of the type of state-
society relationships Arias is referring to. Within the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy, a
variety of local state- and non-state actors actively cooperate to enhance citizen security at
the community level, in coordination with the national state through various ministries.
Interestingly, in the case of San José del Pino and San Rafael, non-state armed actors actively
participate as well in this state-society relationship, meaning gang members that participate
in reintegration programs as so-called Youth Peace Builders.
Additionally, citizen security recognizes the fundamental role citizens play in ensuring
their own safety. On the one hand, citizens hold state officials to account for their failures to
adequately guarantee security, and on the other hand, the success of many public safety
policies is predicated on positive engagement between police and the population.33 By
focusing on the responsible state and active citizenship, citizen security as a result reinforces
the mutual rights and obligations of states and citizens. Regarding the latter, citizen rights
are not only activated at the formal level of citizenship, but at the substantive - related to
social and political rights - and subjective level - related to loyalty and belonging - as well,
due to the fact that citizens become active stakeholders in promoting their own safety.
Interestingly, Moser and McIlwaine compare the integrated approach of citizen security with
two other different approaches to prevent and reduce violence.34 This comparison stems
from their criticism on citizen security based on its objective to better provide security for
citizens rather than tackling the underlying causes of violence themselves.35 An alternative
integrated approach that Moser and McIlwaine refer to, is that of infrastructure and
22
environmental renewal, a top-down municipal level approach to improve communities’
physical infrastructure.36 Additionally they refer to the community-driven social capital
approach that focuses most directly on rebuilding social cohesion in informal and formal
institutions such as families, gangs and community organizations.37 Finally, Moser and
McIlwaine stress the importance of an integrated framework of different policy approaches
if policymakers are to recognize the multiplicity of violence as well as the agency and
identities of different social actors.38
Interestingly, the policies on violence prevention and promotion of co-existence,
implemented by the municipality of Santa Tecla, are a good example of the integrated
framework Moser and McIlwaine refer to. Important aspect related to this integrated
framework, is the fact that at the level of San José del Pino and San Rafael, the municipality
indeed focuses on the agency and identities of different social actors, including the gang
members that form part of the community. As I will show in Chapter 4, infrastructure,
environmental renewal, and rebuilding social cohesion are all elements integrated in the
policies and programs that are being implemented by the municipality in these two
communities. Regarding the integrated framework that Moser and McIlwaine refer to, it is
important, finally, to briefly touch upon the concept of community policing.
Community Policing
The spike in youth violence, as Ungar argues, has been a chief catalyst for
community-oriented policing, one of the biggest and most promising waves of security
reform in Latin America and other regions.39 The preventive strategies that define
community-oriented policing, focus on addressing and resolving the conditions that cause
crime by empowering citizens, building police-community partnerships, improving social
services, and better using crime statistics.40 Yet, the case of San José del Pino and San Rafael
is an interesting example of community policing in a neighborhood with strong gang
presence. As I will show in Chapter 4, police presence in the communities has been restored
after decades of state absence due to gang violence that had turned the communities into
closed shelters into which only repressive police incursions could be implemented. Due to a
shift in public security policies at the municipal level and the commitment of local actors to
the ‘violence-free municipality strategy’, as second phase of the gang truce, a community
police base could be established in San José del Pino.
23
Ungar shows that community policing policies can be placed into three main
approaches focused on youth. The first approach is better coordination among agencies that
deal with youth.41 The second approach is to provide opportunities for youth in the basic
needs of education, recreation, and employment.42 As I will show, various programs and
activities focused on these elements have been implemented in San José del Pino and San
Rafael. The third and most difficult category, according Ungar, is changing police structure so
that officers have the time, training, and incentives to learn about communities, their
conditions, and their youth.43 Only by patrolling an area and knowing its residents, as Ungar
argues, can police determine the balance between benefits for gang members – such as
recognition, socialization, protection, belonging, and excitement – and costs – such as
physical danger and community discrimination – necessary for effective anti-gang policy.44
Regarding the latter, in the case of San José del Pino and San Rafael, there is a strong focus
on prevention and reintegration efforts to support youth in changing their life patterns and
perspectives from illegal activities to formal integration in society. To this respect, the
community policing strategy is of paramount importance in the current pacification process
that has started in the communities as a result of the gang truce. Various obstacles,
however, that are related to the approaches as described by Ungar, are causing serious
setbacks in the current pacification process and development of the communities of San
José del Pino and San Rafael.
25
Chapter 3 Santa Tecla ‘Violence-Free Municipality’
Citizen security and the gang truce as a local pact of coexistence
Latin America displays a growing number of networks involving state-governors, city
mayors, local police chiefs, and others seeking to cooperate across international borders to
promote citizen security.1 These new forms of partnership offer an exciting avenue for
addressing the citizen insecurity on the front-line.2 A review of citizen security policies and
programs highlights a number of important trends related to the scale of interventions and
the levels at which they are pursued.3 With respect to the quantity of interventions, the
majority (42%) of documented activities are pursued at the national level, whereas a wide
distribution of interventions are also pursued at the city level (32%), the sub-state level
(19%) and regionally (7%).4 Interestingly, with respect to the quality of interventions,
successful examples of crime and violence prevention reduction in the region have surfaced
mostly from experiences of local governments and municipal level efforts, rather than from
national policies.5 These interventions are most effective due to the fact that they are
adapted to local circumstances and respond to citizen insecurity problems, identified and
defined jointly with the involved communities.6 The UNDP stresses that active citizen
participation in formulating and setting up these interventions is of paramount importance,
whereas at the same time it is essential to be able to rely on the sustained commitment of
decision-makers, beyond electoral changes and partisan divisions.7 One of the examples of
effective interventions that occur at the city level, is the experience of Santa Tecla, El
Salvador.8
When studying the gang truce as a strategy to enhance citizen security, I learned that
most of the debate about the gang truce is concentrated at the national level. This is due to
the fact that the role of the national state in the process of the gang truce, as I will explain
further in Chapter 5, has been intransparant and, as it seems, influenced by many different
variables mainly related to politics. However, implementation of the gang truce at the local
level started in 2013 when several municipalities were declared ‘violence-free municipality’.
Since then, various initiatives have been developed at the municipal and community level
where local governments and a variety of local non-state actors, including gang members,
play a crucial role. Hence, if the quality of interventions of citizen security policies and
26
programs has surfaced mostly from experiences of local governments and municipal level
efforts, I believe these experiences should be leading in the debate about the gang truce.
Therefore it is crucial to shift the scope from the national to the local level, revealing the
results and constraints of the gang truce on the frontline.
In this chapter I aim to analyze the public security policies of the Municipality of
Santa Tecla. Santa Tecla is one of the eleven municipalities that were declared a ‘violence-
free municipality’ as part of the implementation of the second phase of the gang truce. I will
first briefly touch upon the public security policies that have been implemented since 2002
and that have contributed to the fact that Santa Tecla is considered, both nationally as well
as internationally, as a model of effective citizen security interventions at the city level.
Regarding this typification of Santa Tecla as a ‘role model’, I will analyze two variables that,
to my opinion, mark a particular difference of Santa Tecla when compared with other
municipalities in the country. Main focus of the analysis of this chapter, however, will be on
‘Santa Tecla Violence-Free Municipality’. To this respect, I will first describe the general aim
of the strategy of declaring municipalities ‘free of violence’, as explained by some of the key
actors involved. Then I will explain how the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy is
organized at the local level, who are the actors involved and what is the difference with
projects and policies on citizen security that were implemented previously. Furthermore, I
will indicate how different factors related to financial, technical, political, and legal
conditions seriously hampered the implementation of the ‘ violence-free municipalities’
strategy. Then I will show how the participation of Santa Tecla is interpreted differently in
the debate about the second phase of the gang truce, and subsequently relate this to the
debate at the national level. Finally, by way of conclusion, I will analyze how the ‘violence-
free municipalities’ strategy should be best assessed if we want to determine its
effectiveness on citizen security at the local level.
Role model for citizen security
The local police chief of San José del Pino, a suburb of Santa Tecla, invites me to attend a
meeting in Santa Tecla organized by the National Civil Police (PNC). ‘We will have our half-
yearly accountability meeting, and I kindly invite you to be present as well. Residents of the
communities will present their findings on security and police performance in their
27
neighborhood to the maximum authorities of the PNC’, as explained by the local police chief.
So on June 15, Sunday morning half past eight, residents of various communities of Santa
Tecla gather at a local community centre and are grouped with the local police officers that
are based in the respective communities. ‘Since July 2012, we work according to the principle
of community policing with the aim to restore public confidence, reduce crime and violence,
and enhance citizen security’, as explained in a presentation by the leadership of the PNC in
Santa Tecla. We learn that community policing at the municipal level is organized through
specific patrols and four police bases, including in San José del Pino, and the first results of
2014 are being presented with statistics, graphics and pictures. Most interesting part of the
meeting, in which I participate with the representatives of San José del Pino, is the direct
exchange of experiences at the neighborhood level. Risk factors and security problems are
discussed between the residents and the local police officers, and each community is invited
to present its findings in the plenary session. ‘Our community is extremely difficult, we need
more police patrols and urge the municipality to increase its presence in our neighborhood.
At the same time, we are satisfied with the role of the police base in our community for their
attitude being inclusive towards local leaderships’, as explained by the sub-director of the
public school in San José del Pino to the maximum national authorities of the PNC. The need
for more police patrols is stressed by the other communities as well, to confront increasing
problems with the selling of drugs and the growing presence of gang members that do not
originate from the neighborhood.9
In this meeting, on a Sunday morning in Santa Tecla in the second week of my research at
the municipal level, citizen insecurity problems at the neighborhood level are jointly
identified and defined between the National Civil Police and representatives of local
communities. This is a clear example of interventions adapted to local circumstances, as
referred to in the introduction of this chapter. In the following paragraph, I will further focus
on citizen security policies and practices at the municipal level of Santa Tecla to sketch the
context in which this example of interventions takes place.
Santa Tecla is the departmental capital of La Libertad, and is part of the metropolitan
area of the country’s capital San Salvador. According to the 2007 census, the population of
Santa Tecla is 131,000 inhabitants.10 In 2009, Santa Tecla ranked the second municipality of
the country with the highest human development index.11 On 13 January 2001, a 7.6-
magnitude earthquake hit Central America off the coast of El Salvador causing a massive
landslide in Santa Tecla where hundreds of houses were swallowed up, leaving 60 percent of
28
the city devastated. This natural disaster is an important landmark in the history and
development of the city. In 2003, the local government of Mayor Oscar Ortíz developed a
participatory strategic environmental plan aiming for long term sustainable development.
Nowadays, the municipality counts with a department of risk reduction and adaptation to
climate change. Furthermore, Santa Tecla is a ‘role model city’ of the Making Cities Resilient
Campaign of the United Nations Office for Distaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) that started in
2010.12 The objectives of the campaign are to support sustainable urbanization by promoting
resilience activities, increasing local level understanding of disaster risk, and encouraging
commitments by local and national governments to make disaster risk reduction and climate
change a policy priority.13 This example of policy development, with a strong emphasis on
decentralization, typifies the pivotal role of Ortiz as Mayor of Santa Tecla that is now
considered a model city at the national and international level.14 The latter not only refers to
the exemplary case of Santa Tecla with respect to environmental policy development, but
with respect to its public security policy development as well. This is attributed in part to the
catalytic potential of legitimate local leadership, measures associated with situational
prevention, the promotion of policing and social prevention activities, efforts to enhance
citizen participation, and investments in information systems to improve priority setting and
progress.15As Isabel Calderon, Director of the Coexistence and Citizen Security Department
of the Municipality of Santa Tecla explains, ‘Mayor Ortiz contextualized the earthquakes as
an opportunity for long term development integrating different themes, including security.
As a result of this long term vision, a ten-year strategic plan was developed defining
municipal security policies from 2002 to 2012’.16
In 2005, Santa Tecla was ranked the eighth most violent municipality out of a total of
262 municipalities of El Salvador, with a total amount of 81 homicides that is reflected in a
homicide rate of 66.44 homicides per 100.000 inhabitants.17 According to the standard of
the World Health Organization (WHO), thus, Santa Tecla at that time was facing an epidemic
of violence.18 As Eduardo de la O, coordinator of the Municipal Observatory for Violence
Prevention argues, ‘Santa Tecla was facing serious problems at that time, so with the FMLN
Mayor Ortiz the municipality modified its strategic plan which resulted in 2005 in the
approval of the Municipal Coexistence and Citizen Security Policy based on violence
prevention’.19 The municipal government built on the policy with several measures. First, a
local Observatory for Violence Prevention was established that gathers data on crime and
29
violence including homicides, robberies, traffic accidents, and intra-family violence.20 By
gathering the data, the Observatory enables real-time monitoring, mapping, and analysis of
crime patterns.21 This information is made available to the National Civil Police, Municipal
Agents Community Corps (CAMCO) and local government authorities.22 Based on research
and monitoring, the Observatory also develops policy recommendations for the Interagency
Council for the Prevention of Violence (IPPC).23 The second measure of the municipal
government is the establishment of the Municipal Agents Community Corps (CAMCO) that
works with a community policing approach where an effective relationship with the
population is generated, promoting active community involvement in the identification,
prioritization, prevention and resolution of problems affecting them, helping to improve
their quality of life, social harmony and preventive security.24 The CAMCO agents work in
close coordination with the National Civil Police. The third measure is the establishment of
the Department of Coexistence that implements projects and programs aimed at preventing
violence with participation of citizens in coordination with other government, non-
governmental institutions, civil society and donors.25
With the approval in 2005 of the Municipal Coexistence and Citizen Security Policy,
various projects are being implemented with a focus on violence prevention. The
municipality invested strongly in situational prevention through the recovering of public
spaces.26 Video vigilance through the Observatory for Violence Prevention is an important
technical tool to this respect. Furthermore, the municipality increased its role in actively
fostering citizens’ participation both institutionally, by establishing a Citizen Council, as well
as occasionally by organizing activities to improve ‘coexistence’ among citizens.27 Through
the Citizen Council active citizenship is enhanced due to the fact that citizens become active
stakeholders in promoting their own safety. With the establishment of the municipal agents’
community corps (CAMCO), preventive activities by the police are increased for example
through targeted patrolling in hot spots, such as the renovated center of Santa Tecla.28
Finally, the municipality focused on social prevention of crime and violence through the
control of risk factors such as alcohol consumption and carrying of firearms. In general,
interventions within the Municipal Coexistence and Citizen Security Policy strongly focus on
gender and youth. Regarding the latter, violence prevention efforts of the municipality are
mainly designed to keep youth from joining gangs in the first place. Only since mid 2012,
when community policing becomes operational in Santa Tecla, there is a shift from mainly
30
prevention to intervention efforts as well, that focuses on youth who are already in gangs
and encourage them to leave the gang providing them with new skills or opportunities.
These intervention efforts are being strengthened when Santa Tecla joins the ‘violence-free
municipalities’ strategy in 2013, which I will explain later in this chapter.
Interestingly, when we take a closer look at the typification of Santa Tecla as a ‘role
model’ with respect to public security policies, there are two variables that, to my opinion,
should be highlighted. The first variable is related to long term commitment and political
polarization. Regarding long term commitment, it is important to note that Ortiz has been
Mayor of Santa Tecla for the FMLN party for five consecutive periods since 2000.29 This
enabled the municipality to implement prevention policies that could mature over almost 15
years. From 2002, Ortiz emphasized prevention policies at the local level, a novelty
considering the fact that public security policies at the national level in those years were still
based on repression and a zero tolerance approach to gang violence, the so-called iron fist
policies.30 It was only in 2009, with the Funes administration, that the focus of national
security policies shifted from repression to prevention, although critics of the Funes
administration question the remilitarization of public security as a strategy to confront
remaining high levels of violence.31 In Chapter 5 I will take a closer look at the national
security policies of the Funes administration, but for now it is relevant to note, as a report of
the Woodrow Wilson Center shows, that national governments in Latin America have been
slow to adopt prevention policies as a central aspect of their fight against violent crime.32
This is in large part because prevention is an investment that matures over the long term,
whereas the demand is for immediate solutions.33 To this respect, Santa Tecla is an example
of the benefits of long term political commitment and public trust in local policies. This long-
term planning and municipal commitment to citizen security, moreover, has helped Santa
Tecla budget its own resources more effectively, and secure outside resources from
international donors.34
Furthermore, the public security policies of the Ortiz administration, based on the
policies of the FMLN party for almost 15 years, were not interrupted nor negatively affected
by political polarization.35 This has certainly been beneficial for sustained public security
policies of the municipality of Santa Tecla, and has greatly contributed to the fact that Santa
Tecla is considered a ‘role model’. A specific remark, however, has to be made with respect
to the effects of elections on projects implemented at the neighborhood level. As I will show
31
in Chapter 4, there seems to be a general practice of starting projects based on campaigning
purposes, but not complying with its implementation afterwards, making community
development strongly dependent on election cycles. Finally, with respect to upcoming
municipal elections, it is relevant to note that as of March 2015, there will be a change in the
municipal political system. Due to electoral reform, there will be a shift from one-party
municipality councils, conformed by representatives of the mayor political party, to plural
municipality councils conformed by representatives of various political parties according
their number of votes.36 This modification will bring a mayor change to the municipal
political system and, as such, to the drafting and implementation of policies. In the case of
Santa Tecla this will certainly bring a change to the long term policies implemented by the
FMLN administration, no matter what the results of the municipal elections will be.
The second variable that should be emphasized when referring to Santa Tecla as a
‘role model’, as stressed by several of my informants, is the fact that there is an absence of
the opponent gang Barrio 18. This means that Santa Tecla is the territory of the Mara
Salvatrucha that is not being disputed by the Barrio 18 gang, something that can be defined
as a rather peculiar situation in a country where territories are heavily disputed by the two
main gangs. In 2013, contrary to previous estimates of gang homicides, the government
came to understand that gangs were responsible for 80 to 90 percent of all homicides; of
these, some 70 to 80 percent were attributable to the ‘war’ for control of territory between
them.37 Although homicide rates in Santa Tecla have dropped by 69% between 2005 and
2010 turning Santa Tecla into one of the less violent and less insecure municipalities of the
country, critics, however, are reluctant to denominate Santa Tecla a ‘role model’ solely
based on the success of its public security policies.38 Miguel Delgado Juarez, Chief of
Operations of the National Civil Police in Santa Tecla, admits that the lack of presence of the
Barrio 18 is advantageous for the police since the majority of homicides are related to the
rivalry between the two gangs.39 When asked about former presence of the Barrio 18 in
Santa Tecla, local gang leader Ricardo of the Mara Salvatrucha in Santa Tecla states:
Of course, formerly there was gang presence of the Barrio 18 in Santa Tecla, there was a
huge concentration of them in Ciudad Merliot. In fact, they murdered two of our members,
this was the end of 1993, beginning of 1994. One was murdered while playing video games in
a public space in Ciudad Merliot, the other one was stabbed by the Barrio 18, we organized
his vigil in our community centre.40
32
It may be obvious to think that as a result of the rivalry between the two gangs, the Mara
Salvatrucha may have eradicated their opponents of the Barrio 18. However, one particular
well informed source explains what happened, to his opinion, with the Barrio 18 in Santa
Tecla:
XX: Historically Santa Tecla eliminated the Barrio 18 fifteen years ago by death squads, this is
the reason why there is no Barrio 18 in Santa Tecla.
MZ: And how did they eliminate gang members of..
XX: There was a death squad.
MZ: And who was behind this group?
XX: I don’t know.
MZ: But it were not members of the Mara Salvatrucha?
XX: This is what the authorities should tell, I am not a prosecutor, but about ten or fifteen
years ago, reports on human rights of the Archbishop’s Legal Aid Office ‘Tutela Legal’
referred to about 1400 or 1600 extrajudicial killings, many of them were from Santa Tecla
and were gang members of the Barrio 18. In the end, el narco (drugs cartels, MZ.) settled in
Santa Tecla, this is where el narco has more presence and mobility, this is where homicide
rates are lower. So Santa Tecla is a role model, I don’t know of what, but there is no Barrio 18
in Santa Tecla.
MZ: But it is easy to think that this is related to the rivalry between the two gangs.
XX: No, there was no battle. A ten year analysis of the media for example shows that there
was no battle between the two gangs.41
It is beyond the scope of my thesis to further analyze the issue of extrajudicial killings or
social cleansing in El Salvador, however, various reports refer to extrajudicial killings and
social cleansing as a response to gang violence.42 In 2006, lawyers from the Archbishop’s
Legal Aid Office in San Salvador attributed many of El Salvador’s homicides to “social
cleansing” groups.43 According to a report of the Harvard Law School in 2007, there are
strong indications that social cleansing groups that target suspected criminals and gang
members, have become increasingly active in response to increased levels of violence. Yet,
international and domestic human rights organizations have documented a sharp increase in
unexplained homicides since 2003, and attribute this increase to the reactivation of death
squads.44 A well known example is a group calling itself the Sombra Negra (“Black Shadow”)
that appeared in 1994 purportedly to combat crime.45 While the Sombra Negra was
33
principally active in the 1990s, it has resurfaced periodically over the last decade.46 Recently
in May 2014, Insight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime in Latin
America, refers to a possible death squad revival due to the fact that ‘within the last month
alone, Salvadoran media have reported on Sombra Negra graffiti appearing and the opening
of a Sombra Negra anti-gang Facebook account’.47
Violence-Free Municipality
In early 2013, the gang truce moved into the second phase of a newly defined ‘process of
reduction of crime and violence in El Salvador’.48 According to Interpeace, a peace building
organization engaged in the process of the gang truce from August 2012, ‘socializing the
gang pacification process requires shifting the focus from the national to the local level,
enabling those who have suffered most from gang violence to feel the ‘truce dividend’’.49 In
this phase of ‘territorialisation’, months of conversations between the mediators and local
authorities followed, and by July 2013 eleven municipalities highly affected by gang violence
had been declared ‘violence free’ territories by municipal authorities interested in seizing
the opportunity to effectively address the problem.50 As Interpeace argues, the truce by
itself was insufficient to address the gang problem. Stopping the killing would not transform
the social and economic conditions that sustained the cycle of violence, but it created the
political space in which alternatives to the failed securitized approach could be explored
through a concerted effort with the participation of different stakeholders from state and
society, including the gangs themselves.51 Raul Mijango, ex- guerrilla commander and one of
the two main facilitators of the gang truce, stresses the importance to distinguish between
the 262 municipalities in El Salvador according the level of violence they experience:
We designed a strategy to focus on the 96 most violent municipalities in which we wanted to
convert the local actors into the protagonists of their own process, and by doing so, we
would turn the commitment between the two gangs Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, as
agreed in the truce, into a commitment between the gangs and society.52
A technical committee was established, compromised of the two main facilitators of the
gang truce Mijango and Monsignor Colindres, the latter a Catholic Bishop and military
chaplain, two representatives of the Fundación Humanitaria, and a representative of the
34
Organization of American States (OAS), in this case the Secretary of Multidimensional
Security, Adam Blackwell.53 The Committee, that started functioning in 2012, engaged
regularly with all key local stakeholders, including private sector, NGOs, religious groups,
media, and political parties.54 The OAS has placed significant priority on providing a
structured and sustainable institutional response to the gang truce, as well as on
encouraging the government – at both the municipal and national levels – to take greater
ownership of the process.55 As Blackwell explains his involvement:
The clearest sign that I received from the communities came from the women, the
grandmothers, the youth, women who said ‘look, the men are hiding, are imprisoned, or are
dead, we don’t want this anymore’. There was a strong voice of the women who didn’t want
this to continue. I believe this is something positive to underline.56
Blueprint for the design of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy are the so-called
‘sanctuary municipalities’, a concept successfully applied in various cities of the United
States with respect to the issue of illegal immigrants, and which in the case of El Salvador is
intended to be used as an antidote against violence.57 From the eleven municipalities that
thus far have participated, Ilopango was the first, and Santa Tecla the second to join the
initiative. In January 2013, national and local actors involved in the process in Santa Tecla,
officially signed the ‘Santa Tecla Violence Free Municipality’ agreement in the suburb of San
José del Pino.58 Ricardo, gang leader of the Mara Salvatrucha living in San José del Pino,
signed the agreement on behalf of the Mara Salvatrucha in Santa Tecla:
Just a few days before the gang truce, I had accomplished my prison sentence in
Zacatecoluca (maximum security prison, MZ). Our people, the gang members living in San
José del Pino, were in direct contact with the mediators of the gang truce. So they started a
dialogue to declare the municipality ‘violence-free municipality’. And then they asked me, for
being adult, capable to think, and creative, to get involved and to assume this role. I thank
God, honestly, that I can live a semi-normal life now.59
Within the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy, the role of both state- and non-state
actors is clearly defined. By signing the agreement, local gang leaders have agreed to cease
crime and violence, including kidnapping and extortion, and voluntarily surrender weapons
in exchange for free movement throughout the municipality and greater access to
prevention- and re-insertion programs.60 Municipal authorities, participating in the strategy,
35
are compromised to implement local development projects in areas with gang presence, as
well as initiatives that contribute to employment opportunities for local youth, including
gang members that have stopped illegal practices.61
In the case of Santa Tecla, as Calderon explains, participation in the ‘violence-free
municipalities’ strategy gave a financial boost to the projects on violence prevention that
were already being implemented by the municipality. ‘We already had started to work on
prevention projects in San José del Pino, for example, but with the funding available from
the different Ministries and from international cooperation, various initiatives could be
scaled up.’62 According its 2013 annual report, the Municipality invested 298,050 dollar in
different projects in San José del Pino related to infrastructure, prevention- and
rehabilitation and income generating activities for youth and women.63 A clear difference
with former projects implemented at the municipal level, as explained earlier in this chapter,
is a shift from mainly prevention efforts, such as the recovery of public spaces, to
intervention strategies where youth in gangs are encouraged to leave the gang. To this
respect, specific projects are being implemented that focus on providing youth with new
skills, and on income generating activities to decrease their dependence on illegal practices
thus promoting the social and labor reinsertion of gang members. In Chapter 4 I will explain
more in detail what these intervention strategies concretely encompass in the case of San
José del Pino. Calderon explains how representatives of both local and national state
agencies coordinate efforts with local non-state actors including youth related to the gangs:
We established a special municipal commission called Por Santa Tecla Libre de Violencia – To
Santa Tecla Free of Violence- with representatives from the various ministries involved, the
municipality, and the youth and local councils of the suburbs of Santa Tecla participating in
the program. The youth involved in this process are gang members, we call them ‘Jóvenes
Constructores por la Paz’ – Youth Peace Builders. So we met once or twice per month to
coordinate all activities, until the end of 2013 when this phase stopped.64
A key difference between the former projects of the municipality of Santa Tecla and the
projects implemented within the ‘violence-free muncipilaties’ strategy, as Mijango clearly
states, is the fact that gangs are now included as local protagonists.65 According to Ana
Glenda Tager, Regional Director of Interpeace Latin America, the ‘violence-free
municipalities’ agreement helped the municipality of Santa Tecla to increase its access to
36
suburbs such as San José del Pino due to the commitment of the local gang, something that
formerly was much more difficult or even impossible.66 In Chapter 4 I will further elaborate
on this aspect when focusing on the effects of the gang truce at the community level in San
José del Pino. ‘The gang truce not only enabled the government to design and implement
certain programs that could not be implemented before’, as Francisco Valencia, Director of
the newspaper Diario CoLatino argues, ‘it also contributed to the fact that the police could
restore its presence in neighborhoods where it was formerly even impossible to enter’.67
This is, according to Valencia, one of the benefits of the gang truce since the gangs promised
not to attack the police anymore. As we will see in Chapter 4, this is certainly the case in San
José del Pino as well. An important final remark with respect to the difference between
former initiatives and the projects that could be implemented as a result of the gang truce, is
made by Edgardo Amaya, one of the members of the fore mentioned technical committee:
Of course, some of the projects implemented by the local governments existed before, but as
a difference, the national government for the first time showed its interest in promoting and
participating in these initiatives. Formerly, there were no serious efforts on prevention on
behalf of the national government due to a lack of technical capacity and funding (…). This
process has shown that prevention policies have to be implemented bottom-up, based on
local particularities, and in close coordination between the local and national government,
the latter responsible for adequate funding and capacity. This is a modest but crucial finding
of the whole process.68
In the next paragraph I will show that coordination between the local and national
government, as Amaya refers to, not simply implies effective communication regarding
technical and financial aspects, but that this coordination should be analyzed within a
broader political context.
Obstacles
Hence, it could be concluded that the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy succeeded to
encourage the government – at both the municipal and national levels – to take greater
ownership of the process of the gang truce. However, there are various factors related to
financial, technical, political and legal conditions that seriously hampered the
implementation of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy, and because of which genuine
37
ownership of the State with respect to the pacification process could be seriously
questioned.
First, funding of the projects proved to be complicated at different levels. At the
national level, as Whitfield explains, the government claimed it had secured 74 million dollar
to fund the first phase of peace zones in a mix of loans and grants, however, much of this
money was not available at the short term, so mayors were consequently left largely to their
own devices.69 At the local level, as a result, funding was not always available to guarantee
continuation of the projects. ‘Only municipalities like Santa Tecla who are successful
economically, succeeded to support the projects’, according Valencia.70 At the international
level, as Valencia continues, ‘the Embassy of the United States has withdrawn its financial
support to two municipalities when they learned that active gang members were part of the
beneficiaries’.71
Second, the technical committee faced a technical problem in the implementation of
the projects, mainly due to the fact these were not communicated properly to the public. As
Amaya, former member of the technical committee explains, ‘the project in Ilopango for
example was heavily criticized because it was interpreted by the public as a gift to the gang
members, in the sense that one had to be a gang member to be a beneficiary of the project,
although this was certainly not the case since regular youth were also included in the
project’.72
Third, at the political level, the criteria for municipalities to participate in the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy were not transparent and therefore interpreted very
differently by the public. When asked who decided about the selection of the municipalities,
my informants responded heterogeneously. Some said ‘the government and the mediators’,
others declared that the gang leaders were responsible for the selection. One particularly
well informed source was very outspoken declaring that all participating municipalities are of
strategic importance for the narcos. As he states, ‘Ilopango has an airport, Puerto de Triunfo
is a port, so in the end the ‘violence-free municipalities’ are a strategy of drugs business’.73
At the level of Santa Tecla, Calderon explains to have understood that the Ministry of Justice
and Public Security managed a list with the municipalities most affected by violence, and
Santa Tecla was invited to join as a ‘best practice’ of prevention policies.74 Another factor at
the political level that hampered the institutionalization of the process was the presidential
38
elections of 2014.75 Blackwell clearly states that there has been an interaction between the
pacification process and the election process:
Of course there has been an interaction. We were trying to create a political dialogue, a
political agreement between the different parties to maintain certain follow-up and
coherence in this process, but as you know El Salvador, this is not easy.76
With respect to the impact of the election process on the implementation of projects at the
municipal level in Santa Tecla, Calderon argues:
Implementation of the projects, with participation and funding of the national government,
stopped at the end of 2013, and we have to wait for the new President and national
government to be formally installed in June 2014 to see if there will be any follow-up of the
projects on behalf of the national government.77
In general, many of my informants agreed on the negative impact of political polarization on
the pacification process as a result of elections, whether on the municipal or national level.
Fourth, and finally, the lack of a proper legal framework has seriously hampered the
role of local state and non-state actors in the implementation of projects within the
framework of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy. The 2010 Gang Prohibition Law, for
instance, declares both gang membership and engagement with gangs illegal, making it
extremely difficult for the mayors to set up a system of dialogue without breaking the law.78
The mayor of the municipality of Ilopango, for example, called for the anti-gang legislation to
be modified so that his actions, consistent with government-backed effort to reduce
violence, were not in violation of the law.79 Additionally, regarding legal conditions
hampering the process, Attorney General Luis Martinez, opposed to the truce from the
beginning, has called the attempt to set up violence-free municipalities ‘pandillalandia’,
gangland, where gang members ‘continue committing crimes with total freedom’.80 Finally,
the gang truce apparently did not lead to any specific instructions with respect to law
enforcement at the local level in Santa Tecla, as a conversation I had with Miguel Delgado
Juarez, Chief of Operations of the National Civil Police in Santa Tecla, shows:
MDJ: First, as police we have no clear idea what the gang truce implies or what have been
agreed, nothing, we are simply asked to continue our work as always, meaning prevention
and repression.
39
MZ: But you have no information?
MDJ: We have no clear guidelines about what to do as police, when or where.
MZ: Within the framework of a violence-free municipality?
MDJ: I have no instruction what so ever from our authorities, so I cannot tell you ‘this has
been beneficiary, or this has not been beneficiary’, because before or after that process,
Santa Tecla has remained the same, so I cannot really evaluate this since I did not receive
clear instructions from our authorities about our role, maybe this was managed at another
institute or at the level of the municipality, I don’t know.81
To this respect, it is relevant to note that the paradigm shift from merely repressive to
preventive security policies, of which community policing in this case is a core pillar,
sometimes generates conflicting situations in law enforcement practice at the local level. As I
will show in Chapter 4, repressive police operations in some cases negatively influence local
efforts focused on reintegration of gang members, causing at the same time a negative
impact on community policing dividend at the community level.
Political Ownership
In addition to the above mentioned obstacles, it is interesting to analyze the participation of
Santa Tecla in the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy within the context of political
ownership. According to some of my informants, the fore mentioned ‘role model’ has been
the main motive for Santa Tecla to participate. Stanley Rodriguez and Oscar Ibarra, both
related to the Department of Coexistence and Citizen Security of the Municipality of Santa
Tecla, explicitly define the experience of Santa Tecla with prevention policies as the added
value to the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy and the main reason for its participation.
As Ibarra explains:
Santa Tecla only plays a facilitating role in the second phase of the gang truce, as we differ
from the other municipalities for having a low homicide rate.82
Yet, what does this say about the political commitment of the municipality with the gang
truce? In the official ceremony celebrated in San José del Pino to declare Santa Tecla
‘violence-free municipality’, Mayor Ortiz lauds ‘the historic process’ and calls on everyone to
‘lend a hand’.83 Now how should these qualifications of the process as stated by Ortiz be
40
interpreted when taking into account that municipal officials define the role of the
municipality in the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy as mainly facilitating, and thus
instrumental? Interestingly, there are three factors that clearly show that the security
policies of the municipality of Santa Tecla implemented in 2013 do relate directly to the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy and go beyond, to my opinion, a merely facilitating
role. These factors are related to the inclusion of gang members as program beneficiaries,
the technical implementation, and the funding of the programs. In the implementation of
these policies, moreover, there is direct involvement of the national government through
various ministries, although this is denied at the national government level as we will see in
Chapter 5.
First, gang members were formerly not included in the public security programs of
the municipality, but since Santa Tecla has been declared ‘violence-free municipality’, gang
members play an active role in the coordination and implementation of projects. Hence,
when analyzing the shift in 2013 in municipal programs in Santa Tecla from solely prevention
initiatives to intervention programs focusing on the reinsertion of gang members, the
municipality herewith seems to compromise, as the ‘violent-free municipality’strategy
indicates, ‘to implement local development projects in areas with gang presence, as well as
initiatives that contribute to employment opportunities for local youth, including gang
members that have stopped illegal practices’.84
Second, the intervention programs implemented by the municipality of Santa Tecla in
2013 were coordinated with the fore mentioned technical committee that was established
within the framework of the second phase of the gang truce, including different ministries as
Calderon explained. As an example, the Ministry of Public Works contracted gang members
in San José del Pino, as we will see in Chapter 4, to work in the renovation of the main
entrance road to the community.
Finally, the municipality received funding of 800,000 dollar that is labeled as
‘municipality free of violence’ according to its annual report of 2013.85Although not explicitly
labeled as such, the programs that were implemented in San José del Pino in 2013, for
example, are likely to have been financed according this budget, taking into account that its
practical implementation corresponded with the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy.
41
Hence, based on these three factors, I believe that in practical terms the local
government clearly shows its commitment with the gang truce, at least with what is called
the second phase of the gang truce, when implementing projects that clearly fit into the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy. In political terms, however, the municipality seems to
be reluctant to admit its commitment to the gang truce when ‘downsizing’ its role to simply
facilitating a best practice of public security policies. Moreover, if Mayor Ortiz, through his
qualifications of the process, actually did support the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy
politically, and thus the second phase of the gang truce, then it may be concluded that this is
in contradiction with the strictly ‘facilitating role’ as qualified by officials of the same
municipality.
This dichotomy shows that political ownership of the gang truce is still extremely
precarious. On the one hand, this is influenced by political processes such as elections and
by the legal constraints, and on the other hand by public opinion. Regarding the latter,
extortion, as the gang leadership knew, ‘has to end for this process to advance’, but they
could not yet offer concrete proposals as to how this was to be achieved, as Whitfield
argues.86 As a result, there was no public receptivity to accept non-state violent actors as
protagonists in the pacification process. As Mauricio Guzman Navas, general pastor of the
Iglesia del Camino who later became involved in the pacification process, questions, ‘was the
public prepared to open its doors to the youth who claimed they wanted this pacification? I
don’t think so’.87 Additionally, as Jeannette Aguilar, director of the Instituto Universitario de
Opinión Pública (IUDOP), indicates, ‘we all agree that the harm of homicides is very grave,
but in public terms, the robbery of a cell phone for example has a bigger impact on the
perception of security and fear of the public, since this happens every day in public transport
of this country’.88 This means that socializing the gang pacification process, despite shifting
the focus from the national to the local level, still not enabled those, who have suffered
most from gang violence, to feel the ‘truce dividend’.
Hence, the question is how to interpret the main causes of this conclusion. Are the
gangs exclusively to blame for this lack of ‘truce dividend’ or a lack of local coexistence, or
should politics be considered an important factor as well? An analysis of the fore mentioned
factors related to financial, technical, political and legal conditions that are hampering the
process, shows that many of these factors are related to the inclusionary policy that is at the
core of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy turning non-state violent actors into
42
protagonists of the process. It is exactly this inclusionary policy that is in conflict with public
opinion, causing serious complications to the political ownership of the gang truce at the
local government level, and at the national government level as well, as I will show in
Chapter 5.
Conclusion
To conclude, we should ask how the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy should be best
assessed if we want to determine its effectiveness on citizen security at the local level, in this
case in Santa Tecla.
First, the lack of political ownership and diffuse institutional response from the
national government to the gang truce, seems to have negatively influenced transparency
about the role of the local government of Santa Tecla in the ‘violence-free municipalities’
strategy. This means that despite the practical commitment with the strategy through the
implementation of prevention and reintegration projects, the municipality, however, seems
to be reluctant to define its role as a political commitment too. The inclusion of gangs as
non-state violent actors in the implementation of the strategy at the local level, is at the core
of this dichotomy. Due to a lack of proper legislation, local state- and non-state actors are
facing legal obstacles when implementing prevention- and reintegration efforts within the
framework of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy. Moreover, these legal obstacles are
fueled by public opinion that is merely based on an exclusionary vision regarding gangs due
to continuing violence, despite a decrease of homicides as a result of the gang truce.
Second, when assessing the effectiveness of the ‘violent-free municipalities’strategy
on citizen security , it is crucial to note that this should be based on an assessment on the
mid- or long term. As indicated in the introduction of this chapter, prevention is an
investment that matures over the long term. Since prevention is at the base of the ‘violence-
free municipalities’ strategy, its assessment should not be based on a demand for immediate
solutions. At the same time, for reintegration efforts to be successful, it is crucial that public
support is generated gradually for gang members to reinsert both at the social and labor
level. Hence, local and national authorities play a crucial role, as stressed before, in
enhancing public support to this respect, emphasizing that small results at the short term
may generate a real change at the mid- and long term. To this respect, the ‘truce dividend’
43
that is successfully generated at the community level of San José del Pino, as I will show in
Chapter 4, could be used as a best practice.
Finally, and in relation to the previous conclusion, I believe it is crucial to focus on the
effects of the gang truce at the neighborhood level in order to be able to determine the real
impact at the local level. In the case of Santa Tecla ‘violence-free municipality’ I was able to
do my field research in the suburb of San José del Pino, known as the place of origin of the
Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador. In the next chapter I will describe my findings of examining
the effects of the gang truce on the economic and social dimensions of citizen security at the
community level in San José del Pino as an example of addressing citizen insecurity on the
frontline.
45
Chapter 4 San José del Pino
A case study of addressing citizen insecurity on the frontline
The non-violence agreement between the two largest gangs in El Salvador – Mara
Salvatrucha 13 (MS13) and Barrio 18 – made known in early March 2012 and forged by
members of the church and local society, with logistical support from the Ministry of Justice
and Security, has launched a wide range of alternatives for social reinsertion and integration,
and has made it possible to tackle other underlying factors related to violence. The gangs’
agreement, although controversial, opened space for debate on the possibility of adopting
alternative measures to tackle the difficult security problems associated with gangs.1
When reading the Regional Human Development Report 2013-2014, published by the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) in November 2013, my attention was particularly
attracted to the above mentioned description of the gang truce in El Salvador. As explained,
iron fist policies had caused a deadlock to the state of affairs of citizen security in El
Salvador, yet the ‘space for debate’ as indicated by the UNDP seems a pertinent qualification
of the paradigm shift generated by the gang truce. Interestingly, ten months before the
publication of the UNDP report, residents of San José del Pino already had embarked upon
the second phase of the gang truce in the framework of the Santa Tecla ‘violence-free
municipality’ agreement signed in January 2013. Since then, as explained in Chapter 3, the
implementation of programs to enhance citizen security at the local level had started, based
on prevention and reintegration strategies. As the UNDP stresses, programs implemented in
communities to enhance citizen security, must stem from the needs and concerns of the
local population in order to generate safe environments and a sound social fabric.2 Hence, if
we consider the gang truce an ‘alternative measure to tackle the difficult security problems
associated with gangs’, as the UNDP argues, I believe the case of San José del Pino offers a
highly valuable opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the gang truce. Therefore I focused
my ethnographic research on local livelihood strategies and daily life experiences with
violence in San José del Pino before and since the gang truce. Core analytical concepts of this
case study are the framing of violence and fear, and social capital focusing on two features
of social organization, namely social values and social networks.
In this chapter I aim to analyze the implementation and effects of the gang truce at
the community level with a particular focus on the economic and social dimensions of citizen
46
security. First, I will provide background information on San José del Pino focusing on its
history, inhabitants, and the role of violence in the community. Then I will describe the
security policies that have been implemented in the neighborhood, with specific attention to
community policing that is currently being implemented in San José del Pino, and relate
these to the role of the state with respect to community development in general and the
provision of citizen security in particular. Regarding the latter, I will describe how current
development projects are being implemented within the framework of the ‘violence-free
municipalities’ strategy with support from international (donor) organizations. Then I will
analyze the effects of the gang truce at three different levels: at the level of violence and
victimization, access to public goods and (economic) livelihood strategies, and social values
and social networks. Finally, I will conclude examining the results of the gang truce at the
frontline, with specific attention for the different agents of change that play a crucial role in
this process, and the constraints they are confronted with.
A History of Violence in a Governance Void
When I came to this neighborhood in 1993, there were other gangs, there were about five
other gangs, and every day young adolescents were stabbed, lapidated, beaten up, or shot
down, not only youth but adults too, because there were gang members who consumed
hallucinatory drugs and they violated people, women, stabbing and all those kind of things.
This happened every day, they were aggressors against ordinary people, it was what we
called ‘the law of the knife’ that ruled the neighborhood since all of them carried a knife. The
neighborhood then was divided in different zones, each zone was dominated by a different
gang, who called themselves Los Black Sabbath, Los Killers or Los Bad Boys. So we, the Mara
Salvatrucha, were not the first gang in San José del Pino.3
Ricardo, local gang leader of the Mara Salvatrucha in Santa Tecla, pictures daily violence in
San José del Pino in the beginning of the 1990s, when he came to live there as a fourteen
year old boy who just joined the recently established Mara Salvatrucha. As explained by
most of my informants, residents from different backgrounds, San José del Pino is a
neighborhood marked by violence. It was founded in 1970 on lands donated to the Catholic
Church by the owner of a coffee farm so that 520 dwellings could be built by the inhabitants
themselves.4 During the civil war between 1980 and 1992, many internally displaced
Salvadorans settled in San José del Pino, causing a significant expansion of the neighborhood
47
and the neighboring community of San Rafael. The peace accords in 1992 brought a very real
hope of replacing violence with meaningful peace for Salvadoran citizens.5 However, as
Pearce argues, the armed conflict may have been resolved at the formal level between
armies and insurgents, but not at the real level of people’s everyday lives, which remain
marked by exclusion, poverty and violence.6 The same holds true for the inhabitants of San
José del Pino and San Rafael where the end of the war did not translate into a significant
improvement in the socio-economic and infrastructural conditions.7 Nowadays, the total
population of both communities is about 3000 people, with two to three generations of
families living in the same house, thus conforming a dense populated area of a total of 4
square kilometers.8 The inhabitants of the community of San Rafael, as an example of
infrastructural conditions that fall short, do not have title to the lands upon which their
houses are built, as opposed to those of San José del Pino.9 ‘To date, this remains one of the
main problems inhabitants of San Rafael are facing’, according to one of my informants,
member of the Adesco of San Rafael.10
When referring to post-war living conditions marked by exclusion, poverty and
violence, as described by Pearce, a police officer who formerly lived in San José del Pino,
explains how the neighborhood changed when the civil war came to an end:
There were many military people, who were demobilized as a result of the Peace Accords,
living in San José del Pino. There were ex-members of all kind of security forces, the guardia
nacional, the policia nacional and special battalions. Many of the ex-soldiers were young
adolescents who lacked education and working experience since a lot of them had been
recruited from the age of fourteen, so they started to hang around using drugs. This is when
the murdering in San José del Pino first started, related to territorial drugs control. Due to a
lack of work, they also started to steal and assault, and some of the ex-soldiers started a gang
called Los Killers. This was the situation in the neighborhood after the civil war ended.11
The emergence of gangs was not only a result of local post-conflict circumstances, but was
strongly influenced by changing immigrant patterns at the international level as well. Yet,
after the signing of the peace accords, many Salvadoran male immigrants who joined gangs
while living in the United States, were deported to their home country where they started
local gang structures. Ricardo remembers when the Mara Salvatrucha was formally
48
established in Santa Tecla, and started to dispute the territory of local gangs that, ironically,
had been established according to the format of the Latino gangs in the United States:
The gang originates from the centre of Santa Tecla, where all the vague youth of the
neighborhoods of Santa Tecla gathered in the park of San Martin. This is how the Mara
Salvatrucha was born, and as some of the youth originated from San José del Pino, we
started to move over there. They slept in their houses and we slept in the streets nearby, we
were about fifty, thirty, forty kids sleeping together in the streets, and from there we started
to expand. Some members of the other local gangs decided to join ours, but their oldest
members started a rivalry, so our veterans responded by eradicating them. Some of the
opponent gang members decided to leave the neighborhood, abandoning their families in
San José del Pino. Those who at that time did no harm to our gang, nowadays return to San
José del Pino as Christians, to reunite with their families.12
After establishing local gang structures in their country of origin, Salvadoran gang members
began travelling to Honduras and Guatemala to organize gang cells there, and by the late
1990s, two major gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18 had obtained a clear
position as the dominant gang rivals in the region.13 At the local level in San José del Pino,
the Mara Salvatrucha obtained complete dominance including in the neighboring
community of San Rafael. Ricardo remembers daily life as a gang member at that time:
MZ: So how was life here in the neighborhood in 1993?
R: To be honest, at that moment, for being a kid, life was fun, living on the street as every kid
would like, hanging around all the time. I lived on the street, slept on the street, and ate on
the street, our clothes were disposable, every day we bought other cheap second hand
clothing, and the clothes that I really liked, I had them washed by local people who do this
professionally.
MZ: And the Mara Salvatrucha was the only gang that remained in San José del Pino?
R: The Mara Salvatrucha remained, and there were not so many dead anymore, only people
wounded by knives or machetes (..) sometimes we had fights between our own members,
leaving people without fingers or hands, that kind of disorder.
MZ: But did you practice a lot of violence against ordinary people in the neighborhood?
R: No, because to be honest, we came to act differently, we punished people who committed
robberies for example. The gangs that already existed were real violators, every weekend
49
when they organized a party, there were people killed. We were not violating people in the
neighborhood, but outside the neighborhood we went bothering people to survive.
MZ: And the phenomenon of extortions, did you also implement this in the neighborhood, or
only outside?
R: No, at that time when we were kids, this phenomenon did not yet exist.
MZ: It did not exist?
R: No, and to be honest, I was imprisoned when this phenomenon came into fashion.14
The emergence of the phenomenon of extortions, as referred to by Ricardo, is directly
related to the iron fist policies that were implemented between 1999 and 2009 with the
ARENA government. As research has shown, iron fist policies accelerated both the spiral of
retaliatory violence against rival gangs and the gangs’ involvement in extortion and other
criminal activities such as drug distribution and kidnapping.15 Yet, gang violence
implemented by the Mara Salvatrucha in San José del Pino and San Rafael gradually evolved,
affecting citizen security and daily life in the communities. As a result of the dominance of
the Mara Salvatrucha in San José del Pino and San Rafael, the communities became isolated
from the rest of society due to daily violence implemented and coordinated by the gang
members and its leadership, and due to the stigma for being considered the centre of
operations of the Mara Salvatrucha.
As Savenije and Van der Borgh argue, there has been a post-war transformation of
violence in El Salvador from political violence to other forms of violence manifestated
differently in the public sphere.16 As an explanation they refer to the failure of state agencies
to curtail violence and provide citizens’ security, due to a weak new National Civil Police,
that was established in 1994 but that still had to be built up, and that was confronted with a
sharp rise in criminal activity.17 Additionally, as Savenije and Van der Borgh state, sustained
social exclusion has a negative impact on the presence of police in marginalized
neighborhoods – they are often absent - and complicates the relationship with its
residents.18 This was certainly the case in the neighborhood of San José del Pino and the
community of San Rafael that were turned into closed shelters into which only repressive
police incursions represented the State’s presence.19 Under the rule of law, the State must
effectively prevent crime and violence of every sort, however, in extreme situations if legal
rules are not enforced, violence might become the norm.20 San José del Pino and San Rafael
50
are clear examples to this respect. The local chief of the community police base of the
National Civil Police in San José del Pino, which was established in 2012, recalls that the
neighborhood was characterized as a high risk zone:
It was an insecure place where nobody wanted to visit its family members, or to provide
products to local shops, because it was considered the centre of planification of the Mara
Salvatrucha, where the orders for the execution of many killings in our area of operations as
National Civil Police originated from (…) This place was the stage of many violent acts where
one of our colleagues lost its life and others were wounded while complying their job.21
Several of the inhabitants that I interviewed in San José del Pino indicated that there was an
urgent need for police presence in the neighborhood, however, this need could not openly
be expressed towards the authorities due to pressure or direct violence from the gang
members. As one informant clearly states:
In these years, if you did not look at them correctly, or if you would call the police, you would
be categorized automatically as their enemy, so they would make you disappear.22
A former member of the neighborhood governing council was even murdered when it
became clear that he had asked the authorities to establish police presence in the
neighborhood. As a result, there was no collaboration of the inhabitants in case of any
police investigation or incursion. A police officer who formerly lived in San José del Pino,
refers to a murder that had to be investigated:
I remember a homicide in San José del Pino, one of the gang members was murdered by the
gang itself. So I had to do the inspection of this murder, and as inspectors we always have to
ask the public if they probably have witnessed anything, but of course many people did not
want to talk even if they would have witnessed the crime. It was really difficult for me to be
living and working in the same neighborhood.23
As explained in Chapter 3, the gang truce and the declaration of Santa Tecla as ‘violence-free
municipality’ contributed to open up those areas which, like San José del Pino and San
Rafael, had been abandoned for decades and had come under the control in their entirety of
the gangs.24
51
Restoring State Presence
After many years of structural police absence, the National Civil Police regained control of
San José del Pino and San Rafael in 2012 through a special police operation that was
implemented in concordance with the prevention policies of the Ortiz administration of
Santa Tecla. Direct motivation for the police operation was the murder of a police officer
who entered San José del Pino related to an undercover operation, but was mistaken for a
member of the Barrio 18 rival gang, and got murdered.25 The local chief of the community
base of the National Civil Police in San José del Pino recalls the police operation that
followed:
The police entered with about hundred police officers, to find the ones responsible for this
murder. It was a kind of cleaning operation that took three days, because there was strong
gang resistance. Then the police took the casa comunal to establish the police base. First, the
gang leadership did not want to hand over the keys of the casa comunal since they had been
using it for many years for their own purposes. But finally the police base could be
established in the casa comunal with direct support from the municipality. The murder of our
colleague was the last homicide that occurred in San José del Pino. 26
One resident, current member of the Adesco of San José del Pino, clearly relates the
establishment of the police base in San José del Pino to the gang truce:
Due to the high levels of violence not only committed in our own neighborhood, but
expanding to other communities in Santa Tecla as well, the municipality promoted the
establishment of a police base in our community. In the beginning the gang members clearly
stated that they were against any communication between the community and the police.
They even said to me, ‘hey bro, send them a letter that we do not want police here’ (..) But as
a result of the peace agreement, the gang members promised to stop committing crimes,
and nowadays I can even denounce a violent act to the gang leadership, so I thank God this
confidence has been built.27
Crucial condition for the regained police control in San José del Pino and San Rafael,
additionally, has been the paradigm shift from mainly repressive to preventive policing. The
current police base in San José del Pino is one of the pilots of community policing in El
Salvador.28 When asked in my interviews, all informants, including gang members and the
52
gang leadership, expressed to feel very positive about the community police base. ‘Formerly,
they only came to beat us up, but this is no longer the case’, as a gang member expresses.
Ricardo, the gang leader in San José del Pino, clearly states the difference with former police
policies:
Honestly, I think that if this police base would not be under the command of the current
police chief but another police chief working from a different ideology, this would have been
a problem, because the current police chief is looking for understanding and rapprochement
and shows that it is possible to do something, so I think his role is perfect when compared
with other police officials that are only focused on repression towards us.29
Community policing, as defined by Ungar, is a preventive approach based on making society
the first line of defense against crime and insecurity.30 This means that gaining the trust of
inhabitants of the community is of paramount importance for the community police to be
effective. As the above citations show, police officials of the community base under
command of the current police chief, have succeeded in gaining trust even of the gang
members and its leadership.31 The local police chief pictures how trust of the residents of
San José del Pino and San Rafael was built:
As you can see, the problem of violence and insecurity can be solved, but only with the
support and willingness of all members of the community, including the perpetrators. So first
I identified the gang leadership to explain our policy, and to stress the importance of their
active involvement, which they received positively. To this end, I organized various football
tournaments between the gang members and the police, to gain their trust and support, and
later I started to work with them, cleaning parks and that kind of things. Regarding the
residents of the community, initially it was rather difficult to gain their confidence. We visited
all the houses, but people did not want to receive us because they were afraid that this might
be noticed by the gang members. But later they dropped little notes at the police base with
information they wanted to share with us, or they sent children or elderly people to
denounce, because they lacked the courage to come by themselves.32
Important element within preventive policing, as indicated in Chapter 3, is situational
prevention through the recovering of public spaces. Complementary to the establishment of
the community police base in San José del Pino, hence, the municipality invested in
infrastructural projects such as the restoration of small parks, and reconstruction of the
53
main entrance to the neighborhood, with support from international agencies such as
USAID.33 Additional to these infrastructural projects, other projects were started in 2013
focused on socio-economic development of the communities, including primary health care
and activities to promote coexistence. Formerly, during decades, no such projects were
started, as a pastor who lives for nineteen years in San José del Pino, explains:
Well, in those nineteen years, organizations and even political parties came to our
neighborhood, yes, but it was only in words, nothing concrete was achieved in contrast to
what we are experimenting at this moment, to see the entrance road reconstructed, parks
renovated, involving the youth in these developments, they [the authorities, MZ] are more
focused on helping these people. The gang members are being involved actively to work for
the benefits of the community, and as a result, the rate of delinquency has lowered in this
area.34
Regarding the latter, a comparison of delinquency rates between the period of January -May
2012 and January - May 2013, based on statistics of the National Civil Police community base
in San José del Pino, shows, that there has been a significant drop from a total of 16 to 3
cases of delinquency.35 Within the framework of social prevention of violence, additionally,
a series of employment reinsertion and rehabilitation initiatives were started in support of
young gang members such as a bicycle rental service, a pepper nursery, and a project to
breed tilapia.36 The UNDP is an important player in these reintegration initiatives, in close
coordination with representatives of local and national government, and private agencies
such as Catholic Relief Services.37
The implementation, in 2013, of these infrastructural – and socio-economic projects
stands out for two reasons. First, gang members called ‘youth peace builders’, as referred to
by Calderon in Chapter 3, played an active role in these projects since they were contracted
by the municipality to implement construction work, for example, in close coordination with
the Ministry of Public Works. Interestingly, as explained by the local police chief, gang
members and police officers worked hand in hand to recover the public spaces of the
neighborhood, including six small community parks. This involvement of the gang members,
as expressed by all actors involved, is considered a direct result of the gangs’committment to
the ‘violence-free municipality agreement’ that was signed by the gang leadership of the
Mara Salvatrucha in San José del Pino.
54
Second, the municipality, in close coordination with different Ministries and
(international) donors, developed and invested in these projects, thus resuming local
governance at the neighborhood level. This is a clear policy shift when compared with
previous decades of local state neglect of the neighborhood of San José del Pino and the
community of San Rafael. To this respect, it is relevant to refer to the concept of
‘governance voids’ that Koonings and Kruijt describe as ‘spaces or domains in which the
legitimate state is effectively absent in the face of armed actors that abide by the rule of
force’.38 According to members of the neighborhood governing council, some of them
residents of San José del Pino since its origins, the first presence by the State involved
installing cobblestones and streetlights on the main road leading into the neighborhood,
approximately fifteen years after its establishment.39 Due to post-war gang violence,
however, San José del Pino and San Rafael turned into so-called ‘governance voids’ in which
the legitimate state was effectively absent. There was no infrastructural development, as
indicated with respect to housing for example, and no public services such as health care
were provided at the neighborhood level. Regarding the latter, there is one exception, which
is related to education as since the beginning of the neighborhood, a public school has been
functioning in San José del Pino. Interestingly, as the sub-director of the school explains, the
Mara Salvatrucha gang always showed respect to the institute and its officials:
There are many other schools where teachers are victims of extortion, but we never faced
this problem, something that people from outside do not understand, they frequently ask
how it is possible that we are not victimized in such a neighborhood as San José del Pino. But
you have to understand that the maximum leadership of the Mara Salvatrucha originates
from this neighborhood, I even taught several of them. Nowadays they call me from prison to
ask how their own kids are doing at school. One day I received a phone call from someone
who asked ‘Do you know who I am?’, and I responded ‘Of course I know who you are, you
were one of my pupils’, and then he said,‘Well, I just would like to know how my little
daughter is doing’.40
Despite the positive results of the resumed governance of the State, both at the local and
national level, various actors involved in the different projects implemented at the
neighborhood level in San José del Pino and San Rafael, however, have expressed serious
concerns related to the implementation and follow-up of the projects. I will get back to this
later in this chapter, but first I will focus on the effects of the gang truce on the economic
55
and social conditions of the community at three different levels: at the level of violence and
victimization, access to public goods and (economic) livelihood strategies, and social values
and social networks.
Effects of the Gang Truce
As explained, local public security policies that were backed by the national State through
direct involvement of various Ministries, and with support from international
(donor)organizations, have generated concrete results at the community level of San José
del Pino and San Rafael. In summary, these results include regained police control, lower
delinquency rates, a reactivated role of the local state, and the development of the
communities at the level of infrastructure, income generating, health care, and coexistence.
As stressed by the various actors involved, these results would not have been possible
without the commitment of the leadership and members of the Mara Salvatrucha present in
the communities of San José del Pino and San Rafael. Yet, an important interrogative to this
respect, is to what extent these results and direct involvement of the gang have affected the
economic and social conditions of the community. Hence, are there any noticeable effects
of the gang truce at the level of violence and victimization, access to public goods and
(economic) livelihood strategies, and social values and social networks?
These questions have been the framework of my ethnographic research in San José
del Pino and San Rafael. As explained in Chapter 1, the methodology of my research was
determined to a certain extent by the security conditions of doing research in a
neighborhood with strong gang presence and a fragile, still virgin field of coexistence and
cooperation between residents, local state actors including police, and non-state armed
actors, in this case gang members and their leadership committed to a non-violence
agreement. Nevertheless, I have been able to conduct interviews on the spot with residents
from different backgrounds of both communities, that provide a valuable insight of local
livelihood strategies and daily life experiences with gang violence before and since the gang
truce. Additionally, I was invited to various events and meetings at the neighborhood level
that provided me with insights about community development and the role of different
agents in the process of change that has started since the gang truce.
56
Violence and Victimization
When my grandson returned home, he was murdered by local gang members. There were
two of them, they killed him at the entrance of our house. I witnessed everything, they shot
him down and were shooting even at me. Look, these are the scars of the bullets that hit me.
They thought that I was killed too, because they left me lying there. Later I was brought to
the hospital of San Rafael by a military vehicle. I believe my grandson was killed because he
refused to join the gang. I could not attend the funeral because I was hospitalized. My
neighbors did not attend either out of fear for the gang. I am not afraid of them, because I
know God will protect me and will do justice. I never decided to move to another
neighborhood, because there are gangs everywhere. But now it is different here, before
there were many gang members, now there is more respect, so I feel a bit more relaxed. I do
not cry anymore, I cannot cry anymore because I already cried so much. But I know God is
helping me, he even brings me café listo, made by my neighbors.41
The story of Sofia of the murder of her grandson ten years ago reflects the violence
committed by the local gang as well as aspects of coping strategies at the community level. A
few weeks later I interviewed the mother of the murdered boy who is still in a process of
mourning and who lives in isolation due to fear. Further details of the murder, including its
motive, were provided by another source that cannot be mentioned here, but the facts
correspond with the story of both mother and grandmother.42
Based on the various stories that I heard about gang violence in San José del Pino and
San Rafael, although investigated at a limited scale due to the restricted time available
within this study, I could register different forms of violence committed by the local gang.
This refers to homicide, disappearances, physical and mental threats, forced recruitment,
sexual intimidation and rape, and extortion. Regarding the latter, various informants
recalled the contribution residents had to pay to the gang for making use of the casa
comunal , meant as a public space, in case of a celebration or a vigil of a family member.
Important variables however, compared to other communities with gang presence, are the
lack of presence of the rival gang Barrio 18, and the numerous direct family linkages
between gang members and residents of the communities. This means that I did not
encounter stories of a turf war, as usually the case in many communities in El Salvador, and,
regarding the second variable, there seems to be a difference in experiences with violence of
57
gang family members when compared with non-family members, as far as I could distinguish
in my interviews, the latter being most victimized.
Furthermore, regarding victimization as a result of gang violence, in many cases there
is a direct link with violence and fear experienced during the civil war, as many of my
informants already lived in San José del Pino or San Rafael during the armed conflict or came
to live there as a result of the conflict. To this respect, it is important to mention that gang
violence in El Salvador started only a few years after the armed conflict had ended. As Moser
and McIlwaine argue, the memory of previous, politically motivated violence, coupled with
contemporary everyday violence, means that fear continues to permeate urban societies.43
This is certainly the case, for example, with the mother of the murdered boy, who
mentioned a direct linkage between fear she experienced during the war and fear as a result
of the murder of her son twelve years after the armed conflict had ended. Other informants
expressed experiencing gang violence even as worse than the war.The case of the mother of
the murdered boy, finally, also relates to the so-called ‘vicarious fear’ as mentioned by
Dammert as an indirect effect of victimization on the feeling of insecurity.44 Vicarious fear is
the fear that someone may feel based on the experience or perceived risk of victimization of
somebody who is close to him or her, which may be particular relevant in the case of adults
with children who might be victimized.45
Another type of violence that was mentioned by various informants, and that is
relevant to highlight in this research, are disappearances. As one informant clearly
expressed:
We lived in permanent anxiety, if you would leave, you would not know if you would return,
the same with our children, we brought them to school with fear, we returned with fear, so
we lived in anxiety. It was worse than the war in the sense that if they just disliked someone,
this person would be captured and not show up anymore. In this sense it was worse than the
war, so we did not even look at them out of fear not to exist anymore.46
The fear of disappearance not only affected daily life within the communities, but also
contributed to the stigma that for many years was related to San José del Pino and San
Rafael. One informant told me a story about three men selling brooms, who entered the
neighborhood and never returned. Two informants remembered the fact that San José del
Pino was indicated as a punto rojo at a national map indicating levels of violence, pointing to
58
San José del Pino as the most dangerous neighborhood of the department of La Libertad. As
all informants confirmed, San José del Pino and San Rafael were under complete control of
the gang. This means that all entrances, a total of seven of which only the main entrance is
accessible for motorized transport, were permanently monitored by the gangs, controlling
everyone who entered or left the neighborhood. This total control implied that residents, as
told by various informants, were obliged to cooperate in providing or hiding certain
information. In the case of police incursions, for example, people were forced to hide gang
members, in other cases people were obliged to hide drugs or weapons. As one of my
informants remembers:
In case of police operations, the gang members came into your house and you could not
refuse them. Once there were like three or four of them, in my room, one of them in the
entrance to check if the police would be leaving. How could I refuse them, when I had to
protect my own kids? They only said ‘silencio’ adding that if someone would dare to open its
mouth, he or she would die, so it was better to stay silent, according the saying ‘ver, oir y
callar’.47
One extreme example of the violation of law, as explained by an informant, was the case of a
resident who witnessed a murder in the neighborhood and who was obliged to commit
perjury in court due to gang pressure. Many people opted to cooperate out of fear to
become victim of disappearance. The latter refers directly to the so-called ‘symbolic aspects
of gang violence’, as referred to by Savenije and Van der Borgh, indicating that such violence
not only ‘punishes’ but also serves as a reminder to other residents of what may happen to
them if they do not respect the order imposed by the gang.48
When asked about coping strategies, most of my informants responded that the ‘law
of silence’ or ignoring the situation was the most practiced mechanism to cope with
insecurity and violence. This mechanism is one of the four categories to cope with violence
according to Moser and McIlwaine, who refer to avoidance, confrontation, conciliation and
other strategies.49 Various of the examples of avoidance strategies, as mentioned by Moser
and McIlwaine, are also frequently put in practice in San José del Pino and San Rafael, such
as ‘keep your mouth shut about everything that you see’, in El Salvador known as ‘ver, oir y
callar’, ‘trust in God and know how to forgive’, and ‘close yourself in your house and lock
up’.50 Other avoidance strategies, mentioned by Moser and McIwaine, and put in daily
59
practice in San José del Pino and San Rafael, are changing mobility patterns, avoiding people
involved in crime and violence-related activities, and flee from violent situations, whether
you are witness or victim.51 Various informants, additionally, named ‘showing respect’ as a
coping strategy as well, meaning treating the perpetrators as human beings and respect
them as fellow citizens. This coping strategy was used, for example, by representatives of
the public school in San José del Pino, but also by religious people. The latter are also related
to the conciliation strategy, as described by Moser and McIlwaine, that involves religion and
where people pray both for those involved in crime and for their victims and, as a way of
protecting the community and individuals from harm.52 As indicated before, people who
opted for a confrontation strategy in the sense of reporting conflicts or violent events to the
authorities, as described by Moser and McIlwaine, or simply contacting the authorities, were
threatened or even murdered by the gang, as happened with the former member of the
neighborhood governing council who asked for police presence in the neighborhood. Finally,
various informants indicated that people also opted to move to another neighborhood,
sometimes simply abandoning their houses which, according to the police, were
consequently used by the gangs as meeting place or storage of illicit goods.
Since the gang truce, as explained by most of my informants, the situation of violence
and insecurity has changed significantly. As indicated before, delinquency rates dropped
according to the National Civil Police based in San José del Pino. Nowadays there is police
presence, based on preventive patrolling in the different zones of the communities, so
possible risk factors can be detected, and the fore mentioned confrontation strategy can be
applied more easily. Moreover, all informants, when asked, indicated to feel positive about
police presence in the neighborhood, and in some cases even cooperate directly with the
police in sharing information related to security issues or matters related to coexistence, as
one informant clearly describes:
The police that is based here since 2012 is different, it’s a police that knows how to live
together with the people, because I can confirm that if this would not be the case, this police
base could not have been established here. Now they call them policia comunitaria, and in
fact I believe that’s what it is, because formerly for many people in the neighborhood, the
police only came to be repressive (..) but now this is different, now the police is playing a
positive role. I think most importantly, they know how to dialogue (..) we all work together,
the school, the communities, the police and the ex-gang members.53
60
One of the most significant changes is related to extortion. According to Ricardo, the local
gang leader, it was agreed internally within the gang to stop the extortion practices in San
José del Pino and San Rafael. As a result, public transport and the provision of local retailers
were reestablished, as I will describe further in the following paragraph on access to public
goods. Because of this considerable change to daily livelihood, the relationship between the
residents and the gang members has improved as well, the latter being described by one of
my informants as follows:
Since we are in this reinsertion program, they [gang members, MZ.] come to my house now, I
never imagined the gang leaders entering my house, in the beginning we organized our
meetings in the casa comunal, but since the beginning of this year we started to meet in my
house (..) this change in the neighborhood is primarily because of their willingness, the way
of thinking of their leaders, the fact that they are willing and accomplishing. Formerly I
always kept my distance, I never imagined talking to them, because except a short greeting in
passing, we never talked, but now, now I even share a meal with them.54
Forced recruitment, finally, has also diminished as a result of the gang truce, partly as a
result of police patrolling at the local school, and partly due to a change of ‘policies’ at the
gang level, as clearly indicated by one of my informants:
The gang members, nowadays they are more organized, están calmaditos, they have calmed
down (..) because formerly they hit the people for some reason, always when they used
drugs, they even grabbed children from the age of twelve, they hit them, but now, thank God
this has changed since we have police over here, they have calmed down significantly, and
thanks to God, now the situation of delinquency has improved a lot.55
Some informants, however, stated that gangs, even unintentionally, always maintain an
attractive power to youth. Regarding the latter, gang members nowadays are actively
involved in awareness raising activities organized at schools in order to prevent youth joining
the gangs.
Access to Public Goods and (Economic) Livelihood Strategies
For many years, providers did not enter the neighborhood to deliver supplies to local shops
or to residents, because they had to pay a fee to the gang members. Gang members also
asked goods for their own kids, for their family, so this was donated by the providers. As a
61
result, the providers decided not to enter anymore due to the economic loss that they had to
compensate individually with the company, making their business unsustainable. So we as
residents had to go shopping outside the neighborhood.56
This practice, also referred to as ‘war tax’ where gang members ask for a contribution from
owners of small retail outlets in the community or from providers visiting the community,
negatively influenced the access to public and economic goods. As Savenije and Van der
Borgh argue, refusing would certainly have serious consequences for the shop owner, and
no one can complain openly about the problems and nuisance caused by the gang without
coming into serious conflict with them.57 Many informants expressed that this situation has
been the case in San José del Pino and San Rafael for many years, there was no delivery of
bottled water, foods and other supplies to local shops or residents. As a result, residents had
to leave the neighborhood to meet their daily needs.
Public transport was limited since taxi drivers did not enter the neighborhood out of
fear, and although public bus services continued, as expressed by informants, drivers had to
pay ‘war tax’ to enter. One informant even remembered the case of a bus driver being killed.
Furthermore, access to public space was also limited due to gang violence. As part of the
fore mentioned ‘avoidance strategies’, people changed their mobility patterns staying at
home at night or not using public spaces such as parks where gang members often gathered.
Even making use of the casa comunal, a public space particularly meant for public use at the
community level, was complicated since it was controlled by the gang and residents had to
pay an entrance fee. Finally, public health services were not provided at the neighborhood
level either, however, as explained before, public primary education was the only exception
of public services that continued during the years of complete gang dominance of San José
del Pino and San Rafael.
Hence, when examining the access to public goods and the (economic) livelihood
strategies in San José del Pino and San Rafael, it can be concluded that due to gang violence
the social citizenship rights have been violated for many years. Sanjuán refers to social
citizenship rights as ‘the right to well-being, education, health, minimum salary, and social
services in general’.58 Furthermore, as expressed by various informants, the stigma of the
neighborhood caused by the gang violence, known as ‘area stigma’, also complicated the
economic livelihood strategies of the local residents.59 As explained by one informant:
62
Formerly we could not apply for a credit in commercial shops or financial agencies once we
explained that we were living in San José del Pino, as they would respond, ‘well no, we
cannot trust you, because you are delinquents’.60
As a result, some informants confessed having used another address in order to be able to
apply for a loan or credit. The same holds true when applying for a job outside the
community. ‘As soon as they hear that you are residing in San José del Pino, you immediately
can forget about the job’, as some informants explained. To this respect, as Moser and
McIlwaine state, it is clear that both the levels and types of endemic daily violence in poor
urban communities, impact dramatically on people’s well-being in terms of their livelihood
security, and the functioning of local social institutions.61 Regarding the latter, it is relevant
as well to refer to the role of the local state in supporting inhabitants of San José del Pino
and San Rafael to secure their economic livelihood. Due to the for mentioned ‘governance
void’, the local state did not play any role, for example, in providing residents with the
necessary formal assets to start a small commerce outside the neighborhood. This relates
directly, to conclude, to Berkman who argues that ‘the anti-social actions of a minority finally
affect the majority of residents in excluded areas with a practical absence of the state.’62
Interestingly, with the gang truce, as all informants declared, this situation has
changed significantly in a positive sense. The sub-director of the public school clearly
remembers the change that was generated with the gang truce at the local level:
The gang leadership here in San José del Pino started to change its vision, having another
scheme, and suddenly one day we saw a truck with agua cristal entering the neighborhood
to sell water, and everyone said ‘wow, they have come’, and suddenly a truck of Coca Cola
entered. This was only the small beginning of a change, because one could say ‘okay, now
there is water and Coca Cola’, but for almost fourteen years we did not have water or Coca
Cola here. And then the providers entered, so people did not have to leave the neighborhood
anymore to do their shopping, people who sell bread entered, and this is how the change
started. To the world it may seem a small change, but for us it was a big change, because for
many years we had lived a retracted life.63
Additional to the restart of the provision of local retailers, public transport was also
reestablished. Interestingly, as one informant declared, the police and the gang members
jointly encouraged taxi drivers and other companies to enter the neighborhood:
63
Formerly, taxi drivers stopped at the entrance of the neighborhood out of fear, but today
they enter the neighborhood because the ex-gang members who are now called ‘Youth
Peace Builders’ engaged in writing letters, with support from the local police chief, to taxi
companies and commercial companies to inform them about the changes in the
neighborhood.64
Additionally, as a result of the recovery of public spaces, people feel more secure, and parks
are no longer used as meeting points of gang members with the purpose to commit crimes
or illicit activities, but are now used by the public for recreation purposes. One of my
informants described how the use of public space changed as a result of the gang truce:
I think the aspect that has changed most in the neighborhood, is security. Now we can leave,
even at night, every night a leave to pick up my son returning from work, I even leave the
neighborhood, without any problem.65
Another important aspect that has contributed to the improvement of economic livelihood,
are the income generating projects implemented by the municipality with additional private
funding of international (donor) organizations. Small entrepreneur projects have started that
benefit more than thirty families who additionally organize food festivals in joint effort with
different groups of the community. Importantly, a first female entrepreneur obtained a
municipal license to sell products outside the neighborhood, in Santa Tecla. Due to the
absence of the local state, this was impossible to obtain in previous years, as one female
entrepreneur explained. Additionally, ‘youth peace builders’ participate in life skills projects
to prepare to enter the labor market within the context of rehabilitation efforts. Small
income generating projects, that are being implemented locally, benefit various families of
gang members as well.
Social Values and Social Networks
There was no confidence because no one could be trusted, and if someone said something,
then the other would already know, so, it was better to remain silent, just like the others who
only observed, or closed their doors and restraining themselves. There was only a necessary
coexistence, but no trust, because trust could be fatal. Of course we met for a party or a
funeral, but we never trusted one another, we only talked the necessary, if was a superficial
coexistence.66
64
This example of the fore mentioned avoidance strategy to remain silent, as expressed by one
of my informants, clearly shows how violence generates changes in social behavior,
producing an erosion of social capital.67 When referring to social capital, in this case, it is
pertinent to define more precisely, that violence erodes cognitive social capital in terms of
undermining prevailing levels of trust, while also generating widespread fear.68 Cognitive
social capital refers to the quality of social relationships, such as the norms of trust and
reciprocity, and sharing and support.69 The quality of social relationships in San José del Pino
and San Rafael, as a result of enduring gang violence, thus, has been reduced to a superficial
coexistence resulting in a lack of trust and a shift toward individualism.70 This superficial
coexistence is expressed by my informant when referring to ‘only observed’ and ‘talked the
necessary’. As a result, silence may afford a degree of protection on an individual level, but it
also contributes, as Hume argues, to wider structures of impunity and the disarticulation of
community politics.71 With respect to structures of impunity, it can certainly be concluded
that due to widespread fear, crime and violence could be committed without any legal
repercussion. By explaining, additionally, that ‘if someone said something, then the other
would already know’, my informant refers to gossip, that further contributes to the erosion
of cognitive social capital.72 Finally, the widespread reduction in people’s mobility decreases
social interaction in public and further erodes social cohesion, as illustrated by one of my
informants:
It was a strong suffering, as we and our children had to live a kind of separated from many
other people, from many things, in those times it was a kind of prohibited to leave from 9pm
onwards, unless there would be an urgent necessity related to work.73
Hence, as a result of living separated, trust building is negatively affected since relationships
within interpersonal networks cannot be forged. Additionally, norms of reciprocity, another
core pillar of social capital, cannot be followed due to a lack of cooperation and of the
mechanism of ‘future pay-back for present-day favors’.74 Another spatial dimension of the
erosion of cognitive social capital is the dislocation, in this case of San José del Pino and San
Rafael, from the wider urban areas caused by the fore mentioned ‘area stigma’, when
communities are invariably associated with crime, organized violence and drug
consumption.75
65
The erosion of social capital as a result of violence not only leads to the undermining
of social values, but also causes a disarticulation of community networks. As indicated
before, the neighborhood governing council faced severe complications due to gang
violence, for instance, when representing the neighborhood to the local authorities.
Concrete example is the murder of the president of the council after a formal request for
police presence in the neighborhood was presented to the authorities. As a result, the
willingness of residents to participate in the council was negatively affected, as stressed by
some of my informants. This relates directly to Cárdia who argues that the more fear and
distrust there is between people, the lower the potential for collective organization.76 As
public space could not be used openly without fear of violence, and due to the fact that the
casa comunal was also controlled by the gang, physically there were no spaces for people to
meet or organize. Yet, the capacity for informal community-level organizations to function,
depends not only on levels of cohesion, as Moser and McIlwaine argue, but also on the
ability to meet locally – which hinges on levels of insecurity and personal safety.77
Additionally, due to the ‘area stigma’, it was not possible either to build networks with
people or organizations from outside the community since visitors hardly entered the
neighborhood out of fear for gang violence. As a conclusion, life was organized at all levels
on an individual basis, as a female entrepreneur clearly indicates:
There are several female entrepreneurs in the neighborhood who all continued those years
with their business on an individual basis, we never shared anything, we never went to sell
together, there was no interest in helping each other, no, everyone just minded its own
business.78
Interestingly, since the gang truce and the signing of the ‘violence-free municipality’
agreement in January 2013, notably in San José del Pino, social values and the organizational
level of the communities have changed significantly. With respect to social values, one
informant clearly described what happened at the moment the gang truce, and
consequently the ‘violence-free municipality’ agreement, were made public:
When the gang truce became mentioned, I watched it on television, and when it became
clear that the truce would come to our neighborhood, I never imagined it to become real (..)
It was like a bomb, the gang truce here, the news that the leader, who just had accomplished
a sentence of ten years, had left prison with different ideas. He had been a leader before, so
66
when he entered the neighborhood, people first reacted ‘oops, everything will be like
before’, fear returned, but then when they started to explain that their mindset had changed,
that they came to bring change, stability and trust, and additionally, the fact that the police
base had been established here, something we never imagined to happen, then it became
clear that a real change had started.79
The sub-director of the school in San José del Pino remembers when the first prevention and
rehabilitation projects started and how coexistence was strengthened:
We all came together, the police, the community, the school, the entrepreneurs, we all came
together in our school (..) including the gang members, the police invited them to cut some
trees, and we as teachers prepared the lunch, and we sat down together, we all had lunch
together, the police over here, the gang members over here, we all mixed and had lunch
together, and we started not to marginalize them but including them like human beings,
look, it was such a nice and particular Saturday (..) so our community is experiencing such a
nice change, so nice, for me it has been a complete change, because they come, to talk to us,
and they are part of the community now (..) the gang truce for us has been positive, if people
say the truce did not work out, I say yes, it worked out.80
When doing research, I was also once invited to share a meal with representatives of the
community. Some women had prepared diner at home of one of them. When I entered the
house, together with two police officials, everything was decorated and there was a huge
table with fruit, candles and candies. When all guests had arrived, representatives of a local
church asked us to pray. One guy was playing guitar while the pastor was recalling the
pacification process, remembering participation of all different groups. I looked around and
was aware of the special mixture of this group that had come together: female
entrepreneurs, police officials, gang members with their spouses, representatives of Adesco,
representatives of the church, and me as a Dutch academic. At the end of the prayer, many
people were crying and the pastor asked all guests to hug each other. As I learned later, it
was one of the first times such a diner was organized in a private home of a member of the
community.
These examples all show that a process of social capital building has started in the
communities, and more in particular a process that builds ‘bridging social capital’. According
to Putnam, an organization, or in this case a process, that builds bridging social capital, is
first, inclusive – as it tries to incorporate all sectors of community, second, it is outward
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looking – its objective serves the community as a whole, and third, it is coalescing – it unites
people across diverse social cleavages.81 Additional to the examples of specific meetings in
San José del Pino where social values at the community level are strengthened, social capital
is also being reinforced through social network building. As already mentioned, new
neighborhood councils were established, the so-called Adesco. One informant recalls
becoming a member of the Adesco in het neighborhood:
When the gang members entered the meeting, I felt a lot of trust knowing that they were
participating too, yes, I felt a kind of confidence that they were joining, because before there
was always this anxiety, ‘no, we cannot organize, they will not allow us’, so when I noticed
that they were joining too, I said to myself, ‘well, now that they are joining, there is no
problem, no one will threaten me, no one will tell me ‘this is wrong’, so I felt comfortable
because we are going to work transparently, and since then they never manipulated us, and
we always take decisions together. And since the police is present as well, this has generated
even more trust. I really think that if the gang members would not have joined, things would
not have worked out, we would have continued to face the same problems as always.82
Finally, another process of social capital building started as a result of the gang truce, that
refers to the building of ‘bonding social capital’. According to Putnam, an organization, or in
this case a process, that builds bonding social capital, is first, exclusive – it does not try to
include sectors of the community, second, it is inward looking – its purpose seeks to benefit
its membership’s needs over the community as a whole, and third, it is homogeneous – its
membership does not unite people across diverse social cleavages.83 A clear example of
bonding social capital is the group of entrepreneurs, mainly female, that has started to work
together promoting entrepreneurship in San José del Pino and San Rafael aimed to enhance
local livelihood security. Moser and McIlwaine refer to local community based women’s’
organizations that may have the potential for reconstituting productive social capital in
communities.84 One female entrepreneur explains how business has changed positively:
All those years I had my own small business of selling pupusas, from home, I never went to
sell in public, maybe this was never possible due to a lack of organization, because if
someone starts selling on the street, I think you need authorization of the Municipality, but
no one ever had this formal status. And now we do, and do you know what I like the most,
apart from the money we earn? It is the coexistence, to work with other people, we already
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have a rather big group of female entrepreneurs here in the neighborhood, so this
coexistence is a big change at the community level.85
As a conclusion, the gang truce, and more in particular the signing of the ‘violence-free
municipality’ agreement at the level of Santa Tecla, clearly set the stage for the
strengthening of social values, such as trust and reciprocity, and social networks in San José
del Pino and San Rafael. The commitment of the gang members on the one hand, and the
inclusionary attitude of residents towards the gang members on the other hand, contribute
strongly to social capital building within the communities. Interestingly, as mentioned in
various examples, the local base of the National Civil Police plays a pivotal role in enhancing
social capital in the communities. Moreover, I believe that the local police could even be
considered part of the social capital of the communities of San José del Pino and San Rafael.
Hence, as a state agent that is contributing to citizen security at the frontline, they have
become part of meaningful networks in the community. A neighborhood festival, which was
organized during my stay in San José del Pino, is an exemplary experience showing the value
of these meaningful networks for the communities.
On the first of August, the newly established neighborhood committee Cupad organized a
Carnaval Gastronómico in San José del Pino. For weeks I had been participating in their
preparative meetings where representatives of the Adesco, the church, female
entrepreneurs, gang leadership, and police carefully planned all practical steps to organize
the event. It was decided collectively that, for the first time in history of the communities, a
festival to promote coexistence would be organized entirely by community members
themselves to show society at large that things really have changed in San José del Pino and
San Rafael. By way of an experiment, it was decided too that the festival would continue
during the evening and that alcoholic drinks would be allowed. Soon I realized that this was a
mayor test case for the communities and the process of change that had started since the
gang truce. In the morning of the first of August, during the last preparations, various
members of Cupad nervously admitted that they had been praying a lot for the event to be
blessed. The local police chief prepared its additional security measures, and the gang
members helped to build stages, a trampoline and swimming pool for the children in the
neighborhood. The female entrepreneurs presented their culinary products on tables placed
on the main entrance road. And so I witnessed that day how the unbelievable came true in
San José del Pino. The festival became a big success, not only for the community members
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who enjoyed a festive day, but especially for the organizing committee. Security had been
under control, there were no casualties despite the alcohol and nightly dance event, and the
next morning the gang leadership handed the income of the festivities to the local police. All
agents of change of the organizing committee agreed that this would be considered seed
money for the next event to be organized in the community.86
Despite this achievement of the neighborhood committee, public opinion is rather skeptic
towards the process of change in San José del Pino and San Rafael, expressing serious doubts
about concrete results and the feasibility of change in these stigmatized communities. Public
opinion is one of the obstacles the pacification process is confronted with , as I will show in
the next paragraph.
Constraints
The pacification process in San José del Pino and San Rafael is still very fragile, despite all the
progress that has been made enhancing citizen security, as I have shown in this chapter. Part
of the community members still live in fear and distrust, and feel afraid to speak out after so
many years of having applied the coping strategy of ‘ver, oir y callar’.87 Gang members and
gang leaders, for their part, also face a period of transition in which it still remains to be seen
if their maximum leaders stick to the pacification process, if local authorities will keep
including them in their security policies, if the community members will keep opening up
their community structures to include them, and if the police will continue to operate
according the community policing policy with a focus on prevention instead of repression to
reduce violence. Within these circumstances it also remains to be seen if the gang members
and gang leaders at the individual level will succeed to change their lives. And, of additional
importance, is the public opinion of Salvadoran society more in general, as well as the
influence of political processes on the current pacification process, such as the upcoming
elections in March 2015. Finally, it is important to mention that the current pacification
process is facing serious threats of certain groups in society who oppose any peace process
that includes gang members, such as criminal groups and death squads that I mentioned in
the previous chapter. This vulnerability of the pacification process is, when referring to the
role of the state, related to legal obstacles, funding and politics, and, more in general, to
public opinion, as already mentioned.
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First, with respect to legal obstacles, conflicting policing policies have a negative
impact on reintegration efforts and the enhancement of coexistence at the local level. Based
on information of different informants, I noticed a disbalance between repressive and
preventive policing causing serious repercussions for the process of change. Concrete
examples, as told by representatives of donor agencies involved in reintegration projects,
are repressive police operations towards the ‘youth peace builders’. One informant
experienced a strong negative impact on the implementation of a reintegration project
when participating ‘youth peace builders’, gang members from San José del Pino, were
beaten up by a special police force after a project meeting in Santa Tecla. According to the
Chief of Operations of the National Civil Police in Santa Tecla, as we have seen in Chapter 3,
there are no specific instructions from the security authorities with respect to law
enforcement at the local level in Santa Tecla related to the ‘violence-free municipality’
agreement. This means that at the operational level, the general instruction is ‘to continue
work as always’, as declared by the Chief of Operations, meaning prevention and repression.
The local police chief of the community police base in San José del Pino, however, indicated
to have received specific instructions based on the concept of community policing with a
strong focus on interaction with the community.88 This means that building trust is crucial in
making the community the first line of defense against crime and insecurity. Hence, this
difference in policy instructions leads to conflicting situations at the operational level where
repressive actions have a negative impact on preventive policing practices. The question is
whether building trust with the gang members is part of community policing as well. Yet, as
the results in San José del Pino and San Rafael show, the inclusionary model of enhancing
citizen security in direct coordination with gang members and their leadership can be very
effective.
Second, another legal obstacle is related to the fact that the community police base
in San José del Pino, two years after its establishment, still has a provisional status. On the
one hand, this generates uncertainty for the police officials stationed at the community
base, complicating their working circumstances due to a lack of an adequate infrastructure.
On the other hand, and of direct relevancy for the enhancement of citizen security at the
community level, is the fact that this uncertainty has a negative impact on the local
residents. Several informants indicated to feel insecure in cooperating with the police to
enhance citizen security, because they fear possible repercussions in case of a withdrawal of
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the police permanency in San José del Pino. This fear is based on the previous practice of the
gang to punish community members for having contact with security authorities.
Third, with respect to funding, many informants including gang members, mentioned
the negative impact of the fact that municipal funding for several projects apparently had
stopped at the end of 2013, despite the positive contribution of the projects to security and
coexistence in the communities. As shown in Chapter 3, municipal funding had stopped at
the end of 2013, including financial support from the national government. As a result, youth
peace builders do no longer receive any compensation for their involvement in the income-
generating projects such as the pepper nursery or the project to breed tilapia, despite the
fact that they continue working on these. Due to the fact that this funding is related to the
‘violence-free municipality’ strategy, as explained in Chapter 3, it seems pertinent to further
investigate the reasons for this lack of funding. Hence, this may be related to politics when
taking into account the presidential elections of March 2014, and considering the public- and
political sensitiveness of the gang truce. If funding of prevention and reintegration projects is
subordinate to conjuncture political processes, this may affect the long-term incentives that
are needed for prevention efforts to succeed, as shown in Chapter 3. Some informants, to
this respect, already stressed their concern about the possible negative effect of the
municipal elections of March 2015 on the sustainability of the process of change.
Finally, public opinion towards the process of change in the communities and
towards the communities as such, plays an important role in the probability of the process
to succeed. The ‘area stigma’, as explained by various informants, still has a negative impact
on the communities of San José del Pino and San Rafael. Residents are still facing problems
when trying to acquire financing or applying for a job. The improvement of the public image
has been one of the motives of Cupad to organize the Carnaval Gastronómico. As a result of
the community activities, growing media attention was created resulting in media features
that were broadcasted at the national level. Regarding the latter, specific attention was paid
to the results of community policing in San José del Pino and San Rafael which were
showcased in a television spot of the national government to promote the concept of
community policing as part of the national security policy. Nevertheless, opponent forces to
the gang truce still play an important role in the public debate and, apparently, in the
process of change in San José del Pino and San Rafael as well. Yet, a worrisome example is
the fact that extortions are growingly affecting the communities. In this case, as stressed by
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various residents and confirmed by both the gang leadership and the local police, these
extortions seem not to be related to the Mara Salvatrucha, but to unknown forces opponent
to the pacification process. The latter is also related to death squads, such as the Sombra
Negra mentioned in Chapter 3, who pose a serious threat to reintegration efforts in general
and to the lives of gang members and other agents of change in particular.
Conclusion
Based on my analysis of the effects of the gang truce on the economic and social dimensions
of citizen security at the community level of San José del Pino and San Rafael, it can be
concluded that the ‘truce dividend’ is felt by those who suffered most from gang violence.
Due to gang violence, that started shortly after the civil war had ended in 1992, both
communities had turned into closed shelters into which only repressive police incursions
represented the State’s presence. Daily life was reduced to the individual level as a result of
violence and fear the residents were confronted with. Access to public goods was seriously
restricted, except primary education, and economic livelihood strategies were hampered
due to extortion practices of the gangs. Moreover, an area stigma limited access to labor and
financial resources for the community members.
The municipality of Santa Tecla, however, succeeded to gain renewed entrance to
San José del Pino and San Rafael as a result of a change of public security policies which
included, most significantly, the establishment of a provisional police base in San José del
Pino in 2012 operating according the community policing policy. Additionally, through the
implementation of the ‘Santa Tecla Violence-Free Municipality Agreement’, a pacification
process has started in 2013 in which residents, police, and the municipality join efforts to
enhance security and improve local livelihood. The willingness of the gang leaders of the
Mara Salvatrucha, expressed by their commitment to the ‘Santa Tecla Violence Free
Municipality Agreement’, is of paramount importance for the process of change. As a result,
delinquency rates have dropped, fear has diminished, economic livelihood is improved, and
social values and networks are restored.
Despite the promising results of the pacification process, in which the role of the
state and active citizenship are enforced, there are various obstacles that have a negative
impact on the reintegration efforts and enhancement of coexistence. A disbalance between
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repressive and preventive police policing, and a lack of sustainable funding for reintegration
and economic livelihood strategies are causing serious setbacks to the process and the
building of trust. Furthermore, political processes such as elections, in 2014 and in 2015,
have a mainly negative impact on the sustainability of the pacification process, making
projects subordinate to political interests. Finally, public opinion is reluctant to any
inclusionary process regarding reintegration of gang members in society. Opponent (armed)
forces to the gang truce play an important role in the public debate, and pose a serious
threat to the pacification process in San José del Pino and San Rafael and all local
stakeholders actively involved.
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Chapter 5 Gang Violence and the Gang Truce as an
Ambivalent Process The role of the state in enhancing citizen security
Within the paradigm of citizen security, there is a strong focus on responsibilizing state
institutions and promoting more responsive, inclusive and legitimate public policies that
promote citizen safety and wellbeing. This is justified on the grounds that states have the
ultimate obligation to protect their citizens.1 Through the paradigm shift in public security
policies from short-term repressive policies to long-term preventive strategies, states are
seeking to bridge democratic deficits and restore and repair the state-citizen relationship.2
The gang truce in El Salvador has been received, at least at the international level by
organizations such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), as ‘one of the
examples of interventions that have responded effectively, in the sense that it may promote
citizen security, to contexts of high violence and concentration of crime’.3 Hence, if we
consider the gang truce an effective strategy to enhance citizen security, it seems relevant to
ask what role could be expected from the government in order to comply with its role of a
‘responsible state’. What does ‘the responsible state’ as a core pillar of citizen security
exactly refer to, and, to what extent did the Salvadoran state, by facilitating the gang truce,
promote a more responsive, inclusive and legitimate public policy to enhance citizen
security?
In Chapter 3, I have described the role of the state at the municipal level with respect
to the gang truce, and I have shown how a process to enhance citizen security at the local
level has been put into practice within the framework of the ‘violence-free municipalities’
strategy. The results of this process, described in Chapter 4, show how the ‘truce dividend’ is
being experienced at the neighborhood level by those who have suffered most from gang
violence. Yet, how does this ‘territorialisation’ of the gang truce relate to public security
policies at the national level? What was the role of the national government with respect to
the gang truce? How did the gang truce, as a strategy to enhance citizen security, relate to
national politics and how was it communicated to the general public? Hence, in this chapter I
aim to further explore the role of the state at the national level with regard to the gang
truce. First I will briefly describe what exactly has been the role of the state in the design and
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implementation of the gang truce. How could the role of the national government be
defined, who were the actors involved and what was the aim of the government to facilitate
the gang truce? Then I will describe the process at the national level when the gang truce
was put into practice. How was it communicated to the public? What role did the national
government play in this process, and how did it reflect upon its own role? Subsequently I will
show how the gang truce was developed in a contested playing field. What were the main
aspects related to this contested playing field and how did the national government respond
to these? Finally I will assess to what extent the Salvadoran state, by facilitating the gang
truce, did promote a more responsive, inclusive and legitimate public policy to enhance
citizen security.
Role of the State
When President Funes took office in 2009, violence in El Salvador had escalated to epidemic
proportions.4 Iron fist policies of previous governments based on repressive measures had
failed to stop the violence, and even worse, had been compounding it.5 Although Funes
promised a comprehensive anti-crime approach, giving greater prominence to violence
prevention and community initiatives, homicide rates however remained high.6 In 2011, El
Salvador had the world’s highest homicide rate after Honduras with 66 homicides per
100,000 inhabitants. Within this context, the Organization of American States (OAS) had
proposed the Funes administration in 2010 to conduct a diagnostic evaluation of the security
system.7 Adam Blackwell, Secretary of Multidimensional Security of the OAS, remembers
how the idea of a pacification process originated as a result of this evaluation:
When we concluded the evaluation, we realized that a pacification process or a process to
regain confidence of the people should have a particular focus on the phenomenon of the
maras (..) so we spoke with the new Minister of Justice and Security Munguia Payés, with
Catholic Bishop and military chaplain Monsignor Colindres, and I was introduced by the
Minister to Raúl Mijango. So we spoke about alternatives, and one of the alternatives was a
traditional cease fire process, a temporary cease fire to find processes and alliances, and
develop programs at the mid- and long term. So in June 2011, at a general assembly of the
OAS in El Salvador about citizen security, we discussed an alternative to the iron fist policies.8
77
Interestingly, when I asked Blackwell if it was an initiative of the government to discuss with
the OAS an alternative to the security policies, he answers:
Well, look, this has always been part of the problem, the government eventually signed an
agreement with the OAS, but first they formally asked us to develop a diagnosis (..) but
because of everything that happened, I believe we reached an agreement with the
government, not explicitly but tacitly, to get involved, and it was the gang leadership that
insisted the OAS to be the guarantor of the process.9
The agreement between the government and the OAS that Blackwell refers to, was signed
after the gang truce had been brokered in March 2012. Although Blackwell qualifies the
agreement as ‘not explicit but tacit’, in the formal document that was signed by the Minister
of Justice Munguía Payés and the General Secretary of the OAS José Miguel Insulza, the
government and the OAS formally agree that the OAS will ‘support the government with the
development and implementation of immediate and structural proposals of solution,
derived from its security strategies and plans linked to the process of social pacification as a
consequence of the gang truce’.10 The support refers to technical and financial assistance, as
agreed by both authorities, to create sustainability to a process of social pacification aimed
to reduce violence.11 The role of the national government itself with respect to the gang
truce, has always been formulated officially as ‘facilitating’.
As we saw, in March 2012, the authorities in El Salvador facilitated a truce between
the country’s two largest gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18, and as a result
homicide rates began to drop quickly.12 The gangs agreed to cease hostilities and pledged to
reduce criminal activity, particularly murder, although there was no commitment to stop
extortion.13 Although officially not communicated as such by the government at that very
moment, the truce was an agreement between the gangs, not between the government and
the gangs. However, despite the fact that the government could not be considered one of
the formal parties of the agreement, the gangs clearly involved the government in the
agreement by asking a kind of compensation in return. In exchange for agreeing the truce,
the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18 demanded respect for the basic rights of gang
members and improvement in their conditions of imprisonment as well as an end to the
harassment of visiting relatives.14 Hence, this could be defined as a ‘role to play’ by the
government as a condition put to the gang truce. So although the government publicly
78
always denied having a role in the gang truce that goes beyond a facilitating role, as I will
discuss further in this chapter, the government certainly compromised itself politically
towards the gangs based on the demands that the gangs asked in return for having
established the gang truce.
As a result of the agreement between the government and the OAS, a technical
coordination committee was established, conformed of five members, including the Minister
of Justice and Public Security on behalf of the government.15 According to the Terms of
Reference of the Committee, the role of the Minister of Justice and Public Security was to
promote the institutionalization of the process, to mobilize and coordinate efforts with other
governmental entities, and to generate synergy between governmental programs and the
objectives, plans and actions derived from the gang truce.16 Additionally, the Minister would
have to promote necessary modifications to the national legal framework to enable the
implementation of various initiatives that contribute to the objectives of the Committee.17
Finally, the Minister would have to contribute to prevent politicization of the process, and to
establish mechanisms of direct links between the Committee and the national authorities
with respect to the management of information that is directly related to the process of
crime and violence reduction.18
Important factor, however, with respect to the supposed role of the Minister of
Justice and Public Security as member of the Technical Committee, and more in general with
respect to the gang truce, has been the fact that for three times during the Funes
administration there has been a change of the Minister of Justice. The first change, as
referred to by Insight Crime as ‘a polemical change’, in November 2011, ‘came about when –
after months of pressure from the United States – Funes accepted the resignation of his first
security minister, former guerrilla Manuel Melgar, whom Washington accused of having
participated in the killing of former marines in an upscale neighborhood in San Salvador in
1984’.19 As a result, a second Minister of Justice, ex-general David Munguía Payés, was
appointed, who suggested to Funes that General Francisco Salinas be named head of the
police.20 However, in May 2013, the constitutional chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme Court
ruled that the appointment of two former army generals in top security posts was
unconstitutional.21 This unconstitutionality was based on the 1992 Peace Accords which
determined that public security should be ‘independent’ from the armed forces.22 The third
Minister, Ricardo Perdomo, ex-Minister of Economy and former director of the State
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Intelligence Agency, took office in May 2013 to remain until the end of the Funes
administration in June 2014.23
Yet, the fact that the Minister of Justice and Security was changed three times during
the Funes administration, at least may have influenced the continuation of the role of the
Minister in the Technical Committee, and thus the various responsibilities that were
assigned to the Minister. As I will show below, some of these responsibilities were related to
aspects that negatively influenced the process of the gang truce, such as the
institutionalization of the process, modifications to the national legal framework,
politicization of the process, and the management of information. Moreover, each Minister
appeared to have had its own political agenda with respect to the gang truce, in particular
Minister Perdomo who launched another pacification process, not related to the original
gang truce nor the original mediators Mijango and Colindres. Blackwell criticizes this change
of politics of Perdomo, and the consecutive reactions of both the mediators and the gangs,
as ‘one cannot change the rules of the game in such a complicated process’.24 Munguía
Payés, the predecessor of Perdomo, was even believed to have used the gang truce for
personal electoral aspirations, as I will show further in this chapter.
To conclude, the role of the government with respect to the gang truce was defined
differently towards the public and towards the various actors involved. Publicly its role was
defined as strictly facilitating, however, the government compromised itself politically
towards the gangs for the compensation that was part of the agreement, and technically
towards the OAS and the mediators based on its direct participation in the Technical
Committee. Regarding the latter, in the next sections I will show that the role of the
government in the Technical Committee goes beyond a strictly technical or facilitating role,
but should be interpreted instead as related to politics that severely affected the
implementation and decisiveness of the gang truce as a strategy to enhance citizen security.
First, I will show how this ambiguity regarding the role of the government with respect to
the gang truce provoked a strong public and political debate.
Non-transparent Process
On the 10th of March 2012, public attention was provoked, both at the national and
international level, by a sudden drop of the homicide rate in El Salvador. As of that date, the
homicide rates began to drop from 14 murders a day to about five. As turned out later, the
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leaders of the two main gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, had reached a cease-fire
agreement, however, they decided not to make it public until after the March 11th elections,
in order to have time to communicate with and educate all members of both gangs on the
outside as to the new situation.25 Additionally, no official announcement was made by the
authorities either, that a truce had been brokered between the two main gangs, despite the
fact that the government had been involved at least instrumentally in this pacification
strategy. As a result, one of the main criticisms about the gang truce, is the lack of
transparency. When analyzing the gang truce more in detail, it turns out, firstly, to be
unclear and controversial how the process precisely could be defined, and secondly, what
exactly had been agreed, and what role the government played.
First, to explain this further, there is a broad consensus in the public debate about
the gang truce, which I also saw reflected in my interviews, that the definition of a ‘truce’
has been inaccurate. Blackwell, as Secretary of Multidimensional Security of the
Organization of American States (OAS) directly involved in the process, emphasizes he never
used the word ‘truce’, but instead a ‘cease-fire agreement’. As Blackwell states:
We always insisted that this would be a long term process, because we are talking about a
conflict here, and I do insist that this has been a conflict that, due to the high homicide rates,
to my opinion should be considered a traditional conflict instead of a criminal conflict.26
The latter, interestingly, marks a sharp contrast with the point of view of the government as
expressed by Franzi Hato Hasbún, current Presidential Secretary for Governance and
Communication, and former coordinator of the Security Cabinet of the Funes administration.
Although Blackwell and Hasbún both agree that the definition of a ‘truce’ was inaccurate,
they differ in the definition of the problem of gang violence. As Hasbún argues:
We do not share the concept of a gang truce, because a truce is an agreement between
belligerent forces, and gangs are not a belligerent force in juridical and diplomatic sense, it is
crime.27
To explain the difficulty to get the process started, Blackwell makes the comparison with the
conflict in Israel. ‘To get Hamas in the same room with the Government of Israel, is not an
easy task’, as Blackwell argues, explaining why it took several months to get the Mara
Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18 around the same table. Raul Mijango, ex- guerrilla commander
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and one of the two main facilitators of the gang truce, stresses the importance, after months
of separate talks with the imprisoned leaders of both gangs, to bring both groups together in
order to possibly reach an agreement:
What I learned from the former peace process between the FMLN and the government, that
brought to an end the civil war in 1992, is that even in the worst conflict, joining a meal
brings people together. So, in this case, what did we do? We organized a lunch in the
maximum security prison of Zacatecoluca, and we brought something that has magic power
in our country which is pollo campero28. So we sat at a long table, Monsignor Colindres, who
was the other facilitator, and I both at the centre of the table, and on the one hand about 18
members of one gang, and on the other hand about 20 members of the other gang. Suddenly
one of the Mara Salvatrucha gang leaders stands up and walks to the gang leader of the
Barrio 18 sitting next to me. ‘I don’t know what you guys think of it’, he says to the other
gang leader, ‘but we think we should grab this opportunity to bring about a change’. And this
is how they started talking.29
‘Unfortunately’, as Mijango continues, ‘we did not draft a communication strategy, since we
started the process as an exploratory experiment’.30 This brings me to the second argument
that due to a lack of transparency, it turns out to be unclear what exactly had been agreed
and what has been the role of each actor involved.
On 14 March 2012, online newspaper El Faro was the first to broke the story that the
government had moved thirty leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 from the
maximum security prison of Zacatecoluca to lower security prisons in apparent exchange for
the gangs’ commitment to reduce the level of homicides.31 As explained in a recent report of
the University Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP), the news led to a series of particularly
contradictory explanations.32 According to IUDOP, there are two elements that negatively
influenced the gang truce. The first elements are the contradictory declarations of the
Minister of Security and Justice at that time, General Munguía Payés, and the lack of
governmental transparency. In its report, IUDOP provides an overview of press statements
made by Minister Munguía Payés, based on a revision of the main newspapers in El
Salvador.33 When asked about the role of the government, Hasbún states:
The gang truce, which in itself is a misconception, was an initiative started by the Catholic
Church. Our role as government in this process was to facilitate the necessary conditions. As
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a government, we do not negotiate law enforcement. Hence, the transfer of gang leaders to
lower security prisons was part of a process established by law and not a product of
presumed negotiations with the gangs. The problem is that you cannot judge this transfer
without taking into account political conditions. In the light of elections, in this case, ARENA
and the right wing people in the country categorized the transfer as part of the agreement of
the gang truce, whereas the government simply complied with the formal right of these
prisoners to be transferred.34
According to Maria Silvia Guillen, director of the NGO FESPAD, the transfer of prisoners is
not subordinated to any kind of negotiation, but to proper legal compliance.35 ‘However’, as
Guillen argues, ‘each individual case has to be judged by a prison tribunal which is a highly
complicated and time consuming procedure’. For this reason, Guillen wonders if the
government has complied with this procedure in order to organize the transfers. Fact is that
there are several explanations for the transfers, as described by IUDOP, varying from
humanitarian conditions to massive escape plans.36 Additional to these explanations,
Mijango declares that shortly after having reached the agreement between both gangs, that
still had been kept in secret, he received an urgent phone call on behalf of one of the
imprisoned gang leaders who had participated in the process:
They asked me to come to prison urgently because they wanted to share some important
information. So I asked the Minister for permission and went to visit the imprisoned gang
leaders. ’In order to comply with the agreement’, as they said, they urgently needed to
inform their gang structures in the street that an agreement had been reached. ‘We have
heard that they are planning to sabotage the elections by organizing a strike of public
transport’, the gang leaders explained. For this reason, the gang leaders thought it would be
important to reschedule the agreement and to bring it into force before the elections. It is
important to note that for years the gang leadership had been cut off from direct
communication with their structures, as a result of security policies. So Monsignor Colindres
and I believed it was crucial to transfer the gang leaders in order to restore the
communication with their structures. Thus, in order to prevent the sabotage of the elections,
the Minister of Security and Justice ordered the transfer of the gang leaders to lower security
prisons, on March 8 and 9. For me, the biggest surprise of the world was the fact that on
March 10, the homicide rate in the country dropped, we succeeded in something that the
country could not achieve in 18 years, reducing the homicide rate from 14 to 5.37
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To date, the transfer of the gang leadership is still controversial and one of the most debated
aspects of the gang truce. To its critics, according to Teresa Whitfield, the process appeared
to have traded a reduction in homicides for an improvement in prison conditions and thus
allowed criminal and predatory interlocutors to use violence as a means to negotiate with
the government.38 It is still a sensitive topic for the government too. When asked if
transparency would have helped to inform the public about the role of the government in
the process of the gang truce, and in this particular case the transfers, Hasbún clearly states
that security plans intrinsically cannot be transparent.
There are topics related to security that cannot be communicated publicly. People tell us to
be transparent, but how would it be possible to share security plans when precisely for this
reason, to guarantee security, these plans should be kept secret? We cannot share this with
the people! If so, then what would intelligence work mean?39
When comparing, however, the motivation for the transfers as expressed by Hasbún
‘applying the law’ on the one hand, and by Mijango ‘preventing sabotage’ on the other hand,
it becomes clear that the role of the government in the gang truce is still not easy to define.
This is certainly also related to a lack of ownership from the national government with
respect to the gang truce, which I will explain later in this chapter.
Yet, not only the transfer of the gang leaders generated confusion and discussion in
public opinion, but the fact that communication between the gang leaders and their
respective members, as a result of the transfer to lower security prisons, had been
improved, caused public concern as well. This is directly related to the fact that extortions,
the type of gang violence that affects the public most, are managed directly by the
imprisoned leadership. This reflects the second element, according to IUDOP, that negatively
influenced the gang truce, namely, ‘a much deeper distrust that was anchored in the
Salvadoran population that could not change overnight, no matter how spectacular the news
story: gangs are the main enemy of the Salvadoran nation, what is required is heavy-handed
military repression’.40 According to the National Council of Small Enterprises, 79% of micro-
and small enterprises confirm to be victim of extortions, and in 2012 small enterprises paid
18 million dollars in renta, which is the amount of money to be paid to the gangs.41 A taxi
driver who provided me transport to one of my interviews in San Salvador, to give an
example of daily practice, told me that he works for a cooperative of 70 taxi drivers. Each
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month the cooperative holds 10 dollar of the individual salary of the taxi drivers to be paid
as renta to the gangs, which shows that in some cases paying renta is even
institutionalized.42 According to Mauricio Navas Guzman, general pastor of the Iglesia del
Camino who later became involved in the pacification process, the gang truce did not receive
any public support due to the fact that extortions, a type of violence that affects many
people, did not diminish, whereas the decrease of homicides mainly benefits gang members
themselves.43 However, extortions were never included in the main agreements of the gang
truce.44 This was not communicated as such by the mainstream media, nor did the
government, as facilitator of the gang truce, contribute to diminish public concern related to
this aspect. As to illustrate the latter, Guillen argues:
I was completely astonished when the Minister of Security and Justice, Munguía Payés, was
asked in a television interview to explain why the homicide rates had dropped, but extortions
nevertheless continued. ‘Of course’, he said, ‘as long as the muchachos (gang members) lack
a secure source of income, there is no other option left than to continue extorting’. No one
could understand that a Minister of Security would respond like this.45
Thus again, a lack of transparency, in this case about the content of the gang truce,
contributed to an increase of public concern. When I asked Hasbún about the connection
between the transfers and the communication facilities of the gangs, the following dialogue
evolves:
MZ: Did the government, by facilitating the transfers, also facilitate improved communication
between the gangs?
HH: Of course.
MZ: (…) I am asking you, because communication facilities of the gangs have been a topic
too…
HH: I will tell you something. We do have bloqueadores de llamadas (call blocking systems),
talking about communication, but we are interested in hearing them too, well I could not
have said this. But there are topics related to security that one cannot talk about publicly. It’s
a principle of intelligence that you have to hear them, hearing them means that you have to
listen to their conversations.
MZ: So you were facilitating improved communication between them, always within the rule
of law, and you also had your ways to hear..
HH: Could be.
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MZ:.. Those conversations?
HH: I cannot tell so.
MZ: Hmhm.
HH: Could be.
MZ: Hmhm.
HH: But these are all, how do you call it, principals of intelligence operations. 46
When we analyze the way the gang truce has been communicated, we can conclude that a
lack of transparency, in this case from the national government, contributed to public
concern about the gang truce. Due to a lack of any governmental declaration just after the
gang truce had been made public by the media, the gang truce was perceived by the public
as a negotiation between the state and criminal actors. Contradictory explanations, for
example about the transfer of the gang leadership, generated uncertainty about public
security policies. According to the government, transparency in this case however,
contradicts with intelligence policies. Nevertheless, we could conclude, that if we consider
the gang truce as part of a long-term preventive strategy, the state did not succeed to
restore and repair the state-citizen relationship. As a consequence, we could conclude that
the government, in this particular case of the gang truce, failed to build public support for a
change of public security policies from short-term heavy-handed repressive policies to long-
term preventive policies based on the principle of citizen security.
Contested Playing Field
When analyzing the gang truce as a public policy to promote citizen security, there are
various aspects that show how the gang truce was developed in a contested playing field. In
the following paragraph I will describe some of these aspects such as political ownership,
elections, homicides, legislation and the rule of law, and funding that strongly influenced the
process of the gang truce and the role of the national government with respect to this.
A first aspect that strongly influenced the process of the gang truce and the role of
the national government with respect to this is a lack of ownership. The government sought
to avoid admitting that it had entered into negotiations with the gangs, as Whitfield argues,
and different explanations were given for the role played by facilitators Mijango and
Colindres.47 As indicated earlier in this chapter, there is a clear dichotomy with respect to the
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role of the government in starting the initiative of the gang truce. Blackwell clearly indicated
to have been involved in a dialogue with the government to start drafting a pacification
process as a kind of ‘cease fire’, as qualified by Blackwell. Hasbún, however, argues that the
gang truce was an initiative started by the Catholic Church. As Dudley suggests, the
government seemed to have turned to the Church as ‘a way to plug a political and moral gap
when the gangs were ready to sign a truce but the government was not ready to take
ownership of it’.48 The absence of consultation with those with prior experience of working
with gangs or young people at risk, and claims that Mijango and Colindres were acting
independently of the government and in representation of civil society and the Catholic
Church – when neither was true at an institutional level – contributed to the development of
distrust.49 Public opinion polls at that time showed that 83 per cent of the Salvadoran people
distrusted the gang truce.50
Interestingly, in April 2013, a year after the gang truce had been brokered, President
Funes acknowledged to an international public that his government was a protagonist in the
truce.51 At a meeting organized by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development
Bank in Washington DC, Funes stated that the government should respond to gang leaders'
demands to make the truce sustainable, although he maintained this was different from
negotiating with the leaders.52 Funes specifically mentioned the ‘violence-free
municipalities’, a second phase initiative focusing more on violence prevention and
improved local government participation, where local gangs would not only pledge to
reduce murder, but also other forms of violence and crime.53 Furthermore, in an official
press statement, issued by the government on 18 July 2013, Funes declares that his
administration did not negotiate with the gang leadership, but that it facilitated the gang
truce in order to reduce the homicide rates.54 As stated by Funes in the press statement, ‘the
gang truce created conditions that enabled the State to give an institutional response based
on a strategy to prevent violence, because we don’t think that the simple repression of
delinquency, or the simple persecution of delinquents, or the simple arrest of gang members
could resolve the problem’.55 In the same press statement, Funes emphasizes that ‘one thing
is the prevention policy, the ‘violence-free municipalities, and the truce is another thing,
which is responsibility of the gangs, and they have to decide whether they maintain it or
not’, and ‘this is why we put together the strategy of the ‘violence-free municipalities, to
prevent that gangs will dedicate themselves to narcoactividad, drugs business, and to
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prevent that gangs will expand’.56
Regarding the latter, as I have shown in Chapter 3, the political ownership of the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy is contested at the municipal level. When I asked
Hasbún, to this respect, if Mayor Oscar Ortiz accepted the gang truce by signing the
‘violence-free municipality agreement’ in Santa Tecla, Hasbún repeatedly redirects the
question stating that I should ask Ortiz himself.57 However, when I asked Hasbún about the
political ownership of the government at that moment with respect to the ‘violence-free
municipalities’ strategy, he clearly states:
Municipalities are autonomous, they can implement their own plans, but violence-free
municipalities do not mean commitment to the truce, at least not for the central
government.58
Hasbún additionally declares that support from the national government to prevention
policies at the local level have to be understood as part of the governmental policies on
prevention that started with the Funes administration in 2009, and have no relationship
whatsoever with the ‘violent-free municipalities’ strategy.59 Interestingly, this seems to be in
conflict with the press statement of Funes of July 2013 where he clearly indicates that the
government put together the strategy of the ‘violence-free municipalities’. This dichotomy
shows that the political ownership of the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy is not only
contested at the local level, but at the national level as well.
A second aspect that strongly influenced the process of the gang truce and the role of
the national government with respect to this, is related to elections. In the fore mentioned
press statement, Funes declares that his administration did not negotiate with the gang
leadership, but that it facilitated the gang truce in order to reduce the homicide rates.60 As
stated by Funes in the press statement, ‘the gang truce created conditions that enabled the
State to give an institutional response based on a strategy to prevent violence’.61 However,
Edgardo Amaya, who worked for the Funes administration as a legal advisor, has an
additional explanation why the gang truce was established:
According to some of us working in the Technical Committee, the truce was established with
a very concrete goal of immediate reduction of the homicide rate that most affected the
public agenda. The Minister of Security and Justice Munguía Payés, to our opinion however,
also had electoral aspirations. So he compromised himself publicly to reduce the homicide
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rate with 30 percent. The gang truce, thus, was an effective mechanism to achieve this
personal goal.62
This example of the Minister of Justice using the gang truce for electoral and thus political
purposes, clearly contradicts with of one of the fore mentioned activities that corresponded
to the role of the Minister within the mandate of the Technical Committee, namely to
prevent politicization of the process. Moreover, as stressed by the UNDP, it is essential in
crime prevention to be able to rely on the sustained commitment of decision-makers,
beyond electoral changes and partisan divisions.63 Given by Amaya, alleged personal political
calculations by the Minister of Justice, however, shows that this is certainly not the case with
respect to the gang truce in El Salvador. As a result, the start of campaigning for the
presidential elections of March 2014 has weakened the truce.64 The main opposition
candidates have condemned the process and promised to renew the fight against gangs if
elected, and at the same time, fear of public opposition to any engagement with the gangs
motivated government denials of any involvement.65 This observation is shared by the
majority of my informants, stating that in El Salvador violence as such is politicized. As
Aguilar, director of IUDOP, argues:
Violence has been instrumentalized in the sense that during elections there is a political use
of violence, not only in the sense of an increase or decrease of homicides, but also in the
sense of political parties making use of the gangs with the purpose to obtain votes.66
Regarding the latter, Mijango refers to the practice of political actors that approach gangs to
negotiate prison benefits in turn for votes of their families.67
A third aspect that strongly influenced the process of the gang truce and the role of
the national government with respect to this, is related to homicides and the use of violence
for purposes related to politics and power. According to Hasbún, homicides and political
trends are interrelated, because there are always forces interested in creating crisis.68
Additionally, when asked more in general about the mechanisms that determine the
homicide rates, Hasbún points in a rather non-transparent way at the role of organized
crime:
MZ: How does the conjuncture of homicides work?
HH: It is irregular, it goes up and down.
MZ: Depending on what?
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HH: It depends on various circumstances.
MZ: Like what?
HH: For example, it depends on the transit eh, ah no, but, it is complicated with these topics
because it depends on the transit of drugs, for example, of these demands, because there is
not always a demand, it depends on various circumstances that one cannot talk about
publicly because you have to guarantee that this is all based on your intelligence work.69
Hence, when analyzing the gang truce, it is important to take notice of the complexity of the
use of violence in El Salvador. With respect to homicides, one of the main indicators to
measure violence, Guillen additionally points to the phenomenon of social cleansing and the
use of killings as an electoral mechanism:
Based on empirical analyzes, we can confirm that in this country there are killings as an
electoral mechanism to reveal alleged incapability of the government, and I don’t like to say
it, but as it is called, this is social cleansing. I cannot confirm who are behind these killings,
but we believe that these are people that completely deny any opportunities for reinsertion,
for constructing communities where all people are involved in its development.70
Ricardo, the gang leader of the Mara Salvatrucha in Santa Tecla, additionally points to the
deliberately use of violence by other groups in society to strengthen their own position. As
he clearly states during my interview in San José del Pino:
There are people with money or positions or levels within the system of our country who are
interested in the continuation of violence, that there are muertos, dead, because when there
are dead, they can sell ammunition, they can sell weapons, even those who sell coffins are
happy when there are dead, because they sell more coffins, so violence means business (..) in
other words, there are people interested in the continuation of violence, because they can
benefit economically from violence. This is why there is this saying ‘the dead are put by the
gangs, but the benefits correspond to others’. And this is how it works, they are interested in
a high homicide rate, this is the problem in our country.71
Navas Guzman, general pastor of the Iglesia del Camino, additionally argues, ‘I believe gangs
nowadays are blamed for every homicide in this country, and of course the gangs are to
blame maybe for a bigger percentage of violence than other groups, but there is also a
percentage of violence created by other branches of society’.72 Hence, the insistence of
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some government officials that gangs are the source of almost all the homicides in the
country, has led to concerns that law enforcement authorities are downplaying the role of
other criminal groups – drug traffickers, contraband smugglers etcetera – in violence and
homicide.73
Another aspect that strongly influenced the process of the gang truce and the role of
the national government with respect to this, is related to legislation and the rule of law. As
indicated previously, the truce has received active and steady support from the Organization
of American States (OAS), who backed the process from the beginning by declaring itself a
guarantor.74 It has pushed the government to create a Technical Committee composed of
government officials, civil society, the United Nations Development Program and its own
representatives in an effort to provide an institutional framework.75 Yet, this institutional
framework, backed by an international organism, is relevant with respect to the rule of law.
As Whitfield argues, Munguía Payés had designed ‘a structure to allow others to do the work
for us’ as it ‘isn’t possible for the government to sit down and talk to criminals’.76 According
to former governmental advisor Amaya, Munguía Payés virtually sent Mijango to the
imprisoned gang leadership to present the initiative. To this respect, Amaya does not refer
to an official mandate, but to conclusions that emerged from the media.77 Mijango himself
furthermore explains:
To us, as mediators, it was clear that the government could not enter in direct dialogue with
the gangs, first, because this would provoke the political opposition to question the
legitimacy of such action, and second, we knew that the gangs distrusted the government
and political actors due to the fact that these had approached the gangs before, to negotiate
small truces, to negotiate prison benefits in turn for votes of their families, promises which
they never fulfilled.78
According to Blackwell, the gang leaders asked the OAS to be the guarantor of the process.79
‘We as OAS wanted to show’, as Blackwell argues, ‘that there are alternatives in other places
that work well and are worthwhile to be replicated elsewhere’.80 Blackwell refers to similar
processes with OAS involvement in Los Angeles, Medellin, and Cuidad Juarez. When I ask
Blackwell in my interview if he maintains direct contact with the gang leadership in El
Salvador, he shows a certain hesitation in answering my question. After a few seconds of
silence, he answers ‘eh…..eh….well I do have contact… (Silence)’.81 The hesitation in the
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answer of Blackwell may be related to legislation in El Salvador, as I explained in Chapter 3,
which declares both gang membership and engagement with gangs illegal. In this case, there
may be a particular relation, although I did not ask Blackwell directly, with the polemic case
of the arrest of Padre Toño in the same period of my interview with Blackwell. Antonio
Rodriguez, Padre Toño, who was a former mediator and coordinator of the pacification
process started by Minister of Justice Perdomo, was arrested on 29 July 2014 by the
Salvadoran authorities accused of smuggling mobile phones to imprisoned gang members,
and of being related directly to one of the maximum imprisoned leaders of the Barrio 18.82
Considering the fact that Blackwell as a guarantor of the gang truce maintained direct
relation with the gang leadership of both gangs, and the fact that I interviewed Blackwell on
7 August, the hesitation in answering my question may have been related to the case of
Padre Toño. Additionally it is relevant to note that in October 2012, the government of the
United States designated the Mara Salvatrucha as a ‘transnational criminal organization’,
and released a travel warning for El Salvador in January 2013, in what many see as attempts
to discredit the truce.83 These examples of legislation and of cases direct related to these
laws show the complicated legal framework in which the process of the gang truce took
place.
Regarding the latter, there is a public debate about the fact that the government in El
Salvador is violating its own laws to facilitate a gang truce, as argued by local media.84 Online
newspaper El Faro points out that under the Gang Prohibition Law, passed in September
2010, being a member of either the Barrio 18 or Mara Salvatrucha is in itself a criminal
offense, as are any dealings with these groups.85 ‘Whereas the Minister of Security and
Justice denies to operate illegally’, as El Faro states, ‘mayors, police officials and the Minister
himself have been part of a process in which gang members have been able to prevent their
arrest that is prescribed by law’.86 El Faro refers to programs and activities that are being
developed in the ‘violence- free municipalities’, where ‘mayors, police officials, and public
administration officials meet on a regular basis with gang members to coordinate pilot
programs of reemployment, or events in which gang members are in dialogue with the
community, or activities such as the removal of graffiti’.87 The Minister of Security and
Justice Munguía Payés, in the same article, argues that ‘the Gang Prohibition Law is a useful
instrument; nevertheless, to us it creates a problem in the strategic sense. We experience
difficulties since we are obliged by law to arrest any gang member, however, if a certain
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gang member is willing to reconvert and to participate in rehabilitation plans, it is not
allowed by law’.88 Interestingly, it could have been the Minister of Justice himself to
promote necessary modifications to the national legal framework to enable the
implementation of various initiatives, according its role as member of the Technical
Committee. As I have shown in Chapter 3, there was even a concrete demand, expressed for
example by the mayor of the municipality of Ilopango, for modification of the anti-gang
legislation so that his actions, consistent with government-backed efforts to reduce violence,
were not in violation of the law. However, the Minister of Justice did not accomplish its role
as defined by the Technical Committee, to promote necessary modifications to the national
legal framework, since no modifications to the law have been proposed related to the
process of the gang truce.
To this respect, finally, it is important to notice that according to the public opinion,
gangs are the main enemy of the Salvadoran nation. What is required, according to the
majority of the population, is heavy-handed military repression instead of a pacification
process that aims for reemployment and an improved quality of life for those who want to
reinsert and are eligible as such. However, with respect to reinsertion, Hasbún clearly
argues:
It is clear to us (the government) that we have to apply the rule of law, but to apply the rule
of law also implies that the reinsertion program functions (…). Society, however, does not
fully understand that you have to reinsert those that can be reinserted. We don’t think that
all are re-insertable, but you have to reinsert, and in this sense you have to apply the rule of
law. So some of the measures that resulted from the gang truce, matched with our
reinsertion plans.89
Hasbún, in this case, refers to the penitentiary system in El Salvador that, according official
numbers from 2011, is operating at 299 percent of its official capacity.90 For this reason, the
government emphasizes the importance of reinsertion policies, although it seems unclear to
what extent these policies would conflict with the Gang Prohibition Law, as earlier indicated
by former Minister of Security and Justice Munguía Payés. Further complication, besides a
negative public opinion towards reinsertion, is the fact that there are certain groups in
society who turn their opposition against reinsertion programs into social cleansing
practices, as earlier indicated.
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A final aspect that strongly influenced the process of the gang truce and the role of
the national government with respect to this is funding. Based on the agreement between
the OAS and the government of El Salvador, as indicated earlier in this chapter, the OAS
compromised itself to facilitate funding to ‘support the government with the development
and implementation of immediate and structural proposals of solution, derived from its
security strategies and plans linked to the process of social pacification as a consequence of
the gang truce’.91 Additionally, a group of businesspeople established the Fundación
Humanitaria to generate opportunities for gainful employment and social reintegration for
youths at risk and for ‘pacified’ gang members.92 This foundation was created to involve the
business community in the pacification process, on the understanding that broader
economic opportunities cannot be created without private sector involvement.93
Additionally, the European Union mobilized additional funding for the pacification process,
and provided technical assistance and transfer of knowledge on mediation and dialogue
through the peace building organization Interpeace, to the main actors involved in the truce
within civil society, including the Humanitarian Foundation, the two facilitators and the
‘violence-free municipalities’.94
However, financial support to projects related to the pacification process as a result
of the gang truce, is divided. According to Insight Crime, the government of the United
States does not support the truce, while the European Union is more open to working within
the context of the truce.95 Regarding the latter, Ana Glenda Tager, Latin American Regional
Director at Interpeace, argues:
There are Embassies that are more in favor of the gang truce, and others more against. The
Embassy of Germany, for example, has been opponent to the process, we have discussed this
openly and respectfully, and I feel that if the government of El Salvador would commit itself
to the process, the Embassy would support them. The Embassy of The Netherlands, as
another example, says that despite the complications, they understand the process and they
are okay with it.96
In some cases, financial support to the gang truce is even contested. Chief among the
skeptics, as Whitfield argues, was the United States, by far the largest donor to El Salvador
and the most influential external donor.97 In early 2013, US officials confirmed that, while
they welcomed the drop in homicides, they had no confidence that the truce would lead to a
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lasting solution, and they were profoundly unhappy that the government appeared to be
negotiating with criminals and alarmed by the implicit admission that the Salvadoran state
had lost control of its national territory’.98 Although the Embassy of the United States initially
supported projects within the ‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy, it has withdrawn its
financial support to two municipalities, as I have shown in Chapter 3, when they learned that
active gang members were part of the beneficiaries.99 As explained in Chapter 3, financial
management of the projects by the national government resulted complicated. The
government claimed it had secured 74 million dollar to fund the first phase of peace zones in
a mix of loans and grants, however, much of this money was not available at the short term,
so mayors were consequently left largely to their own devices.100 The fact that some funding
was contested, as indicated by the example of the Embassy of the United States, certainly
must have complicated the financial management of projects at the government level even
more.
Conclusion
With the Funes administration, a paradigm shift started from short-term repressive public
security policies to long-term preventive policies. Due to the ever-increasing homicide rates,
the government was in search of alternatives to previous iron fist policies. Based on an
assessment of the security system, a pacification strategy was developed to confront gang
violence. As a result of a dialogue with the gang leadership of the two main gangs, the Mara
Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18, a gang truce was brokered almost three years after the Funes
administration had come to power. Although meant as a strategy to concretize the shift
from repressive to preventive security policies, the gang truce failed to endure. As a result of
my analysis of the role of the state to this respect, it can be concluded that this is due to a
lack of strategy of the government. This analysis is based on the following elements.
First, there was no clear communication strategy, not to inform the public about the
content of the gang truce and the role of the government, nor to confront opposition from
public opinion that, due to the high levels of violence, remained in favor of short term heavy
handed policies.
Second, there was no clear funding strategy to sustainably support programs that, as
a result of the gang truce, had started at the local level to promote prevention and
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reintegration activities. The lack of ownership of the government regarding the gang truce
negatively affected the availability of international funding.
Third, there was no strategy to promote legal reform that would have enabled,
particularly, local state- and non-state actors involved in the ‘violence-free municipalities’
strategy, to support interventions meant to enhance the truce dividend at the frontline.
Finally, there was no strategy to prevent politicization of the pacification process that
started as a result of the gang truce. Important element to prevent politicization would have
been to stress the long-term investment needed to sustain the shift from repressive to
preventive policies. Concrete results of the reduction of violence and victimization at the
local level could have been instrumental to this repect.
As indicated, the playing field in which the government was supposed to act
promoting the gang truce as a strategy to enhance citizen security, however, is extremely
complicated and submitted to the political and economic interests of various state- and non-
state actors at the national and international level, including violent actors related to
organized crime. Transparency and political ownership towards the gang truce, nevertheless,
would have strengthened the role of the government in seeking to bridge democratic
deficits and restore and repair the state-citizen relationship, one of the core pillars of citizen
security policies.
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Chapter 6 Conclusion and Recommendations
Due to a paradigm shift from repressive to preventive public security policies, the national
government of El Salvador facilitated a gang truce with the aim to reduce violence and
enhance public security. Initially, due to a drop of homicides, the gang truce was lauded
above all internationally, and considered an exemplary strategy to end gang violence.
However, in a polemic debate that followed and that continues to date, the non-violence
agreement between the gangs has been declared to have failed. In this debate, the
effectiveness of the gang truce is mainly assessed at the national level, based on homicide
rates as the main indicator of violence, on political debates and public opinion. Practical
implementation of the gang truce, however, is taking place at the local level through the
‘violence-free municipalities’ strategy. Therefore I believe it is crucial to add the element of
scale to the debate about the gang truce, shifting the scope from the national to the local
and community level. Yet, this case study of San José del Pino is instrumental to the
problem statement of my research: how has the gang truce affected citizen security in the
community of San José del Pino, and how is this related to the debate about the gang truce
and to public security policies at the local and national level in El Salvador? When analyzing
the gang truce related to public security at the local and national level, I have applied two
core pillars of citizen security, namely the role of the state and active citizenship. In order to
reveal the results of the gang truce at the community level, I have analyzed the gang truce
through the theoretical concepts of violence and fear, the social and economic dimensions
of citizen security, and social capital.
Within the paradigm of citizen security, there is a strong focus on the responsible
state to develop responsive and legitimate public policies and to promote citizen safety and
wellbeing. Yet, when analyzing the role of the state with respect to the gang truce as a
strategy to enhance citizen security, it is crucial to distinguish between the role of the state
at the national and at the local level. In my research I have shown that the national
government never assumed political ownership with respect to the gang truce but instead
emphasized a merely facilitating role. Public security policies, however, cannot be built on
practical governmental commitment, but should be based on political commitment as a
primary condition for policy development. As a result, there was a lack of strategy that
seriously hampered the implementation of the gang truce due to financial, political, legal,
98
and technical constraints. These constraints negatively influenced programs and policies
based on violence prevention at the local and community level. Moreover, this lack of
political ownership of the national state generated a dichotomy at the level of the local state
with respect to ownership towards the ‘violence-free municipality’ strategy. In the case of
Santa Tecla, the municipality emphasizes a practical role based on its ‘best practice of
prevention policies’, although its involvement in prevention and reintegration programs
within the ‘violence-free municipality’ strategy could certainly be typified as political since
this involvement is clearly based on its public security policies. Municipal security policies
and the gangs’ commitment to pacification coalesce at the community level of San José del
Pino. Formerly, there was a governance void in San José del Pino as the state could not enter
due to gang violence. As a result of the gang truce however, the local government was
enabled to implement programs that could not be implemented before, and the police could
restore its presence. Finally, the case of Santa Tecla shows that prevention policies have to
be implemented bottom-up with the national government being responsible for funding and
capacity. In the case of the ‘violence-free municipality’ strategy, however, the latter was not
implemented correspondingly. The inclusion of gang members in the implementation of
local prevention and reintegration programs is at the core of this lack of national state
responsibility.
A second core pillar of citizen security is active citizenship. When analyzing active
citizenship with respect to the gang truce, a clear distinction should be made between public
opinion and active citizenship at the community level. Public in general rejects the gang
truce and the inclusion of gang members in initiatives to enhance citizen security. To this
respect, public opinion and national government policies are interrelated since a public
demand for immediate solutions based on repression hampers long-term preventive security
policies. At the community level however, the case study of San José del Pino shows that
residents, police, local authorities, and gang members join efforts to enhance security and
improve local livelihood. This active citizenship is based on an inclusionary vision regarding
gangs and their reintegration in the community. Hence, when assessing the effects of the
gang truce at the community level, it can be concluded that the case study of San José del
Pino may be used as a best practice to gradually gain public support for reintegration of gang
members at the social and the labor level. Local and national authorities play a crucial role in
public awareness raising regarding reintegration and inclusion of gang members in broader
99
society. Additionally, citizen security recognizes the fundamental role citizens play in
ensuring their own safety. In the case of San José del Pino this is certainly the case, where
residents and the local community police coordinate efforts to enhance security in the
neighborhood. This means that the citizen rights of the residents of San José del Pino are
activated, not only at the formal level, but at the substantive level, related to social and
political rights, and the subjective level , related to loyalty and belonging, as well.
One of the main public discussions at the national level with respect to the gang
truce, is the fact that extortions still continue. For this reason the gang truce required a shift
of focus from the national to the local level creating political space for alternatives. The case
study of San José del Pino clearly shows the effects of the gang truce on the economic and
social dimensions of citizen security at the community level. Formerly, access to public goods
was seriously restricted and economic livelihood strategies were hampered due to extortion
practices of the gang. An area stigma, additionally, limited access to labor and financial
resources. As a result of the gang truce, however, the gang decided to stop extortion
practices, and socio-economic projects could be started, resulting in an improvement of
economic livelihood at the community level. With respect to violence and victimization, the
case study of San José del Pino clearly shows how community members, gang members, the
local government and the local police base in the community jointly implement programs
and activities to promote security and coexistence at the frontline. The concept of
community policing plays an important role to this respect. On the one hand to restore trust
in the security forces, after many years of repressive policing, and on the other hand to
support efforts for reintegration of gang members in the community. Results in San José del
Pino show that the gang truce created space for a new balance in the community, where the
commitment of gang members to pacification and the inclusionary attitude of residents,
restore social values and social networks. Cognitive social capital is restored resulting in
improved social relationships, and an interesting process of ‘bridging social capital’ building
has started with residents, gang members and police participating in meaningful networks.
As a conclusion, framing of the gang truce at three different scales, shows that
despite the polemic debate at the national level, the gang truce positively affected the social
and economic dimensions of citizen security at the community level. The case study of San
José del Pino is a clear example how the divide between the state and society on citizen
security can be bridged. To this extent, it can be concluded that the gang truce at the
100
community level of San José del Pino has succeeded to enhance security and improve local
livelihood. However, there are various obstacles that have a negative impact on the
reintegration efforts and enhancement of coexistence. There is a lack of balance between
repressive and preventive police policing, a lack of sustainable funding for reintegration and
economic livelihood strategies, interference in the pacification process of political processes
such as elections, and a general public opinion that is reluctant to any inclusionary process.
All these obstacles are related to the lack of political ownership of the national government
with respect to the gang truce. However, it is pertinent to mention that the government of
Mauricio Funes, after years of iron fist policies of former administrations, succeeded to
launch an alternative approach to end gang violence. Of additional importance however, is
the fact that the gang truce was established in a contested playing field, submitted to the
political and economic interests of various state- and non-state actors. First, political
ownership is contested at the national and the local level. Second, the gang truce has been
used for electoral and thus political purposes. Third, there is a deliberately use of violence by
certain groups in society to strengthen their position. Forth, the gang truce is in violation
with current national legislation. Fifth, public opinion is still in favor of repressive policies,
and finally, international financial support to the gang truce is contested as well.
However, despite the continuing high levels of violence, there are currently various
specific conditions that could be beneficial for a pacification process to be enforced. First,
the focus of the FMLN government, as a continuation of previous efforts of the Funes
administration, on preventive security policies. Second, the national enrollment of
community policing. Third, the positive results of a pacification process at the community
level in San José del Pino that could be used as best practice. And finally, the commitment
expressed by the gang leadership towards the new government to the initial peace
agreement that was brokered in 2012 and facilitated by the former national government.
Municipal elections in March 2015 could offer an additional opportunity to re-launch,
reactivate or reinforce efforts related to the ‘violent-free municipality’ strategy. As the gang
truce has shown, public security policies cannot be built on practical governmental
commitment, but should be based on political commitment as a primary condition for policy
development. The pacification process in San José del Pino shows how political commitment
of all actors involved can bridge democratic deficits and restore and repair an inclusive state-
citizen relationship.
101
Recommendations
Despite the fact that this research only compasses a limited period of time and resources
available, I would like to use the results of my research to suggest a few policy
recommendations to the local and national authorities of El Salvador.
First, with the paradigm shift from repressive to preventive security policies, results
and effects of these policies should be assessed on the long term. The gang truce, as can be
concluded, has not been assessed properly to this respect. It is the primary responsibility of
the national and local government to inform the public about the results of its policies, but it
is of paramount additional importance to indicate the proper terms on which policies should
be assessed. A call for immediate solutions corresponds with repressive policies, not with
preventive policies, hence public awareness raising to this respect is pivotal for preventive
policies to succeed.
Second, the gang truce that was brokered in March 2012, was facilitated by the
national government in a practical sense, however, no sustainable support was provided due
to the contested playing field in which the gang truce was developed. Nevertheless, the case
study of San José del Pino shows that valuable initiatives have started as a result of the gang
truce at the local level. These initiatives are of important relevancy for the government, both
at the local and the national level, to assess public security policies and to learn the results of
reinforced state-citizen relationships based on an inclusionary model. These examples are
highly relevant to be monitored, systematized and supported.
Third, with respect to current policing models, the case of San José del Pino shows
that in certain specific circumstances a lack of balance between repressive and preventive
policing may have a negative impact on the model of community policing. Interaction plays a
significant role within the principals of community policing, since both police and community
should cooperate to combat violence and strengthen citizen security. Repressive policing
may cause serious harm to carefully built trust between the police and the community. This
may generate negative implications at the individual level of residents causing fear and
distrust, at the community level disturbing the social fabric, as well as negative implications
for the policing activities and strategies at the community level.
102
Forth, in addition to the previous recommendation, it is of paramount importance
that community police bases obtain a permanent status as soon as a sustainable relationship
with the community is established. Incursive police operations, that are not related to the
community police base, have a negative impact on the trust of residents towards the police.
People start to feel afraid expressing themselves due to fear of possible repercussions of
non-state violent actors in the community. Sustained support and permanency of the
community police towards the residents is of paramount importance.
103
Epilogue
In August, the gang leadership of the main gangs in El Salvador submitted a statement
launching a new phase of the gang truce in which they reconfirm their commitment to the
content of the gang truce established in March 2012 and to the ‘violence-free municipalities’
strategy.1 They call the new government to support and facilitate the pacification process,
asking a responsible attitude from the media and political parties towards the topic of
violence, and asking detractors of the process to give peace a chance. With respect to the
police, they ask not to be criminalized for being youth, and they refer explicitly to the
community police base in San José del Pino as an ‘agent of change and support to the
community’ thus gaining trust of the community.
In September, the national government of Sanchez Cerén launched the National Council for
Citizen Security and Coexistence, conformed of the government, business sector, churches,
NGOs, municipalities, political parties, and media outlets.2 Main goal of the National Council
is to develop security policies to fight the high levels of crime, violence and insecurity. The
Attorney General Martínez, former opponent to the gang truce, as well as the UNDP and the
OAS also participate in the National Council. The issue to include the gangs in the dialogue
about security policies is not being supported by members of the Council, although initially
some members, like the UNDP, had expressed a positive stance towards inclusion of the
gangs in this national dialogue on security issues.3 Various informants that contributed to my
research, such as Mauricio Navas and Hato Hasbún, participate in this Council. Raúl Mijango,
former mediator in the gang truce, was not invited.
In October, Ricardo was arrested in a repressive police operation together with another gang
leader and several gang members from San José del Pino on accusation of extortion. The
local police chief and officials of the community police base in San José del Pino were not
involved. Community members believe that there are political motives behind this arrest,
and that unknown forces try to sabotage the pacification process. While the young gang
members were released shortly after the arrest, Ricardo and the other gang leader remain in
custody at least for four months. Both community members and representatives of NGOs
working in the reintegration and pacification programs in San José del Pino support the legal
process of both gang leaders. As a result of the arrests, the pacification process has
104
experienced serious setbacks. Community members explain that anxiety has returned, that
people are negatively affected by the repressive police operation, and that the
organizational level of the community, that was established successfully as a result of the
pacification process, has diminished. Shortly after the arrest, fear for reprisals from the gang
towards the community or police present in San José del Pino, existed, but the local police
chief learned that the local gang leadership would remain faithful to the pacification process.
The municipality of Santa Tecla continues contributing to the pacification process in San José
del Pino and San Rafael. The community police base probably will be formalized at short
term.
105
Summary
Iron fist policies based on repression did not succeed to end gang violence and to improve
citizen security in El Salvador that in 2011 ranked second on the global index of homicide
rates. As a result of a paradigm shift from repressive to preventive public security policies, a
gang truce was brokered in March 2012 facilitated by the national government of Mauricio
Funes, elected president for the FMLN in 2009. Lowering the homicide rate in El Salvador has
been the main purpose for the Funes administration to facilitate the gang truce between
the two main gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18. However, in a polemic debate that
followed and that continues to date, the non-violence agreement between the gangs has
been declared to have failed, despite the promising perspectives, such as a significant
reduction of the homicide rate, shortly after the truce had been brokered. In this debate, the
effectiveness of the gang truce is mainly being assessed at the national level, based on
homicide rates as the main indicator of violence, political debates and public opinion.
However, when assessing the gang truce as a strategy to enhance citizen security based on
prevention of violence, its effectiveness should be measured at the long term and at the
local level. For this reason, the element of scale is a relevant dimension that should be
considered in the debate about the gang truce.
First, it is crucial to distinguish between the role of the state at the national and at
the local level. The national government of El Salvador, despite its facilitating role, never
openly supported the gang truce whereas local governments have committed themselves to
the implementation of the second phase of the gang truce through the ’violence-free
municipality’ strategy. Second, the inclusion of gang members in the dialogue about
pacification is heavily debated. At the national level, there is a strong tendency to exclude
gang members due to legal constraints, and to political and public opposition. At the local
level, however, gang members are included in a political and public dialogue about
pacification. Third, the issue of scale is also relevant with respect to the role of citizens in
enhancing citizen security. Public opinion in general rejects the gang truce and the inclusion
of gang members in initiatives to enhance citizen security. At the community level, however,
different stakeholders including gang members jointly implement programs to promote
security and coexistence. These are clear examples of active citizenship, one of the core
pillars of citizen security. Hence, the results of violence reduction and the improvement of
106
the social and economic dimensions of citizen security at the community level should be
included in the national debate about the gang truce.
Results in the community of San José del Pino, a suburb of Santa Tecla, for example,
show that the ‘truce dividend’ is felt by those who suffered most from gang violence. Since
the gang truce, the local authorities succeeded to gain renewed entrance to the community
that had turned into a closed shelter due to gang violence. A community police base was
established in 2012 focused on preventive policing. Moreover, a pacification process started
in 2013 based on the ‘Santa Tecla Violence-Free Municipality’ strategy in which residents,
police, local authorities, and gang members join efforts to enhance security and improve
local livelihood. As a result, delinquency rates have dropped, fear has diminished, access to
public goods is restored, economic livelihood is being improved, and the social fabric of the
community is being strengthened as well.
However, these efforts to enhance citizen security at the community level are
seriously being hampered. Some of the main obstacles are a lack of balance between
repressive and preventive policing, a lack of a proper legal framework, a lack of sustainable
funding, interference in the pacification process of political interests related to elections,
and public opinion that is reluctant to any inclusionary process of pacification. Additionally,
opponent non-state armed actors pose a serious threat to the pacification process at the
community level and to local stakeholders actively involved. These obstacles are a direct
result of a lack of strategy of the national government to concretize the shift from repressive
to preventive security policies with the gang truce as a policy instrument. Concretely, there
was no communication strategy to inform public opinion, there was no funding strategy to
sustainably support local programs that had started as a result of the gang truce, there was
no strategy to promote legal reform to enable local interventions to enhance the truce
dividend on the frontline, and there was no strategy to prevent politicization of the
pacification process.
This lack of strategies is related to the fact that the gang truce was established in a
contested playing field. First, political ownership of the ‘violent-free municipalities’ strategy
is contested at the national and the local level. Second, the gang truce has been used for
electoral and thus political purposes. Third, there is a deliberately use of violence by certain
groups in society to strengthen their position. Forth, the gang truce is in violation with
current national legislation. Fifth, public opinion is still in favor of repressive policies, and
107
finally, international – financial- support to the gang truce is contested as well.
To conclude, the gang truce is being considered to have failed; however, its
effectiveness should be assessed at the community level where joint efforts of local state
and non-state actors, including gang members, show positive results in enhancing the social
and economic dimensions of citizen security. Moreover, the effects of the gang truce should
be assessed at the long term since its local implementation is based on preventive policies.
National and local governments should play an active role in promoting a paradigm shift in
public opinion from a call for immediate solutions based on repressive policies to a longer
term assessment of preventive policies. Positive results of violence reduction and
enhancement of citizen security at the community level can be instrumental in this public
awareness raising. Furthermore, public security policies cannot be built on practical
governmental commitment, as in the case of the gang truce, but should be based on political
commitment as a primary condition for policy development. Finally, transparency and
political ownership play a pivotal role in a process to bridge democratic deficits and restore
and repair the state-citizen relationship.
108
109
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Footnotes
Chapter 2 1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),‘Global Study on Homicide 2013: Trends, Contexts, Data’, Vienna, March 2014,p.12 2 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB),’Citizen Security – Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence’, Discussion Paper, September 2012, p.1 3 Bobea, ‘Organized Violence, Disorganized State’, in ‘Violent Democracies in Latin America’, ed. Arias and Goldstein, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2010, p.161 4 Robert Brenneman, ‘Homies and Hermanos, God and Gangs in Central America’, Oxford University Press, New
York, 2012, p.24 5 Concha-Eastman, ‘Urban Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Dimensions, Explanations, Actions’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p.44 6 Moser, ‘Urban Violence and Insecurity: an Introductory Roadmap’, Environment and Urbanization Brief -10, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, October 2004, p.2 7 Ibid. 8 Pedraza, Miller and Cavallaro, ‘No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador’, International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), Human Rights Program Harvard Law School, 2007, p.50 9 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),‘Global Study on Homicide 2013: Trends, Contexts, Data’, Vienna, March 2014,p.15 10 Ibid. 11 http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2012/08/30/explaining-high-murder-rates-in-latin-america-its-not-drugs accessed 1 April 2014 12 Savenije and Van der Borgh, ‘Youth Gangs, Social Exclusion and the Transformation of Violence in El Salvador’, in ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.166 13 Savenije, ‘Maras y Barras: Pandillas y Violencia Juvenil en los Barrios Marginales de Centroamérica, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), San Salvador, 2009, p.158 14 Koonings and Kruijt, ’Societies of Fear: The Legacy of Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America’, Zed Books, New York 15 Balán, ‘Introduction’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p.5 16 Cárdia, ‘The Impact of Exposure to Violence in São Paulo: Accepting Violence or Continuing Horror?’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p. 163 17 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.179 18 Mo Hume, ‘The Politics of Violence: Gender, Conflict and Community in El Salvador’, Society for Latin
American Studies, 2009, p.93 19 Concha-Eastman,’ ‘Urban Violence in Latin America and the Carribean: Dimensions, Explanations, Actions’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p.49 20 Cárdia, ‘The Impact of Exposure to Violence in São Paulo: Accepting Violence or Continuing Horror?’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p. 163 21 Putnam,‘Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community’, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000 22 Ibid 23 Presidents Francisco Flores (1999-2004) and Tony Saca (2004-2009), both from the National Republican Alliance party (ARENA), introduced a zero tolerance approach to gang violence in their mano dura (‘iron fist’) and super mano dura policies.
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24 Jutersonke, Muggah, and Rodgers, ‘Gangs and Violence Reduction in Central America’, Security Dialogue Vol.40, nos 4-5, SAGE Publications, October 2009, p.10 25 Hume, ‘Mano Dura: El Salvador Responds to Gangs’, Development in Practice 17(6): 739-751, in Jutersonke, Muggah, and Rodgers, ‘Gangs and Violence Reduction in Central America’, Security Dialogue Vol.40, nos 4-5, SAGE Publications, October 2009, p.10 26 Ibid. 27 Concha-Eastman, ‘Urban Violence in Latin America and the Carribean: Dimensions, Explanations, Actions’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p.44 28 Igarapé Institute, ‘Changes in the Neighborhood: Reviewing Citizen Security Cooperation in Latin America’, Strategic Paper 7, Rio de Janeiro, March 14, p.6. 29 Silva, ‘Epilogue: violence and the quest for order in contemporary Latin America’, in ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.188 30 ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.2 31 Arias, ‘Violent Democracies in Latin America’, ed. Arias and Goldstein, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2010, p.263 32 Ibid, p. 264 33 UNDP, ‘Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America’, Nov. 2013, p.14 34 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.186 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ungar, ’Policing youth in Latin America’, in ‘Youth Violence in Latin America: Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective’, ed. Jones and Rodgers, Studies of the Americas, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, p.214 40 Ibid, p.215 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid.
Chapter 3 1 Igarapé Institute, ‘Changes in the Neighborhood: Reviewing Citizen Security Cooperation in Latin America’, Strategic Paper 7, Rio de Janeiro, March 14, p.47. Examples of new forms of partnership at the city level are the so-called Bogota Manifiesto, the Cities Alliance for Citizen Security, the Latin American Forum for Urban Security and Democracy (FLASUD), and the Global Network on Safer Cities. 2 Ibid. 3 Norwegian Peace building Resource Centre (NOREF), ‘Mapping citizen security interventions in Latin America: reviewing the evidence’, October 2013, p.7. 4 Ibid. 5 Inter-American Development Bank, ‘Citizen Security: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence’, September 2012, p.13. 6 UNDP, ‘Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America’, Summary Regional Human Development Report 2013-2014, November 2013, p.14 7 Ibid. 8 Norwegian Peace building Resource Centre (NOREF), ‘Mapping citizen security interventions in Latin America: reviewing the evidence’, October 2013, p.7. 9 Foro de Consulta Ciudadana Enero – Mayo de 2014, Policia Nacional Civil, Delegación La Libertad Centro,
Subdelegación Santa Tecla, Santa Tecla, 15 June 2014 10 http://www.santatecladigital.gob.sv, accessed 20 October 2014. 11 ‘Santa Tecla: Experiencias Exitosas en Materia de Convivencia y Seguridad Ciudadana’, Consultores para el Desarrollo Integral S.A. de C.V., 2010, p.5 12 http://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/cities , accessed 20 October 2014.
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13 Ibid. 14 http://www.santatecladigital.gob.sv, accessed 20 October 2014. Ortíz was Mayor of Santa Tecla from 2000 till October 2013. In March 2014 Ortíz was elected Vice-President of the Republic of El Salvador. 15 Iglesias, Carlos B., ‘What have we accomplished? Public Policies to Address the Increase in Violent Crime in
Latin America’, Executive Summary, Woodrow Wilson Center, Latin American Program, Washington, November 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/QueHemosHecho_ExecSummary_English.pdf, accessed 20 October 2014. 16 Interview with Isabel Calderon, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. Santa Tecla suffered two earthquakes, in January and February 2001 respectively. 17 http://www.santatecladigital.gob.sv/body/doc/document/POLITICADESEGURIDADOKbaja.pdf , accessed 20 October 2014. 18 The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a country to be facing an epidemic of violence when the homicide rate exceeds 10 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. 19 Interview with Eduardo de la O, Santa Tecla, 13 May 2014. Oscar Ortiz was Mayor of Santa Tecla for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) party. 20 Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), ‘Tackling Urban Violence in Latin America: Reversing Exclusion through Smart Policing and Social Investment’, Washington, June 2011, p.14. 21 http://www.americasquarterly-digital.org/americasquarterly/winter_2014?pg=115#pg115 , accessed 5 November 2014 22 Ibid. 23 The “Interinstitutional Council for the Prevention of Violence” is comprised of 18 members: the mayor of
Santa Tecla, two citizen council members, the Attorney General (FGR), the National Ombudsman (PGR), the Ombudsman for Human Rights (PDDH), the Institute for Legal Medicine (IML), the National Civil Police (PNC), the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), the Body of Municipal Agents of Santa Tecla (CAM), SIBASI-Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance (MSPAS), the Ministry of Education (MINED), the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (ISSS), the Vice Minister of Transportation (VMT), the Salvadoran Red Cross, the Association of Tecleños and Tecleñas of Heart and 3 citizens. Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), ‘Tackling Urban Violence in Latin America: Reversing Exclusion through Smart Policing and Social Investment’, Washington, June 2011, p.19. 24 http://www.santatecladigital.gob.sv, accessed 20 October 2014. 25 Ibid. 26 Key objective of situational prevention is reducing opportunities for criminal and violent behavior stemming from environmental factors. ‘Citizen Security: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence’, Inter-American Development Bank, Institutions for Development, Discussion Paper, September 2012, p.2 27 Activities to improve ‘coexistence’ among citizens (convivencia cuidadana) seek to increase voluntary compliance with the law based on cultural and moral motivations. ‘Citizen Security: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence’, Inter-American Development Bank, Institutions for Development, Discussion Paper, September 2012, p.7. 28 Hot spots can be defined as places and situations in which very high volumes of moderately harmful crimes are concentrated. ‘Citizen Security: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence’, Inter-American Development Bank, Institutions for Development, Discussion Paper, September 2012, p.27 29Every three years there are municipal elections. 30 Presidents Francisco Flores (1999-2004) and Tony Saca (2004-2009), both from the National Republican Alliance party (ARENA), introduced a zero tolerance approach to gang violence in their mano dura (‘iron fist’) and super mano dura policies. 31See the report of Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP-UCA), ‘La Situación de la Seguridad y la Justicia 2009-2014: entre expectativas de cambio, mano dura militar y treguas pandilleras’, September 2014 32 Iglesias, Carlos B., ‘What have we accomplished? Public Policies to Address the Increase in Violent Crime in Latin America’, Executive Summary, Woodrow Wilson Center, Latin American Program, Washington, November 2012, p. 17, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/QueHemosHecho_ExecSummary_English.pdf, accessed 20 October 2014. 33 Ibid, p.17 34 Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), ‘Tackling Urban Violence in Latin America: Reversing Exclusion through Smart Policing and Social Investment’, Washington, June 2011, p.15 35 According to the Woodrow Wilson Center, ‘the dynamic of political competition between parties in power and the opposition, above all (but not exclusively) in contexts of deep polarization where consensus is elusive, has become an enormous obstacle to defining consistent policies that can be sustained over time’. Iglesias,
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Carlos B., ‘What have we accomplished? Public Policies to Address the Increase in Violent Crime in Latin America’, Executive Summary, Woodrow Wilson Center, Latin American Program, Washington, November 2012, p. 27, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/QueHemosHecho_ExecSummary_English.pdf, accessed 20 October 2014. 36 See for example http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2014/04/16/detallaran-integracion-de-concejos-plurales-2015 , accessed 5 November 2014, and http://www.contrapunto.com.sv/cpnacionales/nacionales/politica/como-funcionaran-los-concejos-plurales, accessed 5 November 2014. 37 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.10. Percentages of violence that correspond to gangs, vary a lot and are a constantly disputed variable in the public debate about gang violence and public security policies. According to Mijango, at least 70% of the violence in El Salvador can be attributed to gangs, and the remaining 30% can be subdivided to common violence, organized crime, drug trafficking, and state violence. Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.17. 38 ‘Politica Municipal de Convivencia y Seguridad Ciudadana de Santa Tecla’, Municipality of Santa Tecla, 2011, p.8. Homicides dropped from 66.44 homicides per 100.000 inhabitants in 2005 to 20.5 per 100.000 inhabitants in 2010. The national homicide rate in 2010 was 70.0 homicides per 100.000 inhabitants. 39 Interview with Miguel Angel Delgado Juarez, Chief of Operations of the National Civil Police of the La Libertad Center Delegation, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. 40 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. For safety reasons, all names of residents of San José del Pino, including gang members and gang leaders, who have contributed to my research, have been changed. Real names are known by the author. Ciudad Merliot belongs to the Municipality of Santa Tecla. 41 This information is based on an interview with a source that for safety reasons remains anonymous. 42 I have not been able to verify the extrajudicial killing of Barrio 18 members in Santa Tecla, as referred to by this particular source. The archive of the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of San Salvador (‘Tutela Legal’) was not accesible due to the fact that its office was abruptly closed on 30 September 2013, see: http://www.wola.org/highlight/contrapunto_article_archbishop_closed_tutela_legal_to_please_the_wealthy, accessed 26 October 2014. Relevant report on extrajudicial killings in El Salvador, is ‘Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales de Jovenes Estigmatizados en Centroamérica: Estudio de Situación de Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras 2009’, Programa de Seguridad Juvenil, Instituto de Estudios Comparados en Ciencias Penales de Guatemala, y Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho, Guatemala, July 2011. See also reports mentioned in footnote 33 and 34. 43 ‘Youth Gangs in Central America: Issues in Human Rights, Effective Policing, and Prevention’, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Washington, November 2006, p.18 44 ‘No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador’, International Human Rights Clinic
(IHRC), Human Rights Program Harvard Law School, 2007, p.16 http://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/downloadable/Citizen%20Security/past/Harvard_Gangs_NoPlaceToHide.pdf 45 Ibid. 46 http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/5566-gang-violence-el-salvador-sparked-death-squad-revival?highlight=WyJzb21icmEiLCJuZWdyYSIsIm5lZ3JhJyIsInNvbWJyYSBuZWdyYSJd , accessed 26 of October 2014 47 Ibid. See also http://www.elsalvador.com/mediacenter/play_video.aspx?idr=15232 , accessed 6 November 2014. 48 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.14 49 Umaña, Arévalo de León, and Táger, ‘El Salvador, Negotiating with Gangs’, ‘Legitimacy and Peace Processes:
from coercion to consent’, Conciliation Resources, 2014, http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/el-salvador-negotiating-gangs, accessed 27 October 2014, p.98 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Interview with Raúl Mijango, San Salvador, 30 July 2014 53 The Fundación Humanitaria was established in January 2013 ‘to seek support for the truce within civil society and encourage the direct involvement of the private sector and international actors in violence prevention projects’. Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.14
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54 ‘Follow-up on the regional strategy to promote hemispheric cooperation in dealing with criminal gangs’, Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, March 2013 https://www.google.nl/search?q=oas+follow+up+on+the+regional+strategy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:nl:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=t3ZPVL20EdOXhQex2IGoAQ, accessed 27 October 2014. 55 Ibid. 56 Interview through Skype with Adam Blackwell, San Salvador, 7 August 2014 57 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.82. Toronto, Canada, is an example of a sanctuary city, see http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2014/06/10/toronto_forges_ahead_with_sanctuary_city_plan.html, accessed 5 November 2014 58 http://www.lapagina.com.sv/nacionales/76965/2013/01/24/Santa-Tecla-es-declarado-municipio-libre-de-violencia , accessed 28 October 2014. 59 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. For safety reasons, all names of residents of San José del Pino, including gang members and gang leaders, who have contributed to my research, have been changed. Real names are known by the author. 60 ‘Follow-up on the regional strategy to promote hemispheric cooperation in dealing with criminal gangs’, Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, March 2013 https://www.google.nl/search?q=oas+follow+up+on+the+regional+strategy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:nl:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=t3ZPVL20EdOXhQex2IGoAQ, accessed 27 October 2014. 61 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.83 62 Interview with Isabel Calderon, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. 63 ‘Memoria de Labores 2013’, Municipality of Santa Tecla, 2014, p.26. The Coexistence and Security Department invested 800,000 dollar within the concept of ‘Violence-Free Municipalities’. It is not specified in the annual report whether these sources originate from the local government, national government and/or international donor organizations. 64 Interview with Isabel Calderon, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. 65 Interview with Raúl Mijango, San Salvador, 30 July 2014. 66 Interview with Ana Glenda Tager, San Salvador, 30 July 2014. 67 Interview with Francisco Valencia, San Salvador, 20 May 2014. 68 Interview with Edgardo Amaya (on personal title), San Salvador, 19 May 2014. 69 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.14 70 Interview with Francisco Valencia, San Salvador, 20 May 2014. 71 Ibid. 72 Interview with Edgardo Amaya (on personal title), San Salvador, 19 May 2014. 73 This information is based on an interview with a source that for safety reasons remains anonymous. 74 Interview with Isabel Calderon, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. 75 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.5 76 Interview through Skype with Adam Blackwell, San Salvador, 7 August 2014 77 Interview with Isabel Calderon, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. 78 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.5 79 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.15 80 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.5. See also http://www.democracyinamericas.org/en-espanol/el-salvador-informe-mensual-julio-del-2013/ accessed 30 October 2014 81 Interview with Miguel Angel Delgado Juarez, Chief of Operations of the National Civil Police of the La Libertad Center Delegation, Santa Tecla, 29 May 2014. 82 Interview with Oscar Ibarra, Santa Tecla, 13 May 2014. 83 Linda Garrett, ‘The First year: A Chronology of the Gang Truce and Peace Process in El Salvador’, Centre for Democracy in the Americas, http://www.democracyinamericas.org/ , accessed 19 October 2014. 84 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.83 85 ‘Memoria de Labores 2013’, Municipality of Santa Tecla, 2014, p.26. The Coexistence and Security Department invested 800,000 dollar within the concept of ‘Violence-Free Municipalities’. It is not specified in
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the annual report whether these sources originate from the local government, national government and/or international donor organizations. 86 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.14 87 Interview with Mauricio Navas Guzman, San Salvador, 16 May 2014 88 Interview with Jeannette Aguilar, San Salvador, 27 June 2014.
Chapter 4 1 UNDP, ‘Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America’, Summary Regional Human Development Report 2013-2014, November 2013, p.14 2 Ibid, p.16 3 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. For safety reasons, all names of residents of San José del Pino, including gang members and gang leaders, who have contributed to my research, have been changed or otherwise remain anonymous. Real names are known by the author. 4 Interpeace, ‘Santa Tecla: a fertile ground to reduce violence’, Guatemala, 2014, p.6. 5 Mo Hume, ‘The Politics of Violence: Gender, Conflict and Community in El Salvador’, Society for Latin American Studies, 2009, p.5 6 Jenny Pearce, ‘From Civil War to ‘Civil Society’: Has the End of the Cold War Brought Peace to Central America?’, International Affairs 74 (3) p.589. http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/International%20Affairs/Blanket%20File%20Import/inta036.pdf 7 Interpeace, ‘Santa Tecla: a fertile ground to reduce violence’, Guatemala, 2014, p.8. 8 Information based on an interview with the local police chief of the community police base in San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 6 June 2014. 9 Interpeace, ‘Santa Tecla: a fertile ground to reduce violence’, Guatemala, 2014, p.7 10 Interview with a community member of San Rafael. Asociación de Desarrollo Comunitario (Adesco) is a neighborhood governing council. Both in San José del Pino and San Rafael, an Adseco was established in the beginning of 2013, in close coordination with the municipality. Formal representation of the communities was required for the implementation of development projects that started in the same year. 11 Interview with an officer of the National Civil Police who formerly lived in San José del Pino. For safety reasons, he asked to remain anonymous. 12 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. 13 Robert Brenneman, ‘Homies and Hermanos, God and Gangs in Central America’, Oxford University Press, New York, 2012, p.27. 14 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. A machete is a large heavy knife used especially in Latin-American countries in cutting sugarcane and clearing
underbrush, and as a weapon. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/machete 15 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, The Oslo Forum Papers, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.8 16 Savenije and Van der Borgh, ‘Youth Gangs, Social Exclusion and the Transformation of Violence in El Salvador’, in ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.159 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 http://worldjusticeproject.org/factors/order-and-security , accessed 14 November 2014. El Salvador ranks 64 out of 99 countries globally assessed by the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2014. The World Justice Project Rule of Law measures how the rule of law is experienced in everyday life in 99 countries around the globe, based on over 100,000 household and 2,400 expert surveys worldwide. Adherence to the rule of law is assessed using 47 indicators organized around eight themes: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, and criminal justice.
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21 Official police document ‘Exposición de trabajo comunitario de la colonia San José del Pino’, National Civil Police, San José del Pino, 2013 22 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. For safety reasons, all names of residents of San José del Pino, including gang members and gang leaders, who have contributed to my research, have been changed or otherwise remain anonymous. Real names are known by the author. 23 Interview with an officer of the National Civil Police who formerly lived in San José del Pino. For safety reasons, he asked to remain anonymous. 24 Interpeace, ‘Santa Tecla: a fertile ground to reduce violence’, Guatemala, 2014, p.9. 25 Information based on an interview with the local police chief of the community police base in San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 6 June 2014. Despite structural absence of the Barrio 18 in Santa Tecla, as explained in Chapter 3, I heard various stories, both from ordinary citizens as well as from the gang leadership of the Mara Salvatrucha, of provocative presence or actions supposedly from the Barrio 18 in San José del Pino and San Rafael. 26 Ibid. A casa comunal is a community centre with a public service for the neighborhood. 27 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. 28 The FMLN government of President Sanchez Ceren, that came to power as a result of elections in March 2014 and was sworn on 1 June 2014, promotes community policing as one of its main public security pillars. As of August 2014, community policing was launched nationally. See http://www.presidencia.gob.sv/la-policia-comunitaria-comienza-su-expansion-a-la-zona-sur-de-san-salvador/, accessed 14 November 2014. For an overview of experiences with community policing in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, see the evaluation report published in 2014 by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) http://ciprevica.org/download/documentos_de_interés/ Sistematización_buenas experiencias_PC(8).pdf , accessed 19 November 2014 29 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. 30 Mark Ungar, ‘Policing Democracy: Overcoming Obstacles to Citizen Security in Latin America’, Woodrow Wilosn Center Press, Washington D.C, 2011 31 In an informal conversation, the local police chief explains to me how the policy of community policing is being operationalized: after a first repressive action to take control over the territory, an important next step is to convince the citizens of the working policies of the community police; then a situational-, social-, and socio-communitary needs assessment is conducted in close coordination with all sectors of the community, to be translated consequently in programs with different institutions; and finally, evaluations and accountability are important aspects of the community policing policy as well. Regarding the latter, I have shown in Chapter 3 how accountability is being implemented in specific meetings between police officials and representatives of the community. Finally, as the police chief emphasized, ‘this is how community policing works, but you have to know how to apply it’. 32 Interview with the local police chief of the community police base in San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 6 June 2014. 33 United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 34 Interview with a pastor in San José del Pino, 6 June 2014. 35 Official police document: ‘Tabla de Incidencia Delictiva y Acciones Tomadas, Diagnostico Final de la Colonia San José del Pino y Comunidad San Rafael’, Policia Nacional Civil, Subdelegación Santa Tecla, May 2013. 36 Interpeace, ‘Santa Tecla: a fertile ground to reduce violence’, Guatemala, 2014, p.11 37http://www.sv.undp.org/content/el_salvador/es/home/operations/projects/democratic_governance/insercion-socieconomica-de-jovenes/, accessed 16 November 2014. See also
http://crs.org/countries/el-salvador, accessed 16 November 2014. CRS promotes peace building in El
Salvador through its youth violence prevention programs. CRS and their local partners are helping marginalized youth more positively participate in civic and economic life in El Salvador through skill-building workshops and community service programs, which seek to build trust and reconciliation between youth and their communities. 38 ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.2 39 Interpeace, ‘Santa Tecla: a fertile ground to reduce violence’, Guatemala, 2014, p.7. 40 Interview with the sub-director of the public school in San José del Pino, 10 June 2014. According to the National Civil Police in July 2014, four teachers had died in 2014 due to gang violence. See: http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2014/07/27/docentes-sin-proteccion-ante-acoso-de-pandilleros, accessed 21 November 2014.
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41 Interview with Sofia, a victim of gang violence in San José del Pino, June 2014. For safety reasons, all names of residents of San José del Pino, including gang members and gang leaders, who have contributed to my research, have been changed or otherwise remain anonymous. Real names are known by the author. Café listo is instant coffee. 42 The source of this information is known by the author. 43 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.6 44 Lucía Dammert, ‘Fear and Crime in Latin America: Redefining State-Society Relations’, Routledge, New York, 2012, p.36 45 Ibid. 46 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. 47 Ibid. 48 Savenije and Van der Borgh, ‘Youth Gangs, Social Exclusion and the Transformation of Violence in El Salvador’, in ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.169 49 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.179 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. Policia comunitaria is community police. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Savenije and Van der Borgh, ‘Youth Gangs, Social Exclusion and the Transformation of Violence in El Salvador’, in ‘Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America’, ed. Koonings and Kruijt, London, Zed Books, 2004, p.169 58 Ana María Sanjuán, ‘Democracy, Citizenship, and Violence in Venezuela’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p. 89 59 Moser and McIlwaine refer to ‘area stigma’ in the case of communities that are invariably associated with crime, organized violence and drug consumption. Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.163 60 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. 61 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004,p.17 62 Berkman, ‘Social Exclusion and Violence in Latin America and the Carribean’, Working Paper 613, Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington D.C, 2007 63 Interview with the sub-director of the public school in San José del Pino, 10 June 2014 64 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Concha-Eastman, ‘Urban Violence in Latin America and the Carribean: Dimensions, Explanations, Actions’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p.49 68 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.156 69 Bain, K. and Hicks, N., ‘Building social capital and reaching out to excluded groups: The challenge of partnerships’, Paper presented at CELAM meeting on The Struggle Against Poverty Towards the Turn of the Millenium, Washington D.C, 1998 70 As also referred to by Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.160 71 Mo Hume, ‘The Politics of Violence: Gender, Conflict and Community in El Salvador’, Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex, 2009, p.93 72 As also referred to by Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.162 73 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. 74 Micolta, ‘Illicit interest groups, social capital and conflict: a study of the FARC’, in ‘Social Capital and Peace-Building: Creating and resolving conflict with trust and social networks’, ed. Cox, Routledge, Oxon, 2009, p.76
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75 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.163 76 Cárdia, ‘The Impact of Exposure to Violence in São Paulo: Accepting Violence or Continuing Horror?’, in ‘Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America’, ed. Rotker, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2002, p. 163 77 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.19 78 Interview with a community member of San José del Pino. 79 Interview with a community member of San Rafael. There is no direct linkage between the gang truce and the release of the gang leader, he officially had accomplished his prison sentence just before the gang truce was established. 80 Interview with the sub-director of the public school in San José del Pino, 10 June 2014 81 Putnam, ‘Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community’, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000 , p.22 82 Interview with a community member of San Rafael. 83 Putnam, ‘Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community’, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000 , p.22 84 Moser and McIlwaine, ‘Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala’, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.156 85 Interview with a female entrepreneur in San José del Pino. Pupusas are a traditional dish from El Salvador. Pupusas are corn tortillas with a filling - usually cheese (pupusas de queso), beans, and/or Salvadoran-style chicharrón (finely ground pork). http://southamericanfood.about.com/od/snacksstreetfood/r/Pupusas-Stuffed-Corn-Tortillas-How-To-Make-Pupusas.htm , accessed 19 November 2014 86 Fieldwork notes of the author. A Carnaval Gastronómico is a culinary festival, in this case organized by the neighborhood committee Cupad to promote coexistence in the community. 87 ‘ver, oir y callar’: see, hear and keep quiet 88 Information based on an interview with the local police chief of the community police base in San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 6 June 2014.
Chapter 5 1 Igarapé Institute, ‘Changes in the Neighborhood: Reviewing Citizen Security Cooperation in Latin America’, Strategic Paper 7, March 14, p.6 2 Ibid, p.4 3 UNDP, ‘Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America’, November 2013, p.V 4 The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a country to be facing an epidemic of violence when the homicide rate exceeds 10 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. 5 Umaña, Arévalo de León, and Táger, ‘El Salvador, Negotiating with Gangs’, ‘Legitimacy and Peace Processes:
from coercion to consent’, Conciliation Resources, 2014, http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/el-salvador-negotiating-gangs, accessed 27 October 2014, p.95 6 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.2. 7 Interview through skype with Adam Blackwell, San Salvador, 7 August 2014 8 Ibid. With maras Blackwell refers to pandillas, gangs. 9 Ibid. 10 Formal document provided by Adam Blackwell, ‘Acuerdo entre la Secretaría General de la Organización de Los Estados Americanos y el Gobierno de la República de El Salvador relativo a la cooperación y el establecimiento de la Misión de Asistencia a la Seguridad’: ‘Apoyar al Gobierno en el desarrollo y ejecucion de propuestas de solucion inmediatas y estructurales, derivadas de sus estrategias y planes de seguridad vinculados al proceso de pacificacion social como consecuencia de la tregua entre pandillas. El apoyo de la SG/OEA tendra la forma de asistencia tecnica y financiera, conforme a los acuerdos especificos que suscriban las partes, los que estaran sujetos a lo dispuesto en el presente Acuerdo’. 11 Ibid.
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12 Washington Offcie on Latin America, ‘One Year into the Gang Truce in El Salvador’, 26 April 2013, http://www.wola.org/commentary/one_year_into_the_gang_truce_in_el_salvador, accessed 22 November 2014 13 Umaña, Arévalo de León, and Táger, ‘El Salvador, Negotiating with Gangs’, ‘Legitimacy and Peace Processes:
from coercion to consent’, Conciliation Resources, 2014, http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/el-salvador-negotiating-gangs, accessed 27 October 2014, p.95. According to this article, extortions were not included in the agreement, but according to Raúl Mijango, as mentioned in his publication, extortions were included in the second phase of the gang truce when the ‘violence-free municipalities’ were established. See Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.83 14 Umaña, Arévalo de León, and Táger, ‘El Salvador, Negotiating with Gangs’, ‘Legitimacy and Peace Processes: from coercion to consent’, Conciliation Resources, 2014, http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/el-salvador-negotiating-gangs, accessed 27 October 2014, p.95. 15 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.104. The Committee was conformed of the Minister of Justice Munguia Payés, the mediators of the gang truce Raúl Mijango and Monsignor Colindres, representatives of the Fundación Humanitaria, and a representative of the OAS, Blackwell or a delegate. 16 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.105 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Insight Crime, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/exit-of-el-salvador-security-minister-puts-gang-truce-at-risk, accessed 23 November 2014. InSight Crime is a foundation dedicated to the study of ‘the principal threat to national and citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean: organized crime’. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 El Faro, http://www.elfaro.net/es/201305/noticias/12204/Director-del-OIE-pasa-a-conducir-el-Ministerio-
de-Seguridad-y-el-de-Migraci%C3%B3n-a-dirigir-la-PNC.htm 24 El Faro, http://www.elfaro.net/es/201405/noticias/15338/, accessed 24 November 2014 25 Center for Democracy in the Americas, ‘The First Year: a Chronology of the Gang Truce and Peace Process In El Salvador’, June 2013, p.4 26 Interview through skype with Adam Blackwell, San Salvador, 7 August 2014 27 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014 28 Pollo Campero is an original Guatemalan chicken restaurant that, spreading across the continent, turned into ‘Latin pride’ www.campero.com 29 Interview with Raúl Mijango, San Salvador, 30 July 2014 30 Ibid. 31 Oscar Martínez, Carlos Martínez, Sergio Arauz and Efren Lemus, ‘Gobierno negoció con pandillas reducción de homicidios’, El Faro, 14 March, 2012 32 Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP-UCA), ‘La Situación de la Seguridad y la Justicia 2009-2014: entre expectativas de cambio, mano dura militar y treguas pandilleras’, September 2014, p. 157 http://www.uca.edu.sv/iudop/wp-content/uploads/libro_la_situaci%C3%B3n_de_la_seguridad.pdf, accessed 28 October 2014 33Ibid, p. 160 34 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014. ARENA is a right-wing political party in El Salvador. 35 Interview with Maria Silvia Guillen, San Salvador, 22 May 2014. Maria Silvia Guillen is director of the Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (FESPAD). http://www.fespad.org.sv/ 36 Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP-UCA), ‘La Situación de la Seguridad y la Justicia 2009-2014: entre expectativas de cambio, mano dura militar y treguas pandilleras’, September 2014, p. 157, footnote 12. 37 Interview with Raúl Mijango, San Salvador, 30 July 2014 38 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013 39 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014 40 Ibid, p.159
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41 http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2014/01/31/padece-extorsion-el-79---de-micro-y-pequenas-empresas, accessed 16 October, 2014. The official currency in El Salvador is American dollars. 42 Field notes 43 Interview with Mauricio Navas Guzman, San Salvador, 16 May 2014. Mauricio Navas Guzman is General Pastor of the Iglesia del Camino. 44 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013,
p.22. According to Raúl Mijango, as mentioned in his publication, extortions were included in the second phase of the gang truce when the ‘violence-free municipalities’ were established. See Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013, p.83 45 Interview with Maria Silvia Guillen, San Salvador, 22 May 2014. 46 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014. See also: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/el-salvador-blocks-cellphones-prisons-attempt-cut-extortion 47 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.9. 48 Steven Dudley, ‘The El Salvador Gang Truce and the Church: What was the Role of the Catholic Church?’, Center for Latina American and Latino Studies, Washington DC, 5 May 2013, p.27 http://www.american.edu/clals/upload/clals_white_paper_series_no-_1_the_el_salvador_gang_truce_and_the_church.pdf, accessed 28 October 2014 49 Ibid. 50 Instituto Universitario de Opinion Pública, ‘Los salvadoreños y salvadoreñas evalúan el cuarto año del gobierno de Mauricio Funes’, Boletín de Prensa, 1, p.4 51 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.3 52 http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/el-salvador-government-responsibility-gang-truce, accessed 16 October, 2014. 53 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.3. 54 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013,p.118 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid, p.119 57 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014. Unfortunately, I have not been able to arrange an interview with Oscar Ortiz, because he was sworn in as Vice-President of the Republic of San Salavador on 1 June 2014. 58 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014 59 Ibid. 60 Raúl Mijango, ‘Tregua entre Pandillas y/o Proceso de Paz en El Salvador’, San Salvador, September 2013,p.118 61 Ibid. 62 Interview with Edgardo Amaya (on personal title), San Salvador, 19 May 2014. 63 UNDP, ‘Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America’, November 2013, p.14 64 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.3. 65 Ibid. 66 Interview with Jeannette Aguilar, San Salvador, 27 June 2014. 67 Interview with Raúl Mijango, San Salvador, 30 July 2014 68 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014 69 Ibid. 70 Interview with Maria Silvia Guillen, San Salvador, 22 May 2014 71 Interview with Mara Salvatrucha gang leader Ricardo from San José del Pino, San José del Pino, 19 June 2014. For safety reasons, all names of residents of San José del Pino, including gang members and gang leaders, who have contributed to my research, have been changed or otherwise remain anonymous. Real names are known by the author. 72 Interview with Mauricio Navas Guzman, San Salvador, 16 May 2014 73 Washington Office on Latin America, ‘One Year into the Gang Truce in El Salvador’, 26 April 2013, http://www.wola.org/commentary/one_year_into_the_gang_truce_in_el_salvador, accessed 22 November 2014 74 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.5.
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75 Ibid. However, as the same report states, the political disagreements and the upcoming elections have hampered the institutionalization of the process and limited the role of the Technical Committee so far. 76 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.10. 77 Interview with Edgardo Amaya (on personal title), San Salvador, 19 May 2014. 78 Ibid. 79 Interview through skype with Adam Blackwell, 7 August, 2014 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Rodríguez, also known as Padre Toño, is former Director of the Servicio Social Pasionista (SSP), a religious organization that works on violence prevention and rehabilitation of gang members. In May 2014, ex-minister of Security and Justice Perdomo appointed Rodríguez as mediator and coordinator of a new pacification process Perdomo started one month before the end of the Funes administration on 1 June 2014. However, Rodríguez was arrested on 29 July 2014 by the Salvadoran authorities accused of smuggling mobile phones to imprisoned gang members, and of being related directly to one of the maximum imprisoned leaders of the Barrio 18. In the beginning of September 2014, Rodríguez returned to his country of origin Spain, after a confession of the formal accusations of the Salvadoran authorities. http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/07/30/actualidad/1406748913_025708.html , accessed 26 October 2014, http://www.contrapunto.com.sv/sociedad/violencia/padre-tono-detenido-por-introduccion-de-ilicitos-a-penales, accessed 26 October 2014, http://es.insightcrime.org/analisis/gobierno-desmantela-tregua-y-homicidios-alcanzan-30-en-un-dia , accessed 26 October 2014, http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2014/09/08/padre-too-regreso-a-espaa-tras-condena, accessed 26 October 2014. 83 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.5. 84 Insight Crime, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/el-salvador-gang-truce-illegal, accessed 16 October, 2014. 85 El Faro, http://www.elfaro.net/es/201303/noticias/11225/, accessed 17 October 2014 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Interview with Hato Hasbún, San Salvador, 12 August 2014 90 This percentage is from 2011, according Insight Crime. Insight Crime, ‘El Salvador’s Gang truce: Positives and Negatives’, 2013, p.15. According Gino Costa, in 2008, El Salvador had the worst overcrowding in Latin America of 132 percent. Gino Costa, ‘Citizen Security in Latin America’, Latin America Working Group, Inter-American Dialogue, Washington DC, February 2012, p.8. 91 Formal document provided by Adam Blackwell, ‘Acuerdo entre la Secretaría General de la Organización de Los Estados Americanos y el Gobierno de la República de El Salvador relativo a la cooperación y el establecimiento de la Misión de Asistencia a la Seguridad’. 92 Umaña, Arévalo de León, and Táger, ‘El Salvador, Negotiating with Gangs’, ‘Legitimacy and Peace Processes: from coercion to consent’, Conciliation Resources, 2014, http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/el-salvador-negotiating-gangs, accessed 27 October 2014, p.98. The Fundación Humanitaria is the Humanitarian Foundation. 93 Peeters, Schulting and Briscoe, Clingendael Institute, CRU Policy Brief No. 27, November 2013, p.3. 94 Ibid, p.6. According Clingendael, ‘as a first measure € 1 million was granted in 2012 from the EU Peace building Partnership to finance several projects in the field of prevention and reintegration. Secondly, for 2013 another € 750.000 was set aside for proposals aimed at reducing gender-based violence’. 95 Insight Crime, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/2-divergent-views-on-el-salvador-gang-truce-1-sad-conclusion , accessed 24 November 2014 96 Interview with Ana Glenda Tager, San Salvador, 30 July 2014, p.13 97 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.13 98 Ibid. 99 Interview with Francisco Valencia, Director of the newspaper Diario CoLatino, San Salvador, 20 May 2014. 100 Teresa Whitfield, ‘Mediating Criminal Violence: Lessons from the gang truce in El Salvador’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, June 2013, p.14
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Epilogue 1 Comunicado Pandillas 28 de Agosto 2014 2 http://www.contrapunto.com.sv/reportajes/nuevo-consejo-de-seguridad-entre-la-esperanza-y-el-escepticismo 3 http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2014/11/04/dialogo-con-pandillas-sin-eco-en-consejo, and
http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2014/10/06/hay-que-analizar-el-dialogo-con-victimarios
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