Mano Dura: El Salvador responds to gangs

Abstract

Although it is increasingly recognised that violence, crime, and associated fear are challenging democratic governance in Latin America, less attention has been paid to the ways in which state responses to crime contribute to the problem. By analysing El Salvador as a case study, this article addresses three key interconnected issues in the debate. First, it explores the dynamic of violence. It then locates youth gangs as violent actors within this context. Finally, it addresses the state response to the growing phenomenon of youth gangs. It is argued that current strategies, dubbed Mano Dura – Iron Fist, employed by the Salvadoran government serve to reveal the fragility of the democratic project, exposing the underside of authoritarianism that remains key to Salvadoran political life in the transitional process from civil war to peace.

Keywords:

• Governance and Public Policy
• Gender and Diversity
• Latin America and the Caribbean

Notes

1. Similar measures have been implemented in Honduras and Guatemala, and governments throughout Central America have developed a regional anti-gang strategy. In El Salvador, almost 20,000 young people were arrested in the first year of its operation, although there was a conviction rate of less than five per cent. This was partly due to a lack of evidence, but was also linked to judges' declaration of the initial law as unconstitutional (FESPAD 2004).

2. Politically motivated murders all but disappeared after 1994 (Cruz 2003). Nonetheless, during the 2003 election period an estimated 12 political assassinations occurred.

3. In 2002, murder rates stood at 2024 per annum, rising to 3182 in 2005. Young men between 19 and 30 years of age appear particularly vulnerable, totalling some 55 per cent of murder victims. These data are from National Civil Police (PNC) and Attorney General's Office (FGR) registers, compiled by La Prensa Gráfica, 4 May 2006. It is important to note that, despite improvements in data collection, there is still disagreement between different government bodies on crime and murder figures. For example, FESPAD (2006: 23-4) cites 51.6 per cent of homicide victims as individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 years, a sizeable majority of whom are young men. The average homicide rate for young people is estimated at greater than 90 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004, while the cohort between 20 and 24 years of age rose to 114 per 100,000. Figures from 2004 demonstrate that the victimisation rate in the broader population was 43.4 per 100,000 inhabitants (Santacruz Giralt 2005: 1089).

4. See www.casapres.gob.sv/presidente/declaraciones/2005/12/dec2701.html (retrieved 21 June 2007) for a detailed statement from President Saca.

5. There are also smaller gangs, such as the Mao Mao and AC/DC. In recent years there has also been a proliferation of student gangs in the capital city. Although markedly different from maras, these students are organised and create disturbances, fighting against groups from rival schools. Generally, they use belts and stones; however, there have been documented incidences of the use of homemade grenades (Savenije and Beltrán 2005).

6. There are an estimated 450,000 guns in circulation in El Salvador, of which around 60 per cent are illegally held. This translates into one in ten citizens over the age of 13 owning or having access to a firearm (see Cruz and Beltrán 2000; UNDP 2003; Hume 2004a; FESPAD 2006).

7. However, it is important to emphasise that most gang members do not have access to such weapons, and the most widely used weapon within gangs continues to be the knife (interview with members of 18 gangs, September 2004).

8. Since the 1990s, several thousand Salvadorans with criminal records have been deported from the USA every year. Between 2004 and 2005, more than 10,000 individuals were sent back to El Salvador due to problems with the law (FESPAD 2006:12). There is little infrastructure to deal with this group on their return.

9. With reference to youth violence in Latin America generally, Cárdia (2002: 176) argues that young people hold beliefs that legitimise the use of violence, and which in turn heighten their vulnerability to violent situations. ‘These include believing that violence is right, that it is a type of retribution that works to repair harm to one's self-esteem, removing the traces of insults and offences makes one more inclined to respond violently when provoked’. I am not arguing here that all – or even a majority – of young people use violence, but the issue of youth as violent actors in Latin America is significant.

10. Interviews with female members of 18 street gangs in 2004 revealed their reluctance to talk about these processes. Some women explicitly said that they were not allowed to speak of them, whereas others denied that the practice existed. Interestingly, interviews with male gang members and a female ex-gang member all confirmed the existence of the practice.

11. For example, the authors report that gang members no longer have visible tattoos, a characteristic that often identified them and the particular gang to which they belong.

12. See Saca's presidential address, 30 August 2004, available at www.casapres.gob.sv/conferencias/confp200408/confp040830.htm (retrieved 21 June 2007).

13. Zilberg (2007) indicates that the association between gangs and terrorists has been explored by mainstream US media, noting that despite the absence of evidence, Newt Gingrich hosted an hour-long show on Fox News to address the hypothetical ties and to locate broader anti-gang measures within the War on Terror.

14. In no way am I attempting to equate anti-gang legislation with the violent repression of previous decades. I am interested, however, in the endurance of the logic of repression within the democratic context. Also, see Snodgrass Godoy (2004) for a discussion of lynching in Guatemala as the ‘dark side’ of democracy.

15. The notion of ‘moral panic’ is contested in the social sciences (Goode 2000).The notion was originally proposed by Cohen (1972) in an attempt to understand the collective hysteria that surrounded the emergence of youth groups in Britain: Mods and Rockers. ‘Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or groups of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’ (Cohen 1972: 28). The concept has been adopted by a number of scholars who endeavour to analyse how fears and threats are represented and magnified within society. (See, for example, Glassner 1999 on the construction of fear in the USA.)

16. In May 2003, ARENA was lagging behind the FMLN with 23.9 per cent support, compared with the leftist party's 40.6 per cent. By October, the parties' fortunes had reversed, with ARENA receiving 41.1 per cent in contrast to the 22.3 per cent support for the FMLN. A key factor in this change has been identified as the broad appeal of the Mano Dura initiative (Artiga González 2004: 21)

17. It was no coincidence that the law was introduced just in time for the presidential election campaign. A senior police officer later told me that they had been developing a preventive gang strategy within the PNC, more closely tied to Mano Amiga plans, but that the decree for Mano Dura came directly from the presidential palace, and the police plan has subsequently been ‘filed away’ (September 2004).

18. Mano Blanco is also the name given to a death squad responsible for the murder of thousands of peasants, workers, and leftist sympathisers in the 1970s and 1980s. Miguel Montenegro, Director of the Salvadoran Human Rights Commission, warned that all youth had become a possible target of such groups (FESPAD 2006). This echoes previous assessments on the demonisation of youth (Ramos 1998; Cruz 1999).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mo Hume

Mo Hume is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow, where her research focuses on issues of gender and violence in Latin America. She worked for several years with the women's movement in El Salvador. Contact details: Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, 40 Bute Gardens, Glasgow G12 [email protected]