Gangs as Non-State Armed Groups: The Central American Case

Abstract

Gangs are popularly considered to be the major security threat facing the Central American region. In focusing on the origins and dynamics of gangs in the region, this article seeks to broaden conceptualizations of non-state armed groups by expanding the theoretical optic from a narrow focus on war and post-war contexts to a wider spectrum of settings, actors, and motivations. It highlights a category of actors that does not explicitly seek to overthrow the state, but rather progressively undermines or assumes certain state functions. The article also reveals how efforts to contain and regulate gangs flow from their imputed motives, with interventions influenced by whether they are conceived as a criminal or political threat. At the same time, coercive regulation tend to be favoured even when such repressive interventions exacerbate gang violence, for reasons that reveal the deeper underlying political, social, and economic challenges facing the Central American region.

Notes

P. Collier and A. Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, Vol. 56, No. 4 (October 2004), pp. 563–95.

See, for example, S. Kalyvas, The Sociology of Civil Wars: Warfare and Armed Groups (New Haven, CT: Yale mimeo, 2003). See also R. Shultz, D. Farah, and L. Itamara, ‘Armed Groups: A Tier-One Security Priority’, INSS Occasional Paper 57, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, 2004. According to the Trans-national and Non-State Armed Groups project of Harvard University and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, for example, the ‘expression “non-state armed groups” … is used generically to describe armed groups – both transnational and national – that have the capacity to challenge the state's monopoly of legitimate force’. See http://www.armed-groups.org/home.aspx.

P. Alston, Non-State Actors and Human Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 3.

A. Clapham, ‘Non-State Actors’, in V. Chetail (ed), Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: A Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), forthcoming.

Ibid.

There are some rare exceptions, however, including recent studies on heavily armed gangs in the Delta region of Nigeria who appear to be threatening the country's oil production and supply routes. See, for example, K. Oruwari, ‘Youth in Urban Violence in Nigeria: A Case Study of Urban Gangs from Port Harcourt’, Niger Delta Economies of Violence project, Working Paper No. 14, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2006, http://geography.berkeley.edu/ProjectsResources/ND%20Website/NigerDelta/WP/14-Oruwari.pdf.

Richard Shultz, Douglas Farah, and Itamara Lochard ‘Armed Groups: A Tier-One Security Priority’, INSS Occasional Paper 57, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, Colorado, 2004, pp. x.

Carolyn Moser and Dennis Rodgers ‘Change, Violence and Insecurity in Non-Conflict Situations’, ODI Working Paper No. 245, Overseas Development Institute, London, 2005.

David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey, 2005). As Carolyn Holmqvist rightly cautions, ‘an emphasis on the “positive” functions served by membership of an armed group should not be seen as giving licence to such group's existence: but a more subtle understanding of reasons for their longevity is fundamental for devising effective strategies to counter their existence’. Carolyn Holmqvist, ‘Engaging Armed Non-State Actors in Post-Conflict Settings’, in Andrew Bryden and Hans Hanggi (eds), Security Governance in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (Munster: Lit Verlag, 2005), pp. 45–68.

For the purposes of this research, Central America consists of the geographical isthmus that includes Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Geneva Declaration, The Global Burden of Armed Violence (Geneva: Geneva Declaration and Small Arms Survey, 2008).

See WHO, Violence, 2008, available online at: http://www.who.int/topics/violence/en/ (accessed 10 June 2008).

See R. Briceno-Leon, ‘Urban Violence and Public Health in Latin America: A Sociological Explanatory Framework’, Cadernos Saude Pública, Vol. 21, No. 6 (2005), pp. 1629; Jennifer Hazen and Chris Stevenson, Public Health Interventions (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2008).

World Bank, Urban Crime and Violence in LAC: Status Report on Activities, Sustainable Development Department, Latin American and Caribbean Region (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008), p. 3.

See UNODC, Annual Report 2008: Covering Activities in 2007 (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2008), p. 38, available online at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/about-unodc/AR08_WEB.pdf.

UNODC, Crime and Development in Central America: Caught in the Crossfire (Vienna: United Nations Publications, 2007), p. 64.

See M.G. Manwaring, Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2005); M.G. Manwaring, ‘Gangs and Coups D'streets in the New World Disorder: Protean Insurgents in Post-Modern War’, Global Crime, Vol. 7, No. 3–4 (2006), pp. 505–43. A follow-up report by the same author published in 2008 further contended that gang violence constituted ‘another kind of war (conflict) within the context of a “clash of civilizations” … being waged … around the world’. M.G. Manwaring, A Contemporary Challenge to State Sovereignty: Gangs and Other Illicit Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) in Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2008), p. 1.

See T.C. Bruneau, ‘The Maras and National Security in Central America’, Strategic Insights, Vol. 4, No. 5 (2005), available online at: http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2005/May/bruneauMay05.asp (taken from Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Gráfica, 8 April 2005). See also H. D. Schultz, D. Farah, and L. V. Itamara, ‘Armed Groups: A Tier-One Security Priority’, INSS Occasional Paper 57, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, Colorado, 2004, available online at http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/inss/OCP/ocp57.pdf.

See S. Huhn, A. Oettler, and P. Peetz, Exploding Crime? Topic Management in Central American Newspapers, GIGA Working Paper No. 33, German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, 2006.

S. Huhn, A. Oettler, and P. Peetz, ‘Construyendo inseguridades: aproximaciones a la violencia en centroamérica desde el análisis del discurso’, GIGA Working Paper No. 34, German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, 2006, pp. 8–13.

UNDOC, Crime and Development in Central America (note 15), p. 60.

R.L. Millett and O.J. Perez, ‘New Threats and Old Dilemmas: Central America's Armed Forces in the 21st Century’, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2005), p. 59.

For an overview, see Huhn, Oettler and Peetz, ‘Construyendo inseguridades’ (note 19), pp. 8–13; as well as M. Liebel, ‘Pandillas juveniles en Centroamérica o la difícil búsqueda de justicia en una sociedad violenta’, Desacatos, No. 14 (2004), pp. 85–104. The most comprehensive general study is undoubtedly that reported on in the three volumes produced by a conglomerate of Central American research institutes: ERIC, IDESO, IDIES, and IUDOP, Maras y Pandillas en Centroamérica, Vol. 1, (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2001); ERIC, IDESO, IDIES, and IUDOP, Maras y Pandillas en Centroamérica: Pandillas y Capital Social, Vol. 2 (San Salvador: UCA Publicaciones, 2004); ERIC, IDIES, IUDOP, NITLAPAN, DIRINPRO, Maras y Pandillas en Centroamérica: Políticas juveniles y rehabilitación, Vol. 3 (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2004). Three further overview studies have also been published recently: USAID, Central America and Mexico Gangs Assessment (Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2006); Demoscopía, Maras y pandillas, comunidad y policía en Centroamérica (San José: Demoscopía, 2007); and the work of the ‘Pandillas juveniles transnacionales en Centroamérica, México y Estados Unidos’ project coordinated by the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México's (ITAM) Centro de Estudios y Programas Interamericanos (CEPI), whose output is available online at: http://interamericanos.itam.mx/maras/index.html. The country that has been studied in greatest depth is Nicaragua: J.-L. Rocha, ‘Pandilleros: la mano que empuña el mortero’, Envío, No. 216 (2000), pp. 17–25, J.-L Rocha, ‘Pandillas: una cárcel cultural’, Envío, No. 219 (2000), pp. 13–22; J.-L. Rocha, ‘Tatuajes de pandilleros: estigma, identidad y arte’, Envío, No. 258 (2003), pp. 42–50; J.-L. Rocha, ‘El traido: clave de la continuidad de las pandillas’, Envío, No. 280 (2005), pp. 35–41; J.-L. Rocha, ‘Pandilleros del siglo XXI: con hambre de alucinaciones y de transnacionalismo’, Envío, No. 294 (2006), pp. 25–34; J.-L. Rocha, ‘Mareros y pandilleros: ¿Nuevos insurgentes, criminales?’, Envío, No. 293 (2006), pp. 39–51; J.-L. Rocha, Lanzando piedras, fumando ‘piedras’. Evolución de las pandillas en Nicaragua 1997–2006, Cuaderno de Investigación No. 23, (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2007); J.-L. Rocha, ‘Del telescopio al microscopio: Hablan tres pandilleros’, Envío No. 303 (2007), pp. 23–30; J.-L. Rocha, ‘Mapping the Labyrinth from Within: The Political Economy of Nicaraguan Youth Policy Concerning Violence’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2007), pp. 533–49; J.-L. Rocha and D. Rodgers, Bróderes Descobijados y Vagos Alucinados: Una Década con las Pandillas Nicaragüenses, 1997–2007 (Managua: Envío, 2008); D. Rodgers, ‘Un antropólogo-pandillero en un barrio de Managua’, Envío, No. 184 (1997), pp. 10–16; D. Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Violence, Pandillas, and Social Disintegration in Contemporary Urban Nicaragua’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 2000; D. Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2006), pp. 267–92; D. Rodgers, ‘The State as a Gang: Conceptualising the Governmentality of Violence in Contemporary Nicaragua’, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2006), pp. 315–30; D. Rodgers, ‘Managua’, in K. Koonings and D. Kruijt (eds), Fractured Cities: Social Exclusion, Urban Violence and Contested Spaces in Latin America (London: Zed, 2007; D. Rodgers, ‘When Vigilantes Turn Bad: Gangs, Violence, and Social Change in Urban Nicaragua’, in D. Pratten and A. Sen (eds), Global Vigilantes (London: Hurst, 2007); and D. Rodgers, ‘Joining the Gang and Becoming a Broder: The Violence of Ethnography in Contemporary Nicaragua’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2207), pp. 444–61.

Rodgers, ‘The State as a Gang’ (note 22).

ERIC, IDESO, IDIES, and IUDOP, Maras y Pandillas en Centroamérica (note 22); and Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua (note 22).

PNUD (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo – United Nations Development Programme), Informe Estadístico de la Violencia en Guatemala (Guatemala: PNUD, 2007).

The fact that most gang members are young men, and that Central America suffers the highest male youth homicide rates in the world. See P.S. Pinheiro, World Report on Violence against Children (Geneva: United Nations, 2006), p. 357 – indirectly supports the notion that gangs are an important factor within the regional panorama of violence, even though they are by no means the only vector of violence in Central America.

See Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’ (note 22); and A. Winton, ‘Using “Participatory” Methods with Young People in Contexts of Violence: Reflections from Guatemala’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2007), pp. 497–515.

Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’, (note 22). It can be speculated that this is perhaps because the totalizing nature of evangelical Protestantism is such that churches constitute a complete organizational framework for their members that is institutionally equivalent to that provided by the gang.

M. Santacruz Giralt and A. Concha-Eastman, Barrio Adentro: La Solidaridad Violenta de las Pandillas (San Salvador: Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), 2001).

Despite the introduction of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programmes in the wake of various peace agreements, large numbers of ex-soldiers and militia were only partially integrated back into civilian life. See, for example, Robert Muggah, Securing Protections: Dealing with Fighters in the Aftermath of War (New York: Routledge, forthcoming), for a review of DDR programmes. In many ways, however, demobilization-related gang violence can be seen less as a function of war than of the return to peace.

See W. Godnick, R. Muggah, and C. Waszink, ‘Stray Bullets: The Impact of Small Arms Misuse in Central America’, Small Arms Survey Occasional Paper No. 5, Geneva, Small Arms Survey, 2003 for a description of arms collection activities throughout the region.

Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’ (note 22). K. Koonings and D. Kruijt, Societies of Fear: The Legacy of Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America (London: Zed Books, 1999); K. Koonings and D. Kruijt, Armed Actors: Organized Violence and State Failure in Latin America (London: Zed, 2004).

Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’ (note 22).

Ibid.

‘Maturing out’ is a universal feature of youth gangs; as pandilleros in Nicaragua put it, ‘there are no old gang members’. Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Violence, Pandillas, and Social Disintegration in Contemporary Urban Nicaragua’ (note 22). There is evidence to suggest that this is not quite as clear-cut in the case of maras, which are widely reported to have gang members ranging up to 30 years old, and from which it is said to be very difficult to ‘retire’. See Demoscopía, Maras y pandillas, comunidad y policía en Centroamérica (note 22); International Human Rights Clinic, No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador (Cambridge, MA: Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School, 2007).

The origins of the word ‘mara’ are unclear. It has been widely suggested that it is derived from the word ‘marabunta’, a term used to describe a particularly vicious species of ants in certain South American countries. The fact that this does not include El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras makes it an unlikely proposition, although considering the US origins of the maras, it might be speculated that the term derives from the classic US horror film ‘The Naked Jungle’ (1954), in which an army of marabunta ants devastate a plantation in Brazil despite the best efforts of Charlton Heston, which was remade for television in the early 1980s. This is purely speculative, although it is interesting to note that this putative link was also mentioned in the first study of gangs ever carried out in Central America (D. Levenson et al., ‘Por sí mismos: Un estudio preliminar des las “maras” en la ciudad de Guatemala’, Cuaderno de Investigación no. 4, Asociación para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala, Guatemala, 1988).

USAID, Central America and Mexico Gangs Assessment, (Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2006), pp. 18–19.

Ibid.

This seems to have occurred almost universally in El Salvador and Honduras, but there still exist more localized maras in Guatemala, whose origins go back to the mid-1980s, and who are arguably closer in nature to pandillas. See D. Levenson et al., ‘Por sí mismos’ (note 36); E.C. Ranum, ‘Diagnóstico Nacional Guatemala’, Proyecto ‘Pandillas juveniles transnacionales en Centroamérica, México y Estados Unidos’, Centro de Estudios y Programas Interamericanos (CEPI) del Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), 2006, available online at: http://interamericanos.itam.mx/maras/docs/Diagnostico_Guatemala.pdf. The general trend, however, is for these to be increasingly absorbed within Dieciocho and Salvatrucha mara structures. See D. DeCesare, ‘The Story of Edgar Bolaños’, in L. Kontos, D. C. Brotherton, and L. Barrios (eds), Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). According to Demoscopía, Maras y pandillas, comunidad y policía en Centroamérica (note 22), p. 49, deportee gang members are becoming a minority as the rate of deportation from the US declines, and are taking on more ‘veteran’ roles, influencing mara behaviour through their prestige rather than actually taking part in gang activities.

Rocha, ‘Pandilleros del siglo XXI’ (note 22).

According to C.M. Ribando, ‘Report for Congress: Gangs in Central America’, Congressional Research Service, Report RL34112, 2 August (2007), pp. 1–2: ‘Gangs are generally considered to be distinct from organized criminal organizations because they typically lack the hierarchical leadership structure, capital, and manpower required to run a sophisticated criminal enterprise. Gangs are generally more horizontally organized, with lots of small subgroups and no central leadership setting strategy and enforcing discipline. Although some gangs are involved in the street-level distribution of drugs, few gangs or gang members are involved in higher-level criminal drug distribution enterprises run by drug cartels, syndicates, or other sophisticated criminal organizations.’ As Geoff Thale, the Research Director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), has testified before the US Congress, gangs are just one example of a whole spectrum of violence in Central America, which also includes intra-familial violence, street crime, politically motivated crimes, drug-related violence, traditional organized crime, state violence, and human rights violations (cited in Ribando, ‘Report for Congress’, p. 3).

M. Santacruz Giralt and A. Concha-Eastman, Barrio Adentro (note 29).

On 15 August 2005, newly imprisoned members of the Dieciocho mara attacked members of the Mara Salvatrucha in El Hoyon prison near Guatemala City, killing 30 and leaving more than twice that number seriously wounded. A retaliatory attack by members of the Salvatrucha in the San José Pinula juvenile detention centre on 19 September 2005 killed at least 12 and wounded another ten.

International Human Rights Clinic, No Place to Hide (note 35); Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’ (note 22); Rocha, Lanzando piedras, fumando ‘piedras’ (note 22).

See UNODC, Crime and Development in Central America (note 15).

See J. Aguilar, ‘Los efectos contraproducentes de los Planes Mano Dura’, Quorum, No. 16 (Winter 2006), pp. 81–94, International Human Rights Clinic, No Place to Hide (note 35); Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’ (note 22); D. Rodgers, ‘When Vigilantes Turn Bad’ (note 22).

M. Davis, ‘Planet of Slums: Urban Involution and the Informal Proletariat’, New Left Review, No. 26 (2004), p. 28. See also Rodgers, ‘The State as a Gang’ (note 22), pp. 315–30; and D. Rodgers, ‘Slum Wars of the 21st Century: Gangs, Mano Dura, and the New Geography of Conflict in Central America’, Development and Change (forthcoming).

Managua's notoriously abysmal road infrastructure, for example, was transformed in the space of just three years through a massive concentrated investment in the constitution of a highly selective network of good quality, high-speed roads that connect the spaces of the rich – the international airport, the presidential palace, the gated communities, the malls – and have no traffic lights but only roundabouts, meaning that those in cars avoid having to stop – and risk being carjacked – but those on foot risk their lives whenever they try to cross a road. See D. Rodgers, ‘Disembedding the City: Crime, Insecurity, and Spatial Organization in Managua, Nicaragua’, Environment and Urbanization, No. 16, No. 2 (2004), pp. 113–24; D. Rodgers, ‘A Symptom called Managua’, New Left Review, No. 49 (January–February 2008), pp. 103–20.

See E. Pieterse, City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development (London: Zed Books, 2008), and Rodgers, ‘Slum Wars of the 21st Century (note 47).

See Rodgers, ‘The State as a Gang’ (note 22).

See Aguilar, ‘Los efectos contraproducentes de los Planes Mano Dura’ (note 46); M. Hume, ‘Mano Dura: El Salvador Responds to Gangs’, Development in Practice, Vol. 17, No. 6 (2007), pp. 739–51; and Rodgers, ‘Slum Wars of the 21st Century (note 47).

Hume, ‘Mano Dura’ (note 51).

Although Nicaragua has gained a reputation for focusing on ‘preventative’ rather than ‘repressive’ anti-gang policies, the evidence of its practices on the ground tends to belie this. See Rocha, ‘Mapping the Labyrinth from Within’ (note 22). Overall, the police response to gangs has not been as violent as in other Central American countries, partly because of the less violent nature of the pandillas compared to the maras.

See F. Faux, Les Maras, Gangs d'Enfants: Violences urbaines en Amérique Centrale (Paris: Autrement, 2006).

The Merida Initiative was launched following US President George W. Bush's trip to Latin America in March 2007, where security was emphasized by Mexico and Central American leaders.

US Department of State, The Merida Initiative Fact Sheet (Washington, DC: Bureau of Public Affairs, 2008), available online at: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2008/103374.htm (accessed 19 June 2008).

See, for example, A. Forter, ‘Youth Gangs and Human Rights in Central America: A Comparative Study on Policy and Law’, Paper presented to the University of Chicago Human Rights program workshop, Winter 2005, which surveyed citizens in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

J. Aguilar and L. Miranda, ‘Entre la articulación y la competencia: Las respuestas de la sociedad civil organizada a las pandillas en El Salvador’, in J.M. Cruz (ed.), Maras y Pandillas en Centroamérica: Las respuestas de la sociedad civil organizada (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2006), p. 42. The Central American Coalition for the Prevention of Youth Violence (CCPVJ) has shown that Mano Dura policies can be linked to a dramatic surge in youth violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras – up to 40 per cent in the first three years of implementation. R. Gutiérrez, ‘Central America: Harsher Measures Don't Cut Crime’, Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS News), 1 November 2006, available online at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35337.

Aguilar and Miranda, ‘Entre la articulación y la competencia’ (note 58), p. 49.

See Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua’ (note 22); D. Rodgers, ‘Managua’ (note 22); D. Rodgers, ‘When Vigilantes Turn Bad’ (note 22).

Rodgers, unpublished research. Another reason for the decline in pandillerismo is that the rise of these criminal organizations has left no sociological ‘space’ for youth gangs.

See M. Glenny, McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers (London: Random House, 2008).

See, for example, N. Colletta and R. Muggah, ‘Rethinking Post-War Security Promotion’, Journal of Security Sector Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Winter 2009), pp. 1–25, for a review of first- and second-generation policies.

In Honduras, organizations such as the London-based Amnesty International and Casa Alianza have also reported that death squads are killing youngsters suspected of belonging to gangs, often merely because they sport tattoos. The NGO Casa Alianza has documented 2,778 murders of young people below the age of 23 between 1998 and July 2008. Most of the victims were members of maras. Because these murders are usually not investigated, the perpetrators enjoy total impunity.

See D. Rodgers, R. Muggah, and C. Stevenson, ‘Gangs of Central America: Causes, Costs, and Interventions’, Small Arms Survey Working Paper, Geneva, 2009.

Rocha, ‘Mapping the Labyrinth from Within’ (note 22).

Certainly, the few studies that exist are notable for their lack of evidence for successful large-scale interventions. See for example N. Barnes, ‘Resumen Ejecutivo’, Proyecto ‘Pandillas juveniles transnacionales en Centroamérica, México y los Estados Unidos’, Centro de Estudios y Programas Interamericanos (CEPI) del Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), 2007, p. 9, available online at: http://interamericanos.itam.mx/maras/docs/Resumen_Ejecutivo_Espanol.pdf.

See Rodgers, ‘A Symptom Called Managua’ (note 48).

Ibid.

See P. Collier and A. Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’ (note 1).