Root Causes of Gang Influence and Violence in El Salvador
Kenton Moody has worked amongst the poor in Santa Ana, El Salvador for the past seven years. He is working on a PhD with William Carey International University.
El Salvador has never been a peaceful country. The past 100 years is filled with dictatorships, coups, chronic economic problems, natural disaster, horrible corruption, and a devastating civil war. The present precarious security situation, however, is one that four successive governments have been unable or unwilling to adequately address and change. The jails are overflowing and the court system is bursting at the seams. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, tens of thousands have died, the entire police force and armed forces have been mobilized, and the gangs still rule. Identifying the root causes of this disaster is complex as the blame cannot be solely laid at the feet of the Salvadoran government or society.
How could the smallest country in size in the Americas, El Salvador, become the world leader in violence, extortion, and gang activity without having a history of the gangs or mafia? The infamous MS-13 and 18th Street Barrio gangs which now control much of Salvadoran territory are classified as terrorist organizations and have even gone transnational, moving into neighboring countries, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and even to Europe. The striking truth is the present-day gangs are not native to El Salvador and according to most experts, did not start here, but came as part of reverse immigration in the form of massive deportations from the United States.
In the late 1980’s, there was a familial gang active in El Salvador called the Mara Gayo, but it was not wide spread (Castellanos 2018). In spite of not being native to El Salvador, like an invasive weed, the gangs have taken root in the Salvadoran soil and seem to be there to stay. Their subversive affect is felt throughout society. For several consecutive years, the murder rate was one of the highest in the world, and directly attributed to gang on gang violence battling for control of the cities and rural areas. The public transportation system alone pays more than $30 million per year in extortion directly to the gangs. Many neighborhoods are completely or discreetly controlled by either the MS-13 or the 18th Street Barrio gang. They control who goes in and out, occupants may have to pay “rent” to the gang simply to live in their own home, or to park their car, or as “protection” for themselves and their family. Disappearances of young men and women are common and very frequently go unsolved. Brazen attacks on the police, and on the military, who have been mobilized to assist the police forces to maintain order, are common and hundreds have lost their lives in the past 10 years.
Understanding the root causes of gang influence and violence in El Salvador is essential to assessing the Evangelical church’s response to the societal crisis. Both the gangs and the Evangelical church come from marginalized conditions, areas of the country with little or no infrastructure and opportunities. Both migrated to the cities, looking for resources and trying to establish and increase their territory. They were both from a subsistence economy but belonged to an aspiring lower class and they wanted more. Both became a social movement amongst the disenfranchised, but neither the Evangelical church nor the gangs and their needs had a transformational impact on the other.
There are political, societal, and spiritual causes that point both to El Salvador and the United States and in many cases, the political and societal causes are deeply entwined. El Salvador is a “patron culture” (boss culture), emanating from the many decades of the peasant citizens, many of indigenous descent, working on large coffee or sugar cane farms for subservient wages and living conditions. Their “patron” (farm owner) gave orders, provided them a place to live, sold them food and clothing from a farm store, and paid them wages or script that could many times only be used at the farm store. It was similar to slavery without the ownership. A massive social rebellion against this system in the 1930’s resulted in a genocide of approximately 30,000 mostly indigenous men, women, and children, erasing forever the Mayan roots of the country. It also repressed discontent for another 50 years until a socialist/communist revolution shook the neighboring country of Nicaragua.
Communist influence struck Latin America in the 1970’s and 80’s as the Soviet Union tried to exert its influence in the Western hemisphere via Cuba. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua gave the underground communist party in El Salvador reason to believe they could also overthrow the military dictatorship. The United States, however, decided to draw the line with El Salvador and fight this wave of socialistic change head on. The civil war in El Salvador lasted approximately 12 years, virtually destroying the country’s economic and social landscape. Many estimates say at least 20 per cent of the country was displaced and their homes and/or livelihood were obliterated. Nearly 70,000 people were killed on both sides of the war, and many thousands more simply disappeared, never to be accounted for. The UNHCR noted that between 500,000 and 1 million Salvadorans fled the country, most of them immigrating legally or illegally to the United Sates.
While the war waged on in El Salvador, the newly arrived immigrants in the United States faced other challenges. Due to their poverty-level status upon entering the country, they sought refuge in some of the poorest communities in the Los Angeles area. Their children and youth were thrust into an already boiling melting pot of cultures in Southern California that included Mexican, Asian, and African-American. There was not a lot of melting, and the cultures clashed frequently over territory and position in the community. Gangs were commonplace and the recently arrived Salvadorans had to fight for their survival in this new culture. They formed the Mara Salvatrucha gang—an extension of a Mexican gang known as the Sureños, who were already very active in the United States and Mexico. Later the gang added the 13 to be known as the MS-13. They formed their power base in California, and later the 18th Street Barrio gang split off from the MS-13, causing a violent rivalry that still exists.
The civil war in El Salvador ended in 1992 with the signing of the Peace Accords between the Salvadoran government and the leftist guerillas, the Frente Faribundo Marti Para la Liberación Nacional. There was no declared winner, leaving a political and societal vacuum. Both sides deactivated and the leftists became a political party. Shortly thereafter, the United States government began to crack down on the gangs, perceiving the massive illegal immigration as both a political and social issue and massive deportation began. Many gang members with criminal records were sent home to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Sources place the number at around 20,000 criminals who were deported to Central America between 2000–2004. The governments were not prepared to deal politically, economically, or socially with the returnees and many of these criminals and gang members entered the countries without any information being passed on from the United States to the local government. This tough immigration stance as a means of an anti-gang effort was a major factor in the rapid growth of the gangs in Central America, including El Salvador.
When the civil war ended, there were some UN-assigned “studies” and “commissions” seeking reconciliation and accountability, but they eventually lost influence and lacked success as they concentrated their focus and blame on one side (government) while seemingly “excusing and overlooking” practices and consequences for the leftist side. Both sides were guilty of atrocities but the weight of reconciliation actions required by the commissions for one side while excusing the other eventually discredited their suggestions and eventually caused them to be distrusted and regarded as un-credible.) It has been said that “peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of reconciliation.” Due to the lack of ability to forgive, the psychological impact of the war haunts the country until today. The gangs took advantage of the societal vacuum and fractured family units in El Salvador. The economy, culture, governance, and family had been entirely ripped apart. Gang activity quickly graduated from simple extortion or asking business for “rent money” to continue functioning, to killing rival gang members and those who resisted their power grab. The government responded with hard-handed tactics, mobilizing the armed forces to patrol the streets and countryside, beating suspected gang members or youth on the streets, and giving out long prison sentences in horrible conditions without adequate representation. Rather than quell the violence, it seemed to add fuel to the fire. The gangs responded with more perverse violence, mutilation of bodies, torturing, etc. Gang influence spread into the youngest teens and even children, recruiting child soldiers to fight the dirtiest part of the war as gangs increased their violence against the police, soldiers, and their families. The whole country seemed paralyzed by the insecurity and brazen control the gangs exhibited. The economy fell to the bottom of the list for Latin America and many Salvadorans once again fled their country, this time not to simply seek a better life or employment, but to flee the violence and threat they faced on a daily basis.
The gangs, however, were not the only institution that took advantage of the civil war and its aftermath. The Evangelical church had spent decades in obscurity during the early and mid-20th century in the religious background of the officially Catholic country. Many of the early churches had to be planted in rural areas due to blatant persecution and hostility. With persistence and time, the churches had seen growth, primarily on the Pentecostal side, and were more openly accepted. The civil war brought a religious divide. The Catholic church, which had for more than a century, been the support of the wealthy and elite, seemed to take the side of the guerillas and the revolution, resulting in the infamous assassination of Monsignor Romero in the early days of the war. The Evangelical church, however, stayed apolitical, focusing on spirituality and sustainability rather than politics. Many Salvadorans who lost loved ones, homes, and livelihood, found themselves dissatisfied with the Catholic church and went to the Evangelical churches looking for answers. They found a church that seemed to identify with the poor and weak and was unpretentious in their approach to God. By the end of the 1980’s the Evangelical Pentecostal community had grown to nearly 22 per cent of the total population (Bueno 2001). Early growth amongst the Evangelical Pentecostals had primarily been in the rural areas, but due to violence and societal upheaval, much of the rural population had fled to the cities bringing with them their beliefs and churches. At the end of the civil war, the Evangelical church was a solid part of the Salvadoran landscape and a great number of those being deported from the United States also brought back with them Evangelical ties.
The Evangelical church had never occupied a place at the government table during the war or during the peace accords, only the Catholic church was present and given a voice. Therefore, in the aftermath of the war, the Evangelical church simply kept proclaiming the gospel, building churches and schools, and growing their congregations. They left the social reconstruction to the government and the international organizations. This led to a spiritual vacuum in Salvadoran society. Because the church’s participation had been primarily spiritual, the gang problem with its violence, extortion, enlistment of children and youth, and death grew up around the church without them noticing it. By not confronting the reality of the change in society, the Evangelical church ceded control of their territory to a joint ownership and ended up losing influence and authority in the community in general in relationship to the gangs.
Reference
Castellanos, Salvador. 2018. Interview by Steve Offut, La Libertad, El Salvador (January 15).