“Raising a child only to lose him to this? No way.” “As he got older, those guys would go looking for him, and that scared me,” Pacheco said. Early last year, Pacheco paid to have him and his sister smuggled to the U.S. But the gangs began closing in on her teenage son. The family of 11 tried to isolate themselves, determined not to get sucked into the lawlessness around them. To scrape by, Pacheco and her daughter secretly sold fruits and vegetables in a market in another neighborhood, avoiding gang payments simply referred to as “rent.” They long terrorized and extorted poor communities. Before the crackdowns, the government said 118,000 gang members were on the streets nationwide. After many members were deported, the groups took root in El Salvador and flourished. The gangs were formed in Los Angeles in the 1970s and ’80s by migrants fleeing war in Central America. Members of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, or MS-13, would war with nearby Barrio 18 rivals, sending gunfire ringing out over flimsy tin-sheet homes. On the dusty streets of the Primero de Diciembre neighborhood, they lived in a state of constant panic. Yet for the family of 44-year-old Maritza Pacheco, opening a corner shop outside their home four months ago was a small miracle. “The long term question, and what I fear, is: Is this going to become a police state?” said Michael Paarlberg, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University researching El Salvador.īukele’s government declined various requests by The Associated Press for interviews, written comment or access to the prisons.Īnd despite the relative calm, the gangs still lurk. For many, fear of the gangs has been replaced by fear of the very government claiming to protect them. Observers raise alarms about the slipping of a delicate democracy, a decay threatening to ripple across the region. Tens of thousands of children are torn from their parents, who have been taken to prisons with conditions fueling a flood of reported human rights abuses. They enjoy traversing San Salvador by night, order pizza from delivery services newly entering former gang territories, and open businesses without gangs extorting them for money.įor others, the transformation comes at a steep price. Small freedoms mark the monumental shift for many Salvadorans. The national homicide rate, the highest in the world as recently as 2015, has dipped to numbers more comparable to Maine or New Hampshire, though some analysts question the integrity of the government data. Police stops like the one at Zaldivar's home are the new norm. Bloodshed has faded away in places like La Campanera as the presence of the most fearsome gangs dwindles. Bukele has imprisoned over 65,000 of the nation's 6.3 million people, packing thousands inside a “ mega-prison ” that's set to be one of the world’s largest. “They’re always here.”Įl Salvador has undergone a radical transformation since President Nayib Bukele – the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” – ordered a state of emergency in response to an alarming surge in gang violence. “Now it’s normal,” Katherine Zaldivar said after her house was searched, her 4-year-old daughter peering up at the two officers as she sat on the floor finishing her cereal. Neighbors look on not with surprise, but resigned acceptance. Residents scrape together any evidence they can to prove they aren't members of Barrio 18, the gang that once dominated here. Officers demand men strip off their shirts so they can examine their bodies for tattoos, and flip through deeds and energy bills, once unpaid under gang rule. Today, police march past skeletons of ransacked homes, abandoned by those fleeing the bloodshed that marked these streets for decades. Stepping foot in La Campanera, once one of El Salvador's bloodiest neighborhoods, would have been unthinkable before the government suspended constitutional rights and started an all-out offensive on the gangs one year ago. They rap sharply on door after door, pushing into homes with dozing teenagers listening to music or toddlers eating breakfast and watching cartoons. Seizing the opportunity of a lifetime to explore the world, Passepartout embarks with his new friend on a crazy and exhilarating adventure full of twists and surprises.SOYAPANGO, El Salvador (AP) - With semiautomatic weapons pressed to their chest, a pack of camouflage-clad police officers marches through rows of small brick homes winding up hills on the fringes of El Salvador’s capital. One day, he crosses paths with Phileas, a reckless and greedy frog, eager to take on a bet to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days and earn 10 million clams in the process. Passepartout is a young and scholarly marmoset who always dreams of becoming and explorer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |