By Luis Beaton
Chief correspondent for Prensa Latina in El Salvador
This measure overrides several constitutional guarantees, but made it possible to resolve a problem that had been uncontrollable for many years and threatened lives and property, according to international and local commentators.
El Salvador’s Defense Minister René Merino reiterated that it is necessary to continue the emergency regime to confront the gangs.
“We tell them that it is necessary to continue the emergency regime for people who say no, because the gangs still want to confront the authority,” he said during an interview on the Dialogo 21 program.
“We will continue this security strategy of President Nayib Bukele and we will continue with the phases provided for in the territorial control plan,” he stressed.
One approach to the issue by the publication InSight Crime assumes that police reports from El Salvador contradict Bukele’s triumphalism about the results while the scourge is still present in the country, which to some extent justifies maintaining government policies.
More than a dozen confidential National Civil Police reports obtained by InSight Crime show that the three main gangs operating in El Salvador, although “weakened” after a year and a half of a state of emergency, still pose “a subtle threat.”
The Mara Salvatrucha (MS13), Barrio 18 Sureños and Barrio 18 Revolucionarios maintain 54 armed groups, mostly in rural areas, which are now facing military sieges such as those deployed in communities such as Cabañas.
Nearly 43,000 people considered gang members also remain at large, divided into three categories: active members (homeboys), aspiring members (checkers) and so-called “collaborators,” a broad term for the alleged operators and assistants of the gangs Groups.
The publication compromises the government program, although a correct analysis would show that it does not call it into question but justifies the continuity of the policy.
Police reports describe in detail the situation of the gangs and their current uneven presence in the national territory. They presented a panorama of notable successes in dismantling these groups, but also revealed shadows and threats, the publication added.
In addition, it suggests the possibility that the gangs have decided not to carry out a violent response, which would undoubtedly lead to their elimination, given the sophisticated confrontation apparatus, both logistical and strategic, deployed in recent years, including modern weapons.
Under the emergency regime, authorities have detained more than 72,000 people, of whom more than seven thousand were released after weeks or months of imprisonment after it was proven that the arrests were arbitrary.
Called “Assessing Gangs in the Context of the Exceptional Regime,” the reports analyzed by InSight Crime are regularly prepared by the Intelligence Analysis and Production Division, a division of the Intelligence Subdirectorate of the National Civil Police (PNC).
These confidential documents represent the true vision of the Bukele government’s gang phenomenon, which the publication says is far from the propaganda and secrecy common in official communications, the publication said.
The most recent report in the hands of InSight Crime, dated September 1, 2023 and 19 pages long, lists 54 armed gang groups active in El Salvador.
Two months into the regime, in June 2022, the PNC had 95 cells (Clicas, in gang slang) monitored with enough weapons, including rocket launchers and assault rifles, to qualify as “armed groups.”
In February 2023, this number fell to 75 and in May to 67. But in September it is still 54, which, according to observers, is undoubtedly a convincing argument for maintaining the policy and suppressing some constitutional rights.
The MS13 is behind 43 of these 54 commands; Six are from Barrio 18 Sureños and the remaining five are from Barrio 18 Revolucionarios, says the article in InSight … signed by Roberto Valencia.
Everything seems to indicate that the largest presence of criminal groups is in San Salvador, Ahuachapán, Morazán, Cabañas, La Libertad and La Paz, where an increase in military actions and sieges is expected in the coming months.
There are two departments – Chalatenango and San Vicente – where the number of groups remains the same, but the most surprising case is Sonsonate, where it increased from five to six, which is also reflected in the frequent arrests of gang members with weapons. including rifles. Attack.
InSight Crime states that in terms of the number of members of each criminal structure nationwide, the MS13 and Barrio 18 Sureños gangs were the most affected, but they still hold 33 and 35 percent of their members at liberty, respectively.
The Barrio 18 Revolucionarios – a gang with a significant presence in the eastern half of the San Salvador metropolitan area and in the departments of La Libertad and La Paz – appears to have resisted the offensive better or its dissolution was not as successful a priority. In any case, 46 percent of its members are free.
The number of criminals still at large (42,826 active gang members, candidates and collaborators), 36 percent of all criminals registered by the government, corresponds to the media, whose estimates put the gangs at around 120,000 members.
Recently, a security official in San Benito, where the so-called “Zona Rosa” is located, said that gangs still operate in the surrounding neighborhoods, but they are cautious in their actions so as not to attract attention.
InSight Crime highlights that homicide rates in El Salvador have fallen to historic lows, and the forecast is that the country will end 2023 with a rate of three to four violent deaths per 100,000 residents. In 2015, the rate was 106 homicides per 100,000 residents.
Despite the results of security policy, there will never be a lack of critics and assessments that do not agree with the government’s aspirations.
Verónica Reyna, director of the human rights program of the Passionist Social Service (SSPAS), confirmed that the gangs had lost power and territorial presence since the application of the emergency regime, but sharply questioned the government’s strategy, citing reports from NGOs. nationally and internationally that identify a systematic violation of human rights.
“It’s the eternal trap. They sell us immediate and illegal solutions… and so we adopt violent forms of government with extrajudicial killings and torture. “If this is a success, any government with enough cynicism and without any oversight could have done it sooner,” he said.
Public security researcher and consultant Luis Enrique Amaya also believes that what the ruling party called the war on gangs dealt the gangs an unprecedented blow.
“People are perceiving greater security and this perception is not wrong, it is not the result of a presidential advertising campaign,” Amaya told InSight Crime.
“If you know the history of the gangs, you wonder whether they are not currently simply in a process of adaptation, in which they are redefining their way of being, their way of working,” estimated the expert.
Despite criticism from some sectors, polls show that the majority of Salvadorans support maintaining the policy.
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