Monday 27 May 2013

Police count over 150 criminal deaths around El Salvador in May

El Salvador's National Civil Police (PNC) counted 151 homicides or violent deaths in the country from 1 to 25 May, an average of six a day that indicated a slight decline through that month, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported on 26 May. Police put the average daily homicides rate at the start of May at 8.5, the daily reported. Official figures cited in past months have indicated a decline in violent crime since the start of a 2012 ceasefire between Mara street gangs and their stated pledge to gradually disarm. According to the PNC's acting head Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde there was a 40 per cent drop in homicides for the first five months of 2013, or 844 from 1 January to 25 May compared to 1,357 for the same period in 2012, El Mundo reported. He attributed this in part to greater police presence in areas where gangs were more active and to the selection so far of 10 districts around the country where gangs have pledged to desist from violence. Police declared however that car break-ins and thefts had increased in May 2013, according to complaints filed. The PNC declared there were 1,298 complaints to police over cars broken into or stolen between 1 and 19 May, compared to 1,128 complaints for that period in 2012, El Mundo reported on 26 May. Not all public figures in El Salvador are convinced by the Mara gangs' pledge to disarm, the country's director of public prosecutions recently calling their ceasefire a "sham" that allowed them to continue their criminal activities. Another critic was an aspiring candidate of the right-wing ARENA party for presidential elections due in February 2014; he urged the state on 24 May to make pacts with citizens not criminals. The government of President Mauricio Funes has denied it has made a pact with the Maras. Norman Quijano said he would not support "the pact made with criminals" if he were elected President, and urged instead a "Citizens' Alliance" (Alianza Ciudadana), the website lapagina.com reported. He said his plan was "basically about taking the side of citizens, of victims," and contrasted it with the "government's evident failure to stop the crime wave." The website cited an earlier poll that gave ARENA (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) a slight lead in voting intentions. President Funes has in turn called Quijano ignorant and warned him that allegations made in some of his campaign publicity on the state making a pact with gangs were defamatory. Mr Funes was cited as saying on 25 May that Mr Quijano's chance of registering his candidacy could be jeopardised if the state were to prosecute him for calumny, lapagina.com reported.

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