Monday 8 July 2013

Media, public question gangs ceasefire in El Salvador

The website elsalvador.com observed on 6 July that hopes raised by the ceasefire the main street gangs began in 2012 - and especially a pledge to stop violent crime in specified municipalities - had "slowly faded away" amid the recent spike in killings across El Salvador. It counted 103 killings in 12 of the country's 14 departments "in the latest escalation of violence," though it gave no dates for these. Mexico's Notimex agency was cited as reporting 12 killings on 1 July, 20 the next day and 24 on 3 July, which were figures far above the four-seven killings a day officials had boasted had become a general norm after the ceasefire began in March 2012. The Salvadorean President was cited as saying on 6 July that the rate returned to "6-7" killings a day in the preceding 48 hours, due he said to police and other actions, which he did not specify. Elsalvador.com observed however that residents were noting little difference in districts where the Mara gangs had agreed to eschew violent crime, as violence and extortion continued there as elsewhere. President Mauricio Funes discussed the recent violence on 4 July with one of the ceasefire mediators, the former leftist guerrilla Raúl Mijango. The mediator asked that the government continue backing the process and aid the social reintegration of criminals, Notimex reported. Mr Mijango had promised that week that the violence would fall again within 72 hours, which prompted politicians to attack him, presumably for what seemed like an excessive level of complicity or familiarity with criminals. On 6 July the President also asked the opposition ARENA party and its leader Norman Quijano González to stop their "electoral" attacks on the ceasefire whose necessity he alleged ARENA accepted, the Public Security Ministry reported. Mr Funes said the mediator Raúl Mijango told him that members of ARENA had informed him ARENA was itself interested in maintaining dialogue with the Mara gangs should it win the presidential elections scheduled for February 2014. Mr Funes told a radio interview that "in fact they want to talk but right now during the elections it doesn't suit them to go with the ceasefire." ARENA he said, presently sought to depict the ceasefire as "a dark pact between the government and gang members, between President Funes and gang members...don't be hypocritical and mean... don't appear like you're telling the public you would not make a pact with criminals."

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