Gang truce triggers sudden homicide drop in El Salvador.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
Something remarkable recently occurred--or rather did not occur--in violence-plagued El Salvador. On April 14, for the first time in nearly three years, police did not record a single murder. For a country that normally counts its daily homicide figures in double digits, the sudden absence of murder reports was not just good news; it was huge news.
"After years when the number of murders reached alarming levels of up to 18 per day, we saw not one homicide in the country," President Mauricio Funes said in a statement released the following day.
The startling statistic was all the more eye-catching given that, until recently, the country's already infamously high murder rate had been rising even further. In 2009, President Funes' first year in office, El Salvador had nearly 4,400 registered homicides, 34% more than the previous year. That same year, the US state of Massachusetts, similar to the Central American country in both territory and population, reported fewer than 200 murders. El Salvador's homicide figures fell somewhat in 2010, to about 4,000, but jumped again last year, when the Policia Nacional Civil (PNC) reported 4,354 killings. Things got off to an even worse start this year, with the PNC reporting 813 murders in January and February alone--for an average daily murder rate of 14.
Starting around the time of El Salvador's March 11 midterm elections, however, police began noticing a marked decline in violence levels. During the next several weeks, the murder rate fell steeply--to about six per day. On March 12, the PNC reported just two murders. Overall, 255 people were killed in March, a drop of 36% compared with February, a shorter month by two days. So far in April, the trend appears to be holding steady. The PNC reported 71 homicides through the first 14 days of the month for a daily average of five.
Why the sudden drop off in killings? President Funes insists enhanced crime fighting efforts by the PNC and the military deserve at least some of the credit. Most observers, however, believe the main explanation is a mid-March truce reportedly called by rival street gangs Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Mara 18 (MS-18). What is not clear is how exactly that "pact" came about. Nor is there any guarantee if, or for how long, the cease-fire will last.
"Time was ripe" for a truce
The online news portal El Faro broke news of the agreement first, suggesting in a March 14 article that it was brokered directly by the Funes administration...
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