Gang violence rises in Central America
Prison uprising in El Salvador underscores woes
By Mary Jordan, Washington Post | October 3, 2004
SAN SALVADOR -- Homemade grenades started exploding midmorning Aug. 18 at La Esperanza, El Salvador's largest prison, and the 3,200 inmates locked inside the overcrowded cage stampeded to escape the blasts and the fireballs.
A battle between 400 members of a notorious street gang, Mara 18, and the rest of the inmates had erupted after weeks of tension. Hundreds of inmates took up weapons fashioned from broken wooden chapel benches and steel bed frames. When the killing was over, 31 inmates lay dead, some scalped and mutilated beyond recognition.
The deadly riot was Central America's fourth major prison uprising in 20 months. The riots, in which 216 inmates were hacked, decapitated, burned, or shot to death, are the latest evidence that violent street gangs are overwhelming the poor countries of this region. From neighborhoods where menacing, tattooed youths extort money from fearful residents to out-of-control prisons where gang members fabricate grenades, street gangs are the top security concern.
"People are scared. It's having a big impact on society," said Wilfredo Avelena, a top Salvadoran police official. ''You never saw this before: When leaders in the region get together, they have meetings dedicated to discussing gangs."
The use of crack cocaine is blamed for driving up the level of violence and the savagery of gang crimes in the past two years, and several Central American governments have responded with massive law enforcement operations. President Tony Saca of El Salvador has deployed more than 1,000 heavily armed soldiers on the streets to aid the national police in arresting gang leaders, most of whom come from the two main groups, Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha.
The gang problem in Central America has a long history shared with the United States. Many people fleeing the region's civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s settled in Los Angeles, where they joined or formed street gangs. In the 1990s, the United States stepped up the deportation of Central American immigrants who were convicted of crimes.
Last year the United States deported nearly 2,000 people with criminal records to this country of 6.5 million people, officials said. Many had spent much of their lives in the United States; stigmatized and estranged from families here, they quickly fell in with the local chapter of their gangs.
In the Washington area, which has the nation's second-largest Salvadoran population after Los Angeles, gang activity has been growing. Instead of the large body tattoos that identify gang members in Central America, many in the United States mark their affiliation more discreetly, such as tattooing the number ''18" or ''MS" inside their bottom lips. Police in Northern Virginia have estimated that 2,500 youths belong to street gangs, primarily Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. Continued...