Gangs With U.S. Ties Terrorize Central America

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Gangs With U.S. Ties Terrorize Central America

Washington Post



The Rev. Romulo Emiliani, auxiliary bishop of San Pedro Sula in Honduras, sits with two gang members. Many young delinquents joined gangs while living in the United States. Once defined by civil wars, Central America is now consumed by a battle against gangs. Photo by Kevin Sullivan.


PUERTO CORTES, Honduras -- The head of a young girl was found in a burlap bag in October in this industrial port on the Caribbean. The bag also contained a note to President Ricardo Maduro from Mara 18, an ultra-violent street gang, saying the killing was "in memory" of a gangster killed by police.

That unidentified head and many other mutilated corpses and body parts that turn up regularly in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, are evidence of a growing crisis in Central America. Once defined by civil wars, this region is now consumed by a battle against gangs. Their crimes have terrorized citizens in poor nations struggling to establish peaceful democracies after decades of civil wars.

"These gangsters are just killing machines," said "scar Arturo Álvarez, the Honduran minister of public security. "They are a threat to the stability of our democracy. When people see their neighbors being killed and their daughters being raped, they start to believe that democracy is not working."

The gang violence is closely connected to the United States, which spent billions of dollars on Central America's wars during the 1980s. Thousands of Central American refugees fleeing the wars streamed into the United States, particularly to Los Angeles, where some joined or formed notorious street gangs such as Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha. (snip/...)

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=8&ArticleID=36461

. . "Exporting Terrorism"

That what it looks like to me

. . From the Article:

Central American leaders said U.S. policies are making their problems worse.

In the past year, the FBI has launched a new offensive against Mara 18, Mara Salvatrucha and other gangs. Officials here said that will only increase deportations and send more gang members into their countries.

/snip/

"Here they don't care if you've committed a crime," he said. "They want to judge you just for your tattoos."

/snip/

Hmmm - Sorta like judging people for their religion. headware, or who you talk to et., etc. -

Oh Ya

that's what the USA's Patriot Act does - no ?

oh well - if another Country "acts up"

- Da BFEE's got that Pre-emptive thing so their WarMachine can go into action again !!

USA wouldn't BE the USA if it didn't have a war going on SOMEWHERE,

now would it ?

Anyone think of any other Country besides the USA that has (or even HAD) as many wars going on as the USA does now ??

Hmm - Hmmm??

I'll say it again - and again

Looks like the typical "Rise and Fall of the _________ Empire"

And the Grand ole U S of A ain't in the "rise" mode anymore.

"Empires DON"T work" !!


Just My Canuk Opinion

Remember reading about this in the mid-90s in a good journalist account --might have been Harper's--but the place in question was El Salvadore...
A legacy of the war...too many weapons floating around, mostly among the paramilitaries, the drug trade and the deportations of 'illegals' that fled to the US...
In that article there was a fear among US law enforcement that the 'gangs' were hooking up: improving drug trafficking, money laudering, counterfeiting and of course the problem that gang members were less deterred from more 'heinous' actions (esp if you could simply disappear to Central America after a hit)....CA was worried about a 'Miami problem' of the late 80s...

It predicted then that things could only get worse--after reading the article that Judi posted, I'd say that was an understatement.

<clips>

...Soldiers and heavily armed police are once again patrolling San Salvador's neighborhoods and yet the gangs continue to grow. And as their numbers increase so will the crimes, said Griffin. Many gangs have already moved into some neighborhoods and turned entire blocks into ghost towns.

One former gang member told Griffin the gangs use bombs as well as guns to gain territory.

Avila said this deadly combination of weaponry is the result of a blending of two violent cultures: the battle-hardened guerrilla fighters of El Salvador and the crime-hardened gang members of Los Angeles.

With the problem getting worse and the public outcry growing stronger, El Salvador is publicly wondering what to do next, said Griffin.

http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/1998/060898ladirt.html

is the Taliban who were direct descendants of the Mujahadeen (spelling?) funded by Reagan to act as our proxies against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's.

that created such misery for the people there. Hundreds of thousands died where tortured or disappeard at the hands of School of the Americas-trained military. These people have known nothing but terror for decades and it always emenates from the USA. :puke:

<clips>

...The new Republican administration soon declared El Salvador a principal battleground in its war against what it described as expansionist Communism. Ronald Reagan in a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers sketched his views on the strategic importance of El Salvador and Central America. "Central America", he said, "is simply too close, and the strategic stakes are too high, for us to ignore the danger of governments seizing power there with ideological and military ties to the Soviet Union. ... Soviet military theorists want to destroy our capacity to resupply Western Europe in case of an emergency. They want to tie down our attention and forces on our own southern border ..."

Reagan released massive amounts of military aid to El Salvador, helped create the Contras, an anti-Sandinista guerrilla front, and built up the Honduran army as a firewall against the further spread of revolution in the region. Guatemala's genocidal army was given covert support in its war against its indigenous population and secret military bases were set up in pacific Costa Rica to support the war effort against Nicaragua.

Harvard Professor John Coatsworth in his study of U.S. policies in Central America wrote that: "No U.S. government has ever devoted as much of its own political capital and the nation's resources to Central America as did the Reagan administration... . None had such profoundly traumatic effects on the region. None left office with such little control over events in the region."

In El Salvador, the Reagan Administration consistently rejected a negotiated settlement between the FMLN and the government. Although ostensively trying to build a centrist majority around the Christian Democratic (PDC) regime of Jose Napoleon Duarte, Reagan's insistence that the war be decided on the battlefield and not at the negotiating table insured that support for the political center would wane. For many Salvadorans, to support the PDC was to support war without end in El Salvador.

http://www.icomm.ca/carecen/page75.html

According to this report from the NACLA, this law is politially driven by the ruling ARENA party (background below) to garner support for the upcoming March 2004 presidential elections. Get this, it's a temporary measure that ends with the final days of the current ARENA administration.

<clips>

...Opposition parties criticize the use of dangerous and repressive measures to combat a social problem that demands a more comprehensive approach. Some legislators have compared it to declaring a "war on young people," and speculate that, without complementary measures to treat the root causes of gang violence, the plan will generate even more violence.

The law, approved as a temporary measure, will be in effect for six months, a period coinciding with the final days of the Flores administration. The crackdown is widely recognized as a strategy of the ruling ARENA party to garner support for the upcoming March 2004 presidential elections.

El Salvador is not alone in allowing heavily armed soldiers to police poor neighborhoods. Similar operations are being used in Honduras and Guatemala, as police representatives from across Central America work together on a coordinated campaign to use military force to combat the threat of gang violence.

In less than three months, the Mano Dura Plan has resulted in more than 3,000 arrests, the majority of which appear to be arbitrary roundups of youth with characteristics of gang affiliation. Of those arrested, approximately 80% have been released due to lack of evidence.

http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2290

---

Background on the ARENA party:

<clips>

ARENA Party of El Salvador

ARENA: Nationalist Republican Aliance (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) ARENA was formed in September 1981 by rightist military officers and landowners as well as leaders of the death squads. The volatile and charismatic Roberto D'Aubuisson quickly became the party's leader. D'Aubuisson combined fierce anti-communism, fiery nationalism, and a willingness to fight his opponents using any means at hand, including murder. He succeeded in building support for his hardline policies among the traditional supporters of the oligarchy, and extended the right's influence to some elements of the rural poor. Although D'Aubuisson enjoyed great support among ARENA party members, his prominence within its leadership insured that the United States would work against ARENA coming to power.

In 1985, D'Aubuisson stepped down as party president in an apparent effort to moderate the party's image. His replacement, Alfredo Cristiani, was a wealthy coffee grower who had been considered D'Aubuisson's protégé. D'Aubuisson was named ARENA's "president for life" and he continued to weild much influence within the party until his death.

During the 1980s, ARENA was characterized by a hard-line approach to dealing with the guerrilla insurgency. Time and again, ARENA rejected meaningful negotiations with the FMLN. Its intransigence helped secure ARENA's place as the preeminent rightist party. ARENA also drew support because of its nationalistic criticism of U.S. interference in Salvadoran politics. Although never rejecting U.S. aid, ARENA argued that political and human rights conditions imposed by the U.S. violated Salvadoran sovereignty and were helping to prolong the war by blocking the scorched earth strategy urged by ARENA.

With the declining popularity of the Christian Democrats and the improved image of ARENA cultivated by Cristiani, the U.S., which had once seen an ARENA presidential victory as a catastrophe, came to accept the new ARENA government which took power in 1989. Although the Cristiani administration initially indicated some openness to a negotiated end to the war, a spate of human rights abuses by the military and rightists, along with provocations from the FMLN, from September to November of 1989 signaled that the war was far from over.

http://www.icomm.ca/carecen/page71.html