Success of Salvador gang truce: Stronger gangs

The government said it facilitated talks but promised the gangs nothing. Nevertheless, imprisoned leaders were given better quarters and expanded privileges. Prosecutors are investigating possible arms trafficking related to the truce.

Marvin Gonzalez waves to shopkeepers as he enjoys a morning walk through the sunny, working-class resort of Ilopango. His cellphone rings nonstop with residents seeking his support for anything from dealing with a drunk who won’t pay his bar bill to reporting an attempted rape.

Gonzalez is not a police chief, nor a politician. The 31-year-old plug of a man is the local leader of the Mara Salvatrucha, a gang formed by Central American immigrants in California and now designated by the US as a transnational criminal organization. But in Ilopango and communities across El Salvador, the Mara Salvatrucha and their archrivals, the 18th Street Gang, are de-facto rulers. A truce declared two years ago briefly tapered their bloody gang war, but the cease-fire had an unintended consequence: It gave the gangs breathing room to grow even stronger. Now, violence is on the rise again.

The murder rate has climbed since the truce unraveled in late 2013. Last month, the average was up to 10 a day compared to six during the truce.

This wasn’t what was expected when gang leaders reached a truce in March 2012. Observers hailed the agreement as the start of a new era of peace for El Salvador, a model to be followed by other countries, and one that had taken cues from the peace process that, two decades earlier, ended El Salvador’s 12-year civil war.

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