| |
EL SALVADOR: Killings Bear
Hallmarks of Death Squads
By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR (IPS) - Human rights defenders and analysts
in El Salvador suspect that death squads were
responsible for two highly coordinated attacks in which
12 young men were killed this month.
In one of the latest incidents pointing to "social
cleansing" activities by death squads, black-clad hooded
gunmen shot and killed seven suspected members of "maras"
- as youth gangs are known in Central America - near a
stream on Feb. 2.
The murders took place in Milingo, in the central
department (province) of Cuscatlán, and the killers used
M16 assault rifles and 9mm pistols.
Just four days later, five young men were gunned down in
a restaurant in Tonacatepeque on the outskirts of San
Salvador by three gunmen wearing similar black clothes
and facemasks and armed with the same kind of weapons.
One of the survivors said the gunmen shut all of the men
in a room, asked them if they belonged to maras and
checked their bodies for the tattoos that indicate gang
membership.
Although they didn't find tattoos, the hooded men told
the youngsters that they were going to die anyway, and
opened fire. Police investigations found that the
victims had no ties to the maras, but were students and
construction workers.
The maras originated in California after nearly one
million Salvadorans fled to the United States during
this country's 12-year civil war and settled largely in
poor neighbourhoods in Los Angeles where gang violence
was rife. After the armed conflict, U.S. authorities
began to deport thousands of gang members to El
Salvador, where the escalation of violence drove the
murder rates above those seen during the war.
The maras also spread to Honduras and Guatemala.
Police in El Salvador have referred to two theories
about this month's massacres: that they were a settling
of scores between maras or the work of social cleansing
groups.
The attorney-general's office is investigating whether
the same group of killers was involved in both
incidents. Although similar firearms were used, police
investigators told IPS that the M16 rifle used in
Tonacatepeque was not the same as the one used in
Milingo.
Political analyst Salvador Samayoa, a former chairman of
the National Council on Public Security, a government
body, wrote in an oped that a specialised commando
apparently committed the killings in Milingo, to judge
by the modus operandi.
Samayoa said theories that the killings were the result
of a vendetta between gangs or were the work of hired
thugs or "sicarios" were "improbable."
"Based on our history, the 'theatre of operations', the
weapons used, the way the ambush was staged, the
clothing worn, the style of the killings, and above all
the capacity and determination to attack a large group,
the killers exhibited characteristics of a commando and
of combat experience," he wrote in the Diario Hoy
newspaper.
The expert said that although there are precedents in El
Salvador of warfare between rival maras and of gang
killings of civilians who have nothing to do with the
criminal underworld, this month's two incidents were
different.
"It is practically inconceivable that three gang members
would decide to attack a group of 10 people. That is
only done by the 'special forces' or so-called
'commandos', who are trained precisely to use just a few
men to overcome or annihilate larger units or groups,"
he added.
According to the United Nations Development Programme's
Report on Human Development in Central America
2009-2010, Central America has become the region with
the highest levels of non-political violent crime in the
world.
The report was mainly referring to El Salvador, Honduras
and Guatemala, which have some of the highest murder
rates on the planet: 48 per 100,000 in Guatemala, 52 per
100,000 in El Salvador, and 58 per 100,000 in Honduras -
compared to a Latin American average of 25 per 100,000.
The three countries not only share the problem of gang
violence, but the continued activity of death squads as
well, according to human rights groups like the
London-based Amnesty International and Casa Alianza, the
Latin American branch of the New York-based Covenant
House, a child advocacy organisation.
In the past, death squads targeted students, human
rights defenders, trade unionists, and leftist political
leaders and activists in all three countries: before and
during El Salvador's 1980-1992 armed conflict; during
Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war; and in the 1980s in
Honduras.
In El Salvador, death squads tortured and killed
thousands of leftists and labour and human rights
activists in the 1970s and 1980s as part of the
"anti-communist crusade" led by Roberto d'Aubuisson, the
late founder of the right-wing Nationalist Republican
Alliance (ARENA) which governed the country from 1989 to
2009.
And in the mid-1990s, the "Sombra Negra" (Black Shadow)
- as the group called itself - emerged with the apparent
aim of exterminating criminals and gang members in the
eastern department of San Miguel. Although police
officers were arrested for allegedly participating in
the group, they were let off due to lack of evidence.
For years, human rights groups and experts have said the
death squads that operated in the past never
disappeared, but continue to target suspected criminals
or gang members, and even homeless children - activities
that Amnesty International has also reported in South
American countries like Brazil and Venezuela.
Analysts warn that death squad activity will further
undermine the still shaky democracies of El Salvador,
Guatemala and Honduras.
If the phenomenon is confirmed in El Salvador, it will
weaken the foundations of justice and human rights
institutions, Benjamín Cuéllar, director of the Human
Rights Institute at the Jose Simeón Cañas University (IDHUCA),
told IPS.
"I see a real danger that this kind of criminal activity
is here to stay, which poses a serious threat to
democracy," said Cuéllar.
He linked the phenomenon of death squads to what he
described as the "failed" security policies with which
the right-wing governments that ruled El Salvador until
2009 sought to clamp down on crime, focusing on force
and strong-arm tactics.
The tough-on-crime strategy has not been modified by
President Mauricio Funes, the first leftist president in
the history of El Salvador, who took office in June 2009
at the head of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Front (FMLN).
The president announced this month that he is preparing
an urgent security plan that would increase the maximum
prison sentence for minors from seven to 15 years, as
part of an attempt to curb the escalation of violent
crime. The plan, which was applauded by business,
religious leaders and human rights activists, would also
include advice from international experts on law
enforcement.
According to official figures, 2009 was the most violent
year in a decade, with 4,365 murders in this country of
6.1 million people.
Against that backdrop, some groups have decided to "to
take justice into their own hands, which is also
criminal behaviour, and to focus less on institutional
justice," said Cuéllar.
In late January, human rights ombudsman Oscar Luna said
he had received telephone death threats from individuals
claiming to belong to a death squad. They warned him to
leave the country and to not interfere with their
supposed campaign to stamp out crime.
In neighbouring Guatemala, "the office of the human
rights ombudsman, as well as numerous civil society
organisations, have reported over and over the
complicity of police and judicial authorities in these
criminal activities, stating that behind these deaths
are social cleansing operations and extrajudicial
executions to exterminate supposed criminals and gang
members," the Brazil-based Adital grassroots news
service reported in March 2007.
And in January 2009, Amnesty International issued a
press release on the activities of death squads in the
northeastern Brazilian states of Pernambuco and Paraiba.
The statement noted that in his report on a November
2007 visit to Brazil, the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions said "the public prosecution service in
Pernambuco estimated that approximately 70 percent of
the homicides in Pernambuco are committed by death
squads," and according to a federal parliamentary
commission of inquiry, "80 percent of the crimes caused
by extermination groups involve police or ex-police."
In Venezuela there have long been reports of activities
by what Amnesty described in 2002 as "police death
squads" in the northwestern state of Portuguesa.
In June 2009, one such group warned that it would launch
a social cleansing campaign. Leaflets tacked up in local
businesses said that on Jul. 1 the group would begin to
kill "drug traffickers, thieves and prostitutes" in the
capital of the state, Aragua, and other towns, the
Noticiero PR News on-line publication reported.
After the recent spate of killings in El Salvador,
President Funes said he did not believe they were the
work of death squads, and that there was no evidence to
prove that social cleansing groups existed.
But IDHUCA's Cuéllar said that "to judge by the history
of this country, all signs indicate that there are death
squads, and it is worrisome that President Funes has
flatly ruled out this possibility, before
investigating."
Ramón Villalta, director of the Social Initiative for
Democracy, told IPS that such groups "are undermining
the country's institutions.
"But it is the lack of efficacy of the institutions
themselves in curbing the soaring levels of violent
crime that most affects democracy itself, and pushes
citizens to take justice into their own hands," he
argued.
|
| |
|
|
|
