Clashes between the gangs: MS 13, 18 Southern and Revolutionary against the security forces have fallen to levels of 2013. In the midst of a possible truce between the Bukele government and the gangs; and the drop in clashes, police report that there are municipalities in which they are prevented from entering controlled territories.
Armed clashes between the Police or the Armed Forces and the MS-13, 18 Southern and 18 Revolutionary gangs fell to levels similar to those of the truce held by the government of Mauricio Funes and the gangs in 2013.
Funes applauded the days without homicides; and celebrated that armed clashes had abated. National Civil Police records indicate that in 2013 there were 142 armed clashes between gangs and security forces. An average that was maintained until the population learned of the truce that had managed to reduce homicides and these clashes.
Mauricio Funes could not sustain the implications of the rupture of this truce with gangs: 6,600 homicides in 2015, the most violent year in the country’s history and an average of 504 armed clashes between gangs and security forces every year between 2015 and 2018.
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The country lived with these levels of violence until the last months of Salvador Sánchez Cerén’s government and Nayib Bukele’s first two years in power, when numbers in clashes and killings fell again to similar levels of truce. , and in forms questioned by criminologists due to possible agreements under the table.
In the period of Nayib Bukele there has been a remarkable decline in homicides which began even before the well publicized Territorial Control Plan was executed. An atypical behavior that was replicated in the clashes between the gangs and the security force.
The year 2020 closed with 181 armed clashes. A decrease of 40% compared to 2019 and half compared to 2018.
Amid a possible truce between the gangs and the Bukele government, documented by the newspaper El Faro, researchers and specialists in criminal violence, such as Jeannette Aguilar, believe that statistical and documentary evidence on the subject indicates that “there is a political decision by the Bukele government not to confront the gangs. ” A decision that “probably responds to the request of the same gangs in the framework of agreements (with the government).”
One of the gangs’ requests to the government according to what was revealed by El Far was “the cessation of mass operations by the Army and police.” A fact that was confirmed by Marvin Reis, a former police officer; and another member of the institution who asked not to be identified.
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“Internally in the police we have registered orders from police chiefs asking that there be no need to confront or confront gangs, and also to avoid as much as possible the death of these. This is an order in different delegations,” explained Marvin Reis.
Just as the number of clashes has dropped, so has the number of dead bands in those clashes. In 2014, 85 gangs died in clashes. A number that increased to 315 in 2015 and 604 in 2016; in percentage terms it accounted for 600% more gang deaths.
Now, in the Bukele period there are fewer clashes and therefore fewer dead bands. In 2020, 85 gangs died in clashes, the same number as in 2014 during the truce with Mauricio Funes.
The rebel cliques
Although the number of clashes has dropped, there are still some. Both Aguilar and Reis agree that these are non-aligned rebel cliques. “The gang is not monolithic (composed of a single form). It is a hierarchical structure, but diverse. There are sectors and cliques that do not always follow the guidelines of the ranfla,” says Aguilar. While Reyes gives the example of the confrontation that took place on August 12 in the corner of El Volcà, in San Miguel, where a brigand died when confronting police in wooded areas.
“These are redoubts of some cliques that do not seem to have aligned. We have seen some isolated structures that have been ‘enmontañado’. This especially the gang 18 Meridionals in the area of Huizúcar, in La Libertad; in Sonsonate, and St. Michael. “
But the Nayib Bukele government insists there are no negotiations with the gangs, and says the “good results” such as the drop in homicides is a product of the Territorial Control Plan. But according to the investigations of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Raúl Melara, dismissed the first day the new Assembly came into force, the government has been secretly negotiating criminal and external benefits in exchange for the gang keeping out of the killings. , although other crimes such as extortion remain intact.
Some bus lines between Tonacatepeque and Quezaltepeque threatened to stop work on August 12 due to an alleged increase in the extortion rate. Reis says most cliques nationwide have stopped putting effort into clashes and have preferred to increase activities that increase their capital.
San Salvador, San Miguel, Soyapango, Santa Anna and San Pedro Perulapán are samples of how the confrontations in historically violent municipalities have been reduced.
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