Christian Poveda

Over a quarter of the population of El Salvador is now living in the United States, and young Latino immigrants in Los Angeles have now exported LA gang culture (globalization gone wrong?); they have set up the two main gangs which are now rivals in Central America: Mara Salvatrucha (MS) and Mara 18 (M18). Each gang has its own coded language, rituals, tattoos and hatred for the rival gang. There are no ideological or religious differences behind this “fight till death” that started in the slums of Hispanic barrios in Los Angeles in a now forgotten past, but the battlefield is clearly moving south. Every week a federal plane leaves Texas or California, bound for San Salvador, deporting around one hundred detainees, chained to their seats. Though most are illegal immigrants, arrested after a routine road check, 2% to 5% are mareros (gang members) who have stood trial and served their sentences in the United States and are then deported. This may have contributed to the expansion of MS and M18 gangs in Central America, but it cannot explain the scale of the phenomenon.

In El Salvador and the general region, years of war have left deep scars, and violence is endemic. Some 400,000 firearms are still held in the country and are sold for next to nothing. Drugs and prostitution have spread along with the rapid liberalization of the economy, destroying the social fabric. In 2007 alone, 4000 homicides were reported in this country which has a population of only 5.8 million; an average of eleven deaths a day, and three-quarters of them are marero revenge killings.

The first crackdown on the maras was launched in the winter of 2003, in Honduras, by President Ricardo Maduro (whose son had been kidnapped and murdered by a gang of local thugs a few years earlier). Adopting the “zero tolerance” policy of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York, he passed legislation with provision for mara gang members to be given 9 to 12 year sentences simply for belonging to a gang. Thousands of youths were arrested because of their tattoos or for loitering on the streets. Months later, the President of El Salvador, Francisco Flores, passed similar legislation and launched Operation “Mano dura” authorizing armed forces to patrol the streets with local police.

This repressive operation has no doubt helped reassure the local population, but its effectiveness remains doubtful. In less than a year, 16,132 suspects were arrested, but fewer than 807 cases were investigated, because of lack of evidence. The “anti-mara legislation” was subsequently declared unconstitutional as it violated a number of international conventions. And it did nothing to help solve the ongoing problems of poverty and domestic violence; it only made the groups of youths even more isolated. Unlike the guerrilla generation of the 1970s and 1980s, the disillusioned youths of today have rejected any ideological stance; they simply express their rebellion through violence – extreme violence.

La Vida Loca shows life as it is: youths who suffer, defy us and look down on us; youths who resent and dislike us. Here is their experience of existence in a thankless world, yet it is a world where they simply want to find their place. So violence bursts forth, like a thunderbolt striking granite. To understand the hatred these youths feel for mainstream society, we need to see what is behind it. It is hatred felt by people who have never had anything; it is hatred born of exploitation, oppression and daily humiliation. This is not inter-generational conflict, but an anthropological confrontation. For the governments, the worst offence is not being attacked, but being humiliated by the maras. Repression, in the form of “Mano dura” and “Super Mano dura”, is a response to the violence of the maras but provides no answer to their social and financial problems. Physical domination can offer nothing in return. So, like cornered animals, this lost generation responds with pessimism, revolt and death. Communication impossible!