police clash with election violence

Why is it so hard sometimes to see theat people have different views and opinons on many things why must people resort to violence to resolve even the most mundane of issues..

SAN SALVADOR -- At least one person was killed, two police officers were wounded and seven young men were arrested in election-related violence in El Salvador, the National Civilian Police, or PNC, said Sunday.Ulises Vladimir Perez was stabbed to death by unidentified assailants in San Martin, a city located 18 kilometers (11 miles) east of San Salvador, while putting up election posters for the Democratic Revolutionary Front, or FDR, party.Salvadoran media reported that the 17-year-old boy was a target because he had witnessed an attack a month ago on a relative who also belongs to the FDR.Oscar Esquivel, an FDR legislative candidate, told reporters he was not ruling out a political motive for the killing.El Salvador is holding legislative and municipal elections on Jan. 18 and a presidential election on March 15, with different polls showing the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a former guerrilla group, leading.

Two police officers were wounded Saturday afternoon when supporters of the ruling rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA, party and the FMLN clashed in Santo Tomas, a city located 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) southeast of the capital.Six people were arrested in the incident, which started when young men who back the FMLN saw the ARENA supporters putting up campaign posters and confronted them, the PNC said.

The two sides exchanged words and then started fighting with sticks and stones, injuring two PNC officers who had responded to the disturbance.Six additional patrol cars were needed to restore order, and the FMLN supporters were arrested for allegedly starting the disturbance.

Honduran gang leader arrested in El Salvador

This goes to show that the Mara gangs that are in El Salvador are not just there this problem stretches all around El Salvador. To Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Mexico ect.. This has become an international effort with many countries involved to help reduce and educate the local population that gangs are not the only choice they have. That a world of possibilities exists outside of the gangs that are recruiting The people need to stand up and say enough is enough. When that happens people will quit living in fear.


A Honduran official says one of the country's most dangerous gang leaders has been arrested in neighboring El Salvador.
Security Vice Minister Mario Perdomo says Jose Reyes is wanted in 13 killings, including the slaying of the leader of the Honduras' largest workers federation.

Altagracia Fuentes was shot to death in April along a road on Honduras' Atlantic coast. She was the secretary of Honduras' Workers Federation, which has some 300,000 members.

Perdomo said on Tuesday that Reyes is a leader of the Mara 18 gang.

He said Reyes was arrested on Saturday at a luxurious house in the city of Santa Tecla, in central El Salvador.

Original article Here

How is Deporting My Brother a Solution to Gang Violence?

This is a story of Frank. not unlike many brothers that are involved in Gangs and are being deported.. leaveing freinds and family behind to visit a country that they are from even if they ever have little or no knowledge of. Is this the way to solve the gang problem? read this heart wretching story and see if you feel the same way ...


Today, my step-brother Frank, 23, was deported back to El Salvador. The thing I remember most about him is seeing him laugh. He would laugh about everything, then hide his face to drown his loud mischievous laugh. Frank is about eight years older then me, but I have always been a little bit better at video games. We could play for hours, Frank and my brothers Carlos and Irvin and I.

Frank was deported after being arrested and incarcerated for armed robbery. He had shot someone, but luckily did not kill him. I was in disbelief when it happened, all I could say was: "Frank isn't that stupid." Meaning I knew he was sort of dumb, for joining a gang, carrying a gun, taking pills and drinking, but I never thought he would actually hurt someone.

Many people like to say that their relatives are innocent and that they are good people inside, well, I won't bore you with the same story. Instead, I will tell you that my brother is guilty. He was affiliated with gangs and deserves time away from society, but he was paying for his time by being locked up. His incarceration really seemed to change him for the better. But, in sending him back to El Salvador, I worry that he'll have to resort back to gang life to survive because he won't have any family or support system.

My mother and father are both immigrants to this country from El Salvador. They were dating since before they came here. My mom came over first and got a job in a restaurant near Jack London Square in Oakland, washing dishes and serving food. She then saved up enough money to bring my dad over in the 80s. They got married then divorced six years later, when I was about three years old. After that day in court, I did not see my dad for about two years. He had traveled back to El Salvador to forget his problems for a while. Meanwhile, my mom got together with my stepfather. When my father came back, he had a new wife. When my dad took my brothers and I to his house for the weekend, I was surprised to meet his new step-kids: Frank, Sulma and Mercedez. I never really resented them or my parents for the divorce. I consider them all my family, because they are as much a part of my life as I am a part of theirs. Frank was around 12 or 13 years old when he came to the U.S.

When I met my brother Frank, I was a very young, but I remember he ate a lot. One good memory I have of him is when he took my brothers and me to the theater to watch The Amityville Horror. I was so scared during the movie that I started to eat my pound of watermelon-flavored jellybeans in a rush. And I remember him telling us how he always wanted little brothers, since he only had little sisters.

I knew Frank was in a gang. He showed my brother Carlos the gun he was carrying, not to frighten him, but to prove that he was "bad," that he was "down" with gangs. I still remember that smile on his face when Carlos called him an idiot. I suppose Frank just took it as a joke. When I heard about it, I thought: "My brother is going to shoot someone, or get shot, what do I prefer?" I do not remember talking to him about gang life too much, but he did tell us how he would punch and kick rival gang members, wipe the blood off his shoes with a dirty shirt then throw it away.

I always saw gangs as people who lost their way. I was never interested in the whole idea that a gang serves as your "family." I have no need for such a family; I have always had my two older brothers, my little sister and my mother. I was not alone because I had my family, but most of all my brothers. They were people I could look up to and always did, but Frank didn't have anything like that. He had no brothers, no one he could connect to and had a lot of pressure being the oldest of the family and coming here as an immigrant. In my opinion, he did all those things that ended up getting him deported to seem brave, to seem cool for all the people in his gang. He wanted to be noticed maybe, have someone look up to him.

Even though I knew about Frank's activities, I was still shocked when he was arrested and I had a hard time imagining that he could hurt anyone.

I remember when my dad and I went to visit him in prison last summer. He was dressed in an orange uniform with a white undershirt. I remember watching him as he folded the orange shirt over and over making lines in the fabric. It was easy to tell he was scared in there – he had lost a lot of weight and had not seen outside in months. It was the first time I had visited someone in jail, and hoped it would be the last. A feeling of pain and sadness could be felt through the walls of the building. It was very depressing seeing my brother through a piece of glass. I remember being able to talk to him about a bunch of things, and mainly about girls, and we reminisced about the good old days. I heard a voice on a speaker, and I knew it was time to say goodbye until our next visit. Afterwards I talked with my dad about his experiences in jail for drinking and driving. Then he went on and on about his experiences in the military during the war in El Salvador.

I did not know exactly what to think or say when I heard my brother was going to be deported. My step mom, Lydia, was really sad about his crime but she knew he would eventually get out. My brother Irvin wrote letters to him in prison and told me that Frank had gotten very "philosophical", giving him advice about all sorts of things. I care about my brother, but he made a lot of mistakes that have caused him to be where he is today. For that very reason is why I stay away from gangs and drugs, and always will.

I miss my Frank. I miss how he was always able to say something funny to make people laugh. I am realizing how you never notice things about people until they are far away or just gone. I think it is unjust that my brother is far away from his family, without a way to get back. Lydia still has three daughters, whom she must take care of, which means she can't go to El Salvador to see him.

This Oct. 31, I - along with a big group of people - protested in front of the San Francisco ICE office, with the purpose of stopping the raids happening in Sanctuary Cities, such as San Francisco and Oakland. It was one of the first major protests I have attended and I felt proud to be out there making a stand for all immigrants who are being treated unjustly. Again, I know that Frank committed a serious crime but I believe it is unfair that my brother is being deported, because it does not solve anything, there are still gangs in El Salvador. If someone does a crime make them do their time, but do not move them far away from their families, it not only hurts them but their families as well.

The last time I talked to him on the phone, was about four days before he was deported. He sounded like the same Frank I knew. When I asked him if he was going to still be in a gang after all that happened he simply said "no." None of his gang friends visited him during the time he was in jail. One of his friends did write letters to him. All the people in his gang that were his "family" never visited him. On the other hand, his mother, sisters, my dad, my brothers and I visited him every chance we had. Now he is alone in El Salvador, because his only family is here.

Just before the call ended, the dial tone buzzed, and a woman's voice said: "This call has ended." Frank said to me: "Be safe, bro," and I said, "Yeah, you too."

Salvadoran Prisoners Escape From Jail

Have to give it to people in desperate times they can o to desperate measures to try to get away.. as of the writing of this article they are still on the loose. hopefully with the help of the national police force will come to swift justice.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A dozen prisoners escaped Friday from a jail in downtown El Salvador, but four were quickly recaptured. Officials were still searching for the other eight.One of the prison's guards is in custody for allegedly helping the group, top police official Cesar Flores said.

Flores said the prisoners tied their shirts together to make a rope and used that to climb to the jail's roof before dawn. They then fled by jumping to other buildings.

"Neighbors in the area called 9-1-1 to report that there were several suspects on the roofs, and we believe they were the escaped inmates," he said.The jail at the Isidro Menendez judicial center in downtown San Salvador was holding 80 inmates at the time of the escape. Most are awaiting trial.

Those who escaped were members of the violent and feared Mara Salvatrucha street gang.
Police say El Salvador has about 13,500 Mara gang members, many of whom are involved in kidnappings, extortion rings and other crimes.

original article Here

Gangs Kill 2 Bus Drivers in El Salvador

More evidence of the violent crime commited daily on the streets of el salvador.. wil funes find away to reduce these senseless loss of life?

SAN SALVADOR -- Police in El Salvador said Thursday that suspected gang members killed two bus workers and wounded a third in the past 24 hours.Unidentified individuals killed a fare collector and wounded a bus driver Thursday at kilometer 12 of the Pan-American Highway, a National Civilian Police, or PNC, spokesman told Efe, adding that the suspects fled and have not been arrested.

A 36-year-old bus driver was killed Wednesday in Soyapango, which is in the eastern section of San Salvador, the PNC spokesman said.The suspects opened fire on the bus driver and then set his vehicle, which covered route 41 B, on fire.Investigators said the driver may have been attacked because he refused to pay "rent" to the gangs that operate in the area.Bus drivers and operators who refuse to pay extortion money have been targeted by gangs.

Salvadoran media reported Thursday that more than 20 bus operators plying route 41 B have decided to support a "partial strike" to protest the death of their fellow driver and pressure authorities to deal with the situation.A group of unidentified individuals set fire Wednesday to a bus in Cuscatanciango, located north of San Salvador, but no one was injured in the attack, police said. EFE

Central American crime is our problem

I found this article on a respected website into the issues of crime in El Salvador. It suggest that as the increase in crime in el Salvador directly effects the us and that the first problem for President elect Barak Obama is to figure out away to stop the influx of new immigrants into the path of gangs and extortion. Yet how can the US help stop this influx when we were the ones that shipped criminals back to el Salvador with nothing to go back to. SO the social nor would be to stick with what you know and these people that were sent back knew Gangs offered a family structure to take care of their own. I wonder what other policies Barack might handle in his new administration that seem to have no answer

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – One of the first issues President-elect Barack Obama's transition team will look into when it starts mapping its Latin America policy: the wave of crime that is rocking much of the region and that is increasingly spreading into major U.S. cities.

According to a new study by U.N. Development Program economist Carlos Acevedo, Central America has the world's highest regional homicide rates, and several Caribbean and South American countries are not far behind.

El Salvador's homicide rate of 68 killings a year per 100,000 inhabitants – the world's highest, after Iraq – is followed within the region by Guatemala, with 45 homicides; Colombia and Honduras with 43; and Venezuela with 41. By comparison, the U.S. homicide rate is 5.7, the study says.

And from what I heard from international experts and government officials during a recent visit, a major increase in the number of U.S. deportations of undocumented migrants with criminal records is swelling the ranks of the unemployed in Central America and further driving up crime rates.

"A friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint on a bus three times within one week," Mr. Acevedo told me. "I've been luckier: I have only been robbed once, also at gunpoint, when I stopped my car at a red light."

I asked several law enforcement experts here what the Obama administration should do. Most agreed that Central America is getting too little of the $400 million Merída Initiative U.S. aid package to help combat violence in Mexico and Central America. They also complained that most of the U.S. aid is focused on anti-drug equipment rather than on crime prevention.

It's time to step up transnational anti-gang efforts, take stronger actions to prevent U.S. arms trafficking and change the focus of U.S. anti-crime measures toward more education and crime prevention programs.

Increasingly, crime in Central America has become far more than a local issue. Increasingly, it's a U.S. problem.

for origianl article please referance fromthe dallas morning star http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-oppenheimer_24edi.State.Edition1.1acb7d5.html

Rich and Poor.

Agreat story by Coco McCabe returning from a recent trip from san salvador whose first hand knowledge explores the poverty that is so prevalent here.

SAN SALVADOR -- What was it about El Salvador? This was my first trip to the country and I hadn’t quite analyzed the sweep of emotions -- disquiet among them -- that it had aroused since my plane touched down in the dark. I couldn’t see much as we sped away from the airport that first night, but I could feel plenty: the deliciousness of the air conditioning in the brand new van that picked me up, the smoothness of the highway -- as wide and well-paved as any in the US -- slipping away beneath us as we rolled toward San Salvador. Roads like this don’t come cheaply, I thought.

Soon, lights from the city -- about 1.6 million people live there -- flooded the sky and we were climbing steep hills past luxury hotels and San Salvador’s version of the World Trade Center, with a new, towering addition still under construction. Wealth seemed to shimmer everywhere.
But in the morning, I began to see a different El Salvador. We drove, first thing, out to the municipality of Santa Catarina Masahuat to visit a program Oxfam America had helped to fund on preserving indigenous knowledge. Up a rough road, at the crest of a hill, Cesar Donal Ascencio Reyes, a community activist, was waiting for us outside his house of corrugated metal and mud bricks. Though he knew nothing about construction, he had built it himself. That’s what you do when you don’t have money, he said.

And many people in El Salvador don’t: Almost 41 percent of the country’s 5.7 million citizens live on less than $2 a day, including 19 percent who survive on less than $1 a day. Many of the houses in Reyes’ neighborhood looked just like his. Light pricked through pinholes in the walls, ruts pocked the dirt floor, and the metal roof trapped the heat, baking the interior. Creature comforts included a latrine at the back of a chicken pen and a concrete tub -- or "pila'' -- for storing water. Water from the tap only runs twice a day, for one hour in the morning and another in the afternoon.

Reyes' house sat on a 2,500-square-foot plot -- a chunk of land he had managed to buy for about $2,000. Thirteen years later, he was still paying it off. But a dream has kept him going.
"I'm thinking about how I can split this up and leave a house for each of my girls," he said. "That’s my dream." Three daughters dividing one small plot would still be better than having no plot and no home of their own at all -- the fate his parents endured.

Back in San Salvador that evening, I thought about Reyes’ pila and its water with the greenish cast as I stepped into the shower in my hotel room. The water shot from the shower head, hot and without limit. Later, I flicked on the air conditioning, and slipped between the crisp sheets of the bed someone else had made for a restless night’s sleep. A couple of days later, in a semi-flooded field next to a small, Oxfam-built house in Animas Arriba, my colleague, Enrique Garcia, summed up what was bothering me.

"The main problem in Latin America is the inequities," he said. "The countries are not poor; the people are. In a very small country you can see the world. El Salvador is a good example: You can find the poorest and the richest."

The earth beneath our feet was spongy and water had pooled in the deep hoof prints left by grazing cattle. A few weeks before, the field had been a lagoon, swamped, as it was every year, with too much rain. And at its muddy edge lived Rogelio Ochoa, his wife Maria Eugenia Mendoza de Ochoa, and six children. The little house, with walls and a roof of corrugated metal built high off the ground on cement blocks, was theirs -- a replacement for the old adobe one that had collapsed the year before during unusually heavy rains. The flooding that ensued also wiped out much of the corn in the area that small farmers were on the verge of harvesting.Corn constitutes their basic staple and, if they’re lucky, earns them a small income.

In a country the size of Massachusetts, where for years most of the arable land was consolidated in the hands of a few, many poor rural farmers rent the land they till. And some, like the Ochoa family, don’t own the ground on which their houses sit. With nowhere else to live, the Ochoas had settled in marginal land that, at certain times of the year, was almost a bog.

The profile for El Salvador on the US State Department’s website says that country’s economy has been growing steadily since the civil war ended in 1992 and the poverty that once afflicted 66 percent of the people at the close of the war had dropped to 31 percent in 2006.

But numbers crunched by bureaucrats in the comfort of their office buildings are just statistics. They don’t tell the whole story -- the story we really need to hear-- the way a visit to the countryside can.

"If you go out of the capital and go to see a family, you can feel it, " Garcia said. "You can touch the poverty."

story referanced from
http://www.boston.com/news/world/blog/2008/11/el_salvador_fro.html

Pacific Rim mining Company

canadian mining company Pacific Rim is featured on a mural in El Salvador, where company promoters are being blamed for dividing the community. the residents of one community are feeling the impact of mining long before any ground has been broken. Locals are talking about contamination – but not the kind caused by environmental pollutants – it is "social contamination" that is tearing apart the village of Trinidad, and athe Canadian mining company that is being blamed. So who is right?

FMLN Campaign...

The campaign today officially started with the FMLN they continue to be the favorite in the polls and people seem to be responding well.. this will be a historic move for El Salvador. with most people feeling that the Arena party has let them down and that a change in govenment is badly needed. i will continue to watch another historic election not to unlike americas.

article referanced from Here "http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44738"

SAN SALVADOR, Nov 17 (IPS) - As the campaign gets underway, the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is the favourite in the polls for El Salvador’s March 2009 presidential elections.

A win for the FMLN would be historical in a country traditionally governed by the right, analysts point out. Since this Central American country declared its independence from Spain in the 19th century, it has been governed by conservatives, economic liberals or military dictatorships (from 1931 to 1979). And since 1989, it has been ruled by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). Christian Democratic and Social

Democratic parties won the presidential elections in 1972 and 1977, but the military resorted to fraud and repression of opponents, forcing many of them into exile. In 1980, civil war broke out, with the leftist FMLN guerrillas fighting government forces. The insurgent group became a political party after a peace agreement was signed in 1992.

Today, the party’s presidential candidate, Mauricio Funes, is leading the polls by a margin of two to 15 percentage points over his main rival, ARENA’s Rodrigo Ávila. Although the campaign did not actually begin until Friday, Nov. 14, political scientist Napoleón Campos told IPS that the Supreme Electoral Court has allowed the parties to informally campaign for nearly two years. Under the country’s electoral laws, campaigns can only last four months in the case of presidential elections, two months in the case of parliamentary elections, and one month for municipal elections.

For the first time ever, the FMLN -- the main opposition party -- stands a real chance of winning the presidency, after four unsuccessful attempts since 1994. But despite the natural wear and tear suffered by ARENA after nearly 20 years in power, and the impact of the current international financial crisis, Campos said the scenario could change from here to Mar. 15. Local media outlets have estimated that the country’s six political parties will spend a combined total of 30 million dollars in the campaign.

The parties taking part in the elections, besides the FMLN and ARENA, are the Christian Democratic Party, the National Reconciliation Party, Democratic Change and the Democratic Revolutionary Front.

The FMLN is also ahead in the polls for the Jan. 18 legislative and municipal elections. Nelson Zárate, director of the Centre for Research on Public Opinion (CIOP), whose latest poll found that Funes is 15 points ahead of Ávila, told IPS that the leftist candidate has generated "a wave of credibility that is drawing people to vote for the FMLN" at all levels, not only in the presidential elections. Funes, a popular journalist and talk-show host, did not even actually belong to the FMLN until August, which in the view of analysts puts him in a position to draw voters who would not have cast their ballots for one of the party’s long-time leaders. The FMLN kicked off its campaign with a caravan of hundreds of cars that set out from San Salvador on Saturday with Funes at its head. T

hey were joined by more and more cars until thousands were driving from city to city around the country. The aim of the caravan, said the head of the party, Medardo González, is to awaken people’s "confidence" in the change that the FMLN proposes to bring to the country. ARENA’s campaign opened, as always, in the western city of Izalco, which is a symbol for the governing party. In 1932, an estimated 30,000 indigenous peasants were slaughtered there by the anti-communist dictatorship of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who took power in a January 1931 military coup. (END/2008)

Thought I would share something..

I was surfing the internet the other day and came across a very interesting blog.. http://jesusfloresfotos.blogspot.com/ This blog is about a photo journalist in el Salvador who is trying to collect the images of a side of El Salvador only rumored about but rarely seen..

This blog depicts a side of El Salvador that until recently has been withheld from the world or themselves either because people choose to ignore it and pretend it does not exist or the suppression and censorship by the government..

The establishment of the national police force school and the recent resignation of the national police chief bring article here

(http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSN2350739120080823)

Indicates to me that they are trying to change but it will take sometime.. and el Salvadorians need to stand together and say enough is enough to help restore their neighborhoods and provide better security for themselves and their families. But. Looking at the pictures by this very talented I hopes tell the other story of el Salvador not to scare away but maybe to anger those enough to want to do something for a positive change.