Today's violence in El Salvador worse than the 1980s?

In fact, many people I spoke to then told me they feel the countryis far worse right now then ever during the civil war in the 1980's

— Jan-Albert Hootsen (@Jayhootsen) August 18, 2015

I'm on vacation through Sunday and then on Monday school starts up once again. However, I thought that I'd comment briefly on this Tweet that Greg brought to my attention.

When I was in El Salvador last month, I heard the same thing as Jan-Albert - the country is in worse shape than when the civil was was going on. If I remember correctly, however, I heard the same sentiment in 2012 and 2004. I might even have heard it in 1997 but my mind is somewhat shot.

What to make of the sentiment? I don't know. I'm not sure that they wanted us to take them literally.

The violence today is really bad. El Salvador might finish the year with a murder rate of over 100 per 100,000. That's not good. Almost 3000 Salvadorans were murdered during the first six months of the year. El Salvador averaged over 6,000 civil war related killings (civilian and non-combatant) during each year of its civil war years. Therefore it's going to come close in terms of the total number killed this year; however, the population is somewhat larger - more than one million more (the country had an estimated 5 million people in 1985). 

What are people saying that the violence is just as bad? 50 percent of the country is under 20 years old. The peace accords were signed 23 years ago so well over half the country was not alive for the war and have no first hand basis on which to compare violence of today and yesterday. `

Civil war violence took place in the capital in the 1970s and the early 1980s. It then moved into the countryside from 1982/3 until it returned in November 1989. The capital and the cities were not the center of the civil war as it is today's war. Obviously, the people of the cities felt the war in the mid and late 1980s, just not as much as the 1970s and early 1980s. That's one of the reasons why the FMLN launched its final offensive in November 1989 in the cities. They felt that the elites had not felt the war. They really needed to understand the situation in order for them to get behind a negotiated settlement to the conflict. The final offensive was designed to do that - at least according to some FMLN.

And it's not just the murders. Fear and insecurity are everywhere, even in areas that are pretty safe (just not safe enough for Hooters). I tried to take a tax to a friend's house. At first the taxi driver said no. Then a few taxi drivers spoke with each other to agree that Pasaje 1 was off limits. Gangs controlled it. Pasaje 2 was safe, however, until you reached the top of the hill. So one could travel "freely" halfway up the street. 

In addition to the violence, there's the loss of hope. Many Salvadorans hoped that a change in government from ARENA to the FMLN would bring about improvements in the quality of life for the majority of Salvadorans. However, Funes and now the FMLN's response to insecurity have been less than effective. There are very few people who seem to think that the FMLN has what it takes to reverse course in El Salvador. ARENA has already proven that they can't and now some people are coming to the conclusion that neither is the FMLN. 

A few months ago I said that it didn't make sense to compare whether today's violence was worse than the war's violence. I'm still not comfortable. Approximately 10,000 Salvadorans are thought to have been killed in 1980. It's bad enough that people are asking the question.

Off to the beach for a few days.