El Salvador's recent prison massacre
A few days ago, fourteen members of the Barrio 18's Revolucionarios faction were murdered by members of the Barrio 18 gang at a prison in Quetzaltepeque, La Libertad. Aaron Daugherty of Insight Crime finds the government's response problematic.
Maybe this has already been answered, but why were the Revolucionarios murdered? According to Daugherty and other reporting, they were killed because of an internal purge of the Barrio 18. They were killed throughout the day and no one knew until the inmates were about to return to their cells. Were they killed because the Revolucionarios are believed to have been behind July's bus stoppage? Was the power play between the Revolucionarios and the overall Barrio 18 about more than the bus stoppage and, if so, what? A difference over tactics or strategy?
The other question remains why didn't the government act? So government officials had indications that "a possible purge" might occur but they had no idea where. After months of increased extrajudicial killings of gangs members by the country's security forces outside of the country's prisons, why shouldn't people be asking as to whether these killings were somehow connected to those same forces? Perhaps its Guatemala's Pavon prison massacre that has me skeptical - inmates were killed by high ranking officials and police in 2006 during a prison riot.
Fourteen inmates were strangled and knifed over the course of an entire day and not a single guard had any inkling of what was going on because there were no cameras in the prison? Something sounds fishy to me.
I hope I'm wrong.
The government's response to this latest prison massacre seems dismissive at best, with officials fully admitting they were warned ahead of time. Nor has anyone yet publically proposed ways to try and address this type of prison violence. This is unsurprising, given the administrations' hysterical rhetoric and current focus on militarized or "iron fist" security policies.
El Salvador continues to suffer some of the worst violence in a decade, with each month's homicide rates higher than the last. However, instead of calling for a different approach, Public Security Minister Benito Lara has framed rising murder statistics as a positive development, attributable to police being more effective and shooting more criminals.I'm worried by the government's nonchalant response as well. We don't care if gang members are killed by other gang members, police, or extermination squads. They're all gang members. That's, in many ways, how I read this government's response over the last several months.
Maybe this has already been answered, but why were the Revolucionarios murdered? According to Daugherty and other reporting, they were killed because of an internal purge of the Barrio 18. They were killed throughout the day and no one knew until the inmates were about to return to their cells. Were they killed because the Revolucionarios are believed to have been behind July's bus stoppage? Was the power play between the Revolucionarios and the overall Barrio 18 about more than the bus stoppage and, if so, what? A difference over tactics or strategy?
The other question remains why didn't the government act? So government officials had indications that "a possible purge" might occur but they had no idea where. After months of increased extrajudicial killings of gangs members by the country's security forces outside of the country's prisons, why shouldn't people be asking as to whether these killings were somehow connected to those same forces? Perhaps its Guatemala's Pavon prison massacre that has me skeptical - inmates were killed by high ranking officials and police in 2006 during a prison riot.
Fourteen inmates were strangled and knifed over the course of an entire day and not a single guard had any inkling of what was going on because there were no cameras in the prison? Something sounds fishy to me.
I hope I'm wrong.
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