El Salvador's political class needs to step up to the plate

PRI's Jared Goyette interviews El Faro's Oscar Martinez about what is going on in El Salvador and his new book "A History of Violence" for The World program.

JG: Two chapters of "A History of Violence" deal with the state's inability to protect a witness who takes a plea bargains to testify against gangs. The US sends hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to El Salvador, with much (though not all) of it going to the police and military or to combat narco trafficking. Should the US be doing more to support the basic rule of law and things like witness protection programs?

OM: ...

I believe El Salvador’s principal problem in relation to solving its violence problem is that the political class, which should resolve the problem, doesn’t understand it. The members of the security commission, the security cabinet, don’t understand exactly how a gang operates. They haven’t even dedicated themselves to understanding the history of where these gangs come from. They have a base of knowledge that has very little support in statistics, in data, in studies. They do what occurs to them in the moment. They are leaders who very rarely have a plan. They just have isolated ideas. And I think that this is part of what does us so much damage. The US should do a much better job of supervising how the El Salvadorian government spends this money. I’m not saying that they should stop giving money, because the US has a historic moral responsibility with these countries in the current violent situation. I say they should better manage how they give it and how it’s used.

This is two stories in a row where Salvadorans are asking for increased US involvement in El Salvador. First, the attorney general and now Oscar (and perhaps the media).For the most part, I feel that I've stopped paying attention to new security policy initiatives announced by the Salvadoran government. It's not clear that they are going to fund them or carry them out as planned. Within weeks or months, they are then going to announce another new policy anyway. I'm sure that can't be right but that's the impression one gets while reading the news.

The Salvadoran government needs to invest more consistently in education, youth, job, gang rehabilitation, and anti-impunity programs. Some of these investments are going to need years to bear fruit. Unleashing the security forces upon gang members, alleged gang members, and citizens is not the solution and is counterproductive to all the other policies halfheartedly being pursued. The US needs to do its share when it comes to migratory, trade, and drug reform.

Oscar goes on to indict Obama, the Mexican government, and Salvadoran political class. You should read the entire interview.