Not what I had in mind: Four Years after El Salvador’s Gang Truce: Time to Know the Truth

The Salvadoran attorney general's office moved to arrest numerous individuals involved in the 2012 gang truce on Tuesday. Tim (Homicides drop and government arrests enablers of 2012 gang truce), Nina Lakhani (El Salvador arrests negotiators of gang truce in new get-tough policy), and Joshua Partlow (El Salvador arrests people who pushed for peace in gang war). have coverage.

I've argued that the fiscalia needed to get to the bottom of the truce (Four Years after El Salvador’s Gang Truce: Time to Know the Truth) but I can't say that this is what I had in mind. Maybe this would have been the end result of an investigation but neither the charges nor those arrested seem to make much sense.

I'm with Adam and what Nina wrote

Adam Blackwell, the former representative of the Organisation of American States (OAS) who helped facilitate the negotiations, said: “This is a vindictive sacrificing of the lambs – most of the 18 people arrested are decent public servants. Truce or no truce, the authorities need a communications channel. Are they going to arrest the Red Cross who are working in the prisons as well?”

Half of those arrested held low-level administrative positions. Yet senior negotiators such as bishop Fabio Colindres and the current defence minister, Gen David Munguía Payés, were not detained.

How about former President Funes? And while I am not entirely clear on what role the FMLN played in the entire process, it's not as if they were not partners in the last government. Finally, from what we have heard these last few months, nearly every government officials speaks with gang members to do their job or to simply survive.

In terms of the charges, I imagine they will become more serious but here is what Partlow wrote

Attorney General Douglas Melendez said at a news conference Tuesday that the truce itself wasn't the crime, but that many crimes were committed within its context, such as using some $2 million in prison funds to give gang leaders illegal favors in prisons. Among those alleged favors: strippers were brought into prison to dance for inmates, bands came to perform at prison parties, and inmates were given video games, electronics, and more than 1,000 boxes of fast-food chicken.

Call me unimpressed.