Death squads and corruption: An FMLN legacy?

Salvadorans are three years into President Salvador Sanchez Ceren's five-year presidential term. One of the black marks on his administration will be the extent to which death squads and extrajudicial executions have proliferated. It is possible that some government officials are behind their increasing activity but, at a minimum, the government's rhetoric has given the impression to official and unofficial security forces that they have little to fear by taking the lives of suspected gang members. That has begun to change under Attorney General Douglas Melendez. How much? I don't know. 

From Insight Crime,

On June 21, Salvadoran police arrested four police officers, including one high-ranking official, ten members of the military and 34 civilians accused of forming a network of death squads in various zones in the east of the country, reported EFE. A further five military officials remain at large.

Will Ruiz, the head of the anti-organized crime unit at the Attorney General's Office, announced at a press conference that the group stands accused of 36 murders and two attempted murders, one case of deprivation of liberty, and 13 armed robberies.

Ruiz told media that the network consisted of two factions that had allied with each other, one dedicated to "social cleansing" killings and the other to bank robbery.

According to the prosecutor, the mission of the death squad was to "take justice into their own hands because of the incompetence of the authorities in solving the gang problem that affects the population."

However, while most of their victims were members of the MS13 gang, Ruiz said, among them were also nine people who investigators believe had no ties to gangs at all. In addition, there is evidence in two cases that the group acted as contract killers, taking payment to carry out murders.

Another area in which the Sanchez Ceren administration has a black mark is corruption. It's not clear that corruption is any worse under the FMLN than it was under ARENA, but that's a pretty low standard. And it is not exactly what people were expecting when they voted for change. On June 19, fourteen members of the US Congress asked the Treasury Department to look into FMLN leader Jose Luis Merino.

The US has been concerned about Merino's contacts with organized crime groups, drug and arms traffickers, and the Colombian FARC for almost a decade (more?). However, as I wrote last year, it was time for the US to put up or shut up. Put your cards on the table and go after Merino or drop it. We might now have an answer sooner rather than later.