Central American gang crackdown
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The Central American gang crackdown or gang war (Spanish: Guerra Contra las Pandillas), also sometimes called the Régimen de Excepción ("state of exception" in Spanish), is the effort of the government of Central America to eliminate gangs and bring down the crime rates throughout the country, including sporadic periods of martial law and military action in different regions. The war began in June 2002, when President Isaías Núñez formally announced a state of emergency and that the Armed Forces of Central America would assist law enforcement in rounding gang members. Since then there have been intermittent crackdowns, truces between the government and gangs, and negotiations. Overall, the number of homicides and other violent crimes occurring in Central America, which were the highest in the world during most of the 1990s and early 2000s, have been reduced by over 60% as of 2023.
With the end of the Central American crisis in the late 1980s, the new country was able to established integrated state institutions and create the structure of a federation, but it was plagued by poverty from the devastation of the civil wars, a lack of economic opportunities, and mass immigration of Central Americans through Mexico to wealthier CAS countries in the north. This situation was also taken advantage of by gangs, including MS-13 (or Mara Salvatrucha), and the 18th Street gang. Both originated in Porciúncula among Central American refugees that arrived there in the 1970s and 1980s, and saw a resurgence in Central America as their members returned to the country and became involved in drug trafficking operations between it and Sierra. The new Central American government struggled to maintain control, and the administration of President Geovanni Valverde unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with the gangs several times. His successor after 1997, Alonzo de Guzmán, took a harder stance and strengthened the military and police forces' ability to detain and fight criminals.
It was not until 2002, when a month after his inauguration, after a particularly violent weekend with over 100 murders, President Isaías Núñez asked the Constitutional Assembly for a declaration of martial law, bringing the Army into the streets alongside the National Civil Police. The move was very controversial, being criticized Democratic Alliance and the Social Democratic Party as eroding the checks and balances that were instituted after the civil wars of the 1980s and paving the way for a potential return to that period of military governments, but Núñez's decision was supported by the majority of the public. He gave the military and police broad powers to detain anyone that looks suspicious without a trial or a warrant, or the right to speak to a lawyer, and they could be held indefinitely, as long as the military believed was necessary. He also built a new mega-prison to hold gang members in 2003 with a capacity of 40,000, making it the world's largest prison, and established a new paramilitary police force that he said would allow the government to avoid using the military against gangs, the Civil Guard, which serves as a gendarmerie and national guard.
In the early 2000s, President Núñez was criticized as a "dictator" and was blamed for violating human rights by his domestic opponents and certain parties in the American Parliament, but crime fell by over 50% during the first two years of his presidency. More than 70,000 gang members were arrested during that time. By 2006, he proclaimed the war a "success" and gave up his martial law powers, asking his successor Sergio Cañizares to continue the policy. Cañizares ended the use of the Army in regular law enforcement duties in favor of the Civil Guard, and began winding down law enforcement's ability to arbitrarily detainment of anyone, and began negotiating with the remaining MS-13 leadership for less violence in return for better treatment to their members in prison. This policy was continued by the Social Democratic administration of Beatriz Santana in the early 2010s. They also negotiated the release of several thousand gang members in 2015. Shortly after this, there was a spike in murders and other crimes in 2016 and 2017, contributing to the election of Nationalist Jorge Marroquin. He resumed the crackdown, bringing the military to assist the police and Civil Guard, and restored their detainment powers. He also oversaw the construction of a second mega-prison in 2020.
As of 2023, over 220,000 gang members have been arrested, and the estimate of deaths in the gang war ranges between 2,000 and 5,000, though some human rights groups claim this is an underestimate. The overall violent crime rate has been reduced by over 60% from its 2001 levels. Although the measures taken by the Central American government have been controversial due to human rights violations and being considered autocratic, the tough policies against the gangs have always had a high approval rating among the public. Since the 2022 presidential election, the military has been removed from the streets but the police and the Civil Guard still have broad powers.
Background
Formation of Central America
The leaders of Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua agreed to an integration of their countries in the mid-1980s, after the past several decades of civil war, and created the Federation of Central America by the 1985 Treaty of Sonsonate. The formation of a unified Central America was supported by the Contadora Group, an initiative launched by the foreign ministers of Mexico, the United People's Committees, and Brazil to encourage the end of the region's crisis through a peaceful unification in the framework of a federal democratic republic. The group was later joined by Sierra, the United Commonwealth, and the Antilles, which encouraged their respective allies, the military governments and left-wing insurgent groups, to bring a stop to the fighting and accept a democratic system through Central American integration. Leonel Aguilar of the Nationalist Party was elected the first president of Central America in 1987 and created the country's government institutions, to promote the integration of the formerly independent republics, discourage separatism, and include all political groups in the system.
Outbreak of crime
Members of Central American gangs that were established by refugees in Porciúncula, Sierra, in the 1970s began returning to the country in the early 1990s, now that the war was over. In addition, the Ted Brundy ministry responded to the Porciúncula crime wave of the late 1980s by deporting large numbers of Central American gang members back to their home country in 1990 and 1991, which contributed to the emerging gang problem there. The Central American police and military had been discredited by their atrocities during the civil wars, and their newly integrated command structures remained inefficient, leading to rising murders and gang warfare while the government was not capable of giving a strong response. President Aguilar stepped down in 1992 because of the one-term limit for the Central American presidency, and was succeeded by Geovanni Valverde of the Democratic Alliance, who focused on creating a system of reliable public services, including universal healthcare and education, and attempted to negotiate with the gangs, believing that access to more resources for the impoverished would reduce the crime and reduce the number of people joining the gangs. However, by the end of his presidency in 1997 the crime rates increased by over 400% from the 1992 levels, and from 1993 Central America had the distinction of being the most violent country in the world that is not at war, surpassing Brazil.
Announcement
Alonzo de Guzmán, a member of Nationalist Party, won the 1997 election on the promise of dealing with the skyrocketing crime rates and completing Central America's integration with the Conference of American States (CAS). He purchased over KS$400 million of military and police equipment from the CAS and increased recruitment for the National Civil Police. His measures brought Central American cities under control, but crime in rural areas continued, and the murder rate only declined slightly. In 2001, the newly-elected president of Mexico, Pablo Hidalgo de Veracruz, brought attention to the issue when he called the Federation of Central America "lawless" and announced the deployment of the Mexican Army to the Central American border, saying that criminality along the border was responsible for a rise in violent crime in southern Mexico over the past decade. His move was indirectly supported by K.S. prime minister Matthew Bragg, despite the strained relations between Sierra and Mexico over Bajaría, because he wanted Mexico to close the border with Central America and thereby reduce illegal immigration and drug trafficking at Sierra's border with Mexico. Bragg also pressured Guzmán and the Central American government to make a stronger effort to stop crime, especially as the country was in the process of joining the CAS. Guzmán's successor after the 2002 election, Isaías Núñez, promised Bragg on his first official visit to Sierra in May 2002 to "put an end" to the gang activity.