Abstract
This last section addresses the book’s central argument in light of recent political developments in El Salvador. It describes the economic and public insecurity that has persisted after the 2009 political handover to the FMLN. While the FMLN victory initially heralded the prospect of a more substantive democracy, that party soon embraced the same socio-economic and securitization policies as ARENA against a background of similar levels of deadly violence. This section suggests that El Salvador’s political life has both reproduced and incorporated violence in ways that resonate with wartime and that have consolidated the country’s endemic problem of public insecurity. Meanwhile, memory work has not enabled significant transformation, nor has the party shift amounted to the historic turning point it initially seemed to epitomize.
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Notes
- 1.
A podcast of the event is available at https://soundcloud.com/traficantesdesue-os/un-ano-con-la-mara-salvatrucha-13-ver-oir-y-callar.
- 2.
‘Los salvadoreños cruzan fronteras de guerra a diario’, El Faro , 4 January 2016.
- 3.
While the FMLN has undertaken fiscal reforms of a progressive nature, these have not reported a significant revenue increase partly due to unfettered tax evasion and elusion (Menkos 2013).
- 4.
‘Gobierno negoció con pandillas reducción de homicidios’, El Faro , 14 March 2012.
- 5.
‘Munguía Payés justifica haber sacado de máxima seguridad a líderes pandilleros’, El Faro , 16 March 2012.
- 6.
‘Versión de Funes contradice a la del resto de involucrados en la Tregua’, El Faro , 20 October 2017.
- 7.
‘Arena prometió a las pandillas una nueva tregua si ganaba la presidencia’, El Faro , 11 March 2016; ‘El FMLN hizo alianza con las pandillas para la elección presidencial de 2014’, El Faro , 6 May 2016; and ‘Relato de un fraude electoral, narrado por un pandillero’, El Faro , 11 August 2017.
- 8.
A portion of Norman Quijano’s speech is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT5lyDpuFLo.
- 9.
See, for instance, ‘En 2014–2015 se han asesinado la misma cantidad de policías que en 2009–2013’, El Faro , 4 August 2015.
- 10.
See ‘Casi que Guardia Nacional Civil’, El Faro , 1 November 2017.
- 11.
See ‘PDDH : Grupos de exterminio podrían estar operando en ESA’, La Prensa Gráfica, 21 May 2014; ‘PDDH concluye que Policía y militares cometieron ejecuciones extrajudiciales’, El Faro , 25 April 2016.
- 12.
‘En la intimidad del escuadrón de la muerte de la policía’, Revista Factum, 22 August 2017; ‘Revelan comunicaciones internas y crímenes de grupo de exterminio en la PNC’ , El Faro , 23 August 2017.
- 13.
See also ‘El Cártel de Texis’, El Faro , 16 May 2011; ‘Maras y narcotráfico’, El Faro, 19 March 2014.
- 14.
‘Maras y narcotráfico’, El Faro , 19 March 2014.
- 15.
It is estimated that Salvadorans pay over US$390 million annually in extortion fees (Isacson et al. 2017: 6).
- 16.
‘Proponen ley para dignificar a víctimas de guerra salvadoreña’, ContraPunto, 23 August 2017.
- 17.
FMLN members’ concerns about the possibility of being prosecuted themselves were not unfounded; lawsuits against some of them have been reopened or lodged since the annulment of the amnesty law and the first arrest warrants for wartime crimes since then have been issued against former FMLN combatants. See ‘Órdenes de captura por derribo de helicóptero’, La Prensa Gráfica, 20 July 2017.
- 18.
A video of the session has been made available by the IACHR at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbsojsXCIoo.
- 19.
In 2012, a total of 85 percent of all asylum applications lodged in the United States were from citizens from the Northern Triangle (UNHCR 2014).
- 20.
Moodie (2017) has included a poignant reflection about these concerns in the Epilogue of her Spanish-translated book.
- 21.
From 2011 onward, the number of unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle arriving in the United States experienced a dramatic surge (UNHCR 2014).
- 22.
On how credibility is assessed at British asylum courts, see Good (2011).
- 23.
A clica is the term employed by gangs to designate the smallest gang subunit with control over a delimited territory and substantial autonomy from the gang leadership .
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Montoya, A. (2018). Epilogue. In: The Violence of Democracy. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76330-9_9
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