Gang intervention leader arrested by FBI on suspicious charges

Alex Sánchez, Director of the US office of the gang intervention organization Homies Unidos, was arrested today by the FBI on federal racketeering charges. Sánchez is a well-respected leader of the gang intervention movement in both the United States in El Salvador, and many organizations and community leaders have come to his defense.

Sánchez immigrated to the United States from El Salvador when he was a child and joined the infamous Mara Salvatrucha gang in Los Angeles when he was a teenager. After several arrests, Sánchez was deported to El Salvador, where he lived on the streets and feared retaliation from gangs and death squads who saw him as a rival. Sánchez returned to the United States in 1995 and won an asylum case in 2002. In 1998, Alex Sánchez co-founded Homies Unidos, an organization that supports gang violence prevention and intervention. Of América blog has a list of links to stories detailing how Mr. Sánchez has repeatedly been subject to abuse, harassment, and unlawful deportation by the LAPD.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the indictment includes the names of 24 leaders, members, and associates of MS-13, part of the Mara Salvatrucha gang. The alleged crimes include seven murders, eight conspiracies to commit murder, and gun and narcotic offenses. All of these alleged crimes are supposed to have transpired after Alex Sánchez returned to the United States and became an anti-gang leader. The FBI arrested Mr. Sánchez in his home, as his wife and children watched.

CISPES released a letter of support today for Alex Sánchez.

- Sara Skinner, US Grassroots Coordinator

Violence and Impunity in El Salvador

The LA Times published an excellent article today about gang violence in El Salvador. As violence along the border in Mexico increases, El Salvador continues to have one of the highest murder rates in the world; in fact, the article cites that the country's murder rate is five times that of Mexico. Half of the murders in El Salvador are committed by youth, and the National Civil Police state that 70% of the victims are youth between the ages of 15 and 39.Some of the violence can be attributed to gang violence. LA Times journalist Tracy Wilkinson interviews a Spanish priest, Father Antonio Rodríguez, who runs a violence-prevention program in a parish in the impoverished Mejicanos neighborhood in San Salvador. Father Rodríguez asserted that "gangs used to protect the neighborhoods, their turf, and attacked only outsiders." However, with current President Antonio Saca's ineffective and draconian Iron Fist policies toward youth involved with criminal activity and the rise of the number of gang members in prison, gangs now "strike anywhere...because they need to support their incarcerated associates and families."

The article points out hundreds of murders each year are committed by members of the police force, private security guards, and assassins hired to carry out "social cleansing." Meanwhile, impunity reigns as few murder cases are rarely solved. El Salvador has a long history of providing impunity for the worst human rights offenders: war criminals during the country's bloody Civil War are protected by a blanket Amnesty Law. Given the prevailing sense of impunity coupled with dire poverty, is there any wonder that the death tolls keep climbing?

To read the article, click here.

*Photo by José Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images though the LA Times.

- Sara Skinner, US Grassroots Coordinator