Discovery of mass grave in El Salvador

I mentioned this on Twitter the other day but authorities in El Salvador are in the process of uncovering a mass grave in El Salvador that has the remains of over forty victims of gang violence. It sounds as if a number of the remains are of gang members but there are non-gang victims as well. The head of the attorney general's crime unit said that they have so far uncovered the remains of two old men and three children. They believe the gang responsible is an "offshoot" of the 18th Street gang.

People are going to use the discovery of the mass grave to reinforce what they already think of the truce. The mass grave is more evidence that the March 2012 gang truce was never real - gang members were simply disposing of their bodies so that the victims could be found. On the other hand, it could be argued that the discovery of the mass grave is a result of a lack of support for the truce from the government, private sector, civil society and the international community. Sure there are some representatives of each that are participating in the truce, but to say that support is widespread and at the level necessary to transform the truce into a true peace would not be accurate.

I was optimistic that the truce was going to lower homicide levels in El Salvador and it sure seems to have done so. Homicide rates fell from about 70 per 100k in 2011 to approximately 41 per 100k in 2012. While homicide rates are not the only measure of the truce's effectiveness, would maintaining a rate of 40-50 still be considered successful? El Salvador's murder rate would still be higher than that of neighboring Guatemala (~35) but it would be significantly lower than where it was two years ago and significantly lower than that of neighboring Honduras (~85).