Links around El Salvador

PBS News Hour has a few short videos on violence in Central America. The first one is on Who’s to blame for El Salvador’s gang violence? Brian Epstein has a piece that accompanies the video on Producer’s Notebook: A look at life inside the violent gangs of El Salvador. There is also a brief video on gang violence in Honduras and Guatemala.

Alberto Arce explains In a land of brutal violence, Salvador's women and girls are targeted for rape and murder.

David Gagne has El Salvador Squashes Talk of Dialogue With Gangs. There will be no dialogue with gangs. It's fine not to negotiate but avoiding all dialogue might be more dangerous which might be why the government might support dialogue between the Church and gangs and the pastoral work of the Church as long as the relationship does not involve negotiations of any sort. Sounds like we should expect more confusion and possibly arrests such as that of Padre Tono unless everybody gets on the same page. 

Julio Rank Wright writes on Dinamismo en los Partidos Políticos de El Salvador for Americas Quarterly. Julio looks briefly at the challenge of El Salvador's political parties in attaining internal democracy and transparency, and reaching new sectors in an increasingly urban and young country.

1997 San Salvador mayoral debate including Hector Silva

Hector Silva and Mario Valiente

Hector Silva writes about The Stalled Money Laundering Case against El Salvador's 'Chepe Diablo'. Hector's dad is in the photo above. Hector and the other candidates for may of San Salvador entertained the international election observers in 1997. Hector and Mario spoke in English while the third candidate (PDC maybe) felt a little awkward as he participated in Spanish.

Declassified documents from Argentina detail the strong links between the country's military junta and the government of El Salvador in 1979 when Jorge Videla was in power in Argentina and Carlos Humberto Romero in El Salvador. President Romero wanted help with Archbishop Oscar Romero while Argentina wanted diplomatic support.

Less than four months to legislative and municipal elections.