"Political facade for repression" in El Salvador?

The AFP has an update with what is going on with As gang violence surges, El Salvador fears bloody war. After two years of escalating violence, including a "bloody first three months of the year, in which 23 police and six soldiers were killed in clashes with gangs" and the most violent month in over a decade, President Salvador Sanchez Ceren has up the ante by establishing "four 'rapid response' battalions -- one for the police and three for the army." He has also ordered the transfer of gang leaders currently held in the country's prison system to locations which will make it more difficult for them to communicate with family and associates.

The country is now in a "defining moment" in its drawn-out fight against the ultra-violent gangs Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, said security expert Juan Ramon Medrano.

"The government has not given up on prevention and rehabilitation, (but) it is fighting the gangs with intensifying repression, which has unleashed an escalation of violence," he told AFP.

In addition to creating the rapid response battalions (horrible name, no?), the army has increased its troop presence in areas of the country where they have received intelligence that gang members have been receiving sophistical training. The response in escalation by the police and government comes after the government established a Public Security Council which presented a $2.1 billion prevention and policing plan to address the insecurity.

Raul Mijango criticizes the plan as a "political facade for repression" which, in some ways, would put it in the same vein as those plans launched by ARENA's Flores and Saca. Two differences, however, might be that ARENA seemed to have pursued its mano dura policies of a decade ago with fewer concurrent investments in other areas and it did so simply with electoral considerations in mind.

There wasn't the equivalent support for social programs such as has happened under the FMLN - health, education. And there wasn't much of a plan - let's just make it look like we are doing something, something that a large percentage of the population wanted, until the elections are over. Locking people up until the elections are over (what 90% were released within a few months of the elections?) wasn't much of a plan.

Rightfully so, Salvadoran media has been very critical of Sanchez Ceren and the FMLN's approach to public security. So has international coverage to a certain extent. I still feel, however, that the criticism has been somewhat muted simply because the FMLN is carrying out this plan rather than ARENA.