El Salvador’s security forces are now involved in more shootouts than Mexico’s

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

By Joshua Partlow
October 31 at 12:39 PM

MEXICO CITY — Nearly every day in El Salvador, police have what they call “enfrentamientos” — or confrontations — with the powerful street gangs that blanket the country. Another word for this is “shootout.”

So the announcement last week by the director of the National Civil Police, Howard Cotto, that police have done this 459 times so far this year points to the severity of the conflict between the gangs and the state. In those confrontations, 424 alleged gang members were killed, Cotto said at a news conference.

The website Insight Crime, which tracks security issues in Latin America, pointed out that this means El Salvador's authorities are clashing with criminal groups more often than in Mexico, which is still engulfed in a drug war, and Colombia, whose half-century-long civil war is ending — despite those countries having far larger populations.

One notable thing about the “enfrentamientos” statistic is that many people in El Salvador view this term with deep suspicion. From human rights officials to average citizens, many people doubt whether an exchange of fire took place — and wonder whether police officers simply killed their enemy.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/31/el-salvadors-security-forces-are-now-involved-in-more-shootouts-than-mexicos/

[geek tragedy]

1. it is a very big problem for El Salvador's government

They have to fight off a very-well armed group of criminals who have taken the US model of organized crime and taken it to El Salvador, which is a tiny country without the resources to fight off this kind of activity.

Mexico is a huge country so it's a lot easier for parts of it to function largely as if there were no organized crime campaigns.