An Anatomy of Violence in El Salvador
Chávez, Joaquín M.
E1 Salvador, geographically the smallest and most densely populated nation in Latin America, is often described as one of the most violent countries in the region. The majority of countries in...
...Resident Cornelio Rubio describes how, at that time, "People fought over nothing, they gossiped over nothing...
...6. Patricia Alvarenga, Cultura y 9tica de la violencia El Salvador, 1880-1932 (San Jos6, Costa Rica: EDUCA, 1996), pp...
...Carlos Guillermo Ramos, "Marginaci6n, exclusi6n social y violencia," p. 42...
...What's more, ARENA and the FMLN refused to ban from political life any of the leaders mentioned in the TCR as suspected war criminals...
...The cycles of state repression and popular resistance or rebellion consolidated a cultural pattern that mediated class and ethnic conflicts with violence...
...And being subjected to violence increases the victim's levels of frustration and aggression towards the repressor...
...ccording to Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, the state should be considered an "educator...
...163-64...
...In 1980, mounting social and ethnic conflict during decades of authoritarian rule finally erupted into a protracted civil war...
...Why is violence so pervasive in Salvadoran society...
...1 3 The systematic and protracted use of state terror reinforced violent cultural attitudes with regard to resolving various kinds of conflict--personal, communal and social--in Salvadoran society...
...Lastly, the TCR points to the role of the After studying the seminal period of Salvadoran conflict's escalation in allowing the armed forces liberalism (1885-1932), historian Patricia Alvarenga and the insurgent forces to become the real represenconcludes that there is an "irresoluble conflict tatives of a "primitive" state not subject to political between liberal ethics and a system of domination that closed channels toward social consensus...
...Ultimately, the "consciousness f exclusion" in its deeply ideological sense can even olster the development of a "revolutionary conciousness," which Gramsci deems decisive in creatig crises of hegemony...
...150-62...
...1 5 Different is sources estimate that between 25% and 30% of a Salvadorans now live in the United States...
...See Joaquin Mauricio ChAvez Aguilar, "El Control de armas y la violencia," VIII Coloquio: Violencia y salud (San Salvador: University of El Salvador, 1999), p. 67...
...Noticeably absent from the unveiling ceremony were any government officials or representatives of political parties...
...In the meantime, tragtion party with 36...
...Cited in Carlos Guillermo Ramos, "Marginaci6n, exclusi6n social y violencia," H'olencia en una sociedad en transici6n ensayos (San Salvador: UNDP, 2000) pp...
...Wim Savenije and Katharine Andrade-Eekhoff, Conviviendo en la orilla: violencia y exclusion social en el drea metropolitana de San Salvador (San Salvador: FLACSO, 2003), pp...
...When the repressor fails to distance himself from the victim, this can sometimes cause the repressor to turn against those forcing him to use violence...
...Most have left delinquency behind...
...Although the civil war ended 12 years ago, both Mangrove Association Executive Director Aristides Valencia and Hernandez assert that the residents of Bajo Lempa still do not live in peace...
...El b Salvador's cities experienced rapid and chaotic sc growth...
...4 A second report, issued in 2003, by the same institution concluded, "Approval toward the use of violence is the general dominant orientation among Salvadoran citizens...
...On the contrary, it tends to increase the spectator's aggressiveness against the repressor...
...The bandonment [of these communities] on the part of uthorities allows others to assume the role of uthorities, even if they are gangs, drug dealers or riminal groups...
...3 A study published in 1998 by the Institute of Public Opinion (IUODOP) of the Central American University asked participants if various scenarios warranted a violent response or if they would condone a violent response under those circumstances...
...It seems obvious that ARENA's neolibARENA's apparent failures on these issues did not eral policies and authoritarian inclinations have stop it from winning the March 2004 presidential proven inadequate in addressing the deeper roots of election with approximately 58% of the vote...
...Ruben Zamora, "Participaci6n y democracia en El Salvador," Pasos hacia una nueva convivencia: Democracia y participacidn en centroamerica, Eds...
...See Marcela Smutt and Jenny Miranda, Elfen6meno de las pandillas en El Salvador (San Salvador: FLACSO, 1998), p. 10...
...Martin Carnoy, The State and Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 76...
...The TCR promi- tion regarding the responsibility of the U.S...
...p. 34...
...Resolution of that crisis took final form in political negotiation between the government of President Alfredo Cristiani and the insurgent Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), resulting in the 1992 peace accords...
...armas defuego y violencia (San Salvador: UNDP, 2003), p. 164...
...Their answers reflected exceedingly high levels of acceptance toward violent cultural attitudes...
...and more than 20% to torture...
...The consensus in favor of a negotiated solution to the war report's findings determined that El Salvador lacked at the time of the TCR...
...most objective, comprehensive and impartial analyThe UN-sponsored Truth Commission Report sis of the civil war's political violence, there is one (TCR) provides a synthesis of the roots and legacy of glaring omission...
...Incidences of violent crimes involving firearms are extremely high...
...Circle facilitator Senaira Velasquez Morales describes how when she first invited a group of delinquent youth in the town of Nuevo Amanecer to begin meeting with her, they asked what she had brought for them...
...The Survey of Homes of 1997 ("Encuesta de hogares y prop6sitos multiples") conducted by the Salvadoran government...
...domestic violence...
...William Godnick, "Las armas ligeras y pequefias en centroam6rica," Dimensiones de la violencia, pp...
...Violence also became internalized in diverse social environs, such as the community, the family and the educational system-violence against 32 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS """" """"""" '" '""' """'" '"'^""" 32 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON NICARAGUA AND EL SALVADOR women, domestic violence, child abuse and corporal military personnel wrought terror with total punishment in schools...
...Some have dedicated themselves to making artisanal goods...
...and death squads, 10...
...governnently cites the lack of guarantees for human rights ment in supporting, arming and training the and the organization of society under the domination Salvadoran Armed Forces as they systematically perof the military establishment without an inkling of petrated crimes against humanity...
...Others make no s distinction between social violence and social exclu- s sion, believing the deprived conditions that prevent v the satisfaction of basic human needs should in [ themselves be considered a primary form of social e violence [See "War and Peace...
...10 Ignacio Martin-Bar6, one of the six Jesuit priests assassinated by the Salvadoran Army's U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion in 1989, had extensively studied the psychosocial effects of political repression on the Salvadoran population...
...The report is devoid of any menthe civil war's political violence...
...7 The clandestine use of terror became a sort of duplicitous moral standard, a perverse ethics of violence, permeating important sectors of Salvadoran society...
...These psychosocial conditions may account for the high incidence of former state agents' involvement in violent crime and violent protest...
...In sum, poverty, social stigmatizaon, overcrowding, lack of public spaces and "pererse social organizations" create formidable obstales to achieve even basic human development in these marginal communities...
...the complete control of civilian authori- perhaps attributable to the climate of international ties by "certain elements of the armed forces...
...vatize health care and education, mass layoffs of is public workers and the privatization of the most o important state assets have all deeply deteriorated si most Salvadorans' quality of life...
...A situation that permitted terror and terrorism as a method for dealing with them to actuate with "abject impunity...
...The ruling oligarchy not only exercised its dominance through coercion--state terror and terrorism-but also through consent, achieved mainly with a national ideology based on three central components: social exclusion, racism and anticommunism...
...The inculcation of these values lies at the foundation of the Committee's 34NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS...
...1 9 Another principal factor in the vicious spiral of iolence is the proliferation of firearms and exploives...
...In this sense, rising levels of social violence in El Salvador are part of a regional and global trend...
...Every year, an indeterminate number of these lethal artifacts are used in criminal activities or cause accidental injuries to numerous victims...
...The drastic reduction of the state's fears: the escalation of violence, the loss of remitresources and structures, the state's incapacity to tances from relatives in the United States and higher regulate economic processes and widespread corrup- levels of unemployment...
...He now claims that through minimizing conflict, the residents of El Canoita have developed a much stronger sense of community: "If I am the only one eating, I am not doing well, because my neighbor is not doing well...
...In turn, the repressor escalates the levels of repression necessary to contain the growing levels of frustration and aggression...
...They, along with the youth from Nuevo Amanecer, are also curbing violence and attempting to create a peace much more comprehensive than that characterized simply by the absence of war...
...Truth Commissions: Reports: El Salvador, United States Institute of Peace, 2001, <www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/el_salvador/tces_031519 93 v.html...
...2. William Godnick, "Las armas ligeras y pequefias en centroamdrica," Dimensiones de la violencia, p. 99...
...Yet formative periods of El Salvador's experience with violence, particularly the civil war (1980-1992), must not be analyzed in temporal isolation...
...8. The Commission worked with a sample of 22,000 denunciations of "grave human right violations," occurring between 1980 and July 1991, and with 18,000 denunciations obtained from indirect sources...
...They told her that they only turned to delinquency because they didn't have any work or opportunities, and they were hoping that she had come to offer those very things, "I told them that right now, I'm not here to offer you a project or anything...
...This does not, however, necessarily alter their real behavior, which is the ultimate goal of political repression...
...Charity resolves a problem for you without committing you to anything or making you responsible for anything," says Valencia in reference to blank donations or simply "dropping" projects on a community...
...Yet, to this day, various social organizations continue to work against impunity and in favor of reparations for victims of state terror...
...25% to forced disappearances...
...I am here to offer you an educational experience, through which you can learn how to generate something that you want for your life," says Velasquez...
...Still, the d deterioration of social networks, unemployment, c school attendance, urban overcrowding, public hous- r ing deficits and poverty are closely related factors a that link directly to social violence, liable specifically family and youth vio- lence...
...A team of nine facilitators, including Hernnadez, has been working in the region since 2002...
...4. Jos6 Miguel Cruz, "Los factores posibilitadores de la violencia en El Salvador," Violencia en una sociedad en transici6n, pp...
...In this way, participants expand their own perspectives on peace, as well as the components necessary for its construction...
...The "Law of Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Similar Articles" was approved in June 1999 by the National Assembly with the backing of ARENA and the Party for National Conciliation (PCN...
...The culture of arms in contemporary Salvadoran society remains unchallenged by the tremendous lack of adequate gun control...
...Understanding the high levels of social violence and the acceptance of violent norms in Salvadoran society must begin with a consideration of the historical and cultural processes associated with violence- authoritarianism, state terror, political violence and others...
...Neoliberal policies such as the drastic reduction of the state apparatus, diminished investment in key social areas, attempts to priVol X)(XVII, No 6 MAY/JuNE 2004 35 Vol XXXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2004 35REPORT ON NICARAGUA AND EL SALVADOR According to some analysts, an undei link exists between widespread so exclusion and increasing levels of s violence...
...First, there was a veritable exodus e from the devastated countryside to Salvadoran urban o centers, the United States and other countries...
...Violence," explains Hernandez, "is anything that prevents you from living with dignity...
...Out of the 44 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2000, 32 involved the use of guns...
...0 psychologist Kurt Lewin in the 1950s, implies an "incongruity or an inconsistency with the self...an imbalance that the individual feels compelled to overcome...
...Rebellion and resistance by the indigenous and ladino peasantry, middle class intellectuals and urban workers periodically challenged state opular terror and terrorism...
...Military training attempts to negate this impulse through the dehumanization of the "victim," causing a progressive distancing between repressor and victim...
...security forces, 25...
...In the 1970s, 84 urban centers comprised it 35% of the population, but by the 1990s, these accounted for 51% of the population...
...153-159, 204...
...The highly confrontational ically, violence continues to claim the lives of thouelectoral campaign, including rhetoric by U.S...
...Ignacio Martin-Bar6, "The Psychological Value of Violent Political Repression," pp...
...paramilitary forces, 20...
...According to Martin-Bar6, these effects are different among the repressor, the victim and the spectator...
...Each facilitator is responsible for several circles within a defined geographic area known as a grupo local (local group...
...Before attending the circles, Rubio admits that he was ready to begin robbing his neighbors to feed his eight children...
...When viewed through this Gramscian lens, the Salvadoran state educated society in the systematic use of political violence and its rationalization...
...The omission is legal order...
...Of the total number of denunciations, 85% implicated state agents: the armed forces, 60...
...See Joaquin Mauricio ChAvez Aguilar, "Dimensi6n hist6rica de los acuerdos de paz," A 10 adios de los acuerdos de paz de El Salvador (San Salvador: CEPAZ, 2002), pp...
...10 Cognitive dissonance, a term coined by by Benjamin Plimpton philosophy on local, sustainable development...
...The Committee emphasizes this consciousness to such a degree that it identifies charity as one of the greatest impediments to its work...
...9. Among the recommendations of the TCR are the non-participation in public administration and political life of persons accused of human rights violations, compensation to victims of state violence and measures to promote national reconciliation-monument to victims, a day of national mourning, promoting peace education etc...
...The city of S Soyapango, for example, registered a population r growth of up to 1100% during the 1990s...
...The Bajo Lempa town of La Canoita began holding circles two years ago...
...The young men, who had been stealing farm animals and food from their neighbors and using the money to buy alcohol and drugs, accepted her invitation...
...Meaning that state institutions indeed provide a rationalization for the economic and the sociopolitical processes occurring in society...
...During the first half of the 1990s the homicide rate reached 139 per 100,000 inhabitants, by 2000 it had decreased to 44 per 100,000.2 Despite this dramatic drop in homicides, the total number of violent crimes remained relatively unchanged, from 58,108 in 1996 Vol XXXVII, No 6 MAYIJUNE 200431 Joaquin M. Chivez is a Ph.D...
...And anti-communism became the dominant pretext to impede democratic participation and to persecute dissidence, especially after La Matanza (The Massacre) in 1932...
...The FMLN was implicated in 5% of cases...
...The Committee-in conjunction with its legal arm, the Mangrove Association-pursues the diversification of agricultural production, seeks new markets for local goods and strengthens community organizing as part of its 1998 declaration of a "local peace zone" in southern El Salvador's Bajo Lempa region...
...1 4 Second, " a new financial oligarchy emerged, profiting not only d from the economic transition imposed by the IMF u and World Bank, but also from channeling a major e source of income for the Salvadoran economy: the ri remittances of Salvadorans living abroad...
...The majority of countries in Latin America and indeed in the rest of the world have experienced a significant increase in violence and crime since the 1950s, a trend often associated with the expansion of urban spaces and social exclusion...
...Social exclusion came in the way of privileges for the propertied elite and deprivation of basic human needs for the vast majority of the population...
...The most salient reforms of Zaldivar's regime were the introduction of coffee as a monoculture, the expropriation of indigenous lands and the creation of a repressive security apparatus composed of a permanent army, police and paramilitary forces...
...5. UNDP, El Salvador armas defuego y violencia, p. 142...
...34 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON NICARAGUA AND EL SALVADOR humanity and by refusing to incorporate the TCR's recommendations, causing its citizens further psychosocial discord...
...Although t official government reports tend to present a rosier e picture, at least half of the population is still unable r to fulfill its basic nutritional requirements, 35% lack ti access to public health facilities, unemployment is on v the rise, and living conditions in both city and coun- c tryside are rapidly deteriorating.1 6 t According to some analysts, an undeniable link exists between widespread social exclusion and v increasing levels of social violence...
...For the repressor, the effects include both a cognitive dissonance--a psychic discomfort of an individual facing two or more contradictory thoughts-and the learning of violent behaviors...
...Instead, The cycles of state repression and p resistance or rebellion consolidat cultural pattern that mediated cla: ethnic conflicts with violence serious reflection must consider the psychosocial consequences of the traumas, such as patterns of violence in conflict resolution and coping with the lingering ordeal of war...
...and increases in organized crime that elicit violent reactions by both the state and gangs...
...Currently, the $2 billion sent by Salvadorans living in the United States in remittances to their families in El Salvador represents 15% of the GNP...
...She argues that both state representatives and subaltern sectors used "covert terror" to deal with social and political conflict...
...5 Apparently, many Salvadorans continue to accept the widespread use of violence, despite the implementation of numerous violence prevention programs by nongovernmental and governmental organizations...
...candidate at New York University's department of history He worked as a research consultant for the United Nations Development Program in El Salvador on issues of social violence...
...The Salvadoran state also did the disservice of legitimizing impunity by refusing to prosecute crimes against War and Peace in the Bajo Lempa Region A s part of its efforts to eliminate violence in all of its forms, the Bajo Lempa Coordinating Committee has spearheaded a number of initiatives designed to promote community dialogue and local development...
...The civil war would later firmly establish this culture of violence...
...government to the Salvadoran Armed Forces during the civil war is yet another element in this ecology of violence...
...Also see UNDP, El Salvador...
...President Calder6n Sol in the 1990s never impleAs a result, death squads organized by civilians and mented the recommendations issued by the TCR Vol xxxV1r, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2004 33REPORT ON NICARAGUA AND EL SALVADOR concerning the eradication and prevention of institutional impunity...
...When spectators identify with the victims, vicarious learning occurs...
...impunity...
...1 2 The psychosocial effects of violent repression on the spectator differ according to the degree of identification between the spectator and the victims...
...Dominant cultural attitudes favor the possesion, the carrying and the frequent use of guns in ihat is increasingly being called a "culture of arms...
...The first was the indigenous uprising and subsequent massacre in * 1932...
...Regardless of identification between spectators and victims, each scenario instills the expediency of political violence and its direct application in the resolution of social conflict...
...The dictatorship of Maximiliano Herndndez Martinez in the 1930s and S17"V p.IvaLl 111 LlaL lI iiI LILlrougII the perpetration of genocide and the militarization of the state...
...Ricardo C6rdova Macias, et al (San Salvador: FUNDAUNGO, 2001), p. 74...
...2 1 The use of M-67 hand grenades provided by the U.S...
...Also, the government public security policies of current President responds to contemporary violence with rather sim- Francisco Flores, it is uncertain how the new plistic police and judicial approaches...
...In collaboration with the Committee, the residents of La Canoita are now organizing themselves and working with agricultural diversification projects...
...The violence and crime-namely, psychosocial trauma, FMLN maintained its position as the largest opposi- social exclusion and impunity...
...c Agrarian collapse, urbanization and neoliberal eco- ii nomics in the 1980s and 1990s pushed indicators of tl social exclusion to unprecedented levels...
...91-93...
...The circles that Hernendez coordinates contribute to building sustainable peace by reducing tension and conflict among community members, which in turn facilitates communication and organization...
...The second instance of a crisis of hegemony in the Salvadoran state was the civil war...
...44-45...
...They concluded that when "socity denies social citizenship and its corresponding ghts to people who live in precarious conditions, it creating physical, social and political edges...
...From the total denunciations, 60% correspond to extra judicial executions...
...19-37...
...When spectators do not identify with victims, then the victims are perceived, at the least, as scapegoats or persons who deserve to be punished...
...Nonetheless, the right-wing the judicial, legislative or executive capacities to governments of President Alfredo Cristiani and control the growing military domination of society...
...9 In fact, in March 1993 their party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), rushed to approve an amnesty law to impede the prosecution of war criminals...
...2 0 The national registry of firearms eported 160,000 legally registered weapons in 2003 nd experts estimate that civilians illegally own at 36 NMIIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 36REPORT ON NICARAGUA AND EL SALVADOR least 200,000 more...
...How can one live in peace, if one doesn't have a place to eat or sleep?," asks Rubio, The circles also foster individual and community self-determination...
...At least two crises of hegemony in the original liberal ed a state model resulted from such contes;s and tations...
...State sands of Salvadoran citizens...
...In fact, a 1999 bill that actually facilitates the proliferation of firearms--including modified weapons (semiautomatic rifles)-passed with the backing of right-wing legislators...
...T he state institutions that emerged during the transition to Armed gang members assemble small marijuana packages for sale...
...the recently ARENA government will be able to accomplish an initiated "Mano Dura" (Heavy Hand) plan against objective that has eluded the party's administrations the gangs is a perfect example...
...Racism spanned from institutional racial discrimination to gross human rights violations against indigenous and mestizo cultures, the 1932 ethnocide against the Pipiles being only the most prominent example...
...And on December 6, 2003, San Salvador inaugurated a public monument with the names of more than 25,000 victims of state agents--military, police and paramilitary forces...
...1 7 The "consciousness of exclusion," meaning the subjective perception of the socially excluded about their situation and the causes of that situation, Likely connected to the use of violence as a method f recovering social and political power.18 The perstence of sharp inequalities between an affluent minority and the socially excluded majority along 'ith the unfulfilled expectations of the democratic ansition are sources of frustration, resentment and ven aggressiveness...
...7. Patricia Alvarenga, Cultura y 6tica, p. 349...
...The transition to democracy--and from war to peace - in El Salvador occurred in the context of two major socioeconomic transitions: the implementation of neoliberal economic policies and the collapse of the agricultural economy, starting in the 1980s and extending into the 1990s...
...The circles challenge traditional definitions of peace through the notion of a "peace zone" and by acknowledging the violent implications of poor living conditions...
...1 Of course, this makes the dimensions of the problem in El Salvador no less staggering...
...155-57...
...The 12year conflict caused at least 70,000 deaths, 500,000 refugees, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed, thousands of "disappeared" and a deep-seated psychosocial trauma that will plague Salvadorans for several generations...
...With the expansion of the coffee economy between 1885 and 1932, the governing regimes confronted the growing social and ethnic conflicts with unmeasured repression...
...for 14 years...
...Ignacio Martin-Bar6, "The Psychological Value of Violent Political Repression," Writings for a Liberation Psychology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp...
...espite the massive destruction of weaponry at the nd of the civil war, the postwar period brought a ramatic increase in the number of small firearms in ivilian hands...
...Vol XXXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2004 31REPORT ON NICARAGUA AND EL SALVADOR to 53,204 in 2000 with 38% of all violent crime involving the use of firearms...
...For Hernandez, the relationship between living conditions and violence is even Benjamin Plimpton coordinates the Human Rights Program and wrtes the monthly bulletin at the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS) in San Salvador more direct: "It is violence when we don't have access to education, when we can't go to the clinic and get medicine...
...In this case, the punishment applied to the victims may cause the spectators to modify their performances and adopt "clandestine attitudes," thereby evading the repressive forces...
...Besides destroying the social fabric and the national economy, the civil The recently inaugurated memorial in San Salvador bears the names of some 25,000 civilians national economy, the civil killed in the civil war war also implanted fundamental features of the culture of violence: the use of or institutional restraint...
...Not surprisingly, the strains on cial the family unit resulting from social exclusion become instrumental in the )cial proliferation of gangs and youth violence...
...In the five marginal communities Included in their study, residents are under constant Ireat by gangs and drug dealers who exercise terriorial control over public spaces such as alleys, ntries and exits to the community, common and recreational areas...
...In 1993 the UN Security Council reported the destruction of the FMLN arsenal (a total of 10,230 weapons...
...With increasing instances of armed violence, the state is unable to ensure the security of its citizens, which in a sense encourages or prompts citizens to buy more guns...
...2 2 What's more, a powerful group of gun distributors promote firearms through unrestricted advertising in the local media, creating the impression that the acquisition of firearms is a basic need under the present state of insecurity...
...The psychosocial effects of political repression on the victim include those produced by the different levels of physical damage suffered from a violent act...
...These traumas are exacerbated in El Salvador by widespread social and economic exclusion, which have generated more social violence in the postwar era: youth violence...
...As part of these goals, the Committee organizes "dialogue and reflection circles" in hopes of reducing community tension and violent crime...
...Im Neoliberal policies and the collapse of the agricul- w tural economy generated two major transformations tr in El Salvador...
...According to a recent study conducted by Wim avenije and Katharine Andrade-Eekhoff in the metopolitan area of San Salvador, social exclusion and perverse social organizations," such as gangs and rug dealers, form a vicious circle in many marginal rban communities...
...This type of state hegemony created a cycle of mass political violence...
...According to Estela Hernandez, who coordinates "circles" in the Usulutan department, peace is not simply the absence of war...
...Ignacio Martin-Bar6, "The Psychological Value of Violent Political Repression," pp...
...Los a Angeles has more Salvadoran residents than any a Salvadoran city except San Salvador...
...democracy have been unable to cope with the complexity of social violence in El Department officials, played on Salvadorans' worst Salvador...
...Valencia cites a reduction in murders, robberies and domestic violence, but maintains that poor access to education and healthcare, insufficient housing and a consistently insecure food supply create an environment that continually gives rise to violent crime...
...The title of his most recent publication is Tierra, conflicto y paz (San Salvador: CEPAZ, 2001...
...3. Angel Saldomando, "Violencia e inseguridad en la america central: de la guerra a la gesti6n cotidiana de la violencia," Violencia en una sociedad en transicidn (San Salvador: UNDP, 1998), p. 77...
...And violence, by extension, is not only perpetrated with weapons...
...he prevailing cycle of political violence during the 20th century first sprung roots with the foundation of the liberal state during the presidency of Rafael Zaldivar (1876-1885).6 The reorganization of the state encompassed a series of economic, social and political reforms along with the creation of a new hegemony...
...Why do Salvadorans seem to have high levels of tolerance toward violent conduct...
...93 and 99...
...Political violence included illegal arrest, "disappearances," torture, assassinations and eventually mass killings...
...AN ANATOMY OF VIOLENCE IN EL SALVADOR 1. Sergio Adorno, "Exclusi6n sociecon6mica y violencia urbana," Dimensiones de la violencia (San Salvador: UNDP, 2003), p. 26...
...44-45...
...8 social conflict, the lack of value and respect for Even though the TCR is widely considered the human life, and the proliferation and use of firearms...
...Indeed, the psychosocial effects of political violence not only reinforced violent cultural patterns among the direct participants of the civil war but in society as a whole...
...tion perhaps explain the lack of results produced by Even though President-elect Tony Saca promises three consecutive ARENA (1989-2004) governments to eradicate crime and violence by strengthening the on this explosive issue...
...Not necessarily of the family structure, but other factors such as adult supervision, protection and emotional support of children...
Vol. 37 • May 2004 • No. 6
