Child Refugees - The El Salvador Story

El Salvador

The Origins of the Current Wave of Child Refugees

El Salvador's colonial history begins in 1524 with the arrival of Pedro de Alvarado, a lieutenant of Hernan Cortes. The country lacked the gold and silver resources of other Spanish conquests in the New World, but it proved to be a profitable source of agricultural exports, initially of cacao, indigo (source of a popular blue dye) and, somewhat later, of coffee. The country's development followed the familiar pattern of New World colonies - a small number of families either directly descended from the colonizers themselves or connected through inter-marriage quickly came to control the land, the resources and the government. The ruling elites were able to maintain unchallenged control of El Salvador well into the 20^th century through an alliance with the country's top military leaders whose loyalties were easily purchased at a modest price. They then provided whatever was needed in the way force and intimidation to ensure that a small number of elite families maintained complete control of the wealth and resources of the country.

This arrangement prevailed until the early 1930's when the already abysmal plight of agricultural workers became completely intolerable following a plunge in world coffee prices. When Agustin Farabundo Marti organized an insurrection of the rural poor in 1932, the army responded by killing 30,000 people, targeting in particular those who wore traditional dress or spoke indigenous languages, in what became known as "la matanza." These brutal tactics in combination with a timely rise in world coffee prices were enough to shore up the old economic order for another few decades, but the but the handwriting was clearly on the wall. The revolution in Cuba 1959 and the growing threat of communism in Central and South America raised alarms, not only among the ruling elites, but in the the US as well. The initial US response was a positive one. With strong support from President John F. Kennedy, an ambitious program, the Alliance for Progress, was launched to encourage democratic reforms throughout Latin America. Membership in the Alliance required commitments by each country to implement fundamental economic, political, and social reforms but while the stated goals were laudable - they included land and political reform along with improvements in educational and health care services for the poor - they were subverted by the ruling elites in Latin America and by conservative politicians in the US who viewed many of the initiatives as socialistic. There was a steady decline in US support for the Alliance following Kennedy's assassination and over the ensuing decade, military dictatorships actually replace democratically elected governments in thirteen of the countries that were part of the original Alliance. Over the same period, an increasing percentage of US aid shifted from economic development to military assistance.

The Alliance for Progress had only a limited impact in El Salvador and the five decades that followed the suppression of the 1932 uprising witnessed an unbroken string of anti-democratic,military dictatorships and a continuing decline in civil rights and economic opportunity. Opposition grew slowly but steadily but was met with increasingly blatant manipulation of the political process by the military and increasingly harsh forms of repression. The following excerpt from a PBS history of El Salvador picks up the story in 1977 ¹.

“Following the military government's blatant manipulation of the presidential election in 1977, demonstrators gathered in the main plaza of San Salvador and were fired upon by security forces. Shortly thereafter, a reformist priest, Father Rutilio Grande, was assassinated. In response, Monsignor Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, called for an investigation, urged popular demonstrations and led a memorial mass attended by more than 100,000 people................

In 1980, after President Carter announced a $50 million aid package to support reforms - including $5 million in military aid - Archbishop Romero urged the U.S. to cease all military assistance to El Salvador. One month later, Archbishop Romero ended his Sunday sermon with this plea: 'I beseech you, I beg you, order you in the name of God, stop the repression.' Romero was assassinated the following day. Six months later, a full-scale civil war had begun.

The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States changed American policy in El Salvador dramatically. The new U.S. administration worried about Communist expansion in Central America and viewed the El Salvador military government as a potential barrier against Communism. The Reagan administration substantially increased both military and economic aid to El Salvador.

The civil war raged on in El Salvador, fueled by U.S. aid to the Salvadoran military. The government harshly repressed dissent, and at least 70,000 people lost their lives in killings and bombing raids waged against civilians throughout the countryside. The country's infrastructure had crumbled, and the nation appeared to be no closer to its goals of peace, prosperity and social justice than when the process began. Then, in 1989, the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America shocked the international community into action.

With continuing reports of atrocities and murders in El Salvador, the U.S. Congress no longer accepted the State Department's assurance that things were getting better. Speaker of the House Tom Foley created a special task force to monitor El Salvador's investigation of the murders. Congressman Joe Moakley of Massachusetts was selected to head up the investigation. ..................... He discovered that from a very high level, the armed forces of El Salvador had been responsible for the murders of the Jesuits. His investigation also led to the conclusion that certain levels of the U.S. government had known about the situation long before the task force was created.”

The civil war generated created a flood of Salvadorans seeking refuge in the US the vast majority crossing the Mexican border into Southern California and settling primarily in the Los Angeles area. Accurate estimates of the ebbs and flows of illegal immigrants are notoriously difficult to come by, but a report by the Migration Policy Institute suggests that arrivals from El Salvador peaked at 129,000 in 1982 and that an additional 334,000 entered between 1985 and 1990².

The new arrivals quickly found themselves at the mercy of existing Mexican and African American gangs and quickly organized their own gangs. While initially formed for self defense, they quickly morphed into criminal enterprises driven primarily by financial incentives. One of the most notorious Salvadoran gangs, MS 13, is now national in scope with a strong presence in Washington, DC and adjoining counties in Virginia and Maryland.

When crime and violence associated with warring street gangs became a major concern in many cities across the United States, the deportation of gang members became a hot political issue. As part of his efforts to triangulate Republicans on crime, President Bill Clinton signed a 1996 law that ratcheted up deportations of immigrants with criminal records by making things like drunk driving and petty theft deportable offenses. “Shipping off  undesirable immigrants proved enormously 
popular among Democrats and Republicans alike and mass deportations continued apace under both Presidents Bush and Obama  -  overwhelmingly  to Mexico and Central America.”³              

When these deportees arrived back in their “home” countries with their impoverished economies, dysfunctional legal systems and nonexistent employment and educational opportunities they quickly resorted to the same gang activities that had proven so successful in the US.  Ironically, it has been their aggressive efforts to force young Salvadoran males into gang life that has a major cause of the current wave of children attempting to enter the US  illegally
 The trademark devil-horns hand sign    popular among 

originated with the English heavy metal band Judas Priest
Photograph: Ulises Rodriguez / EPA  

                                                                                  

 These children and their parents have decided that the perils of traveling alone through Mexico and making an illegal crossing into the US are preferable to the threats posed by gangs in their home countries.

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1 http://www.pbs.org/itvs/enemiesofwar/elsalvador2.html

2Gammage, Sarah, “El Salvador: Despite End to Civil War, Emigration Continues.”, Migration Policy Institute, 2007. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/print/4507#.U-Kw12PCf1g

3Michael-Paarlberg, “Gangs, guns and Judas Priest: the secret history of a US-inflicted border crisis”, The Manchester Guardian, 23 July, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/23/history-border-crisis-central-america-gangs