They said Jonathan was walking home with his little sister in his arms, his mother by his side. They said he lived in an isolated area, that you had to walk through the woods in order to get there. They said that when they got home, four men in masks stepped out and told me to give his sister to his mother, that they had come to kill him. They said that his mother and and his sister saw everything.
I found out via text. A student asked me if we could postpone our meeting because he had a funeral to attend. The meeting was a chance for my youth group to prepare in order to replicate a workshop I had done with them about violence prevention. Here we were about to talk to students about the effects of violence and no one could attend because they had to lay a fellow ninth grader to rest.
Código cerrado
People said that Jonathan had been involved in some capacity with the gang Mara Salvatrucha also known as MS-13. Apparently he was seen crying the day after they killed his friend, another suspected gang affiliate. His friend was sleeping only a few blocks from where I live when they knocked on his door, claiming to be the police. When he came out, they ambushed him. Four weeks later, it was Jonathan's turn. Other people said that while it was true that Jonathan was involved in gangs at one point, he recently wanted to get out and even moved to escape but the gang found him.
It's known here as the código cerrado, or closed code. You can join the gang but you can never leave. Many times gangs recruit young boys because they know that they're impressionable and that the judge won't throw the book at a 13 year old. For many Salvadoran boys they do it out of fear, love or respect. Some have been left behind by their parents who emigrated to the US and are seeking a family or a bond to fill that void. Others are born into destitution, economically and socially isolated and see the gang as a way for them to be someone, to be feared and even respected. For whatever reason it maybe, they have to do something heinous to be initiated.
Someone told me that a few years back a bus driver was murdered in the nearby town of San Luis. Transportation business are one of the main targets for extortion here in El Salvador. If the company operates in a gang-controlled area they must pay "rent" to the gang. If they don't, one of their drivers' names appears in the newspaper the next day. Supposedly that's what happened in San Luis. Only the trigger man was a 14 year old who was handed a pistol and told to show his bravery. A police officer told me that he's still in jail. Maybe that's what happened with Jonathan. Maybe he was asked to do something that he couldn't bring himself to do.
They say that the gang leaders can turn the homicides on and off like a faucet. In 2012, the government negotiated with MS-13 and rival gang Barrio 18 to reach a truce which caused the murder rate to plummet. In return for making peace, the incarcerated gang leaders were rewarded with better treatment in lower security prisons. However since 2012 the homicides have returned and even surpassed the pre-truce murder rates. The government has responded by moving gang leaders back to maximum security. Now in retaliation it appears that gang leaders are giving the orders for more murders.
My community is in the department of Morazán which used to be regarded as the safest department in all El Salvador with barely any murders to speak of. However that has all changed as in the last few weeks there's been an explosion in violence, claiming the lives of close to twenty people, a good portion of them students. It appears that instead of murdering rival gang members, MS-13 is doing internal cleaning, killing those who are involved in MS13 but have failed them in some way. It could be that Jonathan's murder was nothing more than an attempt by gang leaders to inflate numbers, the thinking being that if the situation gets worse enough, the government will come looking for another truce and be willing to give concessions.
Could be, maybe, no one really knows because no one really talks. It's common to see three words next to gang graffiti; "Ver. Oir. Callar." "See. Hear. Shut up.".
La sombra negra
There were whisperings that Jonathan's murderers weren't gang members. Some believed that it was the police. In recent months police officers and soldiers have been gunned down for wearing their uniforms. Even family members of soldiers and officers are targeted. Were as a few years ago gangs murdered each other mostly over territory disputes, now they are attacking the state , armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and grenades. There are those that say the police have become fed up with the government and the justice system's inefficiency and that they're taking matters into their own hands by eliminating gang members in the middle of the night.
Others say that it wasn't the police that killed Jonathan but rather it was a community vigilante group. On particularly famous example of this vigilante group is known as La Sombra Negra, or "Black Shadow, who tortured and killed dozens of gang members in the 90's. In other parts of the world it would seem crazy to think community members would join forces to kill other community members, but not here. In northern Morazán where I live, many of my neighbors where guerrilla fighters during the Salvadoran civil war. They are no strangers to the meaning of death, or the act of taking someone's life for the "greater good". Not only are they trained soldiers but the war left them unified and organized. Who would be better qualified to form a vigilante group than them?
But more sentences end with vague question marks than defined periods. Even what you read in the papers is confusing. Like Jonathan's friend's murder, there have been reports of gang members dressing up like police officers to kill their victims. People have said that police dress like civilians to kill gang members in the middle of the night. It's a masquerade of vengeful violence. I was talking to a community member about Jonathan's death and the how no one could agree on who did it, whether it was the gang, the police, or a vigilante group. He told me that it's like being surrounded by three fires. You don't know from which the heat is coming from but you do know that you're slowly burning.
Work
I decided to move sites after Jonathan's death. I realized that I had no idea what was going on in my community. In general, a volunteer should understand their community, the better they do, the better they can serve. But more specifically I was working on violence prevention. To do this I enlisted the help of community leaders, made in-roads with police officers and other related institutions. I compiled loads of information on domestic violence, child abuse, bullying, conflict resolution, and gang violence. I immersed myself in it so much that I thought that I understood the situation. With Jonathan's murder I found out that I didn't have a clue. No one could even agree on who was the perpetrator. How could pretend to be an expert? I'm only trying to help but I'm not trained for this.
The other reason I left was because no one knows when it will end. It seems that with the rash of recent murders that the bottom has dropped out of Morazán. I know people that I'm certain are either behind some of the murders or who they themselves will be dead in the next three months. It's just not a healthy environment. The hardest part of leaving was thinking how easy it was for me to pack up and move when others in the community had no choice but to stay. When I told my host grandmother about my departure, we both stood in her kitchen and cried. She cried not only because I was leaving but she was also crying for her community. She told me how peaceful it used to be, that all the evils happened elsewhere, not in her community. People keep so hush when bad things happen that I think their anxiety grows. As she saw me leave maybe she could see how all those things have accumulated and destroyed what was once her sanctuary,
When I told people I was moving, they kept asking me why, that they only murdered gang affiliates. While that seems to be mostly true I don't think people realize the secondary effects. Fear is a very complex and messy emotion that finds its way into the nooks and crannies of our thoughts and behaviors. A fellow volunteer was telling me that she was seeking interest amongst the youth in her community to start a scholarship program so that they could attend a nearby high school. While many wanted to continue their education, they said it wasn't worth the risk of being targeted by gang members. They were safer at home, helping their family in the fields. Similarly, I've heard that people don't want to start a business because they don't want to deal with the extortion. The social and economic consequences extend far beyond the death of a few.
The Cost of Leaving
My institution experienced a crisis in 2012. The security situation got so serious in Honduras that Washington decided to evacuate all volunteers. Washington began analyzing the situation in El Salvador and were considering following suit. During their assessment, the number of volunteers dropped from well over a hundred to under twenty in the matter of months.Eventually new security measures were implemented and now we are around sixty volunteers currently serving in country.
On my way to the hotel after a difficult meeting in which I decided to change sites, I began to chat with the taxi driver who always drives for volunteers visiting San Salvador. I'll call him Diego. Diego told me that a few months before my institution's security reevaluation which caused a mass volunteer exodus, he decided to take out a loan in order to by more cars for his taxi company. Being that volunteers were a significant portion of his clientele, his business shored up over night. He told me that he lost everything, the cars and even his house. Shortly after, his son was diagnosed with some vision ailment and went blind. Then a driver of his was murdered for reasons he said were unknown. He told me that he's slowly working himself out of the hole. That's why I was stunned to find out that on top of all of this, he and his company are still charged thousands every month in extortions. When I asked him if he ever thought about doing something else he said he has no choice but to keep on driving.
My new site is on the other side of the country, in the north-western department of Santa Ana. When I was leaving Morazán everyone told me how much worse the situation was in Santa Ana. Since I've got here, I've heard nothing of gang activity here while Morazán is passing through possibly its most violent moment since the civil war. A Morazán volunteer recently left her site after a double homicide. It makes you wonder what the tipping point is. Will we reach a critical mass where all the seemingly insignificant deaths will accumulate in our departure? While we as an institution may leave and move on, the hardest working Salvadorans don't have much of a choice. Either abandon their family here to make the dangerous journey north, or stay and endure the dangers of trying to make the best of their lives here in El Salvador. I'm unsure which is safer.
