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A Conflicted War: MS-13, Trump and America's Stake in El Salvador's Security
Source: New York Times
A Conflicted War: MS-13, Trump and America’s Stake in El Salvador’s Security
U.S. investment is guiding the fight to contain the violence in El Salvador, even as President Trump hurls insults and threatens to walk away.
By Ali Watkins and Meridith Kohut
Dec. 10, 2018
-snip-
The United States has stepped up its engagement in the country over the last two years, dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of law enforcement and military personnel to fighting the violent gangs that send so many Salvadorans fleeing to the American border. The goal is to create a self-sufficient Salvadoran justice system. But the consequences of the effort are difficult to assess.
American advisers are training the police officers who arrest gang members. American dollars are building the prisons that hold them. At an American facility in San Salvador, detectives are learning how to investigate crimes. It is part of a plan to send $750 million into Central America’s violent Northern Triangle — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — and one that, American and Salvadoran officials say privately, would be disastrous to end.
President Trump, though, has periodically threatened to walk away. He views MS-13 as a dangerous force in the United States, but has expressed skepticism about the efforts to help root it out in El Salvador. Little more than a month ago, he pledged to pull American support from the region.
Mr. Trump’s wavering commitment and fiery rhetoric — including claims that most Salvadoran immigrants are gang members in disguise — have at times endangered the fragile inroads his embassy has made in a region where American involvement, dating back decades, has historically been viewed with suspicion.
-snip-
U.S. investment is guiding the fight to contain the violence in El Salvador, even as President Trump hurls insults and threatens to walk away.
By Ali Watkins and Meridith Kohut
Dec. 10, 2018
-snip-
The United States has stepped up its engagement in the country over the last two years, dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of law enforcement and military personnel to fighting the violent gangs that send so many Salvadorans fleeing to the American border. The goal is to create a self-sufficient Salvadoran justice system. But the consequences of the effort are difficult to assess.
American advisers are training the police officers who arrest gang members. American dollars are building the prisons that hold them. At an American facility in San Salvador, detectives are learning how to investigate crimes. It is part of a plan to send $750 million into Central America’s violent Northern Triangle — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — and one that, American and Salvadoran officials say privately, would be disastrous to end.
President Trump, though, has periodically threatened to walk away. He views MS-13 as a dangerous force in the United States, but has expressed skepticism about the efforts to help root it out in El Salvador. Little more than a month ago, he pledged to pull American support from the region.
Mr. Trump’s wavering commitment and fiery rhetoric — including claims that most Salvadoran immigrants are gang members in disguise — have at times endangered the fragile inroads his embassy has made in a region where American involvement, dating back decades, has historically been viewed with suspicion.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/us/el-salvador-ms-13.html