Making a Deal With Murderers
The president of El Salvador has helped save more than 2,000 lives in the past two years. Now if only he would admit it.
The year 2011 was one of the deadliest since the end of El Salvador’s civil war in 1992. There were an appalling 4,371 murders — 11 people killed every day. With 70 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, it was one of the most violent countries in the world. If that murder rate were somehow transposed to the city of New York, some 6,000 New Yorkers would be murdered every year.
The cause of the bloodshed was no secret: the war between the rival gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha.… Seguir leyendo »