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El Salvador

The Supposed Miracle of Acajutla

Roberto Valencia

I expected to see a bunch of gangbangers with their hands in the dough, but here I see only
two bakers, submission in their eyes, bewildered to see an outsider among them. All of the
props set the stage of a bakery: the smell of freshly baked bread, the flour that dusts the floor,
the instruments, the aprons. But at this bakery, owned by the Mara Salvatrucha, one thing is
missing: the homies.

Morning. Im looking for Cristian. People call him The Tremendous.

The bakers shyly raise their gaze; they exchange glances, and go back to their work. They
seem more afraid than I am. I explain what brought me to the neighborhood of La Coquera of
Acajutla, that is, aside from the moto-taxi.

In Acajutla, a miracle is happening. Since the turn of the millennium, the city has gained fame
for being one of the most violent in El Salvador: in 2005 there were 52 murders in a population
of 55,000; in 2008, there were 59 murders, in 2011 the number rose to 75 But in 2012 the
figure dropped to 20; and in 2013 it dropped to 4. Nationwide, the murder rate dropped due to
negotiations between the gangs and the government, but the national decline was only 43%,
here homicides plummeted by an astounding 95%. Its as unbelievable as if El Salvadors
national soccer team, La Selecta, was suddenly on par with Germanys Eagles, or as if the
minimum wage suddenly quadrupled. The miracle of Acajutla deserves to be explained, and so
I came to the city to speak with those who had pulled so many strings to make this all happen:
municipal employees, victims, church pastors, policemen, businessmen. The Mara Salvatrucha
must know something or other, and in order to talk to them I was told to come by the bakery in
La Coquera, and ask for El Tremendo, the face of the gang known as the Acajutlas Locos.

One of the bakers breaks the silence, and points to a path beside the bakery. The boys are
over there.

After walking thirty yards down the sidewalk and fifty down a dusty road, a homie shows up
and stops at the sight of me. He has the look and gait of a cock in a fighting pit.

I say: Moiss Bonilla from City Hall told me to come here around nine and ask for The
Tremendous.

Behind him, under the shadow of a cluster of trees, theres a group of eight to ten
gangmembers. After a sign from their lookout, three of them approach me. I repeat the reason
for my visit, emphasizing my interest to know their version of how the miracle came to be.

1
No ones called The Tremendous around here, says a fat, tattoo-headed gangmember.

***

If you have faith, the miracle of Acajutla is easy to understand.

In September of 2011, God told us to pray, says Mario Alas, pastor of the Church of the Sea
of Galilee. And every Sunday at five in the morning we pray for the crimes to stop.

Reyes Sermeo, also a priest, says: "We go to the edge of Acajutla and scold the demons that
are trying to get into the city. With prayer, we tie down the demons of promiscuity, of murder,
and of violence ... God has our back, but I know it's difficult to understand this in any humanly
way.

If you dont have faith then it takes a little more to understand.

Before it was a city, Acajutla was a port. The verbs embark and disembark have shaped
these lands since they were ruled for the glory of foreign kings. In 1961, recognizing its
longstanding maritime tradition, the Salvadoran State opened one of the most modern port
complexes in Central America. Thousands of people in search of work flooded the small port
settlement. The hasty urbanization gave way to a network of streets, neighborhoods and roads
so messy that the city lacks even a park or central square. In this human conglomerate, its
difficult to bump into even one senior citizen who is native to the area.

The port generated prosperity, yes, but also prostitution, drugs, crime. In the 1980s, alienation
and poverty encouraged an upward migration to the United States, and with the deportations
that marked the 1990s gangs proliferated. Nationwide, two gangs monopolized this
phenomenon: in the neighborhood of La Playa, the Barrio 18 grew strong through their chain of
brothels and taverns, which were coveted by sailors; and the Mara Salvatrucha took hold of the
older, traditional, part of the city.

Prostitution, alcohol, drugs, maras, drug trafficking, money... The stars aligned for everything to
happen just as it did: Acajutla became the national benchmark of violence.

The years of 2009 through 2011 were the most violent in our historywith 68, 63 and 75
murders. And yet a chorus of polyphonic voices coincides in pointing out that it was during
these three years that the seed of our miracle was sown.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) spent substantial resources to analyze the
phenomenon of violence; the local clique of the Barrio 18 was defeated; evangelical churches
began to pray in the open air of parks; Daro Guadrn of the Farabundo Mart National
Liberation Front (FMLN) was elected mayor; the mayor welcomed mediators to work with the
gangs; and, on a national level, the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18 signed an agreement
that became known as the Truce.

2
Moiss Bonilla, a key figure in the making of the miracle, explained the power of the Truce.
With all the commotion that came with the Truce, the mayor established a code of conduct.
His code was simple: we are different, we take care of our business with discretion.

Lets refer to the series of events that followed the Truce as the Process. Promoters and
organizers of the Process want to distance themselves from the Truce, and they passionately
reject the word. And yet both of these initiatives were built upon the same foundation:
communication with gangs. The main difference between the two is that the Process
successfully solicited the participation of private businesses, and the local government took the
reins and assumed the job of organizing social inclusion projects for gangmembers, like the
bakery we saw in La Coquera.

***

No ones called The Tremendous around here, says a fat, tattoo-headed gangmember.

Its a made up alias, but from now on this gangmember will be referred to as Stocky. Hes 34
years old and is father of a 16-year-old who Stocky works hard to keep away from the Maras.
Stocky was jailed in Apanteos and Chalatenango, and is now high up in the ranks of the
Acajutlas Locos of La Coquera. Hes not very tall and gained some weight in prison, but hes
still someone youd never want to spar with. Hes sporting long shorts, a dark colored American
football jersey and expensive, shiny tennis shoes that look very new, as if he were wearing
them for the first time that morning.

He listens carefully. His first response is that they never speak to reporters, that theyve drawn
the line, but its clear he wants to talk and without much prodding he takes me to the rest of the
group.

This journalist wants to know why the murders have dropped in Acajutla, and if the Mayor is
helping us.

It is as if he has opened the floodgates. Weve gotten no help, one of them exaggerates.
"We've spent years asking them to bring us AstroTurf for the school playground" another
chimes in. "The city hall clerks are so rude! "Weve been trained, so why wont anyone hire
us?" "Those cold fish have lined their pockets with money from the Truce, but nothing trickles
down. The mayor said hed buy us a boat. "The old shit (Mayor Guadrn) has only given us
one oven. "That's nothing for how hard weve worked to lower the crime rate! "And now were
forbidden to rob tourists A good business here would be selling tortoise eggs, but no one has
helped us set that up.

A guard! A guard! shouts one of the lookouts.

The group vanishes. Most of the gangmembers run to the schoolhouse. I run behind it. On the
small playground with no AstroTurf, a group of boys and girls play soccer, some of them
barefooted. They barely flinch. The stampede of gangmembers is routine here in La Coquera.

3
 ***

The National Civil Police has absolutely nothing to do with the Truce of Acajutla.

The sub-inspector, Gustavo de Len, is one such Salvadoran who loathes the word truce.
Since April 2013, when he was assigned to the police sub-delegation of Acajutla as second in
command, there has only been one murder. He knows that the Process relies on the Truce but
either by weariness or real ignorance he steers clear from the connection.

Yeah, Ive heard they have a bakery in La Coquera and that they were given fishing boats, he
says, but, how they got all that? I dont know. I dont know how other institutions are handling
the issue. But here we dont exempt gangsters from the law.

This morning there was a police crackdown in San Julin, one of the neighborhoods with the
strongest gang presence. This is one of the neighborhoods most affected, but in Acajutla no
neighborhood is left unmarked. The marero is your neighbor; he is not a mere character in the
news. The gang here is something you can touch.

The problem, says Sub-inspector De Leon, is that they develop this sense of ownership.
They believe the neighborhood is their turf, and thats it. If a young man visits the
neighborhood, theyll stop him at once, theyll take off his shirt to see if he has any tattoos and
theyll question him. If hes from the cities of Nahuizalco or Izalco, which is the turf of Barrio
18 ... then his life is at risk.

What about the neighbors who arent gangmembers?

When we crackdown dads, moms and friends come out just to try to stop us.

But ... what about the rest? Those who have no connection to gangs?

The problem is that 90% of the population of Acajutla either belongs to the Mara or has a
relative whose a Mara or is somehow connected to the Mara. That's why they want us out of
here.

Ninety percent of Acajutla doesnt want the police around. Even if the sub-inspectors figure is
exaggerated, its a crushing perception.

***

On the morning of August 20, 2014, a group of Mara Salvatrucha who were dressed in police
uniform arrested Doroteo Marroqun Tello. They handcuffed him, took him to a vacant lot they
call La Planada, and burst through his head with a storm of bullets. In Acajutla, it is said that
with him died the last eighteen.

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Because of its symbolism, the murder of Tello may forever remain engraved in the peoples
history of Acajutla, but Barrio 18 actually ceased to exist in the city by late 2011. That year,
which was by no small coincidence marked by the 75 murders, the Mara Salvatrucha and the
Barrio 18 warred like never before. This ended with the exile of not only the few surviving
eighteens, but also their families, their friends and anyone who, without being affiliated with
one gang or the other, thought they had little future in Acajutla due to the fact that theyd been
raised in the neighborhood of La Playa, the former epicenter of the tumultuous nightlife of
prostitutes, sailors, murderers and drug dealers, the former stronghold of the Barrio 18.

The neighborhood of La Playa has an infinite potential for tourism, as it fans out from both
sides of a road running from City Hall to the port, along 500 yards of sea. But even today, three
years after the exodus of the Barrio 18, La Playa looks like it has been ravaged by a tsunami.
Countless houses are abandoned, dismantled, crumbling. It is empty of life, proof that a war
was waged.

It took years to drive away the eighteens, Stocky says, and the blood of so many gangsters.
And thats the reason we feel that change came less from the Truce and more from the blood.
It was the blood that showed us we had to calm down. Either way, well never be on good
terms with the eighteens.

The Process made possible the miracle of Acajutla. But in order for the Process to work, we
needed a lot of help from the United Nations Development Program, we needed prayers from
the church, we needed Guadrn to be elected mayor, and we needed all those guidelines that
came out of the Truce. But none of this would have worked, or its effects would have been
much weaker, without first eliminating the Barrio 18, which ultimately left the town in the grip of
the Mara clique known as the Acajutlas Locos.

***

As if by choreographed routine, the gang of La Coquera vanishes at the sight of the guards
Nissan Frontier. I watch him pass the playground, as I chat with a pair of fourth and sixth grade
students. Minutes later, one by one, the gangmembers reappear and gather under the shade
of the same trees.

Can you show me the bakery? I ask, without a glimmer of hope.

The bakery is made up of two rooms with unevenly plastered walls. The back room, the smaller
of the two, is dim-lit and houses three bikes equipped with baskets, though one gangmember
tells me that the pastry delivery network consists of five people. In the large room, alongside
the bakers with submissive looks, there are two sacks of flour, metal shelves with trays of
stacked loaves, a scale, a wheat mill, a table, multicolored plastic containers and three ovens,
two of which were donated by a priest, and the third donated by City Hall as part of the
Process. Thats the one that bakes the best bread," says a gangmember.

The Mara Salvatrucha sells $200 dollars worth of French bread and pastries on a daily basis.

5
From that figure you have to subtract production costs and the salaries of two bakers. You
dont need to get a business degree to see that, even though this gang wanted to stop
extorting people, the bakery is not a real economic incentive.

Lets go to the beach to talk, says Stock

***Moises Bonilla says Aajutla didnt accept being a sanctuary town, the Mayor refused it.
Bonilla has been working for fourteen years in positions of trust in the mayoralty, and the fact
that he has survived four Mayors in this country tells well of his abilities. He is now manager of
Social Projection, although to this story is more relevant his role as Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) in the Process.

Mijango came to Acajutla to introduce his own ideas, but didnt find support. Why? We thought
that he wanted too much personal prominence.

The face of the gang Raul Mijango and the gangmember Stocky confirm the meeting. It took
place in the first weeks of 2013, when promoters of the Truce tried to persuade the Mayors of
the most violent cities to join what was first known as "Sanctuary Towns" and after facing a
barrage of criticism they were renamed as "Violence Free Localities."

Mijangos version is a little bit different: "The City Hall asked the Process not to be public,
however there is a real agreement, and that is which is of importance here, that our promoters
did pay attention to Acajutla. Why was asked the Process go private? Because they saw that
the media, rather than supporting, what they did was criticize the Mayors which joined it".

Acajutla has been out of the showcase that is the Truce, away from the focus of a press which
is lazy to investigate whatever takes place other than in the capital. But that did not stop the
rising of loud local criticism.

Moiss Bonilla says There are people who distorted the approach of the Mayor with the guys.

I was told that he receives them in his office.

It's true. Sometimes they come looking for work, or because they have to eat. And because he
receives and attends them, there are people who call the Mayor friend of gangsters.

How justify that with the people?

With the UNDP project a study was made and it came out that there are over 600
gangmembers that regardless of whether being or not criminals, they are human beings, they
are Salvadoran citizens. Nor should we forget that everybody knows everybody else here. I live
in the Acaxual I and I know all the guys in the colony.

Would that also explain why private enterprise supports the Process?
6
We as City Hall members met with representatives of private enterprise, we exposed them the
situation, and some said: if through it (the Process) we are going to get the problem away, I
donate an oven or whatever it takes, but supervised by the City Hall. And this is what is being
done. The great advantage of private enterprise is that it gives the money and thats all, later it
wont be any problem with the Court of Auditors.

Why did plummet the killings?

Because we see here the problem of violence regardless of what is going on nationwide. That
is the value that has Acajutla. If you go right now to San Julins colony school, you see outside
a lot of guys, just talking about every Fridays soccer match or how the Mayor has taken them
into account. There is no other way Gangmembers are citizens, it is just that upto now no
one wanted talk to them.

***

Just as there are people who still believe that man never set foot on the moon, or that Elvis
Presley is alive, there are many that deny the miracle of Acajutla. They say that the corpses
which disappeared from the streets are buried in unmarked graves, or those who let them
dying are through and through gangmembers, and for the honest people nothing has changed.

But something did change. In El Salvador homicide figures of 2014 will resemble those before
the Truce, while in Acajutla the year will close with just a score of murders, far from the pre-
Process numbers. Then there are other indicators: in the students bathroom of the National
Institute there is not a single painted allusion to the Mara Salvatrucha, and deputy director,
Victor Manuel Alfaro, confirms that the enrollment increased from 450 to 560 youth.

All this does not mean that when talking -off tape recorder- with moto-taxi drivers, vendors,
employees, officers, teachers or policemen, is easy to detect a concern about the
empowerment of the Acajutlas Locos and its growing presence in public life.

Several complained that when the patronal festivities Mayor Guadrn authorized
gangmembers to sell beer on the streets, or of giving excessive facilities to their families to
open sales stands. It has also spread the rumor that some port area companies have hired
gangmembers with generous salaries, or even have them in the payroll without working.
Criticisms of this kind are heard often, but, in general, can be argued that in Acajutla it is known
that respect to the security issue they live better off than five years ago.

There is, however, a crime judged excessive almost unanimously: extortion. Payment to gang-
members under threat of death is common since the middle of the last decade, but it seems
that the Process made it sound natural. Maybe that's why the official figures just recorded the
problem: in the first ten months of 2014 the Polica Nacional Civil (PNC) processed only eight
complaints.

Sub-inspector De Leon admits, we have heard rumors of people being extorted but are afraid

7
and do not report.

Unless someone has the connections to shake it off, in Acajutla was paid and it continues to
pay rent to the Mara Salvatrucha, the moto-taxis, buses, minibuses, shops, market stalls, the
beach huts ... even the migrants when returned from the United States to visit a relative, or the
embarked, which is how are known those who, hired by a shipping company, climb into a boat
and spend months sailing from port to port, embarking and disembarking until the ship returns
to El Salvador.

***

Let's go to the beach to talk, Stocky tells me.

We walk alone the hundreds of meters between the bakery and the beach that opens south
side of the mouth of the river Sensunapn. The initial hostility of Stocky disappeared while ago.

I'm from the ninety-eight, he says.

It means that in 1998 he was recruited. Stocky says "I'm in" as a native of Buenos Aires that
says "I'm from Boca soccer club, or a conservative white guy who says "I am a Republican",
only that the sense of belonging is to a criminal structure as Mara Salvatrucha.

Stocky looks at the ocean, calm and bright, and says his brother is now at sea, with a boat that
the family acquired from a bank loan. His brother is not a gangmember, but should be part of
almost half a million Salvadoran - official figures- which constitute the social buffer of the
gangs. He left early with two teenagers who do not hesitate to be Maras. Goldfish pays well
these days, at $ 1.40 a pound, and if you are lucky in one outing you can steal from the sea up
to a thousand pounds.

Why the Mara continues to claim rent?, I ask.

... ...

I have heard that they charge to the embarked.

An embarked who embarks a first time earns about $ 700 a month. If you have experience
salary rises to $ 1,000 or $ 1.200. The embarked spends five, six or ten months at sea, with
little expenditure, and a fat check awaits him when he arrives to the Acajutla port.

What's the problem in giving 100 bucks to the neighborhood?, Stocky says, it's nothing to
them, and helps us a lot.

Would you like someone to remove 50 pounds of the fish your brother brings?

8
Stocky remains silent few seconds, as if searching for the answer that would settle the issue.

Rent has been charged in El Salvador for years, he says, we didnt invented it; during the
war there was extortion; we do the same that once did the FMLN.

***

It's 11 and a half in the morning, the hour when a lot of movement in the sub-delegation of the
National Civil Police takes place. In a few plastic chairs near the entrance are sitting two young
guys which look very skinny, one is 23 years old, he wears flip-flops and claims to be a baker;
the other is 19, he wears Nike shoes, a cap, and he says that is a corral-worker at Hacienda
Kilo 5.

An agent that looks fresh out of the academy makes them obvious questions: name, parents,
address, tattoos yes or not, height, ... and the answers fill several cards. But often Fredy
comes from research, and questions with more elaborate questions. Fredy dresses so sloppy
that doesnt seem to be a policeman; now wears beige pants a couple of sizes too big and a
white t-shirt with a painted doll that says "Mom, I Love U".

The puny couple was in a motorcycle by the Boulevard 25 de Febrero, when they were
stopped at a police roadblock near the obelisk and submitted as undocumented immigrants.
Agents have asked them the cell-phones. Fredy analyzes them in a room inside. Every so
often comes out and asks something with a serious tone. No problems with the assumed
baker, he says, but in the phone of the assumed corral-worker he has found gang music and
among the contacts there are two numbers that the system assigns to active gangmembers.

Is the chip yours?, Fredy asks in another of his entries.

Yup.

We have to seize it. You can go, but you must sign leaving this phone here to investigate it.
Only that now I'm busy with other paperwork. If you are in a hurry, I give you a blank paper, you
sign it, and then Ill fill it down later on.

Thats good, says the assumed corral-worker, with a natural calm that invites to think that it's
not his first time in such troubles.

After a while they bring his cell-phone open. He immediately checks it and found that, in
addition to the chip, lacks the memory card.

It lacks the memory card! I saw that the roadblock agents have taken it away!, he dares
complain to Fredy.

Are you sure that it had a memory?

9
Yes ... as I have been listening music on the bike!

Fredy shouts that should be identified the agents that were in the roadblock, he wants their
names to ask them by radio if they know anything about it. The five or six agents that are at
that moment nearby realize about the situation: "These bugs lie continuously," says one. "If it
is a shit worth two dollars, why the fuss?" summons another to the assumed corral-worker.

All right ... No problem ... I can buy another memory, he says, aware of his situation.

Soon they bring the blank page, he stamped his solitary firm, and he and his friend come out of
the sub-delegation crestfallen. In four hours, the head of all these cops tells me, surprised, that
90% of Acajutla do not like cops.

***

It is few minutes before noon when I say bye to Stocky. I walk down the beach to La Atarraya
barrio; he has told me that there I can photograph recent graffitis of the Acajutlas Locos. Some
are bright and colorful, others old; many are claws, tombstones, skulls, MS-13 is omnipresent.
But most repeated threats are like "Death to the snitch" and See, hear, and dont talk.

Between 2011 and 2013, homicides dropped in Acajutla (Sonsonate) 95%, but the structures of
terror gangs remain. 'Death to the spies' and 'See, but not hear' threats are still in force in the
town.

I go camera in hand stopping often. Turning a corner, a boy about 12 years, a lookout, stares
at me as surprised. He calms down when I say that I come to speak with the guys. In El
Salvador few places are as safe as the turf of a gang when you have the backing of the boss.

Next to the Port Authority I hail a moto-taxi, it is close to lunch time and I ask him to approach
the market. Right here begins the neighborhood La Playa, 500 yards by the sea with its
countless abandoned houses, dismantled, crumbling, following the annihilation of Barrio 18.

Three years ago we couldnt pass through this street, says the moto-taxi driver when
convinced that I am a reporter, here was the other gang.

Is it now better?

Yes, dear, he responds.

Dont you pay rent?

Not, because the moto-taxi is not mine, but the owner himself does. And that's good because
now I work until 7pm, and can move safe even by the cantons. I know I dont have to worry
even if I am taking along two tattooed guys, it is not like before.

10
In my notebook I write one more example of the naturalization of violence that I've heard this
week. Given the weak presence of the Salvadoran State, even a sector of the oppressed
thanks their condition to their oppressor, as a lesser evil. The Process in Acajutla has saved
dozens of lives, but also seems to be creating the perfect dictatorship.

11