> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7328967.stm
>
> The most dangerous gang in America
>
> By Piers Scholfield
> BBC News, Washington
>
> The suburbs of the US are no longer the same as those immortalised in
> 1950s
> movies, with white families living in big houses and the father driving
> off
> to work in his Buick, past manicured lawns.
>
> These days, it is more likely that English will not even be the first
> language you hear on the streets.
>
> In Langley Park, Maryland, the kiosks sell Spanish-language newspapers;
> the
> supermarket shelves are stocked with tortillas and assorted black beans.
>
> Mexican music plays in the background while the tannoy blares out
> announcements in Spanish.
>
> Outside, groups of men hang out on the street corners and their Spanish is
> accented - Nicaraguan, Honduran and, most often, Salvadoran.
>
> They wait, hoping to be picked up for a day's labouring in the houses and
> gardens of Washington DC's middle class.
>
> But among the hard-working families lurks a darker shadow.
>
> Violent crime
>
> Vicious street gangs, committed to violence, have spread throughout the
> Americas and are now a significant threat in the US.
>
> We visited Maria Hernandez in her apartment in Langley Park.
>
> She welcomed us through her battered front door, which had been smashed by
> police in a dawn raid.
>
> They were looking for evidence connecting her son, Marvin, to an assault,
> where a man suffered brain damage after being hit on the head with a
> baseball bat.
>
> Maria told us that Marvin had joined a gang after being picked on at
> school.
>
> The police search warrant said Marvin was a member of MS-13.
>
> MS-13 - or Mara Salvatrucha - is the biggest and fastest-growing of the
> Latin American street gangs.
>
> In Maryland alone, MS-13 members are accused of being responsible for a
> long
> series of violent crimes including murder.
>
> Favoured tactics include decapitation by machete.
>
> MS-13 started life as a group of young immigrants on the streets of
> California in the 1980s.
>
> After nearly a million Salvadorans fled their civil war for the US, many
> of
> them settled in Los Angeles where gang violence was rife.
>
> In the 1990s, the "maras" spread to Central America after many of their
> leaders were deported from the United States.
>
> Kill and control
>
> Those countries, struggling to get back on their feet after years of
> devastating civil conflict, were a perfect setting in which gangs could
> proliferate.
>
> There's evidence that the model of the gang is rape, kill, control.
> They're really about gaining control over other immigrants from their
> community
> Rod J Rosenstein, US attorney for Maryland
>
> Today, some estimates put up to 60,000 maras active in El Salvador,
> Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and - according to the FBI - in more than 40
> US
> states.
> Rod J Rosenstein is Maryland's US Attorney.
>
> His office is currently prosecuting a series of cases against MS-13. He
> told
> us the gang's motives are more about mayhem than money.
>
> "There's evidence that the model of the gang is rape, kill, control," he
> said.
>
> "They're really about gaining control over other immigrants from their
> community, intimidating people and asserting some degree of threat which
> enables them to control their neighbourhoods."
>
> Rosenstein's prosecutors have moved on from charging individual gang
> members
> with discrete crimes.
>
> Instead, they are now targeting MS-13 with federal racketeering laws - the
> same legislation used against the Mafia and other organised crime.
>
> For this tactic to be successful, they must prove that MS-13 is indeed an
> organised network.
>
> We attended court in Greenbelt, Maryland.
>
> The prosecutors spent much of their time talking about gang meetings;
> about
> the clothes - blue and white for MS-13 - and the tattoos.
>
> And, most damningly, an alleged firm link between gang leaders in El
> Salvador and their proteges in the US.
>
> Murder by mobile
>
> In June 2007, the then US Attorney-General, Alberto Gonzales held a press
> conference to announce charges against MS-13 leaders in El Salvador.
>
> The indictment alleged that Saul Antonios Turcos Angel communicated with
> members of the "Teclas Locos Salvatruchos" clique in Maryland via mobile
> phone and ordered them to commit two murders.
>
> Later that day gang members in Maryland killed two people and wounded a
> juvenile.
>
> The links between the countries are clear.
>
> The court in Greenbelt was shown a home video made by the gang in a
> Salvadoran prison.
>
> In it, maras send greetings to their "homies" in Maryland and other parts
> of
> the US.
>
> They talk of killing and controlling others and display their full-body
> tattoos in a show of allegiance to MS-13.
>
> Mindful of these trans-national links, the FBI last year made the decision
> to open an office in El Salvador.
>
> Aaron Escorza heads the FBI's National Gang Task Force. He told us the
> gangs
> move freely around the region.
>
> "They don't recognise borders. They commit crimes in El Salvador, flee El
> Salvador to come to the US and you have MS-ers who are committing crimes
> in
> the US and fleeing down to El Salvador to evade arrest."
>
> Hard fist
>
> But once in El Salvador, the challenge to authorities is immense.
>
> Entire swathes of the capital are virtually under the control of MS-13 and
> its rival, Mara 18.
>
> Local police patrol warily, tending when possible to avoid those parts of
> the city.
>
> The region's homicide rates are among the highest in the world - 58 per
> 100,000 of population in El Salvador.
>
> The past decade has seen politicians rise to power on the back of promises
> to declare war against the gangs.
>
> The "Mano Dura" - or Hard Fist - policy introduced by Honduras at the
> start
> of the decade was closely followed by "Super Mano Dura" in El Salvador.
>
> The legislation meant police could round up gang members at will, throwing
> young men in prison for any suspicious behaviour, including associating
> with
> likely gang members or sporting tattoos.
>
> The result was thousands of gang members in prison.
>
> But courts were not able to process such numbers and many lingered in
> prison
> without charge.
>
> The prisons themselves have become strongholds of the gangs, many of them
> controlled by the Maras themselves, the authorities guard only from the
> outside.
>
> The "Mano Dura" policies are now largely discredited.
>
> On patrol in San Salvador, the police told us the laws had been
> counter-productive, driving the gangs underground and leading to more
> clever
> tactics from the likes of MS-13.
>
> They pointed out men who could be Maras, but who now wear long t-shirts to
> cover their tattoos.
>
> The graffiti that used to be ubiquitous, identifying each gang's
> territory,
> is no longer so obvious.
>
> Mano Dura made the prisons into virtual headquarters for the gangs.
>
> And the US deportation policy added to the problem, with the result that
> the
> gangs have become ever more organised and powerful.
>
> Revolving door
>
> Jose Miguel Cruz, of the University of Central America, who has studied
> the
> Maras for over a decade, says these approaches have led to a "revolving
> door" effect.
>
> "MS-13 has spread across the US and is a major security problem in Central
> America. We haven't tried any more preventative measures."
>
> He draws a comparison with Nicaragua. "They also are poor, they also have
> weak institutions."
>
> If we can lock them away we will but if we can't, they should be
> deported
> Julie Myers, US assistant secretary of state for homeland security
>
> But Nicaragua has so far managed to avoid any large-scale gang problem.
> Why?
> "The police concentrate on more preventative measures," says Mr Cruz.
>
> Former gang member Edgar Ramirez backed this up.
>
> When he arrived back from the US, deported after a three-year prison
> sentence, he said there were no opportunities, no way back into normal
> society.
>
> "I had tattoos so everyone treated me like a criminal," he tells us.
>
> "And if you speak English, they know you're a deportee."
>
> For now, US policy remains focused on law-enforcement.
>
> The US Assistant Secretary of State for Homeland Security, Julie Myers,
> says
> it must remain the priority.
>
> "If we can lock them away we will, but if we can't, they should be
> deported," she told us.
>
> "We have to think about stopping young people going into gangs; but I
> believe the American public is safer when we remove these individuals from
> the streets of our communities and deport them wherever possible."
>
> In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was fighting a proxy war against the
> Soviet
> Union in Central America, he promised to rebuild a new, better, El
> Salvador.
>
> But after spending so much on the war, there was little appetite in
> Washington for the reconstruction project.
>
> Two decades later, the US is reaping the consequences. And in Central
> America, a region still struggling with poverty and crime, MS-13 has
> thrived.
>
> Law enforcement alone does not seem to be enough to contain it.
>
> The Maras: the Most Dangerous Gang in America for the Assignment programme
> was broadcast by the World Service. Click here for the podcast.
>
> Story from BBC
> NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7328967.stm
>
> Published: 2008/04/03 17:31:40 GMT
>
>