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Liberal_in_LA

(44,397 posts)
Sat Aug 22, 2015, 08:58 PM Aug 2015

One murder every hour: how El Salvador became the homicide capital of the world

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by TexasTowelie (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: the guardian

On the deadliest day of the century in the world’s most homicidal country, a gang leader and convicted murderer sits quietly in a vegetable farm ruing what he calls a disappearing opportunity for peace.

Marvin is a senior figure in the Mara Salvatrucha, one of El Salvador’s two biggest gangs. They have been at war with each other for two decades and now find themselves under attack by the state amid a bloody escalation of violence.

Last Sunday was, briefly, the bloodiest day yet with 40 murders. But the record was beaten on Monday with 42 deaths, and surpassed again on Tuesday with 43. Even Iraq – with its civil war, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and US drone strikes – could not match such a lethal start to the week.

For the 31-year-old gangster, such statistics are further cause for pessimism that his country is being sucked deeper into a culture of death – one that he has been part of for most of his life.

Read more: Link to http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/22/el-salvador-worlds-most-homicidal-place

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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mackerel

(4,412 posts)
1. Mass birth control would help. The results would not be apparent for 20 years or so but
Sat Aug 22, 2015, 10:22 PM
Aug 2015

what other alternatives are out there?

freshwest

(53,661 posts)
2. Not an option in El Salvador:
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 01:32 AM
Aug 2015
Pro-Life Nation

In this new movement toward criminalization, El Salvador is in the vanguard. The array of exceptions that tend to exist even in countries where abortion is circumscribed — rape, incest, fetal malformation, life of the mother — don't apply in El Salvador. They were rejected in the late 1990's, in a period after the country's long civil war ended. The country's penal system was revamped and its constitution was amended. Abortion is now absolutely forbidden in every possible circumstance. No exceptions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

El Salvador mulls freeing 17 women jailed for abortion crimes

Like much of Latin America, El Salvador is predominantly Catholic. The country’s influential Catholic Church, evangelical groups and conservative lawmakers argue that abortion infringes on the rights of an unborn child, which is enshrined in El Salvador’s constitution and should be protected by law at all costs.*

http://www.trust.org/item/20140515070722-xav1r/

to Judi Lynn:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014804287#op

The leftist president who was leaving office left the women in the article in prison. Haven't seen any updates on these women.

*This is the position of Rand Paul who wants to rewrite the 14th to read the same way. The GOP doesn't like the 14th Amendment, with its clauses covering birthright citizenship, due process and equal treatment under the law.

Most of what we know of as American law since that time came from the interpretation of the 14th such as abortion rights, marriage equality and others since the 4th was inadequate to protect the rights of the disadvantaged. It didn't when Dred Scott appealed his status under the 4th.

The most enlightening post is on Judi Lynn's thread about the 17 women:

MisterP (17,652 posts)

3. it's actually a rich and intriguing issue in Latin America


the Salvadoran students' union called it "preemptive genocide" (reducing the number of the poor--and preventing The Revolution from happening by reducing misery) and Honduras's 70s Communist Youth were the ones beating up any doctor who talked about contraception on the National University's campus and cancelling even demographics from the curriculum ("We've convinced them that to carry out such a program is to act against the nation. ... The Medical School will never allow a plan of North American penetration to be carried out in its name!&quot ; Salvadoran editors (pre-Humanæ Vitæ) opined that Central America "should think of birth control only after it has twice the population of England or France. At one point he speaks of Central America's resources being sufficient for a population ten times its present size" and the Hondurans' belief 1970 was "If we would have had more people, El Salvador would not have dared to invade us" 1969: 75% of intelligentsia and 60% of students in Honduras thought that a doubled or tripled population was needed to end poverty; Planned Parenthood's job was seen as "assuring the domination of western civilization" by keeping foreigners in control of the Third World: the First World feared "that their prestige and power positions might be threatened if our countries grow too fast"; one French-educated Honduran atheist said that "A situation now favorable to the U.S. will no longer be so once Latin America triples its present population," and leftists were likelier to oppose family planning if irreligious (39% right pro-planning vs. 29% left): 24% of the right denied that growth increased poverty, as opposed to 50% of the far left (Axel Mundigo); in the 80s it was the decidedly un-religious (but very male-dominated) human-rights orgs opposing legalizing abortion way more than the Archdiocese in the newspapers

it's not that new either: 20s France was the only European country to see its population fall, so abortionists were outlawed and called national traitors there, too.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014804287#post3

The same generation who did these things, is still around, and the OP's link says 10% of the people in El Salvador are involved in the gangs. The issue of how 'human rights' are enabling the gangs is also mentioned, and it also said that many support a very hard line against them. They are a very divided society, such as our is now turning into and it's brutal for women.

A read of the OP below will explain why this is happening around the world, and I believe it is for the purpose of making more cannon fodder and to enrich the 1%. There is more than one kind of army and I consider gangs part of the destabilization of society brought about indirectly by their actions. Chaos benefits the 1%:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110212801

mackerel

(4,412 posts)
3. In other words they aren't interested in solving the problem.
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 01:48 AM
Aug 2015

freshwest

(53,661 posts)
4. They don't see overpopulation as a problem, but a solution, as many others do. Women be damned. n/t
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 01:56 AM
Aug 2015

muriel_volestrangler

(101,308 posts)
6. Their total fertility rate for 2010-15 was 1.97
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 05:47 AM
Aug 2015

source: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/

ie under replacement rate. From 1985-90, it was 4.17, so it has come a lot it the last generation or so. I don't think birth control is a problem or a solution there.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
7. El Salvador's birthrate is below the world average (nt)
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 08:33 AM
Aug 2015

mackerel

(4,412 posts)
5. Over population isn't the problem. Salvadorian population is the problem.
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 02:01 AM
Aug 2015

Why give birth to a living being that will ultimately be murdered. It's just torture by another name.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
8. Why give birth to a living being that will ultimately die?
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 08:34 AM
Aug 2015

That's a weird way to look at things.

 

Doingto

(135 posts)
9. What's the likelihood of being murdered in El Salvador?
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 10:01 AM
Aug 2015

?

metalbot

(1,058 posts)
10. Wow
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 12:08 PM
Aug 2015

Ten responses, and nobody has suggested that maybe they implement some "sensible" gun legislation. Instead, people talk about the actual problems that are driving the violence. Weird.

TexasTowelie

(112,135 posts)
11. Locking thread.
Sun Aug 23, 2015, 01:23 PM
Aug 2015

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