Mereja.Forum

[Fiyameta]

The MS-13 gang gained influence by negotiating with Salvadoran political parties and leaders.

As a result of these talks, ... the two sides struck a deal. MS-13 demanded “financial benefits,” “control of territory,” “less restrictive prison conditions,” “legislative and judicial changes,” and a promise from the Bukele administration to refuse to extradite the gang leaders to the U.S. for prosecution. In exchange, the gang agreed to kill fewer people, “which politically benefitted the government of El Salvador, by creating the perception that the government was reducing the murder rate. The MS-13 leaders exerted power through practices like “opening the valves,” to allow for a spate of killings of anyone believed to have done something to deserve that fate, then “closing the valves,” or ordering the killings to end. ”...

MS-13 had promised to use its influence in the neighborhoods that it controlled to force a mass vote for Nuevas Ideas, Bukele’s party, which won a supermajority in El Salvador’s 2021 legislative election.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede ... wtab-en-us