4.1. El Salvador

1While all three countries of the northern triangle have become subject to returnees and deportees from the United States in the aftermath of the civil wars in the region, “the gang problem in El Salvador is thought to have escalated faster [initially] than in any other Central American country” (Manwaring 2007: 16). However, as the country “had experienced no recent spike in gang violence, and homicide figures had declined in previous years [see Chart 2], the sudden need for gang control in 2003 might seem surprising” (Wolf 2011: 59).

Chart 2: Homicide rates per 100,000 by country (1995-2010)

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 2011. 2011 Global study on homicide: trends, contexts, data. Vienna: UNODC.

4.1.1. Repressive governmental policies towards the maras: Mano Dura and Súper Mano Dura

2On 22 July 2003, nine months prior to the 2004 presidential elections,1 the ruling government under President Francisco Flores presented its Mano Dura plan(Iron Fist) for the first time (Peetz 2004: 57; Wolf 2009: 89; Cruz 2011: 146).2 The introduction of the heavy-handed plan took place during a nationally broadcast live press conference alongside the army chief and the police director. Images of tattooed faces of mareros (members of a mara)were both part of the backdrop and were shown during the speech of the president (Cruz 2011: 146). Mano Dura constitutes the beginning of what has become known as the ‘war on gangs’, which has characterized Central America during most of the first decade of the 21^st century (Rodgers & Muggah 2009: 308).

3The iron fist was based on increased patrols by the military and the police, as well as the immediate imprisonment of mareros (Rodgers & Muggah 2009: 308; Peetz 2011: 1484). President Flores justified the implementation of the Mano Dura plan by holding the maras responsible for 40% of the homicides in El Salvador (Cruz 2011: 148). The following quote from the former Salvadoran president additionally underlines how youth gangs have been constructed “as a common enemy of good citizens” (Hume 2007: 745):

Criminal gangs have descended into dangerous levels of moral degradation and barbarism. We have all known cases of decapitations, mutilations, satanic acts and dismembering committed against minors, old people and defenseless women. It is time we freed ourselves from this plague (Francisco Flores, as quoted in Hume 2007: 745).3

4Changes in the legislation were necessary to facilitate the crackdown on gangs. Importantly, the Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa) adopted the Anti-Maras Law4 of 12 November 2003, which permitted judges to sentence gang members above the age of 12 to two to five years in jail for having gang-specific tattoos5 or for publicly using gang signs (Peetz 2004; Rodgers & Muggah 2009). President Flores presented the Anti-Maras law as a “matter of state pride, and [that] the state must display its strength in the face of gang violence” (Hume 2007: 745). The government’s hard-line approach can indeed be seen as an attempt by the state to restore its control of violence in the country.6

5With the legal changes the majority of citizens or more specific groups, such as minors, saw their civil rights restricted (Peetz 2011: 1484). By treating minors as equal to adults before the law and thus violating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the Salvadoran Supreme Court declared the Mano Dura plan unconstitutional in 2004 (Hume 2007). Consequently, 95% of the 20,000 gang members that had been imprisoned between July 2003 and August 2004 were released without charge. Thirteen months after the introduction of the first Mano Dura policy, after the re-election of the ARENA party and with Antonio Saca as the new President of El Salvador, a subsequent policy was passed on 30 August 2004 (Bruneau 2005). Súper Mano Dura, which respected the provisions of the UNCRC, initially focused on supplementary legal reforms and police raids, as well as raising penalties to five years for normal gang members and nine for gang leaders (Rodgers & Muggah 2009: 308). In contrast to the first policy, the police now had to prove actual criminal behavior by gang members in order to be able to arrest them. Despite this innovation, the number of Salvadoran prisoners doubled in only five years from 6,000 to 12,000, of which 40% were said to be mareros (Hume 2007).

6President Saca launched Súper Mano Dura by insisting, “that gangs were mainly responsible for violence in El Salvador” (Cruz 2011: 148; emphasis added). On the second anniversary of assuming the presidency, in 2006, he furthermore declared:

But it is in the issue of citizen security where we confront the biggest challenge. Organized crime and the delinquency of gangs constantly hit decent citizens, who are the immense majority, and this is an attack against the stability of the country (Saca 2006, as quoted in Peetz 2011: 1472).

7Mano Dura and Súper Mano Dura were both legitimized by holding the maras responsible for a significant share of the total number of committed homicides (40% as claimed by Flores in 2003) or by holding them primarily responsible (as claimed by Saca in 2004). Police chiefs and government officials continuously repeated such messages while the crackdown policies were in force (2003-2006) (Cruz 2011: 148). With the above-mentioned statements – by framing the maras as a threat to the country’s stability and to the citizens’ security – the two Salvadoran presidents engaged (as securitizing actors) in speech acts or securitizing moves, moving the mara issue towards the securitized end of the spectrum. Buzan et al. (1998: 24) highlight “in the case of issues […] that have moved dramatically out of the nonpoliticized category, we face the double question of whether they have merely been politicized or have also been securitized”. In the Salvadoran case, this question is particularly interesting and challenging to answer when considering the electoral context of the gang suppression (see Section 4.1.3).

8Besides the strong focus on language with regard to the speech act, images and visual representations are an additional key component in the construction of security (see Section 2.2.3). The nationally broadcast live press conference, in which Mano Dura was launched in 2003, is a primary example of how the maras were portrayed as a security matter through images on television. Furthermore, during the implementation period of the repressive plans, operations were filmed on site and afterwards broadcast on prime-time television, with thousands of dollars were spent on the publication of numbers (Cruz 2011: 146). The way in which the public perceived the maras was therefore greatly influenced by the news and discourses on crime (Lambert 2010). More specifically, the mass media played a significant role in three ways: firstly, by “demonizing” the youths7 and by echoing the official portrayal of youth gangs as responsible for at least 60% of all homicides in El Salvador8 through “sensationalist and uncritical coverage” (Wolf 2011: 43 & 58); secondly, by framing Mano Dura as effective strategies, and thirdly, by providing ample coverage of the dramatic crackdown operations (Wolf 2011).

9The Salvadoran example highlights not only how one group (youth gangs) is portrayed as a major security threat but even an entire generation (youths in general).9 In this way, “decent citizens, who are the immense majority” (Saca 2006, as quoted in Peetz 2011: 1472) and their safety become referent objects that need to be protected from the “demonized group” or the “criminal others” (Peetz 2011: 1486ff). Subsequent to a speech act such a discourse needs to be acknowledged by one or several audiences. The political elite, as well as governmental and public institutions (e.g., the Legislative Assembly, the police and the military) represent audiences in the Salvadoran case. In addition to accepting a speech act, which accounts for a successful securitization according to the Copenhagen School, an audience has the capacity to empower the securitizing actor to adopt measures outside of the normal political bounds to tackle the security threat, according to Balzacq’s (2011b) reconceptualization of securitization theory.10 For example, the government of the Flores administration adopted the Anti-Maras Law in November 2003 through the Legislative Assembly. The police and the military additionally played a significant role in carrying out the provisions of the law and the Mano Dura policies more generally (e.g., with police raids and patrols). As strong publicity and a media campaign “promoting a particular point of view about the crime problem and the best way to tackle it” (Cruz 2011: 146) were substantial parts of the heavy-handed approach to gangs in El Salvador, the media were significantly involved in echoing (and thereby accepting) the official anti-gang statements.11

10Lastly, the Salvadoran population constitutes another audience that needs to be convinced of a speech act. The general public is crucial because the securitizing actor has to adapt his or her discourse to its needs, feelings, interests and experience – such as the ‘fear of crime’ and the society’s scars left by the civil war between 1980 and 1992. While policy-makers provide formal support in the adoption of extraordinary means (e.g., Anti-Maras Law) to counter the youth gangs, the general public provides moral support (see Section 2.2.1).12  According to Pérez (2003-2004: 639) “it is the sense of insecurity and vulnerability to crime that pushes individuals to support regimes that employ authoritarian measures”. This explanation, in combination with the fear that characterizes Salvadoran society, shows why the population tolerated a discourse and subsequent policies that downplayed human rights (of alleged gang members), the rule of law and mechanisms of political liability, as well as violating constitutional norms.13

11In contrast to the self-assessments by the Salvadoran government that evaluated Mano Dura and Súper Mano Dura as successful plans, the heavy-handed policies were generally regarded as having utterly failed (Bruneau 2005; Wolf 2009: 91). Except for effectively incarcerating gang members, they fell short of reducing gang-related violence and of increasing citizen security overall (Rodgers & Muggah 2009; Wolf 2009). From 2003 to 2004, the annual homicide rate, for example, rose from 2,172 to 2,762 murders (Wolf 2011: 59).14 More importantly, the maras reacted in a flexible manner to the repressive policies by using less obvious signs in public, by increasing their group cohesion and by introducing a new hierarchical organization (Cruz 2009: 12; Rodgers & Muggah 2009: 310). In fact, the Iron Fist policies have turned out to be highly inconsistent, to institutionalize the maras in El Salvador, and to thereby contribute to the gang problem, rather than to solve it (ECA 2003; Hume 2007; Cruz 2010).

Table 2: Overview of government discourse and policies towards gangs per president, El Salvador (2003-2012)

Sources: Peetz (2004); Rodgers & Muggah (2009); Lambert 2010; Cruz (2011); Peetz (2011); Wolf (2011)

4.1.2. The historical context: El Salvador’s authoritarian past

12According to Hume (2007: 744), “repressive policies tend to be employed by weak states [of which contemporary El Salvador is an example] that do not have the capacity to develop other strategies to contain crime and violence”.15 In the country’s political history, violence played a crucial role in “shaping society” (Ibid.: 740). More precisely, Hume points out that El Salvador has a “historical problem of endemic violence” (Ibid.). This context, combined with socioeconomic and structural problems, is crucial for tracing the origins of a climate of fear and violence that characterizes contemporary El Salvador:

Fear is now as much a threat to democracy as violence itself, since it may again justify repression, emergency policies that circumvent the constitutional rule, and, more broadly, alienation from the democratic political process (Balán 2002: 5).

13The historical context has an important influence on the way in which an audience assimilates a speech act or a securitizing move and as a result determines whether securitization becomes possible (see Section 3.2.2).16 In such circumstances, citizens deem ‘order’ more important than civil freedoms and human rights, which is why they demand heavy-handed policies to ensure a higher level of security and why they are more susceptible to authoritarian speech acts (Cruz 2000: 518).

14 As noted above, moving an issue to the securitized end of the spectrum is a process that tends to remain dominated by powerful state actors (Emmers 2011: 139). In this regard, Collins (2005: 570) elucidates a difference in the legitimacy of authoritarian and democratic regimes. An authoritarian regime is characterized by the control of the ruling elite over the channels through which information is disseminated, which leads to a one-sided, non-balanced portrayal of an issue. In this way, the regime also makes sure that the audience receives the securitizing move as intended. In a democratic system, the right of the political elite to engage in a securitizing move and the legitimacy to explain the necessity of extraordinary measures to contain a menace, is derived from the fact of election by the people (Ibid.: 570f).17 While the authoritarian system presupposes the acceptance of a discourse by the audience, the democratic one leaves it up to the audience to agree or disagree with “the government’s interpretation of events” (Collins 2005: 571). Despite political and democratic reforms during the last decades following the civil war, Hume (2007: 744) argues that El Salvador is characterized by a legacy of authoritarianism, crystallized by the state having remained an “agent of repression”. Even though democratic elections are held in El Salvador, a rather one-sided portrayal of the maras – by the political elite as well as the media – points to authoritarian characteristics as well.

4.1.3. The electoral context and public support of gang suppression

15The introduction of Mano Dura, as the first repressive policy to counter gang-activity, has to be seen in the political context of the 2003 presidential election campaign. Despite having held the Presidency of the Republic since 1989, as well as dominating the Legislative Assembly, the conservative ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista - ARENA) was facing losses on a municipal and legislative level. A first blow occurred in 1997, when its adversary the left-wing party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional – FMLN) resumed the office of mayor of the capital, San Salvador. During the elections in 2000 and 2003, this tendency continued as FMLN moved ahead of ARENA in the Legislative Assembly (Wolf 2009: 89). In the Salvadoran case, Wolf (2011) highlights that the citizens’ perception of the main national problem tends to influence the political preferences. In the polarized political landscape of the two largest parties, FMLN and ARENA, the electorate will favor “one […] over the other depending on whether they are preoccupied with economic issues or crime” (Wolf 2011: 60). While the economy posed the biggest problem through most of 2003, and which adversely affected ARENA, nearly 50% of the population indicated crime as the major issue of concern in October 2003. Furthermore, 21% identified gangs as a key topic for El Salvador for the first time (Wolf 2011: 60). The same poll showed that the Flores administration enjoyed broad public support of 88% for the crackdown policy, prior to its adoption. (Peetz 2004: 58; Wolf 2011: 60). In fact, this “public attractiveness was critical to the adoption of the policy” (Wolf 2011: 59) as it gave ARENA a “winning theme and [the opportunity to] present itself as the party that was toughest on crime” (Ibid.: 60).18 Furthermore, Mano Dura served as a tool for the ARENA government to “retain its influence over the state” (Wolf 2009: 89).19

16In this regard, it is the perception of security problems that counts, rather than the ‘real dimensions’ of violence in the Central American isthmus (Peetz 2011). In fact, Peetz (2011: 1463) assumes “that the argumentative foundations of state responses to youth violence and juvenile delinquency are closely linked to the way youth crime is constructed in these discursive spaces”. This is also a key aspect of the concept of securitization because theoretically any issue can be transformed into a security threat by simply framing it as such, no matter whether it is a menace in reality. In this way, securitization is a socially constructed and self-referential practice. Balzacq (2005) argues that a securitizing move is either intersubjective or self-referential. In the Copenhagen School’s initial conceptual design, the audience was ignored as a unit of analysis, which makes the process of securitization a self-referential rather than an intersubjective process. However, in the Salvadoran case, the maras and juvenile delinquency are constructed as one of the country’s biggest problems and such portrayals are directed at an audience at the same time.

17Heavy-handed measures, such as Mano Dura and Súper Mano Dura, “instantly appealed to a population that lived in constant fear of victimization” (Wolf 2011: 59; emphasis added). Aguilar (2004: 2) even claims that there was a deliberate and electorally-motivated manipulation and exploitation of citizens’ fear on the part of the ruling ARENA party, which accords with a “political instrumentalization of the public institutions”.20 The election campaign of the Nationalist Republican Alliance is often called a form of ‘punitive populism’ (‘populismo punitivo’) as it pursued the objective of improving the electoral image of the party, rather than adopting a strategy to reduce gang-related violence (ECA 2003; Hume 2007; Wolf 2009).21 By doing so, the governing party sought to conceal its “incapacity” to counter violence and delinquency, as well as their underlying structural root problems, according to Aguilar (2004). Consequently, Mano Dura policies provided “political capital to the government that implemented them” (Cruz 2011: 149). The high level of support from the population both boosted the government’s legitimacy and eased the re-election of the ARENA party and its candidate Antonio Saca (Ibid.; Argueta, Huhn, Kurtenbach & Peetz 2011: 6).22

18During the first year in effect 80% of the population supported the crackdown programs and 60% thought these measures to be effective in successfully fighting the maras (Cruz 2011: 149). Along with Honduras, El Salvador received among the highest ratings for citizens’ trust in the government and the police between 2003 and 2006. As Table 3 shows, by 2008 these levels had decreased in both countries when the harsh measures “had long since been removed from the public eye” (Ibid.).23

Table 3: Public trust in Central American governmental institutions (on a 0-to-100 scale, 2004-2008)

Source: Cruz (2011: 150).

4.1.4. Preventive and rehabilitation approaches: Mano Amiga and Mano Extendida

19Due to widespread criticism of the harsh and abusive measures as well as the expiration of the Anti-Maras Law, newly-elected President Saca saw himself compelled to adopt preventive and rehabilitation policies as well (Wolf 2011: 60f). However, these approaches were only introduced after substantial delay in 2005 because the Salvadoran “authorities made gang suppression a priority” (Ibid.). As with the heavy-handed policies, the preventive measures were launched in the political context of an election campaign – the elections of the deputies of the Legislative Assembly and the mayors in the Salvadoran cities, which were again fought for between ARENA and FMLN (Cruz 2011: 146). Mano Amiga (Friendly Hand) was an early prevention program designed to discourage at-risk youths from joining gangs. Mano Extendida (Extended Hand) was targeted at the reintegration of mareros into society (Wolf 2011). An innovation of these two approaches is the incorporation of local actors whereby municipal authorities and service-providers work hand in hand with public and private security actors, academic institutions as well as civil society to reduce violence, discourage gang membership and facilitate reintegration. Rodgers and Muggah (2009) classify Mano Dura and Súper Mano Dura as first-generation policies, whereas Mano Amiga and Mano Extendida belong to a second generation. Despite the tendency from first- to second-generation policies, the latter were sole complements of the former; prevention, however, did not replace suppression (Rodgers & Muggah 2009; Wolf 2009; Peetz 2011). In fact, Mano Amiga and Mano Extendida were largely underfunded and received a lot less attention, which resulted in only a very limited impact (Wolf 2009). In this way, the preventive laws are not to be considered a “serious step toward less repressive policies” (Peetz 2011: 1485) and the Salvadoran authorities sent a message to the public “that law enforcement is the only effective way to deal with the gang problem” (Manwaring 2007: 22; emphasis added).

4.1.5. Rhetoric and policies since the mid-2000s

20In the mid-2000s, one can observe a gradual change in the way government officials and the media presented the maras. While youth gangs had been portrayed as a “massive and dangerous” (Peetz 2011: 1484) part of Central American youth culture before late 2005, subsequently their transnational connections across borders as well as links with the narcotics trade were increasingly stressed. In this way, the maras’ image was altered from locally-based youth gangs to groups affiliated with organized crime. This new discourse was reflected in a different approach taken by the government towards youth gangs in mid-2006 – away from large scale arrests of alleged mareros to “more selective, intelligence-intensive operations” (Peetz 2011: 1484). Indeed, Ribando Seelke (2011: 12) observes a tendency “at least on a rhetorical level, towards more comprehensive anti-gang approaches”. For example, at the opening of a summit of the Central American Integration System (Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana – SICA) in December 2007, Antonio Saca underscored the importance of coordinated efforts against crime as well as a focus on prevention (Ribando Seelke 2012: 12).

21On assuming office in June 2009, newly-elected and incumbent President Mauricio Funes (FMLN) affirmed his commitment to developing an alternative anti-gang strategy based on prevention, prison-based rehabilitation and investigative policing (Wolf 2011: 69). The government increased funding for prevention programs from a historic average of a little more than 1% to approximately 14% of the budget of the Ministry of Security (Ribando Seelke 2011: 12). Funes furthermore undertook some staff changes in the Salvadoran Public Security Council (Consejo Nacional de Seguridad Pública – CNSP) and the National Civil Police (PNC) (Wolf 2011: 69). Governmental decisions of this kind are characteristic of approaches to dealing with youth gangs in a political way, rather than in the security sector as the allocation of resources to gang prevention and rehabilitation may indicate a tendency of the Salvadoran state to address the maras in a less overly dramatized manner than with crackdown policies. In this way, the maras have arguably been brought down from an emergency level and as such they have been moved back from the securitized end of the spectrum to the politicized area (i.e. desecuritization).

22However, after an attack (presumably by members of a gang) on a bus in June 2010 caused 17 deaths, Funes immediately announced a new law to criminalize the maras – a step for which he received a lot of public support, reflecting the effect of previous Mano Dura policies. In this way, the left-wing president moved closer to the old repressive concepts of the right-wing ARENA party (Lambert 2010). Indeed recently, the governmental discourse relating to the maras has swung back to a use of intense repressive statements. In January 2012, the Salvadoran security and justice minister General David Munguia Payes demanded “the country [El Salvador] unify behind a plan to destroy the “maras” or street gangs”, which he held responsible for 90% of all homicides in the country.24 Even though he deemed as necessary the incarceration of up to 10,000 gang members, Munguia denies advocating a Mano Dura strategy by declaring the need “to [instead] squeeze where you have to squeeze and let go where you have to let go”.25 With statements like this, the maras have again been framed as a security question (as in the early 2000s). However, the government measures towards the maras are not consistent in either direction (Peetz 2011: 1486). Following a truce between the Mara Salvatrucha and Mara Dieciocho in March 2012 that immediately reduced the homicide rate by two-thirds, the FMLN government was seen to be again “using the calm to complement its ‘iron fist’ strategy of mass incarceration with new rehabilitation schemes” (The Economist 2012).26 This pendular discourse between the repression and the prevention of youth-related violence and crime additionally highlights the difficulty of assessing whether the initially non-politicized maras have been politicized or also securitized – a challenge common to the analysis of these gangs in all three countries of the northern triangle.

4.2. Honduras

23Both in numbers and per capita, Honduras is characterized by the largest number of individuals that are involved in gangs in Central America. While the Mara Salvatrucha and the 18^th Street Gang are the two major gangs, Honduran authorities estimate a total number exceeding 100 gangs present in the country, in contrast to El Salvador where the MS-13 and the M-18 are clearly dominant (Bosworth 2010: 9; Mateo 2011: 88). Furthermore, Honduras faces the fastest-growing murder rate in the Central American region (UNODC 2010: 239) (see Chart 2, page 22).

4.2.1. Governmental responses to the maras: Libertad Azul and the Ley Antimaras

24Honduras was characterized by local pandillas before gang members of the Californian MS-13 and the 18^th Street Gang migrated or were deported from the U.S. to Central America in the mid-1990s. In the early 1990s, the Honduran government did not have a “consistent or definitive response” (Mateo 2011: 96) to gangactivity, primarily because the public did not perceive the pandillas as a menace to its well-being or safety. These youth gangs can thus be classified as non-politicized matters as they were not part of the public debate and the Honduran state did not officially tackle them (see Chart 1: Securitization spectrum, page 13). However, the initiating factor of the transposition of U.S. gang culture to Honduras by deported mareros, which accorded with rising gang violence, provoked a public debate by the mid-to-late 1990s. According to public opinion, the then-adopted government policies, such as the abolition of mandatory military service and a youth penal code (Código de la Niñez y la Adolescencia), were the reasons for the higher crime and violence levels (Mateo 2011: 96). Furthermore, the Honduran institutions were overburdened with the large amount of crimes committed by children and adolescents. As both gang activity and membership soared at the end of the 1990s, the President Carlos Flores opted for repressive methods to counter mara activity – though in a cautious manner due to human rights concerns about the newly-passed penal code for youths.27 Flores’ measures underline how the mara issue came to be managed within the ordinary Honduran political system. As the maras were increasingly discussed in public, they arguably turned into a politicized matter by the end of the 1990s.

25 In this context, Ricardo Maduro (whose son was killed in mara­-related violence in 1996) ran for president in 2001 by prioritizing internal security and fighting the maras using the slogan ‘Maduro – Futuro Seguro’ (‘Maduro – Secure Future’) (Peetz 2004: 56; Reisman 2006: 150). The high publicity of his promised iron fist approach furthermore served as a “tool for political campaigning” (Reisman 2006: 150), which was essential for winning the elections, according to Argueta, Huhn, Kurtenbach and Peetz (2011: 6). After assuming office in January 2002, President Maduro became the pioneer of heavy-handed anti-gang policies by rapidly putting his promises into practice (Mateo 2011: 97) making Honduras the first country of the northern triangle to carry out an official zero-tolerance policy against the maras – across Central America known as mano dura policies. From early 2003 onwards, Maduro’s policy Libertad Azul (Blue Liberty) aimed at arresting gang members for delinquent behavior in order to increase public safety (Bosworth 2010; Gutiérrez Rivera 2010: 496; Mateo 2011: 97) and the implementation of such harsh strategies quickly called for legislative changes. Between 2003 and 2006, the Honduran Penal Code was reformed ten times in order to “redefine certain crimes and increase penalties and sentences” (Mateo 2011: 97). More precisely, changes by the National Congress of Honduras to Article 332 of the Penal Code became known as the Ley Antimaras (Anti-gang law).28 With gangs being ‘illicit associations’ according to the new law and thereby making gang membership a crime, mareros could be detained for “activities such as displaying tattoos, associating with suspected gang members, or even dressing a particular way” (Mateo 2011: 97).29 The amendment of Article 332 had caused a lot of controversy; the leftist party Unión Democrática but especially several youth groups and human rights advocates opposed the anti-gang law (Gutiérrez Rivera 2010: 496). As Cruz (2011: 148) notes: “the message was that human rights and the rule of law were obstacles to combating gangs”. The following statement of President Maduro substantiates this:

Given the 6 million Hondurans with their hands tied in the face of gang violence, whose human rights are more important? Those of the innocent citizens representing the vast majority of the population, or those of the criminals violating the rights of others? As soon as the Anti-maras law goes into effect we’ll storm the streets to do what the Honduran people have demanded: freedom from the yoke that maras have placed on them (Ricardo Maduro, as quoted in Cruz 2011: 148).

26Already by the time of Maduro’s presidential campaign, society had held youth gangs responsible for a large portion of the violence affecting Honduras. The implementation of the government’s iron fist approach was thus motivated by the “belief that the maras were the primary perpetrators of the violent crime afflicting the country” (Mateo 2011: 97; emphasis added). Next to the overall negative perception of gangs held by the public, the maras were presented as “scapegoats for the rise of crime and violence” (Ibid.) in the media as well as in political discourse. Both Honduran and Salvadoran crackdown approaches to combat youth-related violence were being promoted “from the very top levels of the government” (Cruz 2011: 147). An illustrative example is the direct involvement of President Maduro and his public security minister Oscar Álvarez in the “public staging of zero-tolerance raids” (Ibid.), such as the supervision of police raids by either of them from official helicopters flying above the marginalized neighborhoods of the two biggest Honduran cities, the capital Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula (Ibid.). In such a case, top government officials, including the President of the Republic, can be considered securitizing actors who designate the maras as an existential threat to the referent object of public and citizen security. In this way, the already politicized issue of the maras is arguably turned into a securitized matter by framing it as an urgent security matter through a securitization move (see Chart 1, page 13). However, when political reasons for such discourse come into play, as during the 2001 presidential election campaign in Honduras, the lines between politicization and securitization can become blurred.30 In the Honduran case, nonetheless, political discourse was rapidly followed by legislative changes resulting in the Ley Antimaras, which can be classified as an extraordinary measure to tackle the security threat embodied by the MS-13 and the M-18.

27Following the articulation of a threat to a referent object, the discourse, or the speech act as the Copenhagen School initially called it, needs to be acknowledged by one or several audiences. During Maduro’s presidency (2002-2006), policy-makers, the military, the police, broad public opinion and the media provided examples of audiences that accepted the political discourse and a such an audience’s acceptance of a speech act is necessary for the adoption of extraordinary political measures to counter the security threat by a securitizing actor. For example, policy-makers of the Honduran congress converted the anti-maras discourse into changes of the Penal Code. The military and the police jointly carried out raids in neighborhoods of suspected mara activity and sometimes arrested alleged gang members (Mateo 2011: 98).31 Furthermore, vast amounts of media coverage portrayed a one-sided picture of gang-related violence, thereby echoing the political discourse, which led to an increasing fear of crime and feeling of insecurity among the populace (Mateo 2011: 97).32 Because of this, “the public became more amenable to the adoption of repressive tactics to combat the problem” (Ibid.). In spite of the lack of official data on public support of the government’s repressive policies in Honduras (in contrast to El Salvador), the public appeared to stand largely behind mano dura. A public opinion poll at the end of Maduro’s presidency highlighted, for example, “that most Hondurans believed [the president] had done a good job of fighting gangs and improving public security” (Cruz 2011: 149). As long as mano dura was in force (2003-2006), the Honduran government and police also enjoyed high levels of citizens’ trust – levels that had decreased up to 2008, when the government was focusing more on prevention (see Table 3, page 32) (Ibid.).

28In addition, the repressive measures were understood as an attempt by the Honduran state to “restore authority and rule, particularly in urban areas where it was perceived that the state had no control” (Gutiérrez Rivera 2010: 497). Mano dura and the Ley Antimaras both had a “strong territorial component” (Ibid.) as they were targeting one specific group (mareros) in certain areas (marginalized neighborhoods). Next to Libertad Azul, the program Comunidad Más Segura (More Secure Neighborhood) was intended to increase citizen security in the neighborhoods concerned, for example by financing street lighting and purchasing and distributing mobile phones for use in emergencies (Peetz 2004: 56). Nevertheless, the government’s priority remained the repression of gang activity. Despite enormous increases of detentions of gang members, Libertad Azul failed to break up the maras and reduce violence. While homicide rates initially declined between 2002 and 2003, Honduras witnessed soaring numbers of murders from 2005 onwards (see Chart 2, page 22). Indeed, the policy not only failed but backfired according to Mateo (2011: 99), because it caused an adapted modus operandi of the maras,a “sophistication of gang territoriality”33 (Gutiérrez Rivera 2010: 501) and aggravated levels of violence and exclusion (Ibid.;Mateo 2011: 99).34 According to Gutiérrez Rivera (2010: 501), repressive gang policies highlight “the fragility of [Honduran] state strategies for imposing rule over certain groups and areas”. Lastly, the hard-line approach was not designed to contain gang activity in the long run; it focused instead on increasing security in the short term by moving mareros from the streets into prison (Bosworth 2010: 20; Mateo 2011: 98).

Table 4: Overview of government discourse and policies towards gangs per president, Honduras (1998-2012)

Sources: Bosworth (2010); Gutiérrez Rivera (2010); Cruz (2011); Mateo (2011)

4.2.2. Policy shift from repression to prevention

29During the presidential campaign in 2005, Porfirio Lobo (Maduro’s favored candidate to succeed him) competed with Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party of Honduras. While Lobo put a strong emphasis on continuing to crack down on gangs and going even further in this direction than the previous Maduro administration, Zelaya had a softer approach in mind (Bosworth 2010: 19f). The latter’s reasoning behind this approach was based on his argument that the repressive policies under the Maduro administration were highly unsuccessful in making Honduras a safer place. Similarly to Maduro in 2001, Lobo’s zero-tolerance approach also had electoral goals (Cruz 2011: 146).35 However, the failure of Libertad Azul is said to have been a crucial influencing factor on the result of the presidential elections (Reisman 2006: 151; Bosworth 2010: 20).36 After having narrowly won the elections, Zelaya wanted to move away from the heavy-handed approach towards gangs by focusing more on rehabilitation of gang members as well as the prevention of mara activity. The Community Police of the Gang Prevention Division headed the president’s preventive efforts, developing five programs that were each directed at a different sector of society (Mateo 2011: 100).37

30 During Zelaya’s first year in office, Honduras faced increasing crime as well as an increasing presence of Mexican cartels in the country. The president’s softer approach remained under-funded and limited in reach and hence “never really came to fruition” (Bosworth 2010: 20). With Zelaya’s priorities being economic and political issues instead of security matters38 and since gang activity was no longer a top target, the maras were moved back from the emergency level (under Maduro) to the normal political arena. For a short interim period in 2008, the Honduran government returned to more traditional and repressive measures against the maras, such as increasing police and at times military presence in the streets (Ibid.). Generally, however, the Zelaya administration continued to focus on other things than security, for example the push for constitutional reform in 2009. Rewriting and changing the constitution became a pitfall for Zelaya in June 2009 when he was forced into exile and Roberto Micheletti became de facto president until elections were held later that year. During the six months of the Micheletti government, Honduras found itself in a “complete political crisis, with protests and counter-protests and with a full time focus on legitimizing the government and maintaining stability” (Bosworth 2010: 22). Fighting the increasing influence of organized crime was already at a minimum level under Zelaya and was wholly ignored under Micheletti. While the interim government was in power, homicide and abduction rates increased (Ibid.: 23).

4.2.3. The return to the iron fist

31Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo’s overwhelming focus on security matters at the expense of other issues in the 2005 presidential elections was a decisive factor in his close loss to Manuel Zelaya. Making security a priority again, Lobo (National Party of Honduras) won against Elvin Santos (Liberal Party of Honduras) in November 2009, with 57% to 37% of the presidential vote (Bosworth 2010: 24; Ruhl 2010: 104). “Security is back on the agenda”, affirmed one of Lobo’s top government officials (Bosworth 2010: 24). Lobo thus started meeting with his key security officials on a regular basis at least once a week (Ibid.). Like his forerunner Maduro (2002-2006), Lobo appointed the same minister of public security, Oscar Álvarez, which highlights “the continuity of different administrations in this particular area” (Argueta et al. 2011: 6).39 While Maduro almost exclusively focused on fighting maras, Lobo additionally emphasized fighting organized crime issues. Having already cooperated with Maduro on reforming the Honduran Penal Code in the Congress, Lobo’s refocus on security during his presidency (since 2010) was also accompanied by the adoption of new laws. Similar to Maduro, Lobo relied on the military and the police (Bosworth 2010: 25). Despite some indications of success of these initiatives in the capital as well as in southern Honduras, the effects in the North of the country have not been satisfying. Moreover, Honduran homicide rates remain among the world’s highest (Ibid.).

32 While the evolution of organized crime in Honduras increased significantly under Zelaya, it exploded during the seven months of the Micheletti government (Bosworth 2010: 31). Consequently, Lobo seems to concentrate his hard-line policies on the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking, in contrast to Maduro’s mano dura against gang-related violence and crime. Combatting organized crime appears thus to be of a more pressing need than tackling gang-related violence.40

4.3. Guatemala

4.3.1. Plan Escoba: the first governmental response to the maras

33Along with El Salvador, Guatemala falls into the category of the most violent countries for which standardized data has been gathered (Brands 2010: 29). Crime and violence related to youth gangs were publicly discussed for the first time in the 1999 presidential election campaign. Right-wing candidate Alfonso Portillo promoted a ‘hard hand’ (‘mano dura’) to combat delinquency and organized crime – an approach that became the showpiece (caballito de batalla) of his electoral campaign. A poll on 29 October 1999 by Borge & Asociados for the Guatemalan newspaper La Prensa Libre revealed that 60,3% of the population believed Alfonso Portillo was the right candidate to confront the violence in the country (Arellano 2000). By means of “fiery electoral speeches” (Ibid.), such as for example the two quotes below, Portillo was indeed able to win the favor of the population:41

FRG [Frente Republicano Guatemalteco; Guatemalan Republican Front] leadership will restore order and security in the country, as all of you have lived through kidnappings, murders, and more offenses. (Portillo 1999, as quoted in Arellano 2000).42

The priorities of my government will be to improve the economy, education, but first and foremost that Guatemalans rejoice in [living in] real security, which the state has to provide. (Portillo 1999, as quoted in Arellano 2000).43

34Although gang control was an integral part of the election campaign before the turn of the century, the Guatemalan authorities only started addressing the mara problem through public policies and official programs in the early 2000s (Ranum 2011: 79). In contrast to the punitive attitude of the Salvadoran and Honduran anti-gang policies, Guatemalan measures were not as drastic but showed a similar tendency (Brands 2010: 42; Ranum 2011: 79).

35Introduced in 2000 by newly-elected President Alfonso Portillo, Plan Escoba (Operation Broom or Clean Sweep) was the dominant anti-gang strategy in 2003 and 2004 (Cruz 2011; Ranum 2011). While also based on massive, indiscriminate detentions of more than one thousand alleged mareros, Plan Escoba was not accompanied by legal reform, in contrast to the Salvadoran and Honduran heavy-handed policies (Ibid.). Notwithstanding various proposals in the Congress of Guatemala, anti-gang legislation was never passed (Peetz 2004: 58; Ranum 2011: 79; Ribando Seelke 2011: 10). Although the Anti-Organized Crime Law of August 2006 established ‘illicit association’ as a crime, the law was not directed at gangs in particular – such as the Honduran Ley Antimaras (see Section 4.2.1) – nor did it provide a definition of gangs (Berlin, Brizius, Bump, Garshelis, Khonsari, Pinheiro, Rhudy, Shaeffer, Sherman-Stokes & Smith 2007: 8).44 The lack of specific anti-gang legislation apparently did not pose an obstacle for either the police or the prosecutors to implement the zero-tolerance plan. Prosecutors often manipulated or over-interpreted existing legal norms in order to be able to justify the detentions – a commonly used charge was drug possession for personal consumption (Berlin et al. 2007: 9; Ranum 2011: 79).45 Consequently, a vast majority of the detentions were illegal.

36From September 1985 onwards, the media in particular started discussing the issue of youth groups in Guatemala City, the capital; however, the groups were not referred to as ‘maras’ until October 1986 (Merino 2001: 138-142). By the late 1990s, “[Guatemalan] youth gangs had been associated with relatively low levels of violence” (Ranum 2011: 73).46 Nonetheless, the country observed a growing presence of the maras MS-13 and the M-18 starting in the late 1980s, which increasingly led state officials to accuse gangs of being responsible for the majority of the criminal activities in the country. Indeed, there had been a construction of youth gangs by officials in charge of security issues in the Guatemalan government as mainly responsible for the high homicide levels, violence and an atmosphere of insecurity among the population.47

37The presentation of the maras as a major threat to the security and well-being of the Guatemalan population can be considered as an attempt by the authorities to move the maras to the securitized end of the spectrum (see Chart 1, page 13). Comparable to El Salvador and Honduras, one faces the question of whether the maras have been politicized and also securitized, since they had not been dealt with by official policies until the early 2000s. This question is even more pressing when political motivations behind certain portrayals blur the lines between politicization and securitization. Cruz (2011: 146) argues that heavy-handed policies were not merely designed to fight gang-related violence but that they also played a vital role in winning votes and in boosting the government’s legitimacy. The presidential campaign of Alfonso Portillo in 1999 and the subsequent implementation of his Plan Escoba exemplify “the first case of this political manipulation” (Ibid.; emphasis added), although the Salvadoran anti-gang plans reveal the “most obvious electoral aims” (Ibid.; emphasis added). While “any issue can [theoretically] end up on any part of the spectrum” (Buzan et al. 1998: 24), in practice, an ‘act of securitization’ moves an already politicized issue into the securitized area, according to the Copenhagen School (Emmers 2010: 139). Following this logic, the maras would need to be addressed by public policy before they could be framed as a substantial danger. Despite political motivations, the ways in which Alfonso Portillo – first as a presidential candidate and afterwards as Guatemalan president – and his administration designated the maras as an existential security problem can be regarded as speech acts in the terminology of securitization theory.

38This presentation resonated with several audiences, such as the political elite, the judiciary, the media and the electorate. To a lesser extent than in El Salvador, policy-makers played an interesting role in accepting the public discourse by drafting several anti-gang proposals in the Congress of Guatemala; however, no proposal ever passed the legislative body (Ranum 2011: 79). Primarily under Plan Escoba, prosecutors therefore started stretching and over-interpreting existing laws in order to justify the large-scale detentions. By illegally arresting suspect gang members and thereby violating their human rights these measures went beyond the scope of standard political procedures. They can consequently be considered ‘extraordinary measures’ that are favored at this level of ‘urgency’, as interpreted by the government. Even though the Congress did not pass an official anti-gang law, one can argue that the mere proposals and the role of the judiciary constituted formal support.  

39The Guatemalan electorate and the population overall form another audience and provide moral support for Portillo’s hard hand on crime and violence.48 Even though no official survey data of the population’s support for tough anti-gang measures are available for Guatemala and Honduras (in contrast to El Salvador), Cruz (2011: 149) argues that “at least some segments of the population supported equally harsh measures”. Heavy-handed policies satisfy the citizens’ consumption of and need for order and effectiveness caused by the population’s frustration and fear.49 Roe (2008) argues that while moral support of the general public as regards the “securityness” of a matter is useful, formal support by parliament plays a more important role with regard to the issue’s “extraordinaryness”. He consequently argues that securitization is composed of two stages: the stage of identification of a threat (‘rhetorical securitization’) and the stage of mobilization to adopt emergency measures (‘active securitization’) (Roe 2008: 622). Guatemala clearly provides an example of rhetorical securitization. The incarceration of gang members is not based on an actual anti-gang law but on stretching existing laws, which can be regarded as actively tackling the maras, although without adopting an official extraordinary measure to do so.  

40In addition, the media are involved in presenting a certain, mostly negative, viewpoint on gangs, with a significant media campaign accompanying Alfonso Portillo’s presidency (2000-2004) and his crackdown Plan Escoba (Cruz 2011: 147; Aguilar Umaña & Rossini 2012: 2). Although the Berger administration kept its distance from the media between 2004 and 2008, media coverage tends to be one-sided and seems to inflate the gang problem. For example, both television and newspapers presented the maras by exploiting their tattoos, symbols and behavior patterns in a certain way. On the other hand, gang members also often enjoyed the publicity and their “15 seconds of fame [or prestige]” on national television after having committed a crime, which according to Isabel Aguilar Umaña generated a vicious circle in which the mareros displayed their gang activity and the media provided the necessary platform for it.50

41Increasing levels of both homicides and violence overall are indicators of the failure of Plan Escoba.51 In spite of thousands of detentions, “the plan had little effect other than to overburden an already dysfunctional penitentiary system” (Berlin et al. 2007: 9).52 Crackdown policies based on massive incarcerations are often said to remain superficial in reducing the gang problem, to fail to bring about gains in the long term and to even produce counterproductive effects, such as greater gang cohesion, stronger internal organization, new leadership structures and more sophisticated techniques (Berlin et al. 2007: 9; Brands 2010: 34; Ranum 2011: 81).

Table 5: Overview of government discourse and policies towards gangs per president, Guatemala (1999-2012)

Sources: Peetz (2004); Jasper & Cook (2008); Brands (2010); Argueta et al. (2011); Cruz (2011); García (2011); Ranum (2011)

4.3.2. The Berger administration and differing opinions on gang repression and prevention

42As predicted by Peetz (2004: 58), the repressive stance on gangs was likely to be continued under the administration of the conservative president-elect Óscar Berger from 2004 onwards. Shortly after assuming office in January 2004, Berger announced the creation of a special group to combat youth gangs (La Prensa Gráfica 2004). The then presidential commissioner for security and defense, Otto Pérez Molina, stated more precisely that joint patrols of the police and the military would be expanded. Furthermore, even though the government’s strategy would be partially based on social work (through the involvement of the social cabinet), Pérez Molina declared that “this does not mean that we are not going to persecute the delinquents with all the weight of the law” (Ibid.).53

43However, in comparison to El Salvador and Honduras, the Guatemalan discourse about maras has not been as drastic. One example is the time period following the implementation of Plan Escoba. The Berger government (2004-2008) was divided into two camps when it came to dealing with gangs and crime (Cruz 2011: 147). On the one hand, the administration’s top officials, among them the president himself and his social and economic cabinet, favored less repressive measures while at the same time promoting preventive policies. In this context, the National Policy of Youth Violence Prevention was set up, which is the major explanatory factor for why no anti-gang law was ever adopted. On the other hand, law enforcement officials, including the interior minister and the chief of the police, advocated a hard hand towards the maras (Ibid.). In this respect, Guatemala stands in contrast to El Salvador and Honduras, where the crackdown policies were being “promoted from the very top levels of government” (Ibid.).54

44Since Plan Escoba, the Guatemalan authorities have not adopted any other high profile crackdown policy. As Ranum (2011: 80) points out, the National Civil Police (PNC) of Guatemala claims its approach to be more preventive than in other Central American countries. Guatemala Segura (Safe Guatemala) – a 2005 program that sent 1,900 members of the military to support civil police officers – may be an example of one such less repressive stance, although no clearly defined police strategy officially backs this statement (Ranum 2011: 80; footnote 48: 237). In addition, a suggested youth violence prevention program has not been translated into public policies so far,55 nor have the Guatemalan authorities been able to create a legal framework for the repression or the prevention of youth-related violence and crime (Berlin et al. 2007: 8; Ranum 2011: 80). “With less fanfare”, the police thus continued to crackdown on gangs within the existing laws, only by adapting a few police procedures (Cruz 2011: 147). In contrast to El Salvador and Honduras, the Guatemalan government under Berger did not “seem to be interested in publicly promoting the crackdowns as the favored response for solving the gang problem” (Ibid.). While the administration of Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) was characterized by a media-hype style, Óscar Berger (2004-2008) deliberately distanced himself and his policies from the media (Ibid.).

45The government rhetoric on gangs under Portillo showed characteristic features of securitization moves and perhaps even represented an example of a successful securitization due to the acknowledgement of the threat embodied by the maras by several audiences.56 Berger’s approach of advocating less gang repression and more crime prevention otherwise seems to move the maras away from the emergency level and back into the political sector. Even though the preventive proposals did not translate into actual policies, the maras were overall less hyped during Berger’s presidency, both in government discourse and the media.  

4.3.3. Guatemala’s authoritarian past and the country’s institutional weakness

46The above-mentioned incapacity of the Guatemalan authorities to adopt legislation for either the repression or the prevention of gang-related violence and crime reveals the country’s institutional weakness. While this results in a huge gap between discourse and practice, the weakening of individual human rights as well as the judicial system overall are even more serious concerns (Ranum 2011: 80). Furthermore, Brands (2010: 31) holds the weakness of the state responsible for enabling a “continuing insecurity”. Indeed, the government faces serious problems in raising revenue and in providing public goods, including societal and citizen security. Although the economy expanded during Berger’s presidency (2004-2008), “drug trafficking and organized crime […] overwhelmed the country’s weak institutions” (Jasper & Cook 2008: 3). In addition, a substantial lack of resources for prevention and rehabilitation initiatives, and for addressing the social tensions that make the resort to gangs and crime attractive, may explain why the Guatemalan state has not been able to contain the violence until now (Brands 2010: 33). These circumstances consequently undermine both the authority and the legitimacy of the Guatemalan state.

47 It is in this context that one has to understand the government’s heavy-handed responses to gangs. In the security area, the Guatemalan authorities are facing an existing need to provide a state response to the maras – a need that the Guatemalan government has mostly answered with hard-line approaches. In turn, such repressive measures are strongly embedded in and arise from the country’s authoritarian past. Authoritarian rule is what the majority of Guatemalan citizens are used to, how they understand things and also what they tend to favor.57 Indeed, Guatemala’s almost exclusive focus on repression indicates a general tendency towards the use of force as a means to resolve conflicts (Desmond Arias 2011: 132).58 Furthermore, Guatemalan society has been characterized by a “culture of punishment” and a “culture of fear” – a context in which the citizens are inclined to support crackdown policies that promise order and strategies to increase security.59 Indeed, Argueta et al. (2011: 6) state that Central American elections (with Nicaragua being an exception) are won by iron fist proposals to fight crime and gangs instead of promises to fight poverty and to enact welfare policies. In the Guatemalan case, this has been shown by the success of Alfonso Portillo’s hard stance on gangs in the 1999 elections and in the most recent presidential elections in 2011.

48In spite of security also being a core issue during the 2007 campaign, the social democrat Alvaro Colom came out ahead in the run-off elections in November 2007 against Otto Pérez Molina.60 The latter, a retired general and former head of army intelligence, had run with his slogan of ‘mano dura’ and had planned “to send more soldiers onto the streets, boost the use of capital punishment and emergency powers to fight crime” (Rosenberg & Daniel 2007). Colom, the first president from the left since the end of the Guatemalan civil war in 1996, aimed to reduce crime by tackling poverty and corruption as well as by investing in social development and expanding education (Rosenberg & Daniel 2007; Painter 2007; Jasper & Cook 2008: 4;). Colom himself explained the election result as a voters’ ‘no’ to Guatemala’s tragic military past.61 Furthermore, he said: “We [Guatemalans] have had a strong hand for 50 years and it caused more than 250,000 victims in a dirty war” (Colom, as quoted in Rosenberg & Daniel 2007).

49Last year in 2011, Otto Pérez Molina once again focused on security in his campaign.62 According to Pérez Molina, rising levels of violence and inadequate policies to deal with that problem had marked Colom’s presidency. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo on 11 September 2011, he furthermore stated that he personally cooperated with the security team of his Patriot Party to “make sure [he was] able to give the answer to these problems of violence and insecurity”.63 While Pérez Molina used repressive anti-gang publicity of arresting mareros in his 2007 campaign, he officially dissociated himself from that repression and authoritarianism in 2011.64 Despite having run for president with the slogan ‘mano dura, cabeza y corazón’ (Firm Hand, Head and Heart), Pérez Molina clarified that his intentions were not to repress; ‘mano dura’ instead is seen to symbolize the compromise necessary to “seriously confront the challenge of violence” (García 2011).65 In this respect, he specifically relied on the military to ensure public safety. The militarization of Guatemalan security policies was underlined straight after the presidential inauguration with the appointment of a former military officer as the new interior minister (Argueta et al. 2011: 6).

50In the 2011 election, two factors played an important role in defining Pérez Molina’s success: (1) as a retired general, he embodies a person capable of restoring order in a society which lives in constant fear and is tired of being caught in a ‘circle of violence’; (2) the general resentment of the population over the incapacity of the previous administration under Colom to reduce the violence in the country.66

4.3.3. Organized crime and drug trafficking: a new direction in Guatemalan security rhetoric

51In contrast to previous hard-line approaches (i.e. Plan Escoba)that specifically targeted youth gangs, the maras are currently not at the forefront of security matters as the focus instead lies on fighting organized crime and the drug trade.67 From the late 1990s until the mid-2000s, the public and media discourse centered on the maras being primarily responsible for the high homicide rates in Guatemala. In the last five years, however, the menace of organized crime and drug trafficking has seemed to increasingly replace the security threat previously associated with youth gangs. In October 2007, the then presidential candidate Álvaro Colom declared recovering territorial control to be one of his priorities in order to fight the drug cartels, which he accused of causing 61% of the violence affecting the country (Rodríguez 2007). The focus on fighting the drug traffic persisted in the 2011 election campaign as well. The then presidential candidate (and currently incumbent president) Pérez Molina also defined “regaining territorial control” as one of his core priorities and stated: “We won’t undo the drug dealer, but we will achieve that they look for other itineraries” (Pérez Molina, as quoted in García 2011).68

52When it comes to the maras, one of the principal remaining challenges is “merely to treat the [gang] phenomenon for what it is, and not as something larger and more menacing”, according to Ranum (2011: 86). Negative perceptions and the stigmatization of youths in Guatemala and more generally in the northern triangle lead to the view of young people as the ‘problem’ and not the ‘solution’.69 Gang members are almost exclusively seen as the perpetrators of crime and not as victims. However, mareros also suffer greatly from violence and see their human rights violated (Ibid.), and thus according to Aguilar Umaña and Rossini (2012): “There is an urgent need to shift the public’s optics on youth gangs in order to break such stigmatization.”