Gang suspects are arrested in a suburb of San Salvador. Gang violence is one factor in the country’s homicide rate, one of the world’s highest. Slayings averaged almost 12 a day in the first three months of this year. Jose Cabezas / AFP/Getty ImagesFrom The L.A. Times:
Drugs, corruption and a history of violence and abuse contribute to a per capita homicide rate that is 10 times that of the U.S. In the first three months of 2009, 12 people were killed each day.
Reporting from San Salvador -- Father Antonio Rodriguez keeps the image on his cellphone. A 12-year-old boy. Headless. His killers probably boys not a whole lot older than him.
When Josue went missing, his frantic grandmother sought the priest's help. Rodriguez went looking for him and found the body. The crime chilled and disgusted him.
Somehow, he needed to document the loss of another young life in a dizzying spin of daily, casual death. And so the blurry photo, the thin, lifeless body in bluejeans and red shirt askew in a ravine, the head off to the side, remains on the priest's cellphone.
"It's the story of thousands," Rodriguez said.
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My Comment: We always look at Somalia, Afghanistan, Darfur and other regions of the world as examples of failed states. We say to ourselves that we are fortunate that it is on the other side of the planet .... too far away to have any impact on our lives.
We cannot think like that anymore. Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina .... these are all countries that are slowing "dying" with each passing year. The unfortunate part for all of these countries .... which in the end will impact us in the North .... is that many of these governments are still running the same policies and excuses that have gotten them to where they are today.
El Salvador is a window on what will be the state of most of Latin America tomorrow .... and there is nothing that we in the North can do to change it.
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