Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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in the heart of Central America Lights, the deadliest place on earth.
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El Salvador
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on social media,
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we see photos and videos of the rampant gang violence and extreme poverty.
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Although
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this is only half the story,
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I wanted to dive into the true realities of El Salvador's politics,
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perpetual gang violence.
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I bring from three research questions to guide my research and then covering
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how the gangs are related to the
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rampant corruption within el Salvador's government,
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what legacies of the past may have contributed to these problems
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and what El Salvador's future is projected to look like.
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First, I'll start by defining the problem in El Salvador,
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written with rampant corruption,
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rising levels of us bound migration in the world's deadliest gangs.
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El Salvador's government struggles to decrease the thomas Igraine.
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The country's Defense Ministry estimates that as many
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as 500,000 Salvadorans are involved in gangs,
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which amounts to a total of 8% of the 6.5 million Salvadoran citizens
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Every year. El Salvador's homicide rate, Thompson global charts.
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Speaking of all other countries, by at least 46% more murders a year.
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In 2021 Al Salvador is our murder rate of 83 per 100,000 inhabitants.
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El Salvador is consistently high, homicide rate has earned the country's title
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of a violence ridden gangland.
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The biggest gangs in El Salvador are the mara salvatrucha,
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which are shown here
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and for your 18 shown here,
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Otherwise known as MS 13 and 18th Street.
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These two gangs exercise territorial control over most of us Obrador
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and export residents of the country.
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Anyone who resists still being in their orders can be kidnapped, raped, killed,
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dismantled,
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or even made to disappear.
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The capital of the country,
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SAn Salvador is sector doff and divided amongst four gangs who claimed territories
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to surveil and control the population within them.
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The M. S.
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13 and survival barrio 18 dictate almost every facet of
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daily life within most of the territories in san Salvador
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and last margaritas, a neighborhood in san Salvador,
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everything from parking and transportation to clean drinking water
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is dictated by M. S. 13th,
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A woman from the neighborhood says that they control everything.
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Even if there are issues with domestic violence,
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it's forbidden for you to call the police,
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you have to speak with them
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and they take care of it
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for if you do,
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you will be killed.
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Data compiled by the Honduran Daily La Presa
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revealed that Salvadorans paying estimated us $400 million
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dollars a year and extortion fees to gangs.
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El Salvador has been impoverished since the end of the civil war,
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but with the country's massive gang
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population and uncontrollable extortion writes,
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its civilian population only gets poorer
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the money that salvadorans paying extortion fees,
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help fund the gangs and they're listed businesses,
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the gangs in El Salvador all
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run international businesses that involve racketeering,
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murder's money laundering, extortion, kidnapping robbery,
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illegal immigration, battery, prostitution, and more
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as long as the gangs exist, they will continue exporting the public,
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their illicit businesses will continue to flourish
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and innocent salvadorians will continue to suffer.
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The gang's dominating president at
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present,
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and El Salvador
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will not cease unless government takes
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a committed and deliberate approach to abolishing their business operations.
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In every past election cycle,
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the candidates second came to be El Salvador's new president,
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promised to eliminate the presence of gangs in the country.
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Yet once they were elected,
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only help the gangs to expand their illicit business.
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For the past 15 years,
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El Salvador's presidents have tried various forms
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of the iron fist or zero tolerance policy
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to combating gang violence.
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The efforts were all very short lived because they
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were coupled with corruption and extortion by government officials,
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both of El Salvador's previous
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president, Sanchez, Ceren
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and Marcelino Fernandez
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were accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars
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in government funds and making secret agreements with the gangs
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any time the president tries a new approach to combat and gang violence,
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the gang's band together and go on killing sprees.
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The gangs used killing sprees as a tactic to
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coerce the government into making unethical truces for funds.
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Now moving on to my first research question,
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part of my first research question,
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asked how the gangs desire for political legitimacy resulted
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in rampant corruption and extortion by government officials.
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Through my research, I began to see a trend of truces in El Salvador's history
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when the gangs are upset with the government, they go on killing sprees,
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which results in the president enacting a strong arm approach,
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stronger approaches involved an increased presence of police and military
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officers in the gang ridden neighborhoods of el Salvador.
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These approaches typically allow these threats and force to get gangs to comply
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when the government disrupts the gang's businesses and put them in jail.
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The gangs on the outside respond by killing more civilians.
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If the government responds by being more enforceable,
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the president is attacked by western media sources
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and painted as a dictator,
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the gangs will typically capitalize on this
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opportunity and offer the government troops.
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If the government doesn't take their deal, the gangs will continue
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their killing sprees
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until the government caves
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and agrees
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Under the Mauricio funes presidency in 2014
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has made a truce
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with the country's two main street gangs MS 13 and barrio 18.
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The gangs agreed to hold back on civilian murders
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at the government
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moved top gang leaders out of el Salvador's maximum security prisons
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and into regular facilities.
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While the murder rate may have decreased,
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the gang's illicit businesses grew exponentially as the gang
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leaders were then able to coordinate with the gang.
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Lieutenants on the streets,
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the gangs have been using this killing spree tactic
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to coerce and extort the government for decades,
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truce is like these are not long term solutions.
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If anything, they're band AIDS on a bullet hole
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Before the summer of 2015, El Salvador's President Salvador. Sanchez Ceren
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refused to make a deal with the gangs and
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enacted an iron fist approach to combating gang violence.
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Instead,
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the approach featured an excessive use of force,
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arbitrary detention and summary executions by the Salvadoran military
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on anyone who is suspected of being involved in a gang.
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In the month of June,
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the gang's expressed their discontent by killing 677 civilians,
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50 police officers and soldiers stopping the public transportation system
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and within only four days killing seven bus drivers.
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As of 2021
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Salvador
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Sanchez rent and nine other former government
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officials were officially charged with illicit enrichment
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and money laundering.
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The scheme allegedly involved $351 million dollars in government funds that were
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used to make illegal payments to government employees and their associates.
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Salvadoran presidents have become accustomed to putting on a show for
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society while caving to the gang's demands behind closed doors.
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It's become a vicious cycle of corruption
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that seems to repeat with every presidency.
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Now moving on to the second part of my research question,
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the second part of my first research question
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asks how this is a problem for democracy.
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When
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Most Latin American countries transition to a
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democratic system in the 1980s to 1990s,
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he agreed upon definition of democracy was representative or liberal democracy,
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which is defined as the sole political system,
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which guarantees respect for human rights
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and the rule of law.
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It safeguards cultural diversity, pluralism,
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respect for the rights of minorities and peace within and among nations.
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Democracy is based among other fundamentals on free and transparent elections
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and includes the rights of all citizens to participate in government.
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The rampant gang violence in El Salvador has effectively
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corrupted most of the democratic systems in the country.
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Government officials make Under the table deals the judges
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and the courts are bribed by gang leaders and elites
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and the police officers help the gangs conduct their illicit businesses.
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The gangs have the most capital in El Salvador,
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so they have the greatest abilities to control and corrupt the judicial system.
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A ring leader of one of the gangs luiz Alberto Sanchez
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was released seven times by various judges between 2005 and 2016.
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The judiciary is so corrupt that it provides a little room
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for the rule of law and human rights to be upheld.
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El Salvador's political system cannot safeguard cultural diversity, pluralism,
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respect for the rights of minorities and peace because of the
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gangs control the streets and dictate who is respected and protected
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whenever the government tries to get involved
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in safeguarding peace and human rights.
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The homicide rates bikes making their efforts contradictory
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in terms of elections.
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Those are also corrupt
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When I was avatar's current president,
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Malibu kelly started to gain popularity as a populist leader.
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Yes, LMN party right here,
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shown on the top exposed locally from running in
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the party in the presidential the 2019 presidential election
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kelly was forced to make his own party to campaign with,
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He called it new evidence ideas or new ideas,
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which is a little blue photo show right here.
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Um the two parties, Arlena NFL Mn,
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brought fought tooth and nail to block the formulation of new ideas,
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which in turn would block the kelly's ability to run the election
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According to the courts.
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The color needed 50,000 signatures within 90 days to formalize his party.
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Well,
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Luckily, successfully only attained 200,000 signatures within only three days,
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yep.
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The salvadoran Supreme Electoral Tribunal or TSC,
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the local has shown next to the website es photo
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Did not approve of the party in time for the 2019 election,
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shocking.
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Well, kelly then had to turn
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to the Democratic Change Party to run with them also known as the CD party,
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which is shown in the yellow on the very bottom,
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You had to do this if you wanted to compete in the election.
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Although
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TSC plan to block Democratic change from from running and plan to announce it
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a day after
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the election, registration deadline had passed.
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Well, luckily, but kelly got word of this plan hours before the deadline,
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so he quietly moved his seat from the Democratic
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change again shown on the very bottom and yellow
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to the Ghana party, which is shown right here in the orange and blue
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once the registration deadline passed,
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TSC announced the Democratic change would be barred from running in the election.
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No,
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luckily was already registered at the Donner Party
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to run for president in the 2019 election
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On February 3, 2019, Naive O'Kelly triumphed over all other political parties,
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achieving 53% of the vote,
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carrying all 14 states and having a popular vote count of 1.4 million.
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The banana and F. L. M. N.
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Parties had been the only two parties in power since the end of the Civil War
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and their strong opposition to political plurality
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revealed itself during the 2019 presidential election.
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Now, moving into my second research question,
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my second research question asked how the legacies of past US
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interventionism trap el Salvador in the continuum of economic poverty,
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political corruption and social violence.
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Well, if we dive into Latin America's history with the United States,
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it becomes clear that el Salvador's proliferation of gang violence over
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the past decades is actually a byproduct of the United States,
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past and present intervention in salvadoran politics.
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The United States involvement in El Salvador was safeguarded in 1823
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with the enactment of the Monroe doctrine,
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The Monroe doctrine or the Big Stick policy expressed the United States opposition
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to european colonialism and declared its right
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to intervene in latin american politics,
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especially when
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there were cases of flagrant and chronic wrongdoing
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at the time the United States was having
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a bipolar power struggle with the soviet Union.
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The United States believe that the soviet Union support for
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communism in Latin America was considered chronic on doing,
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I guess enough for the United States to intervene
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on one side of the conflict. There was a coalition of the far left political party,
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FMln,
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and Communist militant groups that were backed by the soviet union in CUBA.
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On the other side was the Salvadoran military government,
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which was composed of the military army in various paramilitary
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death squads that were backed by the United States.
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Wow!
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The United States provided El Salvador with a whopping $1.5 million dollars a day
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and said armed and trained United States government armed
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forces to help combat the communist militant groups.
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The United States even established an army school of the Americas in el Salvador.
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El Salvador and military officials were
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trained in anti communist counterinsurgency efforts.
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The aid from the United States developed
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into an amplified repression against communist guerrillas
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and sympathizers and thousands of innocent civilians.
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The civil war lasted 12 long years from 1979 to 1992
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resulted in at least 70,000 deaths,
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500,000 refugees and tens of thousands of
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civilians who were disappeared and wounded.
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No moving into the post war era
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and the post war era,
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the United States endorsed a neoliberal economic reconstruction plan.
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Mount Salvador, which focused on the privatization of public infrastructure,
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increased foreign investment and a lack of investment in public programs.
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The neoliberal policies policies failed and pushed most into extreme poverty,
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the word taught
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salvadorans that terror and aggression were viable solutions
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to deal with the social and political conflict.
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The civil war also left an abundance of firearms and explosives behind,
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many of which are still used by gangs today to commit criminal activities.
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Over the course of the war in the Postwar era,
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over one million salvadorians fled the nation,
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half of whom immigrated to the United States and mainly Los Angeles.
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Since the US supported the right wing government of US El Salvador,
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it systematically rejected refugee standing refugee exception
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and political asylum to salvadorans escaping the work
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Between 1983 and 1990,
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the us proof this island is only 2.6% of the Salvadoran set applied
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In 1996, the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act
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and the antiterrorism and effective death penalty act.
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Both came into effect.
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These acts permitted the deportation of all undocumented migrants and documented
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migrants that had committed minor offenses in the United States.
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The Salvadoran migrant community was left in
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illegally vulnerable and highly deplorable state.
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Many salvadorans were ineligible for legal protection and
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social services because of their undocumented status,
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undocumented salvadorans were forced into vulnerable and limited spaces
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that had limited
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in little upward mobility,
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which made them especially susceptible to being enticed industry things
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to gain a sense of purpose and identity.
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South central Los Angeles was previously dominated by African americans
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and with the mass migration of Latinos and mexicans identity politics