The court that put Slobodan Milošević in the dock is to be formally dissolved this week after 24 years and 161 indictments. Victims’ relatives react as they watch a live TV broadcast from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia when UN judges announced the life sentence in the trial of former Bosnian Serbian commander Ratko Mladic Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images After sitting for 10,800 days, hearing 4,650 witnesses and digesting 2.5m pages of transcripts, the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will be formally dissolved on Thursday. A closing ceremony in The Hague, attended by the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, will mark the end of 24 years of investigations and prosecutions that delivered 161 high-profile indictments. The war crimes tribunal put the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and Gen Ratko Mladic in the dock. Established in 1993, it was the first tribunal of its kind since hearings in Nuremberg and Tokyo at the end of the second world war. Ninety individuals have been sentenced for genocide, crimes against humanity or other crimes. Politicians and senior military officers, judgment after judgment confirmed, will no longer escape with impunity but be held responsible for their actions, even in wartime. Ultimate success in hunting down fugitives, however, has taken decades and there has been criticism that the tribunal represented victor’s justice: about two-thirds of those charged were Serbs. Supporters of the court countered that the worst atrocities of the conflict were inflicted by Serb forces on Bosnian civilians. Closure of the ICTY highlights a shift in international justice away from discrete tribunals – imposing justice after successive conflicts in the Balkans, Rwanda or Sierra Leone – towards the more ambitious goal of universal jurisdiction under the international criminal court (ICC). The ICTY’s legacy has been pivotal, Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law at University College London, believes, paving the way for a broader international consensus on war crimes justice. “The breakup of Yugoslavia has been a catalyst with very significant consequences,” he said. “The experience has been mixed. It hasn’t brought tranquility and reconciliation to the region but it has delivered ... important judgments on individuals.” Sands, who acted for Croatia against Serbia in proceedings at the international court of justice, added: “The overall record of the ICTY reflects the significant but limited function that international justice can play in resolving longstanding political differences. It’s one tool in an armoury. The ad hoc tribunals have had an easier run than their global counterpart, [the ICC].” Among the ICTY’s achievements was the accumulation of legal expertise and testimony, producing an archive of evidence that will serve future historians well. Prosecutors pioneered the legal concept of “joint criminal enterprise”, a doctrine relied on to tie defendants to a common plan for genocide or crimes against humanity. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who worked at the ICTY between 1998 and 2006 and led the prosecution of Slobodan Milošević, recognises its success but has reservations. “My overall view of the ICTY is much affected by the corruption of history around what happened at Srebrenica [where 8,000 Bosnian men and youths were massacred],” he explained. “Treachery by the US, UK and France, it appears, may have allowed a humanitarian nightmare to develop while Dutch peacekeepers were not told that they had been abandoned. If so, these powerful states must have revealed to Milošević that if the Bosnian Serbs took Srebrenica there would be no air strikes. “At the ICTY, it seemed, non-combatant ‘western’ states, plus the ‘losing’ state of Serbia, were able, on occasions, to interfere with the rule of law – often by withholding evidence – to ‘clean up’ the true historical record, favourably to Serbia and to the west,” said Nice, whose most recent book, Justice for All and How to Achieve It, assesses the records of war tribunals. “We, the trial lawyers, so far as I know, were all doing our imperfect best to keep our cases ‘clean’ and to resist improper interference where we detected it.” Trials went on for far too long, he also accepts, keeping victims waiting for decades before they found out what had happened.” “On the positive side,” Nice added, “all reasonably educated citizens of the world now expect criminal behaviour in war to be subject to international legal accountability. That’s a huge shift in thinking. “And secondly, the ICTY collected a vast quantity of evidence that would not have surfaced for a very long time – or ever. It will be still be there in 500 years’ time.” The courtroom suicide of the Croatian commander Slobodan Praljak, who swallowed potassium cyanide after the court rejected his appeal, ensured the ICTY’s final judgment attracted international attention. There are a few legal loose ends. Outstanding appeals against conviction will be heard by the UN’s residual mechanism for criminal tribunals (MICT). Other war crimes cases have been remitted to national courts in the region. The outgoing chief prosecutor of the ICTY, Serge Brammertz, conceded last month that the tribunal had not achieved reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. “As we have seen … the crimes have left wounds that still have not healed. Convicted war criminals continue to be seen by many as heroes, while victims and survivors are ignored and dismissed.” Ultimately, he said, the ICTY’s legacy would not be measured “by our own work, but by whether the countries of the former Yugoslavia build the rule of law … The truth of what happened has been proved in a public court of law.” https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/dec/20/former-yugoslavia-war-crimes-tribunal-leaves-powerful-legacy-milosevic-karadzic-mladic (c) 2017 The Guardian

Mansour Omari, a Syrian journalist in his mid-thirties with wavy hair and sideburns, spent a year documenting the names of detainees who disappeared after the inspiring days of the Arab Spring devolved into a chaotic civil war. Then he became one of the disappeared. Omari was picked up in 2012, with more than a dozen other people, in a lightning government raid on the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, in Damascus. He spent most of the next year in a military detention center three floors underground with no windows, little space, and no access to sun or exercise. The number of his cellmates fluctuated—from sixty to more than eighty—all squeezed into a single filthy room measuring about twenty-five square feet. The prisoners took turns standing, squatting, sleeping astride each other, and sharing a single toilet and a sewer hole to defecate. Omari had no access to legal aid and no way to communicate with his family. Beatings were regular. Bugs were pervasive. Bruises, scabies, and wounds were constant. “The smell was unbelievable,” he told me. “People were, almost all of them, sick. All of them had blisters or wounds. It’s infections that eat your flesh so quickly.” Throughout their imprisonment, he said, the detainees were never given a change of clothes. Prisoners in Omari’s cell informally regulated themselves. Groups of four or five shared three floor tiles as their communal space. Omari, who had studied English literature at the University of Damascus and worked as a magazine editor, was one of the few who moved among the groups. He taught English. It was something to do. Without pens or paper, they used strips of worn shirts and wrote words with their fingernails in the dirty film. “When you can no longer wear your T-shirt anymore, you make it into pieces,” Omari told me. “It becomes very precious.” Omari’s group included another young journalist, Nabil Shurbaji, a member of the Youth of Daraya, an activist group in a town outside Damascus. Shurbaji was arrested for championing free speech in a new publication. The others included a young tailor and two activists. The five men debated how to get word out about the detainees. Omari came up with the idea of reviving what he had done before his arrest—documenting Syria’s “disappeared.” “I said to them, ‘What do you think if we write the names of all the people, since we can’t memorize all of them?’ ” he told me. “Of course, they said yes.” The problem was how to do it, beginning with finding out the full names and home towns of dozens of detainees, without getting caught. “Maybe you have a rat or someone tells a jailer,” Omari told me. “It’s very dangerous. By Syrian law, it’s leaking military information. When you’re on a military base, in wartime, leaking military information could get you executed. So we tried our best not to tell anyone.” Omari used his mini English classes as cover to move around the cell and collect names, four or five at a time. The next challenge was finding a way to write them down. Their only media were the cloth strips torn from worn shirts. For ink, they experimented with weak tomato soup. It ran or faded. They tried darker eggplant—same problem. “We reached a point when we all said, ‘We failed.’ We were hopeless,” Omari told me. The tailor—whose name Omari asked me to withhold—came up with an alternative. “He asked for a plastic bag,” Omari recalled. “The bread came to us in plastic bags, but the jailer always wanted the plastic bags back. He counted them. Nothing was allowed in the cell, even plastic bags. But sometimes we managed to steal a bag or a piece of it, because it’s important to have something to preserve things, like salt.” The prisoners used salt to treat each other’s wounds from torture, Omari said. After a beating, cellmates would grip a prisoner’s arms and stuff a piece of cloth in his mouth to muffle the screams as another prisoner rubbed salt in the wounds. “This is how we healed each other,” Omari said. “Sometimes it worked. Sometimes not.” Because of malnutrition and horrid hygiene conditions, many of the detainees’ gums bled. “Anytime anyone smiles, you see a pink color on his teeth,” Omari told me. “It was always tasting blood in our mouths.” Without telling the other prisoners what he was doing, the tailor took the plastic bag into the tiny toilet. He squeezed his already bleeding gums, repeatedly. He came back with a small plastic bag of blood. The prisoners then tried to write their names in blood, but it, too, ran, so the men scratched rust off the bars of the cells and mixed it with the tailor’s blood to fortify it. Omari began to weep as he recounted this part of his saga. I asked if he wanted to stop. “No,” Omari told me. The tailor, he went on, crafted a quill from a chicken bone. Then the other journalist, Shurbaji, who had the neatest handwriting, began writing the names. By the time the small team was done, they had written the identities of eighty-two men on five little strips of cloth. The tailor proposed sewing the strips into the collar and cuffs of one of the prisoner’s shirts. They selected Shurbaji’s shirt, which was blue-and-white-striped. He had taken it off after his arrest and saved to wear when he was released. He had just gotten engaged and talked daily about his fiancée. He wanted to look good for her when he was freed. With no needle, the tailor used the chicken bone to pull the threads out of the cuff and collar, tuck the folded cloths inside, and pull the threads delicately back through the holes. The five agreed: whoever got out first would wear the shirt. Then they waited. Prisoner releases or transfers were rare. Detainees were given only minutes to leave when a jailer summoned them. Ten months after his arrest, Omari’s name was the first to be called. He grabbed Shurbaji’s shirt. “I was leaving hell,” he told me. He had lost more than seventy-five pounds. Omari was held at two more prisons before he was released, in February of 2013. After he returned home, Omari removed the hidden strips but didn’t dare publish the list. “The regime would see it and recognize where it came from,” he explained. “That would hurt the people who helped me—and who I was trying to help.” By then, moisture and perspiration had damaged the shirt. Half the names had faded. Omari quietly started contacting mothers, brothers, daughters, and wives—by word of mouth, on Facebook, and through the opposition’s local coördinating committees. He had to be careful. He faced imprisonment again since his case was still open. Six days after his release, Omari fled Syria by bribing an official to get across the border to Lebanon. He spent a year in Turkey, then took refuge in Sweden. From exile, Omari tried scanning the cloths and using Photoshop to change the contrast and sharpen the words. It helped him decipher a couple more names, he told me. In the end, he reached about thirty families. This month, the five cloths arrived in the United States. They are the centerpiece of a haunting new exhibit—“Syria: Please Don’t Forget Us”—that opened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, on December 5th. The cloths—with their runny names—are each encased separately in a darkened room to prevent light from fading them even more. Omari came for the opening, where I interviewed him. The trick was saving the cloths without changing the story, Jane Klinger, the museum’s chief conservator, told me. “They’re frayed, they’re wrinkled. There’s a little staining here and there from dirt and sweat,” she said. “We are not going to clean them up. Each wrinkle, each stain has evidentiary value. Our responsibility was preservation, not intervention or conservation treatment.” I asked if she’d ever worked on comparable projects at the Holocaust Museum. “No,” she said. “I’ve never dealt with anything so raw that we can still see unfolding in the news.” In a video that plays at the entrance of the exhibit, Omari reflects in an interview. “When we were writing them, it was a matter of just recording names and using language, letters, words, numbers. But when I was released, and when I took those with me, my relation with it changed,” he said. “It wasn’t anymore words or letters. I started to get thoughts in my mind that those are pieces of their souls.” From Sweden, Omari now does the same work that led to his arrest—tracking Syria’s “disappeared”—for Reporters Without Borders. “He works relentlessly on trying to make sure people who suffered abuses, especially those who were arrested or kidnapped, are not being forgotten,” Alexandra el Khazen, who heads the Middle East division of Reporters without Borders, told me. The latest report issued by Human Rights Watch estimated that more than a hundred and seventeen thousand Syrians were detained or disappeared between 2011 and 2016. For journalists, Syria is now the deadliest country in the world. Reporters Without Borders’ online barometer of deaths and detentions lists two hundred and twenty-eight journalists, citizen journalists, and media assistants who have been killed since 2011. Dozens are still detained. Omari also tracks the men with whom he shared a cell: “Whenever I eat, whenever I see colors, whenever I see forests, nature, I all the time remember their suffering, and I all the time remember that they don’t have what I have now. And I remember their words. They say, ‘Don’t forget us.’ ” Three of the five in his group—including the tailor—died in prison, he told me. Shurbaji’s fiancée—the young woman for whom the journalist had saved the shirt for his release—learned that he died in 2015, after three years in prison and a particularly brutal beating, Omari told me. The music that plays in the background of the Holocaust Museum’s exhibit is “Raj’een ya Hawa,” the song Shurbaji sang in prison to remind him of his fiancée. The title translates as “My love, we are coming back.” https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/written-in-blood-and-rust-from-a-syrian-prison-dont-forget-us (c) 2017 The New Yorker

The world is a mess. Wars are devouring civilian lives. In the United States and elsewhere, populist leaders are eroding eroded democratic norms and coarsening public discourse. Many dictators are jailing and killing their opponents with impunity. In some ways, though, the events in Burma over the past year have been uniquely horrific. In August, in what it depicted as retaliation for a few minor attacks launched by insurgents acting in the name of the Muslim minority known as the Rohingya, the Burmese military launched a wave of attacks on Rohingya communities, burning and killing in a calculated effort to drive them out of the country and across the border into Bangladesh. Since then, almost 700,000 people have made the journey, bringing them with a few scant possessions and countless tales of atrocities, including gang rapes, the murder of children and the destruction of entire villages. What makes the survivors’ accounts even more disturbing is the realization that many of the horrors they describe were coolly planned and premeditated, as documented in a recent report by Human Rights Watch. Think about that: In the early 21st century, a government institution has consciously set about to eliminate an entire ethnic group’s presence within its country. And fatefully implicated in this nightmare is a woman who, not that long ago, exemplified heroic endurance and courage in the pursuit of democratic ideals. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s de facto leader, now stands accused of betraying the ideals for which she was once lionized by the world. We expect President Trump to be a boor. We expect the Putins, the Xis, the Erdogans to brutalize their own people. But there is something uniquely awful about a Nobel Peace Prize laureate acting as an enabler of the murder and displacement of an entire community. Commentators have faulted her for her silence on what many are calling a deliberate act of genocide. But that’s not quite right. Far from being silent, she has actively defended the military’s actions, writing off eyewitness accounts of its crimes — in a chillingly Trumpian flourish — as “fake news.” (In 2016, when the military embarked on a smaller version of this year’s “clearance operations,” Suu Kyi’s own office contemptuously dismissed the stories of Rohingya women who said they’d been sexually assaulted by soldiers with the words “fake rape.”) Last month she rejected foreign criticism of the army’s actions by saying that “no one can fully understand the situation of our country the way we do.” Her defenders rightly note that Burma’s current constitution does not grant her control over the army. Yet this argument ignores the powers she does have. When the United Nations tried to send investigators to Burma to look into allegations of mistreatment of the Rohingya this summer, in the run-up to the ethnic-cleansing campaign, Suu Kyi — who is also Burma’s foreign minister and thus in charge of controlling foreigners’ access to the country — refused to give them visas. Her long struggle for freedom has given her unchallenged moral authority. Yet this power, too, she has conspicuously failed to use. In September, when the cleansing campaign was in full gear, she gave a speech in which she claimed that “more than 50 percent of the villages of Muslims are intact.” (She didn’t say what had happened to the other 50 percent, many of which have since been destroyed as well.) She also claimed that the “clearance operations” were winding down. Hundreds of thousands more Rohingya have fled since her words. Small wonder that the leader of one of Britain’s top pro-Burma campaigns recently declared publicly that the onetime idol of human rights is “complicit” in crimes against humanity. Small wonder that Dublin and Oxford have both withdrawn their awards to her. Small wonder that prominent figures — including some of her fellow laureates — are calling upon the Nobel Prize Committee to take back the 1991 Peace Prize she won for her work as a dissident. So what does this say about us, her supporters in the international community? Were we too naive in embracing her as a dissident star? Did we miss the telltale signs of a Burmese Buddhist nationalist who quietly views some of her compatriots as alien and inferior? Or did we fail to realize that, once in power, she would have to accommodate herself to the strength of a strain of lethal racism embedded in mainstream Burmese culture? (During the 2015 election campaign — which ended with the landslide victory that gave her the power she enjoys today — she revealingly refused to include any Muslims in her party’s candidate list. Was this cynical realism or a genuine expression of her deeper impulses?) The world has lost a hero. Were we wrong to put her on a pedestal in the first place? Should we stop viewing international politics through the prism of heroism? Or should we refocus our efforts on the ideals that she once seemed to embody? The international community should now confront its own complicity in this disaster. We must work to understand how we allowed this to happen, and we must urgently establish accountability — legal and moral — for those behind these crimes. Viewed against this daunting background, the questions I’ve posed above seem minor by comparison. Yet I still can’t help asking them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/12/20/in-2017-no-one-has-fallen-further-than-aung-san-suu-kyi/?utm_term=.31d86f5a9d56 (c) 2017 The Washington Post

Myanmar’s government rescinded access by a United Nations official who has been investigating human rights in the country, including the campaign of violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. “I am puzzled and disappointed by this decision by the Myanmar government,” special rapporteur Yanghee Lee said Wednesday in a statement. “This declaration of non-cooperation with my mandate can only be viewed as a strong indication that there must be something terribly awful happening in [the state of] Rakhine, as well as in the rest of the country.” Lee said the Myanmar government had assured her of its cooperation with her planned January visit only two weeks ago. But she said officials changed their mind due to a statement she released in July outlining the difficulties she had in working with the government to gain access to certain areas. Lee has visited the country as part of her U.N. job six times since June 2014. The decision to deny her continued access comes a day after authorities said they found 10 bodies buried in a mass grave in Rakhine, the heart of the violence against the Rohingya. The army said it’s investigating the site, but the chances of the government taking the blame for the killings are slim. An internal inquiry released by the military last month exonerated all soldiers from any wrongdoing in a crackdown against the Muslim group that began in late August. Still, evidence grows of the Burmese government’s systematic violence against the Rohingya. About 650,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since the end of August. Aerial footage of entire villages burnt to the ground was released by Amnesty International in September. That same month, Doctors Without Borders reported that at least 9,000 Rohingya had died in Myanmar during a roughly 30-day period ― more than 22 times the official government estimate of 400 deaths. Hundreds of Rohingya were systematically killed and raped in the Rakhine village of Tula Toli as security forces trapped people along a riverbank in late August, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Tuesday. Efforts to cover up the evidence have also mounted. Burmese officials arrested two Reuters journalists last week after the pair had been invited to meet with police officials in the city of Yangon. Reuters is one of the few news outlets that had gained entry to Rakhine, which is closed off to most journalists. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussain said this week that Myanmar leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and Gen. Aung Min Hlaing, the head of the army, could be tried for genocide. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/myanmar-mass-grave-un-investigator_us_5a3a67fde4b0b0e5a79ea28d?section=us_world-news (c) 2017 The Huffington Post

Terming the atrocities on Rohingya people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state “ethnic cleansing”, visiting Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim today called upon the global organisations to work together for ensuring their safe return to their own country. The Turkish PM said this while talking to journalists around 11:00am after visiting Balukhali Rohingya Refugee camp in Cox's Bazar’s Ukhiya upazila The Turkish prime minister visited the camp in order to see the plight of Rohingyas fleeing from a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state since August 25. Binali accompanied with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and other officials also inaugurated a medical centre and handed over two ambulances to the Balukhali camp and distributed food among the refugees during his visit. Some 655,000 Rohingyas have crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh since August 25. On September 7, Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan visited the Rohingya camp and said what is happening in Myanmar's Rakhine State is "tantamount to genocide" and solution to Rohingya crisis lies in Myanmar only. She also affirmed that the government of Turkey will stand beside the Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh in the face of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar's Rakhine. http://www.thedailystar.net/rohingya-crisis/turkish-pm-terms-persecution-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing-1507771 (c) 2017 The Daily Star

Reacting to the news that the Myanmar authorities have denied access to UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee, James Gomez, Amnesty International’s Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said: “The Myanmar government’s decision to bar the Special Rapporteur from accessing the country is outrageous. It is a further indication that authorities will do anything they can to avoid international scrutiny of their human rights record. “At a time when the security forces stand accused of crimes against humanity during their vicious campaign against the Rohingya, accountability for human rights violations are crucially important. The international community must urge the authorities to allow Yanghee Lee access. It is the ordinary people and victims of human rights abuses who continue to suffer. “The Myanmar military claim they have done nothing wrong during the past months. If so, the authorities should have nothing to hide – why are they denying access for independent and impartial investigators?” https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/myanmar-outrageous-denial-of-access-to-top-un-official/ (c) 2017 Amnesty International

The Government of Myanmar has informed UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee that all access to the country has been denied and cooperation withdrawn for the duration of her tenure. Ms. Lee had been due to visit Myanmar in January to assess the state of human rights countrywide, including the human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State. “I am puzzled and disappointed by this decision by the Myanmar Government,” said Ms. Lee. “This declaration of non-cooperation with my mandate can only be viewed as a strong indication that there must be something terribly awful happening in Rakhine, as well as in the rest of the country.” The Special Rapporteur said she sincerely hoped Myanmar would revisit the decision. “Only two weeks ago, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative informed the Human Rights Council of its continuing cooperation with the UN, referencing the relationship with my role as Special Rapporteur,” she said. “Now I am being told that this decision to no longer cooperate with me is based on the statement I made after I visited the country in July.” Ms. Lee had previously been afforded cooperation and access to Myanmar, and had maintained a relationship of mutual respect with the Government. The Government has now claimed that her end-of-mission statement in July was biased and unfair. The Special Rapporteur’s mandate requires two visits to Myanmar a year, in order to report to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. Since taking up the mandate in June 2014, she has visited six times. While the Government had responded positively to past requests to visit, access to some areas had been consistently refused, with the authorities citing security concerns. The Government is also not cooperating with the Human Rights Council Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, established in March 2017. “It is a shame that Myanmar has decided to take this route,” said Ms. Lee. “The Government has repeatedly denied violations of human rights are occurring throughout Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine State. They have said that they have nothing to hide, but their lack of cooperation with my mandate and the fact-finding mission suggests otherwise,” said the expert. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22553&LangID=E (c) 2017 United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner

What’s the issue? After Zimbabwe’s military intervened to bring an end to 37 years of rule by former President Robert Mugabe, their continued presence as key political players may complicate the new president’s already difficult task of reinstituting effective governance, curbing corruption and setting the stage for credible elections in 2018. Why does it matter? President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ruling ZANU-PF party must deliver free and fair elections, and speed up economic, electoral and political reforms, in order to establish their legitimacy and win much-needed donor support and debt relief. What should be done? International actors must press the new president toward reforms, professional and transparent policing, leveling the playing field ahead of the 2018 vote and promoting national reconciliation after past government abuses. I.Overview After 37 years in power, Robert Mugabe is no longer Zimbabwe’s president. Over the course of eighteen days in November, conflict among factions within the ruling party over then-Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bid to succeed the president finally came to a head. The military, intent on preserving interests it felt were threatened by detractors within the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) forced Mugabe to resign; Mnangagwa, who had fled the country fearing assassination, was inaugurated on 24 November. He quickly consolidated power, appointing a cabinet filled with supporters, including military officers and war veterans. For its part, ZANU-PF dutifully silenced and sidelined his rivals, expelling his fiercest critics. For Mnangagwa, now comes the hard part: he must rescue a failing economy, reinstitute effective governance and set the stage for credible elections in 2018. Both then-Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander, General Constantino Chiwenga and Mnangagwa claimed the military intervention was necessary to preserve the revolution and stabilise the country. Observers described it as a “military-assisted transition”, a fudge widely accepted both inside and outside Zimbabwe to avoid labelling it a coup, which would have triggered continental and international sanctions. It was spearheaded by elements of the security sector fearful of the rising influence within ZANU-PF of individuals threatening their political and economic interests. The overall acquiescence in their actions is understandable: it reflects fatigue with Mugabe and hope among Zimbabweans as well as external parties that the new rulers can reverse the country’s calamitous economic decline. Still, the military’s involvement sets a worrying precedent, raising questions about the role of opaque power-brokers. Those concerns have been exacerbated by Mnangagwa’s cabinet appointments. ZANU-PF appears intent on buying time to consolidate its position ahead of elections that must be held before September 2018 and that it is determined and well placed to win. There is precedent: after it blatantly rigged the 2008 elections and faced both violence and strong regional and international pressure, the party agreed to share power with the opposition but used the next four years to bolster its hold on power and engineer a huge, albeit highly controversial victory in the 2013 elections. Although Mnangagwa has promised “free and fair” elections, he takes over as an unelected president with a limited timeframe and with a long list of overdue electoral reforms to ensure their credibility. He and his government will need to act fast lest the vote be flawed and fail to deliver the required legitimacy for donors to re-engage and for Zimbabweans to work together on the country’s recovery. The military’s actions in Zimbabwe – ousting a president to prevent an outcome inimical to its interests – were far from unique, the most recent example being the Egyptian armed forces’ 2011 ouster of then-President Hosni Mubarak. The lesson learned from those precedents is that how President Mnangagwa acts now, and how the international community reacts, matter. In several respects, President Mnangagwa’s inaugural speech set a new tone. He focused on economic stimulus, rule of law and responsible governance. What he failed to mention was electoral and security sector reform, national healing, devolution of power and reconciliation. And what he failed to do was reach out to the opposition or ensure the executive was staffed with competent technocrats. The test will be what he does next and how vigilant international actors are in pressing him to head in the right direction, notably by making their support contingent on the holding of credible elections. The new president has asked for patience. He says he needs time to address the country’s multiple challenges. This is a reasonable request. However, to achieve his goals, and cement a legacy as the leader who turned Zimbabwe around, he will have to lay the foundation for institutionalising rule of law, respect for the constitution and – of crucial importance in the run-up to the 2018 vote – implementing procedures that can ensure free and fair elections. The military’s return to the barracks and the resumption of normal duties by the Zimbabwe Republic Police after five weeks is an important step. In this spirit, initial actions should include: Develop and implement a plan to professionalise policing with sufficient and transparent civilian oversight. Fund the requested extension of the comprehensive biometric voter registration process and improved transparency. Commit to a national dialogue on the economic reform strategy to be led by an independent committee that would include representatives from the opposition, civil society, the churches and important commercial sectors. Promote national reconciliation, notably by addressing past government abuses. II.An Ignoble End to Africa’s Oldest Revolutionary The back story of Mugabe’s dramatic fall is beginning to emerge; more details will seep out in coming weeks and months. What is clear is that Mnangagwa’s dismissal and subsequent expulsion from ZANU-PF on 6 November, coupled with moves to change the military command, was the catalyst for military intervention. Efforts by Generation 40 (G40) faction members of ZANU-PF to consolidate their position and Grace Mugabe’s elevation to vice president also threatened the positions and interests of key members of the security sector. Indeed, tensions between Mugabe and elements in the security sector had been growing for some time, especially in relation to their – and Mnangagwa’s – declining influence in party structures. Since December 2015, Mugabe had twice publicly admonished the military for interfering in internal ZANU-PF politics; Grace Mugabe’s public insults and divisiveness poured fuel on the fire. The G40 faction of younger politicians and Mnangagwa detractors presented another challenge, threatening the status quo and related economic interests, said to include control over the Marange diamond fields. Warned his life was in danger, Mnangagwa fled to Mozambique. From there he reportedly headed to China, where General Chiwenga was on a prearranged visit. Although he claimed on 8 November that he would be back in a matter of weeks, many believed Mnangagwa had acted too late to mount a comeback. ZANU-PF leaders had purged some of his key supporters; provincial party structures, keen to ingratiate themselves with the Mugabes and the G40 leaders, were calling for more expulsions. The chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa, retreated to South Africa, where he gave media interviews vigorously attacking the Mugabes and the G40 for hijacking the party. Before leaving for China on 5 November, Chiwenga was aware of plans to purge him and other senior military officers. His allies then foiled an attempt to arrest him on his return on 12 November. The following day, Chiwenga, flanked by some 90 senior officers, issued a five-page statement from the army’s King George VI (since renamed Josiah Tongogara) barracks, warning that ZANU-PF had been infiltrated by counter-revolutionaries intent on destroying the party. It was an unprecedented threat, amounting to a pre-emptive final warning and clear message that they were going to act. The state media was prevented from covering the statement. Forty hours later the officers made their move, announcing on national television that they had been forced to intervene for security reasons. Over the last seventeen years, key commanders have publicly stated they will not allow someone without liberation movement credentials to take control of the country. This was initially directed at the opposition and had never before been publicly directed at the G40. An unknown number of G40 leaders and their allies in the security sector, reportedly including Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, were detained, and Mugabe and his wife were confined to their home, purportedly “for security reasons”. The military were at pains to ensure a legal and constitutional veneer for their intervention given that a coup remains a red line for both the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU), and would have resulted in sanctions, as well as sinking prospects for donor support. The military and its co-conspirators therefore needed Mugabe’s acquiescence, which was his final bargaining chip. He refused to step down and a standoff ensued as he attempted to cling to power as well as obtain guarantees for his family and key G40 members. However, Mugabe’s position was made increasingly untenable by unprecedented mass demonstrations on 18 November calling for him to step down. On 19 November, ZANU-PF’s Central Committee dismissed Mugabe as party leader, and replaced him with the reinstated Mnangagwa. It also expelled Grace Mugabe and senior G40 leaders from the party, and reinstated membership for all those subjected to disciplinary measures since 2014. The president was given until midday on 20 November to resign or face impeachment. Mugabe addressed the nation on the night of 19 November. Flanked by security chiefs, he began by acknowledging the gravity of the situation, affirmed the army’s intervention was well intentioned and not illegal. Then, to widespread disbelief and anger, he failed to resign. On the morning of 20 November, the war veterans’ leadership and street demonstrators demanded the president’s impeachment. Chiwenga called for patience, pointing out that Mugabe was in communication with Mnangagwa, who would be returning to Zimbabwe shortly. There was no mention of resignation. It was a tangible step-back that reflected the military’s desire for a political conclusion to the crisis. That afternoon, preparations for the impeachment process got underway and Mnangagwa released his first statement in ten days, calling for Mugabe to step aside. He affirmed the military’s intervention, “Operation Restore Legacy”, was intended to preserve “the ethos of our struggle against British colonialism”, that the impeachment process must now take its course and that he would return when “the right conditions for security and stability prevail”. On the morning of 21 November, Mugabe tried to call his remaining cabinet members together but only a handful turned up. Impeachment proceedings moved ahead, co-sponsored by both ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T). The charge sheet was an embarrassing litany of failures attributed to Mugabe. Conscious that the game was up, the president tendered his resignation letter, which had reportedly been written several days earlier. Zimbabweans spilled out into the streets in droves to celebrate his departure. The scene was set for Mnangagwa’s triumphant return. III.The King Is Dead, Long Live the King A.Mnangagwa – Old Wine in Old Bottles? Presented as a pragmatist, Emmerson Mnangagwa was unable to deliver needed reforms when he was vice president (2014-2017) under Mugabe. Whether he can succeed now remains in question. He has been accused of responsibility both individually and as part of ZANU-PF’s collective leadership for an array of human rights violations, ranging from the Gukurahundi massacres in the 1980s, Operation Murambatsvina (Move the Rubbish) that violently cleared slums across the country in 2005, and the election violence of 2008 that left over 300 dead. He has denied any role in these abuses. Mnangagwa also was named in a UN inquiry into the illegal exploitation of natural resources during Zimbabwe’s intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s. Members of the security apparatus and military personnel have been accused of benefitting from the control of diamond fields in Marange. Although Mnangagwa has committed to cleaning out corruption, there is little confidence this would include investigations into revenues allegedly missing from Marange. Will Mnangagwa’s past pollute his future? His inaugural presidential speech was promising, widely welcomed as a significant shift. Gone was the anti-imperialist rhetoric and finger-pointing that characterised Mugabe’s rule. Instead the new president recognised the “poisoned, rancorous and polarising” nature of domestic politics and called for a national response to the multiple challenges facing the country. He expressed a desire to reach across political, ethnic and racial lines, calling for a renewal of the republic and the strengthening of its democracy. He promised to address land tenure and compensation for past seizures, tackle the country’s ongoing economic decline (now manifesting itself in debilitating liquidity shortages and price surges) take steps to protect investment, deal with debt obligations, improve trade opportunities, reform the banking sector and improve administrative efficiencies. But what he did not say was as significant as what he said. He remained silent on electoral and security sector reforms as well as plans to devolve political power, and said little about reconciliation and national healing beyond general platitudes. In short, while the speech offered some hope that Mnangagwa might chart a new national political course, it is equally possible the country is witnessing nothing more than a reconsolidation of power by ZANU-PF.Party structures and leaders have dutifully followed the new script, in the main quickly turning against Mugabe and the G40. The reconfiguration of leadership and party structures – both national and provincial –will consolidate the position of Mnangagwa and his allies. The truncated December Extraordinary Party Congress endorsed Mnangagwa’s (and his top lieutenants) leadership and candidacy for the 2018 elections, as well as the G40 leaders’ expulsion. Some party members kicked out during the 2014-2015 purge of former Vice President Joice Mujuru and her allies have indicated their intention to return. B.The Security Sector – Putchists or Guardians of the Constitution? The loudest cheers at Mnangagwa’s inauguration ceremony were reserved for General Chiwenga. This echoed the strong support expressed for the military and Chiwenga during the unprecedented demonstrations on 18 November. The military was conspicuous in the stands of the national stadium during inauguration celebrations. Regarded by many as the power behind Mnangagwa, Chiwenga signalled that the military is now a direct political player, with many anticipating that at some point he will shift from the army to politics. His retirement by President Mnangagwa and pending “redeployment” was confirmed as part of the military leadership reconfiguration announced this week. The military’s direct involvement in “guiding” both the ruling party’s and the government’s new direction makes it difficult to depict the events as a legal defence of the constitution. Chiwenga’s intervention also exposed fault lines in the security sector. Contrary to expectations, he was not challenged by other officers, including those in the presidential guard. Indeed, their loyalty to Mugabe quickly dissipated. Matters differed when it came to the Zimbabwe Republic Police and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). The military perceived both as supporting the G40. Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri was reportedly placed under house arrest by the military and subsequently brought in to attend Mugabe’s 19 November press statement and Mnangagwa’s inauguration to ensure developments enjoyed a veneer of legality. He was loudly booed as he sheepishly pledged allegiance to Mnangagwa. In the same vein, the police were withdrawn for almost five weeks from operational duties, but have since returned. A reconfiguration of power dynamics and reporting lines in the Joint Operations Command (JOC) – the body comprising service chiefs and ministries that provide the backbone to ZANU-PF governance – appears likely. IV.Elections and the Opposition’s Role A.Ensuring Fair Elections? Following his dismissal, both Mnangagwa and his war veteran allies called for a more inclusive politics. That appeal appears to have been remarkably short-lived. Immediately upon his return, Mnangagwa said that “Zanu-PF will continue ruling no matter what, while those who oppose it will continue barking”. Mnangagwa’s new administration rewarded key allies in ZANU-PF, brought in more war veterans and even two senior security service chiefs. It did not include opposition elements or external technocrats as had been expected. Although slightly slimmer in size, its composition reflects a large degree of continuity in substance, with at least a third of the cabinet having served in previous Mugabe administrations. Women and youth are poorly represented. The forthcoming elections will be a milestone in this regard. Prior to Mugabe’s resignation, they were expected to be held in April. Mnangagwa has committed to holding them in 2018, though likely not until July or August. Opinions in Zimbabwe are sharply divided over the merits of these elections: some argue that a vote is critical to establish a clear mandate; others believe that without necessary and prompt electoral reforms, polls will not provide the legitimacy necessary to tackle Zimbabwe’s multiple challenges regardless of who wins. A key question revolves around the credibility of the elections. In his inaugural address, Mnangagwa promised they would be “free and fair” yet was silent on prerequisites to ensure that outcome, namely the electoral reforms called for by the opposition, civil society organisations (CSOs) and international election observers. These include measures to guarantee a credible and verifiable voters roll; the independence and capacity of, as well as parliamentary oversight over, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission; removal of the executive’s ability to veto election observers, and “creation of a conducive political environment devoid of violence, intimidation, patronage, propaganda and hate speech with all stakeholders (citizens, political parties, traditional leaders, media, churches, CSOs) abiding by the rules of the electoral conduct”. Should elections be held on schedule, the government will need to take steps to signal a commitment to a fairer electoral playing field. These include expanding the voter registration process, improving transparency of vote data transfer and management of the voters’ roll, and curtailing partisan manipulation of national resources. A first test looms: the extent to which ZANU-PF opens political space and shuns coercive and manipulative electoral tactics. The party’s past election strategies prevented many eligible voters from participating and facilitated vote manipulation. Excluding the diaspora, there are potentially more than 7 million voters. How many are verifiably registered will provide a good indication of the new government’s intentions. In September, the government introduced an Electoral Reform Bill, but civil society organisations said its scope was “extremely limited … deal[ing] only with a few aspects of voter registration and one related matter. It does not tackle the many other defects in the Electoral Act, which include provisions that are not compliant with the Constitution”. B.What Role for the Opposition? Mugabe’s unexpected departure places the opposition in uncharted territory. Before these recent developments, most analysts gave the opposition – unable to exploit the worsening socio-economic conditions or ZANU-PF’s debilitating divisions – little chance of winning. Now, it has a new opportunity to find its purpose as well as a convincing course of action. Prospects are uncertain. At this juncture, the opposition is likely to head into the elections divided and massively outgunned. It is expected to field half a dozen presidential candidates. The main opposition coalition grouping, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, was launched this past August but has struggled to attract many smaller parties and faces acute resource shortages. Furthermore, Tsvangirai’s health problems have kindled internal succession struggles. He may not be well enough to lead an election campaign next year. Had Mnangagwa invited the opposition to participate in the new government, it would have faced a serious dilemma: whether to contribute to his national economic recovery program or concentrate on the 2018 elections. Their exclusion from the new government means they can concentrate on regrouping and preparing for the polls. In particular, acting in concert with civil society, they can play a major role in monitoring and publicly assessing the government’s reforms. Specifically, the opposition should back civil society demands for core electoral reforms. These include: drafting and passing a comprehensive electoral law consistent with the 2013 constitution that guarantees the independence of the electoral committee and prevents government interference in election management; extending the voter registration process and ensuring there is a transparent and comprehensive verification process to develop a credible voters’ roll; enhancing the independence of the electoral commission; promoting a more conducive political environment to encourage participation and address violations, and; allowing more and longer-term voter observation missions. In addition, the opposition should lobby the government to request an assessment of election conditions by the SADC Electoral Advisory Council and for the deployment of a long-term election observation mission from the Africa Union (AU). Elections should not be held unless and until reforms are in place to ensure they will be credible. The international community should exert its leverage to this end by making clear that until credible elections are held, donors will refrain from allocating significant new long-term funding or supporting debt relief as laid out in the 2015 re-engagement strategy. V.A Coup or Not a Coup? International Reaction The military, Mnangagwa and his allies have managed to avoid having their “military-assisted transition” labelled a coup. SADC and the AU carefully avoided the term. Mugabe had called for SADC’s intervention, and the regional body dispatched envoys from South Africa. The matter subsequently was elevated to an emergency meeting of the heads of state belonging to SADC’s Organ for Politics, Defence and Security, which scheduled a joint visit by SADC chair, South Africa President Jacob Zuma, and the chair of the Organ, Angola President João Lourenço. But the visit was cancelled following Mugabe’s resignation. Western nations, China, Russia and the global south in general also tempered their reaction and avoided condemning the military intervention. Most, even long-term allies, were keen to see Mugabe depart, though they would have preferred a legal and legitimate process. An assessment of what this transition means for Zimbabwe’s democratic project and institutions largely has been avoided. For Zimbabweans and outside actors, the turning of the Mugabe page offers a genuine opportunity for economic recovery. Mnangagwa clearly intended to capitalise on the sentiment: his inaugural speech made clear his intent to re-engage with international donors and Western companies. There is no quick fix for Zimbabwe’s array of economic challenges. Investors also are keen to explore options, but much work is needed to resuscitate and expand on the 2015 Lima Re-Engagement Strategy (developed with the international financial institutions and other creditors) that sets out a path for repayment of debt arrears, reform and access to new lines of credit. The government also must cut expenditure, which means downsizing the civil service, the last significant source of employment in the formal sector. The government likely will not receive budgetary support, as most international players will want to see tangible progress on a range of fronts before considering this kind of assistance. Nor is there any obvious or immediate palliative to the country’s liquidity crisis and massive inflationary pressures. The kind of support international actors can provide in these areas will become clearer only when the government provides policy direction. When that time comes, it will be important for donors to coordinate their actions. VI.Conclusion Robert Mugabe’s exit provides ZANU-PF’s new leaders with an unprecedented opportunity to halt and possibly reverse Zimbabwe’s precipitous two-decade-long slide and forge a path to sustainable economic and political recovery. But this is at best a mixed blessing. The military’s pivotal role in forcing Mugabe out and their continuing presence as key political players, while welcomed in some quarters, presents a troubling precedent as well as a major challenge to the rule of law and constitutional order. Given their deep financial interests, members of the security forces are likely to continue playing a role in the country’s economy, which could have consequences on broader issues of governance, especially efforts to curb corruption and create a rules-based business environment. By the same token, the military’s and ZANU-PF’s desire to retain power will have implications for the country’s future political course. Early steps provide reasons to fear that Mnangagwa will prioritise managing ZANU-PF and protecting the military’s political and economic interests over good governance and democratic consolidation. That would be an important opportunity squandered, and a bad omen for Zimbabwe’s future. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/southern-africa/zimbabwe/b134-zimbabwes-military-assisted-transition-and-prospects-recovery?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=4c36eb251a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-4c36eb251a-359909997 (c) 2017 International Crisis Group

The UN's investigator into human rights in Myanmar has been barred from entering the country. Yanghee Lee had been due to visit in January to review Myanmar's human rights, including alleged attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state. The government said it had banned her because she was "not impartial and objective while conducting her work". Ms Lee said the decision to block her suggested "something terribly awful" was happening in Rakhine. On Tuesday, Myanmar's authorities said they found 10 bodies in a mass grave in a village there. Ms Lee last visited Myanmar in July, where she raised concerns over the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine. Violence erupted in the state in August, after Rohingya Arsa militants attacked police posts and the army responded with a military crackdown. Since then, more than 650,000 Rohingya - about two thirds of the entire population - have fled to Bangladesh. Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières estimates at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed between 25 August and 24 September, while the UN has said the actions of state forces in Myanmar against Rohingya could potentially be classed as an act of genocide. Ms Lee told the BBC she was "very saddened" by the decision to block her. "There was so much hope that Myanmar would become free and democratic," she said, adding that she was disappointed that all human rights monitors had been denied access to the country. "I sincerely hope that the government will reconsider their decision for my visit because it would be such a pity and shameful for Myanmar to choose to go down this pathway." Regional government secretary Tin Maung Swe told BBC Burmese that Ms Lee had "done great danger to Myanmar", and said her Rakhine report was "biased, misleading and one-sided". The government would "continue co-operation with the United Nations, but we don't accept her personally", he added. Meanwhile, Myanmar's military is investigating after 10 skeletons were found in a mass grave in Inn Din village near Maungdaw - one of the areas most affected by the recent violence. The army released photos of the grave on Facebook and said it would investigate "the truth behind the grave", promising that security members would be held responsible if they were involved. Sources told AFP and Irrawaddy newspaper that the killings could have happened up to a year ago and it was not clear who the bodies belonged to. Last week, two Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained in Myanmar. Police say they are investigating whether the duo violated the Official Secrets Act. Media reports say the journalists had been given photos and documents from residents in Inn Din, the village where the mass grave was found. Government spokesman Zaw Htay said the investigation against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo was "almost done" and they would be be able to meet a lawyer and their families afterwards. Officials from the US, UK, EU and other countries have called the detentions an attack on media freedom and demanded their release. Wa Lone's wife, Pan Ei Mon, told BBC Burmese she was worried and saddened by his arrest. She said he had a passion for journalism, adding "his job is his first priority... he doesn't take sides when writing stories". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42425217 (c) 2017 BBC News

One of the most ambitious studies conducted on Syria’s civil war and American options to mitigate it finally saw the light of day on Tuesday. The study, which was commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, had been the subject of controversy this fall after the museum briefly published it online and then retracted it in the face of a political backlash. Some groups had balked at the conclusions, which expressed pessimism about American options. Then, after the retraction, academics accused the institution of allowing political pressure to suppress important research. The controversies appear to have blown over. In a concession to the interventionist voices objecting to the findings, the study will be republished with two additions that support the case for American military action. Groups initially critical of the study say they are satisfied, and museum officials hope that the research can now stand on its own. But others are at least somewhat dissatisfied. “The way they are rereleasing seems designed to placate interventionists at the expense of the credibility of the research; that’s a pity,” said Marc Lynch, who directs a center of Middle East studies at George Washington University. He added, “My sense is that the reputational damage has been done.” Interviews with museum officials and outside critics reveal how this 200-page, dry and highly technical document became a political lightning rod for the museum, which has long acted as a moral force on issues of war and mass killings. When the study first circulated, its executive summary included a sentence saying that no single policy would have definitively mitigated Syria’s violence. In academic parlance, this was meant to convey uncertainty. But to many nonacademics, that line read as an endorsement of President Barack Obama’s policies. Members of Washington’s foreign policy community, as well as Syrian activist groups, contacted museum officials, including the director, Sara J. Bloomfield, to register disapproval. Many in both communities had long argued that Mr. Obama had missed crucial opportunities in Syria. Jewish leaders also reached out to express concern that the report could undercut the museum’s mission of preventing or halting atrocities. Mouaz Moustafa, who directs the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, said that many organizations involved in advocacy for Syria saw the study as “exonerating” Mr. Obama. Reading the report, he added, was “reminiscent to them of times when they went to the White House and had the door slammed in their faces while civilians were being slaughtered.” Syrian groups that had worked with the museum on memorializing Syria’s dead viewed it as a betrayal. Others objected to its academic tone or its lack of policy suggestions. Though they mostly relayed their objections in private, they carried weight with museum officials. Ms. Bloomfield ordered that the study be retracted. The study had been conducted by the Simon-Skjodt Center, the museum’s well-regarded research arm, which often commissions work on contemporary atrocities. Cameron Hudson, who leads the center, said that the mistake was framing the paper strictly for academics, without considering other audiences. “We have to recognize that we also have a general audience for this work, and we also have an audience of victims and survivors,” he said. “I think we had missed how this could be perceived by some of those audiences.” Though academics hailed the study, Mr. Hudson acknowledged a “tension” between the museum’s mission of “never again” and the study’s findings that “there are no silver bullets.” In the weeks after the retraction, museum officials met with individuals and groups who had criticized the study. The consultations soothed enough of the anger that the museum is now releasing the study, this time without the four-page executive summary. There are also two additions. An essay by Frederic C. Hof, an Obama administration official, advocates greater American involvement in Syria. And a second document announces a survey of Syrian groups to be conducted by FREE-Syria, an advocacy organization in Virginia. The survey will ask “Syrian organizations and individuals” about what American policies they’d like to have seen in Syria. Its author is a former spokeswoman for Syrian antigovernment groups, and the questions appear to nudge respondents toward endorsing United States military action in Syria. “The museum took a lot of time to sit down with everyone,” Mr. Moustafa said, adding that the sentiment among Syrians is that “the voices of Syrians are being heard.” In the months since the study’s retraction, Leon Wieseltier, a writer who was among its most visible critics, has left public view following sexual-assault allegations. Mr. Hudson denied that this influenced their decision. Mr. Hudson said he hopes that with the controversy settled, the nearly two years of work will find an audience. The goal, he said, has always been to improve the world’s ability to head off atrocities like those in Syria. Still, he acknowledged that Washington’s tendencies toward infighting had, at points, overshadowed the research. “We heard from many, many people, ‘I didn’t actually read the research, but here’s what I thought about it,’” he said. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/arts/design/holocaust-museum-syria-study.html (c) 2017 The New York Times

The United Nations expert on the human rights situation in Myanmar on Wednesday expressed disappointment at the Government’s decision to deny her all access to the country and withdraw cooperation for the duration of her tenure. “I am puzzled and disappointed by this decision by the Myanmar Government,” said UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee. “This declaration of non-cooperation with my mandate can only be viewed as a strong indication that there must be something terribly awful happening in Rakhine, as well as in the rest of the country.” Ms. Lee had been due to visit Myanmar in January to assess the state of human rights countrywide, including the human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State. The Special Rapporteur said she hoped Myanmar would revisit the decision. “Only two weeks ago, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative informed the Human Rights Council of its continuing cooperation with the UN, referencing the relationship with my role as Special Rapporteur,” she said. “Now I am being told that this decision to no longer cooperate with me is based on the statement I made after I visited the country in July.” Ms. Lee had previously been afforded cooperation and access to Myanmar, and had maintained a relationship of mutual respect with the Government. The Government has now claimed that her end-of-mission statement in July was biased and unfair. The Special Rapporteur’s mandate requires two visits to Myanmar a year, in order to report to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. Since taking up the mandate in June 2014, she has visited six times. While the Government had responded positively to past requests to visit, access to some areas had been consistently refused, with the authorities citing security concerns. The Government is also not cooperating with the Human Rights Council independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar, established in March 2017. “It is a shame that Myanmar has decided to take this route,” said Ms. Lee. “The Government has repeatedly denied violations of human rights are occurring throughout Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine state. They have said that they have nothing to hide, but their lack of cooperation with my mandate and the fact-finding mission suggests otherwise,” said the expert. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=58320#.Wk-WON-nHIV (c) 2017 UN News Centre

What’s the issue? After fifteen years of failed security policies, the government of El Salvador and criminal gangs are deadlocked in an open confrontation. Efforts aimed at tackling the deep-rooted social issues behind the gang phenomenon have not produced desired results due to a lack of political commitment and social divisions that gangs use to their advantage. Why does it matter? Born in the wake of U.S. deportation policies in the late 90s, gang violence in El Salvador has developed into a national security problem that accounts for the country’s sky-high murder rate. The combination of mano dura (iron fist) policies and the U.S. administration’s approach to migration could worsen El Salvador’s already critical security situation. What should be done? All political actors should honour the government’s holistic violence prevention strategies by fully implementing them and reframing anti-gang policies. Specific police and justice reforms, as well as a legal framework for rehabilitating former gang members, are crucial steps toward a future pacification process. Executive Summary El Salvador, a small country in the isthmus of Central America, is wracked by an implacable strain of gang warfare. Exceptionally intense and persistent violence pits rival street gangs against one another and in opposition to the police and state. Formerly hailed for its smooth transition to democracy and for turning the two foes of its 1980s civil war into political forces competing vigorously yet peaceably for power, El Salvador once again is famed for its bloodletting. Its recent murder rates rank among the highest in the world and its jails are among the most overcrowded. For the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, its main gang, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), personifies the menace of undocumented immigration. Although the Salvadoran state has developed a series of strategies for violence prevention, its mainly repressive efforts over the past fifteen years have checked the influence of these alternative approaches. It should now implement plans to prevent crime, rehabilitate gang members and spur development in marginalised communities. Most urgently, El Salvador will require protection from the turbulence that U.S. mass deportations could provoke. The permanence of violence owes as much to the success as to the failings of the peace accords. The two former wartime foes have jostled for democratic supremacy, repeatedly using security policy for electoral purposes by seeking to satisfy public demand for mano dura (iron fist) against the gangs. Although government has changed hands, security methods have not altered: mass detentions and incarceration, as well as militarisation of policing, have become standard procedure whether under the rule of right-wing elites or former guerrillas. U.S. authorities have recently offered support to this approach, pledging to “dismantle” the MS-13. In private, however, high-level officials from across the country’s political divide lament the harmful effects of this crackdown on over-stretched courts and front-line police. Blueprints geared to preventing the drift of young men from low-income neighbourhoods into gang life have been drafted: the government launched the most recent, the “Safe El Salvador” plan, as a holistic strategy to restore the state’s territorial control. But as violence soared after 2014 following the disintegration of a truce with the gangs, extreme measures of jail confinement and police raids have once again become the government’s predominant methods to choke the gangs. Allegations of police brutality and extrajudicial executions have multiplied. Recent surveys suggest that veteran members of these gangs wish to cease the violence. However, the economic dead-end of El Salvador’s urban outskirts – the country’s recent GDP growth rate of 1.9 per cent is among the lowest in Central America – continues to drive a supply of willing young recruits, and consolidate a rearguard of sympathisers dependent on income from the gangs’ extortion schemes and other rackets. The reality and stigma of gang violence combine to block off alternative ways of life for those born into these communities, cutting years of schooling for young people in areas of high gang presence and alienating potential employers. Instead of succumbing to the state’s offensive, gangs set up roadblocks in their neighbourhoods and impose their own law; their fight against security forces has claimed the lives of 45 police officers so far this year. The deadlock between a tarnished set of security policies and a gang phenomenon that thrives on the ostracism and contempt of mainstream Salvadoran society can only now be resolved by recasting the way the country treats its security dilemmas. Judicial and security institutions require careful reform to ensure resources are distributed to areas with the highest concentrations of violence, and used to boost intelligence-led policing that targets gang members committing the most serious crimes. Jail-based reinsertion schemes, and cooperation with diverse churches, NGOs and businesses that offer second chances to former gang members, must be strengthened to provide a legal framework for rehabilitation as well as material incentives for the gangs to eventually disband. Although the country’s main political parties and most of the public oppose any hint of negotiation with gangs, the reality in many poor areas is of constant daily encounters with these groups. Tolerance for these grassroots efforts, despite the existing legal restrictions on any contact with gangs, is essential to build the confidence that will be required for dialogue in the future. None of this will be easy, nor is it likely to be assisted by U.S. policy toward either gangs or Salvadoran immigrants. The potential cancellation of the rights to residency in the U.S. of 195,000 beneficiaries of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program threatens to overwhelm the Salvadoran state’s capacity to accommodate returnees, not unlike the experience of the late 1990s when mass deportations of gang members from the U.S. to El Salvador exported the criminal capital that led to the lightning rise of the MS-13 and its main rival, the 18th Street gang. El Salvador is simply unprepared, economically and institutionally, to receive such an influx, or to handle their 192,700 U.S. children, many of them at the perfect age for recruitment or victimisation by gangs. At a time when levels of violence remain extraordinarily high, with exhaustion toward an unwinnable conflict voiced on both sides, the arrival of thousands of migrants back to their crime-affected homeland would impose huge strains. To escape its perpetual violence, El Salvador needs support, not the recurrence of past mistakes. Recommendations To improve El Salvador’s public policies on security and prevent further regional spillover of gang violence and undocumented migration. To the government of El Salvador: Fully implement the five axes of “Plan Safe El Salvador”, and balance investment between law enforcement, institutional strengthening and violence prevention. Approve a legal framework for rehabilitation, with special emphasis on the reinsertion of former gang members into society in coordination with local NGOs and the church. Recognise the existence of forced displacement in El Salvador, adopt the Comprehensive Regional Framework for Protection and Solutions (MIRPS), and work in coordination with local NGOs to implement protection mechanisms for its victims. Allow visits from humanitarian organisations to high security jails. Institutionalise by executive order monthly meetings between the security cabinet and human rights groups to monitor alleged violations of human rights by security forces. Create stronger coordination protocols between the National Civil Police and the prosecutor’s office, and strengthen the former’s internal control unit to ensure those suspected of abuse or corruption are held accountable. To members of El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly: Promote multiparty efforts on security and support the government in the implementation of “Plan Safe El Salvador”. Revise the distribution of resources in the judiciary to ensure they are based on intensity of criminal activity rather than administrative criteria. Stabilise funding to the prosecutor’s office by giving it a fixed percentage of the annual state budget, and mandate the office with monitoring forced disappearances. To the government of the U.S.: Avoid massive deportations, and redesignate El Salvador for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Continue providing El Salvador with financial support to carry out violence-prevention initiatives, and place a greater emphasis on investigative policing and general skills training in the security forces. To El Salvador donor countries and institutions: Promote creation of an independent observatory to provide monthly information on crime victims, gang expansion and homicide figures. Finance a plan in coordination with the private sector to offer incoming youth deportees job skills and employment opportunities. Guatemala City/Brussels, 19 December 2017 I.Introduction In January 2017, El Salvador’s celebrated the 25th anniversary of the end of its civil war (1980-1992), which killed 70,000 people and displaced over a million. Sealing the end of the conflict, the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords enabled the former guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front(FMLN) to transform into a political party, and created a new civilian police force. Since then, El Salvador has remained among the most politically stable countries in Latin America, with two main parties that are heirs to the two sides of the internecine conflict – the left-wing FMLN and the conservative National Republican Alliance (ARENA) – peacefully alternating in power. However, the country’s post-war political and security institutions have proved singularly unable to respond to an evolving and expanding criminal landscape. The country has suffered at least 93,000 murders since 1993, over half of which can be attributed to gangs. These groups now have around 60,000 active members and an estimated social support base of 500,000 – 8 per cent of El Salvador’s 6.2 million population – making them the largest criminal organisations in Central America. Although gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the two factions of 18th Street gang have a worldwide presence, their violent behaviour in El Salvador constitutes a national security crisis. Gangs control an undefined number of informal settlements and urban outskirts all over the country, and finance themselves mostly through small-scale extortion. Since 2003, both FMLN and ARENA governments have anchored their anti-criminal policies in restoring full state control over territory with high gang presence, mass incarceration and joint police and military operations. The current fight against crime, unveiled in early 2015 by President Sánchez Cerén of the ruling FMLN party, is the latest in a long line of law enforcement campaigns, although this initiative places more emphasis than predecessors on violence prevention in selected municipalities. Yet past and present anti-gang policies have achieved little in terms of stemming violent crime, and in some cases have even contributed to gang recruitment, financial prowess and firepower. Between 2013 and 2015 El Salvador experienced its steepest escalation in violence since 1994, with 11,934 homicides in 2015 and 2016 combined, a 53 per cent increase in comparison to the 2013-2014 period. Far from abating, El Salvador’s extreme insecurity could well intensify in 2018 as a number of threats loom over the country and the Central American region as a whole. These include the potentially devastating shock of new U.S. migration policies, economic and financial strains, and the possibly disruptive interference by gangs in forthcoming local elections. This report, Crisis Group’s first ever publication on El Salvador, assesses the origins of the country’s violence, as well as the characteristics of and motives behind past and present security strategies. Combining original quantitative analysis based on official violence and migration statistics from El Salvador and the U.S., as well as extensive fieldwork across the country, the report identifies the principal causes behind security policy failures and highlights opportunities for a more comprehensive and sustainable approach to crime reduction. Crisis Group conducted over 70 interviews with top-level government officials, grassroots NGOs, academics, humanitarian workers, diplomats, security experts, and victims living in gang-controlled areas. All fieldwork was carried out in the country’s most violent areas, such as the capital San Salvador and the smaller municipalities of San Miguel and Santa Ana. II.State and Crime in El Salvador Two strong political parties with deep social roots, a judicial system marked by an unequal distribution of resources, and a police force increasingly backed by military clout stand out among the main features of El Salvador’s public security institutions. The MS-13 gang and the two factions of the 18th Street gang are the largest criminal groups operating in the country; their ability to inflict high levels of violence and intimidation is directly related to an increase in the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees and asylum seekers in the region. A.Security Policies and El Salvador’s Two-party System El Salvador has a robust two-party system dominated by the FMLN and ARENA. The country’s fourteen departments and 262 municipalities depend largely on the central government – controlled by the FMLN since 2009 – for the design and implementation of security policies. Most security powers fall under the remit of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, which runs the police and the prison system. The country’s parliament, the Legislative Assembly – dominated since 2012 by ARENA – has 84 deputies from five parties, and a specific committee overseeing security matters. Local governments have gained a greater say in recent years over the implementation of violence prevention initiatives, but their main role continues to be that of sustaining the parties’ social support base in a context of constant electoral campaigning. The FMLN and ARENA both draw on strong public roots and feature hierarchical structures and leadership cohorts that have remained largely intact for the last 25 years. The FMLN has around 30,000 rank-and-file militants, most of them from urban areas; ARENA has more active affiliates, 50,000, with a support base primarily located in rural municipalities. The two parties represent opposite social and ideological poles. Whereas the FMLN still deploys revolutionary rhetoric and aligns itself with other left-wing political movements in the hemisphere, ARENA was founded as an anti-communist party and is backed by the country’s economic and business elites. In both parties, decision-making is concentrated in a select circle of high-level figures, most of whom have been in charge since 1992. Despite stark ideological differences, the main parties’ approaches to security are surprisingly similar. From 1999 to 2009, ARENA based its anti-criminal strategy on swift judicial processes, more arrests and mass incarceration. The FMLN continued this punitive approach – especially since its second mandate started in 2014 – with even harsher confinement conditions for jailed gang members and an enhanced role for the military in public security. Since losing executive power, ARENA has expressed only modest opposition to decisions taken by the Security Cabinet, the highest authority on these issues. Its most prominent members are the Vice President and presidential appointee for security Óscar Ortiz; the Minister of Justice and Public Security Mauricio Rodríguez Landaverde; and the Director of the Police Howard Cotto. However, decision-making on security and other national priorities has been handicapped in recent years by a divided Assembly controlled by ARENA, which has forced the FMLN to compromise and seek support from smaller groups. New parties such as the right-wing Great Alliance for National Unity (GANA) have benefited from this parliamentary blockage, with its leader Guillermo Gallegos elected president of the Legislative Assembly in 2015. Only a handful of cross-party agreements have been reached, while more than 25 negotiation attempts in key policy areas have collapsed. The most recent was a six-month UN-backed mission launched in January 2017 to mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the war, which failed to establish common ground between the main parties. The chief of mission, Mexican diplomat Benito Andión, finished the mandate in July 2017 concluding that “conditions [for consensus] were not met” in the current political climate. The arrival of young leaders on the national political scene, and a sharp drop in popular support for both the FMLN and ARENA, could be the harbinger of a shift away from traditional two-party rule. “Around 40 to 50 per cent of the Salvadoran population have not made up their minds as to which party to vote for”, affirms a San Salvador-based political analyst.The most well-known representatives of this younger political generation are San Salvador Mayor Nayib Bukele – who was expelled from the FMLN in October 2017 after a series of internal party squabbles – and Johnny Wright Sol, an ARENA lawmaker who opted not to stand for re-election in 2018 due to disagreements with the party’s leadership. Both have announced they will stand as independent candidates in the 2019 presidential elections, when the strength of the main parties will be tested. B.The Judicial System, Security Forces and Jails The institutions in charge of investigating and trying crimes in El Salvador are the prosecutor’s office, the police and the judiciary. The prosecutor’s office (in Spanish Fiscalía General de la República) is part of the larger public ministry, while the judiciary is headed by the Supreme Court and its different chambers. Both are independent public powers; in contrast, the National Civil Police is run by the executive branch’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security. Saturation of courts and a chronic paucity of forensic evidence are common challenges for most Latin American judicial institutions, but in El Salvador extreme criminal violence and new norms of legal prosecution based on mass detentions have gravely undermined the country’s courts. Since the distribution of judicial personnel is purely based on the country’s administrative divisions, magistrates working in more violent areas process up to ten times more cases than colleagues in quieter municipalities: “[our work] looks like a maquila [a factory that assembles goods]”, explained a judge from San Salvador. Poor relations with the police undermine the prosecutor’s office, spurring Attorney General Douglas Meléndez to demand that he be given his own investigative force: “we work with borrowed hands and teeth”, said Meléndez in a July 2017 conference. Meanwhile, the Salvadoran police have come under increasing pressure as it seeks to deal with demands to combat violent crime and armed attacks from gangs. The National Civil Police has 28,000 officers, around 90 per cent of whom come from humble social backgrounds, and the average salary is $424 per month. This forces many to live in gang-controlled areas, usually neighbourhoods with lower rents, putting them and their families at risk. Officers in the field describe feeling alone and emotionally exhausted during but also after work. “After work, when we become normal citizens, I feel vulnerable … I just had a colleague killed this week during his time off”, said one police officer on the El Salvador-Guatemala border. Criminal groups reportedly killed 45 officers from 1 January to 6 December 2017. Originally designed in the peace accord to have a community-oriented role, the rising gang presence has increasingly pushed the police force toward methods based on armed raids in gang-affected communities as well as direct confrontation and firefights. These rose from 256 in 2014 to 676 in 2015, leaving 83 officers and 359 alleged criminals dead. Human rights groups argue this increase conceals a wave of extrajudicial killings, and presented this data to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in September 2017. Government authorities acknowledged there may be some cases of excesses or misconduct but said they were “personal decisions [by officers], not a state policy”. However, several media outlets have published in-depth investigations of alleged massacres of suspected gang members, sexual abuse of minors and extortion.Although the police monitors alleged abuses, and senior security authorities meet monthly with human rights representatives to discuss relevant cases, NGOs have denounced lack of accountability for officers suspected of abuse. The burdens on the police have pushed the military towards deeper involvement in public security issues, converting its participation in anti-crime operations into a semi-permanent strategy. The Salvadoran army is the national institution with the highest public approval rating, and included around 24,800 active members in 2014. It understands its security role as a temporary measure limited to following police orders. However, senior officers consider military involvement to have become normal procedure given the transformation of the gang phenomenon: “we operate in a grey area … the criminal problem in this country has turned from a public security to a national security issue”. Corruption is prevalent in Salvadoran judicial and security institutions, though this is also common in many Latin American countries. A total of 31 per cent of Salvadorans report having paid a bribe to access basic public services over the past year according a 2017 Transparency International study, below other countries in the region such as Mexico (51) or Panama (38). The lack of effective internal control mechanisms harms these bodies’ reputation. Accountability in most cases relies on the individual probity and political will of high-level officials, who themselves are chosen by a majority vote of the Legislative Assembly. The case of former Attorney General Luis Martínez, detained by his successor Douglas Meléndez, illustrates alleged abuses of state power. Martínez was incarcerated in August 2016 on charges of conspiracy, litigation fraud and withholding evidence during his mandate, although he denies the accusations and so far has not been convicted of any crime. At the end of the country’s penal process stands a prison system that is among the world’s most overcrowded. Fourteen prisons house approximately 39,000 inmates, of whom 26,000 have been sentenced and 13,000 are remanded in custody. This includes prisoners in police detention stations, some of them converted into longer-term facilities due to lack of space. Roughly 6oo officers and prison guards watch over the jail population, far below the ideal ratio of public officials to prisoners.Some jails have been placed under a state of emergency since early 2016, when the government imposed harsh new confinement conditions on gang members. El Salvador’s Human Rights Prosecutor and several NGOs have denounced “systematic human rights violations” in jails under the new measures. One prison officer described the sixth sector of Zacatecoluca prison, where the national leaders of the largest gangs are held, as follows: “[from that place] you either leave dead or demented … it scared the hell out of me”. C.Gang Violence and Homicide Rates Gang violence is a regional phenomenon rooted in the countries of Central America’s Northern Triangle, but which now has international reach. The largest, most violent groups are the MS-13 and the two factions of 18th Street gang (in Spanish Barrio 18), 18-Southerners and 18-Revolutionaries. The origin of these groups, and the long history of rivalry among them, can be traced back to emigrant Central American communities in 1980s California. After mass deportations from the U.S. in the late 1990s, Salvadoran gangs adopted U.S. gang culture and identity, and pioneered the expansion of MS-13 and the 18th Street gang in the early 2000s.These gangs have a worldwide presence of around 140,000 members, of whom 40,000 live in the U.S. and 100,000 are based in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and Italy. Figure 1: Homicide rates in municipalities with low and high gang presence and yearly criminal deportations from the U.S. National Civilian Police and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 1.The exceptional problem of gang violence in El Salvador In light of El Salvador’s size and population, the extent of gangs’ territorial presence, as well as its armed power, has no equal anywhere in the world. The country has the largest number of active gang-members in the region, an estimated 60,000, which exceeds the approximately 52,000 Salvadoran police and military officers. The gang social support base rises to 500,000 people – almost 8 per cent of total population – including sympathisers and former members, or calmados (gang lexicon for those who have desisted from gang activities). The typical profile of a gang member in El Salvador is a young male around 25 years old, born to a low-income, often broken family, who joined the gang at the age of fifteen. According to a March 2017 survey of over 1,000 jailed gang affiliates, most members came from marginalised neighbourhoods, and 70 per cent lived on less than $250 a month. The same study suggested that some 94 per cent do not have a secondary education; over 80 per cent have never held formal employment; and more than half come from families that had suffered a break-up. The relationship between criminal activity and territorial presence is perhaps the most unique feature of the country’s gang phenomenon. Gang revenues are drawn from extortion rackets and, to a lesser extent, drug-trafficking and sales. Gangs such the MS-13 gain up to $31.2 million per year from extorting 70 per cent of all the businesses in the territories where they are present, estimated at 247 out of the country’s 262 municipalities. Most of their victims are small- and medium-sized business-owners, informal tradespeople and transport workers. Unlike their peers in Honduras, Salvadoran gangs do not have direct business control over parts of the drug trade, but have sub-contractual relationship with narco-traffickers, who employ them sporadically as muscle in some operations. The response from the Salvadoran state to the gang threat has triggered major transformations inside these organisations. After 4,000 gang members were jailed between 2004 and 2008 – and segregated by rival groups to avoid violent clashes – gang leaders began to centralise operations and behave more like traditional criminal bosses. According to Jeannette Aguilar, a Salvadoran academic: “the rise of the jail population [after the first] anti-gang plans … enabled [these groups] to find in jails a suitable niche for their formalisation and institutionalisation, making jails their new spaces for territorial control”. El Salvador’s security policies in the 2000s, based on mass incarceration of suspected gang members, also helped gangs diversify their criminal activities – including extortion – by improving communication channels, and discouraging tattoos so as to avoid police identification. A failed attempt at state-led indirect dialogue with gang leaders between 2012 and 2013 spurred the most recent transformation of Salvadoran gangs. The collapse of the truce led to “anarchy” inside gangs’ neighbourhood cells, or clicas, as leaders were isolated in maximum security prisons after the implementation of “extraordinary measures” in mid-2016. According to various sources, gangs have intensified violence against public officials and expanded their presence into rural areas.Media investigations and testimony gathered by the prosecutor’s office suggest that, in the run-up to the 2014 presidential elections, ARENA and FMLN party bosses allegedly paid gangs $350,000 in exchange for votes in territories under their control. If true, the alleged deal – denied by both political parties – would point to gangs’ extraordinary power to influence electoral processes and threaten candidates. Some local authorities fear ties between gangs and parties could also impinge on voting in upcoming polls. Many officials confirm in private that communication with gangs is inevitable: “Let’s be honest: every single party in this country talks to gangs, how they would not, since they have to organise rallies in their territories?”, said a veteran government official. Although nowadays gangs appear more dangerous than ever, there are signs that a significant number of members would be willing to lay down arms. In January 2017, gangs released a joint communiqué a week before the 25th anniversary of the 1992 peace accords asking the government for a new dialogue process, and offering to disband.According to the previously mentioned survey, nearly 70 per cent of jailed gang members have intentions of leaving the group. The authors said respondents commonly gave personal reasons, such as becoming parents, surviving an attack or the effect of a friend’s or relative’s murder. 2.Beyond homicide rates With a murder rate of 103 per 100,000 people, El Salvador became in 2015 the country with the highest murder rate in the world. This rise in homicides includes an increase in mass killings and femicides.According to a 2013 study by Fundaungo, a local think-tank, over half those killed between 2009 and 2012 were fifteen-34 years old; approximately 80 per cent of the victims were male; 70 per cent of the killings were carried out by firearms; and nearly 40 per cent took place in public spaces. How many of these murders can be attributed to gang violence is in dispute. But by 2012, the predominant role of gang violence in the overall number of homicides had become much clearer. During the first months of negotiation with the gangs, killings fell by 40 per cent. This sudden drop suggested that by 2012 gang leaders had sufficient power over local branches to reduce killings sharply nationwide. Disappearances have also become a grave concern, even though no public institution in El Salvador systematically tracks these cases: between 2010 and 2016, the prosecutor’s office received 23,000 reports of disappearances, and the police 11,252. D.Criminal Violence and Migration Central America is afflicted by a humanitarian crisis that has spread to the U.S. and Mexico. The number of refugees and asylum-seekers from the three countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) has seen nearly a tenfold increase since 2011 according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). In 2016, UNHCR estimated that there were 164,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador combined, as well as 450,000 irregular crossings from these countries to Mexico. Since 2015, Mexico and Costa Rica have experienced a steep increase in asylum requests from Northern Triangle migrants. While migration in Central America has historically been tied to the search for economic opportunity, the recent spike in undocumented migration owes much to the flight from criminal violence. According to a May 2017 survey by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), nearly 40 per cent of asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle in Mexico mentioned direct attacks from criminal groups as a reason for fleeing. The scope of the humanitarian emergency in El Salvador is hard to measure given the lack of official data on the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) – itself a reflection of the government’s refusal to recognise this phenomenon even though the Supreme Court of Justice and the human rights prosecutor have officially acknowledged it. While many factors explain this refusal, the high domestic political cost ranks as the most relevant. Human rights groups insist that the state’s attitude means victims may go unattended, while NGOs are obliged to set up ad hoc protection mechanisms. Some government officials also regret the lack of official recognition of this issue, but at the same time claim ongoing police efforts to protect victims is not appreciated either. III.Deportation and Gangs: The Spillover of Insecurity U.S. migration policies in the 1990s exacted a heavy toll on El Salvador. Between 1998 and 2014, U.S. authorities deported almost 300,000 immigrants with criminal records to Central America. In El Salvador specifically, deportations between 1996 and 2002 led to the return of thousands of Salvadoran gang members who had fled their homeland during the war. Although U.S. policies sought to curb criminal activity by breaking up Los Angeles gangs, the long-term effect was an increase in violence across Central America and particularly El Salvador. When U.S. deportation figures and homicide data from El Salvador police are compared, the rise in killings that followed mass criminal deportations stands out, especially in areas with higher gang presence. This strong correlation between U.S. deportations and homicide rates in the receiving country suggests some sort of causal link between the two (see figure 2 for the trend lines in murder rates and criminal deportations). Figure 2: Homicide rates in municipalities with low and high gang presence and yearly criminal deportations from the U.S. National Civilian Police and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Salvadoran authorities now fear a fresh wave of mass deportations. Initial action and rhetoric indicates that U.S. President Trump’s administration does not regard Central American migration so much as a flight from insecurity but rather as a conduit for greater violence in the U.S. Migration control and tough measures against gangs, above all the MS-13, have become matters of paramount importance. Indeed, Salvadoran gangs have received unprecedented attention from top-level U.S. officials, including a visit by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to El Salvador in late July.Tellingly, in the first months of Trump’s mandate, undocumented migrant detentions increased 38 per cent while the administration began winding down protection schemes for minors such as the Central American Minors (CAM) and the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA). The most critical decision for El Salvador is now the prospective termination in March 2018 of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 195,000 of its nationals living in the U.S., none of whom can be considered criminals since they have registered and reported regularly to U.S. authorities for more than fifteen years, and have not been found to have violated national laws. More than 80 per cent are employed. Yet according to the U.S. State Department, Central Americans “no longer need to be shielded from deportation”. The renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and El Salvador’s close ties to Venezuela have complicated the country’s search for regional allies as it faces a hostile U.S. administration. Along with its Northern Triangle neighbours, El Salvador has become a Mexican bargaining chip in the NAFTA talks, as Mexico seeks to gain Washington’s sympathy and support by stressing its role as a buffer state able to both control undocumented migration along its southern border and foster economic development in Central America. The FMLN’s relations with Venezuela’s ruling party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), also have lumped El Salvador together with the small number of Latin American countries still supportive of Caracas. IV.The Evolution of Security Policies Law enforcement campaigns based on mass captures and joint operations by police and the armed forces are common denominators of anti-gang policies over the last fifteen years. However, the gangs’ rapid evolution has outpaced the rigid policy approaches developed in response. A.Mano Dura Between 1992 and 1999, the ARENA governments of Alfredo Cristiani and Armando Calderón Sol sought to consolidate the peace accords. With UN support, they undertook landmark security reforms, such as creation of a new civilian police force, separation of the intelligence service from the military, establishment of a human rights prosecutor and major changes to the armed forces’ mandate and size. These swift transformations, along with a sudden peak in post-war violence, hindered the state’s response to record criminal violence in the early 1990s, with 131 killings per 100,000 habitants in 1994. After a steady fall in homicides in the ensuing years, U.S. deportations appear to have contributed to rapid gang expansion in the late 1990s. President Francisco Flores (1999-2004), also from ARENA, launched the first anti-gang plans in El Salvador in 2003, through the “Iron Fist Plan” (Plan Mano Dura) and Anti-gang Bill. Both plans were announced eight months before the 2004 presidential election, suggesting to many observers that they were in essence electorally-driven strategies. The “Iron Fist Plan” was launched in October 2003, and included joint operations by the police and the military known as “anti-gang task forces”. The Anti-gang Bill, approved in December 2003, provided a temporary legal framework for the plan, criminalising gang membership and allowing detention of underage suspects. ARENA again won the elections in 2004, and President Antonio Saca (2004-2009) launched the “Super Iron Fist Plan” (Plan Súper Mano Dura), continuing his predecessor’s approach while incorporating prevention and rehabilitation plans. His two initiatives – “Helping Hand” (Mano Amiga) and “Extended Hand” (Mano Extendida) – identified priority communities and targeted at-risk youth and jailed gang members with special programs. However, lack of investment, delays in implementation and the low number of participants minimised their impact. A continuous rise in violence led President Saca to relaunch his anti-gang efforts with a focus on strengthening police presence in violent hotspots and dismantling extortion rackets, an important source of gang income by that time. But the large number of captures – 30,934 in two years – did not result in more convictions. Around 84 per cent of those detained were released by Salvadoran judges due to flimsy evidence of gang affiliation, as well as legal inconsistences between the recently created anti-gang laws and existing legislation on minors. B.The Truce Former TV anchor and FMLN standard-bearer Mauricio Funes won the presidential election in 2009 and kick-started parallel prevention and repressive anti-crime campaigns. Funes’ government launched the first national violence prevention strategies between 2010 and 2013, which aimed to reduce the effects of criminal activity through actions targeted at the general public, people at risk and convicts. The strategies nevertheless proved to be little more than declarations of good intentions. The Funes administration simultaneously intensified joint police and military operations and approved the Gang Proscription Law in September 2010. With the number of killings again reaching historic highs – 4,354 people were murdered in 2011 – Funes and his security cabinet changed tack, initiating an indirect dialogue with gang leaders to reduce killings in exchange for better conditions in jails. The process, known as the “gang truce”, was in essence a ceasefire agreement between the largest gangs starting in March 2012 after the government transferred some of their leaders from maximum security prisons to less restrictive facilities. General Munguía Payés, who was then minister of justice and public security and one of the strongest supporters of the process, appointed Fabio Colindres, head of the military bishopric, and former FMLN combatant Raúl Mijango as mediators, leading to frequent meetings with gang members and a drastic decrease in homicide rates. However, lack of broad public and political support contributed to the end of the de facto truce. The FMLN and ARENA distanced themselves from negotiations, and were sceptical as to their impact on homicides, as were a majority of Salvadorans. Not even President Funes publicly admitted that the truce was official state policy. The truce started to collapse in 2013 after the Supreme Court declared that it was unconstitutional for a military officer to be in charge of the civilian police force, and Munguia Payés returned to his former post as defence minister. His successor, Ricardo Perdomo, declared in his first week in office that the government was not engaged in dialogue with the gangs. By the end of this process, in the second half of 2013, killings skyrocketed again, while gang extortion and recruitment, which had remained stable during the truce, increased afterwards. C.New Measures Sánchez Cerén, also from the FMLN, narrowly won the presidency in 2014 and the onset of his tenure was marked by deteriorating security. In early 2015, his administration launched joint military and police rapid-reaction forces and approved so-called “extraordinary measures” in March 2016. The government has also sought to target gang finances under the aegis of “Operation Jaque” in July 2017 and “Operación Tecana” in September 2017. Although the focus of Sánchez Cerén’s security policies has been law enforcement, violence prevention initiatives also made some headway under the “Safe El Salvador” plan. Implementation came in various phases, starting in municipalities affected by higher levels of violence. Costing around $200 million per year, the plan is financed by international cooperation funds and an earmarked tax approved in November 2015. Of the $93 million collected in 2017 from these special taxes, around 70 per cent went to financing the police and the armed forces. The merits of the new strategy have been disputed, as have its alleged accompanying human rights violations in the last two years. Total homicides fell by 20 per cent from 2015 to 2016, and government officials had estimated another 27 per cent drop by the end of 2017. However, this foreseen reduction has not been sustained, nor has the general public noted a significant fall in violence. The second half of 2017 witnessed an uptick in violence, including 887 murders between September and October 2017. In a stunning admission, a senior government official said that authorities were “fighting a war that cannot be won”. V.Critical Flaws in Security Policies For the past fifteen years, El Salvador’s security policies have struggled to contain the gang problem, which puts enormous pressure on the country’s institutions. Lack of adequate investment or qualified personnel has undermined prevention initiatives, putting the onus on more aggressive forms of policing. Residents in gang-controlled areas – especially women and children – pay the highest price as a result of the current escalation of violence. A.Public Policies and Institutional Weakness The National Civil Police, which spearheads implementation of anti-gang policies, has been profoundly affected both by the tide of gang violence and by the policies chosen to respond to it. Officers argue that the police has become the favoured institution to lead the fight against crime, but that it cannot fulfil its role without support from other government institutions. The state response to the rise of targeted killings and armed confrontations with gangs in recent years has focused on small increases in wages, while much-needed support to families of deceased officers and permanent protection mechanisms have been absent, mostly due to financial constraints rather than a lack of political will.Allegations of abuse by the police have also received limited attention. Although the police has a relatively efficient internal control unit, it lacks the personnel required to process the growing number of allegations against officers. In the context of generic institutional weakness, the armed forces, which continue to count on broad public support, remain the favoured option to combat gang violence. However, military support to police efforts has expanded without a legal framework determining the military’s specific role in public security. According to the Salvadoran constitution, its role is strictly circumscribed to foreign threats, reflecting the de-militarisation of public security that was one of the pillars of the peace accords. The use of executive decrees over the last decade to normalise its role has put this institution into a legal limbo. Judicial efforts to prosecute suspected criminals are constrained by the lack of a solid body of legislation to combat gang violence and of forensic evidence to try culprits. The Anti-gang Bill (2003) and its 2004 successor included a broad range of features that could be used to determine membership in an “illicit association”. In the following years, prosecutors and police applied the law by rounding up 30,934 suspected gang members, but the courts only sent to prison around 15 per cent of those captured. Recent legislation has not changed this trend: according to one judge on the criminal circuit, evidence presented in court is still often highly circumstantial. B.Violence Prevention and Its Limits As illustrated by data on El Salvador’s public spending on security, comparatively little is invested in prevention. From 2008 to 2014, the annual budget for justice and security rose by $120.2 million annually, to reach $775 million a year, equivalent to about 3 per cent of annual GDP in 2014. Some 44 per cent of the 2011 security budget was invested in the police and justice ministry, 31 per cent in the judiciary, and only 1 per cent on prevention. The current allocation of funds is similar: though the government has committed to investing over two-thirds of the special security taxes on prevention, in reality it allocates less than 40 per cent. Whereas all recent governments have admitted the need for a holistic approach to combating gang violence and its root causes, preventive strategies have tended to feature more on paper than in practice. El Salvador’s highly competitive two-party system steers policymakers toward measures that are politically and electorally appealing rather than those that address the multiple causes behind the gang phenomenon. Public fatigue, chronic violence and demands for punishment favour such coercive approaches. An FMLN security adviser identified the lack of political will and public outrage as the main difficulties in promoting alternative security measures: “people fall in love with repression”. Security officials maintain that prevention plans “are the most important” aspects of anti-crime policy but fear they do not produce quick, tangible results. They also are concerned that these results cannot easily translate into either electoral support or attract sustainable funding. In this respect, the challenges faced by the Salvadoran government are not unique and affect other Latin American countries confronting high levels of violent crime. Authorities tend to avoid the political risks and uncertainties of combating criminality and its root causes by handing the security forces discretionary power to tackle the problem. In the context of chronic insecurity, crime experts likewise question whether violence prevention initiatives can have a notable impact. The head of a NGO said, “the [social] disintegration [in El Salvador] is such that [prevention] programs are not sufficient … [decision-makers] look away when you explain to them that this repression-prevention duality does not work”. Both ARENA and FMLN members referred to the ways ongoing repressive measures undermine alternative policies, with some arguing that “in this context, it [prevention] doesn’t work”. Lukewarm support for prevention initiatives and resort to traditional coercive policing methods also explain the limited impact until now of the “Safe El Salvador” plan. Although it is true that prioritised municipalities have seen a reduction in homicides of up to 60 per cent, statistically murder rates in the plan’s target municipalities have remained quite similar to those in other locations since December 2015, when the plan was first launched. This is illustrated in figure 3 below, which shows similar patterns both in prioritised municipalities under the “Safe El Salvador” plan and non-prioritised municipalities. Figure 3: Homicides rates in municipalities prioritised by Plan Safe El Salvador versus homicide rates in non-prioritised municipalities. National Civilian Police and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. C.Lack of Employment Opportunities and Increasing Poverty El Salvador’s sluggish economic performance and worsening fiscal conditions have impeded job creation for young men hailing from marginalised areas. According to the IMF, the country’s growth – on average 1.9 per cent between 2010 and 2016 – was one of the slowest in the Central American region, a reality it attributed to “crime, outward migration, consumption bias, and low savings”. The current budget deficit stands at around 3 per cent of GDP, and public debt is expected to reach 61 per cent of GDP by the end of 2017. Some 25 per cent of Salvadorans aged fifteen-24 are neither working nor studying. Although unemployed youth are more vulnerable to gang recruitment,there are few public policies aimed at promoting training and generating employment for young people. According to the 2017 Florida International University study, only 36 per cent of gang members interviewed have ever received professional training. Of those that did, nearly 70 per cent were trained in manual work. Gang members’ aspirations, however, are considerably higher, with over 40 per cent wishing to join a profession or become an entrepreneur. El Salvador also suffers persistently high poverty rates that increased between 2014 and 2015, mostly in urban areas. This has made implementation of prevention programs even harder, since officials tend to find that demands expressed by residents in marginalised communities are geared more to basic needs or food than improved public spaces or enhanced community facilities. “I arrived in a prioritised community where I went to give a talk on peacebuilding, and I realised how far from reality we were when people told me they didn’t even have drinking water”, explained an official from San Miguel municipality in charge of implementing “Safe El Salvador”. D.El Salvador’s Social Fabric: The Unaddressed Root Causes The most important flaw in security policies is their failure to address living conditions in gang-controlled communities. Social anomie, the victimisation of youth and women, and a climate of constant fear and suspicion help explain both the resilience of gangs and how well-intentioned policies fail to affect realities on the ground. 1.Gang control and community bonds There is a consensus among the highest security authorities in El Salvador on the need to reestablish state territorial control as the prelude to improving security. In some areas, gangs have accumulated so much power that they have become de facto custodians of these localities, setting up road-blocks, supervising everyday life and imposing their own law.“Gangs did not steal the territory from the state, they simply occupied it when it was empty [after the armed conflict]”, explained one NGO worker. At the same time, vigilante activity has become a common threat, especially in areas with major gang presence. These patrols are formed by civilians, some of them war veterans, who seek to stop the entrance of gang members in their territory. No public policy of the past fifteen years has sought to restrict these groups, or reduce their potential harm. Vigilantism has even been promoted by lawmakers such as the President of the Legislative Assembly Guillermo Gallegos, who has admitted financing some of these groups. Gruesome pictures of slain alleged criminals appear regularly in social media accounts attributed to these groups, whose followers “celebrate the elimination of gang members”. Figure 4: Guerrilla presence in 1982 and average homicide rates 2003-2016.El Salvador National Civil Police; historical map from Cornell University PJ Mode “Collection of Persuasive Cartography” indicating the areas of control by FMLN guerrilla in 1982. In general, areas with strong social and community bonds have seen far less gang expansion. While there are no empirical studies decisively proving the link, the map in figure 4 suggests a significant correlation. Taking the strength of the insurgency during the civil war as a proxy for social cohesion (since guerrillas depended on strong communal ties and collective mobilisation), the map shows that in 2015 districts where the insurgency had been strong had relatively few homicides in comparison with districts where the insurgency was weak. Previous studies have pointed to how a lack of community ties underpinned the expansion of gang control in parts of Central America, and how the presence of these groups proceeded to further undermine social cohesion. Whereas organised communities have been able to limit the impact of gang violence in their municipalities, a 2007 survey from across the Northern Triangle found that 88 per cent of Salvadorans interviewed in gang-affected areas reported that they did not collaborate with their neighbours in dealing with crime problems in their community. The survey showed that interviewees in El Salvador and other regional countries instead had opted to change their daily habits, such as avoiding walking alone after sunset or buying a gun. Some individuals who lived in gang-controlled areas also mentioned the limits on free movement imposed by these groups as a crucial factor behind the deterioration of community life. 2.The victims: women, children and teenagers Young people are prime victims of the country’s insecurity, targeted by state law enforcement on one side and gangs on the other. The first “iron fist” plans in 2003-2004 targeted youth suspected of criminal activity, despite warnings from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that these new rules were too harsh on minors. Lack of investment in education coupled with criminal activity in and around schools allows gangs to use them as recruitment platforms. Tellingly spending on education in El Salvador is the lowest in Central America, representing only 4.4 per cent of GDP. Many schools are unsafe for students and teachers, both of whom are threatened by gang members and their children. A 2015 report from El Salvador’s Ministry of Education estimated that about 65 per cent of schools are affected by gangs; in these schools, almost 30 per cent of staff have reported threats. The effect of gang recruitment and presence on education can be illustrated by comparing years of schooling in areas with a high gang presence to those with a low gang presence. Figure 5 shows that individuals who started school in 1990 and lived in what are now high-gang presence areas had significantly more years of schooling than their peers in areas that now boast a low gang presence, largely because education is weaker in rural areas, which tend to have fewer gangs. The schooling gap was reduced by nearly half over the next six years, mainly because of improvements in rural education. But much more strikingly, the gap was erased completely over the next six years, between 1996 and 2002, not because of further improvements in rural education (indeed, years of schooling in rural locations declined slightly over that time) but rather because of the precipitous drop in schooling in high-gang areas. That drop can be explained by the mass deportation to El Salvador beginning in 1996, which had a highly detrimental effect on schooling. Figure 5: Average years of education in municipalities with low and high gang presence by the year school began.Household surveys from 2012 and 2013, El Salvador General Directorate of Statistics and Census (DIGESTYC). Women, meanwhile, are the forgotten victims of the country’s security policies. Specific action to tackle the victimisation of women as civilians or as gang members has been missing from security policies. The role of women in the design and implementation of security policies is also limited, with no female members in El Salvador’s security cabinet. The levels of violence against women make this absence from key decision-making circles all the more worrying. A total of 10,546 female minors were reported to have been raped between 2006 and 2014, amounting to one of the highest such rates in the hemisphere. Many more go unreported for fear of retaliation. 3.“We fear each other”: accounts from gang-controlled areas Testimony from people living in gang-controlled communities reveal high levels of distrust of public authorities, limited access to public spaces, and physical abuse against young people. Below are some of the most representative and disturbing concerns voiced by interviewees, all young people between fourteen and 25 years old from the suburbs of San Salvador. The statements underline the difficulties in devising and applying effective security policies in a context of widespread control by gangs coupled with public animosity toward them. VI.Opportunities Ahead Conversations with high-level authorities suggest they are fully conscious of the limits of the repressive approach and the impossible task of prosecuting 500,000 alleged members of the gangs’ support base. At the same time, the current government strategy aims at using all resources available to asphyxiate the gangs, including the militarisation of public spaces, to which the gangs have responded with greater violence.While there is little evidence to suggest that the government or opposition will soon offer distinct policies, actions such as adapting the current security strategy, promoting rehabilitation efforts and reinforcing security and justice institutions could contribute to reducing insecurity. A.“Safe El Salvador” and Territorial Recovery Avoiding past mistakes and maintaining political support for government initiatives at the local level are some of the main principles behind the “Safe El Salvador” plan. Although there are doubts as to the plan’s achievements on the first score, the local approach of the plan has become a powerful tool for the main parties to bolster their electoral bases in municipalities they control. Large sums of money have been poured into the prioritised locations and allowed mayors to offer visible changes to communities. Converting “Safe El Salvador” into an effective territorial recovery strategy will require more intensive efforts to support at-risk populations. Since young people are both the primary victims and perpetrators of gang violence, it is essential to ensure that schools remain safe havens. The changing dynamics of criminal violence in El Salvador also suggest the need for a differentiated security strategy for areas with high and low gang presence. The “Safe El Salvador” plan could be continued for the most affected municipalities, while areas with lower levels of violence could experiment with an alternative approach based on community policing, support for civil society and primary prevention aimed at limiting the appeal and power of gangs. In contrast, the current mass arrests and generic targeting of teenage suspects are detrimental to efforts to win local support and garner information. This was confirmed by a police officer in San Miguel, who acknowledged the importance of community support: “We can have thousands of agents, but if the community does not trust us, we cannot do anything”. Supporting this shift in policy will require fresh allocations of resources and a change in the partisan political habits. All political parties, and above all ARENA, should avoid blocking legislation on issues where there is in theory broad cross-party agreement. If ARENA’s priority is winning the 2019 presidential elections, it should consider that a continued deterioration in security conditions could undermine support for the two-party system as a whole. Although the government is clear that it has no intention to engage again in dialogue with gangs, in practice thousands of low-level officials and community leaders are compelled to negotiate daily with them. In private, political parties recognised de facto gangs’ territorial presence all over the country. It is uncertain whether the gangs’ offer to disband in January 2017 is still in place, but the government should keep the door open to grassroots non-violent approaches through support for the work of local churches and civil society, and avoid demonising those who are trying to reduce local violence. The chances of a fresh attempt at national dialogue with the gangs of the sort that failed between 2012 and 2013 would very much depend on the incoming administration in 2019. B.Improving Judicial and Police Institutions Legal reforms are urgently needed to relieve the judiciary of the pressures it faces. Possibilities include reducing sentences for minor offenses such as drug possession, or using trained community mediators to settle disputes outside of the courtroom, which has proven successful in Honduras. It is clear from interviews with judges and high-level magistrates that the distribution of judicial resources across the country is seriously imbalanced given the geographic clustering of criminal activity. The prosecutor’s office lacks the financial and human resources required to take on additional cases or swiftly process current ones. Ideally, it should receive more funding and revise its annual goals to ensure they are realistic. Alleged corruption scandals affecting the institution’s previous leadership also underline the need to reinforce transparent and open selection procedures for high-level officials. Lessons from police reforms in countries such as Guatemala and Honduras indicate that specific innovations can prove more effective than efforts to reform the entire security system. Better coordination between the police, the prosecutor’s office and the courts stands out as one crucial area. The implementation of Guatemala’s 2010 law against organised crime – allowing prosecutors working with investigative police to ask judges for permission to use wire taps – is an example of successful inter-agency coordination. The establishment of innovative systems of case management in the homicide investigations unit, which worked directly with prosecutors, has been fundamental to Guatemala’s success in reducing murder rates in certain areas. At the same time, the strengthening of the police internal affairs unit through additional personnel and resources could enhance the institution’s transparency at a time of increasing concern over alleged abuses of power. C.A State-led Rehabilitation Process The most significant government effort in rehabilitating convicted criminals is the “I’m Changing” (Yo Cambio) program, which seeks to spur inmates into training each other in specific skills that fellow prisoners can offer. Despite a lack of resources, authorities argue it has had beneficial effects in jails such as Apanteo, Ilopango or San Vicente. At the same time, a handful of Salvadoran churches and business leaders are carrying out independent rehabilitation programs. The private sector’s initiatives depend on the leadership of specific individuals, such as the well-known case of former gang members working for the sportswear company American League. Such programs help former gang members overcome the social stigma that can make it so hard for them to find a job or carry on a normal life. More rehabilitation opportunities should be provided. The Legislative Assembly could debate and approve a bill initially presented to the Legislative Assembly Security Committee in early 2017 that has been stuck in Congress since then. This could be amended to incorporate lessons from the “I’m Changing” program and other rehabilitation initiatives provided by churches, NGOs and the private sector, and thus help the government develop one of the more neglected pillars of the “Safe El Salvador” plan. Specific measures should include financing tattoo removal, and developing a methodology for rehabilitation that protects participants from prosecution or offers reduced sentences. Rehabilitation measures could help prepare officials for an eventual handover of arms by some gang members, should this ever happen. As one government official explained: “if they [gangs] one day decide to surrender, we are screwed”. The construction of several new prisons is an important step toward reducing overcrowding, but should be accompanied by more and better trained prison personnel. Providing human rights training for guards is especially important. D.Coordinating Efforts to Protect El Salvador from U.S. Migration Policies El Salvador’s security crisis, as well as its past vulnerability to U.S. migration policies, fully justifies continuing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation that has allowed around 195,000 Salvadoran nationals to stay in the U.S. legally. While El Salvador was originally designated for this program after two earthquakes in 2001, the U.S. administration should also consider current circumstances, especially the humanitarian impact of criminal violence. The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end the program for Sudan, Nicaragua and Haiti suggests, however, that it will also choose to terminate TPS for El Salvador. The high levels of violence in El Salvador make the country especially dangerous for returning migrants, especially for the 192,700 children of Salvadorans with TPS, many of whom are U.S. citizens. To mitigate the impact of TPS termination, the U.S. government should confirm its decision on the issue as early as possible, and preferably provide a long extension before the cut-off date. This would help El Salvador prepare accordingly for the arrival of the first wave, and give its affected nationals some predictability as to their future. Coordination between San Salvador and different consulates in the U.S. will be key to offering potential returnees dignified employment opportunities in their home country. In the best-case scenario, this would allow the country to develop job placement schemes in coordination with the private sector. Spanish education for the children of returnees, many of whom will speak English as their first language, should also be funded by the U.S. Regardless of the TPS outcome, Salvadoran authorities should work with the main political parties to create and implement a policy for returnees. By the end of 2018, state institutions will need a plan to address the reception of returnees and the humanitarian risks faced by those wishing to migrate back to the U.S. Both the assembly and the incoming government – to be elected in early 2019 – should continue these efforts by intensifying locally-targeted policies to promote development and entrepreneurship in the municipalities that receive more returnees. This mid-term policy should have a strong educational focus, as the most vulnerable groups will be children between fourteen and eighteen years old who are easy prey for potential gang recruitment. The Salvadoran government also needs to acknowledge the reality of internal displacement – which affects all Northern Triangle countries – and start to work on a humanitarian response in coordination with international agencies. This should include the adoption of the Comprehensive Regional Framework for the Protection and Solution (MIRPS), signed on 26 October 2017 by Mexico and all Central American countries, except El Salvador. The priority should be to offer temporary shelter and support to victims who cannot go back to their communities, most of them vulnerable groups such as children and women. The government could work in coordination with NGOs already handling some cases, learn from their experience, and create a screening system based on information previously gathered by these organisations. VII.Conclusion El Salvador’s security crisis is a warning for Latin America and the world as to how the unexpected outcomes of a failed post-conflict transition can become more lethal than the war itself. A quarter of a century after the signing of its peace accords, El Salvador is often said to be suffering a “new war” between the state and gangs. However, this “war” is really a manifestation of social breakdown: the sides that are fighting one another are far from cohesive, gang violence has as yet no clear political objective, and the civilians most affected by insecurity, largely young people from low-income backgrounds, are both victims and perpetrators. For the past fifteen years, the gangs have learned to shield themselves from different state security policies by transforming their operations and internal organisation. The current sophistication of these groups, as well as the repeated failure to address their socio-economic roots – roots which are themselves deepened and perpetuated by ongoing violence – is a sign that many of these policies, even including those aiming at prevention rather than repression, will need to be reformed and enhanced if they are to halt El Salvador’s bloodshed. However, under the umbrella of the “Safe El Salvador” plan, the government now has the opportunity to launch concerted rehabilitation programs and take advantage of the seemingly high number of gang members willing to leave criminal life. Cross-party agreements will be crucial in designing mechanisms to strengthen the prosecutor’s office and the police, as well as for preparing integration mechanisms for mass deportations from the U.S. should Washington fail to redesignate the TPS program for resident Salvadorans. Minimising the risks of violence during the March 2018 local and legislative polls will likewise depend on the goodwill and cooperation of the two major parties. The fact that the FMLN and ARENA have been peacefully alternating in power for the last 25 years after an exceptionally brutal civil war is a sign that Salvadorans have the capacity to overcome hard times. The Salvadoran public and countries in the hemisphere will continue to voice outrage over the gangs’ criminal deeds. But this violence is the latest manifestation, and probably not the last, of the country’s long and painful history of social divides. Security policy that ignores these causes will do little to halt the carnage, and could well extend it for another generation. https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/central-america/el-salvador/64-el-salvadors-politics-perpetual-violence?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=13c05cfd1c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-13c05cfd1c-359909997 (c) 2017 International Crisis Group