OSCAR, a wiry 29-year-old (pictured) who lives in a slum in eastern San Salvador, has two types of tattoo. On his arms are the letters M and S, standing for Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13 in the lingo), the gang he has fought for since he was 12. On one hand is a smaller tattoo that says Milagro (“Miracle”). He reveals it furtively. It is the name of his six-year-old daughter.The gang’s letters, he says, represent los homeboys, who were there for him when he was a fatherless youngster after the end of the civil war in 1992, and then moulded him into the violent criminal he became. He has spent nine years in prison, sometimes with 170 other unwashed gangsters packed into the same room. Gang life is vicious, he says (“You laugh and cry at the same time”), but he insists he will never erase the tattoos, which commemorate those around him who have been killed.It is a different story when he talks about Milagro. He claims he will never allow her or her younger brother to hang around with the gangs, or to develop the tribal hatred that he has for Barrio 18, his blood rivals. Now he and a few local members of MS-13 say they are...
via The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1gQ6ZGT
No comments:
Post a Comment