EL SALVADOR

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EL SALVADOR Gang members are captured in a police raid. “But it’s very different now,” Pedro observed when I called him from Washington. In many sectors of the capital San Salvador, and even in parts of the countryside, “journalists can’t go in to do a story… because the gangs will capture him or kill him. They can disappear him. So nobody does that kind of work now. Nobody goes out to certain neighborhoods looking to do interviews with people,” he said. Pedro should know. Gang members recently robbed one of his cameras. Gang members beat up two of his colleagues. This violence, and the potential for violence, have reduced journalists’ ability to cover important events in their own country. “The only thing we do is, whenever there are cadavers out there, we go out and shoot photographs at the scene of the crime—but only when the police are there,” Pedro continued. “While security forces are there. While investigators are there. Once they finish their investigation and the authorities leave, we journalists leave as well because it’s impossible to stay there without being concerned that something can happen to you. There’s an almost 90 percent possibility that something will happen to you.” Pedro said the space in which journalists could work freely began to shrink in the late 1990s and by 2005 had vanished. And it is perhaps the survival tactics of self-censorship and limited exposure that have allowed journalists to stay alive while covering the bloodfest that is El Salvador today. But there are exceptions. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that three journalists have been killed in El Salvador since 1992. It lists the killings as “Motive Confirmed,” which means that the watchdog organization is “reasonably certain that a journalist was murdered in direct reprisal for his or her work.” Perhaps the most infamous of the killings was that of Christian Poveda, a Franco-Spanish photojournalist who made “La Vida Loca” (The Crazy Life), an internationally acclaimed documentary about the gangs. A colleague of mine with whom I worked in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the 1980s, Poveda gained the trust of, and access to, a notorious gang known as Mara 18 in a tough slum in San Salvador, the nation’s capital. In September 2009 Poveda was ambushed and shot four times in the head. Two years later a court convicted 10 gang members and a former policeman for the murder. (Two other journalists have been killed since 1992, but the CPJ lists their deaths as “Motive Unconfirmed,” which means “the motive is unclear, but it is possible that a journalist was killed because of his or her work.”) “WE’RE ALWAYS AFRAID” The killings have had a profound effect on Salvadoran society as a whole, but especially on the photojournalists who cover their society. “We journalists always try to be strong and a lot of us deny this has an impact on us but the truth is that, deep inside of ourselves, we’re always afraid, always fearful,” Pedro said. “There’s always something that keeps us up at night, or on edge, thinking about what can happen to us. There’s always anxiety surrounding our work. “The truth is that, with our families, we always try to cover it up, so the family doesn’t see that we are being affected, so the family doesn’t worry.” None of the photojournalists with whom I spoke believes that the violence tearing El Salvador apart will end soon. Pedro, for example, sees a “dark future” for his country’s next generation. “Today’s young boys grow up with the goal of becoming a gang member,” he told me. “And today’s young girls grow up with the idea of becoming the partner of a gang leader…. It’s as if they have a goal to belong to a gang and to rise up in a gang, in status. And the common people just watch. They can’t do anything but just try to stay alive but they realize they are increasingly surrounded by the gangs.” “THIS IS HISTORY. THIS IS MY VOCATION” Juan, the photojournalist stopped by gang members, explained his motivation to continue working—despite the danger. “The salary for journalists is not good,” but he wants to “document what’s happening in this country… like (your generation) had the opportunity to do” during the 1980s civil war. “This conflict is a bit more clandestine and underground. You work in the street and it makes you fearful but it’s your passion, making photos, informing, documenting. This is history. This is my vocation,” he said.” “I hope they don’t take away from us the right to inform … I would like that our right to inform remains intact.” I do too. Bill Gentile is Journalist In Residence at American University in Washington, DC, and runs The Backpack Journalist, LLC. He has worked as a photojournalist in El Salvador and Nicaragua since the 1970s. 68 ReVista SPRING 2016 PHOTO ABOVE BY ANONYMOUS SALVADORAN PHOTOGRAPHER; OPPOSITE PAGE: PHOTO BY LORNE MATALON
REMEMBERING ROMERO Lorne Matalon San Romero de América • Gene Palumbo “God Passed through El Salvador” • June Carolyn Erlick The Boy in the Photo REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 69
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FIRST TAKE A rose hangs on the wall
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PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS Caro
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Page 83 and 84: THE DIASPORA Sofía Jarrín-Thomas
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EL SALVADOR

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