The U.S. Government Accused a Salvadorian Human Rights Activist of Gang Activity – Now He’s In Jail
In the early morning hours of July 28, Salvadoran police
arrested 77 people in a nationwide raid of alleged members of a
multimillion-dollar financial network run by El Salvador’s Mara
Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13. Among those arrested was Dany Balmore
Romero García, a former member of MS-13 who for the past decade has
served as the director of the OPERA Youth Group, a violence-prevention
organization that works with former and current gang members.
At a hearing on August 1, the judge presented three formal charges
against Romero: being a leader of a terrorist organization, conspiring
to commit terrorist acts, and conspiring to commit homicide against
someone with the code name “Meme,” who will serve as a key witness in
the trial, according to a lawyer present for the proceedings. The judge
announced that the investigation to substantiate the charges will last
at least six months.
The raid that netted Romero, called “Operation Check,” was not
officially supported by the U.S. but bears a remarkable resemblance to
Operation Avalanche, a February raid in Honduras targeting MS-13
finances that was led by the U.S.-trained Technical Agency of Criminal
Investigation unit in conjunction with U.S. authorities, according to Honduran media.
Romero’s arrest appears to be part of the Salvadoran government’s
attempt to clear a path for its vicious zero-tolerance approach to gang
violence. In August 2015, the country’s Supreme Court declared
gangs “and their apologists” to be terrorist groups, a vague
description under which Romero is now accused. A pattern of torture and extrajudicial killings
of young people assumed to be gang members has emerged since January
2015, which the country’s human rights ombudsman, David Morales, calls
“extermination violence … for purposes of social cleansing.”
