Honestly is amazing. William is a Political Affairs reporter and has written for the New York TimesForeign Affairs and new republic publications of that sort and also in any nominated producer of a documentary series on showtime. It is called the trade and National Human trafficking. William is a graduate and the school of journalism. He lives in new york and is a frequent contributor, and welcome William Wheeler to our event tonight. Thank you for coming out very much. I want to give you a flavor of what we are talking about and we will open up to questions so be thinking of any probing of insightful questions you want to ask. This passage comes what i tried to do is look at cycles of foreignpolicy in the us that are behind the gangs that entrenched themselves across Central America and are a big part of the equation that is driving so many people to our southern borders. Try to understand the push factors behind our border crisis so i start reporting on the origins of ms 13, eighteenth street and i follow them in time to el salvador and this passage comes from one of the first salvadoran born gang members that find themselves swept up into ms 13, gives a sense of why these gangs found such fertile terrain in the countries of Central America. One of the first recruits, manual joined the gang in 1989 when he was 11 years old. The war was entering its tenth and bloodiest year. It was what he had grown up with. They were torching buses on the road, hiding under a bed while battle raged in the local cemetery and his mother to get her children out of el salvador. His family left in waves, but manual remained with his mother. The neighbor had its share of conflict including soldiers like ernest o who became a Founding Member of ms 13. Manual was introduced to be gained by his cousin. His parents sent him to el salvador to get away from trouble in los angeles. Striding through the neighborhood under the wing of a tall tattooed gang member felt strong, the other killed who bullied him looked at them differently. He found a few deported gang members, he told himself he didnt need to fear the gunfire anymore, now he could shoot back, he jumped in two friends, they talked about how this would be Something Big that would leave a mark. Years later, the monster he helped create, a cancer he spread but the time he wanted to be the bravest gangster, the most tattooed, the evilest criminal. All of it. You like the young footsoldier sanchez and other deported gang members were recruiting to their banner manual was part of a new generation that would surpass their predecessors in sophistication and brutality. Joining the gained was neither a way to make a living or phase i was born into, and a homeless kid in the neighborhood called little devil whose mother worked as a prostitute and he would go around barefoot in ragged clothes. They decided to recruit him but little devil replied he had nothing to lose, he was not alone anymore and they would love and protect him. An older boy beat him up in the park, gave a little devil a knife, turned to confront him. Manual and the others proclaim little devil was part of the young boy stabbed his attackers, food, protection, belonging in a poor and shellshocked company, this proved a powerful combination. A very powerful passage. They do not just politic, and the past actors i think it would be very good for us as an audience here to take a step back and talk about the history of the critical things in the current situation. Most americans probably know of el salvador from Donald Trumps rhetoric about it, it is a dire threat to the United States and exporting violence. As your book illustrates, history is nowhere near so neat of a story. I feel it is important to go back a little bit to 1979 when the salvadoran civil war exploded onto the scene. Tell us how that happened. What were people fighting about and what were the foreign interventions that started happening when the civil war started . Avoid yelling, making 1979, el salvador like a lot of latin america, Central America, driven by its inequality is, 14 landowning families and been in charge, held all the power and money and land in el salvador in the region was awash with civil insurgencies. 20 years earlier in cuba in the cuban revolution, in nicaragua, a similar leftist revolution and inspired a revolt from the countryside that caused the regime to fall. In 79, you have a rightwing who the in power and widely credited with sparking a civil war, the assassination of the catholic archbishop ambassador romero. In san salvador, an unknown assailant presumably from the right wing takes a rifle, walks in the entryway of the hospital and shoot him down, a quarter Million People turned out to the catholic priests funeral and he was a staunch critic of the rightwing government that was using torture and disappearances and widespread death squads, a regime that was characterized by terrorism and he was speaking out as a voice of social conscience to get people to stop obeying those orders. When ramirez killed a quarter Million People turned out of his funeral and turned into a massacre. Rightwing forces start shooting on mourners. People die in a televised address and very quickly, the outbreak of a civil war, leftists types, varying ideological types throughout the spectrum and the rightwing government. The initial hope was that would happen in nicaragua and cuba to ignite a popular revolt and bring the regime down. They were particularly trying to do this quickly because they knew Ronald Reagan was coming into office and knew that he would take sides. Initially was unable to bring down the regime, he did in fact double down and for a period of a couple years a battle was playing out on the countryside between these groups and the Government Forces as of 19821983 it looked like the gideons had the upper hand and probably going to win. They had a quarter of the territory of el salvador. The rightwing government was killing 1000 a month at this point. They were doing it with us trained troops and supplies and they were unable to wage sophisticated counterinsurgency. This meant they would go into remote villages and try to drain the sea to get the fish and a scorchedearth campaign, some us trained battalions were implicated in the massacre of 1000 people, the worst abuses known to man, the us doubled down, and the arab support. It that nature the conflict shifted into a war of attrition that dragged on. They had 80,000 people and 1 Million People displaced, half of them internationally, they fled to los angeles and settled a lot in the area of macarthur park. In the early 80s, gang ecology, latino gangs and salvadorans at the bottom of the pecking order in this area started to as they got swept up, first banding together, what we call ms 13 started in a group of stoner kids that smoked pot and listen to death music but as they started by surrounding gangs they came out looking like an american gang, that is the first misconception the trump rhetoric mrs. Misses, but it was imported from el salvador but it was a very american byproduct in los angeles. The war goes on until 92, it becomes easier to make the case that people who dont have a regular immigration system run afoul of the law. Bill clinton starts the first mass deportation of salvadorans with criminal records and starts sending back products of the la gang environment, a sophisticated criminal network and extortion, send them back to countries like el salvador and guatemala, the first two are still reeling from their own civil wars, and they have little connection to the environment in which they win and fall back on surrounding skills has gained members. A lot of the orphans of this war fought better and that is the beginning of the Central American phase of this gaining war. What is really interesting to me is we have a problem that originated in Central America, due to the fact that refugees, my understanding, they fled from el salvador during that time period. Many of them did end appear in los angeles, as time goes on, that problem is no longer cordoned off in los angeles. This isnt just on a personal level but on a governmental level too so the war ends in 1992 as you said but it is interesting to look at what is happening in el salvador in terms of their political policies towards gained members. The deportations begin and lots of former members of ms 13 are deported to el salvador and there is a rise from what i understand. The government responds in a particularly heavyhanded way. Tell me about this policy they implemented in 2002 and the subsequent that they implemented in 2006. I should say when i went looking to el salvador, i had been in europe and the middle east, where the political system was shaken up by refugees from libya and syria, in greece and hungary and the refugee crisis to galvanize largely fascists or protofascist groups among voters so when i looked at what was happening with el salvador and the southern border crisis i was interested in how this will affect the political system. It drove me down there. The other question i was concerned with, latin americas crisis, we deported these gangsters into countries that were reeling from civil wars. What did that mean for largescale deportations happening in our own government. Would that make the problem worse . And the evidence that i found was kind of mixed. Salvadoran government had its own complicity in this problem. That came in the form of this war the salvadoran state waged against the gangs. For 20 years the us has been supporting salvadoran governments from both sides of the political spectrum, a heavyhanded military response, going into gang neighborhoods arresting kids who might be gang members, throw them in jail on very little, often without very little grounds. Often they dont have a case. The case is thrown out. The plan of the iron fist. It sort of backfired down there. It used to be neighborhood gangs, had become National Gangs fighting military response. A lot of gang members responded in kind and become little armies. And that same time they were doing that in el salvador. Gained members learned a barter, anytime the military stick has been used, it is lumped more people into what looks more like a class war. What the salvadoran government had done to make this problem worse. I interviewed one of the architects, the former National Police chief in el salvador. It wasnt a plan. It was a plan in quotes. It was a placidity exercise. And criminal philosophy behind that, a way to win votes. We had elections coming up, to turn the tide in the country economically in terms of crime. We set gained members up in bad guys, sort of pr announcements the president was on tv and black leather jacket, paratroopers were coming down the walls, announced we were going after the gangs but it was politically successful. Everyone agreed it has backfired tremendously. Anyone who reads any part of this book will definitely wonder how you got access to some of these accounts. Current and former members of ms 13 but government officials and other informants. Talk about how that process works. When you show up in a country like el salvador. I was working with a photojournalist and you moved to a new city and take you out for a beer, i worked with a photojournalist, who was covering the gang issued for a long time. I also found i was in honduras, had to be much easier even though what is going on in honduras is or effect. A gaining hitman, 150 people. Feed me many beers in the effort thinking i was a spook or threat or i remember having to talk on the dance floor with him while he allayed his concerns. Over the whole thing, gained members were very reluctant to talk and come on the heels of this truth, people were very tightlipped. I went out the first for the selftaught csi Crime Scene Investigation sort of guy and eccentric figure. I had a passion about digging up these bodies, and very much sees what is happening in el salvador as a war in which the poor are the victims. The poor are wrapped up in this cycle of conflict. He introduced me to an informant from ms 13 who tells me the story of this grave we are excavating and very brutal and macabre, and as a way of branding, individually as a way to find respect. And and finding they are very frank about what they have done. And felt they wanted to be understood. They also wanted it to be known the one of these guys i have turned in format. He turned informant, the only place he could go to hide because the gangs control a large slot of the country, he was living got a civilian job and nobody knew what his back story was, but he killed 27 people, nobody knew his tattoos were all hidden, he had been recognized by four of his former gang members on the bus. You cant hide forever in this country, i will probably end of the same way my victims did. I didnt have any right to do what i have done. He also said it stuck with me, it is easy to blame gained members for everything and that is what he wanted me to understand. There was some form of highlevel collaboration between drug traffickers they had done these horrible things and also the public conception of the gangs and salvadoran elites and trump as well and various other Law Enforcement professionals, the idea of ms 13 as the scary monster beneath your bed and the bogeyman. There is a danger to doing that, it gives the gangs a lot more recruiting power and serves as a foil for easy solutions. One thing you point out in the book is the salvadoran government in this situation. Did you feel like there was ever a threat to you as a person and did you feel like there was more pressure from gangs or government officials to either speak or not speak or not report on Something Like this. The real threat, they live in the country and living in communities they are reporting on it is a courageous act to do journalism daily day in and day out in societies where you have powerful people in government and gangs and have to navigate in your own personal way. I didnt feel i was under great threat. I went out for two weeks at night with swat units, the commando units that respond to gang influences and at no point in that happenstance but i never really felt in danger there. I did i should have answered this in the last section. At a major turning point, i was talking to former gang members, try to find people who left the gaining and find out what is the catalyst that allowed them to do that and try to find people from different stages of the gang revolution. In a prison i was fishing, didnt have any appointments with anyone or what i was going to find, i spent 6 hours talking to people, nice guys, didnt really help me as a journalist in what i was trying to do and i was trying to leave, notice there was another guy who wanted to talk to me. Sort of as a courtesy because he missed his lunch i sat down to talk to him and he. The lid off of why everything was so hushhush and why after this truce had fallen apart the gangs had come back, military force with weapons and an agenda, and talk a little bit about the truth later on but for me that was a point at which i realized there was Something Bigger going on and as i started to unpack that and investigate, talking to people who had been under surveillance or had family members murdered by powerful people, as i started to talk to more and more people who were not just casual victims or perpetrators of this but people who knew where the skeletons in the closets of powerful people, i started to feel like maybe it was time to leave the country. [laughter] lets talk about a skeleton you mentioned in the book which is the fact that the government and the gangs were not cooperating so much but there was a secret truce in mid 2007. This seems like a thing the government did not necessarily want anyone including the domestic audience to have known about. Tell us a little bit about how that worked. What exactly did the government do when they realized they couldnt continue this head on iron fist policy against the two gangs . For 20 years of the war ends in 92 and the two watering parties, International Press packed on and moved on. The story they told was it was a Success Story to the us brokered Peace Process and the hallmark of that success with these two warning parties became Political Parties and stopped warring and competed at the ballot box peacefully and the war was over. If you look at the actual statistics of violence, very quickly it begins reaching by the early 2000s statistically it looks like a war again. Violence is omnipresent and a lot of salvadorans lives. The organization of american states declares and undeclared state of war by 2009 if not earlier. After 20 years of rightwing leadership a leftwing government takes power and theres never an announcement made like the government has gotten involved with the troops but a newspaper in el salvador says we have been tipped off and the government is up to something. They have been taking leaders from all three rival gangs and maximums facilities and put them in the same medium security wings and the government is embarrassed, tries to act like they have nothing to do with this but it is pretty clear almost overnight, murder rate in el salvador, rising and rising all of a sudden something has happened and observers are shocked that the gangs have the ability to control the level of murders. What seemed like neighborhood entities just local guys like the guy i was reading about have command and control if you can agree to something and abide by it. So it comes out there is a truce. The government has gotten involved to quell the murder rate and doesnt really on the fact that it did this, very murky and there is a divergence of opinion. A lot of people who lost family members the way el salvador and the other population has lost a lot of people, a lot of resentment against the gangs, a lot of people behind it but some people thought that this was going to be finally we made these people lepers in our society, never had a voice, never been brought to the table and they control all life for a lot of people so there was hope that this would be appear go of demobilization and gangs would give up their guns and their way of life and there were lofty promises made with gang members Holding Press Conferences saying we are representatives of the people. That lasts a year and a half and when it ended the worst period of violence that ever hit el salvador followed. Murders were higher than the death toll in the heaviest month of fighting in the civil war, the gangs fighting with new paramilitary tactics and new weapons and they learned they had political leverage because the government had taught the gangs that you could put fewer bodies in the street, you could control politics in the country. And when i came into the country i was trying to unpack what happened and how this happened. I came in thinking, sympathetic to the idea of a truce, there were a few other instances where gang members said give us jobs and we believe the guns. Give us way of making a living in this society and we believe crime behind. When Something Like that was entertained it was usually something very nothing areas. There is an incident that one of my sources cited, the plan was we will give you jobs stopping gang members and behind that when you took one of these jobs the police chief said great. Now you have to give up your gang members. Who is the shot calling your click . A journalist said i interviewed one of the closest to the leadership, you dont know how many people i had to kill because they ratted us out, talking to friends and family in the dozens, there were periods of things, lets give the gangs a way out but it was usually something more nefarious. As best i can report, behind the truce there was a deal negotiated by salvadoran drug cartels and to get the gangs to stop killing each other which is good for the government because it lowered the murder rate and that would be a huge political success, it is good for the drug cartels, you had less and american vigilance. And the gangs that these cartels got to move their drugs for the us through the country. The gangs learned to barter back. The salvadoran government works, they got rise wise and started asking for millions of dollars, weapons transferred by military intelligence and gained members to be inserted into the Police Charged with eradicating them. Behindthescenes of what looked like this kumbaya moment for el salvador, a deal between the government from an American Perspective in economic aid to el salvador, not enough money i would say. My sources said turned a blind eye to what our allies are doing and it is not just a case in el salvador. The reason we do that is very narrow ideas of american interests, stop the migrants and stop the drugs and in this case what it looks like from my reporting is the people who had taken money to stop the migrants and stop the drugs arming the gangs for the drug cartels. Of el salvador. You have a great line in your book where you talk about paradox happening on the ground where you have classes of el salvador and being the most antigang in the entire country but the lower classes are the ones who suffered the most from violence. These lowerclass salvadorans have sympathy for the gangs on the streets. Can you speak to that tension in the society that there is a way forward, can work beyond heavyhanded government policies. Is there a way forward from the ground up . One of these guys, manual, the guy i started with reading from this section, he was somebody who hit a wall, there is a specific moment on the heels of a drug deal gone bad, 13yearold kid looking at him, he carried the kid to look out with him to a party, there were drugs, women, there was gambling and he hit a wall, a kid looking at him disrespectfully, tired of hiding out all the time. And prayed for a job. And there were one of these programs were salvadoran and entrepreneur was given a Second Chance job to gang members, and there is wellfounded anger, it was very rare, this opportunity he had found, you were one of the ogs in el salvador. 80 of the people in the gangs could be gotten out of you gave him the carrot as opposed to the stick, the us for a while had been getting in the way of that. We did not allow any usaid funding to go to programs with contact with criminals, especially anyone we consider wrongfully, a lot of analysts would say, transnational, organization, sophisticated international syndicate. These are guys without education, without a lot of chances, without a lot of high school education, very parochial and lead dismal lives. There was some rethinking about that, some doorways opened in the state department to actually put more money into those things. That is one version of a Success Story. There are people who want a way out. People who find themselves trapped and without a lot of options. Right now the option seems to be get out of the country because the gangs have such control over the territory. El salvador has had a hard time. There are a lot of other places i have been on the global. Look at world war ii, rebuilt europe with the Marshall Plan, the us congressman who has been working on el salvador for 30 years, we spent 5 billion destroying the country and sort of walked away. I have friends who in el salvador, a brilliant, vibrant society, beautiful parts to the country, all my friends would serve there. You have a new president who is trying to rebrand the country. To be suspicious of the claims he makes. I dont like to paint overly dark pictures but it is a hard place to live. In some ways, to attack this sort of historical amnesia that invade our discussion about the border. Since 2012, our border crisis is a Central American border crisis. The world is on fire and people are fleeing a lot of countries but these three countries, else, hundred and guatemala, even though their combined populations supported the population of mexico, more people coming from these countries than mexico, 1 million a year. I was trying to understand what they were fleeing in a lot of ways. We find agreements with these three countries that they are supposed to be safe asylum guarantors. If you come from another country and pass through one of these countries you have to apply for asylum and return you there, aside from the humanitarian consideration it will make the games more powerful. The highlevel corruption i got into reporting on reveals how complicit agents of the state are and that is the cycle all these people are caught up in. As americans, especially when we look at the rise of al qaeda after the involvement of afghanistan it helps to remember whatever discourse we are having about the border to remember there is a history and the us has had a history in these places and a lot of pockets around the world that arent during the Marshall Plan are getting harder and harder and harder and that is true in el salvador as it is in other parts of the world. We are going to open it up to audience questions. Please raise your hand. I will call on you and bring the mic around to you. Questions. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] what is the relationship between the gangs and the drug traffickers . How does that finance work . I always thought they were the same thing but you separated them. A great question, thank you for asking. What is the relationship between the gangs and the drug traffickers . When you Start Talking about the gangs it is important to draw a line. We are not trying to draw sophisticated multibilliondollar marco style Drug Trafficking organizations you find coming out of mexico. They are neighborhood guys who havent had a reliable source of income. They get by on extortion, they dont have drug supplies in the same way at the cocoa fields and other countries. They dont make money by taxing everything, if you are in a mom and pop shop, a beer delivery guy, with a portion of all of that. And they are killing so many people and they dont have a great solid capacity, it inflames the cycle. In season 3 it is important, right now, done a good job stopping a lot of drugs across the caribbean. They are salvadoran, the transshipment group. The contractors, the senate lower cartels, more sophisticated and fearsome, they are like hired guns or delivery men. Does that answer the question . Generally, if i am correct, transportation they dont any production facilities. The texas cartel they are family operations. Basically they guarantee the shipment of drugs that are coming through the territory. Through protection they have in the state through local corruption arrangements they have developed over time. Did some work in el salvador in the 90s, it is a hopeful time, a lot of places, worse ngos. At that time, it came from remittances. I am curious talking about the ties between gangs members and deportations. Economically they depended on people who lived here, la was the second sovereign city. My 20 years, fmln as far as political party, people were getting along, a little less safe. You can feel the remnants of the war but nothing like it happened a few years later. I am curious, at that time you go to villages and towns, schools and classes were built by people economic ties remain did that go down over time . We talk about exporting . The gang violence, i am curious about the ties between the us and economically and socially. The ties between us and el salvador, in terms of gaining institutions and one of the most heavily dependent on remittances, 17 , 18 of gdp comes from salvadorans in this country, one of the arguments why deporting largescale status as the Administration Try to do have a huge Economic Impact on the country. It will remove so much of this. Complex arguments that i heard, maybe the government doesnt really want all these people to come back and keep this war against the gangs going because it pushes people out again. There are complex arguments about the economics of it. In terms of gangs, i talked to this guy angel of death who was fishing in this prison, he has a teardrop tattoo and was into showing me his sketchings and he was into metal golf women falconry half naked kind of stuff, that is where he found his peace in his art. He came appear in la, killed by special forces, and fled to la, got involved in the gang life, got deported and there was a time period we are the la guys were the big guys, destitute and for and orphaned and had nike cortez shoes and a solo look that was so cool in the 90s. They were the big guys. It was the wild west. These guys here, the police find you eventually. Technical training and resources, they can do Crime Scene Investigation, you can bury someone on your kitchen table. The salvadorans became the big dogs, it is not that ms 13, with new clicks. And particularly militarized response, one of the most interesting theories i did, this guys kitchen, Police Intelligence agent there to hear about the corruption he had witnessed and in the process confessed to be a member of the death squad, they had the gangs hard, talks about how he killed gang members. He showed me weapons that he used and gang members in los angeles, he could deport the gang members. In el salvador we dont have that option. A lot of people claim it is their way of getting gang members out. Most people fleeing the gangs arent gang members that are victims of the gangs but people trying to lead the gang life, so there is a natural magnet and current cycling gang members circling among the more populous victims and in that process it seems the salvador ian gangs were trying to exert control over american gangs. After the end of the truth seems to be reviving. On the east coast, salvador ian leadership in jail in el salvador, trying to get their act together and exert control. The Mexican Mafia is another factor. M s is under the control in los angeles so it is complicated. Have you observed on local groups in el salvador in the cycle of violence, supporting people leaving. Are there groups in el salvador effective at the cycle of violence. I dont have a comprehensive answer. Into the neighborhood of el salvador, the first click was supposed to have con founded and talked to in evangelical minister who is trying to do that. It is a tight rope, the most puritanical life, people who the gang will respect that but you need to have the most extremely devout life. When i was there another former ms member who had become a priest and spoken to one of my friends on camera there were Death Threats around him, another priest minister was murdered there, speaking out about the games. There was not an easy way out. It was kind of the opposite was happening. Rather than a lot of gang members, a lot of ngos take money saying they are helping gang members. What actually seems to be happening is once the gangs stop fighting with each other when the bloodshed happens they bring an order and the order there was more reliable than what the state was providing. Once they take control they put down these rules and the rules are terrible if you fall afoul of them. If youre a young woman a gang member takes a fancy to for example, a lot of the victims are often women, do mystic violence victims or victims of the gangs. It is very hobbsian reality but at least there is some order. It seems to be moving in worse quarters. That is a lot to think about in just an hour. Please join me in thanking William Wheeler for joining us tonight. I wanted to thank the townhall for providing space for us and give you a brief preview of what is coming up in march. We are doing the future of money events and this is about crypto currency, Digital Payment system this. It is about to change the world. Stay tuned for that in the second half of march and in april we do an event on the militarization of space. As some of you may have heard the president has just established the space command, space force. People have obviously made fun of this in certain circles, however, the russians are not laughing about this, neither are the chinese. This is a developing area so we will cover that in april. Please join me in another round of applause for William Wheeler. We still have a bunch of food and drinks for you guys. Feel free to know about that. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books in portland, oregon. Some of these authors have appeared on booktv and you can watch them online, booktv. Org. You are watching booktv on cspan2, 48 hours nonfiction authors and books, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nicholas Kristof and sheryl done report on issues facing the workingclass, chronicles the slave revolt took place in jamaica. And f h buckley talks about states exiting the union and Kevin Meredith talks about africanamerican history. Find more information in your Program Guide or by visiting booktv. Org. Welcome to politics and prose. Before we get started i want to remind everyone to silence your cell phones. We are doing a recording so please ask any questions into the microphone