Summary of the Article “Gangsters without Borders”

            The chapter starts by giving memories of a woman who disappeared and her body was found near the river in a ravine. The mother to the woman could not identify her daughter because the death squad had jammed her head inside the belly, which made her look pregnant. The chapter describes a terrifying attack by the military strafing homes to overthrow the government an incident that occurred in the year 1982. This occurred two years before the Salvadoran war that cost the lives of over 75,000 people some of whom were tortured and others disappeared by the government forces. The war also caused displacement of over a million residents to nearby countries such as Australia, France and Canada to live as refugees. The war also led the young boy Jose to flee to Los Angeles where he faced another battle. With this one, he learnt to practice a gang life and he joined the Salvadoran gang youths. El Salvador was known to be without peace ever and it has always experienced bloody rebellions one after the other among which was the peasant’s uprising where the workers in the Indigo factory rebelled against the government and landowners. Due to various rebellious acts, Salvadoran government set up a security to keep public safety. However, these security forces caused numerous human rights abuses such as torture, murder which led to disappearances of many. Therefore, because of the growing rate of gang activities, there was a large body count in the areas and human corpses were a common sight in El Salvador, thus people moved from one place to another to escape the conflict.