Los Angeles to help El Salvador fight crime gangs

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - Los Angeles will work with El Salvador to help combat the violent Central American crime gangs that also terrorize the California city, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said on Wednesday.

Villaraigosa, a Latino activist turned politician, said on a visit to El Salvador the accord included an exchange training program for Los Angeles and El Salvador police and policies to help El Salvador reinsert former gang members into society.

Many Los Angeles gangs trace their roots to Central America. The civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s in the region prompted a flow of migrants to the United States and the rise in Los Angeles of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, which sought to protect early Salvadoran immigrants.

The gang now has an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 members in the United States and tens of thousands in Central America, many of whom are returning migrants.

Central American governments have waged a war against the gangs, often seizing anyone with gang-like tattoos in the street to the dismay of human rights groups.

"In Los Angeles, we know you can't just use a strong arm, you have to also invest in young people, give them alternatives to violence and a gang life," Villaraigosa said at a news conference with Salvadoran President Tony Saca.

In February, police chiefs from El Salvador and other Central American nations met in Los Angeles for a conference on fighting cross-border gangs that are behind brutal murders and drug and weapons smuggling.

El Salvador, with a population of 6.8 million, had an average of 10 murders a day in 2006, about 70 percent of which were committed by gang members, the FBI reported in February.

Los Angeles, dubbed the gang capital of the United States, is home to more than 400 gangs that were blamed for more than half the city's 478 murders last year, and gang violence surged 14 percent last year, according to the FBI.