"MS-13 got started in Los Angeles in the 1980s by Salvadorans fleeing a civil war. Many of the kids grew up surrounded by violence. Del Hendrixson of Bajito Onda, a gang-outreach program, remembers an MS-13 member who recounted one of his earliest memories: guarding the family's crops at the age of 4, armed with a machete, alone at night. When he and others reached the mean streets of the L.A. ghetto, Mexican gangs preyed on them. The newcomers' response: to band together in a mara, or "posse," composed of salvatruchas, or "street-tough Salvadorans" (the "13" is a gang number associated with southern California). Over time, the gang's ranks grew, adding former paramilitaries with weapons training and a taste for atrocity. MS-13 eventually adopted a variety of rackets, from extortion to drug trafficking. When law enforcement cracked down and deported planeloads of members, the deportees quickly created MS-13 outposts in El Salvador and neighboring countries like Honduras and Guatemala."
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7244879/site/newsweek/
>>>>Over time, the gang's ranks grew, adding former paramilitaries with weapons training and a taste for atrocity.
From my thread here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1483299/posts?page=7#7
Excerpt:
http://www.controlarms.org/documents/chapter1_colour.pdf
Throughout Latin America, the rapid growth and increasing power of private security companies is a real concern. According to the Guatemalan government, there are about 116 private security companies operating in the country, employing 35,000 agents: an unofficial force greater than the entire army, and twice the number of police officers. In El Salvador, fewer than half of the 17,000 private security agents had done a five-day training course as required by law.
/copy
From the information I was reading when I made that thread, I was given the impression that private security firms were training and arming gang members.